Chapter 254: Spreading the Dharma or Destroying the Dharma

"Master, there is no need to haggle with me. The four rashtras near Kanyakubja, I can hand over to the Buddhist order.

At Kanyakubja I intend to establish a religious council, made up of three men from the Zhenyuan State, one from the Pala Kingdom, five local Brahmins, and six from the Buddhist order, to form a sect-and-people council to govern.

The sect-and-people council may elect a governor-general, with a term of five years.

And my demand is very simple: the titles of Wheel-Turning Sage King and Silver Wheel Dharma King must be given to me. Otherwise, I will go and ask the Brahmin priests for them!

In addition, I need a sangha composed of eminent monks deeply versed in the Dharma to help me spread the Dharma in the Eastern Lands. Master, please organize it as soon as possible."

Master Baotongzi and the chief seats of several great famous temples were stunned by Zhang Zhao's directness and brutality.

They had prepared for negotiation, but Zhang Zhao gave them no room to negotiate at all, and simply threw out his final price.

"Khagan Your Majesty, the Silver Wheel Dharma King belongs to our Buddhist order without question..."

The chief seat of Vikramashila Monastery looked at Zhang Zhao with some difficulty as he spoke. Even for the Silver Wheel Dharma King, there had been only a few in the history of the Buddhist order.

"I am not consulting with you, Master. My conditions have already been given. There are only two answers: accept or not. Haggling is quite unnecessary!"

Zhang Zhao's attitude at this moment was very firm. Even Wuda'er, a man outside the core power circle of the Guiyi Army, knew that Cao Yijin's days were numbered. One can imagine how terrible the physical condition of this Cao-family ruler of the Guiyi Army was.

Compared with hurrying back to the Guiyi Army, the title of Dharma King of the Buddhist order became far less important.

"Then it shall be as the Khagan wishes. This humble monk will go at once to prepare all the rites for confirming the Silver Wheel Dharma King.

But Khagan Your Majesty must confirm that of the three rashtras at Kanyakubja, all the lands originally belonging to the Parihara royal house and the Kshatriyas shall belong to the Buddhist order."

Master Baotongzi gritted his teeth. The Gold Wheel Dharma King rank — he truly could not afford to give it, nor did he dare.

If he gave it, what then? In former times King Ashoka even had the right to distribute the relics of Shakyamuni Buddha, and could be called the de facto controller of the Indian Buddhist order.

But the Silver Wheel Dharma King was different. Although its status was also extremely precious, the gap between it and the Gold Wheel Dharma King was like the gap between a prince and an emperor in Chinese history.

The Gold Wheel Dharma King was the controller of the Buddhist order; the Silver Wheel Dharma King was merely the order's Dharma-protecting king.

"Done!" Zhang Zhao naturally agreed without the slightest hesitation. Before him, no emperor or king of the Central Plains had ever obtained the Dharma-protecting king of the Indian Buddhist order, still less a title of the Wheel-Turning Sage King grade.

Although the more likely explanation was that the emperors of the Central Plains disdained such a title, for Zhang Zhao it was still very important.

The months-long contest between Zhang Zhao and the Buddhist order was thus resolved at lightning speed.

Of course, Zhang Zhao also noticed that the bottom line Master Baotongzi had prepared in advance for Zhang Zhao was definitely not the Silver Wheel Dharma King; most likely he had only been willing to give a Bronze Wheel Dharma King.

Because after he did not dare gamble on Zhang Zhao's true bottom line and agreed in one breath, the chief seats of the several great famous temples behind him looked extremely astonished and were preparing to object — all of which Master Baotongzi stopped with a look.

Zhang Zhao could roughly guess why Master Baotongzi agreed in one breath: because he wanted to use this opportunity to seize the vast lands around Kanyakubja.

Needless to say, if the Shudras and Dalits on these lands wanted to continue living on them, converting to Buddhism was their only choice.

Using land as a weapon to develop believers, and once the numbers grew, going to wrestle with the Brahmin priests — Master Baotongzi must have thought exactly this. But Zhang Zhao's attitude toward it was just two words: heh heh.

The chief seat of Nalanda Monastery, the dignified leader of the Indian Buddhist order, probably had not fully realized that the greatest difference between Brahmanism and Buddhism was not which vajra or bodhisattva one believed in, or what method one used to cultivate.

