The Civilization Redemption of Sanskrit-Chinese Mutual Learning: From Language Contact to Existential Influence

This paper re-examines the bidirectional influence of Sanskrit Buddhist scripture translation during the Han and Tang dynasties from dual perspectives of linguistic philosophy and civilization history. The study finds that this millennium-long cultural project not only reshaped the vocabulary, phonology, and stylistics of Chinese, but also provided Sanskrit with writing norms, phonetic evidence, and knowledge frameworks in the form of "civilization entrustment," allowing it to survive intact even after its extinction in its native India. This paper proposes for the first time the concept of "existential influence," pointing out that the contribution of Chinese to Sanskrit does not lie in changing its linguistic structure, but in providing "cognitive infrastructure" for an endangered civilization, which is a unique reverse salvation case in the history of human language.