This paper is to analyze the relationship between the female regime of Wu Zetian and Buddhism, from the perspective of historical research. First of all, we investigate the Chinese traditional perspective on women through the traditional Confucianism books of China: the conventional ethics concept of patriarchy that imposes restrictions and constraints on women, especially the extreme exclusion of women from politics. Women’s participation in politics is considered as a sign that a country would soon perish. So, in Chinese history the woman who had the chance to enter politics was actually the young emperor’s mother. And she played only the role of an assistant; otherwise, she would suffer very strong criticism. Under such patriarchy conditions of Chinese political history, Wu Zetian could even break almost all kinds of limitations, establish the unique female regime, and become the one and only female emperor in the history. In the process of getting regime, not only her own great conditions and efforts but also the decisive influence of Buddhism contribute to her regime establishment. Because Buddhism is quite important to Wu Zetian, paying more attention to the Buddhism background of her period (from Sui Dynasty to the Early Tang Dynasty) is necessary. We investigate how Wu Zetian adopted Buddhism to help her through the study of the characteristics of Buddhism development, the relationship between the regime and Buddhism, and the connection between her and Buddhism. After her successful establishment of the female regime, she continued her Buddhism policy, and honored Buddhism as the state religion. Many of her policies showed that she intented to rule the country by Buddhism, such as the courtesy titles she gave to herself, Grotto, the sutras translation, the utmost courtesy of monks, and the edit that she intended to rule that courtesy was above the Taoism. And she wished to become the king of Buddha in the human world, just like the Maitreya Buddha, who appears on earth as a Chakravartin to rule the world and creates a pure land. In a word, the relationship between the female regime of Wu Zetian and the Buddhism is not only the political use, but also her devout religious belief that motivated her to continue honoring the Buddhism and her policy.
