41 Buddhism in China

Bulcsu Siklds

To many, the idea that Buddhism could, within a few hundred years, become an established, state-supported religion in, say, Europe would be far-fetched to say the least.

Ignoring certain groundless claims for the earlier introduction of Buddhism, many of Buddhist invention, it seems probable or at least possible that Buddhist monks started filtering in to western and northern parts of Han China during the first few years of our era from Central Asia. Obviously the process must have started before the Emperor Ming (58-75) had his dream of a flying golden deity interpreted by his ministers in a Buddhist light, resulting in the dispatch of several envoys to Central Asia. The implication, of course, is that Buddhism was already known, or rather, known about in China prior to this event, evidence for which can be culled from several sources, notably from the biography of Prince Ying of Ch’u. This states that by the year 65 there was a Buddhist community of some size in at least one peripheral part of western China, one which had possibly existed since c. 2 bce. By the end of the first century ce, a community had likewise been established at Lo-yang, the capital, which even penetrated court circles to a degree where imperial shrines were set up for the worship of the Buddha alongside the deified Lao-tzu. Translation activities were also engaged in under the direction of a Parthian monk, An Shih-kao (arrived in China in 148) who laid emphasis on texts revealing meditational and breath­ing techniques, while his Scythian co-worker Chih-ch’an concentrated on translations of the Prajhdpdramita (Perfection of Wisdom) literature.

Buddhism during the Han period (until c. 220 ce) was doctrinally somewhat primitive, and not much effort was made to translate texts dealing with basic Buddhist philosophical issues. The central tenets seem to have been an acceptance of the idea of reincarnation and of the concept of karma understood in a very literal and moral sense, coupled with a totally un-Buddhist belief in the permanence and indestructibility of the ‘soul’ (how could rebirth take place otherwise?). Emphasis was laid upon simple meditational and yogic techniques paralleled by similar Taoist prac­tices, although certain traditional objects of meditation, such as corpses in various stages of putrefaction, were considered unsuitable.

In this early period Buddhism’s path was smoothed considerably by the Taoist theory of hua-hu, the Conversion of the Bar­barians, according to which Lao-tzu had, after his disappearance westwards, travelled to India, converted its ‘barbarian’ inhabitants and become known as the Buddha. This was no more than a Taoist defence mechanism—why become a Buddhist when one could equally well approach the doctrine in its original Chinese form—but it basically backfired by obscuring the distinc­tions between the two systems. Why not be a Buddhist if Buddhism was just as Chinese as Taoism? It was in fact not until the end of the Han dynasty (220) that Buddhism began to gain, in Chinese eyes, a semblance of independence from Taoism.

Certain doubts concerning the innate superiority of Chinese culture assailed the populace after the fall of the Han which was the beginning of a period of chaos that only really ended with the accession of the short-lived Sui dynasty in 589.

In the south, the Eastern Chin dynasty (265—420) maintained the Chinese heritage they had inherited from the Han, but with a lot less self-confidence, given the loss of the northern heartlands and its traditional culture.

The course of Buddhism ran very differently in northern areas of China under a succession of non-Chinese dynasties. Accept­ance was far easier simply because such dynasties naturally gravitated towards a religious system they considered civilised and yet, like them, ‘barbarian’—the very reason why the acceptance of Buddhism by the Chinese themselves was often such a slow process.

In the north, various Altaic and Tibetan groups held power, initially amidst ceaseless fighting, for varying lengths of time over areas of varying size. Their leaders came to value the advice, both social and military, and the magical prowess of the Buddhist monks in their domains, and provided a degree of institutionalised support previously unknown. The most notable Central Asian monk to make the later Ch’in capital Ch’ang-an his home was Kumarajiva (344—413), known mainly as the translator of most of the fundamental texts which became so important in later periods. His pioneering translations of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) classics of Nagar- juna (second century) led to the establishment of the San-lun or Three Treatise School which provided a forum for much discussion on ‘relativity’ (the emptiness of phenomena in view of their dependent origination). Further afield in the kingdom of Pei-liang the fourth century saw the rise of Tun-huang, originally a cave-temple complex at the junction of the main caravan routes from Central Asia which attracted numerous monks espe­cially at times of political and social upheaval. Tun-huang retained its impor­tance for about a thousand years up to the end of the Sung period (1126), and is of particular value because of the remarkably well-preserved Buddhist murals on the cave walls.

