The Sui Dynasty: The Tang Dynasty

For the Sui dynasty, I would rate it a five out of five because even tho it only lasted 369 years, it was ruled by one person

After much political disunity and chaos China was finally united under the Sui dynasty (589-618) and Sui emperors allowed

He left his brother and took a long journey to Chang’an to learn more about Buddhism. He stopped at many different monasteries across China. He felt like all the teachings were the same from his own monastery but their doctrines were different. Xuanzang felt confused by some of the things he had learned. This caused him to travel west to bring back books from the center of Buddhism, which is India. Throughout his journey he faced many hardships that would try to prevent him from what he was trying to do. His biggest hardship would be that he was making an illegal journey. Xuangzang traveled by night with help by other Buddhist monks. He did eventually get caught; however he got caught by another Buddhist who allowed him to continue on his journey. In the next fourteen years he became a teacher every place he went. He settled in a monastery located in the eastern Ganges valley, during that time he studied and copied scriptures and listened to oral teachings. He stayed there for five years. He then continued his journey and went elsewhere. Overall he traveled 15,000 miles within the areas of Buddhism. Xuangzang was asked by an emperor to become a high official but he declined several times and would rather stay a Buddhist monk. Xuanzang then went back home to find out his brother was still a practicing Buddhism. In Gordon’s When Asia Was The World, “Xuanzang spent the rest of his life supervising a team of translators and

Emperor K’ang-hsi was one of the greatest Chinese emperors of all time. Ruling from 1662 to 1722 he was also one of the longest ruling emperors in Chinese history and for that matter the world. K’ang-hsi brought China to long-term stability and relative wealth after years of war and chaos. Jonathan Spence writes from the eyes of K’ang-hsi getting his information from K’ang-hsi’s own writings. Though a little biased towards himself this book still provides important insight into his mind. Emperor of China is divided into six parts; In Motion, Ruling, Thinking, Growing Old, Sons, and Valedictory.

The Sui dynasty was founded by Yang Jian. Jian was a member of a respected aristocratic family in northern China. (Duiker & Spielvogel, 2009) Yang Jian turned to Daoism and Buddhism to unify the empire. Jian founded monasteries for both

The far-reaching and appealing aspect of Buddhism allowed some Chinese Buddhists to travel Asia to learn about its peoples and origins. For example, a Chinese Buddhist, Faxian, who traveled through South Asia to learn more about the religion collected many original texts and translated them back in China. He described “ They still followed the course of the P'oo na river, on the banks of which, left and right, there were twenty monasteries, which might contain three thousand monks; and (here) the Law of Buddha was still more flourishing.” (Doc E) This description is about the importance of Buddhism was to South Asia and its power to overcome so many barriers and universalize South Asia. This is also shown in a description of by another Chinese Buddhist by the name of Xuanzang. His reflection of his time in South Asia for the Tang emperor describes a unique, but totally different world from that of China. It says,”Now Buddha having been born in the western region and his religion having spread eastwards, the sounds of the words translated have been often mistaken, the phrases of the different regions have been misunderstood on account of the wrong sounds, and thus the sense has been lost. The words being wrong, the idea has been perverted.” (Doc G) By this Xuanzang means how the original word of the Buddha has been so distorted by the language barrier that its is almost impossible to understand what he truly meant when it is

Following the collapse of the Han Dynasty in 220, China declined into an elongated term of division. China was divided and in a time of war, with a lack of leadership. It was only in the Sui Dynasty (589-618) reunited North and South China as one. The Tang (618-906) and Song (960 - 1279) Dynasties that followed created the “Golden Ages of China”. Although the Tang and Song Dynasties existed in a similar time and had a similar economy, there are also many differences between the influential dynasties such as certain aspects of their society and politics.

Yang Jian was one of the many emperors in China that enjoyed power and influenced many great accomplishments

Sui Dynasty is a great time period for Buddhist art, because emperor Wen(Yang Jian) unified China

Qin Shi Huang (or Shi Huangdi) was the First Emperor of a unified China, who ruled from 246 BCE to 210 BCE. In his 35-year reign, he managed to create magnificent and enormous construction projects. He also caused both incredible cultural and intellectual growth, and much destruction within China.

Xuanzang was able to make many changes along his journey. All of those changes were very positive and they benefited Xuanzang and many other people but the changes never were negative and it did not disrupt China so that there would be war or political problems. He had learned and understood more about the religion of Buddhism and how the Indians practiced the religion. This way, he could bring these teachings and practices back to China so that he can show and help people understand the philosophy of Buddhism. Another thing that changed along the journey for Xuanzang is that he had found over a 500 Sanskrit manuscripts that talked about the Buddhism and it’s philosophy. He was able to translate only about a hundred of the manuscripts from

The first of the three is Emperor Wen, whose personal name was Yang Jian and was also known as the Kai Huang Emperor. He reigned between 581 and 604 AD. Emperor Wen was the father-in-law of the previous emperor of Northern Zhou. Upon his death, Emperor Wen seized the throne and established the Sui Dynasty. Emperor Wen was born in 541 AD, and died in 604 AD. He is known for reunifying and reorganizing China after 300 years of instability. He conquered southern China, which was divided into numerous small kingdoms. In addition, he broke the power of the Turks in the northern part of the country.

At the point in history that the novel is based on, Buddhism was quite new to China and eastern Asia. The central character of the historical story is Xuanzang, a Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator

Xuanzang's work, the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, is the longest and most detailed account of the countries of Central and South Asia that has been bestowed upon posterity by a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim. While his main purpose was to obtain Buddhist books and to receive instruction on Buddhism while in India, he ended up doing much more. He has preserved the records of political and social aspects of the lands he visited.

Sui Dynasty (589 – 618 CE) was a short lived Imperial Chinese dynasty, preceded by the Southern and Northern Dynasties. It unified China for the first time after nearly four centuries of north-south division. It was followed by the Tang Dynasty. Founded by Emperor Wen of Sui, the capital was Chang’an. His reign saw the reunification of Southern and Northern China and the construction of the Grand Canal, connecting the Yellow and Yangtze River for easy trading. The canal was used to carry rice and other agricultural products. Wendi was the first emperor to build a centralized government, created legal codes (social security);