5 Victory and retreat of Buddhism

What we said in regard to the religious position of the other alien peoples applied also to the Toba.  As soon, however, as their empire grew, they, too, needed an “official” religion of their own.  For a few years they had continued their old sacrifices to Heaven; then another course opened to them.  The Toba, together with many Chinese living in the Toba empire, were all captured by Buddhism, and especially by its shamanist element.  One element in their preference of Buddhism was certainly the fact that Buddhism accepted all foreigners alike—­both the Toba and the Chinese were “foreign” converts to an essentially Indian religion; whereas the Confucianist Chinese always made the non-Chinese feel that in spite of all their attempts they were still “barbarians” and that only real Chinese could be real Confucianists.

Secondly, it can be assumed that the Toba rulers by fostering Buddhism intended to break the power of the Chinese gentry.  A few centuries later, Buddhism was accepted by the Tibetan kings to break the power of the native nobility, by the Japanese to break the power of a federation of noble clans, and still later by the Burmese kings for the same reason.  The acceptance of Buddhism by rulers in the Far East always meant also an attempt to create a more autocratic, absolutistic regime.  Mahayana Buddhism, as an ideal, desired a society without clear-cut classes under one enlightened ruler; in such a society all believers could strive to attain the ultimate goal of salvation.

Throughout the early period of Buddhism in the Far East, the question had been discussed what should be the relations between the Buddhist monks and the emperor, whether they were subject to him or not.  This was connected, of course, with the fact that to the early fourth century the Buddhist monks were foreigners who, in the view prevalent in the Far East, owed only a limited allegiance to the ruler of the land.  The Buddhist monks at the Toba court now submitted to the emperor, regarding him as a reincarnation of Buddha.  Thus the emperor became protector of Buddhism and a sort of god.  This combination was a good substitute for the old Chinese theory that the emperor was the Son of Heaven; it increased the prestige and the splendour of the dynasty.  At the same time the old shamanism was legitimized under a Buddhist reinterpretation.  Thus Buddhism became a sort of official religion.  The emperor appointed a Buddhist monk as head of the Buddhist state church, and through this “Pope” he conveyed endowments on a large scale to the church.  T’an-yao, head of the state church since 460, induced the state to attach state slaves, i.e. enslaved family members of criminals, and their families to state temples.  They were supposed to work on temple land and to produce for the upkeep of the temples and monasteries.  Thus, the institution of “temple slaves” was created, an institution which existed in South Asia and Burma for a long time, and which greatly strengthened the economic position of Buddhism.