Chinese Religion in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

CHAPTER 6 Chinese Religion in the Ming and Qing Dynasties Mark Meulenbeld, University of Wisconsin The Religious Landscape of the Ming and Qing The Chinese religion of the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) Dynasties has often been studied along the lines of the so-called “three teachings” of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. The scriptural traditions of these three major traditions are extensive, and, in the case of Buddhism and Daoism, have been compiled into voluminous canonical collections that were commissioned by imperial order: the Buddhist Canon and the Daoist Canon. The relatively clear-cut religious parameters of these three textual traditions have, however, made it all too easy to marginalize the predominant form of Chinese religion, namely the territorial forms of religion that were practiced in localities across the Chinese empire. The present chapter will therefore pay close attention to this paramount form of religion, which was at the same time a form of social organization. Local strata of religion were neither sanctioned by the imperial government nor organized from within any central governing organ. Indeed, partly as a result of this lack of official recognition by the imperial state, and the lack of institutional definition as legitimate bodies of religious practitioners, scholars have often imagined the many regional varieties of Chinese religion to be an unorganized hodge-podge of superstitions that lacked coherence. Intellectuals have sometimes understood local religion to be a rural or low-class phenomenon, and therefore have indiscriminately and somewhat disparagingly referred to it as “popular religion.” While it is true that the religion of the people was not organized in ways similar to the major three traditions in terms of self-conscious denomination, or in terms of institutional charisma, The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions, First Edition. Edited by Randall L. Nadeau. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 126 MARK MEULENBELD the assumed lack of coherence is a fallacy. Despite obvious regional variations there were equally obvious similarities. Moreover, while local religion was certainly “popular,” the term “popular’ ”should only be understood in the sense of a large number of followers, and not in any sense that might exclude the participation of the various cultural, political, economic, or even religious elites. (For further discussion of the designation “popular religion,” see Chapter 10, CHINESE POPULAR RELIGION.) In terms of sheer numbers, indeed, Chinese religion during the Ming and Qing massively revolved around local temples in the neighborhoods of communal settlements. These communities might be found in (or even defined as) rural villages and regional market towns, but also in capital cities such as Nanjing or Beijing. There was no categorical distinction between rural and urban temples, or the religion practiced in them. Temples primarily lodged divinities that had once been known as living beings associated with a particular region. First and foremost they were local heroes who had protected their communities from danger, often involving spectacular feats of martial prowess. From the large number of legends that present their heroes as skilled demon-slayers, it appears that most local temples fulfilled the function of territorial protection, and that the powers of these local gods were invoked in order to exorcize the intrusion of demons that caused such calamities as drought and disease. Local communities identified themselves closely with these heroic tutelary saints, taking pride in the construction and maintenance of impressive temples devoted to their local hero. Many other temples were further devoted to immortals who had cured the sick and the suffering using miraculous powers or unique magical herbs. It was not uncommon to build monasteries on sites where such immortals had resided, as they were commonly associated with mountains, rocks, cliffs, and peaks. Stories present these immortals as having transformed into an element of the landscape by the time of their final transcendence. In that sense, the worship of local immortals constituted quite literally a sanctification of the local landscape. Other very common temples were dedicated to dragons—beings that were thought to be present in every locality and that were more generally associated with the production of rain. A rather significant portion of temples was dedicated to the spirits of certain animals, or even trees, as well as those of most lakes, rivers, and mountains. Almost all the conspicuous landmarks of particular localities might have been divinized in one way or the other. Yet, in addition to these very local divinities, almost every locality during the Ming and Qing would comprise temples devoted to gods that were less obviously local and much more widespread throughout the entire Chinese empire. Probably the most popular god was Guan Yu, a famous hero from the period of the Three Kingdoms, usually referred to as “Lord Guan” (Guangong) or “King Guan” (Guanwang). A good second may have been the “bodhisattva” Guanyin, goddess of compassion, who could save souls from the courts of hell, and whose late imperial hagiography had presented her as a princess called Miaoshan. Other popular gods included the God CHINESE RELIGION IN THE MING AND QING DYNASTIES 127 of the Eastern Peak (lord of the netherworld), the God of Walls and Moats (ruler over the dark spirits that loomed in every locality), and the Five Emperors of the Five Directions (closely associated with plague and possession). Last but not least, the stars, planets, and stellar constellations were worshiped throughout China. While the provenance of the gods in these temples was certainly not local, the ways in which they were embedded in local society differed little from their territorial counterparts. Although most of these temples have not survived into the present age, the traces left by temple activities in other cultural expressions have been harder to delete. Generally, records from the Ming and Qing suggest that most inhabited areas were dotted with an overwhelming number of temples. Some of the greatest glimpses into the world of late imperial religion can be gained from the sheer endless descriptions of temples, gods, and shrines that figure in literary jottings, vernacular literature, theatrical plays, and so on. Although many of the famous vernacular works from the Ming and Qing have been treated as “literary fiction” by scholars in academic institutions since the early twentieth century, it seems that their content has a lot more to say about late imperial Chinese religion than it has about literature. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), the famous Guan Yu becomes a god; in Outlaws of the Marsh (Shuihu zhuan), the story’s 108 protagonists are rewarded with a divine rank among the stars, much the same as in Canonization of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi), in which the gods of stellar positions are supplemented with the celestial offices that regulate powerful phenomena such as thunder, fire, and pestilence. Even Journey to the West (Xiyou ji) elevates its five main protagonists into the ranks of the divine, and canonizes them as the Five Saints. These four books constitute the most popular core of a vast array of stories that are almost always quite explicitly related to late imperial Chinese religion. In addition to the narrative exploits of martial gods, exorcistic stellar constellations, therapeutic immortals, and all kinds of other saints, some written materials allow us to relate such narratives of a more legendary kind concretely to regional forms of religion. For example, many of the ritual manuals that were included in the Daoist Canon of 1445 and its supplement of 1607 are explicitly related to regional traditions. Some of these manuals show how local priests recorded the roles played by local gods in their rituals, and other texts explain the histories of certain gods worshiped in local temples. Daoists, especially, had incorporated local saints into their liturgies. To a lesser extent, the data gathered by “local gazetteers” provide a final perspective on the religion of the late imperial Chinese. Local gazetteers were compiled by representatives of administrative units throughout the empire and they purported to present an overview of regional characteristics, more or less compiling the best of what a locality had produced in terms of eminent scholars or statesmen, local produce, or local landmarks such as buildings or the shapes of hills and mountains. Although they were not necessarily interested in local gods, or even in religion generally (some explicitly ignored these topics), the close intertwinement of gods and 128 MARK MEULENBELD temples with the local landscape, as well as with the local economy and local pride, ensured a certain attention to local expressions of Chinese religion. For example, in addition to straightforward records of officially sanctioned temples, many local gazetteers list popular temples that were officially proscribed—temples dedicated to the local heroes described above. Moreover, the records of strange events or legendary figures that were commonly included at the end of gazetteers were often related to the narrative lore that revolved around local temples and their gods. Territorial Temples and Their Gods Local temples were important, and a significant portion of late imperial religious activities transpired in relation to these temples. One can roughly divide these activities into the two categories of communal and private—that is, large-scale sacrificial festivals and individual acts of worship. Each of these activities could be occasioned by the calendar (anniversaries of gods or of temples) as well as by haphazard circumstances (drought, disease, propitiation). The following section will further refine the picture of late imperial Chinese religion by analyzing one important aspect—social organization—in relation to the local temple. If the above introduction has presented the local temple as the starting point for understanding Chinese religion, the following discussion will show that one can barely study Chinese religion as a self-contained area of culture, or a realm separate from society and social concerns. Similarly to the way that the ancient tribes each used to have their own totemic divinity, communities of the Ming and Qing were organized around their own local god. The term most commonly used for this type of local community was shehui (“community of the territorial god”), a term that is now used in modern Chinese to mean “society,” broadly speaking. The term she is often taken to mean “god of the soil,” but at least in late imperial China this term more generally refers to the tutelary god of a certain stretch of land and therefore is best understood as a “god of the local soil,” or a “territorial god.” In other words, the most basic form of social organization in premodern China, the shehui, had an explicitly sacred character. Who were these “territorial gods”? We have seen above that most of them were local tutelary saints. Although theoretically each locality had a different saint with a different story and different sacrificial customs, it appears that by late imperial times these territorial gods had emerged out of theological principles that applied in most localities throughout the empire. In principle, the spirit of any powerful being that was somehow related to local identity could end up being venerated as a territorial god. Browsing through the pages of late imperial gazetteers it becomes clear that every mountain was thought to embody a spiritual force, and every river, lake, or marsh was pervaded by the presence of some spirit. Rocks, trees, mounds—all were imbued with some sacred cosmic energy. As indicated above, even animals, such as foxes, toads, snakes, or monkeys, had the potential to become a locally powerful god. CHINESE RELIGION IN THE MING AND QING DYNASTIES 129 The longer any given being or object was left unperturbed in solitude or darkness, the better was its opportunity to pass through many time-cycles and thereby reach an unusually high age. Stories abound of thousand-year-old foxes who can transform themselves into human shape, old monkeys who take possession of women, and so on. Further, the spirits of deceased human beings also might receive veneration as “territorial gods.” The lives of local gods often present their subjects as local heroes: ancient conquerors of barbarians, slayers of demons, or extraordinary, selfless men and women who sacrificed their own lives for the greater good of the community. All of these beings were candidates for local sainthood. The theological principles that determined whether a process of divinization would be initiated by a local community in order to elevate the status of a powerful spiritual being and canonize it with grandiose titles such as “king” (wang), “lady” (furen), “lord” or “sire” (gong), or the like seem to have been fairly consistent throughout most of China during the Ming and Qing. The first rule of Chinese theology was related to the social model of the family. The normal postmortem destination for a spirit was inclusion in the ancestral cult. That is to say, every human being who grew up within the structure of a family would commonly continue to partake in family activities even after death: the worship of ancestors guaranteed the stable existence of the deceased. Ideally, with the progress of generations, the further removed in time certain ancestors were from the living family, the more anonymous they became. The spiritual energies that constituted their individual soul were thus allowed to gradually dissolve and disperse back into the cosmic cycle of life and death. Most ancestors were ultimately represented by a wooden tablet that only stated the general family ancestry without reference to individuals. Orphan Spirits Sometimes, however, particular individuals were barred from entering the ancestral cult after they died. The souls of those who had died prematurely, for example, were thought to be extremely inauspicious. Death on the battlefield, or because of a serious illness, or after committing suicide, inevitably led to exclusion from the ancestral cult. These miserable souls became “orphan spirits” (guhun), a term literally expressing their expulsion from the family. In practice this meant that they were not entitled to receive sacrificial offerings of food, nor were they allowed to find the comfort of stable lodging that the ancestral cult otherwise would have provided. Thus, “orphan spirits” had no other option than to roam about restlessly, searching for food and shelter. Their spiritual energies could not dissolve, and their individual identities remained intact—albeit in an altered form. Sadly, men and women who had not been able to procreate knew that the same fate awaited them. Monks and nuns who had “left their family” (chujia) and entered monastic communities would be ritually adopted by their masters, receiving new names and new identities in order to prevent them from ending up as “orphan spirits.” There is evidence that rituals of 130 MARK MEULENBELD propitiation had to be carried out for the postmortem wellbeing of monastic residents, be they Buddhist, Daoist, or other. The lack of descendants who could make sacrificial offerings and provide a stable form of lodging theologically unified the “orphan spirits” of human beings with those powerful