The Protection of Flora in Wang Mang’s Edict and the Taiping jing in the Context of Disasters
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20249608 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Johan Rols (0000-0001-8524-4183, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 25 |
| Publication date | 2025-12-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel17010025 |
| OpenAlex | W7117302524 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 17 |
This article analyzes prohibitions against the destruction of flora in the calendrical regulations of the late Western Han period and in the millenarian cosmological discourses in the Taiping jing 太平經 (Canon of Great Peace). The study focuses on the “Zhaoshu sishi yueling wushi tiao” 詔書四時月令五十條 (“Edict of Monthly Ordinances for the Four Seasons in Fifty Articles”) which was promulgated by Wang Mang in 5 CE. The Edict prohibited setting fire to forests and was intended to restore cosmic harmony. At the time, natural disasters and celestial anomalies were interpreted as signs of the loss of the Mandate of Heaven. Heavenly patterns and hemerology play a central role here by enabling environmental regulations to be incorporated into a political logic of legitimization. The Canon of Great Peace reinterprets these norms by replacing seasonal cycles with an interpretation of balance between yin and yang and by giving environmental prohibitions eschatological significance. Thus, calendrical regulations for natural resource management transform into an apocalyptic discourse in which the natural environment becomes the setting for cosmic disorder that must be avoided
Mandate · Millenarianism · Natural disaster · Natural resource · Politics · Chinese history and philosophy · Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond · Space Technology and Applications
Monographs in Tang Official Historiography
Technical Arts in the Han Histories
A Chinese Bestiary
The Taoist Canon
Astrology and Cosmology in Early China
Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China
Early Chinese Religion, Part One
Reflections on Visual and Material Sources for the History of the Exact Sciences in Early Imperial China
The Date of the Taiping Jing
Forestry and the Politics of Sustainability in Early China
Environment and Law in Early Imperial China (Third Century BCE–First Century CE)
Cosmologie et gouvernement naturel dans le Lü Shi Chunqiu
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |