Zen master Bodhidharma sitting alone Bodhidharma: the first Zen master In Zen Buddhist traditions (but nobody really knows), the first Zen master was a Brahman man called Bodhidharma. According to these [...]
The god Guanyin, from the Liao Dynasty (about 1000 AD) Guanyin and the underworld Guanyin was a Chinese Buddhist god based on a real woman, the way Guanti was based on [...]
Travels of the Buddhist traveller Xuanzang (T'ang Dynasty, 630 AD) Xuanzang was a great Chinese scholar who lived in the 600s AD, under the T'ang dynasty. He was a Buddhist, [...]
Mandala from Dunhuang Caves, 900s AD - make your own mandala project What is a mandala? The Indian word "mandala" means a circle. Buddhists all over East Asia made mandalas [...]
The boddhisatva Avalokitesvara, with a thousand arms and a thousand eyes, about 950 AD (Musee Guimet, Paris) Under the Han Dynasty (about 200 BC to 200 AD), scholars working for [...]
Buddhism in China: Buddha from Western China, ca. 450 AD From India to China Buddhism first came to China from India around 500 AD, spreading through Central Asia along the [...]
"Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are one" (Song Dynasty, ca. 1100 AD) The first major philosopher who lived in China was Lao Tzu (if he really existed). He lived about 600 [...]
Ancient China education - a Chinese school (actually from the 1500s AD) Most kids in ancient and medieval China never got a chance to go to school at all. They [...]
Song Dynasty painting (now in Kyoto Museum) In the 1200s AD, under the Song Dynasty, the Chinese Buddhist monk Wumen collected a bunch of Zen koans, or stories, in a [...]
The tomb of Bai Juyi Who was Bai Juyi? Bai Juyi was born in China during the T'ang Dynasty, in 772 AD, just at the end of the great rebellion [...]
