History of Chinese Culture/Chapter 5

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History of Chinese Culture

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Chapter 5: Buddhism, Daoism, and the Transformation of Chinese Culture (220–589)

1. Introduction: The Age of Division and Cultural Creativity

The fall of the Han dynasty in 220 CE inaugurated nearly four centuries of political disunity — the longest period of division in Chinese imperial history. The Three Kingdoms period (220–280), the brief reunification under the Western Jin (265–316), and the subsequent split between the southern Chinese dynasties and the northern kingdoms ruled by non-Chinese peoples of steppe origin (the so-called "Sixteen Kingdoms" and the Northern Dynasties) created an era of chronic warfare, political instability, mass migration, and social upheaval. Yet this period of political fragmentation was also one of the most culturally creative in Chinese history. It was during these centuries that Buddhism was fully assimilated into Chinese culture, transforming Chinese thought, art, architecture, literature, and daily life; that Daoism evolved from a philosophical tradition into an organized religion with its own scriptures, priesthood, rituals, and institutions; that the ideal of the "Three Teachings" (三教合一, sanjiao heyi) — the synthesis of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism — began to take shape; that calligraphy emerged as the supreme Chinese art form; that the culture of the literati reached new heights of aesthetic refinement; that tea culture began its long journey to centrality in Chinese social life; and that the cosmopolitan culture of the northern dynasties laid the foundations for the Tang golden age.

The paradox of cultural flourishing amid political chaos is not unique to China — one thinks of Renaissance Italy or Weimar Germany — but the Chinese case is particularly striking because the cultural achievements of this period were so foundational. The Buddhism that would dominate Chinese religious life for the next millennium took its essential form during these centuries; the calligraphic tradition that Chinese culture regards as its highest art form was established by Wang Xizhi during this period; the aesthetic ideals of the literati — the cultivation of individual sensibility, the appreciation of nature, the art of conversation, the pleasures of wine and friendship — crystallized during these years; and the religious Daoism that would become an integral part of Chinese popular culture found its institutional expression in the movements and communities of this era. This chapter examines these transformations under eight headings.

2. The Buddhist Transformation of Thought, Art, Architecture, and Daily Life

The Buddhism that arrived in China during the Han dynasty was a foreign religion with foreign scriptures in foreign languages, expressing ideas that were in many respects alien to Chinese cultural assumptions. Its full assimilation into Chinese culture — a process that unfolded over several centuries — was one of the most remarkable episodes of cultural encounter and creative adaptation in world history. By the sixth century, Buddhism had become thoroughly Chinese: it had developed distinctively Chinese schools of thought, produced a vast body of Chinese Buddhist literature, inspired new forms of art and architecture, transformed Chinese attitudes toward death and the afterlife, and introduced new practices — vegetarianism, the release of captive animals, the burning of incense, the ringing of bells — that became integral parts of Chinese daily life.

The intellectual challenge that Buddhism posed to Chinese culture was formidable. Buddhism's central doctrines — the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the concepts of karma, rebirth, and nirvana, the analysis of consciousness into the five skandhas — had no parallels in Chinese thought. The early Chinese translators, beginning with An Shigao in the second century and continuing with the great Kumarajiva (鸠摩罗什, 344–413) and his school in the early fifth century, faced the daunting task of rendering an Indian philosophical vocabulary into Chinese, a language whose conceptual categories were fundamentally different. The technique of geyi (格义, "matching meanings") — translating Buddhist terms using existing Daoist vocabulary (e.g., translating nirvana as wuwei 无为, or sunyata as wu 无, "nothingness") — facilitated Buddhism's initial reception but also introduced systematic distortions that would take centuries to sort out.

Kumarajiva's translations, produced at Chang'an between 401 and 413 under the patronage of the Later Qin ruler Yao Xing (姚兴), marked a watershed in the history of Chinese Buddhism. Working with a team of over a thousand Chinese monks and scholars, Kumarajiva produced new translations of the major Mahayana sutras — the Lotus Sutra (妙法莲华经), the Vimalakirti Sutra (维摩诘经), the Heart Sutra (般若波罗蜜多心经), the Diamond Sutra (金刚般若波罗蜜经), and many others — that were vastly superior in accuracy and literary quality to the earlier translations. Kumarajiva's translations became the standard Chinese versions of these texts, and they remained in use throughout the subsequent history of Chinese Buddhism. Their literary influence extended far beyond the Buddhist community: phrases and concepts from Kumarajiva's translations entered the everyday Chinese language and enriched the vocabulary of Chinese thought, poetry, and fiction.

