Ronnie Littlejohn, "Transmission of the Chinese Moral Culture: Morality and
Ledger Books in the World of Moral Self-Regulation," The Southeast Review
of Asian Studies, Vol. 21 (1999): 15-31.
Introduction
One of the principal purposes of this paper is to bring
the study of popular culture into the mainstream of academic discourse about
Chinese moral tradition. While it is commonly thought that reading the Analects,
the Doctrine of the Mean, or Zhu Xi will give us the story of what the practice
of moral life in China was like in the past, an overemphasis on the
elite documents has led to grave distortions in our grasp of the moral form
of life as it was practiced in China.
One such fundamental distortion is the belief that the
moral life of persons in China was shaped exclusively by one and only one
of the so-called "three teachings": Confucianism, Daoism, or Buddhism.
A study of the materials of popular culture used in this paper, however,
reveals that for most Chinese these three formative streams flowed into a
much more synthetic and eclectic river of moral life than can be described
by any one of these traditions alone. At the same time, though, a remarkable
convergence in the moral life upheld in the popular culture and the teachings
of the classical elite texts can also be shown.
This claim can be unpacked through more than one medium
of popular culture, and I want to delimit my study first of all by narrowing
the sources on which I will focus. Popular culture as a carrier
of a tradition's moral form of life may have an enormous range of phenomena,
from art to religious cults, from education to shadow plays.
One very fine source of popular culture in China's history is its literature,
as this shows up first in the storytelling of the history of the people and
secondarily in its more conventional forms of the novel and drama.
But for this paper, I am turning my focus to another medium, that of the
so-called morality books. I will include also the ledgers of merit
and demerit which typically accompany these books or occur within the morality
books themselves.
I have chosen these works not because they were composed
by members of the popular culture, but because they were designed for the
particular function of providing a moral education to the Chinese public.
The evidence reveals that these works played an important role in the popular
culture of China as handbooks for ethical life from the twelfth to eighteenth
centuries.
Previous studies of the morality books such as that done
by Cynthia Brokaw on the morality books and ledgers of merit have focused
on one or more of the following: 1) whether the idea of retribution
and merit accumulation was appropriate to a higher morality, especially in
Confucianism and philosophical, rather than popular, Buddhism; 2) whether
the alleged connections between the morality books and the classical canon
(Confucius) can be made convincing; 3) how to measure the contribution
and influence of heterodox religious cults to the books; and 4)
the various socio-political functions the morality books played in Chinese
civilization, especially during the turbulent Ming-Qing transition.
What has been missing in all of this is a focus on the
implications of the actual content of the teachings of the morality books
and the ledgers of merit as a reflection of the moral culture of China.
So, I propose to do the following. 1) I will provide a brief
introduction to the nature of the morality books and the ledgers of merit
and demerit themselves, identifying along the way the texts used for this
study. 2) I will turn my attention to several specific works
in this genre and describe the moral content which each contains.
3) I will offer a summary of the content of the morality books and
ledgers. 4) I will offer an analysis relating the morality books
to the Confucian Analects, showing that the ledgering tradition transmitted
a moral culture which was remarkably consistent with the Confucian ideal.
I. The Nature of the Morality Books and Ledgers of Merit and Demerit
What Were The Morality Books and Ledgers of Merit?
The morality books made their appearance in the Song period
and were very popular in southern and central China. It is difficult
to assess their use in the turbulent periods of Liao (916-1125) West Xia
(1032-1227) and Jin (1115-1234), but it is clear that they are in wide usage
in the periods of the Yuan (1271-1368) and Ming (1368-1644).
Tadao Sakai observes of the morality books during this period: "...These
books served not only the lower levels of society, but all types and classes
of people irrespective of social status, economic position, and religious
affiliation." The underlying idea of the morality
books is that virtue is rewarded and vice punished. Besides identifying
good deeds and their rewards, and evil deeds and their retributions, the
books also give tales drawn to illustrate how these processes evidence themselves
in "real life.”
