Chapter 15
Section 15 of Hinduism and Buddhism. Then historical scratch, volume 3. This is a Libovox recording. All Libovox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libovox.org.
China continued. History. The traditional date for the introduction of Buddhism is 62 AD, when the chronicles tell how the Emperor Menti of the later Han Dynasty dreamed that he saw a golden man fly into his palace, and how his courtiers suggested that the figure was fought to a Buddha, an Indian god.
Ming-Ti did not let the matter drop and in 1965 sent an embassy to a destination variously described as the kingdom of the Da Yue Shi, or India, with instructions to bring back Buddhist scriptures and priests. On its return, it was accompanied by a monk called Kasyapa Mataga, a native of central India, a second called Chu Falan, who came from Central Asia and found some difficulty in obtaining permission to leave his country, followed shortly afterwards. Both were installed at Luoyang, the capital of the dynasty, in the White Horse Monastery,
so good because the foreign monks rode on white horses or used them for carrying books. The story has been criticized as an obvious legend, but I see no reason why it should not be true to this extent that Minty sent an embassy to Central Asia, not India in our sense, with the result that a monastery was for the first time established under imperial patronage. The gravest objection is that before the campaigns of Pan Chao, which began about 73 AD,
Central Asia was in rebellion against China, but those campaigns show that the Chinese court was occupied with Central Asian questions, and to send invoices to inquire about religion may have been politically advantageous, for them could obtain information without discerting or abandoning China's claims to sovereignty. The story does not state that there was no Buddhism in China before 62 AD. On the contrary, it implies that though it was not sufficiently
conspicuous to be known to the emperor, yet there was no difficulty in obtaining information about it, and other facts support the idea that it began to enter China at least half a century earlier. The negotiations of Changqian with the Yuezhi and the documents discovered by Sting in the ancient military posts on the western frontier of Gansu prove that China had communication with Central Asia, but neither the accounts of Chang'an's journeys nor the documents contain any allusion
to Buddhism. In 121 BC, the annals relate that a golden man was captured from the Xiongnu, but even if it was an image of Buddha, the incident had no consequences. More important is the notice in the Wei Lu, which gives a brief account of the Buddha's birth and states that in the year 2 BC, an ambassador sent by the Emperor Ai to the court of the Yuezhi was instructed in Buddhism by order of the king. Also, the later Han annals intimates that in 65 AD, the Prince of Chu was a Buddhist, and that there was Sramanas and Apsakas in his territory.
The author of the Wei Lu comments on the resemblance of Buddhist writings to the work of Lao Tzu, and suggests that the latter left China in order to teach in India. This theory found many advocates among the Taoists, but is not likely to commend itself to European scholars. Less improbable is a view held by many Chinese critics, and apparently first mentioned in the three annals, namely, that Buddhism was introduced into China at an early date but was exterminated by the Emperor Shi Huangdi in the course of his crusade against literature. But this view is not supported by any details and is open to the general objection that intercourse between China and India via Central Asia before 200 BC is not only unproved but improbable.