Buddhism transformed Chinese architecture in ways that remain visible in the Chinese landscape today. The Buddhist pagoda (塔, ta, from the Sanskrit stupa) — a multi-storied tower originally designed to house Buddhist relics — became one of the most distinctive features of the Chinese architectural landscape. The earliest Chinese pagodas, dating from the fourth and fifth centuries, were wooden structures modeled on the multi-storied watchtowers of the Han dynasty, but they were later built in brick and stone and developed into architecturally complex and aesthetically refined structures that had no counterpart in Indian Buddhism. The monastery (寺, si) — with its characteristic layout of halls arranged along a central axis, housing images of the Buddha and bodhisattvas, meditation halls, lecture halls, dining halls, and monks' quarters — introduced a new architectural typology to China and influenced the design of Confucian academies, Daoist temples, and even imperial palaces.

Buddhism also transformed Chinese attitudes toward death and the afterlife. The Chinese had always practiced ancestor worship, but the native Chinese understanding of death was relatively vague and undeveloped: the dead were believed to reside in an underworld (黄泉, Huangquan, "Yellow Springs") that was a shadowy continuation of earthly existence, and the living were obligated to provide them with food, drink, and material goods through regular sacrificial offerings. Buddhism introduced a far more elaborate and vivid conception of the afterlife — the cycle of rebirth through the six realms of existence (heaven, human, asura, animal, hungry ghost, hell), the operation of karma as a cosmic moral accounting system, and the possibility of liberation from the cycle of rebirth through Buddhist practice. These ideas — particularly the concept of hell (地狱, diyu) with its graphic torments and the concept of merit-making through virtuous deeds and donations — had an enormous impact on Chinese popular religion and continue to shape Chinese attitudes toward death and the afterlife to the present day.

3. Cave Temples: Dunhuang, Yungang, and Longmen

The most spectacular and enduring monuments of Chinese Buddhism are the cave temples (石窟, shiku) carved into the cliffs of northern and northwestern China during the fourth through sixth centuries. These vast complexes — some containing hundreds or even thousands of caves, adorned with painted murals and carved stone sculptures — are among the greatest achievements of Chinese art and among the most important repositories of Buddhist art in the world.

The Mogao Caves at Dunhuang (敦煌莫高窟), situated at the western end of the Hexi Corridor where the northern and southern branches of the Silk Road converge, are the largest and most comprehensive of these complexes. The first cave was excavated in 366 CE, according to a traditional account, by the monk Le Zun (乐僔), who had a vision of a thousand Buddhas bathed in golden light on the cliff face. Over the following millennium, nearly five hundred caves were carved and decorated, containing some 45,000 square meters of murals and over 2,000 painted clay sculptures. The Dunhuang caves constitute an unparalleled visual encyclopedia of Chinese Buddhist art, documenting the evolution of Buddhist iconography, painting technique, and artistic style from the fourth century to the fourteenth century. The murals depict scenes from the life of the Buddha, illustrations of Buddhist sutras (经变画, jingbianhua), portraits of donors, and landscapes of extraordinary beauty, executed in a style that blends Chinese, Indian, Central Asian, and Tibetan artistic traditions.

The Yungang Caves (云冈石窟) near Datong in Shanxi Province were created under the patronage of the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534), a Xianbei (鲜卑) regime that had conquered northern China and adopted Buddhism as a means of legitimating its rule. The earliest and most impressive caves at Yungang, known as the "Five Tan Yao Caves" (昙曜五窟), were carved between approximately 460 and 470 CE under the direction of the monk Tan Yao (昙曜). Each cave contains a colossal Buddha figure, the largest over sixteen meters tall, carved directly from the living rock. The Yungang sculptures display a distinctive style that combines the massive, frontal solemnity of Gandharan Buddhist art (itself influenced by Greco-Roman sculpture) with the more linear, calligraphic qualities of Chinese artistic tradition — a visual embodiment of the cultural synthesis between Chinese and Central Asian traditions that characterized the Northern Wei.

