The attitude of the Yuan or Mongol dynasty (1280-1368) towards Buddhism was something new.  Hitherto, whatever may have been the religious proclivities of individual Emperors, the Empire had been a Confucian institution.  A body of official and literary opinion always strong and often overwhelmingly strong regarded imperial patronage of Buddhism or Taoism as a concession to the whims of the people, as an excrescence on the Son of Heaven’s proper faith or even a perversion of it.  But the Mongol Court had not this prejudice and Khubilai, like other members of his house[679] and like Akbar in India, was the patron of all the religions professed by his subjects.  His real object was to encourage any faith which would humanize his rude Mongols.  Buddhism was more congenial to them than Confucianism and besides, they had made its acquaintance earlier.  Even before Khubilai became Emperor, one of his most trusted advisers was a Tibetan lama known as Pagspa, Bashpa or Pa-ssu-pa.[680] He received the title of Kuo-Shih, and after his death his brother succeeded to the same honours.

Khubilai also showed favour to Mohammedans, Christians, Jews and Confucianists, but little to Taoists.  This prejudice was doubtless due to the suggestions of his Buddhist advisers, for, as we have seen, there was often rivalry between the two religions and on two occasions at least (in the reigns of Hui Tsung and Wu Tsung) the Taoists made determined, if unsuccessful, attempts to destroy or assimilate Buddhism.  Khubilai received complaints that the Taoists represented Buddhism as an offshoot of Taoism and that this objectionable perversion of truth and history was found in many of their books, particularly the Hua-Hu-Ching.[681] An edict was issued ordering all Taoist books to be burnt with the sole exception of the Tao-Te-Ching but it does not appear that the sect was otherwise persecuted.

The Yuan dynasty was consistently favourable to Buddhism.  Enormous sums were expended on subventions to monasteries, printing books and performing public ceremonies.  Old restrictions were removed and no new ones were imposed.  But the sect which was the special recipient of the imperial favour was not one of the Chinese schools but Lamaism, the form of Buddhism developed in Tibet, which spread about this time to northern China, and still exists there.  It does not appear that in the Yuan period Lamaism and other forms of Buddhism were regarded as different sects.[682] A lamaist ecclesiastic was the hierarchical head of all Buddhists, all other religions being placed under the supervision of a special board.

The Mongol Emperors paid attention to religious literature.  Khubilai saw to it that the monasteries in Peking were well supplied with books and ordered the bonzes to recite them on stated days.  A new collection of the Tripitaka (the ninth) was published 1285-87.  In 1312, the Emperor Jen-tsung ordered further translations to be made into Mongol and later had the whole Tripitaka copied in letters of gold.  It is noticeable that another Emperor, Cheng Tsung, had the Book of Filial Piety translated into Mongol and circulated together with a brief preface by himself.