Still, the mystical, quietest philosophy of Laozi and Zhuanzi has an undoubted resemblance to Indian thought. No one who is familiar with the Upanishads can read the Dao De Jing without feeling that if Bremen is a substitute for Tao, the Ho would be intelligible to a Hindu. Its doctrine is not specifically Buddhist, yet it contains passages which sound like echoes of the Particas. Compare to Dao De Jing 33.1. He who overcomes others is strong, he who overcomes himself is
mighty. With Dhammapada 103. If one man overcome a thousand thousand in battle, and another overcome himself. This last is the greatest of conquerors. And 46.2. There is no greater thing than to look on what moves desire. There is no greater evil than discontent. There is no greater disaster than covetousness. With Dhammapada 251, there is no fire like desire. There is no monster like hatred, there is no snare like foley, there is no torrent like covetousness. And if it be objected
that these are the coincidences of obvious ethics, I would call attention to 39.1. Hence, if we enumerate separately each part that goes to form a card, we have no card at all. Here the sort and its illustration cannot be called obvious, and the resemblance to where no passages in the Samyutta Nikaya, and questions of Melinda is striking. Any discussion of the indebtedness of the Dao De Jing to India is too
complicated for insertion here, since it involves the question of its date or the date of particular passages. If we rejected the hypothesis that the work as we have, it was composed by Laozi in the 6th century BC. But there is less reason to doubt the genuineness of the assets of Zhuanzi who lived in the 4th century BC. In them we found mention of traces which give superhuman wisdom and lead to union with the
all-pervading spirit, and of magical powers enjoyed by sages, similar to the Indian Idihi. He approves the practice of abandoning the world, and enunciates the doctrines of evolution and reincarnation. He knows, as does also the Dao De Jing, methods of regulating the breathing, which are conducive to mental, cultural and long life. He speaks of the six faculties of perception, which recall the sadhyatana, and of name and real existence, Namarapan, as being the condition of a
seen. He has also a remarkable comparison of death to the extinction of a fire. What we can point to are the Phaggats that have been consumed, but the fire is transmitted and we know not that it is over and ended. Several Buddhist parallels to this might be cited. The least of such resemblances might be made longer, and the explanation that Indian ideas reached China sporadically, at least as early as the 4th century BC, seems natural. I should accept it,
if there were any historical evidence besides these literary parallels. But there seems to be none, and it may be justly urged that the roots of this quietism lie so deep in the Chinese character, that the plant cannot have sprung from some chance-winged wafted seed. That character has two sides, one thing in the Chinese empire and the classical philosophy, excellent as ethics, but somewhat stiff and formal, the other in revolutions and rebellions.
in the free life of hermits and wanderers, in poetry and painting. This second side is very like the temper of Indian Buddhism, and easily amalgamated with it, but it has a special note of its own. The curiosity of Minti did not lead to any immediate triumph of Buddhism. we read that he was zealous in honoring Confucius, but not that he showed devotion to the new faith.
Indeed, it is possible that his interest was political rather than religious. Buddhism was also discredited by its first convert, the emperor's brother Chu Ying, who rebelled unsuccessfully and committed suicide. Still, it flourished in a quiet way, and the two foreign monks in the White Horse Monastery began that long series of translations, which assumed gigantic proportions in the following centuries. Tukhasiapa is ascribed a collection of extracts known as the Sutra of
42 sections which is still popular. This little work adheres closely to the teaching of the Pali Trepitaka and shows hardly any traces of the Mahayana. According to the Chinese annals, the chief doctrines preached by the first Buddhist missionaries were the sanctity of all animal life. metampsychosis, meditation, asceticism, and karma. It is not until the 3rd century that we hear much of Buddhism as a force at court or among the people, but meanwhile the task of translation
progressed at Luoyang. The Chinese are a literary race, and these quiet labors prepared for the soil for the subsequent affluences. Twelve translators are named as having worked before the downfall of the Han Dynasty, and about 350 books are attributed to them. None of them were Chinese. About half came from India and the rest from Central Asia, the most celebrated of the latter being An Shi Kao, a prince of An
Han Shi or Pasha. The later Han dynasty was followed by the animated and romantic epic known as the Three Kingdoms , when China was divided between the states of Wei, Wu and Shu. Luoyang became the capital of Wei, and the activity of the White Horse Monastery continued. We have the names of five translators who worked there. One of them was the first to translate the Patimakaha, which argues that previously few followed the monastic life.
