This concept refers specifically to the way of teaching and the use of Buddha statues and various symbols and virtual images to disseminate Buddhist beliefs. As such, image-based teaching is sometimes used to refer to Buddhism. There is a long history of image-based teaching in ancient China. The ancient Chinese believed that the way of governing all things under heaven and the mysteries of the human heart, namely,knowledge, reason, thought, emotion, and will, are all represented and conveyed through the images of all things under heaven and the images envisaged by humans. In The Book of Changes, trigrams are used to describe all things under heaven and their changes and interconnections. Therefore, images in The Book of Changes are the origin of all other images in traditional Chinese culture, and they are also the general name of all cultural symbols in China. Exploring the mystery of images and giving full play to them became the basic approach of Confucianism to understanding the way of all things under heaven and to educating people. After the Wei and Jin dynasties, the images in The Book of Changes and those used in Buddhist teaching merged, giving rise to the concept of image-based instruction, which profoundly influenced ancient Chinese literary criticism and writing. The Chinese literati attached great importance to using images, symbols and literary images to represent certain cultural allegorical and edifying functions. However, with the development of language and cultural symbols, the images in The Book of Changes phased out of people’s daily lives, and images began to refer to shapes, symbols and literary images. Image-based teaching has become an issue concerning aesthetics and literary theory. Qing Dynasty scholar Zhang Xuecheng(1738-1801) made a systematic exploration on this concept in his work General Principles of History.

The term xiang (象) refers to how sages use the hexagrams and trigrams described in The Book of Changes to observe the subtleties of all things under heaven and determine what is fitting through the simulation of shapes in different things. Therefore it is called xiang (images). (The Book of Changes)

Therefore, it is impossible to see the essence of the Way. If people do see the Way when they pursue it, they see only images manifested by the Way. Some of the images are naturally formed under heaven, and some are imaginary images created by the human mind. (Zhang Xuecheng: General Principles of History)

It is said that Sakyamuni was more than five meters tall and imposing. Heaven is said to be pure and bright, where celestial maidens scatter flowers. Hell is dark and miserable, where yakshas appear with wild, tangled hair. No one has ever seen these bizarre images. Confucian scholars denounce them as delusions, but they do not know that Buddhism uses these images as the basis for its teaching. It is said in The Book of Changes that dragons engage in battles and shed greenish-yellow blood and bows are used to shoot chariot-riding ghosts and monsters. [In fact these are all symbols.] Therefore, all those images in the underworld of the King of Hell are conjured up by the human mind, not made up by Buddhists to deceive and confuse people. Later, Buddhism was misunderstood as some people took its imagery as reality. Some ignorant people erroneously believe in images derived from voices, and interpreted this as the existence of another world parallel to ours. Yet Confucian scholars did not examine the context of these phenomena. They only argue against them; they are bursting with anger, but they do not know the actual situation. If Buddhist learning and the content of its scriptures resemble daily life and human nature, then this is a wise path to take. It is for a good reason that Buddhism conducts image-based teaching. (Zhang Xuecheng: General Principles of History)