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