Taoism
FOUNDED: c. 450–500 C.E.
RELIGION AS A PERCENTAGE OF WORLD POPULATION: 1 percent
Overview
Taoism is a Chinese religious tradition emphasizing personal transformation and integration with the unseen forces of the universe. The Taoist's name for their religion is Tao-chiao ("the teachings of the Tao"), a term that goes back to leaders such as Lu Hsiu-ching (406–77), highly educated aristocrats who wove together many diverse traditions and practices to form an inclusive new cultural and religious framework. That framework was designed to preserve all that was good and worthwhile within the indigenous religious heritage of China so that it could survive the challenge of Buddhism, which became prominent in China beginning in the fourth century C.E. The term "Tao," literally "the way" in Chinese, has been variously understood in Taoism, though it generally refers to the highest dimensions of reality.
Taoism evolved not among superstitious peasants (as modern Confucians taught Westerners to imagine) but rather among China's most powerful, most cultured, and most educated classes. Taoist writings of all periods—few of which have been translated into modern languages or even read—provide models of personal practice designed for the tastes of scholars, artists, rulers, and intellectuals. Centuries of Taoist leaders produced scholarly and scientific works of every description, developed sophisticated medical techniques, and won the admiration of Chinese scholars and officials, military and civilian functionaries, poets and painters, and respectful emperors.
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