Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3

by Charles Eliot

In 538 a hair of the Buddha was sent by the king of Fu-nan and received with great ceremony. In the next year a mission was despatched to Magadha to obtain Sanskrit texts. It returned in 546 with a large collection of manuscripts and accompanied by the learned Paramârtha who spent twenty years in translating them[637]. Wu-Ti, 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 Hou-Ching (briefly sketched above) began to trouble the peace of his old age. During the siege of Nanking 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."

Hou-Ching proceeded to the palace, but[638], overcome with awe, knelt down before Wu-Ti who merely said, "I am afraid you must be fatigued by the trouble it has cost you to destroy my kingdom." Hou-Ching was ashamed and told his officers that he had never felt such fear before and would never dare to see Wu-Ti again. Nevertheless, the aged Emperor was treated with indignity and soon died of starvation. His end, though melancholy, was peaceful compared with that in store for Hou-Ching 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 Nanking and his own wife is said to have swallowed mouthfuls of his flesh.

One of Wu-Ti's sons, Yüan-Ti, 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 volumes, but when it was announced to him in his library that the troops of Wei were marching on his capital, he yielded without resistance and burnt 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 Wên Hsüan Ti, the ruler of Northern Ch'i[639], 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 favour of Buddhism and ordered the Taoists to become bonzes on pain of death. Only four refused and were executed.

Under the short Ch'ên dynasty (557-589) the position of Buddhism continued favourable. The first Emperor, a mild and intelligent sovereign, though circumstances obliged him to put a great many people out of the way, retired to a monastery after reigning for two years. But in the north there was a temporary reaction. Wu-Ti, of the Northern Chou dynasty[640], first of all defined the precedence of the three religions as Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and then, in 575, prohibited the two latter, ordering temples to be destroyed and priests to return to the world. But as usual the persecution was not of long duration. Five years later Wu-Ti'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 Sui annals observe that Buddhist books had become more numerous under this dynasty than those of the Confucianists, and no less than three collections of the Tripitaka were made between 594 and 616.

With the seventh century began the great T'ang dynasty (620-907). Buddhism had now been known to the rulers of China for about 550 years. It began as a religion tolerated but still regarded as exotic and not quite natural for the sons of Han. It had succeeded in establishing itself as the faith of the majority among both Tartars 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 an Emperor 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 the permissions to practise 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 T'ang 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 Wu Tsung, Taoism seized a chance of being able to annihilate Buddhism. This war continued under the Northern Sung, though the character of Chinese Buddhism changed, for the Contemplative School, which had considerable affinities to Taoism, became popular at the expense of the T'ien T'ai. After the Northern Sung (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 in sanity. Probably the most critical times for literature and indeed for thought were those brief periods under the Sui and T'ang[641] when Buddhist and Taoist books were accepted as texts for the public examinations and the last half century of the Northern Sung, when the educational reforms of Wang An Shih were intermittently in force. The innovations were cancelled in all cases. Had they lasted, Chinese style and mentality might have been different.

The T'ang dynasty, though on the whole favourable to Buddhism, and indeed the period of its greatest prosperity, opened with a period of reaction. To the founder, Kao Tsu, is attributed the saying that Confucianism is as necessary to the Chinese as wings to a bird or water to a fish. The imperial historiographer Fu I[642] presented to his master a memorial blaming Buddhism because it undervalued natural relationships and urging that monks and nuns should be compelled to marry. He was opposed by Hsiao Yü[643], 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 I. Magistrates were ordered to inquire into the lives of monks and nuns. 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 Tsu abdicated in 627 but his son Tai Tsung 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 shrines. Yet the Emperor cannot have shared these sentiments at any rate towards the end of his reign[644]. He issued an edict allowing every monastery to receive five new monks and the celebrated journey of Hsüan Chuang[645] was made in his reign. When the pilgrim returned from India, he was received with public honours 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 travels was presented to the Emperor who also wrote a laudatory preface to his version of the Prajnâpâramitâ. It was in this reign 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 Harsha sent an envoy in 641 and two Chinese missions were despatched in return. The second, led by Wang Hsüan-Ts'ê[646], did not arrive until after the death of Harsha when a usurper had seized the throne. Wang Hsüan-Ts'ê collected a small army in Tibet, dethroned the usurper and brought him as a prisoner to China.

The latter half of the seventh century is dominated by the figure of the Dowager 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 Tai Tsung and when he died in 649 lived for a short time as a Buddhist nun. The eventful life of Wu Hou, 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 afforded her, she gave it her patronage even to the extent of making a bonze named Huai I[647] the minister of her mature passions when she was nearly seventy 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. Huai I was angry and burnt the temple. The Empress at first merely ordered it to be rebuilt, but finding that Huai I was growing disrespectful, she had him assassinated.

We hear that the Mahâmegha-sûtra[648] was presented to her and circulated among the people with her approval. About 690 she assumed divine honours and accommodated these pretensions to Buddhism by allowing herself to be styled Maitreya or Kuan-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 Hsüan Tsung[649] 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 forbade the building of monasteries, making of images and copying of sutras, 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 Worthies," because spirits were mere fables.