Taiping jing
Taiping Jing ( Chinese 太平 經 / 太平 经 , Pinyin Tàipíng Jīng , W.-G. Tai P'ing Ching , English The Classic of Great Peace ) is the name for various Taoist texts. At least two works are known under this title:
- Tianguanli baoyuan taiping jing 天 官 歷 包 元 太平 經 / 天 官 历 包 元 太平 经 , Tiānguānlì bāoyuán tàipíng jīng , 12 chapters, unknown content, author: Gan Zhongke甘 忠 可
- Taiping qinglingshu 太平 清 領 書 / 太平 清 领 书 , Tàipíng qīnglǐngshū , 170 chap., Only 57 survived in Daozang , author unknown.
The term Taiping jing usually refers to the work contained in the Daozang (from the Ming period), which is considered to be a valuable source for research into early Taoist beliefs and society at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty . The form of Daoism, the Taiping Daoism (太平道) of Zhang Jue (d. 184), the leader of the uprising of the Yellow Turban , was based on this work.
The content of Taiping jing is varied, but primarily deals with topics such as heaven and earth, the five-element theory , yin and yang and the sixties cycle .
The text
The text that has been handed down is essentially divided into three different sections:
- Section A: The Sky Master Section: Dialogues between Tianshi, the Sky Master, and his disciples
- Section B: Celestial Gentleman, Student and "Great Divine" who mediates between the former
- Section C: Texts without much in common
While sections A and B are written very lively and interesting for the reader because they are dialogues between teacher and student, section C is difficult to process. These are collected texts that hardly fit each other and that, unlike the other sections, were not written in dialogue form. The texts are very different in terms of content and cannot be put into a larger overall context. Barbara Hendrischke believes that Section A is actually the one that was written first.
The text describes extensively how people can achieve the Great Peace through appropriate behavior, but it makes strikingly little clear what this Taiping will ultimately look like. This can be explained by the fact that the idea of Taiping was already extensively present in the population at that time. The Taiping Jing was not simply created by its authors from nothing, but rather summarized the already existing ideas of the utopia of the Great Peace in one work. But since it was already clear what the result of a Great Peace would look like, it was no longer absolutely necessary to write it down precisely and in all its facets. Rather, the population wanted some kind of guidance on how such a paradisiacal idea could be realized.
language
The language of the TPJ, similar in content, with its practical and political ambitions, differs from the rest of the philosophical texts of the time. It is significantly less literary and is characterized by a simple spelling. In many places the text is written as it was probably spoken at the time, i.e. it shows colloquial tendencies. Hendrischke thinks this suggests that the text was written by people who did not come from the elite, like those who normally wrote classical texts in ancient China. The text could possibly come from transcriptions made by the disciples of the Taiping Jing movement. The work would thus be a transcript of the dialogues between teachers and students of Taiping.
Utopia and worldview
Life
According to the theory in Taiping Jing (TPJ), the way to the Great Peace Taiping (太平), in addition to the correct administration of the state, runs through the extension of life and life-sustaining measures. The way in which this ideal of a world can be achieved is clearly Taoist, because there are strong references to religious Daoism with its practices of achieving immortality through a wide variety of measures. Nevertheless, great differences can also be determined, because while within Religious Daoism chemical agents such as cinnabar were ingested, which then usually had the opposite effect of what they should, the TPJ describes the way to long life rather through morally correct behavior, Meditation and proper nutrition. Chemically concocted remedies, on the other hand, did not need to be taken. The connection between life and age comes from the Daoist worldview that events in heaven influence people's lives and vice versa. There is a three division between the spheres:
- sky
- earth
- People
Within this conception, heaven is viewed as an acting person who has a will of its own and also enforces it. This also lays down rules that people have to adhere to. If the rules of heaven are violated, they can send disasters. Floods and bad harvests were interpreted as a punishment from heaven for the wrongdoing of the people. After the TPJ, Heaven originally gave people methods to shape their lives for as long as possible. His main interest is to maintain life. It is accepted that basically every life has to come to an end at some point, but humans not only have the task, but also the duty, not to die too early. The TPJ describes the methods by which people can now come to a long life. These correct behaviors can be summarized as follows:
- a morally correct life
- meditation
- hygienic practices
- medicinal substances and uses of talismans for healing
- therapeutic benefits of music
The morally correct life occupies the most prominent among these points. According to the teachings of Taiping, living morally means behavior that extends life. And that doesn't just mean your own life, but also that of other people, animals and, in general, all of your environment. This concept of morality is therefore completely different from that in other philosophies in which morality relates more to social life. But here another, clearly individualistic aspect is emphasized: one's own life.
