INTRODUCTION
Professor Biography ............................................................................i
Course Scope .....................................................................................1
LECTURE GUIDES
LECTURE 1
Reading Other People’s Scriptures ....................................................4
LECTURE 2
Hinduism and the Vedas...................................................................11
LECTURE 3
What Is Heard—Upanishads ............................................................19
LECTURE 4
What Is Remembered—Epics ..........................................................26
LECTURE 5
Laws of Manu and Bhagavad Gita ...................................................33
LECTURE 6
Related Traditions—Sikh Scriptures .................................................40
LECTURE 7
Judaism—People of the Book ..........................................................47
LECTURE 8
Five Books of Torah ..........................................................................54
LECTURE 9
Prophets and Writings ......................................................................61
LECTURE 10
Apocrypha and Dead Sea Scrolls.....................................................68
ii
LECTURE 11
Oral Torah—Mishnah and Talmud ....................................................75
LECTURE 12
Related Traditions—Zoroastrian Scriptures 82
LECTURE 13
The Three Baskets of Buddhism 89
LECTURE 14
Vinaya and Jataka 96
LECTURE 15
Theravada Sutras 103
LECTURE 16
Mahayana Sutras ...........................................................................111
LECTURE 17
Pure Land Buddhism and Zen ........................................................118
LECTURE 18
Tibetan Vajrayana ...........................................................................126
LECTURE 19
Related Traditions—Jain Scriptures ...............................................134
LECTURE 20
Five Confucian Classics .................................................................141
LECTURE 21
Four Books of Neo-Confucianism...................................................149
LECTURE 22
Daoism and the Daodejing .............................................................156
LECTURE 23
The Three Caverns of Daoist Scriptures ........................................163
LECTURE 24
Related Traditions—Shinto and Tenrikyo .......................................170
LECTURE 25
Christian Testaments Old and New ................................................177
LECTURE 26
Gospels and Acts............................................................................184
LECTURE 27
Letters and Apocalypse ..................................................................191
LECTURE 28
Apocryphal Gospels .......................................................................198
LECTURE 29
Related Traditions—Mormon Scriptures.........................................206
LECTURE 30
Islam and Scriptural Recitation .......................................................213
LECTURE 31
Holy Qur’an ....................................................................................220
LECTURE 32
Hadith and Sufism ..........................................................................228
LECTURE 33
Related Traditions—Baha’i Scriptures ............................................235
LECTURE 34
Abandoned Scriptures—Egyptian and Mayan................................243
LECTURE 35
Secular Scripture—U.S. Constitution .............................................250
LECTURE 36
Heavenly Books, Earthly Connections ...........................................257
iv
SUPPLEmENTaL maTERIaL
Recommended Texts and Translations ..........................................264
Bibliography ....................................................................................268
Five Confucian Classics
Lecture 20
I
n the last lecture, we saw that Jainism seems to undermine some common assumptions; it’s clearly a religion, but unlike most of the other traditions we will encounter in this course, Jain identity is not primarily based on an established, widely accepted set of sacred texts. In this lecture, we are faced with nearly the opposite situation; Confucianism has a well-defined canon (in fact, two of them: the Five Classics and the Four Books), but it is often thought of as more of a philosophy than a religion. In this lecture, we’ll explore possible explanations for this distinction and look in detail at four of the Five Classics.
Defining Confucianism
• Confucianism is a system of thought that originated in ancient China with Confucius (551–479 B.C.E.). The Chinese call this system of thought rujia (“the school of scholars”) or rujiao (“teachings of the scholars”). Confucius was the inheritor and transmitter of an earlier cultural heritage, much of which was contained in the Five Classics. o When we think about religion in the West, we often have in mind social groups that share in a broad family of characteristics, such as belief in a god or gods, rituals, prayer, a moral code, and so on. Not every religion has all these features, yet we tend to think that we can fairly easily distinguish religion from, say, philosophy.
o Confucianism contains traces of most of the common elements of religion, but the emphases are different than we might expect.
o For example, Confucianism has a concept of an impersonal moral force called Heaven that is not exactly a god yet sometimes rewards and punishes human behavior. At the same time, the basic religion in China from its earliest period has been ancestor worship. The ceremonies of ancestor worship
The Jesuits made considerable progress and even gained positions in the imperial court, but Dominicans and Franciscans insisted that the rites honoring Confucius and ancient ancestors were religious, and Chinese converts had to choose between Christianity and Confucianism.
o The Rites Controversy went on for nearly a century, but the result was that Chinese Catholics were forbidden to participate in Confucian rites, which almost brought Catholic missionary work in China to an end.
• In the 19th century, at a time when China was much weaker compared to European societies, Protestant missionaries were less accommodating, though Western scholars were beginning to develop the idea of world religions and view Confucianism within that category, as something worthy of respect.
o One key individual—both a missionary and a scholar— was James Legge. A Scotsman who served as the head of a Christian college in Hong Kong for nearly 30 years, Legge began translating and publishing the Confucian Classics while in China, and then, in 1876, he was appointed as the first chair of Chinese Language and Literature at Oxford. Four years later, Legge published The Religions of China: Confucianism and Taoism Described, which put the teachings of Confucius firmly within the religion camp.
o During his 20 years at Oxford, Legge continued to revise and enlarge the scope of his translations. At Oxford, he met Max Müller, and together, they published some of Legge’s translations of Confucian and Daoist classics as part of the Sacred Books of the East. This, as much as anything, contributed to the notion that Confucianism could be considered on an equal footing with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.
• In the 20th century, Chinese scholars themselves started writing in English about Confucian texts, and they tended to treat them more as philosophy than religion. This was probably an attempt to make the ideas more attractive to Westerners, but it also reflected attitudes in China, where successive governments did not count Confucianism as one of the five recognized religions.
• Eventually, Western scholars began to split the difference. One important study was titled Confucius: The Secular as Sacred, and textbooks often use such terms as “religious humanism” to describe the tradition.
