Chinese art / [Stephen Wooton Bushell].

  • Stephen Wootton Bushell
Date:
[1909]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Chinese art / [Stephen Wooton Bushell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    south Kattigara (Cochin China) was annexed in no b.c., given the Chinese name of Jih Nan, “ South of the Sun,” and a ship was despatched from that port to get a supply of the coloured glass of Kabulistan, which was becoming so highly valued at the Chinese court. The official introduction of Buddhism followed in the year 67 a.d. The emperor Ming Ti, having seen in a dream a golden figure float- ing in a halo of light across the pavilion, was told by his council that it must have been an apparition of Buddha, and sent a special mission of inquiry to India. The envoys returned to the capital, Lo Yang, with two Indian monks, bringing with them Pali books, some of which were forthwith translated, and pictures of Buddhist figures and scenes, which were copied to adorn the walls of the palace halls and of the new temple which was built on the occasion. This was called Pai Ma Ssu, the White Horse Temple, in memory of the horse which had carried the sacred relics across Asia, and the two Indian sramana lived there till they died. The subsequent influence of Buddhist ideals on Chinese art has been all-pervading, but there is no space to pursue the subject here. In 97 A.D. the celebrated Chinese general Pan Ch’ao led an army as far as Antiochia Margiana, and sent his lieutenant Kan Ying to the Persian Gulf to take ship there on an embassy to Rome, but the envoy shirked the sea journey and came back without accomplishing his mission. Roman merchants came by sea to Kattigara (Cochin China) in 166 a.d., appearing in the annals as envoys from the emperor An-tun (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus), and later arrivals of Roman traders were reported at Canton in 226, 284, etc. Meanwhile the overland route to the north, which had been interrupted by the Parthian wars, was re-opened, and many Buddhist missionaries came to Lo Yang from Parthia and Samarkand, as well as from Gandhara in Northern India. During the period of the ‘‘ Northern and Southern Dynasties,” w]ien China, from the beginning of the fifth to nearly the end of the
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