Han Yu’s memorial, however, epitomized the anti-
foreign sentiment from a Confucian standpoint by
suggesting that Buddhism was a barbarian cult, and
that the Buddha himself was a barbarian—meaning
someone who does not know the proper relationship
between ruler and minister, father and son, or who
does not wear ancient Chinese garb. Hence, if the Bud-
dha were to arrive in China the emperor would merely
give him an audience, a banquet, and award him a suit
of clothes, after which he would be escorted under
guard to the border. Han Yu thought that Buddhism
threatened the Confucian administration of Chinese
society by inciting people to publicly worship the Bud-
dha bone.
Confucian and Chinese patriarchs
During the Song dynasty (960–1279) Confucian
scholars and Buddhist monks were both bitter ene-
mies and close allies. The early Song court supported
new Buddhist translation projects, awarded excep-
tional patronage to followers of the CHAN SCHOOL,
and facilitated debates between Confucian officials
about fiscal, educational, and social policies. After the
An Lushan rebellion, patronage for Buddhism and its
institutions fell to a new southern gentry class,
formed through the massive population shift south-
ward as people fled the war-torn north. Between 742
and 1200, the population of north China grew by 58
percent, while it doubled or tripled in the south. Most
of the new southern gentry were not connected to the
elite families that provided the pool of civil-service ap-
plicants between the Han and Tang dynasties. There-
fore, the Song imperial examinations provided the
basis for a much more loyal and dynamic Confucian-
educated bureaucracy than ever before. On the bor-
ders of Song territory, non-Chinese states threatened
the Confucian world order, and the gentry literati
(wenren) produced by the examination system re-
sponded in two ways: the “learning of culture” and
neo-Confucianism.
Adherents of the learning of culture approach, in-
cluding the poet and scholar Su Shi (1036–1101), ar-
gued that Chinese (Confucian) culture endured
through literature, including the cultivation of poetry
and prose. To Su Shi, Buddhist doctrines did not clash
with Confucian principles, and Buddhist monks, es-
pecially from the Chan lineage, could appreciate the
value of cultural patterns and transmit them too. Those
who supported neo-Confucianism, however, vehe-
mently condemned the renunciant lifestyle and popu-
lar appeal of Buddhism. Initially, Zhou Dunyi
(1017–1073) and the Cheng brothers—Cheng Yi
(1033–1107) and Cheng Hao (1032–1085)—and later
Zhu Xi (1130–1200) advocated studying the path of
ancient Confucian sages, in particular Mencius, in or-
der to rectify one’s character, become a moral leader
of society, and follow the principle, rather than the
manifested phenomena (ji), of the ancients. Zhu Xi, in
particular, encouraged followers to study the “four
books” in addition to the traditional five classics: the
Analects, the teachings of Mencius, Daoxue(Great
Learning), and Zhongyong(Doctrine of the Mean). Later
followers sometimes included the Xiaojing(Classic of
Filial Piety) instead of Mencius. Neo-Confucians con-
tended that they transmitted the knowledge and foun-
dation for dynastic and social legitimacy (zhengtong),
which had been ignored since the time of Mencius.
Even though neo-Confucian notions of transmission
and self-cultivation were directly borrowed from the
Chan school, Chan Buddhists became the principal fo-
cus of neo-Confucian indignation.Gentry and popular Buddhism
It was not until 1313 that the neo-Confucian approach
to official education outlined in the Cheng-Zhu school
was adopted as the state orthodoxy. During subse-
quent dynasties, tensions grew between Cheng-Zhu
trained officials and Buddhist monks and nuns. With-
out learning of culture supporters, the Chinese
san ̇gha, which was now dominated by members of the
Chan lineage, became more focused on obtaining pa-
tronage from local gentry than from the state. During
the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the Confucian official
Wang Yangming (1472–1529) turned to Chan Bud-
dhist practices and teachings to create a Confucian
meditation practice known as quiet sitting (jingzuo).
Monasteries received largesse from local gentry and
became centers of learning and culture at a time when
the state could no longer support local Confucian
academies. Buddhism during the Ming and Qing
(1644–1911) dynasties became an integral part of the
three teachings triad of institutionalized Chinese reli-
gions. This occurred despite the increasing divide
between Confucian officials and Buddhists, and Bud-
dhist rhetoric to the contrary, which was influenced
by foreign imperial houses importing Tibetan and
Mongolian Buddhist traditions into the Chinese cap-
ital of Beijing.See also:China; Daoism and Buddhism; Syncretic
Sects: Three TeachingsCONFUCIANISM ANDBUDDHISM