Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions I: State of the Field and Disciplinary Approaches 3110546965, 9783110546965

Table of contents :
Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
List of Contributors
Note on Chinese Names, Terms and Transliteration
Introduction
The Definition of Religion for the Social Scientific Study of Religion in China and Beyond
Contemporary Confucian Revival: Reflecting on the Nation, the State and Modernity
From Missionaries to Scientists: Reflections on the History of the Anglophone Study of Chinese Protestant Christianity
From Neglected Problem to Flourishing Field: Recent Developments of Research on Muslims and Islam in China
Epistemic Communities of Buddhist Scholarship in Modern China: Narratives and Paradigms
Advancing the Ethnographic Study of Han Buddhism in China
Encountering the Other in the Study of Chinese Religions: Constructing Borderland Buddhism in Chinese and Euro-American Scholarship of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Bringing Religion Back In: Political Science and the Study of Religion in China
Chinese Political Science and the Study of Religion
For a History of Religious Ideas in Modern and Contemporary China
Index

Citation preview

Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions I

Religion and Society

Edited by Gustavo Benavides, Frank J. Korom, Karen Ruffle and Kocku von Stuckrad

Volume 77

Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions I State of the Field and Disciplinary Approaches Edited by André Laliberté and Stefania Travagnin

ISBN 978-3-11-054643-9 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-054780-1 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-054696-5 ISSN 1437-5370 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019936536 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Preface Religion in the late Imperial and twentieth-century China has been the object of a large number of publications in the past few decades. These studies used archive and ethnographic research, but also relied upon an earlier generation of scholarship that had opened the field and created its methodological and theoretical foundations. Part of this early scholarship did not result from the work of traditional academics, but from explorers or photographers, and thus enriched the discourse of religion in modern China with different and less academic perspectives. Parallel to this publishing production, the organization of conferences, the establishment of research centers and the creation of international research networks on this theme have multiplied steadily. This flood of new research reflects the fact that the study of religions in modern China has emerged as a new and challenging field in both Asian and Western academia. Within this emerging rich field of study, however, there is still an ongoing debate regarding what methods and theories are appropriate to be employed. The three-volume publication Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions contributes to this debate. It reviews the past history of the field, highlights challenges that the scholars in this field have encountered, reconsiders then the present state of analytical and methodological theories, and finally opens a new chapter in the history of concepts and methods for the field itself. These three volumes explore religion in the so-called greater China, which includes mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Among the authors, some have been trained and published in the fields of anthropology and sociology; some others are historians, textual scholars, area studies scholars, and political scientists. The three volumes then present the results of a constructive dialogue and mutual integration of various disciplines of humanities and social sciences. This publication also aims to contribute to a discussion on analytical and theoretical concepts that could potentially be applied to the study of religion in other contexts, including in Western societies. In other words, China is seen not as an exotic outlier, but as a global player in the overall academic study of religion. Such framework responds to the current call for interdisciplinary and cross-tradition debates on a trans-regional horizon and globalization, and therefore methodologies for the study of East Asian religions should be engaged with Western voices in a more active and constructive manner. The first volume, Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions I: State of the Field and Disciplinary Approaches, starts with an assessment of the major earliest works and individuals who initiated the study of religion in modern China. Those individuals include Western and Chinese https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-201

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religious practitioners, academic figures, explorers and photographers. The earliest works are predominantly textual, historical and ethnographic studies: these form the foundation of the field. Questions addressed include: Who are the pioneers in the study of religion in modern China and Taiwan? What were the first disciplinary approaches, conceptual categories, and objects of research? How did those selections shape the beginning of the field as well as the academic output of today? What were their contributions and their limitations, and how can we work to overcome those shortcomings? The second part of the first volume discusses methodological and disciplinary approaches that are currently used in the study of religion in modern China and Taiwan, with constructive conclusions on potential changes in research trajectories, and thus works toward an overdue improvement of research methods. The chapters address methodological disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, political science and history, in their own micro-contexts as well as in the ways they relate to macro-fields. The second and third volumes shift the focus from methodological concerns to critical reflections on analytical concepts, and include the re-evaluation of concepts and practices that inform the religious sphere and scholarship in the field. These two volumes look at endogenous Chinese concepts and exogenous ideas from the West and Japan that are foundational in thinking about the Chinese religious landscape. Some chapters address the introduction of new concepts or the reshaping of traditional ones in light of the intellectual, political and social atmosphere of late nineteenth century and the early Republican period in China, while others assess ideas that continue to permeate the religious sphere of China and Taiwan today. These key concepts are all interconnected because they participate in the same debates on traditional dichotomies and recent paradigm shifts. Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II: Intellectual History of Key Concepts analyzes key concepts in their intellectual history and development: these are concepts that have become core terms in Chinese religions but which each have their own history of formation and use. Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions III: Key Concepts in Practice analyzes another set of concepts that form the foundations of the Chinese religious sphere. Adopting an approach that differs from that of the second volume, these concepts are studied through their praxis in lived religions. This project developed from the conference Framing the Study of Religion in Modern China and Taiwan: Concepts, Methods and New Research Paths, which was sponsored by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange and the KNAW (Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen), and was held at the University of Groningen in December 2015.

Acknowledgments Preliminary drafts of the chapters by Fenggang Yang, Christopher A. Daily, Wai-yip Ho, Brian J. Nichols, Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, Susan McCarthy, André Laliberté and Vincent Goossaert were presented at the international conference “Framing the Study of Religion in Modern China and Taiwan: Concepts, Methods and New Research Paths”, held at the University of Groningen on December 9–12, 2015. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange and the KNAW (Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen) for their sponsorship, which helped make our meeting possible. The discussions that took place during the conference were essential for authors as they revised their chapters. Each author offered specific acknowledgments in their own chapters. Here the volume editors would like to express their indebtedness to the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript, who offered significant and constructive feedback that helped all of the contributors enhance their studies. Last but not least, we are deeply thankful to the editors of the book series Religion and Society at De Gruyter for the unstinting guidance and support they provided for our project.

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Contents Preface

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Acknowledgments

VII

List of Contributors

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Note on Chinese Names, Terms and Transliteration

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André Laliberté and Stefania Travagnin Introduction 1 Fenggang Yang The Definition of Religion for the Social Scientific Study of Religion in China and Beyond 23 Alex Payette Contemporary Confucian Revival: Reflecting on the Nation, the State and Modernity 45 Christopher A. Daily From Missionaries to Scientists: Reflections on the History of the Anglophone Study of Chinese Protestant Christianity 67 Wai-Yip Ho From Neglected Problem to Flourishing Field: Recent Developments of Research on Muslims and Islam in China 93 André Laliberté and Stefania Travagnin Epistemic Communities of Buddhist Scholarship in Modern China: Narratives and Paradigms 115 Brian J. Nichols Advancing the Ethnographic Study of Han Buddhism in China

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Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa Encountering the Other in the Study of Chinese Religions: Constructing Borderland Buddhism in Chinese and Euro-American Scholarship of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 163 Susan K. McCarthy Bringing Religion Back In: Political Science and the Study of Religion in China 181 André Laliberté Chinese Political Science and the Study of Religion

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Vincent Goossaert For a History of Religious Ideas in Modern and Contemporary China Index

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List of Contributors Christopher A. Daily is Researcher at the East Asian Studies Center, University of Southern California. He completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in Chinese religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and subsequently held a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Prior to moving to California, he was Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at Regent’s University London and Research Fellow at the SOAS China Institute. He publishes on the history of Christianity in China and is the author of Robert Morrison and the Protestant Plan for China (Hong Kong University Press, 2013), among other works. He is currently completing a new monograph on Protestant Christian libraries in China during the nineteenth century. Vincent Goossaert obtained his Ph.D. at EPHE (Ecole pratique des hautes études, 1997), was a Research Fellow at CNRS (1998–2012) and is now Professor of Daoism and Chinese religions at EPHE, PSL, and Dean of its Graduate School (2014–2018). He has been Visiting Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Geneva University and Renmin University. His research deals with the social history of Chinese religion in late imperial and modern times. He has published books on the Daoist clergy, anticlericalism, Chinese dietary taboos, the production of moral norms, and, with David Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China (Chicago, 2011; Levenson Prize 2013). Wai-Yip Ho is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences, at the Education University of Hong Kong; and an Intercontinental Academia Fellow, University-Based Institute of Advanced Studies. He was the Marie Curie Fellow at Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), Visiting Fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, University of Heidelberg. His research and teaching interests include contemporary Muslim youths, China’s Christian-Muslim relations, China-Gulf Relations, new media and Islam. He is the author of Islam and China’s Hong Kong: Ethnic Identity, Muslim Networks and the New Silk Road (Routledge: London, 2015 [Paperback]). Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Asian studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California, the United States. She received her B.A. from Victoria University, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, and her Ph.D. from the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. She researches the cosmological and material encounters that have shaped trans-Himalayan cultures and their global connections. She is the author of The Social Life of Tibetan Biography: Textuality, Community and Authority in the Lineage of Tokden Shakya Shri (Lexington Books, 2014). André Laliberté is Professor of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. His publications include Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions (co-edited with Gareth Fisher and Ji Zhe, University of Hawai’i Press, 2019); Secular States and Religious Diversity (co-edited with Bruce Berman and Rajeev Bhargava, UBC Press, 2016), and The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan (Routledge Curzon, 2004). He has also written on religion and political change in contemporary China and Taiwan, and his current research looks at the way religions frame the welfare regimes and the labor rights of care-givers in Chinese societies. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-203

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Susan K. McCarthy is Professor of Political Science at Providence College. Her research explores the politics of religion and ethnicity in contemporary China. In particular, her work examines how ethnic and religious identities facilitate civic engagement and strategies of resistance. McCarthy is the author of Communist Multiculturalism: Ethnic Revival in Southwest China (2009) along with numerous articles on this subject. Brian J. Nichols is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities at Mount Royal University in Calgary. He holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies with a concentration in Buddhism from Rice University. His most recent research examines the revival of Buddhism in modern and contemporary China, where he has conducted research from 2005 to 2012 supported in part by a Fulbright fellowship and a grant from the Asian Cultural Council. He is interested in broadening the conception of Buddhist monasticism by examining it in practice, through ethnographic means. His most recent publication is an assessment of Holmes Welch’s study of Chinese monasticism in Studies in Chinese Religions. Alex Payette holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Politics and International Relations (University of Ottawa) and is a SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) Banting postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto. His research interests focus around Chinese domestic politics, Contemporary Confucian revival, its multiple local expressions and its influence on both changes in the internal logic of governance and on the issue of “care” as a contentious field. Stefania Travagnin is founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Culture in Asia at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Her research explores Buddhism and Buddhists in mainland China and Taiwan from the late Qing up to the present time, religion and media in China, concepts and methods for the study of Chinese religions. Her publications include the edited volume Religion and Media in China: Insights and Case Studies from the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong (Routledge, 2017). She is also director of the three-year project ‘Mapping Religious Diversity in Modern Sichuan’ funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (2017–2020), with Elena Valussi as codirector. Fenggang Yang is Professor of Sociology, founding Director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University, and the founding Editor of the Review of Religion and Chinese Society. He has been elected and served as the President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (2014–15) and the first President of the East Asian Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (2018–2020). His research focuses on the sociology of religion, religious change in China and immigrant religion in the United States. He is the author of Atlas of Religion in China: Social and Geographical Contexts (2018), Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule (2012), and Chinese Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities (1999), and the co-editor of more than ten books.

Note on Chinese Names, Terms and Transliteration We have used pinyin transliteration throughout, while adding Chinese characters at their first occurrence. Chinese characters for well-known cities, institutions and individuals have not been provided. We used traditional characters in reference to titles, names, and events from Taiwan and China during the Republican period, while we adopted simplified characters for titles, names and events in contemporary China. In certain instances related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas Chinese communities, pinyin has been replaced with local transliteration systems to maintain names and terms as they are commonly known in the English-speaking world.

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Introduction In this book, we review the different methods that colleagues have employed in the study of religion in China in the last few decades. We have aimed to state what they have accomplished so far and in doing so, we seek to understand why we end up with the existing research trajectories and which new paths we can design in the future to improve the study of Chinese religions. To achieve these aims, we have divided this introductory chapter into three sections. Firstly, we look at the main questions that the existing scholarship has left unanswered and the obstacles that remain in trying to answer them. Then, we outline the themes and the arguments of the chapters in this book, before presenting how this book differs from the existing scholarship, and which new research it could inspire. A major challenge we face in the study of religion in China is to decide whether one should look at it in the plural, and focus on different religious traditions, or like Lopez (1996) proposes, look beyond this diversity to find elemental forms of Chinese religion shared by all traditions. There is a merit to both approaches: many Chinese, especially Christians and Muslims, identify with a specific religious tradition. On the other hand, there are forms of rituals, like the burning of incense, the offering to gods, ghosts, and ancestors, – to borrow from the terminology used by Jordan (1972) – which many religions practiced in China share. We have decided to adopt an approach that takes into account these two realities. For example, although six chapters in this volume look into the specific traditions of Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, Tibetan and Han Buddhism, four others look into religions using holistic perspectives, based on the sociology of religion, Western and Chinese political science, and the history of ideas about religion in China. A great number of high quality studies of religion in China have emerged in the twenty-first century. Alongside the specialized works that focus on specific religions – which is the object of the next sections – a few works have proposed a general overview of religions in China for readers less familiar with the subject. Multi-authored books introducing the public to this issue include Overmyer (2003), Miller (2006), Yang (2008), Ashiwa and Wank (2009), Palmer, Shive and Wickeri (2011). Other works are paying attention to specific dimensions. Hence, contributions to Travagnin (2017) look at the impact of the media on the different contemporary religions. Likewise, the scholars brought together by Ownby, Goossaert and Ji (2017) have focused on charismatic religious leaders. Among the few sole-authored introductions to religion in China, the work of investigative https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-001

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journalism by Johnson (2017), offers descriptions of religion’s vitality in contemporary China through revealing storytelling. The monograph by Katz (2014) covers a longer span of time, and examines mutations within Chinese religions to understand their resilience in modernity since the late Qing dynasty. This stream of scholarship builds on previous foundational works authored by early researchers such as de Groot (1892) and Maspero (1928), a scholarship that faced serious obstacles during the periods of warfare and social revolution that China experienced in the first half of the twentieth century. Many scholars of Chinese religions have looked at the diversity of religions in relation to other facets of social life, whether it is government (Weller 1994), the market (Yang 2006; Cao 2010), or health (Palmer 2005). These authors depart from their peers in Western sociology, who tend to look at religions as constitutive of a ‘religious field’ distinct from other fields such as medicine, to borrow from Bourdieusian sociology (Bourdieu 1984), or to use a Luhmannian approach, tend to consider ‘religion’ as differentiated from ‘politics’, the ‘economy’, etc (Luhmann 1977). Most of the scholars writing on religion in China have criticized these approaches, as we will see below, for being too ethno-centric and for imposing analytical schemata that do not fit the reality observed on the grounds. Studies that focus on specific religions or forms of religiosities, being based on empirical observations, hold the promise of being able to circumvent these limitations. Below, we turn to the scholarship that has focused on specific traditions, and the questions that they leave unanswered.

1 Looking at the Variety of Chinese Religions Many scholars of religion in modern China are indebted to Yang Chin-kung’s seminal work on religion in China, which made a fundamental distinction between ‘diffused’ religions and ‘institutionalized’ ones (Yang 1961). This approach has received some criticism but we acknowledge its heuristic quality by distinguishing the phenomena of popular religions, which are often difficult to set apart from other forms of social life, and the institutionalized religions of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and some of the new religions. But as the situation of Daoism in Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora demonstrates, this is complicated by the fact that many practices of popular religions are considered by governments as Daoist, and Daoist practices are interpreted loosely as forms of popular religion. We follow the scholarly tradition of distinguishing the two but recognize the existence of such fuzzy boundaries.

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1.1 Popular Religions It has become possible for scholars, Chinese as well as foreign ones, to study these religions, even though the CCP regime in China prefers the more ambiguous expression of ‘belief’. At the onset, the question of naming that religion as ‘popular’ or ‘folk’ has generated lots of discussion (Jin 2005; Law 2005; Chamberlain 2009; Yang and Hu 2012). One of the problems with both ‘popular’ and ‘folk’ religions is the suggestion of a difference between practices of elites and those of the population in general (Law 2005; Yang and Hu 2012). An example of the limitations found in making this kind of distinction is the cult of the Yellow Emperor sponsored by provincial leaders in Northwestern China, which received a fair share of popular support in the 1990s (Billeter 2007). Studies on the role of religion in the local economic life of communities thanks to tourism offer other examples of the close connection between popular religious practices and state sponsorship (Oakes and Sutton 2010). Many anthropologists have preferred to use more value-neutral terms such as ‘local religions’ (Dean 1998, 2003; Dubois 2005; Overmyer 2009), or ‘communal religions’ (Dean 2003), which emphasize their attachment to village life, even when they are practiced in urban neighborhood. But other religious phenomena that cannot fit into the label of communal religions have also received attention, such as the practice of geomancy (fengshui 風水) (Bruun 2003). These differences over terminology have made it difficult to map out in space and time the different variants across regions of the practices of popular religions for all of China, in a way that compare to the efforts of Ji Zhe (2012–2013) as well as Wu Jiang and Tong Daojing (2015) on Buddhism. Many Chinese scholars are questioning the ability of outsiders to adequately understand religions in the PRC and in response some of them are devising better strategies to nurture what they see as a scientific understanding of popular beliefs prior to their legitimation (Gaenssbauer 2015). One example of this kind of work is the recent interest that has emerged with regards to Shamanism, which is another generic term for a category of religious practice not limited to Chinese (Li 2016). This kind of approach opens the door to more comparative studies of non-Chinese religions. Another perspective, adopted by Li Xiangping, has generated a lot of interest in China, and looks into religious beliefs alongside other categories of beliefs, whether they are economic or political, although Li’s work has yet to be translated in Western languages (Li 2010). Finally, some scholars consider how artificial is the distinction made between popular religions and the traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and the sectarian religions that we will examine below, because these traditions have many commonalities with popular beliefs, and not a few scholars have used them altogether, writing about a

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popular Confucianism (Clart 2003), or even folk Buddhism (Overmyer 1976). Below, we turn to some of the issues left unresolved in the abundant scholarship that has looked more closely at the specific social practices and scriptures associated with specific religious traditions.

1.2 Confucianism The issue of whether Confucianism qualifies as a religion remains controversial (Littlejohn 2010; Sun 2013; Adler 2014). Many scholars and public intellectuals underline the spiritual dimension of Confucianism (see Yao 2000; Solé-Farràs 2014), while others have looked at the views of Chinese Confucian scholars’ claim that their tradition is more than a philosophy, but also a religion that furthermore deserves state recognition (Ownby 2009; Billioud 2010; Billioud and Thoraval 2015; Payette 2016). Chinese scholars familiar with the realities of popular religions have seen in the promotion of Confucianism a quest for a Chinese indigenous religion serving the definition of national identity (Fan and Chen 2012). An unresolved issue in these debates about Confucianism is the nature of the ethical, moral, and political values it promotes. On the one hand, a major tradition of scholarship spawn by the late de Bary has documented the protoliberal and humanist perspectives promoted by Confucian scholars since imperial China (de Bary 1998). The offshoot of that scholarship is the argument that Confucianism could provide the resources for democracy (Ackerly 2005; Angle 2012; Shin 2012). On the other hand, proponents of the Chineseness of Confucianism would also stress that not only is it incompatible with Western liberal values, but also that it represents the inspiration for a superior form of government, based on virtue (Bell 2010). Lost in this particular literature, however, is any reference to the fact that Confucian apologists say little about moral values such as filial piety, and its consequences for the sacralisation of unequal gender relations.

1.3 Daoism A good starting point for an introduction to that religion is the textbook published by Kohn in 2001, which is considered a standard reference and has been reedited (Kohn 2001). A few more concise introductions to Daoism have been released after Kohn’s textbook (Reiter 2000; Miller 2003; Kirkland 2004; de Bruyn 2009; Raz 2012; Komjathy 2013). Among these, Raz presents the origins and early development of the tradition, Miller’s introduces readers to concepts

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from the standpoint of Daoist themselves, and de Bruyn emphasizes that there is more than ‘one’ Daoist tradition. These introductions, however, say little about the social and political context, and the role of women. Kirkland (2004) presents the hermeneutical challenges of identifying Daoism, summarizes its classical legacy, history, social-political matrix, and its practice as ‘cultivating reality.’ However, it is short on describing how Daoism is lived in contemporary societies. Komjathy offers a more comprehensive treatment. Many texts look at how different aspects of mundane life closely relate to the religious dimension of Daoism. This includes research from the angle of medicine, in particular the quest for immortality (Fowler 2005). As is the case with Buddhism, there exists a field of Daoist art (Little and Eichman 2000). Others look at Daoism for its alternative perspectives on the environment (Girardot, Miller, and Liu 2001). Closely related to the issue of Daoist aesthetics and art, scholars have paid attention to the economic potential of pilgrimage (Shuo, Ryan, and Liu 2009). Also of interest is the scholarship using gendered lens to draw our attention to the reality of goddesses in the Daoist pantheon, which brings forth the evidence of female renunciants, nuns, and matriarchs, as well as women’s inner alchemy and stages of attainment within the religious tradition (Despeux and Kohn 2003). This research holds the promise of bringing forward some hard questions about the place of women in all Chinese religions, as well as issues such as sexual orientations. Kohn (2016) has enlarged this debate with her monography about the ethical dimension of Daoism. However, there is little research in Western language about how these aspects of the religion are expressed institutionally by the Daoist Association of China, and other official organizations, with the exception of the contributions to Palmer and Liu (2012).

1.4 Han Buddhism (Mahāyāna) Contemporary China hosts temples and communities belonging to the three major traditions of Buddhism: Theravāda, which is practiced mostly by ethnic minorities in provinces that border Myanmar, Vietnam, and Laos, three countries where a large number of Buddhists adhere to Theravāda; Mahāyāna, which became the predominant tradition practiced by Han Chinese; and finally Vajrayāna, which is the second major tradition and whose communities have lived mostly in South Western areas and, since the mid twentieth century, Taiwan, and in increasing numbers, in Han communities in the PRC as well. We will focus here on the traditions of Mahāyāna, (also known as Han Buddhism) and Vajrayāna (broadly defined as the tradition reflected in Tibetan Buddhism).

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Shiu and Stokes (2008) have documented how many of the Han Buddhist rituals, such as the practice of gaining merit via the release of captive animals, have had adverse consequences on the environment, public health, and economic prosperity. Fisher (2008) has documented the tensions that can erupt during the building of new temples in rural area, which are promoted by urban devotees who show little respect for the local culture. Other investigations have also observed the porosity of religions’ boundaries, as evidenced by the phenomena of ‘folk Confucianism’ promoted by the Buddhist Master Ching Kong in his teachings (Dutournier and Ji 2009). There has been a significant amount of research looking into relations between the state and Buddhists. Looking into the new relationship between Buddhists and the government during the era of Jiang Zemin, Ji (2004) saw in this development a ‘second revival’ of Buddhism. Ashiwa and Wank (2006, 2009) have further demonstrated how much the collaborative relation between Buddhist actors and the state at that time often resulted from local politics. Another finding is the realization that local Buddhist associations represent a resource on which local governments can rely for the generation of social stability (Laliberté 2011). Kiely and Jessup (2016) have brought together scholars expanding on the diversity of aspects Buddhism has embraced since the Republican era. A political angle to the role of Buddhism includes its assessment as an alternative form of civility (Laliberté 2012); its role as an emergent social force that his politically neutral (Ji 2012–2013); or as a source of morality that may articulate local grievances, but no political critiques (Fisher 2014). An important scholarship about Buddhism in Taiwan has developed, distinct from that which looks into China. One of the pioneers of research on Buddhism in Taiwan in Western languages is Jones (1999), who has documented the role of the island in preserving the tradition of humanistic Buddhism threatened during Mao’s rule. Laliberté (2004) looked into the politics of Buddhist associations during the era of martial law and the period of democratization. Chandler presented the remarkable expansion worldwide of the Buddha Light Mountain, one of the most important Taiwan-based Buddhist associations (2004). Huang provided an ethnographic account of the Tzu Chi Foundation, once considered the largest philanthropic association on the island (2009). We have yet to see detailed research on the attitudes of these Buddhist associations, however, since the second administrations of Chen Shui-bian, when they have become much more assertive. The recent monograph by Weller, Huang, Wu, and Fan (2017) is discussing in a comparative perspective the importance of Buddhist charities in China, Taiwan, and Malaysia’s Chinese communities. It paves the way for future research on how this kind of institutionalized religion can constitute a component of social policies in Chinese societies.

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1.5 Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayāna) Tibetan Buddhism constitutes a separate field of investigation, due to language but also the differences in religious doctrines and rituals. But this tradition has also benefitted from an amount of interest that is disproportionate to the numerically small number of adherents to that tradition in China. This relates in part to the renown of the Dalai Lama, but also reflects a growing interest among non-Tibetans in China, a new trend documented by Smyer (2012). Another aspect that has received attention is how relations between Tibetan religious leaders and successive Chinese governments since the fall of the Qing dynasty have contributed to China’s modernity (Tuttle 2005). Yao (2000) has been so far the most authoritative voice in defining history and major trends of Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan, an area that certainly deserves more investigation in the future.

1.6 Christianity Many scholars looking at Christianity claim that the growth of that religion in contemporary China represents a momentous change (Bays 2012). A major dilemma faced by many Christians is whether they should express solidarity with co-religionists abroad or act as Chinese patriots first (Vala and Lim 2012). For historians of Protestant Christianity, the religion has managed to grow because the official association has successfully adapted its theology to socialism and sought ‘common ground’ with the regime early on (Wickeri 2011), to the extent that believers have sought to ensure that their spiritual ideals are compatible with socialist values (Wielander 2013). There are discordant voices in the academic study of Protestant Christianity in China, however, who do not share this assessment of relations with the CCP, and pay attention to the travail that the religion had to go through (Kindopp and Hamrin 2004; Schak 2011). There are fewer studies on Catholicism in China, which is understandable when we consider the smaller number of Catholics among Chinese Christians. Madsen (1998; 2003) is among the first ones to have written a book-length essay on Catholicism in China. Among the other scholars writing about Catholic Christianity in China, Leung (1992; 1998; 2001), and Vermander (2015) have often commented on developments between Vatican and the Patriotic Catholic Church, but no study yet about changes in this relationship since Francis arrived at the helm of the Holy See. We know comparatively little about the Orthodox Church (Baker 2006; Doubrovskaia 2001).

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The situation of Chinese Christian sects unrecognized by the state is at times difficult to disentangle from that of the new religious movements discussed below, and which the regime denounces as ‘evil cults’. We know too little about existing unorthodox Christian sects in contemporary China, such as the Eastern Thunder Sect, and their influence (Kupfer 2004).

1.7 Islam The global geopolitical context of Islamic radicalism has aroused interest for the study of that religion in China, but for negative reasons that do not necessarily foster understanding. Hence, the official discourse conflates together the issue of ethnic separatism and religious extremism, which are fundamentally different. As a result of this context, the Uyghur Muslims have received a considerable amount of attention, which is triggered more by concerns about their travails with government, than an interest on their practice of Islam (Forbes 1986; Lipman 1997; Frankel 2011). This focus on the geopolitical problem caused by the unrest in Xinjiang contrasts with the nature of the attention devoted to the Hui, another group of Chinese Muslims with its own eponymous autonomous region, and much better relations with the central government than that of their Uyghur co-religionists with the central government. The appearance of Uyghur and Hui as distinct national minorities at the beginning of the twentieth century, along the six other minorities that profess Islam, represents an interesting case study of ethnogenesis and ethnic studies, but it says too little about the religious life of these people (Gladney 1991; Dillon 1999). One issue that emerges from ethnographies close to the ground is that groups classified as Muslims would vary in their attributes from one location to another, even in contiguous counties (McCarthy 2005). An issue that remains unclear is the reception of radical Islamic idea, and the extent of sectarian diversity (but see Israeli and Gardner-Rush 2000).

1.8 Sectarian Religions and Redemptive Societies For many scholars, a major issue was whether the terminology of ‘sectarian’ religions contributed to reinforce the attitudes of the state against the religions it does not recognize. Although most scholars using that terminology do not condone the state policy against ‘evil sects’, some have felt compelled to argue against using that terminology lest political authorities use it against adherents of smaller religions: they took issue with the inconsistencies and vagueness of

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the concept (Irons 2003). Two important outcomes of that critique is that many scholars of religion have encouraged a greater skepticism about governments’ use of the label ‘sectarians’ (Ownby 2008a; Zhu 2010), and the creation of new analytical category, known as ‘redemptive societies’, to describe religious movements that have appeared in the Republican period, as benevolent actors because of their philanthropy and advocacy of non-violence (Duara 2004). These groups represented more than the aggregation of the three traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, as they included in their doctrine and practices elements of other religions such as Christianity and Islam (Palmer 2011). The research on more recent movements such as Falun Gong was from its beginning in the 1990s very difficult in China. It remains so today, and it is still fraught with too many deontological issues. Most of the valuable studies have been done before the clampdown, or had to rely on interviews with people in the diaspora. Among the former, we can rely on the ethnography about the “qigong fever” of the 1990s to understand the emergence of that movement in the context of a mounting public health crisis in that time (Palmer 2005). Another insightful study that has relied on interviews with adherents of that movement to understand their motivations, sets that in the context of the state’s fear (Ownby 2008b). Two studies help us to understand the reasons behind the severity of the government repression against Falun Gong. The first one suggests that the authorities saw in Falun Gong’s approach to healing a critique directed at the regime (Thornton 2002). The second one believes that the apocalyptic theme promoted by that organization’s literature threatened social stability (Hsia 2004). The description of the state’s methodical repression gives credence to that perception by the government (Tong 2009). But besides that extreme case, it is now possible to do some research on other redemptive societies that the state tolerates. Hence, it is now increasingly possible to study in China redemptive societies like Yiguandao, which has appeared since the nineteenth century and dispersed through the global diaspora after 1949 before coming back to China (Billioud 2011).

2 What the Volume is about: Chapters, Insights and Questions Taken altogether, these chapters cover a wide period, since the beginnings of the field of Western Sinology, when this discipline was often part of the missionary venture in China. Some of its chapters therefore provide an assessment of the earliest works and individuals who have initiated the study of religion in

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modern China. The authors of those chapters include in their historiographical surveys Western and Chinese religious practitioners, academic figures, explorers and photographers. The earliest works that they examine, which constitute the foundations of the field, are predominantly textual, historical and ethnographic. Chapters’ authors address questions such as: Who are the pioneers in the study of religion in modern China and Taiwan? What were the first disciplinary approaches, conceptual categories, and objects of research? How did those selections shape the beginning of the field as well as the academic output of today? What were their contributions and their limitations, and how can we work to overcome those shortcomings? Other contributions to this book provide an account of the more recent scholarship in the last decades, which has expanded considerably. In terms of religious traditions, this volume covers Christianity, Islam, Han Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Daoism and popular religions, and finally Confucianism. We discuss the scholarly traditions in the study of these religions in their own local and regional contexts as well as in the ways they relate to the overall macro-field of studying Chinese religions. Finally, the chapters engage with both Chinese and non-Chinese scholarship, the inclusion of the latter being especially important to contextualize our findings. In doing so, this volume seeks to offer a comprehensive overview of recent developments in the study of Chinese religions, building upon the scholarship initiated by colleagues such as Yang and Lang (2014), as well as Kiely, Goossaert and Lagerwey (2016). While Yang and Lang (2014) confined their attention to China proper and collected studies conducted via the methods of anthropology and sociology, this volume extends the area of interest to Taiwan, Hong Kong and the so-called borderland regions. We have also determined that it is necessary to bring together insights provided by a variety of disciplines from the humanities and social sciences. For these reasons, some of the chapters in this book address issues primarily from the methodological concerns of disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, political science, history and textual studies. The volume edited by Kiely, Goossaert and Lagerwey (2016) engaged more with ideas, values and themes, and therefore could serve as a parallel for the Volume II and Volume III of this series. This volume opens with Yang Fenggang’s chapter on the category of ‘religion’. Yang problematizes the term as it has developed in a Western context, in light of the traditional Chinese cultural landscape, and in a global setting that goes beyond the binary of East and West. With respect to China specifically, Yang discusses how Chinese officials and scholars developed a political categorization of ‘religion’, along related concepts such as ‘cult’, ‘superstitious belief’ and ‘religious freedom’. At the same time, Yang suggests that the study of religion in

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China can shed light on patterns of religion in societies outside China, and therefore China can be a case study in a more general social scientific study of religion in the modern world. Yang proposes his own idea of the definition of religion: “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices about life and the world relative to the supernatural that unite the believers or followers into a social organization or moral community” (p.33), and from there, he drafts his own social scientific classification of religions. In his chapter, Yang also addresses a few specific Chinese traditions, including the blurry category of ‘folk religions’ (minjian xingyang 民间信仰), the domestication of Christianity, and the several debates around Confucianism, and whether or not Confucian tradition can also be classified as a religion. Alex Payette expands on Yang’s point further in his chapter. Payette states that Confucianism in China has been analyzed and seen as both an academic matter and a popular religion; moreover, Confucianism and Confucians have evolved in connection with the movements of state-building and nation-building. Payette articulates his arguments by looking into the different categories of the epistemic community of Confucians in modern China. Besides the distinction between (a) New Confucians (xin rujia 新儒家), which includes Mainland New Confucians (dalu xin rujia 大陸新儒家) and other representatives (with different agendas) in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and (b) Confucianists (xueru de yanjiuzhe 學儒的研究者), Payette also separates (a) the group of conservative/actionoriented Confucians from (b) the group of liberal/theory-oriented Confucians. Confucianism is then the core of a variegated epistemic community that remains, nonetheless, rooted into Kang Youwei’s previous ideas of state building, nation building and cultural identity. The following two chapters move beyond the native traditions of China, and analyze two ‘imported’ beliefs, namely Christianity and Islam. These two chapters still link to Yang’s chapter for his exploration of Christianity, and Payette’s chapter for the issue of nationalism. These two chapters both deal with trends and limits of the scholarships on Christianity and Islam, and they both outline strategies on how to advance research in these two fields. Christopher A. Daily’s focus of attention is the production of knowledge in English-language sources, and thus on the early stages of the Anglophone Sinology. Daily argues that the study of Protestant Christianity in China has been conditioned by the socially constructed disciplinary dichotomy between (a) theology and (b) the scientific study of comparative religions. Daily gives an overview of different pioneers in the study of Chinese Protestant Christianity, including Robert Morrison (1782–1834) and William Milne (1785–1822) from the London Missionary Society, Samuel Kidd (1789–1843), and James Legge (1815– 1897). He sees in the latter the early indigenization process of a distinctly

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Chinese Protestant Church, and a sinocentric, more accommodative, approach to Chinese local Christianity. Daily argues that we have to wait until the late twentieth century, and scholars like Jacques Gernet, to see the roots of the more recent methodological improvements, i.e. the sinocentric and glocal shifts in the field. The glocal approach implies Chinese Christians, and not just Western Christians and scholars, writing about themselves. Ho Wai-yip dedicates the first part of his chapter to the historical development of the study of Islam in China as a field. In his diachronic analysis, Ho lists the early Christian missionary scholars, then Western scholars whose depiction of Islam had partly followed and partly rejected Orientalistic tendencies, and finally points out indigenous scholarship, and its focus on the study of Muslims in intercultural relations or inter-religious dialogue. The second part of the chapter outlines future trends in the field, and looks at topics that are being investigated recently and certainly need more attention in the following years. These themes include, just to mention a few, Islam in China and its links to global Islam; its relation to radicalism and terrorism; the context of iMuslims; the study of Chinese Muslim diaspora; the need to update periodization in the history of Chinese Islam (and thus providing a new history of the domestication process of this tradition); and finally, the relation between Islam and the Chinese government. Three chapters of this volume explore the study of Buddhism (Han and Tibetan traditions) in China, questioning approaches, sources and the role of Western and Asian scholars in defining the field. André Laliberté and Stefania Travagnin’s chapter looks into the ‘epistemic communities’ of scholarship on Buddhism by exploring Chinese, Japanese, and Western works. Second, their chapter outlines major themes and paradigms that emerge from that scholarship, going from the narratives of official history to the decline and revival paradigm. Nichols’ chapter explores the status quo of the ethnographic study of Han Buddhism, focusing on Western sources, while Holmes-Tagchungdarpa maps Chinese, Tibetan and Western visions (and re-creation) of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. Brian J. Nichols argues that in the last few decades, fieldwork in Chinese Buddhist communities has been facilitated by the opening of China in the 1980s, and this investigation of Buddhism, he argues, owes to the path opened and developed by scholars of Daoism and Daoists in the mainland. A second important point his chapter makes is the dichotomy and relations between ethnographers and textual studies scholars. Nichols outlines achievements and limits of the field so far via the analysis of four case-studies, approaches and subjects. Each study articulates both emic and etic perspectives, a dualism that is often stressed by ethnographers. Nichols also lists limitations and new topics (and research

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paths) that could improve the ethnographic study of Han Buddhism in the mainland: more attention to older female lay Buddhists, more focus on hereditary (small) monasteries (the so-called zisun miao 子孙庙), more attention to digital Buddhism, and the use of technology by Buddhist communities. Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa’s chapter shifts the attention from Han Buddhism to the sphere of the so-called ‘Borderland Buddhism’, and Tibetan Buddhism more specifically. Holmes-Tagchungdarpa analyzes a few pioneers in the field, making parallels between three Euro-American and three Chinese scholars, arguing that in both cases the field has developed as a study of (and as an encounter with) the ‘other’, and finally showing the contemporary legacies of this early scholarship and representation of Tibet. These early pioneers included scholars, monastics, explorers, and photographers, and therefore she argues that this early scholarship has formulated a construction of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism based on a wide variety of sources and approaches. An important issue that emerges in almost every chapter of this volume, but is emphasized especially by the following two chapters by Susan McCarthy and André Laliberté, is the relation and merging of disciplines, and the encounter and dialogue between regional scholarships. On the basis of mostly Western scholarship, McCarthy underlines that when the field of Chinese politics did include religion in its scholarship, it often relegated the relevance of religion to its role in contentious politics, the regime response to religion, as well as the relevance of the latter to foreign relation, economic rural governance, and nonstate associational sphere. More should be done, McCarthy stresses, on the role of religion in the field of Chinese politics, namely, on the study of the position of religion in repression and local state interests. Laliberté evaluates the study of religion by Chinese political scientists: he attributes the difficulties they face in their research to the role of the government in China, as well as the more global problem of knowledge fragmentation, from the publications where it is published to the topics researched. On the other hand, he found more detailed and less normative narrative in the works of Chinese social scientists who are not strictly political scientists and still write about the intersection of religion and politics. Chinese scientists who have moved abroad and are now active in a non-Chinese academic setting (mostly in North America and Europe) constitutes a vital component of this epistemic community of scholars on religion and politics. The chapter covers the period from the second half of Jiang Zemin’s mandate to the early stage of Xi Jinping’s tenure, and is based on a large number of journals and academic venues where Chinese political scientists write about religion. Vincent Goossaert’s chapter closes our volume. His work presents some of the main challenges faced by the field (which also appear in the previous

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chapters, sometime explicitly and sometime implicitly) and advances new propositions for a history of ideas that could advance the study of Chinese religions. History of ideas, from the Qing to today, he argues, can offer an arena where social sciences and humanities merge. Goossaert discusses three main themes: the study of the continuous life of “ancient” texts and how to proceed with this particular scholarship; what we can learn from the study of eschatology; and finally, he proposes to pay more attention to the study of sexual morality in religious texts.

3 Concluding Thoughts on Future Directions for Research The chapters propose four major areas, more or less explicitly, as new (or emerging) possibilities for the field and new directions for future research. These four new approaches could be labelled (1) ‘dialogical discipline’, (2) inter-disciplinary investigation (macro-frame based research), (3) focus on the regional/local (micro-context based research), and (4) awareness of a ‘global China’. In recent years, some scholars have already applied these new approaches, opening the way to a new form of scholarship. We expand below on how we conceive these different approaches. Goossaert proposes a merging of social sciences and humanities as a solution for a more effective scholarship, and finds the field of history of ideas an ideal venue for it. Likewise, Nichols also calls for an integration of methods, especially as he underlines that the knowledge of texts and doctrine may improve ethnographers’ research. Recent monographs such as The Religious Question in Modern China (2011) and the edited volume Modern Chinese Religions (2016) represent important achievements in this respect. More interaction among disciplines would help us better understand the social, economic, and political dynamics that could drive evolutions in religious practice and organizations, and conversely, reveal how debates within or between religious institutions can affect other dimensions of social life. This is a call for a real interdisciplinarity, wherein we look for the answers to research problems and questions with an open mind, aware that causalities behind religious change cannot rely on a single set of factors such as market forces or state intervention, but rather a combination of both and more. This research would aim to integrate findings from different discipline into a coherent whole, even though we should be aware that a holistic understanding of religious life in Chinese societies may be too ambitious a goal to achieve. Nevertheless, with this caveat in

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mind, we believe that this call for a ‘dialogical discipline’ would serve us well in better understanding the reality of Chinese religions. Many of the scholars reviewed above, whether they have focused on a specific tradition recognized by the state, or on religious practices and beliefs seen by others as ‘superstitions’, ‘sects’, or more vaguely, ‘traditions’, have encountered the challenge of setting up boundaries for their object of investigation, and other forms of religious practice and beliefs. In other words, Chinese religions have developed for centuries in a context of interaction with each other at all levels, whether it is mediated by officialdom through practices that range from recognition to persecution, wealthy elites’ patronage, or foreign interference. For these reasons, we believe that the study of Chinese religion could improve if it paid more attention to dynamics between traditions. We could gain much if we looked more often at specific sites where each belief is seen in relation with others rather than observed in isolation. This approach makes perfect sense in the context of Chinese religiosities, which are most often inclusive, rather than mutually exclusive, and would better reflect the idea of ‘Chinese religion’, rather than approaches that focus on parallel ethnographies for distinct ‘Chinese religions’, which is based on the imposition of concepts more appropriate to the study of religions in other societies where barriers between denomination constitute the norm. In the end, whether scholars would prefer to focus on a specific tradition or many, our field would gain much by taking a comparative approach in the context of a wider framework at all levels of analysis. Locality is becoming more and more important in the study of contemporary Chinese religions, and so is the idea that each tradition is better understood if studied in connection with the local social, economic, and political environment, as well as in its relations to other beliefs and other practices. As suggested above, locality has long been the preserve of anthropologists, who have provided fine-grained investigation of lived religion in rural communities all across China. Whether they reside in a specific community (Dubois 2005) or, at a slightly higher level of analysis, investigate several villages within a county (Dean 1998), or many localities within a larger region such as Shanbei (Chau 2011), these ethnographies, when taken together, reveal considerable diversity in the deities worshipped, the nature of festivals, and the connections with local societies. Ongoing research on religious life in urban centers, which tries to catch up with changes unfolding at a phenomenal pace throughout China, is likely to reveal an even more daunting complexity, as we take into account the cosmopolitan trends in mega-cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, where foreign residents practice world religions such as Christianity (Cao 2010) and Islam, along with the variety of new religions practiced by ‘compatriots’ and overseas Chinese visiting

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relatives or setting up a business. Although some of these religions are not recognized by the authorities, they do represent an important feature of the religious landscape, which can be seen through the Confucian revival (Billioud and Thoraval 2015). There is now a need for mapping this rich diversity at the national level, and investigate whether there are patterns or not across regions. In the past few years, scholars in Chinese religions have applied such a spatial study approach. The China-wide projects run, for instance, by Jiang Wu and Yang Fenggang, which are based on early schemes proposed by G. William Skinner, represent an example of this trend. This development in the study of Chinese religion is in line with the ‘spatial turn’ in the overall study of religion that started being debated in the past three decades (Knott 2008). As we fold together a plurality of traditions into the idea of a ‘Chinese religion’, and try to look at its diversity across China’s regions, many believe we should also reconsider and redefine the concept of China itself. So far, most of the scholars distinguished themselves by focusing either on the mainland China or societies such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and diasporic Chinese communities. Very few have looked beyond the so-called ‘greater China’ (comprehensive of the four areas of the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau). Future scholarship, however, should be encouraged to go beyond this idea of a ‘greater China’ that is too geopolitical and limitative, and adopt an approach that is both based on culture and global in scope. This would include the study of the religious belief and practices of more than thirty million Chinese and their descendants in all continents.

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Overmyer, Daniel L., 1976. Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in Late Traditional China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Overmyer, Daniel L. 2003. Religion in China Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Overmyer, Daniel L. 2009. Local Religion in North China in the Twentieth Century the Structure and Organization of Community Rituals and Beliefs. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Ownby, David. 2008a. Falungong and the Future of China. New York: Oxford University Press. Ownby, David. 2008b. “Sect and Secularism in Reading the Modern Chinese Religious Experience.” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 53: 13–29. Ownby, David. 2009. “Kang Xiaoguang et le projet d’une religion confucéenne: itinéraire d’un intellectuel engagé.” Perspectives chinoises 109: 109–120. Ownby, David, Vincent Goossaert, and Ji Zhe, eds. 2017. Making Saints in Modern China. New York: Oxford University Press. Palmer, David A. and Liu Xun, ed., 2012. Daoism in the Twentieth Century: Between Modernity and Eternity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Palmer, David A. 2011. “Chinese Redemptive Societies and Salvationist Religion: Historical Phenomenon or Sociological Category?” Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 172: 21–72. Palmer, David A. 2005. La fièvre du Qigong: guérison, religion et politique en Chine, 1949– 1999. Paris: Presses de l’Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. Palmer, David A., Glen Shive, and Philip Wickeri 2011. Chinese Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Payette, Alex. 2016. “Local Confucian Revival in China: Ritual Teachings, “Confucian” Learning and Cultural Resistance in Shandong.” China Report 52: 1–18. Raz, Gil. 2012. The Emergence of Daoism: Creation of Tradition. London and New York: Routledge. Reiter, Florian C. 2000. Taoismus zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius Verlag. Schak, David C. 2011. “Protestantism in China: a dilemma for the party-state.” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 40: 71–106. Shin Doh Chull. 2012. Confucianism and Democratization in East Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shiu, Henry, and Leah Stokes. 2008. “Buddhist Animal Release Practices: Historic, Environmental, Public Health and Economic Concerns.” Contemporary Buddhism 9: 181–196. Shuo, Yeh Shih, Chris Ryan, and Maggie Ge Liu, 2009. “Daoism, temples and tourists: The case of Mazu pilgrimage tourism.” Tourism management 30, no.4: 581–588. Smyer Yü, Dan. 2012. The Spread of Tibetan Buddhism in China: Charisma, Money, Enlightenment. London and New York: Routledge. Solé-Farràs, Jesús. 2014. New Confucianism in Twenty-First Century China: the Construction of a Discourse. London and New York: Routledge. Sun, Anna. 2013. Confucianism as a world religion: contested histories and contemporary realities. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Thornton, Patricia M. 2002. “Framing Dissent in Contemporary China: Irony, Ambiguity and Metonymy.” China Quarterly 171: 661–681. Tong, James W. 2009. Revenge of the Forbidden City: The Suppression of the Falungong in China, 1999–2005. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Travagnin, Stefania, ed., 2017. Religion and the Media in China: Insights and Case Studies from the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong. London and New York: Routledge. Tuttle, Gray. 2005. Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Vala, Carsten, and Francis K.G. Lim. 2012. “Protestant Reactions to the Nationalism Agenda in Contemporary China.” In: Christianity in Contemporary China, Socio-Cultural Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge. Vermander, Benoit. 2015. “Histoire et mémoire des communautés catholiques chinoises aux xix e et xx e siècles.” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 4: 173–191. Weller, Robert P. 1994. Resistance, Chaos and Control in China: Taiping Rebels, Taiwanese Ghosts and Tiananmen. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Weller, Robert, Julia C. Huang, Wu Keping, and Fan Lizu 2017. Religion and Charity: The Social Life of Goodness in Chinese Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wickeri, Philip L. 2011. Seeking the Common Ground: Protestant Christianity, the Three-Self Movement, and China’s United Front. Eugene: Wipf and Stock. Wielander, Gerda. 2013. Christian Values in Communist China. London and New York: Routledge. Wu, Jiang, and Daoqin Tong. 2015. “Spatial Analysis of Buddhist Monasteries in Contemporary China.” Working paper 2012, Department of East Asian Studies, The University of Arizona, Tucson. Yang, Ching-kun. 1961. Religion in Chinese Society: A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and some of their Historical Factors. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yang, Fenggang 2006. “The Red, Black, and Gray Markets of Religion in China.” The Sociological Quarterly 47: 93–122. Yang, Fenggang, and Anning Hu. 2012. “Mapping Chinese Folk Religion in Mainland China and Taiwan.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 51, no.3: 505–521. Yang Fenggang, and Graeme Lang, ed. 2012. Social Scientific Studies of Religion in China. Leiden: Brill. Yang, Mayfair M., ed., 2008. Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yao, Xinzhong. 2000. An Introduction to Confucianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zhu, Guobin. 2010. “Prosecuting ‘Evil Cults’: A Critical Examination of Law Regarding Freedom of Religious Belief in Mainland China.” Human Rights Quarterly 32: 471–501.

Fenggang Yang

The Definition of Religion for the Social Scientific Study of Religion in China and Beyond Introduction The definition of religion has a troubled history both in modern China and in world academe.1 Around the time when the first republic was established in Asia in 1912, many Chinese intellectuals denied the existence of religion in Chinese culture, whereas others strove to establish Confucianism or Confucianity as the state religion of China. Under Communist rule since 1949, only five religions have been allowed, most of the other religions are labeled as anything but religion, and Confucianism is not one of the five religions. However, in the twenty-first century, some Chinese intellectuals have renewed their efforts to revive Confucianism and establish it as the state religion to replace the failing Communist orthodoxy. Therefore, defining religion and classifying what is and is not religion have become very political in the Chinese context. Indeed, this is not only a problem in the Chinese context alone, but a common problem in modern and modernizing societies where political and cultural elites try to suppress certain religions while retaining a religious establishment, or to suppress all religions in favor of certain secularisms. Given the political complication, some of the scholars of religion have avoided the question of definition whenever possible. Max Weber is, among other things, a great sociologist of religion who made one of the first comprehensive comparisons of world religions. However, Weber famously evaded the definition question. He says, “To define ‘religion,’ to say what it is, is not possible at the start of a presentation such as this. Definition can be attempted, if at all, only at the conclusion of the study” (Weber 1963, 1). After his multiple volumes of world religions, he did not make the attempt. Meanwhile, his study of Confucianism and Daoism,

1 About the problematic of religion in world academe, several studies have traced the genesis of the term and contended about the definition. See Smith 1962 and Nongbri 2013. Note: This chapter is a further development of a chapter in my monograph (Yang 2012, chapter 2) and some of the ideas were first presented in my presidential address at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion on October 24, 2015 (Yang 2016). I thank the editors and conference participants for their helpful comments and suggestions. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-002

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translated into English and Chinese as The Religion of China: Confucianism and Daoism, raises more questions than answers. In what sense is Confucianism a religion while it is neither recognized as a religion by the Chinese government, nor by most contemporary Chinese people in their self-identification? On the other hand, many other scholars have defined religion expediently, such as treating film as religion (Lyden 2003), sports as religion (Price 2004), politics as religion (Gentile 2006), or capitalism as religion (Nelson 2002; Yip 2007). As a sociologist of religion, I do not think we have to evade the question, nor should we buy into the ideology-laden arbitration, nor accept whatever anyone calls religion as religion. In this chapter I plan to discuss three interrelated issues. First, why do we have to define religion? Second, how do I define it? Third, what is the essential core of religion? Along the way, I will touch on a number of religious or religion-related phenomena, including ‘superstitions’ and ‘cults’, folk religion, Confucianism, atheism, and the Mao cult. The study of religion in China is not only a part of Sinology. I believe the study of religion in China may shed light on some general patterns of religion in modern or modernizing societies; careful examination of the China case provides a great opportunity for the general social scientific study of religion in the modern world. At the onset, it is necessary to point out the instrumental nature of definition and classification of things, about which I will say more later in section 5. However, this is a scientific instrument instead of a political tool. It is a conceptual tool for the purpose of knowing and studying the social phenomena that are considered religious. As such, I have no interest in making a ‘correct’ or ‘truthful’ definition of religion in any political or metaphysical sense. However, as tools, some definitions can be more useful and effective than others, such as those offered by Durkheim (2001) or Geertz (1966). Moreover, my definition of religion is a sociological one, or a social scientific one, appropriated from previous scholarship and refined with a classification scheme that covers folk religion, civil religion, atheism, as well as conventional religions. This definition along with classification is intended to help social scientists better explain the changing dynamics in the political economy of religion in Chinese society and similar societies.

1 Political Categorization of Religion, Cults and Superstitions in Communist China For people who study Chinese religion, the question of the definition of religion is unavoidable. First of all, the political reality forces you to accept or reject the party-state definition of religion. Since the founding of the

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People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made distinctions between religion (zongjiao 宗教) and superstitions (mixin 迷信). According to the CCP theoreticians, whereas religions are the more institutionalized beliefs and practices, superstitions are beliefs and practices inherited from the feudalist past. Both religion and superstition are considered part of a ‘false consciousness’ in the philosophical idealism (weixinzhuyi 唯心主 义), which is said to be contradictory to the scientific outlook of the atheism that Communists must commit to. The CCP ideology calls for elimination of all of them, even though for pragmatic considerations religions and superstitions may be tolerated to certain extent (Laliberté 2015). To achieve the ultimate goal of eliminating all forms of the so-called false consciousness, the Chinese Communists have adopted various strategies in different historical periods (Yang 2012, chapter 3). The elimination policy was resolutely carried out during the Cultural Revolution beginning in 1966, when all religions were banned in the whole society. No church, temple or mosque was open for religious service of Chinese citizens. Resistant religious leaders were imprisoned. Staunch believers were subject to forced rehabilitation through manual labor and mass struggle meetings. The eradication policy lasted for 13 years until 1979, when the Party-State adopted a pragmatic policy of control and containment of religion. Since 1979, some officials and some official documents state that religion could be compatible with socialism, even though the CCP in its official discourse has never given up its ultimate goal of eventual elimination of religion at the ultimate stage of society – communism. It is worth noting that the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China retains a clause of protecting the ‘freedom of religious belief’. Article 36 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, adopted in 1982, states: Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion. The state protects normal religious activities. No one may make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state. Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination.2

2 See http://en.people.cn/constitution/constitution.html (accessed on February 26, 2017). Here is the original Chinese text: 中华人民共和国公民有宗教信仰自由。任何国家机关、社 会团体和个人不得强制公民信仰宗教或者不信仰宗教，不得歧视信仰宗教的公民和不信仰宗教 的公民。国家保护正常的宗教活动。任何人不得利用宗教进行破坏社会秩序、损害公民身体健 康、妨碍国家教育制度的活动。宗教团体和宗教事务不受外国势力的支配。

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However, the Chinese Party-State recognizes only five religions – Daoism, Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Protestantism is called Christianity (jidujiao 基督教), which is regarded as a different religion from Catholicism (tianzhujiao 天主教). The other conventional religions such as Judaism and Hinduism are considered not relevant in Chinese society because, as claimed by the Chinese authorities in disregard of reality, no Chinese citizens follow them. Other religions are not defined as religions in the PRC. All of the new religious movements, such as the Unification Church, ISKCON, and the True Buddha Sect (zhenfozong 真佛宗) are considered ‘cults’ (xiejiao 邪教) that should be banned. This political categorization is taken for granted by many scholars in today’s China, although some scholars offer contending discussions about the accuracy of the categorization or specific designation of some group in a particular category. Among the five religions, only Daoism originated in China, yet Daoism was almost unable to make it to the list of recognized religions when the Party-State was finalizing the list in the mid-1950s. Indeed, except for monastic institutions of Daoist monks and nuns, Daoism in the populace is difficult to be differentiated from folk religion. When we tried to analyze Daoism using the Chinese Spiritual Life Survey (Zhongguo jumin jingshen shenghuo wenjuan diaocha 中国居民精神生 活问卷调查) conducted by the Horizon Research Group (Lingdian diaocha jituan 零点调查集团) in 2007 and the Taiwan Social Change Survey (Taiwan shehui bianqian wenjuan diaocha 台灣社會變遷問卷調查), we found so few Daoists that we had to group them with similar believers of folk religion. Folk religion, until very recently, has been called by the political and cultural elites as feudalist superstitions (fengjian mixin 封建迷信), which are subject to elimination through atheist and scientific education. In traditional China, folk religious beliefs and practices were fertile soil breeding cultic or sectarian groups, which the CCP suppressed as reactionary associations (fandong huidaomen 反动会道门) since the early 1950s. In the Chinese official lexicon, the term huidaomen in the 1950s has become xiejiao (evil cults) since the 1990s. Either huidaomen or xiejiao, such groups are subject to severe crackdowns with resolute measures, including confiscating properties, dissolving the organizations, and imprisoning the leaders. Since 1999, one of such ‘cults’ has gotten a worldwide notoriety, Falun Gong. Many Falun Gong followers have been imprisoned, and its leader, Li Hongzhi, has taken refuge in the United States. The Chinese Communist Party-State insists that the constitutional ‘freedom of religious belief’ does not apply to the followers of ‘cults’ because ‘cults’ are not religions. The distinction is politically important in China today. Communist Party and Communist Youth League members are required to formally denounce Falun Gong and other ‘cults’, and employment of researchers of religion at universities and the academies of social sciences is also subject to the same scrutiny.

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Are scholars of religion in China studying only the five religions, or do they also study something beyond that? Actually, most researchers seem to abide by the political categorization. Only an exceptionally few scholars have been creatively expanded their scope of research beyond the five religions. As a scholar who initially developed a research interest in religion within that system in the 1980s, it took many years for me to overcome the political limits imposed by the party-state through learning, research, and soul searching. For the few scholars inside the PRC who have studied religions beyond the five recognized religions, they have to skillfully contend against the official party-state ideology. Otherwise they face various political repercussions and social obstacles. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that many college students or graduate students from China keep asking about the differences between religion and ‘evil cults’ as well as other types of religions. The Chinese Communist political definition and categorization have lasting effect on many people.

2 ‘Folk Religion’ in Modern Societies Folk religion is not a uniquely Chinese phenomenon. Instead, it is a universal phenomenon in the modern or modernizing world. The Pew Research Center released a report The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2050 (2015), which includes a category of folk religion. Some anthropologists of Asia, Africa, and Americas have provided us elaborate descriptions of various tribal or folk religions, but it is rare to see attempts to quantify folk religion and placing it on par with other more organized religions. According to the Pew report, “Folk religions are closely tied to a particular people, ethnicity or tribe. In some cases, elements of other world religions are blended with local beliefs and customs. These faiths often have no formal creeds or sacred texts” (2015, 232). The Pew report illustrates the category with “African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American religions and Australian aboriginal religions” (Ibid). The inclusion of folk religion in comparison with other religions is laudable, but the characterization of folk religion has serious problems. First, why does folk or traditional religion only pertain to Africans, Asians, Native Americans and aboriginal Australians? Does this mean that Europeans and Euro-Americans do not have any folk religion? Would it be appropriate to include contemporary Wicca or paganism in this category of folk religion? I think so. But that seems unperceivable by those researchers at the Pew Research Center who produced the report. Paganism used to be a derogatory label of other beliefs and practices by Christians. In the twentieth century, however,

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neo-Paganism arose in Europe and North America, “For the first time in history, people began to identify themselves as pagans and the faiths they follow as pagan” (Davies 2011, 106). Neo-Pagan adherents rely on pre-Christian, folkloric and ethnographic sources in their adopted or reinvented nature-worshiping beliefs and practices. Second, should we include Sheilaism in this category? In their study of religion in American society, Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah and his colleagues (1985) interviewed a young nurse with a pseudonym of Sheila: I believe in God. I’m not a religious fanatic. I can’t remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It’s Sheilaism. Just my own little voice. . .It’s just try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself. You know, I guess, take care of each other. I think He would want us to take care of each other. (Bellah et al. 1985, 221)

If Sheilaism is defined as individualized mixing of beliefs and practices taken from multiple institutional religions as well as folk traditions, you will find it a common phenomenon in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and probably also in Korea, Japan and India. In those societies, this kind of individualized mixing would have been called folk religion. If we include paganism and Shelaism in this category of folk religion, we shall have a significantly larger proportion of followers in this category in the overall religious landscape of the world today. Moreover, this matters to the projection of future change of religion. In our studies of folk religion in Chinese societies (Yang and Hu 2012; Hu and Yang 2014), we have distinguished three types of folk religion: sectarian, communal, and individual. We find that different types of folk religion have different trajectories in the modernization process. Whereas the communal type, such as the worship of localized deities or ancestral spirits, has declined, the sectarian type, such as Yiguandao, which has been routinely included as one of the traditional folk religious sects, has risen to compete with other institutionalized religions, and the individual type, such as fengshui and divination, has increased along with better education and free flow of spiritual information. The increase of Sheilaism is probably common to modern or postmodern societies. More importantly, folk religion is not necessarily exclusive to other religions, so that counting the adherents of folk religion exclusive to believers of other religions can be problematic. On the one hand, the communal folk religion commonly regards it as ascribed, so that anyone in the community or clan would be considered part of the communal religion even if they have become Christian or Buddhist. In this regard, Shintoism and Hinduism might be considered folk religion as well. Moreover, many believers in institutionalized religions hold beliefs and practices that are typical of folk religion instead of their self-identified

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institutionalized religion. When we cross-tabulated them using the Social Change Surveys of Taiwan, we found that 80 to 90 percent of Buddhists and Daoists believe or practice folk religion, and 40 to 60 percent of Christians and Muslims also believe or practice folk religion (Hu and Yang 2014, 93). This shows that we must pay more attention to the various types of religion and develop more suitable or better measurements of religiosity in the modern world.

3 The Debates about Making Confucianism a Religion In the West, the standard textbooks of world religions almost always include a chapter about Confucianism (Sun 2013). Therefore, it is often surprising for Western scholars to learn that the Chinese do not regard Confucianism as a religion. The Chinese Party-State does not include Confucianism as one of its legally recognized religions. People in the general population do not consider Confucianism a religion. Both inside mainland China and other Chinese societies and diasporic communities, very few identify themselves as Confucian believers, even though many people do hold certain Confucian values and maintain certain Confucian proprieties. When scholars try to pinpoint particularly Confucian values and practices, however, they often find that it is difficult to measure them through social surveys. For example, filial piety may be considered an important value or virtue in Confucianism, but it can be found among Chinese or non-Chinese people who know nothing of Confucianism. Ancestral worship is often considered an important ritual practice of Confucianism, but again, it is also practiced by Chinese or non-Chinese people who have nothing to do with Confucianism (Coe and Begley 2016). So, can we thus conclude that Confucianism is not a religion according to the Chinese? Actually, no. There have been two rounds of debates about this very question, one happened about a hundred years ago and another is currently ongoing (see Sun 2013 and Payette in this volume). About a hundred years ago, as China was in the process of transitioning from a traditional empire toward a modern state, some politically active cultural elites started a movement to construct a religion comparable to Christianity, so much so that they called it Confucianity (kong jiao 孔教), and they strove to make Confucianity the Chinese state religion (Sun 2013). The Confucianity Movement was motivated by their perception that many modern strong states maintained a state religion, such as Anglicanism in Britain and Shintoism in Japan. They established numerous Confucianity societies (Kong jiao hui 孔教会) in major cities

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throughout the country and campaigned to establish Confucianity as the state religion in the constitution of the new republic (see Liu 2012). In addition, the leading activists joined forces to restore or reestablish a monarchy, similarly for the purpose of strengthening China as a strong state in the modern world. However, the alliance of the Confucians and the monarchists alarmed many people, and ignited the New Culture Movement around 1916. A central slogan of the New Culture Movement, augmented by the better-known May Fourth Movement in 1919, is “Down with Confucianist Shops” (dadao kongjia dian 打倒孔家店). Instead, the new culture elites called for welcoming Mr. Science (sai xiansheng 赛先生) and Mr. Democracy (de xiansheng 德先生) into China.3 Armed with European Enlightenment thoughts, which were introduced to China by Chinese students studying in Europe, the United States, and Japan, the Chinese new cultural elites mobilized college students and other young people for iconoclastic campaigns, including adopting the vernacular Chinese in writing, women’s liberation, mass education, the press, mass media, and community development. Integral to this Chinese enlightenment movement was an anti-religion mentality, first opposing Confucianity, then Christianity, then all religions.4 Like their counterparts in other modern or modernizing societies, the Chinese cultural elites believed that science would provide the truth and answers to all questions in the universe. It was during these formative years of the new republic that the Chinese cultural elites came to the conclusion that the Chinese had no religion. Hu Shih 胡适, the champion of the New Culture Movement, who studied in the United States under the philosopher John Dewey, stated repeatedly, “China is a country without religion and the Chinese are a people who are not bound by religious superstitions” (quoted in Yang 1961, 5). The New Culture and May Fourth Movements also led to the rise of the Chinese Communists who called for breaking the shackles of religion. The New Culture Movement has left a long-lasting legacy: the educated Chinese in modern China commonly do not think much about religion, hold negative perceptions of religion, and equate religion to superstition and false consciousness. Fast forward to the year of 2000. Suddenly another fierce debate set off about the religious nature of Confucianism. Actually, back to the late 1970s, as China was waking up from the Cultural Revolution, a Chinese Marxist scholar, Ren Jiyu 任继愈, who led the establishment of the Institute of World Religions

3 For the changing views of Chen Duxiu during that period of time see Kuo’s chapter in the volume Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II. 4 See Kuo’s chapter in the volume Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II.

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at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for the mandate of “researching on religions and criticizing theologies”, argued that the cultural culprit of the Cultural Revolution was Confucianism. Confucianism was so bad that it must be a religion. He argued that without fully recognizing the religious nature of Confucianism, it would be impossible to thoroughly cleanse it out of the Chinese souls, consequently would be inevitable to repeat the Cultural Revolution-type of catastrophes in the future. However, in the new era of economic reforms and opening up to the world, Ren’s arguments were not well received except among a few of his own students/disciples. When his former student Li Shen 李申, who became a research fellow of the Institute of World Religions specializing in Confucianism, published a book of two volumes in 1999–2000, A History of Confucianism Religion (Zhongguo rujiao shi 中国儒教史), which makes a systematic argument for regarding Confucianism as a religion, many young scholars rose up and made fierce criticisms against Li Shen. The criticisms concentrated on pointing out the lack of high-quality scholarly research in these two volumes, but there was the substantive change of attitude toward religion in general and Confucianism in particular. In the new era, many people have turned away from Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and they hope to rescue or appropriate Confucian values for the moral reconstruction of the Chinese society. Then, the pendulum swung to the other extreme. By 2004, I was surprised to encounter some young scholars who wanted to call Confucianism a religion. Indeed, several scholars, including Jiang Qing 蒋庆, Kang Xiaoguang 康晓光, and Chen Ming 陈明, began to openly advocate that Confucianism was so good that it must be a religion; even if it was not a religion, we would construct a religion out of it. It was as if the Confucianity Movement of the early twentieth century had reincarnated in the twenty-first century. Suddenly an increasing number of people in China today argue that Confucianism ought to be a religion, must be recognized by the government as a religion, should be recognized as the real Chinese religion, and should be officially established as the state religion of China. Many books, essays, Internet websites, conferences and events have sprung up campaigning to make Confucianism a religion and make it the state religion (see Billioud and Thoraval 2015). Unsurprisingly, there are oppositions to the idea of making Confucianism a religion or the state religion (see Yang 2008). What is interesting is the ambivalence of the Chinese Communist Party-State. On the one hand, amid the failing of the Communist ideology, the Party-State has gone along to support the revival of traditional Confucian culture, including sponsoring rituals of commemoration for the Confucius birthday, erecting Confucius statues in schools and public squares, restoring Confucian temples, introducing Confucian classics into public schools, establishing guoxue 国学 (national learning) institutes at

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universities, and exporting Confucius Institutes throughout the world. On the other hand, however, it has not recognized Confucianism as a religion. The debate continues and expands to other Chinese societies, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, and involving people in other parts of the world.

4 Substantive and Functional Definitions of Religion in Sociology Admittedly, religion is a social construct that is subject to negotiation among various groups of people, as scrupulously argued by the British sociologist James A. Beckford (2003). Broadly speaking, in the modern or modernizing world, there are at least three major social forces contending to define religion – scholars, believers, and the government. As a scholar of social science, I believe that social scientists may advance the knowledge and understanding of complex social phenomena by relying on the scientific principles. Scholars normally take a detached position and attempt to define religion as objectively as possible, making it as universally applicable as possible. Certainly, as social persons living in a finite time and space, along with subjective constraints that no one can completely shake off, social scientists cannot totally avoid subjectivity. However, this should not become an excuse for not trying one’s best to be value neutral in the scientific endeavor. In social science, definitions are theoretical tools for handling the empirical phenomena. When people apply improper or wrong tools, they may fail to handle the things upon which they are working; or they may labor hard to little avail. The carpenter’s tools are not very useful for the blacksmith, and the horticulturalist tools cannot be effective for stonemasons. Tools should be evaluated by their usefulness or effectiveness for a given task (McGuire 2002, 8). Further, a useful set of tools may nonetheless need improvements on some of the specific implements. I argue that Durkheim’s definition of religion is a useful conceptual tool, but it requires some substantial improvements for the purpose of research on religion in the modern world. Seeing religion as fundamentally a social phenomenon, sociologists often distinguish two types of definitions of religion: substantive and functional (See Berger 1967; Beyer 2003, 422; McGuire 1992, 10–15; Yinger 1970, 4–5). A substantive definition points to the belief in the supernatural or the transcendent; a functional definition describes what religion does. Historically, E. B. Tylor (1871) simply defined religion as “the belief in Spiritual Beings”, which is regarded as the first substantive definition, while Emile Durkheim’s definition is often considered functionalist, which states:

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A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and surrounded by prohibitions — beliefs and practices which unite its adherents in a single moral community called a Church. (2001, 46)

In his attempt to stay away from the substantive definition that seems biased in favor of theistic religion, Durkheim adopts the more inclusive term of “sacred” as an essential element of religion by citing atheistic Buddhism. Durkheim claims, “In the first place, there are great religions in which the idea of gods and spirits is absent, or plays only a secondary and unobtrusive role. This is the case with Buddhism” (2001, 32). In contrast, “the sacred things” are merely things that are set apart and surrounded by prohibitions, which may include all kinds of ordinary things, such as certain birds or animals in totemism. But Durkheim’s aloofness in his definition has gone too far because atheistic Buddhism could be claimed by no more than an exceptionally few philosophical minds. The vast majority of Buddhists do, in fact, believe in spiritual beings, including the Buddha as a superhuman being with extraordinary powers (see Orrù and Wang 1992). The functionalist ‘sacred’ was further diluted in the oft-quoted definition of religion by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1966). Geertz’ definition is so inclusive that nationalism, economics, music, sports, and so on could easily fit into the same. “Geertz points out that his definition of religion would include, for example, golf – not if a person merely played it with a passion, but rather if golf were seen as symbolic of some transcendent order” (McGuire 2002, 12). Unfortunately, such an inclusive definition renders ‘religion’ devoid of precision and brings more confusion than clarity when people studied sports or economics as religions. When so many vastly different things are studied all under the name of ‘religion’, the term has become like a dumping container. Anything may be thrown in it, but it becomes anything but a meaningful analytical tool for the scientific endeavor. While the ‘sacred’ is too generic, Durkheim’s use of the ‘church’ in his definition is particularistic in appearance, as it is usually associated with Christianity, yet he defines ‘church’ too broadly: “A society whose members are united because they share a common conception of the sacred world and its relation to the profane world, and who translate this common conception into identical practices, is what we call a church” (2001, 42–43). He stretches such a definition to include a nation, an ethnicity, a family, and a guild, as well as a fraction of a population. This expansive definition may account for certain social facts in historical times. But its direct application to a modern society causes confusion, as reflected in the popular conceptualization of civil religion in America by Robert Bellah (1967) and similarly popular conceptualization of ‘diffused religion’ in Chinese society by C.K. Yang (1961). Durkheim is right to designate the group or collective nature of

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religion: a religion is defined in terms of a moral association of people who share the beliefs and practices and have a sense of belonging to this group. However, Durkheim’s primary image of one society with one religion was archaic, and his focus on primitive societies reinforced that image. But the lack of institutional differentiation is characteristic of the primitive society, whereas modern or modernizing societies usually have differentiated multiple religions. It is important to stress the modern developments of religion. First, the institutional differentiation in the process of modernization has increasingly made religion conceivably a separate social institution from other institutions of politics, economy, the family, education, etc. Second, the co-existence of multiple religions in a society is characteristic of the modern times (Berger 2014). The time when a whole society adhered to a single religion is long gone, if it ever existed. The seeming religiously homogenous or monopoly societies today are those that refuse to admit the existence of alternate religions or refuse to grant the freedom for individuals to go their own ways in their spiritual pursuit. In modern times, admits Durkheim, the pluralization of religion in European societies has redefined a church as a fraction of a population, which he speaks of as the “Christian societies since the advent of Protestantism” (2001, 43). Nowadays these are commonly referred to as ‘denominations’ and ‘sects’. The organizational form of religion has moved away from the undifferentiated form in primitive societies. Following Durkheim’s study of the primitive societies, C.K. Yang’s Religion in Chinese Society (1961) focuses on what he defines as ‘diffused religion’ in contrast to institutional religions. The significant contribution of this seminal work is its empirical evidence that effectively debunked the widespread belief or myth of the irreligious nature of the Chinese culture. However, treating the religious elements in traditional social life as a religion comparable to institutional religions has generated more confusion than clarification for scholarly research since his publication. Moreover, C.K. Yang seems to treat the Chinese religious life as very much static and fossilized, and appeared to be fundamentally different from that in Western societies. This is ironic because one of the significant social changes in China in the twentieth century was that sectarian movements, alternatively called ‘redemptive societies’ or ‘salvationist religions’ (see Ownby 2008; Palmer 2011; Broy 2015), flourished in post-dynastic modern China. These sectarian movements have differentiated social organizations, no longer diffused into other social institutions. Even if the so-called ‘diffused religion’ was once the dominant form of religion in historical China, or in certain rural areas today (Dean 1995; Lagerwey 2010), it does not mean that it will remain so in modern China. Why sectarian movements arose in the early Republic of China, and how

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and why religion has changed in China today? To answer these questions, it requires a more refined definition of religion.5

5 A Definition of Religion with Classification for the ‘Social Scientific Study of Religion’ For the purpose of the social scientific study of religion in the modern society, the definition of religion must be a simple abstraction that is broad enough to include all religions but sufficiently specific to distinguish religion from other similar concepts. Based on the simple definition by Durkheim but integrating the substantive character articulated by E.B. Tylor and many other scholars, I proposed this definition of religion: A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices about life and the world relative to the supernatural that unite the believers or followers into a social organization or moral community. (2012, 36)

This definition includes four components of a religion: (1) a belief in the supernatural; (2) a set of beliefs regarding life and the world in relation to the supernatural; (3) a set of ritual practices manifesting the beliefs; and (4) a distinct social organization or moral community of the believers and practitioners. Each component may vary in form or degree. The supernatural can be one being (monotheism) or many beings (polytheism) or nonbeing such as the cosmic principle of the Dharma or Qi 气. The beliefs about life and the world in relation to the supernatural can be systematized into a sophisticated theology or conglomerated basket of incoherent beliefs. The rituals can be articulate and prescribed, or they can be spontaneously executed from time to time. Finally, some religions have a set of established roles for the religious clergy through systematic training, and others may only have ad hoc roles taken by community leaders and members. The four components in variation have varied possibilities of combination, thus we see rich variations of religions. One of the ways to classify the various religious phenomena is by the level of development of each of the components. Table 1 shows the classification of major types of religions based on the level of development. The first type in the classification scheme may be called ‘full religion’ or fully developed religion. Various scholars have tried other names, such as the

5 Adam Yuet Chau (2011) classifies five ways of doing religion in Chinese popular religion without offering a general definition of religion.

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Table 1: A Definition of Religion along with Classification. Supernatural

Beliefs

Practices

Organization

Examples

Full religion

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Christianity, Buddhism, Islam

Semireligion

Yes

Underdeveloped

Yes

Underdeveloped

Folk or popular religion, magic, spiritualities

Quasireligion

Yes

Yes

Yes

Diffused/ embedded

Civil religion, Ancestor worship, Guild cults

Pseudoreligion

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

atheism, Communism, fetishism

‘complete’ religion by J. Milton Yinger (1970, 10) or the ‘developed’ religion by Julia Corbett Hemeyer (2006, 17). Here I call it full religion.6 Fully developed religions that have all four components with a high-level development: the supernatural being and related beliefs are clearly elaborated in theology, the rituals are well prescribed, and the organizational structure is articulated with rules and regulations. Examples are Catholicism, Protestant denominations, Buddhism, Islam, and various new religious movements. If a group has all four elements but some of them are underdeveloped, we may call it a semi-religion. Most of folk religions and popular spiritualities would fall into this category because of their less developed theology and less established organizational structure. Some semi-religions have the potential to develop into full religions. For example, the Mazu worship could be considered a folk religion on its way of becoming a more developed religion. Also, researchers of the Taiwan Social Change Survey used to classify a number of traditional religious groups such as Yiguandao 一貫道 and Tiandijiao 天帝教 as part of the Chinese folk religion. Since the lifting of the martial law in Taiwan in 1987, however, most of these groups have registered with the government as distinct religions with their own beliefs, rituals and organizations. Most of semi-religious

6 During a conference discussion, an anthropologist of Chinese folk religion suggested to refer to these as ‘over-developed religions’ whereas folk or popular religions as the normal religion. Although the name may carry normalizing implications, the intention of my definition is for the social scientific study of religion and put various types of religious phenomena into a comparative frame. It is not my intention to privilege the full religions or fully developed religions as a social norm.

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phenomena remain underdeveloped. Such beliefs and practices are without doubt religious. They even have certain kinds of organization, but they are often temporary arrangements and undifferentiated from other social institutions. Besides, both the practitioners and researchers tend to have difficulties to come up certain cohesive names other than naming them after the location. In many parts of China, there are ‘communal religions’ (Dean 2003) that look alike across regions but each local community maintains a different set of gods, spirits, good books, and rituals. Such folk religious practices are classified as semi-religion. The distinct characteristic of quasi-religions is their lack of organizational differentiation from some other social institution, such as the family, the state, or the commercial guild. The beliefs and practices of this type of religion (quasi-religion) are embedded or diffused into one of the social institutions. If the social institution dissolves, the beliefs and practices would lose the social carrier to sustain as a religion. For example, the traditional guild of the blacksmiths has dissolved in the modern society, thus their distinct gods and rituals have become part of the folklores instead of lived religion. Similarly, when a clan completely dies out, their ancestral spirits would no longer be worshipped. Also, Shintoism is so closely embedded in the Japanese state that transplanted Shinto temples in Hawaii lost adherents after the first-generation immigrants had died out. American civil religion is another example of quasi-religion. It cannot exist as a separate institution other than the state. It is embedded in the institution of the American state and its beliefs and rituals are passed on in the institutions of the state, public education and conventional religious settings. The diffused religion, as rightly argued by C.K. Yang (1961), often borrows religious symbols, rites, and ideas from institutional religions, and through diffused religion some people may also be drawn into an institutional religion. Therefore, quasi-religion may either compete with or complement the institutional religion, or do both simultaneously. The primary function of diffused religion, as argued by C.K. Yang, is to reinforce the secular institution to which it attaches. On the other hand, because it is so much embedded or even parasitic, when the old state, the family or the guild collapses, the corresponding quasi-religion will collapse as well, leaving residual fragments in folklores. When the supernatural component is missing, if the label of religion is to be used at all, such a group is more properly called a pseudo-religion. Examples of pseudo-religion include atheism, communism, and fetishism (the worship of things, bai wu jiao 拜物教). Scholars sometimes study these phenomena as a kind of religion. But they are categorically different from those that do include the supernatural component. Nevertheless, pseudo-religion is arguably a type of religion and it can certainly function like other types of religions. However, simply referring to them as religions often confuses people. I believe it will help to bring clarity if they are referred to as pseudo-religions.

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The key element missing in a pseudo-religion is the belief in the supernatural. It may believe in something sacred or something artificially made sacred, that is, ‘set apart and surrounded by prohibitions’, such as the state or some ‘ism’, but that sacred something is not a supernatural being or supernatural force, even though it may resemble a supernatural omnipresence or omnipotent. Pseudo-religions may generate real sentiments and devotion just like conventional religions. In modern times, various secularisms, including atheism, scientism, and Communism, have been perceived by some people as substitutes for religion. Some social and political forces have tried to force such religious substitutes upon people in their wars against religion. In China, like other Communist-ruled societies, the pseudo-religion of Communism was forced upon the people as a substitute for religion, but many people resorted to some semi-religion that would provide the supernatural element, thus more satisfying for their religious needs. The lack of formal organizations, or the elusive nature of the organizational element in folk religion, becomes the advantage of semi-religion relative to full religion because it is more difficult for the authorities to suppress such practices and beliefs.

6 The Essential Core of Religion Is the Supernatural Belief What is the most essential core of religion, the irreducible or irreplaceable thing in religion? Thanks to the Chinese Communists, whose social engineering efforts in the second half of the twentieth century produced a kind of natural and extraordinary experiment, we can take a rare glimpse into the essential core of religion when all its peripheral adornments are stripped away. During the eradication period between 1966 and 1979, the Chinese Communists closed down all religious buildings, destroyed many religious artifacts or shoved them into museums, dismissed all religious organizations, imprisoned staunch religious leaders, forced believers to renounce religious beliefs, and punished those who engaged in any religious practice. Furthermore, the Chinese Communists forced everyone to cleanse their minds and hearts of all the Old Ideas, Old Cultures, Old Customs, and Old Habits (po si jiu 破四旧), which include all religious and spiritual beliefs and practices. They demanded everyone to break out a revolution deep in one’s soul (linghun shen chu baofa geming 灵魂深处爆发革命) and eliminate even a flickering thought of the self or ego (hen dou si zi yi shan nian 狠斗私字一闪念). After all of these were done for more than a decade, however, religion survived. How was that possible? Since the lifting of the ban of religion in 1979, we

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have learned through interviews and various testimonial writings that during the periods of harshest suppression, some believers simply kept their belief in secret without revealing to anyone, even to the most intimate people such as their spouses or children, who might turn them in had they known. Christians retained their belief in God and Jesus Christ, and Buddhists held onto their belief in the Dharma. I would further argue that occasionally some people may not even be conscious of their belief in the supernatural. Such sentiments for the supernatural might suddenly rise during certain existential moments such as facing a grave danger, inexpressible joy, astonishing wonder, overwhelming awe, or marvelous gratitude. Such sentiments may remain submerged deep in one’s mind for a long time before they surface. My father, for example, was a life-long staunch Communist Party member, who, like Constantine the Great, was baptized in his deathbed. After his retirement he practiced various qigong, including Falun Gong until the party banned it. One day he shared with me his near-death experience. It was in a cold winter many years ago. He was riding a bicycle to cross a river on the ice. Suddenly the ice cracked in front of him and he tumbled into the river and slipped under the thick ice. Then, he said, he saw someone with a white garment guiding him to the hole in ice so that he could climb out and get home. Was that Guanyin Bodhisattva or a Christian angel? He did not think about it until many years after his retirement. Eventually he decided that it was Jesus who saved him, thus the baptism in the end. The human brain may be hard-wired for religious thinking and feeling, as some neurologists in recent years have argued (Kluger et al 2004; Henig 2007; Wade 2009). For some people, this part of the brain stays dormant until it is rekindled and awakened. Some of the types of religions may be exchangeable in different context. During the Cultural Revolution, when religion was eradicated from society, pseudoreligious expressions were ubiquitous in Chinese society. The Chinese Communist leader Chairman Mao was venerated as the ‘reddest sun in people’s hearts’ (renmin xin zhong zui hong de hong taiyang 人民心中最红的红太阳). In the daily routine, many people made prayer-like and confession-like reporting in front of Mao’s portrait or statue in the morning and evening (zao qingshi wan huibao 早 请示晚汇报). Mao’s sayings were compiled into the Little Red Book (mao zhuxi yülu 毛主席语录). Many people carried around the Little Red Book with them all the time. Tens of thousands of young people would uphold the Little Red Book to form a ‘red sea’ (hong haiyang 红海洋) in Tiananmen Square. The Chinese Communist organization is like a religion with an organizational hierarchy and an emphasis on Communist beliefs and rituals. All of these are so similar to religion but lack the essential component – the supernatural. Therefore, it is most appropriate to call it a pseudo-religion rather than any other type of religion.

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However, since his death, Chairman Mao has become a god in the Chinese folk religious pantheon. Mao’s statues can be found not only on many university campuses, much like other historical figures, but can also be found in temples in rural areas or in mountains, just like idols of gods in traditional folk religion. People pray to Mao for healing or good fortune. Mao was a heavy smoker. In some of the folk religious temples, in front of the idol of Mao, the worshippers do not burn incense sticks. Instead, they light a cigarette and tuck it in his hand. A pseudo-religion has been transformed into a semi religion in the new era.

Conclusion Religion is changing in China and the world today. China is a part of the world, so is the study of religion in China part of the study of religion in the world. To account for the changes of religion in the modern world, social sciences have developed various theories of explanations. I myself proposed the three-market theory of religion and the shortage economy theory under religious oligopoly (Yang 2012). Most people researching Chinese religions must know well about the secularization paradigm that has dominated in social sciences and humanities until recently (see, e.g., Berger 1967). It conceptualized the universal trends of religious decline and declining significance of religion in society. As the classic secularization theories have become untenable (Warner 1993; Berger 1999), there have been two approaches when searching for alternative theories. One approach is to develop new universals to replace the old ones, and the other approach abandons the universal and resorts to exceptionalism. The first approach is obvious in the works of Rodney Stark and his associates (e.g., Stark and Finke 2000). They argue that the economics of religion is applicable not only to the United States, but also to Europe and the rest of the world. Rodney Stark and Roger Finke wrote to the Chinese readers of the Chinese edition of Acts of Faith, “If it would be foolish to try to formulate a physics that only applies to the United States, or a biology that held only in Korea, it is equally foolish to settle for a sociology of religion that applies only to Western nations” (2004, 3). I agree with them on this point in principle. We should strive to discover law-like patterns across societies. However, when I actually tried to apply economics of religion to analyze religious change in China, I find that their supply-side theories cannot explain well the kind of religious change in China. The supply-side theories may have significant explanatory power for situations of the buyer’s market, i.e., societies with over-supply of religion, such as the United States. But there is another type of market, the seller’s market, where there is a chronic shortage of supply. The Hungary-

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born economist János Kornai (1980; 1992) argues that the socialist economy under Communism is a shortage economy by nature. I have extended Kornai’s theory to the religious sphere and argued that the religious economy of China is a shortage economy under oligopoly, in which only a few religions are considered legal and they are under restrictive regulations. The shortage economy under oligopoly results in three parallel markets of religion, the red, the black and the gray, and each market has its own dynamics of change. In short, I find the patterns and dynamics of religious change in China are quite different from that in the United States. Nevertheless, I think my theories are within the new paradigm that perceives and explains religious vitality instead of overall decline. However, R. Stephen Warner, who heralded the new paradigm (1993), has maintained that the new paradigm applies specifically to the United States, whereas the secularization paradigm applies to Europe (1997). He has also suggested that there must be a different paradigm for China. He even suggested my triple market theory as the Chinese paradigm (2006), which is an honor that I am not willing to accept. The patterns I have found in China may not be uniquely Chinese. It might be applicable to other societies under religious oligopoly, which happen to be about a half of the countries in the world today. Among the 196 countries and territories documented by the Association of Religion Data Archives, 28.6 percent of the countries treated all religions very much equality (pluralism), 21.9 percent retained one state religion (monopoly), and 49.5 percent of countries privileged some religions but others are suppressed (oligopoly) (see Yang 2012, 164–166; Grim and Finke 2006, 2010). Along with the crumbling of the secularization paradigm, some scholars seem to be torn between perceiving the U.S. or Europe as the exceptional case in religious change (Berger, Davie, and Fokas 2008). Some Chinese scholars also insist that Chinese religion is so unique that none of the Western theories apply. But, resorting to some version of exceptionalism may have gone too far. “Certainly, social scientists of religion should recognize and appreciate religious variations among individuals, groups, communities, and societies, but science as a modern enterprise is to discover law-like patterns across the variations. This is an important characteristic of social science. It sets itself apart from certain disciplines of the humanities that seek to establish the idiosyncratic uniqueness of the particular events, cases, or people” (Yang 2012, 10). We certainly need to be cautious in claiming a discovery of any universal pattern, but that caution is different from abandoning the pursuit of it. In conclusion, religion is changing fast in China and the world today. Facing the multiple challenges in this globalizing and pluralizing era, we should develop better tools for studying religion and religion-related social phenomena. The

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definition of religion is a tool that comes first. We should also strive to improve the tools of measuring religiosity in the globalizing era. Only with better tools can we make substantive progress in the understanding of religion in China and beyond.

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Palmer, David A. 2011. “Chinese Redemptive Societies and Salvationist Religion: Historical Phenomenon or Sociological Category?” Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 172: 21–72. Payette, Alex. 2019. “Contemporary Confucian Revival: Reflecting on the Nation, the State and Modernity.” In Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions I State of the Field and Disciplinary Approaches, edited by André Laliberté and Stefania Travagnin, 45–66. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter. Pew Research Center. 2015. The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2050. Washington, DC: The Pew Research Center; http://www.pewforum.org/2015/ 04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/ (accessed on February 26, 2017). Price, Joseph L. 2004. From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. 1962. The Meaning and End of Religion. Minneapolis, MN: First Fortress Press Edition 1991. Stark, Rodney and Roger Finke. 2000. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Stark, Rodney and Roger Finke. 2004. “To the Chinese Readers.” In Xinyang de faze 信仰的法则, Chinese translation of Acts of Faith, translated by Fenggang Yang, 3–4. Beijing: Renmin University Press. Sun, Anna. 2013. Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tylor, E. B. 1871. Primitive Culture, London: Murray. Wade, Nicholas. 2009. The faith instinct: How religion evolved and why it endures. London: Penguin. Warner, R. Stephen. 1993. “Work in progress toward a new paradigm for the sociological study of religion in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 98: 1044–1093. Warner, R. Stephen. 1997. “A Paradigm in Not a Theory: Reply to Lechner.” American Journal of Sociology 103, no.1: 192–199. Weber, Max. 1963. The Sociology of Religion. Boston: Beacon Press. Yang, C. K. 1961. Religion in Chinese Society. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Yang, Fenggang. 2008. “Sociological Thoughts on Confucianism as Religion” (Duiyu rujiao zhi zhi wei jiao de shehuixue sikao 对于儒教之为教的社会学思考). Journal of Lanzhou University 36, no.2: 2–11. Yang, Fenggang. 2012. Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule. New York: Oxford University Press. Yang, Fenggang. 2016. “Exceptionalism or Chinamerica?: Measuring Religious Change in the Globalizing World Today.” Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion 55, no.1: 7–22. Yang, Fenggang, and Anning Hu. 2012. “Mapping Chinese Folk Religion in Mainland China and Taiwan.” Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion 51, no.3: 506–522. Yinger, J. Milton. 1970. The Scientific Study of Religion. New York: The McMillan. Yip, Francis Ching-Wah. 2007. Capitalism as Religion? A Study of Paul Tillich’s Interpretation of Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Theological Studies, Harvard Divinity School.

Alex Payette

Contemporary Confucian Revival: Reflecting on the Nation, the State and Modernity Introduction Since the early 1980s, China has been the theatre of numerous social, political and cultural changes. One of which has been the return of Confucianism, first in academia, and later on in the social, educational and political spheres.1 If at first Confucian revival was more academically oriented (e.g. rediscovery of classical studies, engaging with developments from Taiwan and Hong Kong, etc.), from the early 2000s on, we observed the spread of more ‘popular’ and localized forms of Confucian revival all over China (Clart 2003; Billioud 2010; Billioud and Thoraval 2014; Guo 2013). Composed of a patchwork of different groups which have often stayed away from academia (Billioud and Thoraval 2014), they claim their own understanding of the latter and are in all likeliness an important vector driving the Confucian revival in China today. These two trends are, however, not mutually exclusive as some academics are now becoming more involved in setting up some of these local groups or regional initiatives in order to “bring the Confucian torch to the masses” (Billioud 2010). In other words, we could say that the Confucian revival has since then reached a new stage in its unfolding by progressively moving away from scholarly research to more pragmatic endeavours.2 That said, this chapter assesses the state of the debates on the meaning of Confucianism field by discussing its content, divisions and recent developments. As such, it covers several trends currently unfolding as well as ongoing debates mainly focused on political Confucianism (zhengzhi ruxue 政治儒學) and religious Confucianism (rujiao 儒教).3 Of course, there are surrounding

1 We can, of course, think of the harmonious society slogan pushed forward by Hu Jintao, the attendance of several Politburo members – of which Jiang Zemin, to the annual celebration commemorating Confucius since 1989, and more recently Xi Jinping’s newly found ‘affection’ and ‘support’ for the Sage. 2 These trends have been extensively examined by the work of Billioud and Thoraval 2014. 3 As Yang explained in the previous chapter, this issue is not straightforward as a clear definition of what constitutes religion is often evacuated by proponents of religious Confucianism in https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-003

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debates which tend to focus on more philosophical aspects of the doctrine.4 However, when looking at major Confucian intellectuals and the state of the field, these other debates are often left aside. As such, the chapter focuses on the division between ‘Confucians’ (ruzhe 儒者) – as more involved in the promotion of the Confucian doctrine (or least some of its aspects), and ‘Confucianists’ (Ai 2008) – individuals doing research on Confucianism (xue ru de yanjiuzhe 學儒的研究者). Both trends, which alternate between conservative and more liberal thinking, form what is now known as the ‘Mainland New Confucianism’ (dalu xin ruxue 大陸新儒學).5 The latter expresses contrasting views of modernity and argues for different relationships with the Party. Furthermore, Confucians and Confucianists alike are defined by their statebuilding and nation-building agendas, which more often than not includes the acknowledgement – whether for pragmatic considerations or genuine – of the ruling Party.6 As such, one of the main objectives of this chapter is to paint a general portrait of the Confucian epistemic community7 – structured around the division between conservatives and the more liberal Confucians – in contemporary China, to highlight its internal trends, actors as well as some of its underlying issues (e.g. relationship with the Party, views on politics, modernity, etc.). The last section circles back to one of the current debates’ main source – Kang Youwei 康有為 – and how the latter influences both sides of the Confucian epistemic community.

favor of a selective understanding of translated western scholars such as Robert N. Bellah for example. 4 For example, Huang Yushun’s 黃玉順 Life Confucianism (shenghuo ruxue 生活儒學), Li Jinglin’s 李景林 jiaohua Confucianism (jiaohua ruxue 教化儒學) or the New humaneness studies (xin renxue 新仁學) represented by Mou Zhongjian 牟钟鉴 are often overlooked as there are more tensions and contentions in the two previously mentioned topics. 5 This term is defined in the next section. 6 For other discussions on Confucianism and the idea of xue, see two chapters in Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II: Hammerstrom on scientism/xue; and Clower on jia/lineage. See also the chapter by Yang in this volume, on whether Confucianism is a religion or not. 7 At first, the term ‘field’ was the preferred expression. That said, upon further discussion, the latter introduces a confusion between both the ‘research field of Confucian studies’ and ‘individuals engaged in the field of Confucianism’. As such, ‘epistemic community’ (i.e. a community united by its object of inquiry and debate) is to be used in this chapter.

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1 From the ‘Confucian Fever’ to Constitutional Confucianism: Looking Back at ‘Mainland New Confucianism’ The current Confucian revival, which dates back to the early 1980s, has its roots in the ‘Cultural fever’ (wenhua re 文化熱), the precursor to the ‘Confucian fever’ (ruxue re 儒學熱). The later unfolded and gave rise to the extremely diverse epistemic community (Makeham 2008). The former, led by intellectuals like Li Zehou 李澤厚8 and Gan Yang 甘樣,9 is a loosely formed academic revival characterized by a head-on meeting between tradition and modernity (Zhang 2016). It also expressed the desire to ‘rediscover’ Chinese culture after (and in reaction to) the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) (Song 2003). This debate was later joined during the early 1990s by mainland academics – namely the New Confucians. They expanded the ongoing debate on the role of Confucianism, mainly centred on the notion of ‘Asian Values’ at the time. Meanwhile, intellectuals renewed with developments from Taiwan, Hong Kong and abroad (e.g. Qian Mu 錢穆,10 Yu Yingshi 余英時,11 Mou Zongsan 牟宗三,12 Tang Junyi 唐君毅,13 Xu Fuguan 徐復觀14 etc.)15 and ‘rediscovered’ late-Qing Confucians, amongst which Kang Youwei. The latter’s works will be of crucial importance in structuring the debates around politics, religion, nation and State-building as well as the relationship between the Sage and the

8 Li, Yu Yingshi professor of Philosophy and Chinese intellectual history specialist, is one of the most influential modern Chinese scholars who took part in the 1980s Chinese enlightenment. 9 Activist during the cultural fever (1980s), Gan is a sent-down youth who later became involved in the 1989 protests. 10 Co-founder of the New Asia College (xin ya shuyuan 新亞書院) in Hong Kong, Qian is said to be one of the greatest historians of modern China. 11 One of the first students of Qian Mu in Hong Kong, Yu is a Chinese historian and philosopher and a strong advocate of Confucianism. That said, Yu has been very critical of the recent mainland Confucian revival (2015). 12 Mou, who also attended the New Asia College under Xiong Shili 熊十力, is both an interpreter and a philosopher, often bridging Western and Neo-Confucianism. 13 One of the co-founders of the New Asia College, Tang is one of the leading figures of modern New Confucianism. 14 Xu was one of the leading figures of modern New Confucianism alongside Zhang Junmai, Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan. 15 Zhang, Tang, Mou and Xu are all Xiong Shili’s students (Fung 2010).

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Party currently unfolding in the Confucian epistemic community. These mainland Confucians will also be later introduced (mid-late 1990s) to the important work of some of these ‘foreign’ Confucians’ students in the likes of Tu Weiming 杜維明16 and Liu Shuxian 劉述先.17 The Mainland New Confucians (dalu xin rujia 大陸新儒家), term coined by Fang Keli 方克立18 back in the 1990s, first encompassed Jiang Qing 蔣慶, Chen Ming 陳明, Kang Xiaoguang 康曉光 and Sheng Hong 盛洪 (Ai 2008; Bresciani 2001; Makeham 2003 and 2008). After their 2004 meeting in Jiang Qing’s Yangming ‘adobe’ (yangming jingshe 陽明精舍), which was later called the ‘summit meeting on cultural conservatism’ (zhongguo wenhua baoshu zhuyi fenghui 中國文化保守主義峰會) (Zhang 2016),19 this label of ‘New Confucians’ will be used to criticize them in the light of their counterparts, focused on more ‘intellectuals’ endeavours. However the difference between these ‘early’ New Confucians and the others (e.g. individuals doing research on Confucianism, the reformists, etc.) is one of reference (i.e. historic reference in terms of Confucian trends), need (i.e. social and political) and context. Furthermore, as noted by several authors (Bell 2008; Ma 2015), they all share this sense of peril (e.g. loss of culture, morality, values, etc.) in the face of the Western ‘invasion’ dating back to the beginning of the reform era. Later on, other scholars such as Yao Zhongqiu 姚中秋, Bai Tongdong 白彤東, Zeng Yi 曾亦, Guo Qiyong 郭齊勇, Gan Chunsong 幹春松, Tang Wenming 唐文明 and Zhang Xianglong 張祥龍 – to name but a few, will come to ‘reclaim’ this label as new form of (academic) identity. In turn, this label will come to distinguish them from the liberals, the new left and even other Confucian researchers on the Mainland academic scene.

16 Student of Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi and Xu Fuguan, Tu became an important figure in the field of Confucian studies with his work focusing on the humanistic spirit and ethics of Confucianism. The latter is both respected for knowledge yet criticized by the Confucians (e.g. Jiang Qing, Kang Xiaoguang, etc.) for his soft stance and his overly liberal ideas. 17 Also the student of Mou, Tang, and Xu, Liu, just like Tu Weiming or Cheng Zhongying 成中英, is often referred to as being more of a ‘modern Confucian’ – which follows the Neo-Confucian tradition, thus working on reviving Confucian learning while at the same time creating bridge with the Western traditions (Yao 2000). 18 Fang, considered to be a ‘red Confucian’ (Ai 2008 and 2009) – close to the Party, was a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Science. 19 Fang will also be one of the first to ‘warn’ the Party against this rise in conservatism which could become a problem later on (Fang 2005 and 2006).

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Several of them, including Jiang Qing, Kang Xiaoguang and more recent figures like Yao Zhongqiu and Zeng Yi, decided to avoid ‘classical learning’, which in this case refers to Neo-Confucianism (Song-Ming),20 to instead focus on both pre-Qin (e.g. the Gongyang commentary, etc.) and Han Confucianism, which tends to focus more on politics and institution building, behavioural rules, etc. As such, contrary to some of their ‘peers’,21 several of these Confucians have strong practical and political agendas (Bell 2008; Bell and Hahm 2003; Bell and Fan 2013), which in turn are the product of the current sociopolitical situation. The latter is often referred as the double crisis (i.e. moral and political) (Bell 2008). As previously mentioned, the current Confucian revival proceeds from a rediscovery of the debates from Taiwan and Hong Kong, which focused more on morality and on traditional self-cultivation. However, it is also a response to both modern Confucians and ‘Confucianists’ (Ai 2008 and 2009) – or individuals doing research on Confucianism – and to proponents of liberalism and western modernity. In turn, Confucians like Jiang Qing, Sheng Hong, Chen Ming and Kang Xiaoguang emphasized the distinct ‘Mainlandness’ (zhongguo xing 中國性)22 of Confucianism while rejecting the modernization paradox brought by the West.23 This rejection and ‘cultural closure’ came in a direct response to Li Zehou’s inversion of “Chinese knowledge as a basis, Western knowledge for applications” (zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong 中學為體, 西學為用) to “Western knowledge as foundation [. . .]” (xiti, zhongyong 西體, 中用) (Li 2015).24 As such, on these aspects, these New Confucians both oppose some of the views held by the

20 The latter has often been described as a synthesis of Daoism/Buddhism and Confucianism, during its early Song-Tang period (De Bary 1999). Later on, we will see the rise of the learning of Mind-and-Heart (xinling xue 心靈學) with the figure of Wang Yangming (De Bary 1987). 21 I refer here to what Ai Jiawen defined as ‘socialist Confucians’ (e.g. Fang Keli, Qian Xun 錢遜, Ji Liangong 紀連功, Song Defu 宋德福, etc.) and ‘liberal Confucians’ (e.g. Cai Dingjian 蔡定劍, Li Shenzhi 李慎之, etc.). If the first ones see in Confucianism a toolbox to help justify the single Party rule, the latter are pleading for a Confucian democracy or trying to find a way to accommodate Confucianism and democracy (Ai 2008). 22 In contrast to ‘Chineseness’ (zhonghua xing 中華性), term previously developed in Taiwan. 23 In this in case, the latter implies criticisms of Marxism (i.e. modernity leads to revolution). 24 For more on this issue, see the chapters by Hammerstrom and Travagnin in Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II.

