In this talk, Haun Saussy notes that traditional Chinese definitions of literature include historical, philosophical, essayistic, and policy-oriented genres, and that much of the cultural traffic in and out of China over the centuries happened through religious activity. Saussy proposes a new starting point for scholars of Chinese literary history: focus on literature as “letters,” which should permit an enlargement of the entire sphere of “world literature” as regards China, its multicultural inhabitants, and its neighbors.