At Nanjing, the capital of Wu, we also hear of five translators, and one was tutor of the crown prince. This implies that Buddhism was spreading in the south, and that monks inspired confidence at God. The three kingdoms gave place to the dynasty known as West Sin, which for a short time AD 265-316 claimed to unite the empire, and we now reach the period when Buddhism begins to become prominent. It is also a period of political confusion, of context between the north and
South, of struggles between Chinese and Tatars. Chinese histories with the long lists of legitimate sovereigns exaggerate the solidity and continuity of the empire, for the territory ruled by those sovereigns was over but a small fraction of what we call China. Yet the Tatar states were not an alien and destructive force, to the same extent as the conquests made by Mohammedan Turks, at the expense of Byzantine. The Tatars were neither fanatical nor produced against Chinese
ideals in politics and religion. On the contrary, they respected the language, literature, and institutions of the empire. They assumed Chinese names and sometimes based their claim to the imperial title on the marriage of their ancestors with Chinese princes. During the 4th century and the first half of the 5th, some twenty infemoral states, governed by Tata chieftains and perpetually involved in mutual war, rose and fell in northern China. The most permanent of them was Northern Wei,
which lasted till 535 AD, but the later Chao and both the earlier and later Xin are important for our purpose. Some writers make it a reproach to Buddhism that its progress, which had been slow among the civilized Chinese became rapid in the provinces which passed into the hands of these ruder tribes. But the phenomenon is natural and is illustrated by the fact that even now the advance of Christianity is more rapid in Africa than in India. The civilization of China was
already old, and self-complacent, not devoid of intellectual curiosity and not intolerant, but skeptical of foreign importations and of dealings with the next world. But the Tatars had little of their own in the way of literature and institutions. It was their custom to assimilate the arts and ideas of the civilized nations whom they conquered. The more Western tribes had already made the acquaintance of Buddhism in Central Asia,
and such native notions of religion as they possessed disposed them to treat priests, monks, and magicians with respect. Of the states mentioned, the later Chao was founded by Shi Luo , whose territories extended from the Great War to the Han and Hua in the south. He showed favor to an Indian monk and diviner called Futu Chen, and he appears to have been himself a Buddhist. At any rate, the most eminent of his successors,
Shi Zilong was an ardent devotee and gave general permission to the population to enter monasteries, which had not been granted previously. This permission is noticeable, for it implies, even at this earlier date, the theory that a subject of the emperor has no right to become a monk without his master's leave. In 381, we are told that in north-western China, nine-tenths of the inhabitants were Buddhists. In 372, Buddhism was introduced into Korea
and accepted as the flower of Chinese civilization. The state known as the former Sin had its nucleus in Shen Si, but expanded considerably between 351 and 394 AD, under the leadership of Fu Qian, who established in it large colonies of Tartars. At first, he favoured Confucianism, but in 381 became a Buddhist. He was evidently in close touch with the Western regions and probably threw them with India, for we hear that 62 states of Central Asia sent him tribute.
The later Sin dynasty, 384 to 417, had its headquarters in Gansu and was founded by vessels of the former Sin. When the power of Fujian collapsed, they succeeded to his possessions and established themselves in Chan'an, Yao Xin. The second monarch of this line was a devout Buddhist and deserves mention as the patron of Kamarajiva,
the most eminent of the earlier translators. Kamarajiva was born of Indian parents in Kuchai and, after following the school of the Savastiva deans for some time, became a Mahayanist. When Kuchai was captured in 383 by the general of Fujian, he was carried off to China and from 401
onwards he labored at Chang'an for about 10 years. He was appointed Koshih or Director of Public Instruction and lectured in a hall specifically built for him. He is said to have had 3000 disciples and fifty extended translations are ascribed to him. Probably all the Tata kingdoms were well disposed towards Buddhism, though their unsettled condition made them precarious residents for monks and scholars.