It is important to know what the opposite of Taiping, i.e. the ideal world, is. At first glance, this could be Chaos Luan (乱), which is not the case with the TPJ. Rather, the opposite of the Great Peace is the interruption Jue (绝), which is synonymous with "bringing to an end" or, more specifically, killing. This again shows the outstanding importance of life for the ideas of the Great Peace. It is therefore immoral and detrimental to the achievement of the ideal to kill other people, yourself or even animals out of self-interest.
The other four points are more practical approaches that can be used in everyday life. Meditation and music are supposed to lead to inner calm and calm the mind. Certain hygienic practices and the ingestion of medicinal substances, on the other hand, serve health, because this is of course life-extending and thus an important step towards Taiping. However, the Taiping movement stayed away from chemicals. Essentially only plants and herbs from traditional Chinese medicine were used here. When it comes to nutrition, it is recommended to eat as little as possible and, best of all, "non-physical" foods. So z. B. meant rice. A vegetarian diet is advocated. Eating nothing at all is also forbidden because, according to TPJ, not only does the intestine stop working, but it also makes sense that the zero diet will eventually lead to death. One meal per day is specifically recommended here. The TPJ not only extols the longevity benefits that fasting has, but also that it relieves the state and creates peace.
According to TPJ, the longest possible life can be achieved through the procedures and behaviors mentioned, and this ultimately leads to the ideal world, Taiping.
Chengfu
With Chengfu (承 负) the TPJ denotes a concept of "inherited evil". This represents a social problem, which affects each individual in his personal actions. The TPJ assumes that the misconduct of each individual collectively collects and accumulates over generations. Every single “sin” continues to exist as a solid mass in the world, even after it has been forgotten by people for decades. It cannot be recognized or simply removed, but is added to the previous sins and there is a Chengfu maximum, the Chenfu Zhi Ji (承 负 之).
Now this idea is complemented by a clear doomsday scenario that massively exacerbates the whole situation. The accumulation of evil cannot just go on forever after the TPJ, but comes to an end at some point. As with the well-known metaphor of the barrel that eventually overflows, it is also with the TPJ's Chengfu. The keg is full of evil when it reaches the chengfu maximum and then overflows. In concrete terms, this in turn means, just like the influence of heaven on people, natural disasters and misery. This horror scenario is even extended by the work to the point of the complete extinction of all life.
Numerical calculations intensified the whole thing. The TPJ speaks of the Xuanjia (玄 甲) as the beginning of necessary reforms to stop the impending disaster. The TPJ only sees a way out by reaching Taiping as soon as possible. So there is the extremely bad prospect that if the Great Peace is not achieved, all life will come to an end and that will be the end of heaven, earth and all of humanity. After the TPJ, everyone is now asked to practice Taiping. Barbara Hendrischke on this:
"This point is made with pertinacious emphasis: it is mistaken to believe that the ruler alone is responsible for chengfu:" Now if a government fails to achieve harmony this is not only the fault of the heaven, the earth and the ruler; The responsibility can be attributed to the misdeeds which are committed by each member of the population (bai xing 百姓). They receive and transmit faults from one to the other, thereby making them even greater. "(Hendrischke 1991: 17)"
The government could use this claim as an excuse to shift responsibility from itself to the population in the event of disasters and crop failures. Taiping is achieved collectively, but it is still up to the individual to behave properly in order to get there. The TPJ is therefore an ideal work for secret societies, rebels and insurgents, because it combines a common goal, the realization of which is a matter of life and death, with the political call for the members of such a rebel group to take this goal into their own hands and thereby disrupt the goal To disempower factors such as a government that hinders the goal. The importance of the goal is so great that radical or violent measures are possible and accepted despite the Daoist background.
moral
Sins
An important aspect of Taiping is to avoid certain acts that are considered sins. As already mentioned, every single individual can jeopardize the achievement of Taiping through their misconduct, which is also known as the "totality of taiping" ( Barbara Hendrischke : The Daoist Utopia of Great Peace, 1992, p. 67). The population should therefore not criticize their political leadership, as they can only be held indirectly responsible for the bad situation and for the non-existence of Taiping.
On the other hand, the TPJ also calls for the government to reduce its penalties against its population. Punishments create resentment in the population and this must be eliminated. In general, almost all of the following sins to be stopped refer to the avoidance of resentment and dissatisfaction of the population and to the concept of life and its preservation that has already been highlighted as important. As an example, the following eight examples will be dealt with, which reflect very well how the TPJ regards morally good and bad behavior.
- Circulation of property and aid to the poor
- Dig a well
- Child murder
- Refusing to learn about Dao and De and ignoring the possibilities of extending life
- Burning down of forest areas
- abstinence
The TPJ not only demands the preservation of one's own life, but also the life of others. The circulation of property is a concrete economic obligation to compensate. Here, welfare state measures, such as the distribution of property from top to bottom, play just as much a role as donating money and food for the needy. The TPJ advocates a welfare state similar to today, which is remarkable for the time.
The ban on digging wells comes from the idea of the three-part division into heaven, earth and people and their correspondence to the family members father, mother and child. Where heaven corresponds to the Father, the earth is connected to the Mother. Digging a well is now a violent intervention against the earth and thus also against one's own mother. Digging the well is therefore an injury to mother earth. This is forbidden by the TPJ and instead only natural sources should be used for water production. These have been specially created for this purpose and a benefit does not represent a negative interference with nature, so it corresponds to the Wuwei principles. It is the same with the burning of forest areas. This act also represents a massive encroachment on nature and is not allowed according to the TPJ.
The prohibition of child murder again falls under the category of preservation of life. The main concern here is the killing of unwanted daughters. Although this prohibition is generally very modern and worthy of support, it is justified in the TPJ with rather mystical arguments from a time of early Daoism and not with the right to life in modern times .
The concept of yin and yang already existed in society, but it was not yet so clearly developed and rather a loose idea. The TPJ used and modified this idea in order to achieve social goals. The theory was that in the world there should always be one unit of yang and two units of yin together. It was assumed that yang was twice as valuable as yin. For the relationship between man and woman, in which the man corresponds to the yang and the woman to the yin, this means that an ideal relationship should prevail when a man is with two women. Accordingly, monogamy is rejected in the TPJ because it means an imbalance between yin and yang.
Another example of sin in the TPJ is abstinence. Sexual activity has a very positive value because it can create life, which plays an important role in the TPJ and is a path towards Taiping.
The examples provide an overview of the TPJ's worldview. The maintenance and creation of life is paramount. However, modern welfare state ideas to balance the rich and poor also play a role. The term “Great Peace”, which was previously only described in general terms, now even gives rise to a completely different interpretation than “Social Peace” with this aspect. This is only a small aspect of the ideology, but it is most understandable from today's perspective.
The confession
In addition to the sins mentioned here as examples, the TPJ also obliges citizens to act actively. The confession of sins exist similar to within the Catholic Christianity , but also there there are big differences. Sins are associated with illness in the TPJ. That is, someone who has not obeyed the rules of heaven will later become ill, because heaven monitors and evaluates every single behavior of people on earth. Man cannot deceive heaven in this. In any case, he knows about the behavior of the people. Here, too, the parallels to Christianity are extremely striking. However, a person's illness after committing a sin is less to be interpreted as a direct punishment from heaven for one or more offenses. Misconduct is assessed less strongly as morally reprehensible in the TPJ, but rather as a technical process in which the flow of energy falls into an imbalance. In order to compensate for this and at the same time satisfy heaven, the only way that is possible is through confession of sins. Such a confession is made by a Taoist master who questions the sick person and tries to find out which of his sins, committed since early days, could have triggered the disease.
communication
Communication is another important factor in the TPJ, which should help to get to Taiping. Specifically, it helps to convey information about social and societal grievances from bottom to top so that countermeasures can be taken promptly.
Here the TPJ also refers to the recurring connection between natural disasters and the misconduct of society. If one assumes that heaven reacts in personified form to the behavior of people and, in the event of wrongdoing, triggers natural disasters, disease, drought and a lack of harvest on earth, it is urgently necessary for people to be aware of the disasters and others Experiencing phenomena. A heavenly sent drought indicates wrongdoing, but if no one learns about the drought, or at best it is known locally, no one can change their behavior in the future to avoid further droughts.
