[Comprehensive British and American] Love Sketches Collection

Emperor Taiwu's extermination of Buddhism in the Northern Wei Dynasty (historically known as "Taiwu's extermination of Buddhism") was a major religious event in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The core reason was the conflict between political power and Buddhist power, the contradiction of economic interests, and the superposition of personal belief tendencies. Specifically, it can be attributed to three points: 1. Political and military threats: Buddhism developed rapidly in the early Northern Wei Dynasty. The number of monks and nuns increased sharply and enjoyed the privileges of tax exemption, exemption from corvee, and exemption from military service. A large number of young and middle-aged monks became monks, which led to a sharp reduction in the country's military resources and labor force. At the same time, some temples occupied large amounts of land and property, even hid refugees and participated in local power struggles, threatening the foundation of the centralized rule of the Northern Wei Dynasty. 2. Conflict of economic interests: Buddhist temples accumulated huge wealth through donations from believers, annexing land, etc., But did not need to pay taxes to the state. This seriously damaged the national fiscal revenue and intensified the social polarization between rich and poor and class conflicts when the Northern Wei Dynasty needed to concentrate resources to deal with the invasion of Rouran from the north and consolidate its rule. 3. Personal beliefs and promotion by powerful ministers: Emperor Taiwu himself advocated Taoism (especially influenced by the Taoist priest Kou Qian, and even converted to Taoism in the later period), and had a cultural and religious rejection of Buddhism; coupled with the repeated advice of his important minister Cui Hao (who advocated Taoism and rejected Buddhism), he believed that Buddhism The religion "wasted people's energy and confused people's hearts", which eventually prompted Emperor Taiwu to issue an edict to exterminate Buddhism in the seventh year of Taiping Zhenjun (446). He forcibly demolished temples, burned scriptures and statues, and ordered monks and nuns to return to secular life. This became the first large-scale operation in Chinese history that "three martial arts and one sect exterminate Buddhism".