Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/394

380 India through the adventures of the celebrated Chang Ch‘ien (Khien). But this warrior and explorer, who lived in the latter half of the second century B.C., did not reach India, nor did he apparently meet with natives of that country. It was not for more than a hundred years after his time that India actually became known to China and that intercourse between the two countries began. These events were brought about by the predestined dream which the Emperor Ming of the Han dynasty dreamt in which he saw the vision of a golden man or Genius flying into his palace.

It is generally admitted that the first Buddhist missionaries from India arrived in A. D. 67 at Chang-an in what is now the Province of Shensi. These brought some of their sacred books written in their native language and the books were soon translated into Chinese. The new religion from abroad then began to spread. Other missionaries followed, bringing more books, and in course of time Chinese Buddhist monks travelled to India, and there studied the language and literature of their religion.

That the spread of Buddhism among the Chinese should have a marked effect on their language is only what we are led to expect from the history of other religions. Thus Christianity brought in new words and gave new life and meaning to old words wherever it became the faith of a people. So also Mahometanism made great changes in the languages of the countries in which it came to prevail as, for example, in Persian; and Brahmanism had a lasting effect on the speech of the Malays. Before it came to China Buddhism had in its native country introduced into the language new terms and given to old ones new applications and meanings. Afterwards it enlarged and enriched the vocabularies of the Tibetan, Mongolian and other nations when they adopted it as their religion.

We have already seen something of what the Buddhist missionaries from India did for the Chinese language. But a volume could easily be filled with an account of the influence which Buddhism has had on this language and on the literature of the people. In the first place it taught the Chinese, as we