Natural phenomena and other things that indicate a reaction from heaven to behavior in society must be conveyed. The focus is on the information from bottom to top. Above all, the ruler must always be as fully informed as possible about all conspicuous phenomena within his realm after the TPJ in order to be able to react to them in case of doubt. If the ruler does not receive this information, the leadership loses contact with heaven and, in the worst case, rules without any “feedback” from heaven.
The TPJ has very specific ideas about this and also offers a practical implementation for forwarding information about that time. Information should generally be provided via texts (文, whom). Within this framework, however, a text can take on a variety of appearances. Not just events actually written on paper by the people themselves, but e.g. B. Oral information can also count as text. In the TPJ, this whole concept is now being promoted to a more abstract level. The opposite of Taiping is the “interruption”. Information now plays an important function to prevent such an interruption, because an information interruption, i.e. the constant flow of information, is detrimental to Taiping in a similar way as death, i.e. the interruption of life. In the TPJ, the flow of information is both a means of preventing blockages and an end in itself and an important precondition to be created for the Great Peace Taiping.
The concrete implementation is described in the TPJ as a gigantic collection of documents from all over the Reich about events that were recorded by the citizens. A type of container is to be set up throughout the country for this purpose. These boxes should be nine by nine meters, have the shape of a cube and have a window. Citizens can now post their texts through a slot in this oversized mailbox and thus provide information about phenomena and appearances. The political leader now regularly sends out messengers who collect and excerpt all the texts that have been collected. In this process, texts are summarized. When evaluating these texts, the TPJ is clearly in favor of a majority opinion. That is, information or opinions that appear more frequently are accepted, while information that comes from only a few individuals should not play a major role. The authors of the TPJ actually paid attention to the feasibility of such an idea and tried to make it as efficient as possible.
However, the TPJ only makes restrictive statements about the veracity of the published texts. A text is "true" if it enables the ruler to give peace to his country and righteousness to his people. “Wrong” texts, on the other hand, would lead to natural disasters and political uprisings. This statement is difficult to interpret. It fits best with the principle of majority opinion: Politically extreme texts and opinions should be avoided. Since they are considered “untrue”, they can therefore be ignored or censored. With this restriction, a door is still left open for the ruler to ultimately decide for himself whether he agrees with an opinion or ignores it. The principle is intended to create a control to prevent both lies and politically completely unwanted opinions. An open democratic civil society should therefore not be created with the help of these text boxes. However, the aim is to inform the leadership about grievances and dissatisfaction within the population.
Individual evidence
- ↑ HENDRISCHKE, Barbara (1992), The Daoist Utopia of Great Peace, in: Oriens Extremus No. 35, Wiesbaden., P. 63.
- ↑ HENDRISCHKE, Barbara (2006), The Scripture on Great Peace, Berkeley, p. 41.
literature
- Barbara Hendrischke: The Concept of inherited evil in the Taiping Jing . In: East Asian History No. 2, 1991, ISSN 1036-6008 , pp. 1-30.
- Barbara Hendrischke: Early Daoist Movements . In: Livia Kohn (Ed.): Daoism Handbook . Brill, Leiden 2000, ISBN 90-04-11208-1 , pp. 134-164 ( Handbuch der Orientalistik . 4, 14).
- Barbara Hendrischke: The Scripture on Great Peace. The Taiping jing and the beginnings of Daoism . University of California Press, Berkeley CA 2006, ISBN 0-520-24788-4 ( Daoist classics series 3).
- Max Kaltenmark: The Ideology of the Tai-ping ching . In: Holmes Welch (ed.), Facets of Taoism. Essays in Chinese Religion . Yale University Press, New Haven CT 1997, ISBN 0-300-01695-6 , pp. 19-45.
- Barbara Kandel: Taiping Jing. The Origin and Transmission of the "Scripture on Great Welfare". The History of on unofficial Text . OAG, Hamburg 1979 ( communications from the Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia (OAG) 75, ISSN 1436-0128 ).
- Tsuchiya Masaaki: Confession of Sins and Awareness of Self in the Taiping jing . In: Livia Kohn (Ed.): Daoist Identity . University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 2002, ISBN 0-8248-2429-6 , pp. 39-57.
- Ming Wang: Taipingjing Hejiao, Beijing 1979.