The phenomenon of filial piety is fundamental to our understanding of Chinese culture, and this excellent collection of essays explores its role in various areas of life throughout history. Often regarded as the key to preserving Chinese tradition and identity, its potentially vast impact on government and the development of Chinese culture makes it extremely relevant, and although invariably virtuous in its promotion of social cohesion, its ideas are often controversial. A broad range of topics are discussed chronologically including Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism, making it essential reading for those studying Chinese culture, religion and philosophy. This is a multi-disciplinary survey that combines historical studies with philosophical analysis from an international team of respected contributors.
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Yes, you can access Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History by Alan Chan,Sor-Hoon Tan in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Histoire & Histoire de la Chine. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
1The evolution of the concept of filial piety (xiao) in the Laozi, the Zhuangzi, and the Guodian bamboo text Yucong
Ikeda Tomohisa
As is well known, the term “xiao” (filial piety) appears only twice in the current version of the Laozi. First, in Chapter 18, the Laozi states:
When the Great Dao declines, there are benevolence and rightness. When knowledge and wisdom emerge, there are great achievements. When the six family relationships are not in harmony, there are filial piety [xiao] and compassion. When a country is in disorder, there are loyal ministers.1
Second, Chapter 19 of the current Laozi reads:
Abandon sagacity and discard wisdom; then the people will benefit a hundredfold. Abandon benevolence and discard rightness; then the people will return to filial piety [xiao] and compassion. Abandon skill and discard profit; then there will be no thieves or robbers … Therefore let the people … manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.
In these instances, the Laozi seems to offer two contrasting assessments of xiao. Whereas in Chapter 18 it views xiao as negative or at best a secondary virtue, in Chapter 19 it gives a positive assessment or at least assigns a higher value to filial piety as compared with benevolence and rightness. This is one of the key problems that confront interpreters of the Laozi. Although many scholars have attempted to explain the apparent contradiction, it seems difficult to reach a coherent interpretation that would reconcile these two views of xiao. However, with the discovery of the Guodian bamboo texts, which include fragments of Laozi, the Yucong
(a collection of sayings associated with the Confucian school), and other Confucian writings, I believe we can now resolve this difficulty.2 This is the focus of the present chapter. To situate the concept of xiao in the Laozi and the Yucong in proper context, I begin by examining a number of passages from the Zhuangzi, which serve to bring out the evolution of xiao in early Daoist philosophy.
Repudiation and affirmation of xiao in the Zhuangzi
The concept of xiao appears in Chapters 4 (“In the World of Men”), 12 (“Heaven and Earth”), 14 (“The Turning of Heaven”), 26 (“External Things”), 29 (“Robber Zhi”), and 31 (“The Old Fisherman”) of the Zhuangzi.3 On the surface, as in the Laozi, the Zhuangzi also seems to present a conflicting picture. Whereas some passages seem to repudiate xiao, others affirm it. In what follows I describe these two positions simply as the “negative” (N) and “positive” (P) views of xiao, respectively. The problem, again, is that two opposing and contradictory views of the concept appear to be featured in the same work.
Four instances of the negative view of xiao may be identified in the Zhuangzi. Chapter 12 of the Zhuangzi (N1) gives the following account:
Chi-zhang Man-Ji said, “Everybody wants to see the world well ordered. If it had been so already, what point would there have been in calling in the man of the Yu clan? The man of the Yu clan was [like] medicine to a sore. But to wait until you go bald and then buy a wig, to wait until you get sick and then call for a doctor, to prepare the medicine like a true filial son [xiaozi
] and present it to your loving father, wearing a grim and haggard look — this the true sage would be ashamed to do. In an age of Perfect Virtue the worthy are not honored, the talented are not employed. The rulers … and the people … do what is right and proper but they do not know that this is rightness. They love one another but they do not know that this is benevolence. They are faithful but they do not know that this is loyalty.4
A second example comes from Chapter 14 (N2):
Tang … asked Zhuangzi about benevolence … Zhuangzi said, “Perfect benevolence knows no [familial] affection.” [Tang] said, “… where affection is lacking, there will be no love, and if there is no love, there will be no filial piety [xiao]. Can you possibly say that perfect benevolence is unfilial?” Zhuangzi replied, “No, it is not so. Perfect benevolence is truly exalted! It can certainly not be fully described by xiao. And what you are talking about is not something that surpasses filial piety, but something that doesn't even come up to it … To be filial out of respect is easy; to be filial out of love is hard. To be filial out of love is easy; to forget parents is hard. To forget parents is easy; to make parents forget you is hard. To make parents forget you is easy; to forget the whole world is hard. To forget the whole world is easy; to make the whole world forget you is hard. Virtue … rests in nonaction. Its bounty enriches ten thousand ages, and yet no one in the world knows this. Why all … this talk of benevolence and filial piety? Filial piety, brotherliness, benevolence, rightness, loyalty, trust, honor, integrity — for all of these you must drive yourself and make a slave of Virtue. They are not worth prizing.5
Third, according to Zhuangzi Chapter 26 (N3):
External things cannot be counted on … There is no ruler who does not want his ministers to be loyal. But loyal ministers are not always trusted … There is no parent who does not want his son to be filial [xiao]. But filial sons are not always loved. Hence, Xiao Ji grieved and Zeng Shen sorrowed [both were paragons of filial piety in early Chinese writings] … Delight and sorrow … trap man on either side so that he has no escape. Fearful and trembling, he can reach no completion. His mind is as though trussed and suspended between heaven and earth, bewildered and lost in delusion. Profit and loss rub against each other and light the countless fires that burn up the inner harmony of the mass of men … so that in time all is consumed and the Dao comes to an end.6
Fourth, in Chapter 29 (N4), the famous “Robber Zhi” states:
Robber Zhi [in a great rage] said, “This must be none other than that crafty hypocrite Kong Qiu [Confucius] from the state of Lu! Well, tell him this for me. You make up your stories, invent your phrases … you pour out your flood of words, your fallacious theories. You eat without ever plowing, clothe yourself without ever weaving. Wagging your lips, clacking your tongue, you invent any kind of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ that suits you, leading astray the rulers of the world, keeping the scholars of...
Table of contents
Cover
Half Title
Full Title
Copyright
Contents
List of contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The evolution of the concept of filial piety (xiao) in the Laozi, the Zhuangzi, and the Guodian bamboo text Yucong
2 Filial piety with a vengeance: the tension between rites and law in the Han
3 Reverent caring: the parent-son relationship in early medieval tales of filial offspring
4 Filial devotion for women: a Buddhist testimony from third-century China
5 Immortal parents and universal kin: family values in medieval Daoism
6 Filial piety and “authentic parents” in religious Daoism
7 Imperial filial piety as a political problem
8 Emperor Chengzu and imperial filial piety of the Ming dynasty: from the Classic of Filial Piety to the Biographical Accounts of Filial Piety
9 Does xiao come before ren?
10 Filial piety, commiseration, and the virtue of ren
