CONFUCIANISM AND TAOISM
China
1. China
stands alone among the world's great civilizations, having developed in almost
total isolation from the rest of the world.
o
Isolated by
geography, at the extreme eastern end of the ancient Euro-Asian world, hemmed in
by mountains and deserts, lying across no trade routes, China developed by
itself.
2. The
Chinese people have traditionally thought themselves to be the center of the
universe (Chung-Kao, the Chinese name for China, means the kingdom in
the middle).
3. The
Chinese have regarded themselves as an island of culture in a sea of
barbarity.
o
Like the Romans,
the Chinese have long understood the arts of large-sclae administration
(beginning with a civil service selected on the basis of merit, Chinese
bureaucrats kept the empire intact for two thousand years.
Three Major Religions
1. Three
religions have played a major role in China's three thousand years of history.
a. They are
Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.
b. Confucianism
and Taoism are indigenous to China -- both had been in existence for 500
years before the introduction of Buddhism from India.
2. An earlier
religion (from which Confucianism and Taoism each grew out of) had existed in
China for nearly 1,000 years.
a. Indigenous
Chinese tradition had its impact on Buddhism making it more Chinese in
character.
b. The
influence and impact of Indian thought and religious experience, in turn, had
an impact upon Confucianism and Taoism - resulting in Neo-Taoism and
Neo-Confucianism (reformulations of the indigenous tradition).
3. Confucianism
and Taoism, in the Chinese mind, are chiao (teachings) which are not
exclusively religious.
a. The
writings of the founders of Confucianism and Taoism have been regarded as part
of the cultural heritage of the Chinese.
b. Confucianism's
sacred canon, the writings of Confucius and secular documents predating
Confucius make up the classical Corpus of China.
1. For nearly
2,000 years the Confucian Canon was the basis of curriculum in Chinese
education.
2.
Familiarity with the canon was one of the principle requirements of the civil
service examinations.
4.
Confucianism and Taoism have been thought of as manifestation of the National
Chinese Ethos not specifically as religious faiths inviting conversion,
membership and personal commitment.
a. With the
introduction of Buddhism at the beginning of the Christian Era, the notion
arose of religion as an organized institution.
b. In
response to Buddhism, Taoism evolved a priestly order and a hierarchy,
temples and monasteries and a sacred canon.
c. The
imperial household and the Chinese ruling establishment were Confucian, and
Confucianism became the philosophy of the administrative classes.
d. Both
Confucianism and Taoism were, in origin, philosophical systems which were
devoid of any cult elements.
o
religious aspects
grew out of it and then became more institutionalized.
The World of Divination
1. Chinese
recorded history begins with the Shang Dynasty from the 16th to 11th Centuries
B.C.
a. The records
of this period are oracle bones discovered toward the end of the 19th Century.
b. These
bones were (of which some 100,000 fragments have been recovered) divination
inquiries (petitions).
c. These
inquiries were engraved on animal bone and shell addressed to spirits for
guidance.
1. The
diviner then applied heat to holes bored in the bone and the resultant
heat-cracks were interpreted as being either an "auspicious or
inauspicious" response from the spirits.
2. We see a
society regulated in almost every respect of daily life by divination and
governed by the consideration of good or bad luck.
2. The powers
consulted in divination were the spirits of the deceased kings, the ti,
and the spirits of the ancestors.
a. Deities of
the hills and streams and other nature gods and tutelary spirits were
worshipped.
b. Not only
were the dead asked for guidance in matters of conduct, but their manna (their
inherent power) was invoked in ensuring the fertility of men and women, crops
and beasts.
The Ancient Religion
1. Animism
(the worship of nature deities), fertility rites and cults, and in particular
ancestor worship are a variety of forms that recur in subsequent times.
2. The Shang
Dynasty was replaced by the Chou Dynasty until 1027 B.C. -- the Chou Royal
House ruled as "priest kings" until 771 B.C.
a. This
period is regarded as a golden age by Confucius.
b. Certain of
its documents were cited by him as ancient precedents, and were included in
the Confucian Canon--many elements of the Chou royal religion thus passed
into Confucian orthodoxy.
3. Early
Chinese monarchs were both priests and kings (their sovereignty in being
invested by heaven with their power).
a. In the
Chou belief, the highest deity was the Supreme Ancestor (Shang-ti), a
term synonymous with T'ien (heaven).
b. Heaven
holds the entire universe (the natural world and its inhabitants - the
"known world" of the Chinese) in its hands, foreordains the change of
seasons, orders the cycle of death and renewal, and ensures the fertility of
men and women, crops, and beasts.
c. Heaven
places the responsibility for ordering the universe in its regent upon earth,
the Son of Heaven (T'ien Tzu).
1. This role
the Chous claimed for themselves.
2. The
ordering of the universe was a matter of being ritually acceptable (p'ei)
to heaven, and, through the performance of rituals, sympathetically inducing
the realities of the natural order and its sequence in the universe and among
mankind.
