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Tiger-shaped token, fu,
used to authenticate an imperial military order
Possibly excavated on Lincheng, Shandong Province
Qin dynasty, 221 — 206 BCE
Bronze inlaid with gold characters
length 8.9 cm

Always fearful of rebellion, the Qin Emperor devised a system to ensure that troops could be moved only by his express order. He had tokens, fu, made consisting of two interlocking parts. One half went to the commanding officer, and the other half stayed with the Emperor. An order by the Emperor to move troops would be brought by a messenger carrying the Emperor's half token. When the commander ascertained that the two halves fit, the order was valid. This token, in the form of a tiger, is inscribed in gold lettering: “Token for moving soldiers, the right half is in the Emperor's hands, the left at Yangling.’

National Museum of Chinese History, Beijing

T A O I S M

the Way

Taoism, or the Way
Article written by Judith A. Berling for the Asia Society's Focus on Asian Studies,
Vol. II, No. 1, Asian Religions, pp. 9-11, Fall 1982. Copyright AskAsia, 1996. (continued)

If Taoist ideas and images inspired in the Chinese a love of nature and an occasional retreat to it from the cares of the world to rest and heal, it also inspired an intense affirmation of life: physical life -- health, well-being, vitality, longevity, and even immortality. Laozi and Zhuangzi had reinterpreted the ancient nature worship and esoteric arts, but they crept back into the tradition as ways of using knowledge of the Dao to enhance and prolong life. Some Taoists searched for "isles of the immortals," or for herbs or chemical compounds that could ensure immortality. More often, Taoists were interested in health and vitality; they experimented with herbal medicine and pharmacology, greatly advancing these arts; they developed principles of macrobiotic cooking and other healthy diets; they developed systems of gymnastics and massage to keep the body strong and youthful. Taoists were supporters both of magic and of proto-science; they were the element of Chinese culture most interested in the study of and experiments with nature.⁴

Some Taoists believed that spirits pervaded nature (both the natural world and the internal world within the human body). Theologically, these myriad spirits were simply many manifestations of the one Dao, which could not be represented as an image or a particular thing. As the Taoist pantheon developed, it came to mirror the imperial bureaucracy in heaven and hell. The head of the heavenly bureaucracy was the jade Emperor, who governed spirits assigned to oversee the workings of the natural world and the administration of moral justice. The gods in heaven acted like and were treated like the officials in the world of men; worshipping the gods was a kind of rehearsal of attitudes toward secular authorities. On the other hand, the demons and ghosts of hell acted like and were treated like the bullies, outlaws, and threatening strangers in the real world; they were bribed by the people and were ritually arrested by the martial forces of the spirit officials.⁵ The common people, who after all had little influence with their earthly rulers, sought by worshipping spirits to keep troubles at bay and ensure the blessings of health, wealth, and longevity.

Notes

Excerpted and adapted from Wm. DeBary, ed., Sources of Chinese Tradition, New York,: Columbia University Press, 1960, I: 56.
Arthur P. Wolf, "Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors," in his (ed.) Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974, p. 131.
Cyril Birch, Anthology of Chinese Literature, Vol. 1, New York: Grove Press, 1965, pp. 167-168. This anthology contains excellent and readable translations of poems, biographies, essays, and stories that are very successful in conveying religious attitudes.
See Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956, pp. 33-164.
Arthur P. Wolf, "Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors," pp. 131-182.

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