In 1644 the Ming dynasty collapsed before the Manchus and China was again under foreign rule.  Unlike the Mongols, the Manchus had little inclination to Buddhism.  Even before they had conquered China, their prince, T’ai Tsung, ordered an inspection of monasteries and limited the number of monks.  But in this edict he inveighs only against the abuse of religion and admits that “Buddha’s teaching is at bottom pure and chaste, true and sincere:  by serving him with purity and piety, one can obtain happiness."[702] Shun-Chih, the first Manchu Emperor, wrote some prefaces to Buddhist works and entertained the Dalai Lama at Peking in 1652.[703] His son and successor, commonly known as K’ang-Hsi (1662-1723), dallied for a while with Christianity, but the net result of his religious policy was to secure to Confucianism all that imperial favour can give.  I have mentioned above his Sacred Edict and the partial favour which he showed to Buddhism.  He gave donations to the monasteries of P’u-t’o, Hang-chou and elsewhere:  he published the Kanjur with a preface of his own[704] and the twelfth and last collection of the Tripitaka was issued under the auspices of his son and grandson.  The latter, the Emperor Ch’ien Lung, also received the Teshu Lama not only with honour, but with interest and sympathy, as is clear from the inscription preserved at Peking, in which he extols the Lama as a teacher of spiritual religion.[705] He also wrote a preface to a sutra for producing rain[706] in which he says that he has ordered the old editions to be carefully corrected and prayer and worship to be offered, “so that the old forms which have been so beneficial during former ages might still be blessed to the desired end.”  Even the late Empress Dowager accepted the ministrations of the present Dalai Lama when he visited Peking in 1908, although, to his great indignation she obliged him to kneel at Court.[707] Her former colleague, the Empress Tzu-An was a devout Buddhist.  The statutes of the Manchu dynasty (printed in 1818) contain regulations for the celebration of Buddhist festivals at Court, for the periodical reading of sutras to promote the imperial welfare, and for the performance of funeral rites.

Still on the whole the Manchu dynasty showed less favour to Buddhism than any which preceded it and its restrictive edicts limiting the number of monks and prescribing conditions for ordination were followed by no periods of reaction.  But the vitality of Buddhism is shown by the fact that these restrictions merely led to an increase of the secular clergy, not legally ordained, who in their turn claimed the imperial attention.  Ch’ien Lung began in 1735 by giving them the alternative of becoming ordinary laymen or of entering a monastery but this drastic measure was considerably modified in the next few years.  Ultimately the secular clergy were allowed to continue as such, if they could show good reason, and to have one disciple each.

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