The Role of the King
1. Heaven
showed its displeasure by untimely weather or other supernatural signs such as
thunderbolts, and by a failure of fertility.
2. The
priestly functions of the kings consisted in sacrificing to the dead kings and
to Shang-ti, the most remote and therefore the most powerful of them.
3. He reported
to God on the course of secular events, and engaged in such mimic rites as
ritual plowing and sowing (in the case of queens, a ritual spinning of the silk
cocoons from the mulberry) to ensure fertility and to begin the cycle of life
and renewal of the year.
4. P'ei
(being ritually acceptable to heaven) was the king's license of Sovereignty and
provided the political power that bound his vassals in allegiance to him.
a. The king
was assisted in the proper performance of his duties by priests and intoners.
b. They were
experts in the forms of ritual, and important among their duties, were astronomical
observations that made it possible to fix the calendar.
5. The
semi-deified nature of the kingship:
a. The choice
by heaven of the king as its son, gave the king political hold over his
vassals who were in their turn invested with "charges" by him.
b. Under the
king's charge (wang ming), the king's feudal under lords held local
sovereignty.
c. Under the
lord's charge (kung ming), granted authority to sub-vassals.
o
an entire feudal
pyramid was created that was held together by the will of heaven.
Royal Worship
1. Royal
worship took place in the ancestral temple, the central building in the palace
complex.
a. Facing
south, the palace precincts were approached through the south gate -- it opened
up into the great court.
b. The north
face of the great court was the shrine to the Chou Ancestors.
c. To the
rear, through two further gates, was the center court, on the north side was
the residential palace.
2. Description
of a typical ceremony:
a. The first
day, before dawn the king was prepared by his chief ministers in his
palace.
b. The king
proceeded to the ancestral temple, and the feudal lords (from a military
campaign) appeared at the south gate -- they were then summoned to the great
court where captives were presented.
c. The
captives were sacrificed in the ancestral temple, and the party proceeded to
the center court where an account of the campaign was given.
d. The king
went from the center court to the temple to sacrifice to the royal ancestors.
e. On the following
day, the meat and wine offered in sacrifice were eaten in a feast
given to the assembled vassals.
3. The rituals
employed in such services are preserved in the earliest section of the Book
of Songs, an anthology of early Chinese poetry.
a. These are
hymns of the Chou kings and are also the first literary expression of Chinese religious
feeling.
b. The hymns
consist of invocations and confessions addressed to the royal ancestors, and
recitals to the gods of deeds of valor.
c. Other
pieces celebrate before the gods the presence of vassals at the ceremonies.
1. There are
songs of welcome addressed to the vassals.
2. There are
songs of fealty addressed by the vassals to the king.
With stately calm
and reverent accord, The ministers and attending knights record the virtues of
their founding Lord Our heavenly ministrant, the great King Wen.
O Lord, may
you in your great majesty
Find in
measured act and formal word
Praise not
displeasing from mere mortal men.
Majestic,
never ending
Is the Charge
of Heaven.
Your virtue
descending,
Oh,
illustrious King Wen,
Your servants
on earth.
We have only
to receive your favor.
May it be
preserved by those who come after.
Our offerings
Of oxen,
sheep
We humbly bring.
May from
these spring
Heaven's keep
And the favor
of the king.
May we always
Fear the
wrath of Heaven
So to keep
his favor
And our ways
even.
To bring
peace to the land we must
Follow the
precepts of King Wen, and trust
To his
statutes; from afar he will watch and approve.
His robes of
brightest silk,
His cap
encrusted
With precious
stones,
The wine so
mellow and soft;
He moves
without sound
In reverent
modesty among
The sacred
tripods and the drinking horns;
He moves from
Hall to Threshold with measured pace,
And for the
aged brings at last the gift of grace.
4. The
charges of the Chou kings and ritual hymns provided for Confucius the
"documents of antiquity", ancient authority for his own religious and
political views.
o
Many Chou
religious beliefs became basic religious views for Confucius.
a. The idea
of a supreme being (Shang-ti, God-on-high), and the idea of a kingship being
held at heaven's pleasure (the mandate of heaven) -- and the idea that heaven
withdraws its mandate from the wicked and sanctions the overthrow of a dynasty.
b. The
centrality of royal ancestors led to the centrality of ancestors in subsequent religious
practice.
c. Reverence
for the powerful dead and invoking their manna (a supernatural force or power which
may be concentrated in objects or persons) for the sustenance of the clan
became part of Chinese social mores and filial piety a central Confucian
teaching.
5. Confucius
invested much of the early religious practice with moral sanctions.
a. The Chou Era
was a pre-moral age (as evidenced in human sacrifice).
b. Chou
religious practice was not motivated by a moral view of good and evil.
c. It was
motivated by the ritual manipulation of powers to ensure good luck and to avert
bad luck and to invoke the collective power of the departed dead.
Aristocratic Religion
1. In 771
B.C. the kings of western Chou moved their capital to the east, and with this
change came a decline in royal power and influence.
