《太平经》史源考

Historical Sources of The Scripture of Great Peace

《太平经》文本俚俗杂陈,似道门呓语,然其某些篇章实有史据:其对“恶子少年”的处置方式与西汉酷吏尹赏打击“恶少年”的政策有着惊人相似之处,对“恶子少年”等群体危害的描述亦源自两汉史籍关于“少年”“恶少年”的记载。事实上,《太平经》的作者是在遵循“本以霸王道杂之”的政治路线基础上,在《春秋》公羊学“内其国而外诸夏”的观念指导下,“取过事以效今事”,把尹赏在京师所推行的酷政予以模式化、宗教化,“移植”到《兴善止恶法》和《善恶闾图诀》等相关篇章,以构建其地方治理主张。该模式既有对原有乡里秩序的继承和发展,也有对地方治理经验的借鉴,是儒生思想主导下形成的“轨德立化”观念在社会治理中的反映。两汉硕儒文翁、龚遂、尹翁归、杜密之“故事”,亦在《太平经》撰著中共同占据主导地位。进一步说,《太平经》170卷应是东汉儒生以春秋公羊学说为价值依据,带着忧苦之心,观察阴阳不和之世,以史入经,欲为天下“致太平”的宗教化产物。

The Scripture of Great Peace(Taiping jing)seemed a mixture of vulgar and elegant expressions,and of dialogues and secret poems,with lots of textual problems;therefore,it was sometimes taken as a religious gibberish.Was it just a figment of the religionists'imagination?Now,for the first time,we know at least some chapters of it were composed by Confucian scholars from certain historical sources that had predated it.In the scripture,the manner of and the treatment towards the“young ruffians”are strikingly similar to what the oppressive official Yin Shang did in the Western Han dynasty,and even the descriptions of the harms of the“young ruffians”are also drawn from Han historical records on certain“wicked young men”or“young ruffians”.In fact,following the Han political idea of“combining the Way of Hegemons with the Way of Kings”,and directed by the Gongyang School's tradition of“treating its state as internal,and the various Xia states as external”(according to the Spring and Autumn Annals),and“taking past examples into the present”,the author of those chapters in Taiping jing took Yin Shang as their ideal pattern,religionizing it,and transplanting it into the chapters in which the idea for the governance of local community was proposed.This is a reflection of the function of the Han Confucian thought of morality and the application of the moral standard of“Gui De Li Hua”in social management.Furthermore,the“old practice”of Wen Weng,Gong Sui Du Mi and Yin Weggui—the great Confucian scholar-bureaucrat samples of the Han—were adopted into the chapters of Taiping jing.So the Taiping jing was an output of Han Confucian scholars who dreamed to save the country from the yin-yang disharmony and drive it to great peace,though a religious one.