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Weakness had returned to China beginning with disarmament in 280 by Jin Wudi (Emperor Wu of the Western Jin dynasty. Adding to the weakness was royalty killing royalty. The Xiongnu again saw opportunity. In 308, Xiongnu nobles along China's northern border met and chose one among them as their leader: Liu Yuan. He had acquired Chinese culture and claimed to be related to China's old Han royalty through marriage. And Liu Yuan claimed the heritage of his ancestors: Han family rule. But it was Liu Yuan's son, Liu Cong, who acted on his father's claim. Liu Cong had been brought up at the royal court in Luoyang. He had become a scholar, but he still had the vigor and strength of a Xiongnu warrior. In 311 his army, supported by Chinese rebels, arrived at Luoyang without warning. Liu Cong's army sacked the city and murdered more than thirty thousand people, including the Jin crown prince. Luoyang's royal palace was burned. Imperial tombs were looted. The Jin emperor was carried off and forced to become a cupbearer, until Liu Cong had him executed.
In 316, Xiongnu cavalry passed through the city of Chang'an, and amid the ruins that they left in Chang'an another prince of the Jin family declared himself emperor. But before the year was over the Xiongnu returned, and the city surrendered. The newly declared Jin emperor was made to serve Liu Ts'ung as had his predecessor, by rinsing cups during feasts, until he too was executed.
The remainder of the royal Jin family sought refuge south of the Yangzi River. There, in 317, in the city of Jiankang (modern Nanjing), a military commander who was a member of the royal family proclaimed the renewal of Jin rule and declared himself emperor, calling himself Jin Yuandi. Meanwhile, the Xiongnu invasions into northern China inspired millions of people to migrate to the south. Most of the north's Confucian scholars were among them. With the migrants were Taoist communities under the leadership of Taoist masters. Entire clans of northern Chinese migrated south, as did sixty or seventy percent of northern China's gentry. They brought with them what wealth they could, and they believed that their stay in the south would be temporary.
The arrival of great numbers from the north created resentment among the southerners, and southerners refused to cooperate with the new government at Jiankang. But Jin Yuandi was patient. His regime avoided interfering with the privileges of the south's elite families, and eventually Jin Yuandi's regime persuaded this elite to cooperate with it. The regime at Jiankang also benefited from the wealth, experience and technical skills of the refugees. It set up administrative provinces for their settlement. And, in the south, one of China's most advanced periods of culture began -- in art, literature, philosophy and religion.
The government at Jiankang did not interfere with commerce, and in the south an unprecedented prosperity arose. For wealthy aristocrats an easily life emerged. Gentlemen remained elegantly inactive -- and are said to have grown weak in their limbs unlike the warrior aristocrats of former times. With Confucianism having been discredited, some of them acquired an interest in the philosopher of the 400s BCE -- Mozi. Some were interested in Legalist ideas, with its belief in tough policies for establishing law and order. And some among them became interested in the legendary founders of Taoism: Laozi and Zhuangzi.
The so-called barbarian rulers in the north were destined to adopt civilized ways. Some Xiongnu chieftains realized that it was more profitable to tax farmers than to kill them. Lacking tradition in governing agricultural regions, they needed advice and help from their Chinese subjects. They were suspicious of Confucianist scholars who had remained in the north, seeing them as likely supporters of previous Chinese rulers. They found trustworthy men among Buddhist and Taoist intellectuals, and Xiongnu chieftains were inclined to trust Buddhist monks because they were unmarried, without loyalty to a family or clan and, therefore, more dependent upon the chieftain for favors. Buddhism became the favored religion among the chieftains, and more popular among the masses in the north.
The dominant Xiongnu chieftain in northern China, Liu Cong, died, and his family was overthrown by one of his former lieutenants, Shi Liu Shi -- who was illiterate but enjoyed having Chinese classics explained to him. Shi Liu Shi was succeeded by a nephew, Shi Hu, called Shi the Tiger, who ruled from 334 to 349. Shi Hu was unrestrained by scruples and delighted in what he could acquire. He drafted 260,000 farmers to build a palace for himself, and he is reported to have had a harem of around 50,000 women. According to legend he served beautiful women for cannibalistic dinners. His son tried to assassinate him, and he had his son executed. Then, like some others who filled themselves with licentiousness, Shi Hu had a religious conversion: a Buddhist saint is said to have reformed him. But Shi Hu was remembered with revulsion. When he died, one of his generals ordered all gates of the royal city closed, and he had all those related to Shi Hu slaughtered.
