Spread Of Buddhism Dbq Essay

Buddhism, initially widely accepted in China over the centuries has been criticized. Rather than having a positive effect, Buddhism has been condemned due to its “barbaric” nature in comparison to Confucianism. Buddhism was a faith that has been deemed as an outcast due to it only being recently adopted in China. Before Buddhism, Confucianism was the religion that dominated from 206-220 BC, originating in China by a Chinese philosopher known as Confucius. Buddhism is a universal religion that originated during the 6th century BC in India and was practiced in various regions, and came to prevail in China due to the fall of the Han Dynasty; China, lacking political structure, turned towards Buddhism.

DBQ Different people in China had different views on the spread of Buddhism. Buddhism was a religion, created in India (6th century B.C.E) and spread to China (1st Century). After Buddhism, China started to experience political problems. Many people believed this was caused by Buddhism. Some people sided with the belief and praised Buddha saying he has much to offer, while others repelled it for the effect of the ideas on China.

Buddhism consists of a belief in peace, unity, respect, and self-discovery through humility and honesty.  Following these ideals creates a more knowledgeable and aware individual and society.  L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz reflects on these themes of Buddhism through the use of allegorical settings to create a story about a young girl trying to find her way home. After deciding to run away because of the evil neighbour Mrs. Gilch, Dorothy is caught in a tornado, thrown around, and wakes up to find herself in a foreign land.

The main theme that entangles itself in all of the source material is the idea of how governments should be run in such a powerful empire, such as Imperial Rome and the Han Dynasty. Starting with the first source, it is evident that the first Qin emperor believed that only the orthodox teachings should be tolerated, which meant that the works of the Five Classics and its teachings were to be extinguished. The next primary source serves as a supplement to explaining the fall of the Qin dynasty due to its warring ideas and Jia Yi argues that if Confucius teachings were implemented then the dynasty would have still been intact. The third source explains how the Qin dynasty was unjust in its equal appropriation of punishment against criminals regardless of motives or social class. Essentially, Dong Zhongshu believed that a dynasty could not be successful if it failed to establish a fair and righteous justice system for its citizens.

The Lotus Sutra, “Lotus of the True Dharma” notes the empowerment and influence from the philosophies of Buddhism as it shows the way towards Nirvana (Doc 3). The purpose of the Sutra is to convey to people of the hardships of making it to “Tathagata”, which encourages them to work harder and mature mindfully. Furthermore, the practices of Buddhism is also shown in an edict of Ashoka, the emperor of the Maurya Dynasty (Doc 6). He was a strong supporter of Buddhism and based many propagandas from the religion. His form of the religion, however, is the practice of great education and a path to happiness.

While Chinese initially accepted Buddhism and defended its policies, over the centuries others increasingly scrutinized Buddhism’s absence from past texts and used it as a scapegoat for political and social problems. When there was no empire to enforce laws, Buddhism gained popularity, but after imperial authority reemerged, Buddhism faced mounting opposition. An additional document that shows the actual numbers of converts to Buddhism during this time, preferably in a graph, would be useful in determining whether or not the worries of the authors in documents against Buddhism were grounded. For a few centuries after arriving in China, Chinese defended and supported Buddhism. Zhi Dun praised Buddhism as providing a path to nirvana, though as an upper class scholar who probably did not personally feel threatened by invading nomads, his testimony does not necessarily reflect the danger lower classes likely felt.

The next document, given by Tang Emperor Wu, is an edict that was sent out concerning Buddhism, likely the same one that resulted in the destruction of numerous Buddhist temples and that mandated that many monks and nuns to reenter the workforce. Using a furious tone, the account again cites the fact that Buddhism was not completely aligned with Confucianism and Chinese tradition as a reason for eliminating the faith. Wu called Buddhism a bane on society, reasoning that it weakened families and caused

(Doc3) This scholar tried to answer the many questions people had over Buddhism. He answered the fact that Buddhism was not talked about in Confucians classics because it wasn’t needed to. Confucius didn’t need to talk about Buddhism since it was not relevant at the time. He also answered the fact that Buddhism was thought to be all about following conduct

Buddhism as barbaric, imperfect, and foreign while others saw it as beneficial and a path to an orderly society and eternal salvation. Document one shows how Buddhism spread from India to China, The fact the Buddhism was not native to China caused great distress to scholars like Han Yu who stated throughout document five how the Buddha did not follow Chinese customs. He went on to explain that “the Buddha was a man of the barbarians.” Also, in document three, Faixan travels to India to find out how to improve chinese Buddhism because he does not think that it has been perfected in China. On the contrary, scholars who supported Buddhism praised how it offered a path to salvation (Document 2) and some, like Zang Mi in document six, went as far as to compare it to Taoism and Confucianism, saying that “all three teachings lead to the creation of an orderly society and for this reason the must be observed with respect” among other things.