2. Real power
passed to the princes of city states.
a. Originally
these princes were feudal vassals of the Chou dynasty.
b. These
rulers gradually asserted their independence and increasingly took upon
themselves kingly privileges.
o
Among them were
the priestly functions of the ancient kings.
3. Feudal
princes attached their genealogy to local cult heroes of the past.
a. Hou-chi,
the Prince of Millet, became the putative (commonly regarded as such;
reputed, supposed) ancestor of the Chi Clan, Yu the Great, the hero of the
primeval Flood, was the putative ancestor of Szu.
b. Through
their possession of the local altars and their right to attend to the
divinities of fertility, with access to the manna of their ancestors, the
prince of the city states asserted political control over their subjects.
c. The city-states
maintained archives of which much has survived.
d. The Spring
and Autumn Annals (Ch'un-Ch'iu) of Lu and commentaries provide our
principal source for the religious ideas in this period.
1. They
record matters of dynastic concern-marriages and deaths of the princely house,
treaties with other states, and ominous events (untimely weather, the
appearance of freaks and the like) and observations of eclipses and meteors.
2. These
archives had the ritual purpose of placing on record for the ancestors matters
of dynastic concern.
Shamanism in the South
1. Eastern
Chou sources are concerned with the religion of city state princes and the
aristocratic classes.
o
Very little is
known of the popular religion of this period.
2. From the
city-state of Ch'u which by the 4th Century B.C. dominated the upper
Yangtze Valley (and included what are now Anchwei, Honan, Hunan, Hupeh, and
Szechuan.
a. A
collection of shaman songs has survived as part of the Elegies of Ch'u.
o
These are the Nine
Songs.
b. The gods
invoked are from the local cults of areas in Ch'u, mountain and river goddesses
and local heroes.
c. The shamans,
either men or women, ritually washed, perfumed and decked out in gorgeous
dresses, sing and dance accompanied by music in courtship ritual, inviting the
gods to descend in erotic intercourse, and then lament the sadness at their
departure.
With a faint
flush I start to come out of the east,
Shining down
on my threshold, Fu-sang.
As I urge my
horses slowly forward,
The night sky
brightens, and day has come.
I ride a
dragon car and chariot on the thunder,
With
cloud-banners fluttering upon the wind.
I heave a
long sigh as I start the ascent,
Reluctant to
leave, and looking back longingly;
For the
beauty and the music are so enchanting
The beholder,
delighted, forgets that he must go.
Tighten the
zither's strings and smite them in unison!
Strike the
bells until the bell-stand rocks!
Let the
flutes sound! Blow the pan-pipes!
See, the
priestesses, how skilled and lovely!
Whirling and dipping
like birds in flight!
Unfolding the
words in time to the dancing,
Pitch and
beat all in perfect accord!
The spirits, descending,
darken the sun.
In my
cloud-coat and my skirt of the rainbow,
Grasping my
bow I soar high up in the sky;
I aim my long
arrow and shoot the Wolf of Heaven;
I seize the
Dipper to ladle cinnamon wine.
Then holding
my reins I plunge down to my setting,
On my gloomy
night journey back to the east.
3. The
Shamanistic Cult which was not confined just to the South but widespread as the
popular religion throughout the city-states.
4. Shamans
played the role of exorcists, prophets, fortune tellers and interpreters of
dreams.
o
They were also
medicine-men, the healers of diseases.
5. References
to them in the literature of the period suggest that they were everywhere.
a. New
colonization measures: in the 1st Century B.C. state that the new colonists
are to be provided with "doctors and shamans, to tend them in sickness and
to continue their sacrifices."
o
The suggestion is
that the shaman was a customary member of village society.
b. The phrase
"shaman family" hints that the calling of the Shaman was hereditary.
6. With the
rise of Confucianism, a growing prejudice against Shamanism emerges in China.
The Age of the Philosophers
1. The roots of
both religious Confucianism and Taoism were laid during the Age of Philosophy.
a. From the 6th
to 3rd Centuries B.C. in the city states of the north-central plain, China
enjoyed the flowering and proliferation of philosophy.
b. Philosophers
traveled from one court to another seeking a prince who would "put their
way into practice".
c. The father
of Chinese history, Szu-ma Ch'ien (145-90 B.C.) described them as the
"Hundred Schools". -- gradually emerged the schools of Confucianism
and Taoism.
2. Power
within the city states passed from princes to oligarchs, groups of powerful
nobles.
a. From a
religious point of view, this raised the problem of the sanction of heaven for
political power, and the rights of religious authority.
b. Social and
Economic Change in China: 7th Century B.C.
1. Iron was
introduced and coins were minted--merchants organized and negotiated terms of
status and operation with princes.
2. An
agrarian economy of self-sufficient communities was transformed into specialized
production--leading to disruption in social equilibrium and political unrest.
c. Social
mobility for the aristocracy also increased.
1. Some aristocrats
become mercenaries and attached themselves as clients to patrons.
2. Others
became merchants and engaged in interstate commerce (Shang is the word
for commerce).
