Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000 Chapter Contents Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

Chapter 8Hindu and uddhit State and Societie in Aia, 100–1000

Chapter Introduction

8-1 Buddhism, Hinduism, and Indian Rulers, 100–10008-1a The Rise of Greater Vehicle Teachings in Buddhism

8-1b The Rise of Hinduism, 300–900

8-1c The Beginnings of the Chola Kingdom, ca. 900

8-2 Buddhism, Hinduism, and Southeast Asian Rulers, 300–10008-2a Buddhist Kingdoms Along the Trade Routes

8-2b Buddhist and Hindu Kingdoms of Inland Southeast Asia, 300–1000

8-3 Buddhism and the Revival of Empire in China, 100–10008-3a Buddhism in China, 100–589

8-3b China Reunified, 589–907

8-3c The Long Decline of the Tang Dynasty, 755–907

8-3d The Tibetan Empire, ca. 617–ca. 842

8-4 Buddhism and the Tang Blueprint for Rule in Korea and Japan, to 10008-4a Buddhism and Regional Kingdoms in Korea

8-4b The Emergence of Japan

8-5 Chapter Review8-5a Context and Connections The Place of Buddhism and Hinduism in WorldHistory

8-5b Key Terms

8-5c For Further Reference

8-5d

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000 Chapter Introduction Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

Chapter IntroductionIn 838, at the age of forty-five, the Japanese monk Ennin ((793–864) A Japanese monk whotraveled to China between 838 and 847 to obtain original Buddhist texts.) ( EN-nin) (793–864) joined a Japanese delegation that was the last of nearly twenty official delegations sentto China by the Japanese government. The Japanese emperors wanted to learn the reasonsfor the success of the Tang dynasty (618–907), the most powerful empire in East Asia and amodel for all rulers hoping to strengthen their own governments. The Tang dynastyblueprint for rule drew on the earlier Qin/Han blueprint (see Chapter 4) but added otherelements, most importantly state support for Buddhism. The Japanese delegation of overthirty people included both officials and monks like Ennin, who hoped to study withknowledgeable teachers and to obtain copies of books not available in Japan. Eleven daysafter the four ships departed from the modern Japanese port of Fukuoka, it began to rain:

The east wind was blowing fiercely, and the waves were raging high. The ship wassuddenly dashed up onto a shoal. In trepidation we immediately lowered sail, butthe corners of the rudder snapped in two places, while the waves from both eastand west battered the ship and rolled it back and forth. Since the blade of therudder was stuck in the ocean floor, and the ship was about to break up, we cutdown the mast and cast away the rudder. The ship straightway floated with thewaves. When the waves came from the east, the ship leaned over to the west, andwhen they came from the west, it inclined to the east. They washed over the ship toa number beyond count. All on board put their faith in the Buddha and in thedeities, and there was none but did pray.

Portrait of nnin

(From dwin O. Reichauer, tran., nnin' Diar: The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law[New York: Ronald Pre Compan, 1955].)

© Cengage Learning

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Eventually the ship drifted to the Chinese coast, near the city of Yangzhou, and the Japanesereached shore safely. This was only the first of several shipwrecks Ennin survived, and hehad many other setbacks during his seven-year stay in China: officials refused to grant himpermission to visit the monastery where he wanted to study, he waited for months whileofficials debated whether he should proceed, and most frightening of all, he experienced an

anti-Buddhist persecution.

As this chapter explains, Buddhism represented an important element of the revisedChinese blueprint for empire. After reuniting China, the Sui (SWAY) (589–617) and Tang(TAHNG) emperors introduced important additions to the Qin/ Han synthesis of Legalistand Confucian policies, including civil service examinations, a new system of taxation, anda complex law code. They, like the Japanese emperor who sent Ennin in the delegation, alsoaspired to fulfill Ashoka's model of the ideal chakravartin (Literally “turner of the wheel,”a Buddhist term for the ideal ruler who patronized Buddhism but never became a monk.)king who patronized Buddhism (see Chapter 3).

When Ennin went home in 847, he had traveled over 3,000 miles (4,800 km). Ennin'sdetailed account of his trip supplements the official Chinese histories because it reveals somuch about Buddhism in China and Japan. After he returned, Ennin became the thirdabbot of an enormous Buddhist monastery at Mount Hiei outside Kyoto, where heintroduced new rituals that he had learned while in China. He was one of the most famousteachers in the Pure Land school of Buddhism, active in both China and Japan, whichtaught that all beings are capable of attaining Buddhahood, or enlightenment.

On his travels through China, Ennin encountered monks from many other Buddhistcountries, including north and south India, Sri Lanka, Central Asia, Korea, and hishomeland of Japan. The people traveling in this larger Buddhist world—which stretchedfrom India and Nepal, where the Buddha had taught, to Japan and Korea and includedChina and Central Asia—had two languages in common: Sanskrit and Chinese. Ennin didnot speak Chinese, but like all educated Japanese, he could read and write Chinesecharacters.

The overland routes through Central Asia—and the sea routes around Southeast Asia andextending to Japan and Korea—are known today as the Silk Routes (Overland routesthrough Central Asia connecting China and India, as well as the sea routes aroundSoutheast Asia, along which were transmitted teachings, technologies, and languages.) .These routes were conduits not just for pilgrims like Ennin but also for merchants plyingtheir goods, soldiers dispatched to fight in distant lands, and refugees fleeing dangerousareas. Most importantly, information about distant, powerful states traveled along thesesame routes. These travelers told of powerful rulers in India and China, whoseaccomplishments inspired chieftains in border areas to imitate them. These Asian leadersintroduced new writing systems, law codes, ways of recruiting government officials, andtaxation systems, often modifying them to suit their own societies. Some, like the rulers ofKorea, Japan, and Tibet, patronized Buddhism and adopted Tang policies. Others,particularly in South and Southeast Asia, emulated South Asian monarchs and builttemples to deities such as Shiva ( SHIH-vah) and Vishnu ( VISH-new), the most importantdeities in the emerging belief system of Hinduism (Temple-based religious system thatarose between 300 and 700 in India. Hinduism has two dimensions: public worship intemples to deities such as Shiva and Vishnu, and daily private worship in the home.) .

As rulers in Japan, Korea, and Tibet adopted the Tang blueprint, they gave money and landto Buddhist monks and monasteries, providing the crucial impetus for the belief system tospread throughout East and Southeast Asia between 200 and 1000. The individual decisionsof these rulers resulted in the religious reorientation of the region. In 100, a disunited India

was predominantly Buddhist, while the unified China of the Han dynasty embracedLegalist, Confucian, and Daoist beliefs. By 1000, the various kingdoms of India andSoutheast Asia had become largely Hindu, while China, Japan, Korea, and Tibet had becomeBuddhist. This religious shift did not occur because one ruler of an intact empire, such asConstantine in the West, recognized a single religion. It was the result of many decisionstaken in different places by multiple rulers, all of whom sought to strengthen theirgovernments and so increase their power.

Focu Quetion

How did Buddhism change after the year 100? How did Hinduism displace itwithin India?

How did geography, trade, and religion shape the development of states andsocieties in Southeast Asia?

How did the Sui and Tang dynasties modify the Qin/Han blueprint for empire?

Which elements of the revised Chinese blueprint for empire did Korea and Japanborrow intact? Which did they modify?

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-1 Buddhism, Hinduism, and Indian Rulers, 100–1000 Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-1 uddhim, Hinduim, and Indian Ruler, 100–1000By the year 100, India had broken up into different regional kingdoms, all much smallerthan the Mauryan empire ruled by Ashoka (see Chapter 3) but bound by common culturalties of Buddhism, social hierarchy, and respect for classical Sanskrit learning. Despite theclaims of Ashokan inscriptions, the first evidence of the spread of Buddhism beyond SouthAsia dates to the Kushan empire (ca. 50–260), located in Pakistan, Afghanistan, andnorthwest India. The most important Kushan ruler, Kanishka (r. ca. 120–140), launched amissionary movement that propelled the new Greater Vehicle teachings of Buddhism intoCentral Asia and China.

Between 100 and 1000, Buddhism gained many adherents outside India but increasinglylost ground to new deities inside India. A Chinese monk who in the early 600s traveled tonorth India noticed Buddhism in decline everywhere, and he recorded, often regretfully,the rise of a new religion taught by Brahmins. We know this religion as Hinduism, a namenot used until the nineteenth century, when British scholars of Indian religion coined theterm for the religious practices of Indians who were not Zoroastrian, Christian, or Muslim.

By the year 1000, in many regions in India, particularly south India, the largestreligious institutions were temples to Hindu deities such as Vishnu and Shiva.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-1a The Rise of Greater Vehicle Teachings in Buddhism Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-1a The Rie of Greater Vehicle Teaching in uddhim

Buddhism changed a great deal between Ashoka's time in the third century B.C.E. andKanishka's reign in the second century C.E. Most importantly, Buddhist teachings no longerrequired an individual to join the Buddhist order to gain enlightenment. New interpretersof Buddhism referred to their own teachings as the Greater Vehicle (Mahayana) anddenigrated those of earlier schools as the Lesser Vehicle (Hinayana, also called Theravada,meaning “the Tradition of the Elders”).

The Buddha had taught that he was not a deity and that his followers should not makestatues of him. Yet Indians began to worship statues of the Buddha in the first and secondcenturies C.E. (see Chapter 3). They also began to pray to bodhisattvas (Buddhist termdenoting a being headed for Buddhahood but postpones it to help others.) ( BODE-ee-saht-vahz) for easier childbirth or the curing of illness. A bodhisattva—literally, a being headedfor Buddhahood—refers to someone on the verge of enlightenment who chooses, becauseof his or her compassion for others, to stay in this world for this and future lives and helpother sentient beings (the Buddhist term for all living creatures, including humans) toattain nirvana.

The proponents of the Greater Vehicle schools emphasized that Buddhists could transfermerit from one person to another: if someone paid for a Buddhist text to be recited, he orshe acquired a certain amount of merit that could be transferred to someone else, perhapsan ill relative. Buddhist inscriptions frequently state that someone gave a gift to theBuddhist order in someone else's name.

