| Abstract: | The Huangdi Yinfujing or Yinfujing(Yellow Emperor’s Hidden Talisman Classic 黃帝陰符經) is an anonymous and esoteric Daoist text that became popular in the Tang period(618-907).While the early Daoist tradition puts text in the genre of fulu(符籙talisman) for the purpose of meditative practices,later commentators also put it in the genre of bingshu(military text 兵書) since the last part of the text could be interpreted as dealing with the military subject matter.This paper intends to argue that YFJ represents the Daoist idea(albeit it is with a Huang-Lao bent) of the correlativity between the cosmic Dao and the social order,and between inner cultivation and external statecraft.The paper will also explore the ethical implications on violence,war and peace from the perspective of religious Daoism. |
