ial note of its own.

The curiosity of Ming-Ti did not lead to any immediate triumph of
Buddhism. We read that he was zealous in honouring Confucius but not
that he showed devotion to the new faith. Indeed it is possible that
his interest was political rather than religious. Buddhism was also
discredited by its first convert, the Emperor's brother Chu-Ying, who
rebelled unsuccessfully and committed suicide. Still it flourished in
a quiet way and the two foreign monks in the White Horse Monastery
began that long series of translations which assumed gigantic
proportions in the following centuries. To Kasyapa is ascribed a
collection of extracts known as the Sutra of forty-two sections which
is still popular.[608] This little work adheres closely to the
teaching of the Pali Tripitaka and shows hardly any traces of the
Mahayana. According to the Chinese annals the chief doctrines preached
by the first Buddhist missionaries were the sanctity of all animal
life, metempsychosis, meditation, asceticism and Karma.

It is not until the third century[609] that we hear much of Buddhism
as a force at Court or among the people, but meanwhile the task of
translation progressed at Lo-yang. The Chinese are a literary race and
these quiet labours prepared the soil for the subsequent
efflorescence. Twelve[610] translators are named as having worked
before the downfall of the Han Dynasty and about 350 books are
attributed to them. None of them were Chinese. About half came from
India and the rest from Central Asia, the most celebrated of the
latter being An Shih-kao, a prince of An-hsi or Parthia.[611] The
Later Han Dynasty was followed by the animated and romantic epoch
known as the Three Kingdoms (221-265) when China was divided between
the States of Wei, Wu and Shu. Loyang became the capital of Wei and
the activity of the White Horse Monastery continued. We have the names
of five translators who worked there. One of them was the first to
translate the Patimokkha,[612] which argues that previously few
followed the monastic life. At Nanking, the capital of Wu, we also
hear of five translators and one was tutor of the Crown Prince. This
implies that Buddhism was spreading in the south and that monks
inspired confidence at Court.

The Three Kingdoms gave place to the Dynasty known as Western
Tsin[613] which, for a short time (A.D. 265-316), claimed to unite the
Empire, and we now reach the period when Buddhism begins to become
prominent