The Administration of Buddhism in China: A Study and Translation ...

achievement of that “universal” standard rather than suggesting any deviation from it that would jeopardize their claim.¹⁰

In an insightful essay, “Early Civilization in China: Reflections on How It Became Chinese,” David Keightley compares the depiction of individuals on a Greek kylix vase from ca. 460 B.C. and an Eastern Zhou bronze hu 壺 vase from the late sixth to fifth century B.C.¹¹ While the comparison is based on artistic depictions, the observations suggest important influences on the depiction of individuals in biographical accounts. The Greek vase depicts a scene from the legend of Achilles and the Amazon queen. The figures depicted on the vase are heroic in size; there is no mystery regarding either the identity of the main protagonists or the tragic moment that the scene captures. On the Eastern Zhou bronze vase, in contrast, figures are presented as anonymous silhouettes, small in size; their identity remains a mystery and the meaning of the actions depicted is unclear. In the Chinese case, according to Keightley, “aesthetic concerns were focused on the general, the social, and the non-heroic rather than on the particular, the individual, and the heroic.”¹² While some may see Keightley’s interpretation as reductionistic stereotyping based on isolated examples, there seems little reason to dispute his point about uniformity as a reflection of collective values.

Writings classed as “biography” occupy a special position in China that has been shaped by the conventions of Chinese historical writing, conventions that in turn reflect the values of Chinese society. On the whole, Chinese biographies tend to be brief. Biographies were not written for the purposes of recording extensive and intricate detail aimed at revealing individual character. Rather, the biography of an individual was pared to its essentials, leaving only those aspects that reflected favorably on the illustrious virtue of the individual’s character as viewed against the backdrop of standardized social values. These virtues were determined by society, not the individual. Where individual features of a biography conflicted with the fabric of social values, the individual features were