Rise and Fall of Medieval Chinese Empire Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Rise and Fall of Medieval Chinese Empire - Essay Example Consequently, it occurred that the ruling class gradually became alienated from the population, and became deprived of their support during such crisis. In the imperial history of the world, religion has played an important role to hold the people of different races and ethnicities within one empire as Charles Issawi says, "the most important single factor holding India together, and enabling it to survive repeated conquests, has been the Hindu religion. Likewise, the conversion to Roman Catholicism of the native populations"1 Even if the religious belief played a significant role to unite the fragmented Chinese demography, as Issawi says, "Confucianism and Taoism helped China recover its unity after the breakdown of the Han Empire in the third century A.D. and the fragmentation and retrogression caused by the barbarian invasions"2, religion was not the one and only tool that contributed to the unity of the population. The role of religion in empire building during the Tang dynasty w as such that no prevalence of one religion was allowed to suppress another religion. Rather religions were treated and manipulated equally to create the sentiment -of the people- that is committed to the stability and solidarity of the empire. Such religious policy of the Tang Empire was in complete concordance with the 'divergent people in one state' policy of Tang Daizong.3 Therefore, the following factors can be held responsible behind the rise and fall of the Chinese empire during the Tang Dynasty: 1. Culture committed to the solidarity of the Empire4 2. Religions ensuring social stability and at the same time, nourishing the freaks among the population5 3. Effective administrative policies and politics Nature of Rise and Fall throughout the Chinese Imperial Era Throughout the passage of time, the rise and the fall of the medieval Chinese Empire were associated with each other in such a way that the rise of the empire during one dynasty was embedded in the fall of its preceding one and at the same time, the empire collapsed due to its failure to manipulate the variables that contributed its rise. One of the most common factors that contributed to the rise and the fall of the medieval Chinese empire is that the empire, in the first place, was able to unify the population of a vast area either with the consent of the people or by subjugating them with the power, culture, and religion. The role of religions in making the ancient Chinese Empire was not as significant as it was in the making of the medieval Chinese Empire. The less significant role of religion lies in the fact that religions with plural gods and goddesses were not strong enough to play a role in the making of the Chinese. Even if any religion played a role, it was mainly because of the humanistic zeal of the religion that inspired both the Chinese population and empire builders to adopt it as a means to social peace and harmony. Simply religion