Daoist Priests Research Articles

Daoist priest as magical helper in Pei Xing’s novella “The Tale of Xue Zhao”

The article aims to confirm the hypothesis presented in 2011 that the chuanqi tale “Xue Zhao” by Pei Xing (9th century) contains a sequence of motifs characteristic of the international tale type “Sleeping Beauty” (no. 410 in the Aarne – Thompson Index). The role of the Daoist Celestial master Shen (Shen Yuan / Shen Yuanzhi) as a helper is considered. The author provides some data on the image of Master Shen as the companion of Emperor Xuanzong on his lunar journey in Tang fiction. The article proves the existence of parallel characters to Shen Yuan in the early Western European versions of “Sleeping Beauty”.

Wandering the Diviner’s Path: A Self-Experiment in Taiwanese Divination Practices

Abstract This paper explores the author’s experiences with divination practices and master-disciple relationships in Taiwan. The author discusses his interactions with various masters and Daoist priests and the debates and conversations that ensued. He also reflects on the positive and negative aspects of the master-disciple relationship, the importance of not being engulfed in such relationships, and the scientific and personal challenges he faced as he immersed himself in his object of study. Additionally, the paper provides insights into contemporary practices of divination in Taiwan and China, including the use of social media platforms for these practices. Overall, the study provides a unique perspective on the intersection of spirituality, divinatory culture, and technology in modern-day Taiwan, as perceived by both the subjective self and the observing eye of the scientist.

Daoism and the Operation of the Eastern Stronghold Temple in the Late Imperial China

The sacrificial ritual to Mount Yi (Yishan 沂山) or the Eastern Stronghold (Dongzhen 東鎮) was included in the traditional Chinese state ritual system to mountain and water gods, and therefore, originally, it was a Confucian ritual. The Eastern Stronghold Temple was operated by officers and clerks appointed by the government. However, during the late imperial period, the situation changed and the Eastern Stronghold Temple became virtually operated by Daoism, mainly because of the government’s difficulty in maintaining the temple, the growth and power of Daoism, especially the Complete Perfection Daoism popular in northern China, and the further integration of Confucianism, Daoism, and folk beliefs. Daoist priests, who were named “temple guardians”, took responsibilities for guarding temple property, coordinating central and local government’s sacrificial rituals, administrating the daily operation of the temple, conducting reconstruction projects, and incorporating local people’s beliefs. As a result, the temple not only served as an official place of worship but also gained the functions and identity of a Daoist abbey and folk temple. As the first article discussing the Eastern Stronghold Temple in a western language, this study mainly applies the rediscovered source of stone inscriptions preserved in the temple to describe Daoism’s contributions to this religious–political–cultural symbolic site and the complicated relationship between governmental officials, Daoist priests, and local people.

From Alchemy to Science

Abstract In premodern China, Daoist priests cultivated and traded herbal drugs. Many priests served as doctors for royal and aristocratic families. Given this long history, it is not surprising that Daoist institutions in present-day China have tapped into a demand for traditional healing. Many temples offer clinics for walk-in patients, and some have established research centers devoted to studying traditional medicine. This paper begins with a vignette from a contemporary temple on Mount Yaowang 藥王山 (Mount Pharma-king), where leaders are currently redeveloping an ancient temple into a research center. On the surface, Mount Yaowang merely carries on the traditions of the past. Throughout the multi-acre compound, visitors are greeted with numerous placards, brochures, and exhibitions emphasizing how the knowledge of Mount Yaowang’s past Daoist doctors still lives on today. Beneath this veneer of antiquity, however, a new and different form of Daoist healthcare is emerging. To recognize the new forms of Daoist healing, this paper builds toward a long-range understanding of Daoist healthcare in traditional and twentieth-century China. The author concludes that despite the apparent conservatism of Daoist leaders’ incorporation of the past, it is actually a radical departure.

Biography and its social world: the ‘Stele of Lord Lu’

ABSTRACT Sinologists have traditionally read Chinese biographies as repositories of facts about their subjects, but their pedagogical function means biographies can tell us not just about their subjects, but also their intended audience(s) and the author’s ideological program. This article takes as its starting point a biography of the famous Daoist master Lu Xiujing 陸修靜 (406–77) written by the Tang poet Wu Yun 吳筠 (d. 778) and engraved on a stele that was erected in Lu’s honor in 761. Building on the work of Jan M. De Meyer, I show what Wu’s biography can tell us about its author and audience. Wu crafted a vitae-cum-morality tale with a twofold audience: Daoist priests and imperial officials. For the priests, he fashioned a model life that offered a superior alternative to the conventional literati career. Imperial officials learned that Daoist priests possessed the keys to imperial longevity and good governance.

Daoist Priests of the Li Family: Ritual Life in Village China by Stephen Jones

Reviewed by: Daoist Priests of the Li Family: Ritual Life in Village China by Stephen Jones Daniel M. Murray Stephen Jones, Daoist Priests of the Li Family: Ritual Life in Village China. St Petersburg, FL: Three Pines Press, 2017. x, 406 pp. US$42.95 (PB). ISBN 978-1-931483-34-6 Stephen Jones has engaged in fieldwork on the ritual and music of northern China for the past thirty years, and his previous book In Search of the Folk Daoists of North China1 brought the hereditary Daoist priests of Shanxi, Hebei, and Gansu to the forefront of his work. Daoist Priests of the Li Family continues this focus, but shifts from a large-scale survey to deeply intimate portraits of the Daoists (or Yinyang 陰陽, as they are referred to locally) Li Manshan 李满山, his deceased father Li Qing 李清, and other members of the current band of ritual performers. Jones first met the group in 1991, returning to the village in 2001 and 2003, and has focused his research primarily on them since 2011.The book and accompanying film2 illustrate a close connection between Jones and Li, providing great detail on the family of Daoists and Jones’ interactions with them. The work is something of a reference book to the Li family, chronicling their history, ritual and musical performances, and manuscript collection. It is divided into six parts, each with three to four chapters, as well as introductory and [End Page 80] concluding chapters, and three appendices. The first three parts present a history of the Li family from Li Qing’s father’s early life in the 1920s, through the Maoist era, and up to the present based largely on interviews with Li Manshan and other surviving relatives, as well as drawing on gazetteers and other local historical documents. Part 4 explains the collection of hand-written manuscripts that Li Manshan currently holds, though as Jones points out, these are generally not used. Here Jones stresses the importance of performance over text on the assumption that texts, not ethnography, are what the reader is interested in. Part 5 contrasts the texts with the sound and performance of rituals; he describes the various instruments used and details the funerary rites, which are now the most common rituals, as well as rites for thanking the earth for individual households, which are no longer performed, and temple fair rites, which are no longer common for this Daoist group to perform. Here numerous musical scores and translations of hymns are included, but the Chinese text is only present in images of certain manuscripts. The final section focuses on the future outlooks for the Daoists, their rising prestige through government Intangible Cultural Heritage projects, and travels abroad for performances organized by Jones. These shifts have occurred alongside declining interest paid to them by the rural residents who would normally hire them, perceptions of the instability of the tradition in the future due to its limited income, and simplification of ritual practices. The first appendix presents an argument for fieldwork, with a focus on performance and oral history in Daoist studies, though these points can be found repeatedly throughout the text. The other two appendices list the collection of ritual manuals and describe the chanted scriptures. Jones should be commended for the great detail provided about a tradition for which he clearly has much respect and admiration. While he writes that his expertise lies in ethnomusicology and not ritual studies, it is evident that he has developed a serious understanding of many of the subtleties of Daoist texts and ritual performance. However, those seeking a more analytic or theoretical account of the Shanxi Daoists will be disappointed. The monograph is largely descriptive, lacking much analysis of the changing social life in rural north China or the rituals themselves. Jones’ main argument is largely the same as in his previous book, that the field of Daoist studies is overly concerned with textual evidence and that local historians draw on fieldwork as if contemporary rural life can be taken as a mirror of local society in late imperial times. Additionally, he points out the problematic division of household Daoists in southern China and monastic...

Daoist Priests of the Li Family: Ritual Life in Village China

Stephen Jones has engaged in fieldwork on the ritual and music of northern China for the past thirty years, and his previous book In Search of the Folk Daoists of North China 1 brought the heredita...

Daoist Ritual Manuals in Vietnam: Self-Cultivation, Cosmic Steps, and Healing Talismans

This paper examines visual representations—charts, talismans, and drawings—in Daoist ritual manuals contained in a collection of about 200 Chinese-language manuscripts from the Sino-Vietnamese border. Today kept in Taiwan, they presumably belonged to ritual specialists of Zhuang and Yao ethnic minority groups. This paper provides detailed analysis of many common graphic and pictorial images featured in Daoist manuals omnipresent in south China and, as this research shows, neighboring Vietnam. Used during the ritual of salvation of the soul of a deceased, these manuals present numerous talismans that formed part of the healing techniques practiced by Daoist priests.

Introduction: Paving the Old-New Way from Qing to China

The funeral procession of Sheng Xuanhuai (, 1844-1916) - the renowned Qing scholar-official, financier, and "father of Chinese industrialism" - meandered through the streets of Shanghai on 18 November 1917. The funeral was a grand event, one that was purportedly documented in film, later to be distributed as the first "news short-film" () in China. The North China Herald reported on the event in some detail, at times in rather florid language, and suggested that "the cortege was splendid and impressive, bringing back the days of the Manchu emperors. The ceremonial costumes, the musical instruments and much more of the accoutrements dated back to the days of the Empire" ("Sheng Kung-pao's Funeral," 1917, 467-68). And indeed, the procession included a variety of ritual customs and insignia from Qing (1644-1911) times: imperial banners, ancestral tablets, Buddhist and Daoist priests, paper artifacts, and much more. Simultaneously, nonetheless, other kinds of participants and objects - new and not of imperial pedigree - were part of and intermixed with the older materials: certificates of rank were carried on cars; boy scouts and college students marched alongside the priests; many of the participants arrived by train (mainly from Sheng's hometown, Suzhou); and as the Shanghai portion of the procession ended, it continued by steamer to Suzhou. The conclusion of the North China Herald account, however, seems to have emphasized a dichotomy of old and new rather than a joyful mix of the two: Hundreds of men, dressed in the ancient costume of the old dynasties, bore a strong contrast to the eight behind them, sons of intimate friends of the deceased. They were on horseback and wore high silk hats, frock coats and white breeches tucked in riding boots. Truly the passing of the old and the entering of the new. (Ibid.; emphasis added) This view - the old giving way to the new - was not just an off-hand (Western) journalistic analysis; it was part of a larger discourse about the nature of modernity, about progress, and about the relationship between East and West. By the early twentieth century, China was often perceived by most Westerners and Chinese alike as traditional, backward, and weak. It was, thus, commonly stated that the old was giving way to the new (descriptive), should be giving way to the new (prescriptive), or was bound to give way to the new (quasi-fatalistic), if China was to survive. This kind of discourse was put forward by both Western and Chinese writers, who embraced this linear, progressive, view of the relationship between the old and the new, well before Sheng's funeral or the Qing's demise. In the aftermath of that demise, the New (not "Modern") Culture Movement began to grow and seek solutions for the old-new nation's crisis. The Movement's rhetoric in particular advanced the need for the triumph of the new, and journals, such as New People, New Tide, or New Youth (, , ) served as media for extending such views.

Staging the Silk Road Journey Abroad: The Case of Dunhuang Performative Arts

Staging the Silk Road Journey Abroad: The Case of Dunhuang Performative Arts

Considerations of Thunder Magic Rituals and Thunder Divinities

Modern western studies of Daoist religion convey the notion that the appearance and existence of Chinese divinities oscillate between being bright and sinister, between good and bad, especially if the divinities had originally been active in this world and were then seen in their posthumous lives as divine, with possibly demoniac elements. Literary works and entertaining descriptions of extraordinary phenomena (chuanqi xiaoshuo 傳奇小說), such as the sixteenth-century Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi 封神演義), constitute entertaining source materials that seem to reflect widely known popular ideas. Some of the spirit forces we read about were allegedly humans who underwent a spiritual refinement through the help of higher divinities or through support given by Daoist priests.1 The Daoist priests represent Heavenly Masters of Daoism (Tianshi dao 天師道), also known as Cheng-i Daoism (Zhengyi dao 正一道) or Daoism of Orthodoxy and Unity.

The Beginning of the Subtle School of Taoism: An Official Perception of Taoism in the Early T’ang Period by Florian C. Reiter

Reviewed by: The Beginning of the Subtle School of Taoism: An Official Perception of Taoism in the Early T’ang Period by Florian C. Reiter Jan De Meyer (bio) Florian C. Reiter. The Beginning of the Subtle School of Taoism: An Official Perception of Taoism in the Early T’ang Period. Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Band 94. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014. viii, 127 pp. Paperback €39.00, isbn 978-3-447-10314-5. The Yiqie daojing yinyi miaomen youqi一切道經音義妙門由起 (Phonological glossary of all Daoist scriptures, and the origin of the Gateway of Subtleties, [End Page 364] Daozang 1123) is a massive two-part work in 113, 140, or possibly even 150 juan, commissioned by Tang emperor Xuanzong and compiled in 712–713 by a staff of forty-two editors under the guidance of Shi Chongxuan (d. 713). The largest part of the work, the Yiqie daojing yinyi, was lost after the Song, and only its preface, by Emperor Xuanzong, survives. The second part, the much shorter Miaomen youqi in six sections, is extant, together with its preface by Shi Chongxuan. The Miaomen youqi, a concise account of Daoist doctrine consisting of citations of older scriptures, is the object of Florian Reiter’s short monograph. In his introduction, Reiter points out the limited scope of the Miaomen youqi. Not surprising for a work compiled under imperial auspices by editors, the majority of whom were scholar-officials, the Miaomen youqi deals with the kind of Daoism that was acceptable to Confucian librarians and historians and that would have appealed to the contemporary elite. As a result, references to Daoist exorcist skills, for instance, are avoided. Despite the occasional references to major topics of Daoist philosophy, the Miaomen youqi is not a work of great depth, and neither is it a work that elucidates how exactly the Daoist clergy functioned within early Tang society. The different categories of Daoist priests, for instance, are described in the most general of ways. For example, of the lowest category, that of the libationer (jijiu 祭酒), it is said that “he reaches down to [the life of] common people and saves them to get across the world of feminine attraction and pain” (p. 86), and “They have a friendly disposition and are able to smooth out things. They neither covet nor desire. They put an end to intercourse and worldly fame, and simply display a pure mind as they faithfully rely on Tao” (p. 88). The closest we get to Daoist ritual is in the summary descriptions of the daoshi’s ritual garments. The bulk of Reiter’s monograph consists of three chapters. The first chapter (pp. 13–28) presents a translation of Shi Chongxuan’s preface to the Miaomen youqi. Chapter 2, titled “Survey and Thoughts” (pp. 29–54), paraphrases the six sections of the Miaomen youqi. These deal with the ineffable nature of the Dao and certain issues of Daoist cosmogony, Daoist deities and their different names and avatars, Daoist cosmology and sacred geography, a very general survey of Daoist practice, the different categories of priests and their respective garments, and the revelation and transmission of Daoist scriptures. Chapter 3 (pp. 55–116) contains a translation of the six sections of the Miaomen youqi. Some parts are not translated but summarized. Overall, the translation is well made and stays close to the original. There is some overlap between the second and third chapters, as a number of longish chunks of translation from Chapter 3 also appear in the second chapter. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the Miaomen youqi is that, together with so many other early Tang Daoist texts, it reveals the massive influence exerted by Buddhism on the mental outlook and the imagination of the Chinese elite. Indeed, many pages of descriptions of Daoist deities and of the magical realms they inhabit are modeled on Buddhist examples, and of course we should bear in mind that the [End Page 365] Yiqie daojing yinyi itself was inspired by older, comparable Buddhist works. Everywhere in the Miaomen youqi one senses the presence of court Daoists competing with Buddhism in an attempt to garner the respect and esteem in which Buddhism was held by...

A Report on the 2014 UNIMA (Union Internationale de la Marionette) Conference, Nanchong, Sichuan, China

A REPORT ON THE 2014 UNIMA (UNION INTERNATIONALE DE LA MARIONETTE) CONFERENCE, NANCHONG, SICHUAN, CHINA MARY E. HIRSCH Independent Scholar The First China Nanchong International Puppet Art Week (Shoujie Zhongguo Nanchong mu’ou yishu zhou 首屆中國南充國際木偶藝術周), took place in Nanchong, Sichuan, June 1–6, 2014. This large festival included at least twenty-five troupes from the various provinces in China and welcomed over twenty-three troupes from around the world, including Taiwan. A seminar series of more than twenty presentations by scholars, performing artists, and cultural representatives in morning sessions took place over three days. Lively discussion in both English and Chinese followed formal presentations. Also during the week, a set of judges reviewed live and recorded performances, and their awards determined the fate and future funding of various artists and troupes. Nanchong is home to a world-renowned large puppet theater tradition known as Chuanbei da mu’ou 川北大木偶 (Chuanbei [Northern Sichuan] Big Puppet). It is less than a four-hour drive to the northeast of Chengdu. Seven venues, including the new and very large Nanchong Theater (impressive with its grand staircase but still devoid of any landscaping), hosted the well-attended events. Buses transported participants across town to the various venues, while free outdoor performances in the town plaza showcased artists for locals and anyone walking by during the week. Sponsored by the Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Culture, the City of Nanchong, and the UNIMA Asia-Pacific Commission, the International Puppet Week was organized and coordinated by a combination of arts organizations and propaganda bureaus. It follows in the footsteps of the 21st UNIMA World Puppetry Congress and Festival held in Chengdu, Sichuan, from May 27 to June 3, 2012, also a red carpet event showcased on Chinese national television. Massive coordination of close to a hundred prescreened English speaking volunteers , drivers, and handlers from universities in Sichuan cheerfully managed logistics for the mostly non-Chinese-speaking visiting guests. Effectively overcoming obstacles through rapid-fire cell phone communication and transportation, these young people were on call well into the night. Many of us were lavishly housed and fed in the five-star Tian Lai Hotel (Tianlai da jiudian 天來大酒店) on the banks of the Jialing River. The hotel’s glitzy lobby and abundant international buffet offered great locations for mixing with different performers and scholars each day. CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 34. 2 (December 2015): 162–165© The Permanent Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. 2015 DOI 10.1080/01937774.2015.1096556 The cursory summations below are meant only to give an idea of the content of the more important of the talks that were related to Chinese puppetry. There are plans to publish the papers in English and Chinese.1 During the opening seminar, there was a call for greater public input and media coverage to move puppetry from its marginal position into the mainstream of entertainment . It was hoped that once puppetry’s techniques are better understood, it could be better integrated into the modern world. One topic in the seminars was the history of puppetry in China and its relationship to human theater. Du Jianhua 杜建華, of the Sichuan Provincial Theater, showed how the ancient myths of Ba 巴 and Shu 蜀, the founding cultures unique to Sichuan, are part of marionette puppetry in modern times. Ye Mingsheng 葉明生, Research Professor in Fuzhou, explained his extensive fieldwork and publications on folk religion and puppetry in southern China, emphasizing the close connection between performers and Daoist priests. Qin Xueren 秦學仁, professor at the Central Drama Institute (Zhongyang xiju xueyuan 中央戲劇學院) and editor of the puppetry journal, presented his research on how traditional marionettes are related to human opera. Jiang Yuxiang 江玉祥, Professor Emeritus of Sichuan University and former director of its museum (which has substantial holdings related to shadow theater), focused on the lore of the Thunder God in Chinese myth and how this mighty force came to have a standardized depiction in shadow theaters by the late Qing. Another common topic was the spread of Chinese puppetry abroad. Fan Pen Chen 陳李凡平, Professor at SUNY Albany, traced the reinterpretation and reception of the White Snake legend and its impact on shadow theater. She included a clip of Pauline Benton’s...

Ritual revolutions: Temple and Trust networks linking Putian and Southeast Asia / 仪式革命： 联结莆田与 东南亚的寺庙与信任网 络

AbstractThis paper examines the historical formation and contemporary flourishing of certain temple and trust networks that emerged from the Xinghua area along the coast of Fujian province in the late 19thcentury, and spread across Southeast Asia over the last 150 years. This article examines three out of at least eight different networks that spread from this region to Southeast Asia (Fujiangsheng, Putianshi difangzhi, 2001). These are the 1) Spirit medium Altar Association networks; 2) extended lineage networks; and 3) Buddhist master-disciple networks. These ritual “trust networks” were constructed from cosmopolitical ritual technologies that were transportable, like the portable altar of a Daoist priest, the incense ash of a local god’s temple, methods of collective spirit medium training, or rites conducted before the spirit tablet of an ancestor or a master monk. This paper shows how these ritual methods were employed in a great variety of different political and multi-ethnic settings around Southeast Asia. These networks had a powerful impact on their founding villages and local cultures as well. Rather than simply preserving traditional forms, these networks engaged in continuous ritual revolution, constantly negotiating the forces of modernity within evolving ritual contexts.

Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History by ed. T. J. Hinrichs and Linda L. Barnes (review)

Reviewed by: Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History by ed. T. J. Hinrichs and Linda L. Barnes Nathan Sivin T. J. Hinrichs and Linda L. Barnes, eds. Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013. x + 464 pp. Ill. $45.00 (978-0-674-04737-2). This volume covers Chinese medicine in the broadest possible sense from about 1500 BCE to the present-day United States, not to mention Iraq, Tanganyika, and Argentina. Just over two hundred pages are devoted to premodern China, and a little less than a hundred each to the twentieth century and to Chinese medicine abroad. This is the first book on its topic to use recently excavated documents alongside transmitted sources to reconstruct medicine’s evolution to the present. Its chapters, in chronological order, are written by nine well-known specialists. In addition, there are about fifty contributions of one to three pages by experts on narrower topics, generally based on their previous publications. The words “and healing” in the title signal an important new approach. Almost all scholarship on Chinese medicine so far has studied the work of physicians near the top of the social scale, trained in the early medical classics, therapists to the aristocracy and gentry. Their role in caring for the poor and illiterate majority of the population was negligible. It is natural to ask who cared for most Chinese. The publications of Judith Boltz, Edward L. Davis, C. Pierce Salguero, Michel Strickmann, and a few others have made it clear that popular, Buddhist, and Daoist priests largely shouldered that burden. This book is the first general introduction to take this wider view, although it does not give religious therapy much space. Only the chapter on the Qing dynasty discusses self and family therapy. This is, broadly speaking, a social history. It stresses, in China, books, governmental institutions, and policies. In the rest of the world, it pays most attention to figures who succeeded in establishing Chinese medicine, and how local recognition and official accreditation came about. Linda Barnes’s account of Chinese medicine in the United States traces influences from France, Vietnam, Romania, Canada, England, Japan, Sri Lanka, as well as China. Some readers will also be curious about how doctors and others diagnosed disease, how they made therapeutic decisions, what their professional rituals were, and how all of these changed over time. They will have to wait for a more broadly oriented history. So far, only Volker Scheid’s books on the last five centuries leave behind the old external–internal dichotomy. Readers unfamiliar with recent research on this topic will find much to intrigue them. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the government was collecting, editing, and printing medical books. It was also operating pharmacies in order to keep the prices of drugs affordable. Still earlier, it ran a school to train officials for the palace medical service. Despite the American tendency to think of Chinese medicine as acupuncture, that therapy was marginal through most of history, revived as an important part of the physician’s armamentarium less than a century ago. By 1900, “for many acute, chronic, and contagious illnesses, in fact, Western methods were neither more nor less effective than Chinese ones” (p. 203; the author does not explain the basis for this comparison). [End Page 747] The book provides a good selection of pictures to illuminate its text. A few are unreadable on the book’s ill-sized paper (pp. 46, 85, 113, 118, and 274). A good many expressions, lacking explanation, are incomprehensible, including “methods of fetal instruction,” “primordial emanations of the Dao,” and “viceroy of Liangguang” (pp. 43, 83, and 197, respectively). The editing is not consistent; “moxibustion” is sometimes misspelled as “moxabustion.” The authors variously translate wu as “shaman,” “popular, illiterate healer,” “ritual healer,” and “spirit medium” (pp. 10, 136, 136, and 166, respectively). No one informs the reader that these terms all refer to the same people. There are dozens of factual errors. For instance, the chapter on the tenth to thirteenth centuries claims that “religious Daoist texts, diagnosing illness as divine punishment, also told the sick that taking food and medicines would interfere with...

Confucian Rituals and Chinese Villagers: Ritual Change and Social Transformation in a Southeastern Chinese Community, 1368–1949 by Yonghua Liu (review)

source—the contributions to this volume are no exception. The undeniably valuable data from interviews presented in the various chapters is rarely tested against or supported by evidence from written primary sources. But due to the ever evolving nature and dynamic of contemporary Christian groups, information gathered from interviews alone, while captivating, is also quickly out of date. The book will be of enormous interest to all scholars of contemporary religion, who would like to gain a better understanding of how religion—in this case Chinese Christianity—and members of faith groups negotiate the complex relations with the state and secular society. What emerges from this volume is a complex patchwork where Christianity plays an important part in an individual’s or an ethnicity’s identity and their relation to the state and the many factors influencing this relationship. The increased visibility and confidence of Chinese Christians is a sign of the increasing plurality of Chinese society, yet there remain a number of tensions—some social, some cultural, and in rare cases political— between these churches as social groups and the different layers of the party state. These tensions are not necessarily any greater than the tensions between other social groups in contemporary China where citizens increasingly confidently exercise their right of assembly and association. GERDA WIELANDER University of Westminster, London YONGHUA LIU, Confucian Rituals and Chinese Villagers: Ritual Change and Social Transformation in a Southeastern Chinese Community, 1368–1949. Religion in Chinese Societies, vol. 6. Leiden: Brill, 2013. xv, 326 pp. J125, US$162 (hb). ISBN 978-90-04-25724-5 True to its title and subtitle, this book is in two parts: one of approximately 100 pages on village rituals and the ritual masters called lisheng 禮生, and another of roughly 270 pages on the creation of lineages and community institutions in the township of Sibao 四堡, Fujian 福建, in late imperial times. Sibao will be familiar to many readers as the rural printing center studied by Cynthia Brokaw, a place whose economy was based on the production and distribution of cheap books through much of southeastern China. The aim of the book is to show ‘‘the nature and impact of the Chinese villagers’ encounter with Confucian rituals and the major mechanisms that facilitated this cultural encounter,’’ and its argument is that ‘‘the promotion of Confucian rituals in the countryside greatly transformed rural social structures and local popular culture’’ (p. 4). After an introductory chapter, there are two chapters on the lisheng, one providing a quick overview of these important specialists and the other covering the rituals at which they officiated, which Liu persists throughout in calling Confucian or Neo-Confucian. Liu was able to collect or copy fifty lisheng manuals, which contained the texts they wrote out, recited, and burned at those rituals, plus a few other items. Nearly half the texts were used at funerals, while another two-fifths were used at sacrifices to gods or ancestors (Appendix 4). Judging by the three Liu translates, they were short and conventional (pp. 89–90). Some of the manuals contained a few ‘‘ritual formats’’ (yizhu 儀注), which were scripts for the performance of rituals. Though it appears they were quite short, BOOK REVIEWS 235 they are potentially of great interest and one wishes Liu had discussed them in more detail. (One example is translated on pp. 72–73.) Local ritual specialists who were neither Daoist priests nor Buddhist monks could be found in many parts of China in late imperial times, and are of high importance for our understanding of the attitudes and values of ordinary people. They have not been much studied by scholars in the US and Europe, and hence these chapters are most welcome. The next five chapters deal with the creation of a number of important interrelated social institutions in Sibao from mid-Ming on: lineages with corporate estates, the community compact (which actually was the organizational hub of a village alliance), the establishment of altars of the soil and of orphan souls, and temple construction. Taken together these comprise the ‘‘social transformation’’ of his subtitle. The chapter on the rise of large-scale lineages is the longest, and in fact the lineage was the dominant local institution...

Taoism ed. by Mou Zhongjian (review)

part of the state cult, while the discussion of the Five Prohibitions, which were largely concerned with protecting private property, was not Confucian either (pp. 189, 198). Rituals at local god temples (as described on pp. 205–206), in which lisheng participated, also were not Confucian. Finally, I do not think that Liu has proven that ‘‘the promotion of Confucian rituals in the countryside greatly transformed rural social structures and local popular culture.’’ What he does show is that major social and institutional changes in rural Sibao were accompanied by the appropriate rituals, Confucian and non-Confucian. Despite these flaws the book is valuable for calling attention to the indispensable role of ritual in the countryside, for highlighting the importance of the lisheng, for introducing us to the Shangbao community compact, and for providing a rich picture of the deep changes that were taking place in rural western Fujian from the mid-Ming on. DAVID JOHNSON University of California, Berkeley MOU ZHONGJIAN, ed., Taoism. Translated by PAN JUNLIANG and SIMONE NORMAND. Religious Studies in Contemporary China Collection, vol. 2. Leiden: Brill, 2012. vi, 395 pp. J133, US$182 (hb). ISBN 978-90-04-17453-5 This book contains seventeen articles selected and translated into English from the original Dangdai Zhongguo zongjiao yanjiu jingxuan congshu, Daojiao juan with a new introduction by Vincent Goossaert.1 It is a volume that aims at ‘‘showcasing representative works of Taoist studies in mainland China’’ (p. 1). The articles are rearranged from the Chinese edition. The first two chapters, by Qing Xitai 卿希泰 and Wang Ka 王卡 respectively, offer a survey of the state of the field (up to AD 2002) and of primary sources, including the recent monumental Taoist Canon of China (Zhonghua Daozang 中華道藏).2 The following nine articles are arranged in a loose chronological order, based on the periods concerned: from the Eastern Han to the Qing dynasty. Among them, the first five articles concern pre-Song Daoism: the Excerpt from the Scripture of Great Peace, the legend of Laozi 老子 converting the barbarians, Cao Cao 曹操, the SixHeavens cosmology, and the Twofold Mystery studies of Tang times. They precede four articles about Song and later times: two on Inner Alchemy and two on Quanzhen 全真 Daoism. The remaining six articles are thematic: three are on ethics (environmentalism, life protection, and morality books), one on medicine, and two on ritual. Although the book’s time period starts with the Eastern Han, pre-Qin Daoist philosophers are by no means left out. Many of the articles discuss the relationship between religious Daoism (daojiao 道教) and philosophical Daoism (daojia 道家) that was established in pre-Qin times, taking the stand that the two complement each other. Hong Xiuping 洪修平 suggests that religious Daoism based its theories 1 Mou Zhongjian 牟鐘鑒, Dangdai Zhongguo zongjiao yanjiu jingxuan congshu. Daojiao juan 當代中國宗教研究精選叢書, 道教卷 (Beijing: Minzu chubanshe 民族出版社, 2008). 2 Zhang Jiyu 張繼禹 comp., Zhonghua daozang 中華道藏 (Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe 華夏 出版社, 2004). BOOK REVIEWS 237 and practices on ‘‘attaining transcendence,’’ which is a core principle in the Laozi. Tang Yijie 湯一介 notes the contributions to Daoist philosophy from religious figures by exploring the ‘‘Twofold Mystery study’’ (Chongxuan xue 重玄學) of the eminent Cheng Xuanying 成玄英, an ordained Daoist priest active in the 7th century. The Twofold Mystery studies, as Tang evaluates them, are the third stage of the evolution of Daoist philosophy, and the theoretical foundation on which the ‘‘study of nature in Taoist inner alchemy’’3 eventually would be built (p. 175). Zhang Guangbao 張廣保 shows that Inner Alchemy’s goal of ‘‘communion of the Tao and Life’’ (shengdao heyi 生道合一) on both spiritual and physical levels was shared by pre-Qin Daoist philosophers. Concepts such as obtaining longevity and immortality from the realization of the Dao, and cultivating jing 精 and qi 氣 as an essential method to that realization are already found in the Zhuangzi 莊子, among other texts of philosophical Daoism. In discussing the concept of ‘‘follow and oppose’’ (shunni 順逆), Ge Guolong 戈國龍 argues that the Inner Alchemy practices based on the principle of ‘‘follow and oppose’’ were meant to enable practitioners to ‘‘return to the origin’’ by following the Dao and reverse (i.e. ‘‘oppose’’) the bodily degeneration process caused by socialization and materialization . The Daoist goal of ‘‘returning to the origin’’ was established by philosophical Daoism at...

Healing and Ritual Imagination in Chinese Medicine: The Multiple Interpretations of Zhuyou

In the Chinese medical corpus, ritual healing largely fell under the rubric of zhuyou 祝由 to uncover and expel the unknown, imperceptible, and occult causes of illness. Often dealing with uncertain or incurable cases, zhuyou remained at the cutting-edge of contemporary medicine. For a rising medical elite after the Northern Song, zhuyou was the branch of medicine to flexibly incorporate and critique the variety of ritual therapies into orthodox practice. Zhuyou employed prayer, incantations, talismans, gestures, and drugs in a nuanced clinical encounter to reveal the hidden root of disorder ranging from a blockage of qi, spirit possession, emotional imbalance, or loss of virtue. These rituals opened an imaginative space for therapeutic play where patients and healers could use spiritual proxies and props to address difficult emotions or issues that were often the hidden cause of affliction. The development of zhuyou also reflected the changing role of ritual in the history of Chinese medicine and the exchanges among physicians, Daoist priests, and other ritual healers. The significance of ritual in Chinese medical history has largely remained unclear as most editions of medical classics republished since the early twentieth century excise relevant chapters and zhuyou manuscripts, until recently, were uncatalogued.

The Ming Prince and Daoism: Institutional Patronage of an Elite by Richard G. Wang (review)

format for bibliographical references, and other minor defects. Several footnotes seem to have been hurriedly copy-edited or distractedly proofread.11 A key to eight abbreviations (p. 293) precedes a list of contributors from which Hsieh Tsung-Hui is absent (p. 295). Finally, in lieu of a much-needed index, only a glossary of Taoist sources is provided (pp. 297–300). GRÉGOIRE ESPESSET Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie orientale (CRCAO), Paris RICHARD G. WANG, The Ming Prince and Daoism: Institutional Patronage of an Elite. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. xxx, 301 pp. US$74 (hb). ISBN 978-0-19-967768-7 In addition to being an excellent contribution to the social and cultural history of Daoism, this book clearly is a labor of love. Having been underway for some ten years, the underlying historical research is astonishing in its sheer magnitude and meticulousness. Its account of the Ming princely institution in its relation to the Daoism of this seriously understudied period in the history of Chinese religion is exceptional in its approach and truly impressive. Anybody interested in the social history of Daoism will find the reading extremely rewarding, and the book without question will find a permanent place as a reference work on the shelves of scholars in the field of Daoist studies. The style and method of the book are those of the social historian, and the presentation of the materials is extremely systematic and exhaustive. However, the paucity of standard historical documents concerning princely institutions has dictated the use of a much wider range of sources for this topic. In the words of the author: ‘‘once we have exhausted conventional historical sources, we then must make thorough use of epigraphy, collected literary works, local gazetteers, archaeological reports, Daoist canonical texts, anecdotal literature, and critical bibliography in order to understand local societies and Daoism’’ (p. xxix). The distinct quality of Wang’s research is his mastery of this wide range of sources which helps to explain the high quality of the work. After an expert overview of the changing social and political roles of Ming princes in chapter 1, the book offers six chapters on different aspects of the engagement with Daoism by these princes and their relatives and by descendants in branch princely establishments throughout the dynasty (often delving also into sources concerning the continuation of these cultural patterns in the subsequent Qing dynasty). The themes are the following: 11 For instance: ‘‘See the discussion below, p. ??’’ [sic.] (p. 25, n. 8); ‘‘a type of document which identifies and [sic.] individual [. . . ] then sets our [sic.] a record of their [sic.] accomplishments’’ (p. 25, n. 9); footnotes 13 (p. 28) and 19 (p. 233) not set in reduced-size font as observed elsewhere; a doubled ‘‘Lü Pengzhi’’ (p. 56, n. 47); an interpolated ‘‘Song.’’ (p. 70, n. 89); ‘‘the prominent ritualist of XXX’s [sic.] court’’ (p. 115, n. 15); numerical reference marks 19–21 not in superscript (p. 117); English paper with footnotes 9–12 (pp. 195–96), 22–24, and 26–27 (pp. 205–206) entirely in Chinese, etc. BOOK REVIEWS 185 N Chapter 2: The performance of state ritual on the local level, carried out primarily by the Daoist priests of the Abbey of Divine Music, Shenyue guan 神 樂觀, the local counterpart of the institution by the same name in the capital, under the Ministry of Rites, Libu 禮部. N Chapter 3: The performance of specifically Daoist rituals such as retreats (zhai 齋) and offering ceremonies (jiao 醮) in the local communities and temples sponsored by princes. N Chapter 4: Personal cultivation of both outer and inner alchemy and the publication of a large variety of books, often on such topics. N Chapter 5: The patronage of temples, despite that being circumscribed by the institution of ‘‘restrictions toward princes’’ (fanjin 藩禁) which, since mid-Ming, limited all princely activities to the locale of the fief while also excluding all involvement in power politics or access to civil examinations. N Chapter 6: The Daoist writings of the princes and their participation in ‘‘literary societies’’ (she 社) which, in terms of social status, were typically considered beneath the literary circles of elite Confucian scholar-officials. N Chapter...

Daoist Priests and Imperial Sacrifices in Late Imperial China: The Case of the Imperial Music Office (Shenye Guan), 1379–1743

Daoist Priests and Imperial Sacrifices in Late Imperial China: The Case of the Imperial Music Office (Shenye Guan), 1379–1743