3. Others
hired themselves out as tutors to the sons of the nobility or opened schools.
They called
themselves the Ju (the gentle or the yielding).
3. By the
4th Century B.C., the philosopher was a familiar figure at court with
rulers staging debates where rival theories were argued and aired.
4. The Philosophical
Age was ushered in during a period of change and innovation.
a. The
problem was thought to be political: how to restore order and equilibrium to
the city states.
b. The
schools of the Philosophical Age which concerns the study of religion are
Confucius and his successors.
Confucius
1.
Confucianism is the earliest of the hundred Schools, and its founder,
Confucius, was China's first philosopher.
2. He was
born in 551 B.C. in the city state of Lu, and died in 579 B.C.
a. His name
is a Latin form of the Chinese K'ung Fu-tzu (Master Kung).
b. As tutor
to the sons of the city-state aristocracy, he taught.
1. The arts
of city-state life.
2. The study
of the Book of Documents, a collection of archives concerned with
Western Chou.
3. The Book
of Songs that contained the ritual hymns of the early Chou kings.
3. Confucius
instilled in his pupils the system of the Chou royal religion.
4. It was the
restoration of the values and practices of this age that Confucius saw as the
political answer to the problems of the city states.
a. Confucius
appealed to the texts of the Book of Songs and the Book of Documents
as his authority. -- his method was scriptural.
b. As a
political theorist his approach was conservative--his program was one of the
restoration of an earlier tradition.
An Ethical and Moral System
1. By
interpreting the archaic language of these documents (as scripture) into a
contemporary sense -- he evolved an ethical and moral system.
o
This was done from
writings that are auguristic dominated by a belief in magic.
2. Te, the
magical force, the manna of antiquity became virtue in an ethical moral sense.
a. The power
that manna exerts became the force of example which converts the
"good" into an irresistible force.
b. The Prince
of the ancient texts, chun-tzu, becomes for Confucius what a gentleman should
ideally be.
c. Jen, the
attributes of members of the tribe in good standing, becomes for Confucius an
almost transcendental quality of goodness -- attained only by the sages of
antiquity.
3. Society
was transformed from a concern with good and bad luck to a concern with right
and wrong.
The Analects
1. The Analects
(Lun-yu) are twenty books containing the teaching of Confucius.
a. Each book
consists of a collection of sentences or paragraph sayings of the master
recorded by his pupils.
b. The Analects
thus form part of the Confucian sacred canon.
2. The Prince
should follow the "Way of the Former Kings"--in the Confucian view,
they ruled and behaved as heaven decreed.
a. They ruled
because they were Jen, inherent goodness.
ie.
unselfishness, deference toward others, courtesy, and loyalty to family.
b. Jen: (to
Confucius) -- was a mystical entity -the essential quality of sainthood.
Virtue
1. Te
(virtue) is the power by which sainthood is achieved.
a. Virtue,
not as opposed to vice, but rather as the inherent virtue -- the power
of efficacy of something.
b. It
transcends physical force and coercion -- the good person exercises virtue and
others turn to the good.
c. The man
who seeks to be jen by cultivating his te attains the princely ideal.
2. Chun-tzu
(lit. a prince) is the princely ideal which becomes in Confucian teaching the
embodiment of the ideals of human conduct.
a. The
chun-tzu is governed in all things (his conduct) by li (ritual).
b. Li - the
rites of the early religion - become an entire code for gentlemanly
conduct, so that to moral conduct is added an appropriate outward manifestation.
3.
Confucius's emphasis was with personal conduct and personal duty.
a. Service to
god becomes meaningless if service to others is neglected.
b. Core of
his teaching: is the ethical and moral problems of man's relationship to
his fellow man.
Filial Piety
1. Hsiao
(filial piety) originally meant piety to dead parents and ancestors, and duties
owed to them in the performance of sacrifices.
2. To
Confucius, hsiao meant serving living parents - resulting in :
Five
Relationships of Confucian Teaching:
a. The prince
and subject.
b. Father and
son.
c. Older and
younger brother.
d. Husband
and Wife.
e. Friend
with Friend.
3. Filial
piety embraces those attitudes of respect for the senior and a reciprocal
attitude of love and affection on the senior's part to the junior.
o
After death -- it
involves religious obligations in ceremonial worship.
Mencius
1. Tradition:
after the death of Confucius in 479 B.C., his disciples scattered (we are told
there were 70) from whom several schools of Confucianism arose.
o
The most important
figures were Mencius (an idealist) and Hsun Tzu (a realist).
2. Born a
century after the death of Confucius -- his Chinese name was Meng K'o but was
called Meng Tzu (Master Meng). (390-305 B.C.)
3. A member
of the Aristocratic class seeking office to put his "Way into
practice".
o
After serving a
brief term as minister in the state of Ch'i, he retired to private life
teaching his way to his dedicated pupils.