spirits that might sometimes evolve out of inanimate objects or animals—neither of these groups could dissolve safely into the anonymity of natural death, so that they would have to live on as unwanted demons. Both of these groups of demonic spirits maintained their individuality and had to devise tricks in order to find food and shelter. Most commonly, such spirits would harass living beings to extort from them the vibrant energies of life. The restless powers of undissolved spirits oftentimes demanded sacrificial offerings from strangers, and there are many stories of spirits who are given a young maid for matrimony, or who are always on the lookout to eat meat and drink blood. In the narrative traditions of the Ming and Qing, a most famous example of such a restless spirit who exists outside the ancestral cult is constituted by the “Handsome Monkey King.” In the Journey to the West (Xiyou ji), the story begins like this: Since the creation of the world, [the stone] had been nourished for a long time by the seeds of Heaven and Earth and by the essences of the sun and the moon, until, quickened by divine inspiration, it became pregnant with a divine embryo. One day, it split open, giving birth to a stone egg about the size of a playing ball. Exposed to the wind, it was transformed into a stone monkey endowed with fully developed features and limbs. Born from a stone, the monkey did not have a family name, nor, of course, a family. This unrestrained autonomy foreboded trouble. Soon, indeed, the monkey started robbing, plundering, and extorting his way up in the world of men, and even in the world of the gods: Heaven. Below we will see the ways in which the theology of late imperial China would allow for rationalized responses to these autonomous and unruly forces. Reintegration and Canonization Notwithstanding the large number of ghost stories that warn the living against the threat of such wanton spirits, human beings were not powerless in the face of such otherworldly dangers. The solution was to reintegrate demonic spirits back into society by providing food and lodging in a separate shrine. Such shrines were small and located at the margins of society, in the outskirts of a city, or along the side of its roads. At first these shrines might be built where the corpse had originally been buried or found, and travelers might make modest offerings in order to ensure a safe journey. Many of such shrines probably remained insignificant or were gradually absorbed into larger sacrificial cults. However, as soon as rumors emerged that CHINESE RELIGION IN THE MING AND QING DYNASTIES 131 attested to the supernatural efficacy of the spirit residing in the shrine, these would lead to an increase in sacrificial offerings and prayers from people who specifically visited the shrine in the hope of receiving a miraculous response. At this point, it seems, there was no turning back. The increase in worshippers would often lead to the construction of a larger shrine or a temple. The more honors that were bestowed on these spirits, the greater the hopes were for the miracle of divine benevolence. Stories emerged that spoke of the history of the spirit, its deeds while alive, and its peculiarities. In short, what had originally been an “orphan spirit” was now honored with a temple, and entered into a reciprocal relationship with the living. The “Handsome Monkey King” first receives a name—Sun Wukong—from a master who has adopted him as disciple in order to teach him divine martial arts. But with this increase of his powers Sun Wukong causes so much trouble that the celestial authorities ultimately feel compelled to control him by giving him a divine rank: It is not surprising that this monkey, with a body nurtured by Heaven and Earth, a frame born of the sun and moon, should achieve immortality, seeing that his head points to Heaven and his feet walk on Earth, and that he feeds on the dew and the mist. Now that he has the power to subdue dragons and tame tigers, how is he different from a human being? Your subject therefore makes so bold as to ask your majesty to remember the compassionate grace of Creation and issue a decree of pacification. Let him be summoned to the Upper Region and given some kind of official duties. His name will be recorded in the Registers and we can control him here. Thus, right from the start of Journey to the West, Sun Wukong’s condition exactly parallels the most common spirits in temples: “orphan spirits” who have been pacified by providing a divine rank within a religious hierarchy. At first this might be a lowly position, but upon consistent performance of meritorious activities a local spirit could receive higher appointments. Spirit Mediums Many local temples were associated with a particular type of religious practitioner, known as a “temple shaman” (miaowu) or also as “divine youth” (shentong). These men and women provided one of the most fundamental services current in late imperial China: spirit possession. By allowing their bodies to become possessed by the spirit residing in their temple, the “temple shamans” and “divine youths” functioned as mediums through which a particular spirit could speak to the living. It was through their voice that a particular god might ask for the construction of a temple. More generally, spirit mediums could convey messages from the world of darkness, they could make divinations, and, perhaps most important, they embodied the power of the temple spirit in a physical shape and thereby demonstrated in 132 MARK MEULENBELD spectacular ways the powerful potential of a spirit as local protector. Thus, the local community might entrust their fate to the local tutelary saint, expecting him to ward off the demons of drought or disease. It was the spirit medium or temple shaman who was the most immediate and visible proof of a certain god’s miraculous powers. Local gazetteers of the Ming and Qing often lament the fact that shamans were patronized more often for ritual therapy of illness than practitioners of herbal medicine. Local authorities frequently confronted spirit mediums by issuing prohibitions of their practices, but it seems that the powers of imperial officials were limited on a local level; their reformist campaigns never succeeded in eradicating the practice of possession. Moreover, records show that most officials themselves were likely to engage the services of spirit mediums as much as regular citizens—perhaps only the most zealous bureaucrats should be excluded. The power of territorial spirits to protect their community against the demons of drought or disease was often symbolized by the garments of the spirit mediums, who would wear the skins of tigers, bears, leopards, or snakes, representing their conquest of the fierce powers of dangerous intruders. Sun Wukong, again, was similarly said have the “power to subdue dragons and tame tigers,” and was also represented as wearing the skin of a tiger he had subdued: Dear Monkey King! He pulled off one strand of hair and blew a mouthful of magic breath onto it, crying, “Change!” It changed into a sharp, curved knife, with which he ripped open the tiger’s chest. Slitting the skin straight down, he then ripped it off in one piece. He chopped away the paws and the head, cutting the skin into one square piece . . . He took the knife and cut it again into two pieces; he put one of these away and wrapped the other around his waist. In late imperial China, spirit mediums were frequently possessed by this kind of spirit that could subdue dragons or tigers. Not only Sun Wukong from Journey to the West but also Li Nezha (a dragon slayer) from Canonization of the Gods was frequently called down to possess spirit mediums. Further, Guan Yu from the Three Kingdoms was one rather famous example of the many exorcist spirits known for their demonifuge