Reconstructing Taoism’s
Transformation in China
IAN JOHNSON AUG. 8, 2016
New York Times
Terry F.
Kleeman is a leading scholar of the early texts and history
of China’s only
indigenous religion, Taoism. A professor of religious studies at
the University of Colorado, Boulder, he is the author of the
recently published “Celestial Masters: History and Ritual in
Early Daoist Communities.” This is the
first work in any Western language on the founding of Taoism as a
formal religious movement, rooted in earlier philosophical
teachings like the Tao Te Ching, also known as the Daodejing and
sometimes translated as “The Way and Its Power.”
In an
interview, Professor Kleeman discussed how Taoism provided an
alternative political model to the Confucian-based imperial order,
how Taoist texts can help deepen our understanding of early Chinese
history and why today’s Communist government seeks to control
Taoist practices.
What is Taoism?
The word
Taoism is horribly vexed because it has to translate two Chinese
terms: “daojiao” and “daojia.” “Daojiao” is the religion Taoism,
while “daojia” refers to philosophical works associated
with Laozi andZhuangzi, such
as the Daodejing.
The two are
not really that closely related. Taoist priests don’t carry around
copies of the Daodejing, and that work has little to do with what
they teach. They teach a set of rules and morality, but you’ll find
little morality in the Daodejing.
Many people, especially in the West, think of Taoism as going
with the flow, getting back to nature and so
on.
Taoism, the
religion, really has the same value structure as any other Chinese
religion. It is full of very detailed codes of conduct that
everyone has to observe. I think of Taoists as Confucians of the
other world. Confucians deal with this world. They send petitions
and documents to the emperor. Taoists do the same thing, but to the
other world. But the structures and bureaucracy are very
similar.
How
many people believe in Taoism today?
This is a
very difficult question, because for centuries Taoism did not have
lay members. This is true for Buddhism as well. The only
“Buddhists” were Buddhist monks and the only “Taoists” were Taoist
priests. Temples were run by committees, and they used monks and
priests as needed for certain ceremonies.
Today this is a bit different. There are ordinary people who
join temples and call themselves lay Buddhists or
Taoists.
This is a
modern invention. They are trying to remake these religions in
Christianity’s image, with membership in a churchlike structure.
This is not traditionally how it was organized.
What does the early history of the religious form of Taoism tell
us? Its founding is usually dated to the year 142, in western
China.
The early
history sheds light on China as a whole. China had never had an
alternative political model other than the emperor. That was the
model for over 2,000 years.
But the
early history of Taoism is different. It’s a theocracy based around
“tianshi”
[celestial masters]. The celestial master was supposed to establish
a new political structure, the “Great Peace,” in which every individual would be treated justly. This
provided an important alternative to the norm of Confucianism.
But
they didn’t set up a rival dynasty?
No, the
founder, Zhang Daoling, never took the title of emperor. In the
area around Hanzhong [in modern-day Shaanxi Province], they called
themselves “yiguo,” or the “country of righteousness.”
The
political order lasted only a short time, but your book makes the
point that many things that we can see then are present today. What
are some examples?
Well,
first, it’s not exactly true that the political structure didn’t
last. It didn’t last in China as a whole, but we can see examples
among the Yao
tribes of Yunnan, for example. In
almost all Yao villages, men and women have a Taoist name and
title. The social structure of the community is based upon this
ritual, with social status determined by your rank in the Taoist
religion.
How
did it end up all the way down in Yunnan?
We don’t
know this, but there were non-Chinese members of the religion from
the beginning and Taoism is an important religion among ethnic
minorities in China, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
Something like how the Hakka carried traditions with them when
they were expelled from central China to the coasts and the
south?
In fact,
Hakka may have remnants of this, too. If you look at the family
lineage charts of Hakka, 200 or 300 years ago, many had a Taoist
name too. This still has to be studied.
Are
there any physical traces of the founding period of religious
Taoism?
Nothing.
There was a stele from the second century, but it was lost in the
Song. The physical remains that we have now are from the fifth
century. This is probably because they did not use physical objects
for worship. It was aniconic. They used visualizations in their
minds.
What about the “Taoist
popes” of today? There
are people claiming to be the 65th generation descendant of Zhang
Daoling, the founder and first celestial master of the Taoist
religion.
We don’t
see this lineage until the Song. After that, the lineage of the
celestial masters is clear. But before that it’s not clear. We have
the first three generations of celestial masters from the second
century and then a mention in the sixth century, but nothing
lasting until the Song.
Then does it make sense to speak of mainstream Taoism today as
having descended from this second-century religious
movement?
Absolutely,
yes. So much of modern ritual stems from them. Taoist priests still
use many of the same terms and practices.
The ideas
now are exactly the same: The world of the dead is like the world
of the living. Taoist priests are like cosmic lawyers. They can go
up to heaven and extricate the dead from
difficulties. Taoism gives you a way of
controlling your fate in another world. This is the same now as
then.
How
did you piece together this history without physical
objects?
Primarily
by using texts, but in a different way than before. Most Chinese
historians have used official dynastic histories. They comb through
it for mention of who is a Taoist and then write this up as a
history, but they ignore the religious texts.
Why
is that?
The
religious texts are found in a huge collection called the Taoist
canon. Until fairly recently, people said it was a mess — you can’t
date anything and so it’s not worth considering if you are writing
a history of China. But this has changed. We now have for
example the work of Kristofer Schipper and
Franciscus Verellen that gives a date for every
document.
So
the Taoist canon can be used as an alternative history, expanding
on the official histories.
It shows
another aspect of Chinese society that you can’t get from the
“zhengshi,” or “official histories.” This has been my inspiration
my whole career — to find this alternative thread through Chinese
society — the part that didn’t get recorded in the emperor’s
official history.
This strikes me as similar to the history of early Christianity.
There, too, is a very limited amount of physical
material.
I’m
fascinated with the parallels. We have the same limited amount of
textual material. We need to squeeze it, just like they did with
the Gospels. That’s been one of my goals with the book, to get all
of that early authentic material, and write a history of the
movement.
Have Chinese historians worked this
material?
There is
little philological tradition like this in China. The main
philological work in Chinese Buddhism, for example, was done by
Japanese and Western scholars. They dated the material and produced
catalogs.
There’s
been very little work in Taoism or Chinese religion comparable to
the work done on Christianity. For example, you can internally date
texts and say this part is earlier than that part. This is common
in the Bible, but very uncommon in Chinese texts.
Why
hasn’t this been popular among Chinese
scholars?
I think it
reflected the prejudice by the educated elite against religion —
that it wasn’t worthy of study. Most Chinese scholars have thought
of Taoism as a degenerate philosophy — something that once had to
do with Laozi but ended up with a bunch of charlatan
tricks.
Today it seems different. Taoism is embraced as part of the
traditional Chinese culture that the government is
promoting.
Only
certain aspects of the religion. The Chinese Constitution
guarantees freedom of religious belief but not religious practice.
Much of what a traditional Taoist priest did is now illegal. They
are allowed to do rituals but cannot claim to have actually
accomplished anything with the ritual, or else it is called
superstition. If you claim your ritual will actually heal someone
or save their relatives, you can be thrown in jail for
fraud.
It leaves
Taoism in a very different position in society, a representative of
the culture without any rights to control their own public image,
which is controlled by the government.