Early on, many of the books had
appended to them ledgers of merit and demerit. The ledgers tended not
merely to list good and evil deeds, but actually to quantify a deed with
some merit or demerit points. For example, one seventeenth-century
ledger allots one hundred merit points to a man who saves the life of another,
but deducts one hundred from the account of a man who hoards rice rather
than distributing it to the needy in times of famine. The duration
of a person's life, together with his fortunes in this world and hereafter,
depended solely on these merits.
The Development of the Morality Books and Ledgers
There is no coherent history of the morality books or
system of merits in China yet written although there are some fine discussions
of the books which do put them in a rough order. But what
is clear is that the earliest morality books already have some system of
merit accumulation in them, even though they also have the most rudimentary
calculation system. They display an intensely eclectic conflation of
moral content, drawing from each of China's major formative moral tributaries:
Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.
Writers in the Han (202 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) held to the basic
concept of retribution, but they did not attribute its working to a morally
conscious heaven or spirit, but rather to the movements of qi. A human
deed was a movement of qi and it influenced or acted on (here the word is
gan ) the qi of the cosmos around it, evoking a response appropriate to its
quality and magnitude. Ganying, the term for this "action and response,"
is later a key concept in the system of merit and demerit embodied in the
ledgers.
When Buddhism was introduced into China during the last
years of the Han period, the notion of moral retribution was given even greater
currency. "Buddhist doctrine asserted that all the events of a man's
life were subject to the law of cause and effect (yinguo or ganying )."
A good action would produce a good effect, a bad action a bad effect.
While the operation of Buddhist retribution and the karmic system was different
from that of the action-and-response process, the final message of these
concepts was essentially the same.
By the fourth century C.E. there is evidence of a numerical
method of merit accumulation tied to good and evil deeds in the work entitled,
Master Who Embraces Simplicity (c.283-343 C.E.) In this work, the system
is designed to aid in the attainment of immortality. Here for the first
time, good deeds are assigned merits and 300 merits will make one an earthbound
immortal, while 1,200 merits will make one a celestial immortal capable of
ascending to heaven.
By the periods of the Sui (581-618) and T'ang (618-960),
the major streams of Chinese moral culture all shared, whatever their other
philosophical and ethical differences, a basic belief in some form of cosmic
retribution tied to a defined set of good and evil deeds which should be
taught to the ordinary person.
Then, in the twelfth century, two landmark texts were
produced that ultimately served as definitive statements of this way of thinking
about the moral life in Chinese culture. These were the Tract
of the Most Exalted on Action and Response (1164) which was a book of piety
and ethics, and the Ledger of Merit and Demerit of the Taiwei Immortal (1171).
By the late Ming (1600-1644), four hundred years later, these texts had not
only survived but they had become together the bible of the merit-demerit
system and they functioned as a kit for moral self-cultivation.
From 1200 to 1569 there are numerous other candidates
for study among the morality books and ledgers of merit. The date,
origination, and audience of almost all of them is arguable. In 1913, L.
Davrout translated several texts for the Catholic Mission Press and published
them under the title, Moral Tenets and Customs in China.
Included in these texts was a small Daoist morality book with many Buddhist
references entitled, The Precious Record Transmitted to Men to Move Them.
We may date this work between the Song and the Ming period (1270?-1368?).
We will take a closer look at the contents of this text in the following
section.
The reinterpretation of the full ledger form came in the
Ming in the 1560s at the hands of the Ch'an monk Yungu and his disciple Yuan
Huang. Yung and Yuan Huang repeatedly turned to the Classic of History,
the Classic of Songs, the Classic of Changes, and Mencius (albeit in an unconventional
reading) as authorities for their system of merits. Yuan wrote the work which
interests us in the next section: Determining One's Own Destiny.
In the days of the Ming-Qing transition the corruption
of the political system made it difficult to preserve order and it was in
this context that most of the surviving 17th and 18th century ledgers were
created. These new texts were written by private scholars to instruct
the ordinary people as guides or handbooks for comprehensive moral and social
instruction and they were no longer set in the speculative religious
cults of the earliest morality books.
