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

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

In 819, Han Yu wrote his memorial in response to the extravagant ceremony staged by Emperor Xianzong to receive the relics into the imperial palace. Writing such a memorial was the right of court officials, especially ones who had a national reputation, as did Han Yu. However, Han Yu's open contempt for Buddhism was viewed by the emperor as lèse-majesté, an open attack upon the emperor's actions. The emperor was so incensed that he exiled Han Yu. In the memorial Han Yu was reasserting the need for the Chinese to be true to their native, ancient traditions. This meant a rejection of the cosmopolitan, pan-Asian vision that had characterized the early part of the Tang Dynasty. Later generations viewed Han Yu as the instigator of a Confucian revival that would dominate Chinese intellectual life until the early twentieth century.

Paragraphs 1–2

The memorial opens by recounting the historical longevity of key rulers in China's high antiquity. One aspect of the Confucian tradition was a conservative belief that Chinese civilization was generally falling away from a “golden past.” Han Yu plays upon this notion in the first two paragraphs by noting that ancient rulers were said to have lived extraordinarily long lives. This longevity was seen as evidence that they lived in harmony and balance with the world around them. The rulers mentioned in the first paragraph were also the cultural heroes of the Confucian tradition. During their years of enlightened rule, civilization was created. The written system was invented, the social structure was ordered, and humans gained power over the natural world through flood control. The rulers in the second paragraph, particularly King Wen, King Wu, and King Mu of the Zhou Dynasty, solidified the civilization. Confucius proclaimed that Zhou's culture was the most developed and therefore the one he venerated and used as the template for his own social-political ideas.

Paragraph 3

Han Yu clearly blames Buddhism for the breakdown of social order and the decreased longevity of emperors. Although the Han Dynasty lasted more than three hundred years, the second half, from 25 to 220, was seen as a period of decline along the lines of the decline of the Tang. Both dynasties suffered rebellion and civil war that ended periods of power and expansion and led to decentralization and a weak court. Han Yu connects this decline to Buddhism's introduction to Han China in 65 ce. Worse still, as Buddhism became more popular, the unified state collapsed into smaller competing kingdoms. Han Yu cites the practice of Emperor Wudi of Liang, who periodically “gave himself” to Buddhist institutions, forcing his court to ransom him back so that he could govern. Wudi also followed Buddhist vegetarian precepts, but by extending this practice to imperial sacrifices, he violated Chinese custom. Ancestral sacrifice was central to the Chinese cosmic view. Ancestral spirits, if provided for, served as intermediaries with the powerful forces in the spirit world. Ancestral spirits needed to be nourished through sacrifices that entailed ritualized banquets at family temples. The spirits imbibed the essence of the food, which the living then consumed. To deny the ancestors meat was a serious mistake. Han Yu points out that Wudi, though long-lived, ultimately died of starvation while fleeing an enemy. The implication is that his death was ancestral retribution, from which the Buddha could not protect Wudi.

Paragraphs 4–6

In the two subsequent paragraphs, Han Yu observes that the Tang founder, Li Yuan, once thought of eliminating Buddhism and Daoism. There was a constant tension for rulers in China with regard to these two religious traditions. On the one hand, harnessing their influence and power to imperial interests enhanced the power and legitimacy of the throne. The emperor was, after all, the ultimate authority in all affairs that affected his realm, whether temporal or spiritual. However, Buddhism and Daoism also presented challenges to imperial authority. A number of millenarian cults based in these traditions had led to massive rebellions and the downfall of previous dynasties. In addition, because of the tradition that religious institutions and religious figures (monks, nuns, and servants in the monasteries) were not subject to imperial taxation, monasteries had developed into wealthy and powerful places, often becoming major landlords and sources of loans for those in need of cash. The central government could not tap into this wealth. Occasionally efforts were made to limit or reduce the economic power of the monasteries, but Emperor Xianzong sponsored a lavish ceremony to bring the relics from the Dharma Gate Temple to the imperial palace, from which it would proceed to various monasteries with great pomp and circumstance, not to mention expense. The emperor perhaps believed that with the victory over rebellious northeastern governors-general in 817, parading the relics would both benefit the empire and demonstrate imperial wealth and power. Han Yu's view was that after the successful and expensive war, this display was a waste of imperial resources. After all, Buddhist devotion had not saved Wudi of Liang from rebellion.

