The Tang golden age
Under the Tang dynasty (618 to 907), Chang'an was the largest city in the world and a centre of Buddhist learning. In 629 the monk Xuanzang set out secretly for India, studied at the great monastery of Nālandā, and returned in 645 with hundreds of texts, which he spent the rest of his life translating.
Pilgrims, translators and teachers moved constantly between China, Korea and Japan. The cave temples of Dunhuang, on China's western frontier, preserve an extraordinary record of this world in paint and manuscript.
Nara and Heian Japan
In Japan, Emperor Shōmu ordered a network of official temples in every province in 741, and had the colossal bronze Buddha of Tōdaiji in Nara cast; its eye-opening ceremony in 752 was attended by monks from across Asia. The Chinese master Jianzhen, known in Japan as Ganjin, arrived after many failed voyages to establish proper monastic ordination.
In 804 two Japanese monks, Saichō and Kūkai, sailed to China. On their return in the early Heian period, they founded the Tendai and Shingon schools, which shaped Japanese Buddhism for centuries.
The persecution of 845
The age ended harshly in China. In 845 Emperor Wuzong ordered the closure of more than four thousand monasteries and the return of over a quarter of a million monks and nuns to lay life. Buddhism survived, but never regained its place at the centre of Chinese court life.
Why it matters
East Asia becomes one of the great centres of the Buddhist world.
History and tradition
What historians can say
This period is richly documented by Chinese, Korean and Japanese histories, by pilgrims' travel records such as Xuanzang's, and by surviving temples, art and manuscripts. The figures for the persecution of 845 come from the imperial edict itself.