By the seventeenth century the ledger book Meritorious
Deeds at No Cost was printed. This book was more radical than previous
ledgers. It taught that it was possible to achieve merit through the
performance of works which do not involve any material expense. The
significance of the book was in its careful delineation of the moral expectations
of persons by their roles in life. The categories it provided were:
Local gentry; Candidates for officialdom; Peasants; Craftsmen; Merchants
and dealers; Physicians and pharmacists; Subordinate office workers; Women;
Soldiers; Buddhist and Daoist monks; Household slaves and servants; and People
in General. Under each of these classifications the work lists good
deeds involving no cost. Persons might consider themselves under more
than one role.
In the early Qing, the morality books had a truly remarkable
addition. The Qing emperor Kangxi proclaimed the Sacred Edict.
From its decree in the latter part of 1670, the Sacred Edict together with
other morality books formed the basic texts for public lectures as
a means of instructing all the people of a community in proper behavior.
These instructions were not regarded as restricted to a specific religion,
society, or school but were meant for all citizens of the Qing empire.
The preface says,
Our Sacred Ancestor, the Benevolent Emperor [Kangxi], himself having been
given great authority by Heaven, was disposed to display his sympathy for
the benighted. He expressly promulgated the Sacred Edict composed of
sixteen items to constitute forever a method of indoctrination....Truly this
is an important way to transform the people and to reform custom...The dull
and slow-witted people of the villages and lanes cannot fathom the instructions
of the classics nor can they apprehend their profundity, so they do not fully
see the intent of the Sages....The printing of the Direct Explanation
is for the very purpose of elaborating and spreading the fine civilizing
influence of the Amplified Instructions on the Sacred Edict so as to bring
rectitude to the hearts of men. Accordingly, I have brought forth this
book to be distributed in the various prefectures and counties. Each
of our officials and outstanding citizens ought in all sincerity to do his
best to realize this measure. May they daily have the young and the
old come to them so that they can instruct them....
The Use of the Morality Books and Ledgers
We can best understand how the morality books were used
by focusing on the most famous text in the group: the Tract.
If the influence of books is measured by the number of copies in which they
appear, the Tract will probably be assigned the first place of all publications
on the globe. According to Suzuki and Carus at the time of their edition
in 1906, more copies of the Tract had been published in China than
any other book in history, far exceeding those of the Bible and Shakespeare.
The Tract provided the basic material for lecturers well
into the 1700s. The Tract also was made accessible by the creation
of versions of the text which contained illustrative stories for moral teaching,
usually drawn from the popular tradition and also supported by woodblock
prints on the upper portion of each page. Thus there was a visual iconography
for those who could not read the text, and in the well-known stories typically
appended to the Tract once a few lines of the stories were read, the common
person could complete the tale. The simple physical possession
of a copy of the Tract was considered to be meritorious. So, one's
ability to read the Tract was not as determinative as was one's commitment
to have it and to learn its contents in whatever way possible, whether through
lecture, private instruction, or reading.
Although it was once thought that the morality and ledger books were used
only in heterodox religious circles or for private devotion, Wu Pei-yi has
shown that the Tract and other ledger books were used in schools as a part
of the public confession of transgressions, which was a recognized way of
training children in the practice of morality.
Li Zhaoluo (1769-1841) reported that the ledgers were
used instead of the once popular Lesser Learning of Zhu Xi. Chen
Hongmou (1696-1771), a distinguished provincial official and grand secretary,
included the ledger Meritorious Deeds at No Cost in his list of materials
recommended for use in village schools. This use occurred in
spite of the fact that scholars did not altogether approve of the way the
ledgers quantified the "proper books" and they certainly disapproved of the
simple tales used to illustrate the merit and retributive message of the
books.
Of course, the ledgers were used by adults and not merely
by school children. It was common for the ledgers and morality books
to be available in the Daoist and Buddhist temples of southern and southeastern
China. Copies were used as far north as Manchuria. Aside from
religious sects and groups who made them available in the temples of the
villages and market towns, benevolence societies, community compacts, and
public lectures were the primary arenas of ledger use. One local society,
the Yunqi Hui in Pinghe county is known to have required members to submit
a completed ledger listing 100,000 merits in order to gain admission.
