by Peter Watson
Above all, the Han emperor had a special role in worship and he collected around him large numbers of scholars whose job it was to advise him and help him run the state. These educated men became a new aristocracy under the Han; they were powerful officials in the provinces and were an (intended) threat to the older, more independent aristocracy. In this fashion, the Han gradually evolved a number of dominant ideas that amalgamated Confucianism into a state philosophy. This is referred to now either as legal-Confucianism, or Imperial Confucianism, to distinguish it from the original doctrines. As John Fairbank, the great Harvard scholar of China, put it, ‘The essential point about the Legalist-Confucian amalgam was that legalism was liked by rulers and Confucianism by bureaucrats.’100 Confucians believed that the emperor’s observance of ceremonial ritual and his own exemplary conduct gave him a certain virtue (de) that encouraged others to respect his position. The threat of force always hovered in the background but the elaborate college of Confucian experts ensured that the emperor always behaved in the ‘right’ way. It was the Confucian understanding of ‘right conduct’ that governed everything, always in the context of Chinese cosmology. This cosmology was very different from Western ideas and was itself a sort of astronomical Confucianism, in that the Chinese imagined the universe as an ordered whole. The Chinese differed from other peoples further west in that they had no creation myth and no creator-lawgiver who was supernatural. They assumed that there was an ordered harmony in the universe but did not assume a supernatural deity who ordained this order. ‘For the Chinese the supreme cosmic power was immanent in nature, not transcendent.’101 Mankind was part of this ordered whole, his place defined and nurtured by the ruler and his ancestors.
As a result of this approach, the Han Chinese saw ‘correspondences’ and ‘resonance’ everywhere. The macrocosm was reflected in the microcosm of man which ordained his ‘proper’ place in the scheme of things. Thus, in the Huainanzi, written around 139 BC, ‘the head’s roundness resembles heaven’s and the feet’s squareness resembles earth. Heaven has four seasons, five phases, nine sections and 366 days. Man likewise has four limbs, five viscera, nine orifices and 366 joints. Heaven has wind and rain, cold and heat. Man likewise has taking and giving, joy and anger…’102 This approach was most marked in the doctrine of the five phases, or elements: water, fire, wood, metal, earth. The ‘fiveness’ of the elements was reflected everywhere: the five planets (all that were then visible), the five colours, five directions, five musical tones, five punishments, and many more ‘fives’. Where it suited them, or seemed wise, the Chinese invented devices for connecting correspondences that might otherwise prove difficult. We have already mentioned the ten celestial stems and the twelve earthly branches. To these were added the devices of yin (female) and yang (male), which allowed the correspondences of four, five, ten or twelve to be doubled. The most complicated, but popular, set of correspondences grew up around the Yijing, or ‘Classic of Changes’ (better known as the I Ching). This was primarily a hexagram of sixty-four squares, produced by six sets of parallel lines, either broken or unbroken. This produced sixty-four resulting figures, each with specific connotations, to be used in prophecy.103 The most famous theorist of this system was Zou Yan of Qi (305–240) who extended his interpretation, or divination, to astronomy, geography, history and politics. According to him, political change was governed by the five elements, in the order: earth·wood·metal·fire·water.
This notion of correspondence led in turn to the idea of resonance (ganying), which also infiltrated all areas of life, from music to government. The strings on a lute, for example, resonated with one another but so did the ruler and the ruled: one good act should be balanced by a response. When the ruler set a good example, his people should and would follow.104 Acupuncture was the perfect science of correspondences: certain puncture points in the body were found to control nervous sensitivity in other parts of the body. Although acupuncture anaesthesia was not introduced until the twentieth century, the very existence of acupuncture was held to be vivid evidence of correspondence and ganying.
