Based on the foregoing points, if you really want to understand the relative ups and downs of Confucian and Taoist doctrines and thought during and after the Ch'in and Han dynasties, as well as the causes and results arising from the importation of Buddhist culture into China, it is necessary to understand the reasons behind the evolution of thought and scholarship in the two Han dynasties: the Former or Western Han (206 B.C.-A.D. 8) and Latter or Eastern Han (A.D. 25-220). The scholarship and thought of both Han dynasties consisted entirely of two realms of thought—Confucian and Taoist. Mo-ist thought had already merged itself into a subsidiary of these two realms by the early part of the Han period, so it had no independent domain at all.
Because of government leadership and social trends, it was Taoist thought that was most popular in the first part of the Western Han period. In the historically famous reigns of Emperor Wen (179-156 B.C.) and Emperor Ching (156-140 B.C.), the whole cultural tendency leaned toward the Huang-Lao arts of Taoism, which were a combination of the teachings of Lao Tzu and the Yellow Emperor Huang-ti. This was due to the needs of the times, and in principle was an inevitable trend in early Han politics.
From this point onward, Taoist learning and thought formed a regular pattern in Chinese history. Whenever disorder or rebellion arose, it has always been necessary to use the guidance of Taoist learning to restore peace. When peace returned to the land, the governing strategy was to use Huang-Lao (Taoism) inwardly while making an outward show of the arts of Confucianism. Since the time of the Western Han period, because of the popularity of Taoist learning and thought, the schools of Legalism, the schools of Yin and Yang, and other schools of thought (such as the Syncretists) all sought rapprochement with the Taoists, gradually flourishing by cleaving to it like parasites. Then, as a product of the degeneracies that built up, an atmosphere of superstition was created in the Western Han period, centered on the concepts of the five elements advanced by the Yin-Yang schools and the practice of divination (fortune-telling). For instance, the rebellion of Wang Mang, who briefly overthrew and supplanted the Han dynasty in the early first century A.D., the restoration of Han rule by Emperor Kuang-wu (r. A.D. 24-57), and the events around the end of Han period and the era of the Three Kingdoms (219-264 A.D.), without exception embodied the psychological elements of political order and disorder formulated in the context of concepts of divination.
Thus it came about that eremitical thinking arose among Taoists at the close of the Han dynasty, which, combined with ideals of chivalry derived from Mo-ism, produced the fledgling forms of Taoist religion. Religious Taoism and Buddhist learning then tried to push each other aside, yet they also absorbed each other's influence. At the same time, the learned thought of the two Han dynasties had transformed the thinking deriving from Confucius, Mencius, and Hsun-tzu into the world of the Han classicist Confucians. This occurred due to the policy of "dismissing all other philosophies and only honoring Confucianism" advocated by Emperor Wu of Han (r. 140-87 B.C.) and the Confucian Tung Chung-shu. As a result, the custom of glossing, annotating, and specializing in one classic tradition filled the courts and countrysides of China.
Because of the interaction of the intellectual authorities, the teachers of classics, and doctors of philosophy with the system of meritocracy, the late Eastern Han dynasty witnessed a growing decadence deriving from hereditary elitism. This led to intrigue, with court eunuchs plotting against scholars, causing learning and thought to interact with political elements in such a way as to foster the development of sources of disorder within the government and society.
The early Han dynasty followed the chaos of the Warring States era and the Ch'in regime, so its culture and education were already thoroughly corrupted, but the Western Han work of transmitting the classics and annotating them was really very important. However, from late Eastern Han times, the annotation and transmission of Chinese classics had already become fragmented and tedious. Henceforth, the purpose of learning was to obtain honors, so it became just a tool; if you really wanted to investigate the inner meaning and thought of the culture of the celestial and human, you would find it was already like a listless arrow shot from a spent bow, without even the force to pierce a sheet of paper. Therefore, when the scholarship of the two Han dynasties reached the stage of the Three Kingdoms era, it was already quite lifeless and dull. However, it was precisely at this time that Buddhist scholarship and thought flowed into the country, bringing with it a remarkable new philosophy of profound depth. The forms of scholarship and thought of the Wei (219-264), Chin (265-419), and Northern and Southern dynasties (420-588) took their shape because of this profound influence.
Now as concerns the degeneration and cause of new cultural movements in the Wei, Chin, and Northern and Southern dynasties, ordinarily historians put most of the blame on the sudden upsurge of interest in the Three Arcana (Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu, and the I Ching) and the decadence of the fashion of Pure Conversation, an attempt to talk about the light aspect of matters in an ultrarefined manner. In reality, however, if you understand the evolution of the historical culture of the two Han dynasties, when you address the question as to why people wanted to study the Three Arcana and engage in Pure Conversation, you cannot attribute the fault to a few scholars such as Ho Yen and Wang Pi who emphasized this style.
In Chinese history, when it came to taking a leading role in the evolution of learning and thought, a small number of intellectuals could certainly start a fashion, but those who really exercised the power were always members of the political leadership. When Confucius promoted reverence for the ancient sage leaders Yao, Shun, Yu, T'ang, Wen, Wu, and the Duke of Chou, this was surely the case; and the question of whether or not the direction of leadership in later ages was correct can be no exception either.
The rulers and ministers of the early T'ang dynasty (618-905), taking the lead in learning and thought, are the ones who opened the way for the development of the Buddhist and Taoist religions in China. The rulers and ministers of the early Sung dynasty took the lead in promoting Confucianism to give birth to the Study of Inner Design school of thought. The same thing also happened later in the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties. In all cases, it was the support from the rulers and ministers that made possible the evolution of Chinese culture. So if you say that the changes in scholarly fashions are due to one or two people, you can be sure that this is not something that can be done by men of idle words who sit around holding discussions in endless conferences.
In sum, when we look closely at the history of the development of the Three Arcana studies and the fashion of Pure Conversation in Wei and Chin times, we find that their imbalances were not the fault of the philosophies of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu; nor were they errors of Buddhist prajna teachings that discuss emptiness and subtlety. From a close reading of history, one discovers that these imbalances were actually due to the influence of the literary sentiments of Emperor Wu of Wei (Ts'ao Ts'ao) and his sons. As to Ho Yen and Wang Pi, who delved into the Three Arcana studies, both were young aristocrats used to privilege and were arrogant and haughty: they could not pursue a kind of scholarship that involved purity and quietude, precision and subtlety, and they could not practice the kind of mental work that produced penetrating comprehension and far-reaching knowledge. Yet they used the stylish exterior of the Lao-Chuang philosophy to annotate the Three Arcana.
This was an inevitable result, both literarily and philosophically; so if we look at the thought of the Wei, Chin, and the Northern and Southern dynasties from the standpoint of pure philosophy, with the exception of Buddhist studies we find that the so-called study of the Three Arcana was only literary and philosophical. This study of mystical arcana turned into the fashion of Pure Conversation, and Pure Conversation produced the idea of the "use of uselessness," relegating all affairs of state to the status of mere scenery of the passing seasons. This was an inevitable result of the trend of events.
As for Buddhist learning and thought at this same time, during the Eastern and Western Chin dynasties and the Northern and Southern dynasties, Central Asian people rose up and entered the central plain of China, competing among themselves for hegemony. This allowed the great flow of Buddhism eastward to continue unbroken, thus establishing a foundation for Chinese Buddhism and the development of Chinese Buddhist doctrine in the Sui (588-618) and T'ang dynasties that occurred afterward.
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