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liberals, e.g. Xu Jilin 許紀霖,25 Qin Hui 秦暉,26 Xu Youyu 徐友漁27 etc.), the new left (e.g. Cui Zhiyuan 崔之元,28 Wang Hui 汪暉,29 Gan Yang (Mark 2008; Zhang 2002),30 etc.

2 Between Conservatives and Moderates Confucians In order to understand the state of this epistemic community, we have to separate the trends (xuepai 學派) – limited to a few of the most representative individuals – between the more conservative and ‘action-oriented’ Confucians and the slightly more liberal/theoretical leaning individuals.

2.1 The Conservatives or Political, Cultural and Institutional Confucianism One of the earliest figures of the New Confucians, Jiang Qing is one – if not the one – of the most recognizable name when it comes to Mainland New Confucianism. Retired since 2001, Jiang is now running his own college, the Yangming adobe in Guiyang (Guizhou). That said, Jiang is the one behind ‘political Confucianism’ (zhengzhi ruxue 政治儒學) (2003 and 2014) – with its tricameral structure – and the notion of ‘Constitutional Confucianism’ (xianzheng ruxue 憲 政儒學) (Bell and Fan 2013; Bell and Jiang 2012). However, as Bart (2015) points out, Jiang does not support constitutional government per se, rather he pursues a specific kind of constitutional arrangements focused around his tricameral system. The latter includes a popular chamber (shumin yuan 庶民院), a national

25 Distinguished Zijiang scholar (zijiang xuezhe 紫江學者) at the East China Normal University, Xu is one of the most respected public intellectuals in China today. 26 Historian and public intellectual, Qin is currently professor of history at Qinghua. 27 Public intellectual, philosopher and red guard during the Cultural revolution, Xu is a historian of the latter and a strong proponent of democratization and liberalism. 28 Cui is a professor at the school of public policy and management of Qinghua University and a strong advocate of neo-liberalism. 29 Wang is a professor of literature at Qinghua University and was editor of the highly regarded dushu 读书 journal. 30 Zhang Xudong’s edited volume (2002), which is comprised of texts and reflections from these intellectuals, offers a better perspective on how these individuals are positioned on the ideological plane versus their Confucians counterparts.

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assembly (guoti yuan 國體院) and a Confucian house (tong ru yuan 通儒院) as to follow the concept of unity under heaven (tianxia datong 天下大同). Governance would follow the implementation of the ‘Kingly way’ (wangdao zhengzhi 王道政治) and the rule by virtue (de zhi 德治) (Jiang 2005). As such the work of Jiang, who extensively draws on the Gongyang Commentary and the New Text School (xin wen jia 新文家) – by way of Kang Youwei, is aiming at the reintroduction of transcendence in politics (fu mei 復魅). This search for transcendence (by uniting these three forms of legitimacy) leads him to promote Confucianism as the State religion (guojiao 國教).31 As such, Jiang, in regards to his counterparts, focuses his research on developing this idea of building the nation and building the State with Chinese characteristics while rejecting Marxism and democracy. Jiang goes as far as calling for Confucianism to replace Marxism (Ai 2008) or in some other instances, for a ‘Confucianization’ of the Party (ruhua 儒化) (Jiang 2007). For him, it is logical to replace Marxism and socialism, two foreign ideologies, since they can’t recapture the ‘spirit’ of Chinese culture. As such, Jiang can be positioned at the very end of the ‘conservative’ spectrum. Sheng Hong is one of the less popular figures, often left aside– when it comes to foreign research on Mainland New Confucianism. Professor and director of the Beijing Tianze Institute of Economics, Sheng published several works with Jiang Qing on the notion of universalism and of being virtuous, titled Achieving good by good means (Yi shan zhi shan 以善致善) (Sheng and Jiang 2014). However, Sheng is mostly known for his works on economics and on the idea of free Confucian economy. In his 1996 Spirit of Economics, Sheng argues that Confucianism – its views on economy – influenced European thinkers such as Adam Smith. One of his most recent works Economic interpretation of Confucianism (Ruxue de jingjixue jieshi 儒學的經濟學解釋) was met with both half-praises and criticisms from other Confucians. Sheng is also an advocate of constitutional reforms – in light of Jiang Qing’s idea (Sheng 2012 and 2013), and argues that unlike the West – and Christianity in this case – Confucian China is more tolerant of others (Webb 2015). In turn, according to Sheng, cosmopolitanism is the foundation of Chinese political culture. Chen Ming,32 also part of the conservative group, is better known for his take on the ‘Confucian way of life’ by way of advocating for the latter to be

31 On state and civil religion, see the chapter by Kuo in Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II. 32 Professor at Capital University (Beijing) and student of the late Feng Youlan 馮友蘭, Chen is the founder of the now-online-only Original Way journal 原道 and chief editor of the Confucian post (rujia youbao 儒家郵報). The foundation of the former, back in 1994, can be seen as the establishment of the New Confucians on the Chinese intellectual landscape.

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considered a civil religion (gongmin zongjiao 公民宗教) (Nakajima 2009; Billioud and Thoraval 2008).33 For Chen, defining Confucianism as a civil religion circumvents both practical (for its possible institutionalization) and theoretical (formalization of Confucian symbols) problems. Chen, especially when looking at his “Confucianism as religion” article (2012a), tries to create a sense of cultural continuity inside Confucianism in order to solve the cultural identity issue (Chen 2012b). In his 2012(b) article, Chen emphasizes this historical process which led to the development of Confucianism as a religion, marking a continuity between the imperial era and modernity. He also underlines civil religion as a strategic starting point to fully restore Confucianism as a religion in China (Chen 2010 and 2014). To a certain extent, this project of nation-building and national identity building, which inhabits Chen’s works, is the reason why he is often labelled the ‘cultural Confucian’ in contrast to Jiang Qing (the ‘political Confucian’) or Kang Xiaoguang (the ‘institutional Confucian’).34 As such, Chen is trying to rebuild national unity around a cultural narrative – Confucianism – in order to make it the life of the nation (guojia shenghuo 國家生活). That said, Chen, who leaves a door open for the Party by using the notion of civil religion, does not fully reject modernity – in this case liberalism and democracy35 – nor the idea of political inclusion ousted by Jiang Qing. Chen also differs from Jiang Qing in his views on the Party and Marxism. For him, Confucianism should absorb Marxism, yet he is willing to accept the path the Party choses. Kang Xiaoguang, another important figure amongst the conservatives and possibly the closest to the Party,36 is well known for his work on ‘humane politics/benevolent rule’ (ren zheng 仁政) and his insistence on reforming (Confucianizing) the Party through the acceptance of Confucianism as a governance tool (Kang 2004 and 2005). According to Kang, only Confucianism – considering the failure of Marxism – can legitimize the current Chinese political system, and by extension the ongoing role of the Party.37 This more authoritarian inspired structure, which differs from western democracy and communism, is

33 Chen extensively draws on the work of Bellah and Madsen. 34 These labels mainly refer to the main concerns expressed by each of these three individuals (Ma 2015). 35 Chen remains, however, very critical of western modernity and of the intellectuals working from the May 4th Movement. 36 Kang, professor of public administration at Renda, is said to be a part of Zhu Rongji’s old think tank. 37 Kang is very direct in his rejection of democracy and in using Confucianism to overcome the shortcomings of democratization. As such this benevolent authoritarianism would give way to Confucian cultural dominance (Kang 2005).

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labelled as “the third path” (di san tiao daolu 第三條道路) by Kang. His idea of the benevolent rule, based on Mencius’s view of the heaven-population adequacy,38 would include market-based economic structure, a welfare state, and communication/grievances channels.39 This system, similar to Jiang Qing’s tricameral constitutional Confucianism, also sets the parameters defining who can and cannot rule: individuals are to be chosen according to their display of Confucian virtue (2005 and 2007).40 That said, Kang notes that individuals have the right to be governed properly (Ai 2008) – hence the ‘humane politics’ or even ‘benevolent rule’. To achieve this, as he explains, the Party must actively ‘confucianize’ Chinese society (Ownby 2009; Kang 2010), and one way to start is to elevate Confucianism as a State religion (2005). In effect, Kang names his whole idea the establishment of the Confucian Nation (rujiao guo 儒 教國) (2005). Rejecting the western experience (Chen 2012b) as a basis for a reflection on China’s future and as a strong nationalist,41 Kang posits the necessity of Confucianism against both liberalism and western-style constitutionalism (2011). That said, Kang does not deny the fact that some elements of his project are of Western origins (e.g. welfare state, etc.). At the same time, he avoids Li Zehou’s path which remains too close to Westernization. An avid reader of Huntington (Billioud and Thoraval 2009), Kang, through his attempt at creating a form of cultural nationalism, tries to rebuild national cohesion (guojia ningjuli 國 家凝聚力) to legitimize the Party and protect the nation.42

2.2 The Moderates and the More ‘Liberal’ Leaning Confucians Yao Zhongqiu, also known under his pen name of “autumn wind” – Qiu Feng 秋風, is an independent scholar often categorized as the representative of Confucian liberalism (Li 2015) or as a ‘middle-way’ liberal (Ai 2014). Trained as a constitutional lawyer, Qiu argues for a return of Confucianism to serve as the basis for a potential Chinese constitutionalism (2015). For Qiu, Confucianism

38 The will of Heaven is a reflection of the will of the people. 39 Interestingly enough, Kang had Hong Kong in mind as an example (Chen 2012b). 40 Ultimately, Confucian scholars alone can rule, as they know, and understand the will of heaven (Li 2015). 41 The future in tradition (i.e. Confucianism) lays the foundation for his cultural nationalism (Kang 2006). 42 As noted by Yang in his chapter for this volume, this new call for Confucianism as a religion echoes the late-imperial call of ‘Confucianity’ led by Kang Youwei and his disciples.

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can provide an alternative to western modernity and by extension, liberalism. As such, he tries to establish a communication space between democracy, Confucianism, modernity and liberalism in order to lay the foundation for a Confucian constitutional democracy. Yao has often been criticized by other Confucians for his controversial opinions on Chinese culture and for his attempts in bringing western ideas as to supplement Confucianism in his constitutional Confucianism. The fact that he also suddenly proclaimed himself as a “Confucian scholar” also raised suspicion and criticism from other Confucians saying he might simply be opportunistic. However, Qiu also criticized them for being “rootless” and repeating previously made mistakes – when advocating for authoritarianism, for example. Qiu Feng, just like Sheng Hong, is often overlooked as being a ‘secondary character’ in the epistemic community. However, his extensive work on constitutional Confucianism, his collaboration with other more liberals Confucians, such as Ren Feng 任峰,43 as well as his participation to the on-line debate through numerous publications in the Confucian past make of Qiu an important figure to consider when assessing the state of the Confucian epistemic community. Zeng Yi, deputy-director of the centre for studies on Confucian culture of Fudan University (fudan daxue ruxue wenhua yanjiu zhongxin 復旦大學儒學文 化研究中心), also extensively draws on the Gongyang scholarship. Just like Jiang Qing, Zeng rejects both Marxism and liberalism. As he explains, we – China – must be able to go back to our cultural roots before we can bring in new – foreign – elements (2014). For Zeng, this implies that in order to make the nation grow once more, China needs to get rid of these unwanted “guests”. Just like Jiang Qing before him, Zeng argues that foreign ideas, which have been introduced in China since the nineteenth century, have trampled parts of Chinese civilization. Thus cultural revival – through Confucianism – has to be made a top priority. However, unlike Jiang Qing, Zeng does acknowledge the Party’s role in China’s ongoing modernization as well as Mao’s contribution in the foundation of modern China (2015b). He also agrees with the modern Confucian reformist postulate of “Chinese knowledge as foundation, Western knowledge for application” while at the same time arguing for the establishment of the Confucian orthodoxy (2015a). Tang Wenming, professor of philosophy at Qinghua, exhibits this critical stance against the May 4th movement, the New Culture movement and Li Zehou’s view on Western learning which characterizes the New Confucians. Tang,

43 Ren is an assistant professor of political science at the People’s University and also co-director of Qiu Feng’s Hongdao College (hongdao shuyuan 弘道書院).

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also a supporter of Confucianism as a civil religion, argues that religious Confucianism has its origins in Chinese culture. This Confucian civil religion is one of the reasons why the imperial state was able to sustain for so long and absorb so many foreign cultures. Tang also advocates for the constitutional system based on Confucianism as the State religion (2012). This can be accomplished by bringing back the notion of ‘Confucian education’ – jiaohua 教化, key for nation-building. Tang hints at the need to turn away from Marxist education in order to bring back Confucian jiaohua (2011). However, this does not imply the rejection of Marxism rather than the acknowledgment of its contribution. The next step is to return to Kang Youwei to re-establish the State-led Confucian jiaohua, which in turn is conducive to building the nation (Tang 2011). Bai Tongdong, professor of philosophy at Fudan and detractor of Jiang Qing’s essentialism, is clearly leaning on the liberals’ side. However, he does not fully agree with Neo-Confucian scholarship. Greatly inspired by Rawls’ work, Bai makes a case against liberal democracy through Confucianism (Elstein 2014). He formulates a mix of meritocratic and democratic elements – which can be seen as similar to both Jiang and Kang Xiaoguang’s work, yet it remains more rooted in Western philosophy. Bai attempts to bring liberal rights under the protection of the meritocracy.44 These ideas can be found in some of his most recent self-translated work (e.g. A Confucian Hybrid regime, Confucianism to Save the World, Ethnic Issues, National Identity and International Relations [. . .] etc.).45 Bai thus calls for a middle ground between liberalism and the more radical constitutional Confucianism of Jiang Qing. He also heavily criticizes the latter’s usage of the Gongyang Commentary of which he said became a dogma – in Jiang’s work – based solely on China’s cultural specificity (2010). As such, Bai rejects the idea of Chinese culture’s superiority, as well as its opposite (e.g. the inevitable democratization, etc.). That said, Bai sees Confucianism as a better solution to form a national identity than the modern Nation-State approach. He aspires to a more inclusive view of the latter in order to bring new life in an old State and not, when referring to Jiang Qing, bring old ideas in the formation of a new State (2010). Furthermore, Bai raises serious questions regarding the performance of democracy for modern States, especially when it comes to political decision (Elstein 2014). According to him, the

44 Bai raises several issues such as the anti-elites elites, the non-voters representation, issue of the electorate actually being the ‘selectorate’, interests of future generations (i.e. long-term view), the irrational voter dilemma, corporatism, lobbying, etc. (2009). 45 These three, although probably not accessible at the moment, have been sent to me by Professor Bai back in mid-2015. Therefore, only reduced versions of the titles are used and no complete citation will be listed.

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issue lies in limited intelligence, education and interest of individuals to part take in the political process, thus making “rational participation” impossible (Angle 2012). Decision making should instead be kept for individuals46 able to use this power for the general good.47 Zhang Xianglong, professor at Shandong University is more focused on theory and less interested by solving all of China’s problem through Confucianism (Gaenssbauer 2014). For him, Jiang Qiang’s political Confucianism remains very limited and should not aspire to universal pretension (Zhang 2011). However, Zhang does agree with Jiang when it comes to the need for a Confucian revival. That said, he also notices that Confucianism, under its current form, is maybe even weaker than other religions and traditions. As such, instead of opting for a full on revival, like that of Jiang Qing or Chen Ming, Zhang ponders the idea of a ‘middle path’ (zhongxing luxian 中行路線) (Zhang 2007), which includes a proposal (which dates back to 2001) for the establishment of protected zones for Confucian culture (rujia wenhua baoqu qu 儒家文化保護區)48 (Ma 2015; Zhang 2001 and 2007).49 These zones, inspired by the Amish communities, would serve as the foundation for the establishment of the Confucian way of life. These spaces are to be a refuge to preserve Confucianism rather than promote its development (van den Stock 2016). Zhang also emphasizes the need for Confucian revival to remain on local or popular initiatives in order to avoid a Party-led (ideologically oriented) revival. That said, Zhang does not stand out as being a strong nationalist – unlike Kang Xiaoguang for example – but instead as an intellectual worried about China’s modernization, the gradual loss of moral values and traditional culture and the precarious state of the unfolding Confucian revival.

46 Bai argues that although not everyone can rule, everyone should have a chance to become an elite (2009). 47 This ‘limitation’ also holds true for freedom in general. For most daily concerns or decisions with little to no impact, Confucianism can provide a strong sense of freedom. However, when it comes to more important decisions – with public impact, Bai withdraws himself to his views on political participation and the limited understanding some individuals can have when it comes to social/political affairs. As such, they should simply not get involved in the matter as they would not bring anything to the debate (Bai 2009; Angle 2012). 48 Zhang compare these protected zones to special economic zones which have been set at the beginning of the reforms. To this effect, Zhang’s idea can be contrasted to Kang Xiaoguang and Jiang Qing ambitious national projects. 49 This utopian project, according to Billioud and Thoraval (2014), is the result of Zhang’s dissatisfaction with modern categories – which tends to reduce Confucianism to academia, and institutions.

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2.3 Confucianists and Commenters: Guo Qiyong, Gan Chunsong and Chen Lai Contrary to some of the other Confucians, Guo Qiyong, and to a certain degree Gan Chunsong, are considered less involved in the debates surrounding political/religious Confucianism. Guo,50 philosophy professor at Wuhan University, is part of this new generation of scholars that tries to separate themselves from Marxism in their conception of Confucianism (Farras-Solé 2013). Basing his views on Neo-Confucianism (mainly Zhu Xi 朱熹51 and Wang Yangming), Guo’s work focuses on ethics with a very pragmatic and contextual stance which engages filial piety as well as the core notion of family and its social function in Chinese society (2004). When it comes to his views on Marxism or religion (Confucianism), Guo remains slightly at odds with Confucians. For him, Confucianism is a system of ethics – echoing the work of Chen Lai and Fang Keli, which includes the notion of ultimate concern (e.g. spirits, ancestors, etc.) (Chen 2012c). Guo, contrary to Jiang Qing or Chen Ming, argues for a more ‘humanistic religion’ rooted in daily practises. As for his views on Marxism, Guo believes that the latter has been assimilated in China through Confucianism (i.e. Confucianization of Marxism). As such, Confucianism and Marxism are united and share both distinct and similar ideological resources (Guo 2015). Lastly, and contrary to Confucians, Guo draws the pictures of East-West interactions as one of mutual complementing rather than one of domination (Guo 2015). Gan Chunsong, philosophy professor at Peking University, is mostly now known for his book Zhidu ruxue 制度儒學 (Institutional Confucianism, 2011). One of Gan’s main contributions to the Confucian epistemic community is his reassessment of Kang Youwei’s efforts to institutionalize Confucianism at the end of the imperial era. For Gan, this institutionalized form is the reason why the system was able to endure for so long. However with the advent of modern China and social pressure, Confucianism – with the examination system at its core – was separated from the power and from the educational system. This led, for Gan, to the degradation of Confucianism in its institutional mode. He also draws on Kang Youwei’s notion of ‘great unity’ [大同], which led him to endorse the idea of the ‘Kingly way’ (wangdao 王道) to solve some of the issues faced by contemporary states. In turn, this Kingly way mixed with Kang Youwei’s tianxia system can also be expanded to create a more rational

50 It is important to note that Guo worked under Fang Keli. 51 Song dynasty philosopher, Zhu Xi was the leading figure of the school of principle and one of the most influential Neo-Confucians.

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world-system (Gan 2012). That said, Gan’s interpretation of the latter two can accommodate both Marxism and socialism. In doing so, Gan tries not to alienate the Party and remains a more ‘engaged’ commentator rather than a full fledge Confucian. Gan, like most of the others, put a lot of emphasis on the work of Kang Youwei, especially his State-building (the great unity) and governance ideas (Kingly way). Finally, Chen Lai, professor of philosophy at Qinghua University, is one of the most recognized figures on Confucianism in China and abroad. A student of the late historian and philosopher Feng Youlan, Chen is a pro-Party scholar who sides with cultural conservatives. Like them, Chen also criticizes anti-tradition movements and instead supports the return of Confucianism. In Ren xue benti lun 仁學本體論 (Ontology of Benevolence, 2014), he examines how the current Confucian revival provides a key opportunity for rebuilding the national spirit. However, contrary to the Confucians, Chen emphasizes the need for work on more theoretical questions and efforts to reconstruct national cohesion through morals, ethics and the renewal of common values. When it comes to the relationship between Marxism and Confucianism, Chen – who directly refers to the sinization of Marxism – reverses the tables on individuals such as Guo Qiyong by asking how the Party understands Confucianism in light of its efforts to modernize the country.52 That said, like Chen Ming, Chen Lai, through his national cohesion and national spirit ideas, also comes out as being a cultural nationalist who wants to slowly move away from classical Marxist while at the same relying on the organizational capacities of the Party.53 As such, Chen Lai accepts the Party system and hopes to combine Marxism and Confucianism in order to secure the latter’s place in China.

2.4 Conservatives, Liberals and Confucianists: Comments and Transition Individuals like Guo, Gan and Chen are probably the reason why mainland Confucianism – its theoretical development that is – is getting more attention amongst Confucianists from Hong Kong, Taiwan and abroad.

52 For Chen Lai, it is more a question of how the Party can handle Confucianism rather than looking a more people first approach like Chen Ming. 53 Unlike New Confucians like Mou Zongsan or Zhang Junmai who advocate for a democratic structure instead of the Party’s framework or Jiang Qing’s constitutional Confucianism.

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This overview, which remains incomplete, to say the least,54 draws the contours of the Confucian epistemic community by looking at the several known and less known figures. In turn, this allows us to identify several common points amongst very different ideological positions. For instance, the ideas of State and nation-building, national cohesion, protection of the national culture – leading to cultural nationalism, and the debates surrounding both political and religious Confucianism all can find common ground in the works and thought of Kang Youwei.

3 Connecting the Dots: Reflecting on Kang Youwei as Foundation for New Confucians As previously mentioned, the figure of Kang Youwei is of crucial importance to understand the current state of the Confucian epistemic community as both sides owe some parts of their arguments to his works or simply use the latter as the starting point of their reflection. There are mainly two common themes found – to various degrees – in all Confucians and Confucianists: a reflection on how to either protect or expand Confucianism (be it in accordance to Marxism or not) and a discussion on China’s political future – in terms of political structure (democratic or not). These considerations can be summarized as: protecting the Confucian ‘faith’ (bao jiao 保教), protecting the nation (bao guo 保國) and the establishment (or transformation/reform) of the State (li guo 立國). All are key components of Kang Youwei’s work. In this respect, the Mainland Confucian scene has not moved too far away from the debates started by Kang back in the transition era between imperial and republican China.55 These ongoing debates, revolving around political and religious Confucianism and based on Kang Youwei’s work, are now being referred to as ‘new Kang Youwei-ism’ (xin kang youwei zhuyi 新康有為主). If at first this term was used to depict Jiang Qing’s constitutional Confucianism or political Confucianism

54 For example, the work of Ding Yun丁耘 on the relationship between Confucianism and Marxism is important in understanding Chen Lai’s position as well as the more left-oriented Confucianism. Ding also differs from liberals in his rejection of the Enlightenment and of both Fang Keli and Li Zehou’s positions when it comes to Western and Chinese culture. 55 There is an increasing number of articles on conferences, with the most famous being the one held in Donglin (donglin huijiang 東林會講) in 2015, talking about the need to “return to Kang Youwei” (Gan 2015; Jiang 2015; Tang 2015 and 2016).

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– which draws on Kang Youwei’s Gongyang scholarship, it now encompasses scholars who base their work on Kang Youwei’s thought (Zhang 2013).56 This New Kang Youwei-ism can be divided between more liberal thinkers, such as Bai Tongdong, Yao Zhongqiu, and more conservative thinkers (e.g. Jiang Qing, Chen Ming, Kang Xiaoguang, etc.).57 If the formers somehow still have faith in Western modernity and see Confucianism as a form of humanistic/diffuse religion – not to say ‘civil religion’,58 capable of assimilating other elements, then the latter completely reject it and instead demonstrate a form of a ‘cultural closure’ – based on Chinese uniqueness – and stronger advocacy for Confucianism as a state religion or as the sole ‘Chinese’ religion. For instance, unlike Chen Ming’s civil religion – self-admittedly based on the work or Robert Bellah, Jiang Qing and Kang Xiaoguang’s project of State/National religion are much closer to Kang Youwei ‘Confucian religion’ (kong jiao 孔教) (Makeham 2008).59 The same can be said of their political projects which try to reframe the Monarch – the Party – into a Confucian constitutional arrangement. Kang Xiaoguang also claimed to be a successor of Kang Youwei when it comes to both the political and religious elements of his thinking (Chen 2012c). Tang Wenming’s argument on the jiaohua (or Confucian education), its importance to rebuild political consciousness and the Chinese nation (2014), is not at odds with Kang Youwei. The latter, according to Tang (2014 and 2015) was aware that it was due to this education (based on the examination system) that imperial China – as a structure – was able to withstand the test of time. With the Confucian jiaohua replaced by more western education at the beginning of the republican era (Billioud and Thoraval 2014) to then be supplanted by Marxism and the Party’s ideology, it is normal that both moral and politics are now in a state of crisis. To this effect, Tang, drawing on Kang Youwei, pushes for the restoration of the Confucian jiaohua (2003). Gan Chunsong, who also sees Kang as a critical juncture in Chinese philosophy, uses the notion of the great unity for State-building purposes as demonstrated by his combination of the Kingly way and the tianxia system (2010). Gan

56 Zhang states that the term now encompasses scholars like Zeng Yi, Tang Wenming or Gan Chunsong (2013). 57 As such, as Gan Chunsong argues, we can find in Kang Youwei the source for liberalism and conservatism (2016). 58 Yet Chen Ming also discusses the need to return to both Mou Zongsan and Kang Youwei to proceed to further development (2016). 59 Zhao Fasheng also makes this distinction. Interview in Beijing summer 2012; Qingzhou, summer 2016.

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also recently reviewed positions using the notions of State religion, civil religion, cultural nationalism, etc. which could all be traced back to Kang Youwei (2015). Therefore, the Confucian epistemic community – including Confucians, Confucianists, Socialist Confucians alike – remains structured around the same problematic tackled by Kang Youwei more than one century ago: State-building, nation-building and cultural identity. That said, we can also see that most of these scholars are involved in a discussion surrounding modernity (i.e. how it should be understood – as a process – and in which direction it should be heading), the place and significance of Confucianism in today’s China (e.g. as a religion, a political structure, etc.) and its relationship with Marxism (e.g. Confucianization of the Party, assimilation of Marxism, complementary approach, etc.). In turn, conservatives and liberals/moderates are all reflecting on China’s future and Confucianism’s role and functions in post-communist China from various readings of Kang Youwei.

Conclusion: Reassessing Modernity and the Place of Confucianism in China This overview of the Confucian epistemic community shows a clash between proponents of modernity – and their acceptance of liberalism, the Chinaoriented Confucians – who reject both modernity and Western liberalism, and the more moderate Confucianists, closer to Marxism and attempting various degrees of integration between the two. Among these are more engaged individuals trying to establish various forms of political arrangements – constitution/ political Confucianism – based on different understandings of Kang Youwei’s reformist ideas. The same can be said of the multiple forms of religious Confucianism argued for by both Confucians and Confucianists alike. This is in sharp contrast to their Taiwanese and Hong Kongese counterparts who seem to have, as Yang Fenggang’s chapter in this volume pointed out, expanded and partially solved some of these issues back in the 1980s. In turn, these unresolved issues, linked to modernization and modernity as a whole (i.e. how to understand it), are finding a common source in Kang Youwei’s thought. To a certain extent, we could argue that debates that came to an abrupt end during the 1920s have made a comeback to the forefront of Chinese academia during the last three decades. It might not have been a coincidence that these ideas came back during the mid-1980s, when call for political changes culminated in the Tian’an men incident of 1989. Since then, and with the failure of communism and socialism, Confucian intellectuals have either

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tried to work ‘with the Party’ – as in combining Marxism or Confucianism – or reject the latter to then advocate for ‘new’ political structures. In both cases, we can detect this wariness pushing scholars and activists to argue for the relevance of Confucianism in post-communist China as well as advocating for the latter to play a more significant role in China’s political and social future. To what extent these ideas will be used by the Party has yet to be seen and, as clearly expressed by Yang Fenggang, even if the current leadership has shown some signs of openness towards Confucianism, its role and function (aside from being a governing instrument) remain unclear.

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Kang Xiaoguang. 2011. “Rujia xianzheng lun gang” 儒家憲政論綱; http://www.rujiazg.com/ar ticle/id/2152/ (accessed on September 25, 2016). Kuo, Ya-Pei. 2019. “Positive Conceptions of Religion in the Early Republic.” In Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II: Intellectual History of Key Concepts, edited by Gregory Adam Scott and Stefania Travagnin. Boston and Berlin: de Gruyter. Leonard, Mark. 2008. What Does China Think? New York: Public Affairs. Li, He. 2015. Political Thought and China’s transformation: Ideas shaping in Post-Mao China. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ma, Licheng. 2015. Leading Schools of Thought in Contemporary China. Singapore: World Scientific. Makeham, John. 2008. Lost Soul: Confucianism in Contemporary Chinese Academic discourse. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Centre. Makeham, John, ed. 2003. New Confucianism: A Critical Examination. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Nakajima Takahiro. 2009. “Religion et sécularisation en Chine. Pour un confucianisme Critique”. In Sécularisations et Laïcités, edited by Masashi Haneda, 79–92. Tokyo: The University of Tokyo Centre for Philosophy. Ownby, David. 2009. “Kang Xiaoguang et le projet d’une religion confucéenne. Itinéraire d’un intellectuel engage.” Perspectives chinoises 4: 109–120. Qian Zongfan 钱宗范. 2013. “Dangqian ruxue re ruogan wenti de sikao” 當前儒學熱若干問題的 思考. Yulin Yulin shifan xueyuan xuebao (zhexue shehui kexue) 玉林師範學院學報 (哲學社會 科學) 34, no.6: 2–7. Sheng Hong 盛洪. 1996. Jingjixue jingshen 經濟學精神. Chengdu: Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing house. Sheng Hong 盛洪. 2012. “Zhongguo weiwhenme xuyao xianzheng gaige?” 中國為什麼需要憲政 改革? http://www.rujiazg.com/article/id/2643/ (accessed on October 6, 2016). Sheng Hong 盛洪. 2013. “Fandui xianzheng jiushi shanghai ziji” 反對憲政就是傷害自己; http://www.rujiazg.com/article/id/3650/ (accessed on October 5, 2016). Song, Xianlin. 2003. “Reconstructing the Confucian Ideal in the 1980s China: The “Cultural craze” and New Confucianism.” In New Confucianism: A Critical Examination, edited by John Makeham, 81–104. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tang Wenming 唐文明. 2011. “Cong rujia zhengjiu minzu zhuyi” 從儒家拯救民族主義. Wenhua zongheng 文化縱橫 10: 103–105. Tang Wenming 唐文明. 2012. “Rujiao, xianzheng yu zhongguo: yi ge chubu de sikao” 儒教、 憲政與中國：一個初步的思考; http://www.rujiazg.com/article/id/2578/ (accessed on October 20, 2016). Tang Wenming 唐文明. 2014. “Zhengzhi zijue, jiaohua zijue yu zhonghua minzu de xiandai jiangou” 政治自覺、教化自覺與中華民族的現代建構; http://www.rujiazg.com/article/ id/4215/ (accessed on October 20, 2016). Tang Wenming 唐文明. 2015. “Hui dao Kang Youwei yu lu taixin rujia zhi zheng” 回到康有為與 陸台新儒家之爭. Zhonghua Dushubao 中 華讀書報 May 20th: 15. Tang Wenming 唐文明. 2016. “Cong ruxue fuxing de yiti kan Kang Youwei zhuyi yu Mou Zongsan zhuyi de yitong” 從儒學復興的議題看康有為主義與牟宗三主義的異同. Tianfu Xinlun 天府新論 2: 46–56. Travagnin, Stefania. 2019. “From xue 學 to jiaoyu 教育: Conceptual understanding of ‘study’ and ‘education’ in modern Chinese Buddhism.” In Concepts and Methods for the Study of

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Chinese Religions II: Intellectual History of Key Concepts, edited by Gregory Adam Scott and Stefania Travagnin. Boston and Berlin: de Gruyter. Van Den Stock, Ady. 2016. The Horizon of modernity: Subjectivity and Social Structure in New Confucian Philosophy. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishing. Webb, Adam K. 2015. Deep Cosmopolis: Rethinking World Politics and globalization. New York: Routledge. Yang, Fenggang. 2019. “The Definition of Religion for the Social Scientific Study of Religion in China and Beyond.” In Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions I: State of the Field and Disciplinary Approaches, 23–44, edited by André Laliberté and Stefania Travagnin. Boston and Berlin: de Gruyter Yao, Xinzhong. 2000. An Introduction to Confucianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. Yao, Xinzhong. 2010. An Introduction to Confucianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yao Zhongqiu. 2015. “Xianzheng ruxue de liang ge yongyi” 憲政儒學的兩個用意; http://www. rujiazg.com/article/id/6770/ (accessed on October 20, 2016). Yu, Yingshi. 2015. “The Chinese Communists Are Not Confucianists”; https://chinachange.org/ 2015/07/01/the-chinese-communists-are-not-confucianists/ (accessed on October 21, 2016). Zeng Yi. 2015a. “Baoshou zhuyi de huigui: cong Kang Youwei dao Deng Xiaoping” 保守主義的 回歸：從康有為到鄧小平. Tianfu Xinlun 天府新論 1: 3–4. Zeng Yi. 2015b. “Zhongguo gaige de gongyang xue fenxi” 中國改革的公羊學分析; http:// www.rujiazg.com/article/id/4834/ (accessed on October 22, 2016). Zeng Yi. 2010. Gonghe yu junzhu: Kang Youwei wanqi zhengzhi sixiang yanjiu 共和與君主： 康有為晚期政治思想研究. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press. Zeng Yi and Guo Xiaodong. 2014. Hewei pu shi? Shei zhi jiazhi? – Dangdai rujia lun pus hi jiazhi 何謂普世？誰之價值？ ——當代儒家論普世價值. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press. Zhang, Ning Shanruo. 2016. Confucianism in Contemporary Chinese Politics: An actionable account of Authoritarian political culture. Lanham: Lexington Books. Zhang, Xianglong. 2011. “Is Political Confucianism a Universalism? An Analysis of Jiang Qing’s Philosophical Tendency.” In The Renaissance of Confucianism in Contemporary China, edited by Fan Ruiping, 225–237. New York: Springer. Zhang, Xianglong. 2001. “Jianli rujia wenhua baohu qu yiweizhe shenme?” 建立儒家文化保護 區”意味著什麼？ Kexue Zhongguo ren 科學中國人 10: 33–35. Zhang, Xianglong. 2007. “Congjian rujiao de weixian, biyao ji qizhong xing luxian” 重建儒教 的危險、必要及其中行路線. Xiandai zhexue 現代哲學 1: 102–109. Zhang Xu. 2013. “Zhengzhi ruxue de xin fangxiang” 政治儒學的新方向; http://www.rujiazg. com/article/id/3756 (accessed on September 18, 2016). Zhang, Xudong, ed. 2002. Whither China? Intellectual Politics in Contemporary China. Durham: Duke University Press.

Christopher A. Daily

From Missionaries to Scientists: Reflections on the History of the Anglophone Study of Chinese Protestant Christianity Introduction Since the first Protestant missionary to China arrived at the port of Canton in 1807, Protestant Christianity has grown steadily throughout East Asia and is today the fastest growing religion in Mainland China, with recent estimates crediting the religion with around 60 million followers.1 In fact, some mission society estimates today place this number much higher, closer to 100 million followers.2 In reality, the precise number of Protestant Christians in China is difficult to ascertain, given that many practice the religion illegally and covertly in unregistered ‘house churches’ (jiating jiaohui 家庭教會). The actual amount of devotees most likely falls in between these two estimates – clearly an impressive following regardless.3 Aside from holding a large contemporary Chinese following, Protestant Christianity in China has also had an impact on both modern Chinese society and state. During the past two centuries, the Protestant tradition in China has provided materials that inspired a widespread political movement that threatened China’s political stability (Taiping Uprising), and it has also been one of the targets of a social backlash that would then alter China’s foreign relations (Boxer Rebellion). There are multiple instances of revolutionary Chinese political leaders converting into a Protestant faith and using it within a new political

1 See, for example, the study produced by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, December 2011, Global Christianity. 2 For example, the mission group Asia Harvest, on its website (asiaharvest.org) counts over 84 million Protestants in China. The World Christian Database, produced by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, places the number even higher, at 100 million. See Johnson and Zurlo 2007. 3 I accept the historical data produced by the Pew Forum, published in December 2011, but these statistics are now out of date and, since scholars generally agree that the tradition is growing steadily, the number of Christians in China is now most certainly even higher. See Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, December 2011, Global Christianity, Appendix C: Methodology for China. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-004

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ideology (as in the cases of Sun Yat-Sen 孫逸仙 or Chiang Kai-shek 蒋介石, for example),4 while some others (including Mao Zedong 毛澤東) have treated the tradition with suspicion, as they considered it a tool of Western imperialism.5 Today, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) maintains policies that is explicitly focused upon regulating Protestant worship in China, and this demonstrates a lasting political concern about the growing weight of this religion throughout China. Clearly, then, from the time of its birth in the early nineteenth century through today, Protestant Christianity has influenced many important aspects of China. Nevertheless, with some noteworthy exceptions,6 Sinologists have too frequently ignored Protestant Christianity and it remains one of the least studied aspects of the Chinese religious arena. This is unfortunate, given the fact of its tremendous success in China. The bulk of the work that has been published on this tradition, especially up to the 1980s, derives from Protestant evangelical church or mission sources. These works are not entirely unhelpful, but often there are clear theological biases driving their agendas and the texts do not always serve the needs of the objective academic. Perhaps making this matter all the more confusing, in contrast, Roman Catholic Christianity, which first entered China during the thirteenth century but experienced a much slower and less impressive growth, if not an eventual decline, has been the subject of much fruitful and recent research within Chinese Studies.7 As this chapter will demonstrate, Chinese Christianity seems to have been relegated to the sidelines of academia in the early twentieth century, during the drawing of the division between the disciplines of theology and the so-called scientific study of comparative religions. This methodological separation was

4 For a study on Chiang Kai-shek’s relationship with Christianity, see Bae 2009. 5 See, for example, Mao Zedong’s critical comments on the potential relationship between Christianity and imperialism within his July 19, 1950 speech on Wu Yaozong’s 吳耀宗 (also known as Y.T. Wu) Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Letter contained within Mao 2013, vol. 1. 6 It was not until the 1990s that academia began to give this movement due recognition but, since then, a number of excellent studies on the Protestant tradition in China have appeared. There are too many of these to name here, but, for a few of these recent contributions, see Bays 1996 and 2012, Lutz 1995, Dunch 2001, Tiedemann 2009, Wielander 2013, and Vala 2017. 7 To list but a few of the recent groundbreaking studies on Chinese Catholicism, see Madsen 1998, Menegon 2009, or Zhang Xianqing 張先清 2009. Above all, Nicolas Standaert has given us many tremendously formative works on Catholicism in China, too many to include here, but his broad portfolio of work should necessarily be consulted on this topic. See, for example, Standaert 1997, 2001a, and 2001b.

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most clearly embodied within the working life of the missionary-scholar James Legge, whose own mission conflicts drove him to abandon China to pursue an academic career in Great Britain, where he joined the comparative religions project of Max Müller. Working alongside Müller, Legge contributed to the crystallization of an essentialist image of Chinese Religions that considered only formal textual traditions from Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, altogether classified as China’s Three Teachings. Henceforth, primarily it was the Three Teachings that would be the focus of work on Chinese religions, and any other Chinese religious phenomena, including Christianity, were simply ignored. This chapter will examine the history of the English-language study of Chinese Protestant Christianity in order to analyze the influence of some of the major figures that have had an impact on the development, or lack thereof, of this subfield of Anglophone Sinology. The research will contribute to a wider critical discourse,8 which argues that English-language Chinese religious studies have historically devoted a disproportionate amount of attention to religious beliefs and practices that correspond to the textual traditions of the Three Teachings (Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism), consequently resulting in too few studies on other important historical and living Chinese religious traditions. This paper will consider only a few of the reasons for this lacuna that runs throughout our discipline’s history and conclude with some reflections on recent methodological shifts and improvements.

1 Early Anglophone Writings on Chinese Protestant Christianity The history of Anglophone writings on Chinese Protestant Christianity is arguably as old as the tradition itself. British and American Protestant missionaries writing from the field dominated the first century of discourse on this emerging religious movement. For example, the earliest Protestant missionaries sent to China, Robert Morrison (1782–1834) and William Milne (1785–1822), wrote to their home missionary society, the London Missionary Society (LMS), about their experiences abroad, providing the earliest Anglophone images of a new and growing Chinese Christian tradition. Later nineteenth century Protestant missionaries followed suit by writing narratives for their home audiences.

8 See, for example, Barrett 2005.

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Topics of the early missionary letters included the struggles of surviving in a politically hostile Qing Chinese environment, the process of translating the bible into Chinese, the first Chinese converts (although there were few in the early days) with newly emerging Protestant worldviews, and the beginning of a distinctly Scottish Protestant education system for Chinese men and, later, women.9 The letters were addressed to an evangelical audience and so the content was unapologetically and theologically biased. Nevertheless, the value and influence of these early materials cannot be overlooked because they provide insight into the foundation of Chinese Protestant Christianity. What was the immediate impact on the Anglophone world of the early mission letters and diaries? Excerpts from the letters that were sent to Great Britain and, later, North America and Australia, by the earliest missionaries were subsequently published in religious pamphlets and newsletters by the mission societies. The missionaries’ words then circulated throughout the home Christian communities, feeding a popular Christian imagination about the Chinese as ‘heathens’ and working to secure donations to continue the China missions. But while these missionaries introduced to an Anglophone Christian readership (and, simultaneously, to the Chinese) a notion of an emerging ‘Chinese Protestant Church’ and reaffirmed any popular evangelical Protestant notion of the Chinese as heathens, the circulars were not widely disseminated and so the influence of these letters did not immediately exceed their Christian readerships. In addition to writing descriptive mission letters, some nineteenth century missionaries crossed scholarly lines and produced academic reference texts on China and these materials had a slightly larger and more diverse readership. These works described Chinese history, politics, geography, literature, language, or religions, with the hope of introducing China to the wider Anglophone world. The texts reached an audience outside of the evangelical churches, and their descriptions would become the basis upon which the earliest Anglophone academic discussions concerning Chinese religions would take place. The first to write in this fashion was Robert Morrison.10 In his work, A View of China for Philological Purposes (1817), Morrison devoted a chapter to ‘Religion and Mythology’, where he provided one of the first eyewitness Anglophone descriptions of the religious practices of the Chinese. According to

9 For more on these early missions, see Daily 2013. 10 Aside from his Chinese-English dictionary and grammar, published between 1815–22, two of Morrison’s earliest attempts at producing academic texts include his (1812) Horae Sinicae: Translations from the Popular Literature of the Chinese and (1817) A View of China for Philological Sources, Containing a Sketch of Chinese Chronology, Geography, Government, Religion & Customs.

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Morrison, in China there were only “three acknowledged sects or religions. The followers of Confucius, of Buddah, and of Laou-tsze” (Morrison 1817, 110). To be fair, Morrison should not be criticized for leaving out any notion of Chinese Protestant Christianity. Nor for that matter should he be criticized for failing to note the traditions of Chinese Islam or Chinese Catholicism, both of which by that point had been present in China for centuries. The publication of this text marked Morrison’s ten-year anniversary in China, by which point the first complete translation of the Bible into Chinese had not yet been completed and thus Chinese Protestant Christianity remained only in its nascent state. In addition, although by that point Morrison had been operating in China for a decade, he actually had very limited experience observing Chinese culture, given that he was not legally permitted to travel in China and much of his mission work was illegal and performed covertly from isolated outposts at Canton and Macao. Thus, despite living on Chinese soil, he never really had the opportunity to travel freely or to interact with China’s living traditions. Otherwise, he surely would have noted that at that time there was much of Chinese religion(s) that did not fit into these narrow categories. Morrison’s descriptions of Chinese religions, the first to be published in the English language under the authority of purported personal experience, were therefore not actually based upon extensive eyewitness accounts or personally conducted fieldwork. Instead, the overly simplistic classification system he used shows the likelihood of the early Protestant missionary’s usage of an earlier framework originally employed by Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) and other seventeenth-century Jesuits who apparently were prepared to recognize only these three traditions because they were textual.11 Although the precise extent to which Morrison would have built upon earlier Jesuit texts is uncertain, especially as he openly dismissed Roman Catholic works on China, he encountered the works during his stay in Macau and a Jesuit influence certainly appears to be present in his formal description of Chinese religions. This textually biased Three Teachings classification would be repeated again and again by other nineteenth century Protestant missionaries, including in the work of a slightly later missionary, Samuel Kidd (1799–1843), who worked amongst an overseas Chinese community in Malacca. Kidd, whose battles with epilepsy would lead him to return to Britain in 1832, was subsequently appointed Professor of Chinese at University College, London, in 1837. In his 1843 book, China, Kidd followed the same classificatory pattern in describing

11 For a study on the relationship between this early Jesuit model and later Anglophone studies of Chinese religions, see Barrett 2005, 512.

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Chinese religious practices as existing only within formal Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist contexts, even though this model would have been at odds with his firsthand observations of the myriad of religious beliefs and practices of the overseas Chinese who he encountered in Malacca (Kidd 1841, 140–146).12 Clearly missing from these and other similar works that appeared throughout the nineteenth and even into the twentieth centuries was acknowledgment of the wide array of religious beliefs and practices that existed well beyond these categories, namely those that would become labeled ‘popular religion’. Also missing, as time went on, was any awareness of a growing Chinese Protestant Christian tradition, which certainly would have been increasingly visible to those with firsthand experience working amongst the Chinese in mission contexts. However, while these works certainly contributed to the earliest shaping of a popular image of Chinese religions across the English-language world, a formal academic discipline devoted to the study of China or Chinese religions did not yet exist. On this point, it is really the later missionary, James Legge (1815–1897), who had a greater influence, albeit negatively, on the academic discipline of Chinese religions that would avoid any scientific study of Chinese Christianity.

2 James Legge’s Controversial Mission Ideology James Legge, born in Huntly, Aberdeenshire in 1815, was ordained as a Congregationalist minister in 1839. That same year, he set sail for Malacca to the Ultra Ganges Mission as a missionary for the LMS. Because China was then closed to foreign missionaries, the Ultra Ganges outpost in Southeast Asia had been established by the LMS as a holding center, so that trained missionaries would be nearby and prepared to act quickly once China opened its doors to the world. Legge served in Malacca until 1844, studying Chinese and working at the Anglo-Chinese College, a school for East and Southeast Asian converts established by Robert Morrison and William Milne. After 1844, following the British colonization of Hong Kong, he relocated his mission and moved the College to Hong Kong Island. Legge worked in Hong Kong for nearly thirty years before retiring from the missionary profession and returning permanently to Britain in 1873. Whilst in Hong Kong, he ran a (failed) theological seminary, served as a pastor to Chinese and English congregations,

12 See also Barrett 2005, 516–518.

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translated Chinese and English-language Christian works, and contributed to the governing of the British colony.13 Like the very first Protestants to arrive in East Asia, Legge was aware that missionary success in China would depend upon understanding the local context and making headway with the Chinese language. Accordingly, he embarked on an academic mission “to speak and write as a Chinaman” (SOAS CWM/LMS, China, Personal Papers, James Legge, Box 7, Ordination Exam). Reviewing the previous half-century’s Protestant mission failures, in terms of a limited number of converts, he also arrived at the conclusion that understanding and respecting the Chinese social and cultural traditions (including the dominant religious traditions) was vital, as previous efforts to blindly condemn local institutions had ended only in the missions’ failures. Of course, Legge was hardly the first Christian missionary to take interest in or accommodate Chinese culture. As early as the Ming dynasty, Jesuit missionaries to China, including Ricci and also Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607), embraced and promoted methods for accommodating local Chinese language and textual traditions, especially Confucianism. This trend continued during the early-Qing dynasty, through the work of later Jesuit missionaries, including Johann Adam von Bell (1592–1666) and Joachim Bouvet (1682–1746).14 Moreover, even some earlier Protestants, while not nearly as accommodating as Jesuits, too, had acknowledged the importance of understanding Chinese language and respecting Chinese agency, or the ability of the Chinese to act on their own terms. Robert Morrison and William Milne devoted their mission to developing an expertise in the Chinese language and to translating Christian texts into Chinese, in order to provide China with a Christian discourse in its own language (Daily 2013). This mission ideology was taken further by the mid century Protestant missionaries Henry Venn (1796–1873) of the Church Mission Society (CMS) and Rufus Anderson (1796–1880) of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), who together developed a notion of an ‘indigenous church’ that was self-supporting, self-governing, and selfpropagating (Venn 1865, 4–5; see also Harris 1999). This formula would later influence the development of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, which has been formally shaping China since 1951. Legge was, therefore, not the first Christian missionary in China to consider Chinese agency or encourage the learning of local language and customs for 13 For a comprehensive analysis of Legge’s mission career in Malacca and Hong Kong, see Girardot 2002, 17–121. 14 David Mungello has written an extensive analysis of the Jesuit approach to accommodating Chinese culture and customs. See Mungello 1989.

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the purposes of a mission. Nevertheless, his distinct contribution towards the indigenization of Protestant Christianity in China should not be understated. In his ordination examination, James Legge argued that missionaries should undertake “examination of [Chinese] history, their philosophy, their religion and their poetry” and cultivate “a familiarity with [local] customs and manners” (SOAS CWM/LMS, China, Personal Papers, James Legge, Box 7, Ordination Exam). For Legge, once in China he concluded that this required a direct engagement with the classical Chinese texts. Consequently, he embarked on a project to translate the Four Books and Five Classics (i.e., the Chinese Classics) into English. This project would enable him to learn about certain Chinese textual traditions. Unexpectedly, the project would also later earn him a new scientific status, as a Sinologist, within Britain. The more Legge learned about China, the more he became convinced that the Chinese, in their ancient past, had previously known monotheism and the Judeo-Christian God. He found proof for this past relationship especially in the writings of Confucius, and so he concluded that the Chinese could, therefore, with guidance, recover this knowledge and run future missions themselves. Henceforth, he focused upon developing methods for educating (or re-educating, as he would imagine it) the Chinese, with the aim of turning them into local and independent missionaries. This marks a turn in his worldview and mission strategy: he now felt his purpose was to resuscitate an ancient Chinese understanding of God, which could be found deep within the Chinese psyche but that had been corrupted due to later texts and commentaries. Now viewing China in a new monotheistic light, he began to accommodate Chinese religions and brought Chinese concepts directly into his biblical readings and translations. He does this in two ways. First, he makes use of a reference in the prophecy of Isaiah 49:12 to the ‘Land of Sinim’ to locate a reference to China in the Christian Bible.15 Although the true geographical location of the ‘Land of Sinim’ is unknown, Legge’s theory allowed him to bring China directly into ancient Christian history, eliminating the idea that Christianity was a ‘foreign’ religion (Legge 1859). Second, in translating the biblical texts, he endorses the use of the already-known term Shangdi 上帝 for translations of ‘God’, thereby tacitly arguing that the Chinese already had an awareness of the same God known by Christians (Legge 1850). He would later claim to locate further evidence for this prior knowledge of God in the writings of Confucius (Legge 1877). 15 The full verse in Legge’s bible translation reads: “Behold! These shall come from far: And lo! These from the north and from the west; And these from the land of Sinim”. His full argument for concluding that this verse is proof of the Messiah referencing China can be found in Legge 1859.

