Majority of Chinese opera scholars believe that indigenous Chinese theatrical arts could all be traced back to the ancient times, but the genre didn’t mature and officially become Chinese opera till Song and Yuan dynasties. The reason that the pre-historical period of Chinese opera was so long is because of the lack of development with narrative literature in China. Starting in the Han dynasty, Buddhism, a form of heterogeneous culture, was gradually casting profound impacts in the spiritual world of the Chinese people and greatly inspiring people’s imagination. In the area of literary art, ancient Chinese literary art began to take on new changes and became more diverse and vibrant, taking over by a new wave that was spectacular and splendid. The spread of Buddhism also directly stimulated the development of prosimetric arts, and the art form greatly thrived in the Tang dynasty. This paved the way for the later emergence of drama literature. The emergence of drama literature pushed the originally extensive performing arts activities in China away from their originally simple state, propelling them into a comparatively more complex time, marking the official development of Chinese opera
