The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 06. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
SCHOLARSHIP, LITERATURE, AND THE ARTS 311
Jurchen print has been preserved, but there are quite a few extant specimens
of Chinese books printed under the Chin. These show that the craftsmanship
of carvers and printers retained the high standard it had reached under the
Northern Sung. Indeed, some Chin prints can stand comparison with the
finest books printed in Southern Sung times.
66
The same cannot be said for painting and calligraphy,
67
although a defini-
tive appraisal of the pictorial arts under the Chin is still lacking. Art histori-
ans in China, Japan, and the West have always been attracted by the indubita-
ble excellence and variety of styles that mark the Southern Sung. But this
attraction is in itself evidence that northern China in the twelfth and early
thirteenth centuries did not have much to offer that could be compared with
Southern Sung art. A fourteenth-century work on painting lists forty-seven
painters of the Chin period, but none of them figures prominently in the
current histories of Chinese painting. Moreover, this work seems to have
been based on written records rather than on actual inspection of the paint-
ings.
68
The father of Emperor Chang-tsung and the Hai-ling emperor are
said to have painted. Another imperial clan member among the painters was
Wan-yen T'ao
69
(1172-1232), who was also a distinguished poet and a friend
of literati like Yuan Hao-wen. A few more Jurchen painters are listed and
also two Khitans, one of them Yeh-lii Lii (n31-91), the father of Yeh-lii
Ch'u-ts'ai. But the great majority of painters were Chinese, as could be
expected.
Emperor Chang-tsung was a great patron of the arts. He took a lively
interest in the former Sung imperial collections that had been captured in
1127.
Many surviving T'ang and Northern Sung paintings still today bear
the seals of Chang-tsung, for example, the well-known scroll "Admonitions
to the imperial ladies" preserved in the British Museum. Chang-tsung also
appointed as director of his collections a well-known artistic and literary
figure of his time, the painter-poet Wang T'ing-yiin (1151-1202).?° The
emperor himself was an active calligrapher who tried to emulate the Sung
emperor Hui-tsung as both an artist and a patron of the arts, and he even
imitated Hui-tsung's style of handwriting, as is shown by the extant colo-
phons written by him. While waiting for a definitive appraisal of Chin
painting, we suggest that the styles imitated under the Chin were those of
66 K. T. Wu (Wu Kuang-ch'ing), "Chinese printing under four alien dynasties," Harvard Journal of
Asiatic
Studies,
13 (1950), pp. 453-9.
67 For a basic survey of Chin painting and calligraphy, see Susan H. Bush, "Literati culture under the
Chin (1122-1234)," Oriental Art, n.s., 15 (1969), pp. 103—12.
68 Hsia Wen-yen, T'u huipao Men (KHCPTS ed.), 4, pp. 93-96, 129.
69 Susan Bush reads the personal name of Wan-yen T'ao as Shou; see her "Literati culture," p. 112, n. 5.
70 On Chang-tsung as a collector and calligrapher, see Bush, "Literati culture," pp. 103—4; and Toyama,
Kincho
shi kenkyu, pp. 660—75.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
312 THE CHIN DYNASTY
the great masters of Northern Sung, above all the academy painters, in other
words, the painters whose works had been transported to the north and
incorporated into the Chin imperial collections. One thing is certain, how-
ever: The ideal of the gentleman painter, of an educated nonprofessional
artist who combined literary training with the art of the brush, seems to have
become just as fashionable under the Chin as in southern China.
This kind of painting - scroll painting on paper or silk - was in every
respect an art of the elite. No self-respecting gentleman painter would ever
have condescended to adorn the walls of a temple with a fresco. This re-
mained the reserve of professional painters, but just because of their profes-
sionalism, most of the men who created such works have remained anony-
mous.
It is sometimes even impossible to date accurately wall paintings and
other decorative pictorial works such as woodcuts.
The same is true for sculpture. Unlike the situation in Japan, the sculptor
has mostly remained an anonymous artist in China. And yet the production
of sculpture in northern China must have been considerable, particularly in
view of the many Buddhist and Taoist temples that were built and that had
to be decorated and provided with statues. The Liao court had previously
patronized Buddhism, and Buddhist art consequently flourished. This devel-
opment continued after the founding of the Chin dynasty. An interesting
feature of Chin sculpture is the frequent use of stone and marble, which finds
no counterpart in Southern Sung China. Stylistically, Sung traditions were
maintained in north China. Two major tendencies can be distinguished. One
was a simple and archaistic style that tried to imitate T'ang art, sometimes so
successfully that Chinese sculptures manufactured under the Chin or Yuan
and even Ming are passed off by art dealers in our own century as T'ang
works. The other was more pictorial, broad, and fluent; one art historian has
termed it "a kind of plastic baroque."
