early medieval daoist texts

7/29/2019 Early Medieval Daoist Texts

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jocp_1592 381..396

friederike assandri

EARLY MEDIEVAL DAOIST TEXTS:STRATEGIES OF READING AND FUSION

OF HORIZONS

I. Introduction

The history of Daoism in the later Six Dynasties and early Tang

remains one of the least understood fields of Chinese history of reli-gion and philosophy. This is not due to a lack of written sources forthe study. On the contrary, there exist a large number of texts in theDaoist Canon (Daozang ) assumed to pertain to this period.However, scholars find themselves having difficulty in understandingthese texts.

Hermeneutic understanding is contingent on what Hans-GeorgGadamer has called a fusion of horizons between the text and thereader. This proposition built on a dialogical model of the readers

relation to a text,1

combining reflection on the readers prejudice andanalysis of the context of a text in an interpretational model, whichtakes account of the historical dimensions of the meaning of texts.Chung-ying Cheng has expanded this model to onto-hermeneutics,integrating the element of explicit or implicit reference to ultimatereality.2 He proposed an interpretational model of an onto-hermeneutic circle represented in three interacting levels, namelyfirst, Ontological truth on the philosophical level, second, Theo-retical cogency on the conceptual level, and third, Textual integrity/consistency on the linguistic level.3

Both models agree on the importance of establishing texts in theirsociohistorical context for hermeneutical understanding,4 groundedin the logic of the hermeneutic circle, which postulates that under-standing of the whole hinges on the understanding of the parts, andvice versa. This concerns inner-textual philological analyses as well

FRIEDERIKE ASSANDRI, Ph.D. in Sinology, Research Associate, University of

Heidelberg. Specialties: early medieval Daoism and Buddhism, debate in medieval China.E-mail: [email protected]

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II. A Theory of the Intended Reader and

Hermeneutic Understanding

Philosophical theories of hermeneutic understanding have empha-sized the actual reader as the active agent with regard to the text,who constitutes meaning by engaging in a dialogue with the text.Although it has been recognized that any given author usually had anintended reader or addressee6 in mind, this intended reader hasbeen considered mainly in relation to the actual reader.7

A different approach to the question of the intended readerhas been proposed in the field of hermeneutic literary criticism:Hans Robert Jauss8 and Wolfgang Iser9 suggested that a focus on the

intended reader not so much in relation to the actual reader, but inrelation to the author and the text, could provide us with vital infor-mation on context of a text. Hans-Robert Jauss maintains that there isa dialogical and at once process-like relationship between work,audience and new work that can be conceived as the relation betweenmessage and receiver as well as between question and answer, problemand solution. . . .10 In the context of his model for literary historyas aesthetics of reception and influence he proposes a method ofhistorical reception, which involves a reconstruction of the horizon

of expectations, in the face of which a work was created and received inthe past. . . .11 This reconstruction of the horizon of expectations thenenables one to pose questions that the text gave an answer to, andthereby discover how the contemporary reader could have viewed andunderstood the work.12 According to him, this method of historicalreception, is indispensable for literature from the distant past. Whenthe author of a work is unknown, his intent undeclared, and hisrelationship to sources and models only indirectly accessible,the philo-logical question of how the text isproperlythat is,from its intentionand timeto be understood can best be answered if one foregrounds

it against those works that the author explicitly or implicitly pre-supposed his contemporary audience to know.13

This approach, which originated from the study of aesthetics andliterary criticism,14 could be employed with some modifications in thefield of Daoist studies as a remedy to the almost chronic lack of ref-erence to historical authors and settings in early medieval Daoist texts.

III. An Intended Reader Approach for the Interpretation

of Chinese Religious Texts

Fully acknowledging historical distance, we can consider a religious

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IV. Illustration

In the following, I will illustrate this approach with the exampleof two short texts, both dated tentatively to Six Dynasties or Tang.The first text is the Taishang Shengxuan Xiaozai Huming Miaojing

(The Marvelous Sutra of the Highest[Numinous Treasure] Ascension to Mystery on Saving Live and Pre-venting Disasters), hereafter DZ 19. This scripture of little more thanthree hundred characters has survived in an edition in the DaoistCanon22 as well as in Dunhuang manuscripts.23 The text is set in theheavens; there is no reference to any historical setting. In the frame-work of author/text-focused analysis, the presence of the characteris-

tic tetra lemma structures of Twofold Mystery thought24 is the mainclue for the context, suggesting that the text dates to the later SixDynasties or early Tang.25 However, the picture of the sociohistoricalcontext remains vague. Focusing the analysis on the intended readercan add details and nuances to this picture.

