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Updated: April 30, 2025
Originally, this group was a continuation of Chang Ling's church Taoism. Through the Cheng-i adherents, the Southern school had gained political influence on the despotic Mongol rulers. He was, incidentally, in charge of the compilation of the largest encyclopaedia ever written, the Yung-lo ta-tien commissioned by the Yung-lo emperor. Wang Yang-ming followed the Lin-ch'uan tradition.
Although Taoism, of which Lao-Tze was the founder and Chuang-Tze the chief apostle, was displaced by Confucianism, yet the spirit of this fable has penetrated deeply into Chinese life, making it more urbane and tolerant, more contemplative and observant, than the fiercer life of the West.
By Ts'in Shi Hwangti's time, any notions that were wild, extravagant, and gorgeous were Taoism; which would hardly have been, perhaps, had there been a Taoist organization behind them; although it is not safe to dogmatize.
In Asia, the entire vast area of Siberia is only sparsely settled and its religions include Animism, Taoism, and Christianity. In China, we find the land of three truths, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. India, Tibet, and Burma are dominated by Hinduism and Buddhism; Arabia, Persia, and the rest of the continent are Mohammedan. In Japan, there are the Shintoists.
Also The Notions of the Chinese concerning God and Spirits, 1852. The best account of the old State Religion is that of J. H. Plath, Die Religion und der Cultus der alten Chinesen, 1862. Réville, La Religion chinoise . The third volume of his History. R. K. Douglas, Confucianism and Taoism, 1876. De Groot, in De la Saussaye. De Groot, The Religious System of China, vols. i.-iv., 1892-1901.
The annual sacrifice in the Temple of Heaven represented almost the sole official survival of pre-Confucian religion, or indeed of anything that could be called religion in the strict sense; for Buddhism and Taoism have never had any connection with the State.
The moving force was still Taoism; the Blue Pearl, sunk deep in the now sunlit waters of the common consciousness, was flashing its rainbows. Ts'in Shi Hwangti, for all his greatness, had been an uncouth barbarian; Han Wuti was a very cultured gentleman of literary tastes, a poet, and no mean one.
For twenty-four centuries China has had Taoism preached within her dominions; for twenty-three centuries she has worshipped at the shrine of Confucius; for eighteen centuries she has had Buddhism, and for twelve centuries Mohammedanism: and during all this time if we believe the statements of her own people, she has slept.
Actually, however, some eight hundred years lay between Alexander's campaign and the Toba period sculptures at Yün-kang and, owing to the different cultural development, the contents of the Greek and the Toba-period art were entirely different. But not all Buddhists joined the "Church", just as not all Taoists had joined the Church of Chang Ling's Taoism.
It is evident that in Chu Hi's system, we have a body of thought which may be called the result of Chinese reflection during a millennium and a half. It is the ethics of Confucius transfused with the mystical elements of Taoism and the speculations of Buddhism.
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