So today we are moving into new territory— moving on to the second part of the Early Chinese Religion set published by Brill. It's called Part II: The Period of Division, that's 220—fall of the Han— to 589—reunification of China by the Sui dynasty. This one is volumes edited by myself and by Lü Pengzhi, specialist of Daoism from Sichuan. So, the chapter that we're going to be looking at together in this session is in fact written by me, it's the introduction to this volume and it's called "The Three Teachings and Shamanism." Because as we've discovered, even though there was this massive elite attack on shamanism or spirit mediumism, it didn't disappear—they didn't disappear. And fortunately for us, as we were proceeding to produce these volumes, Fu-shih Lin, the world's leading authority on wu, the shamans or spirit mediums of ancient China, in fact did his Princeton thesis on wu, precisely in this Period of Division. And so we asked him to come and participate in this conference as well, and the result is that we can talk not just about the "three teachings" which are recognized by the state but also about this popular religion that continues, as we will see, to influence the state even at the highest level. So that's why from the very beginning we've said that any approach to Chinese religion —religious and cultural history and political history— that does not take into account that there are not three teachings but four is a totally inadequate representation of Chinese cultural, social, political, and economic history: totally inaccurate! So, we'll start with the "three teachings" and we'll start with the central one of all —especially when we're talking about the state—Confucianism. What is its ongoing presence in this period? It's generally considered to be a period where Confucianism is not so central. Well, that's true and not so true. Because on the one hand, we saw that the Five Classics—the wujing 五經— were carved in stone at the very end of the Han dynasty, 175 AD. And those Five Classics continue to be the focus of learning and teaching in the whole Period of Division. And so commentaries continue to be produced and the state continues to support these Five Classics as somehow the expression of a state-sponsored orthodoxy. One of the key concepts of Confucianism, that of xiao 孝, of "filial piety," which already in the Han dynasty—the Latter Han dynasty— becomes central to the definition of what makes a good person, who can therefore hold office. Okay? So, xiao, filial piety, continues to be promoted by the elite and by the state. Then there is the imperial sacrifice to Heaven and secondarily to the ancestors that we saw being put into place during the Han dynasty —practiced for the first time by Wang Mang and then practiced throughout the Han dynasty— this continues to be practiced throughout the Period of Division. So what we're seeing, in other words, is the Confucianism that was put into place during the Han persists even through this Period of Division. Perhaps the most important thing of all is that the cosmology— this universal cosmology that came into being gradually in the fourth-third century BC and then became the, what shall I say, cosmological infrastructure of the state itself: The yin-yang and wuxing, five elements, five phases— that cosmology came to be central to the definition of Confucianism from that great figure that we referred to last time, Dong Zhongshu, on. So, it became an integral part of Han-era Confucianism and it continues to play a major role in the politics of legitimation during this period. So in fact, all the way down to the Song dynasty and into the Yuan dynasty —the Mongol dynasty—the idea that each dynasty reigns according to one of the wude 五德, one of the five powers, or one of the powers that is to say of one of the five phases—the wuxing. And so, for example, does the Han rule by earth, or does it rule by virtue of fire? And there is debate at court and this changes. Okay? And so throughout this Period of Division where there were constant changes of sovereign, the debates as to what dynasties are legitimate and therefore can be accorded one of these five powers goes on constantly. This theoretical foundation of the state's most important sacrifices is summed up in a chapter by Chen Shuguo, who is the world's leading authority on lijiao 禮教, that is to say the rituals practiced by the state, supported by the state throughout Chinese history. And he was the person then—he was invited to write on the role of Confucian rituals in this period. Okay? And he says that there are two key concepts: santong 三統—the "three reigns"—and wude—the "five powers," also refer to the wuxing that we just talked about, the five phases. According to Chen Shuguo, throughout this period, "it was commonly understood that whoever realized one of the three reigns, or was able to obtain one of the five phases (or powers) would receive the Heavenly Mandate." So there in a nutshell is the continuity of Confucianism throughout this period both in North and South China. Now Daoism. We've already seen that together with medicine, it was a practical embodiment of the very same cosmology: "the 'three principles' descend to form the 'five virtues'" is one of the phrases that we find in texts—Daoist texts—of this period. But even more important there is a couple of texts—two texts or two groups of texts— that circulated among the fangshi. Remember those masters of recipes, or masters of esoteric techniques who had brought the worship of Taiyi to Han Wudi? Well, this continues very much in the South