How much influence historically did India have on China?

Buddhism?

>>2643941
Beginning in the first centuries CE, India contributed— largely through the vehicle of Buddhism— to all aspects of Chinese religious, cultural, artistic, and material life. Chinese notions of transcendence had been radically transformed by the Buddhist notion of liberation, just as the Chinese heavens and hells had been populated by gods and demons of Indian descent. Chinese paintings and sculptures drew heavily on the Indian— no less than the Central Asian and Greco- Buddhist— techniques by which the Buddha had been visually rendered, and the Chinese performing arts— storytelling and drama— adopted the Indian modes of the chantefable (alternating prose and verse) that had been common in the Indian subcontinent. Chinese philosophy had been forever altered by the substance and style of Indian epistemological and ontological discourse, and the Chinese diet was transformed by the adoption of the sugar and the rice gruel that had been consumed by Indian Buddhist missionaries. Even Chinese furniture had been fashioned after Indian precedents. Prior to the advent of Buddhism, the Chinese sat on mats, whereas following the example of Indian monks they began sitting on chairs.

>>2644419
We might easily lose sight of the layers of mediation that lay between India and China, given the rich history of trade between the two regions. In medieval times, each was well aware of the other’s existence, exchanging all manner of goods and even a series of political embassies. Beginning in roughly the first century, a vibrant trade between India and China flourished, with the establishment and expansion of the Silk Route. India supplied precious gems and aromatics, medicinal plants, spices, cotton, and Buddhist devotional objects; China sent porcelain, gold, camphor, and, above all, silk. The goods came through various routes— most famously through the oasis kingdoms of Central Asia, but also by sea and along passages through Tibet and Burma. But while there are records of Indian traders in China and Chinese traders in India, trade for the most part took place through middlemen. Much of what came to China from India arrived through the efforts of Sogdians, Parthians, and later Arabs. Hence, while many Chinese had seen Indian cotton, or consumed sugar that had been refined by techniques transmitted from India, few would have ever met an actual Indian. The same was true for Indians, who may have been familiar with Chinese silks, but would probably have purchased them from other Indians or from Central Asian merchants.

>>2644421
so chinese never made anything themselves, instead stole from others? sounds correct to me

>>2643941
They gave an example of why clean streets and proper human waste removal was paramount...