This was doubtless true of Northern Way, which had been growing during the period described, but appears as a prominent home of Buddhism somewhat later. Meanwhile, in the south, the Eastern Sin dynasty, which represented the legitimate empire and ruled at Lankin from 317 to 420, was also favorable to Buddhism,
and Shao Wuti, the nice sovereign of this line, was the first emperor of China to become a Buddhist. The times were troubled, but order was gradually being restored. The Eastern Sin dynasty had been much disturbed by the struggles of rival princes. These were brought to an end in 420 by a new dynasty known as Liu Song, which reigned in
the south some sixty years. The north was divided among six Tata kingdoms, which all perished before 440 except Wei. Wei then split into an eastern and a western kingdom, which lasted about a hundred years. In the south, the Liu Song gave place to three short dynasties—Qing, Liang, and Chen—until at last the Shui united China. The Liu Song Emperor Wen Di was a patron of
Confucian learning, but does not appear to have discouraged Buddhism. The Song annals record that several embassies were sent from India and Salem to offer congratulations on the flourishing condition of religion in his domains, but they also preserve memorials from Chinese officials asking for imperial interference to prevent the multiplication of monasteries and the growing expenditure on superstitious ceremonies. This marks the beginning
of the desire to curb Buddhism by restrictive legislation which the official class displaced so prominently and persistently in subsequent centuries. A similar reaction seems to have been felt in Wei, while the influential statesman Sui Hao, a votary of Taoism, conducted an anti-Buddhist campaign. He was helped in this crusade by the discovery of arms in a monastery at Chang'an. The monks were accused of treason and debauchery, and in 446, Torbatau, the sovereign of Wei,
issued an edict ordering the destruction of Buddhist temples and sacred books, as well as the execution of all priests. The crown prince, who was a Buddhist, was unable to save many lives, but no monasteries or temples were left standing. The persecution, however, was of short duration. Toba Tao was assassinated, and almost the first act of his successor was to re-establish Buddhism and allow his subjects to become monks. From this period date the sculptured
groaches of Yu Kang in northern Shanxi, which are probably the oldest specimens of Buddhist art in China. In 471, another ruler of Wei, Tohba Huang, had a gigantic image of Buddha, constructed and subsequently abdicted, in order to devote himself to Buddhist studies. His successor marks a reaction, for he was an ardent Confucianist who changed the family name to Yuan and tried to introduce the Chinese language and dress.
But the tide of Buddhism was too strong. It secured the favor of the next emperor, in whose time there are said to have been 13,000 temples in Wei. In the Sun Dominion, a conspiracy was discovered in 458, in which a monk was implicated and restrictive.
Though not prohibitive, regulations were issued respecting monasteries. The Emperor Mingdi, though a cruel ruler, was a devout Buddhist and erected a monastery in Hunan, at the cost of such heavy taxation that his ministers remonstrated, the 59 years of new song rule must have been on the whole favorable to Buddhism, for 20 translators flourished, partly natives and partly foreigners from Central Asia, India and Silas.
In 420, a band of 25 Chinese started on a pilgrimage to India. They had been preceded by the celebrated pilgrim Fasin, who traveled in India from 399 to 414. In the reign of Wu Di, the first emperor of the Qi dynasty, one of the imperial princes named Zhu Liang cultivated the society of eminent monks and enjoyed theological discussions. From the spacements of these arguments which have been preserved, we see that the explanation of the inequalities of life as the result of karma had a great attraction for the popular mind, and also that it prevented the hostile criticism of the Confucian neutrality. The accession of the Liang dynasty and the long reign of its first emperor Wu Di, 502-549,
was important events in the history of Buddhism, for this monarch rivaled Ahsoka in peace enthusiasm, if not in power and prosperity. He obviously set the church above the state, and it was while he It was on the throne that Bodhidaha came to China and the first edition of the Tripitaka was prepared. His reign, though primarily of importance for religion, was not wanting in political interest, and witnessed a long conflict with Wei.
Wu Di was aided by the dissensions which distracted Wei but failed to achieve his object, probably as a result of his religious preoccupations. For he seemed unable to estimate the power of the various adventurers, who from time to time rose to preeminence in the north, and, holding war to be wrong, he was too ready to accept insincere overventures for peace.
Wei split into two states, the eastern and western, and Huqing, a powerful general who was not satisfied with his position in Aiza, offered his services to Wu Di, promising to add a large part of Hunan to his dominions. He failed in his promise, but Wu Di, instead of punishing him, first gave him a post as governor and then listened to the proposals made by the ruler of Eastern Wei for his surrender.
