S14: Cosmopolitan Empire

• The end of disunity: Reflections on the Northern and Southern Dynasties
• What makes the Tang so admired? Tang as a Cosmopolitan and Contradictory Empire
• Why did poetry become the dominant art form in Tang? How to read a poem?

Sources:

• Model Monks: ZHu Seng Du, Seng Baozhi
• Lay disciplies: Yuanrong, Song Shao, Madame Duan
• A woman’s hundred years

Questions:

• Who became Buddhists, and how?
• Is buddhism for all people? Is Buddhism only for men?
• How was Buddhism practiced in reality, especially by ordinary people who were not clerical elites?

• Aimed at gaining religious merit for themselves, their living family, and ancestors, with the well-being of the emperor and state being a secondary concern.
• The practice of using Buddhism to secure happy rebirths for deceased relatives persisted.

• By the mid-sixth century, Buddhism had successfully integrated into Chinese society.
• Contemporary sources estimate around two million Buddhist monks and nuns living in approximately thirty thousand monasteries.

• Buddhiest monk Huiyuan 慧遠 (334-416 CE) formed a society of monks and lay worshipers.
• Studied Taoism and Confucianism before converting to Buddhism after meeting the monk Dao’an.
• Utilized native Chinese philosophy, particularly Daoism, to explain Buddhist concepts.
• Emphasized salvation through faith in Amitābha: loving adoration would grant one’s spirit a heavenly abode in the Western Paradise.

One student plays Huiyuan:

• Why don’t monks bow down before kings?
• What about Buddhists who are not monks?

One student plays the King:

• How would you respond to Huiyuan?
• Would your response depend on whether you were a Buddhist or not? Why or why not?

Should monks obey secular rulers? Huiyyuan’s view:

• Monks, seeking nirvana, must not be subject to worldly changes and therefore cannot revere the emperor.
• But lay Buddhists benefit from the ruler’s virtue and should show respect through taxes and obedience.

• The emperor of the Zhou dynasty (557-581) became angered by Buddhism’s influence: monasteries engaged in commercial activities, charging high-interest loans, and providing shelter to criminals.
• Despite a brief imperial attempt to suppress them in 574, both Buddhism and Daoism had become well-established in Chinese society.

• The Mogao Caves: located near Dunhuang.
• With 492 caves are preserved with murals and sculptures, they are the largest and longest-used treasure house of Buddhist art.
• The discovery of the Library Cave in 1990, together with the tens of thousands of manuscripts and relics it contained, has been acclaimed as the world’s greatest discovery of ancient Oriental culture.

• Construction of Mogao Caves began in 366 AD.
• As many as 94 caves were renovated or newly built during the Sui Dynasty, almost double the total number of caves excavated in the more than 200 years since the Mogao Caves were first built.
• Cave 302 of the Sui dynasty contains one of the oldest and most vivid scenes of cultural exchanges along the Silk Road, depicting a camel pulling a cart typical of trade missions of that period.

• The Yangzi region became the main breadbasket, supported by the Grand Canal for transporting food.
• The cultural and intellectual landscape of Chinese elites changed significantly.
• The imperial government gained power through a modified tribal military structure.

• Buddhism and Daoism reshaped both state systems and family structures.
• China engaged with a broader world, exchanging goods and ideas via the Silk Road.
• Foreign peoples were incorporated within the ruling house, often through inter-marriage with Han peoples.

• Emperor Wendi (birth name Yang Jian) was a Chinese general in the Xianbei-ruled Northern Zhou dynasty.
• After the death of Emperor Xuan in 580, Yang Jian, who was his father-in-law, became regent.
• Yang Jian ousted the heir to the throne (his daughter’s son) and killed fifty-nine princes of the Zhou royal house.

• The dynasty was founded on bad blood: Sui Wendi seized power as regent and killed fifty-nine princes of the Zhou royal house.
• The people of the north and south had grown apart after four centuries of division.
• The influence of the Turko-Mongol population was much stronger in the north than in the more refined, aristocratic south.

• The Grand Canal enabled efficient water transport of bulk goods across China, facilitating grain movement from the productive south to the politically established north.
• The final segment of the Grand Canal, started in 608, linked all regions of China by water.
• Despite its significance, the Grand Canal was a costly endeavor, consuming significant financial and labor resources, proving detrimental for its builder.

• After 609, the second Sui emperor launched military campaigns beyond China, targeting Vietnam to the south, the Eastern Turks to the north, and Korea to the northeast.
• The campaign against Korea failed, leading to rebellions in China and the emperor’s death.
• In 618, rebel general Li Yuan declared the establishment of the Tang dynasty and made Daoism the official state religion.
• Li Yuan, of mixed Chinese and Turkic ancestry from the northern aristocracy, helped the Tang secure control of the empire by 624.

