Page 48 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

8 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM VOL. I

2000; Li Shen 1995; Robinet 1997b, 1-23; Schwartz 1985, 186-255; Seidel 1997;
TangJunyi 1986, I: 262-436; Thompson 1993
?::: DAOJIAO

daojiao

Taoism; Taoist teaching; "Teaching(s) of the Way"

This term, now denoting the religion which is the topic of this encyclopedia,
originally meant no more than "Teaching of the Way"-though even this is
misleading, in that inculcation rather than education is implied by "teaching."
All early instances of the term, therefore, have a rather vague application: in
preimperial times Mohists use it with reference to the classical traditions of
the sages, more or less equivalent to Confucianism; from the late Han onward
Buddhists use it also as an elegant synonym for fojiao {i/!i ¥j:, "The Teachings
of the Buddha." Only in the fifth century do we find it used in the sense that
it has now acquired; only then did such a term become necessary.
Up to that point various religious groups whose adherents rallied together
under the new label had already come into existence, from the Celestial Mas-
ters (*Tianshi dao) onward. But although they shared a common belief in
the values of empire-authority and order-they remained distinct from one
another, as did those individuals who adhered to traditions of ancient occult
learning going back to the Han, if not earlier, which had remained outside the
Han state's synthesis of learning under the banner of Confucianism. These
individuals tended to use the word *DAOJIA, a term first attested in the early
second century BeE (Shiji, 56.2062), and used thereafter both by doxographers
retrospectively describing presumed groups of texts of the preimperial period
and as a term for masters of self-cultivation and the pursuit of immortality-we
must suppose there was some link between early texts and contemporary
masters in the Han mind.
But by the fifth century the implicit unity of all these individuals and groups
over against the disparate, "uncontrolled" cults of local religion could now
be replaced by a conscious unity across diversity on the model of Buddhism,
where many different doctrines were accorded the same status as Buddha's
word. Dynasties of the early fifth century in both the north and the south came
to the conclusion that organized religion on the Buddhist model was more of
a help than a threat, especially after the rebellion of *Sun En and similar inci-
dents underlined just what the results of the corruption of "higher" religion