ABSTRACT
Most Chinese messianic movements reflect a longing for a Perfect Ruler (Zhen Wang), a “sage king,” who will rid the world of evil and injustice and establish a reign of peace, harmony, and benevolent government. The ideal of the Perfect Ruler, traceable to the classical thinkers of China’s antiquity, merged with Buddhist messianism in the first century CE and profoundly affected all subsequent millenarian movements. Such movements appeared especially, though not always, in times of intense, disruptive social change or dynastic decline, and were usually led by charismatic figures who mobilized mass movements around the notion that salvation for the faithful was imminent.
