Ethnicity and identity: northern nomads as Buddhist art patrons during the period of Northern and Southern dynasties

Beginning in the latter part of the Han dynasty (206 –220 ), nomadic tribesmen originally from territories to the north and west of China started to advance inland. In one estimate, a total of ten million people from the steppes had settled in northern China between the fourth and the sixth centuries.2 The disruption caused by this large-scale ethnic migration ushered in a period of chaos and social fragmentation. Nomadic peoples set up numerous short-lived, petty kingdoms in the north, while displaced Chinese migrated south and established dynastic rule based at Jiankang (Nanjing).