Ancient Buddhist Kingdom of Kocha

Kumārajīva; (344 CE – 413 CE) was a Kuchean Buddhist monk, scholar and translator. He first studied teachings of the Sarvastivada schools, later studied under Buddhasvāmin, and finally became a Mahayāna adherent, studying the Madhyamika doctrine of Nagarjuna.

He settled in Chang'an. He is mostly remembered for the prolific translation of Buddhist texts written in Sanskrit to Chinese he carried out during his later life.

Kumārajīva's father Kumārāyana (also Kiu-mo-yen) was from an Indian Brahmin noble family, and his mother was a Kuchean princess who significantly influenced his early studies. His father became a monk, left India, crossed the Pamirs and arrived in Kucha where he became the royal priest.

The sister of the king, Jīva, married him and they produced Kumārajīva. Jīva joined the Tsio-li nunnery, north of Kucha, when Kumārajīva was just seven.

When his mother Jīva joined the Tsio-li nunnery, Kumārajīva was just seven but is said to have already committed many texts and sutras to memory.

He proceeded to learn Abhidharma, and after two years, at the age of nine, he was taken to Kashmir by his mother to be better educated under Bandhudatta. There he studied Dīrgha Āgama, Madhyama Āgama and the Kṣudraka, before returning with his mother three years later.

On his return via Tokharestan and Kashgar, an arhat predicted that he had a bright future and would introduce many people to Buddhism.

Kumārajīva stayed in Kashgar for a year, ordaining the two princely sons of Tsan-kiun (himself the son of the king of Yarkand) and studying the Abhidharmapiṭaka of the Sarvastivada under the Kashmirian Buddhayaśa, as well as the four Vedas, five sciences, Brahmanical sacred texts, astronomy.

He studied mainly Āgama and Sarvastivada doctrines at this time.

Kumārajīva left Kashgar with Jīva at age 12, and traveled to Turpan, the north-eastern limit of the kingdom of Kucha, which was home to more than 10,000 monks.

Somewhere around this time, he encountered the master Suryasoma, who instructed him in early Mahayana texts.

Kumārajīva soon converted, and began studying sunyavada texts, such as the works of Nagarjuna.

In Turpan his fame spread after besting a [[Tirthika] teacher in debate, and King Po-Shui of Kucha came to [[[Turpan]]]] to ask Kumārajīva personally to return with him to Kucha city. Kumārajīva obliged and returned to instruct the king's daughter A-Kie-ye-mo-ti, who had become a nun, in the Mahāsannipāta and Mahāvaipulyasūtras.

At age 20, Kumārajīva was fully ordained at the king's palace, and lived in a new monastery built by king Po-Shun.

Notably, he received Vimalākṣa who was his preceptor, a Sarvāstivādan monk from Kashmir, and was instructed by him in the Sarvāstivādan Vinayapiṭaka.

Kumārajīva proceeded to study the Pañcaviṁśati-sāhasrikā sūtra, one of the longer Perfection of Wisdom texts. He is known to have engaged in debates, and to have encouraged dialogue with foreign monks. Jīva is thought to have moved to Kashmir.

When about 40 years old, a Chinese force captured Kucha and took away Kumārajīva as part of their booty. Initially he was to be taken to the capital, but the local non-Buddhist leader instead kept him locked up for many years.
During this time, it is thought that Kumārajīva learnt Chinese. Later, this local leader was bested in a war, and finally Kumārajīva was taken to the capital, Chang'an, whereupon he was immediately introduced to the emperor Yao Xing, the court, and the Buddhist leaders. He was hailed as a great master from the Western regions, and immediately took up a very high position in Chinese Buddhist circles of the time.

Yao Xing looked upon him as a teacher, and many young and old Chinese Buddhists flocked to him, learning both from his direct teachings and through his translation bureau activities.

The latter revolutionized Chinese Buddhism, in clarity and overcoming the previous "ge-yi" (concept-matching) system of translation through use of Daoist and Confucian terms.

Among the most important texts translated by Kumārajīva are the Diamond Sutra, Amitabha Sutra, Lotus Sutra, the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Aṣṭasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, Mahāprajñāpāramitā Upadeśa which was a commentary (attributed to Nagarjuna on the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā sutra.

His translation style was distinctive, possessing a flowing smoothness that reflects his prioritization on conveying the meaning as opposed to precise literal rendering. Because of this, his renderings of seminal Mahayana texts have often remained more popular than later, more exact translations, e.g. those of Xuanzang.

Sengrui had some influence on this final polished style, as the final editor of his translation works.

KUCHA

During the first millennium AD, the oasis kingdom of Kucha in present-day Xinjiang (China) was a center of Buddhist learning in Central Asia.

The Kucha ruling élite sponsored the construction of several Buddhist cave temple complexes, which, though ravaged by destruction, can still be seen today and rank among the most evocative art-historical monuments along the Silk Routes.

The art-historical importance of these temples with their unique blend of influences from various parts of Eurasia was first realized in the wake of foreign expeditions in the early years of the 20th century.

Today, the Chinese government has entrusted the care of these sites—chief among them Kizil, Simsim, Kumtura, and Kizilgarha—to a research institution headquartered at Kizil that, earlier this year, was raised to the status of an academy.

