by Ying-shih Yü
must be somewhat related to the popu lar belief in Daoist immortality and lon-
gevity. A parallel case may be drawn from the period of the Six Dynasties (222–
589). The famous poet, Xie Lingyun
(385–433), was sent right after his
birth to a Daoist family named Du
for fosterage, because the Xie family had
not been prolifi c in off spring. He did not return to his own family until he was
fi fteen.145
Lastly, let us examine the worldly transformation of xian in light of the
Scripture of Great Peace. The traditional, seclusive type of xian as typifi ed by
Wang Ziqiao or Chi Songzi had no connection with the human world. In the
Scripture of Great Peace, however, a xian could serve as a minister in case the
True Man becomes the supreme ruler.146 Moreover, in earlier lit er a ture, all xian,
whether they were Divine Men (shenren
), True Men, or others, were taken
as equals. They were not graded into higher or lower classes. Yet strangely
enough, in the Scripture of Great Peace, the Heavenly world and the human
world are hierarchically linked as follows: Divine Man, True Man, xian, Man of
the Way, sages, Worthy Man, common people, and slaves.147 In this way, the
Heavenly and human worlds are actually connected and made into one. In later
times, as we have noted, a sort of earthly xian was to be created (see note 111).
But in the Scripture of Great Peace, we already encounter such worldly immor-
tals in their primordial form. For instance, the work actually mentions famous
mountains and great rivers as places to accommodate those xian immortals
who are not yet able to ascend to Heaven.148
The last point that has an impor tant bearing on the worldly character of xian
may be seen in the emphasis on the family tie. According to the Scripture of
Great Peace, he who learns the Dao merely for personal salvation is a man of the
lower grade, but a man who studies the Dao to transcend this world with his
family is of the middle grade.149 This is obviously a strong rejection of the tradi-
tional, seclusive, and individualistic idea of immortality. Elsewhere in the work,
leaving behind one’s parents, wife, and children to go in search of the Dao is
ferociously attacked as the very opposite of the true Dao.150
S U M M A R Y
The whole development of immortality both as an idea and as a cult from its
beginning in the late Warring States Period down through Han times may be
best characterized by one word: worldliness. This worldly spirit, as has been
42 l ife a nd im m or ta l i t y in t h e mind of h a n c h ina
observed, not only has its historical origin in the universal desire for longevity
traceable to ancient China; ideologically, it is also entrenched in the general
humanistic emphasis on life characteristic of Chinese thought.
The pro cess of the worldly transformation of immortality is particularly well
illustrated by the changing views on the life of xian immortals. In pre- Qin
lit er a ture, the xian is portrayed only as a secluded individual wandering in the
sky, in no way related to the human world. In Han lit er a ture, however, we begin
to fi nd that the xian may sometimes also enjoy a settled life by bringing with
him to paradise not only his family but also all chattels of his human life. This
change, it seems to me, should not be isolated from the development of Han soci-
ety, in which the individual’s family ties were increasingly emphasized. Without
such a readjustment to the new environment, it is not likely that the idea of xian
could have survived the rapid and extensive social changes that sharply separated
the Qin and Han Period from earlier times.
Another impor tant aspect of the worldly spirit of the immortality cult lay in
its po liti cal entanglements. It is a commonplace in Chinese history that the
Daoist religion exerted no small infl uence of one sort or another on po liti cal
developments through its close association with the imperial court.151 In light
of what has been said above, we can be certain that the tradition of such an as-
sociation was fi rst established by the fangshi of the late Warring States Period
and then greatly strengthened by those of Qin and Han times, always with the
quest for immortality as a medium. This point is amply evidenced by the inten-
sity with which the Scripture of Great Peace urges people to seek immortality
drugs or recipes for their sovereign. And the keen po liti cal interest of the fang-
shi or Daoist immortals also makes it more likely that they were in some way
related to the so- called Huang- Lao Daoism of the early Former Han Period.
A P P E N D I X : H A N U S E O F L O N G E V I T Y T E R M S
I N P R O P E R N A M E S
In Han times, the idea of longevity was expressed by vari ous terms. In addition to
yishou and yanshou,152 other names refl ecting the imperial quest for immortality
were in use, such as yannian
(prolongation of life), yingnian
(praying
for long life), and, according to Yan Shigu’s commentary, mingnian
, which
Yan takes to mean “showing that prolongation of life may be obtained.”153 Such
names were not an imperial mono poly, but were widely used in Han China for
places and persons. Whether imperial use helped to popu lar ize them or whether
their popularity prompted the court to adopt them, we have no way of knowing,
although the former seems more likely. In either case, they indicate the worldly
transformation and popularization of the cult of immortality, as borne out by the
place and personal names in the Han documents on wooden slips discovered at
Edsin Gol, which cover roughly the period from 102 b.c. to 31 c.e.
