Revere Heaven and Venerate the Dao: The Intellectual Historical Background of the Formation of Medieval Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist Teachings

Author: Liu Yi
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2005-04-01
Features:
Part 1: "The Transformation of 'Heaven' and 'The Dao'"
This section first provides a chronological arrangement of the currently known tomb materials from the Han and Six Dynasties periods. It reveals several significant issues not only for exploring the history of Taoism but also for understanding the traditional Chinese belief world, such as the evolution of the nature and form of tombs, the origins of the afterlife beliefs reflected in tombs, the sources and images of the Heavenly Emperor and his messengers in tombs, and whether they were (Taoist priests), (shamans), or deities. This is one of the key issues directly related to the formation of Taoism. By arranging these tomb materials and analyzing the origins of some important concepts, it draws a significant insight: the belief world of the Han and Six Dynasties periods exhibited a clear transformation of "Heaven" and "The Dao," which serves as the main thread that unifies the entire book.
Part 2: "Revering Heaven—The Core Concept of the Han Dynasty's Belief World"
This section explores two main aspects. First, it discusses the deification of Laozi in the Han Dynasty. The deification of Laozi to a significant extent marks one of the direct indicators of whether Taoism had formed. By re-examining key historical materials such as the Laozi Mother Stele, the Laozi Transformation Sutra, and the Laozi Inscription, it argues that previous scholars' understanding of the deification of Laozi in the Han Dynasty was largely based on improperly dated materials, and thus their conclusions may require revision. One key point of this discussion is that the Han Dynasty's belief in Laozi had not yet broken free from the confines of heaven worship, distinguishing it sharply from the reverence for Laozi in the Six Dynasties period of Taoism. Second, it focuses on exploring the tradition of immortal cultivation in the Han Dynasty. Originally based on another important Han Dynasty stone inscription—the Fei Zhi Stele, some scholars have directly interpreted the Fei Zhi Stele as a relic of Han Dynasty Taoism. However, the author of this book holds a different view, arguing that placing the Fei Zhi Stele in the context of the Han Dynasty's immortal cultivation tradition reveals that its core belief remains "revering heaven." Fei Zhi practiced immortal cultivation techniques, and the group formed by Fei Zhi and his disciples was merely a small, private circle of master-disciple transmission in the Han Dynasty, not a Taoist sect organization. This leads to meaningful discussions about the relationships and differences between sorcery, alchemy, and Taoist techniques, shamans, alchemists, and Taoist priests, as well as the distinctions between immortality and health preservation, and the regional variations in immortal cultivation techniques. The several important materials examined in this part are essentially rooted in the context of "revering heaven," reflecting that until the late Han Dynasty, neither a main deity worship centered on Taoism nor a formalized Taoist sect organization had emerged.
Part 3: "Veneration of Tao—The Establishment of the Core Beliefs of Scriptural Taoism"
This section focuses on discussing the historical origins and influences of the late Han Dynasty's Taiping Dao and Wudoumi Dao, generally regarded as markers of the formation of Taoism. This is also a new exploration guided by the author's newly proposed proposition about the eastern and western traditions of medieval Taoism. The focus of this section remains on the western tradition, represented by the Wudoumi Dao. First, by examining the discrepancies in historical records and Taoist scriptures regarding the genealogy of the San Zhang family, as well as the disappearance and sudden revival of the Zhang family after Zhang Lu surrendered to Cao Cao during the Six Dynasties and Tang dynasties, the author attempts to argue that the Wudoumi Dao in Hanzhong was essentially a continuation of the folk religious beliefs of the Han Dynasty, characterized by strong shamanistic elements and a mix of Han and non-Han influences, and did not yet possess the true nature of Taoism. Second, by analyzing several materials about the Celestial Master Zhang Dao Ling, the author proposes that the tradition of the San Zhang revered by medieval scriptural Taoism—more accurately, the tradition of Zhang Dao Ling—originated from the myth of the divine bestowal by the "Supreme One." The "Supreme One" is the personified and deified "Dao" revered by medieval Taoism, representing a new development beyond the widespread belief and worship of "Heaven" in the Han Dynasty. The establishment of the belief in "veneration of Tao" is the most important marker of the formation of scriptural Taoism. The San Zhang tradition that emerged under this context did not originate solely from the Wudoumi Dao in Bashu and Hanzhong. The establishment of the tradition of the Celestial Master Zhang was the result of the convergence of the eastern and western traditions of Taoism in the late Jin and early Song dynasties, rather than a natural continuation of the Wudoumi Dao tradition in Hanzhong. The tradition of the Celestial Master Zhang holds more symbolic significance, and there remains a significant gap between the Taoist concept of the Celestial Master Zhang and historical reality.
Finally, this book concludes with a general discussion.