In the early Qing, the morality books were used in much
the same way as the Sacred Edict later came to function. They formed
the basic texts for the market town and village public lectures. Lectures
might be conducted anywhere, in one's neighborhood, in the market, in the
village temples. The audience might be any group, scholars, peasants,
craftsmen, merchants, diviners, or students. But the target was
the average citizen. The avowed purpose was the instruction of
all the people of a community in proper behavior. Long before the issuance
of the Sacred Edict the instructions of the morality books and the ledgers
had ceased to be regarded as restricted to a specific religion, society,
or school. But with the Sacred Edict as a morality book this disconnection
was recognized by the emperor himself.
The work entitled, Regulations for Lectures on the Sacred
Edict dated 1705 provides a complete set of instructions for how to carry
out a lecture ceremony; where to hold the lecture; how to purify the site;
where to place the incense, candles and flower vases; where the auditors
were to stand; what furniture was required; when the musicians were to place;
and so forth. This makes clear that the village lecture was no street
corner affair, but highly ritualized. According to the Regulations
ledger books were to be placed on the altar and leading citizens were to
record the behavior of the villagers in these ledgers.
In Kuo Mo-jo's autobiography there
is clear evidence of how the function of the morality books, the Sacred Edict
and the ledgers all became conflated into a popularized moral education.
Lecturers on the Sacred Edict, who told stories about loyalty, filial piety,
and fidelity from the morality books (shan-shu ) often came to our village.
These morality books were for the most part made up of folktales. When
it came time for the lecturer to speak he would stand up and recite the maxims
of the Sacred Edict. After that, he would get back up on the platform
and start telling stories....This type of simple storytelling was a form
of entertainment that people in the villages liked to listen to very much.
The better storytellers could make the listeners weep. Before I had
begun my schooling, I was already able to understand the morality books.
II. The Moral Content of The Morality Books and Ledgers
The Tract of the Most Exalted on Action and Response
As we have seen, the best known of the morality books
is Tract of the Most Exalted on Action and Response. This work was
published first in the Southern Song period. It was written by an unknown
author sometime around the year 1164. It consists of only 1,277 characters
and has appeared in numerous editions and formats. The Tract is written in
an uncomplicated form of classical Chinese and perhaps by the late imperial
period some commoners could read it.
The 1794 version of this work contains a long commentary
in which the commentator sought to prove the book was in agreement with the
teaching of Confucius. But the Tract itself claims support
from Daoist and Buddhist sources as well.
The work is attributed to Taishang, which means, "The
Most High", and by which is probably meant Laozi, the traditional founder
of Daoism. In the introductory remarks of the Tract, Taishang says
that transgressions reduce a person’s lifespan, and poverty comes upon
him, he meets with calamity and misery, all men hate him. He
tells of the spirit-lords who are record keepers in charge of recording good
and evil deeds. Moral offenses may cause the loss of between 100 days
and 12 years of life each. And he says that those who wish to attain
heavenly sainthood should perform 1,300 good deeds and those who wish to
attain earthly sainthood should perform 300.
Then follows a description of the acts of the good man
and the blessings which accompany them. The moral acts which are good
include the following: loyalty; filiality; friendliness; self-correction;
compassion on orphans and widows; respecting authority, the elderly, and
one's ancestors; not injuring any life; grieving at the misfortunes of one's
neighbors and rejoicing at their good luck; not calling attention to the
faults of others; humility; renouncing desires; bearing no grudges; and generosity.
There follows a much longer section on the misdeeds of
the evil man and the punishments which follow them. These are
some of the evil deeds noted: being unfilial; treating one's ruler or parents
with contempt; being disrespectful of one's elders and rebelling against
those one should serve; being unkind and unfaithful to one's wife; lying;
breaking promises; being cruel or inhumane; oppressing subordinates; bearing
grudges and not forgiving; murdering; stealing; taking bribes and being unjust;
not correcting mistakes; disrespect for the holy and the rites; impropriety
and disregard for the proper way to do things; not controlling desires; not
being content with one's place; ambition for power; being shameless; impurity
of thought and motive; deceptive; being wasteful; being envious; delighting
in the misfortunes of others; using violence; being greedy; being full of
vile talk and slander; being self-indulgent, rebellious, or bragging and
being conceited; being frivolous. The Tract warns against deceiving
the ignorant, molesting orphans and oppressing widows, squandering a neighbor's
property, being happy about a neighbor's misfortune. Some evils are
personal: refusing to correct one's errors, wishing others to incur loss,
cherishing thoughts of seduction, being greedy and covetous. Some evils
have to do with the cultural and religious rites: using hearth fire to burn
incense, cooking with dirty firewood, cursing in the direction of the north.