l ife a nd im m or ta l i t y in t h e mind of h a n c h ina 43
Hanjian
Jiabian
Number of
Number of
Number of
mentions
Page
mentions
Page
mentions
Page
Shou
109
3
5,737
120
1,403
59
532
12
5,860
123
1,489
62
601
13
6,579
136
2,103
87
4,500
92
6,833
141
(Appendix)
4,520
93
7,394
152
6
106
4,667
96
9,048
183
Yanshou
150
41
6,175
129
33
3
857
18
7,215
148
941
40
1,091
22
7,303
150
3,566
71
7,670
159
3,749
75
7,677
159
4,543
93
8,013
&nbs
p; 165
4,690
97
9,438
190
5,329
110
9,941
199
Changshou
1,230
25
4,093
83
4,061
82
Yishou
1,954
40
Shangshou
7,216
148
Yannian
221
5
1,005
21
636
28
715
15
3,114
62
1,500
62
768
16
3,603
72
2,554A
104
885
18
7,439
153
Changsheng
1,627
33
1 Yishou
: According to Jiabian, no. 538, 24. The original character is not clear in the
plate.
In the case of place names, we fi nd three Shouli
,154 one Changshouli
,155 and two Yanshouli
.156 There is even one watchtower bearing
the name Yanshou.157
As for personal names, examples are much more numerous. Besides such
famous names as Li Yannian
, Yan
Yannian, and Han Yanshou
,
which are given biographical entries or are repeatedly mentioned in the Rec ords
of the Grand Historian and History of the Former Han Dynasty, the following
personal names appear most frequently in Han wooden documents:
The above list makes no claim to completeness. Names of those who are
known or suspected to be of a later period have not been included (e.g., see
Hanjian, no. 223, 5, and no. 669, 14). Repetitions have also been avoided as
far as determinable (e.g., Hanjian, no. 6234, 130; no. 7176, 147; no. 7676, 159).
On the other hand, omissions due to carelessness are inevitable; therefore, this
list is at best a good sample. What ever its shortcomings, it reveals two impor-
tant facts about the worldly transformation and popularization of the immor-
tality cult in Han China. First, the fact that men bearing such names were
mostly offi
cers and soldiers in frontier watchtowers shows that the common
44 l ife a nd im m or ta l i t y in t h e mind of h a n c h ina
people shared with emperors the desire for longevity or immortality, an indica-
tion of the permeation of the idea of xian immortality in society. Second, the
fact that the people so named came from vari ous provinces of the empire fur-
ther indicates that the concept had spread rather quickly as well as widely.
Among the localities represented by these persons are Hanzhong
( Hanjian,
no. 150), Nanyang
(ibid., no. 5737), Dongjun
(ibid., no. 6579), Juyan
(ibid., no. 7216), Chang-an, the capital ( Jiabian, no. 1500), and Changyi
in Shanyang
(ibid., no. 2130). This distribution gives some notion of the
popularity of the immortality cult in geo graph i cal terms.
not e s
1.
James Legge, trans., The Chinese Classics, vol. 1, Confucian Analects (Hong Kong: HKU
Press, 1960), 241. This chapter in the pres ent volume is a slightly revised and expanded
version of chapter 1 of my doctoral dissertation written in 1961 at Harvard University. I
wish to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Professor Lien- sheng Yang,
under whose guidance its fi rst draft was completed. Grateful ac know ledg ment also
goes to Professor Benjamin I. Schwartz, who read the manuscript and made valuable
suggestions as well as criticisms. Neither of them, of course, is responsible for any
errors or faults that may remain.
2. S.
Kierkegaard,
The Sickness Unto Death, trans. Walter Lowrie (New York: Anchor
Books, 1954), 144.
3.
See Fu Sinian
, “Xingming guxun bianzheng”
, in Fu Mengzhen
xiansheng ji
(Taipei: Taiwan daxue, 1952), 1–201.
4.
For a general study of views of life and death in early Confucian thought, see Shizukui-
shi Kōkichi
, “Jukyō no shiseikan to tōitsu no ichishiki”
, Tokyo Shina gakuhō
7 (June 1961): 69–79.
5.
Laozi, SBBY, 51.9b–10a; J. J. L. Duyvendak, Tao Te Ching (London: John Murray, 1954),
113.
6.
James Legge, trans., The Yi King, SBE, 16.381. For modern discussions on the date of the
“ Great Appendix” to the Yijing, see Gu Jiegang
, in Gushi bian
, 7 vols., 1926–
1941 (Shanghai: Guji 1982 [reprint]), 3:37–70; Li Jingchi
, in Gushi bian, 3:95–132;
and Guo Moruo, “Zhouyi zhi zhizuo shidai”
, reprinted in Qingtong shidai
(Beijing: Kexue, 1954), 66–94.
7. Legge,
Yi King, 356.
8.
For these two lines of development of early Daoist views, see Tsuda Sōkichi
,
Dōka no shisō to sono tenkai
(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1939),
313–332; Xu Dishan
, Daojiao shi
(Shanghai: Shangwu, 1934), 114–119; Ar-
thur Waley, The Way and Its Power (New York: Grove Evergreen, 1958), 39–50.