capacities who were invoked to manifest their martial prowess through the bodies of spirit mediums. To some extent, communal activities that revolved around local temples were structured as attempts to reintegrate the autonomous “orphan spirits” into society. This reintegration of spirits into society was taken very literally, and acted out frequently. The general designation of society, shehui, the “community of the territorial god,” was not only the abstract designation of a local community but also referred very specifically to the moment during which a locality united into a tangible community, namely as an “assembly” or congregation (hui). Several times a year, each community would gather in order to celebrate the anniversary of the local god, or of the founding of its temple. Terms for these communal activities included “temple congregations” (miaohui) and “congregations to welcome the gods and repay them” CHINESE RELIGION IN THE MING AND QING DYNASTIES 133 (yingshen saihui). Almost any temple, monastery, altar, or shrine could be the object of (or site for) such festivals, and often the celebrations would involve several temples or gods that were affiliated to the central temple by means of regional ties, lineage membership, or any other link that was expressed in temple records or sacred narratives. The central concern in festivals for a local god was the celebration of the god’s position as protector of a territorial realm, and the affirmation of the sacred status of a particular divine presence within a given community. Interestingly, the practice of affirmation of sacred status was commonly re-enacted in vernacular stories as a kind of “canonization.” Most of the great novels of the late Ming end their narrative of battle and conquest with a list of characters that receive a celestial rank and title as a reward for their actions throughout the stories. The Journey to the West, for example, concludes the exploits of its protagonists in this way. Sun Wukong is asked to approach the throne of the Buddha in order to receive his celestial appointment: Sun Wukong, when you caused great disturbance at the Celestial Palace, I had to exercise enormous dharma power to have you pressed beneath the Mountain of Five Phases. Fortunately your Heaven-sent calamity came to an end, and you embraced the Buddhist religion. I am pleased even more by the fact that you were devoted to the scourging of evil and the exaltation of good. Throughout your journey you made great merit by smelting the demons and defeating the fiends. For being faithful in the end as you were in the beginning, I hereby give you the grand promotion and appoint you the Buddha Victorious in Strife. This same rationale underlies other stories from the late Ming. For example, in Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), the historical hero Guan Yu becomes a god after his wrongfully assassinated spirit has taken possession of his enemy in order to avenge his death. This coheres with Guan Yu’s primary visibility in temples: as a god whose cult may have been the most widespread throughout late imperial China, and not as a historical figure in the narrow sense. Similarly, the protagonists of Outlaws of the Marsh (Shuihu zhuan) receive a canonization as stellar gods; the protagonists of Canonization of the Gods, as the title suggests, also are rewarded with a celestial appointment. In addition to these famous examples, hundreds of shorter books, plays, and stories seem to have been structured along such hagiographical lines, presenting the narrative content of popular gods as an occasion to bestow the written testimony of a canonization. Temple Communities and Official Business Religious festivals were not merely colorful celebrations of local lore but equally occasions for communal gatherings. Important decisions were made during these 134 MARK MEULENBELD times. In many regions of the Ming and Qing empires, religious festivals were presided over by a person often referred to as the “host of the censer” (luzhu) or “head of the festival” (huishou). This was a rotating function occupied by a person who had been elected to represent his lineage. The “host of the censer”—a reference to the fact that the person hosted the incense burner from the temple under celebration— headed the organization. Moreover, as “head of the festival” he presided over religious ceremonies and rituals no less than he supervised the allocation of funds or the organization of the festive banquet. During the communal gatherings, oaths had to be pronounced to support the weak and defend the community in times of distress. Other important communal decisions would be made during these celebrations. As a token of responsibility and authority, the presiding family would host the incense burner from the relevant temple in their home. This kind of organization was autonomous from, and unrelated to, the imperial government, whose representatives were always outsiders not native to the region in which they operated. Indeed, the representatives of the imperial government were not directly relevant for the organization and administration of local communities, who would turn to officials mostly when they wanted to communicate with the higher bureaucratic authorities. Because temples to local gods formed the absolute majority of China’s polytheistic religion, this predominance always challenged the central powers of the empire. Bureaucrats sent from Peking into the unfamiliarity of distant regions felt themselves confronted with communities that were already autonomously organized around their temples. To make matters worse, the Daoist priests residing in those communities were known for their ritual capacity to communicate directly with the Celestial Emperor, known as the Jade Emperor in the Ming and Qing. Their rituals included the submission of a written document that was offered to Heaven and thus paralleled the imperial prerogative of sacrificing to Heaven, and bypassed imperial authority (a situation that is emphatically described in the first chapter of Outlaws of the Marsh). Imperial prohibitions during the Ming and Qing targeted this specific aspect of Daoist ritual. As such, administrators carrying out imperial policy on a regional level inevitably faced tough choices between local autonomy and imperial politics. Official rhetoric regarding the religious activities associated with local temples was therefore highly pronounced. From an imperial perspective, because these local cults were not included in the registers of state sacrifices (sidian), they were “deviant.” Official ideology propagated the destruction of these cults, but in practice such radical solutions were rarely enforced. In fact, records from local gazetteers make it clear that officials participated in local religious activities on a grand scale. They initiated or otherwise contributed to the restoration of local temples, they participated in sacrificial rites, and they wrote commemorative pieces for inscription on temple steles. In those relatively rare cases where officials were remembered for their forceful repression of certain local temples, the compilers of local gazetteers often note that the local community resumed its religious activities as soon as the official had been transferred to a different area. CHINESE RELIGION IN THE MING AND QING DYNASTIES 135 Finally, the authority provided by an imperial stamp of approval was still thought to enhance the standing of territorial cults. While the practice of imperial canonizations of local temples had been widespread during the Song and continued into late imperial China, during the Ming and Qing this type of imperial involvement in local religion appears to have been rare. Local gazetteers did regularly record canonizations of local gods during the Ming and Qing, but it appears that the most