7
' Since 1949 some ancient monuments
from the Chin dynasty, both sculptural and architectural, have been exca-
vated or recovered and described in Chinese archaeological journals, so that a
more representative corpus of dated or datable works of art is now waiting for
a scholarly treatment by art historians.
It could also be pointed out that some of the more spectacular parts of
modern Peking were constructed in the Chin period. What is known now as
the former imperial city with its beautiful landscaped gardens and lakes was a
summer residence built in 1179 where both Shih-tsung and Chang-tsung
frequently spent the hot months of the year. Under Khubilai khan this
former Chin summer resort was made the winter palace of the Yuan emperors
71 Osvald Sirln, "Chinese sculpture of the Sung, Liao and Chin dynasties,"
Bulletin
of
the Museum
of Par
Eastern
Antiquities
(Ostasiatiska Samlingarna)
14 (1942), pp. 45-64. This study is based chiefly on
publications by Japanese archaeologists and art historians.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
RELIGIOUS LIFE 313
and has remained a part of
the
Forbidden City ever since.
72
As yet there exists
no history of the arts under the Chin. It seems, however, not premature to
characterize the visual arts in Chin China as conservative and traditional,
perpetuating the stylistic heritage of the Tang and early Sung.
RELIGIOUS LIFE
Already before the establishment of their own state the Jurchen had come
into contact with Buddhism, in the Po-hai region. As early as the tenth
century a leading Jurchen, A-ku-nai, the elder brother of Han-p'u, the
"first ancestor" Shih-tsu, was a Buddhist. When the Jurchens invaded the
Liao state, they encountered a flourishing Buddhism receiving considerable
patronage from the Liao court. This greatly influenced the attitude of the
Jurchen imperial clan toward the Buddhist religion and also the politics of
the Chin government. In the imperial family, not a few of the empresses
and consorts were pious Buddhists, and the mother of Shih-tsung even
became a nun in her later years. In his younger years Shih-tsung himself
was attracted by Buddhism but later became somewhat detached, although
he continued to favor monasteries and monks. The same is true for Chang-
tsung.
The esteem in which institutionalized Buddhism was held by the Chin
emperors can be measured by their donations. Both secular and Buddhist
sources frequently mention pious donations to the clergy and monasteries.
The amount of these was sometimes considerable. When the Hai-ling em-
peror granted on one occasion 500 bolts of silk, 50 bolts of other textiles, and
500 ounces of silver, this was still a relatively minor gift compared with
what, for example, Shih-tsung donated in 1186: 2,000
mou
of fields, 7,000
chestnut trees, and 20,000 strings of cash. Agricultural land was frequently
given to monasteries in addition to cash, so that some religious communities
became huge landowners. Also, the number of temple bondsmen (the double
taxpayers mentioned earlier) was large.
Feeding monks was another way for the lay population to acquire religious
merit, and this too was practiced by the Chin court. The granting of ordina-
tion diplomas can also be regarded as a kind of donation because normally the
number of candidates for ordination as a monk was restricted. Sometimes
thousands of monks were ordained by imperial privilege in one ceremony. All
this set an example of patronage for other members of
the
Jurchen aristocracy
and certainly also for well-to-do Chinese.
72 For an historical account of the Chin palaces in Peking, see George N. Kates, "A new date for the
origins of the Forbidden City," Harvard Journal of Asiatic
Studies,
7 (1943), pp. 180-202.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
314 THE CHIN DYNASTY
On the other hand, this imperial patronage was linked with a strict state
control of Buddhism (and of
Taoism).
In this the Chin followed not only the
example of
Liao
but also that of most Chinese dynasties of the past. The Liao
had forbidden the unauthorized ordination of monks as early as 991, and the
Chin repeated this prohibition
in
1130. Chin legislation, like that
of
the
Sung, included detailed regulations concerning the ordination of monks and
nuns.