During the early centuries of the Common Era, Buddhist monasteries appeared throughoutIndia. Since monastic rules forbade the monks from working in the fields, mostmonasteries hired laborers to do their farming for them. One monastery erected a giantstone begging bowl by its front gate, where the monastery's supporters placed large giftsfor the monks and nuns.

King Kanishka certainly supported the Buddhist order, and rich merchants probably did aswell. Many Buddhist texts encouraged donors to make gifts of gold, silver, lapis lazuli,crystal, coral, pearls, and agate. These valuable items, often referred to as the SevenTreasures, were traded overland between India and China. The blue mineral lapis lazulicould be mined only in present-day Afghanistan, and one of the world's best sources ofpearls was the island of Sri Lanka, just south of India.

The Buddhists, like the Christians at the Council of Nicaea, met periodically to discuss theirteachings, and Buddhist sources credit Kanishka with organizing the Fourth BuddhistCouncil, whose primary task was to determine which versions of orally transmitted textswere authoritative. Because the few writing materials available in ancient India, such asleaves and wooden tablets, decayed in the tropical climate, monks who specialized inspecific texts taught their disciples to memorize them.

The earliest Buddhists to arrive in China, in the first and second centuries C.E. (discussedlater in this chapter), were missionaries from the Kushan empire. The Kushan dynasty wasonly one of many regional dynasties in India during the first to third centuries C.E. After140, Kanishka's successors fought in various military campaigns, and Chinese sourcesreport the arrival of refugees fleeing the political upheavals of their homeland in northIndia. In 260 the Sasanians (see Chapter 6) defeated the final Kushan ruler, bringing thedynasty to an end.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-1b The Rise of Hinduism, 300–900 Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-1 The Rie of Hinduim, 300–900

In the centuries after the fall of the Kushan dynasty, various dynasties arose in thedifferent regions of South Asia, which continued to be culturally united even as it waspolitically divided. One of the most important was the Gupta dynasty ((ca. 320–600) Indiandynasty based in north India; emulated the earlier Mauryan dynasty and revived the use ofthe Sanskrit language. The Gupta kings pioneered a new type of religious gift: land grantsto Brahmin priests and Hindu temples.) , which controlled much of north India between320 and 600. An admirer of the Mauryan dynasty (ca. 320–185 B.C.E.), Chandragupta (r.319/320–ca. 330), the founder of the Gupta ( GOOP-tah) dynasty, took the same name as theMauryan founder and governed from the former capital at Pataliputra (modern-day Patna).

The Gupta rulers sponsored writers who used Sanskrit, which they saw as the language ofhigher learning. The Gupta period was the great age of Sanskrit, and India's most famousepics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata (see Chapter 3), both composed in Sanskrit, werewritten down in the fourth century.

In subsequent centuries, Sanskrit spread to Southeast Asia and China. During his travels inChina, Ennin experienced several Buddhist rituals with Sanskrit chanting, and heencountered several different teachers of Sanskrit, all from India. He believed they had adeeper knowledge of Buddhist teachings since they could read them in the originalSanskrit, and he himself started to study the language, with limited success.

In an important innovation, the Gupta rulers issued land grants to powerful families,Brahmins, monasteries, and even villages. These grants gave the holder the right to collecta share of the harvest from the cultivators who worked his land. Scribes developed adecimal system that allowed them to record the dimensions of each plot of land. Certainlyby 876, and quite possibly during the Gupta reign, they also started to use a small circle tohold empty places; that symbol is the ancestor of the modern zero. On the other side ofthe globe, the Maya started to use zero at roughly the same time .

The Gupta rulers made many grants of land to Brahmins, members of the highest-rankingvarna (see Chapter 3) who conducted rituals honoring Hindu deities like Vishnu and Shiva.The two deities, who appear only briefly in the Rig Veda of ancient India, becameincreasingly important in later times. Both deities took many forms with various names.Some Hindus claimed that the Buddha was actually an earlier incarnation of Vishnu.

Brahmin priests played an important role in Hindu worship, but unlike the Brahmins ofVedic times, who had conducted large public ceremonies with animal sacrifices, theBrahmins of the Gupta era performed offerings to Vishnu and Shiva at temples. Thesepublic ceremonies allowed local rulers to proclaim their power for all visiting the temple tosee. The second dimension of Hindu worship was private worship in the home, in whichdevotees daily sang songs of love or praise to their deities. This strong personal tie betweenthe devotee and the deity is known as bhakti (Literally “personal devotion or love,” a termfor Hindu poetry or cults that emphasize a strong personal tie between the deity and adevotee, and did not use priests as intermediaries.) . The main evidence for the rise ofbhakti devotionalism is a large corpus of poems written in regional languages such asTamil, a language of great antiquity spoken in the southernmost tip of India.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-1c The Beginnings of the Chola Kingdom, ca. 900 Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-1c The eginning of the Chola Kingdom, ca. 900

In 907, the Tamil-speaking Chola ( CHOH-lah) kings established their dynasty in south India.They were among the most powerful leaders who patronized Hindu temples. In theircapital at Tanjore, the Chola rulers bestowed huge land grants on the Shiva temple becausethey hoped that their subjects would associate the generosity of the royal donors with thepower of the deity.

The Tanjore temple to Shiva, like many other Hindu temples, had an innermost chamber,called the womb room, that housed a stone lingam, to which Hindu priests made ritualofferings. Lingam means “sign” or “phallus” in Sanskrit. On a concrete level, the lingam inthe womb room symbolized the creative force of human reproduction; on a more abstractlevel, it stood for all the creative forces in the cosmos.

The Shiva temple lands lay in the agricultural heartland of south India and, when irrigatedproperly, produced a rich rice harvest whose income supported the thousands of Brahminswho lived in the temple. These Brahmins performed rituals in the temple, memorized andtransmitted different texts, and taught local boys in temple schools.

The Chola kings controlled the immediate vicinity of the capital and possibly the other largecities in their district, but not the many villages surrounding the cities. Many of thesevillages were self-governing. But since their temples were subordinate to the larger templein the Chola capital, they also acknowledged the Chola kings as their spiritual overlords.

rihadehwara Temple at Tanjore, with Wom Room

Rajaraja I (r. 985–1014) built this imposing temple to Shiva at Tanjore. The temple'sornate exterior contrasts sharply with the austere interior. The innermostsanctuary of the Hindu temple, the womb room, held the lingam, on whichdevotees placed offerings, like the flowers shown here. A Hindu goddess sits on thepeacock on the wall. Many temples allowed only Hindus, sometimes only Hindu

priests, to enter the womb room.

Dinodia Photo Lirar Roert Harding World Imager/Jupiter Image

One of the most successful Chola rulers was Rajaraja ( RAH-jah-rah-jah) I (r. 985–1014), whoconquered much of south India and sent armies as far as Srivijaya ( sree-VEE-jeye-ah)(modern Indonesia, on the southern Malay Peninsula and Sumatra). Although he did notconquer any territory there, the people of Southeast Asia learned of the Chola king'saccomplishments from these contacts. As a direct result, local rulers encouraged priestsliterate in Sanskrit to move to Southeast Asia to build Hindu temples and teach them aboutChola governance.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-2 Buddhism, Hinduism, and Southeast Asian Rulers,300–1000 Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-2 uddhim, Hinduim, and Southeat Aian Ruler, 300–1000The term Southeast Asia encompasses a broad swath of land in subtropical Asia and overtwenty thousand islands in the Pacific. In most periods, travel among islands and along theshore was easier than overland travel, which was possible only on some of the region'smajor rivers. Most of the region's sparse population (an estimated fifteen people per squaremile [six people per sq km] in the seventeenth century, and even lower in earliercenturies) lived in isolated groups separated by forests and mountains, but the coastalpeoples went on sea voyages as early as 1000 B.C.E.

Like India, Southeast Asia received heavy monsoon rains in the summer; successfulagriculture often depended on storing rainwater in tanks for use throughout the year.While people in the lowlands raised rice in paddies, the different highland societies largelypracticed slash-and-burn agriculture. Once farmers had exhausted the soil of a given place,they moved on, with the result that few states with fixed borders existed in Southeast Asia.

With no equivalent of caste, the shifting social structure of the region was basically

egalitarian. From time to time, a leader unified some of the groups, dedicated a temple toeither the Buddha or a Hindu deity, and adopted other policies in hopes of strengtheninghis new state.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-2a Buddhist Kingdoms Along the Trade Routes Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-2a uddhit Kingdom Along the Trade Route

Merchants and religious travelers going from India to China (and back) by boat traveledalong well-established routes (see Map 8.1). Before 350, ships usually landed at a port onthe Isthmus of Kra, and travelers crossed the 35-mile (56-km) stretch of land dividing theAndaman Sea from the Gulf of Thailand by foot before resuming their sea voyages.

Map 8.1

The Spread of uddhim and Hinduim to Southeat Aia

Sea routes connected Southeast Asia with both India and China, facilitating travelby missionaries to the region and by devotees from the region. The regions closestto China, particularly Vietnam, became predominantly Buddhist, like China, whilethe rulers of other regions, including Cambodia, patronized both Buddhism andHinduism, as did most rulers in India.

(© Cengage Learning)

Prevailing winds determined the schedule for merchants and pilgrims. During the spring

and summer, while the Eurasian landmass heated up, travelers could follow the monsoonwinds that blew toward India; during the fall and winter, as the landmass cooled, theyfollowed the winds that blew away from the landmass and India. In Southeast Asia, shipswaiting for the winds to change—sometimes with several hundred crew and passengers—needed food and shelter for three to five months, and port towns grew up to accommodatetheir needs. Local rulers discovered that they could tax the travelers, and merchantsrealized that there was a market for Southeast Asian aromatic woods and spices in bothChina and India.

Sometime after 350, the mariners of Southeast Asia discovered a new route between Chinaand India, passing through either the Strait of Malacca or the Sunda Strait. Merchants andmonks disembarked in the kingdom of Srivijaya in modern-day Indonesia, waited for thewinds to shift, and then continued through the South China Sea to China. Srivijaya's rulerwelcomed Buddhist travelers and made extensive contributions to local Buddhistmonasteries as well as non-Buddhist deities. The Srivijayan kings called themselves “Lordof the Mountains” and “Spirit of the Waters of the Sea,” titles from the local religioustraditions. The kingdom of Srivijaya flourished between 700 and 1000. The Srivijayakingdom traded with many regional kingdoms in central Java, where the world's largestBuddhist monument, at Borobudur ( boh-roh-BUH-duhr), provides a powerful example ofreligious architecture connected with early state formation. (See the feature “VisualEvidence in Primary Sources: Borobudur: A Buddhist Monument in Java, Indonesia.”)

