摘    要

佛教是最早兴起的世界性宗教。它产生于公元前6世纪末—公元前5世纪初的印度，因创始人被称为“佛”而得名。佛教作为一种外来文化，在汉朝时期传入我国中原地区。由此，佛教开始了与中国文化的碰撞、磨合直至相互交融的历程。在传播初期，佛教依附于中国传统文化中的道教和儒教之上，并通过道教和佛教思想来阐释佛家思想。魏晋南北朝时期佛教开始广泛传播；进入隋唐，佛教在中国呈现鼎盛状态。现在，佛教在中国已经有两千年左右的历史了。佛教在传播过程中，逐渐与中国的传统文化相融合，形成了具有中国特色的佛教文化。同时，它对中国传统文化的演变和发展也有着深刻影响，许多佛教思想也逐渐深入人心，影响人们的文化思想和生活习俗。当今，我们对佛教与中国传统文化进行研究，分析佛教对中国传统文化的影响和佛教理论，阐释自由、众生平等、慈悲等佛教思想的含义，探寻佛教思想的现代意义，以求更好的运用佛教文化中的精髓之处，为中华民族的文化复兴和社会进步做出贡献。

关键词：佛教，关系，影响，理论，意义

ABSTRACT

Buddhism is the first religion to rise and develop in the world. It comes into being in the six or five century BC in ancient India, its name derives from the founder who was known as the "Buddha". As a foreign culture, Buddhism was spread to China in the Han Dynasty.  Since then, Buddhism has been on the way to crash, conflict and merge with the Chinese traditional culture. At the beginning time, Buddhism was spread on the dependence of Taoism and Confucianism and explained its thoughts through their doctrines.Buddhism begins to have a wide propagation and development in Wei, Qsin & Southern and Northern Dynasties. In the Sui and Tang dynasties, it steps into top flourish. Now, it has a history of about 2000 years in China. In the process of spread, it gradually merges with the traditional Chinese culture and derivatives its culture with Chinese features. Meanwhile, it has profound influence on the evolution and development of Chinese traditional culture; Buddhist thought gradually enjoys popular support and affects people's ideological and living customs. In modern society, we take a research on the relationships of Buddhism and the Chinese culture, analyzing influence on Chinese traditional culture of Buddhism and its theories, explaining Buddhist theories such as freedom, existence being equal and mercy, discovering its significance in modern society, in order to make best use of quintessence of Buddhism culture and bring great benefits to the cultural restoration and social progress.

Key words: Buddhism, traditional culture, influence, theories, contemporary significance

1 Introduction
When Buddhism was introduced into China, it was regarded as a kind of Taoist practices. This is because that the foreign Buddhist monks attempted to propagate. Buddhism in China, they had adapted both Taoist and Confucian theories to interpret Buddhism. During the Chinese South and North Dynasties, Buddhism made every effort to conflict with Confucianism and Taoism.
A controversy between Buddhism and other traditional Chinese schools was occurred on those burden questions such as “whether soul is extinctive or non-extinctive”, “whether there exists a cause and effect” , “should Buddhism monks pay their respects to the Emperor” and so on.