Chapter 2 Chapter Two: The Founding of Taoism in the Eastern Han Dynasty
During Emperor Shun of the Eastern Han Dynasty (reigned 126-144 A.D.), a man named Gong Chong went to the palace to present a "divine book". "Taiping Qing Ling Shu", there are 170 volumes.The relevant departments told the emperor that this book did not conform to the Confucian classics, that it was not upright and upright, that is, the so-called "demons and nonsense", so they confiscated it.Later, when Emperor Huan (reigned 147-167 A.D.) came to power, Xiangkai mentioned this matter to the emperor again, saying that the content of this book respects the gods and the earth, conforms to the changing laws of the five elements, and has many things that make the country prosperous and the emperor have many children Sun's method and so on (see "Book of the Later Han Dynasty Xiangkai Biography"), but they were still not adopted by the emperor.Later, this book gradually spread, and Zhang Jiao, who organized the Taipingdao Uprising (that is, the Yellow Turban Uprising), also read it.
This "divine book" was later called the "Taiping Jing".The book that people in the Tang Dynasty saw was divided into A, B, C, D, W, J, G, Xin, Ren, Gui, and Ten Gan divisions, each with 17 volumes, a total of 170 volumes.The "Taiping Jing" preserved in the "Orthodox Taoist Collection" (a collection of official Taoist classics in the Ming Dynasty) is a fragmented version with only 57 volumes.However, some people have compiled the school journals based on other ancient books and materials that have quoted it, so that we can understand its basic appearance.
Judging from the content, this book was not written by a single person, but was continuously added and expanded by many people.Gong Chong said that he got it from his master Yu Ji, but in fact he himself may have participated in the fabrication of this book.Why did people like Yu Ji and Gong Chong fabricate such a book?A general look at the content of the book, you can find the answer to the question.
The "Taiping Jing" focuses on promoting "the way of governing the country". It pretends that gods and men came to the world to help the supreme ruler "get rid of the troubled times and bring about peace."Aiming at the crisis-ridden social reality in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, it prescribed a dose of religious medicine, hoping to save the feudal rule of the Liu Dynasty, which was on the verge of collapse.The book puts forward many specific proposals for political improvement. For example, rulers should first emphasize benevolence, righteousness and morality, and then use criminal law as a last resort to avoid the expansion of conflicts; The interests of the common people should be considered, and attention should be paid to communicating the opinions of the common people when implementing it; opposing the government’s excessive expropriation and extortion;It not only provides suggestions for the ruling class, but also criticizes social reality. At the same time, it also reflects some wishes and actual interests of farmers on many issues.
This book compares the emperor to the heart of the human body, the officials and ministers to the thighs and arms, and the common people to the hands and feet. Wandering", social instability.It wants to make the emperor happy and worry-free, "the monarch, the ministers, and the people are connected, and work together to form a country."The book declares that as long as the monarch and the subjects work together and cooperate with each other, "the same worry will be united, and a family will be united, and peace will be achieved."Politically, he advocates easing class contradictions and engaging in peaceful coexistence.
The "Taiping Jing" repeatedly emphasizes that a mysterious "peaceful air" is coming, and the world is about to be peaceful.With this mystical belief as its core, it absorbed a lot of Confucian ethics and morals and some thoughts on governing the country, as well as Qin and Han Taoism.When explaining the origin of the universe, the generation of all things, the rise and fall of social operations, the good and evil of human nature, etc., it uses the Taoist thought materials about qi that have been transformed by religious theology.The book is also filled with a lot of primitive religious witchcraft and alchemy.For example, several words are used to form a text pattern, which is what it calls "fuwen". Using these complex texts can "make the venerable worry-free", get the blessing of the gods, and can also ward off evil spirits and eliminate harm, etc.
As a work promoting religious mysticism, when faced with certain practical problems such as human suffering and suffering, although it always seeks a religious explanation, it cannot completely abandon the realistic attitude at the same time. "Taiping Jing" said: "When the heaven and the earth are sick, people are also sick; if people are not sick, the sky is not sick; "People are sick because God is sick, and people are very sick because God is very sick.People in the Han Dynasty liked to talk about the "interaction between heaven and man", so people's heads are round and feet are square; the sky has four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, so people have hands, legs, limbs, etc.If Heaven pleases, the sun and moon are extraordinarily bright, and the planets move normally.If you are not happy, it will appear in earthquake disasters and so on.God is happy, because the people on the ground agree with him; if he is not happy, it is a warning to people, so they have to be careful.This set of things belongs to the theology of prophecy [chen lining] Wei, which was very popular in the Han Dynasty.However, human diseases such as headache and brain fever are real and cannot be solved by these preaching alone.Therefore, the "Taiping Jing" absorbed many methods of resisting diseases from Qin and Han medicine.Of course, it also has the sorcery of running water to cure diseases and chanting mantras to exorcise evil spirits.
The "Taiping Jing" attaches great importance to the value of human life, and believes that life is bound to die, and people cannot be resurrected after death, so they should not be careless about death.It says that there are many people in the heavenly world who have taken the medicine to make people immortal, and people should seek it for their parents and the emperor, but it doesn't talk much about how to practice it.Can people become immortals?It replied that only those who are destined to become immortals can become immortals.There are very few people with this kind of immortal life, "one out of a million people".People without immortal life, no matter how hard they practice, they can only enjoy their life in the end.
After hearing what it said, probably many of those who initially wanted to learn Taoism and become immortals would give up.In fact, the "Taiping Jing" is indeed mainly concerned with how to help the emperor govern the country and achieve peace in the world.It talks about longevity, but it doesn't really care about immortality.All its religious preaching has a very strong theological and political color.
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