Of course Buddhist theory and practice felt the influence of their new surroundings.  The ornaments and embroidery of the faith are Chinese and sometimes hide the original material.  Thus Kuan-yin, considered historically, has grown out of the Indian deity Avalokita, but the goddess worshipped by the populace is the heroine of the Chinese romance mentioned above.  And, since many Chinese are only half Buddhists, tales about gods and saints are taken only half-seriously; the Buddha periodically invites the immortals to dine with him in Heaven and the Eighteen Lohan are described as converted brigands.

In every monastery the buildings, images and monks obviously bear the stamp of the country.  Yet nearly all the doctrines and most of the usages have Indian parallels.  The ritual has its counterpart in what I-Ching describes as seen by himself in his Indian travels.  China has added the idea of feng-shui, and has modified architectural forms.  For instance the many-storeyed pagoda is an elongation of the stupa.[582] So, too, in ceremonial, the great prominence given to funeral rites and many superstitious details are Chinese, yet, as I have often mentioned in this work, rites on behalf of the dead were tolerated by early Buddhism.  The curious mingling of religious services with theatrical pagents which Hsuan Chuang witnessed at Allahabad in the reign of Harsha, has its modest parallel to-day in many popular festivals.

The numerous images which crowd a Chinese temple, the four kings, Arhats and Bodhisattvas, though of unfamiliar appearance to the Indian student, are Indian in origin.  A few Taoist deities may have side chapels, but they are not among the principal objects of worship.  The greater part of the Chinese Tripitaka is a translation from the Sanskrit and the Chinese works (only 194 against 1467 translations) are chiefly exegetical.  Thus, though Chinese bonzes countenance native superstitions and gladly undertake to deal with all the gods and devils of the land, yet in its doctrine, literature, and even in many externals their Buddhism remains an Indian importation.  If we seek in it for anything truly Chinese, it is to be found not in the constituents, but in the atmosphere, which, like a breeze from a mountain monastery sometimes freshens the gilded shrines and libraries of verbose sutras.  It is the native spirit of the Far East which finds expression in the hill-side hermit’s sense of freedom and in dark sayings such as Buddhism is the oak-tree in my garden.  Every free and pure heart can become a Buddha, but also is one with the life of birds and flowers.  Both the love of nature[583] and the belief that men can become divine can easily be paralleled in Indian texts, but they were not, I think, imported into China, and joy in natural beauty and sympathy with wild life are much more prominent in Chinese than in Indian art.