• The imperial family of the Tang dynasty, the Li family, was one of the prominent clans in the northwest.
• They distinguished themselves through intermarriage with tribal peoples, including the Turks.
• Li Shimin, the son of the dynasty’s founder, lived in a yurt on palace grounds and attempted to speak Turkish.
• Lack of xenophobia: Many foreign peoples served in various roles within the Tang administration.

• Territorial expansion, making China the hegemon of East Asia.
• A centralized empire: a unified hierarchy from the top down, of social, political, cultural, and economic power, with the surplus wealth accruing to the government.
• A cosmopolitan atmosphere that both gave to and took from the world at large.

• The Tang dynasty reached a peak of female power under Empress Wu, who ruled in her own name from 690 to 705.
• Even after her removal, powerful women continued to influence China for a decade until the forced suicide of the Taiping Princess in 713.
• This peak in female political power was the result of a long process beginning with the fall of the Han dynasty, influenced by nomadic societies that promoted gender equality.

• Originally concubine of Taizong Emperor, later married his son, Emperor Gaozong;
• De facto ruler after Gaozong’s stroke in 690;
• Declared her own dynasty, Zhou, in 690, and became the sole recognized empress regnant in Chinese imperial history, until her overthrow in 705.

• Wu Zhao started as a low-ranking concubine in Emperor Taizong’s court at age thirteen; her father was a wealthy merchant and her mother a Buddhist.
• After Emperor Taizong’s death in 649, she was expected to become a nun but gave birth to the new emperor’s son in 652. She eliminated her rival, the emperor’s first wife, in 655.
• After her husband suffered a stroke, she became the de facto ruler in 660 and officially crowned herself emperor in 690, seven years after his death.

• Politician, poet, and imperial consort during the Wu Zhou and Tang dynasties.
• Rose from palace servant to secretary and leading advisor to Empress Wu Zetian of Zhou.

• Second wife of Emperor Zhongzong, who succeeded Empress Wu and restored Tang rule in 705.
• She dominated Zhongzhong’s five-year reign and was accused by historians, without evidence, of poisoning her husband.

• Yang was the beloved consort of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang in his later years.
• During the An Lushan Rebellion, as the emperor fled from Chang’an to Chengdu, his guards demanded Yang’s execution, blaming her cousin Yang Guozhong and her family for the rebellion.

A few famous lineages with high titles and immense privileges:

• Great families of Guanzhong, including the Li family, who emerged during the late Han dynasty and gained power in the following centuries.
• Many of these great having intermarried with non-Chinese nobility and dominated high court offices.
• They held hereditary rights to automatic entry-level bureaucratic posts.

Below these great families:

• Several thousand lineages held regional prestige: In 638, Emperor Taizong approved a genealogical record listing 293 surnames and 1,651 lineages by social standing.
• Yet the prominence of locally eminent families, they lacked access to high court positions.

A Cosmopolitan Empire:

• Participation of non-Han elites
• Gender freedom
• Model for the world: Market that attracted ambassadors and merchants from around the world.

A Troubled Empire:

• Dominance of great clans and families
• Centralized hierarchy
• Strict control of economy and society

• By the late fifth century, poetry was mainly linked to the courts and elite circles in southern China, where powerful families set the style and it served as elegant social interaction.
• The Sui and early Tang dynasties continued this tradition, with poetry composed in the capital and following strict rules on topics and structure.
• Poetry was closely tied to the political hierarchy, with rulers involved in evaluating and composing poems.

Ancient-style poems (Gushi 古詩)

• Ancient-style poetry
• Broader use of rhyme and fewer metrical restrictions.

Lüshi 律詩

• Form of Chinese poetry that flourished in the Tang dynasty (618–907).
• It consists of eight lines of five or seven syllables, each line set down in accordance with strict tonal patterns.
• Lüshi provided a new, formal alternative to the long-popular free gushi (“ancient-style poetry”).

山居秋暝

王維

空山新雨後，
天氣晚來秋。
明月松間照，
清泉石上流。
竹喧歸浣女，
蓮動下漁舟。
隨意春芳歇，
王孫自可留。

Autumn Evening in the Mountain Retreat

Wang Wei

After the new rain on the empty mountain,
the weather turns to autumn in the evening.
The bright moon shines between the pines,
and the clear spring flows over the stones.
Bamboo rustles as the washerwomen return,
and the lotus stirs as the fishing boats descend.
As the spring flowers fade at will,
the sons of kings may choose to stay.

Phonology of Middle Chinese

• Level (平 píng)
• Rising (上 shǎng)
• Departing or going (去 qù)
• Entering or checked (入 rù)

Phonology of Modern Chinese

• First tone: Yin Level (陰平 yinpíng)
• Second tone: Yang Level (陽平 yángpíng)
• Third tone: Rising (上 shǎng)
• Fourth tone: Departing or going (去 qù)
• Disappeared in Mandarin: Entering or checked (入 rù)