73
Full ordination was possible only after the novices had passed
an
examination. They had
to
show that they were able
to
read one hundred
words, selected out
of
five
set texts from among the Buddhist scriptures. All
these sutras were Mahayana texts, including the ever-popular Lotus sutra.
The number of candidates was restricted to eighty, and after 1190 the exami-
nation was to be held only every three years.
A state-controlled hierarchy of Buddhist monks existed, analogous to the
civil bureaucracy. For each administrative unit, a monk of exemplary behav-
ior was selected
by the
government authorities
as a
monk-official, whose
term
of
office was limited
to
three years.
In
cases
of
minor offenses, these
monk-officials had complete jurisdiction over the monks and nuns
in
their
districts, although crimes calling for a punishment heavier than flogging had
to be referred to the higher echelons of monastic jurisdiction. Another aspect
of state control was the prohibition of the private foundation of temples or
monasteries without government authorization.
All
these limitations and
controls were conditioned by the fact that monks were exempted from taxa-
tion and corvee labor. On the other hand, the state held a widespread sale of
ordination diplomas
in
times
of
crisis when the public treasuries needed
money. The first cases of that kind are reported from the year 1160 when the
Hai-ling emperor was preparing
for
his invasion
of
Sung. The price
for a
diploma varied between one hundred and three hundred strings of cash,
a
considerable sum of money.
Buddhism under the Chin was very much Chinese Buddhism and in this
respect followed
the
heritage
of
Sung. Hardly any attempt was made
to
make contact with the Buddhist centers
in
Tibet, Central Asia,
or
India,
and no pious monks set out from Chin to collect holy scriptures or to visit
the places where the Buddha had lived and taught. Also, very few monks
from outside China seem
to
have visited northern China under the Chin.
The case of an Indian monk who preached and performed miracles on Wu-
t'ai shan
in
the 1130s
is
quite isolated.
74
He seems to have been
a
follower
of Tantric Buddhism. The schools that flourished most under the Chin were
Ch'an (Zen) and the Pure Land school (Ch'ing-t'u), both long recognized in
73 CS, 55, p. 1234. For monastic jurisdiction, see also Ta
Chin kuo
chih,
36, p. 275.
74 Nien-ch'ang,
Fo
ttu
li
tai t'ung
tsai,
in
vol. 49 of
Taisho shinshu daizo
kyo,
ed. Takakusu Junjiro and
Watanabe Kaikyoku (Tokyo, 1929—34), 20, pp. 685b-c.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
RELIGIOUS LIFE 315
China as orthodox and acceptable to the secular authorities (unlike some
other sects).
The contribution of Chin to Buddhist scholasticism was negligible. No new
sutras were translated from the Sanskrit, and none of the authors of Buddhist
works received into the Buddhist canon of the Ming (the one we have today)
lived under the Chin. But this does not mean that Chin Buddhism was
intellectually static. There was a marked tendency toward syncretism, even
among the Buddhist clergy. The leading figure was Hsing-hsiu, also known
under his fancy name Wan-sung (1166-1246). He was equally well versed in
the Buddhist scriptures, the Confucian classics, and Taoist thought and en-
joyed favor from the Chin court. Some of his works have survived but were not
included in the Ming canon. He was the spiritual teacher of Yeh-lii Ch'u-ts'ai
and also of another remarkable lay Buddhist, Li Chih-ch'un (1185-1231). Li
was not only a versatile writer and poet but also a thinker of some depth. He
wrote the Ming-tao
chi-shuo
(Collected opinions for propagating the Truth), a
book in which he assembled passages from Confucian and Taoist writers in
order to show that their teachings were compatible with the basic Buddhist
tenets.
This conspectus is perhaps the most distinguished specimen of reli-
gious thinking among the intellectual elite of Chin.
75
Lay Buddhism and not imperial patronage was also responsible for print-
ing the Buddhist canon under the Chin. Between 1148 and 1173 printing
blocks were cut in Chieh-chou (Shansi) and financed by subscriptions raised
through a pious association active in Shansi and Shensi provinces. The Chin
canon comprised over seven thousand chtian, of which about five thousand
were discovered in 1933 in a monastery in Chieh-chou.
