Grégoire Espesset

Kristofer Ctt

Ed Schipper

Revelation Between Orality and Writing in Early Imperial China: The Epistemology of the Taiping jing

Each juan of the TPJC corresponds to one section (bu) in the table of contents of the TPJ from Dunhuang MS S. 4226 (see n. 1 above), with the exception of juan 1, for which a medley of Shangqing 藻 sources was later substituted; see

For more than seven decades, the Taiping jing (Scripture of Great Peace) 3 impassioned and divided various specialists of China-Oriental scholars and Western orientalists-until present-day linguists, philologists and sinologists finally acknowledged that it conveys an ideology peculiar to the Han Dynasty 亢 times (206 B.C.E.-A.D. 220). 4 The Zhengtong daozang, a collection of Taoist works edited during the Zhengtong い濯 era (1436-50) of the Ming 汗 dynasty (1368-1644), has partly preserved this scripture. It is a text of problematic origins, somewhat tumultuous textual history and today fairly deteriorated content. Included in a scripturary collection related to a religion, this document was always considered a specifically religious text by Western research and therefore for a long time isolated from the study of the history of Chinese thought and relegated to missionaries. 5 But some recent studies tend to prove that the TPJ foreshadowed "religious Taoism" (i.e. daojiao 洋糎) and indeed contributed to its formation rather than constituting its earliest known written manifestation. 6 On this view, the TPJ and the entire scripturary tradition which the TPJ embodies is one of the keys to a better understanding of the changes in Chinese culture that accompanied the creation of a centralized imperial State, namely, the shift from a situation of remarkable intellectual profusion and liberty to a situation of submission to an orthodoxy and, to some extent, of literary 3. The first published Western study of the TPJ consisted of a 4-page footnote included in the translation into French by Paul Pelliot of a Buddhist text (see Paul Pelliot, "Meou-tseu ou les doutes levés: Traduit et annoté", T'oung Pao 19 [1920]: 408-11); the first published Japanese study was Koyanagi Shigeta ゛遣L車′, "Go Kan jo 'Jô Kai den' no Taihei shôryô sho ni tsuite º掲亢七ae©棆戊賓¬のº′l藻叮七aeについて", in Tôyôshi ronsô 緩現Q寶櫑, ed. Kuwabara hakushi kanreki kinen kai 芝搾紬。樮悳構割穂 (Kyôto: Kôbundô o◇椙, 1930), 141-71; and the first published Chinese study was Tang Yongtong 鈍こ委, "Du Taiping jing shu suo jian 矣º′l眠ae七竃掩", Guoxue jikan 髄弯鎧 ¶ 5. 1 (1935): 7-38. The most complete published bibliography of 20th century TPJ studies is still the list appearing in Chen Ligui 跳猴質, ed., Liang Han zhuzi yanjiu lunzhu mulu 嫁亢實:巧駅寶肇そ掎: 1912~1996 (Taibei: Hanxue yanjiu zhongxin 亢弯巧駅- §, 1998): 391-407 (references no. 5227-5431). On the historiography of TPJ studies, see n. 11 below.

4. Burchard J. Mansvelt Beck, in "The Date of the Taiping Jing", T'oung Pao 66.4-5 (1980): 149-82, has summed up and discussed theories (mostly Japanese) concerning the dating of the TPJ. I have suggested in my doctoral thesis that, since all first-hand material is lost-with the exception of the fragmentary MS from Dunhuang-one should clearly distinguish the historical dating of the material (edited in the Ming collection of Taoist scriptures) from the dating of the ideas expressed in it. As I tried to show, these ideas reflect an episteme common to early imperial China. See Grégoire Espesset, "Cosmologie et trifonctionnalité dans l'idéologie du Livre de la Grande paix (Taiping jing ′l眠)" (Ph.D. diss., Université Paris 7-Denis Diderot, 2002), 359-89. So, in the end, I concur with Mansvelt Beck's conclusions, as well as with those of most modern Eastern and Western specialists of the TPJ.

5. The earliest mention of the TPJ in a Western source seems to appear in the French Jesuit L. Wieger's catalogue of Taoist scriptures. Wieger's opinion on the TPJ deserves to be quoted in extenso: "T'ai-p'ing-king [Taiping jing], primitivement 119 chapitres, dont 20 sont perdus. Sorte de somme, de valeur plus que médiocre, quoiqu'on prétende qu'elle fut révélée par Lao-tzeu [Laozi Κ:] en personne. Contient les sujets ordinaires, surtout des formules, pour vivre en paix, sans souffrances"; see Léon Wieger, Taoïsme, vol. 1 (Hien-hien [Ho-kien-fou]: Imprimerie de la Mission, 1911): 175. 6. See, for instance, Chen Ligui 跳猴質, "Cong Taiping jing kan daojiao dui Huang-Lao lilun de fuhui yu zhuanhua 碩º′l眠ae垢洋糎憐鰭Κ唾寶疑競穂冉涅×", Zhongguo xueshu niankan -髄弯置ハ ¶ 16 (1995): 27-52. standardization. 7 We are now aware of the part played by literacy, which greatly expanded throughout the Han period, in the formation process of the imperial State in China: 8 the authors of the Great Peace corpus raised the issues of the nature, origin, preservation, and transmission of knowledge at a decisive moment in the political and social history of China.

The social, moral, and cosmic decline which is dramatically deplored throughout the TPJ is described as the result of errors accumulated by men since the earliest ages, 9 and it devolves upon men to remedy this disgrace by reverting to the state of original perfection referred to by the term taiping ′l, "Great Peace". 10 However, the conduct of men of today, like that of their ancestors, frequently ends in fault (guo 蓉), mostly because of ignorance (yu 雰): ignorance of the rules presiding over the universal/cosmic order, ignorance of the perpetrated faults, and ignorance of the gravity (zhong 紺) of the faults-all often admitted in the text.

Much of the TPJ is structured as dialogues between a "Master" (shi 施), a fictitious orator through whom the authors of the TPJ speak, and his disciples. The disciples, first and foremost, embody ignorance. The master often calls them yusheng 雰げ, "stupid students", and the goal of the lessons which constitute the successive steps of his teaching is none other than to put an end to ignorance. Hence epistemology logically assumes a crucial role in the Scripture of Great Peace, yet it is one among the themes which have been underestimated since modern TPJ studies began in the 7. The burning of books, however limited, decreed in 213 B.C.E. by Qin Shihuangdi 舜害公係, founder of the Chinese empire, was the first blow from the State to freedom of expression and criticism of the government in China; see Derk Bodde, "The state and empire of Ch'in", in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 1, ed. Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 69-72 ("Burning of books and execution of the literati"); Jens Østergård Petersen, "Which Books Did the First Emperor of Ch'in Burn? On the Meaning of Pai Chia in Early Chinese Sources", Monumenta Serica 43 (1995): 1-52; and Nicolas Zufferey, "Le Premier Empereur et les lettrés: L'exécution de 212 avant J.-C.", Études Chinoises 16. 1 (1997): 59-98. Under the Han, the emergence of an official orthodoxy appealing to the Confucian legacy and the proscription of apocryphal writings (weishu 姆七) from A.D. 217 onwards at the latest confirmed the political control of intellectual production in China. On the emergence of the Confucian orthodoxy, see Anne Cheng, "La trame et la chaîne: Aux origines de la constitution d'un corpus canonique au sein de la tradition confucéenne", Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident 5 (1984) Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China, 4-12. 9. This is the "inherited burden" (chengfu 蒲甑), a concept peculiar to the TPJ; on which, see Barbara Hendrischke, "The Concept of Inherited Evil in the Taiping Jing", East Asian History 2 (1991): 1-30; and Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine, ed. Bernard Faure (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002): 39-44. On the issue of the moralization of cosmology in Han times, see also Wang Aihe, Cosmology and Political Culture in Early China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), a valuable essay in which the TPJ is not mentioned. 10. For the various ideas conveyed by the term taiping, see Barbara Hendrischke, "The Daoist Utopia of Great Peace", Oriens Extremus 35th year, 1-2 (1992): 61-91. early 1930s. 11 Among the few scholars who took some interest in this aspect of the TPJ should be mentioned Max Kaltenmark, who first contributed his depiction of the content of the TPJ to an international conference in 1972; 12 Hachiya Kunio; 13 Jens Østergård Petersen; 14 and Chen Lin. 15 As a result, though it seems that most of the field has already been marked out, such investigations prove incomplete. Although the theme of writing attracted the attention of these four scholars, orality in 11. For historiographical surveys of 20th-century study of the TPJ, see Barbara Hendrischke, "Chinese Research into Daoism after the Cultural Revolution", Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 38. 1 (1984) 12. See Max Kaltenmark, "The Ideology of the T'ai-p'ing ching", in Facets of Taoism: Essays in Chinese Religion, ed. Holmes Welch and Anna K. Seidel (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979), 24-29 ("The Revelation and the Texts"). Kaltenmark's paper, translated in Japanese by Fukui Fumimasa 俾…◇彪, was to be published first in 1977 in the Japanese volume derived from the conference ("Taiheikyô no riron º′l眠ae 唾寶", in Dôkyô no sôgôteki kenkyû 洋糎の栞ォ疑巧駅, ed. Sakai Tadao 醸…鰍° [Tôkyô: Kokusho kankôkai 髄七 ¶η穂, 1977], 220-51); and a Chinese translation by Tian Xingxiang さ引裟 was published later on in Taiwan ("Taiping jing de yishi xingtai º′l眠ae疑文煖駒婁", Daojiao wenhua 洋糎◇× 53.5.5 [1992]: 3-17). These two translations in Asian languages bear witness to the lasting popularity of Kaltenmark's paper which provides a good résumé of the theory of the gathering of texts with a view to their rectification, one of the key ideas of the TPJ, as we shall see.

13. See Hachiya Kunio 冶郡奥°, "Taiheikyô ni okeru genji bunsho: kyô, shû, tsû no shisô º′l眠aeにおける沿 燵◇七¢や¡氷¡貯の景併", Tôyô bunka kenkyûjo kiyô 92 (1983): 35-81. Hachiya Kunio's study, which arises in a different sinological context and shows a much accurate understanding of the relevant material, is divided in three parts. The first part (ibid., 39-43) describes the origin of texts and the four stages of their transmission, from Heaven to master, disciple, prince and people-one of the possible syntheses of the models appearing more or less explicitly in the material (for instance, in chapter 6/102/166, the transmission of the master's revelations obeys a ternary process which responds to the emblematic ♀ゲ triad: the master/Heaven, the disciples/Earth, and people/ Man [462.2-4]). The second part (ibid., 44-53) characterizes two spheres corresponding to two kinds of writings: a heavenly sphere, whose writings are made obvious to men as astronomical phenomena (tianwen ♀◇), and a human sphere, whose writings divide in orthodox or correct (zheng い) and heterodox or perverted (xie 央) texts. Hachiya's convincing thesis (ibid., 47-49, 52-53) assumes that both spheres meet around the three associated concepts of "community" (gong や), "collection" (ji 氷), and "pervasiveness" (tong 貯). Ambivalence of writing in the human world is rightly stressed (ibid., 45) but, as in Kaltenmark's paper, the specificity of the master's text, merely ranked in the sphere of human writings, remains unclear. The third part (ibid., 54-55) does not deal with the main theme but depicts the thematic content of section geng 郭 (VII), which belongs to a secondary textual strata (see n. 62 below).

14. See Jens Østergård Petersen, "The Anti-Messianism of the Taiping jing", Studies in Central & East Asian Religions/Journal of The Seminar for Buddhist Studies 3 (1990): 20-27 ("The Collation of a Supreme Scripture"). Petersen rightly points out the opposition between knowledge gathered up collectively and theories from a single man, which, in his view, is one of the evidences of the "anti-messianism" of the early TPJ, then the passage ends up abruptly as Petersen amusingly remarks that the TPJ sees the Emperor as a mere "editor-in-chief" of the "Supreme Scripture" to be edited (ibid., 27).

