The Administration of Buddhism in China: A Study and Translation ...

deficient without it. The new Song consensus became foundational for the future of China and formed a model for how to develop culture and civilization throughout East Asia for centuries to follow.

Context

In the second year of the xiande era (955), Emperor Shizong (r. 954-959) of the Later Zhou dynasty (951-960) issued a proclamation that allegedly destroyed over 33,000 Buddhist monasteries and temples throughout the empire; a small number, 2694, were allowed to remain.⁴ For those familiar with the history of Buddhism in China, the reasons for the closures are familiar: corruption of the social order, clerical violations of law and licentious behavior, private ordinations outside government jurisdiction, erection of Buddhist temples and monasteries without government aurthorization, and so on.⁵ These form part of a litany of complaints associated with the independent and uncontrolled growth of Buddhism in China. A little more than a century before, a major suppression of Buddhism was mounted by the Tang Emperor Wuzong during the huichang era (841-846). The background to this suppression points to still other problematic factors associated with the Buddhist presence in China: factional in-fighting that positioned the scholar-bureaucrats against the eunuchs who supported Buddhism, economic considerations stemming from the immense wealth concentrated in Buddhist monasteries, exacerbated by the tax-exempt status of the Buddhist clergy and monastic lands, and so on.⁶ Anti-Buddhist sentiment remained strong in certain quarters, fuelled by the intense diatribes from the staunch Confucian fundamentalist, Han Yu (766-824), whose famous memorials castigating the Buddhist presence in China reverberated from the late Tang onwards.

The “Buddhist question”––what role should Buddhism play in Chinese culture and society––was not new to China. It had been around, in some form, since Buddhism first arrived and established an institutional presence on Chinese soil. The immensity of the problem is associated