Tenth Volume of “Hualin Series on Buddhist Studies”

At a critical juncture of our own time when globalization faces an unprecedented crisis, history can serve as a mirror for us to understand the nature of inter-civilizational conflict and cooperation. In particular, the history of the transmission of Buddhism from India to China, its subsequent appropriation by Chinese culture, and the transmission of the Sinicized form of Buddhism to the rest of East Asia is especially revealing of the mechanism of cross-cultural interactions.

From the perspective of the global history, when the teachings of Buddhism first arrived in the heartland of China around the first century CE, East Asia had just started what would become an ongoing exchange with Central and South Asia. Influence from the Han Empire already had spread to Central Asia, and as a result, at least two civilizations communicated with one another through various channels to allow for diverse cultural interactions and fusion. Buddhism, in this context, was one among many players to participate in this rich cultural dynamic.

Buddhism, as a product of a foreign culture from the Chinese perspective, underwent an extended period of adaption and intermingling with indigenous cultures before many teachings were altered by the seventh century, which gave rise to a distinct Chinese Buddhist tradition that embodied the spirit of a new and vibrant host culture. Meanwhile, Chinese Buddhism spread across East and Southeast Asia, generating a novel Chinese Buddhist sphere of influence with the classical Chinese language as its lingua franca. Against this backdrop of world history and globalization, the spread of Buddhism transcends a singular cultural phenomenon in one defined region, and instead represents a grand religious and cultural transformation with profound and far-reaching implications.

To deeply explore the process of Sinification, the partner universities of the Glorisun Global Network for the Studies of Buddhism—the University of Hong Kong, the Research Center for Buddhist Texts and Art at Peking University, and the University of British Columbia (UBC)—jointly organised the international conference, ‘Sinification, Globalization or Glocalization?: Paradigm Shifts in the Study of Transmission and Transformation of Buddhism in Asia and Beyond’ (執兩用中：東西方文明碰撞中的佛教中國化與國際化) from August 9 to 12, 2023.

With this conference we are not only inclined to address our contemporary inquisitiveness by returning to the well-trodden path concerning the topic of the Sinification of Buddhism; we will address the process of Sinification against the backdrop of global history. We will also, therefore, reassess the potential uses of the term ‘Sinification’ to serve as a historical precedent that may be able to teach us new lessons relevant to our own time. Today, we are witnessing the trend of globalization being forestalled. Given this challenge, the study of the localization or indigenization and globalization (the so-called ‘Glocalization’) of Buddhism carries an implication beyond academic research, for it could impart historical lessons for our own time that is increasingly threatened by a reversal of globalization and by the hostility between cultures and states.