4. The Works
of Mencius: the surviving text of his works gathered by his students.
a. Arranged
in short sentence - or paragraph sayings--the paragraphs are extended and the
treatment is much fuller than that of Confucius.
b. The Works
of Mencius like the Analects form part of the Confucian Sacred Canon.
c. Purpose:
to transmit the wisdom of the ancients without creating anything new.
5. Attitude
Toward History
a. For
Confucius, "the way of the former kings" was the early Chou emperors
(11th and 10th Centuries). -- the earlier Shang and Hsia Dynasties were barely
mentioned.
b. Yao,
Shun and Yu the Great: heroes of this earlier period become more important
to Mencius.
1. The era of
Yao and Shun was a period of primordial perfection.
2. Mencius's
ideas toward sainthood had become more secular -- any man could become Yao or
Shun.
c. Jen, almost
unattainable under Confucius, is now associated with yi (originally meaning
"immortal right") which becomes justice for Mencius.
o
Both social and
economic justice -- humanity and justice become the central points of Mencian
teaching.
6. Humanity
and Justice
a. Mencius
introduces a concern for the common people, the min in contrast to jen (the
aristocracy).
b. Heaven is
the guardian of the common people and heaven shows its displeasure when they
suffer.
1. Emphasis
on the well being of the common people as the basis of the ruler's virtue is a
major contribution of the Mencian Way.
2. For the
prince who has these qualities, the goals of true kingship are realized.
c. Jen
engenders "power" (te), a prestige and moral persuasiveness which is
the opposite of pa (physical force and coercion).
d. Wang (true
kingship) and pa (rule by force) are thus opposed -- To rule by superior virtue
rather than by force becomes an influential element in Confucian political
thinking.
7. Human
Beings and Their Fate
a. Hsing
(human nature) was to Mencius innately good which was attested by the
universality of a sense of kingship and of right and wrong.
o
Importance: this is the unique difference between humans and
other living creatures.
b. Hsing can
be mutilated and atrophy and disappear if not nurtured properly.
c. Nurturing
the hsing consists in guarding the mind (ts'un hsin), for the mind is the
center of humanity and justice.
1. It is the
hsing (nature) and hsin (mind) that determine what we are.
2. Ming (fate)
is ordained by heaven and determines our lot in life.
3. The
realization of innate goodness can only come from self-cultivation and
self-knowledge.
Hsun Tzu
1. ca.
321-238 B.C.: the third member in the trinity of founding fathers of
Confucianism.
a. Lived
toward the end of the Age of Philosophy -- enabling him to defend
Confucianism in the full knowledge of competing philosophies.
b. Hsun Tzu
presented Confucianism in a way that made his presentation the most complete
and well ordered philosophy of its age.
2. He attacks
Mencius for his idealistic tendencies in appealing to antiquity of the
legendary mythic Yao and Shun.
a. Like
Confucius -- Hsun Tzu saw antiquity as the period of the Chou Kings.
b. Importance:
This placed authority on the firm ground of historical documentation rather
than on myth and legend.
3. To Hsun
Tzu -- Heaven became impersonal, it is nature and the natural process.
4. Hsun Tzu -
viewed human nature as basically evil.
a. He held
the belief that through education and training one can become good.
b. Education
and training from the study of classical texts can be examples of how one can
attain moral understanding and insight when the mind is properly employed.
c. Hsun
Tzu insisted that the end process of education and the proper function of
the educated man was to govern.
5. The Human
Mind: the Center of the Universe.
a. Since
moral order and human perfection begins in the mind, the human mind becomes the
center of the universe.
1. This
attitude led Hsun Tzu to a humanistic, rationalistic view of religion.
2. Certain
religious practices he condemned as superstition. ie. praying for rain,
exorcising sickness, and reading person's fortune in the face.
3. Other
forms of divination were allowed provided that interpretations were made in the
light of human reason.
4. He denied
the existence of harmful spirits and ghosts -- to Hsun Tzu the spirits of the
ancestors and the powers of nature became a manifestation of moral excellence.
b. The
Concept of Li (ritual - the rites of the earlier religion).
1. For
Confucius it became a code of human conduct.
2. Hsun Tzu -
provided a new and rational justification for li as it plays a part in one's
life.
ie. observing
the appropriate jesters, wearing the proper dress, maintaining the proper
manner (demeanor).
3. Purpose:
to restrain the desires and rectify the evil that was innate in man.
c. The views
of Mencius eventually became orthodox in Confucianism diminishing the influence
of Hsuan Tzu.
o
Importance: his emphasis on the virtues of education, and the
duty of the scholar to govern became a central view of Confucianism.
Utilitarians and Hedonists
1. Mencius
complained that the world had succumbed to the teachings of Yang Chu and Mo
Tzu.
o
Rival
Philosophies: the utilitarians of Mo Zu and the hedonists of Yang Chu.
2. Mo Tzu
(ca. 479-381 B.C.)
a. Mohism: exercised
a great deal of influence during the Age of Philosophers.
b. Mo Tzu had
little use for authority or antiquity--believing that problems of society could
only be attacked by rejecting authority and establishing a new society based on
reason.
