Mohist And Taoism In The Period Form Wei, Jin Dynasties To Song, Yuan Dynasties

Among the schools in Pre-Qin dynasty, Mohist was very unique one. Mohist laid much emphasis on heaven and ghost with a strong religious belief, therefore the successors considered Mozi as a religious scholar. Mozi, however , did not actually believe in the existence of ghosts, and spirits of heaven, which only severd as a tool to advocate his own doctrine. These religious elements, assciated later religions with Mohism, which was particularly close to Taoism. Taoism was China's native religion, it was deep rooted in the soil of Chinese traditional culture, and in the course of its growth, it derived ideas and spirits from traditional doctrines of all kinds of schools, Mohism was one of them.It was generally believed that Taoism was derived from three the primitive religious consciousness, these were, worship of spirits, fairies theory and mysticism of Huang-lao school. Through our analysis and study, it was not difficult to find that, the three sources of Taoism were related to Mohist to a certain extent. Taoist classic peace absorbed a lot from the Mohist thoughts, for instance, the advocated ideas ghost Supervisor, mutual benefit, and strengthening agriculture and saving the cost, bear a universal love were all embodied very clearly in peace. The association form and strict discipline of Mohist school have a great impact on the establishment of the early Taoist groups. Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties are the development and transition period of Taoism, during which the Taoist religion has completed the changes from the civil original religion to the Taoist immortals. In this process, major changes of Taoist Doctrine has taken place, and as an important component of Taoist, Mohist theory has been hit heavily in this process of transformation. The thoughts reflecting thewill of the lower working people in Mohism——helping the poor and emergency,self-reliant and economy gradually disappear from Taoism, however, Mohism do not eliminate from the Taoist, and the thoughts of advocating the sage and non-life, as well as scientific and technological achievements are highly sought after in the Taoist immortals of Wei and Jin dynasty. And Mozi himself has been enshrined as a Taoist immortal, which is a major event in the the history of Wei and Jin Mohism, and at the same time a large number of various books have published in the name of Mozi. In the reformative movement of Taoism, Mohism also played an important role as a significant theoretical weapon for change. The three newly appeared Taoism had countless ties with Mohism, especially the Quan-zhen Taoism had the distinctive features of Mohist. Most of the Quan-Zhen followers lived a more frugal life and advocated mortification. Qiu Chuji was a representative of those who practice Mohist from theory to fulfillments earnestly.Taoism gave very important influence to the remodeling image of Mozi and Mohism and the spread of Mohism. During the history of Mohism, though from Wei and Jin dynasties to Song and Yuan dynasties was the low-tide period, the absorption and transformation by Taoism had already become the an important clue of Mohism's dissemination. The excellent ideas of Mohist had been widely disseminated by Taosim, but such Mohism was quite different from the Mohism of the Warring States period. Its superstition had been exaggerated, which had a certain amount of negative impact to the development of Mohism.