These latter deeds should not be considered trivial as some in the West might
think of them. The Chinese moral culture does not distinguish between
morality, aesthetics, and etiquette.How one cooks and whether one uses dirty
firewood or not are profoundly “moral” issues for the Chinese, according
to the Tract.
The Tract seeks its moral authority from many sources.
The text opens with a quote from the Chronicle of Zuo, it employs the cosmology
of The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, it borrows passages from the Dhammapada,
and shows widespread and thoroughgoing influence of Confucian moral teachings.
The author's references and allusions are eclectic, quoting or paraphrasing
Confucian classics, as well as Buddhist and Daoist texts.
The Ledger of Merit and Demerit of the Taiwei Immortal
This work appeared less than a decade after the Tract.
It offered precise guidelines for the practice of merit calculation, providing
for the first time a means whereby men could keep their own moral accounts.
However, unlike the Tract, the Ledger of the Taiwei Immortal can be linked
to a specific Daoist sect and even to a particular stage in the sect's history.
The Taiwei Ledger is a product of a sect founded in the late fourth
century in Xinjian county, Jiangxi to worship Xu Sun (239-292/374?).
Xu Sun himself was said to have been a Confucian official, dragon-slayer,
practitioner of Daoist arts, and immortal. He was also at one time
prefect of Jiangxi. Many miracles were attributed to him (e.g., using
cinnabar to change roof tiles into gold so that the people could pay their
taxes). The tradition is that he was told that his merit was
so great that he was granted immortality and he ascended to heaven.
Despite the obvious Daoist origin of the text, Taiwei is careful to anchor
his Ledger to the Confucian classics as well:
The Classic of Changes says" 'The family that accumulates food will have
abundant good fortune. The family that accumulates evil will have abundant
bad fortune.' The Daoist rules say that if a man accumulates good,
heaven will reward him with good fortune; if he does evil, then heaven will
punish him with bad fortune. Therefore, the teachings of the Confucians
and the Daoists are as one.
The Taiwei Ledger represents not only a highly quantitative
view of morality, but also it is somewhat more sophisticated in its calculation
system than other ledgers usually appended to the Tract. In the Taiwei
Ledger keeping a ledger is supposed to help a person order and purify
his mind, obtaining quietude by recognizing the desires which are the inner
sources of his transgressions and eliminating them. Ledgering of this
sort is very much in keeping with the Neo-Confucian turn from a focus on
political service to a new emphasis on the process of internal moral cultivation
seen in Zhu Xi. Yet, it is only one of the many tones which sound the
presence of Buddhist sentiments in the text as well.
Many traceable Confucian emphases show in the Taiwei Ledger.
Some are prescriptions against failing to venerate one's elders, teachers,
or parents (30 demerits); teaching others that to be immodest, unfilial,
uncompassionate (1 demerit each occasion), and venerating an ancestor (10
merits). More positively, venerating an ancestor receives 10 merits
per person. Users of the ledger are instructed to make sacrifices for
the sake of the country and to show loyalty to authority. Deeds which
relieve the sufferings of people or show generosity are meritorious.
Paying for the burial of the dead (50 merits per corpse); aiding widowers
or widows, orphans, or the poor (1 merit per 100 cash); constructing ferries,
repairing bridges and roads (1 merit per 100 cash). On a more personal
level, the ledger gives merits for humility and self-cultivation morally.
Many other moral teachings reveal the Daoist influences
on the Ledger. "Using charms or acupuncture to cure one person of a
severe illness--ten merits, or a slight illness--five merits (if payment
is received from the family of the patient, there is no merit) "transmitting
a charm, a method, a medicine, or a technique for the preservation of life,
and so forth--five merits per occasion (one merit if one receives payments)."