9. Wang
Xianqian
, Xunzi jijie
, WYWK, 2.13; Fung Yu- lan, A History of Chi-
nese Philosophy, trans. Derk Bodde (Prince ton: Prince ton University Press, 1952), 1:140.
Yang Zhu
has been known as the arch- hedonist Chinese history, but considering
l ife a nd im m or ta l i t y in t h e mind of h a n c h ina 45
that the hedonistic theory attributed to him is found mainly in the “Yang Zhu” chapter of
the Liezi, which has been proved by modern scholars to be a forgery of the Wei (220–264
c.e.) or Jin (265–420 c.e.) period, I have avoided mentioning him among the ancient he-
donists. As Fung Yu- lan has successfully shown, the theory of hedonism in this chapter of
Liezi diff ers considerably from Yang Zhu’s own doctrine, which still can be seen, though
in a fragmentary manner, in vari ous pre- Qin philosophical works (Fung, History, 1:133–143).
For the controversy surrounding Liezi, see Zhang Xincheng
, Weishu tongkao
, 2 vols. (Shanghai: Shangwu, 1939, 2:699–712, and Shanghai: Shangwu, 1954). More
recently, almost all impor tant arguments concerning the forgery of Liezi have been col-
lected by Yang Bojun
, in part or in entirely, in Appendix 3 to his Liezi jishi
(Shanghai: Longmen, 1958), 185–245. For a full recent study, see A. C. Graham, “The
Date and Composition of Liehtzyy,” AM 8, no. 2 (1961): 139–198.
10. For discussion of the term quansheng, see Fung Yu- lan, History, 1:139–140; Waley, Way
and Power, 42–43; Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1956), 2:67.
11. Guanzi
, “Lizheng”
, GXJB (Shanghai: Shangwu, 1936), 1:15.
12. See Xu Weiyu
, LSCQ JS (Beijing: Zhongguo shudian, [
1955] 1985), 2.7a–8a; for
En glish translation, see Fung Yu- lan, History, 1:139. Cf. also Liezi jishi, 7.145–146.
13. LSCQ JS, 1.11a; Fung, History, 1:137; Huainanzi (Hangzhou: Zhejiang shuju, 1879), 7.13b.
14.
LSCQ JS, 2.10a.
15. Ibid., 1.7a. According to Fu Sinian, the so- called nature ( xing ) of man should be inter-
preted throughout this passage as “life” ( sheng
). Fu Sinian, “Xingming guxun bian-
zheng,” 67.
16.
Tsuda, Dōka no shisō, 319; Waley, Way and Power, 44.
17. With prob ably the sole exception of Fukui Kōjun
, Dokyō no kisoteki kenkyū
(Tokyo: Shoseki Bunbutsu Ryûtsûkai, 1952 [1958]), 214–255, it seems
that scholars now agree that most of the Taipingjing was composed during the Later Han
Period or, more precisely, during the middle of the second century c.e. See, e.g., Tang
Yongtong
, “Du Taipingjing shu suojian”
, GXCK 1 (1935): 1–32;
Yang Kuan
, “Lun Taipingjing”
, Xueshu yuekan
(September 1959):
26–34; Ōfuchi Ninji
, “What Is Told in Taipingjing, a Daoist Canon”
[in Japa nese], Tōyō Gakuhō
28 (1941): 619–642; Oyanagi Shigeta
, Tōyō shisō no kenkyū
(Tokyo: Seki shoin, 1934), 440–551; and a
recent comprehensive reexamination of the prob lem by Xiong Deji
, “The Au-
thorship and Doctrines of the Taipingjing, and Its Alleged Relationship with the Huang
Jin and Tianshi Dao” [in Chinese],
, LSYJ
4 (1962): 8–25.
Still, such a book as the Taipingjing must have been continuously subject to later addi-
tions and interpolations. For instance, the fi rst part (
) of the Taipingjing chao , gener-
ally believed to be a résumé of the original work, has long been suspected by scholars of
Daoism (see Ōfuchi Ninji, “History of the Transmission of the Daoist Canon Taipingjing
and Its Textual Relation to the Taipingjing lingshu”
[in Japa nese],
Tōyō Gakuhō 27 [1940]: 272; cf. also Fukui Kōjun, Dokyō no kisoteki kenkyū 217n1). It has
46 l ife a nd im m or ta l i t y in t h e mind of h a n c h ina
now defi nitely been proved to be a much later interpolation than Later Han (see Wang
Ming
, “Prob lems on the Authenticity of the Part ‘Jia pian’ of Taipingjing”
[ sic ]
[in Chinese], ZYYY 18 [1948]: 375–384, and the same author’s foreword in
TPJHJ [Beijing: Zhonghua, 1960], 11–15). It may also be noted that the Dunhuang hand-
written fragments of the Taipingjing (Stein no. 4226) seem to suggest both that the extant
version is of a very early origin and that it contains interpolations at least as early as