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In the short-term, Legge’s missionary efforts were not so successful. In 1856, his Chinese seminary on Hong Kong Island closed due to a lack of interest, and the number of converts that he could boast overall was but small. Of those few that he did convert to Christianity, Legge invested the most time in three men (Lee Kim-lin, Song Hoot-kiem, and Ung Mun-sou), who he infamously brought back to England to meet with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in Buckingham Palace. But after returning to Hong Kong, all three soon afterwards abandoned Christianity altogether, two to pursue a more economically profitable existence working in commerce and one for a life of crime in the Hong Kong underworld. Nevertheless, while the number of converts was not great, the long-term legacy of Legge’s shift in thinking about China cannot be overestimated. In the latter half of his mission, he advocated for the learning of Chinese, promoted a thoughtfully comparative reading of the Chinese Classics, and added a Chinacentered perspective to the biblical stories and mission. These actions, in turn, contributed to the construction of an ideological framework for Western missionaries that accepted Chinese agency and suggested the potential for the merging of Christian and Chinese ideas. This approach, in turn, encouraged the sinicization of Protestant Christianity in China. Indeed, by the dawn of the next century, Chinese Christians themselves, many making use of Legge’s translations, assumed responsibility for much of the missionary work in China. Although he was hardly the first or only influential Christian missionary to recommend accommodating local culture, his Sinocentric efforts contributed greatly to the early indigenization process of a distinctly Chinese Protestant Church.

3 Legge: The China Mission’s Heretic Legge began work on his translation of the Chinese Classics in 1841, with the first volume of the project seeing publication in Hong Kong in 1861. Seven successive volumes were published over the next decade, until 1872. Reviews were mixed at the time, but history has been relatively kind to James Legge’s translation work. Regardless of our current weighting of the value of his philological products, his translation of the Chinese Classics would earn him the attention of nineteenth century philologists working in British academia, including Max Müller, and this project would, consequently, become a major contribution towards the development of the academic discipline of Sinology – especially Anglophone Sinology.

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Legge’s translation project must be understood in its mission context: as a byproduct of his attempt to understand the foundation of Chinese religious culture in order to have a more successful Protestant Christian mission. He was adding to an already established foundation built by the Protestant missionaries that came to East Asia before him. Although the work most definitely had such an underlying Christian mission purpose, nevertheless, the London Missionary Society home office and Legge’s China Mission colleagues felt that this work was a distraction from his more pressing mission duties. They all openly criticized him for devoting so much time to a study of Chinese cultural traditions and he quickly found himself ostracized from the surrounding evangelical mission community. In the introduction to the first edition of his translation of the Chinese Classics, Legge was actually critical of Confucius, “. . .after long study of his character and opinions, I am unable to regard him as a great man” (Legge 1867, 113). Yet this stance evolved over time as Legge became more acquainted with Confucian teachings. In an 1877 paper, originally read aloud in Shanghai before his European and North American missionary colleagues, he praised the Five Human Relations and Virtues and Mencius’ lessons on human benevolence, before noting that the Confucian Golden Rule positively promoted benevolence (Legge 1877). In an 1880 lecture series, later published, he expanded upon these ideas to make the claim that Confucius’s Doctrine of the Mean contained within it evidence for a Chinese monotheism potentially 5,000 years of age, meaning that the Chinese had a relationship with God before others. In that same article he read the First Precept of Kangxi’s Sacred Edict as similar to an idea of filial piety and responsibility contained within the Ten Commandments, thus making a comparison between the Chinese imperial state’s activities and the Old Testament law (Legge 1880). He even implied that the Confucian texts were the Old Testament of the Chinese, insomuch as Confucius was a ‘schoolmaster’ leading the Chinese to Christ (Legge 1880).16 Such enthusiastic endorsements for Confucian ideas did nothing to allow Legge to escape the criticism that continued to pour in from his fellow Protestant missionaries, most of who were offended by the suggestion that Confucianism should be studied as a ‘religion’ – or that the Chinese had any religious beliefs or practices that could be compared to those of Christianity. For the bulk

16 This idea was rejected by most of Legge’s mission colleagues, but would apparently prove convincing for a few, as it would be repeated in some tracts, including that written by the American missionary to China, Kranz 1896.

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of the other missionaries in China, studying Confucian (or any other Chinese religious) texts was a pointless endeavor for a Christian missionary, since only the Bible contained valuable religious truths. At the 1877 Shanghai Missionary Conference, standing before his critics, Legge defended his studies of Confucian writings: Let no one think any labour too great to make himself familiar with the Confucian books. So shall missionaries in China come fully to understand the work they have to do; and the more they avoid driving their carriages rudely over the Master’s grave, the more likely are they soon to see Jesus enthroned in His room in the hearts of people. (Legge 1877)

Although he would continue, “Christianity cannot be tacked on to any heathen religion as its complement” (Legge 1877), opponents still felt that Legge was suggesting that Christianity simply serve as a supplement to the alreadyestablished Confucian tradition. Colleagues in the field labeled him a heretic and his countrymen questioned his devotion to the mission and – even worse – to Christ. Adding to his problems, as reported above, when translating Christian texts into Chinese, Legge took a similarly Sinocentric accommodative approach. Endorsing the Chinese term ‘Shangdi’ for the translation of ‘God’ sparked further controversy for Legge. The ‘Term Question’, as it came to be classified, was a prolonged debate over the most suitable Chinese term for the Christian God. Opponents challenged Legge’s use of this Chinese term, which already had a deeply rooted philosophical meaning amongst the Chinese, for ‘God’. They were troubled by the underlying ideas driving his translation work: that the Chinese possessed concepts as good as or similar to Christianity; that nonChristian (heathen) literature of the Chinese could be classified as ‘religious’; or that Confucianism was of the same religious status as Christianity. While Legge’s views on Chinese religions were, in truth, more balanced and there were places where Legge publicly criticized Confucianism (for example, on its failure to protect women’s rights, its imperial exclusivity, its acceptance of ancestor worship, or its lack of direct guidance on serving God), he suddenly found himself labeled a dissident. In asserting himself as an authority on Chinese religions, he published theories offensive to his colleagues and became an outcast within missionary circles in China. Although to this day the term issue remains unresolved, many Chinese Christians throughout the twentieth century would apparently prefer the term Shangdi when writing or speaking of God, perhaps demonstrating that Legge’s liberal biblical translations, whilst rejected by many Western missionaries, deeply impacted Chinese Christian worldviews, further contributing to his legacy in the area of Protestant Christianity’s indigenization.

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4 Legge, Müller, and the Early ‘Scientific’ Study of Chinese Religions Soon afterwards, in 1873, James Legge, feeling defeated by his China mission colleagues, left Hong Kong and returned to Britain, unaware of what his future would hold but confident that he no longer could remain in China. But, in reality, it would be Legge who would eventually get the final word in the battle with the China missionaries over authority on Chinese religions. In 1875, thanks to the efforts of Max Müller, who had developed an interest in Legge’s translation work, Legge was appointed a fellow at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, and in 1876 he was promoted to become Oxford’s first Professor in Chinese. He served in this role until his death in 1897. It was through Legge’s work in academia that his ideas would gain ultimate authoritative status, and Confucianism and Daoism earned recognition as Chinese religions within the English-language academy. At the University of Oxford, Legge worked alongside the comparative philologist and father of comparative religions, Max Müller, to progress the scientific study of religions, including an academic study of Chinese religions. As Anna Sun (2013) demonstrated, each man took from this relationship something very different, using each other as leverage to promote their own expertise, but the result would have a great impact on the future of Sinology. In sum, Müller, who was attempting to springboard a new comprehensive study of world religions to promote his own career objectives, was able to make use of Legge’s linguistic abilities to include Chinese translations in his published anthology of sacred texts, The Sacred Books of the East.17 The inclusion of Chinese materials made Müller’s collection more comprehensive, which, in turn, helped to expand his newly manufactured academic discipline of ‘comparative religions’. In turn, Legge was given a broad scholarly authority by associating with the established academic Müller. Working for Müller thus allowed Legge to move his ideas about Chinese religions (including the suggestion that Confucianism was a religion comparable to Christianity) from the heated missionary conversations into Müller’s newly emerging scientific discipline of comparative religions, which claimed academic authority. Legge, now very happy to associate with Müller and

17 Max Müller’s Sacred Books of the East series consisted of fifty volumes published by Oxford University Press between the years 1879–1910. It included direct translations of texts (identified by Müller as ‘sacred’) from Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Islam, Confucianism, and Daoism. Müller himself wrote three of the volumes, but served as the chief editor for the entire project.

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the University of Oxford in order to distance himself from his missionary past, was suddenly able to claim a new type of scientific expertise. At his Inaugural Lecture for his Oxford Professorship, we see signs of the new scientific Sinologist Legge – one who no longer tied a study of Chinese literature to the zealous missionary cause: “The history and literature of China, and the nature of its language are reasons in themselves to call for [the Chair of Chinese]” (Legge 1876). The authority Legge would gain in his new academic position at Oxford would allow him to take control over British discourse on China (especially Chinese religions), and to assert his ideas as scientific ‘truths’. So influential did Legge become over the British perception of China, that his career at Oxford corresponds to a distinct Sinological episode, a period in the history of modern Anglophone understandings of China classified by Norman Girardot as the ‘Leggian Epoch’, 1873–1893 (Girardot 2002, 8). This is also considered by many to be the birth of formal British – or, perhaps, even Anglophone – Sinology. Now operating as an agent of the academy, Legge would be able to use his new position to assert his beliefs and to supersede the missionary opponents who had virtually driven him out of East Asia. As a result of the interactions between Legge and Müller, a particular academic notion of ‘Chinese religions’, neatly incorporated into Müller’s new world religions paradigm, was born. So what was the model of Chinese religions that the duo of Legge and Müller adopted for their newly created academic study of comparative religions, and which would go on to serve as a model for our scientific discipline of Sinology? Max Müller was a philologist by training, and he sought to remove religion from the control of the discipline of Theology by positing a science of religion that involved cross-cultural comparison and which was grounded in readings of sacred texts. As opposed to the theologians of his day, who he felt wanted only to prove their own (Christian) religion true and all others false, Müller’s new method pledged scientific neutrality and therefore, he claimed, presented more trustworthy and objective truths about the world. Moreover, based upon his theory of language origins, Müller, who assumed that there existed an inseparable relationship between the history of religions and language, introduced a tripartite division of religion that paralleled his philological taxonomy. His linguistic taxonomy consisted of three language groups: Aryan, Semitic, and a third rather abstract category that he labeled ‘Turanian’. Within the language groups, Müller claims to have located the world’s timeless written texts, which he then tags and classifies as ‘sacred’. Building on his identification of the world’s great sacred religious books, Müller then locates eight distinct religious traditions that developed directly from these collections of texts: Judaism (Old Testament), Christianity (New Testament), and Islam (Qur’an) from the Semitic family; Hinduism (the Vedas), Buddhism

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(Tripitaka), and Zoroastrianism (Zend Avesta) within the Aryan family; and Confucianism (Chinese Classics) and Daoism (Daode Jing) amongst the Turanian family (Müller 1888, Second Lecture). Müller’s classificatory system has both spatial and temporal elements. After placing these traditions within their original linguistic families, he then charts the ways in which the religious movements, either originally Aryan or Semitic, travelled beyond family borders throughout history in order to influence other global civilizations. For example, Müller places the Vedas (Brahmanism), Zend Avesta (Zoroastrianism), and the Tripitaka (Buddhism) originally under the Aryan umbrella, but then charts Buddhism’s movement into the Turanian territory. See Figure 1 below, reproduced from Müller’s lecture within which he introduced his tripartite philological theory of religious origins (Müller 1888, Second Lecture, 54).

SEMITIC FAMILY

ARYAN FAMILY Veda

Old Testament

Brahmanism

Mosaism Zend Avesta

Zoroastrianism

New Testament Christianity

Tripitaka Buddhism

TURANIAN

Koran Mohammedanism ARYAN

Figure 1: Müller’s Tripartite Philological Theory of Religious Origins (1888).

One immediately notices, by studying Müller’s diagram, that missing is any representation of the development of the third, ‘Turanian’ group. While most previous studies of Müller have focused upon what is contained within his representations, especially for his ideas on Christianity and Hinduism, for the study of Chinese religions, it is precisely what is missing from Müller’s diagram that proves to be vital. For Müller, the Chinese were the aristocracy of the Turanians, an extremely vast language group that he theorized consisted of Finnic, Turkic, Mongolic, Samoyedic, and Tungusic languages, as well as anything else that did not neatly fit under his Aryan and Semitic umbrellas. In his lecture, Müller (1888) reports that the Chinese language has resulted in two timeless texts, the Chinese Classics and the Daode jing, which, in turn,

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led to two national religious traditions: Confucianism and Daoism, respectively. However, Müller deems a pictorial representation of the Turanian accomplishments and their development impossible because he concludes that the religions of China, the only notable religious accomplishment of the Turanian group, have had no impact beyond China’s geo-cultural borders. For Müller, then, while the foreign Buddhism has travelled into the Turanian areas, especially China, the indigenous traditions of that territory, Daoism and Confucianism, have had no contact with outside areas. In this way, he envisioned Chinese religions as being static. Taking an essentialist approach to these traditions, Müller, thus, seems to have believed that the Chinese religious traditions existed in national vacuums and hovered in a motionless fashion above their corresponding geocultural origin, China. This, in turn, allowed him to imagine a China that was defined by its relationships with Confucianism and Daoism (and later Buddhism), exerting no influence upon or interaction with the outside world. In addition, because his discipline, the science of religion, “requires a close and concerted study of some long venerated texts and their language”, like the Jesuits who characterized China in the seventeenth century, he leads one to a very text-based and culturally essentialist understanding of religion in China and elsewhere (Masuzawa 2005, 216). Anything that existed outside these textual traditions was simply ignored by Müller and those (such as James Legge) who joined his emerging field. While Legge was personally invested in the growth of Protestant Christianity in China, he worked within Müller’s taxonomy, namely because he was indebted to Müller for his position at Oxford. Henceforth, Legge would promote a romanticized and essentialist sketch of Chinese religions that included only the textual traditions from Confucianism, Daoism, and, to a lesser extent, Buddhism. Yet, as Legge would have been all too aware from his extensive firsthand experiences of religion in China, this textual taxonomy did not at all capture the religious realities of the Chinese. A great many of the religious practices supported by the bulk of the Chinese population would be missing from Müller’s science of religion altogether since those beliefs and practices did not always correspond to a canon. A survey of twentieth century introductory textbooks on Chinese religions demonstrates that later scholars followed this pattern and either ignored these practices altogether or tossed some of them into a ‘popular religion’ grab-bag, which uncomfortably contained all that did not fit and therefore was described with skepticism, if at all.18 A classic example of

18 For more on the study of Chinese Religions and the issue of ‘popular religions’, see Barrett 2005.

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such a textbook is William Soothill’s The Three Religions of China (1913), which was still celebrated and widely used up until the 1980s. By joining forces with Müller and cooperating with this taxonomy, Legge suddenly stood as the Anglophone world’s new academic authority on Chinese religions. This effectively concluded any outstanding debate he held with previous missionary colleagues over the religious nature of Confucianism. Legge’s voice, absent of its theological tones and participating in the scientific method, now carried more academic weight, and this enabled him to overshadow old theological missionary opponents. One can detect the extent to which Legge had embodied Muller’s science in the lecture series (later published), The Religions of China: Confucianism and Taoism Described and Compared with Christianity (1880). As implied by the series title, Legge, in this work, presents to his audience the essentialist image of Chinese religions, whereby the Chinese are presented as being anchored to Confucianism and Daoism (and, to a lesser extent, the foreign tradition of Buddhism). In the final lecture, Christianity, defined only within its European context, is presented as an ideal; as a model measuring stick against which his classified Chinese religious customs must compare. Hence, Legge used this occasion to promote Müller’s comparative science and overly simplistic classification of Chinese religions and to position Christianity as an external other to China. Because Legge was one of the few Britons to be able to claim to have an eyewitness account of Chinese culture, his word would not be questioned. Rather, it would be copied, published, and studied. Following Müller and Legge’s lead, the population of China was to be understood as being divided neatly amongst the traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism – and all three were consequently to be classified as genuine ‘religions’. Any additional Chinese religious beliefs or practices (and, to be sure, there were a great many more) would not be classified, studied, or even acknowledged for that matter. As a result, a formal Anglophone study of Chinese religions was born, but entirely without the newest Chinese religious movement, about which Legge knew much, having lived in China during the Taiping Uprising and participated in the conversion of nearly 300 Chinese Protestant Christians. For the time being, discussions about forms of Chinese Christianity very much remained a missionary thing.

5 Twentieth Century Partisan Works With early twentieth-century Sinology thus uninterested in the growing Christian tradition in China, taking instead a Three Teachings approach to studying

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Chinese religions, as our academic field matured any discourse on Chinese Christianity remained solely the missionary’s concern. Missionaries and their supporters did, indeed, continue to publish on the topic of Chinese Christianity (both Roman Catholic and Protestant), but these works were the biased products of Church organizations, devout religious historians, or mission societies. These theological texts were missiological and West-centered, by and large partisan histories and hagiographies. Their focus was on glorifying missionaries and ex-missionaries, without any interest whatsoever on cultural context, Chinese Christians, or Christianity in the context of Chinese social or political history. Perhaps the most widely distributed example of such a work was Rev. George H. Dunne’s 1962 publication, Generation of Giants – The Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decades of the Ming Dynasty, a text which carried the official imprimatur of the Society of Jesus. Dunne’s work narrated the experiences of the founders of the Ming era Jesuit mission, presenting a celebratory image of the pioneering missionaries, including Matteo Ricci, as hagiographical ‘giants’ who worked towards the religious and scientific development of China. The work certainly contributes to our knowledge of the Jesuits’ experiences (especially as it drew on previously unread Western archival materials), but Dunne, like others, draws on no Chinese sources and makes little to no effort to even consider Chinese reactions to the Jesuit missions. Some examples of similar Protestant partisan hagiographies include Broomhall (1927), Brown (1904), Cornaby (1910), Hayes (1925), Smith (1901), and Thomas and Thomas (1936). One should not deprecate these earlier partisan works, because today we build upon them, but they were arguably Eurocentric and missiological and little critical weight was given to the voices and religious beliefs of living Chinese Christians. In fact, it is not until the mid-century work of Chinese historian Kenneth Latourette (1884–1968) that the Chinese Christian tradition received due scholarly nonpartisan attention.19 Yet Latourette’s approach – and the approach of his academic contemporaries, including also the missiologists– was strictly historical and mission-focused. Very much like the hagiographical studies on China missionaries, Latourette’s research avoided engaging with insiders’ theological beliefs, a topic he perhaps felt was best taken up by a Christian theologian, although at this point they, too, apparently preferred to avoid considering this matter. As a result, despite Latourette’s many accomplishments, Chinese Protestantism was not really represented as a living religious tradition within

19 See, for example, Latourette 1929.

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his work. Thus, although Latourette’s pioneering work did much to make room for some form of the study of Chinese Christianity within Sinology, by giving pride of place to Western missionaries he carefully avoids crossing the line into theological discussions about Chinese Christian beliefs. Those who operated on the inside of the tradition, namely the millions of practicing Chinese Christians, multiplying in number by the decade and developing their own religious tradition, very much remained out of the eyesight of the Western academic world.

6 The Late-Twentieth Century Sinocentric Shift and its Aftermath On the upside, building upon the model set by China-centered historian Paul Cohen,20 in the past 25-years, or so, especially since the publication in English of Jacques Gernet’s China and the Christian Impact (1985), there has been an explosion of scholars interested in understanding Chinese Christianity (both Protestant and Roman Catholic). Consequently, a distinct subfield of Sinology has taken shape. These more recent works focus upon Chinese perspectives, consult Chinese sources, and, thus, represent a methodological shift that is distinctly Sinocentric. This trend to move beyond partisan or West-centered histories appeared a welcomed development, but, at first, the works, still mostly historical in approach, represented a new sort of bias that was equally problematic. For example, arguably the earliest of these Sinocentric publications, Gernet’s text was anything but another hagiographical narrative, yet it was indeed a partisan history. Gernet, focusing almost exclusively on Chinese sources, produced a history of Roman Catholic missions as a failed exchange, implicitly attacking the previous generation of biased works (including Dunne’s Generation of Giants) that had celebrated this episode of Christian missionaries in Chinese history. Clearly on a defiant mission, Gernet goes to great lengths – selectively choosing sources and even manipulating his narrative – to publish a defensive counter to the positivist Church works, depicting China as impenetrable to Christian missionaries.21 Problematically, Gernet’s Sino-defensive agenda blinded him to the real success of Christianity in China.

20 In particular, see Cohen 2010. 21 For a discussion on this bias in Gernet’s text, see Magone 2013, 7–8.

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The strong biases in Gernet’s Sinocentric approach present problems of a similar nature – namely that it represents no objective attempt to understand the growing reality of Chinese Christianity. This raises concerns. When reorienting a research framework by including Chinese voices and contexts, one must be careful not to tip the scales entirely to the other side. To do so would be to ignore many of the Western missionary voices that have intersected with this tradition and to turn the old narrow-mindedness (overestimating the influence of the West) inside out. Such a bias brings us no closer to any objective truth of China’s Protestant Christian history or tradition, as Gernet’s work on Roman Catholics in China illustrated. Nevertheless, his Sinocentric work raised important questions concerning how we study any form of Chinese Christianity. Namely, Gernet’s research (and its shortcomings) proved that consulting both Chinese and Western resources was important for understanding these transnational movements and intercultural phenomena. Gernet’s work also brought more attention to the entire history of Christianity in China and this led to a growth of scholarly awareness of a thriving Protestant tradition in China. As a direct consequence, beginning in the 1990s, the first specialized Sinological academic studies on Chinese Protestantism appeared. These works represent a final paradigm shift, which, drawing on the work of Peter Ng Tze Ming 吳梓明 (2012), I too classify as ‘glocal’, as these works seek to consider both the global and local perspectives and, thus, to comprehend the tradition as both a transnational and Sinicized living movement.

7 The ‘Glocal’ Approach No doubt the successes and shortcomings of our disciplinary past have led the field to recognize the need for incorporating Chinese perspectives into our work, engaging with scholarship from East Asia but also shifting attention from Western missionaries to Chinese Christians themselves. Scholars have since been asking new types of questions: how did the Chinese contribute to the missionaries? What parts of the Christian message did the Chinese accept, reject, or change? How has Chinese Protestant Christianity influenced or been influenced by other religious beliefs and practices in China? What is the relationship between Protestants and the CCP in modern China? What is the Chinese perception of this tradition? How does Chinese Christianity manifest itself outside of any obvious textual tradition? Many studies now consider the Chinese Christians’ positive writings, but also the discourse and actions of anti-Christian movements. In the final decade of the twentieth century, scholars, such as Daniel Bays and Jessie Lutz, began asking such questions and conducting more nuanced

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research on the indigenization of Christianity in China.22 In doing so, they consulted a wide array of Chinese sources and paid particular attention to the role played by Chinese Christians in the shaping of the tradition. They did not dismiss the activity of Western missionaries, but instead approached the topic as an intercultural exchange, followed by a unique process of sinicization. In one of his works, for example, Bays (1996, 263–368) demonstrates the ways in which Chinese popular religion integrated into the Chinese Christian Church to argue that Chinese Christianity had become a distinctly Chinese religious tradition, and could not simply be dismissed as a foreign institution or a Western import. To provide another example, Lutz and Lutz (1995, 204–224), in a publication on the Basel Mission, took a new approach to mission studies by drawing attention to the contribution of the Hakka Chinese who served vital evangelizing roles within the mission, thereby producing a more nuanced understanding of the Basel Mission. This wave has been progressed even further by contemporary historians, such as Daniel Bays (2012), Gary Tiedemann (2009), Ryan Dunch (2001), and John Lai Tsz Pang 黎子鵬 (2012), among others. It also led to a broadening of our disciplinary scope to include the research of anthropologists of China, including Cao Nanlai 曹南来 (2010), and political scientists, such as Carsten Vala (2009). This final shift has directly benefitted from the work of Chinese scholarship, which overcame its own hurdles in the twentieth century. As Peter Tze Ming Ng (2012, 19–22) demonstrated, from 1949 Chinese scholars had mostly adopted a Marxist approach to history and therefore labeled Christianity as contrary to the success and progression of the new China. Christian missionaries and their influences were widely dismissed as Western and imperialistic and were therefore not the subject of nonpartisan Chinese academic studies. However, in the 1980s, as the popularity of Marxism-Leninism began to wane, some Chinese scholars took an active interest in Christianity, either for personal or intellectual purposes, and this consequently led to a growth of Christian studies in China, the research of which was encouraged further by the reopening of Chinese archives in the late 1980s. It followed that, in the 1990s and early-2000s in China, a number of collaborative research projects began to emerge23 and several Chinese scholars, including Cao (2010) and Lai (2012), but also He Guanghu 何光滬 (1996), Zhang Kaiyuan 章开沅 (2004), Zhuo Xinping 卓新平 (2007), and Peter Tze Ming Ng 22 Nicolas Standaert (2001b) has published a thoughtful reflection on this Sinocentric paradigm shift in Chinese Christian studies, which seeks to show how developments within the study of Christianity in China offer new insights in our understanding of China and a notion of Chinese ‘religion’ more generally. 23 For one example, see Zhang and Lin 1991.

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(2002), published fruitful works on Chinese Protestant movements that drew attention to the Chinese contribution in the shaping of the religion. In reality, the growth of Protestant Christianity in China has been a creative progression that has taken shape through generations of multicultural interactions. Applying the postcolonial theoretical model sketched by Homi K. Bhabha, the religion is the product of ‘hybridity’, of sorts.24 It has absorbed missionary influence while undergoing extensive Sinicization to create a distinctly Chinese and undeniably evangelical Protestant Christian product. The ‘glocal approach’ gives due weight to Chinese Protestant Christians, not as ‘converts’ in relationship to missionaries, but as agents in their own rights. It also looks at transnational networks and international influences, and treats the Western and Chinese sources in mutual complementarity. Contributions from Western and Chinese scholars, deriving from a wide range of academic disciplines, have made this approach a success, and, despite the late beginning, this Sinological subfield now has much to celebrate.

Conclusion For far too long, Anglophone Sinology avoided studying Chinese Protestant Christianity, despite the reality that a new and distinctly Chinese religion had taken shape and was growing rapidly throughout China. Following in the footsteps of nineteenth and early twentieth century figures, especially Max Müller and James Legge, English-language scholars of China have historically devoted an unequal amount of attention to the textual traditions of the Three Teachings, whilst ignoring all other Chinese religious phenomena. As a result, much about Chinese Protestantism remains mysterious to us today. In many ways, the academic study of Chinese Protestant Christianity, roughly a century late to enter Sinology’s discursive game, appears to be in its nascent state, and that presents both opportunities and challenges. We have, as a subfield, the potential to shape a discipline that understands and represents a significant portion of the Chinese cultural landscape that has for too long been ignored by academe. This new and more comprehensive understanding of Chinese religions will, in turn, be a major contribution to other branches of Sinology. We also have the potential to address issues that are as big as the study of religions, itself. For example, is there such a clear-cut distinction

24 For more on Bhabha’s postcolonial theory of ‘cultural hybridity’, see Bhabha 1994 and 1996.

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between theology and religious studies, especially when it comes to the academic study of Christianity? What exactly is the objective science of religions proposed by Müller and his successors, and which continues to influence the work we do today? Reflecting on these challenges, one wonders: in terms of methodologies, does there remain an underlying tension, leftover from the episode of the Leggian epoch, that continues to haunt our work? Will incorporating a Sinocentric approach to our research (i.e., inviting Chinese Christian voices into our work) require an academic reunion with theology in the form of Chinese Theology, and is this desirable? Might we engage with and invite input from insider Christian (theological) beliefs whilst remaining in the comfort zone of the academy as Sinological scientists? In writing about Chinese Christian beliefs and practices, are we approaching our research as Sinologists, Theologians (given that we must make more room for insider voices, this includes state-approved theologians from the official Three-Self Patriotic Movement and also members of the underground house churches), or ‘Sinologians’? The inner-debate felt by the missionary-scholar James Legge has since been long forgotten, but the logic that so neatly justified the divide between his careers in China and Oxford, a separation of theology from the science of religion, is perhaps still silently operating in the background for many religious scholars today. Regardless, as this rapidly emerging subfield of Chinese Protestant studies continues to expand, producing new and alternate images of religious practices in China, one cannot help but appreciate the contribution of the study of Chinese Protestant Christianity towards the progress of Sinology, at least as it works towards encouraging the field to develop a more accurate image of the notion of ‘Chinese religions’.

Bibliography Barrett, T.H. 1989. Singular Listlessness: A Short History of Chinese Books and British Scholars. London: Wellsweep Press. Barrett, T.H. 2005. “Chinese Religion in English Guise: The History of an Illusion.” In Modern Asian Studies 39, no.3: 509–533. Bays, Daniel H., ed. 1996. Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century through the Present. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bays, Daniel H. 2012. A New History of Christianity in China. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Bhabha, H. K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Bhabha, H. K. 1996. “Culture’s In-Between.” In Questions of Cultural Identity, edited by Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, 53–60. London: Sage Publications. Broomhall, Marshall. 1927. Robert Morrison: A Master Builder. London: Student Christian Movement.

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Brown, A.J. 1904. New Forces in Old China: An Unwelcome but Inevitable Awakening. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company. Cao Nanlai 曹南来. 2010. Constructing China’s Jerusalem: Christians, Power, and Place in Contemporary Wenzhou. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Cohen, Paul. 2010. Discovering History in China. New York: Columbia University Press. Cornaby, W.A. 1910. The Call of Cathay: A Study in Missionary Work and Opportunity in China Old and New. London: Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society. Daily, C.A. 2012. “Robert Morrison and the Multicultural Beginning of Chinese Protestantism.” Social Sciences and Missions 25, no.1–2: 9–34. Daily, C.A. 2013. Robert Morrison and the Protestant Plan for China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Dunch, Ryan. 2001. Fuzhou Protestants and the Making of a Modern China, 1857–1927. New Haven: Yale University Press. Feng Xiangzhi 逄先知, ed. 2013. Mao Zedong nian pu (yi jiu si jiu – yi jiu qi liu) 毛泽东年谱 (一九四九 – 一九七六). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe. Gernet, Jacques. 1985. China and the Christian Impact. (trans) Janet Lloyd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Girardot, N.J. 2002. The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge’s Original Pilgrimage. Berkeley: University of California Press. Harris, Paul W. 1999. Nothing but Christ: Rufus Anderson and the Ideology of Protestant Foreign Missions. New York: Oxford University Press. Harrison, Brian. 1979. Waiting for China: The Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca, 1818–1843, and Early Nineteenth-Century Missions. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Hayes, Ernest. 1925. Robert Morrison: China’s Pioneer. London: Livingstone Press. He Guanghu 何光滬. 1996. “Hanyu Shenxue de Fangfa yu Jinlu” 汉语神学的方法与进路. Weizhen Xuekan 维真学刊 3: 16–24. Kidd, Samuel. 1841. China. London: Taylor and Walton Kyounghan, Bae. 2009. “Chiang Kai-shek and Christianity: Religious Life Reflected from his Diary.” Journal of Modern Chinese History 3, no.1: 1–10. Kranz, P. 1896. Christianity as the Completion of Confucianism. Shanghai: American Missionary Press. Lai, John Tsz Pang 黎子鵬. 2012. Wan Qing Jidujiao xushi wenxue xuancui 晚清基督教敘事文學 選粹. Xinbei Shi: Ganlan chuban youxian gongsi. Latourette, Kenneth. 1929. A History of Christian Missions in China. New York: MacMillan Press. Legge, James. 1850. An Argument for上帝 (Shang Te) as the Proper Rendering of the Words Elohim and Theos, in the Chinese Language. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Register Office. Legge, James. 1859. The Land of Sinim. A Sermon Preached in the Tabernacle, Moorfields, at the Sixty-Fifth Anniversary of the London Missionary Society. London: John Snow. Legge, James. 1867, The Life and Teachings of Confucius. In The Chinese Classics: Translated into English, with Preliminary Essays and Explanatory Notes, Vol. 1. London: N. Trübner & Co. Legge, James. Inaugural Lecture on the Constituting of a Chinese Chair in the University of Oxford: Delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, October 27, 1876. London: James Parker and Co. Legge, James. 1877. Confucianism in Relation to Christianity, a Paper Read before the Missionary Conference in Shanghai on May 11, 1877. London: Kelly & Walsh. Legge, James. 1880. The Religions of China: Confucianism and Taoism described and Compared with Christianity. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

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Lutz, Jessie G. and Roland Ray Lutz. 1995. “The Invisible China Missionaries: The Basel Mission’s Chinese Evangelists, 1847–1866.” Mission Studies 12, no.1: 204–227. Leiden: Brill. Madsen, Richard. 1998. Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Magone, Rui. 2013. “Portugal and the Jesuit Mission to China: Trends in Historiography.” In Europe and China: Science and the Arts in the 17th and 18th Centuries, edited by Luis Saraiva. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. Masuzawa, Tomoko. 2005. The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Menegon, Eugenio. 2009. Ancestors, Virgins, and Friars: Christianity as a Local Religion in Late Imperial China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Morrison, Robert. 1812. Horae Sinicae: Translations from the Popular Literature of the Chinese. London: Black & Parry. Morrison, Robert. 1815. A Grammar of the Chinese Language. Serampore [India]: MissionPress. Morrison, Robert. 1817. A View of China for Philological Sources, Containing a Sketch of Chinese Chronology, Geography, Government, Religion & Customs. Macao: East India Company. Morrison, Robert. 1865. A Dictionary of the Chinese Language. Shanghai: London Mission Press Müller, Max. 1888. Introduction to the Science of Religion, Four Lectures. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Müller, Max. 1879–1910. Sacred Books of the East. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mungello, D. E. 1989. Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Ng, Peter Ming Tze, 2002. Changing Paradigms of Christian Higher Education in China, 1888–1950. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press. Ng, Peter Ming Tze. 2012. Chinese Christianity: An Interplay between Global and Local Perspectives. Leiden: Brill. Pfister, Lauren F. 2004. Striving for ‘The Whole Duty of Man’: James Legge and the Scottish Protestant Encounter with China, vols I and II. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Rubinstein, Murray A. 1996. The Origins of the Anglo-American Missionary Enterprise in China, 1807–1840. London: The Scarecrow Press. Saraiva, Luís, ed. 2013. Europe and China: Science and the Arts in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Special Collections, CWM/LMS Collection, China, Personal Papers, James Legge. Smith, A.H. 1901. China in Convulsion, with Illustrations and Maps. London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier. Soothill, William Edward. 1913. The Three Religions of China. New York: Hodder and Stoughton. Spence, Jonathan. 1985. The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. London: Penguin Books. Spence, Jonathan. 1996. God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company. Standaert, Nicolas. 1997. “New Trends in the Historiography of Christianity in China.” The Catholic Historical Review 83, no.4: 573–613.

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Standaert, Nicolas, ed. 2001a. Handbook of Christianity in China, Vol. I: 635–1800. Leiden: Brill. Standaert, Nicolas. 2001b. “Christianity as a Religion in China. Insights from the Handbook of Christianity in China: Volume One (635–1800).” Les Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 12, no.1 : 1–21. Sun, Anna. 2013. Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Thomas, Margaret and Millicent Thomas. 1936. The Years Behind the Wall. London: Livingstone Press. Tiedemann, R.G., ed. 2009. Handbook of Christianity in China Volume Two: 1800-present. Leiden: Brill. Uhalley, Stephen and Wu Xiaoxin, eds. 2001. China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future. London: M.E. Sharpe. Vala, Carsten. 2009. “Pathways to the Pulpit: Leadership Training in “Patriotic” and Unregistered Chinese Protestant Churches.” In Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China, edited by Yoshiko Ashiwa and David Wank, 96–125. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Vala, Carsten. 2017. The Politics of Protestant Churches and the Party-state in China: God Above Party? London: Routledge. Venn, Henry. 1865. Retrospect and Prospect of the Operations of the Church Missionary Society 1865. London: Church Missionary House. Wielander, Gerda. 2013. Christian Values in Communist China. London: Routledge. Zhang Kaiyuan 章开沅. 2004. Jidujiao yu zhongguo wenhua congkan 基督教与中国文化丛刊. Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe. Zhang Kaiyuan 章开沅, Lin Wei 林蔚, eds. 1991. Zhongxi wenhua yu jiaohui daxue: shoujie Zhongguo jiaohui daxue shi xueshu yantaohui lunwenji. 中西文化与敎会大学: 首届中国 敎会大学史学术研讨会论文集. Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe. Zhang Xianqing 張先清. 2009. Guanfu, zongzu yu tianzhujiao: 17–19 Shiji fu'an xiangcun jiaohui de lishi xushi 官府、宗族与天主教：17–19 世纪福安乡村教会的历史叙事. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Zhuo Xinping 卓新平. 2007. Jidu jiao yu Zhongguo wenhua de xiangyu, qiu tong yu cun yi 基督敎與中國文化的相遇, 求同與存異. Xianggang: Xianggang zhongwen daxue chong ji xueyuan. Zürcher, Erik. 1990. Bouddhisme, Christianisme et Société Chinoise. Paris: Julliard.

Wai-Yip Ho

From Neglected Problem to Flourishing Field: Recent Developments of Research on Muslims and Islam in China Introduction In surveying the current status of research on Muslims and Islam in China, Frankel (2011a) pointed out that this field of study has been shifting from depicting Islam as a monolith to describing it as a mosaic. In Ben-Dor Benite’s words (2017, 170), the field of Chinese Islam is no longer ‘a neglected problem’, a problem raised long ago by Marshall Broomhall (1910), a Christian Missionary scholar and pioneer in the field. Recent books “(. . .) show that it is no longer neglected, and no longer a ‘problem’; rather it is an exciting topic. Indeed, a complete, even if not harmonious concert” (Ben-Dor Benite 2017, 199). Recent scholarship pays attention to many Muslim nationalities in China besides the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. It also paints a more nuanced portrait besides the narrative of rebellious uprisings against Chinese regimes from the Qing Dynasty till the present People’s Republic of China (PRC). Recent decades of academic scholarship have questioned simplistic images of Muslims in the PRC and helped us re-examine many of our pre-conceptions. This chapter attempts to provide a general overview of the flourishing field of studying Muslims and Islam in China.1 The following sections conceptualize recent academic developments into selected themes and emerging trends. This chapter outlines how ‘Islam in China’, as a subject of study, has transitioned from a neglected research topic to a presently flourishing field. To start with, it traces the pioneering works of Christian missionary scholars in

1 This chapter attempts to give a snapshot of the development in the field, but given ongoing research, this broad survey is by no means exhaustive, as the author may not be aware of some other existing and forthcoming works. Having said that, responsibility for the overall structure and any deficiencies in this chapter remain entirely my own. Note: The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Program (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–013) under REA grant agreement n° [609305]. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-005

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recognizing the importance of understanding and study China’s Islam as a subject of academic inquiry. In doing so, the early intellectual legacy left a general portrait of the Chinese Muslim community and a theoretical perspective in understanding China’s long Islamic history through its different stages. Then, the chapter highlights some of the main features of the Western scholarship in the field and its recent concerns. It shows that since the foundational stage of Euro-American Orientalists’ scholarship on China’s Islamic studies, the field has reached a promising stage of diverse developments. Among them, the rise of indigenous scholarship has moved away from the monopoly of Western scholarship, and new academic endeavours have emerged with the engagement of Muslims in inter-cultural relations and interreligious dialogue. This section engages with the view of Lipman (1997), who conceptualized the status of China’s Muslims living in the Han Chinese-dominated society over centuries as ‘familiar strangers’, because they are “(. . .) normal but different, Sinophone yet incomprehensible, local but outsiders” (Lipman 1997, 56). But presently, it is worth noting that Muslims in China are no longer viewed as entirely familiar strangers but as one of the essential religious-cultural traditions of China that urgently requires understanding (e.g. Confucian-Islamic dialogue and China’s Muslim-Christian relations). In a third section, the chapter will present two main scenarios among many future possibilities in the academic field of Chinese Muslim studies. These populations are no longer isolated from the international community since the ‘Open Door’ Policy in 1978. More recently, China’s ‘Go Global’ initiative and its grand strategy of ‘One Belt, One Road’, which intends to actively integrate the ummah (the global Muslim community) and build up strategic partnership with many Muslim-majority nations, have accelerated these trends. Finally, this chapter suggests that future research on China’s Islam will inevitably associate with the ‘new Silk Road’ and the struggle of peaceful religion against terrorism in an age of radicalism. In the midst of China’s rise as a global power, its territory and its citizens are no longer isolated from external influences, including the threat and the spread of Jihad-Salafism since the 9/11 attack (Wang 2016). Therefore, Islamic studies in China in the age of global radicalism look for a balanced discourse of wasatiyyah (the Islamic ‘middle path’), which is crucial to remind outsiders that Muslims in China are not ‘extremists’. The chapter concludes by arguing that the field of ‘Islam in China’ is going to contribute to ‘Global Islamic Studies’.

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1 Past Legacy: Some Pioneering Studies on Islam and Muslims in China 1.1 Recognizing Islamic History in China: Pioneering Legacy of Christian Missionary Scholars Though Islam in China was an understudied subject, some pioneers expressed interest in the topic of Islam and the history of Muslim communities in China from the early twentieth century. Among many, the Anglo-Saxon literature left a lasting intellectual impact and influential footprints for researchers thereafter interested by a critical approach to this field of study. There are several features of the early founders of this field. First, it is noteworthy that Islam in China was taken more seriously as a subject by the Christian Missionaries (e.g. Broomhall 1910; Zwemer 1918; Mason 1929; Harris 1929; Pickens 1950, etc.) than by Orientalist scholars or by Chinese intellectuals. Some of these major early researchers hailed from the China Inland Mission (CIM). An outstanding example is Marshall Broomhall, who was commissioned by Samuel Zwemer to give one of the first systematic studies of mapping the overall situation and demographics of Muslims in China, in his description of Islam in that country as a ‘neglected problem’. He has thereby provided a pioneering survey of Muslims in China (Broomhall 1910), which other early scholars continued to use in their own work as they provide updated population investigations (e.g. Pillsbury 1981, 1984) and bibliographic survey of China’s Muslim communities (e.g. Leslie 1986). Another CIM missionary, similarly inspired by the missionary zeal of Zwemer, was Rev. Claude L. Pickens, the son-in-law of Samuel Zwemer. He took more than a thousand photos and collected a lot of material about China’s Muslims in the Republican period, from the 1920s to the 1930s. Currently, Pickens’ collections have been rediscovered and it is highly regarded by contemporary Muslims and Mainland Chinese academics to reconstruct the history of Muslim communities in early modern China (e.g. Wang 2008; Wang, Ma and Ding 2015). Pickens donated his collections to the Harvard College Library collection in memory of Joseph F. Fletcher, a Harvard professor focusing on Islamic studies in the Chinese and Inner Asian History. The Pickens’ collection is now electronically archived with the title of Rev. Claude L. Pickens, Jr. Collection on Muslims in China, 1858–1984 by the Harvard-Yenching Library. Joseph F. Fletcher had charted the first conceptual framework to help understanding the spread of Islam across Central Asia and China (Fletcher 1995). His very influential notion of three ‘tides’ of Islam coming to China through the Silk Road has been inspirational for scholars who wanted to conceptualize the

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historical trajectory of China’s Islam. Dru Gladney further elaborated on Fletcher’s notion of tides in chronicling Islamic movements in China. Fletcher identified a first tide of Gedimu traditional Chinese Islam from the seventh to the fourteenth centuries, a second tide of Sufi communities and national networks from the late seventeenth century, a third tide of Scripturalist concerns and modernist reforms in the end of the Qing dynasty. Gladney proposed to add a fourth tide of ethnic nationalism facing globalization in the post-Cold War period (Gladney 2005, 193–211). Following this trend, Ben-Dor Benite divided Chinese Islamic history into four different historical phases. Between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, the presence of Muslims in Chang’an (Xi’an) through the caravan silk route and in Quanzhou via the Indian Ocean in the Tang-Song period marked Phase One. The Mongol conquest of China and the emergence of Central Asian Muslim communities in Yunnan and Khanbaliq (Beijing) during the Yuan Dynasty marked Phase Two. Phase Three was characterized by the disappearance of multiethnic Muslim traditions, the rise of Chinese Islam (huijiao 回教) in the cultural centre of Nanjing, and convergence into a sinicized nation during the Ming Dynasty. Phase Four involved violence and military confrontations between Northwest China’s Muslims in Lanzhou and Xinjiang and the government of the Qing Dynasty (Ben-Dor Benite 2010).

1.2 Reviewing Ethno-Nationalism: Struggle of Ethnic Muslims in Han-Centric Culture Another lasting impact of early academic work on Muslims in China is the study of their minority status and the tension between Muslims and non-Muslims. The early legacy of studying Muslims in China, for example in Israeli’s study, already observed the cultural confrontations and the incompatibility between Muslims practicing Islam and Han Chinese in Communist China. According to Israeli (1980), Muslims in China are rebellious and separatism seems to be the inevitable option for Muslims seeking survival. This formative research endeavor orients the field of study about the conflictual relations between Muslim minorities and the governments in history. It brought academic attention to how the Imperial Qing dynasty engaged military repression of the Muslim minority in China’s frontier. For example, Atwill examines the war between the Qing government and Southwest Hui Muslims in the Panthay Rebellion in 1856–1873 (Atwill 2005); and Kim examined the Northwest Uyghur Muslims’ Holy War against the Qing dynasty in 1864–1877 (Kim 2004). With the dominant perception that there exist cultural confrontations and incompatibility between Muslims and Han Chinese, contemporary Han–Muslim relations are mainly seen through the lenses of conflicts. Scholars

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pay attention to Muslim minorities’ separatism from the Han-majority Chinese governments (Jones-Leaning and Pratt 2012; Gunaratna et al. 2010), in particular the birth of a Uyghur nation through the resurrection of ‘East Turkestan’ in the region of Xinjiang (e.g. Brophy 2016; Benson 1990; Rudelson 1997; Dillon 2004; Shichor 2005; Starr 2004), everyday Han–Uyghur relations (Kaltman 2007), and how Uyghur historical practices imported by Silk Road travellers feed their present nationalist aspirations (Thum 2014). In the name of fighting against religious radicalism, some current reports reveal that the Chinese government’s heavy-handed policy has been persistently suppressing the Xinjiang region and the Uyghur people, though the Chinese government denies the validity of such news reports (BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific 2015). Internally, strict measures of counter-terrorism extend to prohibition for Uyghur children from attending religious schools, men from growing ‘abnormal’ beard, and women from wearing the veil (Aljazeera 2017). News reports reveal that the Chinese government restricts Uyghur Muslims from fasting and praying (The Economist 2017), even forcing them to eat pork and humiliating them by holding a beer festival in the annual month of Ramadan, (BBC 2014; Reuters 2015). Externally, the Chinese government has sought to contain transnational threats posed by Uyghur separatists. In 2015, suspected Uyghur extremists targeted Chinese tourists at a famous Hindu shrine in Bangkok. Since then, the Chinese government has diplomatically requested Thailand to repatriate more than 90 Uyghurs in exile (Radio Free Asia 2015) and Egypt to deport more than twenty Uyghur students, studying at Al-Azhar, back to China (The New York Times 2017). Out of overwhelming international concerns about human rights and the religious freedom of Uyghur Muslims at Xinjiang, the issues may continue attracting ongoing scholarly attention and research on political Islam in China for the future. However, it should be noted that Xinjiang has been a highly politicized and sensitive target of Beijing for a while. Scholars often run high risks in researching the topic as the field of studying ethnicity and Islam in China is getting more politicized. For example, Starr’s edited book (2004) was heavily criticized to incite separatist movements in Xinjiang by the PRC, and as result of this, thirteen contributors were barred from entering China (The Washington Post 2011). Apart from the highly charged issue concerning Uyghur people in Xinjiang, the growing interconnections between Central Asia and China also diverted away academic attention to rapid growth in the region and the development of trade and energy cooperation between Xinjiang and post-Soviet Central Asian states (Millward 2007; Clarke 2011; Mackerras and Clarke 2011), as well as the transnational exchanges of Muslims at the Chinese frontier and in Central Asia (Ding 2006; Allès 2005).

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Besides Uyghurs, other Muslim minorities live in China, including Kazakhs, Dongxiang, Kirghizs, Uzbeks, Salars, Tajiks, Bonans, and Tatars. Among them, the Hui form the largest Muslim community in China. Hui and Uyghurs are the two major Muslim ethnic groups that have attracted scholars’ attention and they are the two most often compared Muslim minorities in China (Berlie 2004). Through his efforts of theorizing China from marginalized minorities, Gladney (1996) has done pioneering work on the ethnic nationalism of Hui Muslims: he has provided a fuller picture of China’s minorities and challenged monolithic images of Muslims as inherently rebellious. Through his study, Gladney also questioned the idea of a monolithic Han identity (Gladney 2004). For his part, Jonathan Lipman provides a more focused and in-depth historical study of Hui Muslims in Northwest China, namely the Muslim communities in Gansu province (Lipman 1997), and made path-breaking contributions to the historical and contemporary studies of Chinese Muslims overall. Regardless of whether or not Sino-Muslims were ‘familiar’ and widely recognized as Chinese since the periods of Yuan and Ming dynasty, they kept themselves ‘strangers’ due to their lack of non-religious intellectuals and their transnational connections to the Muslim world outside China.

2 Present Focus: Contemporary Studies of Muslims and Islam in China The field has been flourishing with diverse research orientations. While most of the pioneering studies contributed a bird-eyed view of Muslim communities and the historical narrative of Islam’s origins in China, contemporary researchers are now working on diverse branches of Islamic issues in China, for example how Muslims living in urban cities negotiate their Islamic identity in the growing consumerism of China (Gillette 2000), not exclusively focusing on the single issue of Xinjiang and Uyghur separatism, though it continues attracting international and scholarly attention. For instance, the foundational studies mentioned above often neglected gender issues. Jaschok and Shui’s path-breaking work has given women a voice in the Muslim communities in their work about women-led segregated mosques in China (Jaschok and Shui 2000). In relation to the educational networks of China’s Muslim communities, Armijo has focused on gender issues (Armijo 2003 and 2009) as well as the resurgence of Islamic education in China (Armijo 1999, 2008a, 2008b and 2009; see also Allès 2003; Lin 2008). Aside from Western academics’ studies of Islam in China, Japanese scholars have also actively contributed to the field. For example, Matsumoto engaged with China's madrasah

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education in Ningxia (Matsumoto and Atsuko 2011), intellectual Islamic thought in the Republican period (Matsumoto 2006), and the Chinese Muslim madrasah tradition of Persian learning before the twentieth century (Matsumoto 2016). Another aspect of Chinese Islamic aesthetics, the distinct acoustic of the ritual practices of Islam, the so-called ‘Sounding Islam’ (Harris and Jaschok 2015), has received attention recently. An innovative multi-sited ethnographic research project of Islamic soundscapes in China has been initiated by a research cluster led by SOAS academic Rachel Harris (e.g. Harris 2014). Another long-neglected sub-field looks at how Islam survived throughout the imperial period (Brown 2013). Studies on how Muslims practise Sharia (Islamic law) throughout Chinese imperial history helped to fill that gap (Frankel 2011b and 2017; Wang 2015). Recently, the study of how the Sharia can be implemented as minjian (unofficial) law and coexist along with socialist state law in modern China has been taken up seriously (Erie 2016). While the architectural design of Chinese mosques met with opprobium as ‘un-Islamic’ in the eyes of Arab Muslim orthodoxy, namely the puritanical Wahhabis’ perspective, how Islam embodied and converged in Chinese architectural style-mosque space has recently emerged as a timely topic (Shatzman Steinhardt 2015). In relation to the affirmation and appreciation of Chinese Islamic aesthetics, conferences on Islamic arts and ethnographies of Islam in China are addressing these issues in a timely manner. For example, a newly established Centre for the Study of Islamic Culture, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, organized an international conference on such neglected theme (3–5 March 2016). Yet, among many academic projects and developments in the field of Islam in China, there are two strands of recent research agendas that deserve our attention, which I analyze below.

2.1 Reengaging Intercultural Relations: Muslims Encounter Non-Muslims One emerging trend for Western academics, Muslim and Chinese intellectuals is the focus on intercultural or inter-faith studies within China. In particular, studies are now revisiting the relations of Muslim and Tibetan Buddhist followers, or Islam in Tibet (Akasoy, Burnett, and Yoeli-Tlalim 2011), in particular Lhasa’s Muslim communities (Atwill 2018), Buddhist–Muslim dialogue (Yusuf 2009; Berlie 2010) as well as the relations of Islam with Daoism (Zhou 2012). Among works in past decades, one of the path-breaking and expanding topic is the study of the relations between Islam and Confucianism. In terms of intellectual history and cross-cultural encounters, scholarly rediscovery of Chinese

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language Islamic literature or Han Kitab (Sino-Islamic texts), opened an unprecedented horizon to understand how Islam of Arabian-Persian texts was transmitted and embodied in the Confucian Chinese cultural system (Aubin 2017). Among them, one of the pioneering studies was the re-discovery of the Persian Sufi Islamic texts translated and transplanted into the Chinese Confucian intellectual framework. Sachiko Murata inaugurated a ground-breaking discussion on the philosophical works of Wang Daiyu and Liu Zhi, who have been called the Huiru 回儒, the Muslim Confucians (Murata 2000; Murata 2017; Murata, Chittick, and Tu 2009), resulting in flowering translations and academic interest in the Han Kitab. Through this new angle of Islamic-Confucianism, many studies have looked at how people transmitted Islamic thought in the Confucian culture of China during the Ming–Qing. Many other issues have also benefitted from that new angle. Some examine how the translation and contextualization of Persian Sufi texts enable Muslims in China to make sense of their everyday lives through Chinese classical philosophical frameworks. Others shed light on how the Chinese translation of monotheistic thought spread throughout the Chinese community. Finally, others show how Muslims could reconcile themselves with adapting to Chinese social settings, and most importantly, prove that they are legitimate and peaceful subjects of Chinese rulers (e.g. Ben-Dor Benite 2005a; Petersen 2006a; Frankel 2011a; Lee 2015; Tontini 2016). Besides interactions between Islam and Buddhism, as well as between Islam and Confucianism, Christian–Muslim relations from pre-modern China until the birth of the People’s Republic of China have also attracted growing scholarly attention (e.g. Israeli 1995; Ben-Dor Benite 2005b and 2012; Wang 2007; Ho 2010a and 2010b). In the aftermath of 9/11, inter-religious relations between Muslims and Christians have been one of the emerging concerns in Chinese context. One prominent and pioneering attempt to look into this issue was the vision of the Hong Kong Alliance Bible Seminary (Xianggang jian daoshen xueyuan 香港建道神學院), which established a Research Centre of Chinese Islamic Studies in 2005. That Centre aimed at fostering harmonious interfaith relations, in particular between Christianity and Islam. After travelling to Lanzhou, Yinchuan, and Beijing, and consulting various mainland academic institutes of Islamic studies, the Alliance Bible Seminary scholars inaugurated the first symposium of dialogue between Islam and Christianity in Hong Kong in 2009. The second symposium of Muslim-Christian Dialogue (21–23 October 2010), co-organized by the Hui Research Centre of the Ningxia Academy of Social Sciences and the Institute of World Religions at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was held in Beijing; both symposia produced the first Muslim-Christian academic proceedings (Lau 2010 and 2012). A

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third symposium of Muslim-Christian dialogue resulted from collaboration between academics in Wuhan (17–19 October 2013), namely the Wuhan Normal University as well as the Hui Research Centre of the Ningxia Academy of Social Sciences.

2.2 Revitalizing Indigenous Scholarship: Chinese Academics and Self-Representation It is important to point out that emerging works written in English by Chinese and Hui Muslim scholars critically appraise the Western scholarship of Islam in China, and have gradually developed an indigenous scholarship that addresses China’s Islamic past and present situation. In the 1990s, Wang Jianping 王建平 provided a historical account of the Hui Muslim uprising in Yunnan (Wang 1995 and 1996) and, through his contribution, the first Chinese–Islamic dictionary was published in the English-speaking world (Wang 2001). While Northwest China has predominantly featured in the academic discussion on Muslim communities in China, Ma Jianxiong 馬健雄 (2013) unlocked the long-neglected Hui identity and communal network along Yunnan through the Southwest Chinese frontier, in which the connection between Southwest China to Southeast Asia (e.g. Malaysia and Indonesia) has been increasingly prominent. In representing their own history, Chinese scholars and Muslim scholars recently published a Chinese-language critical appraisal of Western scholarship on China’s Islam. For example, Hui Muslim scholars Ding Kejia 丁克家 and Ma Xuefeng 馬 雪峰 argue that the Western non-Muslim scholarships misrepresented China’s Muslim communities and reflected a hegemonic attitude demonizing them (Ding and Ma 2008). During the 2000s, Mi Shoujiang 米壽江 and You Jia 尤佳 wrote an overview of Islam in China in Chinese with an English edition (Mi and You 2004). Zhou Chuanbin 周傳斌 and Ma Xuefeng traced the evolution of the Muslim community in Beijing (Zhou and Ma 2009). Ma Qiang 馬強, based on his extensive anthropological fieldwork in China’s various major cities, published his anthropological studies of Muslims living in urban China. Xiaowei Zang gave readers a comparative perspective of the Han Chinese and the Hui Muslims in various aspects of the city life (Zang 2007). In addition, Zang also introduced readers to the urban face of Uyghur Muslims and their everyday lives in the family, including gender inequality, which went beyond the traditional focus on China’s Northwest Muslim-dominated region and the sensitive topic of separatism (Zang 2011). Introducing the ordinary life of Xinjiang people, the study by Wang Jianxin 王建新 specifically paints a more intimate portrait of Uyghur Muslims and shows how Muslim leaders negotiate between

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religious legitimacy and secular authority (Wang 2004). Chen Yangbin 陳暘斌 introduced how Uyghur minority students maintained their ethnic traditions while studying in the Han-inhabited eastern area of China (Chen 2008). Taiwanese scholars also contributed to Chinese Islamic studies. In collaboration with scholars in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Taiwanese-based scholar Lin Chang-kuan 林長寬 edited a Hong Kong Chinese publication focusing on Islam in the Chinese context (Lin 2015). Zhang Zhongfu 張中復 wrote about Muslim rebellion in the Qing dynasty (Zhang 2001), and Tsai Yuan-lin 蔡源林 introduced various trends of Chinese Islamic studies to the Taiwanese readership; one of Tsai’s contributions is the translation of Edward Said’s book Culture and Imperialism into Chinese.

3 Contested Orientations: Chinese Muslims in the New Silk Road and Global Radicalism As Wang (2016) rightly observed, an emerging tension between the PRC’s strategic national interest in building friendly relations with the Muslim world, and its determination to limit religious radicalism are likely to upset domestic stability in China. The country’s external outreach to the Muslim world and the internal mushrooming of political Islam will not only re-orient the future of the field, but also pose new challenges to researchers.

3.1 Reimagining the Silk Road: Reconnecting a Global Muslim Community in the New Century In the wake of China’s new global initiative of ‘One Belt, One Road’, the PRC government is trying to revive the ancient Silk Road. Among the sixty-five countries that the initiative covers, more than thirty of them are Muslim-majority countries and fifty-seven of them have at least a partially Muslim population. China’s presence in the Middle East will carry profound implications for the future world order (Eheshami and Horesh 2018). Due to the growing importance of inter-Asian connections, especially between China and the Muslim-majority nations in Asia and the Middle East, academic discussions have been lively not only within China, but also in Southeast Asia. See, for example, the ongoing annual conferences organized by the National University of Singapore, convened by the academic Engseng Ho, the latest meeting being “China-Arabia Encounters and Engagements” (15–16 December 2016, Singapore). Another

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example is the Zhenghe Forum, which was held at the University of Malaya (11– 12 August 2015, Malaysia) and convened by the academic Ma Haiyun 馬海雲. Rather than viewing Muslim minorities in China as a national ‘burden’ or disadvantaged groups that require national affirmative policies, China’s Muslims are now becoming national assets, being the ‘cultural ambassadors’ linking China and Muslim countries (Ho 2013a and 2013b). There have been more scholarly discussions on the legacy of Zhenghe 鄭和, a Chinese Muslim admiral representing the Ming Dynasty, voyaging between China, the Middle East and Africa seven times, connecting China and the Middle East (Ma, Chai, and Ngeow 2016). Others studies have explored the mercantile role of Muslims in China linking Arabia and China (e.g. Wang and Yang 2011; Gladney 1993, etc.) and more recently looked at the broader maritime cross-cultural exchanges between the Middle East, Southeast Asia and China in the pre-modern era (e.g. Ho 2006; Park 2015). The study of China-Islamic connections within China will probably help sustain the newly strategic relationship between China and Muslim countries: “the PRC and its Muslim partners can, and will, continue to use China’s Muslims as intermediaries, or ‘friendship bridges,’ exploiting a demographic and relational dynamics that the US and other western counties cannot” (Frankel 2016). With the rise of these ‘Confucian-Islamic connection’, the changing cultural role of China’s Muslims will definitely be a bridging role between China and the Middle East (Frankel 2016). The subject of Chinese Halal (Qingzhen) food (Sai and Fischer 2016), the development of Chinese Islamic finance (e.g. Ho 2014) and the emerging Middle East Muslim communities in China (e.g. Ho 2018) becomes increasingly important and will probably reorient the future direction of Islamic studies in China.

3.2 Reinventing the Middle Path: China’s Muslims in the Age of Radicalism In the wake of global radicalism, one of the timely issues of scholars engaging in Islamic studies in the Chinese context is to present Islam as moderate and show that it has no association with radicalism (Ding 2009, 2010, and 2012). While the separate issue of Uyghur separatism tends to obscure the reality of China’s Islam, growing Islamophobia and the intermingling of Islam with religious radicalization may lead China’s Islamic studies from religious studies to security studies. With the increasingly repressive measures against Uyghur separatism and the external challenges of militant Islamic terrorism, China’s Muslim scholars, like Ding Jun 丁俊, led the government to appreciate the innovative thought of Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s wasatiyyah (‘Centrism’ or ‘Middle ground’) (Gräf 2009). Wasatiyyah is a moderate Islamic thought refuting al-

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Qaeda’s extreme interpretation of Islam: al-Qaradawi calls for the application of Islamic principles in a balanced and reasonable manner. Mainstream Islamic thought is moderate and avoids the extremes of fanaticism and indifference, striking a balance between tradition and innovation, upholding justice and social harmony, and encouraging dialogue between civilizations. To China, the spirit of wasatiyyah corresponds to the ideal of Muslim spirituality honoring both country and religion (Ding 2010), and building an inclusive and harmonious society shared by the non-Muslim Han majority and China’s Muslim minority (Ding 2009). By highlighting Al-Qaradawi’s Islamic notion of wasatiyyah (‘moderation and balance’) (Ding 2012), China’s Muslims argue that the ideal of moderate Islamic tradition has been congruent with the Chinese ‘middle-path’ of balanced, not extreme, ‘devotion to one’s own country’ (aiguo 愛國) and ‘devotion to one’s own religion’ (aijiao 愛教). Culturally speaking, the Islamic concept wasatiyyah cannot only be translated into the Chinese context, it is also compatible with it and, most importantly, acceptable to the Han-majority people in China. By affirming both Islamic and Chinese culture, it distinctly carries implications for the patriotic spirit in the eyes of the sovereign state as well as for religious piety as the central concern among China’s Muslims.

4 On the Agenda: Muslim Diaspora outside PRC and China’s iMuslim For many years, there has been a legacy of studying Islam in China (and Chinese society) by scholars outside China. In the Mecca-centric framework, outsiders conventionally considered China to stand on the periphery or margin of Islam both in terms of geography as well as of Arab Islamic culture. But unlike the pre-9/11 period, Islam outside Arabia is no longer been viewed as the passive recipient of Arab Islamic orthodoxy. With China’s reintegration into the international community, more studies focus on how Chinese Muslims identify themselves as part of the ummah (global Muslim community) (Stewart 2017). Muslim thoughts in different parts of the world are gradually recognized, including Chinese Islamic histories and intellectual thoughts, to enrich global Islamic studies. While the field of ‘Islam in China’ has been flourishing in recent decades, more recently joint efforts of translating and introducing Chinese indigenous scholarship of Islamic studies to the English-speaking world will hopefully contribute to the dialogue between scholars in Sinology and Islamic studies (Jin and Ho 2017). Likewise, Lipman has assembled international scholarly works on the evolution of four centuries of Sino-Islamic intellectual

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tradition, aiming at stimulating more research. He has urged “scholars in Islamic studies to take more interest in China as a site of Islamic thought, and those in Chinese studies to consider the Muslims of China as both legitimately Chinese” (Lipman 2016, 10). With the vision of enhancing interdisciplinary and intercultural exchanges, this field of inquiry is charting a new era that cuts across two major fields of Chinese and Islamic studies. Regional variations and the rich Chinese Islamic culture have been slowly recognized as elements contributing to the global Islamic studies in contemporary time. In 2015, Jacqueline Armijo carefully selected and organized entries, including China’s Islam, legal tradition of Sharia Law in China, Qur’anic interpretation, Chinese mosque architecture, Islam in Hong Kong, Hui diaspora, Liu Zhi and the Han Kitab, Muslims on the Silk Road, Islam in Southwest China as well as religion and identity of Uyghurs, in the database of Oxford Islamic Studies Online. Last but not least, to foresee the future development of Islamic studies in China, there are two emerging academic studies in the field that deserve further study. First, the field is geographically shifting from focusing on Muslims solely in Northwest China to Muslims scattered in all parts of China, and there is emerging interest about Muslim diaspora beyond the sovereign territorial boundary of the PRC, to Greater China, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Second, it is the rise of iMuslims driven by the rise of cyber-Islamic environments.

4.1 Re-spatializing China’s Muslims: Muslims within PRC and beyond First, the diaspora of Chinese Muslim (or Chinese Muslims beyond Mainland China) has been getting more academic attention than before and will become more important. As discussed before, China is no longer isolated but actively reintegrating the international community, and the past approach of studying Chinese Muslims within the PRC territorial-bounded sovereign state is fundamentally outdated. It is noteworthy that intellectual endeavour like Dillon’s compiling decades of academic works on Islam in China in two volumes of collected papers (Dillon 2009a and 2009b), started including Chinese Muslim diasporic communities and more works on it will be expected in the near future (e.g. Wang Ma 2004; Ho 2013a). More importantly, there are more recent studies that uncover deep transnational educational and learning connections of China’s Muslims to Al-Azhar (BenDor Benite 2014; Chen 2014; Mao 2016) in Cairo, the Islamic centre in the Arabian peninsula (Petersen 2017), and the Chinese Communist Party’s recent United Front activites in Saudi Arabia. Others look at the Sinophone Muslims and Turkestani

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(Al-Sudairi 2018), contemporary Chinese Muslims’ connections outside PRC but within Southeast Asia (Chen 2016), such as the studies on the revival of Chinese Muslim communities in Indonesia (Chiou 2007; Chiou 2015; Hew 2017).

4.2 Re-wiring China’s Religious Network: China’s iMuslims and the Great Firewall As mentioned above, China is forging its new global initiative of ‘One Belt, One Road’ to revive the Silk Road network, global cyber-network, while social media also reconnects China’s Muslims with the international community (Ho 2016). Acknowledging the diversity among and within different zones in cyberspace that represent varied Muslim worldviews within the House of Islam, Gary R. Bunt has coined an umbrella term, the ‘cyber-Islamic environment’ (CIE) (Bunt 2009). In the context of the globalizing development of cyber-Islamic environment and the state censorship system of the ‘Great Firewall’ defending the sovereignty of PRC in the informational age, catching up in understanding the characteristics of the minds of China’s cyber-Muslims (iMuslims) is vital. It is also important to examine how cyber-Islamic thought can survive across and within the Great Firewall of state surveillance. In the name of restoring inter-ethnic harmony, the PRC cyber-police had no hesitation in cutting off Internet websites during the Urumqi confrontations between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in 2009. In 2016, a popular Chinese Muslim website was forced to shut down after posting a critical letter addressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping (Reuters 2016). Given the popularity of China’s Muslims going online in the context of a tightening culture of state-censorship and unrelenting crackdown online, it becomes urgent to archive Chinese Islamic thought in the digital realm.

Conclusion: Positioning Chinese Islam in the Global Islamic Thought To summarize, this chapter has attempted to provide a bird-eye overview in tracing how the trajectory of ‘Islam in China’, as a field, has evolved over a century, and transitioned from a neglected problem to a flourishing field with new angles of analysis, challenges and prospects. In the foundational phase of the field, the chapter has first highlighted how Christian missionaries were intrigued to understand the other monotheist religions in the Chinese context, and the Orientalists’ outlook emphasized the cultural incompatibility between

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Muslims and the Han-Chinese culture, resulting in the enduring interests of ethno-nationalism. Next, the chapter emphasized that recent academic developments are departing from an ‘essentialized’ perspective to more multifaceted dimensions of research programs. To highlight, there is an increase in indigenous scholarship, understanding and representation of the Chinese Islamic tradition and history by Muslim and other Chinese scholars. Furthermore, Islamic tradition and China’s Muslims are no longer viewed as ‘Others’, but they are increasingly recognized as a constituting part of a multicultural China in history. Inter-faith programs and inter-cultural studies on how Islam interacts with other religious-cultural traditions in China have been popular and have redefined the academic discussion within China. Though flourishing, the field is not without challenges. The chapter has shown how China’s open policy, further outreach and external changes, the PRC’s global initiative of rebuilding a Silk Road network, realigning Muslim-majority nations, and the spread of transnational Salafi-jihadism potentially impact internal conditions of Muslims living in China. In the future, the study of Chinese Islam and Muslims cannot be entirely isolated from PRC geo-politics, its relations with the Muslim world, and the topic of ‘Political Islam’, given the increase in geo-political consideration and growing securitization in China. In terms of the prospects of this discipline, the chapter has argued that Chinese Islamic studies will no longer remain a spectator, but will gradually contribute and enrich the global Islamic thought. Research topics like Muslim diaspora outside the PRC and the growing population of cyber-Muslims in China are important research gaps that have to be studied in future academic endeavors. Such incoming research agenda should include the re-spatialization of Muslim population within and beyond China, and the urgent need to make sense of the young Muslim generation of iMuslims (Bunt 2009) in China.

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Wang, Yuting. 2015. “Between the Sacred and the Secular: Living Islam in China.” In The Sociology of Shari’a: Case Studies from around the World, edited by Adam Possamai, James T. Richardson, and Bryan S. Turner, 155–174. Cham: Springer. Wang, Yuting and Yang Fenggang. 2011. “Muslim Attitudes toward Business in the Emerging Market Economy of China.” Social Compass 58, no.4: 554–573. Wang Ma, Rosey. 2004. “The Hui Diaspora.” In Encyclopedia of Diasporas, Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World, edited by Melvin Ember, Carol Ember and Ian Skoggard, 113–124. London: Kluwer Academic. Yusuf, Imtiyaz. 2009. “Dialogue between Islam and Buddhism through the Concepts Ummata Wasatan (The Middle Nation) and Majjhima-Patipada (The Middle Way).” Islamic Studies 43, no.3: 367–394. Zang, Xiaowei. 2007. Ethnicity and Urban Life in China: A Comparative Study of Hui Muslims and Han Chinese. London and New York: Routledge. Zang, Xiaowei. 2011. Islam, Family Life and Gender Inequality in Urban China. London and New York: Routledge. Zhang Zhongfu 張中復. 2001. Qing dai xi bei Hui min shi bian: she hui wen hua shi ying yu min zu ren tong de sheng si 清代西北回民事變: 社會文化適應與民族認同的省思. Taipei: Lian Jing chubanshe. Zhou Chuanbin. 2012. “The Dialogue and Cultural Sharing between Islam and Taoism: An Anthropological Interpretation to the Er-shi-li-pu Qubbah of South Ningxia.” North West Ethno-National Studies 4: 46–55. Zhou Chuanbin and Ma Xuefeng. 2009. Development and Decline of Beijing’s Hui Muslim Community. Chaing Mai: Silkworm Books. Zwemer, Samuel M. 1918. “Islam in China.” The Muslim World 8, no.1: 1–4.

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Epistemic Communities of Buddhist Scholarship in Modern China: Narratives and Paradigms Introduction The large body of scholarship on history and features of Chinese Buddhism from the late Qing up to today has developed along a wide range of research trajectories and narratives. Especially since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Western authors have been working not only in parallel but also in constructive dialogue with scholars from China and Taiwan, so to exchange and merge research methodologies and questions. The scholarship on Chinese Buddhism by local scholars has progressed by leaps and bound with the policy of reform and opening of the late 1970s, which has coincided with a more open attitude towards religions. At the moment, scholars from the Universities of Beiing (Beijing daxue 北京大学), Renmin (renmin daxue 人民大学), Sichuan (Sichuan daxue 四川大学), and Nanjing (Nanjing daxue 南京大学), are extremely active in writing on modern Chinese Buddhism. Beijing and Renmin, in particular, have organized special international scholarly meetings and organized invited talks where local academics and foreign researchers have had the opportunities to share new research and exchange ideas. Among the many local scholars, the most widely read, in China and overseas, include Chen Weihua 陈卫华, Deng Zimei 邓子美, Fang Litian 方立天, He Jianming 何建明, Hong Xiuping 洪修平, Lai Yonghai 赖永海, Li Silong 李四龙, and Xuan Fang 宣方. There is little doubt that Taiwan has played a crucial role in ensuring that the knowledge of that religion would progress during the periods of political turbulence experienced by China between 1949 and 1976, during the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961), and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). In the context of limited access on the ground, many Taiwanese scholars, like Hou Kunhong 侯坤宏，have written histories of Chinese Buddhism (Hou 2012 and 2018). Others, like the historians Yang Huinan 楊惠南, Lan Jifu 藍 吉福, Jiang Canteng 江燦騰, and Kan Zhengzong 闞正宗 have written extensive ethnographies of Buddhism as it is practiced in Taiwan since the arrival of the KMT in 1945, or even during the period of Japanese rule thanks to the access to archives from that period. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-006

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In this chapter, we will address a few specific areas that have been recurring key topics in the recent scholarship on Chinese Buddhism. We look at the making of official histories for Chinese and Taiwanese Buddhism; the critical discussion about the paradigm of decline and revival; and the theorizing and adoption of renjian fojiao as a dominant marker of identity for Buddhists in China and Taiwan. In addition, we will explore the impact of Japanese scholarship on the process of creating a modern Chinese Buddhism, and conclude with a brief overview of other issues that deserve addressing. Although we have tried to be as inclusive as possible, we are aware that there will be gaps in this chapter because of the rapid developments of scholarship on contemporary Buddhism in China. In 2008 alone, for example, one can find more than 350 academic journal articles on Buddhism in that country alone, according to the 2007–2008 Annual of Religious Studies (Cao 2009).

1 Historical Overviews in China and Taiwan: Writing and Defining Official Histories For three decades after 1949, knowledge on Buddhism in China was difficult to gain because of difficulties with access. Nevertheless, good studies were available, based on the work of historians who had already mined sources available in the specialized literature. They would serve as inspiration and starting point for later research. If we look at Western sources, the historical survey written by Ch’en in 1964 became, and still is, a classic; it was reprinted at least twice and served to introduce the history of Buddhism until the Republican revolution to the general public, as well as students at all levels interested in China and Asia. Just a few years later, Holmes Welch (1924–1981) expanded the timeframe explored in Ch’en, and published three volumes (1967, 1968, 1972) on the period that goes from the late Qing until the Cultural Revolution. Welch’s works reflected on the impact that several factors at the end of the Imperial time had on Sangha practice and social role, structure and function of Buddhist institutions, regional Buddhist networks, and on the interaction with other religious beliefs. Welch, however, was a historian who also served in the US government; he wrote his trilogy during the critical time preceding the Cultural Revolution, and via official documents and interviews retrieved in Hong Kong, hence mostly with the cooperation of Chinese monks who had moved there; finally, Welch was a practitioner of Chan Buddhism. This eclectic background explains certain angles and sources that his work brought forward, and especially the

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‘purist’ attitude towards reforms and innovations that were changing Chinese Buddhist practice.1 Welch is largely responsible for creating labels like ‘conservative’ and ‘old’ versus ‘modern’ and ‘new’ Buddhism, clearcut binaries that proved problematic for a more nuanced and comprehensive history.2 Western scholarship on Chinese Buddhism has expanded considerably from the late 1990s onwards but most of it, especially that which is dealing with the Republican period, had to relate to Welch’s previous works, either substantially (Tarocco 2007) or less explicitly (Birnbaum 2003). More recently, however, edited volumes have started to tackle the multi-dimensional aspects of Buddhism, and thus going beyond Welch’s historiography with respect to the periods and themes covered (Chan 1985; Kiely and Jessup 2016; Ji, Fisher, and Laliberté 2019). It is a reflection of the field’s vigour that we can now point to many monographs, multiauthored edited volumes, and journal articles, addressing specific aspects of Buddhism; and it is also the result of the openings, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, which brought more opportunities to foreign researchers. Chinese scholarship developed rapidly. Shortly after the publication of Welch’s works, the lay Buddhist Guo Peng 郭朋 (1920–2004) and the monk Dongchu 東初 (1908–1977) authored a series of overviews covering most of Chinese Buddhism’s modern history (Dongchu 1974; Guo 1989); exchanges between Chinese and Indian Buddhism (Dongchu 1972); and those between Chinese and Japanese Buddhism (Dongchu 1970; Zhang 1978). These works covered a larger timeframe, and discussed continuities and ruptures between the so-called ‘premodern’ and ‘modern’ time. As was the case with Welch, these works were partial. Dongchu, like Welch, was disappointed by some of the reforms of Buddhism and Buddhists, as well as by its secularization (Travagnin 2017a). More than ten years after the opening up and reform policy of 1978, conditions for research changed considerably, allowing local scholars to write studies on the recent history of Buddhism up to the early decades of the socialist regime (Deng 1994; Chen and Deng 2000; Gong and Lai 2014; He 2006 and 2015; Hong 2016; Huang 2006; Jiang 1990; Tam 2007). However, the (official) narrative remained framed within the limitating binaries of ‘modern’ vs.

1 See for instance his critical views of monks like Taixu 太虛 (1890–1947). 2 Recently a group of scholars (Erik Hammerstrom, Brooks Jessup, Rongdao Lai, Justin Ritzinger, Gregory Adam Scott, and Stefania Travagnin) organized a five-year seminar on ‘Holmes Welch and the Study of Buddhism in Twentieth-century China’ at the American Academy of Religion (2014–2018). Output of this initiative includes five articles (by Scott, Travagnin, Wu, Nichols, Schicketanz) in ‘Revisiting the Revival: Holmes Welch and the Study of Buddhism in Twentieth-Century China’, a special issue of Studies in Chinese Religions 3, no.3 (2017).

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‘traditional’, ‘new’ vs. ‘old’, ‘revival’ vs. ‘decline’, with results that appeared more constrained than those presented by Dongchu a couple of decades earlier. We can notice a few relevant differences between Welch’s scholarship (and post-Welch Western works) and the two streams of Chinese scholarship (the first pioneered by Dongchu and Guo Peng, and publications since the start of the twenty-first century). Welch-style scholarship looked into changes that occurred in Chinese Buddhism by, implicitly, reflecting a Western (often Christian) perspective, and accordingly answered Western-centric questions. This bias claimed, implicitly, the authority to define those changes, as well as the meaning and modalities of the processes of decline and revival. This scholarship paid attention to the role of the state, official legislation, leading figures, and institutional structures. It did so, however, at the expenses of a macro and inter-religious frame, as it overlooked the history of mainstream schools (and doctrines) in Chinese Buddhism and less known monastics and laity, and neglected the pan-Asian Buddhist milieu.3 Chinese scholarship sought to address these shortcomings by recentering the research strongly on Chinese questions and issues. For instance, it focused more on doctrinal and school development (see for instance Dongchu 1974); and paid attention to the dualism of decline and revival, which the following section will explore in more details, but framed within the modern Chinese local (and political) context4 (Chen and Deng 2000; Dongchu 1974). The longterm debate about the impact of science on religion and the effect of the antireligious movement active in the first decades of the Republican period occupies a large space in these works as well (Chen and Deng 2000; Hou 2018). Finally, the history of Buddhism in Taiwan was also written, and framed, within certain paradigms and built around well-defined narratives. Certainly, Japanese occupation first (1895–1945), the Chinese KMT rule (1945–1986), and the democratization process (since 1986) have demarcated the periodization of the modern history of Buddhism in Taiwan (Jiang 1993, 1996, 2001b; Kan 1999, 2004a, 2004b; Yang 1991). Cooperation with, and resistance to, Japanese Buddhism and Buddhists constitute key topics in local scholarship. Other issues include analyses of the New Culture Movement (xin wenhua yundong 新文化運動) and the consequences of transnational exchanges between Taiwan and Japan. The issue of identity, which often permeates Taiwanese studies, has driven the

3 The study of popular religions and Daoism has paid more attention than Buddhist studies to the effect of transnationalism; see for instance research by Kenneth Dean and more recently Julia C. Huang, and Junliang Pan’s chapter in Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions III. 4 For more on this see Travagnin 2017a.

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shift from Taiwan as ‘free China’ (ziyou zhongguo 自由中國) to Taiwan as ‘Taiwan’, and from the label ‘Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan’ to the labels ‘Taiwan Buddhism’ and ‘Taiwanese Buddhism’. Certainly, the question of identity intersects with debates on the persistence of the Japanese ‘characteristics’ of Buddhism in Taiwan and the inheritance of mainland ‘qualities’ (mostly identified with the reformer stream led by the monk Taixu). Furthermore, the binary of decline and revival, which is a crucial question in the study of Buddhism in China, has found little echo as an interpretive framework in Taiwan. Other questions, such as the influence of Japanese Buddhism during (and after) the colonial period, and the formation and manifestations of renjian fojiao, have received more attention in the island. Another difference between scholarship in China and publications in Taiwan is that the former, so far, has been prone to look mostly at a few eminent male monastics and their networks, while the latter has expanded to less known temples and monastics, and paid attention to both male and female members of the Sangha (for instance Kan 1999). Still, even among Taiwanese scholarship, one can find large amount of publications on eminent monastics, such as Yinshun, Xingyun 星雲, and Zhengyan 證嚴.

2 Asserting or Questioning the Binary of Decline and Revival The dualism of decline (shuailuo 衰落) vs. revival (fuxing 复兴) has become a cardinal axis in most of the recent Chinese scholarship on modern Buddhism in the mainland. This idea of the revival/fuxing has appeared often in academic writings to label two moments in the modern history of Chinese Buddhism: the two decades from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the dawn of the Republican era; and the early decades after the Cultural Revolution and the opening under Deng Xiaoping. More recently, some scholars have suggested that China may be facing a third revival at the dawn of the twenty-first century (Ji, Tian, and Wang 2016, 1). Chinese and Western scholars have all debated this issue, since a few decades after the first ‘revival’, and it certainly became a keyword found in several publications since then. As for the so-called ‘first revival’, Holmes Welch titled one of his most important books The Revival of Buddhism in China (1968), the only title among his writings translated into Chinese.5 Welch aside, many scholars have adopted the

5 The book was translated in 2006 under the title Zhongguo fojiao de fuxing 中國佛教的復興.

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narrative of decline and revival, but many others have also debated and questioned it. In contrast to his Chinese counterparts, Welch had problematized the adoption of the term ‘revival’ in the conclusions of his book. Of similar opinion were other Western scholars from 1920s–1930s, a pre-Welch scholarship that informed Welch himself, and in fact they seem to share the same views on a wave of revival of Buddhism in China. For example, Lewis Hodous wrote: There are signs of a revival of Buddhism in China. Whether this is a tide, or a wave, only the future can reveal [. . .] When the republic was established Buddhism felt a wave of reform. The monasteries established schools for monks and children. (Hodous 1923)

Also in the 1920s, James Bissett Pratt expanded on this argument: Even in distant America one hears a good deal about the Buddhist revival in China. The phase is becoming familiar and the subject attracts one’s interest from afar [. . .] There is thus both a ceremonial, a mystical, and an intellectual side to the Buddhist revival. There is also an active side [. . .] But most of the energy of the Buddhist revival goes into efforts at reform within Buddhism and attempts to propagate it [. . .] But the aim of the leaders of the Buddhist revival is not to reproduce the ancient Buddhism but to purify the religion from the superstitions that have gathered round it, to harmonize it within modern science, and to spread abroad a knowledge of the essentials of Mahayana thought [. . .] The Buddhist revival is as yet quite unorganized and has but slight funds [. . .] A slight effort toward Buddhist revival is also made by preaching or lecturing services [. . .] I am not over sanguine as to the success of the Buddhist revival in China. (Bissett Pratt 1928)

Many scholars who have observed a renewal of Buddhism as China deepened its policy of reform and opening under Deng Xiaoping have advanced the idea of a second ‘revival’. Wang-Toutain (1997) interpreted this early on as part of a broader revival of religion, while Wu saw this as consequence of globalization (2009). Fisher (2011a) looked at this second revival from the perspective of the increasing number of lay Buddhism in the context of a quest for morality. Ji embedded this trend within the broader context of ongoing secularization (Ji 2011b; Ji and Goossaert 2011), while Laliberté and Wu saw it within the parameters determined by the state as it consolidates its policies of control over religious affairs (Laliberté 2011; Wu 2011). An exception among their colleagues, Chen and Deng (2000), preferred to use the term fuxing (revival) to label the features of Buddhism from the late nineteenth century onward. They argued that the revival movement (fuxing yundong 復興運動) was a response to the many challenges faced by China at the end of the Qing Dynasty. They also wrote in terms of huge changes (juda biange 巨大變革) in the Buddhist community, some of which responded to the challenge of the new relations established between religion and politics. According to Travagnin,

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The reason behind Chen and Deng’s adoption of the term fuxing in relation to Buddhism in general and Saṅgha education in particular, however, appears similar to why Welch used that term in his work. If Welch was responding to the contemporary Christian-biased view of Chinese Buddhism, Chen and Deng are representative of an intellectual China that is politically framed and is asked to present a certain portrayal of the new nation and of Buddhism’s role in it. (Travagnin 2017a, 232–233)

As Wang Qiyuan (2016) observed, Chinese Buddhism lived moments of downturn and recovery and regeneration throughout its history, because of internal reasons (death of charismatic school patriarchs or rise through the ranks of a new one) or external factors (local and international politics).6 The binary of decline and revival is a relatively recent trope: it is with the beginning of the twentieth century that this terminology becomes popular to label positively ‘resurgence’ and negatively ‘decline’ (Wang 2016, 3). However, changes permeating Buddhism in the so-called ‘first revival’ are not unprecedented in the Chinese history of Buddhism viewed in the longue durée. For instance, as Wang pointed out, figures and events of the late Ming showed features of the Buddhist landscape similar to those of the Republican period (Wang 2016, 16–24). The twentieth century did see new attitudes emerging in response to unprecedented social processes. These included new ways to approach (and even emulate) Christianity, which became known as a new posture of revival (fuxing zitai 复兴姿态) (Zhang 2016); the effect on Buddhist laity of the urbanization process (dushihua 都市化) (Li and Li 2016); and the expansion of transnational Sangha networks in response to a renewed form of transnationalism (Wank and Ashiwa 2016). Many Chinese and Western scholars have questioned whether these changes constitute a single process of revival (fuxing), or a series of revivals. Schicketanz (2017) argued that moments of decline and resurgence are not new to the overall history of Buddhism: he claimed that they are innate to the general existence of the Dharma, which goes through the three phases of emergence/ resurgence (and correct practice), corruption, and final decline and disappearance. Moreover, he advocated the contextualization of the narrative of decline that Chinese monks had deplored in the late Qing, and proposed to read them not as objective observations, but as rhetorical devices used for specific purposes. Finally, Shicketanz wondered how the centrality of sectarianism in Japanese Buddhism, and thus the Japanese accounts of modern Chinese Buddhism, had influenced the narrative of decline and revival in China during the late Qing, given the emphasis

6 See the introduction he wrote for the volume he co-edited in 2016 with Ji Zhe and Tian Shuijing.

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on the schools (zong) that had disappeared and those that, since the early twentieth-century, experienced a renaissance (2017, 283–291).7

3 Buddhism for the Human Realm: A Controversial Idea during the ROC and a Flag during the PRC Of all the transformations within Buddhism in the twentieth-century China and Taiwan, renjian fojiao 人间佛教, translated as ‘humanistic Buddhism’, ‘Buddhism for the human realm’, or ‘this worldly Buddhism’, has received a lot of attention since its inception. In her brief historical overview of the ‘twentiethcentury renjian fojiao’, Travagnin summarized that it “started as a reaction to the mainly liturgical Buddhism from the late Qing period, a reaction also inspired by the Christian groups that were more and more present in China during those decades” (Travagnin 2017b, 182). She sees it as a practice that claims to maintain an other-worldly attitude (chushi 出世) in its engagement with social questions (rushi 入世) and its concerns with humanitarian, social and cultural affairs. It adapts to the present situation (qiji 契機) while preserving the core principles of the Dharma (qili 契理). Other key characteristics include a reevaluation of the role of laywomen and nuns, the use of new technology and social media, more constructive attempts to establish a pan-Buddhist perspective and inter-faith dialogue, new educational structures and curricula for the Sangha, and closer relations and cooperation between the Sangha and the laity (Travagnin 2017b, 182–194). The history of renjian fojiao spans a century and counts three main phases. It started in the early twentieth century with its formal theorization by Buddhist monks in China – Taixu stood out but he was not alone. Then, Buddhist monks who took refuge to Taiwan after 1949 brought it there and became key influence in the development of Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan in the post-colonial period. Finally, increased interactions between Taiwan and China towards the end of the twentieth century brought to China the Taiwanese reinvention and practice of renjian fojiao. Originally, many Buddhists recognized renjian fojiao as the core of Buddhadharma, hence not an innovation but just the reevaluation of the ‘correct’ 7 See for instance the restoration of the Chinese version of the Yogācāra School (weishi zong 唯识宗).

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Dharma. The monk Cihang 慈航 (1893–1954) was among the first Buddhists to have used the term renjian fojiao in the early 1940s as he founded the journal Renjian fojiao yuekan 人間佛教月刊 (Monthly Buddhism for the Human Realm). However, as said earlier, the monk Taixu had already proposed the foundations of this concept in his theorizing of rensheng fojiao 人生佛教 (translated mostly as ‘Buddhism for the Human Life’ or ‘Human Buddhism’) in the 1920s. The phenomenon of renjian fojiao intersects with other larger narratives in the political sphere and in the discourse on identity. For instance, in its early formative stages, a politicization of the concept (and in a certain sense its secularization) unfolded, when Taixu (1928 and 1932) argued that rensheng fojiao embodied the Three Principles of the People and the Confucian ideal of datong 大同 (Great Unity). Similarly in China since the 1980s, Taixu’s renjian fojiao gradually became the main trend of the Buddhist Association of China. In doing so the concept came to embody the idea of national identity and aligned with the policies of the Chinese Communist Party. In the second half of the twentieth century, with renjian fojiao taking root in Taiwan, Buddhism in the island had adopted the ideological heritage of a modern Buddhism rooted in Republican China, thereby severing the legacy of Japanese colonial rule. With the growth of the discourse on Taiwanese identity and the process of bentuhua 本土化 in the last decade of the twentieth century, local scholars looked for the Taiwanese roots of renjian fojiao, arguing that local monks, like the controversial Lin Qiuwu 林秋悟 (1903–1934), had developed the same ideas as Taixu in Taiwan during the colonial period (Li 1991). According to such views, renjian fojiao did not only result from the direct influence of Chinese Buddhism, but it constituted a phenomenon rooted in the far wider social-religious milieu of the greater East Asian region. Taixu, the theorizer of rensheng fojiao, was enshrined by Zhao Puchu 赵朴初 (1907–2000) as the ‘patriarch’ of renjian fojiao for the BAC in contemporary China (Zhu 2009, 211–214),8 while Yinshun 印順 (1906–2005), a monk from China who moved to Taiwan in the early 1950s, was labelled by students (like the nun Zhaohui and the lay scholar Yang Huinan) and disciples (mostly the nun Zhengyan, b.1937) as the father of the post-colonial ‘Taiwanese Buddhism’, and the theorizer of renjian fojiao as it was known and practiced in Taiwan (Jiang

8 To quote from Zhu 2009, 213: “In the twentieth century, Taixu formulated Buddhism for the Human Realm, but what he particularly stressed was Buddhism for Human Life, which he articulated in the book Buddhism for Human Life. According to Taixu, Buddhism for the Human Realm is less significant than Buddhism for the Human Life. Taixu claimed that Buddhism must adapt to contemporary society, that is, ‘for human life’ in attitude, and ‘for the human realm’ in scope.” See also Zhao 2012, 107–111, 139–144.

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2001a; Yang 1991; Xuan 2003; Zhaohui 1995). Other voices added, directly or indirectly, to the ‘renjian fojiao lineage’, like the monk Xingyun (b.1927) founder of Foguangshan. Moreover, in China today there are continuous symposia and editing works in celebration of Taixu,9 while in Taiwan there are yearly conferences centered on the theme of renjian fojiao; the development of that trend has generated considerable attention also in Hong Kong, where various research centers and symposia10 have been convened to assess that approach to Buddhism (Xue 2012). If we look at recent scholarship on this concept, Deng (1998) wrote an entire history of this subject, which he framed as a major Buddhist innovation of the twentieth century. Some of the first analyses of this trend in a Western language were done by Jones (1999) who referred to that trend in his monograph on the history of Buddhism in Taiwan, and by Chandler (2004), who analyzed the related concept of renjian jingtu 人間淨土 (Pure Land on Earth) within the context of Foguangshan. A more recent publication, by Travagnin, assessed and summarized the overall genealogy of the phenomenon (2017b). Sociologists in China have devoted considerable amount of attention to this phenomenon locally, portraying that doctrinal innovation as a contributing factor leading to its acceptance by the state (Li 2002). The thoughts of monastics and lay people influenced by that approach have received attention from prominent historians of Chinese Buddhism (Deng, Chen, and Mao 2008). The most recent publication on renjian fojiao produced in China (Deng and Chen 2017) explores its hundredyear history, reflects on social and political inference and influence, and highlights a large numbers of Buddhists who, according to the authors, are key figures in the development of this practice. Innovative aspects of this publication are the attention to the pluralism of forms and practices that fall under the umbrella term renjian fojiao (duoyuan yiti 多元一体), and classifies this plurality also under the categories of Dharma lineages (famai 法脉) and Dharma gates (famen 法门). Finally, besides giving special emphasis on Taixu, the two-volume oeuvre explores the history of renjian fojiao not only in reference to Taixu and the mainland (dalu bian 大陆编), but also in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao

9 See for instance the conference organized in August 2017 (Ningbo, Zhejiang) in memory of the 70th anniversary of the death of Taixu (Taixu dashi yuanji qishi zhounian jinian dahui 太虚 大师圆寂七十周年纪念大会). 10 After its opening of the Renjian fojiao yanjiuyuan 人間佛教研究院 (Humanistic Buddhism Research Institute), Foguangshan organized yearly international Renjian fojiao luntan 人間佛 教論壇 (Humanistic Buddhist Symposia) in Taiwan; later on, it inaugurated at the Chinese University of Hong Kong the Renjian fojiao yanjiu zhongxin 人間佛教研究中心 (Centre for the Study of Humanistic Buddhism), which initiated yearly conferences on the topic as well.

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(taigang’ao bian 台港澳编), and overseas (haiwai bian 海外编), which concerns mostly South Asia and South East Asia.

4 Japanese Impact on the Making of a Modern Chinese Buddhism Outside Chinese-speaking societies, the scholarship in Japanese on modern Chinese Buddhism, not surprisingly, is considerable. Some colleagues have remarked that while the Red Guard destroyed many records of the Chinese Buddhist institutions, Japan acted as a major repository for that tradition, and as a result there was at some points more texts published in Japanese than in Chinese on Buddhism in China. The contribution of Japanese scholarship on Chinese Buddhism is not limited to the past century. In fact, Japanese monks (from, for instance, Zen and Tendai schools) wrote extensive and important works on Chinese Buddhism and texts since the early stages of Buddhism in Japan. Moreover, early forms of transnational networks and student monks traveling within East Asia (Korea, China, Japan) in the first millennium have been identified and explored (Bingenheimer 2001). What distinguished the time period starting from the late nineteenth century is a more complex transfer of knowledge from Japan to China, and from Japan to Taiwan, involving different actors, channels of transmission, and stages. We detect at least two major historical periods in this transfer of knowledge: the first phase goes from the end of the nineteenth century to the mid of twentieth century; this is the phase of transmission from Japan to China, and assimilation within Chinese circles. The second started in the second half of the twentieth century, and proposed the Chinese reaction to those works, which translated into the Chinese rethinking of Buddhist history and doctrinal categories, and the consequent development of new debates within the Chinese Buddhist circle. This second phase, in the last few decades, also brought scholarship produced in Japan and in Japanese language that reassessed the exchanges between Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese Buddhism from the Meiji onwards (see for instance Chen 2003; Schicketanz 2016 and 2017; Sueki 2012), highlighting important trajectories also in terms of the decline and revival paradigm. Channels of transmission included Japanese translations of Western early works on Buddhism, Chinese translation and republication in China for some of them, the recovery and return to China of key canonical texts that had

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disappeared (some reinstated later into the Taisho version of the Tripitaka),11 and scholarly debates on key issues of textual authorship and translation.12 This process had started at the very beginning of the Meiji Restoration (1868). Hence, the establishment of the Jinling Scriptural Press (jinling kejingchu 金陵 刻經處), which was the first Buddhist cultural organism founded by the laity in Modern China, dates from those years. In the years 1878–1886 Yang Wenhui 楊文會 (1837–1911) travelled to England, where he had the opportunity to see Chinese old scriptures, learn some ‘new’ Western methods of textual analysis and meet the Japanese Nanjō Bun'yū 南条文雄 (1849–1927). It was thanks to Nanjō Bun'yū that afterwards he obtained the return into China of important scriptures dated from the Sui and Tang dynasties, a total of about 280 scriptures, and more than 1000 fascicles.13 The actors include both Japanese, Chinese, and Taiwanese figures. Many Japanese scholars translated from Western sources and relaborated features of Buddhist history. For instance, Teramoto Enga 寺本婉雅 translated Tibetan books14 and authored works concerning the Mādhyamika School with a focus on the figure of Nāgārjuna. Reading through Yinshun’s literary production, Teramoto Enga also authored the translation of History of Buddhism in India, originally composed by Tāranātha.15 Many Chinese monks sent to Japan to retrieve Japanese translations as well as Japanese historical and doctrinal works translated (at least some of) them into Chinese. An outstanding example is the monk Mochan 墨禪, who played a

11 Among the scriptures returned from Japan and reprinted in China, there are Jizang’s 吉藏 commentaries on the San-lun texts: Zhongguan lun shu 中觀論疏 [T42 n1824], Bai lun shu 百論 疏 [T42 n1827] and Shi’er men lun shu 十二門論疏 [T42 n1825]. 12 Crucial works, available in China already in the 1930s, were Kimura Taiken’s 木村泰賢 Genshi Bukkyō shisōron 原始佛教思想論; and Indo tetsugaku shūkyo shi 印度哲学宗教史 edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Kimura Taiken. Worth of notice is also the amount of Japanese scholarship on authorship and Chinese translation of key scriptures for Chinese Mahāyāna, such as Da zhidu lun 大智度論 [T25 n1509] (see for instance Hikata Ryūsho 千潟龍祥 1958; Miyaji Kakue 宮地廓慧 1932). 13 These are only three out of the 64 works requested by Yang Wenhui to Nanjō Bun'yū in September 1891. The main sources on the subject are: Chan 1985, 20–21; Chen and Deng 2000, 103–107; Chen 2003, 77–94, 119–203, 551–584; Goldfuss 1996 and 2001; Pittman 2001, 41–50; Welch 1968, 2–10, 98–100. 14 His translation of the Tibetan Akutobhayā (including a critical comment and an in-depth debate on some key issues relative to the scripture) was published as Ryūjū zō. Chūron muisho 龍樹造‧中論畏疏 (Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha, 1937). 15 Teramoto’s translation was entitled Tāranāta Indo Bukkyōshi (Tokyo: Heigo Shuppansha, 1928).

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major role in bridging the two regions at the beginning of the twentieth century.16 Native of Zhejiang, after entering the monkhood he studied at the Wuchang Buddhist Institute (Wuchang foxueyuan 武昌佛學院); in 1931, he moved to Japan and enrolled in the Taishō University. During that time, he was very active in strengthening relations between Japan and China (Yinshun 1950, 367–370).17 In 1935, in cooperation with other monks such as Tanxuan 談玄, Mochan participated in the planning and establishment of the Sino-Japanese Buddhist Association (Zhongri fojiao xuehui 中日佛教學會). Mochan brought Japanese translations of Western works that were circulating in Japan, and Japanese Buddhist writings that he collected during his study in Japan, and made this literature available in China. Mochan thus became an eminent figure who played a significant role in the Dharma and Sangha exchange (and dialogue) between China and Japan in the first half of the twentieth-century. Likewise, Taiwanese students who moved to Japan for studying abroad were affected by Japanese research methods and innovative approaches to Buddhist texts and history. This was the case with Lin Qiuwu, the unconventional Buddhist Marxist intellectual, who studied at Komazawa University 駒沢大學 in the 1920s (Li 1991). A number of Taiwanese nuns did the same – although they did not share Lin’s political views (Huiyan 1998 and 1999). The influence of Japan would continue for decades after the end of colonial rule, as Shengyan attested when he wrote about his experience of studying in Japan decades later (Shengyan 1979). Needless to say, Japanese occupation of Taiwan also played a key role in bringing Japanese scholarship into Taiwan and facilitated the circulation of texts from Taiwan to China (Huiyan 1998 and 1999; Jiang 2001b; Jones 1999). Another important venue of Japanese influence on the process of modernization of Chinese Buddhism was the area of Sangha education. The model of Japanese Buddhist universities and Sangha education (Eisaburo 1984; Makoto 2009 and 2012; Tanigawa 2008) was implemented in China and Taiwan directly and indirectly from the late nineteenth century. Directly, via the Japanese Buddhist establishment of Sangha Study Halls (seng xuetang 僧學堂) in, for instance, Yangzhou and Nanjing,18 and the Middle Study Abodes (zhongxuelin 中學林) and

16 Among other achievements, in 1935 he translated Yabuki Keiki’s 矢吹慶輝 Sankaikyō no kenkyū 三級教の研究 (Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 1927) into Chinese for the journal Haichao yin 海潮音 (1935). 17 Memories from May 1934. 18 The Putong seng xueyuan 普通僧學堂 in Yangzhou and the Seng shifan xuetang 僧師範學堂 in Nanjing.

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Study Abodes (xuelin 學林) in Taiwan.19 Indirectly, via the visits of mainland Buddhist educators to Japan (see Taixu 1928); the presence of Chinese students in Japan and, within them, the various Buddhist student-monks associations who formed at the time of the May 4th Movement. As the Taiwanese monk Dao’an 道安 (1907–1977) wrote in his diary, by going to study in Japan, he aimed to learn about their schooling systems and curricula and reproduce them later in the Chinese region (Dao’an 1980, v.5: 231).20

Conclusion: Looking Forward In writing this chapter, we wanted to focus on a few themes that have been crucial in the study of Chinese Buddhism from the late Qing onwards. But in doing so, we had to make difficult choices since the scholarship is quite large. Certainly, other themes have emerged, especially following an easier access to archives and Chinese sources, and in response to new phenomena that have become part of Buddhism in contemporary China. In this section, we take stocks of some of the issues that deserve more investigation and point to some of the pioneering works that have opened the field. The history of modern Buddhism in China has been generally blind to its gendered dimension, a rather striking omission once we know more about the major contribution of women in the vitality of the religion. So far, the narrative of Buddhism remains mostly the history of male Buddhism. Yet, the prominence of nuns in many monastic orders such as Foguangshan, and the high participation by women in lay Buddhist associations such as Tzu Chi, as leaders, volunteers, and devotees, reveal the importance of women’s agencies in Chinese Buddhism. A new body of scholarship seeks to understand this key aspect of Chinese Buddhism. This includes historical overviews of nuns’ networks and nunneries from the late Qing and the Republican period (He 1997) to contemporary China (DeVido 2015). It also comprises comparative analyses of vegetarian female monastic orders (zhaigu 齋姑) in China and Taiwan (Jiang 1996; Chang 2007; Li 2016), and studies of monastic discipline and temple rules in nunneries in contemporary China (Chiu and Heirman 2014) and Taiwan (Chiu and Heirman 2012). Moving to a

19 For instance, the Taiwan fojiao zhongxuelin 台灣佛教中學林 (Zen Soto school opened in 1917), and the Zhennan xuelin 鎮南學林 (Zen Rinzai School opened in 1918). Needless to say, the Japanese colonial period affected Buddhist communities in Taiwan in a direct way more substantially (Huiyan 1998 and 1999; Jiang 2001b). 20 Dao’an’s diary, 18 August 1949.

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more micro approach, scholars like Travagnin have offered studies of Taiwanese nuns and nunneries belonging to Yinshun’s neworks, as renjian fojiao practitioners (Travagnin 2005 and 2007). Finally, others have also produced biographies and in-depth studies of individual nuns like Longlian 隆蓮 (1909–2006) (Bianchi 2017), Elder Gongga 貢噶老人 (1903–1997) (Travagnin 2016), Zhengyan 證嚴 (b.1937) (Travagnin 2007; Huang 2009), and Zhaohui 昭慧 (b.1957) (Travagnin 2007). The appraisal by Huang and Weller (1998) of women in Tzu Chi, however, had cautioned that the agency of women in Buddhism does not constitute a form of empowerment the way that most feminist scholars usually understand this term: they viewed the active participation of women in Buddhist association as reinforcing rather traditional gender roles. This academic sub-field of women in Chinese Buddhism developed in parallel – and in dialogue with – related sub-fields on women in Chinese religion in general (Kang and Chen 2014), and more specific studies of women in popular religions (Kang 2006), and women in Daoism (Despeux 2003).21 The scholars who have looked into women’s place in Buddhism have inevitably steered our attention to the situation of lay Buddhism, because too few women are monastics in prominent positions – especially in China – and the importance of their participation as lay devotees is undeniable. The limited amount of scholarly production does not reflect this importance of lay devotees and its capital role in the renewal and preservation of the tradition. The field research of Fisher (2011b, 2014, 2016) constitutes a rare exception. His work has focused on this particular aspect of the tradition and paid attention to the divergence of interests between lay Buddhists and their spiritual masters, revealing that on some occasions, the former may be more rigorous in matters of religious observance than monastics. Ji (2011a) has pioneered another area of research with his investigation of Buddhist youth camps, a crucial dimension of lay Buddhism in China that has managed to circumvent the strict regulations imposed by the state. Those camps are vital because the reproduction of the tradition relies to some extent on its capacity to inspire young people to take over the institutions and carry it forward. The existence of these youth camps, which have represented in recent years an opportunity for young Buddhists to learn about the tradition, allows them to do so without contradicting the state strictures and restrictions that forbid religious education before the age of eighteen. Looking at the history of 21 See also Nichols’ chapter in this volume for an ethnographic account of nunneries on Mt. Emei; and two chapters in Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions III: Elena Valussi’s study of conceptualization of – and debate on – ‘gender’ in Chinese religious and intellectuals circles, and Ya-ning Kao’s research on Zhuang female shamans.

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Buddhist youth camps before the Cultural Revolution, Jessup (2012) has revealed that in the early decades of the PRC, they already constituted a path to the incorporation of young Buddhists into the political system. This kind of continuity certainly invites us to question the interpretive frame of revival. For centuries, pilgrimages and retreats constituted altogether another aspect of continuity for Buddhism. There have been numerous studies on this aspect of the tradition, some of which evocative of religious sites as pathways to paradise (Hargett 2006). As for youth camps, modernization has inevitably led to major qualitative and quantitative changes, pilgrimage giving way to mass tourism, and the inevitable contradiction between the depreciation incurred by the influx of non-believers in religious sites, and cash-strapped governments’ need to generate sorely needed funds. While Fisher (2011b) has described the disputes generated by these conflicting goals, Vidal (2014) has focused on the circulation of wealth around the organization of pilgrimages. In relation to this risk of damage to religious sites caused by mass piligrimage, too few texts have paid attention to the Chinese Buddhist perspectives on the environment, which is somewhat surprising considering the fact that this religion extends compassion to non-human forms of life. One exception is the reseach on the practice of fangsheng 放生, or animal release, which has received some scrutiny from scholars who have examined the consequences of that practice on the environment, public health, and local economies (Shiu and Stokes 2008; Yang 2015). Finally, philanthropy represents a dimension of lay Buddhist activity that has received scant attention among Western scholars, despite the fact that this constitute a central dimension of renjian fojiao. Chinese scholars have looked into Buddhist charity in-depth, and a wide variety of interpretations and analyses have emerged. Liu Yuanchun 刘元春 (2006) has examined it as the expression of a popular form of Buddhism in urban centers, Zhang Xueben 张学本 looked at it as a component of good governance by the state, while Zhou Qiuguang 周秋光 and Ceng Guilin 曾桂林 (2006) saw it a major component of Chinese charity in general. Systematic comparisons between Chinese and Taiwanese philanthropy undertaken by Deng (2012) has led him to conclude that while Buddhist philanthropy has started from a lower base in China relative to Taiwan, it has developed very fast, a process that requires, however, continued cooperation between each side of the Taiwan Strait. The analysis of Chinese homegrown philanthropy by academics based in China has revealed a wide variety of ways in which it has developed over the years (Deng and Wang 2012). Aware of the political potential that a socially useful religious institution can deploy, Chinese scholars doing research on Buddhism have been careful in depicting the traditional origins of Buddhist philanthropy, and therefore, pleaded indirectly for its acceptance by the government (He 2014). The field of Buddhist charity in China is

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indebted to the scholarship assembled by Wang Jia (2014), who has brought together many scholars presenting the contributions of Buddhist philanthropy to Chinese society in past dynasties, in the Republican period, outside the PRC, and inside, since the period of opening and reform. Among the few non-Chinese scholars who have looked at Buddhist philanthropy, Laliberté had paid attention to Taiwanese Buddhist philanthropy in China (Laliberté 2003 and 2008), a process parallel to the institutionalization of Chinese Buddhist charities (Laliberté 2009). In this context, he argues that while Buddhist philanthropy represents a form of non-confrontational form of civility, it does not constitute an alternative one (Laliberté 2012). It does, however, serve very well the nationalist agenda of unification between China and Taiwan, as long as the Taiwanese Buddhist associations in China do not upset the local institutional arrangements (Laliberté 2013). McCarthy (2013), looking at Catholic and Buddhist charity, has seen in such activity of service to the state a form of agency and resistance, albeit a low-level one that breaks down the barrier that separates the religious and non-religious spheres of social life. A culmination of that area of inquiry by Chinese and Western scholars is the recent research, in English, by Weller, Wu, Fan, and Huang (2017), who have looked into Buddhist philanthropy in a comparative perspective in China, Taiwan, and Malaysia, and developed their concepts of political merit-making generated by philanthropy on an industrial scale. They conclude that this charitable action, by efficiently camouflaging religion, successfully brings it back to the public sphere. These international networks of Taiwanese Buddhist philanthropy and the attempts by China to emulate them have repercussions on the international stage. Chinese Buddhism is becoming increasingly visible on the global arena, a reality that reflects China’s rise to prominence in the world economy, as well as strategically. As Ji (2014) documented with Chinese Buddhists in France, and as Huang (2009) and Chandler (2004) did for Taiwanese Buddhists across continents, this presence extends far away from China. It is hard to assess to what extent such evolution will assist states in their projection of soft power, but that evolution cries out for more study of the overseas expansion of Buddhist associations across all continents.

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Kan Zhengzhong 闞正宗. 1999. Taiwan fojiao yibainian 台灣佛教一百年. Taipei: Dongda chubanshe. Kan Zhengzhong 闞正宗. 2004a. Chongdu Taiwan fojiao: zhanhou Taiwan fojiao (zheng bian) 重讀台灣佛教：戰後台灣佛教（正編）. Taipei: Daqian. Kan Zhengzhong 闞正宗. 2004b. Chongdu Taiwan fojiao: zhanhou Taiwan fojiao (xu bian) 重讀 台灣佛教：戰後台灣佛教（續編）. Taipei: Daqian. Kang, Xiaofei. 2006. The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press. Kang, Xiaofei, Chen Jinhua, and Ping Yao, eds. 2014. Gendering Chinese Religion: Subject, Identity and Body. New York: SUNY Press. Kiely, Jan, and Brooks Jessup, eds. 2016. Recovering Buddhism in Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press. Kimura Taiken 本村泰賢. 1922. Genshi Bukkyo shisoron 原始仏教思想論. Tōkyō: Heigo Shuppansha Lai Yonghai 赖永海. 2000–2001. Zhongguo Fojiao Baike quanshu 中国佛教百科全书. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. Laliberté, André. 2003. “‘Love Transcends Borders’ or ‘Blood is Thicker than Water’? The Charity Work of the Compassion Relief Foundation in the People’s Republic of China.” European Journal of East Asian Studies 2, no.2: 243–261. Laliberté, André. 2008. “‘Harmonious Society’, ‘Peaceful Re-unification’, and the Dilemmas Raised by Taiwanese Charity.” In The Chinese Party-State in the 21st Century, edited by André Laliberté and Marc Lanteigne, 78–105. London and New York: Routledge. Laliberté, André. 2009. “The Institutionalization of Buddhist Philanthropy in China.” In State and Society Responses to Social Welfare Needs in China, Serving the People, edited by J. Schwartz and S. Shieh, 113–134. London and New York: Routledge. Laliberté, André. 2011. “Buddhist Revival under State Watch.” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 40, no.2: 107–134. Laliberté, André. 2012. “Buddhist Charities and China’s Social Policy: An Opportunity for Alternate Civility?” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 158: 95–117. Laliberté, André. 2013. “The Growth of a Taiwanese Buddhist Association in China: Soft Power and Institutional Learning.” China Information 27, no.1: 81–105. Li Silong 李四龍 et al. 2017. Fojiao yu dangdai zhongguo wenhua jianshe 佛教與當代中國文化 建設. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe. Li Tiehua 李铁华 and Li Zhaojian 李兆健. 2016. “Minguo shiqi dushi fojiao yiyao cishan shiye lueshuo” 民国时期都市佛教医药慈善事业略说. In Ershi shiji zhongguo fojiao de liangci fuxing 二十世纪中国佛教的两次复兴, edited by Ji Zhe, Tian Shuijing, Wang Qiyuan, 51–59. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe. Li Xiangping 李向平. 2002. “Ershi shiji zhongguo fuojiao de ‘geming zouxiang’: jianlun ‘renjian fuojiao’ sichao de xiandaixing wenti” 二十世纪中国佛教的‘革命走向’——兼论‘人 间佛教’思潮的现代性问题. Shijie zongjiao yanjiu世界宗教研究 3: 42–56. Li Xiaofeng 李筱峯. 1991. Taiwan geming seng: Lin Qiuwu 臺灣革命僧：林秋悟. Taipei: Zili wanbaoshe wenhua chubanshe. Li Yuzhen 李玉珍. 2016. Zhanhou Taiwan fojiao yu nüxing: Li Yuzhen zixuan ji 戰後台灣佛教與 女性: 李玉珍自選集 Taipei: Boyang wenhua gongsi. Liu Yuanchun 刘元春. 2006. “Minjian fojiao cishan huodong de tedian yu yingxiang: Shanghai ‘yaohualu nianfo xiaozu’ cishan huodong jishi” 民间佛教慈善活动的特点与影响——上海 ‘曜华路念佛小组’慈善活动纪实. Shijie zongjiao yanjiu 世界宗教研究 4: 135–141.

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Makoto Hayashi 淳林. 2009. “Shūkyō kei Daigaku to Shūkyōgaku” 宗教系大学と宗教学. Kikan Nihon Shishōshi 季刊日本思想史 72: 71–88. Makoto Hayashi. 2012. “General Education and the Modernization of Japanese Buddhism.” The Eastern Buddhist 43, no.1/2: 133–152. McCarthy, Susan K. 2013. “Serving Society, Repurposing the State: Religious Charity and Resistance in China.” The China Journal 70: 48–72. Miyaji Kakue 宮地廓慧. 1932. “A Viewpoint on the Textual Criticism of the Ta-chih-tu-lun.” Ryūkoku Daigaku Ronsō 龍谷大学論叢 304: 514–542. Nichols, Brian J. 2017. “Taking Welch and The Practice of Chinese Buddhism into the 21st century.” Studies in Chinese Religions 3, no.3: 258–280. Pittman, Don A. 2001. Towards a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu’s Reforms. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Pratt, James Bissett. 1928. The Pilgrimage of Buddhism and a Buddhist Pilgrimage. London: Macmillan and Co. Schicketanz, Erik. 2016. Daraku to fukko no kindai chugoku bukkyo: Nihon bukkyo tono kaiko to sono rekishizo no kochiku 堕落と復興の近代中国仏教:日本仏教との邂逅とその歴史像 の構築. Tokyo: Hozokan. Schicketanz, Erik. 2017. “Narratives of Buddhist decline and the concept of the sect (zong) in modern Chinese Buddhist Thought.” Studies in Chinese Religions 3, no.3: 281–300. Scott, Gregory Adam. 2017. “Buddhist building and the Buddhist revival in the work of Holmes Welch.” Studies in Chinese Religions 3, no.3: 204–219. Shengyan 聖嚴. 1979. Cong dongyang dao xiyang 從東洋到西洋. Taipei: Dongchu chubanshe. Shiu, Henry, and Leah Stokes. 2008. “Buddhist Animal Release Practices: Historic, Environmental, Public Health and Economic Concerns.” Contemporary Buddhism 9, no.2: 181–196. Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美. ed. 2012. Kindai to Bukkyō 近代と仏教. Kyōto-shi: Kokusai Nihon Bunka Kenkyū Sentā. Taixu 太虛. 1928. “Quanguo jiaoyu huiyi tiyi’an” 全国教育会议提议案. Haichaoyin wenku 海潮 音文库 5: 85–91. Taixu 太虛. 1932. “Yiwei zhongsheng de fofa zuowei min de sanmin zhuyi zhi xianfeng” 以为 众生的佛法作为民的三民主义的先锋. Xiandai fojiao 现代佛教 5, no.1: 114. Takakusu Junjiro 高楠順次郎 and Kimura Taiken 本村泰賢. 1914. Indo tetsugaku shūkyō shi 印 度智学宗教史. Tōkyō: Heigo Shuppansha. Tam Wai Lun 谭伟伦. 2007. Minjian fojiao yanjiu 民间佛教研究. Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju. Tanigawa Yutaka 谷川穣. 2008. Meiji zenki no kyōiku kyōka bukkyō 明治前期の教育教化仏教. Kyoto: Shibunkaku Shuppan. Tarocco, Francesca. 2007. The Cultural Practices of Modern Chinese Buddhism: Attuning the Dharma. New York and London: Routledge. Teramoto Enga 寺本婉雅. 1928. Tāranāta Indo Bukkyōshi ターラナータ印度仏教史. Tokyo: Heigo Shuppansha. Teramoto Enga 寺本婉雅. 1937. Ryūjū zō. Chūron muisho 龍樹造: 中論畏疏. Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha. Travagnin, Stefania. 2005. “Master Yinshun and Buddhist Women in Taiwan: Fayuan and Yitong Nunneries, Disciples of Guanyin in Northwest Taiwan.” In Out of the Shadows: Socially Engaged Buddhist Women, edited by Karma Lekshe Tsomo, 198–210. Delhi: Indian Books Centre.

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Travagnin, Stefania. 2007. “Master Yinshun and Buddhist Nuns in/for the Human Realm. Shift and Continuity from Theory to Practice of renjian fojiao in Contemporary Taiwan.” In The Margins of Becoming. Identity and Culture in Taiwan, edited by Carsten Storm and Mark Harrison, 83–100. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Travagnin, Stefania. 2016. “Elder Gongga 貢噶老人 (1903–1997) between China, Tibet and Taiwan: Assessing Life, Mission and Mummification of a Buddhist Woman.” The Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions 3: 250–272. Travagnin, Stefania. 2017a. “Buddhist Education between Tradition, Modernity and Networks: Reconsidering the ‘Revival’ of Education for the Saṅgha in Twentieth-century China.” Studies in Chinese Religions 3, no.3: 220–241. Travagnin, Stefania. 2017b. “Genealogy and Taxonomy of the Twentieth-century Renjian Fojiao 人間佛教: Mapping a famen 法門 from Mainland China and Taiwan to Europe.” Renjian fojiao xuebao 人間佛教學報 9: 180–197. Vidal, Claire. 2014. “Savoir-faire et savoir-être bouddhiques dans la Chine contemporaine. Du court-métrage au pèlerinage du Putuoshan.” Études chinoises 33, no.1: 147–157. Wang Dafei 王达伟 (David L. Wank) and Ashiwa Yoshiko 足羽与志子. 2016. “Xiandai zhongguo fojiao de kuaguo sengsu wangluo: kuayue minzu guojia de hezuo moshi yu ziyuan liutong” 现代中国佛教的跨国僧俗网络：跨越民族国家的合作模式与资源流通. In Ershi shiji zhongguo fojiao de liangci fuxing 二十世纪中国佛教的两次复兴, edited by Ji Zhe, Tian Shuijing, Wang Qiyuan, 113–136. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe. Wang Jia 王佳. 2014. Zhonguo fojiao he cishan gongyi shiye 中国宗教和慈善公益事业. Beijing: Zongjiao wehnua chubanshe. Wang Qiyuan 王啓元. 2016. “Cong wanming guan wanqing: sanbainian jian liangci fojiao fuxing” 从晚明观晚清：三百年间两次佛教复兴. In Ershi shiji zhongguo fojiao de liangci fuxing 二十世纪中国佛教的两次复兴, edited by Ji Zhe, Tian Shuijing, Wang Qiyuan, 3–24. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe. Wang-Toutain, Francoise. 1997. “La voix du Dharma se fait-elle de nouveau entendre en Chine?” In Renouveaux religieux en Asie, edited by Catherine Clémentin-Ojha, 61–81. Paris: EFEO. Welch, Holmes. 1967. The Practice of Chinese Buddhism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Welch, Holmes. 1968. The Buddhist Revival in China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Welch, Holmes. 1972. Buddhism under Mao. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Weller, Robert, Wu Keping, Fan Lizhu, and Julia C. Huang. 2017. Religion and Charity: The Social Life of Goodness in Chinese Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wu, Ka-ming. 2011. “Tradition Revival with Socialist Characteristics: Propaganda Storytelling turned Spiritual Service in Rural Yan’an.” The China Journal 66: 101–117. Wu, Keping. 2009. “In Search of Pure Land: Globalization and Buddhist Revival in Contemporary China.” Paper presented at the Conference on Religion and Globalization in Asia: Prospects, Patterns and Problems for the 21 st Century, University of San Francisco, 13–14 March 2009. Wu, Wei. 2017. “Making a Tibetan sect in twentieth-century China.” Studies in Chinese Religions 3, no.3: 242–257. Xuan Fang 宣方. 2003. “Renjian zhengdao shi cangsang: hou yinshun shidai de Taiwan renjian fojiao” 人間正道是滄桑：後印順時代的臺灣人間佛教. Pumen xuebao 普門學報 17: 1–15. Xue Yu 學愚, ed. 2012. Renjian fojiao yu dangdai lunli 人間佛教與當代伦理 Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju.

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Yang, Der-Ruey. 2015. “Animal Release: The Dharma Being Staged between Marketplace and Park.” Cultural Diversity in China 1, no.2: 141–163. Yang Huinan 楊惠南. 1991. Dangdai fojiao sixiang zhanwang 當代佛教思想展望. Taipei: Dongda. Yinshun. 1950. Taixu dashi nianpu 太虛大師年譜. Taipei: Zhengwen. Zhang Xueben 張學本. 2006. “Fojiao cishan yu zhengfu shanzhi” 佛教慈善與政府善治. In Fojiao yu guanli 佛教與管理, edited by Xue Yu 學愚, Lai Pinchao 賴品超, and Tan Weilun 譔偉倫 (2012), 167–179. Hong Kong: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe. Zhang Hua 张化. 2016. “20 shiji shangbanye fojiao xuexi jidujiao zhi xinfuxing: yi shanghai wei li” 20世纪上半叶佛教学习基督教之新复兴以上海为例.” In Ershi shiji zhongguo fojiao de liangci fuxing 二十世纪中国佛教的两次复兴, edited by Ji Zhe, Tian Shuijing, Wang Qiyuan, 25–50. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe. Zhang Mantao 張曼濤, ed. 1978. Zhong-Ri fojiao guanxi yanjiu 中日佛教關係研究. Taipei: Dacheng wenhua chubanshe. Zhao Puchu 赵朴初. 2012. Zhao Puchu dade wenhui 赵朴初大德文汇. Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe. Zhaohui 昭慧. 1995. Renjian fojiao de bozhongzhe 人間佛教的播種者. Taipei: Dongda. Zhou qiuguang 周秋光 and Ceng Guilin 曾桂林. 2006. Zhongguo cishan jianshi 中国慈善简史. Beijng: Renmin chubanshe. Zhu Hong 朱洪. 2009. Zhao Puchu shuo fo 赵朴初说佛. Beijing: Dangdai zhongguo chubanshe.

Brian J. Nichols

Advancing the Ethnographic Study of Han Buddhism in China Introduction As any ethnographer can tell you, the work of ethnography is messy.1 It is messy because it is an encounter between the researcher and an unscripted, unpredictable world that, in the case of China, is more than most, an unrelenting assault on one’s senses and mind. If that were not enough, our interlocutors present a number of distinct challenges. Our informants have their own and competing agendas, they are wont to repeat hearsay and misinformation, and often they prevaricate. Such prevarication in China is part of an array of internalized strategies of communication used by citizens to protect themselves under a legacy of surveillance. One of the jobs of the ethnographer becomes one of cross-checking information and accounts and verifying claims through participant observation. The story is hardly ever simple, but we have to figure how to make it intelligible. How well are we doing when it comes to the ethnographic study of Han Buddhism in China? This is the question explored in this chapter by reviewing the work of four long-term ethnographically-based studies of Han Buddhism in mainland China conducted from 2000 to 2011. While textual scholars have made invaluable contributions to our understanding of issues at the heart of religious studies, ethnographers play a critical role by examining religious phenomena among living populations. Ethnographers take on the challenge of mapping the territory they encounter in their fieldwork while grappling with the languages of the other. This mapping or making intelligible the messy terrain we encounter as ethnographers involves gathering data, determining how best to organize it, isolating patterns and salient points, and finally working up terms and frameworks that help make the

1 Feuchtwang cites a junior colleague declaring “It‘s a mess, it’s a mess” and adopts the term himself to describe ethnographic fieldwork (Feuchtwang 2010, 5); Denton-Jones declares her ethnographically-derived data is “messy” several times (Jones 2010, 136, 141, 183, 232). For anyone unconvinced that ethnographic study possesses greater challenges for coherence than textually-based scholarship, I will admit that certainly, there are ambiguities and challenges to reading and interpreting texts, but texts are fundamentally mediated in a way that contrasts with the immediacy of lived reality. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-007

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mess intelligible and comparable. Such is the inductive approach, which is used more or less by all of the scholars examined below.2 The field of religious studies has been enriched by a growing appreciation of ethnography as part of a multidimensional understanding of religious phenomena. Ethnography reveals religion materialized. Religion in situ, but not dead. Religion in the flesh and living so that we can observe relationships, interactions, and interpretations that are unexpected, off-script, and part of a dynamic and vibrant reality. If ethnography does one thing for the study of religion, it is its ability to help move understandings beyond intellectualized and normative views and reveal lived local manifestations of embodied traditions. Despite the promises of ethnographic research in the study of Buddhism, it remains underdeveloped. Although many scholars have spent time in Asia, too often our research fails to reflect the living religious environment one finds there. Although scholarship based solely on textual sources has made and continues to make valuable contributions to our understanding of religion, it, nevertheless, reflects a tendency in Orientalism critiqued by Edward Said in which “abstractions about the Orient, particularly those based on texts representing a ‘classical’ Oriental civilization, are always preferable to direct evidence drawn from modern Oriental realities.”3 Sounding this note in 1990, Michel Strickmann acerbically complained about the lack of ethnographic studies of Buddhism in China and Japan: “. . .American university programs in Buddhist studies [do not] appear to encourage research and fieldwork in the living Buddhist tradition; their neo-scholasticism excludes the phenomenal world.”4 Although the situation has improved significantly since this was written, with more scholarship on lived religion than ever, it remains true that our understanding of the lived practice of Asian religions remains less developed than our philological studies. With respect to the focus of this chapter, ethnographic studies of religion in mainland China were impossible for most of the twentieth century due to continual political upheavals, disruptions and war which is why scholars of Chinese religion have until recently trained and conducted research in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Along these lines it is important to note the recent growth in ethnographically-informed studies of Buddhism in contemporary Taiwan. These studies, including those by Laliberté (2004), Yao (2012), Yu (2013), DeVido (2010), Huang (2009), and Chandler (2004), come a long way in presenting a more balanced view of the tradition. And now, after reform and 2 Alison Denton Jones uses both top-down and bottom-up approaches. The others focus a bottom-up approach. 3 Said 1978, 300; Buswell 1992, 11. 4 Strickmann 1990, 108; Buswell 1992, 11.

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opening (gaige kaifang 改革开放) under Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China has opened to both international business and international travelers opening up the possibility for ethnographic study of any kind since the Maoist period. Although research on contemporary religion remains a sensitive topic, scholars have begun to gain access to the mainland for study and research beginning with the study of Daoism in Southeastern China by Kenneth Dean (1993) and John Lagerwey (2010) in the late 1980s and early 1990s.5 This work on Daoism itself followed the groundbreaking ethnographic study of Daoism in Taiwan, especially Tainan, by Schipper (1982) and Lagerwey (1987). What has lagged considerably behind the study of Daoist and folk traditions is the study of lived Buddhism in mainland China. This chapter aims to assess where we are with the ethnographic study of Han Buddhism in mainland China. If the studies I examine in this chapter are successful they should bring greater contextualization, nuance, and accuracy to our understandings of their objects of study, namely, lay and monastic forms of Buddhism in contemporary China. Below I examine my own work as well as that of three other scholars who have completed long-term ethnographic studies of Han Buddhism in contemporary China. I have chosen to focus on my dissertation, the dissertations of two other scholars (Qin Wenjie and Alison Denton Jones) and Gareth Fisher’s 2014 monograph on lay preacher circles in Beijing, From Comrades to Bodhisattvas: Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Practice in Contemporary China. Gareth Fisher’s book, based on his dissertation completed in 2006 in anthropology, focuses on groups who gather around charismatic lay Buddhist preachers in the outer courtyard of Bejing’s Guangji Temple (guangji si 广济寺). The first long term ethnographic study of Buddhism in Post-Mao China was conducted by Qin Wenjie for her Ph.D. in Religious Studies at Harvard in 2000. Qin conducted research at Fuhu Temple (fuhu si 伏虎寺), a nunnery on Mt. Emei 峨眉山 in Sichuan from 1997– 1998. The focus of her study is the mutual reconstruction of Buddhism and gender identity by Buddhist nuns in post-Mao China. Qin has since produced five documentary films on life in post-Mao China, including the 2002 film “To the Land of Bliss”. Alison Denton Jones earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard with a dissertation looking at the ecology of lay Buddhism in Nanjing, completed in 2010. As for my own research, I have conducted research on monastic Buddhism in contemporary China over more than 23 months from 2005 to 2012. For this chapter I focus on my 2011 dissertation examining the revival of monastic Buddhism at Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery (Quanzhou kaiyuan si 泉州开元寺) in Fujian.

5 Though published in 2010, Lagerwey’s China: A Religious State, contains descriptions and analysis of Daoist rituals observed in Southeast China in 1989.

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Additional ethnographically-based studies have been conducted for other forms of Buddhism in China, including studies conducted on the ethnic Dai Theravāda Buddhists in Sibsongbanna 西双版纳 in Southwest China by Thomas Borchert (2005, 2006, 2008, 2010), the study of the history and current status of the Sino-Tibetan nunnery, the Iron Statue Monastery (Tiexiangsi 铁像寺) in Sichuan by Ester Bianchi (2001), and studies of Tibetan Buddhism in contemporary China by Jane Caple (2015), Robert Barnett (1994), and Charlene Makley (2007). Given the considerable political and cultural differences that govern these other forms of Buddhism, I find it best to treat Han Buddhism separately from the Buddhisms of ethnic minorities in China. To do otherwise risks lack of clarity and coherence and an increased danger of over-generalization, already a prospect when dealing with a population and landmass as large as those of China. Adequate appreciation of the contributions of these scholars would best be accomplished in a separate piece and will not be attempted here. In sum I will be examining two studies of lay Buddhism, and two studies of monastic Buddhism. All of the studies are single-site oriented, three are centered around important temples, the fourth is a study of an entire city, Nanjing. Three of the studies examine urban Buddhism, only Qin’s may be considered rural, though the nuns at this mountain temple are as urbane as any of the Buddhists in these studies. My aim is to select etic and emic contributions from each of these studies and consider how they help to advance our understandings of Chinese Buddhism and also offer a consideration of what questions they leave open and what they suggest as a program of study moving forward. A potential advantage of ethnography lies in its ability to uncover new developments and the diversity of practices not captured by dominant voices, whether canonical texts, or contemporary sources like print media, state representatives, or even clerical voices. This is where ethnography shines, it seems to me, by going directly to the local, to communities, and to individuals, and struggling with how to present the diversity of voices one finds there. I will begin, chronologically, with Qin’s study of nuns at Fuhu Temple on Mt. Emei.

1 If Women Practice They Will Surely Become Buddha Qin Wenjie’s dissertation is a wide ranging study of a group of 27 nuns at a large temple on the famous Mt. Emei in Sichuan. Readers can explore how women originally learned about Buddhism, motivations for choosing clerical life, the revival of monastic rituals, the struggle between the abbess (zhuchi 主持) and

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head nun (dangjia 當家), and much more. Qin’s greatest contributions, nonetheless, lie in her meditations on gender and the patriarchal structures continued by the nuns in her study. To get at the complexity of the gender identity of her informants, which is variously male, female, and androgynous, Qin coins the term “spiritual gender.” She reveals that nuns refer to one another as monks, such as “teacher brother” (shixiong 师兄, shidi 师弟), rather than “teacher sister” (shijie 师姐, shimei 师妹), and speak of the goal of being a great man, da zhangfu 大丈夫, as a form of spiritual attainment (Qin 2000, 312–313). She also introduces a text, which was popular among the nuns at Fuhu Temple, written by a monk in Fujian entitled Funu Xiuxing Ding Neng Chengfo 伏努修行定能成佛 (“If Women Practice They Will Surely Become Buddha”). This book blends Mahayana Buddhist beliefs with Marxist feminist views (Qin 2000, 333–339): In repudiating the concept ‘the body of five leakages,’ the author condemns this notion in Marxist terms as ‘a product of the Slave and Feudal societies which worshipped the superiority of men to women’ and in Buddhist terms as ‘an outcome of the Lesser Vehicle, Hinayana. (Qin 2000, 334)

The incorporation of ideas or elements from socialist and Marxist education into understandings of Buddhism is something pointed out by three of the four scholars examined here. Qin points out that the nuns she studied “have been deeply affected” by both Communism and Buddhism, which are both revolutionary systems aimed at an utopia beyond Chinese culture. She writes: “Buddhism and Communism co-exist as systems of ideology and practice upholding positive values for contemporary Chinese women who are searching [for] gender and social equality” (Qin 2000, 114). Understanding the ways that women combine Marxism and Buddhism is something the ethnographer is poised to do. The integration of Marxist, Maoist or Communist ideas or themes into contemporary Chinese Buddhism is a theme highlighted by Qin, Fisher and Jones, and may be considered an area for future, more focused examination. Despite the ideals of equality and liberation pursued by the individual nuns, in Qin’s account they fall victim to a tradition of Buddhist patriarchy manifest in a number of ways, but exemplified by the abbess, about whom she writes: “The abbess Chang Qing’s career in monastic life parallels the traditional progression from victimized daughter-in-law to sadistic mother-inlaw.. . . This tradition of domination by women over women manifests itself in both the patriarchal family and the Buddhist monastic life, and is consistent with the patriarchal social structure” (Qin 2000, 235–236). Uncovering and putting a face on power structures and resistance to those structures is another value of the ethnographic endeavor.

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Another important contribution of ethnographic research is the nuancing and correction of assumptions, in this case, regarding the atmosphere of a nunnery. Qin reveals that “power struggles permeate the culture surrounding these nuns” (Qin 2000, 264–265). Having discovered a “‘warlike’ side of the monastic life”, Qin reveals: “Resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear run deep in the temple ground that seems simple and peaceful on the surface” (Qin 2000, 64). Such insights are also the product of long-term ethnographic research, another key to getting at the realities that lie beneath the surface. This reminds me of comments made by a nun training under the monk Xuan Hua 宣化 of the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association in North America. She said that dharma masters (fashi 法师) who are earnest practitioners build up a lot of energy (qi 气), which can be set off with a spark that can send them into a rage. She added that such rage can destroy “1000 days of merit and virtue” so one must be careful in working with such energy.6 Ethnographic accounts such as these help correct orthodox assumptions of a fundamentally restful and quiet monastic life in the mountains away from the “dust of the world”. Ethnography helps reveal that Buddhists don’t escape the “dust of the world” by simply retreating to monastic compounds. Concerning the use of the notion of da zhangfu, which Miriam Levering (1992) has shown was current amongst nuns in the Song Dynasty as a heroic male-gendered term and Beata Grant (2008) has demonstrated was used by nuns during the seventeenth century, Qin argues that these nuns have redefined “great man” to mean “great human being”. She writes: [B]y redefining da zhangfu, “great man” to mean “great human being,” the nuns initiate a new form of interpretation, which breaks away from the traditional interpretation based on the premise of male supremacy. Even though the androcentric language is still maintained, to endow new meaning to a dominant traditional concept is already a significant step towards elevating women’s self perception. (Qin 2000, 316–317)

In addition to providing thick descriptions and revealing emic voices, ethnographic scholars are called to provide an etic framework for the phenomena on which they focus. In Qin’s case her etic contributions to understanding the gender identity of nuns includes the already mentioned term “spiritual gender” as well as speaking of “Buddhist patriarchy”, “combating androcentrism”, and “deconstructing and reconstructing” gender. These ways of speaking of gender are external frameworks meant to capture the phenomena observed and detailed in the dissertation. In this case, the ethnographer is able to provide

6 From a dharma talk given at Avatamsaka Monastery in Calgary in 2012.

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specific evidence and terms to demonstrate how Chinese women are both challenging and perpetuating patriarchal traditions. Such etic frameworks serve to raise ethnographic studies out of their particular locales and provide a means for comparing one field site with others. Qin’s frameworks and terminology can be used by other scholars to examine the identity of nuns in other countries and in other parts of China. In addition to shedding light on the gender identity of nuns and the power relations operating among the nuns, Qin also documented one of the ways the policy prohibiting foreign influence on religion was enforced in a crackdown on a practice from Taiwan known as the “Guanyin method” (Guanyin famen 观音法门). This practice had spread from Taiwan to Mainland China in the 1990s and introduced to Mt. Emei in 1994. This practice was developed by a group headquartered in Taiwan under the guidance of Vietnam-born “Supreme Master” Ching Hai 青海 and was banned in a circular announced by the State Council and CCP Central Committee in 1995 (Goossaert and Palmer 2011, 339 etc.). According to Qin, the government had branded this practice a “cult” and “decided to crack down on this cult by issuing an order to terminate its existence nationwide” (Qin 2000, 260– 262). Mt. Emei’s municipal government “went so far as to define this cult movement as ‘a spy for the U.S. government’ and resorted to severe means to suppress the movement and punish its followers”. Qin states, “From the perspective of the nuns, the government used the crackdown as an excuse to get a handle on the Buddhist community that had been growing out of control” (Qin 2000, 260–261). A neighboring nunnery used as a meeting place for the Guanyin method was raided by police; nuns and lay persons were captured and interrogated for hours. Qin reports that “. . .they all had to write essays denouncing their supposed wrong doings” (Qin 2000, 261–262). This nunnery was disbanded and one nun was jailed for not admitting her leadership role and was still incarcerated at the time of Qin’s research. Documenting the way religion policy is put into effect at particular times and places is one of the important values of ethnographic work because there is such tremendous difference in the interpretation and application of religion policy throughout China and with respect to different religious groups. There are several ways one may interpret the suppression of this foreign-based movement that had spread to Buddhist monasteries. Qin’s informants suggested the government wanted an excuse to reign in the growing power of Buddhists. Another view is that the government is serious, possibly overcautious, about foreign socio-political influence spread through religion as reflected in Document 19, expressing “The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Affairs during the Socialist Period of Our Country” promulgated in 1982 (Potter 2003). There are many interesting dimensions of these issues to explore, but my purpose here is to appreciate the

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importance of such ethnographically derived accounts. When such government actions are publicly reported they are inevitably portrayed as keeping order and punishing wrongdoers. Fieldwork helps us to explore such situations from the ground up, rather than from state sanctioned accounts. The next two scholars turn their attention to developments in lay Buddhism.

2 Lay Buddhists in a Beijing Temple Courtyard The focus of Gareth Fisher’s book is on groups of lay Buddhists who gather in the outer courtyard of Beijing’s Guangji Temple, home base of the Buddhist Association of China, during dharma assemblies (fahui 法会). Fisher attended nearly every dharma assembly, which are typically held four times a month, during his twenty-seven months of ethnographic research conducted over a period of ten years from 2001 to 2012. This book provides a window into the aspirations, challenges, and failures of lay Buddhists who are establishing what Fisher describes as “islands of religiosity” in contemporary China. Rather than attempt to study the monastic community in their inner quarters, Fisher turned his attention to the large and lively ‘preacher circles’ conducted, attended, and supported by self-described lay-Buddhists in the available spaces of the outer courtyard of the Temple of Universal Rescue (Guangji si). Fisher got to know members and leaders of these preacher circles and spent most of his time interviewing them at their homes and other sites. Fisher gained insight into what sort of Buddhism they practiced, what motivated them to embrace Buddhism, and the personal benefits they may or may not have derived from their beliefs and practices. His book is divided into six chapters, each one centering around a central trope of the lay Buddhist’s worldview. Through these tropes such as karma-fruit (yin-guo 因果), balance (pingheng 平衡), and chaos (luan 乱) the reader comes to know important components of the moral and cosmological universe of these ‘comrades’ turned ‘bodhisattvas’. The trope I’d like to draw attention to due to its contribution to Buddhist studies is what I would call karmic affinity or yuanfen 缘分, which Fisher translates as “pre-fated bond”. The deployment of this concept is explored by Fisher in chapter three. In particular, Fisher highlights the idea of “Buddhic bonds” (foyuan 佛缘), which he found to be important in the self-narratives of his informants. Fisher does a good job of unpacking how these bonds can help individuals fashion narratives of self-worth and ‘chosenness’. Apart from their social and economic marginalization, the Buddhist identities of many of the practitioners were often challenged, misunderstood or belittled by non-Buddhists in the broader culture, in

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their workplace, or in their families. Buddhic bonds and miraculous narratives reflecting such Buddhic bonds enable individuals to develop narratives of their ‘chosenness’ as well as their heroic destinies. One such ‘heroic destiny’ is the story of a woman who walked away unharmed after being hit head-on by a bus while riding her bike. This happened after a monk had told her that the Buddha would bless her. She took this as a sign and began to regularly visit the Temple of Universal Rescue and identify as a lay Buddhist (Fisher 2014, 95–96). In addition to showing how Buddhic or karmic bonds help individuals fashion Buddhist identities, Fisher also reveals the role that these concepts play in proselytization. It is well known that Buddhism is one of the few major missionary religions, but little work has been done on the mechanisms and doctrinal justifications that facilitate Buddhist proselytization. This chapter, as well as chapter five, provides concrete examples of individuals brought into the tradition through suggesting their pre-fated bond with it. Chapter five adds an additional layer of evidence for proselytization by examining the production and distribution of free Buddhist literature as a common means of spreading the dharma. In the stories of Fisher’s Buddhists the delusional, the imaginative, and the critical all hang together; such is the existence of ideas in a chaotic sample of lay Buddhists in contemporary China. For example, some of the informants were clearly delusional, claiming the ability to communicate telepathically with geopolitical figures such as George W. Bush, Osama Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein (Fisher 2014, 100), some had genuinely unusual experiences (unscathed after being hit by a bus), others grew to question the motives of the preacher groups; but all built narratives integrating these experiences, delusions, critiques with the help of Buddhist concepts like foyuan. Gareth’s outsider status, arguably, helped him fit such diverse ‘data’ into the same framework of other tales, miraculous and mundane, all reflective of life-orienting Buddhic and karmic bonds. Throughout the book Fisher smoothly and effectively transitions from discussing the views of his interlocutors about Buddhist concepts to discussing their views of him. It is effective in that it continually reaffirms the presence and positionality of the doubly-other researcher (a non-Buddhist foreigner). This back and forth helps ground and authenticate the ethnographic encounters, and reveals relevant aspects of the interlocutors’ worldviews. For example, certain individuals were willing to share their stories with Fisher because they believed that Buddhic bonds or karmic connections had brought them together, which both aided his research and provided insight into the ways these tropes are understood and deployed. Others were interested in dialogue with him in the hope of converting him, still others sought his aid in

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translating teachings for an English-speaking audience and thus earning tremendous merit. This book serves as a model for other ethnographers of how to negotiate reflexivity, for how to establish positionality, and how to use one’s first person encounters to bolster the authority of one’s analysis. Fisher’s work demonstrates how an anthropologist can help advance our understanding of the Buddhist tradition beyond the limits of both the textual tradition and the voices of elites within the tradition. What does the Buddhism uncovered by Fisher look like? The Lotus Sutra becomes a living instrument of zealotry. The Diamond Sutra heals the sick. The notion of karmic and Buddhic bonds simultaneously encourage proselytization and ‘conversion’. The flexibility of the tradition is manifest with the incorporation of Mao as bodhisattva, of Zhou Enlai and Jiang Zemin as dharma protectors. Miraculous events and visions generate faith and commitment. By detailing these phenomena, Fisher reveals colorful and inventive features of the revival of Buddhism in contemporary China; it is a world that intersects with and goes well beyond normative constructions of Chinese Buddhism. The work of ethnographers revealing what counts as Buddhist for individuals in communities pushes the boundaries of what we as scholars imagine Buddhism might be. To return to the example above, foyuan ‘Buddhic bonds’, or the related and more general yuanfen ‘karmic affinity’ – this is how people in Chinese communities talk, and Buddhists in Chinese communities speak of foyuan. This seems simple enough, yet these terms do not turn up in the digital dictionary of Buddhism or the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association’s (CBETA) electronic Tripitaka (www.cbeta.org) and I’m not aware of any scholarly treatment of the Buddhist usage of these terms, especially in English. If ethnographers did not speak to living, breathing Buddhists we would have no idea of the role this conception of karmic affinity plays in the propagation of Buddhism, in the identity of Buddhists, and in their narratives. Fisher seizes upon karmic affinity and closely related concepts (i.e. jieyuan 结缘, ‘building bonds’) as two of six tropes he explores. This reveals the value of ethnographic study and how it serves to advance, nuance, and otherwise enhance our understanding of traditions. In this case it leads to the identification of extra-canonical Buddhist terminology used by practitioners on the ground, thus expanding the lexicon of Chinese Buddhism. In addition to Fisher’s emic contributions he also proposes etic frameworks in an effort to generalize patterns in his data. The overarching framework for the book is the idea of ‘moral breakdown’ developed by Jarrett Zigon (2007, 2009, 2010). In short, the Buddhists he introduces are understood to be using Buddhism to resolve personal ‘moral breakdowns’ caused by economic, social,

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and ethical dislocations that are related to the transition from a planned economy to a more free market economy with greater risks, competition and income disparity. Buddhist concepts and practices provide ethical resources for these marginalized individuals to construct moral identities in a rapidly changing China. These etic contributions are quite general and could be applied quite broadly to social groupings in China outside of any particularities of Buddhism or even religion. “Islands of religiosity” is Fisher’s way of understanding how the community he examined fits into the larger religious life of China. These “islands of religiosity” possess resources to develop one’s religious identity and practice, which are available to those who visit registered sites like the Temple of Universal Rescue, or unregistered sites and groups. Both kinds of sites and groups, Fisher argues, have no effective means to influence public discourse more broadly. The frameworks Fisher proposes fit his data and, like all such etic frameworks, they provide a means to compare with other populations. Such comparison is part of the work that lies ahead. The state looms large in most studies of religion in China because it is arguably the single most powerful force conditioning the revival of religion. Fisher breaks free of the well worn paths of religion-state-modernity, and the state recedes to the background until we get to the conclusion. This strategy enables the people, their ideas, their foibles, their delusions, their hopes, and their passions to take center stage. Ethnography contributes to the humanization of the groups we study, which opens up doors to deeper understanding. In the next study examined, the state is seen as the central organizing influence conditioning the identities and possibilities of lay Buddhists.

3 The Buddhists of Nanjing Alison Denton Jones set out “to capture an overall picture of Nanjing’s Buddhist field” (Jones 2010, 16). The point of emphasis in her 2010 dissertation is the power of the State to control, influence and manage how individuals choose and practice Buddhism, as well as what forms Buddhism takes institutionally. She identifies the largest influence on individuals as state promoted militant atheism. She looks at individuals “directly” influenced and those “indirectly” influenced by militant atheism; apparently the claim is that everyone’s involvement with Buddhism is influenced in a meaningful way by militant atheism. She also holds that this difference (direct vs. indirect) is the “single most important factor structuring variation in how people encounter, practice, and justify Buddhism” (Jones 2010, 4).

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Jones’ dissertation is divided into four sections: “The Field of Buddhist Production in Nanjing”, which provides an overview of Buddhist institutions; “Pathways to Buddhist Involvement in Urban China”, where she distinguishes two approaches to Buddhism through “adoption” or “conversion”; “Practicing Buddhism in Nanjing”, introduces the “core characteristics, variations, and benefits” of Buddhist practices; and lastly “Justifying Buddhist Involvement and Representing Buddhism to Others”, explores narratives justifying one’s adoption of Buddhism in an atheist society. In general, these narratives defend Buddhism against the critique that it is superstitious and has no place in a modern society, or arguing for the role that Buddhism (and other religions) play in creating a “harmonious society”. Jones writes: “The militant atheist critique of religion is still a powerful public narrative in China today, contesting the legitimacy of Buddhism’s place in modern Chinese society” (Jones 2010, 221). Jones investigates how lay people respond to critiques of Buddhism that threaten to label them superstitious, irrational or anti-modern. She finds that Buddhists defend themselves using three different kinds of narratives. First is the effort to identify boundaries between legitimate Buddhism and superstition. Bolstering her claim that Buddhists feel the need to defend their involvement with Buddhism, Jones found that 70% of her interviewees spontaneously drew boundaries between Buddhism and ‘superstition’ (Jones 2010, 221). The second narrative strategy is to argue that Buddhism benefits society by providing a needed moral compass, a form of psychological therapy, or a foundation for social harmony (Jones 2010, 235–237). The third narrative strategy is to link Buddhism to other legitimate spheres of society such as education or science. Jones found that 70% of her interviewees linked Buddhism to the sphere of education and 50% linked it to science and technology (Jones 2010, 240, 252). One way that Buddhism was linked to education was to follow an argument offered by the popular teacher Jingkong 净空 (spread by CDs, DVDs and publication) that Buddhism is a form of ‘education’ rather than a ‘religion’ because the Buddha did not ask followers to believe out of faith, but to investigate the truth of matters for oneself, thus it is compatible with rationality, self-improvement, and education. Those linking Buddhism to science stress Buddhism’s compatibility with science (Jones 2010, 223–225; 240–245). Jones identifies three different approaches to drawing boundaries which she labels “proactive”, “exclusionary”, and “inclusionary”. The “proactive” boundary drawers proactively argue that Buddhism is not a religion, which, unlike Buddhism, is based on faith and belief. The “exclusive” boundary is marked by those insisting that superstition is to be excluded from real or proper Buddhism. The “inclusive” boundary is one drawn within Buddhism, some forms of Buddhism

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are superstitious others are not (Jones 2010, 221–235). In her analysis of the demographics of those deploying these narrative strategies Jones finds that “Those with military or Communist Party affiliation have the highest proportion of proactive or exclusionary boundary strategies, while retired and unemployed people were most likely to draw no boundaries” (Jones 2010, 233). The evidence that Jones presents reveals a society that is adept at mastering State propaganda in order to fit Buddhism into its current paradigms and campaigns such as the valorization of science and the contribution of religion to a harmonious society. Scholars examining religion in modern China have pointed out the salience of scientific critiques of superstition among elite voices (Goossaert and Palmer 2011; Nedostup 2009). Ethnography enables us to see how government campaigns and propaganda become part of the narratives of individuals; it uncovers how individuals refashion such messages to build narratives, in this case, for justifying their practice of Buddhism. It also enables us to see how contemporary Chinese are adapting or building on earlier Buddhist engagements with scientific discourse (Hammerstrom 2015). Just as Qin’s work sheds light on how the policy forbidding contact with foreign religionists works in practice, Jones’ research reveals a sliver of light into the religiosity of members of the Communist Party. It is well known that policy officially forbids members of the Communist Party from religious belonging, yet we also know that this is not enforced and there are CCP members who hold religious views. Nevertheless, given the sensitivity of the situation there is no data published on such religiously-committed members of the CCP. Ethnographic research and surveys, such as the work done by Jones, is the only means to gather such data. Among her interviewees there were five members of the Communist Party who were Buddhists, two secretly and three publicly (Jones 2010, 128–142). There is little we can conclude from this, other than the fact that there are members of the Communist Party who identify as Buddhists, and that we need more research to determine the contours of such religious belonging within the Communist Party. Jones’ work, as an attempt to provide an account of the Buddhist Field in Nanjing, also surveys organizational aspects of Buddhism in Nanjing using, in part, language from the three market model of religion in China as developed by Yang Fenggang (2006). Apart from the “red market” of “official producers” such as temples and seminaries, Jones also identifies a large “grey market” of “unofficial producers” including vegetarian restaurants, libraries, art studios, and formal and informal lay groups and study associations. A phenomenon not reported by other scholars is that of the Buddhist study salons (foxue shalong 佛学沙龙) which are groups of lay Buddhists who meet on a regular basis

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(usually weekly) at a temple for the academic study of Buddhism arranged by and for lay Buddhists without clerical input (Jones 2010, 95–96). The only difference Jones points out between these salons and the more common lay associations (jushi lin 居士林) is that salons are located at temples rather than on their own sites. To this we might add the emphasis on the academic study of Buddhism also distinguishes salons from more devotionally oriented lay associations. Among the many etic frameworks and categories that Jones uses in her work, her examination of narratives of justification introduces the idea of “boundaries”. Thinking in terms of the marking of “boundaries” is a way of making sense of how people negotiate their engagement with traditions in a society that valorizes modernity. “Boundaries” is a simple etic framework that can be used to investigate such negotiations in other contexts. More central to her work is the notion of “interaction settings”. Jones writes: “Interaction settings are the concrete places where people are exposed to others’ perspectives and may have to express or defend their own perspective and actions. I consider two specific types of interaction settings: a person’s networks of family and friends, and a person’s institutional contexts, such as school, work, or other organizational affiliations (such as Communist Party membership)” (Jones 2010, 138). She sees these interaction settings as providing resources for “cultural repertoires” and therefore a key in explaining or contextualizing pathways to Buddhism (Jones 2010, 138). Such etic frames, while they are limited in explanatory power, nevertheless help one think about the source of different cultural influences that may shape one’s approach to religion in contemporary China. Ethnography is able to get down to the local level, and speak to individuals to begin to build pictures and, with any luck, establish patterns, but doing so requires tremendous time and effort on the part of the researcher. Jones drew on interviews with 45 individuals of diverse backgrounds. She continually described her data as “messy”. One of the challenges of diving into a population as large and diverse as Nanjing Buddhists is finding clearly meaningful relationships and patterns to explain such things as the pathways into and justifications of Buddhism. Like Fisher’s etic frames, those of Jones are similarly broad; in Jones’ case they are derived from sociological theory. Her use of “interaction settings” draws attention to different institutional structures that shape choices and behaviors. My work is focused on one institutional setting in particular; it is a close look at the ecology of a single monastery.

