Organizer and Chair: Robert Hymes, Columbia University
The Completion of an Ideal World: The Idea of Human Ghost in Early Medieval China
Mu-chou Poo, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
This paper discusses the idea of human ghost in early Medieval China (Six Dynasties period). The term "human ghost" here refers to those ghosts that are conceived as having human characteristics, either in form, or in nature and behavior. Previous studies of the theme of ghost in the proposed period mainly concentrated on literary expressions and typology in the chih-kuai tradition, with little emphasis on its religious significance. This paper tries to balance the situation by discussing the religious significance of this theme. The basic assumption of this paper is that, considering the mentality of the writers, the ghost stories represented an imaginative expression of a strong crave for some elements of life that were not restricted or prohibited by reality. The writers, consciously or not, were constructing an ideal world through the telling of ghost stories, for in this world of ghosts restrictions and taboos in the real world could be transgressed or transcended, and therefore true values of life could be found. Paradoxically or inevitably, this imagined world was still a mirror image, a distorted one perhaps, of the real world of early Medieval China. For the readers, the stories could also have served to relieve some psychological tensions. Subjects discussed include (1) the image of ghosts: their nature, behavior, and relationship with man; (2) the purpose of the ghost-story writers; (3) how the ideal world of ghosts reflected the reality of human world; and, finally, (4) the formation of the idea of human ghost in the context of contemporary religious mentality.
Taoism and the Chen-kuan Government: A Study of the Political Influence of Taoism
Lily Hwa, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
This paper explores the Taoist influence on the Chen-kuan government from political and religious perspectives. Conventionally, the Chen-kuan government of Emperor T'ang T'ai-tsung (r. 626-649), has been believed to exemplify the ideal Confucian rule. The emperor and his officials' words and deeds, however, revealed strong Taoist influence. Two of their most frequently used phrases, "chu-an ssu-wei" (in peace remember the possibilities of danger) and "shen-chung" (remain as careful at the end as at the beginning) had their origins in the Tao-te ching . The key Taoist term, "ch'ing-ching" (quietude) also appeared in inner court political discussions. Moreover, the emphasis on frugality, and warning against excessiveness and fullness ("chiai-ying") by the emperor and his officials resembled passages from the Tao-te ching. Their administrative pragmatism was also incompatible with the orthodox Confucian's stress on morality. This influence of Taoist political ideas was intertwined with the government's promotion of the Taoist religion, which claimed Lao Tzu as its founding deity. In 637 Emperor T'ai-tsung first ordered Taoist priests and priestesses to be placed above Buddhist monks and nuns in religious status. The T'ang emperors' self-proclaimed descent from Lao Tzu, the alleged author of the Tao-te ching, allowed both Taoist ideas and religion into the government.
Both philosophical and religious Taoism had already become more popular than the Confucian classics prior to the T'ang and a synthesis of various ideas gradually developed. This paper explores the evolution of Taoist ideas and the interactions of Confucianism, Taoism, and other related ideas prior to and during the T'ang dynasty. This study provides a dynamic perspective to our understanding of the complexity of imperial Chinese government which has so far been interpreted predominantly in the Confucian framework.
The Beginnings of Pure Land Imagery in China: A Reconsideration
Dorothy C. Wong, Florida State University
Pure Land Buddhism emerged in China around the mid-sixth century, with focus on devotion to Amitabha, Lord of the Western Pure Land, and rebirth in the Western Pure Land as a form of salvation. So far discussion on the earliest Pure Land imagery has focused on a mural from the Maijishan cave-temples and a relief panel from the Xiangtangshan cave-temples, now in the Freer Gallery of Art, both dating to approximately the third quarter of the sixth century. Presumably these two representations, like Tang dynasty Pure Land scenes, were based on the standard texts of the Pure Land cult, namely the Larger and the Smaller Sukhavativyuha Sutras.
This paper proposes to reconsider the origins of this popular Pure Land imagery before it became a conventioanl form. It focuses on two complex reliefs from the Wanfo-si temple site in Chengdu, Sichuan, one dated 425 and the other the mid-sixth century. These two reliefs include proto-typical Pure Land symbols as well as narrative scenes depicting a variety of subject matter. Close examination of the reliefs' overall iconographic programs in relation to Buddhist thought of the era and the locale of Sichuan as a religious and artistic center demonstrates that the earliest images of a Pure Land were part of a complex representational scheme designed as the most advanced interpretation of Buddhist doctrine that preceded the Pure Land cult as a form of popular devotion.
The Natural Equality of All Things
Ewing Y. Chinn,Chinn, Ewing Y. Trinity University
The second chapter of the "Inner Chapters" of the Zhuangzi , the Qi wu lun, is usually held up as the work of a relativist and a skeptic. But the tone of this and other chapters, the sense of wonder, optimism and awe, belays this interpretation. Thus there is the debate between those who reject this interpretation-like A. C. Graham who argue that Zhuangzi is only skeptical about (indeed opposed to) ordinary, conceptual, knowledge and attacks reason in order to open up the possibilities of mystical experience-and those who defend the view that Zhuangzi is a relativistic skeptic. Chad Hansen has presented a powerful case for the latter position in his essay, "A Tao of Tao in Chuang-tzu" and his book, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought. However, I will show first that his interpretation of Zhuangzi in the essay is not the same as the one found in the book, and secondly that there are internal and textual problems with both view that render them untenable. I will then give an interpretation of certain important passages in the Qi wu lun that will lead to the conclusion that Zhuangzi is neither a mystic nor a relativistic skeptic. I will argue that Zhuangzi is a perspectival realist (similar to Hilary Putnam's concept of internal realism), which basically means that the relativity of conceptual and linguistic frameworks is consistent with realism.
Precious Volumes: An Introduction to Chinese Sectarian Scriptures from the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Daniel L. Overmyer, University of British Columbia
This paper will be a report on my recently completed book manuscript of the same title, for which I have been collecting and reading texts for twenty years. It deals with the earliest bao juan (pao-chüan), "precious volumes," produced by Chinese popular religious sects, dated 1430-1654. A forty-volume collection of bao-juan from all periods has just been published, which supplements the 131 such texts I have read, photographed or photocopied.
The paper will comment in summary fashion on the following topics:
Introduction
(1) Antecedents in the History of Chinese Sacred Texts.
(2) The Oldest Sectarian "Precious Volume" (pao- chüan) found so far:
The precious volume expounded by the Buddha concerning the results of the [teaching of] the Imperial Ultimate [period] (published 1430).
(3) The "Five books in six volumes" of Lo Ch'ing (1442-1527) and their successors in the "Religion of Non-Interference" (Wu-wei chiao).
(4) Development of the "Imperial Ultimate" tradition:
The precious volume of the golden elixir and nine lotuses of the Imperial Ultimate [period that leads to] rectifying belief ,reverting to the real and returning to our true home (1523).
(5) Themes and Influences in Later Sixteenth Century Pao-chüan.
(6) "Precious Volumes" in the Seventeenth Century.
(7) Culmination of the First Two Centuries: The Dragon-flower Scripture of 1654.
Reference will be made to the bibliographical information provided for each text used in the book.
This is the first such comprehensive yet detailed content analysis of these texts carried through in any language, and should be of interest to scholars of Chinese religions and social history.