Salvation in ancient Chinese thought: the perfect action of the sage-ruler
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The paper analyses a topic shared (but differently conceptualized) by a number of ancient Chinese texts – the idea of imperceptible action of the sage. The core of this idea is a concept of ruling under which the ruled are not aware of the ruling. The paper focuses on this idea in the Mengzi, Xunzi, Laozi, and the Zhuangzi. The idea is conceptualized differently in different texts – the key words may be "spirit, god, god-like" (shen), "doing nothing" (wuwei), "being so of itself" (ziran), or "fate" (ming). The paper shows that despite the various instantations and contexts the general idea of perfect action of the sage is shared across diverse (Confucian and Taoist) texts. |
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