Religious+China

=Religious Influence on Post Classical China = Zoe Matticks

Religion in the Tang and Song Era Unlike in the six previous dynasties when the two types of Buddhism (Mahayana [more peaceful] and Chan [Zen Buddhism; centered around meditation]) flourished in China, in the Tang and Song eras Confucianism revived and threatened Buddhism position. By about 8500 CE, Tang rulers both encouraged many (50,000) Buddhist monasteries as well as Confucian schools. Although emperors like Taizong endowed monasteries, no ruler could match support that of Empress Wu who tried to elevate Buddhism to the status of a state religion through commissions of paintings and sculptures.

The Anti-Buddhist Backlash The Daoists and Confucians sought to remove the success if the Buddhist by attacking as an alien import to China despite it had been there for many years. Daoist monks tried to match the appeals of Buddhism through stressing their magical and predictive powers; Confucians scholars convinced Tang rulers that Buddhism provided a threat to the Chinese economy due to loss in money from untaxed monastic land and denial of labor power. However, by mid ninth century CE, Emperor Wuzong restrictions of Buddhism became “open persecution… Thousands of monasteries and Buddhist shrines were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of monks and nuns were forced to abandon their monastic orders and return to civilian lives” (Sterns 380). Monks, nuns, peasants and slaves were also subject to taxation. Despite the decline of expansion of Buddhism in the Tang era, the Mahayana and Chan Buddhism survived. However, Confucianism was the central ideology for the Chinese from the mid 9th to early 20th century even though Buddhism had definite impact on art, Chinese language, and ideology (heaven, charity, law).

Scholarly Refinement and Artistic Accomplishment During the Tang and Song dynasties, literary and artistic accomplishments such as that of Li Bo, focused much more on the natural world than religious motifs; this was due to revival of the Confucian scholar-gentry.