ABSTRACT
The "official" written languages of the Qing dynasty were Manchu, Chinese, and Mongolian. The importance of the Chinese script to the unity and continuity of traditional Chinese culture can scarcely be overestimated. Religious life in the Qing period was especially rich and varied, owing in part to the multiculturalism of the Manchus. Probably at no other time since the Mongol-dominated Yuan dynasty had China's rulers evinced such a wide-open and tolerant attitude toward religion. The most popular school of Chinese Buddhism in Qing times was the Pure Land School. On the whole, this eclectic teaching avoided both the intense mental discipline of Chan and the scriptural and doctrinal emphasis of Tiantai and Huayan. The Qing government's approach to Buddhism and Religious Daoism was at once supportive and suspicious. The Qing dynasty has been characterized as "an antiquarian age when, as never before, men looked back into the past."
