ry. The emperor of China was, throughout the course of Buddhisms introduction toChina, reluctant to accept it as an officially sanctioned religion as the tenants of thereligion have the ability to be taken as believing in the reducing of the power of the headof state to a subservient position to the religion. This was a major problem as thepre-existing religion, Confucism, had as one of its tenants strict loyalty to the emperor. This loyalty aspect of Confucism granted the emperor a divine claim of authorization forhis power and use of it. The main sticking point that Buddhism had to get past to beopenly accepted in China was the emperor. He controlled the flow of information fromoutside sources into the areas where people would be willing to accept new thoughts andbeliefs. The court officials were similar in position towards Buddhism as the emperor wasdue to the close relationship between his power and theirs. However, as the people whomimplement the policies of the emperor they are also very important to the spread of thereligion. In their capacity they have the ability to hinder the spread and to wrongfully usetheir power to arrest and cripple the religion. This hindering may be against the emperorswishes but with such a vast political structure the culprits could remain hidden and stillact against Buddhism. As such their acceptance of the religion is crucial. However forthe most part the acceptance of Buddhism came at the same instant as the emperoraccepted the religion as to oppose him meant death and few would challenge him, evenfrom the protection of anonymity through red tape of the bureaucracy.The wealthy citizens of China, landholders and powerful merchants, are alsoimportant to the spread of Buddhism due to the influence they have over the numerouspeasants. This influence lends itself to imitation by the peasants of the ways of thepowerful so as to seem more powerful themselves. For the wealthy citizens Buddhismoff...