The Turkic rulers of the Northern Wei (386-535) initially encouraged Buddhism in their extensive northern domains, but soon afterwards the machinations of two of the Emperor Wu’s (424—51) ministers, a Taoist, K’ou Ch’ien-chih, and a Confucian, Ts’ui Hao, led to a series of restrictions on the religion which culminated in an anti-Buddhist persecution initiated in 446. The motive for this persecution was quite simply the desire on the part of the nation’s rulers to Sinicise their ‘barbarian’ subjects by eradicating their ‘barbarian’ religion. The fact that the religion happened to be Buddhism was irrelevant.

The normalisation of attitudes which followed Wu’s death and the renewed patronage of the nation’s leaders led to the develop­ment of two primarily economic institutions unique to Northern Wei Buddhism—the Sangha and Buddha Households. The former consisted of groups of agricultural families who were required to pay a certain amount of grain per year to the local monastic office which stored it ready for immediate distribution in times of famine. The latter were groups of criminals who would be usefully employed performing various household duties for their monasteries as well as cultivating monastic lands. Buddhism under the Northern Wei went from strength to strength, especially after the transfer of the capital to Lo-yang which could soon rejoice in a plethora of the most magnificent temples and pagodas yet seen in China. For the first time too there is evidence that Buddhism managed to exert a strong influence on the lives of ordinary people rather than just on court circles. Academic work on Buddhist topics and newly translated texts also proceeded apace during this era, much of it laying the foundation for the later sectarian developments in the T’ang era (618-907).

In the south a series of short-lived native dynasties followed the fall of the Eastern Chin in 420 during what is known as the Nan-Pei Ch’ao (Northern and Southern Dynasties) period (420-589).

Opposition to Buddhism in the south, both Taoist and Confucian inspired, remained at a crudely nationalistic but verbal level. Buddhist—Taoist debate revolving around the question of which religion enjoyed historical primacy was prevalent throughout the sixth century, resulting in large numbers of forged texts emanating from both camps. In the north, after initial successes, the fortunes of Buddhism waned yet again under the Emperor Wu (561-77) ofthenon-Chinese Northern Chou (557-81) who, like his Northern Wei namesake, seems to have been anxious to ensure the Sinicisation of his state by suppressing Buddhism. The full-scale suppression decided upon by the emperor, involving the forcible secularisation of all monks and the destruction of temples, statues and scriptures, came in the years 574-7. Surprisingly enough the decree was extended to cover Taoism, primarily because of the emperor’s acceptance of the various arguments against the native religion put forward by the Buddhists in earlier acrimoni­ous debates between the two religions. Wu’s successor repealed the decree, and a few years later both the Northern Chou and the (Southern) Ch’en Dynasties disappeared as Yang Chien reunified the country in 581, establish­ing the Sui Dynasty (581—618).

Considerable encouragement was given to Buddh­ism during the few years of Sui rule. Buddhism was looked upon as a national ideology, capable of unifying the populations of the north and south in a more effective way than Taoism could, doctrinally fragmented and uncen­tralised as it was. The Japanese in particular took the Sui attitude of imperial patronage and bureaucratised support very much to heart during their con­current importation of Buddhism.

Initially the T’ang Dynasty (618-907), though offi­cially Taoist, espoused a policy of tolerance towards all religions found in the land, primarily as T’ang control extended over large areas of Central Asia inhabited by adherents of Islam, Manichaeism and Nestorian Christianity who in time came to form sizeable minorities in major towns. Buddhism had by this time been an established religion in China for long enough for it to adopt specifically Chinese forms at both ends of the social spectrum. Laymen of all classes intoned the name of Amitabha and happily took part in the mass Buddhist festivals which were such a characteristic of the T’ang. Monks provided instruction in basic Buddhist practices for the populace often through the mediums of drama, story-telling and painting, and also set up charitable organisations to assist the poor, ill and dying. One practice much in vogue was that offang-sheng or the release of living creatures about to be killed for food.

