China and Buddhism

If a region has a well-established and ancient belief and value system, whether one calls it a religion or not, it is hard to replace it. Since China had Confucianism, how was Buddhism able to replace it? The starting point for the transformation, as per William Dalrymple in The Golden Road:

“It was war and devastation.”

Not external war or devastation by external forces. Instead it was triggered by the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 CE. This power vacuum was soon followed by natural disaster like floods, famines and plague. The power of the Confucian elite eroded, and the general belief in Chinese cultural superiority too got chipped away. A vacuum now existed for new ideas…

 

Buddhist missionary work exposed the population to Buddhist practices, art and imagery. The emperor Wen soon became the most “enthusiastic champion” of Buddhism in Chinese history (he had been born in a Buddhist temple and raised by a Buddhist nun). He ordered the construction of many monasteries across his expanding (and thus re-unifying) kingdom, and also provided for the restoration of others.

 

He even began to claim that the Buddha had personally entrusted him with the task of re-uniting (and of course, ruling) China. Buddhism would become all pervasive across the kingdom under his reign. Despite such a powerful start, his dynasty didn’t last long.

 

The successor dynasty then helped cement Buddhism in China for very different reasons. Wu Zetian was the only woman emperor in China’s history. Her rise to positions of power and influence reads like a masala movie! But she had a problem as she tried to ascend the throne – the court Confucians strongly resisted the idea of a woman being in power. Her countermove was to declare that the Buddhist clergy would stand on equal footing as the Daoists. In return, the Buddhist clergy recognized her as a semi-divine Boddhisatva incarnate, cementing her claim to the throne as one of Divine Right, instead of the real factors – her marriage into the ruling dynasty, her political skills, and the ruthless elimination of her rivals.

 

Buddhism became the state religion under Wu and the Daoists were demoted to lie below the Buddhists. All state occasions began to involve Buddhist rituals, sutras and mantras. Donations to monasteries exploded.

 

Interestingly, by this time, Hinduism was on the ascent in India and Buddhism was starting to fade. So a lot of Indian Buddhist monks went to China as it showed signs of becoming the new centre of the Buddhist world.