It was that these two teachings, seemingly of the same origin, were in fact diametrically opposed.

At the very least, the current state of harmonious coexistence on the Indian subcontinent should absolutely not exist. Buddhism had to stand in opposition to Brahmanism in order to have room to survive.

Because Buddhism existed precisely to reflect upon, even oppose, Brahmanism. Without the role of the opponent, the Buddhist order had no reason to exist.

For example, right now, Buddhism, which was originally born to resist the caste system, had already lost its compassion of equality for all beings. In Zhang Zhao's view, it no longer had any reason to exist.

Of course, the decline of the Buddhist order was also precisely because it overemphasized equality for all beings, and thus went to the opposite side of the secular aristocracy.

In the feudal era, once a religious sect went completely to the opposite side of the secular aristocracy, its doctrines were destined to be impossible to spread!

So to prevent this situation, Indian Buddhism opened up a model that was, how to put it, somewhat fanciful.

That is: if you aristocrats are unwilling to carry out my ideals, then why don't I directly seize political power? I will become the aristocrat myself.

And so the shaven-headed ones walked to the complete opposite side of their founder, Shakyamuni.

They obtained fiefs and power from kings, then used them to realize their own doctrines, turning themselves from liberators of the caste system into the highest caste.

Temple fields, warrior monks, tax exemption, recruiting refugees, annexing land — all of this was the concentrated expression of it. In fact, they were already not much different from the Brahmin priests.

And they did this not only in India, but in China as well.

But unlike India, where kingdoms great and small were deeply bound to Buddhism and in the end all perished, in China's highest power structure there was never any room for theocratic authority.

And so the Three Wus and One Zong took turns ascending the throne and striking out, one after another, great slaps swinging left and right.

Only then did the Buddhist order quiet down on Chinese soil, become so benevolent and loving, honestly accept Sinicization, and even chant Amitabha.

However, Guo Rong, Emperor Shizong of the Later Zhou, the last of the Three Wus and One Zong, had not yet ascended the throne — and most likely would never get the chance. So the final blow against the Buddhist order would very likely have to be driven by Zhang Zhao, Great King Zhang.

But he did not want to do it as rigidly and bluntly as Emperor Shizong of Zhou had in history. This was also an important reason why he needed to obtain the Dharma King status in India.

At this thought, a trace of ruthlessness appeared on Zhang Zhao's face. Once he obtained from Indian Buddhism a certain degree of authority to interpret the Dharma, Indian Buddhism would have no reason to exist. Better that it disappear completely from India, just as it had in history.

Only this would benefit the thorough localization of Buddhism in China, and prevent his personal influence from affecting the historical course of the Buddhist order.

"Tiance, go and bring Irs to me!" Zhang Zhao ordered Guo Tiance.

Irs was the deputy of Rashid Saleman, the Anyuan Army Commissioner, and currently served as Deputy Commissioner of the Anyuan Army and concurrently Troop Commander of the Shunyi Right Army — a big-bearded Persian who believed in the Tianfang faith.

Zhang Zhao meant to block the channels of external exchange for Indian Buddhism. Irs's fief lay twenty li north of Huwen City, exactly blocking the vital road south from Anxi into India.

Zhang Zhao intended to have this Tianfang believer set up a secret checkpoint here.

All Buddhist disciples going to India to seek the Dharma, and all foreign monks traveling from India to Anxi and Hexi, were forbidden to pass without Zhang Zhao's permission. Those who dared resist would be executed on the spot!

Hmm, both a spreader of the Dharma and a destroyer of the Dharma. From now on, the power of interpretation rests entirely in my hands. Not bad!

In 935, on the seventeenth day of the sixth month, Zhang Zhao, who had stayed in India for a full eight months, prepared to set out northward from India.

In those eight months, he had fought through the upper Indus and the middle and upper Ganges, completely annexed the Shahi dynasty, one of India's three great powers, split the Parihara dynasty into three parts, and swindled the Pala dynasty's do-nothing king so thoroughly that he lost all face, unable even to speak with authority within his own royal house.

Before he left, India looked much more fragmented, but at last it had gained a rare peace in the final months.

