Han Yu: “Memorial on the Buddha’s Bones”

Context

The practice of housing Buddhist relics in stupas began in India, under the reign of King Asoka in the third century bce. Asoka modeled himself upon the Buddhist concept of a cakravartin king, one who used his temporal power to spread Buddhism. This idea appealed to him because it legitimized his conquests. Consequently, to spread both his authority and Buddhism, Asoka had the remains of the Buddha divided and sent to various parts of his empire, where stupas were built to house the relics. According to one account, Asoka organized the simultaneous housing of the relics in eighty-four thousand stupas throughout his realm to emphasize the unity of his reign. The linking of political legitimation to Buddhist patronage spread through central Asia to China. The first concrete mention of Buddhism in Chinese texts is from 65 ce, during the Han Dynasty. Han ideology was Imperial Confucianism, which combined Confucian ethics, education, and ritual with notions of maintaining state power through a strong legal system. Confucian schools were established, and Confucian scholars were fast-tracked into government office.

Confucian ethics concentrated on the efforts of the virtuous individual to create social harmony. Individuals understood their roles within the family and the state hierarchies. The focus was distinctly on the present and the living. Confucius did not deny the existence of spirits and the afterlife; however, when asked by a student about ghosts and spirits, he stated, “You are not even able to serve man. How can you serve the spirits?” When the student asked about death, Confucius replied, “You do not even understand life. How can you understand death?” (Analects, 11.11). Rituals and sacrifices to the spirits, however, were integral parts of the Confucian world. They placed the individual within the cosmological network that connected the living with their ancestors and with the powerful forces of the spirit world. Confucius believed that if one could truly understand the sacrifices, then creating harmony throughout the world would be as easy as holding something in one's hand. Confucius urged his students to study history and ritual texts to learn the patterns of order and chaos revealed in China's past. Central to the whole Confucian order was the ruler. The ruler was the “pole star” around which all others rotated (Analects, 2.1). Therefore, if the ruler was able to deal properly with both humans and spirits, he would be able to bring about harmony and stability.

With the collapse of the Han Dynasty in 220, China broke into a number of kingdoms. Northern China was invaded and controlled by non-Han Turkic peoples from central Asia. Buddhism appealed to these people because it offered a universal religion popular in western, southern, and central Asia that was not linked to Confucian traditions. A ruler with pretensions for universal kingship did not need to learn from the Chinese past to control Chinese territory. Like Asoka, a leader could aspire to the status of a cakravartin king. Hence the period from the third through the sixth centuries witnessed the flourishing of Buddhism in the north and the creation of numerous Buddhist centers. Monks from other areas of Asia were recruited to translate Buddhist texts and to teach the religion. The Turkic imperial family of the Northern Wei Dynasty sponsored the construction of the Dharma Gate Temple, near modern Xi'an, to house the Buddha's finger bones. Temple records note that the stupa was often opened for rituals so that the numinous power of the relics would guarantee the fertility of the land. During the Tang Dynasty, which many consider the pinnacle of premodern China's power and influence in Asia, the Dharma Gate Temple became a site for pilgrimage to the Buddha's bones and a center for private rituals of the imperial family. The relics were publicly venerated in lavish imperially sponsored ceremonies once every thirty years for the benefit of the broader population.

Tang emperors, at least during the first half of the dynasty, could feel some justification to claims of universal kingship. Tang was undoubtedly one of the wealthiest societies in the world and drew many non-Han Chinese people into its orbit. The Tang capital, Chang'an, was known for its cosmopolitanism, with quarters for central Asian merchants and religious institutions not only for Buddhists and Daoists but also for Manichaeans and Nestorian Christians. Tang became the center of East Asian cultural diffusion. Chang'an's layout became the model for the Japanese and Korean capitals, Tang musical styles and legal codes were adopted and adapted by other East Asian societies, and numerous monks came from all over Asia both to teach and to study Buddhism in the Chinese centers established near the capital. Esoteric Buddhism, which stressed the supernatural power of Buddhist objects, relics, formulas, and rituals, became the leading form of Buddhism in Japan. Non-Han Chinese were also able to integrate themselves into Tang society and become leading figures. One of China's most famous poets, Li Po, was born in the eighth century the northern part of what is now Afghanistan, while two of the leading generals were Korean and Sogdian. The first half of the Tang demonstrated the society's openness to foreign ideas and foreign peoples who were drawn by the wealth, power, and cultural attainment of Tang. Hence it is no surprise that Tang emperors would see themselves as legitimate patrons of Buddhist relics to be used to enhance their status and to benefit their empire.

This early cosmopolitanism was thrown into chaos and disrepute when the Sogdian general An Lushan rebelled in 755. An Lushan led his troops from their quarters in northeastern China to attack the imperial capital. The emperor, Xuanzong, was forced to flee with his court, while the capital was sacked. The rebellion and its subsequent battles lasted several years. The imperial family was able to regain a modicum of control only by buying the loyalty of the remaining generals. The generals were given both military and political authority of the territories they controlled in the name of the emperor through their new offices as governors-general.

The latter half of the Tang was a period of growing decentralization. Tax revenues to the central court declined, while the governors-general kept more of the wealth produced in their home territories. Court officials decried the declining status of the central government, but there was little to be done. The northeastern provinces were a constant source of instability. At times open warfare broke out between the imperial court and the northeastern governors-general. In 815 agents of one governor-general were even able to assassinate the prime minister in the capital. Searching for the root cause of the decline of imperial power, some pointed to the presence of non-Han Chinese at all levels of the society. Uighurs and Tibetans were banned from living in the capital, resulting in the forcible removal and ultimate slaughter of Uighur residents from Chang'an's precincts.

Intellectually some leading figures, such as Han Yu, called for a thoroughgoing cultural critique. Han Yu was at the forefront of the “ancient prose” (guwen) movement. Arguing that literary prose had become too florid and overburdened with allusions and imagery, Han Yu advocated returning to the direct style of the Confucian classics. In the classics he found models for clearly stating one's ideas and intentions. The movement asserted that the Confucian classics provided not only stylistic models for essayists but also intellectual models for ordering the world. As clearly stated in “A Memorial on the Buddha's Bones,” Han Yu rejected Buddhism as a foreign religion that had harmed Chinese civilization.