The huge scale of Borobudur testifies to the wealth of the kingdom, which clearly benefitedfrom its position on the main sea route between Tang dynasty China and the Islamic world.Archaeologists' discovery of a dhow wrecked in 826 near the island of Beilitung, Indonesia,offered an unusual snapshot of the sea trade. Like all dhows, the vessel had a square sailbut no nails or wooden dowels: its wooden planks were sewn together with coconut fiber.It held over sixty thousand vessels, mostly ceramic, but also some of silver and gold, allmade in China.

Viual vidence in Primar Source

oroudur: A uddhit Monument in Java, Indoneia

The largest Buddhist monument in the world lies not in the homeland of theBuddha in India but over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to the southeast at Borobudur onthe island of Java in Indonesia. The Shailendra ( SHAI-Len-drah) kings (ca. 775–860)built the monument out of volcanic rock sometime in the eighth or ninth century,just as they were consolidating their rule. When they moved their capital to adifferent location in east Java, they abandoned the magnificent complex, and it layunknown until the early nineteenth century, when Sir Thomas Raffles, founder ofSingapore, saw it covered with mold and lichen plants in the middle of a denseforest.

Since no surviving documents explain the meaning of the elements of themonument, analysts must study the different sections of the enormous structure toreconstruct its possible meaning. Rising over 100 feet (31.5 m) above the ground,the monument rests on a large squarish base measuring 400 feet (122 m) on each

side. The overall effect resembles the ziggurat temples of Mesopotamia. Staircasesat the center of each level lead up to the next, and visitors walk around each levelfor a total of 3 miles (5 km) until they reach the top.

The lowest level of the monument, originally below ground, depicts anunderground hell for those who do not obey Buddhist teachings. The four squareterraces above contain over 2,500 panels, most showing scenes from the earlierlives of the Buddha. Monks and guides probably explained the meaning of thesescenes to pilgrims. Near the top, the visitor reaches the three terraces holdingseventy-two bodhisattvas, each sitting under a bell-shaped stone with holes to lookthrough. At the top of the monument stands an empty stupa, which may haveoriginally held a relic.

Borobudur was a pilgrimage site for people all over Southeast Asia. Pilgrimsbrought simple clay objects in the shape of stupas and buried them underground atthe site. Archaeologists have unearthed 2,397 clay stupas and 252 clay tablets withwriting on them. Pilgrims also buried clay pots and sheets of silver covered withwritten Buddhist charms, either to keep away evil spirits or to bring good health.The many languages on the tablets indicate that people came from great distancesto see Borobudur and to make offerings to the Buddha who came to be worshipedso far from his original home.

Most analysts concur that the monument was designed to lead pilgrims from theunderworld, shown in the base, up through the five platforms showing humanexistence, through the world of the seventy-two bodhisattvas, to the single Buddhaon top who had attained enlightenment. While the content of the different panels isclearly inspired by Buddhism, the design of the monument, with its multipleascending levels, is distinctly local. No other Buddhist monument is like it.

Borobudur is made of 2 million separate blocks of yellow-brown andesite, volcanicrock found throughout Java. Each year over 70 inches (2 m) of rain falls on therocks, creating the perfect environment for moss and lichen to thrive. Between1973 and 1983, with UNESCO support, workers dismantled the monument, removedand cleaned each of the blocks, and restored the monument for the third time sinceits rediscovery in the early 1800s.

Quetion For Anali

How had Buddhist worship at stupas changed from the first century B.C.E.at Sanchi (see “Visual Evidence in Primary Sources,” Chapter 3) to the eighthand ninth centuries at Borobudur?

Aia Image/SuperStock

The pottery vessels were mass produced in five different Chinese kilns. The dhowcontained large quantities of identical or similar items, such as 763 identical pots for ink,suggesting that they were to be sold in foreign markets, perhaps in the port of Basra on theArabian Sea. Some of the motifs, like lotus leaves, were Buddhist; others, like inscriptionsfrom the Quran in Arabic, were Islamic. The sea route from Guangzhou, where this shipmost likely departed, to the Persian Gulf was the “longest in regular use by mankind before

the European expansion in the sixteenth century,” according to a historian of early maritimetrade. While the coastal kingdoms of Southeast Asia had frequent contact withoutsiders traveling the ocean routes, the interior kingdoms had much less.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-2b Buddhist and Hindu Kingdoms of Inland SoutheastAsia, 300–1000 Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-2 uddhit and Hindu Kingdom of Inland Southeat Aia, 300–1000

Buddhist images made in stone appeared throughout interior Southeast Asia between 300and 600. In the pre-Buddhist period, all the different societies of the region recognizedcertain individuals as “men of prowess” who used military skill and intelligence to rise tothe leadership of their tribes. Sometimes a leader was so successful that various triballeaders acknowledged him as a regional overlord.

Most societies in Southeast Asia recognized descent through both the mother and thefather. In practice this meant that a nephew of a man of prowess had the same claim as ason to succeed him as the new leader. As a result, no group held together for very long.People were loyal to a given individual, not to a dynasty, and when he died, they tended toseek a new man of prowess to support.

Burial practices varied widely throughout Southeast Asia. In modern Cambodia alone,archaeologists have found evidence of cremation, burial in the ground, burial by disposalin the ocean, and exposure of the dead above ground. Many people conceived of a naturalworld populated by different spirits usually thought to inhabit trees, rocks, and otherphysical features. Specialists conducted rituals that allowed them to communicate withthese spirits.

This was the world into which literate outsiders came in the fourth, fifth, and sixthcenturies C.E. Most of the visitors, some identified as Brahmins, came from India and knewhow to read and write Sanskrit. Southeast Asians also traveled to India, where they studiedSanskrit and returned after they memorized both sacred texts and laws. Inscriptions oftenrefer to men literate in Sanskrit as purohita, a Sanskrit word meaning a chief priest, whoconducted rituals for leaders and served as advisers or administrators. The teachings ofbhakti encouraged devotees to study with a teacher, or purohita, so that they could getcloser to the divinity they worshiped.

aon Gate, Angkor Thom, Camodia

In the 1180s and 1190s, the ruler Jayavarman VII built a series of monuments andtemples, including this one at Angkor Thom, a fortified city just north of AngkorWat. The figures on the road leading up to the Bayon Gate are Buddhist guardians:on the left stands a line of warrior deities; on the right, a row of gods. The faces onthe four sides of the tower are those of a bodhisattva, but the multiple faces alsoseem Hindu, in an artful blending of Hindu and Buddhist imagery.

(Roert Harding World Imager/Alam)

Men literate in Sanskrit brought different teachings—some we now identify as Buddhist,some as Hindu—to the rulers of Southeast Asia. We can see how they came together in theperson of Jayavarman II ( JAI-ah-var-mahn) (ca. 770–850), who ruled the lower Mekongbasin in Cambodia between 802 and 850. Before the Mekong River empties into the SouthChina Sea, much of its waters flow into Tonle Sap (the Great Lake). The lake served as aholding tank for the monsoon rains, which were channeled into nearby rice fields.

Historians view Jayavarman II's reign as the beginning of the Angkor period (802–1431),named for the Angkor dynasty (Khmer-speaking dynasty in modern-day Cambodiafounded by Jayavarman II. His combination of Hindu and Buddhist imagery proved sopotent that it was used by all later Angkor kings.) , whose rulers spoke the Khmer (KMEHR)language. Because Jayavarman II was a devotee of the Hindu deity Shiva, this dynasty isoften called a Hindu dynasty. Shiva was believed to preside over the entire universe, withother less powerful deities having smaller realms. Similarly, Jayavarman II presided overthe human universe as the overlord, while the chieftains in the surrounding region hadtheir own smaller, but inferior, realms. Jayavarman II did not have to conquer themmilitarily to win their allegiance, because they acknowledged him as a bhakti teacher whocould provide them with closer access to Shiva.

Devotees of Shiva built temples on sites where local spirits were thought to live. If the spiritinhabited a rock, that rock could be worshiped as the lingam of a new Shiva temple. In aHindu ceremony to request children, devotees poured a sacred liquid over the lingam, apractice that echoed earlier fertility cults. The largest temple in the kingdom came to beknown as Angkor Wat ( ang-core WAHT). Built in the early twelfth century, it used motifsborrowed from Hinduism to teach its viewers that they were living during a golden age,when peace reigned and the Angkor dynasty controlled much of modern-day Cambodia.Jayavarman II also invoked Buddhist terminology by calling himself a chakravartin ruler.

All subsequent Angkor kings, and many other Southeast Asian rulers, adopted thiscombination of Hindu and Buddhist imagery.

With the exception of Vietnam, which remained within the Chinese cultural sphere,Southeast Asia faced toward India, where Buddhism and Hinduism often coexisted.Buddhism and Hinduism came to Southeast Asia not because of conquest but because localrulers aspired to create new states as powerful as those they heard existed in India.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-3 Buddhism and the Revival of Empire in China, 100–1000 Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-3 uddhim and the Revival of mpire in China, 100–1000With the fall of the Han dynasty in 220, China broke up into different regions, eachgoverned by local military leaders. When the first Buddhist missionaries from the Kushanempire arrived in China during the first and second centuries C.E., they faced greatdifficulties in spreading their religion. Buddhist teachings urged potential converts toabandon family obligations and adopt a celibate lifestyle, yet Confucian China was one ofthe most family-oriented societies in the world. The chakravartin ideal of the universalBuddhist ruler, though, appealed to leaders of regions no longer united under the Handynasty. During the Sui dynasty, which reunited China, and its long-lived successor, theTang dynasty, Chinese emperors introduced important additions to the Qin/Han blueprintfor empire, additions that remained integral to Chinese governance until the end ofdynastic rule in the early 1900s.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-3a Buddhism in China, 100–589 Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-3a uddhim in China, 100–589

The first Chinese who worshiped the Buddha did so because they thought him capable ofmiracles; some sources report that his image shone brightly and could fly through the air.The earliest Chinese document to mention Buddhism, from 65 C.E., tells of a princeworshiping the Buddha alongside the Daoist deity Laozi (see Chapter 4), indicating that theChinese initially thought the Buddha was a Daoist deity.

