Page 305 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

266 TH E ENCYC LOP E DIA O F TAOISM A-L

about the interrelationship of Heaven and humanity, which date from at least
the time of the Warring States period (403- 221). Special emphasis was given
to the role of emperor as the supporter of the balance between Heaven and
humanity. If the emperor acted in a manner contrary to the will of Heaven,
Heaven would express its blame through portents; when such portents ap-
peared, the emperor was supposed to "consider his faults." Dong Zhongshu m
1~ \5f (ca. 195- II5 BCE) strongly asserted these ideas in his political thought, and
it is possible to find similarities between his writings and the Taipingjing.
*Ge Hong's (283-343) *Baopu zi (Book of the Master Who Embraces Sim-
plicity) contains evidence of an idea connected with "inherited burden,"
namely that evil acts reduce the life spans of those who commit them and
their de cendants, and cause calamities. Later, merits and demerits came to be
calculated in points, and from the Song period onward this practice became
wide pread in the form of the "ledgers of merit and demerit" (gongguo ge J}]
J1?[#r ; Brokaw 1991).
While "inherited burden" is a kind of karmic retribution, there is a funda-
mental difference between the notion of chengfu and the Buddhist notion of
karma. In Buddhism, the good and evil performed by an individual in past
lives i reflected in what form his or her present life takes, and good and evil
behavior in the present life determines future rebirth. Chengfu, by contrast,
not only considers the past and future lives of the individual, but also that
individuals inherit the results of the good and evil of the behavior of their
ancestors, and that these results accumulate not only at the individual level,
but al 0 at the social level. In this sense, "inherited burden" is based on the
unit of the family and, as its extension, of society.

YAMADA Toshiaki
W Hendrischke 1991; Kamitsuka Yoshiko 1999, 301- 37; Qing Xitai 1994, 2:
324- 26; Strickmann 2002, 39- 50; Tsuchiya Masaaki 2002
* ETHICS AND MORALS

Chenghuang

JArt

God of Walls and Moats; City God

The God of Walls and Moats, more commonly known as the City God,
emerged with the growth and independence of townships in late Tang and
Song China. He became highly popular under the Ming and is one of the key