Four Buddhist Persecutions in China

With encouragement from his also devoutly Taoist prime minister Cui Hao, Emperor Taiwu ordered Buddhism abolished under penalty of death, and slaughtered the Buddhists in the Guanzhong region, the center of Ge's rebellion.

In 567, former Buddhist priest Wei Yuansong (衛元嵩) submitted a memorial to the Emperor Wu (r. 561–578) of the Northern Zhou dynasty calling for the "abolition of Buddhism".

Several reasons led to the proscriptions, among them the accumulated wealth by the monasteries[8] and the case that many people entered the Buddhist community to escape military service and tax duty, which lasted through the Song Dynasty.

The increase in the number of temples and priests and nuns put financial pressure on the state, which prompted the successive dynasties to regulate Buddhism.

[9] A third reason was the rise of the Neo-Confucians who wrote manifests against the foreign religion, believing its monastic and egalitarian philosophies destroyed the social system of duty and rights of the upper and lower classes.

Traditional historical accounts conflict on the issue of whether there was suppression of Buddhist doctrines or practice, although they, in unison, showed a lack of evidence of massacres.

Men and women live together illicitly, forming themselves into groups, gathering at night and dispersing at dawn, speciously proclaiming and handing down a 'Buddhist law society' [fa-huai], clandestinely being loose in their morals."

[15][better source needed] During the Prime-Ministry of "Reformer" Wang Anshi (1021–1086), the state began to take on social welfare functions previously provided by Buddhist monasteries, instituting public orphanages, hospitals, dispensaries, hospices, cemeteries, and reserve granaries.