On this, He Qin conspired with an adopted son of Wu Di, who had been set aside as heir to the throne, and invested Nanking. The city was captured after the horrors of a prolonged siege, and Wu Di died miserably. Wu Di was not originally a Buddhist. In fact, until about 510, he was well over 40. He was conspicuous as a patron of Confucianism. The change might be ascribed to personal reasons, but it is noticeable that the same thing occurred in Wei, where a period
of Confucianism was succeeded by a strong wave of Buddhism, which evidently swept over all China. Hu, the devourced Empress of Wei, was a fervent devotee, though of indifferent morality in both public and private life, since she is said to have poisoned her own son. In 518, she sent Song Yun and Huishen to Yudana in search of Buddhist books, of which they brought back 175. Wu Di's conversion is connected with a wandering monk and magician called Pao Zi,
who received the privilege of approaching him at all hours. A monastery was erected in Nanjing at great expense, and edicts were issued for biding not only the sacrifice of animals, but even the representation of living things in embroidery. On the ground that people might cut up such figures and thus become colors to the sanctity of life, the emperor expanded sutras in public and wrote a work on Buddhist ritual. The first Chinese edicts of the Chiptaka,
in manuscript and not printed, was collected in 518. Although Udi's edicts, particularly that against animal sacrifices, gave great dissatisfaction, yet the Buddhist movement seems to have been popular and not merely an imperial wing for many distinguished persons. For instance, the authors Liu Shen and Yao Chai took part in it. In 520, or according to others, in 525, Bodhihama, generally called the Da Mo in Chinese, landed in Khattin from India. He is described as
as the son of a king of a country called Hyansi in southern India, and the 28th patriarch. He taught that merit does not lie in good works, and that knowledge is not gained by reading the scriptures. The one essential is insight, which comes as illumination after meditation. Though this doctrine had subsequently much success in the Far East, it was not at first appreciated, and Budiyama's introduction to the devolved but literary emperor in Nanjing was a
fiasco. He offended his majesty by curtly saying that he had acquired no merit by causing temples to be built and books to be transcribed. Then, in answer to the question, what is the most important of the holy doctrines, he replied, where all is emptiness, nothing can be called holy. Who? asked the astonished emperor. Is he who thus replies to me? I do not know, said Bodhihama. Not being able to come to any understanding with Wu Di,
Budihama went northwards, and is said to have crossed the Yangtze standing on a reed, a subject frequently represented in Chinese art. He retired to Luoyang, where he spent nine years in the Shaolin Temple,
gazing silently at a wall, whence he was popularly known as the Wall Gather. One legend says that he sat so long in contemplation that his slugs fell off, and a kind of lackless store, which is a favorite play scene in Japan, is still called by his name. But according to another tale, he preserved his slugs.
He wished to return to India, but died in China. When Song Yun, the traveler mentioned above, was returning from India, he met him in a mountain pass barefooted, and carrying one sandal in his hand. When this was reported, his coffin was opened, and was found to contain nothing but the other sandal which was long preserved as a precious relic in the Shaolin Temple.
Udi adopted many of the habits of her bonds. He was a strict vegetarian, expanded the scriptures in public, and wrote a work on ritual. He thrice retired into a monastery and wore the dress of a bhikkhu. These retirements were apparently of short duration, and his ministers twice redeemed him by heavenly payments.
In 538, a heir of the Buddha was sent by the king of Phu Nam and received with great ceremony. In the next year, a mission was dispatched to Magdaha to obtain Sanskrit texts. It returned in 546 with a large collection of manuscripts and accompanied by the learned Parramatta, who spent twenty years in translating them. Wu Di, in his old age, became stricter. All luxury was suppressed at court, but he himself always wore full dress and showed the
utmost politeness, even to the lowest officials. He was so reluctant to inflict the punishment of death, that crime increased. In 547, he became a monk for the third time, and immediately afterwards, the events connected with the Hou Chi briefly scratched above, begun to trouble the peace of his old age. During the siege of Nanjing, he was obliged to depart from his vegetarian diet and eat eggs. When he was told that his capital was taken, he merely said,
I obtained the kingdom through my own efforts, and through me it has been lost, so I need not complain. Ho Chi proceeded to the palace, but overcome with awe, kneeled down before Udi, who merely said, I am afraid you must be fatigued by the trouble it has caused you to destroy my kingdom. Ho Chi was ashamed, and told his officers that he had never felt such fear before, and would never doubt to see Wu Di again. Nevertheless, the aged emperor was treated
with dignity, and soon died of starvation. His death, though manically, was peaceful, compelled with that in store for Houqi, who after two years of fighting and murdering, assumed the imperial title, but immediately afterwards was defeated and slain. The people ate his body in the streets of Nanjing, and his own wife is said to have swollen mouthfuls of his flesh. One of Udi's sons, Yuan Di, who reigned from 552 to 555, inherited his father's temper
and fate with this difference that he was a Taoist, not a Buddhist. He frequently resided in the temples of that religion, studied its scriptures and expounded them to his people. A great scholar, He had accumulated 140,000 volants, but when it was announced to him in his library that the troops of Wei were marching on his capital, he yelled it without resistance and burned his books, saying that they had proved of no use in this extremity. This alternation of imperial
patronage in the South may have been the reason why Wen Shuandi, the ruler of Northern Qi and for the moment perhaps the most important personage in China, summoned Buddhist and Taoist priests to a discussion in 555. Both religions could not be true, he said, and one must be superfluous. After hearing the arguments of both, he decided in favor of Buddhism and ordered the Taoists to become bonkers on pain of death. Only four refused and were executed.
