1
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