The Odes and Documents
• One of the ways in which Confucianism is most like more familiar religions is in its use of sacred texts. From earliest times, Confucian scholars have been devoted to a collection of ancient writings that they regarded as profound, comprehensive, and uniquely authoritative. These were the Five Classics: the Odes, the Documents, the Rites, the Changes, and the Spring and Autumn Annals.
o These texts all preceded Confucius, and even though later scholars regarded Confucius as the editor or commentator on these books, he probably did not have a direct role in their production. Indeed, the canonical forms of the texts were not established until several centuries after his death.
o In the 1st century C.E., during the Han dynasty, the Five Classics became the basis for Chinese civil service exams and the foundation of state ideology.
• The Odes, also known as the Book of Poetry, consists of 305 poems dating from the 10th to the 7th centuries B.C.E. The poems are divided into four sections: Airs of the States, Lesser Odes, Greater Odes, and Temple Hymns.
o The poems include a number of sacrificial and ceremonial hymns, often praising royal ancestors, but the most interesting poems for modern readers are probably those in the Airs. Many of these are folk songs about courtship, marriage, agriculture, military conscription, or oppressive officials.
The tradition is that Confucius selected these songs from a much larger collection. Consequently, Chinese scholars have long looked for the hidden moral meaning that would have attracted Confucius’s attention.
• The Documents is a collection of 58 speeches or edicts from the mythical sage kings Yao and Yu through the first three Chinese dynasties (roughly the 23rd to the 3rd centuries B.C.E.). The Documents treats matters of statecraft, including the notion of the Mandate of Heaven. The idea here is that Heaven, as an impersonal moral force, can grant its seal of approval to a virtuous ruler and, if necessary, later transfer that approval to a more worthy family, thereby authorizing rebellion and the foundation of a new dynasty.
• Both the Odes and the Documents were targeted by the first emperor of China in the famous burning of the books in 213 B.C.E. Later, copies of these texts were discovered, known as the New Text and the Old Text according to the style of writing used. In the mid-18th century, Chinese scholars proved that the Old Text chapters were 4th-century forgeries.
The Rites and Annals
• The third of the Five Classics is the Rites, which is a collection of three texts, the Ceremonials, the Zhou Rites, and the Records of Rites. These are compilations of traditions attributed to the early Zhou dynasty of proper government functions, ceremonies, and decorum, along with interpretations of the meaning of various rituals. o For example, in the Records of Rites, we find rules governing social visits, interviews with government authorities, and family interactions, along with rituals for coming of age, marriages, funerals, and so on. This information is presented through systematic descriptions, essays, dialogues, and historical narratives.
o The Rites texts present an idealized version of social interactions during the time of the sage kings and were probably compiled many centuries after the golden years of the early Zhou dynasty.
• The Spring and Autumn Annals consists of short notices of events that were recorded in Confucius’s home state of Lu between 722 and 481 B.C.E. These texts are mostly notes about changes of rulers, marriages, deaths, diplomatic visits, and battles between the numerous feudal lords in the centuries immediately preceding Confucius.
o What makes the Spring and Autumn Annals wonderful is its earliest commentary, compiled about 300 B.C.E. and attributed to Zuo Qiuming. This Zuo Commentary provides detailed historical narratives that explain the notices in the Annals.
o The Zuo Commentary is a sort of encyclopedia of ancient China, with details about politics and warfare, family life, gender relations, ethics, ghosts, omens, and ancestral spirits.
o The Commentary probably dates to the 3rd century B.C.E. and may have originally been an independent history, but because it covered basically the same time period and events as the Spring and Autumn Annals, it was reorganized as a commentary and immortalized by its association with Confucius.
Classics versus Scripture
• The Five Classics is an eclectic mix, but all its genres can also be found in the Hebrew Bible. Why, then, do we generally refer to the sacred texts of ancient Israel as “scripture” and the sacred texts of Confucianism as “classics”?
o First, even though the Confucian Classics often mention
Heaven, spirits, sacrifices, divination, and so forth, they are not as directly focused on a god or gods as the Hebrew Bible.
o Second, the texts of Confucianism don’t claim to be revealed; they were always regarded as the writings of ancient sages.
Third, as far back as the 2nd century B.C.E., the Confucian Classics were intimately connected with state orthodoxy, imperial sponsorship, government education, and the civil service exams—precisely the sorts of worldly connections that we in the West tend to treat as political rather than spiritual.
• Yet part of the problem also seems to be a simple matter of translation. The five primary texts of Confucianism began to be known as jing (“classics”) in the Han dynasty. The word jing refers to the vertical threads, or warp, on a weaving loom and, hence, carries the connotations of basic guidelines, rules, or norms. A jing is a text that is deemed authoritative and orthodox.
o When Buddhist sutras were translated into Chinese, they were labeled jing. Indeed, the fact that Buddhism entered China in the 1st century C.E. with authoritative texts probably made it more acceptable to the Chinese, who were already used to the idea of a written canon.
o The scriptures of other faiths were also categorized as jing, such as the Daoist Daodejing, the Bible, and the Qur’an.
o The word jing is the same in Chinese, and whether we translate it as “classic” or “scripture” is mostly a matter of habit.
Suggested Reading
Legge, trans. The Chinese Classics.
———, trans. The Li Ki.
Littlejohn, Confucianism.
Nylan, The Five “Confucian” Classics.
Watson, trans. The Tso Chuan.
Waley, trans. The Book of Songs.
Questions to Consider
1. Is Confucianism more of a religion or a philosophy? And how does that affect the way we read its primary texts?
2. What themes are shared by Confucian Classics in the different genres of poetry, history, and ritual?
Four Books of Neo-Confucianism
Lecture 21
W
e begin this lecture with the last of the Five Confucian Classics, the Changes, or Yijing (I-Ching), which the Chinese considered the oldest and holiest of the Classics and which is by far the
best known in the West. We will then turn to the canonization of the Five Classics, along with several other texts, and the development of NeoConfucianism. As we’ll see, the influential Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi urged his students to concentrate their efforts on learning the Four Books: the Analects, the Mencius, the Great Learning, and the Constant Mean. We will explore these texts and Zhu Xi’s metaphysical theory of li (“principle”) and qi (“vital energy”).
