But there was hardly time to execute these measures, so rapid was the reaction.  In less than a year the insolence of Lin Ling-Su brought about his downfall:  the Emperor reversed his edict and, having begun by suppressing Buddhism, ended by oppressing Taoism.  He was a painter of merit and perhaps the most remarkable artist who ever filled a throne.  In art he probably drew no distinction between creeds and among the pictures ascribed to him and preserved in Japan are some of Buddhist subjects.  But like Hsuan Tsung he came to a tragic end, and in 1126 was carried into captivity by the Kin Tartars among whom he died.

Fear of the Tartars now caused the Chinese to retire south of the Yang-tse and Hang-chow was made the seat of Government.  The century during which this beautiful city was the capital did not produce the greatest names in Chinese history, but it witnessed the perfection of Chinese culture, and the background of impending doom heightens the brilliancy of this literary and aesthetic life.  Such a society was naturally eclectic in religion but Buddhism of the Ch’an school enjoyed consideration and contributed many landscape painters to the roll of fame.  But the most eminent and perhaps the most characteristic thinker of the period was Chu-Hsi (1130-1200), the celebrated commentator on Confucius who reinterpreted the master’s writings to the satisfaction of succeeding ages though in his own life he aroused opposition as well as enthusiasm.  Chu-Hsi studied Buddhism in his youth and some have detected its influence in his works, although on most important points he expressly condemned it.  I do not see that there is much definite Buddhism in his philosophy, but if Mahayanism had never entered China this new Confucianism would probably never have arisen or would have taken another shape.  Though the final result may be anti-Buddhist yet the topics chosen and the method of treatment suggest that the author felt it necessary to show that the Classics could satisfy intellectual curiosity and supply spiritual ideals just as well as this Indian religion.  Much of his expositions is occupied with cosmology, and he accepts the doctrine of world periods, recurring in an eternal series of growth and decline:  also he teaches not exactly transmigration but the transformation of matter into various living forms.[677] His accounts of sages and saints point to ideals which have much in common with Arhats and Buddhas and, in dealing with the retribution of evil, he seems to admit that when the universe is working properly there is a natural Karma by which good or bad actions receive even in this life rewards in kind, but that in the present period of decline nature has become vitiated so that vice and virtue no longer produce appropriate results.

Chu-Hsi had a celebrated controversy with Lu Chiu-Yuan,[678] a thinker of some importance who, like himself, is commemorated in the tablets of Confucian temples, although he was accused of Buddhist tendencies.  He held that learning was not indispensable and that the mind could in meditation rise above the senses and attain to a perception of the truth.  Although he strenuously denied the charge of Buddhist leanings, it is clear that his doctrine is near in spirit to the mysticism of Bodhidharma and sets no store on the practical ethics and studious habits which are the essence of Confucianism.