Nor can I think that the common use of rites on behalf of the dead in Buddhist China is traceable to Christianity.  In this case too the parallel is superficial, for the rites are in most cases not prayers for the dead:  the officiants recite formulae by which they acquire merit and they then formally transfer this merit to the dead.  Seeing how great was the importance assigned to the cult of the dead in China, it is not necessary to seek for explanations why a religion trying to win its way in those countries invented ceremonies to satisfy the popular craving, and Buddhism had no need to imitate Christianity, for from an early period it had countenanced offerings intended to comfort and help the departed.

Under the T’ang dynasty Manichaeism, Nestorianism and new streams of Buddhism all entered China.  These religions had some similarity to one another, their clergy may have co-operated and Manichaeism certainly adopted Buddhist ideas.  There is no reason why Buddhism should not have adopted Nestorian ideas and, in so far as the Nestorians familiarized China with the idea of salvation by faith in a divine personage, they may have helped the spread of Amidism.  But the evidence that we possess seems to show not that the Nestorians introduced the story of Christ’s life and sacrifice into Buddhism but that they suppressed the idea of atonement by his death, possibly under Buddhist influence.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 1072:  The most learned and lucid discussion of these questions, which includes an account of earlier literature on the subject, is to be found in Garbe’s Indien und das Christentum, 1914.  But I am not able to accept all his conclusions.  The work, to which I am much indebted, is cited below as Garbe.  See also Carpenter, Theism in Medieval India, 1921, pp. 521-524.]

[Footnote 1073:  See Garbe and Harnack, Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums, ii.  Chrysostom (Hom. in Joh. 2. 2) writing at the end of the fourth century speaks of Syrians, Egyptians, Persians and ten thousand other nations learning Christianity from translations into their languages, but one cannot expect geographical accuracy in so rhetorical a passage.]

[Footnote 1074:  Eusebius (Ecc.  Hist. v. 10), supported by notices in Jerome and others, states that Pantaenus went from Alexandria to preach in India and found there Christians using the Gospel according to Matthew written in Hebrew characters.  It had been left there by the Apostle Bartholomew.  But many scholars are of opinion that by India in this passage is meant southern Arabia.  In these early notices India is used vaguely for Eastern Parthia, Southern Arabia and even Ethiopia.  It requires considerable evidence to make it probable that at the time of Pantaenus (second century A.D.) any one in India used the Gospel in a Semitic language.]

[Footnote 1075:  See, for the Thomas legend, Garbe, Vincent Smith, Early History of India, 3rd ed. pp. 231 ff., and Philipps in I.A.. 1903, pp. 1-15 and 145-160.]