The Yijing
• The Yijing is an ancient manual of divination. The user manipulates milfoil stalks or, much later, coins to indicate a particular hexagram to predict the future or find clues about how a dynamic situation might change. The core text consists of 64 graphs of six stacked horizontal lines—some broken and some unbroken—along with a title and a short statement for each. There is also a series of brief judgments on each of six lines of the 64 graphs, which are useful when specific lines are determined to be particularly powerful or unstable.
• The solid lines in a hexagram are thought of as yang, while the broken lines represent yin, in accordance with the ancient Chinese notion that the cosmos consists of two opposing forces that are manifest in all things.
• The Chinese have long ascribed the hexagrams, statements, and line texts to the founders of the Zhou dynasty, in the 11th century B.C.E., and in fact, the book seems to be a compilation of divination lore from several centuries before Confucius. Yet the Changes is more than just a divination manual.
o Eventually, there were 10 appendices, or “wings,” that were added to the core text. These were commentaries, traditionally ascribed to Confucius, that explored cosmic patterns of change and transformation and even suggested that the Yijing contained within its hexagrams all possible states of transition and, hence, was a textual model or microcosm of the universe.
o By learning to distinguish significant from trivial change, careful readers could prioritize their concerns and efforts and learn to live in harmony with the inevitable ebbs and flows of the cosmos.
Neo-Confucianism
• With the canonization of the Five Classics in the Han dynasty, there came a need to establish, preserve, and transmit authoritative versions of the texts. Unlike in Hinduism, where there were rigorous methods of memorization, or in Judaism, with the amazing scribal quality control of the Masoretes, in China, canonization came about by carving the classics into stone.
• In 172 C.E., the emperor ordered a complete set of stone classics for the imperial academy. Seven Classics (the standard five, plus the Analects of Confucius and the brief Classic of Filial Piety) were carved onto 46 steles, each a little over eight feet high and three feet wide. Students could take rubbings from the stone texts on paper.
• After the collapse of the Han dynasty in the 3rd century C.E., Confucianism, which had been closely associated with the imperial government, fell into decline, while Daoism and Buddhism became more prominent. In the Tang dynasty, with the reunification of China under centralized rule, Confucianism began to make a comeback, and the Five Classics were again carved into stone in 837, along with several supplemental classics. From the 12th century on, it became common to talk about the Thirteen Classics of Confucianism.
• But Confucianism in the Tang dynasty and the succeeding Song dynasty (10th–13th centuries) was not quite the same as that of the Han dynasty. Buddhism had influenced Chinese sensibilities, and the new Confucianism (Neo-Confucianism) was much more interested in the ultimate nature of reality and humanity. It was also aimed at pursuing a program of self-cultivation and inner spirituality, rather than gaining the historical knowledge necessary to pass exams and become a government official.
• The most influential figure in Neo-Confucianism was a scholar named Zhu Xi (1130–1200). He championed a metaphysical theory in which everything is a combination of li (“principle”) and qi (“vital energy,” which in its heavier forms is matter). There is a principle, then a sort of ideal blueprint for being a ruler, a mother, or even a mountain or river. Actual rulers or mountains are all different because of the particular qi of which they are made.
o This theory is important for two reasons: (1) It offers an analysis of the nature of the cosmos that could compete with Buddhist philosophy, and (2) it provides an ethical program for living; one can purify one’s actions and emotions to bring them into harmony with the near-perfect principle that is within us all.
o Human nature is inherently good, and it’s our job to recapture that innate goodness through study, self-discipline, and “quiet-sitting.” By so doing, one can follow the Way (the Dao) of Heaven.
• Zhu Xi claimed to have recovered the long-lost original meanings of Confucian texts, though rather than the Five Classics, he urged his students and followers to concentrate their efforts on the Four Books: the Analects, the Mencius, the Great Learning, and the Constant Mean.
o Mastery of one or two of the Five Classics had long been a path to success in the civil service exams and government office, but Zhu Xi realized that the Four Books were shorter, easier to read, and more directly applicable to personal moral improvement and inner spirituality.
o His elevation of these texts was controversial during his lifetime, but in 1315, more than a century after Zhu Xi’s death, the Mongols, who were trying to recruit Chinese to work as officials under them, restored the civil service exams and started testing students on their knowledge of the Four Books and Zhu Xi’s commentaries.
• For the next 700 years, until the abolition of the state exams in 1905, the Four Books were the foundation of the official curriculum. The exams were the primary route to social mobility and respectability, and every exam candidate, along with nearly every schoolchild, had to memorize the Four Books. As the Five Classics declined in importance in late imperial China, the Four Books were widely studied in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. In other words, NeoConfucianism became an international movement.
The Great Learning and the Analects
• The Great Learning is the shortest and simplest of the Four Books. It begins with a few paragraphs attributed to Confucius, followed by 10 short passages of commentary credited to Zengzi, one of Confucius’s first disciples. The Great Learning advocates a spiritual goal and an organized plan for one’s studies; the crux is the “investigation of things,” which Zhu Xi defined as examining the principle (li) that one was meant to fulfill.
• The next text in Zhu Xi’s streamlined educational curriculum was the Analects. This text consists of 20 chapters of aphorisms attributed to Confucius, brief dialogues, or anecdotes about his life. The book seems to have had its origin with his students, who recorded some of their favorite sayings or stories about their beloved teacher after his death.
• Confucius’s engaging, inspiring personality seems to come through in his debates with students and government officials about education, ritual, literature, history, wealth and poverty, statecraft, friendship, and ethical behavior. He is generally enthusiastic and generous, yet there are also times when he is frustrated at his inability to secure appropriate employment, and he is nearly in despair at the death of his favorite student.
• In the Analects, Confucius develops the technical terms of humaneness, refinement, righteousness, filial piety, the noble person, moral force, and the Way but not in a systematic fashion. The reported conversations seem to be in random order, and Confucius explains his ideas in different ways to different students. He also tends to offer examples and illustrations rather than rigorous definitions.
• Later readers have tried to get at the heart of The enthusiastic and generous personality of Confucius emerges in the Analects.
