University of Virginia Library

Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism

Not everyone during the Northern and Southern dynasties in China
welcomed the new religion. Despite many superficial similarities
between Buddhism and Taoism, and despite much mutual influence in
their development, Taoists saw the foreign religion as a direct rival.

Buddhism and Taoism appealed to the same people: those wanting
metaphysical stability or a sense of permanence in a turbulent age,

those wanting very long life or immortality, those seeking a way of life
different from, or at the least a respite in private life from, the Confucian
ideal of social and familial obligations and public service. Furthermore,
Buddhists and Taoists practiced similar arts. Magic, for
example, played an important role in the initial acceptance of Buddhism,
and Taoist practitioners found themselves facing tough adversaries.[15]
The biography of Tao-jung (no. 10) illustrates one such encounter.

For the most part, any hostilities that arose were expressed verbally,
but once in a great while partisans felt compelled to take stronger
action. The biography of Tao-hsing (no. 9) clearly shows the rivalry
when a Taoist woman poisoned a Buddhist nun because "the people of
the region had respected the Taoist woman and her activities very
much until Tao-hsing's Way of Buddhism eclipsed her arts." The
rivalry did not go in one direction only. In a collection of biographies
of Taoist women, we learn that a Taoist nun was accosted by knife-wielding
Buddhist monks.[16]

Confucianism was the far more serious threat to Buddhism, however,
because it had shaped the institutions at the heart of Chinese life:
the imperial government and the family. Buddhism ran directly
counter to Confucian norms in many aspects of life, one of the most
important being that the monastic life required celibacy. In traditional
China a good son had the duty to marry and produce male offspring to
continue the family line. Shaving the head, also a requirement of Buddhist
monastic life, ran contrary to Confucian principles because one's
hair was a gift from one's parents and so was not to be cut off. In
death, too, there was conflict. Cremation, the deliberate destruction
of the body, was abhorrent to those Chinese who considered the body
to be a gift from one's father and mother. Buddhists had to try to convince
the population at large, as well as individual distraught parents,
that a child's entering the Buddhist monastic life not only was not at
all unfilial but also was a superior kind of filial piety. The discussion in
the biography of An Ling-shou (no. 2) illustrates this well.

Another argument against Buddhism was that it was foreign. This
accusation drew forth forged books, such as the Chou-shu i-chi
(Records of the strange in the Book of Chou) and Han fa-pen nei-chuan
(Hidden account of the origin of the [Buddhist] law in the Han
dynasty), that said that the Buddha was born before Lao-tzu. The
Taoists responded in kind, forging their own works, especially the

Hua hu ching (The scripture on the conversion of the barbarians),
which said that Buddhism was simply Taoism in exotic dress. Many
other forged texts, and their fantastic claims, issued forth from both
the Buddhists and the Taoists, each trying to outdo the other to establish
the antiquity of the Buddha or Lao-tzu.[17]

Despite clever but less than convincing Buddhist apologetics, the
government, an institution fundamentally built on Confucianism,
began to take measures against Buddhism, especially as the number of
monastics greatly increased. The question was not merely one of Confucian
principle, however. Monastic life removed able-bodied men
and women from production and therefore from liability for payment
of taxes.[18] The monasteries, as they grew wealthy, became centers of
power rivaling the various offices of the government. Occasionally,
therefore, during the time of the Northern and Southern dynasties,
local administrators carried out what was called sifting and weeding
of the monastic institutions. This meant an investigation to try to
determine those who had a genuine calling to the monastic life from
those who were merely slackers, having entered that life to avoid
laboring in the world. One such local sifting and weeding is recorded
in the biography of Hui-hsü (no. 48). In the Southern dynasties, as
compared to the Northern dynasties, the government almost always
actively favored Buddhism and often gave such lavish support that
corruption became widespread.

Throughout the time of the political and social turmoil, Buddhist
missionaries and their disciples continued to work. Not only did translations
of doctrinal texts spread more and more rapidly through Chinese
society, but also the monastic life began, even though it was for
men only.[19] The rules for monastic living, the vinaya texts, were not
so quickly translated as the texts of doctrine and meditation, however,
and the monastic life was set on a more firm foundation only during
the fourth century,[20] thanks to the efforts of the monk Tao-an[21] and
his pupil Hui-yüan.[22]