during this period. And there are two kinds of texts: Sanhuang neiwen 三皇內文, which we can translate as "the esoteric writs of the three sovereigns," referring to the myth history of the pre-dynastic, pre-royal period of Chinese history. So these esoteric writs of these three sovereigns of legendary antiquity— most of which are in fact talismanic in character. We talked about the fact that Daoism has talismans and petitions that it takes over from the imperial bureaucratic structure and uses for communication with the invisible world. Okay. So that's one kind of esoteric writ—basically talismans. The other is called "maps of the true forms of the five peaks, Wuyue zhenxingtu 五嶽真形圖". So these sort of charts or images of the cosmos sort of reduced to a picture— and we've vaguely alluded to the fact that during the Han dynasty the cult of four emperors went to the cult of five emperors in order to correspond to this general cosmology. And likewise, just as we also talked about in the medicine, how the wuzang—the five internal organs—corresponded. On earth, we have the wuyue—the five sacred peaks— which become defined during the Han Dynasty and continued to function right straight through imperial history. Okay? So in Daoism these five peaks also play a role, but as, in terms of their zhenxing—their true form. This true form, the meaning of true form, we will leave to later on when we talk more explicitly about Daoist writings. Above all, everything Daoist, everything Daoist was defined in terms of Qi, and of course that is the key concept of this Han-era cosmology. Scriptures are said to be derived from yuanqi 元氣, "original energy," demons were described as guqi 故氣, "old energy," stale energy. So, tugu naxin 吐故納新 comes to mean: get rid of the demons and bring in new spirits. Okay? And then, there are the spirit-officers that the Daoist priest learns to visualize and send forth to protect himself, or to drive away demons. These spirit-officers that could be dispatched with priestly messages were called daoqi 道炁 or "energies of the Dao." So Daoist time and space are both expressions of this cosmology. For example, there is the concept of ershisi jieqi 二十四節氣, the twenty-four "nodal energies" that constitute the year cycle, meaning, of course, that every one of the twelve months is divided into two parts: the time of the waxing of the moon until the fifteenth day, and then the waning of the moon back to the first day, the shuoyue 朔月—the new moon—the first day of the new month. Okay? So, 12×2 = 24. This reappears in early Heavenly Masters Daoism as the ershisi zhi 二十四治, the "twenty-four dioceses." So its space is divided in order to match this totality of time-space that is expressed by this term twenty-four "nodal energies," and there are many other examples that we could give. Okay? Then, there is this commentary—the Xiang'erzhu 想爾注. It's called the commentary of Xiang'er on the Laozi, which is generally attributed to the Heavenly Master movement and perhaps even to its third leader Zhang Lu 張魯 who died around 215-216 right at the end of the Han dynasty. And listen very closely to what he says, "I am the Dao." "I am the Dao"—so here we have a clearly anthropomorphic understanding of this cosmological totality which is the Dao, which includes everything and is found everywhere as we saw in the Laozi. And then very quickly a shift from Dao to One, "When the One disperses, it is Qi." Now, how did we slide from Dao to One? Well, we slid from Dao to One, because the Dao is One. It is the ultimate incarnation of oneness, of unity. And so Taiyi, the worship of Taiyi, the Great One, that we saw Han Wudi also derived from these masters of esoteric techniques —the fangshi—and that then was used for meditation by followers of the Immortal Wangzi Qiao. So we can see that that notion of unity and Dao are absolutely inseparable, but as soon as in Daoist texts they start to talk about this unity—this oneness— they don't use the term Dao, because it's vague and all-encompassing and as we said ultimately is best expressed by the idea of chaos, that is to say <i>yin</i> + <i>yang</i> = the Dao. There's a phrase that says that: yiyin yiyang weizhi dao 一陰一陽謂之道— one yin, one yang, together they make the Dao. But that together is the third term—1+ 2 = 3. So the Dao is on that level of comprehensiveness. But as soon as we want to talk about it as a unity, we talk about it as yuanqi 元氣, original Qi. So now when that One disperses, when it moves out like the Big Bang, it's Qi. When, on the contrary, it congeals: so what are we talking about? We are talking about something which comes out of the body —breathing in breathing out, so it's really like the huxi 呼吸 —the inhaling and exhaling—of that basic energy of the Dao, whether it's on the level of the Dao or on the level of my body. Okay? So when it goes out, it's Qi and creates the wanwu 萬物—creates all things; "when it congeals, it is the most high Lord Lao who rules on Kunlun." This is an absolutely extraordinary statement. So we just started off by saying, "I am the Dao"—it's anthropomorphic. Here we see concretely what this means: that One, I, that's the Most High Lord Lao —Taishang Laojun 太上老君, and this Taishang Laojun— during the Han dynasty there are books on the subject— we see how the philosopher Laozi becomes Laojun, the Lord Lao, and often in Daoist texts they simply referred cto him as Taishang 太上, the Most High. Okay? And then it adds, "who rules on Kunlun." Now wait a minute! All the texts from before talk about who on Kunlun? Xiwangmu 西王母, the Queen Mother of the West, and here