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The Dragon fights in the Wilds; its Blood is Black and Yellow.

HuangLao Daoism

the philosophy of

the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) and Laozi

 


"... Daoism ... developed in ... two major phases:

... first .... philosophical Daoism, the ... philosophy of ... Laozi and Zhuangzi. This began around 500 B.C.E. ... [and] ... was the dominant form of Daoism for several hundred years ... The magico-technicians ... (fangshi - fortune-tellers, astrologers, medical practitioners) ... and Huang-Lao Daoists of the Han, ... saw Laozi as an inspired leader ...

The second form of Daoism is ... religious Daoism. It began in the second century C.E. with the revelation of the Dao to Zhang Daoling, who became the first Celestial Master or representative of the Dao on Earth. This was an organized religion, with doctrines, rituals, gods, and the ultimate goal of ascension to the heavens of the immortals. ...".

from Laozi: Ancient Philosopher, Master of Immortality, and God, by Livia Kohn, in Religions of China in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Princeton University Press 1996).


"... [Han dynasty] texts ... that apparently reflected the philosphical tradition of of HuangLao Daoism. ... were found in late 1973

in ... tomb no. 3, Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan province, in a cache of manuscripts written on silk. They appear to have been part of the private library of a mamber of the Western Han dynasty aristocracy, the son of Li Cang, chief minister of the southern kingdom of Changsha, who died in approximately 168 B.C.E. ...

... [The essays entitled] The Canon: Law contains nine ... essays with a total of five thousand characters ... the first essay, Dao and the Law, ... opens with ...

The Dao produces law. Law is what draws the line between gain and loss, and makes clear the curved and the straight. He who grasps the Dao, therefore, produces law and does not venture to transgress it, establishes law and does not venture to oppose it. ... is able to draw himself with the line, only then may he be not confused when he sees and knows the world.

... this passage contradicts Joseph Needham's assertion ... that China produced no theory of natural law (law derived from the divine or the processes of nature). ... [this passage shows that] ... the ruler is not above the law, which is the position of legalists ..., but rather is constrained by the law and the Dao ...

... This [HaungLao Daoist] tradition ... developed n the period of of intesnse philosophical debates known as the Hundred Schools after the death of Confucius in 479 B.C.E. and prior to the unification of China under the First Emperor of Qin in 221 B.C.E. ... is referred to ... as being extremely popular at the end of the Warring States period and beginning of the Han dyhnasty (206 B.C.E.). ...

... the Daoists and Yin-Yang specialists ... believed that to solve the existential and socio-political crises at that time, man - especially, of course, the ruler - had to orient himself to the hidden order of the cosmos and abide completely by its norms.

... Early Han economic and social policies apparently were based to a large extgent on HuangLao principles. ... it was the philosophy or technique of greatest interest to the early Han emperors Wen (reigned 179-157 B.C.E.) and Jing (reigned 156-141 B.C.E.), the powerful Empress Dowager Duo, [and] Liu An (ca. 180-122 B.C.E.), the Han prince who sponsored the syncretic Daoist book Huainanzi ...

... Indeed, it is recorded as being almost the state ideology of the early Han until it was displaced by Confucianism under the powerful emperor Wu ... (reigned 140-87 B.C.E.) ... in about 140 B.C.E. ... After the imperial sponsorship of Confucianism ... it was virtually forgotten and the tradition was interrupted, nevermore to influence intellectuals and the political, social, and economic policies of Chinese governments. The books and treatises were thrown away or abandoned and the texts eventually completely lost. ... these manuscripts have not been read by anyone, Chinese or Western, for close to two thousand years. ...

... even though [his] lord and master, Emperor Wu, favored Confucianism ... Sima Tan argued that the Daoists (Daojia) adopted the best elements of all the philosophical traditions handed down to his time ... [saying]

The Daoists enable man's Numinous Essence (jingshen0 to be concentrated and unified, enable him to move in unison with the Formless (wuxing), and to provide adequately for the myriad things. As for its methods, it follows the great compliance of the Yin-Yang specialists, picks out the best of the Confucians and Mohists, and adopts the essentials of the Terminologists and Legalists. It shifts with the times, changes in response to things, and in establishing customs and in practical applications it is nowhere unsuitable. the general drift of its teachings is simple and easy to hold onto; ther eis much achievement for little effort.

