A History of China (26 page)

Chinese civilization itself gradually influenced the Wei, with its transfer of the capital to Luoyang offering the most significant proof of its growing sinicization. In 494, the Wei rulers signaled a dramatic shift by moving their base from Pingcheng along the frontiers between the steppes and the sedentary agricultural territories to the heartland of China in Luoyang, the city that had been the capital during the Later Han dynasty. The Wei doubtless recognized the symbolism in choosing Luoyang, for the city had numerous associations with a more glorious past for China. By moving to the center of China, the Wei elite revealed its growing identification with Chinese civilization. Within a few years, the court issued regulations that confirmed this change. It enjoined its own officials to master the Chinese language, to refrain from using their own native tongues, and to avoid the donning of Xianbei attire. The government integrated both Chinese and Tuoba officials and did not discriminate against either in appointments and selection. Tuoba leaders who still dominated the military and had remained on the frontiers resented the privileges granted to their subjugated enemies, and the unity that had previously characterized the relationship between the frontier Tuoba and the Tuoba in Luoyang began to unravel. The more sinicized Tuoba residing in China were wary of devoting too many resources to the military – an attitude characteristic of Chinese officialdom and not of peoples who derived from the steppes, for whom military readiness was all important.

The consequent reduction of status for the military led to predictable results. Within two years of the move to Luoyang, the frontier Tuoba initiated a short and abortive uprising against their more sinicized brothers in the ­capital. Such outbreaks occurred with alarming regularity over the next few decades, weakening both the central government and the frontier military. By reducing the funds allotted to the military, the Wei limited the border army to a defensive posture. Instead of initiating forays into the steppes to deflect potentially hostile peoples, the army simply protected lands that lay within China’s borders – a daunting task that made it vulnerable to incursions and attacks. Such intrusions reached their climax in 528 when a steppe army occupied Luoyang and killed much of the court elite. The Wei did not recover and indeed fragmented into two distinct, weak, and ultimately nonviable dynasties. In short, the fate of the Wei illustrates the perils of division between increasingly sinicized steppe leaders and their confreres who sought to retain their traditional lifestyles and values. This split ultimately prevented them from cooperating and led first to weakness and then to collapse. This same kind of internecine conflict would plague nearly all the steppe peoples who sought to govern China.

The collapse of the Han and the subsequent chaos undermined Confucianism – a philosophy that promised harmony and order. Confucianism, the state cult during the Han, had been unable to avert the instability that brought the dynasty to an end. It was thus in some disrepute. A new philosophy or religion was required to lay the foundations for a unified China.

This hobbling of Confucianism offered Daoism an opportunity to make inroads on the popular mind. In the late Han, messianic Daoist movements such as the Five Pecks of Rice and the Yellow Turbans had arisen to challenge the court. Daoism served as a popular manifesto during that time. However, when the Han dynasty fell, many men of letters, who were disillusioned with public life, also turned to Daoism, although they did not simply renounce Confucianism. Wang Bi (226–249), perhaps the most original of these thinkers, sought to reconcile Confucianism with Daoism. Heavily influenced by the works of Laozi and Zhuangzi, Wang was determined to preserve Confucianism as well. Thus, he had a vision of a blend of active participation in government and quietism in private. However, he argued that such participation ought to be based on the Daoist concept of the original force of the universe – “­nothingness” – from which the “embodiment of existence” derived. An individual needed to be involved in this world, but his behavior ought to be predicated on a detachment and disinterestedness that led to proper Confucian conduct – that is, Wang Bi linked Confucian action to Daoist motivations. The ideal of a disinterested but moral official dovetailed with Confucian precepts as well. Simultaneously, Wang offered an outlet for Daoists by equally emphasizing individual cultivation of the path that led to the Daoist ideals.

