302 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

557). He became a devout Buddhist and is reputed to have
built 13,000 temples. He sent for monks from India, and
was so strict in following the doctrine of Akimsa that he
forbade even the cutting of figures of animals embroidered
on doth. ' He is described as a man of distinguished cha-
racter and noble presence, a scholar, soldier, statesman, and
monk.' Other examples of Buddhist influence have already
been cited. Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, like Fa Hian and
Huen Tsang, came to India, and Indian Buddhist monks,
like Bodhidharma and Kumaravijaya, travelled to China.
It is reckoned that at the dose of this period the Buddhist
library in China exceeded that of the Confucian.

The country was reunited into a single empire by the
Duke of Sui, the founder of the Sui dynasty (589—618).
The last ruler of this family was a rather remarkable figure.
He was Ymg Ti (605—17).

"Studious, clever, luxurious, he squandered treasure and life
without stint. Immense palaces, huge parks, lakes and islands,
trees that moist always bloom, naturally or with silken flowers
and leaves, thousands of court ladies and their attendants, every
conceivable gratification were his delight. He linked his capital
with the Yangtze by joining various rivers into a great cannal,
lining it with stone embankments, and, 30,000 'dragon boats'
carried him and his entourage on royal visitations. Whole dis-
tricts were denuded of birds to supply his followers with gay
feathers. He led an army of 305,000 against Korea, of whom

only 2,7000 returned"!

«

Such a prince was not calculated to keep either his dig-
nity or power for long. His general Li Yuan revolted and
established a new dynasty. This was the famous Tang
dynasty about which we have already said something in an
earlier chapter. T'ai Tsung (627—650): was its greatest

1. Soothill, A History of China, p. 27,