... this view was incorporated by his son Sima Qian, the grand astrologer of Emperor Wu, in his Shiji (Historical Records), the first of China's twenty-four dynastic histories. ... In the first century B.C.E., Sima Qian ... [placed] ... the Yellow Emperor at the very beginning of time, at the head of the list of Five Emperors in his 130-chapter history of the world, the Historical Records. ... Under the Yellow Emperor's beneficent rule, the Chinese people learned how to cultivate silkworms to make silk and to construct boats and chariots. Writing was developed, as were ... the calendar, musical notes, mathematics, and medicine. ...

... The first appearance of the name of the Yellow Emperor associated with the royal house of Tian of the northeastern state of Qi is significant, for it was in Qi ... that many of the philosopers later associated with the HuangLao tradition, such as Tian Pian and Shen Dao, Song Xing and Yin Wen, gathered to debate thier ideas among themselves and before the kings as members of the famous Jixia Academy. The HuangLao tradition may, therefore, have originated in the state of Qi in Warring States times. ...".

from Five Lost Classics: Tao, Huang-Lao, and Yin-Yang in Han China, by Robin D. S. Yates (Ballantine Books 1997).

 


"... The standard texts of Lao-tzu are divided into two parts, chapters 1 through 37, which are sometimes called the Tao (the Way), and chapters 38 through 81, sometimes called the Te (Virtue).

The Ma-wang-tui texts do have the same two-part division, but in reverse order: the Virtue part preceding the Way.

The two halves are labelled Te and Tao, and that is the only indication of a title for the book in the Ma-wang-tui texts. In the Ma-wand-tui texts (both A and B), the book begins with what most texts call chapter 38 and ends with 37. ... Some scholars feel the Ma-wang-tui texts reflect the original order of the Tao-te ching and show that Lao-tzu ... was all along more interested in social-political matters than he was in metaphysics and psychology ...

... were the Ma-wang-tui texts of Lao-Tzu to be divided into chapters where the present-day text is divided, the sequence of material in the texts would be much the same. But there are three exceptions: what to us is chapter 24 comes between chapters 21 and 22 in the Ma-wang-tui texts; what to us is chapter 40 comes between chapters 41 and 42; what ... are chapters 80 and 81 are placed between chapters 66 and 67 in the Ma-wang-tui texts. ...".

from Lao-Tzu Te-Tao Ching, by Robert G. Hendricks (Ballantine Books 1989).

 


"... For the last two thousand and more years, the Yijing (I Ching) or Classic of Changes has been, with the Bible, the most read and commented upon work in all of world literature. ... The Mawangdui Yijing manuscript was written on two pieces of silk ...

... The first piece ... contains ... the hexagram and line statements often referred to as the Zhouyi ... , and a second, commentarial text ... Although this commentary is apparently untitled, scholars working wth the manuscript generally refer to it as Ersanzi wen or The Several Disciples Asked, the first words fo the text. ...

... The second piece of silk ... contains about 180 columns of text divided into four or five discrete commentaries: the Xici or Appended Statements, the only one of these commentaries of which there is a received version; Yi zhi yi or The Properties of the Changes; Yao or Essentials; and Mu He and Zhao Li, both names of interlocutors. ...

... the Zhouyi ... text of the 64 hexagram statements and associated line statements included 93 columns of text, with each column having between 64 and 81 characters. ... the most notable difference between the manuscript text and the received [Wen-wang] text lies in the sequence of hexagrams. ... the sequence of hexagrams given in the manuscript is based on a systematic combination of the hexagram's constituent trigrams:

Click here to see a page with large (150k, 530k, 650k) images of the HuangLao Daoist Trigram and Hexagram sequences.

the top trigram of a hexagram is the basis of its position in the manuscript's sequence; it is then combined in turn in a prescribed sequence with each of the other trigrams serving as its bottom trigram. Each of the eight trigrams forms a set of eight hexagrams sharing that top trigram. ...

... the Ersanzi wen ... [is a] ... text in 36 columns of about 72 characters per columns for a total of about 2,600 characters. ... At the end of column 16 there are three blank spaces, with column 17 beginning a new sentence. ... throughout the text there are several breaks of one or two character spaces ... The text is in the form of numerous quotations of Confucius ... regarding the Yijing, promped occasionally by questions from unidentified disciples. It is divided into thirty-two sections. ...

