The Idea of Supreme Peace (Taiping) in Premodern Chinese Philosophies of History
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2022.10.1.401-424Keywords:
taiping, Supreme Peace, Han philosophy, millenarianism, New Text ConfucianismAbstract
The paper examines the development of the idea of Supreme Peace (taiping 太平) in premodern Chinese philosophies of history. It is shown that while Daoists identified it with the pristine unity of humans and nature, Han Confucians equated Supreme Peace with the harmonious social system under the rule of one of the first Chinese emperors or Confucius. In the latter case, the notion of taiping was reduced to a descriptive category, which was then employed by historiography but ridiculed in the critical thought of Wang Chong. With Huainanzi and the Xiang’er commentary to Laozi, the Daoists started to argue that it is possible to restore the Supreme Peace under new historical conditions. This was systematically developed in the Scripture of Supreme Peace (Taipingjing), which offered a detailed depiction of the future era of equality and freedom. However, after this radicalization, the idea of taiping was utilized by imperial propaganda and disappeared from the dominant philosophical discourse. An exception to this rule was Li Gou (1009–1059), who envisaged Supreme Peace as an ideal socio-economic system resulting from endowing peasants with land and money. A similar vision was expressed by Gong Zizhen (1792–1841), for whom Supreme Peace had to entail land equalization and the reduction of social inequalities. Similarly to Taipingjing, however, Gong Zizhen described taiping as the culmination point of the increase of human knowledge. With such an approach, the premodern Chinese views of Supreme Peace became noticeably close to Western progressivism, and therefore inspired the utopian project of Kang Youwei.
Downloads
References
Chinese editions
Dadai Liji 大戴禮記. Chinese Text Project. Accessed August 1, 2021.ctext.org/da-dai-li-ji.
Daxue guyi shuo 大學古義說. Huang Qing jingjie 皇清經解 edition. 1870. Guangzhou: Xuehai tang.
Gong Zizhen quanji 龔自珍全集 (Collected Works of Gong Zizhen). 1975. Shanghai: Shanhai renmin chubanshe.
Gongyang jiegu 公羊解詁 (Explanations of the Gongyang Commentary). 1999. In: Chunqiu Gongyanghuan 春秋公羊傳, Shisanjing zhushu 十三經注疏, vol. 8. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe.
Heshang Gong Laozi: Heshanggong zhangju 河上公章句. 1998. Beijing: Beijing wenhua chubanshe.
Huainanzi: Huainanzi jiaoshi 淮南子校釋. 1997. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe.
Liji: Liji zhengyi 禮記正義, Shisanjing zhushu 十三經注疏, vol. 6. 1999. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe.
Liu Libu ji 劉禮部集. Ruzang 儒藏 edition. 2016. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe.
Lunheng: Lunheng zhushi 論衡注釋. 1979. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Lunyu shuhe 論語述何. Huang Qing jingjie 皇清經解 edition. 1870. Guangzhou: Xuehai tang.
Lunyu shuoyi 論語說義. By Song Xiangfeng 宋翔鳳. Huang Qing jingjie edition. 1870. Guangzhou: Xuehai tang.
Shiji 史記. 1963. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Shuoyuan 說苑. Chinese Text Project. Accessed August 1, 2021. ctext.org/shuo-yuan.
Taipingjing: Taipingjing hejiao 太平經合校. 1960. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Zhuangzi: Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋. 1961. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
*******
Secondary literature
Beck, B. J. Mansvelt. 1980. “The Date of the Taiping Jing.” T’oung Pao 66: 149–82.
Bokenkamp, Stephen. 1994. “Time After Time: Taoist Apocalyptic History and the Founding of the T’ang Dynasty.” Asia Major 7 (1): 59–88.
Bokenkamp, Stephen. 1999. Early Daoist Scriptures. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Borei, Dorothy. 1977. “Decline and Reform: A Study of the Statecraft Essays of Kung Tzu-chen.” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania.
Brusadelli, Federico. 2020. Confucian Concord. Reform, Utopia and Global Teleology in Kang Youwei’s Datong shu. Leiden: Brill.
Chen Guying. 2016. The Philosophy of Life. A New Reading of the Zhuangzi. Leiden: Brill.
