254 Part IV: East Asian Civilization
chant class from both Chinese tradition and Marx, tried to eliminate the mar-
ket system from society.
Notably, the martial values of the Zhou gave way to the scholarly ideals of
Confucianism, and while the highest class of administrators were sometimes
trained as military leaders, their main claim to legitimacy was in their excellent
mastery of history, ritual, and literary refinement. The greatest gains were
intellectual. During the same century that Socrates and Plato were laying down
the philosophical foundations for the West, and the Buddha was teaching a
new path to salvation in India, Confucius was creating a civil religion for Chi-
nese society.Two Sages: Confucius and Laozi (Lao Tsu)
The times favored ruthless men of action, opportunists ready to use the arts
of wu (war) for gain and glory. But everybody had to live in the chaotic condi-
tions they created, including two men whose thoughtful reflections long out-
lived the brief gains of conquest. Laozi (Lao Tsu) and Confucius, the two
preeminent philosophers of ancient China, may have lived at roughly the same
period. Their philosophies are opposite in many ways; Laozi’s is so different
from Confucius’s that he seems almost Indian in his insistence on realities
behind appearances and on relativizing society’s structures and demands.
The historian Sima Qian gives biographical sketches of both men. Some
scholars have questioned whether Laozi was a single person or a composite of
a number of hill-dwelling sages living disdainfully apart from society. The first
part of his name, Lao, means “old and venerated”; the second half of his name,
zi, means “master.” According to the Grand Historian, Laozi was the keeper of
the imperial archives for the Zhou kings at Luoyang at the time when the
emperor was becoming irrelevant and society was decaying around him. Sima
Qian describes a visit by Confucius, and later followers record a number of
their encounters, which turned out differently depending on who was telling
the story. As the Zhou further declined, Laozi resolved to retreat to the moun-
tains of the west, but at Hangu Pass the gatekeeper begged him: “As you are
about to leave the world behind, could you write a book for my sake?” So he
wrote a work in two books, setting out the meaning of the Way (dao or tao) and
Virtue (de or te) in 5,000 characters, and then rode off and disappeared without
a trace. The result was the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) or “the classic of the Way
and Virtue.”
Confucius lived to the east in the state of Lu (Shandong Province) where
for a while he held high office. Sima Qian makes a tragic hero of Confucius as
well as of himself in the autobiographical portion of the Shiji (Watson
1958:170). Both men were profound critics of the society of their times; one
might use the modern term “dissident” to describe them. For while deeply
loyal to Chinese civilization, they criticized—delicately—corruption, unjust
punishment, and uncontrolled aggrandizement by political leaders. Sima Qian
once unwisely defended a general who was in disfavor with the emperor. For