As mentioned above, the central element in this elaborate system was the ruler and his ritual observances which reflected the cycle of the seasons and other celestial events.105 Beginning with the oracle bones, Chinese records of the heavens were very detailed over many centuries, though they are most comprehensive for the early Han period. Natural events–eclipses, meteors, floods or earthquakes–could be interpreted as nature’s verdict on a ruler’s performance. It followed that the clever ruler, if he wanted to stay in power, appointed specialist advisors. If he followed their advice, and the advice was wrong, it was they who suffered, not him. By Han times it was understood that the great classics of China contained secret knowledge, available only to erudite scholars. (The word jing, which means ‘classic’, originally referred to the warp, or vertical threads, in a loom, which were long-lasting.) In this way there grew up at court a whole raft of powerful Confucian philosopher/interpreters, people such as Dong Zhongshu (c. 175–105 BC). They advised the emperor how to relate to the cosmos, and then anxiously watched the results. It was the emperor’s special privilege to worship heaven, and his ancestors, but he also controlled the police, the army and other institutions of social control. He therefore formed an ideological alliance with the Confucian literati who concerned themselves with precedents set by former emperors as recorded in the classics. These two elements–the emperor with his worship of heaven and the ancestors, and the trappings of force on the one hand, and the Confucian advisors around him–formed the governing/intellectual elite in China, the pinnacle of a two-class system in which the remainder were peasants.106
This approach reached its greatest influence in 124 BC with the formation of the imperial academy, or Taixue. Here there were specialists in the five classics: the Yijing, or ‘Classic of Changes’ (for divination), the Shujing, or ‘Classic of History’, the Shijing, or ‘Classic of Songs’ (ancient folk poems), the Chunqiu, or ‘Spring and Autumn Annals’ (chronicles of Confucius’ own state of Lu in Shandong, plus commentaries), and the Liji, or ‘Record of Ceremonies and Proper Conduct’. Alternative versions of some of the classics were found, allegedly in a wall of Confucius’ house, sometime between 156 BC and AD 93. While this gave scope for different interpretations of the texts, and argument as to whether they were coded prophecies or not, they also stimulated an interest in textual criticism long before such a discipline existed elsewhere.107 It was under the Han, too, that history was first written down in China in a systematic way, with many oral traditions finally being captured. The most important of these were The Historical Records, by Sima Qian (135?–93? BC) and The History of the Han (Han-shu), completed about AD 82 by Ban Gu and his sister Ban Zhao. Both these works were organised along similar lines: annals of the sovereign, treatises (on music, astronomy, canals, law etc) and biographies.108 Already by this time examinations were in place for appointment to the ranks of imperial advisor, but now the emperor required an education in the classics before potential recruits could even sit the exam, though in the Confucian manner filial piety was also one of the criteria for selection.109
The classics, whose secret meaning was passed from one generation of scholars to the next, and the Confucian approach in general, governed thinking in the majority of areas. ‘Most fundamental was the stress on hierarchy so evident in pre-historic times, which assumed that order can be achieved only when people are organised in gradations of inferiority and superiority.’ Similarly, there was an emphasis on duties rather than rights: it was assumed that if everyone did his duty everyone would get what he deserved. ‘With all duties performed, society would be in order, to everyone’s benefit.’110 The son obeyed the father, as the people obeyed the ‘parental’ government, with loyalty as the paramount value. It was the ruler’s job, with a mixture of auspicious things (chi), such as bounties and amnesties, and inauspicious things (hsiung), such as penalties and punishments, to maintain cosmic harmony, to
prevent excess.111
Despite the strength of Confucianism, Taoist beliefs had not disappeared and several Han emperors, or their wives, embraced Taoist principles and employed Taoist magicians. Yang Xiong (53 BC–AD 18) wrote a famous Taoist work called The Supreme Mystery. By now the fundamental Taoist concern was with longevity and/or immortality. They believed that immortals existed, manifesting themselves in different forms down the ages, and Taoists sought to extend their lives by various alchemical, dietetic, gymnastic and even sexual rituals.112
The particular form of Buddhism that was translated to China was known as Mahayana Buddhism. This distinguished it from the Hinayana school. The schism had developed within the sangha, the order of monks, following the Fourth Buddhist Council, traditionally held under the auspices of Kanishka II, the Kushan emperor, who began his reign c. AD 120. In Hinayana Buddhists held that their beliefs were essentially an ethical system, while the Mahayanas elevated the Buddha and other ‘enlightened ones’ to the status of deities, who were to be worshipped. In other words, whereas Hinayana Buddhism remained a broad philosophical system, Mahayana Buddhism, which was exported to China, was much more a conventional religion. The Hinayana Buddhists, for example, did not to begin with represent the Buddha in human form: he was indicated by a footprint, a throne or a tree. The Mahayanists, on the other hand, adapted Greek ideas, clothing the seated Buddha in elegant folds of drapery, and giving him a placid, serene, classical expression (all the while keeping him ethnically distinctive). The leading figure in the Mahayana movement was the philosopher/poet Asvaghosa (fl. c. 150), whose Buddhacarita, or ‘Life of Buddha’, was for a long time the main document in Mahayana Buddhism.113 Asanga, a monk who flourished between 300 and 350, introduced yoga and turned Mahayana Buddhism into a proper religion of salvation, being as much concerned with a ‘future state’ as with life here on earth.