Paragraphs 7–9

Han Yu's appeal to the emperor is couched in the formal language typical of addressing the most powerful man in the empire, who had the power to arrange or disband these ceremonies but also the power to order Han Yu's execution or promotion. Formulaically, Han Yu points to his own ignorance and appeals to the emperor's intelligence. Directly criticizing the emperor was suicidal, so Han Yu reasons that the emperor must have been supporting the ceremonies not to demonstrate personal devotion to Buddhism but to appease the desires of his ignorant subjects. Thus the emperor's intentions were in line with those of traditional sage-kings, whose main concern was the welfare of the people. However, in the eighth paragraph, Han Yu argues that the emperor's good intentions would have the opposite effect. People would believe the emperor to be a devout Buddhist and would follow suit. However, the emperor could provide massive financial support for the ceremonies, while the common people had little to give. In misguided devotion, some devotees would go so far as to mortify their flesh as tokens of their devotion and rejection of their physical bodies. While Buddhism argued that the human physical form is ultimately not real because it is not permanent and everlasting, Confucianism held that human bodies are gifts from parents and ancestors. These gifts could not be harmed without implying a rejection of the debt that the living owe their ancestors. Furthermore, the emperor's permitting the lavish donations and mortification would seriously undermine the aura of imperial authority because, as Han Yu notes later, the relics are the disgusting remains of a barbarian.

Paragraph 10

Harking back to the Confucian view that civilization is Chinese and was created by the rulers of high antiquity, Han Yu points out that the Buddha did not know Chinese and therefore could not engage in the development of Chinese civilization, which could be promoted only through engagement with the core Confucian classics. Furthermore, while Confucianism argued that one learned to be moral as a child growing up in the loving authority of the household, the Buddha required monks to turn their backs on family and pursue enlightenment in the monastery. In addition, while Confucianism held that social-political harmony depended upon the obedience of the populace to moral rulers, the Buddha insisted that monastics lay outside civil authority because they had renounced the world. Han Yu further suggests that if the Buddha were alive, he would not merit the generous reception Emperor Xianzong was giving the relics. The living Buddha would instead be treated as a minor dignitary of a foreign land coming to pay homage to the emperor. The emperor would generously grant him an audience in the public hall for such ceremonies (not three days' residence in the imperial inner chambers, like the relics), provide a token gift of proper clothing (Han Yu notes at the outset of this paragraph that the Buddha did not dress properly), and then forcibly remove him from the empire to prevent his destabilizing influence. Here Han Yu endorses the proper Confucian hierarchy: The emperor is the highest authority, and the Buddha is the pilgrim. Emperor Xianzong was inappropriately reversing the order and welcoming the relics as the remains of a superior being.

Paragraphs 11–13

Worse still, these relics were “withered and decayed bones.” While the Chinese did sacrifice to ancestral spirits, the focus was not on physical relics but on a statue, a portrait, or a plaque with an ancestor's name on it. There was no traditional analogue to viewing body parts as having numinous power. Han Yu quotes another line from Confucius's Analects to underscore his point: “Revere ghosts and spirits but keep them at a distance.” Confucius was most concerned about the present and how concrete moral actions in the present (based in moral precedents of Chinese traditions, not in Buddhism) could create greater harmony and peace. To Han Yu's mind, the extravagant opulence of the welcoming ceremony, which in turn encouraged mortification of the flesh among the common people, was harmful. To this end he equates any numinous power in the bones with “ill-omened” spirits that rulers in antiquity sought to banish before engaging in ancestral sacrifice. True to form, Han Yu takes the moral stance that he is the only one who sees through, or at least has the courage to criticize, this display as harmful to the empire. If the emperor would simply destroy the relics, he would greatly benefit the empire and posterity; if the Buddha's power did extend through the relics, then Han Yu asks that he be punished for any wrongdoing, though he is doubtful that anything will happen to him.