 It was also in the Han that another philosophical system, that of Buddhism, entered China. Following the fall of the Han, Buddhism gradually expanded, often in association with the ruling power of non-Chinese elites. While a conspicuous presence during the Sui and most of the Tang dynasties, Buddhism eventually fell victim to imperial persecution at the highest level and widespread ethnocentric reactions issuing from an increasing consciousness of the foreign nature of the teachings. In tandem with the reaction against Buddhism and all of its philosophical claims, Confucian teachings were variously reasserted. In many cases, these reassertions of Confucianism were made along such distinctively novel lines that western scholars have referred to them as expressions of Neo-Confucian philosophy. The term does have its counterparts in East Asian discourse in the form of designations such as Songxue, “the learning of the Song dynasty,” xinglixue, “the learning of human nature and principle,” xinxue, “the learning of the mind,” and lixue, “the learning of principle.”