Some cool things to read.
The Encounter of Nestorian Christianity with Tantric Buddhism in China. It seems that in China Nestorian Christianity borrowed elements from Tantric Buddhyism.
However, what this paper also tells us is that those who brought Buddhism to China and Central Asia were from Indo-Iranian backgrounds, which meant that they were from an area (Persia) where there were already belief systems that emphasized heaven, hell and saviors. (Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity)
So even before the arrival of Nestorian Christianity in China, Buddhism which arrived in China and then to Tibet would already have been refracted through the medium of Indo-Persian missionaries who may well have been influenced by the older Persian ideas of heaven, hell, dualism. Its not at all easy for Westerners from dualistic religious backgrounds to make sense of nondualistic Dharma; Iranian/Persians would have had similar difficulties.
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This dynamics came from the unique dominant position of Tantric Buddhism in the capital city of the Tang Empire, Chang'an and also in Dunhuang area and Nes- torians might have been intended to benefit from Tantric Buddhism in order to expand its religious space in a competitive multi-religious society in medieval period. More specifically, Nestorians and Tantric Buddhists in Chang'an benefited from each other during their mutual collaboration in translating Buddhist and Nestorian texts into Chinese.
Some Tantric Buddhists might have shared Sog- dian background with Nestorians, in kinship and in community. Nestorians and Tantric Buddhists all contributed to introducing Persian astronomical knowl- edge to the Tang court. Nestorian Christians adopted Tantric Buddhist scrip- tural pillars in their burial ritual, serving their Nestorian community. Nestorians and Tantric Buddhists in Dunhuang and Tibet might have had a mutual rela- tionship, textually and artistically
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Although Buddhism originally came from India, in fact, many early Buddhist missionar- ies who contributed to the spread of Buddhism into China and helped translate Buddhist texts into Chinese were from an Iranian-speaking background. They either came from Persia or Sogdiana.8 For instance, An Shigao jSfHtiiS, the first known missionary and translator, was actually a Persian hostage.9 Some other missionaries with the same surname "An must have also come from Par- thian Persia. Kang Senghui Sff #, a missionary known for his bringing the Buddha's relics to South China, was from the region of Sogdiana. Many other missionaries with the same surname "Kang must have been from the same region. In short, the Iranian-speaking background seemed to play a crucial role among the first generation of Buddhist missionaries in China. Early Nestorian missionaries were also Iranian-speaking people, mostly Per- sians and Sogdians. Persians and Sogdians not only were responsible for intro- ducing Nestorianism into China, but also they spread Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism into China in the early medieval period.
Zoroastrianism is be- lieved to have reached the northwestern border of the Chinese Empire as early as the fourth century. Later on, until the eighth century before the outbreak of An Lushan gcif$:|l[RebeUion (755-763), some Sogdian merchants lived in their own communities in several trading centers along the Silk Road, such as Dun- huang IfelHL, Wuwei SfclS, Lingwu fi5&, Chang'an ft^, and Luoyang rUrfiH. They practiced their own religion, Zoroastrianism, which was particularly re- flected in their funeral and burial rites.
Following the spread of Nestorianism into China, in the seventh century Manichean missionaries also entered China under the leadership of a Persian priest Fuduodan t^^M-10 Nestorianism soon became a multi-ethnic religion when it spread to Central Asia and China. At least, we know Persians, Sogdians, and Turkic-Uyghurs constituted the main body of the Nestorian church in Central Asia.
Among them, Sogdians might be the most important ethnic group of Nestorians in Cen- tral Asia and China. In Turfan B±##, an oasis city in Chinese Turkestan, a lot of Sogdian Nestorian manuscripts were discovered. In central China, Chang'an and Luoyang, it seems that many Sogdian Nestorians lived there as a small community. Ge Chengyong revealed that a tomb inscription discovered in Xi'an belonged to a Sogdian family, which is indicated by the surname of the owner of this inscription, Mi The surname Mi indicates that the home- town of this family was the Kingdom of M
Once the Nestorians arrived, later followed by the ultra dualistic Manicheaeans, they all influenced each other and were influenced by the Buddhism that had been transmitted by earliar Iranian-Indian missionaries and merchants.