Confucius’s teachings, which has given rise to a great body of commentary and competing interpretations. But the fact that Confucian thought can be reconstituted in a variety of ways has allowed it to be continuously relevant in widely differing eras. Students who read the Analects as a moral guide come away with respect for authority, reverence for the past, a love of learning, preference for nonviolent reform, moral courage, and exactness in dealing with others.
Mencius and the Constant Mean
• The third of the Four Books is the Mencius, which is both the name of a book and the name of Confucius’s most prominent successor, who lived from 372 to 289 B.C.E. The book has seven chapters, each divided into two parts. It presents extended discourses and reports of advice that Mencius gave to rulers or debates he had with philosophical opponents. As a result, this later text clarifies many points that had been left somewhat vague by Confucius.
o For instance, Mencius argues at length that human nature is inherently good and that evil comes when people ignore their basic impulses of compassion, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom.
o One of his most famous illustrations is his observation that people instinctively feel alarm or distress when they see a child about to fall into a well. Not everyone runs to the rescue—it’s possible to suppress those feelings—but that sort of compassion comes naturally to human beings.
o Because physical and social surroundings are crucial in nurturing the ability to follow good impulses, Mencius emphasizes education, the family, and good government. And he regularly chides rulers who do not lay the economic groundwork necessary for a basic level of well-being for their subjects.
• The Constant Mean, or Doctrine of the Mean, is another relatively short chapter from the Records of Rites, and it was considered the most subtle and profound of the Four Books. The word “mean” in this case refers to moderation and balance. And these qualities, combined with sincerity, can bring a person into harmony with other human beings and with the cosmos itself. The Constant Mean points the way to an almost mystical unity with heaven and earth.
Suggested Reading
Chan, Wing-tsit, trans., A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
Gardner, trans., The Four Books.
Lau, trans., Confucius: The Analects.
———, trans., Mencius.
Legge, trans., The Chinese Classics.
Leys, trans., The Analects of Confucius.
Nylan and Wilson, Lives of Confucius.
Shaughnessy, trans., I Ching: The Classic of Changes.
Smith, The I Ching: A Biography.
Wilhelm and Baynes, trans., The I Ching or Book of Changes.
Questions to Consider
1. How did the Four Books become the basis of the Chinese education system for 600 years?
2. Why do many Chinese believe that the Four Books offer a better introduction to Confucianism than the Five Classics?
3. In what ways are the Four Books a response to the challenge of Buddhism?
Daoism and the Daodejing
Lecture 22
ordinary ways of thinking.
Early Daoism
Classic of the Way and Its Power”) and was never heard from again.
and a canon of scripture. religious practitioners.
• Unfortunately, not much of this familiar story of Daoism stands up to scholarly scrutiny. The Daodejing appears to be a collection of sayings and folk wisdom that accumulated over a couple of centuries, down to about 300 B.C.E. It’s doubtful that it was written by one individual, let alone by a contemporary of Confucius.
• The whole notion that there were distinct philosophical schools in pre-imperial China seems to be, like Laozi’s biography, a Han dynasty invention, reading contemporary divisions back into the past. The Records of the Historian, one of China’s earliest histories, includes an essay outlining the basic beliefs of six schools, but with the exception of one (the Mohists), these schools actually represent an eclectic mix of ideas. Daoists and Confucians were not bitter rivals in early China, and it’s not clear that teachers whom we today regard as Daoist would have used that term to describe themselves.
• During the Han dynasty, there emerged a sense of what “Daoists” believed, but as we saw with Confucianism, our modern Western categories of philosophy versus religion don’t quite apply in ancient China. Thinkers with Daoist tendencies addressed political and ethical matters and speculated about the nature of reality, yet they also offered a path to transcendence and an escape from worldly concerns through meditation and spiritual disciplines.
The Daodejing
• The standard text of the Daodejing, also known as the Laozi, was established in the 3rd century C.E. (though its origins are much older) in a commentary by Wang Bi. The Laozi consists of two parts of roughly equal length: the Daojing (“Classic of the Way”) and the Dejing (“Classic of Power or Virtue”).
• The Daodejing is relatively short, with each of its 81 chapters taking up only a page or two. It is written in a terse, almost cryptic style. There are striking images, and it is wonderfully suggestive. It seems as if it means so much, even when it is difficult to put one’s finger on exactly what’s going on.
• The combination of brevity and profundity has made the Daodejing irresistible to commentators and translators. More than 350 Chinese commentaries are extant, and there are now more than 300 translations into English. In fact, the Daodejing is probably the best known work of Chinese culture.
• The overriding concern of the Daodejing is the Dao, or the Way, which is a transcendent order underlying all phenomena. It is somehow connected with nature, as opposed to human artifice, but ultimately, it is beyond words. According to the Daodejing, the Way is eternal, inexhaustible, and the origin of all things.
• The Daodejing is a book of wisdom; to live peacefully and fully, it advises that we need to bring our thoughts and deeds into harmony with the Dao. Or, rather, we should avoid overthinking and practice wu wei (“nonaction” or “effortless action”). The goal is to act spontaneously, without trying to force a situation one way or another.
• The Daodejing upends some common assumptions: It might be beneficial or even preferable to adopt more stereotypically feminine characteristics—deference, quietude, passiveness—even in circumstances where traditionally masculine virtues hold sway, such as politics. One should be wary of ambition, desires, and possessions.
• Much of the Daodejing is directed toward rulers, and Laozi informs them that rather than forceful leadership and conquest, a small state with an unobtrusive government might, in the end, yield better results. At a time of incessant conflict (the Warring States period), a ruler who kept out of the limelight and avoided direct confrontation might fare better than one who was eager to lead his people into battle.
Recent Scholarship on Daoist Texts
• For nearly two millennia, the Chinese have read and savored the Daodejing, and they have wanted to attribute its wisdom to a historical sage named Laozi. Yet modern scholars have had serious doubts about its authorship. The Daodejing seems to be a jumble
Selections from the Daodejing
On the Way:
A Way that can be followed is not a constant Way. A name that can be named is not a constant name. Nameless, it is the beginning of Heaven and earth; Named, it is the mother of the myriad creatures. (Ivanhoe, trans.)
