India and China Through a Millennium of Religious Change
How people kept their faith through conflict and learned to live together
CA. S. Muralidharan
Business Mentor and Thought Leader
When a temple falls, does a religion fall with it?
At Srirangam, devotees carried the processional image of Ranganatha away from danger. They kept it safe and preserved the knowledge needed to worship it. Decades later, it returned. In China, communities faced a similar task after wars destroyed monasteries and political campaigns closed temples. They needed money to rebuild, people who remembered the rituals, and a government willing to let them begin again.
These stories help us understand the religious journey of India and China over the last thousand years. Both faced foreign armies, rival kings, quarrels between religious groups and governments that tried to control belief. Some people fought. Some moved to safer places. Others negotiated, worshipped quietly at home or rebuilt when the danger passed.
Their story is also about how ordinary life continued and how people who disagreed learned to share towns and villages. Peace did not arrive once and last forever. It had to be made again as circumstances changed. Nor did every community recover. Some losses were permanent, and some traditions survived in a much weaker position.
The religious worlds people lived in
At the beginning of the millennium, India already had many religious traditions. Shaivites worshipped Shiva, Vaishnavites worshipped Vishnu and his forms, and Shakta traditions honoured the Goddess. Buddhist and Jain communities had their own teachers and sacred places. Village gods, sacred trees, festivals and family customs also shaped everyday life.
These were not sealed compartments. A family could honour several deities, and a ruler could support more than one tradition. But shared surroundings did not prevent rivalry. Religious leaders debated whose teachings were true. Institutions competed for land, gifts, royal support and public honour.
China had a different, equally varied religious world. Confucian teachings stressed family duties, learning and good government. Daoism, also called Taoism, included teachings about living in harmony with the world, along with priests, temples and rituals. Buddhism had arrived from India centuries earlier and become deeply rooted in Chinese life. Ancestor worship and local gods remained important too.
The Chinese often spoke of the Three Teachings: Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. Many people drew on more than one. Honouring ancestors, consulting a Daoist priest and visiting a Buddhist temple did not necessarily mean changing religion each time. This overlap helped people live with differences, although it never removed all conflict. [18]
India faced attacks from outside and quarrels within
Mahmud of Ghazni’s raid on Somnath in 1025–26 is a well-known attack on an Indian sacred place. Wealth attracted the raiders, while Persian accounts also celebrated the destruction of sacred images. Yet Shaivite religious life did not end, and the surrounding kingdom was not permanently erased by that raid. [1]
Later, the growth of the Delhi Sultanate changed the political setting across much of India. Some temples suffered attacks or lost support. Other communities continued under arrangements with rulers and officials. Outcomes differed by place and period. A ruler’s religion alone does not explain his government; his policies, local interests and political relationships also mattered. [4]
Danger did not come only from outside armies. At Chidambaram in the twelfth century, Chola court literature records Kulottunga II’s removal of the Govindaraja image. A ruler associated with Shaivism had acted against a Vaishnavite sacred presence. The wider stories of Ramanuja’s persecution are important to Sri Vaishnava memory, but historians debate their dates, details and the king’s identity. [8]
Tamil devotional poetry contains strong attacks on Jain and Buddhist teachings. This establishes hostility. However, the famous story that 8,000 Jains were impaled at Madurai appears in later accounts and lacks contemporary confirmation. We should acknowledge the quarrel without treating an unverified massacre as settled history. [9]
A harsh argument, the removal of an image, the loss of a land grant and the killing of worshippers are different events. Calling them all persecution hides differences in the harm done and the evidence available.
How Indian communities made room for one another
One clear example comes from Vijayanagara in 1368. Jains complained to King Bukka about injustice by Vaishnavas. An inscription records his response: Jain ceremonial rights were to be respected, and Vaishnavas were instructed to protect the Jain community. [10]
The king did not require everyone to agree about God. He required them to accept rules that allowed another community to live and worship. This was practical peace through recognised rights and responsibility for a neighbour’s safety. The inscription proves an effort to settle a conflict; it does not prove that every quarrel immediately disappeared.
Religious ideas also offered room for shared respect. Harihara combines Vishnu and Shiva in one form. This image existed before the millennium considered here, but remained in use. An early eighteenth-century painting, for example, joins the attributes of both deities. Such images did not settle every Shaivite–Vaishnavite argument, but offered a familiar way to honour both together. [19]
Poets created other bridges. Kabir challenged religious pride and spoke in language close to everyday life. Poetry associated with him reached people across community boundaries and was included in Sikh scripture. It offered a way to question the idea that a religious label alone made someone spiritually superior. His influence did not eliminate Hindu–Muslim conflict, but it widened the language of shared spiritual reflection. [20]
Policy could widen that space too. In the sixteenth century, Akbar encouraged religious discussions and translations of Indian religious works into Persian. His court gave different traditions opportunities to meet and be heard. Such openings depended partly on the ruler and could change under his successors. [21]
These examples show how conflict could soften: a king enforced protection, a sacred image expressed shared reverence, a poet questioned pride, and a court encouraged conversation. None guaranteed permanent harmony. Together, they offered alternatives to treating every difference as a reason for hostility.
