HUAYAN. A major tradition of Buddhist doctrine and practice that emerged in seventh-century China, Huayan (Jpn., Kegon; Kor., Hwaŏm) was soon transmitted to Korea and Japan, and has continued even into modern times to exert great influence on many aspects of religion, thought, and culture throughout East Asia. A product initially of the fruitful encounter between Mahāyāna Buddhism and elements of the native Chinese religious worldview, Huayan is especially noted for its liberating vision of the radical interrelatedness or interpenetration of all events and experiences, a unity amidst diversity wherein each and every particular phenomenon is seen both to incorporate and be absorbed by all other phenomena, without ever losing its own unique identity. It has often been characterized as a syncretism and, although more original than that description might suggest, it does in fact combine classical Mahāyāna themes like "emptiness" (śūnyatā), "representation...