The Han dynasty ended in 220, and no other regional dynasty succeeded in uniting theempire until 589. Historians call this long period of disunity the Six Dynasties (220–589).During the Six Dynasties, Buddhist miracle workers began to win the first converts.Historians of Buddhism treat these miracle accounts in the same way as historians ofChristianity do biblical accounts (see Chapter 7). Nonbelievers may be skeptical that theevents occurred as described, but people at the time found (and modern devotees continueto find) these tales compelling, and they are crucial to our understanding of how thesereligions gained their first adherents.

One of the most effective early missionaries was a Central Asian man named Fotudeng ((d.349) Central Asian Buddhist missionary who persuaded the ruler Shi Le to convert toBuddhism; Shi Le's decision to grant tax-free land to Buddhist monasteries was a crucialfirst step in the establishment of Buddhism in China.) (d. 349), who claimed that the Buddhahad given him the ability to bring rain, cure the sick, and foresee the future. In 310,Fotudeng managed to convert a local ruler named Shi Le (274–333). Shi Le asked Fotudengto perform a miracle to demonstrate the power of Buddhism. A later biography explainswhat happened: “Thereupon he took his begging bowl, filled it with water, burned incense,and said a spell over it. In a moment there sprang up blue lotus flowers whose brightness andcolor dazzled the eyes.” A Buddhist symbol, the lotus is a beautiful flower that growsfrom a root coming out of a dirty lake bottom; similarly, Fotudeng explained, human beingscould free their minds from the impediments of worldly living and attain enlightenment.As usual with miracle tales, we have no way of knowing what actually happened, butFotudeng's miracle so impressed Shi Le that he granted the Buddhists tax-free land so theycould build monasteries in north China.

The son of a Xiongnu ( SHEE-awng-new) chieftain (see Chapter 4), Shi Le could neverbecome a good Confucian-style ruler because he spoke but could not read or write Chinese.Buddhism appealed to him precisely because it offered an alternative to Confucianism. Hecould aspire to be a chakravartin ruler.

Fotudeng tried to persuade ordinary Chinese to join the new monasteries and nunneries,but most people were extremely reluctant to take vows of celibacy. If they did not havechildren, future generations would not be able to perform ancestor worship for them. ABuddhist book written in the early sixth century, The Lives of the Nuns, portrays thedilemma of would-be converts. When one young woman told her father that she did notwant to marry, he replied, “You ought to marry. How can you be like this?” She explained, “Iwant to free all living beings from suffering. How much more, then, do I want to free my twoparents!” But her father was not persuaded by her promise that she could free himfrom the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Many families made a compromise; theyallowed one child to join the Buddhist order and transfer merit to the other children, whomarried and had children.

Buddhist missionaries found that they could use miracles to convert uneducated peoplelike Shi Le, but they needed accurate Chinese translations of Buddhist texts in Sanskrit toimpress China's scholars. No dictionaries or other translation aids existed. The firstunderstandable translations in Chinese appeared only in the year 400, long after Buddhistshad been active in China, when a monk who knew both Chinese and Sanskrit founded atranslation bureau with teams of bilingual translators.

Buddhists continued to win converts during the fifth and sixth centuries. They gainedsupport because Buddhist teachings offered more hope about the afterlife than didConfucian and Daoist teachings (see Chapter 4).

The original Indian belief in the transmigration of souls as expressed in the Upanishads (oo-PAHN-ih-shahdz; see Chapter 3) presumed that someone's soul in this life stayed intactand could be reborn in a different body. But the Buddhists propounded the no-self doctrine,which taught that there is no such thing as a fixed self. Each person is a constantly shiftinggroup of five aggregates—form, feelings, perceptions, karmic constituents, and

consciousness—that change from one second to the next. Accordingly, there is no self thatcan be reborn in the next life. This idea proved extremely difficult for people to grasp andwas much debated as a result. Gradually, Chinese Buddhists abandoned the strict no-selfdoctrine and began to describe a series of hells, much like the indigenous Chinese conceptof the underground prison, where people went when they died. (See the feature“Movement of Ideas Through Primary Sources: Teaching Buddhism in a ConfucianSociety.”)

By the year 600, Buddhism was firmly implanted in the Chinese countryside. A history ofBuddhism written in that year explained that three types of monasteries existed. In thelargest 47 monasteries, completely financed by the central government, educated monksconducted regular Buddhist rituals on behalf of the emperor and his immediate family. Inthe second tier were 839 monasteries that depended on powerful families for support. Thefinal category included over thirty thousand smaller shrines that dotted the Chinesecountryside. Dependent on local people for contributions, the monks who worked in theseshrines were often uneducated. The number of monks never exceeded more than 1 percentof China's total population, which was about 50 million in 600.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-3b China Reunified, 589–907 Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-3 China Reunified, 589–907

After more than three hundred years of disunity, the founder of the Sui dynasty reunifiedChina in 589. Then, in less than thirty years, the Tang dynasty (Dynasty (618–907) thatrepresented a political and cultural high point in Chinese history. The Tang emperorscombined elements of the Qin/Han blueprint for empire with new measures to create amodel of governance that spread to Tibet, Korea, and Japan.) succeeded the Sui. The Suiand Tang emperors embraced the chakravartin ideal, for they hoped Buddhism would helpto bind their many subjects together. The Tang emperors ruled more territory than anydynasty until the mid-eighteenth century, and Chinese openness to the influences of CentralAsia made Tang art and music particularly beautiful.

Consciously modeling himself on the great chakravartin ruler Ashoka, whose support forthe Buddhist order was well known in China, the Sui founder gave money for theconstruction of monasteries all over his empire. When the emperor turned sixty in 601, heordered stupas for Buddhist relics to be built in thirty different places throughout theempire. At noon on the fifteenth day of the tenth month, each of the monasteriessimultaneously conducted a ritual to honor the relics. Burning incense, the emperorwelcomed 367 monks who attended the ceremony at the Daxing monastery in Chang'an (CHAHNG-ahn). He conducted identical rituals at fifty-three new monasteries in 602, and atanother thirty in 604, the year he died.

When the emperor's son came to power, he led his armies on a disastrous campaign inKorea. He was soon overthrown by one of his generals, who went on to found the Tangdynasty. After only eight years of rule, in 626, the Tang founder's son, Emperor Taizong,overthrew his father in a bloody coup in which he killed one of his brothers and ordered an

officer to kill another.

A talented general, Emperor Taizong led his armies on successive campaigns and extendedTang China's borders deep into Central Asia. Taizong was also able to fulfill thechakravartin ideal by making generous donations of money and land to Buddhistmonasteries.

One of Taizong's greatest accomplishments was a comprehensive law code, the Tang Code,that was designed to help local magistrates govern and adjudicate disputes, a major part oftheir job. It taught them, for example, how to distinguish between manslaughter andmurder and specified the punishments for each. Tang dynasty governance continued manyHan dynasty innovations, particularly respect for Confucian ideals coupled with Legalistpunishments and regulations.

The Tang Code also laid out the equal-field system (The basis of the Tang dynasty taxsystem as prescribed in the Tang Code. Dividing households into nine ranks on the basis ofwealth, officials allocated each householder a certain amount of land.) , which was thebasis of the Tang dynasty tax system. Under the equal-field system, the governmentconducted a census of all inhabitants and drew up registers listing each household and itsmembers every three years. Dividing households into nine ranks on the basis of wealth, itallocated to each householder a certain amount of land, some for temporary use until thenext registers were compiled three years later, some for permanent use. It also fixed thetax obligations of each individual. Historians disagree about whether the equal-field systemtook effect throughout all of the empire, but they concur that Tang dynasty officials had anunprecedented degree of control over their 50 million subjects.

Emperor Taizong made Confucianism the basis of the educational system. By reserving thehighest 5 percent of posts in the government for those who had passed writtenexaminations on the Confucian classics, the Tang set an important precedent (see Chapter12). Taizong combined the chakravartin ideal with Confucian policies to create a newmodel of rulership for East Asia.

One Tang emperor extended the chakravartin ideal to specific government measures:Emperor Wu ((r. 685–705) The sole woman to rule China as emperor in her own right; shecalled herself emperor and founded a new dynasty, the Zhou (690–705), that replaced theTang dynasty until her death in 705, when the Tang dynasty was restored.) (r. 685–705), theonly woman to rule China as emperor in her own right. Many English-language booksincorrectly refer to her as Empress Wu, even though she called herself emperor. Originallythe wife of the emperor, she engineered the imperial succession so that she could servefirst as regent to a boy emperor and then as emperor herself.

The chakravartin ideal appealed to Emperor Wu because an obscure Buddhist text, TheGreat Cloud Sutra, prophesied that a kingdom ruled by a woman would be transformedinto a Buddhist paradise. (The word sutra means the words of the Buddha recorded inwritten form.) Emperor Wu ordered the construction of Buddhist monasteries in each partof China so that The Great Cloud Sutra could be read aloud. She issued edicts forbidding theslaughter of animals or the eating of fish, both violations of Greater Vehicle teachings. In690, after five years as a Tang emperor, she proclaimed a new dynasty named the Zhou,and in 693 she officially proclaimed herself a chakravartin ruler. In 705 she was

overthrown in a palace coup, and the Tang dynasty was restored. Documents andportrayals of the time do not indicate that Emperor Wu was particularly aware of beingfemale. Like the female pharaoh Hatshepsut (see Chapter 2), Emperor Wu portrayedherself as a legitimate dynastic ruler.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-3c The Long Decline of the Tang Dynasty, 755–907 Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-3c The Long Decline of the Tang Dnat, 755–907

Historians today divide the Tang dynasty into two halves: 618–755 and 755–907. In the firsthalf, the Tang emperors ruled with great success. They enjoyed extensive military victoriesin Central Asia, unprecedented control over their subjects through the equal-field system,and great internal stability. The first signs of decline came in the early 700s, when taxofficials reported insufficient revenues from the equal-field system. In 751, the Tang sentan army deep into Central Asia, to Talas (modern-day Dzhambul, Kazakstan), to fight anarmy sent by the Abbasid caliph, ruler of much of the Islamic world (see Chapter 9). TheTang army lost the battle, which marked the end of Tang expansion into Central Asia.