15. See Chen Lin 跳観, "Zhengwen zhengci yi xing taiping: Taiping jing wen zhi taiping sixiang qianyi い◇い燵∇ 懆′l¢º′l眠ae◇既′l景併蒼甅", Zongjiaoxue yanjiu 骸糎弯巧駅 47.2 (2000): 16-21. Chen's study, which focuses on the opposition between orthodox/correct and heterodox/perverted texts, shows how the former may lead the world toward the state of Great Peace and introduces the distinction between writings from common men and the text of the master, the only one among human writings which embodies and conveys universal laws (tiandi gefa ♀ゲ写 基). Orality and its dimension in religious context are briefly dealt with (ibid., 19-20), with a casual reference to the ideas of Jacques Derrida ("基髄没∽景併伺嗤旺熔") with regard to the language issue-"sound and sign", "word and writing", "presence and absence", an obvious allusion to the French thinker's De la grammatologie (Paris: Minuit, 1967).

the TPJ, on the other hand, remains undiscussed. Issues relating to the relationship between orality and writing have been thought to exclusively belong to ethnologists and anthropologists who investigate the specific field of cultures of oral tradition belatedly confronted with writing, as exemplified by Black Africa. 16 As far as Chinese civilization is concerned, writing has now become one of the favorite topics of sinology worldwide but the study of orality has focused on songs, ballads, and poetry (including the Shijing 諭眠), some categories of narratives (including Buddhist), and the still appealing category of myths-but such issues as the "function" of orality and writing in the earliest stages of the development of Chinese civilization remain debated. 17 As for "religious studies", this issue is closely linked to revealed knowledge-i.e. knowledge transmitted to men by supernatural instances-and texts and their transmission. In the case of Taoism, modern studies have shown that the transmission of texts from master to disciple came along with the transmission of oral material, essential to their understanding and which was gradually fixed in a written form, 18 if not merely lost-and this is why so many texts in the Taoist Canon are bound to remain hermetic to us. Nevertheless, it is generally admitted that in Chinese religion, writing is given prevalence over orality. 19 The TPJ seems to be no exception to the rule, but the question does not boil down to a mere binary alternative and we shall see that, in the TPJ, epistemology has to deal with both defective vehicles of information.

Logos and revealed knowledge

In the scripturary tradition of Great Peace as well as in religious Taoism as a whole, musical sounds (yuesheng 坏梏) are the expression par excellence of logos, i.e. the divine, cosmic Word. 20 The TPJC (9.9a-b) states that "musical sounds rectify the language of Yin and Yang, Heaven and Earth 坏梏い 16. See, among others, Jack Goody, The interface between the written and the oral (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). But, when turning to China, the same author excludes orality; see Jack Goody, "Religion and Writing in Southern China", Zhongyang yanjiuyuan minzuxue yanjiusuo jikan -Z巧駅織う疎弯巧駅竃氷 ¶ 82 (1996): 1-18. ♀ゲ長桧\剞沿 " [708.8-9], 21 hence, as the master text (chapter 3/50/77) tells us, the need for an adviser "specialized in music 享換梏査" [184.3] by the supreme ruler's side, someone who will guarantee that his rule remains in perfect accordance with universal harmony and help him to lead the country to general welfare. Therefore, sounds have a powerful efficacy but their actual consequences may contrast strongly, as the TPJC (9.9b) explains: Music, through resonance, attracts events [of a similar nature], just as, of the sounds emitted by men when opening their mouths, some are good, and some are bad; good ones lead to good fortune, and bad ones lead to misfortune. [708.7-8] °坏 ∇査皴G黄~↑閤 膝 †梏~モタモ徒¢賠却衡を~徒却衡『¢ But Heaven and Earth do not address Man by means of musical sounds or regular discourse: the task of informing Man of cosmic matters devolves on two embodiments of logos, Saints (shengren 命 ) and Saintly Masters (shengshi 命施). 22 The origin of their knowledge may then be identified with revelation, and thus revelation constitutes the primary condition of the entire epistemological theory of the TPJ. In the brief autobiographical account from chapter 3/39/50 where the master tells his disciples about his own apprenticeship and the way knowledge was transmitted to him, the revealed origin of what he hands down to them now is clearly explained:

When I began to study, I also asked questions of masters-not of a single man. (After) a 21. Textual references to the TPJ between brackets, following the protocol: [page.line], refer to Wang Ming's collated edition, "Taiping jing" hejiao ′l眠ォ嫉, 2nd edition (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju - 箱七袷, 1979; 1st edition: 1960). Problems relating to punctuation in Wang's edition were located and corrected in Takahashi Tadahiko 娠恁鰍 形, "Taiheikyô gôkô no hiôten ni tsuite ′l眠ォ嫉²の圦櫃について", Tôkyô gakugei daigaku kiyô: jinbun kagaku 緩億弯炸.弯構酷 ◇抗弯 36 (1985): 231-44; various other corrections were published in Chen Zengyue 跳 唹殻, "Taiping jing hejiao shiyi º′l眠ォ嫉ae欠挧", Zhongguo daojiao -髄洋糎 31.3 (1994): 25-28; and "Taiping jing hejiao buji º′l眠ォ嫉ae役蕉", Wenxian ◇瑯 62.4 (1994): 219-28. But the major flaw of Wang's edition is that the full table of content of the Dunhuang MS Stein 4226 (see n. 1 above), unfortunately published in Japan by Yoshioka Yoshitoyo the year following the publication of the Taiping jing hejiao in China, is virtually ignored, even in the 1979 reissue. Yu Liming's 饗唾汗 recently published edition, "Taiping jing" zhengdu º′l眠ae い矣 (Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe %門七掬, 2001), should be consulted for all linguistic problems; it also includes the full content of MS S. 4226; unfortunately, Yu has omitted Wang's marginal notes in his edition and does not distinguish between the master source (i.e. the TPJ itself) and the TPJC (a later, edited abstract version; see n. 2 above). ◇七~光選剞¢ [88.6-7]. Saints and Sages are ranked sixth and seventh in the ninefold human hierarchy (jiuren ) which is expounded in several passages from both the TPJ and TPJC. Chapter 3/42/56 lists the following degrees: 1: Incorporeal Divine Men who accumulated pneuma (wuxing weiqi zhi shenren 尼威開車\出 ); 2: Divine Men (shenren 出 or da . shenren); 3: Real Men (zhenren); 4: Immortals (xianren ∵ ); 5: Men of the Tao (daoren 洋 or da . daoren); 6: Saints (shengren); 7: Sages (xianren); 8: common people (fanmin う), called shanren 賠 ("benevolent men") or liangmin 奄う ("good people") in TPJC (4.14b); and 9: slaves (nubi b制). In chapter 3/40/53, the same nine ranks are mentioned as successive stages of study (xue 弯). A passage of the TPJC (4.15a-b) specifies that even a slave may reach the upper rank through assiduous study, i.e. revert to the sphere of pure pneuma-a belief consonant with the general ideology of Great Peace, as I have shown in "À vau-l'eau, à rebours ou l'ambivalence de la logique triadique dans l'idéologie du Taiping jing ′l眠", forthcoming in Cahiers d' Extrême-Asie 14 (2004).

See

long, long time, having achieved Tao and accomplished Virtue, above I could unite my will with Heaven. Afterwards I knew what Heaven wished to say. Heaven has essential spirits of the Great Yang come and instruct me, and makes me speak. Therefore, it is Heaven that I have for a master. 23 [70.4-5] д害弯\鹿~ァ推換施~卿 ¢ 洋プ嗤天~情跡 冉♀ォ文~情掲誼♀竃槽 沿¢♀牡′桧\傳出恩од~牡д剞¢血д却~情∇♀胡施¢

The master states in several places that he has humbly received the Tao from Heaven. 24 All these passages point to what is best called a final (in the master's eyes) revelation. The master then claims to be in possession of essential, perfect, and unaltered, knowledge, in a word: Truth. Reverting to Heaven, the origin of all things, was the necessary condition for discovering and embracing again the "will of Heaven" which Man had wandered away from over the ages. This view partakes of the underlying ideology of the Great Peace tradition as a whole, which contrasts a logic of willful, conscious reversion to the Origin-an individual as well as collective process regarded as a cosmic panacea to any form of trouble and disorder-to a logic of the natural, historic propensity of all beings (and things) towards dispersion and decay. 25 However, the master also recognizes that human knowledge (whether it is of revealed origin or not is not made clear) has limits: "the heavenly Tao which governs Heaven is not totally knowable ♀洋既♀~ーD俤誼 " [279.7] (chapter 5/70/106)-hence the impossibility to trust the words of a single man and the need to undertake a general process of revision of all written knowledge of all periods, as we shall see further on. The value of such revelations bestowed upon Man, "heavenly treasures [such as] mysterious charts and documents ♀獸祝隣七", is beyond compare and opposed by the authors of the TPJ to the earthly, material value of "precious objects, jades, and gold 梧軌殳ぎ亨搜" [129.5-6] (chapter 3/46/62).

Their advent is not totally within the competence of Man but responds to human moral conduct;

23. The expression tian ming shi ♀廻施 [716.4], "master commissioned by Heaven", appearing in the TPJC (9.19a), expresses in a like manner the heavenly-or, at least, claimed as such-origin and nature of the master's mission (in the religious sense of the term) here below. This is the way the alternative denomination of the master in the TPJ, tianshi ♀施 ("Heavenly Master"), should be understood. The earliest occurrence of this syntagm seems to go back to the Zhuangzi 蛋: (24/69/7), a work which also contains the expression: "to have Heaven for a master ∇♀胡施" when heavenly or divine writings or books (tianshu ♀七 or shenshu 出七) 26 "are willing to appear 槽 †" and circulate among men, their way should not be blocked. 27 The function of revealed "texts" (wen ◇) is best described in the following ternary process: "it is Heaven which makes them, the master who clarifies them, the sovereign who puts them into practice 庁\却♀~汗\却施~η\却係∨" [704.12-3] (TPJC: 9.5a). In this process, the master plays a key role between the origin of revelation and its concrete finality, since the ruler, without the guidance from a master, is unable to use revealed knowledge (ibid.). Such an assertion shows the high opinion the authors of the Taiping corpus have of the epistemological role of the master and of the social and political position they expect him to occupy. Moreover, all documents (tushu 隣七) sent out by Heaven as an auspicious response (ruiying 朴數) to the benevolence (shan 賠) of the ruler's thoughts express the cosmic sanction of power (TPJC: 2.14b): who is better qualified than a Heavenly Master to legitimate the reign of the ruler by authenticating such documents? 28 However, the content of revelation, spoken or written, as well as of the literary production of men, is generally referred to as "yan 沿", i.e. "word", "speech", "utterance" (TPJC: 8.10a-b). For example, the "versified rhymes of children" spreading among past and present people are "words" induced by the changes of Heaven, 29 and the master calls the content of his teachings "the words of all spirits in Heaven ♀ 實出沿" [350.12]. Such revealed words, because of their nature, should not be put to test (±癒出沿 [578.13]), unlike material of human origin. Elsewhere, mundane men (胸肘\ ) are stigmatized for not acknowledging "the content of the writings of Heaven ♀七沿" [621.12] (chapter 7/114/202).

But the Taiping corpus nonetheless states repeatedly that what Heaven bestows upon Man is "written documents ◇七" (TPJC: 6.19b), such as the Hetu 願隣 (River Chart) and the Luoshu 己七 (Writ of the Luo) conveyed to men in an already fixed, graphic form, by two supernatural ani-26. The TPJ explictly states that "Heaven transmits Its talk ♀賓寡寉" by means of shenshu [174.8] while tianshu sometimes refers to tianwen ji ♀◇蕉, i.e. "astronomical records" in which should be registered all cosmic phenomena and cycles (see, for instance, chapter 3/50/73). But shenshu (14 occurrences in the extant material) may also be interpreted as an echo of the account of the revelation of one of the earliest Taiping texts, the Taiping qingling shu ′l藻 叮七 (Book of pure instructions of Great Peace), under the reign of Emperor Shun 豹 29. See chapter 3/50/71: °E[Γ崖η嘉乂諭却~♀齋壬牡寡モ沿 [174.8]. These "rhymes" were believed to foretell, in sibylline terms, such political events as the rise and fall of emperors and dynasties. mals. 30 Thus written signs or glyphs are considered the ideal condensation of logos. So what part is left to orality if transcendent knowledge descends from Heaven as glyphs?

