CHAPTER TWO

PERIOD OF THE THREE KINGDOMS AND THE WESTERN CHIN (A.D. 220-317)

The period from 220-317, comprising nearly a hundred years with two discrete but short-lived historical divisions- the Three Kingdoms (220-265) and the Western Chin (265-317) -experiences recovery from the decades of turmoil attending the collapse of the Han and a brief period of fluorescence in the second half of the century, only to be plunged into one of China's most catastrophic and protracted periods of disorder, famine and foreign invasion during the first several decades of the 4th century. Despite the calamities and crumbling political situations that wracked Chi• na at the end of the Han Dynasty and again with even more ferocity at the end of the Western Chin, Buddhism in China not only survived, but grew to new levels, especially during the height of the Western Chin from ca. 280-300 with the prodi• gious activities of the monk Dharmarak~a (Chu Fa-hu ~?$;ill), a naturalized Yueh-chih and the greatest Buddhist luminary, teacher, and translator in China at this time. His voluminous translation work, mainly of Mahayana texts, established by the end of the century a much firmer foundation for favorable growth and development of Buddhism in China during the 4th century. Buddhist art, continuing generally along lines established in Later Han, never• theless manifests some distinct changes and reaches deeper into the popular cul• ture. Remains-still relatively scant- include Buddhist figures used on funerary objects, such as the ceramic hun-p'ing '91!.mi. vessels and bronze mirrors, and a few, rare, in• dependent bronze icons which, though still fashioned in a strongly western mould, become imbued with a more distinctly Chinese interpretation than seen in the Lat• er Han images. Solidity and realism conjoined with delicacy and a sense of inno• cence pervade the best works- rare treasures that seem to reflect the growing faith and fresh spirit of renewal characteristic of the Buddhist movement during this sec• ond m,Yor early period of Buddhism in China. The effects on the art of China's relationship with Central Asia, especially during the decades of vigorous contact in the 2nd half of the 3rd century, become even more pronounced in some works while others testify to developments of a more indigenous Chinese interpretation. PERIOD OF THE THREE KINGDOMS AND THE WESTERN CHIN (A.D. 220-317) 97

l. POLITICAL SETTING, RELATIONS WITH CENTRAL AsiA AND DEVELOPMENTS IN BUDDHISM

A. The Three Kingdoms (220-265)

Wei [often referred to as Ts'ao Wei lffll] (220-265), capital at Loyang

Shu [Shu Han] l.l~ (221-264), capital at Ch'engtu !tX:'il~ in Szechwan

Wu ~(222-280), capital at Wu-ch'ang it/§ (present E-cheng ~~), Hupei, from 221-229, and at Chien-yeh ~~ (present Nanking) from 229-280 (See Map 2.1)

From ca. mid-2nd century A.D. as court control of the Han Dynasty eroded, the strength of various local warlords rose. Mter the Yellow Turban Rebellion of the Taoists in 184 A.D., a major sign of the destabilizing situation of the time, the war• lord Ts'ao Ts'ao lf1*, a brilliant but cruel statesman and general, gained de facto control of the north by the time of his death in 220, when the Han finally ceded to his son Ts'ao P'ei lf;:£ who was proclaimed the first Emperor of Wei in 220. Howev• er, the dictatorial and heavily legalistic policies of the Ts'ao leadership did not win over the entrenched land-owning Confucian elite, which had considerable bureau• cratic power as well as their own private armies. Without the ability to ultimately centralize control, the Ts'ao lost power in 249 in a coup d'etat that resulted in more independence for the powerful families, victory for the traditional Confucian sys• tem ("Old Text School"), and signaled the rise of the powerful Ssu-ma <'f).~ family. 1 In 200 A.D. Liu Pei ~Uvm of Han lineage had already established an independent state in Szechwan called Shu-Han and had proclaimed himself Emperor of Han at Ch'eng-tu. Szechwan had not been affected by the Yellow Turban Rebellion and Taoism remained influential there, particularly with the support of the Five Bushels of Rice Movement (wu-tou-mi-tao li4*!J!), a popular semi-religious movement that at the end of the Later Han also assumed a military function in defense of Szech• wan against the Han armies.2 In 263 the Wei general Ssu-ma Yen <'fJ.~~ conquered Shu-Han, and by 265, after gaining effectual power behind the throne of Wei, unit• ed Wei and Shu to form the dynasty of the Chin~, known to history as the Western Chin to distinguish it from the Eastern Chin (317-420). In the southeast Sun Ch'iian

1 Zurcher (1959), I, pp. 43-45. 2 Tsukamoto (1985), I, pp. 35, 118. The religious doctrine of the movement was apparently similar to the T'ai-p'ing tao :tlf-la and also based on the yin-yang and Five Elements theory. The name derives