Taking a new approach to the history of Buddhism, this book describes how Buddhist authors reorganized family values in China. Close readings of more than twenty Buddhist texts written in China from the fifth to the thirteenth century demonstrate that Buddhist authors crafted new models for family reproduction based on a mother-son style of filial piety, in contrast to the traditional father-son model.

The author draws on modern critical and psychoanalytic perspectives to argue that by reorienting family values, the Buddhists succeeded in bridging the gap between the private world of the Chinese family and the public presence of monastic Buddhism, thereby working Buddhism into Chinese society on several levels: sexual, familial, monetary, and political.