This book covers the great academic exchange that took place between Indian monks and Chinese intellectuals during the first millennium of the Christian era. Information on Sanskrit linguistics transmitted by Indian monks helped Chinese intellectuals to evolve a phonetic system to read their pictographic script. It solved one of their greatest headaches. Introduction of the theories of Sanskrit prosody led to the innovation of a totally new genre of poems that became a part of the Chinese civil service examination. This genre is popular even today. The Chinese theory of arts was influenced considerably by its Indian counterpart.