The Longmen Caves (龙门石窟) near Luoyang in Henan Province were begun in 493 CE when the Northern Wei court moved its capital from Datong to Luoyang, and they continued to be carved and decorated through the Tang dynasty. The Longmen caves display a more thoroughly sinicized artistic style than the Yungang caves — the Buddha figures are more slender, more graceful, and more expressively human, reflecting the progressive assimilation of Buddhist art into Chinese aesthetic sensibilities. The most famous sculpture at Longmen, the colossal Vairocana Buddha (卢舍那佛) in the Fengxian Temple cave, carved during the Tang dynasty, is said to have been modeled on the face of Empress Wu Zetian (武则天) — a legend that, whether true or not, testifies to the intimate relationship between Buddhist art and imperial power in medieval China.

4. Daoist Religion and Its Cultural Manifestations

While Buddhism was transforming Chinese culture from without, Daoism was undergoing its own transformation from within. The philosophical Daoism of the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi — with its emphasis on naturalness, spontaneity, and harmony with the Dao — had always had religious implications, but during the Han dynasty and the subsequent period of division, these implications were developed into a full-fledged organized religion with its own scriptures, priesthood, rituals, institutions, and communities of practitioners.

The origins of religious Daoism are conventionally traced to the Tianshi Dao (天师道, "Way of the Celestial Masters") movement, founded by Zhang Daoling (张道陵) in Sichuan around 142 CE. Zhang claimed to have received a revelation from the deified Laozi (太上老君, Taishang Laojun, "Supreme Lord Lao"), who appointed him as the first "Celestial Master" (天师) and charged him with establishing a new religious community. The Tianshi Dao developed an elaborate system of rituals — including confession of sins, communal feasts, healing ceremonies, and the recitation of scriptures — that combined elements of philosophical Daoism with folk religious practices, shamanic traditions, and the yin-yang and Five Phases cosmology.

During the fourth and fifth centuries, Daoism underwent a process of intellectual and institutional elaboration that paralleled and was in many respects stimulated by the spread of Buddhism. The Shangqing (上清, "Supreme Clarity") revelations, received by the medium Yang Xi (杨羲) between 364 and 370 CE, produced a body of Daoist scripture that rivaled the Buddhist sutras in literary quality and philosophical sophistication. The Lingbao (灵宝, "Numinous Treasure") scriptures, composed in the early fifth century, explicitly borrowed Buddhist concepts and ritual forms — including the doctrine of universal salvation, the practice of merit transfer, and the structure of the liturgy — while embedding them in a Daoist cosmological framework. These movements, along with the subsequent codification of the Daoist canon (道藏, Daozang) by Lu Xiujing (陆修静, 406–477), transformed Daoism from a loose collection of practices and texts into an organized religious tradition capable of competing with Buddhism on its own terms.

The cultural manifestations of religious Daoism were pervasive and enduring. Daoist temples (观, guan, or 宫, gong) became prominent features of the Chinese architectural landscape, and Daoist priests (道士, daoshi) played important roles in community life, performing rituals of purification, exorcism, healing, and the propitiation of spirits. Daoist alchemy — the search for an elixir of immortality (丹, dan) through the transformation of minerals, particularly cinnabar (丹砂) and gold — produced an extensive body of proto-chemical knowledge and experimentation. Daoist practices of bodily cultivation — breathing exercises (吐纳, tuna), gymnastic techniques (导引, daoyin), dietary regimes (辟谷, bigu, "abstention from grains"), and sexual practices (房中术, fangzhongshu) — contributed to the development of Chinese medicine, martial arts, and the understanding of the human body. And the Daoist cult of immortals (仙, xian) — ethereal beings who had transcended death through spiritual cultivation and who inhabited mountains, islands, and celestial realms — provided Chinese literature, painting, and folk culture with an inexhaustible reservoir of imagery and narrative.

5. The Synthesis of the "Three Teachings" (Sanjiao Heyi)

One of the most distinctive and consequential features of Chinese religious culture is the tendency toward synthesis and harmonization rather than exclusion and confrontation. While Confucians, Buddhists, and Daoists certainly engaged in vigorous polemics and competed for imperial patronage, the dominant trend in Chinese religious history was toward the reconciliation of the Three Teachings (三教, sanjiao) — Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism — as complementary rather than contradictory expressions of a single underlying truth.