... the Xici ... ends in the forty-seventh column of text. ... the original manuscript included 3,344 characters, of which 2,908 are now legible. Unlike the received version ... which is divided into two parts of twelve chapters each ... the manuscript shows no evidence of either sections or chapters. There ar three or four fairly extended passages, including some entire chapters, that are not found in the manuscript version ... [some people now] argue that the manuscript text preserves ... Daoist orientation ...

... the [Yi zhi yi] ... text is at least 45 columns long, though due to a break in the silk in the middle of the text it is possible that there were originally two or three columns more than this. A rough approximation of hte number of characters in the text would be about 3,100. The final quarter or more of the text consists of sections B6 through B11 of the received [Xici] ... that ... are missing in the manuscript [Xici] ... Also included in this commentary ... are the first three sections of the received Shuo gua or Discussion of the Hexagrams commentary. ... After a brief introductory passage discussing the interplay of yin and yang, the text goes through a sequential discussion of many of the 64 hexagrams ... the sequence in which they are presented is generally that of the received text, rather than that of the manuscript Zhouyi. ...

... Some 20 columns [after the end of the Yi zhi yi] ... the text ends in the middle of a column, followed by a space and then the word Yao ... ... and then, after another space, the number 1,648. ... there were probably 24 columns of text in the original manuscript. Of the total of 1,648 characters, only about 1,040 are still legible. The text is divided into several sections by black dots. ... Columns 9-12 are essentially the last half of section B5 of the received text of the [Xici] ... Columns 12-18 record a conversation between an aged Confucius and his disciple Zi Gong ... The last section, from the bottom of column 18 through column 24, concerns the hexagrams Sun, Decrease, and Yi, Increase ...

... The column immediately after the last column of [Yao] begins with a black rectangular mark, followed with the words: "Mu He asked ..." ... After about severnty columns of text, there is a blank space followed by the two characters Mu He , but no character count. ...

... the next column of text [after Mu He] begins ... with the words: "Zhao Li asked ..." The text continues for another 14 columns, in the middle of the last of which are the two characters Zhao Li followed, after a space, by the number 6,000. ... this number 6,000 represents the total character count of both texts Mu He and Zhao Li ...

... they should be regarded as two chapters of a single text. ... They include 27 diffferent sections, divided in the text with black dots.

Of these sections, 24 are in Mu He. The first 12 sections are initiated by questions ... In sections 13-18, the Master [Confucius] discusses one line statement per section. Sections 19-24 ... begin with a historical story and then conclude with the citation of a line statement from the Zhouyi ...

... Zhao Li consists of three sections, in all of which Zhao Li asks ... questions ... Zhao Li groups several [hexagrams or line statements] together and then draws a general conclusion. ... ".

from I Ching, by Edward L. Shaughnessy (Ballantine Books 1996).

 


"... The wars and uprisings that marked the fall of the Qin led to extreme suffering and poverty among the people ... Needed to effect a recovery, as the Han ... realized, was a period of peace and security with a minimum of government expenditure and interference ...

Gaozu, the founder of the Han, ... relaxed the harsh laws of Qin, reduced the land tax, ... and kept court expenditures at a minimum.

This policy of frugality and laissez-faire was continued more or less consistently by his successors during the early Han, with the result that the population increased and the nation recovered with remarkable success. ...

... During the time of Emperor Wen (r. 180-157 B.C.E.), the government granted commutation of penalties or honorary court ranks in exchange for gifts of grain, thus making grain a commodity of enhanced value. This policy met with considerable success,and by the time of Emperor Wu (r. 141-87 B.C.E.) ... the government granaries were filled, the government had sufficient funds, and the people lived in ease and plenty. ... Ban Gu, principal author of the History of the Former Han Dynasty, saw

the reign of Emperor Wu [who abandoned HuangLao Daoism] as the turning point from prosperity to eventual ruin of the dynasty.

Though economic life recovered considerably after Wu's reign, the historian designated this period as the beginning of policies and trends the led to the downfall of the Han. ... [which policies included] the setting up of government monopolies in iron, salt, liquor, and coinage of currencey, as well as offices to engage in government trading. ... the emperor sought to divert these profits to the imperial treasury. ... along with forced conscription and haevy labor services imposed upon the people, [these policies] ... reduced the nation to poverty and brought extreme popular resentment. Emperor Wu, though professing support of Confucian ideals, was, in fact, ... using traditional Legalist methods such as the Qin had followed. ...".

from Sources of Chinese Tradition, volume 1, second edition, by Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom (Columbia Universtiy Press 1999).

 




 

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