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Lecture 4: Religious Daoism

The earliest known example was the Huang-Lao sect that flourished at the beginning of Chinas philosophical dark age induced by Qin
repression and Han Confucian orthodoxy.
Han dynasty (25220 CE) and produced texts of its own full of recipes, techniques, and moral exhortations. As such, it became one of the
major sources of the Daoist religion that emerged in the second century CE.

Early thoughts related with Daoist Religion

1.1

Dao

The dao is the vital force of life perceived at its utmost depth; it works mysteriously and imperceptibly, and yet there is nothing it does not
accomplish. Its symbols are water rather than rock, valleys rather than hills, the female rather than the male.
In the Laozi, for example, we are told that He who knows when to stop is free from danger; therefore he can long endure (chapter 44),
and that one who is a good preserver of his life cannot be harmed, because in him there is no room for death (chapter 50).

1.2

Jing, Qi, Shen

The Zhuanzi sections focus on the cosmological and physiological bases of self-transformation according to the Way, using such concepts
as
1. qi (the psycho-physical substance of all things),
2. jing (life-giving essence), and
3. shen (spirit),
all of which remained central to the Daoist religion in its later development.

1.3

Zhenren (perfected people)

Although in some passages of the Zhuangzi an enlightened perspective leads to acceptance of death, a few others provide poetic visions of
immortals, those who have transcended death by merging with the dao. One of the terms Zhuangzi uses for these individuals is zhenren,
perfected people, a term that later became important in the fully developed Daoist religion that took shape after the second century CE.
These indications of immortality in the earliest Daoist texts provided the chief point of contact between the Classical tradition and those who
sought immortality by more direct means, including later practitioners of Daoist religion.

1.4

Xian Immortality

By the fourth century BCE there is evidence of an active quest for immortality through a variety of means, including exercises imitating the
movements of long-lived animals, diets enforcing abstinence from grains, the use of food vessels inscribed with characters indicating
longevity, the ingestion of herbs and chemicals, and petitions for the aid of immortals residing in mountains or distant paradises.
It was in this context that Chinese alchemy began. The alchemical quest became the most dramatic form of the quest to transcend death,
growing in popularity during the Qin (221206 BCE) and Western Han (206 BCE9 CE) dynasties.
The goal of all these practices was to return the body to its original state of purity and power with its yin and yang forces vital and in proper
balance. The fact that some of the compounds used were poisonous did not deter the experimenters; those who died were believed by
devotees to have transferred themselves to another plane of existence, that of the immortals (xian).
All this effort and expense were considered necessary because in ancient China the person was understood to be a psycho-physical whole,
composed throughout of one vital substance, qi, in different modes and densities. Corresponding to the yin and yang phases of qi there
were thought to be two souls, the po and hun, respectively.
The po, associated with the gross physical body, would ideally remain with the body after death, or would descend to a murky underworld,
the Yellow Springs. The hun, associated with the more intelligent and spiritual aspect of the person, would rise up to heaven and would
retain its integrity only as long as it was ritually acknowledged and nourished through ancestor worship.

1.5

The Queen Mother of the West on the Mountain Kunlun

From such sources there grew a widespread popular belief in the existence of xian, Transcendents or Immortals, winged beings who
could bypass death, travel vast distances to inhabit remote paradises, or confer blessings on deserving mortals. One of the most powerful of
these was the Queen Mother of the West, who was held to reside on the mythical cosmic mountain Kunlun. In the opening years of the
common era, a panic spread through the Shandong peninsula when farmers left their fields and traveled west to greet what they said was
the imminent arrival of this deity. The Queen Mother would eventually find a place in the Daoist pantheon. From around the same time we
have records of others sacrificing to the deified Laozi, regarding him as a salvific, cosmic deity in the fashion of the archaic deity Taiyi.
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1.6

The dead return to injure the living

Another aspect of Han belief that was adapted into Daoism was the idea that documents addressed to the bureaucracy of the otherworld
should be interred with the dead to facilitate the transfer from one realm to the other and to ensure that the dead did not return to injure the
living. Archeologically recovered documents, addressed to the Yellow, or Heavenly, Thearch and his officers attest to this belief.

1.7

The heaven forecasts its will through signs

Perhaps the most important ingredient, however, was the constellation of ideas surrounding Han imperial religion. These include the belief
that heaven responds directly to human actions, rewarding good and evil, and that heaven forecasts its will through signs and portents. The
Han court invested a good deal of administrative energy in collecting and analyzing such portents. This led to the composition of apocryphal
addenda (chenwei ) to the imperially-sanctioned Confucian classics that detailed the systems underlying celestial omens and
explained how to interpret them. According to these texts, heaven regularly intervened in human history by sending its envoys in human
form. Normally, these divinely engendered beings were seen to be the founders of new dynasties. But cultural heroes, such as Confucius,
were also born in this fashion.