But in reality, the pits Zhang Zhao had dug were enough to keep India in chaos for several more decades.

Especially around Kanyakubja, the Brahmin priests were waiting for this Dharma-protecting king of the Buddhist order to leave, so they could show the Buddhists what they were made of.

Master Baotongzi of the Buddhist order was also preparing a counterattack that was doomed to fail.

As for the other regions, the conflicts were even more numerous. How would the Han-Ri Heavenly Seed people subdue the locals?

The great Shahi warlord Shihunu had been driven by him into the mountains of Nepal, where he was plotting a comeback.

Bahma had gone to the lower reaches of the Indus to rule half the territory of the Shahi dynasty, but his opponents were as numerous as the hairs on an ox.

Not to mention Prince Tela and King Boro the Slacker, those two poor wretches who had been thoroughly ruined.

This free-for-all would surely be spectacular, but it would soon have nothing to do with Zhang Zhao — he planned to let his son deal with it in twenty or thirty years!

Zhenyuan City, at the moment the last mule and horse walked out of Zhenyuan City's west gate.

The Deputy King of the Great Chao, Great Treasure, Great Jin Kingdom; Khagan of the Uyghurs, the Oghuz, and the Basmyls; the Wheel-Turning Sage King of India; the Silver Wheel Dharma King of the Buddhist order; founder of the two vassal states of Anyuan and Zhenyuan; conqueror of Samanid Persia — Gur Khan Zhang Zhao formally set out on his journey home.

Leaving with him were sixteen thousand troops, more than fifty thousand Indian serfs, a Buddhist sangha of over three hundred monks, more than a thousand volumes of Buddhist scriptures, thirty assorted life-size statues, and gold and silver ingots worth over thirty million rupees.

Yes, gold and silver ingots — for ease of transport on the road, and also to keep this gold and silver from suddenly flooding the markets of Anxi and Transoxiana.

Zhang Zhao had melted down all the rupee silver coins, gold coins, and goldware he had acquired in India into high-purity gold and silver ingots.

Twenty million rupees in wealth was roughly equivalent to seven hundred fifty thousand dinars, which was close to four million strings of cash.

Added to the three and a half million strings of wealth he had extorted from Prince Hamid of Samanid Persia, Zhang Zhao had plundered a full seven and a half million strings of wealth in Transoxiana and India combined.

Half of it existed in the form of gold and silver, and half in the form of furs, spices, gemstones, and the like. This plundering ability could not be called anything but ruthless — it deserved to be called scraping three feet off the ground.

And this did not even include what had been rewarded to his subordinates or spent along the way. Apart from a small share to be given to Li Shengtian, almost all of it was Zhang Zhao's private treasure, enough to support his military operations in Hexi.

"Lord of the State of Zhang, let us part here! Remember well my instructions. You Han-Ri-Tian-Zhong have only a little over two thousand able-bodied men. Having suddenly arrived in such a prosperous land, you will be corrupted very quickly. In just a few years, I fear, your fighting strength will decline terribly.

But the land of India is not peaceful. The plan of bringing in at least three hundred battle-hardened warriors every year from Ningyuan or even Shule must never stop.

At the same time, internal training must absolutely not slacken. Whoever's backside grows too large to fit into a saddle shall be stripped of his Kshatriya status. Also, the breeding of the folded-ear horses must always be kept in mind."

The only thing Zhang Zhao was not at ease about was whether Cao Yanmian's maternal uncle, the Lord of the State of Zhenyuan, Zhang Bingzhong, could hold Zhenyuan.

Because Zhenyuan was the forward outpost for influencing India, and also an important breeding base for the folded-ear horses.

Zhang Zhao had found more than twenty thousand folded-ear horses in Zhenyuan, but he had taken only about five thousand with him. The rest remained in Zhenyuan, because he feared his breeding plan might not succeed, and he wanted to leave a double insurance in Zhenyuan.

"Rest assured, Great King, your servant will manage the State of Zhenyuan well!" Zhang Bingzhong cupped his hands in salute, looking full of confidence.

Zhang Zhao nodded without speaking, but inwardly he sighed. This uncle's ability was still a bit lacking. Never mind — what comes later can be dealt with later!

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