Buddhism first entered China in the latter part of the Han dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE) along with growing trans-Eurasian trade. Early records of Buddhist presence in China depict the arrival of this foreign religion as at once intriguing and unsettling—a confrontation with cultural difference, not as an objectively observable fact, but as a subjectively troubling experience of failing common sense (Sakai 1997). Monastic Buddhist missionaries were visibly alien with their monochrome robes, their shaved heads and eyebrows, and their restricted diets. Along with strikingly novel votive statues and paintings—the first term for Buddhism was, in fact, the “teaching of the images” (xiangjiao)—they brought with them new meditative techniques, new ritual technologies, and, most importantly, new forms of writing.