This anthology demonstrates more effectively than any history or theoretical treatise the utter falseness of the view that medieval China was a closed cultural universe. Here we find proof after scintillating proof of the creative ferment and wit that went into the huge endeavour of translating the Buddhist sutras into Chinese, over a period of almost a thousand years. Here, through the prism of the activity of translation, in these chiselled texts, so carefully chosen and meticulously presented and translated into English, we witness the intense empathy and imaginative energy that lay at the heart of the Chinese transmission of truth and enlightenment. We are left awaiting the second part of this superb anthology with impatience. (John Minford)
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