Page 204 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

164 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM VOL. I

rebellions against the dynasty and so by retrenchment and regularization, the
only presumed change being the introduction of a new regulatory office, the
daolu si @:~ pl or "Office for the Registration of Taoists," during the ninth
century, though this is an extrapolation from the creation of such an organ
for Buddhists.
The shift in Chinese society that took place from the late Tang to early Song
affected relations between Taoism and the state in complex ways. The decline
of the aristocratic clans with their roots in Six Dynasties culture from which
the Tang rulers had sprung made it less necessary for the ruling house to stress
its divine origins, while the new bureaucracy which asserted its legitimacy
through education in Confucianism proved less susceptible to control through
imperial assertions of divine authority. Even so, it would appear that Taoism
and Buddhism continued to receive the patronage of that elite, rather than local
religion. The world of popular cults, however, had changed as well, attracting
the patronage of powerful forces in local society outside the bureaucracy which,
together with changes in communications, helped them to spread, sometimes
transregionally. Simultaneously the annexation of elements from the "higher"
religions to the lower, or alternatively the popularization at the lower level of
forms of the higher religions, often blurred the boundaries of former times.
The emperor Huizong (r. IlOO-I12S), in a celebrated episode in III9-20 which
saw Buddhism forced to adopt a Chinese nomenclature, may have been trying
to reconcile Buddhism and Taoism so as to promote the latter in a form that
could reach into the new local religious environment as a national ideology
in times of danger. The subsequent collapse of the Northern Song, however,
strengthened the alternative policy of extending state patronage to popular
forms of religion which had secured backing powerful enough to assure re-
spectability. Supervision of the Taoist clergy now extended to the prefectural
level, each of which had a daozheng si ;@lE p], "Office for the Regulation of
Taoists."
The eventual conquest of China by the Mongols brought to the whole
empire for the first time a ruling house untouched by Chinese political tradi-
tions, which tended to see religious groups not as a problem for bureaucratic
control but as potential agents of imperial power within a much looser struc-
ture of government. This unparalleled opportunity for patronage, however,
excited fierce competition between Buddhists and Taoists, resulting in the
famous decision of Khubilai to destroy the Taoist Canon in 1281 (see *Dajin
Xuandu baozang). Mongol preference for non-Chinese supervision over Chinese
subjects, however, ensured that it was Tibetan Buddhists who profited most
from this.
Government control came back with a vengeance following the establish-
ment of the Ming dynasty in 1368, especially since the Hongwu Emperor (r.
1368-98), having risen from poverty, had an unusually clear awareness of the