BUDDHISM IN CENTRAL ASIA AND CHINA 177modes of Sangha life: large monastic estates patronized by the ruling elites,
smaller village monasteries, and forest hermitages for monks who focused on
ch'an (dhyana) practice. In principle, the Sangha, in contrast to Chinese soci-
ety in general, was relatively free of class distinctions. People from the lower
classes who showed intellectual promise could find in the monastic orders an
opportunity for a literary education that was otherwise closed to them. How-
ever, there was a general tendency for members of the smaller village monas-
teries to remain illiterate, their Buddhism an amalgam of devotional practices
and local spirit cults. Similarly, in the forest hermitages there was little con-
cern for the Vinaya, and the monks tended to combine the methods of Bud-
dhist meditation with traditional Taoist practices aimed at immortality. Unlike
the great monastic estates, the smaller monasteries and hermitages remained
outside the pale of government control. These tendencies characterized Bud-
dhism for many centuries in both the north and south.
On the level of elite Buddhism, however, the northern and southern king-
doms differed widely. In the south, the monks and nuns who frequented the
court were members of the Chinese elite, moving naturally among their own
kind, speaking the same language and inhabiting the same intellectual universe
as the members of the court. The sense of fellow identity they were able to
cultivate enabled them to succeed in exerting the independence of the Sangha
from the political realm without giving rise to any sense of threat. In 340 and
again in 402, the question arose as to whether monastics should pay deference
to the emperor, and on both occasions the ultimate decision was no. Occa-
sionally the sense of easy familiarity between rulers and the aristocratic monks
backfired. Po Yiian, the first Chinese monk known to have developed a per-
sonal friendship with a}llember of the imperial house, so impressed his host
that he was asked to lea~ethe Sangha and join the court. When he refused, he
was whipped to death. The same fate befell his brother. On the whole,
though, the relationship between the Sangha and the southern rulers was sta-
ble and secure.
Not so in the north. Northern elite Buddhism was largely a continuation
of the earlier pattern, in which missionary monks were of foreign extraction
and depended largely on their psychic powers to gain favor with the court. A
prime example was the brave and righteous old Kuchean wonder-worker Fo-
t'u-teng, who arrived in north China around 310. He served as court advisor
for more than 20 years, performing magic, forecasting the future, mitigating
the excesses of the barbarian rulers, and training a cadre of disciplined and en-
terprising Chinese monks. Fo-t'u-teng had no pretensions to being a scholar.
The Buddhism that grew under his influence stressed devotion and medita-
tion, rather than intellectual sophistication. The lack of class and racial fellow-
ship between monks and rulers, however, meant that the relationship in the
north was more volatile than in the south; with the government alternating
between lavish support for and severe repression of the Sangha. Twice-in
446 and 574-edicts were issued for the total suppression ofBuddhism, in re-
sponse to complaints from government officials that the Sangha was growing
too strong. However, because none of the rulers involved controlled all of