The defeat drew little notice in the capital, where all officials were transfixed by theconflict between the emperor and his leading general, who was rumored to be having anaffair with the emperor's favorite consort, a court beauty named Precious Consort Yang. In755 General An Lushan led a mutiny of the army against the emperor. The Tang dynastysuppressed the rebellion in 763 but never regained full control of the provinces. The equal-field system collapsed, and the dynasty was forced to institute new taxes that producedmuch less revenue.

Movement of Idea Through Primar Source

Teaching uddhim in a Confucian Societ

Monks frequently told stories to teach ordinary people the tenets of Buddhism. Thestory of the Indian monk Maudgalyayana ( mowd-GAH-lee-yah-yah-nah) survives ina Sanskrit version, composed between 300 B.C.E. and 300 C.E., and a much longerChinese version from a manuscript dated 921. This story has enormous appeal inChina (it is frequently performed as Chinese opera or on television) because itportrays the dilemma of those who wanted to be good Confucian sons as well asgood Buddhists. Maudgalyayana may have been filial, but he was unable to fulfillhis Confucian obligations as a son because he did not bear a male heir. TheBuddhist narrator takes great pains to argue that he can still be a good son becauseConfucian offerings have no power in a Buddhist underworld.

In the Sanskrit version, Maudgalyayana, one of the Buddha's disciples, realizes thathis mother has been reborn in the real world and asks the Buddha to help her toattain nirvana. Maudgalyayana and the Buddha travel to find the mother, whoattains nirvana after hearing the Buddha preach.

In the Chinese version, the protagonist retains his Indian name but acts like atypical Chinese son in every respect. The tale contrasts the behavior of the virtuous,if slightly dim, Maudgalyayana with his mother, who never gave any support to herlocal monastery and even kept for herself money that her son had asked her to givethe monks. As a filial son, he cannot believe her capable of any crime, and hesearches through all the different compartments of the Chinese hell to find her.Unrepentant to the very end of the tale, she explains that traditional Confucianofferings to the ancestors have no power in the underworld. Only offerings to theBuddhist order, such as paying monks to copy Buddhist texts, can help to ease hersuffering. At the end of the story, the Buddha himself frees her from theunderworld, a grim series of hells that do not exist in the Sanskrit original.

Sankrit Verion

From afar, [Maudgalyayana's mother] Bhadrakanya [ bud-DRAH-kahn-ee-ya] sawher son, and, as soon as she saw him, she rushed up to him exclaiming, “Ah! At longlast I see my little boy!” Thereupon the crowd of people who had assembled said:“He is an aged wandering monk, and she is a young girl—how can she be hismother?” But the Venerable Maha Maudgalyayana replied, “Sirs, these skandhas

of mine were fostered by her; therefore she is my mother.”

Then the Blessed One, knowing the disposition, propensity, nature andcircumstances of Bhadrakanya, preached a sermon fully penetrating the meaningof the Four Noble Truths. And when Bhadrakanya had heard it, she was brought tothe realization of the fruit of entering the stream.

Chinee Verion

This is the place where mother and son see each other: …Trickles of blood flowed from the seven openings of her head.Fierce flames issued from the inside of his mother's mouth,At every step, metal thorns out of space entered her body;She clanked and clattered like the sound of five hundred broken-down chariots,How could her waist and backbone bear up under the strain?Jailers carrying pitchforks guarded her to the left and the right,Ox-headed guards holding chains stood on the east and the west;Stumbling at every other step, she came forward,Wailing and weeping, Maudgalyayana embraced his mother.Crying, he said: “It was because I am unfilial,You, dear mother, were innocently caused to drop into the triple mire of hell;Families which accumulate goodness have a surplus of blessings,High Heaven does not destroy in this manner those who are blameless.In the old days, mother, you were handsomer than Pan An ,But now you have suddenly become haggard and worn;I have heard that in hell there is much suffering,

Now, today, I finally realize, ‘Ain't it hard, ain't it hard.’Ever since I met with the misfortune of father's and your deaths,I have not been remiss in sacrificing daily at your graves;Mother, I wonder whether or not you have been getting any food to eat,In such a short time, your appearance has become completely haggard.”Now that Maudgalyayana's mother had heard his words,“Alas!” she cried, her tears intertwining as she struck and grabbed at herself:“Only yesterday, my son, I was separated from you by death.Who could have known that today we would be reunited?While your mother was alive, she did not cultivate blessings,But she did commit plenty of all the ten evil crimes ;Because I didn't take your advice at that time, my son,My reward is the vastness of this Avici Hell .In the old days, I used to live quite extravagantly,Surrounded by fine silk draperies and embroidered screens;How shall I be able to endure these hellish torments,And then to become a hungry ghost for a thousand years?A thousand times, they pluck the tongue from out of my mouth,Hundreds of passes are made over my chest with a steel plough;My bones, joints, tendons, and skin are everywhere broken,They need not trouble with knives and swords since I fall to pieces by myself.In the twinkling of an eye, I die a thousand deaths,But, each time, they shout at me and I come back to life;Those who enter this hell all suffer the same hardships.It doesn't matter whether you are rich or poor, lord or servant.Though you diligently sacrificed to me while you were at home,It only got you a reputation in the village for being filial;Granted that you did sprinkle libations of wine upon my grave,But it would have been better for you to copy a single line of sutra.”

Quetion For Anali

What are the main differences between the Indian and Chinese versions?

How do they portray the fate of the mother after her death?

What is the Chinese underworld like?

Source. John Strong, “Filial Piet and uddhim: The Indian Antecedent to a ‘Chinee’ Prolem,” in Traditionin Contact and Change: Selected Proceeding of the XlVth Congre of the International Aociation for the

Hitor of Religion, ed. Peter Slater and Donald Wiee (Winnipeg, Man.: Wilfrid Laurier Univerit Pre, 1980),p. 180; from Tun-huang Popular Narrative, Victor H. Mair. Copright © 1983 Camridge Univerit Pre.Reprinted with permiion of Camridge Univerit Pre.

Although the Tang dynasty was weaker after 755 than before, it remained quite powerful,especially in comparison to its neighbors in Korea, Japan, and Tibet. When, after 838, Ennintraveled around China, he encountered officials who zealously enforced the complex rulesgoverning travelers. He initially tried to follow all the regulations, but when he realizedthat his hosts might not permit him to stay, he lied to them and said that he had missed aboat home. When ordained, all Buddhist monks took a vow promising to uphold the fiveprecepts, which included not lying , but Ennin invoked the Buddhist teaching of expedientmeans to justify his decision: it was more important for him to study Buddhism than toobey the emperor's regulations. His unusual candor makes his account particularlyreliable: historians value a primary source whose author admits to being flawed.

China's wealth struck Ennin early in his travels. Just after his arrival, as he and hiscompanions made their way to Yangzhou, they saw “boats of the salt bureau laden withsalt,” tied three or four across, and stretching for over 10 miles (16 km). “This unexpectedsight is not easy to record. It was most extraordinary.” The Japanese monk had simplynever seen so much salt, a costly commodity, in the same place, and he could not conceiveof a government that could control so many boats.

Ennin also visited the Tang capital of Chang'an. With a population of at least 500,000, thecity was possibly the largest in the world (its only possible rival was Baghdad, in modern-day Iraq). Chang'an was laid out on a formal grid (see Figure 8.1). The major boulevardsstretched 500 feet, or 150 meters, across—the width of a modern forty-lane highway. Thecity had two markets, one to the west for mostly foreign goods, one to the east for domesticgoods. In 843 Ennin heard about a fire in the Eastern Market that “burned over fourthousand houses in twelve alleyways westward from the gate of the Eastern MarketSupervisor. Public and private money and gold, silver, silks, and drugs were all destroyed”—an indication of both the market's population density and the goods for sale.

Figure 8.1

Laout of Chang'an and Heian (Koto)

Many rulers in East Asia followed Tang models very closely. Compare the city plansof Chang'an, the Tang capital, and Kyoto, the Heian capital. Both cities had squarewalls enclosing a gridded street plan, and the imperial palace was located in thenorth. Unlike Chang'an, Kyoto did not have a city wall or two central markets.

(Figure 8.1 from Patricia re, Anne Walthall, and Jame Palai, at Aia, 2d ed. Copright © 2009 Wad-worth, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc. Reproduced permiion, www.cengage.com/permiion.)

Among the goods for sale were printed books and calendars, the product of a newtechnology that originated in China and altered the course of world history. Ever since thefounding of the religion, Buddhists had encouraged their followers to memorize and reciteBuddhist teachings. In China devout Buddhists, seeking merit for themselves and theirfamilies, paid monks to copy texts. Sometime in the eighth century believers realized thatthey could make multiple copies of a prayer or picture of a deity if they used woodblockprinting (Printing technique developed by the Chinese in which printers made an image inreverse on a block of wood and then pressed the block onto sheets of paper. An efficientway to print texts in Chinese characters.) .

Woodlock Printing

This single sheet of paper is slightly larger than a standard 8½ by 11 sheet ofcomputer paper today. With a drawing of a bodhisattva above and the words ofprayers below, it demonstrates how believers used woodblock printing to spreadBuddhist teachings. The new medium reproduced line drawings and Chinesecharacters equally well, and printers could make as many copies as they likedsimply by inking the woodblock and pressing individual sheets of paper on it. Themore copies they made, they believed, the more merit they earned.

(© The Trutee of the ritih Mueum)

At first Buddhists printed multiple copies of single sheets; later they used glue to connectthe pages to form a long book. The world's earliest surviving printed book, from 868, is aBuddhist text, The Diamond Sutra. During the Tang dynasty, almost all printing wasreligious, and Ennin bought both printed books and hand-copied manuscripts throughouthis stay in China so that he could bring them to Japan, where books were scarce.