After Shi Hu came Xiongnu rulers such as Fu Jian, a pious Buddhist and humane administrator, who ruled the entire north from 357 to 385. The good works of Fu Jian were undone as parts of the north were overrun by other tribes. In the first hundred years of non-Chinese rule in northern China, five tribes established sixteen different kingdoms, with conquering chieftains killing and burning, sometimes for the fun of it. Chieftains established their own feudal estates, and whole tribes of non-Chinese were installed in areas that had been depopulated.
Buddhism spread though all classes of Chinese, influencing art, thought and daily customs. Tea, which had been used mostly by Buddhists, became China's national drink, and Buddhists introduced the Chinese to the wearing of cotton. Buddhism's great temples influenced Chinese architecture -- a counter to Confucianism's condemnation of complex buildings as an extravagance. In the place of the contempt for which Confucianists had held the writing of stories and novels, Buddhism gave this kind of writing a new prestige.
Across the Silk Road, the Buddhists of northern China remained connected to Central Asia and India, and Buddhism was a conduit for Hellenistic culture from Central Asia. From Buddhism, many Chinese gathered that China was not the only civilized country in the world. They learned respect for India and felt compelled to re-examine the theory that the Chinese emperor was the Son of Heaven and enthroned at the center of the world.
The Chinese interpreted Buddhist doctrine in terms familiar to them. In translating Buddhism into Chinese, Taoist words were used. And through mistranslation, Chinese Buddhism acquired a belief that was foreign to Buddhism elsewhere: belief in a soul that was as an imperishable part of one's humanity. And Buddhist art in China depicted the life of the Buddha in a Chinese context, just as Italian painters were to paint Christian saints in the dress of renaissance Italy.
Buddhism in China emphasized charity and good works, including working for one's own salvation by helping others -- which contrasted with Taoism's egocentricities. And Buddhism was unique in China in linking the ethics in this world with the bliss of the next world. Buddhism offered the Chinese more than did the ancestor worship of the aristocracy -- which failed those who were going to die without a son to look after their spirit. For those Chinese lacking a family, Buddhism provided a substitute family. It offered community and egalitarianism. Some Chinese were attracted by the doctrine that those who exploited or treated people unjustly would in their next reincarnation be born into poor circumstances or into an inferior rank and suffer punishment for their misdeeds. And some Chinese found comfort in the doctrine that in their next life they might be born into a higher rank and a happier life.
Buddhism's moral teachings attracted some from the upper classes who had been Confucian -- some of whom found a different meaning in Buddhism's reincarnation than did the poor: they believed that those who suffered a low station in life did so because of misdeeds in their former life.
Buddhism's monasteries were in conflict with Confucian ideals of the family, but the monasteries fit with the old Chinese ideal of the retired scholar, and the monasteries attracted gentry who had been unable to acquire government positions. Buddhist monasteries offered Chinese writers a refuge. And monasteries grew as centers of learning and culture.
In metaphysics, Buddhist ideas intermingled with old Chinese ideas. From Buddhist thinkers in China, ideas went westward to India. And from India to China went a new school of thought, the Three Treatise school of Buddhism, introduced by a half-Indian missionary monk named Kumarajiva, who worked and taught in Chang'an in 401-02. Some who adhered to this new school of thought formed what was called the Emptiness sect, believing that ultimately people should interpret the world as basically empty, that the world of sight and sound changes but that the world of emptiness never does. Like the scholastic theologians in the West during the early Middle Ages, the Emptiness sect tried to reason in absolutes and to split metaphysical hairs. And they split into more sects, which became known as the "Six Schools and Seven Sects," each with a different interpretation of emptiness.
Buddhism's splitting into sects was facilitated by the absence of a religious council or papacy. Each Buddhist master could interpret writings as he wished. And, during the 300s, from within China's Mahayana Buddhism came what was called the Pure Land movement. Its leader was a Buddhist scholar named Hui-yuan, who meditated on Amitabha (the Buddha of Infinite Light). Pure Land Buddhism described life as torment, and it claimed that to escape this torment one did not need bookish learning or the grasp of obtuse doctrine or knowledge: one only had to avoid bad deeds and prove one's devotion by chanting Amitabha's name sincerely -- the more often the better the chance of achieving nirvana. It claimed that at death one would be reborn into paradise. The "Pure Land," it held, was where Amitabha dwelled and where immortals lived in an atmosphere of eternal bliss, and there rivers were pure and scented -- in contrast to the putrid smells of daily life.
Another branch of Buddhism developed in China called Chuan -- to be called Zen in Japan. Like the devotional movements in India and Pure Land Buddhism, Chuan Buddhism offered people an attachment to divinity without years of arduous intellectual exercise: it offered sudden enlightenment. Chuan Buddhism saw reality as nothing more than the immediate present. How things had become what they were was unreal and of no consequence. Chuan monks sought salvation through mystical inspirations rather than reading and meditation. And Chuan monks believed in supporting themselves by humble, menial work.
