the preceding years by personal links. In the T’ang, both the literary reformers
and the Crown Prince’s practical reformers were linked to Buddhist intellectu-
als, in this case from the T’ien-t’ai sect rather than, as in the Sung, from the
Ch’an. Buddhist dominance in philosophy, although wavering with the political
winds, was still based on strong material supports. Against a history of
successive persecutions of Buddhism during the past century, Han Yü must
have felt some grounds for confidence in attacking the magical tantrism popu-
lar at the court. But although court Buddhism was on its last legs, Buddhism
as a whole was still in its last wave of creativity. Ch’an Buddhism was expand-
ing and victoriously fractionating in the rural monasteries. Only after this base
too was reduced would the Confucian sage religion successfully appropriate
the Buddhist space. The T’ang flurry of proto–Neo-Confucianism arose from
conditions approximating the first generation of the Sung movement, religious
and philosophical innovations comparable to those of Chang Tsai or Chou
Tun-I. Neither examination system expansion nor Buddhist collapse was ex-
tensive enough yet to allow the movement to go on to constructive second and
subsequent generations comparable to the Ch’eng brothers and their followers.The Emergence of Neo-Confucian Metaphysical Systems
The Sung Neo-Confucian movement, in keeping with the law of small numbers,
expanded into an open intellectual space not as a single position but as a set
of rivals. For the first two or three generations there were four main contenders:
the occultism of Shao Yung and of Chou Tun-I, the naturalist school of Chang
Tsai, and the followers of the Ch’eng brothers. Controversies and alliances
among these groups provided the intellectual activity after the death of the
founders. The numerologists of the Shao school in particular were strong rivals
of the Ch’eng disciples down to around 1150, while another faction, the Hu
school (337 to 342 in Figure 6.4) kept up a branch independent of the main
Ch’eng lineage which centered on Yang Shih.^12
All these lines came together around 1170–1200 with Chu Hsi, who
produced an encyclopedic commentary on and synthesis of his predecessors.
Chu Hsi’s system combines the most disparate branches by identifying Chou
Tun-I’s Supreme Ultimate with li, or principle. Chu Hsi brought out clearly the
dualism between principle (li) and matter/energy, (ch’i) and explored the im-
plications of his metaphysical synthesis. Chu Hsi continued much of the
Neo-Confucian religious emphasis, including the practice of sitting in medita-
tion to achieve sagehood. By seeing the li in things, one achieves “sudden
enlightenment”—a term borrowed from Ch’an Buddhism. But Chu Hsi was
predominantly naturalistic. He criticized divination and disbelieved in life after
death and visitations of ghosts and spirits, reiterating the secularist side of
312 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths