Conservative Confucian Values and the Promotion of Oral Performance Literature in Late Qing Jiangnan: Yu Zhi’s Influence on Two Appropriations of Liu Xiang Baojuan

Abstract

This article compares two editions of an obscure late Qing baojuan 寶卷 (precious scroll), which seemingly hoped to capitalize on the late nineteenth-century popularity of Liu Xiang baojuan 劉香寶卷 (The precious scroll of Liu Xiang) by appropriating its heroine as a mouthpiece for the kinds of conservative social values espoused most vocally by moralist Yu Zhi 余治 (1809–1874). In Liu Xiang zhong juan 劉香中卷 (The middle scroll of Liu Xiang), the familiar protagonist animates a number of tales taken from popularly circulating Confucian morality literature of the time, particularly an illustrated primer written by Yu. Reading two different editions of this work against each other uncovers signs of a disagreement between its anonymous writer and Yu Zhi about how best to adopt a precious scroll to the purposes of disseminating the morals represented in Yu’s extensive corpus. Were these texts supposed to convince their readers of the supremacy of his approach above all other methods of merit cultivation, even the recitation of precious scrolls? Or was the point to allow lay Buddhist devotees to continue their appreciation of precious scrolls while using them to inculcate Confucian values as well?