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Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism
Not everyone during the Northern and Southern
dynasties in China welcomed the new religion. Despite many superficial
similarities between Buddhism and Taoism, and despite much mutual influence in
their development, Taoists saw the foreign religion as a direct rival.
Buddhism and Taoism appealed to the same people:
those wanting metaphysical stability or a sense of permanence in a turbulent
age, those wanting very long life or immortality, those seeking a way of life
different from, or at the least a respite in private life from, the Confucian
ideal of social and familial obligations and public service. Furthermore,
Buddhists and Taoists practiced similar arts. Magic, for example, played an
important role in the initial acceptance of Buddhism, and Taoist practitioners
found themselves facing tough adversaries.
15 The biography of Tao-jung (no. 10) illustrates one such
encounter.
For the most part, any hostilities that arose were
expressed verbally, but once in a great while partisans felt compelled to take
stronger action. The biography of Tao-hsing (no. 9) clearly shows the rivalry
when a Taoist woman poisoned a Buddhist nun because "the people of the region
had respected the Taoist woman and her activities very much until Tao-hsing's
Way of Buddhism eclipsed her arts." The rivalry did not go in one direction
only. In a collection of biographies of Taoist women, we learn that a Taoist
nun was accosted by knife-wielding Buddhist monks.
16
Confucianism was the far more serious threat to
Buddhism, however, because it had shaped the institutions at the heart of
Chinese life: the imperial government and the family. Buddhism ran directly
counter to Confucian norms in many aspects of life, one of the most important
being that the monastic life required celibacy. In traditional China a good son
had the duty to marry and produce male offspring to continue the family line.
Shaving the head, also a requirement of Buddhist monastic life, ran contrary to
Confucian principles because one's hair was a gift from one's parents and so
was not to be cut off. In death, too, there was conflict. Cremation, the
deliberate destruction of the body, was abhorrent to those Chinese who
considered the body to be a gift from one's father and mother. Buddhists had to
try to convince the population at large, as well as individual distraught
parents, that a child's entering the Buddhist monastic life not only was not at
all unfilial but also was a superior kind of filial piety. The discussion in
the biography of An Ling-shou (no. 2) illustrates this well.
Another argument against Buddhism was that it was
foreign. This accusation drew forth forged books, such as the Chou-shu i-chi (Records of the strange in the Book of Chou)
and Han fa-pen nei-chuan (Hidden account of the origin
of the [Buddhist] law in the Han dynasty), that said that the Buddha was born
before Lao-tzu. The Taoists responded in kind, forging their own works,
especially the Hua hu ching (The scripture on the
conversion of the barbarians), which said that Buddhism was simply Taoism in
exotic dress. Many other forged texts, and their fantastic claims, issued forth
from both the Buddhists and the Taoists, each trying to outdo the other to
establish the antiquity of the Buddha or Lao-tzu.
17
Despite clever but less than convincing Buddhist
apologetics, the government, an institution fundamentally built on
Confucianism, began to take measures against Buddhism, especially as the number
of monastics greatly increased. The question was not merely one of Confucian
principle, however. Monastic life removed able-bodied men and women from
production and therefore from liability for payment of taxes.
18 The
monasteries, as they grew wealthy, became centers of power rivaling the various
offices of the government. Occasionally, therefore, during the time of the
Northern and Southern dynasties, local administrators carried out what was
called sifting and weeding of the monastic institutions. This meant an
investigation to try to determine those who had a genuine calling to the
monastic life from those who were merely slackers, having entered that life to
avoid laboring in the world. One such local sifting and weeding is recorded in
the biography of Hui-hsü (no. 48). In the Southern dynasties, as compared
to the Northern dynasties, the government almost always actively favored
Buddhism and often gave such lavish support that corruption became
widespread.
Throughout the time of the political and social
turmoil, Buddhist missionaries and their disciples continued to work. Not only
did translations of doctrinal texts spread more and more rapidly through
Chinese society, but also the monastic life began, even though it was for men
only.
19 The rules for
monastic living, the vinaya texts, were not so quickly
translated as the texts of doctrine and meditation, however, and the monastic
life was set on a more firm foundation only during the fourth century,
20
thanks to the efforts of the monk Tao-an
21 and his pupil
Hui-yüan.
22
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