In an analysis focused on the intended reader, the title defines thefirst impression a potential reader gets from the text. Like mostDaoist texts, this title begins with a statement indicating the traditionwith which the text should be associated; and only then the actual

title

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follows. Assuming an implicit dialogue of author and intendedreader, the tradition that a text is associated with should be part ofthe horizon of expectation of the intended reader; he ought to befamiliar with it.Taishang Shengxuan refers to the Taishang LingbaoShengxuan Neijiao Jing (Scripture of theEsoteric Teaching of Ascending to Mystery of the Highest NuminousTreasure).27 This text had been written in Changan in the 570s,during the reign of emperor Wu of the Zhou (Zhou Wudi )28

and had become very popular during the Sui and early Tangdynasties.29

The actual title then promises Warding off disaster and protectinglife (Xiaozai Huming). Protecting life is a term we find in severaltitles of Daoist as well as Buddhist sutras.30 It addresses the funda-mental human need of surviving. Warding off disaster is more spe-cific. Disaster, zai , designates a disaster concerning a group, or acountry, like droughts, floods, great fire, and so on, not the personalaffliction of an individual.31 To alleviate or ward off disasters wouldhave been a major task of officials or the emperor.32 This title suggestsan intended readership that needed to protect not only their own life,but also the life of others, for whom they were responsible.

With due reservations, this title points to a context after 570, geo-graphically in the north of China, around the area of Changan. It also

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and the wider environment of the court, possibly including theemperor.

The introductory lines of the text address the problem of suffering.At the time, Yuanshi Tianzun was sojourning in the Palace of thefive luminaries in the forest of the seven treasures,33 together withcountless Saints (sheng ). They all produced countless rays oflight, illuminating countless worlds and gazing at countless beingssuffering countless distress, circling in this world, revolving throughlife and death [again and again], drifting carried by the waves in theriver of love, drifting [like] blown [by the wind] in the sea of desire,sunk in attachment to [the sensual pleasures of] sound and form,confused about being and non-being, about non-existence of emp-tiness and existence of emptiness, about non-existence of form and

existence of form, about non-existence of non-being and existenceof non-being, about existence of being or non-existence of being,in the dark about end and beginning [of these conceptions], unableto illuminate themselves on their own, [the countless beings] areutterly confused.34

Suffering is an affliction common to all humans; however, what isperceived or imagined as suffering depends on individual, social, andcultural conditions. This text does not mention afflictions such ashunger, sickness, deprivation,and so on. Instead, suffering is described

as an attachment to pleasures and desire: drifting . . . in the riverof love . . . in the sea of desire . . . sunk in attachment to [the sensualpleasures of] sound and form, and as confusion about the correctview of reality. Author/text-focused interpretation points to the Bud-dhist origin of this notion. Intended reader-focused interpretation inaddition suggests that the main affliction the intended reader neededto relieve was not hunger or deprivation, but attachment to pleasure.For whom would this be relevant? For a person whose life boasts ofenough pleasures to make a possibly spiritually motivated renuncia-tion to these pleasures difficult. This suggests the intended reader

belonged to the privileged.Confusion alludes to the Buddhist notion of ignorance as the

root of attachment and suffering. However, this text does not speakabout ignorance in general, but specifically about confusion vis--visbeing or nonbeing, form or emptiness. Although this reflects a genericconcern, which Chinese philosophers discussed through the ages, interms of an intended reader it points to a specific group. Ever since thethird century, the relationship of being and nonbeing, or in Buddhistterms, form and emptiness, were among the favorite subjects ofdebate in Pure Talk meetings and in organized debates in the salonsof imperial princes and regional magistrates.35 Because of the socialstanding of the people involved and the growing influence of

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The core teaching explains the way to obtain the promised relieffrom suffering: recitation of the text, and, most importantly, the reci-

tation of the secret names of seven immortals and of six divine spirits.The rather long part following this core teaching describes a host ofdivine beings, whose constant protection is enlisted for whoeverrecites or honors the text. Afflictions and protection are very specific,especially when compared with DZ 19. For example, the divine beingsvow not to allow the believer to suffer hunger or thirst, to save himfrom fire and flood by pulling him up in the air, protect him fromrobbers, jail and the cangue by influencing the robbers and jailorshearts to become compassionate. The promises refer exclusively to aphysical salvation of the individual person.

The text then exhorts preaching in various locations includingforests, towns, palaces and prisons, and service to others: If thereare people who are sick and in pain, you have to purify and washbody . . . and single mindedly recite aloud for the people, thus alldiseases are expelled and overcome. Technicalities of transmissionand propagation are also explained:

. . . sons of all families . . . shall be advised to revere and venerate itwith incense, . . . ; then you can transmit this text . . . you have to usegood paper, good brushes, and good ink and write with your utmostconcentration. . . . Dont allow recklessly that a stroke or a point isforgotten.

This text addressed people who had to worry about their ownsurvival, not that of others; people who would feel helpless in front ofofficials enforcing the law and robbers in a similar vein, with the onlypossible way out being a surge of compassion in the hearts of theofficials or robbers. The intended readers were not part of the privi-leged, but rather common men or itinerant monks,51 eking out sur-vival by servicing the believers, healing and exorcising.

Turning back to DZ 19, the difference of context in terms of

the intended readers should be obvious. While DZ 19 addressed thehigh strata of society, probably living in the capital in the north, theintended readers of DZ 356 were common, even uneducated peopleand itinerant preachers servicing them. The horizons of expectationof these two groups are different and the texts clearly reflect thesedifferences.

Because both texts are set in heavenly realms and lack reference tohistorical settings, an author/text-focused interpretation provides onlyvague contextual information. Shifting the focus of interpretation tothe intended reader offers an additional key to the sociohistoricalbackground of the texts.

Furthermore, an intended reader approach to interpretation of

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