For each 100 cash spent on repairing the images of the sages, altars, temple
pennants, vessels--one merit is received. Printing and distributing
scriptures and morality books earns ten merits.
The Precious Record Transmitted to Men to Move Them
This work had many editions which varied in length depending
upon whether "The Ten Courts of Hell" was appended to it. The book
dates between the Song and Ming periods. James Legge assigns it among
the Daoist documents of the period, whereas D.T. Suzuki and Paul Carus consider
it a Buddhist work. In the text the author makes specific reference
to "the Ten Precepts of Buddhism" as crucial moral guides.
Buddhism has ten precepts which are: first, let the unfaithful and impious,
the cruel and unjust men become converted and be faithful, pious, compassionate
to all men and to all beings; second, do not steal in secret and do not seek
your own advantage at the cost of your neighbor; try to gain merits and help
the unfortunate; third, do not kill any living being to gratify your desires;
be compassionate to animals. Fourth, do not commit adultery with the
wife or the daughter of another, thus ruining their life, spoiling their
virtue, offending the spirits; fifth, do not destroy the good relations of
your neighbor; bind together by good words the hearts of your countrymen;
sixth, do not slander good people and do not praise yourself; seventh, do
not get drunk, do not over eat; grant to nature and to body what is necessary;
eighth, do not covet continuously and do not gather wealth, without taking
pity upon the poor; ninth, do not make friends with bad men; keep company
only with men better than yourself and who may teach you; tenth, do not speak
much, do not cry nor laugh to loud; be sedate, simple and exercise yourself
in virtue."
In what follows, I have included page numbers from the
translation of the Precious Record in Davrout's Moral Tenets of China.
The work teaches filial piety and encourages persons to do good in order
to benefit departed ancestors and parents (341). Readers are taught
to give heed to the moral instructions of those who speak for the city gods
and village gods and respect their authority (341). The book teaches
the value of humility (335); use of riches to benefit those in need (335);
loyalty to family and rulers (335). Each person is instructed to "try
to gain merits" in self cultivation (335). The importance of being
trustworthy is stressed (335) and the need to recognize the merits of others
instead of focusing on oneself is emphasized. (335)
In The Precious Record, persons are told to keep purity
of thought (337); show propriety (335); control their desires (335); practice
reciprocity (335); to be generous (335); just (335) and a friend to good
people (335). There is a very extended discussion on the moral responsibility
to avoid violence and be peaceful (337).
The work reflects also the characteristic Daoist and Buddhist
emphasis on vegetarianism, but does not require complete abstinence from
meat. Although, it does say that those who kill animals to eat them
will return in their next lives as animals. Other extended passages
are devoted to warning against sexual lust, though celibacy is not required;
and against killing, though complete non-violence and pacifism is not an
obligation.
Determining One's Own Destiny
This work was written by Yuan Huang (1533-1606) who was
from a wealthy landowning family in Jiashan County, Zhejiang Province.
The ledger indicates the sort of moral life expected by categorizing deeds
according to their merits and demerits. Continuing a family's line
of succession is a form of filial piety and interfering with this is 50 demerits.
Cultivating one's moral life, accepting unpleasant truths about one's need
for improvement is worth 3 merits each time. There is one merit for
each 100 cash spent to pass along merit to the dead and one's ancestors.
There are many other deeds mentioned. For example, keeping promises is significant,
since each broken promise is 1 demerit. Being trustworthy and not revealing
secrets is worth 1 merit each time. Whereas, one receives 30 demerits for
revealing a secret. There are merits for recognizing others' merits
and not one's own. The good are circumspect, and do not reveal the
mistakes of others to the public (1 merit each). The good control their
desires, such as refusing invitations to drinking parties (1 merit each);
and they receive merit for propriety and courtesy (1 merit for each such
deed).
This ledger gives substantial attention to being generous
and caring for the needs of others. Virtuous deeds include burying
one who has no family (50 merits); feeding the hungry (1 merit each event);
releasing the poor from debts they owe (1 merit each event); and giving things
such as tea, medicine, clothing to the poor (1 merit each). In the
same vein, the ledger gives merits for saving a person from oppression (30
merits).
