Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 8 (Chinese and Japanese).djvu/44

20, contain proportionately many more references to mysterious events and supernatural abilities than the original sayings of the Tao Teh King, while at the same time they carry the views of Lao Tzǔ concerning immortality well along the road toward the magical practices, mystical charms and alchemic studies of Chang Tao-ling. From the time of Chang to that of T'ai Tsung at the opening of the Han dynasty, the influence of the Conservative School and the Confucian classics was at a low ebb, due in large measure to the rising popularity of Buddhistic teaching which came in upon China like a flood during this period. The whole trend of thought during those six hundred odd years, was in the direction of belief in miraculous events, worship of idols, and admiration of an ascetic life as most conducive to religious purification. With this state of mind, which had lasted for so long a time, T'ai Tsung found a soil well-prepared for the new religion of Taoism in which asceticism was favoured and magical arts were practised under the sanction of the ethical teachings of Lao Tzǔ. To asceticism and magic the Conservative Confucian school was unalterably opposed, but the mixture of Lao Tzǔ's ethical teaching in Taoism and its backward look to the early historical and mythical characters of China, saved Taoism from any persecution by the Conservative class, not only at the time of its origin, but also during all later centuries. Buddhism was persecuted because it was foreign; Taoism, which contained more superstition than its foreign rival, was looked upon with favour because its whole atmosphere was nationalistic.

This strong nationalistic strain in Taoism led its supporters to claim the early Emperor, Huang Ti, as the real founder of this new religion, thus going far back beyond Lao Tzǔ in point of time and prestige. The principles advocated by Confucius were attributed by him to Yao and Shun, of the twenty-fourth and twenty-third centuries, but Taoism went back three centuries earlier to the first of the five sovereigns, who is reputed