e preserved in
the writings of the distinguished Buddhist priest Shen Chu-Hung.[701]

In 1644 the Ming dynasty collapsed before the Manchus and China was
again under foreign rule. Unlike the Mongols, the Manchus had little
inclination to Buddhism. Even before they had conquered China, their
prince, T'ai Tsung, ordered an inspection of monasteries and limited
the number of monks. But in this edict he inveighs only against the
abuse of religion and admits that "Buddha's teaching is at bottom pure
and chaste, true and sincere: by serving him with purity and piety,
one can obtain happiness."[702] Shun-Chih, the first Manchu Emperor,
wrote some prefaces to Buddhist works and entertained the Dalai Lama
at Peking in 1652.[703] His son and successor, commonly known as
K'ang-Hsi (1662-1723), dallied for a while with Christianity, but the
net result of his religious policy was to secure to Confucianism all
that imperial favour can give. I have mentioned above his Sacred Edict
and the partial favour which he showed to Buddhism. He gave
donations to the monasteries of P'u-t'o, Hang-chou and elsewhere: he
published the Kanjur with a preface of his own[704] and the twelfth
and last collection of the Tripitaka was issued under the auspices of
his son and grandson. The latter, the Emperor Ch'ien Lung, also
received the Teshu Lama not only with honour, but with interest and
sympathy, as is clear from the inscription preserved at Peking, in
which he extols the Lama as a teacher of spiritual religion.[705] He
also wrote a preface to a sutra for producing rain[706] in which he
says that he has ordered the old editions to be carefully corrected
and prayer and worship to be offered, "so that the old forms which
have been so beneficial during former ages might still be blessed to
the desired end." Even the late Empress Dowager accepted the
ministrations of the present Dalai Lama when he visited Peking in
1908, although, to his great indignation she obliged him to kneel at
Court.[707] Her former colleague, the Empress Tzu-An was a devout
Buddhist. The statutes of the Manchu dynasty (printed in 1818) contain
regulations for the celebration of Buddhist festivals at Court, for
the periodical reading of sutras to promote the imperial welfare, and
for the performance of funeral rites.

Still on the whole the Manchu dynasty showed less favour to Buddhism
than any which preceded it and its restrictive edicts limiting the
number of monks and prescri