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RICE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
confident, in the words of Michael Sullivan, “T’ang culture was to the
culture of the Six Dynasties as was Han to the Warring States, or, to stretch
the parallel a little, Rome to ancient Greece. It was a time of consolidation,
of practical achievement, of immense assurance. . . . T’ang art has in-
comparable vigour, realism, dignity; it is the art of a people thoroughly at
home in a world which they knew to be secure.”16
In government, the Sui-T’ang examination system represented a major
advance over the Han recruitment apparatus in opening channels of
bureaucratic mobility. Although social origins, family connections, and
proper “breeding” still gave distinct advantages to well-born candidates for
official position, the T’ang marks the beginning of a trend toward the
replacement of aristocratic rule by “meritocratic” rule in Chinese govern-
ment.1’ By Ming-Ch’ing times (1368-1912) the process was largely complete
(see below).
After a brief period of disunity following the downfall of the T’ang,
the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1279) re-established centralized rule over all of
China. Building on early T’ang political institutions as well as late T’ang
economic foundations, the Sung carried traditional Chinese culture to new
heights, combining remarkable administrative stability with unprecedented
agricultural, commercial, and industrial growth. China’s numerous ad-
vancements in science and technology in this period were as impressive as
those in artistic areas such as landscape painting, although not, of course, in
the eyes of Sung scholar-artists. ',
The Sung is also noteworthy for a second great flowering of Chinese
philosophy—an outgrowth of social and economic changes, the Confucian
revival begun in the T’ang, and technological factors such as the invention
of printing, also a T’ang development.” During the Sung, “neo-
Confucianism,” as expounded by such brilliant and diverse thinkers as
Chou Tun-i (1017-1073), Shao Yung (1011-1077), Chang Tsai (1020-1077),
the great synthesizer Chu Hsi (1130-1200), and his intellectual rival Lu
Hsiang-shan (1139-1193), not only reasserted (and in many cases redefined)
the ancient principles of Confucius and his more immediate successors, but
also buttressed these principles with cosmological and metaphysical
speculations inspired by Buddhism and Taoism. Not surprisingly, the
I-Ching was crucial in the process, providing concepts and convenient
categories of explanation for virtually all of the great neo-Confucian minds
of the period.20
Mongol rule during the Yiian dynasty (1279-1368) tarnished somewhat
the bright cultural image of the Sung, and brought with it both rising
despotism and racial discrimination against Han Chinese. Yet the harshness
and oppressiveness of Yiian administration could not stay the advance of
traditional Chinese culture, which flourished in such areas as art, ver-
nacular literature, and especially operatic drama. Moreover, in time the