| In this study of Former Han dynasty (202 B.C.E.--9 C.E.) thought, religion, and history I examine one of the most important classical Chinese texts from this period---the second-century B.C.E. encyclopedic compendium Huainanzi (Master Huainan). There are two related aims of this dissertation. First, I provide an internal view of the Huainanzi by analyzing the claims made in one of its key chapters on behalf of the larger work---namely, its concluding postscript, "A Summary of the Essentials" ("Yao lue"). I show that in this chapter the author offers distinctive viewpoints on both the nature of the work and its place in the broader intellectual debates and historical and political circumstances surrounding China's imperial unification. On the latter, I explain that the text's authors set forth an inclusive, pluralistic, and anti-authoritarian conception of the Chinese empire, not only as a means of criticizing both the totalitarianism of the previous Qin dynasty (221--206) and the centralizing policies that were implemented in the early decades of the Han dynasty but, more importantly, to serve as the correct ideological and political alternative to them. I demonstrate that this vision is evident in the text's cosmology of the Dao or "Way"; in the authors' views on history, society, culture, and politics; and in their conceptions of humankind, self-cultivation, and the sage-ruler. Therefore, the second main objective of this study is to address the ancient origins of Chinese authoritarianism by closely examining arguably the most important voice of protest against it in the extant literature of the period-the Huainanzi. I reveal that the author of the work's postscript summarizes the essentials of this pluralistic and anti-authoritarian argument in the account of the nature of the text included in "Yao lue." Thus, by employing its summarizing remarks as a lens or framework through which to interpret the contents of this cosmological and political masterpiece, I challenge previous views on the text expressed in the secondary scholarship by revealing a coherence among the main components of its vision---namely, the cosmos, the empire, and the sage-ruler---that has not been traced and analyzed systematically. |