A thing was formed murkily; she was generated before heaven and earth. Silent and vast, unique she stands and does not change; She turns full circle and is not used up. She can be the mother of the world. I do not know her name; I entitle her the Way. (Ryden, trans.)
On practicing wu wei:
Attain utmost emptiness. Maintain steadfast tranquility … Be like heaven and merge with the Tao, One with the Tao, you will last long. You may die but will never perish. (Kohn, trans.)
On rulership:
The more taboos and prohibitions there are in the world, the poorer the people will be. The more sharp weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be. The more cunning and skill man possesses, the more vicious things will appear. The more laws and orders are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be. Therefore the sage says: I take no action and the people of themselves are transformed. I love tranquility and the people of themselves become correct. I engage in no activity and the people of themselves become prosperous. I have no desires and the people of themselves become simple. (Chan, trans.)
On self-cultivation:
In preserving the soul and embracing the One, can you avoid departing from them? In concentrating your qi and arriving at utmost weakness, can you be like an infant? In cleansing and purifying your profound insight, can you be without fault? In loving the people and governing the state, can you be without knowledge? In the opening and closing of the gates of Heaven, can you play the role of the female? In understanding all within the four reaches, can you do nothing (wuwei)? (Bloom, trans.)
of proverbs, paradoxes, observations, and advice, with frequent repetitions and disjunctions. It appears to have started as an oral compilation of aphorisms that was added to and rearranged over time—something like the biblical book of Proverbs—and then attributed to the Old Master.
• In the late 4th century, a version of this memorized wisdom tradition was written down. The oldest extant copy was found in a tomb at Guodian in 1993 and dated to about 300 B.C.E. It is recognizably the Daodejing that we know today, but it is only about 40 percent of the current text, and the individual sayings are not in the same order. The Guodian text may be a selection of someone’s favorite lines from a more complete work, an earlier version that was added to later, or an alternative version. It does not seem to be a work that was written in close to its final form by a contemporary of Confucius.
• Two somewhat later copies were found at Mawangdui in 1973, dated to about 200 B.C.E. and 170 B.C.E. These versions are quite close to the standard 3rd-century-C.E. text of Wang Bi, although they have some variations, and most curiously, the order of the two major sections is reversed.
• As interesting as such archaeological finds are to textual scholars, historians have been anxious to understand the role of the Daodejing in Chinese culture. For his two volumes of Daoist classics in the 19th-century Sacred Books of the East, James Legge translated both the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi, a longer prose work supposedly written by a 4th-century-B.C.E. philosopher of that name. Ever since, Westerners have read the works of Laozi and Zhuangzi together as the foundational texts of Daoism. The Chinese themselves have considered Zhuangzi to have been an early follower of Laozi, but again, that assumption has not held up under close scrutiny.
• The Zhuangzi is a spectacular work of literature and philosophy, with arresting insights that challenge ordinary ways of thinking. It also overlaps with ideas of the Daodejing: Zhuangzi writes about the Dao and spontaneous action; he praises “perfected persons”
who have transcended the physical and social constraints of ordinary life; and he is skeptical of human judgments and limited perspectives. Zhuangzi is perhaps most famous for dreaming he was a butterfly and then waking up and being unsure whether he wasn’t now a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuangzi.
• Yet there are also stark differences between Zhuangzi and Laozi. Zhuangzi rejects political activity outright; he doesn’t discuss nonaction; and he doesn’t urge the adoption of stereotypically feminine qualities. Before the Han dynasty, no one thought to categorize Zhuangzi and Laozi in the same philosophical school, and in fact, modern scholars believe that Zhuangzi came first. His core writings preceded the compilation of the Daodejing.
• The Zhuangzi has been influential in Asian culture, particularly in Zen Buddhism, and it has been justly celebrated in the West. Still, it doesn’t have nearly the stature of the Daodejing, which became sacred scripture for many. During the late Han dynasty, Laozi came to be regarded as an immortal, a cosmic deity, and a savior of humankind, and reciting the Daodejing became a devotional exercise with magical possibilities.
Suggested Reading
Hendricks, trans., Lao-Tzu: Te-Tao Ching.
Ivanhoe, trans., The Daodejing of Laozi.
Kirkland, Taoism.
Kohn, Introducing Daoism.
Kohn and LaFargue, eds., Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching.
Lao, trans., Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching.
Mair, trans., Tao Te Ching.
Palmer, trans., The Book of Chuang Tzu.
Watson, trans., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu.
Questions to Consider
1. If the Dao is so important, why is it so hard to talk about?
2. What do archeological finds of the last 40 years add to our understanding of the Daodejing?
The Three Caverns of Daoist Scriptures
Lecture 23
W
esterners have been reading the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi for more than 100 years, but scholars have also been aware of a much larger canon of Daoist scriptures, the Daozang. It’s a complex
and sometimes confusing collection of nearly 1,500 texts, whose contents were, until recently, mostly unknown in the West. In this lecture, we’ll discuss the development of that collection and the rise of various Daoist movements. Note, however, that Daoism is not a cohesive religion along the lines of Buddhism or Christianity; it’s more of a loose family of religions, similar to Hinduism, with different groups claiming their own revelations and scriptures. In recent decades, many of these texts have been translated into English for the first time.
Early Daoists
• In the last lecture, we saw how some thinkers in pre-imperial China who taught about the Way, simplicity, and spiritual transformation were grouped together under the label “Daoist” in the early Han dynasty. Since the 1980s, Western scholars have come to view another early text as nearly as critically important in proto-Daoism as Laozi and Zhuangzi.
o This is the Neiye (“Inward Training”), dated to between 350 and 300 B.C.E. and preserved as a chapter in a long book attributed to the philosopher Guanzi.
o The Inward Training is a relatively short work of rhymed prose that urges readers to live in harmony with the Dao by purifying their xin (“heart-mind”) and qi (“vital energy”) through breathing exercises, dietary regulation, and meditation. By so doing, one can become a sage.
• Since the late 20th century, our knowledge of another strand of protoDaoism has been greatly enriched by the discovery of previously unknown texts from tombs. In particular, a tomb at Mawangdui, dating to 168 B.C.E., yielded four texts that have been categorized by scholars as Huang-Lao writings. Huang is the Chinese word for “yellow,” referring to the mythical Yellow Emperor, and Lao refers to Laozi. This school combines Daoist concepts with ideas about government and cosmology.