3. Existence
of the Divine (a deity):
a. Deity has
a purpose, and a will which are conceived in love and compassion.
b. Order is
the ultimate manifestation of the divine compassion -- the secret of the
successful prince lies in inquiring into the causes of disorder (for only then
can he cure evil).
c. All are
equal in the eyes of Heaven, and heaven manifests its love upon all regardless
of person.
o
therefore it
follows that people should love one another without discrimination and with
equity.
4. Mencius
thought the ideal that people should love each other equally without regard to
priorities of affection to family and prince as subversive of life itself.
5. Mo Tzu
believed that there should be a consensus of the common good and the consensus
would be for universal love.
6. The
consensus of the common good -- led Mo Tzu to his two political axioms.
a. The Common
Weal (prosperity or happiness; wealth or riches; body politic or state).
Mohist
Meaning: the greatest benefit to the greatest number.
b. The Common
Accord: the theory that the policy producing the greatest benefit must be
agreed to by all.
c. It
followed that only the most able, without regard to social status, were fit
servants of the commonwealth and to them should go its highest honors and
rewards.
7. The
highest moral act for the individual was in serving and making sacrifices for
others.
a. Mohists
established an ascetic monastic order similar to that of the Christian West.
b. They saw war
as the very antithesis of universal love--thus they opposed aggression of any
kind.
c. The Mohist
argued that war itself was evil--yet, this did not stop them from arguing that
the greatest good might be in fighting against aggression.
8. Yang Chu,
the Epicurean (the second of Mencius's rivals) argued that the city state was
beyond recovery (redemption).
a. People's
concern should be for themselves avoiding involvement with their fellows.
b. The
emphasis was on individualism thinking it more important to save a single life.
Philosophical Taoism
1.
Confucianism and Mohism were "activist" philosophies concerned with
the governments of the city states and social morality.
2.
Philosophical activities of a quite different kind were taking place in the
countryside (the outside society).
ie. the
Quietists
a. They
sought self-awareness and self-cultivation in the transcendental through yogic
practices.
b. The
unchanging Oneness underlying a world of change, which at the same time gave
both "impetus and motion" to life.
o
This they called
tao.
3. All
philosophers in ancient China spoke of their tao (their way)- the
Quietists spoke of Tao-ness itself.
a. From their
speculation emerged the religion of Taoism--an aspect of Chinese religious life
we might think of as mystical.
b. Its origin
is closer to the popular religion of antiquity -- for it sought access to
knowledge through a trance-state of the shaman rather than in the documents of
antiquity.
4. The Core
of the Taoist Scriptures
a. The Chuang
Tzu and the Lieh Tzu are Taoist texts that have survived from the
Age of Philosophers.
b. The Tao
Te Ching appeared toward the end of this period -- all three form the core
(and are the earliest) of the Taoist Canon.
c. Taoist
Tradition: the Tao Te Ching is attributed to Lao Tzu who is doubted as a
historical figure as well as Lieh Tzu.
1. Chuang Tzu
(ca. 369-286 B.C.) is a historical figure who was a contemporary of Mencius.
2. However,
both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu are considered to be the putative founders and
patriarchs of religious Taoism.
d. In their
different aspects, the Chuang Tzu, the Lieh Tzu, and Tao Te
Ching represent different branches of Taoist thought.
o
Yet, there are
certain fundamentals that are common to all.
e. Chuang
Tzu in the form of parables and imaginary dialogues describes a form of
knowledge known only to the adept.
1. It, the
"greatest knowledge" (vision of the mystic), is gained in a trance, a
state in which "I lose me".
2. Heaven and
Earth came into being with me together, and all things are one with me.
3. All things
are relative, all opposites blend, all contrasts are harmonized -- the One is
Tao.
o
Tao can do
everything by doing nothing.
4. Te (the
virtue or morality of the Confucians) is, for the Taoist, the tao inherent in
everything.
5. Tao (the
way) and te (its power) are fundamental conceptions of philosophical Taoism.
f. Any human
interference is viewed as damaging.
g. The adept
opposes institutions, moral laws, and government as obstructing the free-play
of tao and the working of te.
h. The best
way to govern is not to govern -- happiness is achieved by letting everything
alone (ie. By allowing tao - free play.)
i. Death is
just an aspect of existence, as life is (the changing of one form of existence
for another).
o
Chuang Tzu says,
"Life and death are one, right and wrong are the same." -- it is this
that frees man from his handicaps.
Other Philosophical Schools
1. The
Cosmologists: in the early part of the 3rd Century B.C. speculation began about
a theory of the universe as an ordered whole and about the laws that govern it.
2. Tsou Yen
and his school (cosmologists) affected the course of philosophical development.
3. Tsou Yen
said there was a cycle of five elements: earth, wood, metal, fire, and water.
a. Each
element in turn conquers its predecessor in recurring cycles -- each governs a
period of history.
b. Each
element, in its rise and decay, governs the natural world, so that both natural
and human events are predictable.
c. Tsou Yen's
followers are known as the Yin-Yang Schools.
