Of the three influential religions in China only Buddhism was a foreign religion. Buddhism was originally a branch of Hinduism. Among the academics, Buddhism is considered a “theistic religion”. Its Deity is Sakyamuni; its doctrine is based on transmignation. Buddha in tantamount to awareness. i.e., to save himself from the sufferings of transmigration through practicing Buddhism. Its essential principle is: I do not exist in all the natural laws and all things in the universe are not constant. It is able to set a foothold in China, for its ideology has much in common with, or is the same as, the Chinese ideology.
　　In the first century A.D.Little Vehicle Buddhism spread to China, which was convinced that man could save himself through his own efforts, not dependent upon deities or other external forces. Monk is the ideal image of a disciple of Little Vehicle Buddhism. The monk would shave his head, wear a yellow gown, and hold a bowl and wander about to beg for alms, as efforts to save him. He needs neither family nor property. When he finds his spiritual sustenance, he becomes Buddha.
The Great Vehicle Buddhism set its foothold in China in the Wei-Jin-Southern and Northern Dynasties. The special circumstances in this period led to the diversified mentality of the different social strata, which means a fertile soil for absorbing Buddhism.

　　That Buddhism was able to gain a footing in China was to a great extent due to the Huan-Lao Doctrine and to the search for immortality Han Dynasties. Because of this background, the early, well-known monks coming to China, such as Fu Tucheng, Tan Wuchen, etc., were experts in sorcery also. The sorcery practices in Buddhism marked an important transition toward Great Vehicle Buddhism, which evolved into polytheism.
At first, Buddhism spread in China only in the upper strata of the society, among the royal family, nobles and landlords. There were only a scanty number of Buddhist temples in the large cities for the use of monks and merchants coming to China from the Western Region, whereas legally, the Chinese were not permitted to renounce the family and be monks. In the Three-Kingdom period the study of Prajna began to become an independent academic discipline in the Wei Kingdom and Wu Kingdom. In the Wei kingdom the spread of Buddhism only concentrated on the translation and introduction of Buddhist commandments and precepts, because worship of deities and dead ancestors were considered “licentious worship” and prohibited, and because large-scale worshipping ceremonies for deities held among the folk were prohibited in the pretext of “licentious sacrifice”. On the other hand, in the eastern Wu Kingdom ruled by Sun Quan, an indulgent, even favorable policy toward Buddhism was adopted, so that Buddhism developed more in the south of the Yangtze River. Thus Buddhism in the South rivaled with Buddhism in the North, which was centered at Luoyan (in modern Henan Province). Basically the attitude of the royal family of Wu Kingdom was in support of Buddhism, which set a precedent for the attitudes toward Buddhism taken by the royal families of the forthcoming Six-Dynasties.