Philosophy and religion from Han to Sui

The collapse of the Han dynasty during the second and third centuries AD together with the political, social, and economic troubles that it brought about, resulted in a period of intellectual ferment unequaied in Chinese history except at the end of the Chou period, the end of the Ming dynasty and the revolutions of the twentieth century. Toward the end of the second century BC, Chuang-tzu was well known among a group of literary men gathered at his court by the king of Huai-nan. In the midst of the upheavals of the end of the Han dynasty, the long-concealed layer of popular Taoism rose to the surface in a series of rebellions that broke out in 184. In the midst of this Taoist explosion Buddhism was introduced to China. Real philosophical exegesis of the Chuang-tzu started only with Hsiang Hsiu and Kuo Hsiang, the greatest thinkers of the generation after Ho Yen and Wang Pi.