. It is also a period of political confusion, of contest
between the north and south, of struggles between Chinese and Tartars.
Chinese histories, with their long lists of legitimate sovereigns,
exaggerate the solidity and continuity of the Empire, for the
territory ruled by those sovereigns was often but a small fraction of
what we call China. Yet the Tartar states were not an alien and
destructive force to the same extent as the conquests made by
Mohammedan Turks at the expense of Byzantium. The Tartars were neither
fanatical, nor prejudiced against Chinese ideals in politics and
religion. On the contrary, they respected the language, literature and
institutions of the Empire: they assumed Chinese names and sometimes
based their claim to the Imperial title on the marriage of their
ancestors with Chinese princesses.

During the fourth century and the first half of the fifth some twenty
ephemeral states, governed by Tartar chieftains and perpetually
involved in mutual war, rose and fell in northern China. The most
permanent of them was Northern Wei which lasted till 535 A.D. But the
Later Chao and both the Earlier and Later Ts'in are important for our
purpose.[614] Some writers make it a reproach to Buddhism that its
progress, which had been slow among the civilized Chinese, became
rapid in the provinces which passed into the hands of these ruder
tribes. But the phenomenon is natural and is illustrated by the fact
that even now the advance of Christianity is more rapid in Africa than
in India. The civilization of China was already old and
self-complacent: not devoid of intellectual curiosity and not
intolerant, but sceptical of foreign importations and of dealings with
the next world. But the Tartars had little of their own in the way of
literature and institutions: it was their custom to assimilate the
arts and ideas of the civilized nations whom they conquered: the more
western tribes had already made the acquaintance of Buddhism in
Central Asia and such native notions of religion as they possessed
disposed them to treat priests, monks and magicians with respect.

Of the states mentioned, the Later Chao was founded by Shih-Lo[615]
(273-332), whose territories extended from the Great Wall to the Han
and Huai in the South. He showed favour to an Indian monk and diviner
called Fo-t'u-ch'eng[616] who lived at his court and he appears to
have been himself a Buddhist. At any rate the most eminent of his
successors, Shih C