time, and antagonistic to it on key points. These philosophers and poets had
no interest in the religious pantheon or the doctrine of immortals; though some
were interested in alchemy, their cult of wine drinking and sexual carousing
was directly contrary to the puritanical hygiene sects, with their efforts to
control internal bodily processes. Moreover, these “philosophical Taoists” were
precisely in the milieu of court Confucianism. They were educated gentry,
whose culture was now taking on the pattern in which Confucianism control-
led the official part of one’s life, while a kind of aesthetic hedonism, legitimated
by texts that were now called “Taoist,” guided one’s leisure and retirement.
The organizational basis of these movements confirms their connection
with Confucianism. The term “Pure Conversation,” or ch’ing t’an, implying
philosophy for its own sake, came directly from the Old Text school, the
Confucian rationalists who opposed both the Confucian and the Lao-Huang
religions and occultism at the Han court. As the Han dynasty disintegrated, a
thousand or more of these scholars congregated at Ching-Chou in Hupei under
the sponsorship of the local governor (Demiéville, 1986: 826, 830; Rump and
Chan, 1979: xx–xxi). In the next generation, the libraries of major Confucian
scholars connected with the Ching-Chou group passed via family inheritance
to the young aristocrat Wang Pi. Notable for erudition at an early age—rich
in cultural capital when few others had access to such texts—Wang Pi formu-
lated his own reinterpretation of the classics, beginning the so-called school of
Dark Learning (see Figure 4.4).
The time was one of political decentralization. The money economy largely
disappeared; salaries were paid in silk or grain, and trade took the form of
barter. At first China had divided into three states. Then in 263 the northern
state of Wei conquered the southwest state (in Szechuan) and in 280 the
southeast state, bringing about a brief period of reunification (280–307). It
was around the capital of the northern state of Wei (subsequently named the
Western Chin dynasty), continuing at the old Han site of Loyang, that all the
notable philosophical activity took place. The religious sects of Taoism were
predominant in other regions: the Five Pecks of Grain cult formed in the west;
the alchemical sects and later the development of Taoist monasticism and the
church pantheon were in the south.
The northern state was politically unstable. Internally it was wracked by
assassinations and coups among the leading families; externally it was subject
to inroads of barbarian tribes from the north and west, who ultimately overran
the dynasty in 309–316. The decay of the central bureaucracy at this time helps
account for the decline of Confucianism, and hence its willingness to syncretize
with other intellectual positions. Moreover, as the internal situation changed
within the intellectual community, the interests of Confucian scholars turned
in an entirely new direction. The skeptical rationalists of the Old Text school
Innovation by Opposition: Ancient China^ •^169