Being calligraphy the artistic expression of Chinese characters, and being the literacy of East Asia based on Chinese characters, Chinese calligraphy has exerted great influence upon the cultures of East Asian. Texts on calligraphy dating from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) did circulate in Japan as early as the Asuka Period (593-710), not to mention the tight relationship between Chinese calligraphy and Buddhism. When the two Japanese monks Kūkai (774-835) and Saichō (767-822) at the beginning of the ninth century went to China in search of dharma, this was a period in which both the production techniques and the hold methods of the handwriting brush were experiencing new changes and developments. For instance, both wrapped-kernel (chanzhi) and loose-kernel (sanzhuo) brushes were used alternatively, and also within brushes of the same typology the need to write characters in different scripts and in different sizes led to the creation of brushes in different shapes. Consequently, calligraphic forms were greatly enriched by such variety of brushes, benefiting from the fact that the possibilities of formal richness in handwriting were provided with material support. Not only did Kūkai and Saichō record this transition, but at the same time they also spread the texts on calligraphy that discussed these new theories and addition, it should be said that Kūkai and Saichō arrived in China in different circumstances: Kūkai went to Chang’an in the company of the Japanese ambassador, he was thus able to collect valuable calligraphic specimens, and was also taught by Han Fanming the most recent theories and techniques of calligraphy; Saichō, on the other hand, searched dharma only in the eastern Zhejiang region, so he did not acquire any autograph but only ink rubbings of stone inscriptions and engraved copies of model-letters, which is also evidence that during the Tang the milieu of calligraphy differed noticeably from region to region. The transmission of texts on calligraphy to East Asia marks the journey of the book from China to East Asia, and, at the same time, manifests the network of human relations that connected, on the basis of the appreciation of calligraphy, Tang emperors and calligraphers with Japanese monks and emperors.
