Page 447 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

408 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM A- L

After the brief Xin dynasty (9- 23 CE) of Wang Mang, also a noted patron
of the fangs hi, Emperor Guangwu (r. 25-57 CE) restored the Han and censured
them (Hou Hanshu, 28A.959-60). By the reigns of Emperors Zhang (r. 75-88 CE)
and He (r. 88-106 CE), however, imperial patronage of fangshi had recovered.
A funerary inscription for such a fangshi discovered in Henan province in 1991
tells of the clairvoyance and ability to avert catastrophe of Fei Zhi n~ ~, who
served as Expectant Appointee in the Lateral Court (yeting daizhao f~Mf~
~i3, i.e., a candidate for the examinations who had received the recommenda-
tion of an official and served in the apartments of the imperial concubines)
because of these expertises (Xing Yitian 1997, 53; Schipper I997b; Little 2000b,
150-51). The inscription also states that Fei Zhi was friends with divine beings
such as *Chisong zi, an immortal associated with breathing exercises and
immortality. As this example suggests, the methods used by the fangshi from
the Later Han were defined more broadly to include a variety of medical and
omenological techniques. Evidence of the breadth of practice incorporated
into the chapter on fangshi in Fan Ye's m: B!j¥ (398-445) Hou Hanshu (History of
the Later Han) is its inclusion of omen and portent techniques such as fengjiao
M1fJ (wind angles). This practice, which may date back to the Shang dynasty
(OeWoskin 1983, 27), involves using the temperature, strength, and changes
in direction in seasonal winds to determine the local increase and decrease in
Yin and Yang *qi (Li Ling 2000a, 52-57).
When Chen Shou ~. (232-97) compiled the chapter on Methods and
Techniques (*fangji) in the Weizhi (History of Wei; ca. 280) section of the
Sanguo zhi (History of the Three Kingdoms), his intention was to revise
traditional historical writing by broadening the coverage of "unorthodox
happenings and anomalous events" (Sanguo zhi, 29.830). Yamada Toshiaki has
argued that the reason that Fan Ye broadened the definition of fangshi in his
Hou Hanshu was that he was following Chen's lead. As a result, the divination
and omenology methods that had been categorized as shushu :WllttJ Carts of
the numbers," or "algorithm-based techniques") in the Hanshu (History of
the Former Han) were combined with the category of fangshi into a chapter
onfangshu 7JttJ Cmethods and arts"; Yamada Toshiaki I988b, 1968-69). Thus
the fangshi, originally experts in matters of the spirits, came by the late Han to
include the ubiquitous experts in detecting shifts in the balance of the natural
world.
The "methods" of the fangshi may be seen as forerunners of organized
Taoist practices on several levels. In the Han, the concept of the Oao served
to explain the efficacy of the myriad of newly forming technical disciplines
(Csikszentrnihalyi 1997), and many of these disciplines were the province of the
fangshi. This explains why the term *daoshi (masters of the Oao) was already
beginning to replace the term fangshi in the Hanshu, resulting in its gradual
eclipse of the latter term. On a more concrete level, many specific techniques