popular gods of late imperial China did not receive such recognition—at least not straightforwardly from the imperial government. Spectacle and Excitement Much of the activity associated with sacred festivals did have another aspect that some deemed immoral: mingling of the sexes. Occasions for men and women to socialize in public were usually few and far between, but during festivals there were plenty of public spaces where they could gather. Among the more important aspects of religious festivals—be they devoted to territorial gods or to more universal celebrations on the calendar such as New Year’s Eve—was the hustle and bustle of the local market. All kinds of goods and services were sold on these markets, especially the particular foodstuffs associated with each festival. A crowded market allowed for some relaxation on the behavioral codes of such otherwise improper acts as flirtation, public inebriation, and physical proximity. Theatrical performances formed another great opportunity for uncommon excitement. There existed many varieties of theater. Some were included in the long processions that accompanied the sedan chair on which the statue of the territorial god was taken on his tour of inspection through the community. Acrobats walked on stilts, made somersaults, and performed many other artistic feats. Local militia regularly joined in with the processions and showed off their martial prowess. But there were many other forms of local theater. Bands of actors participated in the processions (professionals as well as amateurs), acting out tableaux vivants of scenes from famous stories. Moreover, in front of the main temple there would usually be a stage for theatrical performances. The larger temples almost always had a small building that served as a stage; for the smaller temples, people would erect a stage for the duration of the festival. The dramatic repertoire included episodes from the same narrative cycles that became famous in the Ming novels, such as Outlaws of the Marsh Journey to the West, Canonization of the Gods, and so on, as well as stories of local heroes—and, of course, the territorial divinity in whose honor the festival was staged. The “Three Teachings”: Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism Despite the predominance of territorial religion, this survey of late imperial Chinese religion would not be complete without reference to the “three teachings.” It is 136 MARK MEULENBELD obvious that the major textual traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism had become much intertwined by late imperial times. However, we would do well to caution against an all too simplistic understanding of the three teachings as a model that represents late imperial religious traditions by conflating them into a set of three increasingly overlapping traditions that shared the single goal of peaceful coexistence. Although it is true that the rhetoric of the “unity of the three teachings” (sanjiao guiyi) became particularly popular during late imperial China, it was a type of rhetoric that found more followers among those social groups who had something to gain from controlling and curtailing religious activities than among those who would self-consciously define themselves as belonging to any particular one of those teachings. In that respect it is certainly no coincidence that the teachings of Kongzi (known in the West as Confucius) were often placed at the apex of the three teachings. A positive assessment of the unity of the three teachings is implicit in the scholarly model of syncretism that has been applied to late imperial Chinese religion. This attribution of syncretism—one religious tradition’s incorporation of, or reconciliation with, elements from other traditions—is uncritically based on assumptions of “tolerance,” “openness,” or “dialogue,” whereas the evolution of religious traditions may have been less a product of intellectual curiosity than of cultural change, political pressure, social demand, or certain theological patterns that shaped the way in which traditions responded to each other. Below we will explore the meaning of syncretism, the concept of the three teachings, and the way in which different religious identities were expressed and negotiated. In the first place, the strict lines that modern scholars have drawn between different religious affiliations have failed to take into account the wide range of religious practices that the late imperial Chinese might participate in—as worshipers visiting temples, as practitioners performing rituals, as intellectuals writing religious texts, or as all of the above. Although this tendency has been critically addressed in recent years, many modern scholars, Chinese and Western alike, still understand religious identity too much in monotheistic terms. That is, the implicit understanding of Chinese religion seems to be that one belongs to one tradition at the exclusion of others, similarly to the Abrahamic idea of faith in one god. This is especially true in regards to the modern view of civil officials. Because these men were trained in a civil examination system that was based on the curriculum of Confucian classics, the assumption is that they would single-mindedly devote themselves to the study of Kongzi’s ideas to the exclusion of other creeds. Although it is certainly true that civil officials were expected to use Kongzi’s ideas as a yardstick for representing Chinese culture in their official documents, they were usually not “orthodox” believers in a single cultural tradition. The most common type of official that was produced by the examination system was one who publicly advocated the purity and supremacy of the Confucian tradition, but who would be involved in Buddhist, Daoist, or local religious affairs just as much as most of the other late imperial Chinese who surrounded them. CHINESE RELIGION IN THE MING AND QING DYNASTIES 137 Most commonly, men of classical learning would not limit themselves to some sort of dogmatic orthodoxy. A prime example of this was the court historiographer of the first Ming emperor, Song Lian (1310–1381). His collected writings seem to leave no ideology untouched; he depicts each of the three teachings at times favorably and at other times critically. Here it must be emphasized that, while the first Ming emperor is known for his usage of the term “three teachings” as a political slogan in his attempts to control religious institutions, Song Lian discusses and promotes aspects of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism without advocating their synthesis or emphasizing an ideology that promotes their common origins. This brings us back to the topic of syncretism. At first sight, the practice of borrowing and incorporating ideas from other religious traditions was widespread during the Ming, and could be taken to exemplify some sort of religious tolerance. For example, highly influential Ming Dynasty thinkers such as Wang Yangming (1472–1529) brought the much older trend of reinterpreting Confucianism along the lines of Buddhism and Daoism to a boiling point, while Buddhist intellectuals such as Hanshan Deqing (1546–1623) wrote commentaries on Daoist classics such as Zhuangzi, and Daoist masters such as Zhang Guoxiang (d. 1611) included hagiographies of Buddhist saints in their canonical scriptures. Zhang Guoxiang, indeed, even included the saints of territorial traditions in his Supplement to the Daoist Canon of 1607. It seems almost as if there were no boundaries to the fluidity of late imperial religious traditions. Despite the indisputable lack of orthodoxy that was current in Ming religion at large, we should ask some more critical questions. Did Wang Yangming incorporate so many ideas from Buddhism out of sheer interest, or were his reformulations intended to close the gap between