The Reception of the Classic of Mountains and Seas in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Literature

The Shanhai jing emerged during the Han dynasty and attracted numerous commentators in the early medieval period, most notably Guo Pu (276–324), whose influential illustrated eulogy stands out. In contrast, the medieval period saw fewer significant commentaries on the text. Nevertheless, certain Buddhist monastic scholars turned to the Shanhai jing as an intellectual resource for exploring Buddhist ideas, frequently citing its passages to support their own narratives. Their interpretations of the exotic animals, plants, and regions described in the Shanhai jing may reveal how they reconciled the cultural centers and peripheries of Buddhist thought in medieval Asia. The interplay of natural and supernatural elements in medieval Chinese Buddhist texts developed through the fusion of Buddhist doctrines with Chinese traditions. Cosmology, divination, the material world, and nature posed challenges to the Buddhist monastic community, while the scholastic backgrounds of medieval Chinese Buddhist masters likely influenced their interpretations of this indigenous text. At the same time, the selective incorporation of Shanhai jing material into medieval Chinese Buddhist literature had broader implications, as the text provided insights into the geography, culture, and natural world of the Central Plains, frontier regions, and neighboring territories of China. A close reading reveals that medieval Chinese Buddhist literature primarily used the Shanhai jing in exegetical and lexicological writings to explain historical and geographical information. This demonstrates that Buddhist authors in medieval China mobilized the Shanhai jing as part of indigenous intellectual traditions to serve the religious purposes of their scholasticism.