The Daoist religion began with the founding of the Way of the Celestial Masters (Tianshi dao) in the
second century CE.
Daoism, encyclopedia of religion, second edition. Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.
From later Warring States times, shadowy fangshi or masters of prescriptions sought patronage with various rulers, promulgating
esoteric techniques passed from master to disciple. These included knowledge of paradises beyond the seas, alchemical, magical, and
medical techniques, and the ability to contact spirits.

1.1

Yellow Turbans

Yellow Turbans is a rebel group mentioned by court historians and was the organization to which later Daoists traced the beginnings of
their dispensation, the Celestial Masters.
Centered in the eastern reaches of the Han empire, the Yellow Turban rebellion, led by a man named Zhang Jue, was a well-planned
insurrection organized around a millennial religious ideology. Zhang called his movement the Way of Great Peace and, under the slogan
that the Yellow Heaven is about to rise, sought to position himself and his followers as the vanguard of a new and perfect society.
The Yellow Turbans converted people to their cause through healing practices, including incantation, doses of water infused with the ashes
of talismans, and confession of sins.
The Scripture of Great Peace relates confession to the idea that political and cosmic disease is caused by humans and must be cured on
the individual level. Sin, in this text, is the failure to act in accord with ones social role, thereby blocking the circulation of the Daos energies.
Those who should labor with their bodies fail to do so, but live in idleness; those who possess wealth keep it for their own enjoyment rather
than allowing it to circulate; and those who should teach virtue only accumulate it for their personal benefit. These and other blockages to
the circulation of goods and life forces lead, by this account, to illness and death.
Zhang Jue organized his followers into thirty-six administrative regions. The new age of the Yellow Heaven was to dawn in the year 184, the
beginning of a new sexagesimal cycle by the Chinese calendar. Despite well-laid plans, news of Zhang Jues uprising reached the court and
the Yellow Turbans were defeated within the year.

1.2

The Celestial Master community

By the end of the second century, Zhangs grandson, Zhang Lu, then head of the community, took sanctuary in the Hanzhong Valley, just
north of the Sichuan basin and over 200 kilometers southwest of the Han capital of Changan (modern Xian). In 215 CE, Zhang Lu
surrendered to Cao Cao, the Han general whose son was to inaugurate the Wei dynasty (220265) of the Three Kingdoms period.
As a result of this act of fealty, a large portion of the Celestial Master community was relocated from Hanzhong to areas farther north. While
some followers doubtless remained from the early period in Sichuan, the spread of Daoism throughout China as a whole begins with this
diaspora of the original Celestial Master community.

New Daoism: the bridge between Chinese and Buddhist philosophies

Neo-Daoism is a new term for the thought which in the third and fourth centuries C.E. was known as the Xuan Xue, or literally, "dark
learning." The word Xuan, meaning dark, abstruse, or mysterious, occurs in the first chapter of the Laozi, for example, in which the Dao is
described as "Xuan of the Xuan," i.e., "mystery of mysteries." Hence the term Xuan Xue indicates that this school is a continuation of
Taoism.
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The Han historians who coined the term Daoism centuries later viewed the philosophers as founders of their religion, Huang-Lao, which
flourished after classical philosophy was extinguished by Qin despotism (220 BCE). The main basis for the classification was thus:
1.
2.

their philosophical interest in the concept of dao (way or normative guide); and
relatively skeptical, anarchic, antisocial attitudes which contrasted with Confucianism.

Thinkers (upper class from influential family) of the Wei-Jin period (220420), however, went beyond phenomena to find reality behind
space and time. They were interested in what is profound and abstruse (xuan), and consequently their school is called Xuanxue (profound
studies) or the Metaphysical school. They developed their doctrines in their commentaries on the Laozi, the Zhuangzi, and the Book of
Changes, the three profound studies.
To Wang Bi (226249), the most brilliant Neo-Daoist, ultimate reality is original nonbeing (benwu). It is not nothingness but the pure being,
original substance, which transcends all distinctions and descriptions. It is whole and strong. And it is always correct because it is in accord
with principle (li), the universal rational principle that unites all particular concepts and events.
Guo Xiang (died 312), another famous Neo-Daoist, developed his theory in his comments on Zhuangzis doctrine of self-transformation. To
Guo Xiang, things transform themselves according to principle, but each and every thing has its own principle. Everything is therefore selfsufficient, and there is no need for an overall original reality to combine or govern them.
Whereas Wang Bi emphasized nonbeing, the one, and transcendence, Guo Xiang emphasized being, the many, and immanence.
As a movement Neo-Daoism did not last long, but its effect on later philosophy was great. It raised the Daoist concepts of being and
nonbeing to a higher level and thereby formed the bridge between Chinese and Buddhist philosophies.