• The most important example of Huang-Lao thought is the lengthy, eclectic Huainanzi, written by scholars in about 139 B.C.E. This work draws heavily on the Daodejing and Zhuangzi, but it combines Daoists perspectives with Confucianism, Legalism, yinyang thought, and Five Phases cosmology.
Celestial Masters and Ge Hong
• The first organized groups of Daoists appeared in the late Han dynasty (2nd century C.E.), though they were not educated elites but rebels. In 142, Zhang Daoling, in central China, claimed that Lord Lao (the deified Laozi, the personification of the Dao) appeared to him in a vision and told him that the end of the world was near. Zhang thereby became the first of the Celestial Masters.
o Zhang gathered followers who would be part of a new theocratic state and asked all recruits to donate grain to the cause. He taught that one could preserve one’s qi by limiting food and sex and that illness was the result of sin, which required confession and repentance.
o Zhang also had his followers memorize and chant the Daodejing, and Zhang’s grandson, the third Celestial Master, wrote a commentary on the Daodejing called the Xiang’er that was also recited. The Xiang’er includes explanations of cryptic lines in the Daodejing, as well as 27 precepts, such as “Do not do evil” and “Do not study false texts.”
• Also in the 2nd century C.E., in east China, another group of Daoist rebels arose, who became known as the Yellow Turbans; they eventually merged with the Celestial Masters. The Yellow Turbans were inspired by a text called the Taipingjing (“Scripture on Great Peace”).
o This is a lengthy transcript of conversations between a Celestial Master and six of his disciples. In his answers to their questions, the Celestial Master teaches about meditation and healing through medicinal plants, talismans, acupuncture, and music.
o He also indicates that an era of great peace will ensue when rulers follow the Dao. Unfortunately, that could happen only after the destruction of the current corrupt government; thus, the Yellow Turbans launched a rebellion in 184 C.E.
• The political situation was confused for the next 30 years, but religious rebels managed to set up a theocratic state in Sichuan for a while before surrendering to General Cao Cao in 215 and being dispersed throughout China. The lineage of Celestial Masters continues to this day in Taiwan.
• The Way of the Celestial Masters and the Yellow Turbans were popular mass movements. In the aftermath of the Han dynasty, Daoism also appealed to scholars, including Ge Hong (283–343). Ge was an official who had been trained in the Confucian classics, but he was also interested in Daoist immortals, texts, and practices, as well as the possibility of achieving longevity through alchemy.
o Ge Hong wrote the Baopuzi (“Master of Embracing Simplicity”), which is divided into 20 Inner and 50 Outer Chapters. The Inner Chapters are devoted to esoteric techniques of attaining transcendence or immortality through alchemy, meditation, visualizations, gymnastics, and so on. The Outer Chapters are devoted to the mainstream political thought and moral principles of Confucianism and Legalism.
o The Master of Embracing Simplicity is not Daoist scripture, though it was included in the Daozang in the 15th century, but Ge Hong’s work is a key text in helping us understand early Daoism. Indeed, he is one of those figures who make it difficult to draw a distinction between a refined philosophical Daoism and a superstitious religious Daoism devoted to magic and immortality; in Ge’s writings, the two strands go together.
Shangqing and Lingbao
• After the fall of the Han dynasty in the 3rd century, educated northerners fled south, taking some of these Daoists texts and traditions with them and asserting their right to rule. Displaced southern aristocrats responded by discovering their own superior versions of teachings about the Dao, from higher sources than those claimed by the Celestial Masters.
• Some 20 years after Ge Hong’s death, from 364 to 370, a spirit medium named Yang Xi, living near Nanjing, began to receive midnight visitations from a group of deities descended from the Heaven of Highest Clarity (Shangqing). From these visitations, he learned about the organization of the heavens, met several celestial beings, and received scriptures, which he recorded.
• About a century later, a scholar named Tao Hongjing (456–536) collected all the Shangqing revelations he could find and compiled them into a text called the Declarations of the Perfected. Because this was an aristocratic, elite form of Daoism that put a great deal of emphasis on literary achievement, the revelations that came through Yang Xi were often in the form of exquisite poetry.
• A few decades after Yang Xi, another branch of Daoism was established, the Numinous Treasure School (Lingbao). Around 399, a grand-nephew of Ge Hong named Ge Chaofu compiled some of his inherited family mystical traditions into a text known as the Five Talismans.
o Ge Chaofu claimed that these abstract, magical designs were instrumental in creation and had been hidden in a sacred mountain by the mythical emperor Yu. Eventually, they were revealed to a 2nd-century ancestor of Ge Chaofu, making these texts older than those of the Highest Clarity School.
o Many Numinous Treasure texts followed. They offered a plethora of sacred diagrams and charts, drew upon Buddhist ideas, established public rituals for talisman activation, introduced new gods and heavens, and offered salvation to all.
The Daozang
• In the 5th century, a few people sensed that these various regional religious movements and lineages had enough in common that they could be brought together into something called “Daoism.” At a time when Buddhism was gaining in popularity, some scholars felt that it was important to meet the challenge of that foreign religion with a system of beliefs, practices, rituals, and scriptures that were indigenous to China. Lu Xiujing (406–477), a Daoist priest, was one such scholar.
• He gathered as many sacred texts as he could find and organized them into three groups, which he called the Three Caverns. This became the basis of the Daozang or Daoist canon. There was the Cavern of Perfection, consisting of Supreme Clarity scriptures; the Cavern of Mystery, containing the Numinous Treasure scriptures; and the Cavern of Spirit, made up of the writings of yet another school of Daoism, that of the Three Sovereigns.
• About a century after the work of Lu Xiujing, four supplements were added—one for each of the Caverns, plus a general category. The Cavern of Perfection was supplemented by texts based on the Daodejing; the Cavern of Mystery was supplemented by texts based on the Scripture on the Great Peace; and the Cavern of Spirit was supplemented by Taiqing texts (having to do with alchemy and physical exercises). The fourth, unattached supplement consisted of Celestial Master scriptures.