76
Buddhism as practiced among the scholar-officials and at court must be
contrasted with the lively sectarian movements. Some of these sects, such as
the White Cloud sect and the White Lotus sect, belong to the ever-present
undercurrent of messianic movements in China, which lasted right into the
nineteenth century. It. has also been said that they were to some extent
influenced by Manichaeism (the color white is frequently associated with the
Manichaeans). These sects were regarded as heterodox by the established
clergy and government authorities alike. Another sect, forbidden in 1190,
was perhaps Tantric because its believers worshipped the Sun Buddha
Vairocana, the highest of the five Dhyani Buddhas in esoteric Buddhism.
77
75 The text of Ming too
chi shuo
is preserved inNien-ch'ang, comp., Fotsulitai t'unguai, vol. 49, 20, pp.
695C-99C.
76 Wu, "Chinese printing under four alien dynasties," pp. 436-7 and plate 4. After 1949 the set was
transferred to the National Library in Peking. Some texts from the Chin canon, which represent a high
level of the printer's art, have been reproduced in facsimile.
77 CS, 9, p. 216. See also Igor de Rachewiltz, "The Hsi-yulu by Yeh-lu Ch'u-ts'ai,"
Monummta
Serica,
21
(1962),
p. 40, n. 13, for a bibliography.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
316 THE CHIN DYNASTY
But the most active and, it seems, the most actively proscribed Buddhist
sect was the Dhuta sect. Sanskrit
dhuta
(Ch:
t'ou-t'o)
means "religious obser-
vance," and it seems that the adherents of this movement observed special
rituals and taboos of their
own.
The sect was considered heterodox, and under
the Mongols it was even regarded as a separate religion. Unfortunately we
know nothing about its intellectual or scriptural background because all the
information we have on the Dhutaists comes from hostile sources.?
8
Their
followers were accused of destroying Buddhist images and oppressing monks,
corrupting morals, and, above all, destroying filial piety. But these accusa-
tions do not mean much, except that they point to a dissatisfaction with
established ways of worship and piety. Many of their followers came from the
artisan and merchant classes, and the persecution they suffered (they were
proscribed in 1188) was probably caused by the movement's egalitarian
tendencies. The contempt shown by their enemies among the clergy and in
the government is also expressed by the term that was used to designate the
Dhutaists,
k'ang-nieh,
which might be translated as "chaffy pests." The viru-
lent sectarianism in north China under the Chin is, in any case, evidence of
religious vitality as well as socioeconomic disequilibrium among the masses
of the population.
There were also monk-led rebellions under the Chin. Some of these may
have been caused by excessive government control that resulted in resent-
ment among the monks; others were perhaps nationalistic in origin and
directed against Jurchen rule, but this remains highly speculative. Messianic
rebellions, chiefly of worshipers of Maitreya, the Buddha of the coming
millennium, had flared up intermittently in China since the fifth century,
and some occurred also under the Chin. A rebellion in 1161 in Hopei may
have been a reaction against oppressive government measures imposed in
connection with the war against Sung. The revolt in Hopei and western
Shantung that broke out in 1171 was certainly messianic in origin and based
on a curious interpretation of a passage in the Lotus sutra.^
With regard to Taoism, we can similarly distinguish between the estab-
lished religion tolerated and controlled by the state, on the one hand, and
popular movements that were regarded as heretical, on the other. The same
restrictions applied to the Buddhist clergy were also applied to Taoist monks
and nuns: state-supervised ordinations, examinations, and a monastic hierar-
chy with defined jurisdiction. All this did not differ from the corresponding
regulations under the Sung. Even the five set texts for the examination of
novices were the same as under the Sung: the
Tao-te ching
and four other holy
78 For a current bibliography on the Dhuta sect, see Rachewiltz, "The Hsi-yu tu," pp. 38—40.
79 CS, 88, p. 1961.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
RELIGIOUS LIFE 317
scriptures. But popular religious fervor was perhaps even stronger in Taoism
than in Buddhism, and several new sects or religions appeared in north China
during the twelfth century. They had no connection and little in common
with Taoism in the Sung state, in which the magicoreligious school flour-
ished under the "Celestial Masters" (the Taoist popes). The northern schools
of Taoism were a quite independent development.
The most important and best-known sect is the Ch'iian-chen sect (Integral
Realization).
