How did Buddhist storytelling help shape Post-Classical Chinese?

Post-Classical Chinese, which is closely related to the modern language spoken in North China, likely originated from the Buddhist storytelling tradition.1

During the Tang dynasty, the translation of Buddhist tales from Sanskrit introduced new narrative forms, such as bianwen ("popularizations"). These works utilized a combination of prose and verse to retell episodes from the life of the Buddha and, eventually, non-Buddhist stories from Chinese history and folklore. This oral tradition of reciting edifying tales is believed to have inspired the development of a vernacular literature that diverged from the formal, classical written language.123

By the Song dynasty, this vernacular style was adopted by both Buddhists and Confucianists for polemic writings and became the foundation for indigenous novels based on popular storytelling. This evolution eventually extended into the theatre during and after the Yuan dynasty, cementing the role of the vernacular in Chinese literary and cultural history.1