| Abstract |
During the Zhenguan reign of Emperor Taizong of the T’ang dynasty, successive natural disasters and anomalous phenomena engendered pervasive anxiety among the populace. For a polity still in the formative stages of consolidation, these crises constituted a formidable challenge. This study takes the Essentials of Governance of the Zhenguan Zhengyao as its central point of reference, examining the perspectives and concrete measures articulated by the sovereign and his ministers in response to such calamities, and thereby seeks to elucidate the underlying modes of thought and conceptions of order that informed their discourse. To begin, the recorded accounts of disasters in early T’ang sources are divided into two analytical categories: “calamities” and “anomalies”. This classification allows for a clearer understanding of the differing strategies employed by the Zhenguan court in addressing “calamities” as opposed to “anomalies.”Subsequently, attention is directed to the ways in which the ruler and his officials upheld the political principles of “cultivating virtue through self-rectification” and “unity of sovereign and ministers.” Within these frameworks, they constructed a blueprint for the co-governance of the realm, situating disaster response within a broader vision of shared political responsibility. Finally, this study demonstrates how the Zhenguan court, while operating within the traditional paradigms of “cosmic transformations producing calamities” and “correlative resonance between Heaven and humankind,” nonetheless articulated a distinct affirmation of human subjectivity and agency. This interpretive shift—from privileging “Heaven’s Way” to emphasizing the realm of “human affairs”—constituted a defining feature of early T’ang conceptions of natural order. |