80
It left such strong impressions on its contemporaries that
already under the Yiian some of the Ch'iian-chen patriarchs appear in dramas
as miracle-working saints. This is not surprising because the history of the
movement teems with bizarre personalities. The founder was Wang Che
(1112—70), a native of Shansi who had failed the chin-shih examination and
spent many years in solitary meditation. Because of his eccentricities he was
sometimes called "Crazy Wang." In 1167 he took up residence in the moun-
tains in the northeastern part of the Shantung peninsula and attracted a large
following. It is perhaps significant that he as well as his major pupils had
received a literary education and came from the middle classes. There was
nothing proletarian about the Ch'iian-chen patriarchs. Wang's successor was
Ch'iu Ch'u-chi (1148-1227), who became the undisputed leader of this
school and indeed the most prominent Taoist in Chin China. He is famous for
his interview with Chinggis khan in 1219, which resulted in a privileged
position of Taoism under Mongolian rule. But Ch'iu, who is better known by
his assumed name of Ch'ang-ch'un, "Eternal Spring," had long before been
an important figure. He had even once been received in audience by the Chin
emperor Shih-tsung, in 1188.
Although the Ch'iian-chen sect was basically Taoist, we find a strong
element of syncretism in its teachings. From each of the three religions one
text was selected as embodying the basic truths of enlightenment: from
Confucianism the Hsiao ching (Book of filial piety), from Taoism the Tao te
ching, and from Buddhism the Heart sutra, a concise version of the huge sutra
of Transcendental Wisdom (Prajnaparamita). Ascetic practices, such as com-
munal fasting, the control of physical desires, and abstention from wine,
meat, and women played a great role. All this was to enable a return to
original celestial integrity. Purification of the soul and meditation were
80 "Integral realization" is the translation of Ch'iian-chen adopted by Igor de Rachewiltz. Other authors
have proposed different renderings of the Chinese term; for example, "perfect realization" (Holmes
Welch) and "completely sublimated" (Arthur Waley). On the Ch'iian-chen sect, see the article by Igor
de Rachewiltz cited in n. 77. See also Paul Demi£ville, "La situation religieuse en Chine au temps de
Marco Polo," in
Oriente
Poliano:
Studi e
conferenzt
ttnutt all' ls.M.E.0. in
occasion!
del VII
centenario
delta
nascitadi
Marco Polo
(1254-1954) (Rome, 1957), pp. 193-236; esp. pp. 196-201. The first Western
scholar to study the Ch'iian-chen sect in some detail was Arthur Waley, in his
The
travels of an
alchemist
(London, 1931), pp. 13—33.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
318 THE CHIN DYNASTY
considered necessary for eventual salvation and transformation into a "fully
realized man,"
chen-jen,
who had left the fetters of the world behind and
joined the ranks of the genii. It is important to note that self-discipline and
self-realization were fundamental elements of the way to salvation, rather
than chemical concoctions or magic spells and charms, as in other schools of
Taoism. One would expect that these severe requirements for becoming an
adept would have turned people away rather than attracted them, but in fact
the sect soon gathered a huge following. The Ch'iian-chen movement found
followers even among the social elite, and it is reported that a "mad" adherent
of the sect even became the personal tutor to a high-ranking Jurchen.
8
'
The fanatical elements of this new religion made it suspect, particularly in
Buddhist circles, and in 1190 the Ch'iian-chen sect was formally proscribed.
But this ban did not have the slightest effect, and when the Chin government
began to founder under the Mongolian invasions, the movement even gained
strength, perhaps because in a period of general instability and chaos, the
proposed road to salvation seemed to offer an escape from the somber realities
of life. It has been suggested that the Ch'iian-chen sect was a nationalistic
movement, directed against the Jurchens and their rule, and therefore a kind
of spiritual resistance.
82
But if
this
were true, it was a passive resistance based
on noncooperation and voluntary withdrawal and not an activist movement
that could easily have led to armed rebellion.
The strong intellectual element in the movement can also be inferred from
the many writings that the Ch'iian-chen patriarchs have left, including po-
etry. The Ch'iian-chen writers contributed to the perpetuation of Chinese
literary values no less than did their counterparts among the scholar-officials.
The corpus of Ch'iian-chen writings was incorporated into the Taoist canon of
the fifteenth century.
8
*
Thanks to the literary activities of the Ch'iian-chen patriarchs, we are well
informed about the history of the whole movement. This is not so for the
other heterodox sects that were founded in north China in the twelfth cen-
tury, the Grand Unity (T'ai-i), the Primordial Origin (Hun-yuan), and the
True Great Way (Chen-ta-tao) sects. The first two were the subject of an
ordinance restricting their activities in 1191; the last continued to exist
underground and reappeared under the Ming when it was again subjected to
government persecution.