Confucian ideals and social trends by promoting Confucian ideas to an audience that was more interested in Buddhist salvation than in Confucian morality? Did Hanshan Deqing write a commentary to Zhuangzi because he wanted to reinterpret a Daoist classic in Buddhist terms or because texts and ideas from the Daoist tradition had become the intellectual standard of the late Ming? Did Zhang Guoxiang incorporate saints from Buddhism and territorial religion because he was open-minded or because he did not want to lose the support of those who were involved in the worship of those saints? The answers to these questions are not readily available, but it should be clear that the idealistic representation of syncretism as a benign characteristic of a culturally tolerant epoch is not the final answer. Moreover, syncretism should not be understood as a mere blurring of boundaries between religious identities. The religious communities that were constituted by each of the three teachings were certainly not confused about their religious affiliations. In contrast to laymen, the clerical residents of monastic institutions did exclusively define their identity on the basis of one religion. Neither Wang Yangming, Hanshan Deqing, nor Zhang Guoxiang would consider themselves to be anything other than Confucian, Buddhist, or Daoist, respectively. Each of them would claim that their ideology represented a pure tradition. 138 MARK MEULENBELD In addition to intellectual aspects of religious identity, there was the social dimension and the interaction between monks and the society that had produced them. It may be true that Buddhists were reputed for “leaving the family” and detaching themselves from “worldly concerns,” and it may also be true that Daoists were known for choosing the seclusion of mountains over the hustle and bustle of cities. Yet, few (if any) late imperial cities would not count several Buddhist as well as Daoist monasteries. Stereotyped monastic claims of social seclusion notwithstanding, the religious services of both Buddhist and Daoist clerics were heavily geared toward the ritual demands of lay communities, and clerical concerns cannot be understood essentially as the private pursuit of salvation, or as individual selfcultivation: monks had multifarious interactions with the local communities close to them and were, in fact, expected to provide opportunities for laymen to accumulate merit, absolve the dead, and so on. Further, the so-called Confucian “academies” should not be omitted from the religious landscape of the Ming and Qing, although the term “seminaries” would more accurately reflect the largely religious training received by the Ru (Confucians) in these institutions. As places of learning and cultivation that provided a type of training based primarily upon Buddhist models, the life in these Confucian monasteries included sacrificial worship of the statue of Kongzi and other saints of the Confucian canon, as well as the frequent performance of rituals. However, it was precisely during the Ming and Qing that the ideologies promoted by the Confucian monasteries changed rather drastically: in the sixteenth century all statues physically representing Kongzi et alia had to be replaced by wooden tablets that only allowed for a more abstract representation of the Confucian saints by means of written titles. More generally, the end of the Ming witnessed a fundamentalist turn of Confucianism that more than ever emphasized the authority of the canonical texts—a development that continued into the Qing Dynasty and produced the conservative type of orthodoxy that is often mistaken to represent a universal trait of the Confucian tradition. To conclude, although there may have been positive or constructive sides to the interaction between the three teachings, it is not easy to discern how this interaction was motivated by lofty ideals of intellectual improvement or cultural tolerance. There can be no doubt that as self-conscious traditions the three teachings were bent on securing the institutional space they had come to occupy within late imperial Chinese society. As we will see below, the expression of religious identity was particularly clear in the highly contested area of ritual services. Denominational Boundaries and Ritual Expression As is obvious from the diversity of the religious landscape during the Ming and Qing, the terms “sect” and “denomination” are not very useful yardsticks for measuring Chinese religion. The overwhelming majority of late imperial Chinese would not CHINESE RELIGION IN THE MING AND QING DYNASTIES 139 think of defining themselves in denominational terms. It was often on the basis of a specific occasion that they would determine their choice of religious patronage. For example, in case of drought a local community would most likely hire Daoist liturgists who could perform thunder rituals, while the hope for absolving ancestors from their perils in the netherworld would probably be translated into donations to Buddhist institutions or the performance of a land and water ritual. Yet Buddhists sometimes also were asked to pray for rain, and Daoists had their own rituals for absolution. Moreover, these two types of religious specialist could also be called upon for a variety of smaller occasions, such as individual disease, repentance, vows, exorcisms, and so on. The late imperial market for ritual services was large, but also very competitive. In addition to priests of the three canonical religions, local spirit mediums claimed to possess (or, rather, to be possessed by) the powers of the local gods to which they belonged, and they too engaged in the competition for clients. This rivalry between different religious practitioners was less ideological than economical: ritual services formed the sole source of financial support for most clerics. In other words, a lack of clients not only led to a loss of social or religious prestige but also to a loss of wealth. Therefore, if “sect” and “denomination” are not very helpful for understanding Ming and Qing religion, it was precisely during the public performance of rituals that religious affiliation or identity was expressed. There can barely be any doubt that the capability of performing rituals defined a person as belonging to a more narrowly defined stratum of religious practitioners. Priests were reputed for their ritual efficacy—that is, the powers they were able to marshal by means of the ritual services they performed. Reputations were made or broken during the performance of ritual. It was, therefore, most obviously in the realm of ritual, the realm where religious men and women manifested themselves most dramatically to their clients, that religious identities conflicted. In villages, different ritual traditions competed for patronage during important religious occasions. At court, Buddhists claimed victories over Daoists, Confucians condemned Buddhists, and Daoists took advantage of the Confucian resolve to stay away from demons and spirits. Ritual methods were a decisive factor in the self-definition of religious traditions. More than any other aspect of Chinese religion, the possession of ritual methods with the correct pedigree could boost one’s claim to religious efficacy. Such claims not only increased one’s charisma but also defined one as belonging to a particular tradition. Here, too, it should be emphasized that, in this competition for power, civil officials participated just as much as adepts of the other traditions. Even though the religious functions of the Confucian-trained bureaucracy have not been much appreciated in scholarship about the Ming and Qing, it is undisputable that local magistrates could also be called upon in times of religious need. It is certain that local bureaucrats would at times be involved in ritual performances for the