While Buddhism began as a method to provide stability to lower-class Chinese citizens, Buddhism ultimately caused division between social classes in China. As Chinese dynasties regained stability, leaders questioned the role of Buddhism in China leading to an inevitable rejection of Buddhist ideas by the Tang Emporer. Buddhism played a significant role in China during the post-classical era. Buddhism had begun to spread from India to China during the Han but was widely spread during the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

In the first document the Buddha puts importance on the steps to talking about the ending of suffering. This is why so many people decided to join the religion of the Buddha, many people who were poor were struggling because many lives were lost as the nation of China had unstable governmental leaders. Then again, this is why a lot of the wealthy people could not relate to Buddhism, they were not struggling and have an extravagant lifestyle (Document 6). Zhi Dun, who was pro Buddhist spoke about how the understanding and the acceptance of the Buddhist is important in China because the people in China who are wealthy don’t understand what it means to be a Buddha because they are lost in their wealthy life style. During upsetting eras, for example the time period after the Han yu’s fall, people would join Buddhism to be able to believe that they had the potential of a release from the physical world and escape to a better place where they could find enlighten (Document 4).

The novel Monkey: Journey to the West is one of the greatest classics of Chinese literature. The novel follows the adventure of Tripitaka followed by the protagonist, monkey and his disciples to India in order to find ancient Buddhist scriptures. The story consists of Chinese legends, tales, and superstitions. Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which are the three main religions in China, play a huge role throughout this story. In the adaptation of Monkey: Journey to the West by David Kherdian, religions are often woven in to the journey of the traveling companion in order to show the path toward self-cultivation and collective harmony.

The Daodejing, similar to the Analects, was written during the Warring State period, a time when the Zhou kingdom disintegrated into a series of feudal states fighting for power—a time of fragmentation and chaos. The Daodejing was written for Daoist, educated men, and people interested in Daoist teachings. The Daodejing was written to inform people, therefore, it was written as if speaking to a student. Laozi, the author of the Daodejing, although has no proof of existence, is believed to be a keeper of archives in the royal court and a teacher who travelled around China. The purpose of the Daodejing is to articulate Laozi’s ideas on Daosim and inform people about his philosophy.

Compare and contrast the roles of Confucianism and Buddhism in both China and Korea until roughly the 7th century Introduction East Asia is the largest emerging economy of the world at present, and this phenomenon can be traced back to its cultural, demographic, political and social traditions and identities. Yang and Tamney (2011) said religion was an integral part of cultural which played an extremely great role in enriching people’s spiritual life, guiding people to do good (p.132), and strengthening the state authority and legitimating their rule by instilling people with the politics-oriented beliefs from the perspective of the ruling class. Confucianism and Buddhism played a dominant role in the feudal society in both China and Korea and they exerted far-reaching impacts on both countries until today. As religion, both Confucianism and Buddhism served similar purposes in maintaining the social orderliness and stability, despite the differences between them in the religions beliefs and their impacts. In this paper, the roles of two mainstream religions, Confucianism (including Neo-Confucianism) and Buddhism in China and Korea until roughly the 7th century are compared and contrasted in various aspects.

t Comparing the Dao in Confucianism to the Dao in Daoism, similarities or differences Dao in Confucianism represents the entire normative human order. The Dao in Daoism antedates Tian and acts as the basis of the natural order. While in Confucian Dao they hold the ideal political-social-ethical order ordained by tian for the people. Confucianism encourages their perfectibility through self-effort the teaching of ethics and good movement. The primacy of the Confucian Dao requires superior human beings, sages and men of virtue to exert their highest effort to actualized its ideal design.