The Sociology of Philosophies

(Wang) #1

multiplicity of gods and supernatural beings associated with immortality and
other magic (Welch, 1965; Strickmann, 1979; Kaltenmark, 1969; Ofuchi,
1979; Stein, 1979). As the dynasty disintegrated, rebel movements in the
provinces organized several kinds of Taoist churches, one of which ruled an
independent Taoist state in Szechuan for four generations. In the chaos of
fragmented states between 300 and 550, the several branches amalgamated
into a formal Taoist religion. Its practices gradually shifted from magic and
immortality-seeking through drugs and alchemy to ritual worship and interior
meditation, as it built up a monastic organization and a set of disciplinary rules
imitated from Buddhism. Old texts supporting a “Taoist” identity, along with
alchemical lore and new spiritual revelations expounded by the organizers of
monastic Taoism, were syncretized into a textual canon during the 400s.
Thereafter the Taoist canon stayed fixed; the printed version of 1447 has the
same rubrics it had a millennium earlier.
The Taoist religion exemplifies the external determinism that limits inno-
vativeness on the intellectual plane. Taoist intellectual life consisted mainly in
elaborating doctrines directly connected with practice. These shifted only at
the moments when Taoist cultural capital was being adapted to appeal to a
different external audience. Thus developed a succession of particularistic
concepts: changing the lineup of the pantheon which claimed a place in Han
court patronage; health magic for a peasant-based movement at the time of
political disintegration; doctrines of immortality-producing elixirs and exer-
cises for a withdrawn gentry elite; scriptural regularities and meditative exer-
cises as a monastic organization developed. Doctrinal changes episodically
followed changes in external conditions, but drove no philosophical develop-
ment at a higher level of abstraction. Each succeeding version of Taoist religion
stayed close to the class culture of its external audience.^19
What was specific to Taoist religious organization that had this result? For
Buddhism went a contrasting route. Although appealing successfully to lay
audiences, Chinese Buddhism developed inward-looking intellectual networks
which for many centuries drove just the kind of abstract intellectual creativity
that was lacking in the Taoist church. Consider the range of organizational
forms in Chinese religion: state-supported cults, carried out by government
officials (i.e., typically “Confucian”); monasteries, which might be nearly self-
sufficient estates, or might depend on outside patronage; temples providing
religious ceremonies for the public in return for donations, and ranging from
grand urban buildings to tiny village shrines; solo-practitioner priests or her-
mits, who usually made their living by dispensing medicinal or magical potions
and charms. Some organizational forms can be compared to a “Catholic”
structure in which religious personnel are autonomous from the people and
supported by the government or massive property accumulation; others resem-


Innovation by Opposition: Ancient China^ •^167
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