40 REN A I H H A JN V.'. Kh

the part of the Transoxanian townspeople and 'ufomii which begun us an
insurrection against a Chaghatay ascendancy and was followed tip by
Timur's military genius with a counter-offensive in which Cain took
his long overdue revenge on a provocative Abel. In thin place we have
only to notice that Timur followed up his overt assumption of sovereign
power at Balkh on the 8th April, 1369, by re- validating the S/utn'tth
in all fields that came within the MMF? tilt's cngnmmec; and. though
he seems to have refrained from following up this positive net by the
negative one of expressly abrogating the Mongol Vf/,vrty, its ahrnpttion
was accomplished in effect by the reinstatement of an Islamic I, aw in
whose sight nihil hwnammi was alwnum*1

(c) RENAISSANCES Ol> I'll 1UJSO |»H IKS

In other contexts2 we have watched the Confucian Httenitt surviving
the dissolution of a Sink universal state embodied in the Jlan Kntpire
and eventually regaining their monopoly of an imperial civil .service,
after a ghost of the' Han Kmpire had been raised by the Siii Dynasty and
kept on foot by the Sui's successors the T'ung; and in the name eon-
texts we have also observed that, in achieving thin remarkable recovery
of lost ground on the plane of public administration, the Ctmf'ttctitiiH
were winning a political victory over Taoist and Mtmuyaiuun Buddhist
contemporaries and rivals. The recHtublishment by T'ung T*;u Tnimg,
in A.D. 622, of an official examination in the Confucian ClitssicM UH the
method of selecting new recruits for the imperial civil Mervice minified
that, in this political field, the Taowts and Buddhintn h;ui lee slip an
opportunity for supplanting the Confucian* which hud seemed to be
within the grasp of these upstart competitor* for public otltee during u
post-Sinic intcrregnunrij when the preHtige of tin* Ctmfueian* hud been
damaged by the collapse of the universal ytnte with which they were
identified, while, in a defunct Ilan Kmpire*H former northern pro-
vinces, which had been the cradle of the Sinic culture, TiioiMtM and
Buddhists were enjoying the political patronage of barbarian rulem of
local successor-states who found the Mahfiyfintt more attnietive than
Confucianism and who would have been gltui in any cane t»» recruit their
civil ( servants from any non-Confucian community that might he
qualified for office by possessing the neccaaary ntummrti of etittcution,
rather than place themselves in the hands of Confucianw whfwc loyalty
they sagely doubted,

The contrast between this political failure of the MahHySna in
Northern China in a post-Binic Age and the auccewi with which the
Christian Church seized and harvested it« corresponding nnpwtunittai
in Western Europe in a post-Hellenic Age bring* out the tact that—lit
any rate by comparison with Christianity— the MahSyHnn w«* u politic-
ally incompetent religion. The patronage of the parochial prince* in
Northern China during the best part of three centuries, running from

77 {Act T, icano i, Jln« a«), 8*t C*h
at Mong

, , , .,

i Wtrct at Mongol* d** Orieinn 4 t^X (Parii 1^6, Colin),

J *nd Bouv*tf L': £ im&& M^olt ^w&» ^*« #«*• *947, ltocc«faj
«o VI. vlU 355»8f and pp. 64^-