This syncretistic tendency was already evident in the Han dynasty, when Confucian, Daoist, and Legalist ideas were blended in the imperial ideology, but it became much more pronounced during the period of division. The literati of the southern dynasties in particular cultivated a style of life that drew freely on all three traditions: they might serve as Confucian officials during the day, discuss Buddhist metaphysics with monks in the evening, and practice Daoist meditation and alchemy in their leisure hours. The famous saying attributed to the Liang dynasty emperor Wu (梁武帝, r. 502–549) — "The Three Teachings are like the legs of a tripod" — expresses the conviction that Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism are not rivals but partners, each addressing a different aspect of human experience: Confucianism governs social and political life, Buddhism addresses the questions of death and transcendence, and Daoism cultivates harmony with nature and the cosmic order.

This pattern of "Three Teachings" synthesis would become a defining feature of Chinese cultural identity, distinguishing Chinese religious culture from the more exclusivist traditions of the West and the Islamic world. In practice, most Chinese did not identify exclusively with a single tradition but participated in all three according to the needs and circumstances of their lives — performing Confucian rituals at weddings and official ceremonies, praying to Buddhist and Daoist deities for health and prosperity, and consulting Daoist priests for funerals and the propitiation of ghosts. This pragmatic, inclusive approach to religious practice is one of the most characteristic features of Chinese culture, and its roots lie in the period of division.

6. Calligraphy as the Supreme Art: Wang Xizhi and His Legacy

Of all the arts practiced in China, calligraphy (书法, shufa, literally "the method of writing") has traditionally been regarded as the highest — superior to painting, sculpture, music, or poetry in its capacity to express the inner character, emotional state, and spiritual cultivation of the artist. This exalted status of calligraphy is, in part, a consequence of the nature of the Chinese writing system itself: because each character is a unique visual form, written with a brush in a specific sequence of strokes, the act of writing is simultaneously an act of drawing, and the aesthetic quality of the written character — its balance, rhythm, energy, and expressiveness — can be appreciated independently of its linguistic meaning.

The period of division was the era in which calligraphy achieved its status as the supreme Chinese art form, and the figure who more than any other was responsible for this elevation was Wang Xizhi (王羲之, 303–361), known in the Chinese tradition as the "Sage of Calligraphy" (书圣, Shusheng). Wang Xizhi, a member of a prominent aristocratic family that had migrated south after the fall of the Western Jin, served as a government official in the Eastern Jin dynasty, but his fame rests entirely on his calligraphy. His Lantingji Xu (兰亭集序, "Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion"), written in 353 CE at a gathering of literati friends near Shaoxing in Zhejiang Province, is the most celebrated work of calligraphy in Chinese history — revered not only for the beauty of its brushwork but for the philosophical depth of its content, which meditates on the transience of human life and the fleeting nature of pleasure.

Wang Xizhi perfected the "running script" (行书, xingshu) — a semi-cursive style that combined the legibility of regular script with the fluency and expressiveness of cursive — and elevated it to the status of the premier vehicle for artistic expression. His calligraphy was characterized by a quality that later critics described as yun (韵, "resonance" or "elegance") — a combination of effortless grace, dynamic energy, and refined sensibility that seemed to express the innermost character of the writer. The Tang emperor Taizong (唐太宗, r. 626–649) was so devoted to Wang Xizhi's calligraphy that he reportedly had the original manuscript of the Lantingji Xu buried with him in his tomb — an act that, if true, deprived subsequent generations of the original but also testified to the extraordinary cultural value that the Chinese tradition placed on great calligraphy.

Wang Xizhi's son, Wang Xianzhi (王献之, 344–386), carried on and further developed his father's calligraphic tradition, and the "Two Wangs" (二王) became the foundational figures of Chinese calligraphy — the standard against which all subsequent calligraphers measured themselves. The reverence for Wang Xizhi's calligraphy established a set of aesthetic values — spontaneity, elegance, individual expression, the unity of art and character — that would define the Chinese conception of art more broadly and that continue to influence Chinese aesthetic sensibility to the present day.

7. The Culture of the Literati

The period of division saw the emergence of a distinctive literati culture (文人文化, wenren wenhua) — a way of life, an aesthetic sensibility, and a set of social practices that would remain central to Chinese elite culture for the next fifteen hundred years. The literati (文人, wenren) were men of learning, artistic accomplishment, and refined taste who cultivated a range of aesthetic pursuits — poetry, calligraphy, painting, music (particularly the seven-stringed zither or guqin 古琴), conversation, connoisseurship, gardening, and the appreciation of nature — as expressions of their inner cultivation and moral character.