Orality between performativity and apophasis

The chapter 3/50/75, entitled "Text of divine invocations" ("Shenzhu wen 出術◇"), gives the reader a clue to the peculiarity of orality in the TPJ: Essential utterances of divine Saints permanently in Heaven are at times transmitted to men. Spoken, they are used to make divine officials come and go in response to pneuma (qi 車). People who get them call them "divine invocations". Invocations which hit the mark one hundred times out of one hundred and ten times out of ten are the original texts of spirits in Heaven transmitted as canonical phrases. These invocations have the ability to make spirits mysteriously expel illness. Gather all [invocations] which hit the mark ten times out of ten, use them, and none towards whom they are directed will not be cured; simply spoken, they cure disease. These are the "prophetic utterances of spirits in Heaven" which good masters and sovereigns should use, collected in a volume entitled Zhuchen shu 術窕七 (Book of invocations and prophecies). It is by summoning and employing a multitude of spirits that these [invocations] cure ten times [out of ten]. With those which hit the mark nine times out of ten, true spirits do not come [but] middle spirits; high ministers have them. With those which hit the mark eight times out of ten, it is human spirits which come; the well-ruled people has them. These are the utterances of spirits in Heaven used to summon spirits by name. At times they leak down to Earth; men of the Tao get to know them, transmit them orally to each other, and thus are capable of curing disease. If they were to use words of Man, they would not be able to cure disease. [181.3-9

] ♀ モ脆出命酷剞~鹿 選 ¢∇沿こ牡出ん數車Μ掛恩 ¢ う跡\抂胡出術 ¢ 術 ~術Γ-Γ~術 -~術券♀ 出z◇賓眠燵 ¢寡術モD牡出翅胡蝕習¢光 兌 -却~こ\~竃ェ尼ー平却 ¢Е∇沿平臭~ヨ♀ 出窕剞 ~奄施係∨竃蛙 こ ~氷∇胡蝦~ギエ胡術窕七 ¢券 竃∇G名出牡\~血 平 ¢ -却~充 出ー珂~-出珂~.Τモ ¢ -却~ 出Φ~既うモ ¢ヨ却~♀ 出剞 ~z ∇G雅出 ~喉エッ鹿~鹿 寄ゲ~洋 跡誼\~賓∇喉剞~血嘗∇既臭¢チ牡η \沿~ー嘗既平臭 ¢
So if cosmic writing is the very embodiment of the logos, divine speech is nothing less than its performative medium, in other words the efficacy of logos, as opposed to ordinary, inefficient and, as we shall see, corrupting human speech. But some kinds of divine speeches are delusive and men 30. A horse (or dragon-horse) and a tortoise springing out from the waters of the Yellow River and River Luo; see John B. Henderson, The Development and decline of Chinese cosmology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 82-87. Both documents are mentioned, in varying expressions (heluo 願己, heluo 願參 or hetu luoshu 願隣己七), in the TPJ (41.3a, 4a; 43.2b; 47.11a; 48.7a; 88.1b; 91.1a; 102.3a; 112.4b) and TPJC (3.27a; 6.11b). On their relationship with the theme of "Great Peace" during the Han era, see Mashima Jun'ichi 弼思堝 , "Taihei to Kato, Rakusho: Zen Kan Butei ki no taihei kokka no kôsô ′lとº願隣ae¡º己七ae¢極亢岸係鐙の′l髄伺の藁併", Tôhô shûkyô 緩■骸糎 80 (1992): 1-14.

should beware particularly of the ill-omened words and vain discourses (yaoyan wangyu 広沿ゼ剞) uttered by "perverse, heterodox spirits, xieshen 央出" [440.5-6] (chapter 6/98/156).

From the symbolico-historical point of view of the TPJ, orality is believed to have filled the epistemological sphere in the Golden Age of Antiquity, as we shall see, before writing whose advent coincided with the final loss of the Tao by Man (TPJC: 9.14b). In the TPJ we are told that men of High Antiquity (chapter 7/110/179) and Middle Antiquity 31 (chapter 3/48/65) lived, and governed, without texts (wu wen 尼◇) but that words circulated without loss thanks to their sincerity (cheng 勇) and trustworthiness (xin 峡). But such perfect orality demands, as chapter 5/69/105 states with regard to prophecies (chen 窕), that not a single word should ever be modified during ten thousand successive generations, 32 because a gradual corruption of words is to be feared when they circulate in a single spoken form.

In chapter 3/37/48, the master shows how the loss of truth partakes of the accumulation of "inherited burden" (chengfu 蒲甑), as falsehood (wei 新) spreads from incorrect (央ー劣) words told by a single master to ten disciples who, in turn, will mislead one hundred people, and so on exponentially until the whole of manhood falls into what European Sancta Inquisitio would have called "heresy" (xieshuo 央剿 [58.4-6]). 33 So, the master goes on to say, the cosmic consequences of the utterances of a single individual will be "disorder in the orthodox signs of Heaven 斌♀い◇" (i.e. astronomical anomalies) and "a great illness" here below (♀ ∇胡.臭) [58.7-8]. In the same way, "empty words 喫抜沿" spread by a single man on the marketplace of the capital and repeated all around by people will finally overwhelm manhood with deception (qi 督) [58.10-3]. Elsewhere, the audience is warned against people who like eloquence or emphatic speech (.沿), for they are useless to the ruler, just like the vain discourses of sycophants (ρ ) who know "numerous words 圄沿" but achieve no actual results and trouble the Tao [299.4-6] 34 (chapter 5/72/110). Uncon-31. The first and second of three successive ages (sangu E) in the TPJ, namely a Golden Age of High Antiquity (shanggu E), then an age of decline, Middle Antiquity (zhonggu -E), and then the period contemporaneous with the master/orator, known as Low Antiquity (xiagu E). But the text also admits of four successive series of reigns: the ideal epoch of the Three Augusts (sanhuang 公) and the Five Emperors (wudi 係), the age of decline of the Three Kings (sanwang ∨), and the decadent age of the Five Hegemons (wuba 皙). The correspondence between the Three Ages and the four series of reigns is subject to variations and never clearly expounded. One of the possible reasons for this is that these classifications here serve the text's ideology of inexorable decline rather than they referring to "historiographical" models. 34. In this passage, Wang Ming's punctuation should be modified in accordance with Yu Liming, ed., "Taiping jing" zhengdu, 244. trolled, deviant, and inaccurate orality thus proves detrimental to the entire universe. 35 As we can see, verbal inflation proves hazardous to the transmission of revealed knowledge.

Chapter 3/40/53 deplores the verbal excesses of men ( 沿′ス) and prompts them to revert to the original essentials of Tao (没樮∴寡z酷) [76. 1-2]. An illustration of this theory is provided by the description of a ten-phase process of the perversion of knowledge through repeated transmissions ("uttered once 沿", then "uttered and transmitted again ゅ涅沿", and so on until "uttered ten times 沿") with its disastrous consequences [76. The final two phases overstep the bounds of epistemology and affect the social and political spheres. Orality proves a double-faced, dangerous medium when transferred from the heavenly sphere to the human world and its power is not peculiar to the revealed logos or the learned discourse of the withholders of knowledge but applies to orality as a whole. Henceforth the syntagm "Keeping the One" (shouyi テ ), which is already known to overlap Taoist as well as Buddhist 38. Together with strength and martial excesses which are said respectively to "strain the body" and "harm the person": こ ス却砿寡威~こ岸ス却祐寡艶 [26.6-7]. 39. In chapter 5/71/108, which belongs to the third textual layer (see n. 62 below), obtaining longevity (shou 伶) is connected with the observance of the "precepts of the Tao" (daojie 洋維), and the Divine Man (shenren) advises the Real Man (zhenren) to "keep his mouth closed 調 " so as not to let "transpire 寄" his essential spirits (jingshen 傳 出). Physiology and epistemology naturally meet around the idea of preserving the fundamental principles, which is nothing else than "keeping of the one" (shouyi) in terms of meditation. 40. That is, erased from the registers of moral conduct kept up to date by divine officials of the heavenly bureaucracy and on which depend the individual life allotment and afterlife status of men, as variously alluded to throughout juan no. 110-2 and no. 114 of the TPJ.

whose spoken lessons and dialogues with disciples cover several hundred pages? As I have already suggested in the introduction, one of the basic functions of orality in the context of traditional Chinese religious education was to complement the transmission of scriptures by means of secret, spoken, supplementary material. In this regard, chapter 5/70/106, entitled "Xuezhe deshi 弯却跡a"

("What is appropriate to study and what is not"), values the "oral instructions of masters", which disciples should not disobey (弯換施 窒却~±窯寡施沿 [277.2]), since reading written documents oneself without the instructions of a master might lead to a separation from the guidance of the Tao. 41 But, beyond those "oral instructions", what is the tenor of the master's teaching? The answer is dialogue, 42 or, more precisely, questions and answers: questions from the disciples tackling a new issue and answers from the master throwing light on the subject; or questions of the master about themes formerly lectured on, designed to check the improvement of his audience; or hesitating, frequently erroneous answers of the disciples calling for extra explanations from the master. In many instances, the master simply returns the questions of the disciples to them in order to have them speak erroneously before showing them the right way, or inversely to have them conceive correct knowledge themselves-one thinks of Socrates assisting one of the slaves of his pupil Meno to execute a basic geometrical experiment step by step until the young man finally "remembers again" forgotten knowledge and gives birth to the correct rule himself. 43 In this fashion the TPJC shows how the efficacy of "conversion" (hua ×) and "education" (jiaohua 糎×) depends on orality. "Benevolent masters", said to appear on Earth at cosmically propitious times, "convert (their audience) to benevolence by means of benevolent speech 賠施牡 賠沿賠×" [651.7] (7.32a). But teachings which are morally condemnable are nevertheless loaded with power, for under unpropitious circumstances, when the Tao of Heaven is confused, "malevolent masters" appear and, in the same way, convert people to malevolence by means of ma- 43. Plato, Meno, 82a-85c; references are to W.R.M. Lamb, trans., Plato, vol. 2 (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1990). In this famous anecdote, here used by Plato to support his theory of αναµνησις or "reminiscence" (Meno, 81c-d), Socrates-who reportedly compared himself with a midwife-uses "maieutics" to have Meno's young slave solve the mathematical problem and to convince Meno of the validity of his own epistemological theory at the same time; see Michel Narcy, "Enseignement et dialectique dans le Ménon", Revue Internationale de Philosophie 90.4 (1969): 474-94; and Alexander Nehamas, "Meno's Paradox and Socrates as a Teacher", Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 3 (1985): 1-30. But rhetoric in the TPJ never goes this far, and the truth of the master is generally spoken in contrast with the (erring) common sense of the disciples. levolent speech (徒施牡糎×徒 [651.7-8]; ibid.). 44 So orality proves double-faced in an educational context. It should be remembered, however, that the basic tool of the master's teachings is only a stage in the epistemological program of the TPJ, for it is stated elsewhere that "learning benevolent speech does not compare with learning to put (it) into practice on oneself 竪賠沿ー閤竪 η 艶" (TPJC: 2.13b), 45 as we shall see further on.

After stating that "the heavenly Tao . . . is not totally knowable" (as quoted above), the master continues by saying that "it is not allowed to believe in the utterances of a single individual ーD矇峡 \沿" [279.7] (chapter 5/70/106). For, as he explains elsewhere, the knowledge of a single individual, even a Sage, encompasses only one aspect ( 唆) of the meaning of the Heavenly Tao, and the words of such a man are consequently "biased" (pian 薪): following them would unavoidably lead to "shallowness" (fuhua 主箱) and ultimately provoke the usual set of general, cosmic disasters (chapter 3/50/72). Considering that the master seems hardly to tolerate any rival teacher other than his own (Heaven), such peremptory assertions may sound paradoxical; but they can also be interpreted as a rejection of the spontaneous, "prophetic" (in Max Weber's words) [START_REF] Weber | Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie[END_REF] stage of religion as opposed to a stage of canonical and institutionalized religion. Not surprisingly, one of the features of subsequent elite religious Taoism will precisely be firm opposition to such uncontrolled forms of religiosity. 47

Writing: the ideal vehicle of revealed knowledge?

In chapter 4/54/81, the title of which is "No quarreling" ("Wu zhengsong 尼規中"), the master says that for all beings in the universe to coexist harmoniously, they are required to stand at the place which befits them and they should be employed according to their actual abilities. Again we meet the idea of a specific language of the universe, for it is also required that the intentions of Heaven and Earth are clearly perceived by the sovereign. Thus is the master led to expound the respective "languages" of the four major ontological kingdoms-Heaven, Earth, Man, and the Ten thousand beings:

The written records of Heaven are the Three Luminaries, which rise and decline alternately so as to influence the sovereign of men. The graphic principles of Earth are mountains, rivers and roads; mountains spew vapor, water circulates in the veins [of Earth; all] decline and blossom, move, collapse and reform so as to influence differently the ministers of men. The speeches of Man are transmitted orally and written records are passed on. The Ten thousand beings, by speaking through [their cycles of] decline and blossoming, make men think and know them. [205.4-6] ♀却~∇ み胡七◇蕉~粁 懆 笑~∇瑳胡 м¢ゲ却~∇`¨κ佐胡◇唾~`却 ィ車~∈貯眠唱~笑替壬代請ォ~∇瑳体胡 Τ¢ 却~∇査沿剞喉賓~七蕉◇喉賎 代¢満軌却~∇笑替Μ寉剞~牡 併Μ誼\¢

The master explains that all these "words" (yan) must circulate (tong 貯) in order to avoid disasters.

A disciple then remarks that, "in Antiquity, there was no literacy; how could [words] circulate? E 却尼◇~∇υ貯\" [205.11]. The master replies by describing the appearing and disappearing of writing through the Three Ages 48 in response to the vicissitudes of cosmic pneuma and mankind: as men of Low Antiquity E (i.e. today) suffer life span reductions because of their ignorance (yu)

and are unable to remember things, writing becomes necessary, for "without writing, [men] would argue with each other, be unable to set each other right, and everyone would voice his own truth 尼 ◇∀喉癶中~ー嘗喉い~ウΥ沿券" [206.4]. So, when orality meets its natural limits and allows the multiplication of competing truths, writing is called on to replace it as a vehicle of knowledge.

Thus writing seems to be above all the fruit of necessity.

The transmitted material reflects the importance of this informational vehicle in the eyes of the propagators of the TPJ. Chapter 7/108/173 of the text enumerates "nineteen essential instructions 酷窒 操" which are actual "directions for use" intended for the TPJ reader; ten of these instructions relate directly to writing. 49 The superior value of writing also appears in chapters 4/65/100 and 4/65/101, where it is stated that the favors of the sovereign should consist of texts for 48. Sangu E; on which, see n. 31 above.

