Essay on The Acceptance Of Buddhism And Buddhism

The acceptance of Buddhism varied depending on where you are from and your place in society. Some Confucian scholars agreed with the emperor in rejecting the belief as an external, uncultured cult because of its differences, while other Chinese scholars agreed with Buddha, saying that Buddhism had much to offer, and finally, a third response came from a combination of Chinese and Buddhist scholars, who tried to make the Buddhist belief fit in with the already existing Chinese ideologies of Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism. One of the Confucian scholars that was against Buddhism was Han Yu, who wrote “Memorial on Buddhism” in 819 C.E. In this he talks about when the Buddha’s finger bone was brought to China from India. He calls the bones the “foul and unlucky remains of his body” (Doc 4). You can also that he is against the idea of Buddhism because he says “Buddha was a man of the barbarians who did not speak Chinese and who wore clothes of a different fashion” (Doc 4). This means he was different because he was from India and did not wear clothes of the Chinese fashion, therefore because he is so different they should not follow Buddhism because it would be so different. In Chinese culture being different was a bad thing because people liked to be the same and things had been the same for centuries. He also says that “the Buddha’s sayings contain nothing about our ancient kings” and also that “he understood neither the duties that bind sovereign and subject, nor the…