3 Kingdoms intro Jin intro 16 Kingdoms intro Southern Dynasties intro Northern Dynasties intro

Buddhism had already arrived in China during the mid of Han Dynasty and brought up one of its first parishes in southern China at the court of the Prince of Chu 楚. Among a nobility that was more inclined to nature oriented Daoism, the new religion quickly gained many followers that first were simple believers, then monks and nuns. Buddhism filled a metaphysical gap that the sterile and old-fashioned Confucianism was unable to fill. There was a need among the population for a belief with spiritual meanings, thirst for a real religion.
At the end of Han Dynasty, two directions of Buddhism were prevalent: the Small Vehicle dhyāna (chan 禪; meditation) thought that laid emphasis on the control of mind, concentration and the suppression of passions. It was based upon the translations of the Parthian An Shigao 安世高. Unfortunately, his translation of the Sutra in 42 Sections is only preserved in its Tang Dynasty shape which is quite alterned to the original. The second teaching was that of the Great Vehicle prajñā ("knowledge, wisdom") tradition, that emphasized the task of the believer to see the conditioned facts of reality and the elements how they really are, that is to say, void or empty and determined by something else. The Enlightened One does not assert his self to other beings or influences, and there exists no dualism between subject and object: they are one and the same and dependent on each other. Translating the Sanskrit scriptures into Chinese, Dharmaraksha (Zhufahu 竺法護) and Daoan 道安 were the great promoters of the "Perfection of Wisdom" with the Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra Banruo[bolomi(duo)]jing) 般若波羅蜜多經 and the Heart Sutra (Xinjing) 心經 and Diamond [Cutter] Sutra (Jingangjing; Vajracchedika-sūtra) 金剛經. The monk that combined Neo-Daoist philosophy (especially that of Zhuangzi) and Buddhism, was Zhidun 支遁. Xi Chao 郗超 transformed the Daoist thinking into a Buddhist form by his book Fengfayao 奉法要 "Rules for observing the dharma". The Confucian-Daoist natural order li 理 was interpreted as a transcendental absolute principle. One of the most famous Buddhist monks in the south was Huiyuan 慧遠 whose teachings focused on meditation to achieve enlightenment and entrance into the Pure Land (sukhāvatī; jingtu 淨土), the Western Paradise, and he introduced the veneration of the Amitabha Buddha (Namo Amituofo 南無阿彌陀佛). Widesprb> (zhongshusheng 中書省), it was the channel through which all memorials and documents flowed to the emperor and it was the agency that proposed and drafted all imperial rescipts, decrees (zhao 詔) and edicts (ling 令). Polticy consultants were gathered in an institution called Chancellery (menxiasheng 門下省) whose main function was to advise and to remonstrate. The surveying agency of the officialdom was the Censorate (yushitai 衘史臺), headed by the censor-in-chief (yushi dafu 衘史大夫).
The territory of the empire was divided into regions (zhou 州, governed by a Regional Governor zhoumu 州牧 or Regional Inspector cishi 刺史), commanderies (jun 郡, administered by a governor taishou 太守), and districts (xian 縣, governed by a magistrate ling 令). Most Regional Governors were entitles as military area commanders (dudu 都督 or zongguan 總管). Alongside with commanderies and districts existed a lot of princedoms (wangguo 王國) and marquisates (houguo 侯國). During the Cao-Wei-Dynasty, state-run military agro-colonies (tuntian 屯田) had the size of commanderies and were independently administered by special officials (diannongli 典農吏). The Cao-Wei Dynasty established a kind of rank classification (jiupin 九品) for officials. The access to offices was still open to free decision of superiors, although formally a Confucian education process had to be implemented by the state academy (taixue 太學).
The military was built up a Capital Army that was garrisoned in and around the capital, the armies of the princedoms and imperial clansmen, and private armies (buqu 部曲) of the magnate landowners were scattered throughout the empire and often represented a challenge for the central government in cases of rebellion. The more civil-oriented goverments of the Southern Dynasties often in vain tried to reduce the force level of the national army and that of the feudal princes, because there was a greater need to maintain a large army for the northern Dynasties because of the permanent danger of raids neighboring states.