Both Buddhists and Taoists were denying value in the world of appearances, and both were appealing to the interest in the mystical among the Chinese. Both advocated personal salvation and protection from powerful gods. But conflicts existed between Buddhism and Taoism. The Taoists were devoted to nature while Buddhists believed in withdrawal from nature. Despite their belief in serene unconcern, Taoists felt challenged by Buddhism, and they scurried for more doctrine to compliment what had become their religion.
Despite the conflicts, diffusions took place between Buddhism and Taoism. While Buddhism was offering nirvana or eternal happiness in a western paradise, Taoism began promising the achievement of immortality through magic potions. Some Taoists created Buddhist-like monasteries, and some adopted Buddhism's burning of incense. Buddhism and Taoism acquired common communal festivals. Local Taoist saints blended with Buddhist saints. Books by Taoists revealed a Buddhist influence, such as dialogues between a teacher and his disciples, not known in China before Buddhism's arrival.
Taoists saw Buddhism as an inferior version of their philosophy, while others believed the rumor that Buddhism had been created by Taoism's founder, Laozi. This story held that after disappearing on a long journey into India, Laozi had taught Taoism to the Buddha -- a story disliked by Taoists who objected to Buddhism and feared that Buddhism might obscure Taoism's identity.
Adding to the diffusions in ideas was the attraction of some Confucianists for Taoist spirituality. Some Confucianists adopted the Taoist belief in permanence behind the visible world of change (believed also by Plato). Some Confucianists adopted the view that the world of change was sustained by one impersonal, unlimited and undiversified force. They saw Confucius as having recognized this permanence but as having kept silent about it because he had held to the Taoist belief that such mysteries could not be expressed in words.
Taoism mixed with Buddhism and Confucianism in what was called Dark Learning (Xuan Xie). Dark Learning involved the "pure conversation," which were philosophical discussions and speculations that had become a pastime for gentlemen in southern China. Rather than revelation through argumentation, the goal of these conversations was the maintenance of Taoism's serenity, with pleasant voices and poetic flashes of insight.
Taoists continued to believe that various gods dwelled here and there -- on mountains and in rivers -- and they still believed that these gods had to be appeased with a proper sacrifice. Taoist priests held that they alone knew the appropriate rituals. But Taoism still had no fixed, elaborate theology as did Christianity. There was talk among the Taoists of the world having been created by an interaction of two opposites, Yin and Yang, and talk that through observation of Yin and Yang they could foretell the future. Taoism still favored being natural, in other words behaving on impulse, the Taoists seeing impulse as the expression of one's true feelings. Taoism still advocated honesty and being true to oneself as cardinal principles. It still held that everything would be done when nothing was done. Taoists still sought a blissful detachment and peace and quiet, which they believed would be achieved when everyone gave up worldly endeavors and trying to control others. The Taoists focused on being healed spiritually and physically. Taoism paralleled Epicureanism in its belief in pleasure and the avoidance of pain. They saw life as short, "like the morning dew," soon to disappear and to be enjoyed before it evaporated.
By now, Taoists spoke of Laozi as never having died, of his having disappeared into the mountainous west. And like Christianity, Taoism offered personal immortality, personal comfort, and a refuge from fear of death. Taoist priests performed services that gave assurances to their followers that one who had died had acquired a place in the heavenly kingdom of spiritual bliss.
In 417, an army from the south, led by a former cobbler named Liu Yu, went north and conquered Luoyang, Chang'an and surrounding territory. But after Liu Yu returned to the south, the subordinates he left behind in the north quarreled among themselves, and Xiongnu chieftains again overran the area. In the south, meanwhile, Liu Yu was able to force the Jin emperor to abdicate in his favor, and Liu Yu began what was to be known as the Liu-Song dynasty.
Liu Yu's successor, the emperor Wen (424-53) adopted Buddhism, believing that it would help his subjects become content, help them acquire good manners and discourage rebellion. In the North, Buddhist monasteries had become economically powerful landowning enterprises with hereditary serfs, and these monasteries were winning tax exemptions. This annoyed many in the north and caused some people to turn against Buddhism. And a few remaining orthodox Confucianists continued to find fault with Buddhists for leaving their families for the monastery and for a lack of sense of duty to society.
Conflict arose too between Buddhism and traditional Chinese attitudes toward sexuality. The Chinese had accepted sexuality as a natural part of life and necessary in preserving the family, while Buddhism's attitude toward sexuality was more negative. Buddhist men and women were segregated at their meetings, and the Buddhists saw licentiousness in the Taoist meetings of men and women together and accused the Taoists of having orgies.