• The Daoist canon kept getting larger, and in the 7th century, the texts in each of the Three Caverns were arranged into 12 subsections. From the 8th to the 13th centuries, perhaps half a dozen projects were undertaken to compile a complete Daoist canon, but all of those early versions were lost in the wars and rebellions of medieval Chinese history.
• Finally, a Ming dynasty edition of the complete canon was published in 1445, which included some 1,400 texts. Additional texts were added in 1607, bringing the total to about 1,500. Printing
this collection was a tremendous project, requiring imperial sponsorship. This edition is the origin of all current copies of the Daoist canon.
• It is an eclectic collection, which includes not only Daoist scriptures but also the works of non-Daoist philosophers. There are works of alchemy; descriptions of heavens, spirits, and gods; liturgical texts; and more.
• The Daoist scriptures were never intended to be widely distributed or studied. Even after the publication of the canon in 1445, it was available in only a few Daoist monasteries.
o A modern edition of the canon (60 volumes) was finally published in Shanghai in the 1920s, with help from the republican government. The 500 sets that were printed were sold to libraries around the world. For most of the 20th century, however, the contents of the Daoist canon were still difficult for scholars to access, much less ordinary readers.
o In 2004, the University of Chicago published a three-volume catalogue of the Daoist canon, giving brief descriptions for every text it contains. In 2008, Rutledge came out with a two-volume Encyclopedia of Taoism, which offers clear explanations of major works. These scholarly sources are available in university libraries; for self-study of Daoist texts, Livia Kohn’s anthology The Taoist Experience is highly recommended.
Suggested Reading
Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures.
Despeux and Kohn, Women in Daoism.
Hendrischke, The Scripture on Great Peace.
Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture.
———, ed., The Taoist Experience.
Major, Queen, Meyer, and Roth, trans., The Huainanzi.
Pregadio, ed., The Encyclopedia of Taoism.
Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a Religion.
Roth, Original Tao and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism.
Sailey, The Master Who Embraces Simplicity.
Schipper and Verellen, eds., The Taoist Canon.
Thompson, “Taoism: Classic and Canon.”
Ware, Medicine and Religion in the China of A.D. 320.
Yates, trans., Five Lost Classics.
Questions to Consider
1. How have scholars in the last few decades modified their views about the origins and development of Daoism?
2. Why is the massive canon of Daoist sacred texts so little known in the West?
Related Traditions—Shinto and Tenrikyo
Lecture 24
S
hinto is a rather unusual faith. It is very much concerned with divinities, purification, and the unseen world, yet it has no official scriptures. Shinto is a native Japanese religion concerned with harmonizing the human and natural worlds and regulating relationships with kami—local divinities that are powerful but not necessarily perfect or even immortal. Kami is also a term that describes the numinous power found in natural phenomena, such as mountains and seas, earthquakes and storms, and even extraordinary animals and humans. Rather than a set of doctrines, Shinto is more a collection of rituals by which people pay homage to the kami, purify themselves from ritual pollution, celebrate life stages, or express solidarity with their neighbors.
Introduction to Shinto
• Shinto is an unusual faith, with no official scriptures. It is closely tied to the Japanese landscape, with thousands of local shines; it’s connected to Japanese history, especially to the origins of the imperial family; and it’s a part of many Japanese customs— from annual festivals to mundane events, such as the opening of a business.
• Many Japanese don’t consider themselves religious but still participate in Shinto ceremonies. Shinto doesn’t require any particular beliefs; it is often thought simply to be an aspect of Japanese life. And because it’s rather amorphous in its beliefs, it has long coexisted with Buddhism and Confucianism. People can draw from all three traditions without fear of contradiction or heresy.
• Although Shinto does not have scriptures in the way that we usually think of them, there are nevertheless respected ancient texts that are closely associated with Shinto myths, rituals, and sensibilities. The two most important are early histories of Japan known as the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. These texts don’t provide a
foundation for a prescribed set of doctrines or a moral code, but the narratives they recount can tell us something about the values and concerns of the religion, particularly in their first chapters, which include myths of origins.
The Kojiki
• In the 7th and 8th centuries C.E., Japan received an influx of cultural innovations from China, initially coming via Korea. The Japanese were exposed to Chinese statecraft, literature, and philosophy; Buddhism came from China to Japan; and the first writing system for the Japanese language was developed, based
Shinto is an unusual religion in that it focuses on divinities, purification, and the unseen world, yet it has no official scriptures or teachings.
on Chinese characters. Of course, the Japanese had myths and legends that had been transmitted orally for many generations, but in the 8th century, these were first written down by government officials in two books.
• The Kojiki (“Records of Ancient Matters”) dates to 712 C.E. It was composed orally in Japanese and then transcribed into an idiosyncratic writing system that uses Chinese characters both phonetically and semantically. The Nihon shoki (“Chronicles of Japan”), sometimes known in the West as the Nihon-gi, appeared eight years later, in 720. It’s longer, more systematic, and written in the Classical Chinese language.
• The Kojiki is divided into three parts; the first tells of divinities and mythical origins, and the next two record genealogical details and anecdotes of emperors from legendary times to the death of Empress Suiko in 628 C.E.
o The text begins with a number of deities coming into existence, including the male Izanagi (“He Who Invites”) and the female Izanami (“She Who Invites”), who were married to each other.
o The god and goddess agree to produce children through sexual intercourse after they walk around a heavenly pillar. Izanami speaks first, but they both realize that this is improper, and their first child is born malformed.
o They then walk around the pillar again, with Izanagi speaking first, and their subsequent children, the 14 islands of Japan, are all lovely. They continue having children—some 35 kami of oceans and rivers, mountains, winds, trees, and so on—until Izanami dies in childbirth trying to deliver the fire god.
• The stories of the human emperors are rather tame in comparison to those of the gods, though it is significant that the grandson of Amaterasu, the sun goddess, presented the first emperor of Japan (also her descendant) with three sacred objects: a curved jewel, a mirror, and a sword. These ancient sacred objects are still used in the enthronement ceremonies of Japanese emperors.