Some Daoists followed this path without concessions to Confucianism. They sought solace or self-fulfillment in this turbulent era and refrained from an actively Confucian role in society. A few joined likeminded friends and associates in their efforts to attain the Daoist ideal. The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove was the most renowned and doubtless the most notorious such group. Claiming adherence to Zhuangzi’s espousal of “naturalness” (
ziran
), the seven went beyond the acceptable limits of their society. Several of them shocked their contemporaries with their unconventional behavior by carousing, drinking, and appearing in the nude. Such hedonism eventually embroiled them in conflicts with the political authorities. Two of the Seven Sages were executed for what was perceived to be provocative and perhaps subversive behavior. Xi Kang (223–262), one of the two, had written the first essay on the Chinese lute and had also experimented with methods to prolong life. Others among the Seven Sages were less sybaritic and attempted to reaffirm Zhuangzi’s thoughts in the context of society. Guo Xiang (d. 312), who produced the first edition of Zhuangzi’s work, asserted that Zhuangzi’s “naturalness” and “nonaction” did not imply abandonment of society. Indeed disinterestedness, the Daoist value par excellence, was an invaluable trait for a government official. True “nonaction” therefore lay neither in total separation from society nor in a hermit-like existence.

As the more learned form of Daoism developed, so too did a more populist formal organization. The philosophies of Laozi and Zhuangzi began to assume the characteristics of a religion or a formal Church. Feasts and celebrations fostered the rise of a Daoist community that took part in rituals, ceremonies, and even magic. Some of the more learned Daoists were distressed at what they perceived to be the vulgarization of the Daoist message. However, with the growing popularity of Daoism, they could do little to stem this trend, which also entailed searches for medical cures and for an elixir of immortality. Popular Daoism could not be rooted out; it had a hold on the populace. Moreover, the real threat to Daoism turned out to derive from the Indian religion of Buddhism, whose early practitioners originally sought to ingratiate themselves with the Daoists.

Buddhism is linked with the Indian prince Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563–483
BCE
) of the Shakya tribe, who eventually became known as Shakyamuni (“sage of the Shakya”). Because descriptions of his life evolved centuries after his death, they offer an embroidered version designed to idealize the founder of the religion. Such writings are not reliable accounts, as they seek to use his biography as a means of inculcating the basic message of Buddhism. Actual events are so interlaced with myths and legends that it is impossible to separate them, and knowledge of the life of Siddhartha Gautama is blurred at best. Yet consideration of the mythical accounts conveys a sense of Buddhist teachings.

According to these narratives, Siddhartha Gautama was born to a princely family that ruled in northeast India, bordering on modern Nepal. His birth resulted in remarkable omens:

In the ten thousand world-systems an immeasurable light appeared. The blind received their sight … The deaf heard the noise. The dumb spoke with one another. The crooked became straight. The lame walked. All prisoners were freed from their bonds and chains. In each hell the fire was extinguished … hunger and thirst were allayed. All men began to speak kindly … All the heavens became clear … The sea became sea water.
¹

Fabulous stories, which uncannily presage Siddhartha Gautama’s later significance to the world, abound about his childhood, but the principal attested events were his marriage at the age of sixteen and the subsequent birth of a son. Despite the obvious advantages accruing to him because of his status and wealth, he remained an unfulfilled and dissatisfied man. His life of privilege did not blind him to the miseries afflicting others or to his own inevitable demise. A series of set pieces exposed him to such afflictions. He came across an old man, a sick man, and a dead man. Distressed by the sufferings they had endured, he continued to brood about the miserable fate of men who could not escape misery even after death. One day he encountered a recluse who had shaved his head and wore an old yellow robe. Impressed by the recluse’s ­abandonment of possessions and his goal of acting meritoriously, Siddhartha Gautama left his palace and family and gave up his own possessions. Cutting off his hair and donning a yellow robe, he started on his mission to discover the causes of suffering. He visited one sage after another, but found their teachings unpersuasive. He led an ascetic, reclusive life for six years, but such a disciplined existence did not ease his mind.