In 841, a new emperor, Emperor Wuzong, came to the throne and tried immediately toincrease tax revenues by collecting taxes from the 300,000 tax-exempt monks and nuns.Observing these different anti-Buddhist measures, Ennin commented that the emperor“hates Buddhism. He does not like to see monks.” The emperor ordered monks and nunsunder fifty to leave the monasteries and return to lay life so that they could raise their owntax-paying families. Ennin agreed to return to lay life so that he could return to Japan. Heput on non-Buddhist clothes and started to let his shaved head grow hair.

As happy as he was to return home, his main concern was the “four hampers of writings”that he had collected in his travels: “I merely regret that I shall not be able to take with methe holy teachings I have copied.” If Chinese officials caught him with Buddhist books, theywould surely confiscate them and possibly prevent him from going home.

*

*

Luckily for Ennin, in 846, just before his departure, the emperor Wuzong died. The newemperor permitted monasteries to reopen and monks to return to them. Although severe,Wuzong's ban had few lasting effects. Ennin departed with most of his library intact.

After Ennin returned home in 847, no Tang emperor managed to solve the problem ofdwindling revenues. In 907, when a rebel deposed the last Tang emperor, who had beenheld prisoner since 885, China broke apart into different regional dynasties and was notreunited until 960 (see Chapter 12). Even so, the Tang dynasty remained a powerful symbolfor its neighbors and subsequent dynasties. It had stayed in power for nearly threecenturies and governed more territory than any previous Chinese empire by combiningsupport for Buddhist clergy and monasteries with strong armies, clear laws, and civilservice examinations.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-3d The Tibetan Empire, ca. 617–ca. 842 Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-3d The Tietan mpire, ca. 617–ca. 842

The rulers of the Tibetan plateau were among the first to adopt the Tang model ofgovernance. Most of the Tibetan plateau lies within today's People's Republic of China, buthistorically it was a borderland not always under Chinese control. Located between theKunlun Mountains to the north and the Himalayan Mountains to the south, the Tibetanplateau is high, ranging between 13,000 and 15,000 feet (4,000 and 5,000 m). Its extensivegrasslands are suitable for raising horses, and barley can be grown in some river valleys.The inhabitants used knotted cords and tallies to keep records because they had no writingsystem.

Sometime between 620 and 650, during the early years of the Tang, a ruler namedSongtsen Gampo ((ca. 617–649/650) Founder of the Yarlung dynasty in Tibet whointroduced Buddhism and an alphabet to his subjects.) ( srong-btsan sgam-po) (ca. 617–649/650) unified Tibet for the first time and founded the Yarlung dynasty (ca. 617–ca. 842).Hoping to build a strong state, he looked to both India and China for models of governance.In 632, he sent an official to India to study Buddhism, who returned and introduced a newalphabet, based on Sanskrit, that enabled Tibetans to write their language for the first time.

Songtsen Gampo learned that the Tang emperor had provided Chinese brides for theleaders of several peoples living in western China and demanded that he be given aChinese bride, too. At first Emperor Taizong refused, but when a Tibetan army nearlydefeated the Tang forces in Sichuan, he sent a bride in 641. Later sources credit thiswoman, the princess of Wencheng ( ONE-chuhng) (d. 684), with introducing Buddhism toTibet and call her a bodhisattva because of her compassion for Tibetans.

Her husband, Songtsen Gampo, realized that he could learn much more from China thanBuddhist teachings. He requested that the Tang court send to his court men who could readand write, and he dispatched members of his family to Chang'an to study Chinese. TheChinese sent craftsmen to teach Tibetans how to make silk and paper and how to brewwine. For the first time Songsten Gampo recorded traditional laws on Chinese paper with

ink. (See the feature “World History in Today's World: A World with Two Dalai Lamas?”)

The Tibetan army took advantage of Tang weakness during the An Lushan rebellion and in763 briefly invaded the capital of Chang'an before retreating. They conquered territory inwestern China, which they ruled for nearly a century until 842, when the confederation ofpeoples who had supported the Yarlung dynasty suddenly broke apart. The Tibetanexperience demonstrates the utility of the Sui/Tang model of governance for a people in theearly stages of state formation, and subsequent Tibetan dynasties periodically returned toit.

World Hitor in Toda' World

A World with Two Dalai Lama?

The Dalai Lama, perhaps the most famous Buddhist teacher in the world, is thespiritual leader of Tibet's 6 million Buddhists. Tibetan Buddhists believe that he isthe manifestation of Avalokiteshvara (whose Tibetan name is Chenrezig), thebodhisattva of compassion and patron saint of Tibet. Born in Tibet in 1935, thecurrent Dalai Lama, His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, was identified as the new DalaiLama when he was three years old.

Following the traditional process, senior monks searched for children born nearthe time the previous Dalai Lama had died. These monks showed many childrenthe possessions of the deceased Dalai Lama alongside other items that had notbelonged to him. Tenzin Gyatso successfully identified the previous Dalai Lama'spossessions, crying out loud “It's mine, it's mine.” This and other indicationspersuaded the search team that the child was indeed the reincarnation of thedeceased Dalai Lama, and Tenzin Gyatso left his parents to live in a local monasteryand study Buddhism. In 1940 he traveled to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, where hewas formally named the spiritual leader of Tibet at a ritual in the Potala Palace. In1959, when the People's Republic of China established direct administration of theregion, the Dalai Lama left Tibet and has since lived in exile in Dharamsala, India,along with several thousand other Tibetans.

How will the next Dalai Lama be chosen? The Dalai Lama has advocated changingthe traditional process so that someone who does not live in Tibet—perhaps even anon-Tibetan—could succeed him. Adamantly opposed to this proposal, the Chineseofficials who govern Tibet argue that the next Dalai Lama should be chosenfollowing the traditional process. Many observers believe that the Tibetan exilecommunity and the Chinese government will each choose their own candidate,with the result that two men will claim to be the legitimate successor of the DalaiLama.

As is true of the Dalai Lama, certain men head individual schools of Buddhists, butno single person claims to lead all the world's Buddhists. Scholars of religion arenot certain how to calculate the total number of Buddhists but estimate it at 350million, with 100 million in China and 90 million in Japan. While many modernChinese or Japanese, if asked, may identify themselves as Buddhists, they visit

Buddhist temples only rarely and devote less time to religious devotion than doTibetan Buddhists.

Source: The New York Time; www.dalailama.com; www.adherent.com.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-4 Buddhism and the Tang Blueprint for Rule in Koreaand Japan, to 1000 Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-4 uddhim and the Tang lueprint for Rule in Korea and Japan,to 1000

Because of the Han dynasty military garrisons in Korea, Koreans had some contact withChina as early as the Qin and Han dynasties (see Chapter 4), while their neighbors to theeast in Japan, who were surrounded by water, did not. The Japanese learned about manyChinese innovations from the Koreans.

In Korea and Japan, as in Tibet, rulers adopted the Tang blueprint for rule, includingBuddhism, because they hoped to match the accomplishments (particularly the militarysuccess) of the Tang dynasty. Certain elements of the blueprint, like the patronage ofBuddhism, were easy for them to adopt, but others, like the equal-field system, did not suiteither Korean or Japanese society.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-4a Buddhism and Regional Kingdoms in Korea Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-4a uddhim and Regional Kingdom in Korea

The northern part of the Korean peninsula remained under Chinese dominance until 313,when the king of the northern Koguryo ( KOH-guh-ree-oh) region overthrew the lastChinese ruler. Because the Chinese presence had been limited to military garrisons, therewas little lasting influence.

During this time, Korea was divided into different small chiefdoms on the verge ofbecoming states (see Map 8.2). The three most important ones were Koguryo (traditionally37 B.C.E.–668 C.E.), Paekche ( PECK-jeh; traditionally 18 B.C.E.–660 C.E.), and Silla ( SHE-luh;traditionally 57 B.C.E.–935 C.E.). These “traditional” dates are based on much later legends,not contemporary evidence, which indicates that the three states largely coalesced after300. The Three Kingdoms period (The period of Korean history from 313 to 668 when theKoguryo, Paekche, and Silla kingdoms all fought for control of the Korean peninsula andexercised profound cultural influence on Japan.) started in 313, when the Koguryokingdom expelled the last Chinese armies, and lasted until 668, when the Korean peninsulawas unified for the first time.

Map 8.2

Korea and Japan, ca. 550

The Japanese island of Kyushu lies some 150 miles (240 km) from the Koreanpeninsula, and the island of Tsushima provided a convenient stepping) stone to theJapanese archipelago for those fleeing the warfare on the Korean peninsula. TheKorean migrants introduced their social structure (with its bone-rank system) andBuddhism to Japan.

(© Cengage Learning)

After 300, these three kingdoms constantly vied with each other for territory and influence.Their campaigns extended all the way to the Japanese archipelago, where the Koreanarmies introduced new iron weapons like swords and spear points. In the centuries beforegunpowder, heavy armor was a powerful military technology that protected soldiers fromflying arrows and spears.

The Korean rulers adopted crucial elements of the Tang blueprint for rule during the ThreeKingdoms period. They learned to read and write using Chinese characters and read themaloud using Korean pronunciation. Adopting Chinese-style written laws, they establishedConfucian academies where students could study Chinese characters, Confucian classics,the histories, and different philosophical works in Chinese. They also introduced

Buddhism.

Before the adoption of Buddhism, the residents of the Korean peninsula prayed to localdeities or nature spirits for good health and good harvests. The vast majority lived in smallagricultural villages and grew rice. The ruling families of the Koguryo and Paekchekingdoms adopted Buddhism in the 370s and 380s for the same reasons: their rulers hopedto strengthen their dynasties and welcomed Buddhist missionaries from China. LikeChinese rulers, the Koguryo and Paekche kings combined patronage for Buddhism withsupport for Confucian education.

The circumstances accompanying the adoption of Buddhism by the Silla (Korean kingdomthat adopted Buddhism and united with the Tang dynasty in 660 to defeat the Koguryo andPaekche kingdoms, unifying Korea for the first time in 668.) royal house illustrate howdivided many Koreans were about the new religion. King Pophung (r. 514–540), whosename means “King who promoted the Dharma,” wanted to patronize Buddhism but fearedthe opposition of powerful families who had passed laws against it.

