Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution
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The Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution was initiated by (Taoist) Tang Emperor Wuzong in the year 845 CE in order to appropriate "war funds" and cleanse China of "foreign" influences. Essentially, it was a wave of "religious" pogroms directed towards Buddhism but also other "foreign" religions such as Zoroastrianism and Christianity. Only Confucianism and Taoism, to some extent, survived the upheaval in one piece.
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[edit] Reasons for the Persecution
In 843 Tang Emperor Wuzong won a desicive battle against the Uyghur tribes at the cost of almost bankrupting the country. Wuzong's solution to the financial crisis was to go after the Buddhist monasteries. Buddhism had flourished into a major religious force in China during the Tang period, and its monasteries enjoyed tax-exempt status. Two years later in 845, he closed many Buddhist shrines, confiscated their property, and sent the monks and nuns home to lay life. However, Wuzong's reasons for doing so were not all economic. At some point, Buddhism surpassed Taoism in popularity, which had been a major forced since the Han Dynasty.
A zealous Taoist, Wuzong saw Buddhism as a foreign religion that was harmful to Chinese society. He went after other foreign religions as well. He all but destroyed Zoroastrianism and Manichaeanism in China, and his persecution of the growing Nestorian Christian churches sent Chinese Christianity into a decline from which it never recovered.
One of the reasons for the suppression of monasteries was that it affected the economic prosperity and social life of the nation.
- "Buddhist monasteries daily grew higher. Men’s strength was used up in work with plaster and wood. Men’s gain was taken up in ornaments of gold and precious stones. Imperial and family relationships were forsaken for obedience to the fees of the priests. The marital relationship was opposed by the ascetic restraints. Destructive of law, injurious to mankind, nothing is worse than this way (Tao). Moreover, if one man does not plough, others feel hunger, if one woman does not tend the silk worms, others go cold. Now in the Empire there are monks and nuns innumerable. All depend on others to plough that they may eat, on others to raise silk that they may be clad. Monasteries and Refuges (Homes of ascetics, kuti in Sanskrit) are beyond compute.
- All are as high as the clouds, beautifully ornamented; they take for themselves palaces as a dwelling.... We will repress this long standing pestilence to its roots ... In all the Empire more than four thousand six hundred monasteries are destroyed, two hundred and sixty thousand five hundred monks and nuns are returning to the world, both (men and women) to be received as tax paying householders. Refuges and hermitages which are destroyed number more than forty thousand. We are resuming fertile land of the first grade, several tens of millions of Ch’ing ( 1 ching is 15.13 acres). We are receiving back as tax paying householders, male and female, one hundred and fifty thousand serfs. The aliens who hold jurisdiction over the monks and nuns show clearly that this is a foreign religion.
- Ta Ch’n (Syrian) and Muh-hu-fo (Zoroastrian) monks to the number of more than three thousand are compelled to return to the world, lest they confuse the customs of China. With simplified and regulated government we will achieve a unification of our manners, that in future all our youth may together return to the royal culture. We are now beginning this reformation; how long it will take we do not know." (Ibid., p. 125.)
[edit] Statistics
Chinese records state Zoroastrianism and Christianity were regarded as heretical forms of Buddhism, and were included within the scope of the edicts. According to the report prepared by the Board of Worship, there were 4,600 monasteries, 40,000 hermitages (places of retreat), 260,500 monks and nuns. By the edict of AD 845 all these monasteries were abolished with very few exceptions. When the monasteries were broken up the images of bronze, silver or gold were to be handed over to the government. "As for the Tai-Ch’in (Syrian) and Muh-hu (Zoroastrian) forms of worship, since Buddhism has already been cast out, these heresies alone must not be allowed to survive. People belonging to these also are to be compelled to return to the world, belong again to their own districts, and become tax payers. As for foreigners, let them be returned to their own countries, there to suffer restraint." (Ibid., p. 123.)
[edit] End of the Persecution
In 846 Xuan Zong came to the throne and issued an edict of religious toleration.
[edit] Effects on Buddhism
The suppression of monasteries and persecution of foreign religions was part of a reformation undertaken. The persecution lasted for twenty months -- not long, but long enough to have permanent effects. Buddhism, for all its strength, never completely recovered. For centuries afterwards, it was merely a tolerated religion. The days of its greatest building, sculpture, and painting, and its most vital creative thought, were past.
[edit] See also
- Emperor Wuzong
- Buddhism gains political traction in the north
- Three Disasters of Wu
- Four Buddhist Persecutions in China
[edit] Source
Philip, T. V. East of the Euphrates: Early Christianity in Asia. India: CSS & ISPCK, India, 1998 (See here)