In 444, Taoists in the north inspired a movement against Buddhism on the grounds that Buddhism was an alien creed. In 445, in putting down a rebellion at Chang'an, ruling forces found a cache of arms at a Buddhist monastery. The ruler, Daiwu issued an edict against the Buddhists. All Buddhists monks were to be put to death and all Buddhist images and books destroyed -- described in an ancient book, The Image of Buddha. Instead, a few monks were forced to return to family life, and some monasteries were attacked and destroyed. Then, in the early 450s, Daiwu again gave favor to Buddhism, followed by his assassination in 452.
In 453, in the south of China, the third successor in the Liu-Song dynasty was assassinated by his son, and the assassin was himself murdered by his brother in 455. This brother became emperor, and he guarded against his own assassination by massacring other princes in his extended family. He ruled until 465, when he was succeeded by a sixteen-year-old, who was assassinated six months later. The murdered boy was succeeded by his uncle, who ruled from 465 to 472 and became known as "the Pig" because of his weight. The "Pig" had all his brothers and nephews executed. He bequeathed his rule to his favorite son, who took power at the age of ten, and the boy, in the family tradition, began taking lives. And his murdering led to his own assassination, in 477, when he was fifteen. The royal Liu family was decimated and discredited, and in 479 a state official deposed the Liu family and founded a new dynasty, called Chi. Then the Chi family also began killing each other.
In the north, in 471 rule by the Tuoba Wei dynasty continued, with Daiwu's grandson, Xiaowendi, bringing temporary economic relief. Taxes remained light. Land was more equitably distributed. Disputes were mediated. People were punished for petty offenses. Mutilations as punishment for crimes were replaced by imprisonment. The sick, orphaned and destitute were taken care of. With the Buddhist compassion for all living things having influence in government, animal sacrifices in religious rituals were prohibited and declined.
Xiaowendi encouraged integration of his people with the Chinese, including the taking of Chinese wives. He also ordered the wearing of Chinese clothes. He made Chinese the official language, and he made it mandatory that everyone under the age of thirty learn it. He ordered all whose family names were not Chinese to adopt a Chinese family name, and he adopted the Chinese name Yuan. And because Confucianism had been the philosophy of China's elite and had been used as a system of court ritual, he made the study of Confucius a requirement for the educated.
The policy initiated by the new ruler in the north was followed by those who ruled after him. Interracial marriages were common. The offspring of these marriages were inclined to identify themselves as Chinese. And after a few generations, those with nomadic forefathers would become indistinguishable from others, adding to the Chinese as a mix of peoples.
Various kingdoms in Korea had warred with each other and had consolidated through conquest to three: Koguryo, in the northern half of Korea, extending north of the Yalu River; Paekche in the southwestern quarter of the Korean peninsula; and Silla in the southeastern quarter. These three remained aristocratic states. Writing had developed in Korea that used Chinese characters for Korean words. Each of the three kingdoms had a Chinese bureaucratic system of government, and with China's bureaucratic system had come Confucianism. Rule in the three kingdoms adopted Confucian values, and the Kingdom of Goguryeo (Koguryo) had a National Confucian Academy that made reading and speaking Chinese and citing the Confucian classics a part of an upper class education.
Alongside the new Confucianism, many in Korea maintained their old faith. Like others, the Koreans had been animists. They had seen the physical world as functioning by the magic of a variety of spirits, one for each aspect of nature, and they had seen all things as animate. They too believed in asking the gods for protection for their family or community. The Koreans saw the sun as the most awesome and powerful of spirits. They believed too in a mountain spirit. And they had shamans.
In 372, a monk brought Mahayana Buddhism to Koguryo, and the king of Goguryeo welcomed Buddhism and patronized it. In 384, another Buddhist monk arrived in Paekche, and Buddhism was welcomed by Paekche's royal family. Buddhism spread to Silla, and Korea's kings adopted Buddhism as a state religion, as a vehicle for praying for the well-being of their kingdom. Buddhists in Korea prayed for their own well-being, including or asking for recovery from illness and asking for the conception of children. Aristocrats left the shamans to those they considered unsophisticated. And wars between the Korean states would now be fought not only for their kings but also for the Way of the Buddha, with monks and other soldiers, under the banner of Buddhism, exhorted to fight bravely for their kingdom.
Recommended Books
Ancient India and Ancient China: Trade and Religious Exhanges, AD1-600, by Xinru Liu, Oxford University Press, 1988
The History of Korea, by Han Woo-keun, 1971
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Copyright © 2005 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.