| Chapter 1: | The Life and Times of Zanning |
|
|
environment forced Zanning into compromising circumstances, the Orthodox Transmission insists that Zanning maintained his integrity as a Buddhist and successfully defended the faith against the forces of Confucian secularism.
5. Concluding Remarks
Buddhist monks with strong ties to the imperial court and Confucian learning were not unusual in China. By the Song dynasty, the history of Buddhism in China provided numerous examples of Buddhist monks who served the secular establishment in various ways. The exploits and achievements of the Buddhist monks mentioned by Zanning in the Topical Compendium of the Buddhist Clergy include those who have contributed in this regard. What had changed was not so much the character of the scholar monks themselves as the situation that scholar monks, influenced by a number of factors affecting the role of Buddhism in Chinese society, faced. The most important of these factors was the revival of “classical learning” (guwen). Anti-Buddhist sentiment was not new to the Chinese scene, but was apparent from the outset. What had changed was the combination of this sentiment with a virulent, aggressive attack on Buddhism and its values, which allegedly undermined “true” Chinese (i.e., Confucian) values and undermined the body-politic. This notion of Buddhism as an insidious disease that infected the health of China became a cause around which a newly empowered elite rallied. This is especially evident in the famous analogy drawn by Ouyang Xiu referred to above.
The Topical Compendium is Zanning’s response to the growing questions regarding the legitimacy of Buddhism in Chinese society. The following chapter details aspects of that response in the context of the Song cultural milieu. The appendices below provide translations of the two biographies of Zanning discussed earlier.