The meeting will take place on Friday, November 20, from 1.30-4.30, at the Seminar Room of the Cotsen Institute (Fowler Museum A222). Participants may consider also attending the International Symposium on Chinese Bronze Mirrors at UCLA on November 21-22, which has been announced separately

Situated 67 kilometers west of Kucha County, the Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves is the oldest of its kind inChina and the largest ruins of Buddhist culture in Xinjiang.

It is also the second largest treasure house of mural paintings the world over, next only to the Dunhuang Grottoes in Gansu Province. There are now 236 numbered grottoes in this cave, which houses nearly 10,000 square meters of mural paintings.

Murals and other forms of Buddhist art found in the Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves showcase a splendid culture that once prospered in KUcha, an ancient oasis kingdom in what was known as the Western Regions in the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220).

With Kucha town as its center, the ancient Kucha kingdom once stretched its territory to the foot of the southern hills of the [[Tianshan Mountains] in the north and the Taklimakan Desert to the south, today’s Baicheng County to the west and Yanqi Hui Autonomous County焉耆回族自治县to the east.

Its first settlers consisted of Aryan people speaking Tocharian B, or Kuchean, one of two extinct Tocharian languages of the Indo-European language family. Later on the Huns, the Turks and other ethnic groups including the Han Chinese, also settled there.

According to the Han Dynasty historical records, the kingdom had a population of some 80,000 in the period of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 23).

The oasis was an important center on the northern branch of the Silk Road.

Buddhism was introduced into Kucha at the turn of the 1st century AD. In the 3rd century, it had already become an important Buddhist center.

In a way, the Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves were like a melting pot in the 3rd to 9th centuries, in which legends and myths and arts from ancient India, Greece, Rome, Persia and Central China combined to find expression in Buddhist art.


Many of the Kuchean monks traveled to Central China to introduce Buddhist teachings.

According to a history book of the Jin Dynasty (265-420). “the Kucha Kingdom, about 4,140 kilometers away from Luoyang (in Central China’s Henan Province) has built more than 1,000 Buddhist pagodas in the city.

The royal palace buildings are so splendid, as if they were mansions of the divine being.”

Since the early 20th century, archaeologists have discovered hundreds of caves that contain remnants of Buddhist art in the region formerly under the rule of Kucha Kingdom.

Apart from spreading Buddhism into inland China, Kucha also exerted its influence upon the Tang-dynasty’s music and dance in the 7th-9th centuries that had multi-national origins, and upon the development of folk music in inland China as well.

The Han Dynasty had already introduced lively music from Kucha to Chang’an (today’s Xi’an) as musical marches.

Between the 6th-7th centuries, a number of Kuchean artists brought their music theories to Chang’an and other parts of inland China.

Their names were recorded in historical records. Xuan Zang (602-664), an eminent Tang-dynasty monk, who went to India in search of Buddhist scriptures, spent more than a month in Kucha.

In his report to the Tang-dynasty court, about his pilgrimage in India, he wrote that woodwind and string musical instruments as well as dance and music in Kucha “outshone” all the other Kingdoms and states he had visited along the way.

From the Han Dynasty, the Kucha Kingdom maintained relationships with the central Chinese authorities, often subjugated to the dynastic rule of inland China. During the Tang Dynasty in 658, it became a protectorate of the Tang Dynast.

In the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Kucha became a county in the Qing ranks of governance.

A bronze statue of Kumarajiva (334-413) sitting in meditation stands in front of the Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves.

Few tourists to the Kizil grottoes can ignore the serenity, which the statue of Kumarajiva conveys. Born in Kucha, Kumarajiva followed his mother, a Kuchean princess, into a monastic life at the age of seven when she became a nun.

He grew up with Hinayana (Little Vehicle—a school of Buddhism) Buddhism, converted to Mahayana (Great Vehicle—a school of Buddhism) Buddhism in his teens and went on to become a specialist in Madhyamika philosophy.

In 383, Kucha came under the rule of the Jin Dynasty (265-420). In 401 Kumarajiva arrived in Chang’an (today’s Xi’an), where he began to teach and translate Buddhist scriptures into Chinese.

More than 100 translations are attributed to him. Kumarajiva’s career had a profound influence on Chinese Buddhist thought, not only because he made important texts available to Chinese believers, but also because he did much to clarify Buddhist terminology and philosophical concepts.

He and his disciples established the Chinese branch of the Madyamika, known as the San Lun, or “Three Treatises” School.

In the early years of the 20th century, the missing parts of murals that had been chipped off and stolen by the Russians, the Japanese and the Germans.

From Cave No 207, the Germans cut off as many as 12 fragments from murals, which included among others, a head decorated with white pearls; a red haired head of a monk; and a Bodhisattva.

The Germans also took away two large bagfuls of ancient documents written on birch bark and wooden slips. German scholars in Museum (catalogue) of Indian Art in Berlin noted that they now have 328 square meters of murals taken from the Kizil Caves in Berlin.

With careful measurements and examination, the missing mural parts altogether amount to around 470 square meters.

Source

kumaramera.blogspot.com.au