Some years elapsed before he achieved enlightenment. At the age of thirty, frustrated with his lack of progress, he sat in the lotus position at the foot of what became known as the Bodhi tree and started to meditate. He wished to avoid, on the one hand, the hedonism of a life given over to pleasures and, on the other hand, the asceticism of a life of deprivation and austerity.

He ultimately recognized that illness, pain, separation from loved ones, and ultimately death were the common fate of mankind. Death was no panacea because all creatures are afflicted with repeated reincarnations in different forms and faced with the same ailments and suffering. Hope for those who suffered was based on good deeds and on leading a moral life, which is explained by the concept of Karma, which assumes a cause–effect relationship between events and actions. Good behavior would translate into a good effect, or would generate good Karma, leading to a more favorable position in the next life. On the other hand, nefarious behavior would result in a less advantageous status in the following cycle of rebirth. However, the principal objective of the good Buddhist would be to avert reincarnation and instead to achieve Nirvana, a blissful state of selflessness in which cravings had been extinguished.

Enlightenment came in the form of the Four Noble Truths, the first of which stated that life entailed suffering. According to the second truth, human suffering derived from craving for objects or pleasures, which ultimately caused frustration. The third truth embodied the individual’s response to the pain he would be compelled to endure in this life, for it prescribed lack of passion and desire as an antidote. If the individual really understood the second truth and moved toward a cessation of desires, he would take the first step toward the alleviation of his own suffering. The fourth truth guided the individual to the moral life and to the meditation that would facilitate enlightenment. It defined the Eightfold Path of right views, right intent, right speech, right conduct, right means of livelihood, right endeavor, right mindfulness, and right meditation that would create good Karma and pave the way to Nirvana. Nirvana, in this earliest form of Buddhism, meant “extinguished,” which signifies renunciation of passions and desires and avoidance of reincarnation.

Having become the Enlightened One (or Buddha), Siddhartha Gautama then set about promoting his teachings. He developed the Buddhist teachings (
dharma
) and emphasized the Buddhist monastic community (
sangha
). Having set forth the fundamentals of the faith and having personally spread the ­message for much of his life, the Buddha himself died or reached a higher consciousness after reminding his disciples of the impermanence of everything and urging them to work diligently to enlighten themselves. This simple sketch of the Buddha’s life and ideas hardly does justice to the many episodes described in the traditional accounts and to the elaborateness of his views. Nonetheless, even the Buddha’s basic articulation of the essentials of his beliefs reveals reasons for their attractiveness to the people of his and later times. He emphasized that individual effort, in the form of good conduct, provided steps on the path to Nirvana. Leading an ethical life in each successive reincarnation could have tangible results. Yet the Buddha focused on concerns that transcended this life and may be said, critics have insisted, to have diverted attention from social injustice and instability. According to this line of thinking, the poor who followed these teachings would direct their efforts at achieving Nirvana and thus avoid confronting the social evils that plagued them. On the other hand, it could be argued that Buddhism offered solace in chaotic times by providing a means of responding to human suffering, by showing the ­evanescence of current afflictions, and by redirecting attention to eternal ­concerns. Whatever the reasons, Buddhism gained adherents rapidly in northern India and then gradually in central Asia.

Other Buddhist thinkers added to the initial doctrines. Eventually the basic tenets were grouped into three categories. The first were written by or at least deemed to represent the words of the Buddha (
sutras
); the second consisted of essays composed by Buddhist masters (
shastras
); and the third comprised monastic rules (
vinayas
). The resulting number of sources was sizable. Unlike Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, Buddhism had no specific holy book. Its message was scattered in numerous texts, and the doctrines differed in subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways. The large number of volumes and the incredible richness of ideas permitted the development of a wide variety of interpretations and sects. In turn, the rise of different sects and the lack of orthodoxy contributed to Buddhism’s appeal; it did not appear to be monolithic and had elements that could attract various kinds of adherents. Without a pope or a highly structured ecclesiastical organization, it did not need to defend a specific orthodoxy. Buddhists could be flexible in attempting to spread the Buddha’s teachings to other regions and could and did accommodate to native beliefs.