FINAL EXAM WRITING 16

DBQ
Throughout China, Buddhism began to spread which made a big majority of Chinese population grow extremely furious. Buddhism originated in India in the sixth century B.C.E. The main reason why the Chinese were so terribly angry was because of the fact that it has nothing to do with Confucian, which was what they lived by. The thought of this made them despise the religion “Buddhism” altogether, not even having the desire to give the religion a chance at all.
According to the Buddhist tradition, “The Four Noble Truths” were the first mentioned by the Buddha. Basically, in this document it describes the way of the Buddhist tradition and pretty much how things worked as well as their beliefs. Mainly, it talks about “sorrow”, things that lead you into sorrow and eventually ties into “The fourth Noble truth, which is stopping the sorrow. On the other hand, moving into the next document, which was written by and “Anonymous Chinese scholar”, begins to explain as to why Chinese people despise this culture. This Chinese scholar is basically saying Buddhism is completely unnecessary. He questions as to why Buddha is supposedly so amazing, yet Confucius did not practice it. Confucius is the way that the Chinese know best, so this explains why the Chinese grow so angry. The answer, however, explains how teachings of the Confucius are completely different from Buddhism and you can’t even compare the two.
Moreover, I move to the next document. Han Yu, whom was a leading Confucian scholar and official, expresses his opinion in a rather angry manor. According to him, Buddhism has nothing to do with the Chinese and is useless to practice because of the fact that once again, has nothing to do with Confucian. Both the Anonymous Chinese scholar and Han Yu both express themselves in a way that leads you to understand why the Chinese hated Buddhism as much as they did. As oppose to the first document, the Chinese do not see the good in Buddhism at all. According to Han Yu, Buddha was a man of barbarians! Though his reasoning isn’t very rational, he definitely gets his point across. Because of the fact that Buddhism didn’t do things the way the Chinese wanted it, or weren’t used to by any means, Buddhism wasn’t accepted.
Zong Mi, who was a leading Buddhist scholar, was pretty neutral for the most part. He explains how he believes all three sages were “perfect” and all deserve respect. This differs a lot from the last few documents I came across. The others seemed to be filled with negativity and only saw things there way, not even bothering to look at the other point of view. Zong Mi, however, expressed himself in a way that let the reader know that he wasn’t really siding with any of the religions and was, as I said before, neutral. Tang Emperor Wu, ties in a bit with the negativity. Completely siding with the total opposite of Buddhism, he believes that Buddhism is actually causing problems and “poisoning” the customs of the Chinese nation. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and most of the opinions consist of going against Buddhism being spread throughout China.
All in all, most Chinese people are not all for “Buddhism.” They would rather their nation be left alone without another culture being spread in the place they call home. In many ways, it relates to people getting used to something new.