Patricia Buckley Ebrey, in her beautifully illustrated and surprisingly engaging textbook The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, Second Edition, describes 6th-9th century China as a time of reunification, expansion of trade, and influx of cultural influences from foreign countries.  By the end of the 6th century intensive warfare had resulted in the establishment of a new capital city, Chang’an, where emperors ruled both the northern and southern regions of China.  The Tang dynasty also “[strengthened, standardized, and codified] the institutions of political control." Legalist and Confucian influence on government administration encouraged the examination system, helping to enforce Tang political control across the empire.  In the seventh century the Grand Canal was constructed linking major cities, and by the eighth century Chang’an and the secondary capital of Luoyang had become flourishing, cosmopolitan cities marked by individual prosperity, aristocracy, and an “outwardly oriented…mood” that stood in contrast to the rigid imperialism of the earlier, Warring States period.  In addition to foreign influence and technological advancement, the influx of Buddhist customs and traditions had a profound effect on Chinese people during the Tang dynasty, acting as a catalyst for this new, ‘outward oriented’ cultural dynamic.

It was in this era of cosmopolitanism and prosperity that Buddhism became an integral part of the lifeways of most Chinese citizens.  Ebrey notes that the fusion of Buddhist thought, and traditional Chinese philosophy was possible due to two primary effects of the religion on the people. First, Buddhism, as a function of its doctrines, encouraged the proliferation of institutions including monasteries, lodges for travelers, and “literati places” that, in turn, acted as communal places of discussion and introspection, spurring the dissemination of the religion and an economy that was influential across the country. Second, the fusion of Buddhist monasticism, storytelling, and sinofied spirituality with traditional Chinese culture was “instrumental in transforming the Chinese imagination." This transform was the key ingredient in the social recipe that precipitated the outward thinking, cosmopolitan society that characterized the Tang dynasty, leaving a lasting mark in the areas of governance, Chinese spiritual life, and society that reverberates today.

Broadly speaking Confucianism, Daoist, and, later, Buddhist thought undergird the private and public lives of Chinese citizens today as they have for several thousand years, at least.  Confucianism, and its close cousin Legalism, prescribe a lifeway de-emphasizing the individual self in deference to a sociocentric one, and Daoism, injecting a naturalistic and mystical philosophy into the Confucian canon, served as a method of reasoning for individuals regarding their status in society. Buddhism, having been fused with these philosophies, and in combination with Chinese folk religions, caused an explosion of intellectual and spiritual activity during the Tang dynasty on par with the rise of monotheism, underway in other parts of the world at the same time.

To me, living during the Tang dynasty in the late-eighth century in a cosmopolitan city such as Chang’an reads like a challenging experience.  Food, medicine, technology, and law and order would have been different than they are in the modern world.  For this reason, prior to the rise in literacy and as in other places around the globe, life may have been harsh – competitive and dangerous, even in a modern city center such as Chang’an. As I conceptualize them, the conformist and prescriptive codes for individuals in imperial Chinese society like those of Confucianism and Daoism, and like early law codes in Western civilizations of the time, would have made for effective tools in an arsenal of survival strategies as people navigated their lives. And so, I would have also embraced Buddhism during this time of unification, standardization, foreign interaction, and improved technology that allowed for thriving city-centers, for all the same reasons that Chinese citizens embraced and incorporated Buddhist traditions in their day to day lives. A new sense of community built around charity, the option to enjoin a monastic community serving the government or as a scribe, the insight afforded by the doctrine of an afterlife and personal gods, and, most importantly, the opportunity to actualize individual goals more broadly would have been attractive, new options in a changing world that would have appealed to me.

Change can be disconcerting in society, as Americans have witnessed at the dawn of the 21st century when technology and science are introducing broad, new dynamics into the body politic.  By the mid-ninth century, Chinese purists began suppressing Buddhism, reducing contact with other Buddhist centers of “intellectual stimulation” and elevating, once again, the more rigid Confucian and Daoist traditions that had prevailed under previous dynasties.  Nevertheless, even today Buddhist temples and religion define the Chinese landscape, where those features of charity, personalized spirituality, and individual expression live on, the best parts that I, too, would have chosen to combine with my own tradition as I made my way through life in this ever-changing, ancient society.

References

Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, 2nd ed. New York, New York. Cambridge University Publishing. 2010.