84
81 CS, 119, pp. 2602-3.
82 Ch'en Yuan, Nan Sung ch'u Ho-pti hsin too ehiao k'ao (Peking, 1941; Peking, 1958; repr. Peking,
1962).
83 The monastery where Ch'ang-ch'un took up residence in 1224, the White Cloud Monastery (Pai yiin
kuan) in Peking, is indeed the place where one of the two surviving copies of the Taoist canon were
preserved and rediscovered in 1933.
84 Rachewiltz, "The Hsi-yu lu," p. 42, n. 19.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
CONCLUSION
319
Finally,
a
word should be said about foreign religions under the Chin. We
know nothing about Islam or Nestorian Christianity, although these religions
may have been practiced
by
foreigners who had come
to
north China.
But
there is evidence of the existence of a Jewish community under the Chin.
In
1163
a
synagogue was built
in
K'ai-feng,
a
fact recorded
in a
fifteenth-
century inscription. We may perhaps assume that these Jews had come from
the Middle East (Persia) via the caravan routes in Central Asia, rather than by
sea.
8
*
CONCLUSION
The survey
of
Chin history
as
given
in
this chapter may,
to
some readers,
appear too long
in
view
of
the relatively short duration
of
the dynasty.
But
what is true for the history of any given period or region in China is also true
for the Chin:
A
closer study reveals
a
surprising wealth
of
significant and
sometimes conflicting details and eventually results in an aversion to general-
izations about "China." There existed
no
"China" as
a
whole
in
the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries; rather, there was Chinese civilization that took on
very different shapes
in the
north
and in the
south. Each study
of
Chin
history thus must be a study of regionalism. Seen against the broad horizon of
history, the Chin
is a
period
of
transition
in
some respects, of novel experi-
ences
in
other fields like religion and vernacular literature, and of conserva-
tism in still others.
It
is hard to decide which characteristic was stronger, the
transitional
or
the conservative.
Traditionalism certainly contributed much to the emergence of a feeling of
a separate northern identity. Once the Jurchen had given
up
trying
to
con-
quer the south,
a
sense of growing stability must have pervaded the intellec-
tual elite, and
it is
strange that there were no widespread defections
to
the
south, to the national Chinese state of
Sung.
It
seems that the Chin state and
its ruling elite developed a strong sense of their own legitimacy. They consid-
ered themselves
to be
the guardians
of
the "real" Chinese traditions
of
the
T'ang
and
Northern Sung. The surprising endurance
of
the Chin against
overwhelming odds after 1206, the survival
of
a state sandwiched between
the revanchist Sung
and the
invincible Mongols,
can
perhaps
be
partly
explained by the increased feeling of legitimacy that must have underlain the
loyalty of officials and soldiers, many of whom preferred death to surrender.
The Chin confirmed their own inclusion
in
the legitimate succession
of
Chinese dynasties
in
1203 when the government proclaimed that henceforth
85 For details on K'ai-feng's Jewish community, see Donald D. Leslie,
The survival
of
the
Chinese
Jews:
The
Jewish community
of
K'ai-feng
(Leiden, 1972). However, the written sources of the Chin dynasty remain
silent, and the building of the synagogue is not mentioned in contemporary sources.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
32O THE CHIN DYNASTY
the element earth would be assigned to the Chin dynasty, succeeding the
Sung whose element had been fire.
86
This might appear to the modern mind
as a senseless speculation, but to every Chinese in the Middle Ages it meant
much more: At the latest in 1203 the Jurchen state of Chin had, in its own
eyes,
become fully Chinese and a legitimate link in the chain of successive
dynasties on the highest, if rarefied, level of cosmological speculation. This
had taken less than a century to accomplish. But in that century the Chin had
traveled the whole way from a rustic tribal society to a state that in many
respects could be considered a fully legitimate element in the Chinese world
order. Modern historians, too, might well consider the Chin as more than
just a barbarian interlude in Chinese history. There can be little doubt that
the achievements of Chin, and the conviction of Chin intellectuals that they
represented true Chinese values, contributed much to the cultural vitality
that enabled them to perpetuate Chinese ways of life under the crushing
onslaught of the Mongols.
86 CS, ii, p. 260. For a general study of this problem, see Chan, Legitimation in imperial China.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008