Srirangam shows how religious life could return
The attacks on the Tamil country in the early fourteenth century occurred amid weakening kingdoms and succession struggles. At Srirangam, devotees took the processional image to safety and preserved worship through the years of disruption.
Its restoration in 1371, supported by Vijayanagara officers, brought together two kinds of strength. Community members had kept the religious inheritance alive; renewed political protection made a public return possible. Neither could fully substitute for the other. [5]
Rebuilding meant more than returning an image to a building. It meant finding resources, bringing worshippers together and restoring confidence. People who supplied food, money, teaching and care were part of the recovery, even when chronicles gave most attention to kings.
India’s many centres sometimes offered refuge when one place became unsafe. But some institutions never recovered their former position. Buddhism’s decline across much of India cannot be explained by one attack alone. Changes in support, regional conditions and violence formed part of a longer story. Survival in some places did not undo losses elsewhere. [17]
China experienced rivalry alongside shared worship
China’s Three Teachings could support one another in daily life, but their leaders also competed. Buddhist monasteries owned property and attracted gifts. Daoist institutions sought royal recognition. Some Confucian critics objected to monks leaving family life and to religious establishments receiving privileges. Arguments about belief were joined to arguments about wealth and public duty.
An earlier episode explains the background. In 845, before the last millennium, Emperor Wuzong ordered a severe attack on Buddhist institutions. Monasteries were closed, property was taken, and monks and nuns were forced back into ordinary life. Religious hostility combined with the government’s desire for resources and control. Buddhism survived, but the episode showed its vulnerability to a hostile court. [22]
Under Mongol rule, the balance changed again. Some Daoist leaders initially enjoyed support. Buddhist and Daoist representatives later disputed religious texts and claims at court. In 1281, Kublai Khan ordered the burning of Daoist texts and printing blocks. This was an assault on one tradition by a government that also supported religion in other forms. [2]
The Mongols completed their conquest of China in 1279 and ruled through the Yuan dynasty. They adopted many Chinese ways of government. When the Ming replaced them in 1368, another period of rebuilding began. Communities continued through these changes, but had to deal with new rulers and new rules. [3, 7]
How Chinese families and rulers worked around differences
One reason conflict did not always divide society into separate camps was that ordinary people could value several teachings. A quarrel between Buddhist and Daoist leaders did not require every household to stop respecting one side. Overlapping customs gave people room to maintain relationships. This was coexistence in daily practice, even when leaders continued to disagree. [18]
Under the Manchu-founded Qing dynasty, beginning in the seventeenth century, emperors supported several traditions. They presented themselves as Confucian rulers to Chinese subjects, supported Buddhist institutions and retained Manchu religious customs. These choices helped them govern different populations. [23]
Such support was partly faith and partly the work of ruling an empire. It gave institutions room to survive, but did not mean complete freedom. A government could support recognised traditions while watching movements it considered dangerous.
Rulers in both countries sometimes managed differences by giving several communities a place under their authority. This could reduce hostility without making the ruler neutral or every community equal. Peace often rested on a workable arrangement rather than agreement about religious truth.
The Taiping War broke that arrangement
In nineteenth-century China, the Taiping movement challenged the established order. Its leader, Hong Xiuquan, claimed a special relationship with Jesus and developed an unusual Christian-derived religious movement. It was a Chinese rebellion, not simply a European Christian invasion.
During the Taiping War of 1850–1864, temples, monasteries and sacred images suffered enormous damage. Some destruction came from fighting; some came from deliberate hostility to established worship. Communities lost places around which religious and social life had been organised. [11]
After the war, Buddhist and other religious leaders raised funds, gathered supporters and restored institutions. Recovery became possible after the movement’s defeat, followed by community rebuilding. The conflict had not ended through an agreement to respect every faith. [11]
This distinction matters. Some quarrels softened through compromise. Others ended through military defeat or a change of government. Rebuilding could restore public peace while leaving painful memories and losses that could not be repaired.
Modern political power brought another kind of pressure
In twentieth-century China, Communist rule sought to reshape society and placed religious organisations under government supervision. During the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, temples, churches and mosques were closed, occupied or damaged. Religious leaders and sacred objects were attacked in the campaign against the old order. [12]
This assault came from a political movement that treated religion as superstition and an obstacle to its aims. It was not an invasion by followers of another faith. The threat came from within the country.
Religious life nevertheless survived unevenly. Some practices continued quietly, while some communities lost much more than others. As policy changed after the Cultural Revolution, many places of worship reopened or were rebuilt. Families and religious leaders supplied knowledge and resources; government permission made public activity possible again. [12, 13]
India followed a different course after independence in 1947. Partition brought terrible religious violence, but the Constitution later recognised freedom of conscience and religious practice, with stated limits. This offered a legal basis for communities to live together without sharing one faith. It did not end prejudice or disputes over sacred places. [14, 15]
The difference was not that Indians valued tradition and Chinese people did not. Their governments created different conditions for expressing that attachment. China experienced a sweeping political attack on public religion. India’s constitutional framework offered broader protection, though protection in law did not always ensure safety in practice.