The paradigmatic expression of this culture is the famous gathering known as the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove" (竹林七贤, Zhulin qixian): a group of third-century scholars, poets, and musicians — Ruan Ji (阮籍), Xi Kang (嵇康), Shan Tao (山涛), Xiang Xiu (向秀), Liu Ling (刘伶), Ruan Xian (阮咸), and Wang Rong (王戎) — who withdrew from the dangerous political world of the transition from the Wei to the Jin dynasties and devoted themselves to philosophical conversation, poetry, music, and the pleasurable consumption of wine. The Seven Sages became the archetypal figures of the literati tradition: men who valued individual freedom, artistic creativity, and authentic human connection above political power and social convention.

The culture of qingtan (清谈, "pure conversation") — the practice of philosophical discussion as a social art and a form of aesthetic pleasure — flourished in the southern dynasties, where the aristocratic elite cultivated an exquisitely refined style of life that prized wit, eloquence, literary allusion, and the elegant expression of philosophical insight. The Shishuo xinyu (世说新语, "A New Account of the Tales of the World"), compiled by Liu Yiqing (刘义庆, 403–444), is the classic record of this culture: a collection of over a thousand anecdotes about the great men and women of the third through fifth centuries, organized by categories such as "speech and conversation," "literary talent," "appreciation of beauty," and "eccentricity." The Shishuo xinyu established the models of literati behavior — the witty remark, the spontaneous gesture, the unconventional personality, the appreciation of natural beauty — that would inspire Chinese elite culture for centuries to come.

The aesthetic theory that accompanied this culture of the literati found its most influential expression in the literary criticism of the period. Liu Xie's (刘勰) Wenxin diaolong (文心雕龙, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, ca. 501–502) is the first comprehensive treatise on Chinese literary theory, analyzing the nature of literary creation, the relationship between form and content, the qualities of different literary genres, and the criteria for evaluating literary excellence. Zhong Rong's (钟嵘) Shipin (诗品, Gradations of Poets, ca. 513) established a critical tradition of ranking and evaluating poets that would continue throughout Chinese literary history. These works, and the critical sensibility they embodied, elevated literature from a mere craft or pastime to an art of the highest importance — a vehicle for the expression of individual feeling, the cultivation of moral sensibility, and the achievement of transcendent beauty.

8. Tea Culture Beginnings

The culture of tea (茶文化, cha wenhua), which would become one of the most distinctive and pervasive features of Chinese civilization, had its origins in this period. Tea (茶, cha) was originally consumed as a medicinal beverage in the mountainous regions of southwestern China — modern Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou — where the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) grows wild. The earliest textual references to tea appear in Han dynasty and Three Kingdoms period texts, but it was during the fourth and fifth centuries that tea drinking began to spread beyond its region of origin and to acquire cultural significance among the educated elite.

The early association of tea with Buddhism was particularly important for its cultural development. Buddhist monks, who needed to remain alert during long hours of meditation, found that tea was an effective aid to wakefulness and concentration. Monasteries in the tea-growing regions of southern China became centers of tea cultivation and preparation, and monks carried the habit of tea drinking to monasteries throughout the country. The connection between tea and Buddhist practice gave tea drinking a spiritual dimension that distinguished it from the mere consumption of a beverage: to drink tea was to participate in a practice of mindful attention, inner calm, and spiritual cultivation.

The Daoist tradition also contributed to the cultural significance of tea. Daoist practitioners, with their emphasis on physical health, longevity, and harmony with nature, valued tea for its perceived health benefits and for its association with the natural world — the mountain springs, the misty valleys, the secluded groves where the finest teas grew. The Daoist aesthetic of naturalness and simplicity — the preference for the unadorned, the understated, the subtly beautiful — would profoundly influence the aesthetics of tea culture as it developed in later centuries.

By the end of the period of division, tea drinking had become established as a practice of the educated elite in southern China, associated with refinement, cultivation, and spiritual awareness. The full codification of tea culture would not come until the Tang dynasty, when Lu Yu (陆羽) wrote his monumental Chajing (茶经, "Classic of Tea") — the subject of a later chapter — but the foundations were laid during this period of cultural ferment and creative synthesis.