Although most of the Buddhist schools which flourished during the T’ang originated far earlier, hardly any can in any real sense be traced back to pre-existent Indian schools. Sectarian distinctions in China were based primarily on the degree of reliance placed upon specific sutras and Indian commentaries, though, typically, stress laid upon one particular sutra by one school did not preclude the study and appreciation of other texts, even of those uniquely favoured by philosophical opponents. The use of the term ‘school’ rather than ‘sect’ reflects more clearly the type of relationship that existed between philosophically opposed groups.

The T’ien-t’ai school, the doctrines of which were first promulgated by Hui-wen (Ji. 550), Hui-ssu (515-77) and Chih-i (538-97), rose to prominence primarily because it attempted to provide a clear and logically consistent systematisation of the vast corpus of Buddhist doctrine, thereby explaining the philosophical discrepancies which had so troubled earlier Chinese Buddhists. The T’ien-t’ai classification was primar­ily chronological, relating particularsutras to specific periods in the Buddha’s life and providing an underlying justification by referring to the pan- Mahayanist idea offang-pien or ‘skilful means’ which stated that the Buddha had provided mankind with a vast range of texts and ideas, sometimes contradictory, to enable each person to find the system meeting his or her own requirements and agreeing with each person’s pre-existent philosophi­cal stance. The Buddha, finding that the Avatamsakasutra (Flower Garland Sutra), given shortly after his enlightenment, was too profound for most, decided upon a graded system of teachings which culminated in the Saddhar- mapundarikasutra (True Dharma Lotus Sutra, usually just known as the Lotus Sutra). Though a lot of T’ien-t’ai commentarial literature deals exclusively with the Lotus Sutra, the school managed to provide a place for every text, whether Hinayana or Mahayana, within its all-encompassing system. Indeed, philosophically, a great deal of T’ien-t’ai thought, notably the stress on totality, the mutual interpenetration of all phenomena and the identification of the whole with its parts, is based on the Flower Garland Sutra. As an independent school the T’ien-t’ai in China did not outlive the Hui-ch’ang persecution of 845.

The Hua-yen (Avatamsaka or Flower Garland) school was, as the name implies, based more exclusively on the Flower Garland Sutra, and stressed the relationship between the underlying universal principle or li (‘noumenon’) and phenomena or shih, unlike T’ien-t’ai which tended to concentrate on the interrelationship of the phenomena of the universe with each other. Tu-shun (557-640) is regarded as the founder of this uniquely Sino-Japanese school which eventually disappeared from China after the disastrous persecution of 845. The cosmological ideas of the Hua-yen school have attracted increasing interest in recent times in view of their similarity to certain modern concepts in the field of physics. The holistic view outlined above, coupled with concepts such as the emer­gence of the phenomena of the physical universe from emptiness (‘self­creation’) may at one time have been considered both naive and unrealistic, but the whole system has managed to stand the test of time more success­fully than many other ancient philosophical systems, both Oriental and Western.

A school of less prominence was the Fa-hsiang (Characteristics of the Dharma) school, based on the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu introduced during the Liang dynasty (sixth century ce). The school’s concern with the analysis of phenomena was matched by its concern with the mechanisms of consciousness and the multiple mind. The five sense consciousnesses are complemented by a mental consciousness which sorts the sense data and provides conceptions for the volitional mind to select from, deal with and analyse. The volitional mind also looks inwards into the (subconscious) store-consciousness wherein all thoughts and karmic effects are automatically stored without discrimination, thereby providing a mechanism for the operation of karma.

The main ideas of Tantra have been mentioned else­where; suffice it to say that an independent Tantric (Chen-yen or mantra) school existed in China for a short period, imported by three Indian worthies, Subhakarasimha (Shan-wu-wei, arrived in China in 716), Vajrabodhi (Chin-kang-chih, arrived in China in 720) and Amoghavajra (Pu-k’ung chin-kang, ?-774). Confucian orthodoxy was bound to object to the sexual practices encouraged by certain kinds of Tantrism, and the school as a result disappeared totally after 845.

