In Pursuit of the Great Peace: Han Dynasty Classicism and the Making of Early Medieval Literati Culture (SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture)

Through an examination of the Great Peace ( taiping ), one of the first utopian visions in Chinese history, Zhao Lu describes the transformation of literati culture that occurred during the Han Dynasty. Driven by anxiety over losing the mandate of Heaven, the imperial court encouraged classicism in order to establish the Great Peace and follow Heaven's will. But instead of treating the literati as puppets of competing and imagined lineages, Zhao uses sociological methods to reconstruct their daily lives and to show how they created their own thought by adopting, modifying, and opposing the work of their contemporaries and predecessors. The literati who served as bureaucrats in the first century BCE gradually became classicists who depended on social networking as they traveled to study the classics. By the second century CE, classicism had dissolved in this traveling culture and the literati began to expand the corpus of knowledge beyond the accepted canon. Thus, far from being static, classicism in Han China was full of innovation, and ultimately gave birth to both literary writing and religious Daoism. Contents 8 List of Illustrations 12 Acknowledgments 14 Introduction 16 1. Toward a Zeal for Classicism Intellectual Transitions from 74 BC to AD 9 China 24 The Search for Heaven’s Will in Emperor Xuan’s Period 26 Curing the State: Cosmology as a Political Weapon 28 The Book of Changes as a Means of Searching for Heaven’s Will 31 Toward the Great Peace: Emperor Yuan and the Restoration of the Kingly Way 35 The Great Peace as an Increasing Need for Governance 36 The Six Classics: Complete and Fundamental 43 Xunzi, Lu Jia, and Hou Cang: From Humanity to Heaven 43 The Classics as All-Encompassing 47 Restoring the Original Six Classics or Getting Rid of Them: Two Paths of Innovation 51 The Last Years of the Western Han Dynasty as Reflected in the Well-Field System 52 Liu Xin’s Approach to the Original Classics 53 An Abortive Path: Li Xun’s Departure from the Classics 58 Liu Xiang, Liu Xin, and Li Xun’s Careers 61 Concluding Remarks 68 2. The Conflation between Heaven and the Classics The Rise of Apocrypha (chenwei 讖緯) 72 Discovering the Heavenly Nature of the Classics 73 The Five Classics: Reflections of Heaven 74 Apocryphal Texts: Older than the Classics? 78 The Function of Sages in Human Society 80 The Physical Features of Human Sages and Their Heavenly Origin 82 Forming a Tradition: The Sociopolitical Background of the Emergence of the Apocryphal Texts 86 The Unstoppable Wheel of Five Phases 86 Which Phase, Whose Rule? 89 Gongsun Shu’s Revealed Message 89 Liu Xiu and His Enthronement 90 Competing Authority between Liu Xiu and Gongsun Shu 92 Classicists and the Great Families 93 The Classicists and Prophets from Liu Xiu’s Group 95 A Case Study: Liu Xiu’s Feng and Shan Sacrifices 97 Concluding Remarks 101 3. Apocrypha, Confucius, and Monarchy in Emperor Ming’s Reign (AD 58–75) 102 Xuan sheng: The Dark Sage 103 Su Wang, the “Uncrowned King” 108 Zixia and Confucius: A Political Analogy 112 Concluding Remarks 120 4. Finding Teachers versus Making Friends The Gradual Departure from Classicism in the First Two Centuries AD 122 How to Succeed in the Han: Sketching the Han Official Recruitment System 124 How One Learned Classical Knowledge in the Han: Schools and Curricula 126 The Rise and Fall of the National Academy, or Taixue 太學 127 Curricula Inside and Outside the National Academy 128 Family Transmission 129 Individual Discipleship and Traveling 136 The Spread of Apocryphal Texts 141 The Spread of Old Text Traditions 143 Ma Rong and His Friends: A Case Study of Horizontal Relationships 148 Ma Rong and His Family: A Versatile Tradition 152 Cui Yuan and His Family Tradition: From Transmitter to Author 153 Zhang Heng: “I Am Ashamed of Not Knowing Even a Single Thing” 155 Concluding Remarks 157 5. The Radical and the Conservative Zheng Xuan, He Xiu, the Scripture of the Great Peace, and Their Stances on the Classics 160 Historical Background 161 Zheng Xuan and His Scholarship 163 Zheng’s Experience of Travel 163 Zheng Xuan’s