DOI: 10.30792/2949-5768-2023-2-46-56
BUDDHISM IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES OF POST-HAN CHINA
Orbodoeva Marina Valerievna – Candidate of Historical Sciences, Researcher at the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science Institute of Mongolian Studies, Buddhology and Tibetology SB RAS (Ulan-Ude, Russia).
E-mail: orbodoevamv@yandex.ru.
The post-Han period in the history of China is an important stage in the development of the state, at this moment its future fate is literally decided, the search for new value orientations begins. All this situation contributed to the penetration and further strengthening of Buddhism on Chinese soil, which became the very new landmark. This period in China’s history is characterized mainly by political and social instability, internecine wars, as well as instability in the economic sphere. In this article we will look at the period of the Three Kingdoms, namely the kingdom of Wei, as well as the period of Western and Eastern Jin, analyze the development of the Chinese state after the fall of the powerful empire. The study is based on chronicles describing this period of Chinese history – «Hou-han shu» (History of the Late Han Dynasty), «San-guo zhi» (Records of the Three Kingdoms) and «Jin shu» (Book of Jin (or History of Jin)), as well as translations and works of domestic and Chinese researchers. As a result of the conducted research, we see that feudal fragmentation is aggravated by the invasion of nomadic tribes. Certain areas of the country, which have become war trophies for the conquerors, invaders, are divided into many small estates claiming independence. There is a mixture of alien conquerors with the indigenous inhabitants. The assimilation of the alien conquerors in China begins, since their culture was at a much lower level than the Chinese cultural traditions accumulated over hundreds of centuries. Nevertheless, such a situation (hunger, poverty, devastation, economic instability, uncertainty about the future) could not but affect the decline of the former spiritual values and guidelines.