Several less important schools are also of interest. The San-chieh (Three Periods) school, founded by Hsin-hsing (540-94) during the Sui era had as its main tenet the idea, found in many other schools, that the Buddha’s doctrine passes through three historical stages, each stage lasting 500 or 1,000 years (opinions differed). During the first stage, the true doctrine exists in unaltered form. The second stage sees the appearance of a ‘counterfeit’ doctrine merely approximating to the original. During the third stage, the doctrine begins to decay and disappear. As an aside, it is surely praiseworthy that Buddhism in most of its forms remained faithful to its fundamental theory of impermanence by including itself amongst all phenomena subject to this law, thereby avoiding the historically wrong­headed insistence found so consistently in other religious systems that no process of decay or dissolution could possibly affect the expression of their own eternal truths. The San-chieh school firmly held that the third stage was already at hand, and its resultant pessimism led to a dissatisfaction with all traditional methods of reaching enlightenment. However, regarding the age as corrupt and the populace and authorities of the time as inferior to those of earlier eras hardly endeared the school to the imperial authorities, and resulted in the school’s proscription in 713, with what little remained of it disappearing in 845.

The Lu (Vinaya or Disciplinary) school, also known as the Nan-shan (Southern Mountain) school was founded by Tao-hsiian (596-667) and was, as its name indicates, concerned almost exclusively with the clarification and exegesis of monastic rules, primarily of those of Hinayana origin. Never enjoying a wide following, it ceased to exist as an independent school in 845.

The Chu-she (Kos'a or treasury) school was in effect founded by Paramartha with his translation of Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakosa (Treasury of the Abhidharma), an essentially Hinayana treatise. The school essentially maintained that the basic phenomena or dharmas of the universe, both physical and mental, actually existed, with only the objects constructed from these dharmas being subject to the law of impermanence. By the eighth century the school had for obvious reasons merged into the related Fa-hsiang school, only to perish along with it in 845.

Though many of the T’ang emperors actively encouraged Buddhism, at certain times attempts were made to ensure the prominence of Taoism and to subject Buddhism to various controls. These measures were often advantageous to Buddhism itself—the defrocking of careerist monks and the limits put on monastic wealth enabled the religion to maintain the adherence of its Chinese followers. The atmosphere of relative tolerance came to a sudden end in the 840s and culminated in the well-known persecution initiated by the Emperor Wu-tsung in 845. The persecution was Taoist-inspired, although undoubtedly other factors, primarily economic, played a part in influencing the emperor. Strict controls were introduced in 843 to Emit the authority not merely of Buddhism but of Manichaeism as well. In 844 all minor temples were closed or destroyed and all unregistered monks along with all monks under the age of 50 were ordered to return to lay life. In 845, all temples and monasteries, with one exception per prefecture, were destroyed and all temple and monastic wealth confiscated by the state. Happily, no effort was made to exterminate systematically the practitioners of Buddhism, though localised abuses undoubtedly occurred. Wu-tsung died in 846 (probably as a consequence, it should be said, of excessive consump­tion of Taoist elixirs of immortality) and his successor, Hsuan-tsung, re­established the principle of tolerance characteristic of the early T’ang.

The monastic community had, however, been fun­damentally damaged by the events of 845 and did not manage to recover. More ritualistic and scholastic schools were unable to survive without their monasteries and scriptures, especially as their organisational continuity and financial base had disappeared. The only two schools to survive the destruc­tion of the Buddhist infrastructure were Pure Land and Ch’an (Zen)—Pure Land because it was, and still remains, essentially a popular devotional form of Buddhism, and Ch’an because of its anti-intellectual and contemplative emphasis, as well as its clear conscience in face of the charges of economic parasitism levelled against other schools.