Good persons accept wrongs done to them without retaliation
(3 merits each). They bear slander without complaint (3 merits each).
They are peaceful. They avoid violence and fighting (1 merit each)
and killing animals (5 demerits each time they kill an animal). Even
keeping a weapon that can kill a human is an evil deed (10 demerits each).
Meritorious Deeds at No Cost
The significance of this morality book was in its careful
delineation of the moral expectations of persons by their roles in life.
In the section on "People in General," filial piety is a good deed, and it
includes the following: not showing anger toward one's parents, not
divulging their faults, not letting them do heavy work, and persuading them
to correct their mistakes. The good are those who are content to live
modestly and within their means. They do not divulge secrets, avoid
deceit and are trustworthy. They correct their own faults and recognize
others' merit more than their own. They do not harbor evil thoughts,
nor do they speak of others' humble ancestry. When they hear someone
speaking about the failings of others, they make him stop. Whey they
hear someone praising the good deeds of another, they assist him.
The “People in General” section of the work is filled
with the moral valorization of the sorts of deeds which one in the West might
consider “only courtesy.” These deeds are not distinguished in the
morality books from matters such as justice, keeping promises, and so forth.
They have their own place in the deeds of merit because in Chinese tradition
the art of living is not carved up into morality, etiquette, aesthetics,
and spirituality. Consider that these deeds are meritorious:
lending rain coats, advising others where the shallows in rivers are located,
and not trampling a neighbor's crops. Just deeds are also given merit.
The ledger user must survey his life in these areas: buy and sell with the
same measures, do not use debased silver, do not damage the livelihood of
others by coercion or deception, clear others of false charges, and do not
be avaricious. Social relations are made easier by the moral teaching
that one should not dwell on the fault's of others; nor forget their kindness.
The Sacred Edict
The Sacred Edict consisted of sixteen maxims, all seven
characters in length and possessing an identical grammatical structure.
1. Esteem most highly filial piety and brotherly submission, in order
to give due importance to the social relations.
2. Behave with generosity toward your kindred, in order to illustrate
harmony and benignity.
3. Cultivate peace and concord in your neighborhoods, in order to prevent
quarrels and litigations.
4. Recognize the importance of husbandry and the culture of the mulberry
tree, in order to ensure a sufficiency of clothing and food.
5. Show that you prize moderation and economy, in order to prevent
the lavish waste of your means.
6. Give weight to colleges and schools, in order to make correct the
practice of the scholar.
7. Extirpate strange principles, in order to exalt the correct doctrine.
8. Lecture on the laws, in order to warn the ignorant and obstinate.
9. Elucidate propriety and yielding courtesy, in order to make manners
and customs good.
10. Labor diligently at your proper callings, in order to stabilize the will
of the people.
11. Instruct sons and younger brothers, in order to prevent them from doing
what is wrong.
12. Put a stop to false accusations, in order to preserve the honest and
the good.
13. Warn against sheltering deserters, in order to avoid being involved in
their punishment.
14. Fully remit your taxes, in order to avoid being pressed for payment.
15. Unite in hundreds and tithings, in order to put an end to thefts and
robbery.
16. Remove enmity and anger, in order to show the importance due to the person
and life.
III. Analysis of the Findings
Our study has focused on several works in the morality
and ledgering tradition of China. The works whose content we described were
the Tract of the Most Exalted on Action and Response (1164); the Ledger of
Merit and Demerit of the Taiwei Immortal (1171); The Precious Record Transmitted
to Men to Move Them (1270?-1368?); Determining One's Own Destiny (1560);
the Meritorious Deeds at No Cost (1600?-1650?); and the Sacred Edict (1670).
What I have tried to do throughout is suspend concern
over the retributive side of the morality books and turn our attention to
the content which they present. In our analysis I am interested in
doing two things. First, I want to remind the reader briefly of the
Confucian moral personality as it was described in the Analects. Second,
I want to show that the ledger tradition transmitted a set of moral ideals
which was remarkably consistent with the Analects. My intent in reaching
this second objective is to show that throughout the ledger period from 1164
to 1700, there was a self-conscious attempt to transmit a unified set of
moral values, and that even though the set was eclectic, it did not depart
radically from that proposed in the Analects.
