—The period of Pan Chao's victories; the Golden Age of the
Eastern Hans, lasting until (about):
—100 A. D. the end of the Eastern Han 'Day'; death of Pan Chow.
—Continuance of Day under this, and supervention of Night under this Cycle, produce:
—A static, but weakening period until:
—165, the year in which a new Eastern Han Day should begin. A weak recrudescence should be seen.
—197: the year in which the main or original Han Cycle should end. We should expect the beginnings of a downfall. By or before:
—230, the end of the second, feeble, Eastern Han Day, the downfall would have been completed.
Now to see how this works out.
The first date we have to notice is 165. Well; in the very scant notices of Chinese history I have been able to come on, two events mark this date; or rather, one marks 165, and the other 166. To take the latter first: we saw that at a momentous point in Roman history,—in the year of Nerva's accession, 96,—China tried to discover Rome. In 166 Rome actually succeeded in discovering China. This year too, as we shall see, was momentous in Roman history. You may call it a half cycle after the other; for probably the ambassadors of King An-Tun of Ta Ts'in who arrived at the court of Han Hwanti at Loyang in 166, had been a few years on their journey. You know King An-tun better by his Latin name of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
The event for 165 is the foundation of the Taoist Church, under the half-legendary figure of its first Pope, Chang Taoling; whose lineal descendants and successors have reigned Popes of Taoism from their Vatican on the Dragon-Tiger Mountain in Kiangsi ever since. They have not adverertised their virtues in their names, however: we find no Innocents and Piuses here: they are all plain Changs; his reigning Holiness being Chang the Sixth-somethingth. It was from Buddhism that the Taoists took the idea of making a church of themselves. Taoism and Buddhism from the outset were fiercely at odds; and yet the main splendor of China was to come from their inner coalescence. Chu Hsi, the greatest of the Sung philosophers of the brilliant twelfth century A.D., says that "Buddhism stole the best features of Taoism; Taoism stole the worst features of Buddhism: as if the one took a jewel from the other, and the other recouped the loss with a stone." * This is exact: the jewel stolen by Buddhism was Laotse's Blue Pearl,—Wonder and Natural Magic; the stone that Taoism took instead was the priestly hierarchy and church organization, imitated from the Buddhists, that grew up under the successors of Chang Taoling.