Six Dynasties Period
The Six Dynasties Period of Chinese history was a period of disunity following the fall of the Han Dynasty in 220, up until the reunification of China under the Sui Dynasty in 589. During this span of time, a number of states rose and fell, including the Western Jin Dynasty, which briefly united China proper from 280 until 317, but six states of southern China are considered the eponymous "six dynasties" of the period: the Eastern Wu, Eastern Jin, Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang Dynasty, and Chen Dynasty.
This same period saw even greater fragmentation in northern China, where from around 304 until roughly 439, sixteen different polities vied for power and territory. Thirteen were dominated by peoples other than the Han people.
The chaotic situation brought some philosophers to pursue an avenue now known as xuanxue - dark or mysterious learning. It focused on the concept of nothingness, or non-being (wú), with some thinkers such as Wang Bi writing of the original nothingness (benwu) from which all emerged, and others simply focusing on meditation in order to reach or achieve nothingness.
References
- Conrad Schirokauer, et al, A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations, Fourth Edition, Cengage Learning (2012), 84.