Sometime around 527, he persuaded one of his courtiers to build a shrine to the Buddha.However, since such activity was banned, the king had no choice but to order the courtier'sbeheading. The king and his subject prayed for a miracle. An early history of Koreadescribes the moment of execution: “Down came the sword on the monk's neck, and up flewhis head spouting blood as white as milk.” The miracle, we are told, silenced the opposition,and Silla became Buddhist in that year.

By the middle of the sixth century, all three Korean kingdoms had adopted pro-Buddhistpolicies, and all sent government officials and monks to China, then divided into regionalkingdoms, to learn how to govern. The three ruling dynasties built Buddhist monasteries inmajor cities and in the countryside, but ordinary people continued to worship the samelocal deities they had in pre-Buddhist times.

From 598 into the 640s, the Sui and Tang dynasties led several attacks on the Koreanpeninsula, all unsuccessful. In 660 the Silla kingdom allied with the Tang dynasty in hopesof defeating the Koguryo and Paekche kingdoms. Paekche was allied with the Japanese, andthe Silla-Tang armies defeated the Paekche forces first in 660 and then in a major navalbattle at Paekchon River in 663. The combined Silla-Tang forces did not reach Japan, butthe defeat of Japan's navy—the greatest before 1600—caused the loss of four hundredJapanese ships and several thousand Japanese sailors.

A Formidale Korean Warrior

This mounted cavalry soldier, a ceramic figurine from the Korean peninsula madein the fifth or sixth century C.E., displays the most up-to-date weaponry and armorof his time. Observe his saddle, the armor covering his legs (which consists of smallplates of iron sewn together in parallel rows), and, in particular, the stirrups, abrand-new innovation that gave riders much greater control over their mounts.

(Courte, National Mueum of Korea)

After defeating the Paekche, the Silla-Tang armies conquered the Koguryo dynasty. By 675the Silla forces had pushed Tang armies back to the northern edges of the Koreanpeninsula. This victory unified the Korean peninsula for the first time under Korean ruleand ushered in a period of stability that lasted for two and a half centuries. Silla kingsoffered different types of support to Buddhism, with several following the example ofAshoka and the Sui founder in building pagodas throughout their kingdom.

Some elements of the Tang blueprint were not appropriate for the highly stratified Koreansociety of the seventh and eighth centuries. The bone-rank system (Korean social rankingsystem used by the Silla dynasty that divided Korean families into seven differentcategories, with kings coming from only the top group.) classed all Korean families into oneof seven categories. The true-bone classification was reserved for the highest-bornaristocratic families, which included those eligible to be king. Below them were six otherranks in descending order.

The Silla rulers found that the redistribution of land every three years according to theequal-field system was not workable and that they could govern better if they grantedentire villages forever to members of the true-bone families. In turn, the true-bone familiespaid the salaries of government officials, who then appointed other officials from the true-bone families. Civil service examinations became an important element of Korean society,but, unlike in Tang China, the authorities limited the exams to candidates from the highest-

ranking families.

The Silla kingdom entered a period of decline after 780. From that time on, differentbranches of the royal family fought each other for control of the throne, and no onemanaged to rule for long.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-4b The Emergence of Japan Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-4 The mergence of Japan

Japan is an island chain, or archipelago, of four large islands and many smaller ones. LikeKorea, which is only 150 miles (240 km) away, Japan had no indigenous writing system, soarchaeologists must piece together the island's early history from archaeological materialsand later sources like the Chronicle of Japan (Nihon shoki) ( knee-HOHN SHOW-kee), a year-by-year account written in 720. The royal Yamato ( YAH-mah-toe) house, the Chronicleclaims, was directly descended from the sun-goddess Amaterasu ( AH-mah-TAY-rah-suh).The indigenous religion of Japan, called Shinto ( SHIN-toe), included the worship ofdifferent spirits of trees, streams, and mountains, as well as deceased rulers.

In the 300s and 400s, multiple chieftains, including the Yamato clan, ruled the differentregions of Japan. Cultural influence from Korea to Japan accelerated in the fifth and sixthcenturies, when many Koreans fled the political instability of the disunited peninsula tosettle in the relative peace of Japan. In addition to military practices, the Korean refugeesintroduced techniques of governance relying on Chinese characters, law codes, andBuddhist teachings. Affecting all social groups, these changes had far-reaching effects.

The Yamato kings gave titles modeled on the Korean bone-rank system to powerfulJapanese clans who were their military allies. They also allied with the Korean kingdom ofPaekche against the Silla kingdom, which was geographically closest and so posed thegreatest threat to Japan. Once the Paekche royal house adopted Buddhism, it began topressure its clients, the Yamato clan, to follow suit. In 538, the Paekche ambassador broughta gift of Buddhist texts and images for the ruler of Japan, but the most powerful Japanesefamilies hesitated to support the new religion. The conflict among supporters andopponents of Buddhism lasted for nearly fifty years, during which the Paekche rulerscontinued to send gifts of Buddhist writings, monks, and nuns.

The main supporters of Buddhism in Japan were the Soga clan (Powerful Japanese familyof Korean descent that ruled in conjunction with the Yamato clan from 587 to 645;introduced Buddhism to Japan.) , who were most likely of Korean ancestry and whosupplied the Yamato rulers with wives. In 587, armed conflict broke out between the clansopposed to Buddhism and the Soga family, led by the thirteen-year-old prince Shotoku (SHOW-toh-ku) (574–622), too young to govern in his own right, and his mother, the regent.Prince Shotoku vowed that if the Soga clan was victorious, the government would supportBuddhism. The pro-Buddhist forces won, and the Japanese court converted to Buddhism in587.

Aware of the founding of the Sui dynasty and the subsequent reunification of China, PrinceShotoku sent the first Japanese delegation to China in 600. A large mission could have asmany as five hundred participants, including officials, Buddhist monks, students, andtranslators. Some Japanese stayed in China for as long as thirty years before they returnedhome to teach their countrymen what they had learned. Three other missions went beforethe collapse of the Sui and the founding of the Tang dynasty in 618.

Acutely aware of China's military campaigns in Korea, successive Japanese rulers madeseveral attempts to implement the Tang blueprint for rule. They sought to strengthen theircountry and also to enhance their own rule, because a Chinese-style emperor had muchmore power than a chieftain. In 645 the emperor announced that he would adopt theequal-field system and redistribute land every six years (rather than every three years as inthe Tang Code), but he did not actually carry out these policies.

The 663 defeat of their Paekche allies galvanized the Japanese rulers, who realized that, ifthey did not adopt Chinese-style reforms, they could easily suffer the same fate. In 701,another Japanese ruler made an attempt to enforce the Tang blueprint for rule: this time hesuccessfully issued a written law code, assigned rice-paddy land to individual households,and redistributed land every six years.

Horuji Pagoda, Nara, Japan

Built before 794, this five-story pagoda is possibly one of the oldest woodenbuildings in the world. Like the stupa at the Indian site of Sanchi, it was built tohold relics of the Buddha. Not certain how the building survived multipleearthquakes without sustaining any damage, architects speculate that the centralpillar is not directly connected to the ground below, allowing it to float slightlyabove the ground.

(Roert Harding World Imager/Alam)

The changing design of Japanese capitals clearly illustrates the extent of Chinese influence.Before 710 the Japanese had occupied thirty-six capitals in 250 years. Houses were madewith thatched roofs and wooden pillars buried directly in the dirt, where they rotted afteronly a few years. Every time a ruler died, the new ruler shifted the capital, partially toescape the ghost of the deceased emperor. After 710 the Japanese adopted Chinese buildingpractices, using tiled roofs and stone bases for timber columns so that they did not rot.They built a new capital at Nara, their first Chinese-style city with gridded streets, walls,and gates, which gives its name to the Nara period (710–784). Then in 784, they shifted thecapital to modern Kyoto, where it remained for over one thousand years. Kyoto was calledHeian ( HEY-on), and the Heian period lasted from 784 to 1185 (see Figure 8.1).

Contact with China brought genuine risks, too. Starting in the 720s and then acceleratingrapidly in the 730s, multiple smallpox epidemics broke out. Commentators knew that thedisease originated in China and Korea. In earlier centuries Japan's population wasdispersed over a wide area, so epidemic diseases could not spread. But the building ofChinese-style cities and growing population density resulting from the introduction of riceagriculture created the optimal conditions for epidemics. Japan's population reachedaround 5 million in the year 700, and some 25 percent of its people died in the epidemics.

In 749 a woman named Koken ascended to the throne when her father died of smallpox,and she herself died in 770 of the same disease. A devout Buddhist who became a nun,Empress Koken decided to generate Buddhist merit by printing 1 million copies of aBuddhist prayer (pronounced in Sanskrit but written in Chinese characters) and placingeach of the prayers in a small wooden pagoda. She buried 100,000 pagodas each in tendifferent monasteries. Her act illustrates both the lasting power of the chakravartin idealand the appeal of the brand-new technology of woodblock printing. She was the eighthwoman to rule Japan as emperor, but when she died, the imperial family decided not toallow any more woman emperors because of persistent rumors of her sexual involvementwith a Buddhist monk.

In the years after 800, the Japanese gradually departed from the Tang blueprint for rule.Although the Tang Code prescribed a militia staffed by farmer-soldiers who left their fieldsto fight part-time in battle, the emperor and his courtiers preferred to hire full-timebodyguards, who were the precursors of the samurai warriors. The government no longerredistributed land every six years; instead powerful families amassed large, permanentestates. The vast majority of the Japanese population continued to farm, while only a tinyminority, numbering in the thousands, lived in the capital and served the emperor ascourtiers.

We know much more about the courtiers than any other group in early Japan because theyproduced almost all surviving records. Like them, Ennin wrote entirely in Chinesecharacters, which he pronounced in Japanese. During his travels in China, because he couldnot speak Chinese, he wrote everything down in Chinese characters. He called this “brush-talking.”

Yet because Japanese, like Korean, was in a different language family, Chinese charactersdid not capture the full meaning of Japanese. In the ninth century, at the same time thatEnnin was brush-talking in China, the Japanese developed an alphabet, called kana (Analphabet developed in the ninth century that allowed the Japanese to write thepronunciation of words in Japanese.) ( KAH-nah), that allowed them to write Japanesewords as they were pronounced.

