Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution (845): Emperor Wuzong's Purge

The Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution was a campaign by Emperor Wuzong of the Tang dynasty that reached its peak in 845, when the state closed thousands of Buddhist monasteries across China and forced more than a quarter of a million monks and nuns back into ordinary life. Known in Chinese history as the Huichang Persecution, after Wuzong’s reign title, it also struck the “foreign” faiths of Manichaeism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. It permanently changed the place of religion in Chinese society.

Background: a rich church in a poor state

Buddhism had grown enormously under the Tang dynasty. Great monasteries owned farmland, mills, oil presses and serfs, and their members were exempt from tax and labour service. Bronze statues, bells and ritual objects locked up metal that the government needed for coins.

After the An Lushan Rebellion of 755–763 the Tang state was chronically short of revenue. Regional governors kept much of the tax from their provinces, so every household and acre that escaped the registers mattered. Critics such as the scholar Han Yu, who had attacked the veneration of a Buddha relic in 819, presented Buddhism as an alien religion that undermined family duty and the economy.

Emperor Wuzong and his advisers

Wuzong (Li Yan) came to the throne in 840. He was a committed Daoist who sought immortality through elixirs and patronised Daoist masters, above all Zhao Guizhen. His powerful chief minister Li Deyu shared the goal of strengthening central finances and curbing tax-exempt institutions.

The first measures came in 842, when monks and nuns without proper ordination or with private property were ordered to return to lay life. Manichaeism, which had enjoyed protection while the Uyghur Khaganate was a Tang ally, was banned in 843 after the Uyghur state collapsed in 840. Restrictions on Buddhist clergy then tightened year by year.

What happened in 845

The decisive edict was issued in the eighth lunar month of 845. According to its own figures, about 4,600 monasteries and more than 40,000 smaller temples and shrines were destroyed or converted to secular use. Some 260,500 monks and nuns were laicised and entered on the tax registers, and around 150,000 temple slaves and dependants became taxpaying households.

The state seized vast areas of monastic land. Bronze statues and bells were melted down for coinage, iron objects were turned into farm tools, and gold and silver went to the treasury. In the two capitals, Chang’an and Luoyang, only a handful of monasteries (commonly given as four in each) were allowed to stay open with around 30 monks apiece, and in the provinces at most one monastery per prefecture was allowed to remain.

Foreign religions shared the same fate. Clergy of the Church of the East, whose presence is recorded on the Nestorian Stele of 781, and of Zoroastrianism, together about 2,000 to 3,000 people, were ordered back into lay life. The Manichaean community had already been broken up two years earlier.

An eyewitness: the monk Ennin

Much of what we know comes from Ennin, a Japanese Buddhist monk who travelled in China from 838 to 847. His diary, known in English as the record of a pilgrimage to China in search of the Law, describes rising pressure on monasteries, the burning of scriptures and the confiscation of property in Chang’an.

As a foreign monk without proper papers, Ennin was himself ordered to leave in 845. He disguised himself as a layman, made his way to the coast and finally sailed home in 847. Later, as abbot of Enryaku-ji, he became one of the most important figures in Japanese Buddhism.

Wuzong’s death and the reversal

Wuzong fell ill, probably poisoned by the Daoist elixirs he took, and died in 846 at the age of 32. His uncle and successor, Emperor Xuanzong, executed Zhao Guizhen and other Daoist advisers and removed Li Deyu from power.

Xuanzong permitted monasteries to be rebuilt and ordinations to resume. A notable example is the East Hall of Foguang Temple on Mount Wutai, rebuilt in 857 after the earlier temple had been destroyed. Yet the confiscated land and wealth were never restored on the old scale.

Consequences

The purge ended Buddhism’s role as a major economic power in China. Schools that depended on great monastic libraries and scholarly patronage, such as Huayan, Tiantai and Faxiang, declined sharply in the north. Chan (Zen) and Pure Land Buddhism, which needed fewer buildings and texts, survived and became dominant.

For Christianity and Zoroastrianism the blow was close to fatal. The Church of the East largely disappeared from China until it returned with the Mongol Yuan dynasty in the 13th century. The persecution also explains why so few Tang wooden buildings survive: most Buddhist halls standing in 845 were destroyed.

Timeline

• 840: Wuzong becomes emperor; the Uyghur Khaganate collapses.
• 842: First orders to laicise improperly ordained monks and nuns.
• 843: Manichaeism is banned in Tang China.
• 845, spring: A census of Buddhist clergy and property precedes harsher measures.
• 845, eighth lunar month: The main edict closes about 4,600 monasteries and laicises some 260,500 clergy.
• 845: Ennin is forced to leave Chang’an.
• 846: Wuzong dies; Xuanzong begins reversing the policy.
• 857: The East Hall of Foguang Temple is rebuilt on Mount Wutai.

Why it matters

The persecution of 845 showed how firmly the Chinese state could assert control over religion when its finances were at stake. It reshaped Chinese Buddhism towards Chan and Pure Land, ended the first chapter of Christianity in China and left only a few Buddhist buildings from before 845 standing today.