Detail: Much work has been done in recent decades on the way in which Chinese rulers made use of Buddhism to bolster their power, but in fact some Buddhist ideas concerning kingship found in South Asian materials were quite negative. China was in imperial times an autocracy in which such negativity towards kingship generally did not flourish. But if we look carefully, is there really no trace at all of these Buddhist ideas entering the Chinese tradition of political thought? This lecture will suggest that at one point one subversive suggestion may have slipped in, and may indeed have exerted a hidden but not inconsequential influence.
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