44 RENAISSANCES

empire than they began to abuse this power for the purpose »>*' rrpresHtng
their hated Buddhist rivals. From A,». 62*1 onwards, Buddhist inonan*
teries in the T'ang imperial Crown's dominions were plum! under u
Confucian official control that grew progressively more severe;1 and a
series of anti-Buddhist memorials addressed to thr T\uu* Imperial
Throne by Confucian high officials- by Pu Vt in A.M. <^|,-' by Y;n»
Ch'ung in A.D. 713,3 and by Han Yii in A.n, Xuj1 at length prmlmTd
their cumulative effect in a systematic ofHewl perserniioiu st.utrd in
A.r>. 845, s which, though mild and indeed almost humane nmijwt'vtl
to many of the persecutions of which a Christian Chutvh was either u
victim or a perpetrator, was an exceptionally violent and hti»i<!v invi-
dent in the less unhappy history of the relations between Chweh and
State in the Far Eastern World.

As it turned out, this Confucian attempt to repress, and if pnssihfa
eradicate, the Mahayfina in the Far Kast \\a,s abortive; ami, mill-way
through the twentieth century of the Christian Mr.i» the M;davan;t was
still a living spiritual force in China as well us in Ind«» Chm.i, Komi,
and Japan, Even, however, if the Mahayami, an an mautittitm, h;u) been
successfully extirpated in China eleven tumdtvti yeiirs beitne that tlnte,
a discreditable political succowa that would then have been uehieved by
Confucian civil servants would have been stultified in ;stiv;imr by a then
already consummated surrender tc* the lV1uhi\v»1na tm Ute njvt.iptiVHteul
plane which did credit to the intellectual integrity o{ u Neoeonlucian
School of Far Eastern philosophers The pioneern of thin UnddhSntkt
Neoconfucianism had already «et their <'<nime on them* M;tii,tymtmn
lines before the Great Persecution of A.n. 84*; was hwm'hed; jtnd, \vhen
a Neoconfucian philosophy that had been duly uppmved by it Cuni'ueuw
imperial regime had thua taken the Ch'un version of the M;du\v3wi to
heart, an authentic renaissance of unadulttn'uted Coniuei»tntH*n would
still have been as far ofFas ever if, before the ittuii tUnvntuti «!' ihr T*«n^
Dynasty, the Confucian civil scrvuntrt had unweded in their ell'ortH I**
suppress the external manifestations of an exotic higher religion which
had now found an inviolable sanctuary and im ideul bane of spiritual
operations in Neoconfucian bosoms that were both unmiHpevi und un-
suspecting,

When a Zealot-minded Ming Dyntmty (impi'mhrnt A.IJ, 1308 1644)
conferred on Chu Hsi the posthumous aintmtaaticm thttt fl»n Wuti
(imperejbat ^140-87 B.C.) had conferred an Confuciun, ami »ddrd the wi*rk«
of this prince of the Neoconfucian 'School of lYineipfen* to the 'net
books' prescribed for the official examinations, tn «crve thenceforth »«
the sole authorized commentary on the Confucian C'Ja»«ie»^

* See Haekmann, H,: Ghinesischu PhihMpliif (Munith 1*^7, RvinhnnlO, tin, »7J«s,
» See Htdttnann» op. dt, p. a^a; Fr»nke, <).&imhi<k*» An lllummth** Huttton,
vol. il (Berlin and Uip»« 1036, de Gruyttr), pp, 390 itnU jiyoj (it«Hlrkh» !«, C, i A £k»t
History of the Chinese People (London 1948, Allen 8t Unwin), pp, u* V

s Sea Franke, op. citM p, 57*; l!ackm«nnt «p. cit,, p, aya (whw «*v»* thw dwte M

4 co

P. w ,h.«D ' op

* s*e Htckmann, op. cit,» p. 357,

,, p,