4. The Yin
(the dark, the female, the weak). The Yang (the light, the male, the strong).
a. They are
presented as two cosmic principles through whose interaction all phenomena of
the universal are produced.
b. By the incorporation
of yin-yang dualism in the I Ching (Book of Changes), it entered
Confucian Orthodoxy.
c. It also
entered popular religion through Taoism and their symbols became a common part
of Chinese art.
5. The School
of Law
a. Law should
replace morality -- it came from the teachings of the Lord Shang in the state
of Ch'in.
b. Ch'in at
the end of the Age of Philosophers conquered all of China and united it
into a nation state under an emperor.
c. It (the
concept of law) rejected all appeals to tradition, reliance on supernatural
sanctions or guidance.
o
Legalism was
eventually discredited as a philosophy because of the harshness of its
enforcement.
Religion under the Ch'in and Han
Dynasties
1. The Age
of Philosophy ended with the collapse of city states and the establishment
of imperial rule under the Ch'in.
2. China was
united for the first time in a half millennium.
a. Under a totalitarianism
inspired by Legalism, the Ch'in emperors subjugated the people and created a
unified nation state.
b. These rulers
also sought to demonstrate that their power extended to their altars and gods
that the people worshipped.
c. The first
emperor toured his empire, ascending sacred mountains, visiting shrines, and
making appropriate sacrifices to local deities asserting his sovereignty over
not only men but also the gods of the land.
3. To
symbolize both his temporal and religious power, the emperor took the title:
Ch'in Shih Huang-ti.
a. Ch'in
is the name of the ruling house.
b. Shih
signifies the "first" of his line.
c. ti was
the term by which the god-king of antiquity was called.
d. hunag
meaning illustrious suggests that he was the most -illustrious among the Ti.
4. Under the
advice of Legalist ministers, the emperor ordered the burning of books in a
hope of destroying the teachings of the Hundred Schools.
a. The first
emperor consulted both shamans and magicians hoping to gain immortality.
b. This
brought many elements of the popular religion in their original varieties to
court.
5. The Han
Dynasty (202 B.C. to A.D. 220):
a. It
inherited the structure, the institutions and the unity of the Ch'in.
b. It
rejected the harshness of Ch'in laws and Legalism with its intolerance.
c. The Han
Dynasty brought to China a rich period of intellectual and cultural
development.
1. The Chinese
still like to call themselves "men of Han".
2. During
this period Confucianism was established as the state religion.
3. Taoism
also became a popular religion, and toward the end of the Han period --
Buddhism was introduced into China.
The Triumph of Confucianism
1. The Ch'in
came to power as a result of military conquest, and the Han succeeded
the Ch'in through an armed uprising.
a. Both
dynasties were confronted with the problem of religious sanctions that
legitimized kingship in the Chinese mind.
b. Ssu-ma
Ch'ien (father of Chinese history) writing in the reign of Emperor Wu (r.
140-87 B.C.) said that the mandate of heaven requires that a ruler be fit to
perform the feng and shan sacrifices.
2. The search
for the formula of feng and shan, led to an exploration of the extent of
religious belief over the entire empire.
a. It was in
the conflicting advice given to the early Han Emperors on the rites,
ceremonies, and the sacrificial duties of the kingship that led to Confucian
ascendancy.
b. Under
Emperor Hsuan (r. 73-49 B.C.), a council of the empire's Confucian authorities
was summoned and spent three years discussing the interpretation of Confucian
Classics.
c. 51 B.C.:
the emperor ratified their decisions.
o
An official
interpretation of the Confucian Classics which became authoritative in
government.
1.
Confucianism proscribed under the Ch'in and a small local movement at the
beginning of Han--became sate and court orthodoxy.
2.
Proficiency in Confucian Classics became the basis for selection for
state service.
o
Its religious
beliefs and ritual became the official religion of the royal house.
Need For Personal Gods
1. People
still sought relationships with gods and spirits of a personal and individual
kind.
a. There was
also the belief that through meditation one could be provided with personal
intercession with the gods.
b. The
official religion offered no consolation for one's fate after death.
2. It was the
belief that at death, a person's several souls, separate and the body
disintegrates.
a. Shamans,
sorcerers, and magicians claimed to be able to recall the wondering souls of
the dead and reintegrate them into an immortal body.
b. Even with
the strong disapproval of the Confucian elite this attitude persisted.
3. The
Yellow Heaven
a. Toward the
end of the Han Dynasty a group practicing alchemy and healing claimed that the
"blue heaven" would be replaced by the "yellow heaven" as
the presiding power of the universe.
b. Prophesy:
in the year A.D. 184, a new and revolutionary era would usher in a millennium
of universal peace.
1. It was a
period of political unrest--the prophesy became a rallying point for a peasant
revolt.
2. The rebels
wore a yellow-colored kerchief on their heads to associate themselves with the
yellow heaven -- it became known as the Revolt of the Yellow Turbans.
c. The
movement was Taoist led, its ideology was Taoist inspired and sought the
formation of a Taoist State.