procurement of rain or the expulsion of demons, albeit on a less comprehensive scale than Daoists, Buddhists, 140 MARK MEULENBELD or shamans. But, if the ritual scope of all these traditions was similar, their procedures differed, each expressing themselves in their own jargon and expressing different types of relationship to the divine. Local Religion vis-à-vis Religious Institutions The abundance of local religious variances notwithstanding, even the most remote territorial temple did not exist in a cultural vacuum. By the Ming and Qing, the nationwide traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism had long become self-conscious religious institutions with great prestige. Each had their own mythology and liturgy, as well as ordination procedures that bestowed a nominal religious identity upon its members. These “three religions” functioned as points of reference for the territorial saint and its complex of sacrificial practices and narrative traditions. To be sure, despite their local character, the territorial saint and its temples were not situated entirely outside the institutional traditions. In addition to spirit mediums, who mostly served their gods simply by making their bodies available for trance possession, most localities had developed their own ritual traditions. These traditions were upheld by “ritual masters” (fashi) or “ritual officers” (faguan), as these priests would call themselves, or “shamanic masters” (wushi or shiwu), as outsiders might refer to them. The label “shaman” (wu) could be applied to a wider range of religious professions: in addition to the “ritual master,” the term “shaman” could also be used for spirit mediums, charismatic healers, or any practitioner of occult arts. The difference between “ritual masters” and “spirit mediums,” however, is relatively clear. Instead of being subjected to the territorial spirit’s need to possess human bodies, these ritual masters could marshal the powers of local gods by assuming the role of a military commander. Thus, the territorial spirit could be deployed on exorcist expeditions against intruders. In most cases these ritual masters would represent themselves as belonging to Daoist ritual traditions, claiming that the patron saint of their particular tradition had been a disciple of the deified Laozi (for example, Chen Jingu in Fujian, Zhang Wulang in Hunan, Xu Jia in Taiwan). Thus, although such local traditions were not nominally “Daoist,” they certainly referred themselves to Daoism. Many of them operated “barefoot and with hair undone,” similarly to the Dark Emperor in his sacred precinct of Mount Wudang, the epitome of a local “ritual master” whose powers had ultimately become associated with Daoism. Confucian notions also formed points of reference for territorial cults, albeit in a way different from Daoism. Most—if not all—local gods would be canonized with increasingly high titles, disguising their demonic nature with attributes of superior morality, such as “King Who Manifests Loyalty” (Xianzhong wang) or “Prince of Benevolent Munificence” (Renji hou). Such titles expressed the virtuous character of the local god, in keeping with Confucian morality. The older the sacrificial cult of a regional divinity was, the less emphasis would be placed on martial prowess and CHINESE RELIGION IN THE MING AND QING DYNASTIES 141 the more on virtue and nobility. Although the more dogmatic representatives of the imperial bureaucracy were vocal opponents of local temple cults, late imperial gazetteers show that prefects, magistrates, and other civil officials were usually involved quite actively in the local cult—offering sacrifices in their official capacity of local dignitary, as well as in their private capacity of sponsor. Ties with Buddhist institutions are less obvious, but they certainly existed. Just as Daoist monasteries were often built on the site of a local tutelary saint, it appears that many Buddhist monasteries had similar connections with territorial religion. In addition to the fact that a significant number of local spirits were represented as having achieved Buddhist enlightenment, more often than not, Buddhist temples and monasteries were built around shrines to local gods with a Buddhist hagiography. Stories abound of extraordinary men and women who achieved enlightenment and could subsequently perform extraordinary feats of spiritual power, or who sacrificed their lives by feeding themselves to fierce tigers or giant snakes. As liturgical specialists, Buddhists were hired for ritual festivities alongside Daoists or Confucians. Funerals, for example, were occasions that required optimal religious preparation and the participation of as many ritual specialists as possible. Buddhists would chant scriptures for the dead, while Daoists purified the home of the deceased from “killing breaths” (shaqi) and kept the destabilizing forces of death at bay. Significantly, Confucian-trained officials played an important role in funerals, as priests of the ancestral cult. The transition of the deceased spirit from corpse to ancestral tablet was brought to its conclusion by a local official. With his brush dipped in red ink he would place a dot on the ancestral tablet and thereby consecrate it, fixating the spiritual energies of the deceased in the tablet. Regardless of which specific branch of the three teachings a certain priest represented, from the perspective of the territorial cult any priest of the great institutional religions represented forces of a scale that was larger than the local community could boast. The fact that they each represented extensive scriptural traditions no doubt added to the prestige they enjoyed on a local level. Even if individual religious affiliation did not commonly present itself as an everyday choice or as a matter of unique “faith,” and even if most late imperial Chinese were first and foremost involved in their local, territorial religion, all this did not mean that they ignored the three teachings or rejected them. Respect for the three greater traditions was deeply rooted. Ultimately, it seems, the highest authority was thought to reside in Heaven. This brings us, finally, to the “Son of Heaven” and the sacred character of the Chinese empire. State Religion Although not often emphasized in scholarly studies, the Chinese empire was organized as a religious state. As the “Son of Heaven” (tianzi), the emperor was a sacred 142 MARK MEULENBELD monarch whose primary responsibility lay in the correct performance of ritual procedures that were thought to uphold the cosmic order. First among these ritual responsibilities was the sacrifice to Heaven. Each year the emperor presided over the ritual sacrifice of a bull, a goat, and a pig at the magnificent round Altar of Heaven. This sacrifice was the ritual core of the religion promoted by the heirs of Master Kong (Confucius); it was also the religious foundation of the civil bureaucracy over which the emperor presided. The emperor could only claim rightful rulership over the Chinese empire thanks to the cosmic authorization that he had received from Heaven, the so-called “Mandate of Heaven.” Without it, the throne would only represent an individual’s aspiration to control the political scene. With it, the throne was the blessed center of a sacred order; it made the ruler into a being of divine grandeur. Beyond the divine charisma that an emperor obtained from the Mandate of Heaven, it made him into the guardian of the myriad of spirits and gods that inhabited his lands, so that he was sometimes designated as the “Chief of the Hundred Gods” (baishen zhi zhu). It was the Mandate of Heaven that transformed a mortal being into a divine monarch, into an earthly embodiment of the holy spirit of Heaven. As such, the powers of the “Son of Heaven” were profoundly hallowed. In addition to