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CHINESE HISTORY AND CH’ING INSTITUTIONS

11


great deal of the most stimulating and influential scholarship of the Han
period developed out of research on the
1-ching.'1

The legacy of Han culture was enduring. In its institutions, ideology,
artistic and literary accomplishments, economic policies, and even its
system of foreign relations, the Han set the style for most later dynasties.
Important changes took place over the next two thousand years, to be sure,
but a Han scholar would have had very little difficulty adjusting to life in
any subsequent dynasty up to the Iate Ch’ing. One could hardly make the
same claim fora Roman patrician in nineteenth-century Italy.

The fall of the Han in a.d. 222 ushered in an extended period of
political disunity known as the Six Dynasties (A.D. 222-589). For much of
this time, China was divided into two distinct areas, north and south, with
the dividing line about the Huai River. The north suffered repeated bar-
barian invasions and chronic political instability, while the south remained
immune from barbarian conquest and comparatively stable. But these were
not China’s “Dark Ages,” especially in the south. In fact, traditional
Chinese culture flourished, receiving enrichment from Indian Buddhism,
which spread rapidly in China during the centuries following its in-
troduction during the later Han period. Buddhism brought to tormented
and disillusioned Chinese individuals a hope of escape from worldly suf-
fering and sorrow. It introduced new ideas of reincarnation, kharmic
retribution, and the release of Nirvana, and exerted a lasting influence on
many aspects of Chinese philosophy, religion, art, literature, music, and
architecture. At the same time, Buddhist monasteries began to exert their
influence on Chinese economic, social, and even political life, in both north
and south. Undoubtedly, the nearly universal acceptance of Buddhism by
all levels of society by the sixth century, together with the strong memory of
Han unity and glory, contributed to the political and cultural reunification
of China in a.d. 589 by the Sui dynasty.

During the Sui-T’ang period (A.D. 589-907), Buddhism received official
patronage, becoming an integral part of state ritual and Chinese high
culture generally.1’ But a series of politically-inspired persecutions directed
against the Buddhist religious establishment in the mid-ninth century ef-
fectively undercut Buddhism’s institutional power in China.
,* Meanwhile,
Confucianism, which had been used selectively by the Sui-T’ang rulers as a
convenient source of political theory and ritual precedent for the conduct of
imperial affairs, witnessed an intellectual revival. Thereafter, Buddhism
continued to inspire, but never to dominate, Chinese intellectual life.
Controlled by the state from above, it became appropriated by Chinese
popular religion from below.”

The intellectual vitality of the T’ang was but one indication of the
general growth and refinement of Chinese culture during the period. Like
the Han, the T’ang was expansive, cosmopolitan, creative, and self-



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