After the second century AD, the chief Mahayana doctrinal work was the Saddharmapundarika or The Lotus of the Good Law, a statement of faith ‘comparable with the Hindu Bhagavad-gita and the Christian Fourth Gospel’.114 Addressed to the simple layman, it portrayed the ‘coming Buddha’, Maitreya, who taught the way of salvation:
Buddhas ye shall all become;
Rejoice and be no longer uncertain.
I am the Father of you all.
This poem, longer than the New Testament, described the one true way to salvation, and affirmed that there was one eternal Lord. Maitreya overlapped in many ways with the Iranian Mithra. Mahayana Buddhists believed that the Buddha, sitting alone on a mountain peak, gave reality to everything. When evil built up in the world, he descended from his mountain-top in a new form, casting light and bringing mercy, and teaching the path of salvation. In other words, in addition to the original Buddha there was a series of Buddhas, each playing an important role in the evolution of the universe and the moral growth of mankind. More important still, future Buddhas, the Maitreya, would come to earth to rescue the world from evil.
Also integral to Mahayana Buddhism was the concept of the bodhisattva. Having achieved Buddhahood by a righteous life, the bodhisattva postponed nirvana in order to remain on earth, serve and teach men. As part of this tradition, ten virtues were encouraged by the bodhisattvas, self-mastery being the cardinal individual virtue, and compassion–the love of others–the supreme social virtue.115 This implied a further change in Mahayana Buddhism in that the teacher was more a priest than a monk. ‘There was a single road to salvation but it had three gates: one for arhats [‘accomplished ones’, who had achieved nirvana], another for those who excelled in meditation, and still another for the altruistic and sociable.’ Yoga was clearly important in self-mastery but so was the chanting of sacred words. ‘Right conduct’ was encouraged by the belief that one’s last thought at the moment of death determined the fate of the soul. At death the soul was removed to purgatory where it ‘suffered many torments’. There were sixteen kinds of hell, with different punishments for different types of sin.116 For those who weren’t sinners, the ultimate destination was the ‘western paradise’ of Amitabha (A-mi-t’o-fo). ‘There seven fountains flowed with the waters of the right virtues. For six hours each morning and evening there was a rain of celestial flowers…Each morning the blessed offered the celestial flowers to the countless Buddhas who returned to their land at mealtimes. The continuous repetition of Amitabha’s name was a sure way to reach this heaven.’117 It was a long way from the vision of Gautama.118
A final factor in the spread of Buddhism in Han China was the emerging dichotomy between wen and wu. Wen refers to writing, literary culture and the values associated with it: reflective thought, rational morality, persuasion, civilisation. Wu, on the other hand, stands for violence, force, military order. The Confucian advisors disparaged wu and favoured wen. But this had two unfortunate knock-on effects. It drove a wedge between the ruling elite and the peasants in the provinces, thus weakening Han unity, making the country susceptible to attacks from the periphery and even outside China. And, second, it meant that Confucianism as a framework of thought and belief was less and less suited to the common people: it became an intellectual system for the elite.119
Beginning around AD 220, the aristocratic families in the north revolted and amid the resulting chaos the Toba Turks, steppe people from the north, invaded and set up the Wei dynasty. They too were Buddhists.
