us aspects. The architectural style of the Buddhist temples and pagodas in China shows a great influence of Buddhist culture over the Chinese Architecture. The Brick Pagoda of Songshan Songyue Temple of China's Henan Province, the Wood Pagoda of Yingxian of Shanxi Province and the Stone Pagoda of Kaiyuan Temple of Fujian Province, all of these have served as the valuable objects for the study of history of the ancient Chinese architecture. As a treasure house of the ancient artistic carving, the Dunghuang, Yungang and Longmen Grottos were created and developed with Chinese characteristics after absorbing something from the ancient Indian art, especially the art of Gandara. The Mogaoku of Dunhuang Grottos, an artistic palace erected in the desert reflects the organic synthesis of arts between India, Central Asia and China. The Buddhist Jatak stories were usually good materials for those ancient Chinese artists to paint. The freehand brushwork in traditional Chinese painting has something to do with the Zen Buddhism. The Chinese Buddhist music was created generally by absorbing from Tianzu Yue, Qiuzi Yue and Anguo Yue. Buddhism had contributed a great deal and given a influence to China's astronomy and medicine. There are a number of aspects on medicine and pharmacy in the Buddhist Tripitakas. According to those historical books of both the Sui and Tang dynasties, there are over 10 kinds of medicine and pharmacy books that were translated from Indian languages into Chinese. From the discussion above we see clever that through the cultural exchange between China and India in ancient time, Buddhism has given a tremendous influence to the various areas of Chinese culture.
Nagarjuna's contribution towards the Chinese Buddhism
Cheng Jianhua, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
1. Introduction
Sunyata is the core concept of Nagarjuna's philosophy. The concept of sunyata was introduced into China early in the fourth century. Kumarajive was the first one who translated Nagarjuna's philosophy into Chinese and preached the doctrine of sunyata to the whole community of the Chinese Buddhism. Since the scriptures of Madhyamakas (e.g. Madhyamikasastra, Mahaparjnaparamitasastra and Satasastra) were translated into Chinese in succession, there occurred a number of eminent scholars who were very much interested in study of Madhyamika philosophy at the time. Seng-zhao, a great disciple of Kumarajive, had written a book named Zhao-lun on Madhyamika. Although the expression and explanation of Zhao-lun is quite deferred from Nagarjuna's Madhyamikasastra, both the ideas are quite close and similar.
It was, during the Sui and Tang dynasties the eight kinds of Buddhist Schools like Tian-tai, San-lun, Vijnana, Hua-yen, Chan and Pure Land schools came into existence. All these Chinese Buddhist Schools declared that Nagarjuna was their first Patriarch. However, strictly speaking, out of these eight Buddhist Schools, there are only two or three more Chinese Buddhist schools which have something to do with Nagarjuna either directly or indirectly, such as Three Treatise School and Tian-tai School. A so called the Three Treatise School was actually in direct line of succession of Nagarjuna that based its doctrine on Madhyamikasastra, Satasastra, and Dvadasanikayasastra. The Tian-tai School based its doctrine on Sadharmapundarikasutra. The central concept of this school "Yi-xin-san-guan" (to view from three aspects with a mind) is actually come from or inspired by Mahaparjnaparamitasastra and the Verse No. 24 of Madhyamikasastra. The early development of Chinese Buddhism, therefore, has some thing to do, more or less, with Nagarjuna. This shows that Nagarjuna had given a great influence over the Chinese Buddhism and because of his great contribution, he deserves to enjoy high prestige in the Chinese Buddhist society.
In my paper I will focus on three aspects: spread of Nagarjuna's philosophy in its early stage in China, characteristics of the Three Treatise School an

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