The patriarch of southern Chinese Buddhist Huiyuan and general, the Eastern Jin dynasty Huan Xuan: the controversy of Buddhist and Taoist

The article presents the results of a comparative historic-biographical analysis of biographies of the buddhist patriarch Huiyuan (334-416 AD) and the South Chinese general-aristocrat Huan Xuan (369-404 AD), between which the religious-philosophical controversy about the truth of the idea of retribution and about the necessity for monks to honor the emperor took place. The author clarifies that both writings («Min Baoin Lun» - «On Clarifying [the idea] of Retribution» and «Shamen bu jing wangzhe lun» - «Monks Should not Honor the Emperor») played an important role in the process of enculturation of Indo-Buddhist dogma in the South Chinese early medieval socio-cultural context of the Eastern Jin dynasty (371 - 420 AD). The author also made a brief reconstruction of the life path of Huiyuan and Huan Xuan.