home | 1000 BCE to 500 CE

The RELIGIOUS IMPULSE in CHINA (10 of 12)

The Taoists maintained their belief in harmony and solace in nature. They also believed in a destiny beyond the disturbing flux of material life, and they maintained their belief in emotional austerity. A devout Taoist, for example, could still explain his not weeping for his wife who had just died by saying that if he wept for her he would be demonstrating his lack of understanding of destiny.

Taoism was open to a variety of new ideas, including the search for longevity or eternal life by adopting proper attitude and physical techniques. Some Taoists tried to extend the search for salvation in nature by focusing on the bliss of sexual intercourse, and some Taoist holy men searched for everlasting life though ritual exercises or dietary regimes – an experiment of sorts that failed each time that one of them died. But, rather than accept that everlasting life could not be achieved by a special program, their followers explained the failures as the result of circumstances other than human mortality.

Taoism absorbed practices of magic that had existed in some of China's rural communities. Some Taoists adopted gods that were ridiculed by the gentry and the Confucianists.

Contrary to Taoism's original belief in inaction, some Taoists actively sought converts, and some Taoists became activists for social change and initiated political programs. Taoism had held no clearly defined orthodoxy or tightly knit organization of priests, but here and there organizations led by priests were developing. Taoist priests gathered around them followers who believed they had joined an exclusive group that was concerned with their well-being. This annoyed China's authorities – Confucianists and gentry-bureaucrats – who feared that unapproved religious cults might develop into a focal point of opposition to their authority.

Among the Taoist cults was one led by Zhang Daoling, in the province of Sichuan. Zhang Daoling wandered through the countryside promising those who would publicly confess their sins that he would deliver them from illness and misfortune. He claimed that illness was the product of sinful thoughts. Using charms and spells, he acquired a reputation as a healer, and the public confessions that he offered gave peasants the feeling that they were cleansing themselves of sin and joining a community.

In the year 142, Zhang Daoling founded a Taoist church, called "The Way of the Great Masters," moving his Taoism from a prescribed way of life to an organized religion. His church also became known as "The Way of the Five Pecks of Rice," five pecks of rice being the annual dues that church members had to pay. Zhang Daoling promised his followers a long life and immortality, and he earned the gratitude of local common folk by getting done what the emperor's authorities had failed to do: repair roads and bridges, store grain and distribute bread to the starving. Zhang Daoling had created a local government that rivaled the authority of the emperor. Without acknowledging it, Taoists were rejoining the world of power politics.

A Taoist named Zhang Jue, who called himself "The Good Doctor of Great Wisdom," had been moving about in the countryside as had Zhang Daoling. He offered magical healing, treated all ailments with water and words and called his method of healing the "Way of the Highest Peace." Zhang Jue also spoke of the Han rulers as having lost the Mandate of Heaven, and he proclaimed their imminent fall. Within ten years, his movement grew to hundreds of thousands. His movement was divided into districts, with each district led by a "deputy doctor."

Zhang Jue's movement brought religion to the uprising of 184 CE – the Yellow Turban rebellion. Militarily the Yellow Turbans were disorganized, and they had been led to believe that their gods had elected them as a force for good, that they were invulnerable and that they did not even need weapons – a view not conducive to an efficient military operation. The mysticism that had been a part of the movement's creation had become a part of its destruction. In the first year of the rebellion, Zhang Jue died, and within a year the rebellion was defeated. The sporadic fighting continued for another decade, while peasant supporters of the Yellow Turbans returned to the business of surviving through work and to hope of a coming paradise in the world beyond.

Meanwhile, along the Yangzi River near Sichuan, a surviving Taoist cult with its own army had established a theocratic state. The cult's founder, Zhang Lu, traced his teachings back a couple of generations to his grandfather, Zhang Daoling. Like Zhang Daoling, he performed what were described as miracle healings, and he preached Zhang Daoling's message of physical and moral well-being, claiming that diseases were punishments for evil deeds and that diseases could be cured by remorse and ceremonial confessions. Zhang Lu's community had communal "friendship" meals, and like Zhang Daoling he had a welfare system for his community and storage for grain and meat. He encouraged equality. His community offered the traveling homeless a place to stay and a meal. And it offered leniency to criminals.

Another Taoist, Zhang Xiu set up an independent state nearby. Despite their mutual devotion to Taoism, the communities of Zhang Lu and Zhang Xiu warred against each other – much as would Christians. And Zhang Lu, it is said, killed Zhang Xiu. Soon thereafter, Zhang Lu had a more formidable opponent, Cao Cao. With his army, Cao Cao overran Zhang Lu's territory. Zhang Lu surrendered to Cao Cao and was rewarded with a fiefdom. It is said that Zhang Lu died shortly thereafter – in 217. And it came to be legend that twenty-six years after his death he was seen by many witnesses ascending to heaven. The legend held that when his grave was opened, in the year 259, his body was found wholly intact, meaning that he had died only in the sense that he had detached from his corpse and had entered paradise.