178 CHAPTER EIGHTChina, the monastics could escape with copies of their scriptures to other
parts of the empire. In both cases the repression was short-lived, as Buddhism
had acquired widespread popular support, and in both cases the ruling dynas-
ties did their best to make up for the harm that had been done. In 460, for
example, the ruler of the northern Wei dynasty (386-534) undertook the cre-
ation of one of the world's great religious monuments, the cave temples of
Yiin-kang, as an act of expiation for the earlier persecution.
Another long-lasting contribution to Chinese Buddhism had been made
earlier by the founder of the northern Wei dynasty, who appointed a moral
and learned monk to the civil service post of Sangha-director, thus establish-
ing government jurisdiction over the monasteries in his realm. This arrange-
ment was followed by all succeeding dynasties up to the twentieth century.
Unlike the monks in the south, the appointed monk did not fight for the
Sangha's independence from the state but paid deference to the emperor, jus-
tifYing his action by identifYing the emperor with the Tathagata.
However, the most important development of this period, in both the
north and south, was that Buddhism came to take center stage in Chinese in-
tellectual life. The first step in this process, begun by the elite monks of the
south during the fourth century, was to apply Buddhist ideas to issues that had
been raised in Confucian and Taoist intellectual circles during the third cen-
tury. Ultimately, proponents of this "Buddha-Taoism" began to realize that
they were distorting the Buddha's message and so began efforts to understand
Buddhism on its own terms. This prepared the way for the great monk-trans-
lator Kumarajiva, who arrived in Ch'ang-an and inaugurated a period in
which scholars focused on mastering Indian scholastic treatises and attempted
to create order from the much more extensive picture of Buddhism that
resulted.
8.4.1 The Era of Buddho-Taoism
To understand Buddha-Taoism and its impact on the subsequent centuries of
Buddhist thought in east Asia, it is necessary to backtrack and deal in some
detail with the issues of third-century intellectual life in China. The third cen-
tury had been a period of great philosophical activity in China, one that was
to determine the vocabulary and values the Chinese used in trying to make
Buddhism intelligible to themselves for many centuries afterward. Trained bur
reaucrats focused on what was, for them, the central issue of philosophy: th~
art of government. Because they felt that any successful government had to
harmonize with the principles underlying nature, their discussions modulate~
quickly from social philosophy to metaphysics and back. The event th:j.t
sparked their philosophizing-termed hsuan hsueh (Arcane Learning)-wi;
the fall of the Han dynasty: Why had the dynasty failed even though it na,~
been run in accordance with the I Ching, the traditional book of divinatio~J:
and the Confucian classics? Was there something wrong with these classics, q~
had they simply been misapplied?
The masters of Arcane Learning decided that the problem lay primarily.~
the interpretation of the classics and not so much in the classics themselves:!