Discursive Resources and Collapsing Polarities: The Religious Thought of Tang Dynasty Scholar-Officials.

Abstract

ABSTRACT

DISCURSIVE RESOURCES AND COLLAPSING POLARITIES: THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT OF TANG DYNASTY SCHOLAR-OFFICIALS

by

David W. Tien

Chair: James Robson

Doctrinal boundaries between religious traditions in medieval China were extraordinarily flexible, and the traditions were constantly shaping and drawing from one another. Yet much of modern scholarship attends to single traditions, thereby neglecting the complex interplay between the traditions, an integral feature of religion in China. This myopic focus is partly due to the pejorative connotations associated with the notion of religious “syncretism,” in which religious mixtures are supposedly corrupted, mongrel versions of putatively pure, reified essences. Instead of demarcating the field along sectarian lines, my research reveals how major strands of thought in medieval China did not belong to any one tradition and how this was true not only of the lower classes or of folk religions but also of the doctrinal speculations of the elite. The eighth century especially witnessed a vibrant interchange between ideas drawn from Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist sources. Modern researchers have long remarked on, but seldom studied, the presence of Buddhist themes and ideas in post-Tang dynasty Neo-Confucianism and although the Buddhist connections go as far back as the fourth-century CE, they are plainly evident in the thought of leading scholar-officials in the eighth-century. I examine the thought of three highly influential scholar-officials—Li Hua 李華 (ca.710-ca.767), Dugu Ji 獨孤及 (725-777), and Liang Su 梁肅 (753-793)—who dominated intellectual circles during one of the most pivotal periods in Chinese history.