worship of and sacrifices to Heaven, the registers of state sacrifices further included sacrificial proceedings for the Earth (on a square altar), Sun, and Moon; the imperial ancestors; and the great altars of Soil and Grain. These formed the most important level, the so-called “great sacrifices,” crowning a much longer list of middle- and lower-level sacred powers including the Great Year, the Generals of the Lunar Cycle; Wind, Clouds, Thunder, and Rain; the Sacred Peaks and Mountains; and the Oceans and Rivers. The official religion of imperial China attempted to present itself as universal and not personal: gods were predominantly represented as abstract and impersonal divinities, different from the “orphan souls” of Chinese territorial religion. However, to a certain extent this tendency toward worship of impersonal gods was typical of the Ming and after. Halfway through the Ming Dynasty, an imperial decree was issued to replace the statue of Kongzi in Confucian temples with a simple wooden tablet (as mentioned above), parallel to the wooden tablet of the ancestral cult. Only the temple in Kongzi’s hometown, Qufu, was allowed to maintain its anthropomorphic statue. Most local gazetteers of the Ming also make mention of the wooden tablet in the Temple of Walls and Moats, which substituted the statue of its main god (often referred to as the “City God”). Conclusion The official picture presented by the court historiographers of imperial China is not always useful for understanding late imperial Chinese religion. Official sources usually speak in pejorative terms about emperors who were closely involved in other CHINESE RELIGION IN THE MING AND QING DYNASTIES 143 types of worship than that of Heaven alone, yet most of the Ming and Qing emperors were almost without exception intimately involved in various religious activities. The first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang (r. 1368–1398), was strongly interested in Daoism. He wrote a commentary to the Daode jing (Classic of the Way and the Power) and regularly consulted Daoists about demons and spirits. Zhu Yuanzhang further hired Buddhist priests for the performance of salvation rituals. Zhu Di, the third Ming emperor, better known as Yongle (r. 1402–1424), wrote a pious commentary to the Diamond Sūtra, a central Buddhist scripture. He further had Daoist exorcists accompany him on his military expeditions. The Zhengtong emperor (r. 1436–1449) even allowed a Daoist, Shao Yizheng, to compile the Daoist Canon of 1445 inside the Forbidden City. The Jiajing (r. 1522–1566) and Wanli (r. 1572–1620) emperors were barely interested in the impersonal religion of the state. They were, in fact, so devoted to Buddhism, Daoism, and sponsorship of local saints that Confucian historiographers often described these emperors as “wicked and depraved.” Although the Manchu emperors of the Qing Dynasty, who invaded China from the North, continued the sacrifice to Heaven, as well as most of the other sacrifices prescribed in the registers of state sacrifices, they had other preferences, too. They brought some of their own religious customs with them, such as the court shamans, who never seem to have played a prominent role in public. During the Qianlong reign (1736–1795), however, the emperor forged strong ties with Tibet and overtly fashioned himself after the model of the cakravartin—the proverbial Buddhist ruler who spreads the law of Buddhism. Further, although Christian missionaries had already been a conspicuous presence during the late Ming, the Qing Dynasty was the time when missionaries were allowed into court circles. Finally, while Buddhism was largely supported by the imperial house, the Qing Dynasty witnessed a suppression of Daoism: the Celestial Master was no longer admitted to court after 1740, and in 1742 Daoists were no longer allowed to perform as court musicians during rituals or ceremonial festivities—a customary position that Daoists had held at least since the early Ming. After 1821, the Celestial Masters were not only banned from the imperial court but also even from the capital, Beijing. More generally speaking, the upholders of Kongzi’s legacy underwent a certain radicalization. Whereas the official curriculum of the examination system during the early to mid Ming had maintained the earlier kind of ideological plurality that had allowed thinkers such as Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming to absorb notions from Buddhism and Daoism, the late Ming and early Qing witnessed a new and unprecedented conservatism among those who were affiliated with official institutions. Literati with more conservative inclinations such as Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu, and Liu Zongzhou denounced the ideological impurities of their predecessors and stood at the beginning of a radical return to the letter of the Confucian scriptures. When the Manchus conquered the Ming Dynasty, many of these conservatives committed suicide in order to avoid the blemish of moral conflict. The modernization of China after the fall of the Qing empire was detrimental to the various forms of religion that had developed over the course of many centuries. 144 MARK MEULENBELD The great sacrifices to Heaven ended when the imperial house was abolished. Intellectuals joined hands with warlords, republicans, and communists in their zeal to reform everything that was associated with the traditions of local religion, which they reformulated as “superstition” (mixin). Ironically, the anti-religious ideology that came to predominate throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, namely Communism, revolved around two terms that were of distinctly religious origin. “Socialism” (shehui zhuyi) literally meant “the ideology of the congregation around the local altar,” while the term “revolution” (geming) was entirely based on the belief in a Mandate of Heaven through its literal meaning of “uprooting the mandate.” Nevertheless, the post-imperial period of the twentieth century was clearly a time in which traditional religious forms and practices were subjected to significant and at times cataclysmic persecution by the state. Further Reading Berling, Judith A. 1980. The Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-en. New York: Columbia University Press. Brook, Timothy. 1993. Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in LateMing China. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series 38. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Dean, Kenneth. 1998. Lord of the Three in One: The Spread of a Cult in Southeast China. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Johnson, David, Andrew Nathan, and Evelyn Rawski, eds. 1985. Popular Culture in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Naquin, Susan. 1976. Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Overmyer, Daniel L. 1976. Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in Late Traditional China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Overmyer, Daniel L. 1999. Precious Volumes: An Introduction to Chinese Sectarian Scriptures from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center. Ownby, David. 2003. “A history of Falun Gong: Popular religion and the Chinese state since the Ming Dynasty.” Nova Religio 6(2): 223–43. Shahar, Meir. 1998. Crazy Ji: Chinese Religion and Popular Literature. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series 48. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ter Haar, B. J. 1992. The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese History. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Watson, James and Evelyn Rawski, eds. 1988. Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yu, Chun-fang. 1981. The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis. New York: Columbia University Press.