CONFUCIANISM AND TAOISM
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.
* Isolated by geography, at the extreme eastern end of the
ancient Euro-Asian world, hemmed in by mountains and des-
erts, lying across no trade routes, China developed by it-
self.
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
of barbarity.
* Like the Romans, the Chinese have long understood the arts
of large-sclae administration (beginning with a civil ser-
vice 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 thou-
sand 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 intro-
duction 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 tradi-
tion).
3. Confucianism and Taoism, in the Chinese mind, are chiao (teach-
ings) 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 classi-
cal Corpus of China.
1. For nearly 2,000 years the Confucian Canon was
the basis of curriculumn in Chinese education.
2. Familiarity with the canon was one of the princi-
ple requirements of the civil service examina-
tions.
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 commitement.
a. With the introduction of Buddhism at the beginning of the
Christian Era, the notion arose of religion as an organiz-
ed institution.
b. In response to Buddhism, Taosim evolved a priestly order
and a hieracrchy, temples and monastaries and a sacred
canon.
c. The imperial household and the Chinese ruling establish-
ment were Confucian, and Confucianism became the philoso-
phy of the administrative classes.
d. Both Confucianism and Taoism were, in origin, philosophi-
cal systems which were devoid of any cult elements.
* religious aspects grew out of it and then became
more insitutionalized.
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 inter-
preted as being either an "auspicious or inauspi-
cious" 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 fertiliity 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 pre-
cedents, 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 sov-
ereignty in being invested by heaven with their power).
a. In the Chou belief, the highest deity was the Supreme
Ancester (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 responsiblity 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 induc-
ing 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 super-
natural 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 ploughing 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
underlords held local sovereignty.
c. Under the lord's charge (kung ming), granted authority to
sub-vassals.
* 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 precints 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 ancentral 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 sacri-
fice were eaten in a feast given to the assembled vassals.
3. The rituals employed in such services are preserved in the earli-
est 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 relgious 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 sately calm and reverent accord,
The ministers and attending kinghts
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.
* 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 religous practice.
c. Reverence for the powerful dead and invoking their mana
(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.
* Among them were the priestly functions of the ancient
kings.
3. Feudal princes attached their geneology 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 acess
to the mana 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 relig-
ious 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.
* 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. dominat-
ed the upper Yangtze Valley (and included what are now Anchwei,
Honan, Hunan, Hupeh, and Szechuan.
a. A collection of shaman songs has survied as part of the
Elegies of Ch'u.
* 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, per-
fumed and decked out in gorgeous dresses, sing and dance
accompanied by music in courtship ritual, inviting the
gods to descend in erotic intercouse, 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,
Reclunctant 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.
* 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."
* 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 Shaman-
ism 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 aristoacrats 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 familar figure at
court with rulers staging debates where rival theories were argu-
ed 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 aristocray, 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 re-
ligion.
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.
* This was done from writings that are auguristic dominated by a
belief in magic.
2. Te, the magical force, the mana of antiquity became virtue in an
ethical moral sense.
a. The power that mana exerts became the force of example
which converts the "good" into an irresistable 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 stand-
ing, becomes for Confucius an almost transcendental quali-
ty 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 para-
graph 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 sacri-
fices.
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.
* 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.
* 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".
* 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 mention-
ed.
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 primodial
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 associat-
ed with yi (originally meaning "immortal right") which
becomes justice for Mencius.
* 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 contri-
bution 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 persua-
siveness 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.
* 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 de-
termine 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 tendancies 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 pratices he codemned as super-
stition. ie. praying for rain, exorcising sick-
ness, 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 re-
ligion).
1. For Confucius it became a code of human conduct.
2. Hsun Tzu - provided a new and rational justifica-
tion for li as it plays a part in one's life.
ie. observing the appropriate jestures, 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 Confu-
cianism diminishing the influence of Hsuan Tzu.
* 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.
* Rival Philosophies: the utilitarians of Mo Zu and the hedonists
of Yang Chu.
2. Mo Tzu (ca. 479-381 B.C.)
a. Mohism: excercized 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 com-
passion ------------ 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.
* 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 rich-
es; body politic or state)
Mohist Meaning: the greatest benefit to the greatest num-
ber.
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 in-
volvement with their fellows.
b. The emphasis was on individualism thinking it more impor-
tant 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
transcendatal through yogic practices.
b. The unchanging Oneness underlying a world of change, which
at the same time gave both "impetus and motion" to life.
* 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 earli-
est) 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 consider-
ed 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.
* 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.
* 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 insitutions, 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).
* 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. specu-
lation 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 predict-
able.
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 dualsim 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.
* Legalism was eventually discredited as a philosophy be-
cause 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 millenium.
a. Under a tolatitarianism 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 wor-
shipped.
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 illustrous 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 intel-
lectual 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 religi-
ous 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.
* 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.
* 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, sepa-
rate 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 millenium 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 in-
spired and sought the formation of a Taoist State.
4. Taoist History: Chang Liang who served the first Han emperor be-
came 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 gatherred 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 alle-
giance of eight provinces (2/3 of the Han Empire).
2. Hierarchial Organization: divided into 36 pro-
vinces.
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 exist-
ed in the Western Church under Chang Heng and
Chang Lu.
* Religious hierarchy extended down to the indivi-
dual 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 pentitent 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 organiz-
ed 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 primodial vapor had enter-
ed the body at birth.
1. The primodial 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.
* 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 excercises
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 commu-
nication 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 immor-
tality 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 intitiation 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 ex-
pound 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 Confu-
cian 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
religous 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 human-
kind and the Universe.
7. Chu Hsi (A.D. 1130 - 1200) became the Thomas Aquinas of Confucian-
ism. (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 insuffi-
ciency 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.
................
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