How quarrels were softened and what remained unresolved
Across these stories, several paths to coexistence appear. People shared customs without giving up every difference. Rulers protected rights or supported several communities. Teachers questioned pride. Families preserved practices when public institutions were weak. When conditions improved, communities rebuilt the places that brought them together.
These were different kinds of recovery. Bukka’s order addressed a specific injustice. Harihara expressed shared reverence. China’s Three Teachings allowed overlapping practice. Qing support gave several traditions a place within an empire. Rebuilding after the Taiping War followed military victory. Reopening after the Cultural Revolution followed a change in policy.
Time did not automatically smooth every conflict. Some communities survived by accepting a weaker position. A quiet period could reflect fair protection, but also fear or exhaustion. Reconciliation means more than the absence of fighting: people need safety, a recognised place in society and room to pass on their beliefs.
The broad comparison remains useful. India’s many religious centres often provided alternative sources of support. China’s powerful central governments could make suppression, or later reopening, reach widely. These were tendencies rather than permanent rules. India also had powerful states, and China also depended on local initiative.
In both countries, the enduring work was done by people who kept enough of their inheritance alive to pass it on. They carried an image to safety, remembered a song, raised money for a temple or taught a child a family custom. They also learned, sometimes painfully, that different beliefs need not make everyday life together impossible. The task today is to give that coexistence reliable protection, so each generation does not have to rebuild it after another tragedy.
Sources and further reading
[1] Richard M. Eaton, India in the Persianate Age, section on Somnath; and The legacy of Islam in Somnath, Bulletin of SOAS. https://www.perlego.com/book/1388937/india-in-the-persianate-age-10001765-pdf ; https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/abs/legacy-of-islam-in-somnath1/57609280D21F518C61CE066E8BF3BD8D
[2] American Historical Association, Printing the Daoist Canon under Mongol Rule 1237–44. https://aha.confex.com/aha/2011/webprogram/Paper6319.html
[3] Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, Yuan dynasty. https://asia-archive.si.edu/learn/for-educators/teaching-china-with-the-smithsonian/explore-by-dynasty/yuan-dynasty/
[4] Columbia University South Asia Institute, A Very Short History of South Asia. https://sai.columbia.edu/content/very-short-history-south-asia-six-key-themes-and-timeline
[5] University of Madras lectures, historical discussion of Sri Vaishnavism and the 1371 restoration inscription. https://acharya.org/bk/bl/tagr/hosv.pdf
[7] OpenStax, World History Volume 1, From the Mamluks to Ming China. https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/17-2-from-the-mamluks-to-ming-china
[8] A. Srivathsan, The persecution of Ramanuja A view from the Srirangam temple complex, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 1995. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001946469503200404
[9] The Hindu Confrontation with the Jaina and the Buddhist Saint Tirunacampantar’s Polemical Writings. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326885556
[10] Jainism and Karnataka Culture, quotation and discussion of Bukka’s 1368 inscription, citing Epigraphia Carnatica II, SB 344. https://ignca.gov.in/Asi_data/7366.pdf
[11] Reconstructing Buddhist Monasteries in Post Taiping China, University of Manchester research record. https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/publications/reconstructing-buddhist-monasteries-in-post-taiping-china/
[12] Pew Research Center, Government policy toward religion in the People’s Republic of China a brief history, 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/08/30/government-policy-toward-religion-in-the-peoples-republic-of-china-a-brief-history/
[13] Xiaoxuan Wang, Maoism and Grassroots Religion, Oxford University Press, 2020. https://academic.oup.com/book/36919
[14] Constitution of India, Articles 25 and 26. https://legislative.gov.in/constitution-of-india/
[15] National Army Museum, Independence and Partition 1947. https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/independence-and-partition-1947
[17] Historical discussion of Buddhism’s decline in India, Chung Hwa Buddhist Studies. https://www.chibs.edu.tw/ch_html/chbs/10/chbs1010.htm
[18] Columbia University, The Three Teachings; Pew Research Center, Confucianism Taoism and Chinese folk religions. https://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/ort/teachings.htm ; https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/08/30/confucianism-taoism-and-chinese-folk-religions/
[19] Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harihara Sadashiva, about 1710–20. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/825647
[20] Oxford Bibliographies, Kabir and Kabir Panth. https://academic.oup.com/reference/62357/reference-article-abstract/554518400
[21] Encyclopaedia Iranica, Akbar I. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/akbar-i-mughal-india/
[22] University of California San Diego, Tang Dynasty Persecutions of Buddhism. https://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/chin/faanfor/TarngPersecutions.html
[23] Cambridge World History, Religious change in East Asia. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-world-history/religious-change-in-east-asia/9F140EA56C77C0981A1A6877484B2386