The beliefs of Pure Land Buddhism—and the word ‘beliefs’ is used deliberately—are in the main quite simple and are mostly derived from the Sukhdvativyuha-sutras (Pure Land Sutras) originally researched in the early fifth century by Hui-yiian. As mentioned earlier, the Pure Land is presided over by the Buddha Amitabha; invoking his name results in the believer’s rebirth from a lotus bud in the paradise from where progression to a state of enlightenment is far easier. Emphasis is thus uni­quely placed on reliance on an external deity—a feature almost without parallel in Buddhism, but one which enabled the religion to spread to the proverbially illiterate peasant, as well as to those from all social classes who quite simply had neither the time nor the inclination to meditate for the many years required for attaining enlightenment in more self-reliant systems.

The word ch’an is the Chinese equivalent of the Sanskrit term dhydna (‘contemplation’), and is sufficient indication of where the Ch’an school places its emphasis. The origins of this school are tradition­ally traced back to the Indian master Bodhidharma who, after arriving in the Northern Wei kingdom in 520, reportedly sat in contemplation for nine years facing a wall, impervious to the imprecations of his eager disciple-to-be, Shen-kuang, who at last resorted to cutting off his own arm in order to prove his earnest desire for the doctrine, but was rewarded by becoming the second patriarch of Ch’an after his master’s death. When in the seventh century Ch’an started to enjoy some degree of popular support, a question arose concerning the legitimacy of the claim of Shen-hsiu (600-706) to be the sixth patriarch of Ch’an. The resultant acrimonious debate led to the division of Ch’an into Northern and Southern Schools, and the disappearance of the former when the primacy of the Southern School’s candidate, Hui-neng (638-713), was established. The entire disgraceful episode, of much greater complexity than may be apparent from the above sketch, clearly shows that Ch’an, despite its claims to the contrary, was just as prone to worldly involvement as any of the other more ritualistic schools.

The anti-intellectualism of Ch’an, smacking of Philosophical Taoism, stemmed from the belief that since enlightenment was a state obviously beyond common experience it was also beyond rationalisa­tion. Any rational planned activity (including devotion, sutra recitation, and indeed structured meditation) is therefore useless—in fact, worse than useless since it hinders the ability of the mind to function in a purely natural, unconstrained and spontaneous manner. When it does so function, it is possible for the individual to achieve an awareness of underlying reality, an experience known as wu (satori, the Japanese term, is perhaps better known), usually translated as ‘enlightenment’. It is at least possible to wonder whether the Ch’an experience of sudden enlightenment is quite the same thing as the experience of nirvana achieved using more conventional graded methods.

The main techniques employed by the Lin-chi (in Japanese, Rinzai) branch of Ch’an are well known. The master will try various methods—beating and shouting seem to be popular—to jolt the disciple out of the rut of his conventional modes of thinking; alternatively, the master will provide the disciple with a kung-an (in Japanese, koan), a paradox of sorts, the answer to which once again necessitates recourse to something other than normal intellectual ways of tackling a problem. Ch’an activities and dialogues can seem peculiar:

When Shih-lin Ho-shang saw the Layman P’ang coming, he raised up his whisk and said: ‘without falling into Tan-hsia’s activities, try saying something.’

The Layman snatched away the whisk and held up his own fist. ‘That is precisely Tan hsia’s activity,’ said Shih-lin.

‘Try not falling into it for me,’ returned the Layman.

‘Tan-hsia caught dumbness; Mr P’ang caught deafness,’ rejoined Shih-lin. ‘Exactly,’ said the Layman.

(The Recorded Sayings of Layman P’ang, pp. 68-9.)

The Ts’ao-tung (in Japanese, Soto) branch of Ch’an is far more conventional, relying on graded instruction, reasoned logical argument and seated meditation for attaining the ‘truth beyond words’.

After the fall of the T’ang, the country was once again unified under the Sung in 960. Pure Land and Ch’an struggled on much as before, though the country was in dire financial straits. Military and domestic expenditure was inordinately high, and one government fund­raising scheme, that of selling monk certificates (a system introduced under the T’ang in 747), contributed to the decline of the remaining monastic community. A monk was exempt from the taxation and corvee which was such a burden on the average citizen, and hence a monk certificate, apart from being an absolute necessity for every monk, was a desirable commodity for many others. The Sung bureaucracy obviously felt that the advantage of such a ready source of income outweighed the disadvantages of a monastic com­munity full of unqualified monks only nominally Buddhist. Furthermore the Buddhism of the Sung, dominated as it was by Ch’an and Pure Land anti-intellectualism, was in no fit state to counter the arguments of neo­Confucianism, the major intellectual movement of the era which spent much of its time objecting to Buddhism’s other-worldly and unfilial concerns. Concurrently, Buddhism was disappearing in India, thereby bringing to an end centuries of fruitful contact between the two countries.

