Calamity And Order

Five Elements Chi, a part of History of the Former Han Dynasty, compiles thesignificant calamities during the period from Lu Yingong to Wang Mang andcommentary by Former Han Dynasty calamity researcher towards them. Since TangDynasty, the text is repelled by mainstream notion due to its arbitrary connection ofcalamities with human affairs, whereas it’s still negated, together with the theory ofyin-yang and five elements as its substratum, in modern times due to the rise ofscientism. In these years, besides exploring textual historical material, some scholarsattempted to deliver its value at political or moral viewpoints, but these handfulresearch are all analysis restricted in the frame of traditional imperial politics andmoral, which leads to the limited outcome.In my opinion, Five Elements Chi is a text, orchestrated by Confucians, aimingat avoid social crisis and stabilize the social order by dint of Yin-Yang Theory andFive-Elements Theory. To understand the text, we need reveal the politic andcultural background, not merely analyze the text itself. Besides, clarification of bothgroup and individual motivation is indispensable.In Former Han Dynasty, regime was unified from dispersive and the economywas revived from collapsed; however the tribal variety and sundry conventions hasfundamentally jeopardized the social stability. In the belief circumstance at the time,the emperor resorted to supernatural power for bless in order to perpetuate theirreign, which result in an even denser mysticism atmosphere. Confucians in theFormer Han Dynasty establish themselves as the prophets bring truth about as torealize their ideal social orders and gain dignity, right catering the demand of theemperor. Taking calamity as the warn from the god of the misbehavior of theemperor, the calamity researcher vest themselves the special power to link the godwith the subcelestial world and explain the calamity, and thus centralize theConfucianism from the brink of then academic world. They mix Confucianism, theory of yin-yang and five elements, faith in god, etc. and theoretically construct asanctioned order, through which they seeking a standard correlating model in orderto find the primary reason of social disorder.Five Elements Chi has recorded nearly400calamities and its annotation, a sohuge group of data that I have to abstract the construction of the text by means ofconstruction analysis: Firstly, the calamity record are separated into two parts,respectively the natural calamity and the man-made one who are related in acorresponding mechanism. Secondly, all the calamities are found to fall into46categories, which can be attributed to theory of five elements construction. Thirdly,man-made part depicts social disorder at various strata, all of which is imputed tothe misbehavior of emperor. All the misbehavior falls into about50categories alsocan be attributed to five elements construction. Lastly, the Five Elementcorresponding mechanism realized a correspondence of natural calamity andman-made one.There existed several different mechanism of corresponding relevancy, whereastheir rationales are all the same, that is, the homogeneous, of certain element, are allinter-deducible. Some calamity researcher tried to find out the Yin-Yang induction, arelevancy existing between calamity and ‘Yin-Yang’-homogeneous human affairs.However more of them, including the authors of Five Elements Chi, strive for the‘Five-elements’ induction between calamity and ‘five elements’-homogeneoushuman affairs Thereupon, the human-related disorder can be deducted through thecorresponding mechanism when something of calamity falls. The meticulouslydesigned model could predict and warn social disorder at country level, as well ascontrol the deterioration of it.According to the relevant historical material, I observe the author group of FiveElements Chi and their behavior characteristic, together with impression to societymanagement. The group is dubbed as ‘Confucian and warlock’ in the late FormerHan Dynasty, which contains the double role of. As Confucian, they attend, bolstered by “six meridians”, the society management. While as warlock, theymaster natural science in aspects such as astronomy, calendar, divination, etc., anddevoted to connect the nature with human society, an established relevancy theywish to divine. The success of calamity researcher is from constructing theConfucian doctrine of heaven by combining Confucianism and theory of Yin-yang,which consolidating caste and ethics by the power of Heaven’s way since the faith isentirely reigned by Yin-yang and Five-elements from a chaos. The social order isstabilized once emperor’s behavior is constricted by calamity commentary. On theother hand, their gradually loomed defect doomed it to accessory of politics from atheory actively stabilizing the society. In the very late of Former Han dynasty,calamity theory is abused and fell to one of the political weapon, resulting inveritably another social chaos, where the calamity theory perished step by step.