The so-called "Huang" in Huang Lao's skill index refers to Huangdi, the ancestor of Taoism, and "Lao" refers to Laozi, another ancestor of Taoism. Later generations regard these two as ancestors. The so-called "Huang Lao", that is, the theory of Huang Lao or Huang Lao Sect, is an ancient local religious school in China. Huang Lao, also known as Huang Lao Dao, is one of the important schools of early Taoism.

source

Historical Records Biography of Lao Zi and Han Fei: "Shenzi studies take Huang Lao as the Sect and the main punishment name."

Historical Records Xiao Wu: "I know that Dou Taihou has the theory of Huang Lao, but I am not good at Confucianism, which makes people neglect Zhao Wan's treacherous and profitable things and calls on Wan, Zang, Wan and Zang to commit suicide. Anyone who is interested will be abolished." Six years later, Dou Taihou collapsed. Next year, we will recruit literary scholar Gong. "

Tang Hanyu's The Original Road: "Huang Lao is in the Han Dynasty, and the Buddha is in the Jin, Wei, Liang and Sui Dynasties."

A poem in Song Luyou's "Antique": "Teenagers yearn for Huang Lao, and their ambitions are in the mountains."

Huang Lao's thought

China's philosophical schools and political thoughts in the Warring States Period. Respecting the ancient Huangdi and Laozi as founders, hence the name. The technique of Huang Lao began in the Warring States and flourished in the Western Han Dynasty. The Taoist school of Huang Lao mainly developed the Taoist thoughts of Huangdi and Laozi, adopted the views of Yin and Yang, Legalism and Confucianism and Mohism, and formed their own opinions, which are Huang Lao's thoughts. The characteristic of Huang Lao's thought is "governing by doing nothing".

Huang Lao's thought is mainly the ruling thought in the early Han Dynasty, that is, "rest and recuperation".

Huanglao school

Huang Laosheng was born in the mid-Warring States period, and is a school of Qi, Xia Ji and Gong Xue. The representative work of the Huang-Lao School is Laozi, and its theoretical core is "governing by doing nothing" and sharing interest with the people. The Western Han Dynasty summed up the lessons of Qin's death, advocated the theory of Huang Lao as the guiding ideology of governing the country, and applied it to political and legal practice, which achieved remarkable results.

Taoist school in pre-qin period. "Huang" refers to the legendary Yellow Emperor, and "Lao" refers to Lao Dan in the late Spring and Autumn Period. Respecting the Yellow Emperor and Lao Dan as the founders of the school, and taking the words of Huang Lao as the guiding ideology of the school, it was named "Huang Lao School".

The skill of Huang Lao and the society in the early Han Dynasty

The ruling ideology of any era is the ideology of the ruling class. After the autocratic and centralized Qin Dynasty and Xiang Yu's forces trying to return to the era of the coexistence of princes in the Warring States were eliminated one after another, what kind of thoughts Liu Bang and his ruling group adopted to govern in order to solve a series of practical problems steadily became a major issue.

The Qin dynasty, a teacher who never forgets the past, followed the legalist line, imposed severe punishment and strict laws, and practiced ideological autocracy, which eventually led to the death of II. The Liu Bang Group, which rose from the ruins of the Qin Dynasty, has a personal experience of this profound lesson, which determines that it is impossible for them to govern the country according to the political thought of Legalists. Most of the Liu Bang Group comes from the lower class. "When Fang Qi slaughtered dogs and sold them, did he know that he was attached to a ponytail and that he was a descendant of Han Ting" (Biography of Historical Records Fan Haoteng), so it was impossible to have a strong interest in the profound theory of governing the country by Confucianism. Although Liu Bang himself did not completely reject Confucianism, the loyalty, detachment and high self-esteem of Confucian scholars also disgusted him. At this time, only Huang Lao's skill of advocating quietness, using softness to control rigidity, using static braking, retreating to advance, defending to attack, supplemented by punishment and morality can meet the needs of Liu Bang Group and provide the most reasonable and effective ruling means and theoretical basis for the rulers in the early Han Dynasty to formulate policies.

Huang Lao's art originally existed among the philosophers of the Warring States as a school. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, Huang Laozhi emphasized "Tao gives birth to law" and advocated "judging right and wrong by law, and taking law as the symbol" in the social and political field. It is believed that the monarch should "govern by doing nothing", "save important things, save taxes, not seize people's time", "be impartial", "humble and simple" and "be gentle and keep a wife", and achieve "promising" through inaction. The above thought had a certain influence in the early Han Dynasty, and in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a prosperous time of "the rule of cultural scenery". The combination of Huang Lao's skill and Chen Weizhi's theory evolved into a natural way of longevity, which had a lot of influence on the formation of Taoism.

Philosophical proposition

Different from the atomism in ancient western countries, the theory of vitality prevailed in ancient China. According to this theory, everything is composed of vitality or essence, and when vitality or essence gather together, it is tangible; You can't see it when it's scattered. However, Huang Lao first put forward two concepts, vitality and essence, and discussed them in many aspects. In addition, Huang Laotao inherited Laozi's view that the Lord of all things is the empty and quiet way, and it is precisely because the Tao is empty and quiet that it becomes the Lord of all things because it conforms to all things.

Social and political views

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, social competition intensified. In order to cope with this situation, Huang first put forward the concepts of law, technique, potential, benefit and strength, which made the pre-Qin academic get rid of idealism and began to embark on the road of realism. On this basis, Huang Laotao put forward the Taoist thought, which not only solved the legitimacy of the law itself, but also opened the way for Taoism to govern the world. In addition, the Huang family also put forward a series of political opinions, such as "Heaven", "Keeping women for men", "Being lenient and obedient to ministers", "quietism", "Simple folk customs", "Rest and recuperation", "Ruling the country according to law", combining punishment with morality, etc., which embodied the essence of ancient social politics in China. In addition, Huang Laotao also put forward the idea that the world is for the public and the monarchy is subject to the legal system, which reflects the reflection and criticism of authoritarian politics to some extent.

Physical and mental health rules

Huang Laotao advocated governing the country and tried to combine it closely.