49. Essential instruction no. 2 deals with a category of texts called "sandao xingshu 洋η七"; no. 4, with the rectification of ordinary texts; no. 5, with the reliability (xin 峡) of the master's writings and their practice; no. 9, with their complete understanding; no. 10, with the checking of their effectiveness; no. 14 and 15, with "collecting and collating" (jujiao 官嫉; on which, see text and n. 63 below) various kinds of documents; no. 16, with the appearance of "real texts 充◇" and the elimination of "heterodox, false texts 央新◇"; no. 18, with talismanic characters to be ingested; and no. benefit but hand them over to the sovereign so as to help him to achieve longevity (laoshou Κ伶).

However, a fundamental limit must be marked out between admissible texts and other ones, as the master says in an answer to a question from a disciple (chapter 4/65/100):

Other documents, which are not texts of the "orthodox Tao", make eminent scholars become confused, are unprofitable to governmental affairs and are not [a way to] nourish one's vital principle. Canonical writings, which eminent scholars recite daily, entail shallowness; this is why they are not acceptable. 50 [230.6-7] ≫七卿い洋◇~牡屎廐嬢嬢~尼集結黄~卿已寡且¢眠七粁主蒼~屎廐△剋\~血ー D冉\ ¢

Yet the master adds that the best parts of the "Saintly Canons 命眠" of the Three Ages may be collected and bestowed upon people in order to convert them to benevolence (shan 賠), even if these texts do not deal with "the way to nourish [one's] vital principle 已且\洋". The TPJC (8.5b-6a) states that households which accumulate "true texts and true Tao 充◇充洋" will subsequently survive through generations (dushi 圭⇒), i.e. transcend the regular categories of life span (as expounded in the TPJC). 51 Inversely, households which accumulate perversions (xie 央, also "heterodoxy") will surely incur disaster.

In chapter 5/70/106, the master introduces another antithetic couple, "exoteric texts Y◇"

and "esoteric texts 〉◇", which are opposite but complementary categories: we learn from chapter 5/70/106 that esoteric texts allow one to shed light on exoteric texts while exoteric texts, which are connected with esoteric texts, allow one to check them in turn. 52 The master neglects to deal any further with "exoteric texts", a term which we may safely assume refers to material available to the profane regardless of any religious membership, but he warns the disciples not to associate "esoteric texts" with "prophecies 隣窕", otherwise they would fail to understand their essential import (revelation) and end up in delusion [277.3-4].

Chapter 4/65/101 states that Saints and Sages of Antiquity valued "texts of Tao and Virtue 洋嗤◇" and used to set them in a high place while weapons and preparations for war (Т嵯很栂) were kept within reach but in a low place; so "if each individual who dwells alone sets texts on his bed while weapons are kept underneath, then barbarians will spontaneously submit themselves and brigands will vanish from day to day 悵劃粁逸◇換依 ΜТ劃依 ~チ券粁ズ泳Υ叉~能

祐△灼蜂鋭 " [231.11-2]. Such is the beneficent power of the written/the non-military (wen ◇), as opposed-classically-to armament and the martial (wu 岸), purveyors of social disorders, various abnormal phenomena, and general cosmic turmoil (chapter 4/65/99). So, in addition to its basically epistemological function, writing takes a remarkable part in the social sphere. Another example is given in chapter 6/93/137 where the master, in order to show how the smallest being in the universe has the power to "move" (gandong 丙壬) Heaven, says analogically that even the humblest victims of robbery are entitled to submit a memorial (shang shu 七) to the Emperor, who will then decide on the proper action to be taken locally in response to this threat [385.4-7]. 53 Epistemological and social functions alike share a belief in the general circulation of information, goods, wealth, pneuma, etc., expressed repeatedly throughout the text. 54 The status of wen, however, is far from unambiguous in the various classifications provided throughout the TPJ. In chapter 4/65/101, for instance, wen is associated to a relative, if not clearly consummate state of decay, while Tao, on the upper level, is associated to High Antiquity and Virtue (de 嗤), to Middle Antiquity. As for the successive series of reigns (see n. 31 above), the Three Augusts are said to have ruled through Tao, the Five Emperors through Virtue, the Three Kings through wen, and the Five Hegemons through wu (chapter 7/115/205). Chapter 4/67/103 enumerates "ten methods 基" to assist the rule of the sovereign; strikingly, wen only appears as model no. 8

52. ∇〉◇却~汗寡Y◇~∇Y◇却~樮Λ瀘寡〉◇ ¢" [279.11-12]. Exoteric and esoteric texts are in turn correlated with waixue Y弯, "outer studies" (i.e. "Court studies 陶偉\弯") and neixue 〉弯, "inner studies" (to be undertaken "in retreat 鍬"). Interestingly, the authors of the TPJ refrain from giving to one kind of study preeminence over the other as both are said to have their own achievements as well as their own limits; for instance, uncontrolled "outer studies" may entail shallowness (fuhua) and license with regard to proscriptions (ー嘗Υ慢) while uncontrolled "inner studies" may divert from the orthodox way (ー數い与) and lead to "great heterodoxy or perversion .央" [276.7-8].

53. But, not surprisingly indeed, memorials should never be submitted by a single individual, as we shall see further on (see § 4. below).

54. As already pointed out by Kaltenmark, "The Ideology of the T'ai-p'ing ching", 35.

and so ranks among the five lesser models against which the disciples and the reader are advised. 55 In the epistemological views of the TPJ, writing, just like orality, fails to serve perfectly as a vehicle of knowledge. Written documents are said to give birth to commentators who argue about the meaning of their content but fail to understand it (chapter 3/50/72). In two quotations of the TPJ in the Yunji qiqian, the abundance of "compositions produced by past and present Saints and Sages", which are said "to fill up the space between Heaven and Earth" (E[命屎 ~ †◇燵亰♀ ゲ\肘 [735.6]), is criticized in the same way as verbal excesses, "duo yan ス沿" (see § 2. above).

The multiplicity of written documents-as well as deceiving (qi As we have seen before in the case of words (yan), the Tao similarly suffers a temporal process of perversion through the transmission of written documents (chapter 3/51/78). The master first states that "correct or orthodox texts originate in the designs of Heaven and Earth, and comply with primordial pneuma (yuanqi }車)"; he adds: "in Antiquity, when saintly writings appeared,

[their] origin and the correctness of [their] characters were checked", 56 but then repeated transmissions defaced them:

phase no.: textual condition: epistemological (or cosmological) correlation: Whether transmitted orally or under a written form, knowledge, which is assimilated to the 55. The other nine methods are the "government of primordial pneuma }車既" (no. 1), "natural government Υ弐既" (no. 2), "government of the Tao 洋既" (no. 3), "virtuous government 嗤既" (no. 4), "humane government 既" (no. 5), "righteous government 娘既" (no. 6), "ritual government 麾既" (no. 8), "government by the Law 基既" (no. 9), and "martial government 岸既" (no. 10) [254. Tao and was formerly revealed unaltered to the Sages of Antiquity, seems to be incurably doomed to perversion when falling into the hands of Man. 57 All the masters who, following the Sages of Antiquity, have been instructing men through the ages, are responsible for having "interrupted [the transmission of] and concealed such texts of the true, essential Tao, for having taught with shallowness, and transgressed the essential intent of the heavenly Tao 倍腎寡充酷洋\◇~∇主箱賓弯窯 a♀洋\酷文" [55.3-4] (chapter 3/37/47). Therefore, in spite of their numbers, the extant texts of men are unable to prevent brigands and disasters from appearing, and this is precisely why Heaven sends the master to rectify the situation (TPJC: 9.18b-19a)-or, in another instance, Saints to correct, or rectify (zheng い), "tianwen ♀◇", i.e. "Heavenly texts" as well as astronomical phenomena (TPJC: 9.11a). For, when "the texts of the Saints 命 ◇" are in disorder (luan 斌), it is the same with the Tao; and when they fall into disuse (喩Μーこ), so does the Tao (TPJC: 9.14a-b).

Consequently, a general collecting and a thorough recasting of all the documents of all ages prove to be indispensable to revert to a state of perfect Tao as much as to restore unaltered Truth.

Early Chinese encyclopedism

Although the general theory of the epistemological program of the TPJ is mainly expounded in two chapters of the master text (no. 3/51/78 and 6/96/152), the theoretical implications of this program are actually disseminated throughout the material and are subject to variations from one place to the next. Beginning with the issue of collection of extant material, we find that the prevailing principle is the idea of a general collection of all extant written documents. For example, we are told in chapter 3/41/55 that, in order to relieve the world from harm, the purpose of the schooling of disciples is to transmit to the sovereign a compendium (still to be edited) entitled Da dongji tian zhi zhengshi .個 簿♀\結黄 (All-pervading governmental affairs) which would gather in one single place all useful knowledge to put an end to the "inherited burden" (chengfu) and substitute for all other books which deal only with one matter or topic ( 黄). To this end, the TPJC (8.4a-b) mentions resorting to sealed cases (feng 薫) 58 placed in each administrative district so as to collect writings which should be freely submitted by the masses; civil officers would then gather these cases and deliver their content to the Emperor. 59 The material thus collected has then to be classified before its selective treatment may be un-57. Compare this six-phase process of perversion of perfect texts with the ten-phase process of perversion of knowledge from chapter 3/40/53 (as pictured above).

58. Feng 薫 is glossed as guihan 禰果 in what is probably an interpolated commentary [687.7].

59.

But the text specifies that these arrangements are specifically designed to enable the Emperor to hear about the moral inclination of his subjects through their remonstrances, not to have a sum of orthodox knowledge edited.

dertaken. Yet no fixed taxonomic principles seem to prevail, and various sets of documents are sometimes dealt with in a single chapter: e.g. the four categories of "heavenly, earthly, human, and divine texts ♀◇ゲ◇ ◇出◇" [87.9] (chapter 3/41/55); or the three declining categories of "writings of the divine Tao 出洋七", "texts examining facts 室黄◇", and "shallow records 主箱蕉" a term which pervades all the "textual strata" 62 of the extant material. 63 The idea of jujiao, as we learn from chapter 6/91/132 (entitled "Jujiao sangu wen 官嫉 E◇"), was revealed to the master by Heaven Itself (血曾牡寡官嫉\却~情♀牡д 沿 [349.1]). The following three out of nineteen "essential instructions" (yao jue 酷窒) from chapter 7/108/173 (see above) are concerned with jujiao (no. 4, 14, and 15):

[
For those who want to rectify ordinary texts: get the instructions relating to "collecting and collating", as a token of faith from Heaven. [510.8] 寡 ◇槽い\却~貨窒換官嫉~∇胡♀峡¢

For those who want to obtain a method which produces a great rise of the heavenly Tao: get the instructions relating to "collecting and collating" the numerous texts and formulas and essays of ordinary men. [511.10] 槽跡♀洋.懆基却~貨窒換官嫉滞◇冉 窒燵 ¢

For those who want to obtain fine medicine: get the instructions relating to "collecting and collating" ordinary methods and texts so as to make use of them ¶ 37.7, 439 (1999): 26. Distinguishing such strata or layers does not solve the numerous problems of the textual history of the TPJ but, at least, underlines the obvious stylistic variations occurring in it. In short, the three prevailing styles which were isolated are: 1) questions and answers (or "dialogue form"), the style which covers the majority of the material by staging a Master (shi 施) or Heavenly Master (tianshi ♀施) and Real Men (zhenren 充 ) who are his disciples (di 夷); 2) a strictly discursive style (or "prose"); 3) monologues and dialogues alternating, a style also characterized by the presence of two protagonists absent from the rest of the text: a Heavenly Lord (tianjun ♀м) and a Great Spirit (dashen .出). As we can see, jujiao refers to a meticulous process selection and compiling. After this "Heavenly Scripture" (no. 1 in the previous tenfold nomenclature), a "Scripture of Saints" 命眠 (no. 5) and a "Scripture of Sages" 屎眠 (no. 6) should be similarly edited [84.9-85.1]. All three books would be gathered into a "Scripture encompassing all Heaven and Earth, and Yin and Yang", i.e. a "universal scripture" whose ultimate condition should be carefully preserved through "myriad generations" (ヨ洋七却~エ胡個簿♀ゲ長桧\眠~満満⇒ーD堵桓 ¢ [85.5]). 65 Such a process suggests that the basic principle of selection can be defined as extracting from all collected material the very best of its content. This task should be carried out with caution as each "perverse (or heterodox) text 央◇" left over in the collected material will induce one extra cosmic disease and, as cosmic diseases pile up, men would be stricken by illness themselves. 66 All things considered, this editing process described at greater length comes down to the sorting out of documents so as "to reject perverse (or heterodox) text C央◇", a theme central to the title and content of chapter 3/50/67, "To reject perverse/heterodox text and to observe celestial bodies" ("Qu xiewen feiming zhan C央 64. We have already met a summary of this process in chapter 4/65/100 (see above, §.3). 65. This "universal scripture" and its variants are mentioned in 5 chapters of the TPJ (no. 3/41/55, 6/88/129, 6/91/132, 6/96/152, and 7/112/188) and 3 juan of the TPJC (6.11a, 11b, 12b, 7.22b, and 8.3b) as "個簿\眠" (8 occurrences), "個簿眠" (3 occurrences), ".個簿\結黄" (3 occurrences), "公♀個簿結黄\◇", "♀個簿結黄", and "個簿\を◇" (one occurrence each). See also Kaltenmark, "The Ideology of the T'ai-p'ing ching", 25; and Hachiya, "Taiheikyô ni okeru genji bunsho . . .", 50-52. ◇砂汗Ę9̌"), 67 but recurrent in the entire book. What we are witnessing here indeed is nothing else than the birth of orthodoxy, for "perverse (or heterodox) words, texts and phrases 央沿央◇央 燵", which are correlated with turmoil (luan 斌), are classically opposed to "correct (or orthodox) words, texts, and phrases い沿い◇い燵", which correspond to Heaven (chapters 6/91/132 and 6/98/158). "Other texts and canonical writings ≫◇眠七" (possibly an allusion to the Confucian classics) are not "texts of the orthodox Tao い洋◇" and, once again, are said to lead people to "confusion 嬢嬢" (chapter 4/65/100).

See chapter

Pragmatism plays an important part in this editing process. According to the TPJ, the best way to deal with the numberless "texts of Antiquity E◇" is to put them to a practical test implemented throughout the eleven chapters of juan no. 50 of the TPJ and designed to sort out things according to their measured efficiency (chapter 3/50/77). This test consists in verifying if the texts do "respond to harmony 喉數会", 68 that is if they successfully produce the intended result, for instance: expelling disasters and having corporeal spirits return to the body; or making people benevolent so that all penal laws and punishments become useless [185.7]. The texts which "respond ten times out of ten 喉數" constitute the highest of the following ten categories, the lowest corresponding to those which only "hit the mark one time out of ten 68. By analogy with men and ghosts who will respond to the call of their name [184.9-10].

69. We may recall that "divine invocations 出術" were to be tested in the same way, according to chapter 3/50/75. 70. The TPJ states that from the first category downwards, the texts mislead people and cannot be used:

-却∇ ーDこ~剳 ◇ [186.1], an obvious textual corruption absent from the TPJC which has:

-却_ ーDこ剳 ◇ (TPJC: 3.17b-18a). The acceptability of the first three categories as opposed to the subsequent seven ones is consistent with the general logic of the tenfold taxonomical principles of the TPJ (see chapter 6/96/152, etc.).

71. This category is also called "half auspicious, half pernicious texts 6を6『◇" [185.10]. It is to be noted that the subsequent four categories are not said to "respond" (xiangying) but only to "hit the mark" (zhong).

2/10 ( -却)

texts to be rejected 想◇ no 1/10 ( -却) texts which miss the mark 墾-◇ no

The first three categories obviously respond to Heaven (Great Yang), Earth (Great Yin), and Man (Central Harmony) respectively, like categories no. 1, 2, and 3 from the classification expounded in the Yaoxiu keyi jielü chao (CTT 463, as quoted above). But the general logic of descent, which implacably presides over the present classification from the first down to the tenth category, is not fully operating in the former classification, the logic structure of which (based on two successive triads, then two successive couples of scriptures, as noted above) boils down to a mere enumeration.

Pragmatism also shows through in the fact that not noly doxographical sources should be collected, but also practical documents, i.e. what the TPJ variously calls "methods ■" or "schemes 72 Such practical documents are said to appear spontaneously under propitious circumstances and, just like regular writings, should not be concealed or put to use privately but handed over to the sovereign for the general benefit of the Empire (chapter 4/55/83 etc.). Some of them are bestowed upon men by supernatural beings invoked by specific musical notes. 73 Chapter 6/88/129 describes the best way to collect locally all such practical material in buildings (zhai デ) established on the main roads in each administrative district of the Empire, including distant regions in all four directions. Such buildings, especially designed for the purpose of collecting written material, should have notices hung on the outer walls inviting benevolent people to deposit any texts they are in possession of through openings made on their four sides at man's face level. The name of the contributor should always be mentioned so that those of great merit would be granted official appointments rewards by local civil servants [332.5-13]. 74 Then all the collected material should be submitted to an editing process similar to the one mentioned above, and finally incorporated into the forthcoming "universal book" (dongji zhi jing) [333.4-9].

The TPJ occasionally deals with documents of the Three Ways ( 洋), whose "titles" have 72. These two characters, combined with five qualifiers ("marvelous 灰", "remarkable 紗", "extraordinary 体", "divine 出" and "beneficent 賠"), form quasi-synonymous syntagms to be found throughout the extant material. The distribution of these syntagms is as follows: 灰■ (20 occurrences), 紗■ (18), 体芭 (5), 出■ (5), 灰芭 (4), 紗芭 (4), 体■

, 賠■ (2), 出芭 (1), and 賠芭 (1). It is worth noting that wen ◇ also admits these five qualifiers (among several others): 出◇ (24 occurrences), 灰◇ (12), 賠◇ (6), 体◇ (3), and 紗◇ (2).

73. The two Yang notes of the pentatonic scale: "jade maidens clad in green 匡θぎ・" are invoked by the note jue 援, responding to the East, and "jade maidens clad in scarlet 燕θぎ・", by the note zhi 嗔, responding to the South (see chapter 7/113/191). See also Jan, "The Bridge between Man and Cosmos . . .", 18-19.

74. See also Kaltenmark, "The Ideology of the T'ai-p'ing ching", 28. Kaltenmark does not specify that this particular operation is obviously intended to collect what I call "practical documents" here rather than other kinds of discursive or doxographical documents-the latter being probably best qualified in the TPJ as jing 眠, "scriptures".

been described by Kaltenmark as "actually the same kind of qualifying terms as tung-chi ching [dongji jing 個簿眠]". 75 The informed reader will soon correlate these texts with the general triadic ideology of the TPJ, 76 according to which (chapter 4/53/79) the Three Ways are connected with the Three Luminaries 汗 (i.e. sun, moon, and stars). 77 But the foremost sense of the name of these scriptures is best explained in chapter 6/91/132, which speaks of "memorials compiled and submitted collectively by the Three Ways of low-ranking officers and people んう 洋竃や氷 七◇"

[360.1]. 78 A more detailed definition of these Three Ways is given in chapter 6/86/127: they refer to local officers (憖馨享ん), local residents (劃う), and travellers who are required to "assemble and debate 氷甅" (another key word in the epistemological program of the TPJ) 79 at the local building formerly described 80 with the aim of submitting memorials ( 七) collectively (for, as we have seen earlier, the words of a single individual should never be trusted nor used). 81 Furthermore, the TPJC (6.10a-b) draws a parallel between social and astronomical spheres by stating that the uninterrupted submitting of memorials these three social groups perpetuates the communication (tong 貯) between the people and the Emperor and also ensures the constant circulation (tong) of pneuma necessary to the regular rotation of heavenly bodies around the Pole Star [466.13-467.2]. 82 As we already know that the Chinese of Han times commonly admitted that the political affairs of men were being mirrored in astronomical phenomena, we can easily understand why the TPJC adds that all unnatural phenomena (zaibian 影齋) observed from towns, roads, and the coun- 沿 ~光∝氷甅 [318.9-10]), which employs a tenfold classification ranking from "memorials submitted by a single man 悵 七" (correlated to "great deception .督") to memorials submitted by "ten men ", where the text is unfortunately incomplete-but memorials submitted by "nine men" are said to be "close to reality" ( 許劣) [326.10-327.3].

82. Here the TPJC admits the two variants yimin 甥う ("urban people") and xingren η ("itinerants"). The various "documents of the Three Ways" are frequently associated with the idea of general try, should be recorded in these "documents of the Three Ways" [467.3-4] (TPJC: 6.10b), and why the mistakes (guo 蓉) of men should also be recorded in them just like spirits in Heaven record men's mistakes in their own "documents of the Three Ways" (chapter 7/118/211):

So now in Heaven are compiled "documents on the [moral] conduct of the Three Ways" [in which] all the spirits collectively record the mistakes [of men so as] to promote happiness by interrupting the fondness for killing and harming, penal laws, and punishments. It is the same on Earth. [672.9] 血[♀ 氷 洋η◇七~名出や蕉蓉~欹タ漕不よ儼 Μ懆坏¢ゲ ぬ弐¢ Pragmatically, all edited documents are required by the TPJ to be disseminated widely for the benefit of everyone under Heaven. The ideal diffusion of this quintessence of knowledge should be vertical (hierarchical), from the sovereign down to the lower strata of society, as well as horizontal (spatial) so as to reach every district of the Empire and even to convert barbarians (yidi ズ泳) in remote areas. It is also of utmost importance that this quintessential knowledge be perpetuated: "transmission" (chuan 賓) is thus another key word of the TPJ, and the presence of disciples the side of the speaker, as I emphasized earlier, is more than a mere stylistic device. The diffusion of quintessential knowledge ultimately entails its "being put into practice" (xing η, yong こ, or an yong 悉こ), otherwise knowledge would remain as useless and inefficient as before. The general rule, repeated restlessly throughout the TPJ, is that all documents, whether revealed by supernatural instances or produced by men of worth-"writings issued by Heaven, symbolic glyphs 83 carved by spirits, texts of divine Saints, texts and scriptures authored by Saints, and essays of superior Sages ♀\ †七~出\ †芭滝~出命\◇~命 庁◇庁眠~ 屎\燵" [692.3] (TPJC: 8.10ab)-must be submitted to the sovereign, who alone will have the power to guarantee that their import will actually be put to practice at all levels of society. No wonder that the master blames "ignoramuses [who, because they] write their own books and do not put his words into practice, only cause nuisance to themselves 雰却Υ ̄喟七~ーこ寡沿~ЕΥ砿Ξ" [573.8-9] (chapter 7/112/187). In the views of the authors of the TPJ, ignorance has mostly to do with inefficient theory cut off from the concrete reality.

83. On the nature and function of fu 滝 ("symbolic glyphs") in the context of religious Taoism, see Monika Drexler, Daoistische Schriftmagie: Interpretationen zu den Schriftamuletten Fu im "Daozang" (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994): 5-14 ("Teil I: Einführung"); and Catherine Despeux, "Talismans and Sacred Diagrams", in Daoism Handbook, ed. Livia Kohn (Leiden, Boston, and London: E. J. Brill, 2000), 498-540. The extant TPJ still contains four juan of "doubled characters", fuwen 孺◇ or chongfu zhi zi 紺孺\ッ (chapters 7/104/169 to 7/107/172), of which the second half of chapter 6/92/136 explains that such glyphs must be written with ink the color of cinnabar (dan /) and ingested (tun г) in order to expel disease and demons, etc. A fragment of the TPJC (6.2b-3a) also states that therapeutic "heavenly symbolic glyphs ♀滝" written in cinnabar are to be ingested and visualized in the stomach. The Dunhuang MS S. 4226 has preserved the following title (which may correspond to this TPJC fragment): "(Chapter) 128: Patterns of the symbolic glyphs of longevity 享ツ滝隣Γ& " (l. 281). See also n. 85 and n. 97 below.

The master's text or writing as a token of faith

Under the auspices of Heaven itself, writing becomes a token of faith (xin 峡), here in epistemological context: writing as a medium for knowledge revealed, then transmitted under special conditions and spread. But epigraphical evidence also shows that the same can be said of ritual communication with supernatural instances (writing as "agreement concluded with deities") 84 and of everyday life's social intercourse (writing as "contractual document"). 85 Chapter 3/39/50 glosses "transmission", one of the keys of the TPJ, as xin ("reliability", "trustworthiness"): 賓却~峡 [68.13], and chapter 7/112/185 laments the facts that, because of lack of "faith" (xin) in the texts of Heaven, only very few people get to know the truth of the Heavenly Tao and many people neglect revealed documents such as the Hetu and Luoshu. According to chapter 6/96/152, collecting and collating "past and present texts of the Tao" will even make "ignoramuses" become enlightened and "have faith in the Tao" (xin dao). 86 From all this we clearly see that the epistemological issue in the TPJ goes far beyond the single sphere of knowledge. It conditions, within the sphere of religion, the very heart of its psychological basis: belief. Faith, together with filial piety (xiao 姐), uprightness (zhong 鰍), sincerity (cheng), and humaneness (ren), becomes one of the moral requisites for social welfare (chapters 7/110/179, 7/111/183, and 7/112/188).

Significantly, in the extant Taiping material, the character xin occurs frequently with the character dao 洋 and mostly in association with such expressions as "my writings д七", "my text(s) д◇", and "my words д沿": for instance, chapter 7/114/197 states that "these writings have no faith in malevolent people, nor do malevolent people have faith in these writings ヨ七ぬー 峡徒 ~徒 ぬー峡ヨ七" [609.7-8]. The reader wonders, as Kaltenmark wrote, "what is the exact status of the book that the Celestial Master brought to the chen-jen [zhenren 充 ], 87 so that they might deliver it to a virtuous prince". 88 One may be tempted to consider that it is none other 85. On the association of xin ("faithfulness, trustworthiness, or credibility") with yue 浩 ("agreement", "contract") and fu 滝 ("tally") which is attested to in both transmitted early imperial sources and Han epigraphic material, see Hugh T. Scogin, Jr., "Between Heaven and Man: Contract and the State in Han Dynasty China", Southern California Law Review 63.5 (1990): 1378-80 (I quote Scogin's translations here). [412.14-413.1].

ぬ光没官嫉E[洋◇∇Υ喉煬汗~ 雰却 汗~窃鑓峡洋 ¢

87. The disciples of the master (see n. 62 above).

88. Kaltenmark, "The Ideology of the T'ai-p'ing ching", 25. Kaltenmark added: "I admit that I have not yet been able to solve that question." (ibid.). chapter 6/96/153). Their value is thus beyond measure: according to chapter 3/46/62, one thousand (pieces of) gold given to the state do not compare to one essential word from them (血屐髄伺 亨 ー閤冉寡 酷沿D∇既却 [112.17-8]). We are even told of their material appearance: they cover (at least) one juan 92 (chapter 3/44/60) and their colors are green (qing 匡), the color of humaneness (ren ), and red (the text first has dan /, "cinnabar", then chi 燕, "scarlet"), the color of Great Yang, 93 as well as the "orthodox color of Heaven ♀\いγ" (TPJC: 4.12a). 94 According to the master, the following simple test of efficiency will prove them to be an "authentic contract 充歌": 95 texts, just like any worldly activity (♀ 黄), should have concrete effects 96 and expel disease in order to be acceptable (see chapter 3/39/51). The master glosses this close correspondence between his writings and universal harmony as "the tally 97 which provokes faith G峡\滝" (ibid.). Another practical test, suggested in the TPJC (8.10a), consists in verifying whether the master's writings, when put to the test of practice, enable one to expel all disasters; if it does, the master will recognize them as his "authentic text" (癒牡こ\~影仔窃蝕~Я券д\充◇ [691.9]). Thus pragmatism again demands that the master's writings be ultimately put into practice-the final purpose of all valuable knowledge and documents alike. According to the TPJ (chapters 3/50/71, 4/55/83, 4/68/104 92. The expressions wu shu д七 ("my writings") and ci shu yi juan ヨ七 蝦 ("a single juan of these writings", or "these writings in one juan"?) occur in the same sentence [109.13-110.2].

93. Further (classical) correspondences for Red/Great Yang are provided in chapter 5/69/105: the quadrate (South), the heavenly body (Sun), the agent (Fire), the season (the midst of summer: 替参), the domestic cult (to the spirit of the stove), and the organ (heart) [262.7-9]. The passage adds that the sovereign should be clad in red (θ燕) and that the changing phenomena which affect him "always respond to Yang (i.e. Fire), never to other agents 券血мモ齋葛~脆冉 桧喉數~卿跡冉≫η喉數 " [262.9-10]. Of course, such passages are clues to the Han ideology (if not date) of the text.

94. According to chapter 5/69/105, Heaven is externally cang 冽 ("azure"), the color of agent Wood, but internally scarlet, the color of agent Fire [264.14], and Earth is externally huang bai 鰭ず ("yellow and white"), the colors of agents Earth and Metal, but internally hei 彬 ("black"), color of agent Water [265.3-4]. Zhang Jue 積援, leader of the Yellow turbans 鰭ヾ, who is sometimes believed to have had some of the earliest taiping texts after a dubious statement in a commentary to the Hou Han shu, reportedly prophesied the end of the "azure Heaven 冽♀" and the advent of a "yellow Heaven 鰭♀"-not red (see Hou Han shu, 71.2299). 95. Quan 歌 was used to designate "written contractual documents" until the imperial reunification at the end of the 6th century. See Scogin, "Between Heaven and Man . . .", 1357-58; and Éric Trombert, Le crédit à Dunhuang: Vie matérielle et société en Chine médiévale (Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1995), 12-16. 96. 黄モプ0. We find a similar passage in the TPJC (8.10a): the book of the master conforms to the natural law and, as such, "does not results in fallacious words but produces achievements and concrete effects ー耳h沿~ 耳プ0プ 黄" [691.11]. 97. Fu 滝. When not in the context of symbolic/magical writing or glyphs (see n. 83 above), fu designates "tesserae", i.e. contractual documents divided in two halves and authenticated by adjusting the two halves; see Robert des Rotours, "Les insignes en deux parties (fou 滝) sous la dynastie T'ang (618-907)", T'oung Pao 41. 1-3 (1952): 1-148; and Scogin, "Between Heaven and Man . . .", 1379-80. According to chapter 5/72/111, where three similar expressions are to be found (劣峡\滝湊 [300.5], 劣峡滝 [300.6], and 峡滝湊 [300.7]), the spirits of the five directions hold distinctive insignia (jie 湊)-mostly weapons-which are authenticated by "adjusting" (dui 憐) them to the adept's (or the emperor's?-the text does not state clearly) own insignia and prevent undesirable spirits from appearing and spreading disorder.

沮 ~条Μ臭 Я♀槽 †η " [514.13] (chapter 7/108/176). 101 On the other hand, according to chapter 6/102/165, "these writings to put an end to vice and falsehood and raise the Tao of Heaven and Earth ヨ〒熊新懆♀ゲ洋\七" (the master's writings?) should "be produced on a yisi (no. 42 of the sexagesimal cycle) [day or year?] and be given to messengers who will circulate them ヽΜ †~∇≡樋勲Μ掛貯\却 " [459.9]. Subsequent generations should then produce these writings at the beginning of each year and submit them to the Emperor in order to have the concretions of chengfu accumulated since the origin dispelled. 102 It seems uneasy to conform simultaneously to both rules governing the appearance of writings (what if illness spreads when the master's writings are produced on a yisi day or year?) and, moreover, we are not even sure that both passages actually refer to the same, single work.

The ideal transmission of the master's writings-from Heaven to the master, then from the master to the disciples-should lead to their passing on by the disciples to "circumspect people 洳 う" who will submit them to a "prince of Tao and Virtue, and of the essence of [agent] Fire 103 ∋傳 洋嗤\м", who will in turn communicate them to the people (quoting chapter 7/117/207; see also chapters 3/35/41, 5/69/105, 5/70/106, 5/80/121 etc.). Spread and put into practice in the whole empire, the master's writings should also be brought to neighboring countries so that all the states of the world gradually turn good and come to be free from all disasters (chapter 6/93/139).

All the above information suggests that the unnamed master's writings themselves show most of (if not all) the characteristics of the various synthetic documents to be edited (the Heavenly scripture, etc.) and thus should be regarded as one of them. However, the following excerpt from chapter 6/96/152 proves that one of the purposes of the master's writings is to check and correct all the scattered documents in order to extract their quintessential knowledge and have a "universal 101. The striking thematic connection between this passage and a late 6th-century story of the "rediscovery" of the TPJ which stages Tao Hongjing 鳥o藤 (456-536) and one of his disciples could support the thesis of the identification of the master's writings with the TPJ itself. This story, which appears in a fragment of Ma Shu's 侵圜 (522-581) Daoxue zhuan 洋弯賓 quoted in the late 7th-century Sandong zhunang 個修睇 (CTT 1139.1.17a) and the late 10th-century Taiping yulan ′l拙癡 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1960, 666.4b), tells of an attempt at recovering three lost sections of the TPJ at the beginning of the Liang 創 dynasty (502-557) by a disciple of Tao Hongjing named Huan Kai 漆 (or Huan Fakai 漆基 ; dates unknown), in a desert area close to the Kunlun mountains 誓醒`. The attempt proved unsuccessful due to a sudden disease suffered by Huan Kai after he took possession of the precious scrolls. Tao Hongjing, who authenticated the document, urged Huan Kai to return it to its original location. Huan Kai followed the advice and quickly recovered. Both quotations are translated in Mansvelt Beck, "The Date of the Taiping Jing", 162-63; and Stephan P. Bumbacher, The Fragments of the "Daoxue zhuan": Critical Edition, Translation and Analysis of a Medieval Collection of Daoist Biographies (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), 270-72 (fragments no. 156 and 157). This story, unattested to in other sources (including hagiographical accounts relating to both Tao and Huan), is in line with the undertaking by the Shangqing school of the reintegration of the TPJ into the corpus of Taoist scriptures-reintegration which also shows through in the preface (xu) to the extant TPJ (see n. 36 above).

102. The TPJC: 8.3b states that the compilation of a dongji jing should coincide with the imminent beginning of a new cosmic "major cycle": [♀ゲ.塊員害~影仔↑ˆ光¯没灼 ʻ血糎 官嫉E[◇氷賠却~∇胡個簿\眠浬 賠ーD堵齋桓 ¢ [686.8-9] (I follow the correction suggested by Yu Liming, ed., "Taiping jing" zhengdu, 506). On the identification of the master's writings with the dongji jing, see below. book" edited-and, if so, the master's writings can hardly be such a work still to be produced and, at the same time, the tool necessary for the very production of this upcoming work: So, my writings dare not accept "isolated words and orphan phrases". 104 This is why I taught [you] Real Men to collect and collate the texts of Upper, Middle and Lower antiquity so that they throw light on each other, and to collect and collate the essays of men here below so that they authenticate each other, after which orthodoxy may be [restored] in the space between Heaven and Earth, and the space between Yin and Yang may be without disease. 105 When [all] past and present "texts of Heaven, divine writings of Earth, and essays of Man" 106 are examined by means of my writings, they will necessarily respond to each other and not be different from spirits, and then one may have faith in my Tao. [421.8-10] 107 血д七ー祷史廷沿該燵 ¢血糎充 官嫉 E-E E◇∇喉汗~官嫉♀ \燵 ∇喉煬麻~弐掲♀ゲ\肘Dい~長桧\肘尼臭 ¢∇д七掛ΛE[\♀◇ゲ出七冉 燵~q∀冉皴喉數¡冉出尼体 ~ д洋∀D峡 ¢ So the master's writings encompass the scriptural, epistemological sphere in its entirety: vertically, from Heaven down to Earth through the realm of Man; horizontally, right to the farthest marches of the Empire; and temporally, back to the most distant periods of human History-"Akasic records of all that ever anywhere wherever was". 108

Concluding remarks

What are these puzzling "master's writings"? One thinks of the Daode jing 洋嗤眠, a work known to have played a central role in religious propagation in the context of early Taoist organizations, or the so-called Apocrypha (weishu), whose relationship with the TPJ has been suggested. 110 But 104. 廷沿該燵. This 4-character expression also appears in the table of contents of MS S. 4226, in the title of chapter 6/95/147 (l. 308) which is missing in the ZD edition of the TPJ. It designates the utterances from a single individual as opposed to the collective production of several individuals. 105. Both ♀ゲ\肘 and 長桧\肘 refer to the world of Man.

106. ♀◇ゲ出七冉 燵 or the general triadic logic of the TPJ applied here to written documents. As previously noted, the syntagm tianwen ("texts of Heaven" in the present translation) also designates astronomical phenomena. 107. Again, the master's book is said to be associated (he ォ) with past and present texts in chapter 6/96/152, but not to be the result of their "collecting and collating" (i.e. editing) process. any connection is doomed to remain hypothetical, due to the lack of uniformity among the textual layers of the extant material, the absence of textual evidence (such as corroborating mentions or quotations of a named text clearly referred to by an occurrence of "my text" or "my writings"), and the multiplicity of vague deictic syntagms such as ci wen ヨ◇ and ci shu ヨ七. At least, it seems unquestionable that the document advertised and bestowed upon his disciples by the master cannot be the scripture itself which stages the same master and disciples. Perhaps earlier or original taiping text such as the unexplained "ben wen", whether purely mythical or now lost, but at least anterior to the scripture of which the Ming Taoist Canon has preserved about one-third?

The extant taiping material is rich in information relating to the specificity of Chinese epistemology and provides us with a more accurate picture of how religion and politics interacted in early imperial China. The reader witnesses the setting-up by a religious authority of the ideological bases of its future cooperation with imperial power as a candidate for the highly privileged status of official state religion-the Throne giving the Church official sponsorship in response to the Church sanctioning the transcendent legitimacy of the Throne. This prefigures the political successes won by successive Taoist groups soon after the collapse of the Han, despite the contemporary unstoppable progress of the rival religion from India, with which they increasingly had to share the influence on the Throne.

The TPJ suggests that, unlike the many divine documents formerly revealed through supernatural animals coming out of the Yellow and Luo rivers (an obvious allusion to the Hetu and Luoshu, though the master never explicitly questions their revealed nature), the revelation of Great Peace was directly conveyed by Heaven through Man-an entrusted master who speaks in the name of Heaven, and disciples whose questions to the master are also inspired by Heaven (chapter 6/102/165), so that the disciples actually concur with the master in transmitting the Heavenly Word.

From the epistemological point of view, Great Peace can be defined as the diffusion of a "universal book" (dongji jing) of total knowledge consonant with the cosmic principles, to be edited by the intellectual elite of the Empire and approved by the Emperor himself, as expounded by the master under the auspices of Heaven. 111 It is no wonder that knowledge, its nature, and the material condition of its diffusion are among the most obsessive themes of the TPJ.

It is also worth emphasizing that the TPJ marks a decisive turning point in the evolution of the sociopolitical and epistemological functions of the master. The kings of Antiquity, surrounded by various technicians and specialists of more or less esoteric arts, would occasionally seek out re-111. Chapter 7/112/188: 血月個簿\眠~エ▲′l¢ [576.3-4]. Kaltenmark, who chose to ignore the first character and to add a word between brackets in his translation in order to make identical the "universal book" (dongji jing) and the TPJ itself, misunderstood the meaning of this sentence. His translation of this sentence occurs in the following context: "One passage, where it is said that 'the Book of Tung-chi [Dongji 個簿] is called T'ai-p'ing [ching]' 個簿\ 眠エ▲′l, suggests that the true title is T'ai-p'ing ching [Taiping jing] and not Tung-chi ching [Dongji jing 個簿 眠]" (Kaltenmark, "The Ideology of the T'ai-p'ing ching", 25).

tired Sages for their advice. 112 But now, the Emperor is in constant need of a heavenly-inspired master, a cosmic tutor who will guarantee an orthodox interpretation of the instructions from above and the conformity of their practice here below. Just as all under Heaven needs a single political ruler, an Emperor of cosmic right, to rule men through a far-reaching bureaucratic apparatus, human knowledge needs an officially sanctioned keeper of the orthodoxy to rule the minds through the apostleship of properly educated disciples. The teaching of the master is acceptable and his writings trustworthy only because both are inspired by Heaven and certified to respond to cosmic principles through the ultimate test of practice. Faith in the Tao pragmatically comes from true knowledge, and true knowledge comes directly from Heaven. Its diffusion throughout society and widespread enact-

  : 13-26; Étude sur le confucianisme Han: L'élaboration d'une tradition exégétique sur les classiques (Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1985); Mark E. Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999): 337-62. On the earliest proscription of weishu, see Jack L. Dull, "A Historical Introduction to the Apocryphal (Ch'an-wei) Texts of the Han Dynasty" (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1966): 404. 8. See Poo Mu-chou, In Search of Personal Welfare: A View of Ancient Chinese Religion (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998): 179-85; and

  17. A point which emerges from Olivier Venture, "Étude d'un emploi rituel de l'écrit dans la Chine archaïque (XIIIe-VIIIe siècle avant notre ère): Réflexion sur les matériaux épigraphiques des Shang et des Zhou occidentaux" (Ph.D. diss., Université Paris 7, 2002): 325-32. 18. See, for instance, Isabelle Robinet, "Nature et rôle du maître spirituel dans le taoïsme non liturgique", in Maître et disciples dans les traditions religieuses, ed. Michel Meslin (Paris: Cerf, 1990), 37-50. 19. See John Lagerwey, "The Oral and the Written in Chinese and Western Religion", in Religion und Philosophie in Ostasien: Festschrift für Hans Steininger zum 65. Gerburtstag, ed. Gert Naundorf, Karl-Heinz Pohl, and Hans-Hermann Schmidt (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1985), 308. 20. On the issue of music in the TPJ, see Li Yangzheng 姻已い, "Taiping jing zhong de yinyue lilun º′l眠ae-疑査坏唾寶", Daoxie huikan 洋茄穂 ¶ 17 (1985): 100-106; and Jan Yün-Hua ‰票箱, "The Bridge between Man and Cosmos: The philosophical foundation of music in the T'ai P'ing ching", in Studies of Taoist Rituals and Music of Today, ed. Tsao Pen-Yeh and Daniel P. L. Law (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1989), 15-27.

  (25/73/13); I quote the version edited by D.C. Lau, A Concordance to the Zhuangzi/Zhuangzi zhuzi suoyin 蛋:寵ッ 醇@ (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2000). 24. See, for instance, chapter 6/93/141: 券血д弁過ヨ洋換♀ [401.3]. 25. See my forthcoming study of the ideology of the TPJ (2003).

  (A.D. 125-144) of the Eastern Han; see Hou Han shu 掲亢七, Fan Ye 購恠 (398-445), ed. (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1965), 30B.1084. This Taiping qingling shu was submitted to the throne but first rejected on pretext of not being in conformity with the Classics (jing 眠), then submitted again by Xiang Kai 棆戊 under Emperor Huan's 漆 reign (146-167) and approved; but Xiang Kai was sacked by the faction of eunuchs (A.D. 166). See Rafe De Crespigny, Portents of protest in the Later Han Dynasty: The memorials of Hsiang K'ai to Emperor Huan (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1976), and "Politics and Philosophy under the Government of Emperor Huan 159-168 A.D.", T'oung Pao 66.1-3 (1980): 41-83. 27. See chapter 4/55/83: 出七槽 †~ぬーD調沮¢ [211.4]. 28. On the part played by religion in the legitimization of political power in China, see John Lagerwey, "Taoist Ritual Space and Dynastic Legitimacy", Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 8 (1995): 87-94, and "Rituel taoïste et légitimité dynastique", Bulletin de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient 84 (1997): 99-109.

  32. Chapter 5/69/105: 沿情満⇒ーD桓 ¢ [261.10]. 33. For a similar theme in the Lüshi chunqiu л〓倹控, see Martin Svensson Ekström's paper in the present volume.

  41.矣七掩寡文Μテ施羽掩窒ち鑓却~券 ¢矣七ー施窒∴Υ沿息悵誼\却~卿 ~〉a.洋撃文 [278.7-8].42. The dialogue form is undoubtedly connected with the hermetic tradition of the Yellow Emperor as exemplified in the Huangdi neijing 鰭係〉眠 but a thorough study of the issue has yet to be done. The dialogue parts of the TPJ have been tentatively discussed byBarbara Hendrischke in papers contributed to two conferences but still unpublished: "Taiping jing zhong tianshi yu dizi de duihua º′l眠ae-♀施冉夷:疑憐友" (paper presented at the Second International Academic Conference on Taoist Culture 鷹 嚇洋伺◇×髄厰弯置巧裳寶, Luofu shan 灣主` [Guangdong], 28-31 December 1998), and "The Place of the Scripture on Great Peace in the Formation of Daoism" (paper presented at the International Conference on Religion and Chinese Society: The Transformation of a Field and Its Implication for the Study of Chinese Culture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 29 May-2 June 2000).

  66. See chapter 6/91/132: モ帚 央沿勣帚 臭~帚 央剿剳◇勣モ帚 臭~帚 臭~帚ΓΓ臭~帚 臭帚 満満臭~捩ヨ帚央沿央◇剳燵胡臭¢♀ゲ臭\~血牡 ぬ臭\¢ [355.6-7].

  84. See Valerie Hansen, Negotiating Daily Life in Traditional China: How Ordinary People Used Contracts: 600-1400 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 147-229 ("Part II: Contracting with the Gods").

  103. One more noteworthy clue to the Han ideology of the text.

  108. James Joyce, Ulysses (Paris:Shakespeare and Co., 1922), 138. Akasa: in theosophy, the eternal memory of Nature. 109. See Anna Seidel, "Das neue Testament des Tao: Lao tzu und die Entstehung des taoistischen Religion am Ende der Han-Zeit", Saeculum 29.2 (1978): 147-72. 110. See Dull, "A Historical Introduction to the Apocryphal (Ch'an-wei) Texts . . .", 117-21; and Li Yangzheng 姻已 い, "Taiping jing yu yinyang wuxing shuo, daojia ji chenwei zhi guanxi º′l眠ae冉長桧 η剿¡洋伺∞窕姆\ 牴郷", Daojia wenhua yanjiu 16 (1999): 98-106. Li sees the TPJ as an apocryphal commentary to the Daode jing (ibid., 95).

  ment in practice contribute to universal harmony as reflected in the regular movements of heavenly bodies. Epistemological issues then are inseparable from the heavenly/religious sphere in the TPJ, and what the master lays the foundations of by means of his writings is a new theology-for, as Foucault wrote, "ce que Dieu a déposé dans le monde, ce sont des mots écrits; Adam, lorsqu'il a imposé leurs premiers noms aux bêtes, n'a fait que lire ces marques visibles et silencieuses; la Loi a été confiée à des Tables, non pas à la mémoire des hommes; et la vraie Parole, c'est dans un livre qu'il faut la retrouver". 113 112. See Anna Seidel, "Der Kaiser und sein Ratgeber: Lao tzu und der Taoismus der Han-Zeit", Saeculum 29.1 (1978): 18-50; Michel Strickmann, "Saintly Fools and Chinese Masters (Holy Fools)", Asia Major 7.1 (1994): 35-57. 113. Michel Foucault, Les mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), 53 (my italics).

  : 32-36; Li Fengmao 姻浣 , "Dangqian Taiping jing yanjiu de chengguo ji zhanwang 没極º′l眠ae巧駅疑プ缶∞始僧", in Gong Pengcheng 磚猖播, Daojiao xinlun 洋糎保寶 (Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng 册竭弯げ, 1991), 325-34; Lai Chi Tim 廁易葬, "Shiping Zhongguo xuezhe guanyu Taiping jing de yanjiu 癒氾-髄弯却牴換º′l眠ae疑巧駅", Zhongguo wenhua yanjiusuo xuebao -髄◇×巧駅竃弯鄭 5 (1996): 297-317; and Lin Fu-shih 観轍。, "Shilun Taiping jing de zhuzhi yu xingzhi 癒寶º′l眠ae疑∠ポ冉且屏", Lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 恍Q剞沿巧駅竃氷 ¶ 69.2 (1998): 208-11.

  practices,37 should also be understood in an epistemological context as "keeping the word one".Confronted with the dangers of orality regarded as an unavoidable cause of decay, apophasis may appear as a radical but safe way out. The TPJC (2.15a-b) condemns oral excesses 38 (which, besides, are said to exhaust the vital, physiologic principle of "essence", °こ ス却會寡傳 [26.6]) Zongjiaoxue yanjiu 2 (1986): 67-73; Livia Kohn, "Guarding the One: Concentrative Meditation in Taoism", in Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques, eds. Livia Kohn and Sakade Yoshinobu 擠 †隊Б (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1989), 125-58; and Yamada Toshiaki `さЧ汗, "Taiheikyô ni okeru shu'itsu to sonshi º′l眠aeにおけるテ とツ景", in Rikuchô dôkyô girei no kenkyû 《陶洋糎呷麾の巧駅 (Tôkyô: Tôhô shoten 緩■七閣, 1999), 27-48.

	as opposed to the quietness (qingjing 藻搖) and silence (wusheng 尼梏) of divinities (shenling 出
	窶). In chapter 6/98/157, the master logically advises his disciples:
	Henceforth, to follow the Tao, concentrate your mind, keep your mouth closed, 39 and do not
	speak in vain. [443.9-444.1]
	券血°胡洋却~正ル §~調ル ~←ゼ沿 ¢
	35. Even if two quotations of the TPJ in an early eleventh century anthology of Taoist works, Zhang Junfang's 積м株
	(ca. 961-1042) Yunji qiqian 票⑮ 祗 (CTT 1032), state that the speech of fools gives rise to calamities and harm
	which only affect fools themselves: 雰却 †沿胡艶影仔~樮∇Υ不 [735.9] (CTT 1032: 89.7a-b; 92.10b-11a). These
	two quotations are not found in the extant TPJ but may correspond to the title (probably incomplete) of chapter
	10/159/339 in the Dunhuang MS S. 4226: "ス沿¥渦 Γ< " (l. 565). See also n. 44 below.

36. In late Six Dynasty or early Tang (Shangqing) Taoist historiography of the Taiping texts (see the preface attached to the ZD edition of the TPJ, the Taiping jing fuwen xu ′l眠孺◇伊: 1a-2a), this term was used to designate the divine, scripturary materia prima ultimately transmitted to Gan Ji ゝを (also known as Yu Ji を) and out of which the mundane TPJ "in 170 juan and 360 chapters" came into existence; in this special occurrence, it seems to refer to the (so far) indecipherable content of the four chapters 7/104/169 to 7/107/172 (see n. 83 below). meditation In the same chapter, the master says that Heaven, Earth, the Four Seasons, Three Luminaries, and Five Agents-everything in the whole universe, including the world here below-"practices the Tao without speaking η洋Μー沿" [444.2-5]. And, a bit further on, he states anew that "[if one's] mouth does not speak recklessly, [one] will be able to obtain the Tao ーゼ沿粁洋D跡 "

[444.6]

. Chapter 6/97/155 expresses an analogous warning:

Words should constitute models. Better to keep silent than to utter words which do not constitute canonical behavior. To make inaccurate statements is a grievous fault which cannot be removed.