Construction of the Great Peace 167 Rites and the Undertakings of the Ancient Sage Kings 169 He Xiu and His Return to the Gongyang Tradition 174 He Xiu’s Family Background and Career 174 The Significance of the Annals 175 Building a Commentarial World toward the Great Peace 176 He Xiu and Zheng Xuan: More Similar than Different 182 The (Re)emergence of the Scripture of the Great Peace 182 The Possessors of the Scripture 182 Difficulties in Dating and a Tentative Approach 183 To Be Better than the Classics: Comprehensive and Essential 185 Concluding Remarks 192 Conclusion 194 Han Intellectual Communities and Their Features 194 The Matter of the Great Peace 197 The Production of Innovation and Its Driving Force 198 The Impact and Legacy of Classicism 200 Appendix 1. The Chinese Classics 204 Appendix 2. The Origin of the Old Script / New Script Controversy 208 Intellectual Transitions of the Qing Dynasty 208 The Changzhou School and the New Script versus Old Script Controversy 209 Appendix 3. The Contrast-Debate Model and Its Critique 212 Pi Xirui and Ma Zonghuo: The Twentieth-Century Legacy of the Changzhou and Yangzhou Schools 212 The First Critiques of the Contrast-Debate Model: Qian Mu’s Criticism of Kang Youwei 215 Gu Jiegang’s Study of Han Classicism and His Emphasis on the Political Factor 216 Appendix 4. The Assumptions of the Confucian Empire and Its Problems 222 National Religion: Itano and Nishijima’s Model 222 What Kind of Confucian Country and When: Fukui’s Critique 225 Watanabe’s Synthesis of the Creation of a Confucian Nation 226 Confucianism: A Problematic Term 227 Appendix 5. Apocryphal Texts A History of Superstition and Adulation 232 Appendix 6. Chen, Wei, and Apocrypha A Matter of Definition 236 Notes 240 Bibliography 308 Index 336 "Through an examination of the Great Peace (taiping), one of the first utopian visions in Chinese history, Zhao Lu describes the transformation of literati culture that occurred during the Han Dynasty. Driven by anxiety over losing the mandate of Heaven, the imperial court encouraged classicism in order to establish the Great Peace and follow Heaven's will. But instead of treating the literati as puppets of competing and imagined lineages, Zhao uses sociological methods to reconstruct their daily lives and to show how they created their own thought by adopting, modifying, and opposing the work of their contemporaries and predecessors. The literati who served as bureaucrats in the first century BCE gradually became classicists who depended on social networking as they traveled to study the classics. By the second century CE, classicism had dissolved in this traveling culture and the literari began to expand the corpus of knowledge beyond the accepted canon. Thus, far from being static, classicism in Han China was full of innovation, and ultimately gave birth to both literary writing and religious Daoism"-- Provided by publisher "Through an examination of the Great Peace (taiping), one of the first utopian visions in Chinese history, Zhao Lu describes the transformation of literati culture that occurred during the Han Dynasty. Driven by anxiety over losing the mandate of Heaven, the imperial court encouraged classicism in order to establish the Great Peace and follow Heaven's will. But instead of treating the literati as puppets of competing and imagined lineages, Zhao uses sociological methods to reconstruct their daily lives and to show how they created their own thought by adopting, modifying, and opposing the work of their contemporaries and predecessors. The literati who served as bureaucrats in the first century BCE gradually became classicists who depended on social networking as they traveled to study the classics. By the second century CE, classicism had dissolved in this traveling culture and the literari began to expand the corpus of knowledge beyond the accepted canon. Thus, far from being static, classicism in Han China was full of innovation, and ultimately gave birth to both literary writing and religious Daoism"-- Nota del editor Zhao Lu is Assistant Professor of Global China Studies, NYU Shanghai and Global Network Assistant Professor, NYU. He is the coauthor (with C. A. Cook) of Stalk A Newly Discovered Alternative to the I Ching.