Page 51 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

LINEAGES AND TRADITIONS

Lineages )

Lineages in Taoism highlighted connections between human beings and the
sacred Way. People in China had long seen their society and its traditions as
families organized by their reverence for recognized forebears. These organiza-
tions created cultural identities when people ritually linked themselves to pre-
decessors, whether biological or imagined. Using ritual to acknowledge those
who had passed on and their living heirs helped to strengthen society and to
fashion a structure of depersonalized ancestors able to support that society. The
genealogical imperative of Chinese civilization was typically patriarchal, focus-
ing on male ancestors and descendants more than their female counterparts.
These lineages also provided a rich resource for structuring and strengthening
the political, religious, and cultural dimensions of Chinese lives.
Classical thinkers saw some key ideas of China's bronze civilizations of the
Central Plains, such as the notion of ancestors and their living representatives,
as signs of how a unified *qi distributed itself across social space. Ritual could
keep this differentiated qi in good order within a family, whose duties were
the source of Chinese ethical responsibility and moral behavior. Han scholars
used familial models to structure various political and cultural forms, including
that of a common "family" (jia *) binding together the presumed authors
of diverse writings. Genealogical presumptions organized both writings and
cultural forms, broadening their influence in Chinese culture.
Taoist traditions tapped into these ancestral sociocultural sources for creating
identities in China, but gave them a new foundation, the patterned condensa-
tions of qi that manifest the sacred Way. Taoism went further, however; from
its first movements in the second century CE, it stressed that this cosmic Way
also regularly becomes part of human history. The sacred and anthropomorphic
incarnations of the sacred Way in human society-as patriarchs, transcendents,
and saints-had their counterparts in the human body, composed of qi that
could be refined and purified through ritual and meditation, and thus became
the means for reuniting with the Way. Since everything in the world partook
of qi that was rooted in the singular Way, the various Taoist traditions were
so many sets of revealed reminders of the sacred sources of human life, and
represented means to ritually and spiritually reconnect human life with these
sources. Patriarchs, transcendents, and masters distributed these reminders
to worthy human beings.

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