The Mongol Liao Dynasty (907-1125) which con­trolled much of north China, Mongolia and Manchuria encouraged Chinese forms of Buddhism in its domains, as did the later Manchu Chin (Jurchen) Dynasty (1115-1234). The Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368), while itself espousing Lamaism, did not discourage specifically Chinese forms of Buddh­ism in its empire, although during the initial stages of the Mongol conquest of China, the material damage to the remaining temples and monasteries was considerable. A special relationship developed between the Mongol administration and the Lin-chi subschool of Ch’an after the monk Hai-yiin (1201-56) was appointed religious advisor to the khanate. At the imperially arranged debates between Taoists and Buddhists during the mid-Yuan period, Ch’an masters were also asked to put forward the Buddhist view alongside Tibetan lamas. In China itself, politically motivated Buddhist societies flourished, whilst Buddhist intellectual life continued to deteriorate.

The Chinese Ming Dynasty (1368-1662), the foun­der of which played on the soteriological hopes of the populace awaiting the arrival of the Buddha Maitreya by linking the new dynasty to the concept, initially promoted the activities of the two surviving schools. A Taoist­Buddhist system of granting merit/demerit points for specific charitable and uncharitable acts was much in vogue; at this time, also, attempts were made to show that Buddhism and Confucianism were philosophically compatible. Efforts were likewise made to syncretise Ch’an and Pure Land and to spread the end result amongst the laity. The success of the lay movements of this period led for the first time to a situation in which the leadership of Buddhism in China started passing from monastic to lay hands.

Chinese Buddhism under the pro-Lamaist Ch’ing (1662-1911) was just as inactive as it had been under the Ming, suffering yet another major blow during the pro-Christian and disastrously iconoclastic T’ai-p’ing (Great Peace) rebellion. The rebels as a matter of policy destroyed all Buddhist temples, libraries and works of art in areas under their temporary control; so thorough was the destruction that a large percentage of Buddhist canonical and commentarial literature had to be reintroduced fromjapan and privately reprinted and distributed. The names of Yang Jen-shan and Wang Hung-yiian should be mentioned in connection with this re-intro­duction; it has been reported of the former that he was responsible, almost single-handedly, for the redistribution of approximately one million Bud­dhist treatises throughout China.

The Republic of China, established in 1911, barely tolerated Buddhism in its efforts to ‘modernise’ the country, whilst the spread of Marxism caused even more concern to the beleaguered Buddhist community. Although the monk T’ai-hsii (1889-1947) tried to counter such ominous developments with a comprehensive programme of reforms designed to make Buddhism more palatable to the country’s new rulers, the age-old religion, barely recovered from the battering it received at the hands of the T’ai-p’ing rebels, charged with social and economic parasitism as well as philosophical wrong-headedness, finally succumbed to Maoism. It remains to be seen if it can survive this latest assault.

Further Reading

Âàãó, W.T. etal. (eds.) Sources of Chinese Tradition (Columbia University Press, New York, 1960)

Chang, G.C.C. The Buddhist Teaching of Totality—The Philosophy ofHwa-Yen Buddh­ism (Allen and Unwin, London, 1972)

Ch’en, K.S. Buddhism in China—a Historical Survey (Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1964)

Welch, H. The Practice of Chinese Buddhism 1900-1950 (Harvard University Press,

Cambridge, Mass., 1967)

----- The Buddhist Revival in China (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1968)

Wright, A.F. Buddhism in Chinese History (Stanford University Press, California, 1959)

Yang, C.K. Religion in Chinese Society (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1961) a study of contemporary social functions of religion and some of their historical factors

Zürcher, E. The Buddhist Conquest of China (Leiden, 1959)