BUDDHISM IN CENTRAL ASIA AND CHINA 209he first received tonsure and meditation training); and chiao-men (his doctrinal
lineage, that is, the school of formal doctrine under which he had studied).
Even in Ch' an monasteries, many monks devoted a good amount of their
time to the study of formal doctrine, such as Hua-yen texts, as well as to non-
Buddhist topics, such as Confucianism, literature, and painting. (No scholarly
study has been made of convents during the Sung, but we can assume that
similar developments were taking place among the nuns as well.) This was, in
part, a continuation of the fourth-century view of monastic life as a Buddhist
version of the life of the retired scholar. It was also an effort to stay current
with the interests of the monasteries' elite patrons.
After centuries during which Buddhism had virtually monopolized Chi-
nese intellectual life, Confucianism was coming to the fore as the strongest
contender to dominate the standard ideology for the new bureaucracy. In part,
this was because Buddhism was no longer a growing force. No new texts were
being translated, so there was no challenge to create new multisystem synthe-
ses. Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism were viewed as static traditions,
and the question of the day was how to integrate them into a single ideology
that would prevent the sectarian conflicts that had proven so divisive in the
past. This boiled down to the question of which tradition among the three
would be paramount.
Confucianism had the advantage. Even during the periods of strongest gov-
ernment support for Buddhism, Confucianism had provided the ideology for
the day-to-day running of the empire. Of the three traditions, it gave the high-
est priority to the maintenance of family and state. The Confucians were also
able to point out aspects ofBuddhism that made it untrustworthy as a guide
for bureaucrats. They cited k'ung-ans to show that Ch'an was amoral; they
pointed out instances in history when the fervor of Buddhist popular devotion
had been detrimental to the economic interests of the state. In particular, a
memorial written during the T' ang dynasty by a Confucian scholar, scathingly
critical of the excesses that surrounded the public worship of a Buddha relic in
819, became required reading for all potential government officials.
Perhaps the most successful strategy adopted by the neo-Confucians was
to take attractive and useful elements of Buddhist doctrine and graft them
onto their own. For instance, they implemented government-sponsored social
programs-from public clinics and cemeteries to housing for the aged, infirm,
and orphans-to embody the Buddhist principle of compassion unlimited by
social barriers. The most important of the neo-Confucians during the Sung
was Chu Hsi (1130-1200), who drew on the writings of Chan-jan and Tsung-
mi to offer a moralistic, practical philosophy integrating the Buddhist doctrine
of karma and self-cultivation with the worldly wisdom and humanistic values
that had been Confucianism's major strengths. Thus, although Buddhism lost
the battle to become the dominant ideology of the new bureaucracy, certain
Buddhist doctrines helped shape the ideology, where they were enshrined as
basic principles in the inherited wisdom of Chinese civilization.
Despite its declining political position, the Sangha maintained its stability
as an organization with solid support from the laity. Buddhist doctrinal studies