Under the short-term dynasty, 557 to 589, the position of Buddhism continued favorable. the first emperor, a mild and intelligent suffering, though circumstances obliged him to put a great many out of the way, retired to a monastery after reigning for two years. But in the north there was a temporary reaction. Udi of the Northern Chu dynasty, first of all, defined the precedence of the three religions as Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and then
in 575, prohibited the two later, ordering temples to be destroyed and priests to return to the world. But as usual, the prosecution was not of long duration. Five years later, Wu Di's son withdrew his father's edict, and in 582, the founder of the Sui dynasty gave the population permission to become monks. He may be said to have used Buddhism as his basis for restoring the unity of the empire, and in his old age he became devout. The three annals observed that Buddhist books had become
more numerous under this dynasty than those of the Confucianists, and no less than three collections of the Treptaka were made between 594 and 616. With the 7th century begun, the Great Tang Dynasty 620-907, Buddhism had now been known to the rulers of China for about 550 years. It It began as a religion tolerated but still regarded as exotic and not quite nature for the sons of Han.
It had succeeded in establishing itself as the face of the majority among both Tatars and Chinese. The rivalry of Taoism was only an instance of that imitation, which is the sincerest flattery. Though the opposition of the Mandarins assumed serious proportions whenever they could induce the Nampera to share their views, yet the hostile attitude of the government never lasted long and was not shared by the mass of the people.
It is clear that permissions to practice Buddhism which invariably followed close on the prohibitions were a national relief. Though Buddhism tended to mingle with Taoism and other indigenous ideas, the many translations of Indian works and the increasing intercourse between Chinese and Hindus had diffused a knowledge of its true tenets and practice. The Tang dynasty witnessed a triangular war between Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. As a rule, Confucianism attacked the other
two as base superstitions, but sometimes, as in the reign of Wuzong, Taoism seized a chance of being able to annihilate Buddhism. This war continued under the Northern Song, though the character of Chinese Buddhism changed. For the contemplative school, which had considerable infinities to Taoism, became popular at the expense of the Tiantai. After the Northern Song, except under the foreign Mongol dynasty, we feel that though Buddhism was by no means dead,
and from time to time flourished exceedingly, yet Confucianism had established its claim to be the natural code and creed of the scholar and statesman. The Chinese court remained a strange place to the end, but scholarship and good sense had a large measure of success in banishing extravagance from art and literature. Yet, alas, the intellectual life of China lost more in fire and brilliancy than it gained insanity. Probably the most critical times for literature
and indeed for thought were those brief periods under the Sui and Tang, when Buddhist and Taoist books were accepted as texts for the public examinations and the last half-century of the Northern Song, when the educational reforms of Wang Anshi were intermittently in force, the innovations were cancelled in all cases. Had they lasted, Chinese style and mentality might have been different. The Tang dynasty, though on the whole favorable to Buddhism,
and indeed the period of its greatest prosperity, opened with a period of reaction to the founder, Kang Song, is attributed the saying that Confucianism is as necessary to the Chinese as winds to a bird or water to a fish. The imperial historiographer Fu Ai presented to his master a memorial, blaming Buddhism because it undervalued natural relationships and arguing that monks and nuns should be compelled to marry. He was opposed by Shaoyu, who declared that hell
was made for such people as his opponent, an argument common to many religions. The emperor followed on the whole advice of Fu'ai. Magistrates were ordered to inquire into the lives of monks and nonce. Those found pure and sincere were collected in the large establishments, the rest were ordered to return to the world, and the smaller religious houses were closed. Kao Song abdicated in 627, but his son Taizong continued his religious policy,
