With the seventh century began the great T’ang dynasty (620-907).  Buddhism had now been known to the rulers of China for about 550 years.  It began as a religion tolerated but still regarded as exotic and not quite natural for the sons of Han.  It had succeeded in establishing itself as the faith of the majority among both Tartars and Chinese.  The rivalry of Taoism was only an instance of that imitation which is the sincerest flattery.  Though the opposition of the mandarins assumed serious proportions whenever they could induce an Emperor to share their views, yet the hostile attitude of the Government never lasted long and was not shared by the mass of the people.  It is clear that the permissions to practise Buddhism which invariably followed close on the prohibitions were a national relief.  Though Buddhism tended to mingle with Taoism and other indigenous ideas, the many translations of Indian works and the increasing intercourse between Chinese and Hindus had diffused a knowledge of its true tenets and practice.

The T’ang dynasty witnessed a triangular war between Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.  As a rule Confucianism attacked the other two as base superstitions but sometimes, as in the reign of Wu Tsung, Taoism seized a chance of being able to annihilate Buddhism.  This war continued under the Northern Sung, though the character of Chinese Buddhism changed, for the Contemplative School, which had considerable affinities to Taoism, became popular at the expense of the T’ien T’ai.  After the Northern Sung (except under the foreign Mongol dynasty) we feel that, though Buddhism was by no means dead and from time to time flourished exceedingly, yet Confucianism had established its claim to be the natural code and creed of the scholar and statesman.  The Chinese Court remained a strange place to the end but scholarship and good sense had a large measure of success in banishing extravagance from art and literature.  Yet, alas, the intellectual life of China lost more in fire and brilliancy than it gained in sanity.  Probably the most critical times for literature and indeed for thought were those brief periods under the Sui and T’ang[641] when Buddhist and Taoist books were accepted as texts for the public examinations and the last half century of the Northern Sung, when the educational reforms of Wang An Shih were intermittently in force.  The innovations were cancelled in all cases.  Had they lasted, Chinese style and mentality might have been different.

The T’ang dynasty, though on the whole favourable to Buddhism, and indeed the period of its greatest prosperity, opened with a period of reaction.  To the founder, Kao Tsu, is attributed the saying that Confucianism is as necessary to the Chinese as wings to a bird or water to a fish.  The imperial historiographer Fu I[642] presented to his master a memorial blaming Buddhism because it undervalued natural relationships and urging that monks and nuns should be compelled