In 1000, a Japanese woman named Murasaki Shikibu ( MOO-rah-sock-ee SHE-key-boo) usedkana to write one of the world's most important works of literature, The Tale of Genji,which some view as the world's first novel. The book relates the experiences of a youngprince as he grows up. Lady Murasaki spent her entire life at court, and her novel reflectsthe complex system of etiquette that had developed among the Japanese aristocracy. Forexample, lovers in Genji choose sheets of paper from multiple shades, each with its ownsignificance, before writing notes to each other. While the highest members of Japan'saristocracy could read and write—men using both Chinese characters and kana andwomen more often only kana—the vast majority of their countrymen remained illiterate.

By 1000, Japan, like Korea, had joined a larger East Asian cultural realm, in which peopleread and wrote Chinese characters and ate with chopsticks as the Chinese did. Although itsrulers were predominantly Buddhist, they supported Confucian education, and their capitallooked like Chang'an even if it was much smaller. After a brief period of using the TangCode as a model of governance, the Japanese emperors abandoned the equal-field systemand civil service exams in favor of a more Japanese system in which the emperor and his

courtiers lived in the capital while they farmed out all military tasks to full-time warriors.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-5 Chapter Review Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

8-5 Chapter Review

8-5a Context and Connection The Place of uddhim and Hinduim in WorldHitor

In the year 100, the only Buddhists in the world Lived in India and Sri Lanka; by the year1000, Buddhist teachings had spread throughout the entire region encompassing India,coastal and inland Southeast Asia, China, Tibet, Korea, and Japan. When the Japanese monkEnnin traveled in China between 838 and 847, he encountered Buddhist monks from northand south India, Sri Lanka, Central Asia, Japan, Korea, and, of course, China. Between 380and 400, the Roman woman Egeria had traveled as a pilgrim to Jerusalem to see whereJesus had lived and to visit monasteries in Turkey (see Chapter 7). Ennin's reasons for goingon pilgrimage differed. His purpose was not to see where the Buddha had Lived, but tostudy and obtain books so that he could understand complex Buddhist teachings morecompletely.

Chinese monasteries hosted Indian monks who taught Sanskrit, the Language of many textsfrom India, but, as the centuries passed, more and more Buddhist texts were translated intoChinese. A beginning student of Sanskrit, Ennin read these texts in Chinese. Like Greek andLatin in the Christian world, Sanskrit and Chinese were spoken and written throughout theBuddhist world. Ennin found that he could brush-talk by writing Chinese characters withalmost every Buddhist he met.

Buddhism became a major world religion during the same centuries as Christianity did. Nosingle event in Buddhist history marked a turning point Like the Edict of Milan in 313 or

the 380 decree making Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire (see Chapter7). Instead, drawn by the chakravartin ideal, different Asian rulers made a series ofindividual decisions to support Buddhism.

First, sometime around 120, Kanishka, the Kushan ruler of north India, Launched amissionary movement to introduce the teachings of Greater Vehicle Buddhism to CentralAsia and China. Then, during the fourth and sixth centuries, rulers in different placesconverted to Buddhism: the Xiongnu Leader Shi Le in north China, the rulers of the threeKorean kingdoms of Koguryo, Silla, and Paekche, and the Yamato rulers of Japan. After theSui emperor reunified the Chinese empire in 589, he conducted simultaneous rituals inmonasteries to show the depth of his support for Buddhism.

Many of these events involved an element of belief, as individual rulers embraced Buddhistteachings, and some—Like the Empress Koken of Japan—even became Buddhist nuns ormonks. But these decisions also turned on nonreligious elements. The Tang blueprint forrule, as written in the Tang Code, offered a guide for the heads of smaller, weaker stateswho wished to become rulers as powerful as the Tang emperor. Rulers in Korea, Tibet, andJapan all issued Local versions of the Tang Code.

In India, as more rulers endowed Hindu temples and patronized Brahmin priests,Hinduism gained in importance as Buddhism declined. Southeast Asian rulers combinedboth Hindu and Buddhist elements to sponsor magnificent religious monuments LikeAngkor Wat in Cambodia.

At the time of Ennin's visit, Buddhism had become so influential that the Chinese EmperorWuzong ordered thousands of monks and nuns, who did not pay taxes, to return to Lay Lifeand generate income for his revenue-starved dynasty. On his death in 846, his successorimmediately overturned all of his hostile measures, and Ennin was able to retrieve thebooks he cared about so deeply and take them to Japan.

By the year 1000, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity had all spread far beyond theLands of their origin. Each is one of the Largest religions in the world today (see “WorldHistory in Today's World,” Chapter 7), and many Hindus and Buddhists Live in Asia. In thenext chapter we will consider yet another world religion that had spread by 1000 and thatwould have an equally profound impact on world history: Islam.

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Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-5b Key Terms Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

Chapter Review

8-5 Ke Term

Ennin ((793–864) A Japanese monk who traveled to China between 838 and 847 toobtain original Buddhist texts.)

chakravartin (Literally “turner of the wheel,” a Buddhist term for the ideal rulerwho patronized Buddhism but never became a monk.)

Silk Routes (Overland routes through Central Asia connecting China and India, aswell as the sea routes around Southeast Asia, along which were transmittedteachings, technologies, and languages.)

Hinduism (Temple-based religious system that arose between 300 and 700 in India.Hinduism has two dimensions: public worship in temples to deities such as Shiva andVishnu, and daily private worship in the home.)

bodhisattva (Buddhist term denoting a being headed for Buddhahood but postponesit to help others.)

Gupta dynasty ((ca. 320–600) Indian dynasty based in north India; emulated theearlier Mauryan dynasty and revived the use of the Sanskrit language. The Guptakings pioneered a new type of religious gift: land grants to Brahmin priests andHindu temples.)

bhakti (Literally “personal devotion or love,” a term for Hindu poetry or cults thatemphasize a strong personal tie between the deity and a devotee, and did not usepriests as intermediaries.)

Angkor dynasty (Khmer-speaking dynasty in modern-day Cambodia founded byJayavarman II. His combination of Hindu and Buddhist imagery proved so potentthat it was used by all later Angkor kings.)

Fotudeng ((d. 349) Central Asian Buddhist missionary who persuaded the ruler ShiLe to convert to Buddhism; Shi Le's decision to grant tax-free land to Buddhistmonasteries was a crucial first step in the establishment of Buddhism in China.)

Tang dynasty (Dynasty (618–907) that represented a political and cultural high pointin Chinese history. The Tang emperors combined elements of the Qin/Han blueprintfor empire with new measures to create a model of governance that spread to Tibet,Korea, and Japan.)

equal-field system (The basis of the Tang dynasty tax system as prescribed in theTang Code. Dividing households into nine ranks on the basis of wealth, officialsallocated each householder a certain amount of land.)

Emperor Wu ((r. 685–705) The sole woman to rule China as emperor in her ownright; she called herself emperor and founded a new dynasty, the Zhou (690–705),that replaced the Tang dynasty until her death in 705, when the Tang dynasty wasrestored.)

woodblock printing (Printing technique developed by the Chinese in which printersmade an image in reverse on a block of wood and then pressed the block onto sheetsof paper. An efficient way to print texts in Chinese characters.)

Songtsen Gampo ((ca. 617–649/650) Founder of the Yarlung dynasty in Tibet whointroduced Buddhism and an alphabet to his subjects.)

Three Kingdoms period (The period of Korean history from 313 to 668 when theKoguryo, Paekche, and Silla kingdoms all fought for control of the Korean peninsulaand exercised profound cultural influence on Japan.)

Silla (Korean kingdom that adopted Buddhism and united with the Tang dynasty in660 to defeat the Koguryo and Paekche kingdoms, unifying Korea for the first time in668.)

bone-rank system (Korean social ranking system used by the Silla dynasty thatdivided Korean families into seven different categories, with kings coming from onlythe top group.)

Soga clan (Powerful Japanese family of Korean descent that ruled in conjunctionwith the Yamato clan from 587 to 645; introduced Buddhism to Japan.)

kana (An alphabet developed in the ninth century that allowed the Japanese to writethe pronunciation of words in Japanese.)

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-5c For Further Reference Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

Chapter Review

8-5c For Further Reference

Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, Anne Walthall, and James B. Palais. East Asia: A Cultural, Social,and Political History. 2d ed. Boston: Wads-worth/Cengage Learning, 2009.

Farris, William Wayne. “Ancient Japan's Korean Connection.” In Sacred Texts and Buried

Treasures: Issues in the Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan. Honolulu: University ofHawai'i Press, 1998, pp. 55–122.

Farris, William Wayne. Japan to 1600: A Social and Economic History. Honolulu: Universityof Hawai'i Press, 2009.

Hall, Kenneth R. A History of Early Southeast Asia: Maritime Trade and SocietalDevelopment, 100–1500. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011.

Hansen, Valerie. The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600. New York: Norton, 2000.

Heng Chye Kiang. Cities of Aristocrats and Bureaucrats. Honolulu: University of Hawai'iPress, 1999.

Holcombe, Charles. A History of East Asia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Kapstein, Matthew. The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation, andMemory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Keown, Damien. Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press,1996.

Krahl, Regina. Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds. Washington, D.C.:Smithsonian Books, 2011.

Ray, Himanshu Prabha. “The Axial Age in Asia: The Archaeology of Buddhism (500 BC to AD500).” In Archaeology of Asia, Miriam T. Stark, ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006, pp.303–323.

Reischauer, Edwin O., trans. Ennin's Diary: The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search ofthe Law. New York: The Ronald Press, 1955.

Thapar, Romila. Early India from the Origins to AD 1300. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 2003.

Washizuka, Hiromitsu, et al. Transmitting the Forms of Divinity: Early Buddhist Art fromKorea and Japan. New York: Japan Society, 2003.

Worrall, Simon. “Made in China.” National Geographic Magazine (June 2009): 112–123.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-5d Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

Chapter Review

8-5d

Go to the CourseMate website at www.cengagebrain.com for additional study toolsand review materials—including audio and video clips—for this chapter.

Chapter 8: Hindu and Buddhist States and Societies in Asia, 100–1000: 8-5d Book Title: Voyages in World History Printed By: CyFair ISD (CyFairISD1@cengage.com) © 2014 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

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