Eliade, Mircea. 1964. The Myth of the Eternal Return. Translated by Willard Trask. New York: Pantheon Books.
Elman, Benjamin. 1990. Classicism, Politics, and Kinship: The Ch’ang-chou School of New Text Confucianism in Late Imperial China. Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Feng Youlan. 1948. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. Edited by Derk Bodde. New York: Free Press.
Hendrischke, Barbara. 1991. “The Concept of Inherited Evil in the Taiping jing.” East Asian History 2: 327–37.
———. 1992. “The Daoist Utopia of Great Peace.” Oriens Extremus 35: 61–91.
———. 2007. The Scripture on Great Peace: The Taiping jing and the Beginnings of Daoism. Berkeley et al: University of California Press.
Hightower, James R. 1952. Han Shih Wai Chuan: Han Ying’s Illustrations of the Didactic Application of the Classic of Songs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kirkland, Russell. 1993. “A World in Balance: Holistic Synthesis in the T’ai-p’ing kuang-chi.” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 23: 43–70.
Klein, Esther. 2010. “Were there ‘Inner Chapters’ in the Warring States? A New Examination of Evidence about the Zhuangzi.” T’oung Pao 96 (4/5): 299–369. doi.org/10.1163/156853210X546509.
Kohn, Livia. 1998. “The Beginnings and Cultural Characteristics of East Asian Millenarianism.” Japanese Religions 23 (1–2): 29–51.
Lai, Karen. 2015. “Daoism and Confucianism.” In Dao Companion to Daoist Philosophy, edited by Liu Xiaogan, 489–511. Dordrecht et al.: Springer.
Le Blanc, Charles. 1985. Huai nan tzu. Philosophical Synthesis in Early Han Thought: The Idea of Resonance (Kan-ying) With a Translation and Analysis of Chapter Six. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Petersen, Jens Østergaard. 1990. “The Anti-Messianism of the Taiping Jing.” Studies in Central and East Asian Religions 3: 1–41.
Pokora, Timoteus. 1961. “On the Origins of the Notions T’ai-p’ing and Ta-T’ung in Chinese Philosophy.” Archiv Orientalni 29 (3): 448–54.
Puett, Michael. 2005/2006. “Listening to Sages: Divination, Omens, and the Rhetoric of Antiquity in Wang Chong’s Lunheng.” Oriens Extremus 45: 271–81.
———. 2008. “The Belatedness of the Present: Debates over Antiquity during the Han Dynasty.” In Perceptions of Antiquity in Chinese Civilization, edited by Dieter Kuhn, and Helga Stahl, 177–90. Heidelberg: Edition Forum.
———. 2014. “Sages, Creation, and the End of History in the Huainanzi.” In The Huainanzi and Textual Production in Early China, edited by Sarah Queen, and Michael Puett, 269–90. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Rogacz, Dawid. 2020. Chinese Philosophy of History: From Ancient Confucianism to the End of the Eighteenth Century. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
———. 2021. “Historical Materialism in Medieval China: The Cases of Liu Zongyuan (773–819) and Li Gou (1009–1059).” Asian Philosophy 1–17. doi.org/10.1080/09552367.2021.1924437.
Seidel, Anna. 1969/1970. “The Image of the Perfect Ruler in Early Taoist Messianism: Lao-tzu and Li Hung.” History of Religions 9 (2/3): 216–47.
———. 1984. “Taoist Messianism.” Numen 31 (2): 161–74.
Shan-Yüan, Hsieh. 1979. The Life and Thought of Li Kou (1009–1059). San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center.
Shih, Vincent Yu-Chung. 1967. The Taiping Ideology: Its Sources, Interpretations and Influences. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Song, Jaeyoon. 2015. Traces of Grand Peace. Classics and State Activism in Imperial China. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.
Wang, Jilu 王记录. 2002. Zhongguo shixue sixiang tongshi. Qingdai juan 中国史学思想通史。清代卷 (A Comprehensive History of Chinese Historiographical Thought: Qing Times volume). Hefei: Huangshan shushe.
Wang, Q. Edward, and On-cho Ng. 2005. Mirroring the Past: The Writing and Use of History in Imperial China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Whitbeck Judith. 1980. “The Historical Vision of Kung Tzu-chen (1792–1841).” PhD diss., University of California.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Dawid ROGACZ

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.