 But it was through collaborative projects of translation and textual exegesis that Buddhism came to be woven so thoroughly into the fabric of Chinese culture that the emperor of Song China, Xiaozong (r. 1162–89), would compare the three teachings of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism to the legs of a bronze ding: a ceremonial vessel associated with political unity and power and cultural authority that would be useless if any one of the three were to be removed. Indian and Central Asian Buddhist texts offered new visions of the cosmos, new narrative structures, and new concepts that made obvious the boundaries and biases of Chinese literary and philosophical thought and practice.  Engaging these texts required improvising linguistic and conceptual bridges, but ultimately also building new kinds of cultural consciousness and identity.