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4 The Revival of Buddhist Monasticism in Fujian Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery is an important Buddhist monastery on the Southeast coast of China, in Fujian. It was founded in the seventh century and survives with artifacts from every imperial dynasty stretching back more than one thousand years. In 2009 it was the home of more than eighty monks and the site of a vibrant tradition of devotional life. My research explores the religious, social, cultural, economic, political, historical and institutional dimensions of the monastery. Unlike the previous studies, as a study of a monastery in its multiple dimensions, mine is institutionally-based. Previous to my study there have been two studies of Chinese monasticism, namely, Johannes Prip-Møller’s Chinese Buddhist Monasteries (1937) and Holmes Welch’s The Practice of Chinese Buddhism 1900–1950 (1967). Taken together these two texts provide an excellent overview of the monastic layout, monastic architecture, the organization, duties and practices of monks, as well as much of the prominent statuary. Both of these studies may be said to focus on what Welch refers to as the “elite” or model monks and monasteries as opposed to the much more numerous monks who lived at small hereditary temples.7 Their goal was to present an account of the ideal or model of Chinese Buddhist Monasticism. While my study has much in common with the models described by Prip-Møller and Welch, it includes details and observations that neither was able to include because they did not engage in long-term fieldwork at a single active site. Welch, in fact, relied on interviews with refugee monks in Hong Kong and elsewhere. While material culture is examined by Prip-Møller, his approach is strictly descriptive and neither of these foundational studies analyzes the role of auspicious events, ling (spiritual efficacy), sacred space, tourism and commodification which are prominent features in the life of many monasteries.8 All Buddhist monasteries, if they are to survive, must tend to the institutional demand to accumulate capital in a systematic way. The basic mechanism for the generation of Sangha-supporting income has been the exchange of merit (religious capital) for personal property (economic capital). Successful monasteries must tend to economic and political realities; taking care of these demands is, in large measure, what I refer to as the institutional dimension of a monastery. Apart from this is the religious dimension, which is the monastery’s raison d’etre, I argue that Kaiyuan Monastery negotiates a balance between the 7 Welch 1967, 3–4. By Welch’s estimate the ‘model’ monasteries constituted about 5% of the total. 8 Welch has a brief section on examples of extra wage-earning techniques, but does not examine the question of commodification (Welch 1967, 329–334).

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demand to be a self-perpetuating institution and the requirement to serve as a site of religious cultivation by successfully deploying multivalent monastic signifiers including devotional practice, material culture and auspicious events. Each signifier is variably interpreted by monks, laypersons, worshipers, tourists and officials. There are two dominant interpretations which generate two dominant narratives for Kaiyuan today: tourist attraction and religious site. Quanzhou Kaiyuan monastery has become a thriving Buddhist monastery in contemporary China because it has successfully promoted qualities that appeal to both secular and religious forces. The secular and religious interest generated by cultural properties, memorials to auspicious events, and devotional activities, has effectively served to fashion Kaiyuan’s dual identity as a functioning Buddhist monastery and a popular tourist attraction. My research demonstrates that while such a dual identity is common among Buddhist temples, there are degrees of museumification and degrees of restoration of religious practices that are conditioned by various factors. One of the key factors is the extent to which secular authorities are responsible for the administration of a site. I argue that Kaiyuan presents a healthy balance between tourism and religious practice, in part, because the current abbot has fought to achieve greater autonomy for the sangha. While tourism can negatively impact the environment for religious practice, I maintain that it should not be portrayed simply as a force of corruption at odds with the religious pursuit, as is often presumed.9 Monasteries have been sites of leisure and retreat throughout history and many individuals are attracted to monastic life by visiting Buddhist sites.10 The possession of valuable cultural properties, such as a pair of stone pagodas from the Song dynasty, is the primary driver of curatorial interest and tourism at the site as well as the primary driver for the protection of Kaiyuan monastery during the Cultural Revolution. Cultural properties, labeled cultural heritage, have been essential in the rebuilding and restoration of countless monasteries and temples in China. While other monasteries, such as Hebei’s Longxing Temple (longxing si 隆兴寺), have survived intact with valuable cultural properties, they do not survive as centers supporting the sangha because they have fallen under the management and domination of secular authorities. I propose a means for distinguishing monasteries that may be economically successful but lack infrastructure to cultivate religious practice from those that are successful both

9 See for example Jing 2006. On the view that commodification is at odds with religious pursuits see Shi 2009; Yu 2007; Tschang 2007; Zaidman 2003; Vukonic 2002; Berkowitz 2002. 10 For more on tourism at Buddhist monasteries see Nichols (forthcoming).

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as institutions and as places of religious practice. With respect to Kaiyuan, I have identified three axes (foundational, physical and functional) around which it has successfully distinguished itself as a living sacred place. My use of these etic frameworks provides a model for determining to what extent other monasteries and temples may be considered sacred sites that promote religious activities. At the other end of the spectrum is the museumified tourist temple that has been incorporated into disenchanted modernity. These may have once been sacred sites, but they are no longer sites of living religiosity. The factors presented as contributing to religiosity at Kaiyuan provide a framework for analyzing other temples or monasteries to determine how well they may or may not accommodate religious cultivation. The analysis of Quanzhou Kaiyuan suggests how a balance between religious practice and tourism may be achieved, a balance of relevance for religious sites in other traditions at other locations. Among the emic characteristics explored there is the Temple Administrative Commission (Guanli weiyuan hui 管理委员会) which is an organ of oversight that plays a large role in the museumification of Buddhist sites. The concept of “museumification” is one of the major etic contributions of my research.11 Museumification is the process by which a temple becomes directed towards display, spectacle and secular education, while, by degrees, being directed away from worship and religious cultivation. Museumification is in evidence when shrine halls have been transformed from places of worship into display rooms for cultural and historic exhibits or souvenir shops. Such places are staffed, not by monks, but by workers, often young ladies in matching uniforms, who introduce visitors to products for sale. Museumification is at its most extreme when a temple falls under the management of a government bureau such as the bureau of tourism or cultural heritage to the exclusion of monastic leadership.12 Other emic aspects revealed by my research are the role of miraculous/ auspicious tales in the branding and promotion of Buddhist sites, the role of spiritual efficacy (ling 灵) in building the reputation of a sacred site, and the role of cultural heritage in the revival of Buddhist sites. Other aspects of my study enable us to understand Buddhist monasticism in its socio-political and socio-cultural embededness. By recognizing the ‘institutional’ nature of large monasteries, monasteries are brought down to earth as places interested in self-preservation and all the ambiguities and

11 The term has already been picked up by other researchers. See Fisher 2011. 12 For more on museumification and a simple scheme for classifying monasteries see Nichols 2019.

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compromises that may lead to. A focus on material culture helps to highlight the importance of a prominent and complex feature of temples that deserves more careful theorization.

5 What Has Been Left out of these Studies? Twentieth century China has been a century of violent disasters from the warlord era, to war with Japan, to Civil War, to Maoist campaigns that led to starvation and unleashed violence against traditional social and cultural elites culminating in the Cultural Revolution. More recently the crackdown on the Tiananmen protests in 1989 and the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners from 1999 onward have impacted large numbers of individuals and families. The trauma of these experiences, the shock and distrust of others and of public institutions arising from these experiences could not but influence the choices and orientations of Chinese people with respect to religion as well as other areas of life. Qin Wenjie is the only scholar who mentions the pioneering work of Arthur Kleinman in bringing to light the psychological and physical toll of the Cultural Revolution on patients he studied in Hunan in the early 1980s as she cites healing as one of five needs Buddhism can help meet in post-Mao China.13 Her only mention, however, is limited to a single footnote and Qin makes no effort to follow up on this idea. Similarly, medical anthropologist Nancy Chen refers to Kleinman’s work in Breathing Spaces, her study of qigong and psychiatry in China. Yet, neither does she explore the possibility of this collective experience of trauma in feeding the qigong craze, in fueling the need for a special kind of healing. Instead, she focuses on the practical need for access to affordable medical care in a system undergoing privatization.14 Although Fisher explores how Buddhism helps resolve his subjects “moral breakdowns” he never links their emotional and psychological needs to more distant trauma. Even more enticing is a statement by one of Jones’ interviewees: I believe that as Buddhism increases in China, it will be good for society. In China, many people are psychologically scarred from the Cultural Revolution and other problems, and also many people are too focused on money. But Buddhism is better, and we believe that this is the direction [that society] is going. You should take Buddhism as a culture and spread it that way, to change people’s hearts. (Jones 2010, 236; emphasis added)

13 Qin 2000, 73. See Kleinman 1986. 14 Chen 2003.

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Interestingly, Jones frames this quotation by noting that China’s “recent traumatic history” may be “a source of social problems that Buddhism could address” and then moves on to other social benefits (Jones 2010, ibid, emphasis added). Jones, perhaps given her sociological orientation, remains focused on the social dimension of the problems arising from China’s traumatic past. This is one of the angles scholars may explore, the other is a more psychological or psycho-social examination focused on individual cases and narratives. The role of trauma in the revival of religion in post-Mao China remains an unexplored and potentially important dimension of the forms religion is taking, which remains on the margins of two of these studies and mentioned in passing by Jones. It is one of several areas ripe for further study. What are the missing voices in these studies? Qin, myself and Jones all note the preponderance of older women among the active lay Buddhists at their sites, yet none of our studies focus on this numerically most significant group of Buddhists in all of China. These older women, who would have endured the Cultural Revolution in the prime of their lives, are mentioned by other scholars as statistically significant, yet we lack any long-term study of this important group (Goossaert and Palmer 2011, 251; Huang, Valussi, and Palmer 2011, 117).15 Another demographic dimension of Buddhism, similarly dominant, yet unrepresented in these studies, is the Buddhism of smaller temples (xiao miao 小庙), especially in rural communities. The smaller Buddhist temples, whether urban or rural, that I have visited have been dramatically more quiet, restful and depopulated than their urban counter parts. Historically as well as in the present, these smaller temples are more numerous than the larger, more famous monasteries. Understanding Buddhism as it is practiced and as can be revealed by the ethnographic endeavor will be dramatically more nuanced and complete only after long-term studies are conducted at more diverse sites and focus on more diverse communities.16 In addition to these understudied demographic dimensions of Buddhism in China there is also the need to identify and examine new trends which were not part of Chinese Buddhism in the early twentieth century and therefore not in the previous treatments by Holmes Welch or others. One such trend is the use of new media and new channels of proselytization, especially digital forms of communication, by communities and the effects of such media on the propagation, reception, and development of Buddhism (Travagnin 2017).

15 For more on women in contemporary Chinese Buddhism see Nichols 2017. 16 See also Nichols 2017.

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A final lacunae in these studies, which is also a potential object of ethnographic study, is an examination of personal accounts of growth, accomplishment, or transformation attributed to different kinds of Buddhist practice (e.g. recitation, meditation, vegetarianism, generosity etc.). Given the explosion in Buddhist-based forms of psychological therapy such a study would be a useful adjunct to the clinical studies that dominate the literature. Among the scholars studied here Fisher speaks of resolutions of moral breakdowns and Qin speaks of “reconstructing gender” but there is no attempt by any researcher to investigate or trace claims of growth or accomplishment achieved through Buddhist practice, whether ethically-based or some form of devotional or meditation-based practice. I have heard claims from long term practitioners of being transformed, for example, from being more angry and selfish to being more calm and generous. Such are the expected results of long term practice; ethnographic investigation into such transformative results would be an important contribution to understanding the Buddhist tradition in practice.

Concluding Thoughts These four studies together have broken ground on the ethnographic study of Han Buddhism in Post-Mao China. Each has revealed unexpected aspects of the tradition and have proposed new ways of thinking about Buddhism in China. The many anecdotes in these accounts present numerous exemples from which a scholar might reassess some long held assumption such as nunneries as places of restful ease, or monasteries as isolated from worldly concerns or lay Buddhists as oriented towards support of monastic communities and relying on them for instruction. Qin reveals the stressful power struggle conditioning life at Fuhu Temple; my research explores how worldly concerns with income and political influence are part of monastic life, and suggests this has long been the case; Fisher reveals a laity that is critical of monastics and seeks to establish its own lineages of teaching and practice outside their authority; and Jones (2010, 95–97, 158 etc.) demonstrates laity gather in salons to teach one another Buddhism without involvement from clerics. These are just some of the ways these ethnographically-based studies help advance knowledge and nuance narratives. As far as the etic frameworks proposed, how successful these will ultimately be at capturing meaningful dimensions of Buddhism in China can only be determined by future research. For now they provide models of different ways to approach the study of Buddhism in post-Mao China from different disciplinary positions: sociologically, anthropologically, and from the multidisciplinary

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discipline of Religious Studies. One of the strengths of the religious studies approach is the greater facility in treating doctrinal and historical dimensions of the tradition. Fisher’s treatment of karma, explored in chapter four of his book, for example, would benefit from deeper engagement with Buddhist studies treatments; his discussion of guanxi was more satisfying than his discussion of yinguo (causeeffect). A key element in the moral universe of karma, for example, is intention, which fails to enter Fisher’s consideration leading him to understand karma more mechanistically. Similarly he assumes a need for his informants to be socialized into yinguo belief, when an important survey found what Buddhologists have recognized, namely that Chinese culture has incorporated the idea of karma as an ethical given.17 Similarly, Jones’ treatment of the Pure Land tradition would benefit from more robust engagement with doctrinal treatments. Analogously, the disciplinary perspectives offered by social scientific approaches would provide a more complete picture of the institutional features of Buddhism as explored by both myself and Qin who are both writing from religious studies backgrounds. Jones, Qin, and myself all consider the influence of institutional structures in framing, conditioning, and influencing actors. Of the three of us, Jones is the most articulate as this is a concern most developed in sociology. Of the scholars surveyed, Fisher is the most self-reflective vis-a-vis his interlocutors. I attribute this to a difference in approach and training in anthropology. A strength of the scholars working from religious studies backgrounds is that they are able to bring Buddhist doctrinal frameworks to bear on their subjects, which complements the sociological and anthropological approaches taken by Jones and Fisher. Moving forward, I see the ethnography of Buddhism in China advancing by scholars learning from one another, collaborating on projects, and incorporating methods, skills, questions, and sensitivities from other scholars working in diverse fields and disciplines. As Qin Wenjie noted in the earliest long-term ethnographically-based study of Buddhism in Post-Mao China: “The vastness of the country requires collaborative scholarly work on various regional development of Buddhism, a project still in prospect.”18 The prospect of multi-disciplinary and collaborative approaches to the study of religion in contemporary China is full of promise –it is, ultimately, the only means of making sense of such a complicated and imbricated phenomenon as religion in socio-cultural and politico-economic context.

17 Yao and Badham found “77.9 percent tend to affirm the Buddhist concept of causal retribution and the doctrine of karma” (Yao and Badham 2007, 9). 18 Qin 2000, 41.

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Bibliography Barnett, Robert. 1994. Resistance and Reform in Tibet. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Berkowitz, Stephen C. 2002. “Recent Trends in Sri Lankan Buddhism.” Religion 33: 57–71. Bianchi, Ester. 2001. The Iron Statue Monastery [Tiexiangsi]: A Buddhist Nunnery of Tibetan Tradition in Contemporary China. Florence: Leo S. Olschki. Borchert, Thomas. 2010. “The Abbot's New House: Thinking about How Religion Works among Buddhists and Ethnic Minorities in Southwest China.” Journal of Church and State 52, no.1: 112–137. Borchert, Thomas. 2008. “Worry for the Dai Nation: Sipsongpannā, Chinese Modernity, and the Problems of Buddhist Modernism.” The Journal of Asian Studies 67, no.1: 107–142. Borchert, Thomas. 2006. “Educating Monks: Buddhism, Politics and Freedom of Religion on China’s Southwest Border.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago. Borchert, Thomas. 2005. “Of Temples and Tourists: The Effects of the Tourist Economy on a Minority Buddhist Community in Southwest China.” In State Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies, edited by Yang Fenggang, 87–111. Leiden: Brill. Buswell, Robert E. 1992. The Zen Monastic Experience: Buddhist Practice in Contemporary Korea. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Caple, Jane. 2015. “Faith, Generosity, Knowledge and the Buddhist Gift: Moral Discourses on Chinese Patronage of Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries.” Religion Compass 9, no.1: 468–482. Chandler, Stuart. 2004. Establishing a Pure Land on Earth: The Foguang Buddhist Perspective on Modernization and Globalization. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Chen, Nancy N. 2003. Breathing Spaces: Qigong, Psychiatry, and Healing in China. New York: Columbia University Press. Dean, Kenneth. 1993. Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China. Princeton: Princeton University Press. De Vido, Elise. 2010. Taiwan’s Buddhist Nuns. Albany: SUNY Press. Feuchtwang, Stephan. 2010. The Anthropology of Religion, Charisma, and Ghosts: Chinese Lessons for Adequate Theory. Berlin: De Gruyter. Fisher, Gareth. 2014. From Comrades to Bodhisattvas: Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Practice in Contemporary China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. Fisher, Gareth. 2011. “In the Footsteps of Tourists: Buddhist Revival at Museum/Temple Sites in Beijing.” Social Compass 58, no.4: 511–524. Goossaert, Vincent, and David A. Palmer. 2011. The Religious Question in Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Grant, Beata. 2009. Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. Hammerstrom, Erik J. 2015. The Science of Chinese Buddhism: Early Twentieth-century Engagements. New York: Columbia University Press. Huang, C. Julia. 2009. Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Huang, Julia C., Elena Valussi, and David A. Palmer. 2011. “Gender and Sexuality.” In Chinese Religious Life, edited by David A. Palmer, Glenn Shive, and Philip L. Wickeri, 107–123. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Jing, Yin. 2006. “Buddhism and Economic Reform in Mainland China.” In Chinese Religions in Contemporary Societies, edited by James Miller, 85–100. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Jones, Alison Denton. 2011. “Contemporary Han Chinese Involvement in Tibetan Buddhism: A Case Study from Nanjing.” Social Compass 58, no.4: 540–553. Jones, Alison Denton. 2010. “A Modern Religion? The State, The People, and the Remaking of Buddhism in Urban China Today.” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University. Kleinman, Arthur. 1986. Social Origins of Distress and Disease: Depression, Neurasthenia, and Pain in Modern China. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lagerwey, John. 2010. China: a Religious State. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Lagerwey, John. 1987. Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History. New York: Macmillan. Laliberté, André. 2004. The politics of Buddhist organizations in Taiwan, 1989–2003: safeguard the faith, build a pure land, help the poor. New York: Routledge. Levering, Miriam. 1992. “Lin-chi (Rinzai) Ch’an and Gender: The Rhetoric of Equality and the Rhetoricof Heroism.” In Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender, edited by Jose Ignacio Cabezon, 147–156. Albany: SUNY Press. Makley, Charlene E. 2007. The Violence of Liberation: Gender and Tibetan Buddhist Revival in Post-Mao China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Nedostup, Rebecca. 2009. Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center. Nichols, Brian J. 2019. “Tourist Temples and Places of Practice: Charting Multiple Paths in the Revival of Monastic Buddhism.” In Buddhism after Mao. Edited by Ji Zhe, André Laliberté, Gareth Fisher 97–119. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Nichols, Brian J. (forthcoming). “Interrogating Religious Tourism at Buddhist Monasteries in China” in Buddhist Tourism in Asia: Imagining, Secularizing, and Commodifying the Sacred, edited by Courtney Bruntz and Brooke Schedneck. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Nichols, Brian J. 2017. “Taking Welch and The Practice of Chinese Buddhism into the 21st Century.” Studies in Chinese Religions 3, no.3: 258–280. Nichols, Brian J. 2011. “History, Material Culture, and Auspicious Events at the Purple Cloud: Buddhist Monasticism at Quanzhou Kaiyuan.” Ph.D. dissertation, Rice University. Potter, Pitman B. 2003. “Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China.” The China Quarterly 174, no.2: 317–337. Qin Wen-jie. 2000. “The Buddhist Revival in Post-Mao China: Women Reconstruct Buddhism on Mt. Emei.” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University. Said, Edward W. 1978 (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Shi Fangfang. 2009. “Evaluation of Visitor Experience at Chinese Buddhist Sites: The Case of Wutai Mountain.” In Tourism in China: Destinations, Cultures and Communities, edited by Chris Ryan and Huimin Gu, 197–212. London: Routledge. Schipper, Kristofer. 1982. Le corps taoïste. Paris: Fayard. Strickmann, Michel. 1990. “The Consecration Sutra: A Buddhist Book of Spells.” In Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, edited by Robert Buswell, 75–118. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. Travagnin, Stefania ed. 2017. Religion and Media in China: Insights and Case Studies from the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong. London and New York: Routledge. Tschang, Chi-Chu. 2007. “In China, Dharma Confronts the Dollar.” Businessweek Online 20. Business Source Complete, EBSCO host (accessed on March 2, 2017).

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Vukonic, Boris. 2002. “Religion, Tourism and Economics: A Convenient Symbiosis.” Tourism Recreation Research 27, no.2: 59–64. Welch, Holmes. 1967 (1973). The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900–1950. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Yang, Fenggang. 2006. “The Red, Black, and Gray Markets of Religion in China.” The Sociological Quarterly 47: 93–122. Yao, Yushuang. 2012. Taiwan’s Tzu Chi as Engaged Buddhism: Origins, Organization, Appeal and Social Impact. Boston: Global Oriental. Yao, Xinzhong, and Paul Badham. 2007. Religious Experience in Contemporary China. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Yü, Chün-fang. 2013. Passing the Light: The Incense Light Community and Buddhist Nuns in Contemporary Taiwan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Yu Xueming 俞学明. 2007. “Fojiao de fazhan he fazhan de fojiao: cong dangdai shaolinsi kan zhongguo de weilai” 佛教的发展和发展的佛教:从当代少林寺现象看中国佛教的未来. Henan Social Sciences 15, no.3: 7–12. Zaidman, Nurit. 2003. “Commercialization of Religious Objects: A Comparison between Traditional and New Age Religions.” Social Compass 50, no.3: 345–360. Zigon, Jarrett. 2007. “Moral Breakdown and the Ethical Demand: A Theoretical Framework for an Anthropology of Moralities.” Anthropological Theory 7: 131–150. Zigon, Jarrett. 2009. “Within a Range of Possibilities: Morality and Ethics in Social Life.” Ethnos 74: 251–276. Zigon, Jarrett. 2010. Making the New post-Soviet Person: Moral Experience in Contemporary Moscow. Leiden: Brill.

Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa

Encountering the Other in the Study of Chinese Religions: Constructing Borderland Buddhism in Chinese and Euro-American Scholarship of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Introduction In the mid-1880s, in an Indian hill station nestled in the border region between the Himalayan states of Tibet, Sikkim, Bhutan and Nepal and the British Empire on the plains of India, a British colonial administrator decided to buy a Tibetan Buddhist temple. Laurence Austine Waddell was an ambitious British Army surgeon and was thrilled to have been posted to the tea-growing center of Darjeeling as the Deputy Sanitary Commissioner in 1885. The eastern Himalayas was a new frontier for colonial knowledge and was an ideal place for him to develop his diverse intellectual interests in medicine, zoology, archaeology and philology. The diversity of his interests were characteristic of a cohort of young men serving in the British Empire, who were sent to the region as part of a concerted effort to gain local knowledge in the service of imperial administration. As he encountered the local culture of the area and began to study the Tibetan language, Waddell was frustrated with the lack of research available on the area, as well as the lack of cooperation from his local collaborators. He writes that he felt he had only one option, that after . . .realizing the rigid secrecy maintained by the Lamas in regards to their seemingly chaotic rites and symbolism, I felt compelled to purchase a Lamaist temple with its fittings; and prevailed on the officiating priests to explain to me in full detail the symbolism and rites as they proceeded. (Waddell 1894, viii)

What this “prevailing” looked like is unclear, as we do not have records providing us with a sense of what the locals made of this new landlord. Waddell convinced himself that the lamas worked with him as they believed him to be “a reflex of the Western Buddha, Amitabha, and thus they overcame their conscientious scruples, and imparted information freely” (Waddell 1894, ix). Though using such creative, albeit ethically questionable means to acquire information may seem extreme, Waddell’s efforts were part of a broader climate of intellectual fascination with Tibet around the world and across empires. This fascination led scholars and explorers to embark upon many types of self-transformation https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-008

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and exploration in order to gain new forms of knowledge together with the material objects that represented them. While a number of important studies have emerged which explore both the Euro-American and Chinese interest in and constructions of Tibet and especially Tibetan Buddhism,1 in this chapter I will bring together both groups to consider critically how Euro-American and Chinese scholars defined Tibetan Buddhism in parallel projects of empire and modernity, and how these definitions continue to have resonance in popular, academic and political cultures today. To illustrate these parallel projects, I will focus on three themes that emerge from the scholarly literature on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. The first is the role of Tibetan Buddhism in constructing empire and nation, the second is in the collection of knowledge in the modern world, and the third in the negotiation of the category of religion. To illustrate this, I will look at examples from the work of six scholars by studying their popular publications and biographical trajectories. On the EuroAmerican side, these include British administrator and author of the classic early work on Tibetan Buddhism, The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism, L.A. Waddell (1854– 1938); the Austrian-American explorer, geographer, linguist and botanist Joseph F. Rock (1894–1962); and Belgian-French explorer, best-selling author and spiritual seeker, Alexandra David-Neel (1868–1969). On the Chinese side, I will focus on historian and explorer Ren Naiqiang 任乃强 (1894–1989), photographer and ethnographer Zhuang Xueben 莊学本 (1909–1984) and the translator, Buddhist teacher and academic administrator monk Fazun 法尊 (1902–1980). I have selected these figures to represent elements of these processes due to their different professions and methodologies that spanned ethnography, botany, photography and statecraft. There are many other scholars and explorers whose work is also of relevance, but for the sake of space, I have selected the six people above as they are connected through their participation in the creation of parallel systems of knowledge about Tibetan Buddhism and connected areas such as borderland studies and Orientalism. Ultimately, the work of these pioneer scholars has continued to shape the study of Tibetan Buddhism as an object of enquiry. Their colonial legacies continue to frame and distort Tibetan cultural and intellectual histories. These external definitions of what constitutes Tibetan religious traditions has had significant implications for scholarly communities, as well as for Tibetans, leading to adverse political and economic outcomes for Tibetan peoples within and outside of contemporary China as they vie to re-assert their own cultural traditions.2

1 These include, on historical Euro-American constructions and interests in Tibetan Buddhism, Lopez 1998 and Harris 2012 and on Chinese constructions and interests, Bianchi 2001, Tuttle 2005, Jagou 2012, and Dibeltulo 2015. 2 Pitkin’s chapter in Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II is an important example of how contemporary scholars are counteracting these historical representations of

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1 Studying Tibet (and Tibetan Borderlands) as an Imperial Project By the late nineteenth century, the myth of Tibet as a unique spiritual space was well developed and widely promulgated in Euro-American popular culture. Tibet’s geo-political isolation from surrounding regions contributed to a development of mystery around the state and its culture that led it to represent the extremes of Edward Said’s spectrum of Orientalism.3 At one end, Tibet was home to a barbaric, distorted form of Buddhism and a despotic god-king, with priests who practiced strange and alien forms of Tantric magic. At the other end, it was an important bastion of undisturbed spiritual knowledge and power that had been kept pure through isolation from the outside world.4 Tibet’s unique form of Buddhism led it to have a distinct name, Lamaism.5 This set it apart from other forms of Buddhism around the world that were being widely studied in text and scrutinized in practice by colonial administrators representing the British, and French empires in Asia, as well as by philologists and other scholars at home in the imperial metropole.6 These forms were conveniently organized into the categories of Theravāda, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, and were considered topics to be mastered and explored through the sciences of the age: philology, archaeology, philosophy, anthropology and history. ‘Knowing’ Tibet was not only useful for scholarly purposes, however; it was also important for evangelical missions to save souls; with a target for imperial projects that aimed to open new markets in the Himalayas and consolidate monopolies for sought after commodities.7 Fueling the need for this knowledge was the fact that Tibet was a closed country for foreigners due to Qing dynasty influence on Tibetan foreign policy. This meant that the study of Tibet often had to take place on its borders, in regions that were already partly or completely open to Euro-American imperial claims: on the SinoTibetan frontier, especially in the Tibetan regions of Kham (Ch: Kang 康; Tib: Khams) and Amdo (Ch: Anduo 安多; Tib: Amdo) that were adjacent to the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan, and later the Republican province of

Tibetan Buddhism. Pitkin achieves this by situating indigenous Tibetan conceptions of the environment at the center of her discussion on sacred landscape traditions in Tibetan cultural areas. 3 This spectrum is outlined in Said 1978. For more on Orientalism in China, see Schein 2000. 4 For more on imaginings on Tibet, see Lopez 1998 and Harris 2012. 5 The history of the term Lamaism is critically discussed in Lopez 1996. 6 German scholars also made significant contributions to the creation of the field of Buddhist studies, but are outside the scope of this paper due to the focus on empires with Asian territories. 7 Emma Martin has discussed the concept of ‘knowing’ Tibet and its imperial implications in her recent doctoral thesis, Martin 2014.

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Xikang 西康; or to the south, in the border states that had been annexed by the British empire, Ladakh, Sikkim, and the northeast frontier of India. While ‘knowing’ Tibet was a crucial part of British imperial and commercial interests, as well as scholarly interests in France and the United States, China was also turning an imperial acquisitive eye to Tibet.8 Tibet also occupied a unique place in the cultural consciousness of the Court, as well as among the emerging class of scholar-reformers who aimed to modernize China. Tibet had historically held complex and shifting political ties to China, particularly during the Yuan and Qing dynasties. By the late nineteenth century, in order to try and reassert Chinese sovereignty following the unequal treaties of the Opium Wars, both the Court and reform groups were concerned about consolidating China’s borders in order to control foreign incursion. Even as the Qing fell and the political climate shifted in the 1910s into the Republican period, Tibet remained a concern for newly emergent political and intellectual groups as a part of the grandeur of China’s dynastic power that would ideally become the western frontier of a new nation (Wang 2011 and Lin 2006). Many intellectual groups made up of young Chinese scholars and administrators in the Republican period turned their attention to research and the acquisition of knowledge as part of the project of nation building. Religion and border regions were two areas of special interest, as they were intended to contribute to the creation of a strong modern China and Chinese national identity. The term Lamajiao 喇嘛教 (Teachings of the Lamas), was often used as a catch-all term to describe Tibetan Buddhism, though over time Xizang Fojiao 西藏佛教 became more popular along with Mizong 密宗 and Mijiao 密教 to represent Tantra, before their use eventually declined in the 1990s in favor of the popular contemporary term Zangchuan Fojiao 藏传佛教.9 These changing terms reflect the shifting definitions that emerged during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I argue that the porousness of terminology was strategically useful for different groups, both Euro-American and Chinese, who were interested in Tibetan Buddhism, as it allowed for Tibetan Buddhism as a category to be used for their own projects and motivations. Another key element that connects the construction of Tibetan Buddhism in a global context during this period is that most of this knowledge was made in borderland areas. Waddell gained most of his materials in the eastern Himalayas as did David-Neel. However, she also spent many years on the fringes of

8 Another Asian imperial power with interests in Tibet was Japan. Due to the limitations imposed by length requirements, including Japanese scholars and explorers within this chapter was not possible. For more on Japanese interests in Tibet, see Kimura and Berry 1990. 9 On the use of these terms and Buddhism in Sino-Tibetan relations more generally, see Dibeltulo 2015.

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Amdo and Kham, which were the spaces where Ren, Zhuang, Fazun and Rock also lived and explored. This was for practical geopolitical reasons, but it is also important in terms of claims to authenticity and the creation of a mythological Tibet. Clare Harris has argued in her study of collections and photographs of Tibetan Buddhist material culture that border spaces (places located geographically on the borders between states) were perceived by colonial scholars as less authentic, debased versions of a ‘pure’ Tibet that was only available in Lhasa and Central Tibet (Harris 2012, 79–116). Anxieties about authenticity are also present in the work of Chinese scholars such as Ren and Zhuang. However, rather than focusing on these discussions, here I argue that the openness of these border spaces make them rich sites for encounter which contributed, along with the shifting terminology for Tibetan Buddhism, to the cooption of Tibetan Buddhism for different purposes. Shifts in terminology and space along with the Otherness of Tibetan Buddhism is what enabled it to become an important representation of how religious diversity has been imagined and encountered even today in the global academy.

2 Making Empire, Making Nation: L.A. Waddell and Ren Naiqiang The first prominent theme that linked parallel constructions of Tibetan Buddhism between Chinese and Euro-American intellectual communities was the re-purposing of Tibetan Buddhism as a part of the construction of empire and nation. The instrumentalist incorporation of religion into the service of state making is a widely recognized trend.10 It was also a connection used by scholars and administrators in the British Empire from the 1880s into the 1940s and in Republican China after the end of the Qing. Both of these groups defined Tibetan Buddhism to create their own cultural claims with Tibet as an entity, which in their logic legitimated geopolitical territorial interests and claims in the region. This was part of Waddell’s motive in his purchase of the Tibetan-related monastery in Darjeeling. As until 1904 he could not visit Tibet to gain firsthand knowledge, he did what he considered to be the next best thing by working with other practitioners of Tibetan-related Buddhism, Sikkimese and Bhutanese 10 There are many works on the connections between religion and empire. DuBois 2009 provides an overview of this literature in the East Asian context in the introduction. A classic work on the construction of nationalism is Anderson 1983. For more on this trend in a specifically Chinese context, see Ashiwa and Wank 2009.

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lamas of the area.11 The result of this work was his 1894 classic The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism with which he intended to provide a comprehensive introduction to all different facets of Tibetan Buddhism, including its history, doctrines, and institutions, including monastic life, mythology and popular practices. His discussion of his use of the term Lamaism in his subtitle provides an insight into his attitude towards Tibetan Buddhism more generally. He discusses in his introduction how the term had come from the importance of the lamas, or ‘priests’, and how it needed to be distinguished from Buddhism since . . . the bulk of the Lamaist cults comprise much deep-rooted devil-worship and sorcery, which I describe with some fullness. For Lamaism is only thinly and imperfectly varnished over with Buddhist symbolism, beneath which the sinister growth of poly-demonist superstition darkly appears. (Waddell 1894, xi)

Despite the rich breadth of primary sources Waddell’s work provided, The Buddhism of Tibet is full of judgmental language that serves to present it as part of a broader colonial casting of Tibetan culture in which “Lamaism is . . . a microcosm of the growth of religion and myth among primitive people; and in large degree an object lesson of their advance from barbarism towards civilization” (Waddell 1894, 4). Waddell argued that this “primitiveness” came from the “impenetrable” status of Tibet, where a combination of geography and conservative clergy “. . . guard its passes jealously against foreigners” (Waddell 1894, 1). As with much Orientalist scholarship that emphasized the exoticism of the ‘Other’ in order to draw contrasts with issues in imperial metropoles, Waddell’s representation of Tibetan Buddhism provides the reader more information about British imperial attitudes than its intended subject. Implicit within Waddell’s judgment was a message that Lamaism could never provide Tibetans with spiritual or material satisfaction. His conclusion claims that, Still, with all their strivings and the costly services of their priests, the Tibetans never attain peace of mind. They have fallen under the double ban of menacing demons and despotic priests. So it will be a happy day, indeed, for Tibet when its sturdy over-credulous people are freed from the intolerable tyranny of the Lamas, and delivered from the devils whose ferocity and exactly worship weigh like a nightmare upon all. (Waddell 1894, 573)

The force that could free the Tibetans from this tyranny was the civilizing influence of Empire, replete with its Protestant elements. Indeed, much of the critique of Tibetan ritualism, clerical institutionalization and ‘superstition’ throughout the text comes from Waddell’s own attitudes towards Catholicism,

11 The biographical information in this section comes from Preston 2009 and Harris 2012.

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informed by his upbringing as the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister. Waddell’s criticisms reflected broader religious polemics of the period in Britain,12 and were received in the imperial metropole accordingly. For Waddell, the debauchery of Tibetan Buddhism mirrored the debauchery of the “Roman Church”, and only through absorption into Empire could Tibetans be reformed. As well as serving British imperial interests, scholarship about Tibetan Buddhism was also used by Chinese scholars as part of nation building projects. The career of Ren Naiqiang corresponds with the rise of many other young intellectuals active in the Republican period who worked to incorporate China’s border regions within national consciousness.13 Born into a peasant family in Sichuan, Ren worked hard to earn a place at one of the many new technical training institutions appearing in Beijing and earned a degree in 1920 in geography and other sciences. He became fascinated with Kham while assembling historical and geographical information on Sichuan Province and was recruited by Xikang warlord Liu Wenhui 刘文辉 (1895–1976) to gather information in the borderlands as part of a broader effort to collect knowledge on the region. This initiative was intended to help to incorporate it into the nation state and facilitate Han migration in the area to assist in exploiting its natural resources for the service of the region. Ren remained a prolific scholar throughout his career, going on to work at important research and academic centers including West China Union University (Huaxi xiehe daxue 华西协合大学) and Sichuan University (Sichuan daxue 四川大学).14 He engaged in interdisciplinary research and carried out fieldwork, which was an increasingly popular method for understanding the state’s diversity. While a lot of his work was dedicated to geography and history, he also mentioned religion as crucial area of study and understanding for Han Chinese administrators and migrants into the area. One of his major works which focus on religion is Xikang tujing: minsu pian 西康图 经：民俗篇 (An Illustrated History of Kham: Folk Customs), originally published in 1934. This work included sections on customs and festivals, and encouraged Han administrators to learn about Khampa language and religion, which he differentiated from Tibetan language and religion. In it, Ren argued that as a crucial geopolitical and resource-rich area, it was vital Kham was brought within the “social space of the nation” through research and raising awareness 12 Dalton 2011 also acknowledges the influence of anti-Catholic discourse on Waddell’s exploration of Tibetan Buddhism. 13 Yudru Tsomu has provided an outline of different translations of works on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism from English into Chinese during this period in Tsomu 2013, 6–10. 14 The biographical information in this section is based on Tsomu, 2013 and Lawson 2014.

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(Tsomu 2013, 12). Interestingly, he justified the inclusion of Kham within the Chinese nation by exploring how many Kham cultural traditions could be linked to ancient Chinese customs from the Tang dynasty. He posited that Lamaism (Lamajiao) had created the cleavage that brought difference to Kham and Chinese cultures, but that if its elements were absent, the people of China would find the people of Kham to share the same culture as Chinese people (Tsomu 2013, 16). However, he stopped short of advocating a removal of Buddhism, recognizing its central role in Kham culture. He continued his examination of Buddhist institutions later in his life along with other important explorations of Kham.15 For Ren and other scholars like him, these explorations were a central part of incorporating Tibetan regions into new China, with an acknowledgement that understanding Buddhism could function as a bridge in this process.

3 Making the Modern World: Joseph Rock and Zhuang Xueben The emphasis on the Otherness of Tibetan Buddhism remained a trend for other scholars who were engaged in the study of Tibetan Buddhism with differing motives. Like Waddell and Ren, many used a combination of different scholarly disciplines that went on to become global standards, including forms of ethnography, geography and history. Another multidisciplinary explorer with an even larger than life reputation was Joseph F. Rock, who spent almost three decades based in the borderlands of the provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan as a plant collecting botanist, historical philologist, and photographer-explorer supported by the National Geographic Magazine and a variety of academic institutions, including the University of Hawai’i and Harvard University. He remains a complex figure, famous for his retiring and private nature, meticulously detailed research into the history and culture of the borderlands, and proclivity for traveling with a huge caravan of hired soldiers, porters and animals responsible for protecting his bathtub, chocolate cake and dining set that he carried with him through all his meetings with lamas, warlords and bandits.16 Rock’s enthusiasm for the natural world and his work ethic led him into a position as a lecturer in Botany in

15 Unfortunately, according to Yudru Tsomu his work on monasteries was not published. Tsomu 2013, 14. 16 This biographical information in this section comes from Mueggler 2011 and Edwards 1997.

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Hawai’i and on to Asia to collect specimens for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1920. The collection of botanical specimens was one of the many sciences present in the taxonomy of empire.17 However, in Asia, Rock was propelled by many passions. One of these was the Naxi 纳西 people of Yunnan, a Tibetan Buddhist ethnic group whom he spent many years studying. For Rock, Tibetan Buddhism was a part of Naxi life, but not its center. His ethnographic and philological work on the history and genealogy of the Naxi was quite ahead of its time in that he did not place Buddhism as a central determinant of Naxi culture. Instead, it was part of a broader, syncretic culture with a rich indigenous tradition of knowledge transmitted by the Dongba ritual specialists using a unique pictographic language that he spent years studying, as well as long-lasting complex ties to China and its successive imperial centers. An example of this tendency is Rock’s groundbreaking research on mountain deities in Golok (Tibetan: Mgo log) and Lijiang 丽江. This work acknowledged indigenous traditions as well as Buddhist influences (Rock 1947, 191–193), together with his discussion of Buddhism in his history of Lijiang, in which he drew on Chinese annals as well as Tibetan historical and canonical sources (Rock 1947, 200–270). The acknowledgement of these myriad influences on Naxi religious life came from Rock’s conviction that “the Na-khi are unreligious rather than irreligious, yet at the same time they are exceedingly superstitious”. According to Rock, the Naxi had not completely adopted any of the major religions that had entered Lijiang, including Daoism, Buddhism or Christianity, since “[r]eligion is with them a matter of outward behavior or ‘face,’ rather than an inward conviction” as evidenced by the Naxi incorporation of different religions for different ritual functions (Rock 1947, 204). He noted that apart from some Naxi who had become lamas, few laypeople were adherents to “Karma-pa lamaism” which was in a “decadent state” with ever decreasing numbers (Rock 1947, 205). His research on this Lamaism was historical and ethnographic in nature (such as Rock 1925, 1935, and 1947), but he included little discussion of doctrine. This was due largely to Rock’s scholarly focus, which was on the creation of an archive of knowledge about what he found on the ground, as opposed to abstract philosophy. As Peter Pels and Oscar Salemink have cautioned, it is important to remain aware that anthropological projects such as Rock’s had political links with colonial information gathering (Pels and Salemink 1999).18 However, for Rock and others like him, the construction of Tibetan Buddhism as part of a historical process of cultural interaction was part of a broader project of critically studying cultures for the sake of

17 For more on the study of botany as an imperial enterprise, see Mueggler 2011. 18 For more on an example of this in the Himalayas, see Waller 1990.

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accumulating knowledge for the modern world and to support his career based on a carefully cultivated image as an explorer and collector. Chinese intellectuals were also engaged in the creation of such careers. The photographer and ethnographer Zhuang Xueben provides a vivid example of a self-made intellectual who, through his own efforts, created a remarkable archive of writing and photographs for understanding Buddhism in the borderlands.19 Born to a peasant family in Pudong 浦东 in 1909, Zhuang’s family’s humble circumstances led him to drop out of school in 1924. However, in line with the new opportunities of the times, Zhuang did not return to the countryside, and instead found work as a clerk in a company in Shanghai. Using the opportunities provided in his work, Zhuang became part of the broader class of “petty urbanite” (xiaoshimin 小市民) in Shanghai in the 1920s. This class was distinct, as although they did not have higher formal education, they became literate through their careers, and contributed to the lively forms of cultural production taking place in Shanghai at the time, most often through writing and reading new fiction and periodical literature (Yeh 2008, 129). This publishing boom exposed Zhuang to photography and ethnography, and he spent his weekends experimenting with a camera. He hoped this hobby would take him out of Shanghai to Tibet, which fascinated him. After a series of unsuccessful attempts to join Chinese Nationalists’ (Guomindang 国民党) ventures to the West, Zhuang eventually raised enough money to embark on his own. He decided to set out on his own adventure to explore the “blank spaces” (baidi 白地) in the maps of western China’s frontier. His first expedition, spanning March to December 1934, took him deep into borderland territory as he traveled for nine months into the northwestern Tibetan province of Amdo, and from there into areas bordering Sichuan including Golog (Guoluo 果洛). He took photographs throughout his travels, and established relationships with the editors of periodicals he had been reading only months earlier, including Zhonghua 中华 (China) and Kaifa Xibei 开发西北 (Opening the Northern West), who published his photographs and travel reports. By the time his initial expedition ended in late 1934, Zhuang was something of a celebrity among amateur explorers, and in 1935, his work was exhibited in Nanjing to great fanfare. The success of Zhuang Xueben’s first exhibit and early publications gained the attention of new supporters and, more importantly for the previously unsupported explorer, new patrons. Academic initiatives dedicated to the study of minorities invited him to participate in gathering new resources about the borders, and Zhuang continued his travels.

19 Biographical materials in this section is based on information from Zhuang 2009.

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His big break came in 1938, when Liu Wenhui offered him the opportunity to travel through Xikang with Government support. In return, Zhuang produced thousands of photos that were intended for use as government propaganda, but which also had great relevance for understanding the local histories of Xikang’s diverse inhabitants (Mo 2011 and Holmes-Tagchungdarpa 2014). After spending time in India working in a trade company, Zhuang returned to continue his explorations, which were halted only by the political turmoil of the 1960s. Within his vast archive of photographs from the borderlands, Tibetan Buddhist figures, institutions and rituals are frequent subjects. Zhuang’s photographs of Tibetan Buddhist subjects can be broadly divided into three types, each corresponding with a theme in his work. Moreover, these themes were typical of important elements of how Tibetan Buddhism was understood by outsiders, both in China and elsewhere, at the time. Firstly, like Rock, Zhuang saw himself as an ethnographer, and many of his pictures are intended to act as informative representations of everyday life on the borderlands. This element of his work is represented in Zhuang’s individual and group portraits, which tend of emphasize the ‘other’-ness of the subject through dress and posture. Secondly, Zhuang was a part of movements during the Republican period which aimed to re-claim borderland spaces through study. His patronage by the Xikang Government demonstrates his willingness to be part of this political project, but a number of his images also speak to broader national concerns, in particular, his photographs of the controversial Ninth Panchen Lama’s final journey to the Tibetan borderlands. The Ninth Panchen Lama’s acceptance of patronage and support from the Nationalist government in 1929 undermined Tibetan claims of independence, and he remained a crucial link between the State and Tibetan Buddhists throughout China, who were not only ethnically Tibetan, but also made up large parts of the Mongolian and Manchurian parts of the population (Tuttle 2005 and Jagou 2011). Zhuang’s photographs of the Panchen Lama were therefore part of broader nation-building projects taking place at the time. Finally, Zhuang’s photographs of Tibetan Buddhist ritual and cultural life reached out in significance beyond the borders of China, as they represented a counter narrative to popular pan-Asian, and indeed, international imaginings of Tibetan Buddhism as it was being studied by scholars such as Waddell and Rock. His photographs are different, however, due to the diversity of areas that he traveled to and the kind of subjects he captured which complicate orientalist representations of Tibetan Buddhism and its ritual and cultural life. They also disrupt ideas about ‘local’ Buddhism in contrast with ‘modern’ Buddhism. Tibetan forms of Buddhism are often left out of modern Buddhist movements. Zhuang’s photographs in content (as well as their very

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existence) demonstrate that life for borderland Buddhists during this time period could not be so easily categorized. In summary, Zhuang’s depictions of different elements of Tibetan Buddhism allow us different perspectives of an ‘Other’ form of Buddhism during the Republican period. Whatever Zhuang’s own politics or motives may have been, the representations of material history in his photographs demonstrate a complex variety of engagements between Tibetan Buddhism and the world during the mid-twentieth century, and another way that intellectuals defined Tibetan Buddhism for the sake of the creation of knowledge, as well as their own careers.

4 Making Religion: Alexandra David-Neel and Fazun Up until this point in the chapter, intellectual engagement with Tibetan Buddhism has been for largely instrumental purposes on the part of different scholars and explorers. However, what of those who sought out Tibetan Buddhism as spiritual seekers, with both earnest and worldly motivations? The final section of this paper will consider two such figures, who were part of imperial and nationalist projects dedicated to the creation of modern knowledge, but who also came away from this work claiming to have been personally transformed. Alexandra David-Neel is a crucial figure in the creation of awareness of Tibetan Buddhism in the West as the author of thirty books on Tibetan Buddhism, including the bestselling travel tale My Journey to Lhasa, in which she outlined her role as the “only Western woman” at the time to have succeeded in reaching Tibet’s “forbidden” capital.20 As well as this feat, David-Neel’s life was extraordinary in a number of other ways. Born to an upper class leftist father in France, DavidNeel studied Asian languages and wrote books and papers on feminism and anarchism before traveling to French Indochina to begin her career as an opera singer. In 1904 she married Philip Neel, an engineer who managed the administration of the French railways in Tunisia. While they remained married until his death, she spent very little time as a colonial administrator’s wife, instead using spousal support to fund her explorations of the Buddhist cultures of Asia. David-Neel spent over two decades based in Asia, with most of her time spent in Tibetan cultural areas in Amdo and the eastern Himalayas with the support of major religious and

20 This byline continues to be used on reprints of her seminal travel work My Journey to Lhasa today. See, for example, David-Neel 2005 [1927].

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political figures of the day, including the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, the Sikkimese king Sidkeong Tulku and the Panchen Lama. During her years on the border, she schemed to slip incognito into Tibet (which she managed to do in 1924), studied Tibetan language and texts, collected books, and meditated. Unlike many other figures introduced in this paper, David-Neel was interested in Tibetan Buddhism as a system for spiritual transformation and inner exploration. She wrote extensively on her travels and her studies, outlining remarkable information about Tibetan Buddhism in practice, including tales of pilgrims, tantrikas and wandering zombies as well as Buddhist doctrine.21 Though she started off interested in Tibetan texts (David-Neel 2005 [1927], xxxiii), as scholars such as Waddell did, David-Neel eventually spent years living in retreat, wrote extensively on her interaction with Tibetan and Sikkimese religious teachers and practitioners, and eventually adopted her assistant and traveling companion, the Sikkimese lama Aphur Yongden, as her son. Her representation of Tibetan Buddhism was positive, detailed and, for the period, nuanced and sympathetic. Though her biographers remain undecided about the extent to which she was dedicated to Buddhism personally, or just to a career writing about Buddhism,22 David-Neel, like Waddell before her, made interesting claims about her connection with the traditions she studied, writing that Yongden would often announce her as a “feminine genii” or advanced female practitioner called a “khadoma” (Tib: Mkha ‘gro ma) in order to gain support in her adventures. She claims that several lamas gave this title to her, and that when they called her this, she did not object as, . . .[the] position it gave me had many advantages: it drew towards me the respect and sympathy of the natives, facilitated my investigations, and withal, was in no way disagreeable. Moreover, if nothing absolutely proved that I was a Khadoma, nothing, on the other hand, definitely proved that I was not. To slight those who had acknowledged me as such would have been ingratitude. I therefore remained a Khadoma, and now I am not at all sure I am not one. (David-Neel 2009 [1936], 29)

As with Waddell’s claim to have been recognized as the next Maitreya, DavidNeel’s claim here demonstrates a strategic internalization of Tibetan identity, which was furthered with disguises that she donned during her journeys.23 This internationalization belies a certain degree of instrumentalism in her Tibetan explorations, but her experiences and sympathetic writings

21 For an overview of her life and a bibliography of her works, see Foster and Foster 1989. 22 Foster and Foster 1989 discuss this ambivalence. Other academic analyses focus on her position as a travel writer, such as Mills 2003. More recently Samuel Thevoz has started to position her work in Buddhist studies scholarship. 23 For more on cross-cultural masking and dressing among travels in Tibet, see Kunimoto 2011.

