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Sixth Century BCE to Seventeenth Century

Page 11

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

 

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