Not all Chinese thought of the Han period concerned itself with abstract ‘big ideas’. The Chinese then, as ever, were a fiercely practical people. They were producing steel as early as the second century AD, by mixing together iron with different carbon content.120 There was already a thriving international trade in Chinese technological inventions, particularly in luxury items such as silk, lacquer and bronze mirrors. The Han Chinese practised a highly original policy of ‘ostentatious generosity’ with their neighbours, ‘which surprises us by its extremely high cost and systematic character. Probably no other country in the world has ever made such an effort to supply its neighbours with presents, thus elevating the gift into a political tool.’ According to official records, in 1 BC, the Han gave away some 30,000 rolls of silk and by AD 91, the value of silk gifts had reached 100,900,000 pieces of currency.121 Jacques Gernet, the great French orientalist, calculates that the annual revenue of the empire at that time was of the order of ten billion coins and that three or four billion were taken up with gifts, a substantial levy on the country’s wealth which at the same time stimulated production and weakened the economy. But these gifts were part of a conscious, long-term policy by the Han Chinese to seduce their barbarian neighbours and to corrupt them by accustoming them to luxury. It seems to have worked, insofar as it helped the Han achieve political stability on the borders of the empire for several centuries.122
The water-mill was invented in the reign of Wang Mang (9–23). At first it seems to have been a vertical wheel, turned by water, activating a horizontal axle which turned a battery of pestles. But by AD 31 one text records the use of hydraulic power to work piston bellows in forges. The breast-strap harness had been introduced very early, perhaps as early as the fifth century BC, but just as important was the wheelbarrow, invented in the first century AD. This allowed much greater loads to be carried by one person, and for them to be transported along paths that were too narrow or winding for horse-drawn vehicles.123 Chinese ships had the rudder from AD 1 and the compass was introduced in AD 80. The systematic recording of spots on the sun began in 28 BC and in AD 132 the first seismograph was invented by Zhang Heng. This was a good example of the Chinese approach, for Zhang Heng’s aim was to pinpoint earthquakes which, as we have seen, were regarded as a sign of disorder in nature. In AD 124, Zhang Heng (a poet as well as an astronomer) also produced a celestial globe, with an equatorial circle.124 This had important consequences, not least in the development of logical/scientific thought. A key figure here was Wang Chong (27–97), who wrote Lun-heng, a ranging criticism of the superstitions of the time. He had a deep interest in physics
, biology and genetics, ridiculed the idea that man had a special place in the cosmos, did not believe in life after death, individual destiny, or that the mind can exist independently of the body, preferring logical explanations for phenomena, based on experience.125
Arguably the most important Chinese innovation of this time was paper. Traditionally, this invention was commemorated in the story of Cai Lun, a eunuch who served at the court of the emperor Hedi as director of the imperial workshops (see page 298). He made zhi (Chinese for paper) from the bark of trees, remnants of hemp, old fishing nets and used it for writing. He was promoted for his discovery, to Shangfangling, or chief-commandant of skills and production, but this too is now the subject of revisionist history and, according to Jonathan Bloom, zhi was defined in a Chinese dictionary produced at the time Cai Lun lived as xu yi shan ye, in which xu refers to ‘fibrous remnants obtained from rags or from boiling silkworm cocoons’ and the word shan ‘refers to a mat made from interwoven rushes used for covering something’.126 These processes date back to the sixth century BC and so paper-making may be as old as that. Most Chinese authorities now think that paper as we know it had been invented by the second century BC, though it was coarse and not suitable for writing until, perhaps, the first century AD. A Chinese story, set in 93 BC, records the first use of facial tissue–an imperial guard advises a prince to cover his nose with a piece of zhi.127 Paper required treating, with gypsum, gum, glue or starch, before it would take writing, and this seems to have occurred around the first century, or a little before. Already by AD 76, a scholar was instructing students by using copies of the classics written on zhi, so paper must have been reasonably common, and cheap, by then. The earliest examples show that Chinese papermakers formed sheets by pouring a pulp made of rags and textile waste on to cloth moulds floating in a pool of water. Later they dipped the mould into a vat of pulp, which was peeled off as it began to dry, allowing the mould to be used again. As the appetite for paper grew, they turned from waste materials and made their pulp direct from the fibres of hemp, jute, rattan, bamboo or mulberry.128 Lavatory paper was introduced by the sixth century.129
