Zhou prohibits Buddhist and Daoist institutions
Zizhi tongjian reports that Zhou prohibited Buddhism and Daoism, destroyed their scriptures and images, and ordered Buddhist and Daoist clergy to return to lay life.
What this does and does not establish
Pinned Wikisource revision 11122974. This is the chronicle's account; it does not independently establish comprehensive enforcement. The following sentence extends the prohibition to sacrifices outside the prescribed ritual canon.
- The date reference on this record’s page includes wording that is not in the cited text (建德三年). That wording is this project’s reckoning or note.
- Read through an AI working translation.
- Region
- East Asia
- Theme
- Culture and knowledge
- Kind of record
- Placed in a year. A source places this in one year. It is listed under that year; no day precision is invented.
How it is dated
- Date reference
- 太建六年 / Zhou 建德三年, fifth lunar month, 丙子
- How we use it
- Year-level placement is limited to the dated source entry.
The date reference is this project’s reading of the source’s date. It may give an era name, a reign or a calendar in a normalised form rather than in the source’s own words; the dating notes say what the source prints.
Dating notes from the research record
Read zztj171.wikitext lines 252–298: 甲午 year heading, fourth-month beginning at line 282, fifth-month beginning at line 286, prohibition at line 290, and sixth-month beginning at line 292. Read lines 30–34 of sinica-573-12-31.html and sinica-574-12-31.html: Julian 573-12-31 is Zhou 建德二年 癸巳 11/22; Julian 574-12-31 is Zhou 建德三年 甲午 12/3. Zhou's fifth month in 甲午 lies within Julian AD 574.
File names and line numbers in these notes, and in the limits above, refer to the project’s retained copies of the cited sources. Names such as calendar_headers are the project’s calendar look-ups, and “the investigator” is the research step that prepared the record.
Sources and quoted text
Line and character numbers under “Location” refer to the project’s retained copy of the source. For database rows, “Edition” names the batch of rows that was fetched together.
Source 1 · Supports the statement
Zizhi tongjian
Sima Guang and collaborators
Quoted text (Classical Chinese)
丙子，周禁佛、道二教，經、像悉毀，罷沙門、道士，並令還俗。AI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
On bingzi, Zhou prohibited the two teachings of Buddhism and Daoism; their scriptures and images were all destroyed, Buddhist monks and Daoist priests were dismissed, and all were ordered to return to lay life.
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government), juan 171, Wikisource raw wikitext revision 11122974 (2026-10-09T01:03:16Z); project English working translation. Transcription contributors, https://zh.wikisource.org/w/index.php?oldid=11122974, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/); project English translation adapted from original, share alike where applicable.
Exact source version
e6bba59f27d3cd844fc11b83b4da894869990b7b244553136872804120a0fe60Checks and changes
Source checked 2026-11-05. An independent AI evidence review supports this bounded, attributed wording. That review does not guarantee historical truth. How records are checked
No correction has been made to this record’s statement or limits.
Revision s501_east_571_575_574_6
Exact revision fingerprint
173a80f624583c60c53f6b192b173c1c89aa70696fed0adb8fb2e37c34823749