and the new empress was strongly anti-Buddhist, for when, mortally ill, she forbade her son to pray for her recovery in buddhist strains yet the emperor cannot have shared these sentiments at any rate towards the end of his reign He issued an edict, allowing every monastery to receive five new monks, and the celebrated journey of Sun Chang was made in his reign. When the pilgrim returned from India, he was received with public honors, and a title was conferred on him. Learned monks were appointed to assist him in translating the library he had brought back,
and the account of his troubles were presented to the emperor, who also wrote a laudatory preface to his version of the Pranaparamita. It was in this frame also that Nestorian missionaries first appeared in China and were allowed to settle in the capital. Diplomatic relations were maintained with India. The Indian emperor Hassan sent an envoy in 641,
and two Chinese missions were dispatched in return. The second, led by Wang Xuansha, did not arrive until after the death of Hassan when a usurper had seized the strain. Wang Xuanzha collected a small army in Tibet, destroyed the usurper and brought him as a prisoner to China. The later half of the 17th century is dominated by the figure of the devour Empress Wu, the prototype of the celebrated lady who took charge of China's fate in our own day.
And, like her, superhuman in decision and unscrupulousness, yet capable of inspiring loyalty, she was a concubine of the emperor Taizong, and when he died in 649, lived for a short time as a Buddhist nun. The eventful life of Wu He, who was at least successful in maintaining order at home and on the frontiers, belongs to the history of China rather than of Buddhism. She was not an ornament of the faith, nor an example of its principles. But mindful of the protection it
had once offered her, she gave it her patronage even to the extent of making a bond named Hua Ai, the minister of her mutual passions, when she was nearly 70 years old. A magnificent temple, at which 10,000 men worked daily, was built for him, but the empress was warned that he was collecting a body of vigorous monks, nominally for its service, but really for political objects. She ordered these persons to be banished. Hua Ai was angry and burned the temple. The empress at
first merely ordered it to be rebuilt, but finding that Hua Ai was growing disrespectful, she had him assassinated. We heard that the Mahamagha Sutra was presented to her and circulated among the people with her approval. About 690, she assumed divine honors and accommodated these pretensions to Buddhism by allowing herself to be styled Maitreya or Guan Yin. After her death at the age of 80, there does not appear to have been any religious change, for two monks were
appointed to high office, and orders were issued that Buddhist and Taoist temples should be built in every department. But the earlier part of the reign of Song, Song marks a temporary reaction. It was represented to him that rich families wasted their substance on religious edifices, and that the inmates were well-to-do persons, desirous of escaping the burdens of public service.
He accordingly forbide the building of monasteries, making of images and copying of satyrs, and 12,000 monks were ordered to return to the world. In 725, he ordered a building known as Hall of the Assembled Spirits to be renamed Hall of Assembled Verses because spirits are male fables.
In the later part of his life, he became devout, though addicted to Taoism rather than Buddhism, but he must have outgrown his anti-Buddhist prejudices. For in 730, the seventh collection of the Trepitaka was made under his auspices. Many poets of this period, such as Su Qin and somewhat later Liu Song Yuan, was Buddhists, and the paintings of the great Wu Tao Zhu and Wang Wei, painter as well as poet,
glowed with the inspiration of the Tien Cai teaching. In 740, there were in the city of Chang'an alone 64 monasteries and 27 non-ruths. A curious light is thrown on the inconsistent and composite character of Chinese religious sentiment, as noticeable today as it was 1200 years ago by the will of Yao Quan, a statesman who presented a celebrated anti-Buddhist memorial to this emperor. In his will, he warns his children
solemnly against the creed, which he hated, and yet adds the following direction. When I am dead, on no account perform for me the ceremonies of that main religion. But if you feel unable to follow orthodoxy in every respect, then yelled to popular custom, and from the first seventh day after my death until the last, i.e. seventh.
Seventh day, that must be celebrated by the Buddhist clergy seven times. And when, as these methods require, you must offer gifts to me, use the clothes which I wore in life, and do not use other valuable things. End of section 15
