A Study On The Relationship Between Taoism And Social Stratification In The Late Han, Wei, Jin, Northern And Southern Dynasties

Religion is not only one kind of ideology but also a culture resource which exists beyond history and politics, and influence general peoples profoundly. So it's necessary to take religion into social system to understand it. Because social stratification is one of the most important variables in social life, the study on the relationship between Taoism and social stratification can not only help us to explore how the social structure and social order impacted to Taoism but also help us to pierce how Taoism shaped social structure and the process of social change. Ultimately, these exploring can supply instructive apocalypse for coping with the relationship between religion and society and constructing the harmonious society in the transferring period of society.The study on the relationship between Taoism and social stratification has very important values in the field of Taoist study.However,till now there wasn't special production studied properly by the theory and method of social stratification about this problem. Due to lose the visual angle of social stratification, it is very difficult to explain the microcosmic interaction mechanism of Taoism-society,as a result, the explaination about the relationship between Taoism and society was simply politicalization. Few of studies had discussed this problem, nevertheless those are incompact and non-systematic,and lack of new methods and materials. So this dissertation targets to penetrate the interaction between Taoism and social stratification, even the relationship between Taoism and society and the relationship between religion and society, with using the methods of the Sociology of Religion and by the historic materials and classics of social development and Taoist development in the period from later stage of Han Dynasty through the Northern and Southern Dynasties.The reasons that this dissertation selects the period from later stage of Han Dynasty through the Northern and Southern Dynasties as studying sample are as follows: Firstly,this period was the first stage in the development history of Taoism,in which we can observe explicitly and comprehensively all layer Taoist believer from the upper ,middle or lower social class had played different roles. Secondly,the system of social stratification in this period was very unusual because family status became one important factor to person's stratum in the hierarchical system which was determined by the layer of official and the rank of nobility formerly. This order shaped by family status impacted Taoism specially, in reverse,Taoism influenced this order specially too.Thirdly, this period was full of turbulence and confusion, from the experience how to deal with the relation between Taoism and society in this period can we learn how to deal with the relationship between religion and society to construct the harmonious society in today's transformative society.This study has four parts:The first part includes the introduction and the first chapter. The introduction introduces the study's motivation, targets, significance, literature-review, project and methods,creations and shortages. In the first chapter,this dissertation points out that the social stratification of the late Han,Wei,Jin,Northern and Southern Dynasties was political stratification,then according to historical materials, describes this social class system as two class(reigning class and reigned class),three ranks(the upper,middle and bottom ranks), and seven estates: the royalty,the upper layer of scholar-official(高层士族),the lower layer of scholar-official (低层士族), the plebeian landlord(庶族地主), the individual yeoman(个体小农或自耕农), tenant farmer (佃客) and the soldiers-as- slaves (部曲),the official and private servants (官私奴婢). The major contradiction of social classes in Chniese feudalistic society was the confrontment between landholder and farmer, in additionally,some new contradiction emerged between the upper layer and the lower layer of scholar-official and between the noble lords and the plebeian landlords since Wei-Jin-Northern and Southern Dynasties.The second part consists of the second ,third and fourth chapters, which describes from the microcosmic view the devotional characteristic of Taoist believers from different social stratifications and discusses their influences to Taoism. The second chapter figures that those Taoist believers from the upper class were crucial propellent for systemization and superstratumization of Taoism. They not only wanted to avoid death and be immortal superhuman through Taoism,but also used Taoism to vindicate their power and authorities. The third chapter points out those Taoist believers from the middle class had played a role of inaugurator of Taoism in late Han Dynasty. They wanted to use Taoism to change society and upgrade their social status, but they fighted totteringly and halfwayly. The fourth chapter analyzes those Taoist believers from the bottom class were the earlist adherents and responsors of early Taoism. They hoped Taoist could heal their diseases and sufferings, even used Taoism to organize revolts against to the governor.The third part is made up of the fifth and sixth chapters, which researches from the microscopical view the interaction relationship between social stratification and Taoism when the two factors are regarded as complex systems. The fifth chapter explores the influence of social stratification to the structural factors,function and development of Taoism in late Han till Northern and Southern Dynasties. The sixth chapter discusses the counteraction from Taoism to social stratification. Taoism had animadverted on the consciousness of grade discrimination and impacted on social mobility,etc..All these functions showed that Taoism had ever remedied the crevices of social structure. But Taoism had another side—beyond all classes, its adherents could make up of a single stratum,even a new stratum—'professional Taoists' had emerged with the Taoist Temples system maturating since the late Northern and Southern Dynasties. The last part concludes all of the dissertation with which the essential of interaction between Taoism and social stratification is as follows: the influences of social stratification on Taoism are the influences of social life condition on the thoughts, attitudes and actions; the counteraction from Taoism to social stratification is the effects of cultural resources and idea weapons to social orders. Religion is not only one power of concreting social structure but also one power of destroying social orders. It is not only one kind of ideology, but also one kind of life style and organizing conformation. In the transferring period, in order to construct the harmonious society, we must attach enough importance to these experiences and lessons dealing with the relationship between Taoism and society in late Han-Wei-Jin-Northern and Southern Dynasties.