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All things have a story...

Most historians agree that Mahayana Buddhism first arrived to Chinese soil during the first century. It is said that Indian Buddhist monks walked with monks along the trade routes stretching from India to China. After the Chinese had accepted Buddhism, many Chinese walked the long trade route to India in search of sacred Buddhist texts. Approximately 600 years later in the 7th century AD, Buddhism reached its highest point in China. It was at this time that scholars from Japan visited China in an attempt to study Buddhism.

Contrary to what many believe, it was not the Chinese who first introduced Buddhism to the Japanese; it was the Koreans. In the 6th century, Japan learned of Buddhism from Korea, although it was a different brand of Buddhism than the original teachings from India. The Japanese conformed Buddhism around their indigenous religion and ultimately gave the world two important schools of Zen Buddhism.

To return to China, Buddhism was an odd fit for the country that had produced Confucianism, which stressed a family life. Instead of upholding family life, Buddhism urged celibacy and solitude (at least for monks). Periodically, Buddhist practitioners were persecuted by the Chinese government and it is said the government often complained that Buddhists used too much metal in their temple bells, leaving a scant supply to mint coins. Still, Buddhism continued to be practiced down through the centuries, despite communist rule in 1949. Nowadays the most practiced form of Buddhism in China is a combination of the Chan (Zen) and Pure Land schools. Although the census sources in China are questionable, Buddhism accounts for nearly 200 million people in China at this time, according to a study by Shanghai University. To this day, Buddhism is still the only foreign religion that has been accepted on a wide-spread basis by the Chinese people.