In my video “Taoism: A Decolonized Introduction,” I made a passing reference to the Six Ancestral Sage Kings (or Six Holy Kings) and their significance in Taoism, promising that I’d dedicate a standalone video on the topic, so right here we’re.
All the things it is advisable be taught concerning the Tao could be discovered from the Six Holy Kings – or so goes an axiom credited to Confucius.
He isn’t the one one to uphold the Six Kings because the paragon of aspirational advantage and knowledge. Even Confucianism’s rival college of thought, the Mohists, would name-drop the Six Kings, 堯舜禹湯文武.
Cultural references to the significance of the Six Holy Kings continues properly into the fashionable period with the founding of the Republic of China. Solar Yat-sen cited the significance of the brand new Republic upholding the custom and values of the Six Holy Kings (“中國有一個道統，堯、舜、禹、湯、周文王、周武王、周公”).
Chinese language historian and thinker Li Zehou 李泽厚 notes that the Six Holy Kings are shamanic rulers, wū 巫, and that their divine proper to sovereignty comes from their alignment with Heaven, which is obtained on the premise of their talents to commune with Heaven. The shamanistic-historical traditions of the Chinese language civilization comes straight from the Six Holy Kings. (You possibly can learn extra about this in Chapter 10 of I Ching, The Oracle.)
This companion weblog put up to the video is content material I ended up taking out of the video script, as a result of it was getting actually lengthy and boring. =)
Holy Kings 聖王
The Six Kings Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, Wen, and Wu are referred to as “sheng wang 聖王,” which interprets to Holy Kings or Sage Kings. They span san dai 三代, the three founding dynasties of the Chinese language civilization. It’s implied that they’re ancestral kings, which is to say they’re commemorated as one would venerate ancestors.
The Tao Te Ching (TTC) makes references to “sheng ren 聖人,” with that very same character “sheng 聖.” TTC verses current axioms on what it means to be a sheng ren, an immortalized sage, an ascended grasp, evaluating their saintliness and advantage to the mundane or profane. Ren 人 means folks, humanity, and may seek advice from the topic in its singular and its plural kind.
Thus in context, sheng wang 聖王 can be the reigning kings of the sheng ren 聖人, which I translate to the woke up ones. In different phrases, to change into an woke up one, observe the steerage and traditions of the holy kings.
Sacred Significance of the Six 六
What’s the most sacred energy quantity in Taoism?
It’s six. Six is probably the most sacred energy quantity, divisible by each the binary and the trinity, a number of of the twelve and 360 levels of the circle and the cycles of our solar, moon, stars, the exponentiation of 6 squared is 36 for the decan rulers (the premise for the lunar-solar calendar), consultant of the cyclical Manner of the Solar, Moon, Stars. Likewise, the eight trigrams (elementary constructing blocks of the universe) are doubled, 8 squared, to change into 64, as within the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching, the cyclical Manner of Change. Right here, Manner = Tao.
By the best way, it’s cool to notice that the three numerical values which can be of biggest significance to Taoist mysteries are 6, 8, and 10, which additionally occur to be the Pythagorean triple.
Oh, and 6 is the smallest excellent quantity in arithmetic, that means it’s the sum of its correct divisors 1 (unity of Tao), 2 (the yin-yang binary), and three (the holy trinity), giving it a very distinctive high quality in numbers principle. One of many lovely attributes to Taoist mysticism is the the way it maths.
Notice additionally how the Lo Shu magic sq. sector 6 corresponds with the trigram Heaven.
Right here’s that line from the Secret Book of the Three Sovereigns 三皇内文遗秘 on the six powers of yin and yang alchemical or occult operation:
内隐阴阳六化之功，使修行之人，不遭外患。
The six internal powers 六化 achieved from these yin and yang strategies [occult arts] are encoded inside this Ebook;
Might those that domesticate these [six] powers by no means endure from exterior strife.
And right here’s a significant passage from Jing Fang’s Commentaries on the Yi (I Ching), circa 77 – 37 BC, quoting from the Ten Wings of the I Ching:
言日月终天之道，故《易》卦六十四，分上下，象阴阳也。
The ideogram “Yi 易” itself represents the solar and moon, implying the cyclical actions of change of the solar and moon. Likewise, the 64 hexagrams are made up of an higher trigram and a decrease trigram, like yin and yang, just like the solar and moon.
八卦分阴阳，六位五行，光明四通…
The Ba Gua eight trigrams are eight classes of actions of yin-yang mixtures, which occupy the six positions of the hexagram, moved there by the Wu Xing 5 parts (phases), all in movement due to “guang ming 光明,” a Gentle of splendor [there’s resonance here with Eliphas Levi’s Astral Light, which he notes is what magnetizes the movements of the world].
天地若不变易，不能通气，五行迭终，四时更废，变动不居，周流六虚。
With out that “guang ming 光明,” or Astral Gentle, there could be no Change. For it’s that Gentle that energizes the seasonal modifications, of Area and Time, by means of the Wu Xing 5 parts, by means of the six hollows of the hexagram (the Six Akasha 六虛).
There’s loads of resonance right here with Western occultism. For example, Eliphas Levi corresponds the worth six with the Magical Equilibrium, and that six is the speculation of God, and that enveloped inside that Astral Gentle is the “two-fold vibration” balanced by the six.
On the Acquired or Lineaged Custom (道統, Dao tong)
I discussed the connection between lineaged traditions and orthodoxy with the Six Holy Kings, however within the curiosity of time, didn’t flesh it out as a lot as I’d like. Right here’s extra of what I had needed to say about it.
In Doctrine of the Imply [中庸章句序], Track dynasty thinker Zhu Xi 朱熹 makes reference to Dao tong, the obtained or lineaged custom of the Tao, based mostly on the axiom attributed to Confucius concerning the Six Holy Kings, i.e., all that there’s to know concerning the Tao is embodied by the Six Kings Yao, Shu, Yu, Tang, Wen, and Wu. And so the precept of obtained, lineaged custom and the Six Holy Kings are tethered.
Whereas Dao tong is extra typically discovered within the context of Ru philosophy (Confucianism), it’s additionally used, in a barely totally different context, within the Taoist Mysteries. It’s this concept that occult information should be obtained by means of a system of transmissions that begins with Heaven. And so, as an illustration, the answer for the right way to tame the Nice Floods was obtained by Yu the Nice; the I Ching divination was obtained by King Wen, the road textual content was obtained by the Duke of Zhou, and so forth. You proceed to seek out that sort of phrasing in different points of Taoist mysticism as properly, the place sure texts within the Taoist canons are characterised as having been obtained by their respective lineage’s prophets.
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