During the Tang Dynasty, emperors were trying increasingly harder to keep Buddhism as an accepted religion. Emperors, like Xianzong, were convinced that everything they did to increase the acceptance of Buddhism would generate merits. Stupas were built to house rare Buddhist relics that were only taken out occasionally. One such occasion was in 819 C.E. during the reign of Emperor Xianzong. For the sixth time during the Tang Dynasty, a true relic of the Buddha was brought out for worship. A prominent writer named Han Yu took this opportunity to express his anti-Buddhist stand. Here, specifically, Confucian school of thought was called upon by Han Yu to demonstrate to the Emperor why Buddhism was wrong for the Chinese.

Han Yu went back to the Yellow Emperor, citing that he reigned for one hundred years, and that each subsequent emperor also enjoyed a lengthy reign. “This was a time of great tranquility under heaven. The people enjoyed peace, happiness, and longevity while there was no Buddha in the Middle Kingdom.” He went on to cite how after the introduction of Buddhism in the late Han Dynasty, emperor’s reigns were shortened and only chaos and destruction prevailed. This wasn’t his only complaint. Like Gu Huan, Han Yu criticized Buddhism for its barbaric practices. He worried that adopting barbaric customs and practices merely to accept this foreign religion would make China proper a laughingstock. But from a more Confucian standpoint, he stated:

The Buddha was originally a man of the barbarians who did not speak the language of the Middle Kingdom and was dressed in clothes of a different cut from ours. Neither did he cite the edifying discourses of the ancient sovereigns, nor did he don their proper attire. He was ignorant of the sense of duty between sovereign and subject, and the affection between father and son.

Family, tradition, and filial piety were first and foremost in the Confucian ideal, and Buddhism only threatened to bring chaos, according to Han Yu. This was a typical response to Buddhist traditions, not necessarily to Buddhist philosophy, but in Han Yu’s opinion, Buddha worship only brought misfortune.