In the Analects, it is virtuous to show filial piety toward parents and ancestors,
honoring the dead and respecting both familial and governmental authority.
Good men avoid clever talk; are not pretentious, but humble.
Moral ideals include being courteous, polite, affable and friendly, seeking
peace and not violence. The virtuous man is loyal to his authorities
and friends. He is contented with his place in life, being circumspect
on matters which are not his affair. He keeps silence on doubtful things
and holds his peace. He has firm control of his desires, and
seeks the learned and cultured life.
Good men are just and generous toward others, allowing the context of their
situation to help them determine how to use their wealth. They
forgive others when they wrong them, and never hold a grudge. They
do not do to others what they do not want done to themselves.
They keep their promises and are trustworthy. They recognize
the merits of others, rather than their own. And they are quick
to admit their own mistakes and failings, striving to cultivate themselves
morally. They keep their thoughts pure and set on what is good.
What can we say, then about the relationship between the
morality books and ledgers and this Confucian moral ideal? Was the
Confucian ideal only for the elite? Did the Confucian ideal ever touch
the quick of the popular culture and reach to the common person as a viable
way of life? Or, did it melt into the background as time went by, receding
into an arena which should interest only someone studying the history of
ethical systems?
If we consider what can be said about the relationship
between the morality books and the Confucian moral ideal, I think it would
be fair to notice that our study shows that the morality books and ledgers
have many moral instructions which are not directly treated in the Analects.
I will mention a few examples of what I mean. The Taiwei Ledger gives
merits for repairing images of sages, altars, and temple vessels; as well
as for distributing charms and methods for healing and preserving life.
Likewise, The Precious Record Transmitted to Men to Move Them makes meritorious
vegetarianism and ahimsa (i.e., not taking life in any form). But even
though it is true that the texts have some teachings not found in the Analects,
our summary of the contents of these works also indicates that there is a
broad common terrain between the content of their moral teachings and the
Analects. In fact, given The Taiwei Ledger 's origin in
the Xu Zhenjin sect, the fact that it emphasizes moral deeds which are unique
to its community is not surprising. What is remarkable is that it valorizes
and transmits a moral ideal so very much like that of the Analects.
The same may be said for the Precious Record, which has its roots in the
Daoist and Buddhist communities.
A caution is in order here. We cannot simply say
that those teachings which are consistent with the Analects were always and
invariably "the Confucian contribution" to the stream of Chinese moral culture.
The whole lesson of the morality books and ledgers is that this distinction
was not being made at all. The works did not say which of the
"Three Teachings" was the source of each instruction. To be sure, there
is the not uncommon reference to Laozi, Confucius, Mencius, or to a Buddhist
text or source. But these flow naturally into the text. It is
more often the commentators on these works which try to say which tributary
contributed what teaching and this is usually done to increase the acceptability
of the book or ledger in a new venue.
Likewise, we should use care in what we say about so "Confucian"
a text as the Sacred Edict. Coming as it did from Kangxi, we certainly
expect that it will be the most Confucian of the morality books, and it certainly
appears this is correct as its correspondence with the Analects is very high
indeed. But its precepts are also reinforced by the other morality
books of the period, especially the Tract. They too have owned the
moral ideal being transmitted and even if these reach the popular culture
through Daoist or Buddhist venues, the teachings nonetheless are there.
One can feel confident then in teaching the Analects as
representative of the moral culture of China well into the Qing Dynasty,
indeed up to the eighteenth century at least. It is no longer mere
speculation that the popular culture transmitted an ideal for moral personality
which was compatible with the Analects, and it is not just the elite officials
and rulers who believed in this ideal and sought to emulate it. The
morality books and ledgers draw back the veil on the content of the moral
culture China passed along to its progeny. Our survey of the content
of these texts reveals the transmission of an extraordinarily stable moral
ideal throughout the period of the twelfth through seventeenth centuries
which is consistent with that attributed to Confucius in the Analects.
Selected References
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