59
all had their scriptures'; but no other faith could now be confused with the Christians' 'brilliant teaching'. Also, though this may be a mere coincidence rather than a tactful regard for continuity, they chose a new term which sounded in Chinese very similar to the term previously in use. They chose an intriguing variant of a common Chinese character in order to catch the eye. The man who invented the term 'brilliant teaching' had a rare gift for public relations, and a high degree of sensitivity to Chinese culture.
Enough evidence exists to suggest that the term 'brilliant teaching' was invented and actively promoted, both in the capital Ch'ang-an and elsewhere in China, by Adam, the composer of the Sian tablet inscription. In the following sections it will be argued that Adam invented the term 'brilliant teaching' not long before 781, that he launched the term publicly in the Sian tablet inscription, that he strove to have the term applied consistently in all the dioceses of China of which he was archbishop, and that he ordered old manuscripts to be recopied and 'doctored' so that they reflected the new terminology.
Adam, Nestorian Metropolitan of China in 781
6
Very little is known for certain about Adam, the Nestorian metropolitan of China in the 780s. The name Adam seems to have been very rare in the Nestorian Church, and it is possible that Adam's parents were not Nestorians. All we can confidently conclude from the Sian tablet inscription is his rank. The inscription begins with the Chinese sentence 'Written by Ching-ching, a monk of the Syrian monastery', which is followed by a corresponding sentence in Syriac: Adam qasisa ur apisqupa u papasha de Tzinisthan, “Adam, priest, bishop, and archbishop of China'. We know from the Book of Governors, a ninth-century history of the Nestorian monastery of Beth Abhe in Kurdistan, that the monk David was sent out to China as metropolitan around 800. He may well have been Adam's immediate successor.
Fortunately, we can go a little further in building up a picture of the author of the Sian tablet inscription. Adam is also mentioned in a contemporary Chinese work as the recipient of a stinging rebuke from the emperor Te-tsung (779-805) for an inelegant translation of a Buddhist scripture which he had undertaken in collaboration with a Buddhist monk. The story is told in a biography which records the journey of the monk Prajna from northern India to Ch'ang-an in 782.