it's Laozi who takes her place. So we could go on much longer about, but here we see how on the one hand this cosmology —this universal cosmology of the Dao and Qi— is incorporated into Daoist cosmological expression, which is at the same time theological. Because here it's clearly theological, since we're talking about an anthropomorphically conceived god. Okay? So, so much for Daoism, just very quickly a summary of key elements of Daoism in this period. But now let's move on to the new religion—actually, of course, Daoism is a new religion too in the sense that it really appears at the very end of the Han dynasty and becomes vital in Chinese society thereafter. Buddhism. Before Buddhism, the Chinese state was the church—they are indistinguishable. This is not true only of China, it was also true of Rome. Religion was not a separate thing—this is a very modern idea. Separation of church and state really enters into political history with the American and the French revolutions. It's a very very modern idea, and of course we can see still today that even where religion and politics are separated, they're still very very closely linked together. But anyway, in China like in Rome, the state was the church. And so the high priest of this church was the Son of Heaven. He is the only one who can address Heaven. And into this nice ontological monism —or mitigated dualism as we've called it, since there is the yin and yang after all— into it comes Buddhism, with a kind of spirit/matter dualism that was unknown in China before. In India where of course Buddhism is born, you have on the one hand the brahmanic caste and on the other hand the kshatriya caste. The brahmanic caste is the priestly caste, in charge of religion; the kshatriya caste is the warrior class, in charge of politics, in charge of the state. So in India, religion is superior to politics. And when we have the famous Buddhist monarch of India Asoka, he is supposed to hufa 護法, protect the Dharma, protect the Buddhist community. Okay? And he then becomes the model for one of the great Buddhist emperors of Chinese history from this period, Liang Wudi that we will be talking about in a moment. Okay? So Buddhism, because of this origin in a culture which is radically different, especially as regards the fundamental issue of body/soul, political/religious duality—dualism. So there comes to be a huge debate in China over this issue: should monks bow down before the Son of Heaven? Isn't the Son of Heaven tashuode suanle—whatever he says is law? And then you ask whether monks should bow down? It's the same question that is still with us today, right? Who names the bishops of the Catholic Church in China? Is it the Communist Party or is it the Vatican? The same issue: should monks bow down? And what's really interesting is that in the southern dynasties in China —the native dynasties, these are the Chinese dynasties, because when the barbarians invaded from the north and took over all of North China from around the year 311 on. So we have the Western Jin which ruled around 311, and then the Eastern Jin which is the same dynasty—Sima 司馬 dynasty, which is obliged to move south just as many many centuries later the Northern Song will be invaded —its lands occupied by first the Liao and then the Jinbut above all the Jin— and so the Southern Song will move down to Hangzhou 杭州. So that same pattern already is established in this period: The North is occupied by non-Chinese dynasties; the South is occupied by native dynasties. So in traditional Chinese historiography, the zhengtong 正統, that is to say the legitimate dynasties, are all down south. All those dynasties up north are not legitimate, so we don't even talk about them. Okay? Of course this is changing now with modern historiography, but that's traditionally the way the story is recounted. So that's why it's so interesting that this huge challenge to basic Chinese ideas of the relationship between body and soul, politics and religion, it's in the southern dynasties that they agree that monks should not bow down. But in the non-native dynasties of Northern Wei, the monk Faguo 法果, who lived right at the end of the fourth, beginning of the fifth century, he bowed down before the reigning emperor, and he said: I'm not bowing down before an ordinary human being, I'm bowing down before "the 'living Tathagata' [Thus-come-one]", huode rulaifo 活的如來佛. Tathagata is sort of a, you might say an internal name for the fo, for the Buddha. Rulai 如來 it's translated in Chinese—"as it comes," in other words, Reality. So he says the emperor is the living Buddha and it's before the living Buddha that I have bowed down, so it's legitimate for me as a Buddhist monk to do this. The Northern Wei identification of the emperor with the Buddha was confirmed by another monk called Tanyao 曇曜 when he started the Yungang 雲崗 cave project in the year 460.: You can still go out there and look at it. You can see statues which are modeled on the faces of Northern Wei emperors: "By modeling the images of the buddhas on the Northern Wei Emperor, [Tanyao] announced that the emperor was the buddha of that age." So here we can see that it's precisely, against all expectations, it's the northern dynasties which in fact do what? Carry on the Confucian tradition—and we could say the Daoist tradition— that the church and the state are one, and that the emperor as Son of Heaven—Confucian—is also the living Buddha. So he still remains this semi-divine and now virtually divine figure since he's the Buddha on earth, and therefore retains his role as high priest.
