Download Ben Van Overmeire Making of the Modern World 12

Ben Van Overmeire
Making of the Modern World 12
 LTWL
135: The Buddhist Imaginary
◦ Overview of Buddhist History
◦ Early Buddhism – Mahayana - Tantra
 Look
at how the South of China dealt
with Buddhism until the 6th century CE
 Look at the reunification of China under
the Sui, and the Golden Age of Chinese
Empire under the High Tang. How did the
Tang rulers, more specifically Empress Wu
Zetian, relate to Buddhism?
 “Barbarian”
south
 Failure of the old
 Daoism
 Buddhism’s appeal
◦ Elite
◦ Case studies
 Huiyuan (334-416 CE)
 “If
one examincs the broad essentials of the
teachings of the Buddha, one will see that they
distinguish between those who leave the
household life and those who remain in it….
Those who revere the Buddhist laws but remain
in their homes are subjects who are obedient to
the transforming powers [of temporal rulers].
Their feelings have not changed from the
customary, and their course of conduct conforms
to the secular world. Therefore this way of life
includes the affection of natural kinship and the
proprieties of obedience to authority” (Huiyuan
427).
 “He
who has left the household life is a lodger
beyond the earthly [secular] world, and his ways
are cut off from those of other beings. The
doctrine by which he lives enables him to
understand that woes and impediments come
from having a body, and that by not maintaining
the body one terminates woe…”
 “Since they have changed their way of life, their
garb and distinguishing marks cannot conform to
the secular pattern…” (428)
 “This is why the monk refuses homage to the
Lord of the Myriad Chariots [i.e. the mepror] and
keeps his own works sublime, why he is not
ranked with kings or princes and yet basks in
their kindness” (429).
 Convenient
 Compatibility
 Localized
 Sui Wendi
(581-604 CE)
◦ Military campaigns
◦ Grand Canal
 Reasons
for decline
 Military
Conquests
 Reasons for success
◦ Transportation
◦ Equal field system
◦ Bureaucracy
◦ Military aristocrats
 Tang Taizong (627-649 CE)
 Military expansion
 Low taxes
 “Confucian” ruler
 Daoist Descent
 Horses
 Agriculture:
◦ Fast-ripening Rice
 Trade
◦ Goods
 Population
Boom
 Urbanization
◦ Chang’an
 “Cosmopolitan”
 Biography
 Legitimacy
and Control
◦ Police force
◦ Civil Service Examination
◦ Buddhism
 Maitreya
 Diamond Sutra
 Dunhuang
 Today:
◦ Look at how the South of China dealt with
Buddhism until the 6th century CE
◦ Look at the reunification of China under the
Sui, and the Golden Age of Chinese Empire
under the High Tang. How did the Tang rulers,
more specifically Empress Wu Zetian, relate to
Buddhism?
 Wednesday:
◦ The Late Tang dynasty and Chinese poetry