40 [437.2-3]

沿没プ基¢沿ープ眠~ー閤擠 ¢桾沿ー-~椋息ー蝕¢ But how is teaching conceivable without the oral medium, especially in the case of a master 37. See Yoshioka Yoshitoyo, "Bukkyô no zenpô to dôkyô no 'shu'itsu' τ糎 杪基 洋糎 ©テ ¬", in Dôkyô to

bukkyô, vol. 3 (Tôkyô : Kokusho kankôkai, 1976)

, 287-314; Ding Yizhuang 番蛋 and Liu Dongmei 咸♭挿, "Taiping jing zhong 'shouyi' qianshi º′l眠ae-©テ ¬蒼畉",

  Sages, food for the starving, and clothing for those who suffer from the cold: 掩屎却屐∇◇掩 信却屐∇詐~掩撤却屐∇θ[228.10]. "What kind of texts?", a disciple asks. "Just assemble all written documents of the true Tao of all Three Ages", the master replies, "take the best parts of their content and collect them to form a 'Heavenly Scripture' Е官 E-E E\充洋◇◇七貨 寡-.賠却~氷\∇胡♀眠" [229.5]. The master adds that each and every Sage should be granted a copy of this book and recite it aloud (songdu 剋矣). But both chapters state explicitly that, in return, people who get "remarkable and extraordinary recipes 紗■体■" [230.3] (chapter 4/65/100) or "marvelous, extraordinary, and remarkable recipes, and texts (expounding) benevolent means 灰体紗■賠洋◇" [231.1] (chapter 4/65/101) should not conceal (ni 腎) them for their own

19, again with writings in practice. See my tentative translation and analysis of this chapter in "Cosmologie et trifonctionnalité", 342-53. The single published investigation of the purpose of this short chapter appears in Lin Fushih, "Shilun Taiping jing de zhuzhi yu xingzhi", 216-26. the

  50. According to Lian Denggang 兆埜斉, "Shi Taiping jing zhi 'xianru', 'shanru', 'yimi' 畉º′l眠ae\©屎 廐¬¡©賠廐¬¡© 棲¬", Zhongguo yuwen -髄剞◇ 264.3 (1998): 222-23, xianru 屎廐 ("eminent scholars" in my translation) does not refer to Confucian scholars nor the educated here, but to learned individuals among Taoist followers themselves. According to Petersen ("Which Books Did the First Emperor of Ch'in Burn? . . .", 34), the earliest uses of ru 廐 with special reference to Confucianism appear in the Hou Han shu, completed in 445 (for the evolution of the meaning of ru in pre-imperial and early imperial sources, see also Zufferey, "Le Premier Empereur et les lettrés . . .", 80-95). Then does jingshu 眠七 ("canonical writings" in my translation) explicitly allude to the Confucian classics?

51. I.e. 120, 80 and 60 years (TPJC: 2.11b-12a, 10.5a-b), or 120, 100, 80, 60, and 50 years (TPJC: 6.7a

). The text (2.12a) adds that what is called "surviving through generations" (dushi) is "to transcend these [categories of] longevity", notably as a result of "unceasing benevolent conduct": チη賠ー〒~蓉ヨ伶抂\圭⇒ [23.4].

  718.3] (TPJC: 10.1a; MS S. 4226: l. 10-1; CTT 1032.6.15a-b); 60 or the three categories of This scripturary taxonomy should be read in the light of chapter 3/41/55 ("Jian guwen mingshu へE◇エ七"), where the master explains at length the meaning of the master-concept jujiao 官嫉, literally "to collect and collate [documents]", 60. CTT 1032, which quotes the TPJ, has the second category spelled " 黄◇", a graphic variant which does not alter the meaning. Yang Jilin 俸整観, "Taiping jing 'shu you san deng' xiyi º′l眠ae©七モ 罵¬閑娘", Zhongguo daojiao 74.2 (2003): 30-33, has argued, rather unconvincingly, that these three categories refer to the content of the TPJ itself.

	"heavenly scriptures ♀眠", "earthly scriptures and "human scriptures 眠" [307.11-12]
	(TPJC: 5.12b-13a). The most synthetic classification, expounded by the master on a disciple's re-
	quest, is to be found in a TPJ quotation from Zhu Faman's ュ基亰 Yaoxiu keyi jielü chao 酷載抗呷
	維慧毘 (CTT 463.1.2a-b) [308.8-14]:
	no.: scripturary denomination:	correlation (or definition):
	1	heavenly scriptures ♀眠	true Tao 充洋, generation げ
	2	earthly scriptures ゲ眠	virtue 嗤, nutrition 已
	3	human scriptures 眠	harmony 会, pervasiveness 喉貯, deployment 月
	4	scriptures of the Tao 洋眠	(collected essays 燵 of the Tao of the Three Ages)
	5	scriptures of the Saints 命眠	(collected texts ◇ of the Saints of the Three Ages)
	6	scriptures of the Sages 屎眠	(collected essays 燵 of Sages of the Three Ages)
		auspicious scriptures を眠	auspicious masters 寡施を却
	8	pernicious scriptures 『眠	pernicious masters 寡施『却
	9	scriptures of life げ眠	masters who bring life 寡施げ却
	10 scriptures of death ラ眠	masters who bring death 寡施ラ却

These ten scripturary categories are based on a triad (Heaven-Earth-Man), 61 on a median section of the TPJ's ninefold human hierarchy (in which "men of the Tao", "Saints", and "Sages" are ranked fifth, sixth and seventh; see n. 22 above), and on two classical Chinese antithetic couples (the auspicious and the pernicious を『, life and death げラ).

61. On which, see Anne Cheng, "De la place de l'homme dans l'univers: La conception de la triade Ciel-Terre-Homme à la fin de l'antiquité chinoise", Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident 3 (1983): 11-22; Grégoire Espesset, "À vau-l'eau, à rebours . . ." (forthcoming).

  " is [the following]: let us suppose that numerous Sages together read carefully all past and present texts of the Tao; if in one volume they get one good word or one good formula, then they record it in writing; to get one good [word or formula] in one volume [is to get] ten in ten volumes, one hundred in one hundred volumes, one thousand in one thousand volumes, ten thousand in ten thousand volumes, and one hundred thousand in one hundred thousand volumes; [but if] in one volume they get ten good words or formulas, in this way [they may get up to] one million good words [or formulas; and if] in one volume they get one hundred good [words or formulas], in this way [they may get up to] ten million good words [or formulas]. Having them recorded in writing and gathered in a single place, the numerous Sages together examine [these] past and present writings, transcribe them, gather them into categories according to their respective specialties, delete the repetitions, compile their essential parts, thoroughly analyze [their content], and thus understand deeply the quintessence of Heaven, Earth, Man, and the ten thousand beings in past and present. The text produced in this manner is the "Heavenly Scripture".64 [84.2-8]

	竃沿官嫉 E-E E洋七却~森∝滞屎や矣搬E[實洋◇ ¢チ 蝦跡 賠ッ~チ
	跡 賠窒黄~怯蕉七 †\¢ 蝦跡 賠~ 蝦跡 賠~Γ蝦跡Γ賠~ 蝦跡 賠~満
	蝦跡満賠~呱蝦跡呱賠¢賠ッ賠窒黄~蝦跡 賠 ~ヨ 呱賠ッ¢チ蝦跡Γ賠	~ヨ
	Γ呱賠ッ鋭¢七Μ蕉\~兌換 肘段~滞屎や搬E[◇珍~賃朝掎 †\~∇犧兌\ウ
	碩寡伺~C-堵紺~ギョ寡酷◇ッΜ姚\~Я_駅賃~息誼E[♀ゲ 満軌\傳文
	鋭¢ギ∇胡◇~プ♀眠鋭¢
	3/41/55: 官嫉 E-E E命 \燵∇胡命眠 ƒ官嫉 E-E E.嗤\燵∇胡嗤眠 ƒ官嫉
	E-E E屎汗\燵∇胡屎眠 ¢ [83.6-7]. Altogether 47 occurrences of the disyllabic jujiao in the single TPJ,
	spread over no less than fourteen chapters from three out of the five extant sections: chapters 3/41/55, 3/51/78,
	6/88/129, 6/91/132, 6/93/137, 6/96/152, 6/98/156, 6/98/158, 7/108/173, 7/110/179, 7/112/188, 7/114/202,
	7/116/206, and 7/118/211.

antiquity

than the Scripture of Great Peace itself, 89 but to prove rather than guess, textual evidence is required.

Unfortunately, if the text gives several clues to many facets of the master's writings, it fails to specify clearly what makes them different from other documents set forth throughout the surviving chapters.

In chapter 6/98/159, a question from one of the disciples opens with these words:

In the "original text" of the writings formerly bestowed upon [us], stupid students, by [you], Heavenly Master . . . [448.13] ♀施極竃屐‖雰げ七z◇ʻ

The idea of a primal literary material (ben wen z◇) 90 is here correlated to a document handed down to the disciples by the master. Having frequently warned his disciples against the utterances individual men, the epistemological program which he expounds throughout his lessons-especially editing process of quintessential knowledge-enables the master to legitimate his own teaching as a single man: by calling up the talents of all men and the content of all documents of all times to obtain such a total and orthodox knowledge, he may simultaneously, without risking his credibility, promote his own writings. He does so in chapter 3/37/47, entitled "Verifying documents [to achieve] absolute faith" ("Shi wenshu daxin 癒◇七.峡"), where he responds to challenges from his disciples concerning the trustfulness his writings in order to verify that their content is no different from the content of all documents practiced by men of the Three Ages to meet the designs of Heaven. In this manner the unbeliever shall be freed from ignorance and have an absolute faith in the master's writings. 91 We have already seen that the master claims to have been instructed by Heaven; so his writings reveal the "designs of Heaven ♀ §", and everyone willing to be acquainted with Heaven is advised to read them thoroughly and meditate on them (see chapters 3/466/62, 4/53/79 etc.). The master also equates his writings with "the language of Heaven and Earth" and claims that they "respond intimately and solely to spirits both heavenly and chthonian like the inside of a garment etc.), such practice involves carefully reading (jingdu 傳矣, xiangdu 油矣) or reciting (song 剋), and carefully meditating (xiangsi 油景) in an isolated location (chapter 4/65/101; see also TPJC: 5.11b).

Elsewhere we read that the master's writings go back to the very origin (ben yuan z}) of all things (chapter 3/49/66), hence their unlimited effectiveness to put an end to chengfu, "inherited burden" (chapters 3/40/52 and 3/42/58), to rectify men as well as documents and bring them back to the true Tao (chapter 3/42/57), to summon Saints, Sages, and Immortals (chapter 3/46/62), to amend all social relationships (chapter 6/96/151), to fully display one's potential and fulfill one's mandate here below (TPJC: 5.13b-14b), to restore unaltered longevity, and to dispel the Emperor's affliction (8.15a), etc.

The TPJC (8.11a-13a) applies to twenty-two categories cosmic entities (astral bodies, human beings, animals, plants, gods), atmospheric phenomena (clouds, thunder and lightning, wind and rain), cosmological concepts (the Five Agents, Four Seasons, ten stems and twelve branches), and cosmographic features (mountains and hills, water courses and expanses, the underground, etc.) the following sentence: "each [element in a given category, though] different [from its own kind], 98 is endowed with the spontaneous primordial pneuma (yuanqi }車) and Yin and Yang, just like my text; [when] each [element] follows its ways, keeps in mind the content of my writings and puts it into practice, then Great Peace [is achieved] ウ体~ΥモΥ弐}車長桧~冉д◇喉Дƒウ碩寡 胸~蕉д七燵Μη\~Я′l鋭¢ " [692.8-694.3]. This passage suggests that master's writings, when properly practiced, hold a universal, therapeutic power to expel any dysfunction from the entire universe and revert to a state of natural equilibrium. So, once successfully tested, the master's writings should not remain hidden (chapter 6/98/157). Should one of the disciples keep them secret for his private use and fail to produce them on time, Heaven would send him illness and disasters.

Disasters and illness also give evidence that the time has come to publish the master's writings: "If

[their] appearing makes people sick, then Heaven wants [them] to be concealed, [but] if hiding 100

[them] makes people sick, then Heaven wants [them] to appear and be circulated †Μ臭 Я♀槽 98. For instance, each one of the Five Agents (wuxing η) is different from the other four, though they all belong to the same category (category no. 16). 99. Chapter 6/102/166: :胡ー弐~[液腎調倍д◇Μー∇鹿 †\~♀Я∀臭:影: [462.8-9]. But, in the TPJC (6.18a), the master also urges the disciples "not to transmit rashly 尼ゼ賓" his "documents (?) д隣七" but to bury them very deeply in a dark, secluded place (沮\息憎¡兄坂\肘) and not to talk any more about "essential texts": 尼 剞酷◇~Y〉_窃~尼D堵沿 [403.10-404.2]. Until the proper time for their appearing has come? 100. Tao 条, literally: "to run away, to escape", here a synonym for cang 沮: "to bury, to conceal" (both characters are associated as a compound verb in the subsequent sentences of the passage).