9. The Cosmopolitan Culture of the Northern Dynasties

While the southern dynasties cultivated a refined, aesthetically sophisticated, and predominantly Chinese literati culture, the northern dynasties — ruled by non-Chinese peoples of steppe origin, including the Xianbei, the Di (氐), the Qiang (羌), and others — developed a more cosmopolitan, militaristic, and culturally heterogeneous civilization that drew on Chinese, steppe, Central Asian, and Buddhist traditions in equal measure. The cultural achievements of the northern dynasties, long undervalued in traditional Chinese historiography (which regarded the southern dynasties as the legitimate bearers of Chinese civilization), are now recognized as having been of fundamental importance for the subsequent development of Chinese culture.

The Northern Wei dynasty (386–534) was the most important and culturally creative of the northern regimes. The Xianbei rulers of the Northern Wei faced the challenge of governing a predominantly Chinese population while maintaining their own distinct ethnic and cultural identity — a challenge they addressed through a policy of selective sinicization that adopted Chinese administrative institutions, literary culture, and Confucian ideology while preserving elements of steppe military organization and social structure. The most dramatic expression of this policy was the "sinicization reforms" of Emperor Xiaowen (孝文帝, r. 471–499), who moved the capital from Datong to Luoyang, adopted Chinese court dress and language, required Xianbei nobles to take Chinese surnames, and encouraged intermarriage between Xianbei and Chinese elite families.

The cultural result of this policy was not the simple absorption of the Xianbei into Chinese civilization but the creation of a genuinely hybrid culture that was neither purely Chinese nor purely steppe but something new. Northern Wei art, for example, combined the monumental scale and spiritual intensity of Central Asian Buddhist art with the linear elegance and narrative sophistication of the Chinese tradition, producing works — such as the Yungang and Longmen cave sculptures — that were unprecedented in either tradition alone. Northern Wei music and dance incorporated steppe, Central Asian, and Indian elements alongside Chinese forms, creating a cosmopolitan performing arts culture that would reach its full flowering in the Tang dynasty. And the martial culture of the northern dynasties — the emphasis on horsemanship, archery, hunting, and military prowess — infused new energy into a Chinese civilization that had become, in the view of some historians, excessively refined and effete in the southern courts.

The significance of the northern dynasties for Chinese cultural history extends beyond their specific artistic and institutional achievements. The Sui dynasty (581–618) and the Tang dynasty (618–907) — which reunified China and inaugurated the greatest age of Chinese cultural achievement — were founded by aristocratic families of mixed Chinese and Xianbei descent who came from the cultural world of the northern dynasties. The Tang ruling house, the Li (李) family, claimed Chinese ancestry but had extensive Xianbei connections through intermarriage, and the cosmopolitan, outward-looking, culturally confident spirit of the Tang — its openness to foreign religions, its enthusiasm for Central Asian music and dance, its willingness to incorporate non-Chinese peoples and practices into the fabric of Chinese civilization — owed much to the legacy of the northern dynasties and their experience of cultural hybridity.

10. Conclusion: The Foundations of Medieval Chinese Culture

The period of division (220–589) was, despite its political fragmentation and chronic warfare, one of the most culturally productive eras in Chinese history. Its achievements — the assimilation of Buddhism, the institutionalization of Daoism, the emergence of the "Three Teachings" synthesis, the elevation of calligraphy to the supreme art, the crystallization of literati culture, the beginnings of tea culture, and the cosmopolitan cultural experimentation of the northern dynasties — constituted a fundamental transformation of Chinese civilization. The China that emerged from the period of division was a richer, more complex, more cosmopolitan, and more spiritually diverse civilization than the one that had entered it.

The cultural legacy of this period can be summarized in a single phrase: the creation of medieval Chinese culture. The religious landscape of three co-existing traditions; the aesthetic ideal of the cultivated gentleman who combines learning, artistic accomplishment, and moral sensibility; the architectural forms of the Buddhist temple and the Daoist shrine; the artistic tradition of calligraphy as personal expression; the culture of tea, conversation, and refined leisure; the cosmopolitan openness to foreign ideas and artistic styles — all of these, rooted in the period of division, would define Chinese culture through the Tang, Song, and beyond.

The reunification of China under the Sui dynasty in 589 and the establishment of the Tang dynasty in 618 brought this period of cultural experimentation to a close and inaugurated a new era — the Tang "golden age" — in which the diverse cultural elements that had developed during the centuries of division were synthesized into a civilization of extraordinary brilliance and confidence. That synthesis, and its cultural achievements, is the subject of the next chapter.