• The tales in the Kojiki are somewhat strange, but in them, we can see some of the characteristic concerns of Shinto: kami and the natural world; life, death, and reproduction; proper order, gender relations, and purification rituals; and the divine origins of both Japan and the Japanese royal family.
Nihon shoki and Norito
• Because the odd writing system of the Kojiki is so difficult to decipher, it was not read much until the 18th century; further, the Nihon shoki, written in relatively clear Classical Chinese, related many of the same stories, often in more detail and with variant versions.
o The Nihon shoki has 30 chapters, the first 2 of which recount mythical stories similar to those of the Kojiki.
o The next 28 chapters offer stories of the Japanese emperors, from the legendary Jimmu (said to have lived in the 7th century B.C.E.), to more historical times (starting in about the 6th century C.E.), to the reign of Empress Jito, which ended in 697.
• The Kojiki and the Nihon-gi were never particularly popular, but because they are the oldest Japanese books, they are often mentioned with regard to Shinto. A better candidate for Shinto “scripture,” according to the scholar Joseph Kitagawa, is the norito, preserved in the Engi-shiki (“Institutes of the Engi Era”) of 927 C.E. This text is a collection of government regulations in 50 chapters.
o Most of the book deals with various offices and ministries charged with taxation, military affairs, justice, and so forth. But the first 10 chapters cover Shinto matters, from festivals and rituals to rules for priests and shrines. The 9th and 10th chapters provide a list of 3,132 kami and the names and locations of their shrines throughout Japan.
o The norito is found in chapter 8, and it consists of 27 ritual prayers, including praises of the kami, liturgies for various shrines and festivals, petitions for good harvests and the protection of the royal palace, and much more. Unlike the Kojiki and the Nihon-gi, the ritual prayers of the norito were memorized by priests and used regularly in worship, in ways that are similar to the sacred texts of other religious traditions.
Later Shinto
• As you recall, Buddhism played a large role in Japanese history, and for the most part, Buddhism and Shinto coexisted fairly easily. Buddhist monks and Shinto priests worked closely together, and today, most Japanese who participate in Shinto ceremonies also take part in Buddhist rituals on occasion, as well.
• One of the most interesting figures in the history of Shinto was Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801), one of Japan’s greatest scholars. Over the course of nearly 35 years of study, he painstakingly deciphered the writing system and grammar of the Kojiki, believing it
to be truer to an original Japanese version of religion than the Nihon shoki, which had been substantially influenced by Chinese thought. o Motoori’s multivolume, heavily annotated translation was one of the triumphs of the National Studies movement, which sought to understand Japan’s native culture.
o Motoori combined a brilliant, critical scholarly analysis of the text with an absolute faith in the kami and their powers. At a time when Westerners were struggling with the implications of academic approaches to the Bible (roughly the era of the American Revolution), Motoori was trying to reconcile his strong commitment to rationality with his belief in the literal reality of the myths in the Kojiki.
• Motoori was never quite successful in establishing the Kojiki as the sacred scriptural foundation for a Shinto, but during the Meiji Restoration, there was an attempt to make Shinto, purged of Buddhist elements, the official religion of Japan.
o The Meiji Restoration began in 1868 in the aftermath of foreign incursions into a Japan that had sealed itself off from the outside world for two centuries. Some mid-level samurai wrested control of the nation from the shogun in Tokyo and, claiming to act on behalf of the emperor, embarked on one of the most rapid and successful programs of modernization in world history.
o In the hope that Shinto might offer a focus for a new national identity, it was declared the sole basis of the government. (Keep in mind that Shinto provided legitimacy for rule by the imperial family, given that there has been only a single dynasty in Japanese history.) Over the next few years, the government took control of all Shinto shrines, and Shinto priests became state employees.
o There was a backlash from Japanese Buddhists and Christian missionaries, who wanted a more secular government
with guarantees of religious freedom, and eventually, the government gave in.
o In 1882, a law was enacted dividing the religion into Shrine Shinto and Sect Shinto. Shrine Shinto, encompassing tens of thousands of local shrines, could continue to be promoted and regulated by the state because it was declared to be a nonreligious expression of Japanese morality and patriotism. Sect Shinto recognized some 13 new religious movements, including Tenrikyo.
o In the early 20th century, Shrine Shinto became entangled with ultranationalism and absolute loyalty to the emperor at a time of increasing militarism, and it was eventually seen as a factor in the lead-up to Japanese aggression in World War II. During the occupation, ties between the government and local shrines were severed. Since that time, Shinto has been regarded as a benign, if unusual, religion.
Tenrikyo
• Over the last two centuries, Japan has been the site of several impressive new religions, including Tenrikyo, which was one of the 13 prewar denominations labeled as Sect Shinto. But Tenrikyo is quite different from Shinto; it is monotheistic, and it has a strong tradition of canonized sacred texts.
• Tenrikyo was founded by a peasant woman named Nakayama Miki (1798–1887). On October 26, 1838, she went into a trance and was possessed by Tenri O no Mikoto, a deity who claimed to be the creator, the true and real kami, God the Parent. He requested Nakayama as his living shrine and spokesperson. For the next 50 years, Miki continued to receive revelations from this divinity and taught them to her followers.
• Tenrikyo recognizes three books of scripture: the Ofudesaki (“Tip of the Writing Brush”), comprising 1,711 short poems written by Miki, primarily from 1874 to 1882; the Mikagura-uta (“Songs for
the Service”), which is 14 songs written by Miki and used in regular worship ceremonies; and the Osashizu (“Divine Directions”), seven volumes of nearly 20,000 revelations given by Miki’s successor, Izo Iburi, from 1887 to 1907.
Suggested Reading
Aston, trans., Nihongi.
Breen and Teeuwen, A New History of Shinto.
Bock, trans., Engi-Shiki.
Earhart, Japanese Religion.
Nakayama, Ofudesaki.
Philippi, trans., Kojiki.
———, trans., Norito.
Thomsen, The New Religions of Japan.
Questions to Consider
1. How did two early histories of Japan end up playing a scripture-like role in Shinto?
2. Why has Tenrikyo been one of the few 19th-century religions to continue growing into the 21st century?