4. Taoist
History: Chang Liang who served the first Han emperor became a student of
Taoism and tried to gain immortality in vain.
a. Seven
Generations later, a descendant, Chang Ling wrote a commentary on Taoism, and gathered
a group of disciples reputed to be (ca. 10,000 men).
b. The Taoist
Church was divided into two regional groups.
1. East:
under the direction of Chang Chueh and his two brothers (the Three Chang).
2. West:
under the direction of Changs descended from Chang Ling.
c. During
the Yellow Turban Revolt
1. The
Eastern Church was said to have had the allegiance of eight provinces (2/3 of
the Han Empire).
2. Hierarchical
Organization: divided into 36 provinces.
a. At the
head were the three Chang Brothers - General and Lord of Heaven, General and
Lord of Earth, and General and Lord of Man.
b. Under them
the larger districts were in the charge of a Great Adept, the smaller districts
of a Lesser Adept.
3. A similar
regional organizational structure existed in the Western Church under Chang
Heng and Chang Lu.
o
Religious
hierarchy extended down to the individual community.
5. Rites
and Services
a. Rites and
services were developed for the atonement for sins, and for the expiation of
sickness (thought to be caused by sin).
1. Priests
would recite incantations over water and give it to the penitent to drink -- if
it failed it was attributed to lack of faith.
2. Western
Church: one would pay five pecks of rice as redemption money (sins were
written down and confessions were addressed to Heaven, Earth, or Water).
b. The Taoist
religion at the end of the Han Dynasty was far removed from the School of
Mysticism of the 3rd and 4th Centuries B.C.
c. Taoism
had become a religion of salvation with an organized Church structure offering
a way of salvation.
6. Avoidance
of Death
a. The true
initiate sought to avoid death and to pass to the land of the immortals
directly.
b. At
Creation: the nine vapors were mixed with chaos--the purest forming heaven
and the coarsest forming earth.
c. The Human Body
is made up of the coarser elements having been endowed with life when the primordial
vapor had entered the body at birth.
1. The primordial
vapor joins with the essence and this forms the spirit, the principle of
Life.
2. At death,
vapor and essence separate which must be avoided if immortality is to be
achieved.
o
the body must not
disintegrate.
d. The
Principal Groups of Techniques -- to achieve immortality.
1. Nourishing
the life principle.
2. Nourishing
the spirit.
3. Preserving
the One intact.
e. Consumption
of Cereals was considered to be one of the causes of death (ie. because their
vapors nourish evil spirits in the body).
1. These evil
spirits reside in the brain, heart, and stomach.
2. By diet,
use of drugs, and breathing exercises these spirits could be repressed.
f. By
Breathing one could force the essence to rise to the brain and strengthen the
union of vapor and essence.
g. By
meditation -- one could enter into communication with the good spirits within.
7. The
Taoist Community
a. There were
the greatest of all adepts who by taking the road of Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu
renounced personal immortality for the higher state identified with Tao itself
where no corporal containment was possible.
b. The shih
(teacher) was in charge of the local community of the faithful.
1. Below him
were community officials ranked in three grades:
a. Pious and
rich.
b. The rich.
c. Pious but
poor.
2. They
conducted initiation rites for those who had reached 18, and helped provide for
the poor and sick.
c. Tao-min
(Taoist People) were the ordinary members of the local community.
d. Three
times a year the congregation met to celebrate the three agents: Heaven,
Earth, and Water which could either bring rewards or punishments.
e. There were
also five services a year for the departed faithful.
Neo-Confucianism
1. Remained
both the philosophy and religion of the educated upper class.
2. The study
of the Confucian Classics after its official recognition during the Han Dynasty
continued.
3. Ma Jung and
Cheng Hsuan (2nd Century A.D.) wrote commentaries--starting a tradition of
scholarship to better understand and expound the teachings of Confucius.
4. K'ung
Ying-ta (7th Century A.D.) wrote further commentaries.
a. Purpose:
to establish a unity within the Classical Confucian Canon.
b. Each book
being thought of as a facet of a whole unified teaching.
5. The
Confucian Elite, at court, continued to maintain a position of opposition to
both Taoism and Buddhism.
a. Buddhism
was considered foreign and thus unpatriotic.
b. Beyond its
social ethic, Confucianism did not meet the religious needs of the people which
both Taoism and Buddhism attempted to do.
6. Sung
Dynasty (11th Century A.D.) a movement began under the pressure of Taoism and
Buddhism to evolve explanations of humankind and the Universe.
7. Chu Hsi
(A.D. 1130 - 1200) became the Thomas Aquinas of Confucianism. (Neo
Confucianism)
a. In every
human mind there is the knowing faculty and in everything there is reason.
b. The
incompleteness of our knowledge is due to our insufficiency in investigating
the reason for it.
c. After
sufficient labor and effort, one will come to the point where everything is
known and understood (human and spiritual).
8. With
Confucianism as the basis of the state system of education, Taoism and Buddhism
slowly declined.