1.1

A family of power and influence ()

After Qin unified China, he also removed the system of family-inherited aristocrat system. Only emperor can be handled down generation to
generation. Minister officials can be pointed by him only.
However in Han dysentery, the minister officials can be inherited. Ordinary people have not rights to offer sacrifices to gods or ancestors.

)
A family of power and influence consists of descendants of minister officials. They protect and help each other to maintain the caste
system.
Landlord = warlord + the influential family
Emperor was also warlord, they unite the influential family to rule the country.
This caster system was ended after Tang dynasty.
End of East Han dynasty, Confucian morality became dogma and lost its vitality. Society request to reform.
In the East Jing dynasty (disunity), the non-Han ruled the northern part of China, these influential families moved to southern.

1.2

Xuan Xue ( mysterious learning or dark learning)

Xuan Xue reflects the thoughts of the upper class of influential families.
By the end of Han dynasty, with open of the West highway, Buddhism was introduced to China, but the Buddhist basic teaching Buddhist
Thought-- have not introduced yet.
Buddhist Thought depended on the Xuan Xue to introduce to Chinese literati.
At that time, Xuan Xue and Buddhism was mixed, famous literati and renowned monks always get together.
There are two schools in Xuan Xue: existence and non-existence respect.
1.2.1
Existence
Existence > universe > earth > biology > plants > trees > papaya tree
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Existence (you) can not be defined. Its contents can not be defined. Thus it is non-existence (wu).
"" ""," """():"
, " ""

403
""""
404

1.3

Methods of Xuan Xue

They like debate.

1.3.1
Pure Talk
When they meet they always debate on the abstract things, thus they are called Pure Talk, or Mysterious Talk.
Those upper class people had nothing to do. They just find something to make them happy. But they were also lazy and did not write
anything.
" "
411
People in Han dynasty: concrete thinking,
People in Wei-Jing: abstract thinking
Xuan Xue with abstracting thinking is a revolution for the Chinese.
Xuan Xue brought something new to the Chinese. Xuan Xue was atractive to the upper class Chinese. The arising of Xuan Xue and antiConfucianism create a conditions and good environment for the development of Buddhism in China.
2001

1.4

Buddhist and Daosim

Yu-lan Fung. History of Chinese Philosophy, Volume 2: The Period of Classical Learning from the Second Century B.C. to the Twentieth
Century A.D. Princeton University Press, 1983.
The Period of Disunity (221-589) was marked by the appearance of a major new ingredient in Chinese thought: Buddhism. This religion and
philosophy, which first entered China (via Central Asia) as early as the first century CE, continued to acquire influence there during the
remainder of the Han dynasty.
It was only during the centuries of political turmoil following the collapses of the Han, however, that Buddhism really became a major force in
China, and that the Chinese began to acquire a systematic understanding of its ideas. Its spread was helped by a steady flow into China of
non-Chinese Buddhist missionaries from India and from the other Buddhist countries of Central and Southeast Asia, coupled with a
counterflow of Chinese pilgrims toward India, where they studied and collected the sacred Buddhist texts. Through the combined efforts of
thee men and an enormous body of literature was gradually translated from Sanskrit into Chinese, and with it thousands of new terms were
assimilated into the Chinese language. The resulting Chinese version of the Buddhist Canon is greater than that in any other language, and
preserves many texts of which the Sanskrit originals have been lost. Thus beginning in the fourth and fifth centuries, and continuing until the
early part of the Sung dynasty (roughly around the year 1000), Buddhism absorbed the best energies of most philosophically minded
Chinese, which the native philosophies suffered comparative eclipse.
The early stages of the Period of Disunity, witnessed a major revival of Daosim. It is characteristic of the thought of this time that many NeoDaoists failed to realize that there was any fundamental difference between Laozi and Zhuangzi on the one hand and Buddhism on the
other. This fact appears, for example, in the following statement by Liu Ch'iu (438-495):
From the K'un-lun mountains eastward the term 'Great Oneness' is used. From Kashmir westward the term sambodhi is used. Whether one
looks longingly toward 'non-being' (wu) or cultivates 'emptiness' (k'ung), the principle involved is the same.
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Fan Yeh (399-445) similarly writes of Buddhism in his How Han Shu (History of the Later Han Dynasty):
If we examine closely its teachings about purifying the mind and gaining release from the ties (of life), and its emphasis upon casting aside
both 'emptiness' and 'being,' (we see that) it belongs to the same current as the Daoist writing.
Thus it was common to regard Daoist and Buddhist scholars as belonging to a single intellectual trend. (p 239-243)

Questions:
Explain Xuan Xue and its relation with Buddhism.

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