Negotiating between Mongol Institutions and "Han Traditions": Buddhist Administration in Southeastern China under the Yuan

After the Mongol conquest, Yuan political institutions evolved unique features as a result of the combination of Mongolian institutions with the preexisting Chinese autocratic bureaucratic system. Something of an academic consensus has formed around the hybrid system of government during the Yuan dynasty.¹ However, debate continues to surround certain questions about the formation of this hybrid system. Taking into account the pressure from Mongolian aristocrats who insisted on preserving the Mongol traditional political system, Khubilai Khan (忽必烈汗, r. 1260–1294) formulated a basic principle for constructing the early Yuan political system, namely "Refer to the previous Khans' grand plan, while also discussing previous dynastic systems."² Thus, most scholars credit Khubilai with having been the main formulator of a dual system, a hybrid that partially adopted Han ways (漢法) of government.³ Comparatively less attention has focused on administrative innovations in the mid and late Yuan. John Dardess points to 1328 as the year that Confucian theories of government prevailed over Mongol political theories, completing the process of "Confucianization."⁴ In contrast, Hsiao Ch'i-ch'ing insists that the innovative measures of the mid-Yuan meant nothing more than adding a Sinicized and Confucian veneer to an essentially unchanged sociopolitical structure.⁵ Though these scholars dispute the influence of Khubilai's innovations in the mid and late Yuan, both of them credit Khubilai with a crucial role. In recent years, other scholars have searched for traditional Chinese bureaucratic elements in the political system of the Mongol empire, placing the adoption of Han ways earlier in that era.⁶ In the midst of this ongoing discussion, the character of the dualistic system and the true role of Khubilai and his successors in its formation deserve further exploration.

Another crucial debate about the dualistic system focuses on the degree of relative effectiveness of its Mongolian and Chinese aspects. In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have emphasized the significance of Mongolian factors in the dualistic system, suggesting that Chinese governance patterns were only formally adopted, without these superficial innovations adding up to a fundamental transformation of the Yuan state.⁷ Critics of this perspective, such as Chen Dezhi, have not yet conclusively challenged it with a detailed refutation.⁸

Combining these two questions, and taking into account the recent development of New Qing history, the hybrid system of government during the Yuan dynasty richly deserves further exploration. The most crucial problems facing conquest regimes in Chinese history have been how to successfully implement their governance over the central plains as alien rulers. Hence, discussion of the hybrid system of government under the Yuan dynasty may also provide useful comparative perspectives for other conquest dynasties.

In addition to the system of government administration, and intertwined with it, was a hierarchy of Buddhist administrative institutions. Most scholarship on this administration has focused on Buddhism in Tibet while overlooking other regions, especially Southeastern China.⁹ Little attention has focused on the Buddhist administration as part of the hybrid institutional history of the Yuan dynasty.¹⁰ This paper aims to contribute to the discussion of the Yuan's dualistic system by examining the administrative policies applied to Chinese Buddhism in the Southeast.

After the Mongol conquest of China, the Yuan dynasty faced the difficult task of administering a culturally and religiously divergent population. Southeastern China, especially the Jiangnan region, posed special difficulties because it had been the seat of the Southern Song regime. It also constituted an important center of Buddhist worship and scholarship. Therefore, it offers insightful perspectives on the transformative processes of Yuan dualistic religious policy. We may examine how, and with what intentions, the Mongol rulers implemented their administration at the very beginning; how and why did their intentions change later on? What cultural meanings were expressed through this transition? What new light does this shed on the broader hybrid political system in Yuan dynasty?

First we shall briefly survey the Buddhist administrative institutions of Southeastern China during the Song dynasty and after the Mongol conquest. Based on reverence for Buddhism, the Mongols had previously established...