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demonstrate a level of affection and affinity that, like Zhuang’s photographs, challenged simplistic or negative representations of Tibetan Buddhism. There were also Chinese spiritual seekers and Tibetan Buddhist converts in Republican China who, like David-Neel, lived in Tibetan areas, learnt Tibetan languages and took up the practice of Buddhism. Gray Tuttle has demonstrated the complex intersections between Government initiatives that supported these activities and Chinese political aspirations in Tibet (Tuttle 2005). Many of these figures were associated in more general Buddhist revival and reform movements present in Republican China, particularly those established by the visionary monk Taixu 太虛 (1890–1947).24 Taixu’s influence was mostly strongly present in the Sino-Tibetan Institute, which was founded outside of Chongqing by Taixu in 1932, sponsored by the Republican Government and led by one of Taixu’s students, Fazun. Born into a poor family in Hebei in 1902, Fazun was ordained as a Chinese Buddhist monastic at Mt. Wutai (Wutaishan 五台山) before studying in Beijing. He began to study Tibetan, and eventually went to Drepung Monastery in Lhasa and to Kham where he spent several years studying the Geluk curriculum.25 It was this experience that influenced his creation of the curriculum at the Sino-Tibetan Institute and his academic writing on Tibet, including a dictionary for Tibetan language in Chinese and his seminal Xizang minzu zhengjiao shi 西藏 民族政教史 (Political and Religious History of the Tibetan People) which was hugely influential in the creation of the academic study of Tibetan Buddhism (Fazun 1940). He was also a prolific translator who made eclectic works ranging from the Abhidharma to Tshongkhapa available for Chinese-reading audiences. This reflected Fazun’s deep appreciation for Tibetan Buddhism, which for him was not a debauched, inferior tradition, but a comprehensive Buddhist system that could be used for soteriological goals common to Chinese Buddhism. This synthesis could be achieved through complementing the textual basis of Chinese Buddhism with a practical philosophical model based on Geluk interpretations of Madhyamaka (zhongguanpai 中观派) and Yogācāra (weishizong 唯识宗) philosophy. Along with his prolific scholarly output, Fazun was to have a lasting legacy on Sino-Tibetan Buddhist exchange due to his position as vice-principal of the new Chinese Buddhist College (Zhongguo Foueyuan 中国佛学院) in Beijing in 1956. His position as a monastic in both Chinese and Tibetan traditions meant

24 There are multiple works detailing Taixu’s participation in and influence on Buddhist reform movements. Pittman 2001 provides an overview. 25 This biographical information is from Sullivan 2007, 18, and Tuttle 2006, which also provides a comprehensive list of Fazun’s publications and translations.

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he could bring together different forms of Buddhism and represent different forms of Buddhist philosophy in central curriculums. Fazun’s dedicated interest in and engagement with Tibetan Buddhist traditions remains a major legacy from Republican-era interactions between Tibetan and ‘pure’ Buddhists. His understanding of Tibetan Buddhism as another form of pure tradition is a common reason provided by converts for their attraction to Tibetan Buddhism in China today, where it is a popular religion and a cultural phenomenon. While there are no current confirmed statistics of the number of Chinese converts, the popularity and growth of interest can be seen in the ubiquitous presence of Tibetan Buddhism in the public sphere in China, as well as increased numbers of Chinese patrons and practitioners at monasteries throughout China, Taiwan and the Himalayas (Jones 2011; Zablocki 2009; Cho 2015). Despite this popularity, Tibetan Buddhism remains a far from stable category.

Conclusion: Making Legacies Today, the potential of the religion as a tool for self-transformation is taken up by popular Buddhist-self-help-science book hybrids, such as those by monastic scholar Khenpo Sodargye (Ch: Kanbusuodaji 堪布索达吉; Tib: Mkhan po Bsod dar rgyas, b. 1962), a best selling author and educational leader at the influential Larung Buddhist Institute (Ch: Larong huoxi wenshu zenghui foxueyuan 喇 喇榮霍西文殊增慧佛学院; Tib: Bla rung sgar).26 This trend in the popularization of Buddhism follows the legacy of the Theosophists in the West, who combined Orientalist, exoticized interpretations of Asian religions with forms of spiritualism in Europe and America to create a new religious movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that was a critique of organized Christianity. It has also come after decades of teaching by Tibetan lamas following their exile, which has transformed Tibetan Buddhism into a global phenomenon.27 Politics continues to play a complex role in the globalization of Tibetan Buddhism. In the West it has been constructed alternatively as a crucial part of a persecuted Tibetan culture during and after the Cold War, while in China it is alternately celebrated as part of China’s cultural diversity and denigrated as a tradition that is superstitious and promotes political splittism as advocated by

26 Among his more popular works, see Khenpo Sodargye 2012 and 2014. This institution is also discussed in Pitkin’s chapter in Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II. 27 For a discussion of the Theosophists, see Godwin 1994 and Lopez 1998.

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the Dalai clique.28 These constructions demonstrate the continually shifting definition of Tibetan Buddhism. Although it is no longer called Lamaism or Lamajiao, the complex cultural, social and political phenomena around this religious tradition is still often removed from its context, remaining as an ‘Other’, available for claim and negotiation by different agents. Among these agents at this point in time are Tibetans and practitioners of Tibetan-derived Buddhism from elsewhere in the Tibetan cultural world’s borders, who actively promote, subvert and contest these definitions with their own motives.29 These ongoing negotiations illustrate the shifting terrain of religion as a category more generally, and the continued presence of Orientalist discourse in encountering difference.

Bibliography Anderson, Benedict. 2006 [1983]. Imagined Communities. London: Verso. Ashiwa, Yoshiko and David Wank, eds. 2009. Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Bianchi, Ester. 2001. The Iron State Monastery: Tiexiangsi, a Buddhist Nunnery of Tibetan Tradition in Contemporary China. Florence: Leo S. Olschki. Cho, Yasmin. 2015. “Politics of Tranquility: Religious Mobilities and Material engagements of Tibetan Buddhist Nuns in Post-Mao China.” PhD. diss., Duke University. Dalton, Jacob. 2011. The Taming of Demons: Violence and Liberation in Tibetan Buddhism. New Haven: Yale University Press. David-Neel, Alexandra. 2005 [1927]. My Journey to Lhasa. New York: Harper Perennial. David-Neel, Alexandra. 2009 [1936]. Tibetan Journey. Kathmandu: Pilgrims Publications. Dibeltulo, Martino, 2015. “The Revival of Tantrism: Tibetan Buddhism and Modern China.” PhD diss., University of Michigan. DuBois, Thomas, ed. 2009. Casting Faiths: Imperialism and the Transformation of Religion in East and Southeast Asia. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Edwards, Mike. 1997. “Our Man in China Joseph Rock.” National Geographic 191, no.1: 62–81. Fazun. 1991 [1940]. Xizang minzu zhengjiao shi 西藏民族政教史. Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin, Foster, Barbara and David. 1989. Forbidden Journey: The Life of Alexandra David-Neel. New York: Harper Collins. Godwin, Joscelyn. 1994. The Theosophical Enlightenment. Albany: SUNY Press.

28 For a discussion of Tibetan Buddhism in a political context in contemporary China, see Powers 2004. 29 Pitkin discusses some of the creative ways that Tibetans have deployed Buddhist concepts in environmental initiatives in her chapter in Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II.

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Harris, Clare. 2012. The Museum on the Roof of the World: Art, Politics and the Representation of Tibet. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, Amy. 2014. “Depicting a Life in the Twentieth-Century Sino-Tibetan Borderlands: Local Histories and Modernities in the Career and Photography of Zhuang Xueben (1909–1984).” In Forging the Fiery Frontier: Two Millennia of China’s Encounters in the Borderlands of the South and Southwest, edited by John Whitmore and James Anderson, 339–369. Leiden: Brill. Jagou, Fabienne. 2012. The Ninth Panchen Lama (1883–1937): A Life at the Crossroads of Sino-Tibetan Relations, translated by Rebecca Bisset-Buechel. Paris: Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient and Chiang Mai: Silkworm. Jones, Alison Denton. 2011. “Contemporary Han Chinese Involvement in Tibetan Buddhism: A Case Study from Nanjing.” Social Compass 58: 540–553. Kapstein, Matthew, ed. 2009. Buddhist between Tibet and China. Somerville: Wisdom. Khenpo Sodargye. 2012. Ku cai she rensheng 苦才是人生. Lanzhou: Gansu ren min mei shu chu ban she. Khenpo Sodargye. 2013. Nengduan: Jingangjing gei ni qiangda 能断:金刚经给你强大. Lanzhou: Gansu ren min mei shu chu ban she. Khenpo Sodargye. 2014. Shengming de zhenxiang 生命的真相. Lanzhou: Gansu ren min mei shu chu ban she. Kimura, Hisao and Scott Berry. 1990. Japanese Agent in Tibet. London: Serindia. Kunimoto, Namiko. 2011. “Traveler-as-Lama Photography and the Fantasy of Transformation in Tibet.” Trans Asia Photography Review 2, no.1; http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.7977573. 0002.105 (accessed on May 8, 2019) Lawson, Joe. 2014. “Xikang: Han Chinese in Sichuan’s Western Frontier, 1905–1949.” PhD diss., Victoria University of Wellington. Lin, Hsiao-ting. 2006. Tibet and Nationalist China’s Frontier. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Lopez, Jr., Donald S. 1996. “‘Lamaism’ and the Disappearance of Tibet.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38, no.1: 3–25. Lopez, Jr., Donald S. 1998. Prisoners of Shangri-La. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Martin, Emma. 2014. “Charles Bell’s Collection of ‘Curios’: Negotiating Tibetan Material Culture on the Anglo-Tibetan Borderlands (1900–1945).” PhD diss., School of Oriental and African Studies. Mills, Sara. 2003. Discourses of Difference. London: Routledge, 2003. Mo, Yajun. 2011. “Itineraries for a Republic: Tourism and Travel Culture in Modern China, 1866–1954.” PhD diss., University of California, Santa Cruz. Mueggler, Erik. 2011. The Paper Road: Archive and Experience in the Botanical Exploration of West China and Tibet. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pels, Peter and Oscar Salemink. 1999. “Introduction: Locating the Colonial Subjects of Anthropology.” In Colonial Subjects, edited by Peter Pels and Oscar Salemink, 1–52. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Pitkin, Annabella. 2019. “Sustaining the Sacred Mountains: Tibetan Environment and Sacred Landscape in a Time of Conflict.” In Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II: Intellectual History of Key Concepts, edited by Gregory Adam Scott and Stefania Travagnin. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter. Pittman, Don. 2001. Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu’s Reforms. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

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Powers, John. 2004. History as Propaganda. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Preston, Christine. 2009. The Rise of Man in the Gardens of Sumeria: A Biography of L.A. Waddell. Sussex: Sussex Academic Press. Ren Naiqiang 任乃强. 1934 Xikang tujing: Minsu bian 西康圖經：民俗篇. Nanjing: Xin Yaxiya xuehui. Rock, Joseph. 1925. “Land of the Yellow Lama: National Geographic Society Explorer Visits the Strange Kingdom of Muli, Beyond the Likiang Snow Range of Yunnan, China.” National Geographic 47, no.4: 447–491. Rock, Joseph. 1935. “Sungmas, the Living Oracles of the Tibetan Church.” National Geographic 68, no.4: 475–486. Rock, Joseph. 1947. The Ancient Na-Khi Kingdom of Southwest China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Schein, Louisa. 2000. Minority Rules: The Miao and the Feminine in China’s Cultural Politics. Durham: Duke University Press. Sullivan, Brenton. 2007. “Venerable Fazun and his Influence on Life and Education at the Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Insitute.” M.A. thesis, University of Kansas. Tsomu, Yudru. 2013. “Taming the Khampas: The Republican Construction of Eastern Tibet.” Modern China 39, no.2: 6–10. Tuttle, Gray. 2005. Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press. Tuttle, Gray. 2006. “Tibetan Buddhism at Ri bo rtse lnga/ Wutai Shan in Modern Times.” Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies 2: 1–35. Waddell, L.A. 1894. The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism. London: W.H. Allen and Co., Ltd. Waller, Derek J. 1990. The Pundits: British Exploration of Tibet and Central Asia. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. Wang, Xiuyu. 2011. China’s Last Imperial Frontier: Late Qing Expansion in Sichuan’s Tibetan Borderlands. Lanham: Lexington Books. Yeh, Wen-Hsin. 2008. Shanghai Splendor: Economic Sentiments and the Making of Modern China, 1843–1949. Berkeley: University of California Berkeley Press. Zablocki, Abraham. 2009. “The Taiwanese Connection: Politics, Piety and Patronage in Transnational Tibetan Buddhism.” In Buddhism Between Tibet and China, edited by Matthew Kapstein, 379–414. Somerville: Wisdom Publications. Zhuang Xueben 莊学本. 2009. Zhuang Xueben quanji 莊学本文集. Beiing: Zhonghua Shuju.

Susan K. McCarthy

Bringing Religion Back In: Political Science and the Study of Religion in China Introduction The revival and expansion of religious life in the PRC has been accompanied by growing scholarly interest in Chinese religions across a range of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, history and of course, religious studies.1 This chapter examines how Chinese religion has been approached and analyzed in political science, a discipline historically focused on the formal and informal exercise of power and its consequences, or “who gets what, when, how” (Lasswell 1936). In many societies religion has long played a key role in efforts to acquire, use and contest power. It would thus make sense for religion to be a major concern of political science. For decades, however, theoretical assumptions and methodological approaches within the discipline dampened interest in the subject and constrained how it was studied. Within the field of Chinese politics, the ideological commitments of the Communist party-state rendered questions concerning religion largely irrelevant, at least for scholarship on politics after 1949. Trends globally and within China have opened the door for political scientists to explore the politics of the sacred. In the field of Chinese politics, scholars have investigated the role of religion in, for instance, contentious politics and regime response (Perry 2001a and 2001b; Thornton 2003; Tong 2009; Bovingdon 2010); foreign relations (Leung 1992; Laliberté 2011); economic development (McCarthy 2009 and 2010); rural governance (Tsai 2007); and the nonstate associational sphere (Shue 2011; Laliberté 2012; Vala 2012; McCarthy 2013; Teets 2014). Political scientists have also begun to explore connections among faith, values, and political behavior, a task facilitated by methods of survey research (Wright & Zimmerman-Liu 2013b; Zhong 2013). They have analyzed patterns of suppression, regulation and co-optation in the government’s treatment of religious movements and organizations, as well as the ways adherents navigate China’s restrictive political context (Vala & O’Brien 2007; Vala 2009; Wright & Zimmerman-Liu 2013a; Tong 2014; Koesel 2014). This scholarship

1 In this essay the terms ‘Chinese religion’ and ‘Chinese religions’ refer to any and all religious phenomena in China, including Christianity, Islam and non-mainstream (illicit) faiths, as well as Buddhism, Daoism, and popular religion, while ‘Chinese politics’ refers to the subfield of political science focused on the politics of China, unless otherwise noted. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-009

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analyzes both the effects of the religious on the political and the effects of the political on the religious. But does political science have anything distinctive to say about Chinese religions that cannot be or has not been addressed by scholars in other disciplines? My answer to this question is yes, albeit a qualified yes. It is qualified because the field of Chinese politics is an interdisciplinary one, enriched by the insights and methods of history, sociology, anthropology, geography, economics, philosophy, and so on. Nevertheless, political science can provide valuable insights concerning Chinese religion to scholars working in other fields. One reason it can do so stems from the fact that there is no disciplinary subfield dedicated to the study of religion – there is no ‘political science of religion’ as there is a ‘sociology of religion’. Though this might seem an obstacle to research on the politics of religion, in fact it fosters creativity in how scholars approach their subject. In particular it encourages political scientists to compare and contrast religious with non-religious phenomena in ways that illuminate dimensions of the former overlooked by scholarship that takes religion as its central concern. Another strength of political science is its systematic attention to formal institutions of power and to phenomena conventionally regarded as ‘political’. Thanks to Foucault, Butler, and other post-modern, post-structuralist theorists, scholars are increasingly free (if not compelled) to see power everywhere, constitutive of an almost infinite number of institutions and practices, from consumption patterns to gender identity. This scholarship has greatly enhanced our understanding of the exercise of power in modern societies. Yet attention to official institutions and agents of the party-state is still needed if we hope to understand how these constrain, facilitate, and are themselves influenced by religious practice and identity. This chapter attempts to understand the place of religion in the field of Chinese politics. It does not however attempt a thoroughgoing review of political science scholarship on that subject. Instead it discusses a handful of noteworthy examples that highlight key questions and approaches and that demonstrate the contributions of political science to the study of both Chinese religion and Chinese politics. In doing so, the chapter also identifies some limitations of the subfield and suggests how these might be addressed. Disciplinary conventions and assumptions may lead political scientists to resort to non-religious factors in order to explain religious effects, and to ignore the impact of doctrine, belief and ritual on political outcomes. The willingness to examine religion alongside other socio-cultural practices, though in many respects a strength, can obscure how their connections to the sacred endow religious phenomena with a tenacity, durability, and behavioral import other identities and

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institutions may lack. Greater attention to the ‘religiosity’ of religion can augment our understanding of its significance for Chinese politics. However, disciplinary norms and preferences may hinder just such a deeper consideration.

1 The Disciplinary Context In the post-9/11 world the political significance of religion may seem obvious. Despite this, political science has been criticized by many of its practitioners for neglecting religion as a subject of research. Argue Kenneth Wald and Clyde Wilcox, “[apart] from economics and geography, it is hard to find a social science that has given less attention to religion than political science” (Wald & Wilcox 2006, 523). Wald and Wilcox make this claim based on a survey of the first one hundred years of the American Political Science Review, the flagship journal of the American Political Science Association, which found only thirty-five articles – roughly one every three years – focused on matters of religion. Other political scientists note that when religion is included in political science research, it is typically conceptualized in superficial ways. Religion is “frequently included in a battery of control variables in regressions examining political behavior, along with educational attainment, age, race, and gender, without regard for how belief, affiliation, or observance might matter” (Grzymala-Busse 2012, 427). Substantive conceptualizations and explorations of religion have not been entirely absent from all political science scholarship, however. The APSR is the flagship journal of the APSA, and thus (as Wald and Wilcox argue) an ‘agendasetter’ that shapes disciplinary norms and practices. Yet the APSR has long focused primarily on the empirical analysis of American politics, in particular public opinion, political attitudes, elites, voting behavior, and formal political institutions. Scholars in the subfield of comparative politics have more readily investigated the intersection of religion and politics, including questions concerning the role of religion in the rise of nations and national identity, party system formation, domestic and international conflict, political legitimacy, popular protest, political culture, and a host of other topics (Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Smith 1974; Philpott 2000 and 2007; Smith 2000). Still, religion remained a marginal topic for many decades. This marginality reflected the philosophical and historical context in which the discipline developed. Political science emerged within the international system of sovereign national states resulting from the Peace of Westphalia, a treaty that entailed the subjection of religion to secular authority and its “formal ejection. . .from international affairs” (Bellin 2008, 318). The discipline was and remains

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influenced also by the assumptions of classical liberalism which posited a distinction between public and private and relegated religion to the latter sphere. Consequently, the traditional bailiwick of political science has long been the public and formal institutions and manifestations of power, states, nations, constitutions and judicial systems, citizenship, international and domestic conflict, parties, and the behaviors and attitudes associated with these. The peripheral status of religion also derived from the views of many of the founders of modern social science, who “dismissed religious institutions as a dying vestige of our primitive, pre-scientific past” (Iannaccone & Berman 2006, 110). Marx, Weber and Durkheim all took religion seriously, but in different ways each envisioned a future in which the influence of religion would diminish, if not disappear altogether. Leading political scientists of the post-World War II period absorbed and replicated these assumptions, especially those of Weber and Durkheim. Weberian concepts of rationalization, routinization and disenchantment, along with Durkheimian functional specialization, informed a good part of the research agenda of mid-20th century comparative research, especially that focused on post-colonial societies traveling the route from tradition to modernity. American scholars tended to regard modernity somewhat more optimistically than did Weber; as a colleague once put it, they took Weber’s iron cage and “put chrome plating and tail fins on it”.2 From within the framework of modernization theory, most political and other social scientists foresaw a functionally-specified, secular future in which religion would be increasingly confined to one corner of the “social system” (Parsons 1964), decreasingly relevant to politics and public life. As is now clear, real-world events jolted the discipline and shifted its perspective on religious questions. The Iranian revolution, the rise of fundamentalism world-wide, church-supported challenges to communist and authoritarian dictatorships, and of course 9/11 are among the events and trends that have forced scholars to reevaluate the place of religion in politics and political science. This reevaluation has been facilitated by methodological and theoretical innovations such as enhanced survey instruments and global data sets that enable cross-national inquiry. Scholarship in the major political science subfields has explored the relationship between religiosity and “existential insecurity” (Norris & Inglehart 2005); whether religion distracts poor people from pursuing their political interests (De La O & Rodden 2008); and the predictive value of

2 Jonathan Marshall, personal communication.

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religious identity and religiosity in explaining policy preferences and voting behavior (Scheve & Stasavage 2006; Gill & Lundsgaarde 2004). Applications of rational choice and game theory have generated insights regarding the place of religious motivations in suicide bombings (Elster 2005); the violence and intractability of religious civil wars (Toft 2007); the doctrinal and organizational attributes of religious groups active in electoral politics (Grzymala-Busse 2015); and the ways competition leads establishment religious elites to support grassroots movements for political and civil rights (Trejo 2009; Gill 1998). Experimental research has revealed that the ways clergy frame religious values in their sermons can influence congregants’ attitudes towards foreign aid and intervention (Djupe and Calfano 2013). This scholarship is relevant not only for scholars of religion but for those interested in partisanship, contentious politics, democratization, social welfare policy and a host of other topics.

2 Religion and Chinese Politics Although the study of Chinese politics has long been shaped by trends within political science, the political realities of the PRC have been perhaps of greater import in directing scholars’ attention towards or away from religious phenomena. For many years, few scholars of post-1949 Chinese politics investigated questions pertaining to religion simply because there was not much religion to investigate. Mainland academics were constrained by ideological assumptions about religion’s reactionary and feudal character and its eventual withering away (see Laliberté, this volume). Academics outside the mainland were prevented from conducting field research within the PRC, limited to reading foreign broadcast reports, interviewing refugees, or employing Kremlinology with Chinese characteristics to parse official documents for political insight. Religion did figure into some studies of PRC politics, such as analyses of state and partybuilding in ethnic minority regions (Dreyer 1976). By and large, however, political science research on China was preoccupied (justifiably) with revolution, ideology, Maoist leadership, the Communist Party, and socialist transformation. Yet religion is hardly irrelevant to questions concerning seminal political events of 20th century China, including the 1911 and Communist revolutions. Scholarship on both revolutions has examined the role played by religious organizations – especially sectarian groups – in the origin and development of these movements, including on the CCP’s ability to mobilize the peasantry. Throughout Chinese history sectarian religion served as both precipitant and vehicle of grassroots uprisings, as seen in the Taiping, Boxer, and numerous

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other rebellions. CCP historiography has long portrayed these rebellions as the proto-revolutionary struggles of an oppressed peasantry. Not surprisingly the Communists tried to win over sectarian groups to support the revolutionary cause, albeit with mixed success (Chen 1986; Aminzade & Perry 2001). Why the CCP struggled to mobilize sectarian rebels and why such groups rebelled in the first place are questions animating Elizabeth Perry’s 1980 Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845–1945, a political scientific study of the Nian and Red Spears (Hongqiang hui 紅槍會) rebellions of the 19th and early 20th centuries, respectively. Though based on archival research and written in narrative style, Rebels and Revolutionaries exemplifies key analytical and methodological approaches of comparative political science. Specifically, the book tests hypotheses derived from social science theories of peasant rebellion and produces generalizable insights that can be applied beyond the Chinese case. These include theories regarding the revolutionary potential of peasants. A good deal of conventional scholarly wisdom at the time Perry’s book was published depicted peasants as lacking in the material, organizational and ideational resources needed for sustained rebellion, much less revolution. Instead, peasants were regarded as anomic and parochial, Marx’s quintessential “sack of potatoes” (Perry 1980, 2). Other theories framed peasant rebellion as backward-looking efforts to restore the traditional “moral economy” (Scott 1976); a “profit-maximizing” strategy pursued by self-interested individual peasants (Popkin 1979); or as reflecting the interests and organizational wherewithal of the middle peasantry (Wolf 1969). Perry’s findings challenge all of these interpretations. She points out that Huaibei, the region where the Nian and Red Spears rebellions emerged, was the “site of the first recorded popular uprising in Chinese history and of countless subsequent rebellions down through the ages” (Perry 1980, 1). Contra Marxian expectations and despite their extreme poverty, the peasant communities of Huaibei possessed a variety of resources that facilitated solidarity and collective action, including sustained rebellion. In contrast to the assumptions of the “rational peasant” approach, Perry demonstrates that peasants participated in rebellion and other collective survival strategies not “as isolated individuals, but as members of pre-existing socioeconomic groups” (Ibid, 251). One of her main findings is that Nian and Red Spear movements were extensions of collective strategies to ensure individual and community survival in the harsh environment of Huaibei. The rebellious character of the Nian and Red Spears was contextual; they were neither inherently anti-state nor even political. Instead, they became rebels only when their collective survival strategies brought them into conflict with a predatory and coercive state.

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Perry also challenges the notion that there is any one form of or one set of motivations guiding peasant rebellion. The Nian and Red Spears in fact exemplify two distinct types of peasant rebellion. While the Nian were largely though not exclusively “predatory” in character, the Red Spears movement was a mostly “protective” effort to defend rural communities against predation from outside forces – including, at times, the state. These differences reflect the socio-economic composition of the movements. The Nian rebellion grew out of efforts by destitute peasants to secure the basic means of existence. In contrast, the Red Spears were comprised of cross-class, village-based organizations dominated by rural elites seeking to preserve the rural status quo. It is thus no surprise that many Red Spear groups rejected the mobilizing efforts of the Communists, as their interests were fundamentally at odds with a party bent on toppling and expropriating rural elites (Ibid, 217). In analyzing the Nian and Red Spears movements, Perry explores the role that sectarian religion played in their origins and development. She demonstrates that sectarianism was an important factor in the durability and effectiveness of the Red Spears, although negligible in the case of the Nian. Among the Red Spears, religious beliefs and practices helped forge solidarity across socioeconomic lines within villages. It also facilitated trans-local alliances among competitive Red Spear organizations when multiple communities were threatened by outside aggression. Rituals and invulnerability spells imparted confidence and legitimated the cause. Fasting, abstention from sex, and rigorous initiation rituals were employed to secure recruits’ commitment and demonstrate leaders’ credibility. Perry’s description of these practices and beliefs underscores how sectarian groups use “stigma” and “sacrifice” to cement members’ loyalty and screen out free-riders (Iannaccone & Berman 2006). Though her work eschews the abstract modeling of rational choice theory in favor of detailed historical narrative, it demonstrates the rationality of superstitious, “primitive” rebels (Hobsbawm 1965). Although sectarianism figures prominently in Perry’s analysis of the Red Spears, she in fact de-centers religion by showing that it was not a primary cause in the development of either that movement or the Nian Rebellion. Belief and ritual practice were important to the Red Spears, but their actions were not religiously motivated: “religious inspiration was subordinated to entrenched local interests” (Perry 1980, 207). In addition, “the sectarian, or ‘heterodox,’ character of Red Spear beliefs did not ensure a progressive social content”; far from giving voice and direction to the dispossessed, Red Spears sectarianism was bound up with efforts to “maintain existing power relations in the countryside” (Ibid). Perry further argues that it was not religion itself that hindered CCP recruitment of Red Spears to its cause, but the socioeconomic composition and objectives of

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these groups. Her analysis thus challenges the view that Chinese sectarian groups always and everywhere served as “[vehicles] of antigovernment activity by the oppressed” (Ibid, 254).

3 Religion and Governance in Contemporary China Perry’s work shows how a comparative approach, one that analyzes religious phenomena alongside the non-religious, can facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the ways belief and practice intersect with local authority, class relations, and community interests, and the consequences of these intersections for political behavior. Though her focus is quite different, Lily Tsai employs a similarly comparative approach in Accountability Without Democracy: Solidary Groups and Public Goods Provision in Rural China (2007). Tsai’s book is an exemplar of methodological trends in comparative politics in that it combines statistical analysis of survey data with structured case comparisons involving observation and in-depth interviews. As the title of her book makes clear, Tsai is interested in a core question of political science: how government is rendered accountable to the governed. Her research is situated within an extensive body of scholarship analyzing the consequences of post-Mao reforms for governance and for China’s rural population. It engages also with debates regarding voluntary associations and the mechanisms by which informal institutions shape cadre behavior and policy outcomes. Among the many questions investigated by this scholarship is how reforms have affected the balance of power among different levels of rural governance and the incentive structures in which local cadres operate. A related question concerns the effects of reforms on ordinary villagers. The dismantling of collective institutions and the introduction of household contracting created new opportunities for farming households while reducing party-state control over social, cultural, and economic behavior. In doing so these reforms eroded mechanisms for social cooperation and cadre accountability. Tsai’s study investigates variations in the ability of rural communities to render local government responsive to their interests. In particular, she explores the puzzle of why some Chinese villages appear better than others at securing and providing public goods such as running water, paved roads and footpaths, and adequate school facilities. A community’s ability to secure such resources from the state, she argues, is an indicator of its influence over local officials – its ability to make officials accountable and responsive to its needs.

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Initial research suggested wealth and location do not explain this variation, Tsai discovered that villages in close proximity to each other “with similar levels of economic development could have significantly different provision of public goods and services” (Tsai 2007, 2). Through an elaborate but elegant research design involving surveys of over 300 villages and structured case comparisons, Tsai tested the effects of a range of variables on public goods provision, her measure of government accountability. These variables included the quality of village political institutions, village-party relations, and the presence and number of solidary groups. Strikingly, Tsai discovered that formal institutions designed to ensure accountability, such as village democratic elections, had little effect on public goods provision. That is, levels of public goods provision did not correlate with the quality of elections, the percentage of CCP members on village committees, or formal contracts with local governments for public goods delivery. It turns out that religion provided part of the answer to Tsai’s puzzle: public goods provision was positively correlated with the presence of certain kinds of “solidary groups”, including religious ones. Villages possessed of these solidary groups were more likely to have well-maintained school facilities, paved roads and footpaths, running water, and higher levels of public investment over all. Based on her findings, Tsai argues that non-state, informal “solidary groups” – temples, lineage associations, even fan-dance associations – can make up for weak formal institutions in ensuring government accountability and responsiveness. They do so not by directly providing public goods themselves, but indirectly through their normative influence over local officials, that is, their ability to confer status via “moral standing”. According to Tsai, the moral and social prestige these groups confer “motivates officials to provide public goods, allows villagers to hold officials accountable, and helps officials to secure compliance with policy decisions” (Ibid, 115–116). Yet not all solidary groups wield moral and social influence to the same degree. To do so, Tsai argues that a group must be both “embedding” and “encompassing”: it must “encompass” most or all members of the governed community and “embed” officials as participants, if not full members. Groups that encompass a community without embedding officials may be able to solve certain collective action problems on their own, but they lack normative influence over officials and thus the ability to secure resources from the party-state. In communities dominated by such groups, public goods provision was comparatively weak. The same was true of villages in which no single group “encompassed” the entire community. In such cases, “embedded” cadres might use their position to benefit particular groups to which they belonged, while neglecting the needs of other groups and the village as a whole. Solidary

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groups that are both embedding and encompassing, however, “can provide a common framework of moral obligations for the entire community” (115–116) that allows them to serve as informal institutions of accountability. Tsai also found that good public goods provision was most strongly correlated with the presence of embedding and encompassing groups of a religious nature, although the strength of this correlation varied among the different religious traditions. Villages with encompassing temple organizations did better than those without, including villages possessed of encompassing Christian churches (127–136). Tsai attributes this discrepancy to the difficulty Christian churches face in trying to “embed” local officials, which she links to the historical association of Christianity with foreignness and Western imperialism. As she explains, “village temples are associated with reinforcing state authority and legitimacy whereas village church institutions are associated with dangerous connections to foreign actors and the undermining of state authority” (123). Consequently, no matter how encompassing they are, Christian solidary groups are less able to embed officials and exercise moral influence over them. In contrast, the relatively benign official view of traditional popular religion makes “village officials more likely not only to permit or support the establishment of temple institutions but to participate in them personally” (124). Where Tsai’s Accountability Without Democracy stresses religion’s normative influence in politics, Karrie Koesel’s Religion and Authoritarianism (2014) highlights the importance of material interests in shaping relations between religious groups and the party-state. Koesel’s study reflects the trend within social science disciplines to regard religious motivations and actions as rational, rather than irrational, premodern, or the products of collective delusion. Scholarship in this vein reveals how religious phenomena function as commodities that organizations and elites try to acquire and deploy to expand their influence and market share. This research has demonstrated the utility of religious extremism for political elites and the pathways by which civil conflicts become religious ones (Iannaccone & Berman 2006; Toft 2007). Of course, China scholars like Elizabeth Perry have long emphasized the rationality of Chinese religious actors, including sectarian rebels. Scholarship on China has tended to highlight the adversarial nature of state-religion relations, for good reason. The country’s past and present are studded with examples of religious groups that mobilized against governing regimes. As Koesel points out, however, relations between religious groups and authoritarian regimes can also be cooperative and mutually beneficial. By comparing undemocratic but partially liberalized Russia with China’s more centralized, repressive system, Koesel explores how variations in regime type shape

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the extent, form, and bases of state-religion cooperation. Her book is a valuable contribution to political science in great part because it is a cross-national study that includes China as one of its cases. The PRC has long been regarded in comparative politics as an outlier and a difficult fit for multi-case, cross-national analysis. Koesel’s book demonstrates the utility of including China in this sort of research. Drawing on the insights and assumptions of rational choice theory, Koesel argues that religion-state cooperation is possible where the interests of officials and religious groups are served by the exchange of “tradable resources”. Even in an atheistic regime like the PRC, religious groups possess resources that may benefit the state or particular officials. Especially at the local level, officials are sometimes willing to exchange resources they control for those held and managed by religious entities. State resources include land, building permits, funding, permission to stage events, and the security that comes with government recognition. On the other side of the negotiating table, religious groups may possess institutional and ritual endowments conducive to trade, tourism, and foreign investment (McCarthy 2009 and 2010). Resources also include the time, money, and human energy expended in faith-based charity (Laliberté 2012; McCarthy 2013). Some officials try to “draw on forms of cultural capital” possessed by religious communities “to reformulate political legitimacy, strengthen national identity, and even encourage nationalism” (Koesel 2014, 26). As Koesel makes clear, however, not all religions are in a position to negotiate their relationship through resource exchange, and not all resources are equally tradable. Much depends on ideological constraints, a religion’s “insider” or “outsider” status, and the interests and power bases of officials. In Russia’s competitive authoritarian system, many local officials depend on electoral support for their power; in addition, the Russian Orthodox Church enjoys privileged political status compared with other religious communities. Orthodox clerics’ support can thus be useful for officials competing for elected office. For this reason, Russian officials “invite religious leaders into the political sphere and give them a voice in decision making and influence over the local agenda” in exchange for religious capital that “will allow them to consolidate power and prestige” (Koesel 2014, 152). In China, however, “political elites are far more beholden to forces above them, making it extremely risky to empower religious communities” (165). Because of ideological and structural constraints, religion-state cooperation in China is less likely to involve the trading of intangible resources than in Russia. Instead, “there is a cash nexus driving the interaction in which tangible and quantifiable resources are exchanged and money is often the bottom line” (Ibid).

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4 Political Science and the Religiosity of Religion Tsai and Koesel have made important contributions to comparative and Chinese politics, particularly to questions concerning governance, voluntary associations, state-society relations, and the place of religion in the politics of authoritarian regimes. Importantly, their work has been noticed by scholars outside the subfield of Chinese politics. Both books are based on prize-winning dissertations. Tsai’s dissertation won a Best Fieldwork Award in 2005 from the Comparative Democratization section of the American Political Science Association, and Koesel won APSA’s Aaron Wildavsky Award in 2010 for best dissertation on religion and politics. It is encouraging that the broader discipline of political science has recognized the relevance of research on China, including scholarship on Chinese religion. As impressive as these two studies are – and they are impressive – their respective conceptualizations and analyses of religion might leave scholars in other disciplines somewhat unsatisfied. The ‘thin’ version of religion each employs may also obscure religion’s political significance and consequences, something which should matter to political scientists. For instance, I found Tsai’s explanation of why temples are better than Christian churches at embedding officials somewhat unconvincing. Her explanation is a political and historical one: owing to historical legacies Christianity continues to be regarded as ‘foreign’ and hostile to party-state authority. In contrast, popular religious temples are seen as relatively benign organizations that in the past helped to legitimate state power. On the face of it this diagnosis is debatable. Tsai is suggesting that it is easier for officials to participate in the ‘superstitious’ activities of unregistered temple organizations than in those of registered Christian churches supervised by the Religious Affairs Bureau. Moreover, Tsai’s own case studies reveal that the illicit character of temple organizations can in fact inhibit the embedding of officials. In one village Tsai surveyed, officials refrained from participating in temple activities until the temple’s governing council assumed responsibility for the village senior citizens’ association. In other words, it was only after the temple association “repurposed” itself as a secular social welfare organization that officials felt free to participate and the association gained the moral leverage to influence governance (McCarthy 2013). This case study suggests that the particular faith of a solidary organization may be less important than the creativity of its members in crafting alternative vehicles of community influence. Tsai’s focus on historical legacies overlooks the possibility that distinctly religious factors – including theology, belief, ritual and structures of religious authority – may determine a group’s ability to embed local officials. Consider key differences between the ritual activities of popular religious temples and

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those of a rural Catholic church, and the forms that participation in these take. Temple events such as festivals often involve an array of undirected, unscripted and quasi-secular activities, many occurring more or less at the same time as more formal, choreographed events: fortune-telling, trinket-selling, incenselighting, opera-singing, gossiping, eating and so on. In many communities, ritual leaders and honored participants are drawn from the ranks of other community elites, including retired party and state officials. In contrast, the ritual of the Catholic mass requires one to participate in a scripted set of actions carried out in a particular time and space, orchestrated by a single clerical specialist whose leadership cannot and does not overlap other village institutions. Full participation (that is, ‘embedding’) also requires that one vocally profess one’s faith and satisfy additional sacramental obligations, namely Baptism, Confession, Confirmation and Communion. In other words, the barriers to participation in Catholic religious life are considerably higher than they are for popular religion, high enough to prohibit the embedding of officials – especially if they are members of the Communist Party. The non-exclusive character of popular religion allows officials to participate in ways that the doctrinally demanding rituals of Catholicism do not. In Koesel’s study, embedding does not appear to be a factor in determining whether or not officials support the agendas of religious organizations. In fact, her exchange-based model of state-religion interactions largely precludes embedding as a possibility. Koesel depicts the relationship between religious groups and party-state agents as a dyadic one, involving two actors on opposite sides of the negotiating table, bargaining over distinct but compatible objectives. In doing so Koesel elides the possibility that Chinese officials may be enmeshed in the religious communities with which they negotiate the trading of resources. These assumptions give her analysis a certain predictive utility. However, the dividing line between officialdom and social collectivities is not always a hard and fast one. Even in China officials may be religious adherents or members of territorial, kinship, social and ethnic groups that overlap religious communities and institutions. Officials’ interests may not only be compatible with those of religious groups but they may also be one and the same, and the pursuit of their interests may reflect their religious identities. A related problem concerns the distinction Koesel draws between material and non-material religious resources. She argues that due to the ideological and political constraints of China’s Communist regime, non-material religious resources rarely figure into negotiations between religious groups and the state. Officials have little need for these, she argues, and even if they did it is too risky to make use of them. Instead, negotiations proceed through offers of tangible, quantifiable goods and services. As anthropologists and religious

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studies scholars would attest, however, the distinction between the material and non-material (or tangible and intangible) is often a false one, especially in the realm of religion. This distinction obscures the multiple meanings and effects of sacred objects, structures, and ritual actions, their charismatic power as well as their secular utility. Whether one comprehends the sacred power and significance of such resources can depend on the degree to which one is – to use Tsai’s term – embedded in the religious community and cognizant of its beliefs. Because of this, exchanges of ostensibly material resources can produce intangible, spiritual effects that are both incomprehensible to and unintended by agents of the party-state. Consider faith-based charity, one of the tradable resources religious groups deploy in the pursuit of their interests. In Koesel’s account charity is one resource religious groups “trade”, often in an effort to “gain legitimacy and diminish suspicions toward their religious community” (77). Because of their philanthropic endeavors, even some illicit organizations have managed to secure resources, autonomy, and tacit if not formal approval from the state. Citing the example of an underground Catholic lay organization that runs a home for disabled adults, Koesel explains that local officials – although fully aware of the group’s unregistered status – tolerate its activities because of the services it provides. Because of their philanthropic endeavors, “the [underground] Catholic church has been able to partially emerge from the shadows and establish a presence in the community” (74). While local officials’ tolerance and tacit approval may seem a small price to pay for charitable resources religious groups provide, it is not clear how their stance squares with the secularizing agenda of the Chinese Communist regime. Officials’ concessions may end up enhancing the legitimacy and public profile of religion in ways the regime neither anticipates nor desires. This is especially so given that charity itself often functions as a form of religious practice and expression, intrinsic to the experience of the sacred. To many adherents, charity is a religious “modality” (Chau 2011), a way of “doing” religion in the context of their everyday lives outside the boundaries of approved religious sites. Additionally, charity serves spiritual and religious ends by providing opportunities for evangelism and the acquisition of merit, blessings, and other spiritual rewards. In melding spirituality with service, moreover, adherents sacralize the secular sites, discourses, and activities of charity – including foundations, NGOs, and even GONGOs – ‘repurposing’ them into religious venues and endeavors (McCarthy 2013). Whether or not party-state officials are aware of the religious consequences of charitable endeavors is an open question. Koesel’s portrayal of state-religion interactions implies that the parties involved in bargaining understand what it is that is being traded. For a trade to take place each party has to, in a sense,

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agree on the ‘value’ of the goods being offered. Yet the spiritual connotations of faith-based charity may escape detection by bureaucrats focused on its economic and political benefits. To officials steeped in the atheism and secularism of the party-state, the significance of religious resources may simply not ‘compute’, and they may agree to exchanges whose implications elude them.

5 Religion, Repression, and Local State Interests Though both Tsai’s and Koesel’s studies underscore the often cooperative nature of state-religious relations in the PRC, it goes without saying that China’s government still tries to constrain religion through a mix of regulatory and repressive strategies. One of the puzzles of Chinese religious policy is the inconsistency in how and where particular policies are applied. Groups and practices repressed in one locale or time period may be tolerated and even encouraged at other times and places. A growing body of scholarship in the social sciences and humanities has illuminated many of the local factors driving this variability. To really make sense of this seeming inconsistency, however, systematic attention to the policy context and the incentives guiding cadre behavior is required. These topics have long been central to the discipline of political science. Recent work by political scientist James Tong (2014) shows how attention to these issues can provide a window into the workings of China’s complex bureaucracy. Tong’s study of religious policy legislation reveals the institutional weaknesses of China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs, or SARA, weaknesses that hamper its control over policy implementation at the local level. As Tong explains, unlike cabinet-level entities such as the Ministry of Public Security and the State Administration of Taxation, SARA lacks “line authority” over municipal, county and township Religious Affairs Bureaus (RABs). One manifestation of this lack of line authority is the fact that the personnel decisions and budget appropriations of local RABs are determined not by SARA but “by the local governments of the same administrative level to which they are beholden” (Tong 2014, 70). Consequently, SARA “lacks the resource leverage to compel compliance with its regulations from local cadres, who see themselves as employees. . .of the local government first”. In other words, SARA officials in Beijing have only limited say in how local RABs implement religious policies formulated at the center. Compounding this administrative weakness is the central government’s policy of “localization of management” in religious affairs, which allows local officials considerable leeway in enacting and enforcing religious policies. One byproduct of this

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localization is the dearth of information on the number and types of religious organizations, clerical personnel and faith-based charitable programs throughout the country. Tong’s analysis of bureaucratic and legal institutions helps explain why religious policy implementation is not uniform throughout the country and so often depends on the concerns and interests of local officials. Of course, local officials’ interests do not exist in a vacuum; they are shaped in part by the national political context, including the ‘line authority’ of ministries other than SARA. These observations are underscored in research by political scientist Teresa Wright and sociologist Teresa Zimmerman-Liu (2013b) analyzing the state’s treatment of unapproved Christian ‘house’ churches. Wright and ZimmermanLiu discovered that in many areas repression of illicit Christian groups is neither constant nor haphazard. Nor is it explicable solely in terms of local identities and interests. Instead repression follows a cyclical pattern that tracks national anti-crime campaigns and the annual reporting required of local Public Security Bureaus. As the authors explain, crackdowns spike “. . .in accordance with yearly cycles when local officials have to meet quotas for report deadlines or national directives related to holidays and anniversaries, or when local officials require extra money (for example, prior to Chinese New Year)” (Wright & Zimmerman-Liu 2013b, 16). At other times, officials are often content to ignore the activities of illicit Christian churches, so long as their actions do not impinge on social order or cross administrative boundaries. Wright and Zimmerman-Liu connect local officials’ actions to their interests in pay, job security, and promotion, all of which depend on their ability to satisfy the demands of their superiors in the public security apparatus in part by carrying out directives from the center. The findings of Wright and Zimmerman-Liu furthermore challenge the view that illicit Christian organizations are targeted for repression because they are deemed particularly threatening to the regime. Proponents of “graduated controls” theory, for instance, claim that such groups are subject to stringent “strategies of control” because they refuse government oversight and because their beliefs “challenge the official ideology” (Kang & Heng 2008, 40). Yet Wright and Zimmerman-Liu find that episodic crackdowns on Christian groups often reflect the lack of threat these pose in the eyes of the local state. Officials seeking to fulfill quarterly arrest quotas may prefer to detain house church Christians because, having been taught to “turn the other cheek”, Christians “do not usually resist arrest, and thus taking them in is easier for the police than going after dangerous criminals” (Wright & Zimmerman-Liu 2013b, 16). The authors also demonstrate the continued importance of guanxi for religious and other social organizations

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in China. Even illicit groups can evade suppression if they possess close connections to powerful individuals embedded in party-state structures. The findings of Wright and Zimmerman-Liu, like those of James Tong, make clear the value of analyzing formal political institutions. Their article is commendable also because of the impressive array of data and materials on which it is based. Along with other informants, the authors interviewed dozens of Chinese house church pastors, members, and rights lawyers residing in the U.S. and active in U.S.-based churches that assist Christian groups in the mainland. The authors also coded and analyzed data from a random sample of 800 letters sent by Chinese listeners to the Far East Broadcasting Group, a Hong Kong-based, non-denominational Christian radio network that broadcasts in China. Wright and Zimmerman-Liu explain that the 800 letters in their sample are just a drop in the bucket of the more than 300,000 archived by the FEBC, thousands of which are held by the Divinity School of Chung Chi College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Though resource constraints limit access to these letters, the authors make the case that they “comprise a rich new source of information on the situation of unofficial Protestant churches and church members in contemporary China” (Ibid, 4).

6 Religion and Political Attitudes One of the core questions animating political scientific studies of religion in China concerns the long term impact of religious revival and expansion on China’s political system. The opening of social space to religious organizations has sparked debate regarding their role in a nascent civil society. The phenomenal growth of Protestant Christianity in particular has led some analysts to speculate on the potential for China’s Christians to serve as incubators of (if not agitators for) democratic values and attitudes (Vala 2012). Such speculation is not surprising, given Christianity’s historical association with Western liberal democracy. In the West, the Protestant reformation facilitated new understandings of the individual and the political community that influenced liberal democratic theories of citizenship, sovereignty, and freedom (Seligman 1992; Walzer 1982). In the waning decades of the twentieth century, Protestants and Catholics were active in challenging authoritarian and totalitarian regimes around the globe, from Poland to El Salvador to South Korea. More recently, preliminary research suggests a sizable Christian presence in the pro-democracy protests that rocked Hong Kong in 2014, including among ‘Umbrella Movement’ leaders. Many of China’s most prominent and persecuted rights lawyers are evangelical Christians, as is a surprising number

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of dissidents and former pro-democracy activists now living abroad (Wright and Zimmerman-Liu 2013a). Political science survey research and statistical methods would appear to provide ideal tools for investigating the links between religion and democratic attitudes. That said, China’s repressive politics makes research on this question extremely difficult. Survey research methods were developed largely in and for a democratic context in which freedom of speech, press, and collective association are protected. Nevertheless, some political scientists who study China are beginning to employ these methods in the study of related issues. An example of such research is Yang Zhong’s “Between God and Caesar: The Religious, Social, and Political Values of Chinese Christians” (2013). Zhong, a professor of political science at University of Tennessee-Knoxville, is well-positioned to explore this subject given his expertise researching Chinese political behavior and attitudes more generally. The data analyzed in this article are drawn from a 2011 survey of over five hundred Chinese Christians in seven large municipalities in China, mostly in the north, coastal east and south. Survey respondents were identified by Zhong through purposive, non-random sampling (so-called “snowball” sampling). Zhong’s survey explored Chinese Christians’ views on social issues, such as abortion and homosexuality; on religious views and behavior such as biblical inerrancy and frequency of church attendance; and on political attitudes and behaviors, including support for democratic elections and participation in elections for local people’s congresses. Among his Christian respondents, Zhong found high political interest but low political engagement. For instance, only about five percent of those polled said they had voted in the most recent elections for their local people’s congresses. This is a much lower percentage than that found in earlier surveys of the broader Chinese population. For instance, thirty-four percent of rural Jiangsu residents surveyed in 2000 and fifty-nine percent of Beijing residents surveyed in 1995 and 1997 reported voting in recent people’s congress elections. Zhong concludes from these disparities that “Chinese Christians are even more detached or alienated from the Chinese political system than non-Christian Chinese” (43). At the same time, Zhong’s Christian respondents showed somewhat higher support for civil liberties than did the respondents in the earlier Beijing and Jiangsu surveys.3 Zhong also found that seventy percent of his Christian respondents disagreed with the notion that “assemblies and demonstrations 3 Seventy-two percent of the Christian respondents “strongly agreed” and twenty-three percent “agreed” with the statement that “anyone is entitled to freely express his or her political views, whatever their nature” (43–44). In the random surveys of Chinese adults conducted in the mid-1990s and 2000, forty-one percent of Beijing residents and fifty-eight percent of rural

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tend to create chaos and should therefore be banned” (45), compared to just half of the rural Jiangsu respondents interviewed in 2000. Nearly three-quarters of his Christian respondents agreed that “Chinese local government officials should be elected directly by the people”, which Zhong claims suggest support for democratic processes. Interestingly, however, a much higher percentage (93.2%) of the rural Jiangsu respondents surveyed in 2000 agreed with that position. Though provocative, Zhong admits that his findings are tentative and limited. At several points in the article he states that his findings are heuristic and cannot be generalized to the Chinese Christian population as a whole, since the data on which they are based were not generated randomly. Snowball sampling, which relies on introductions from survey recruits to other potential recruits, is often necessary in restrictive contexts, and is sometimes the only way for researchers to locate respondents and collect data. Yet samples resulting from this approach are typically highly unrepresentative of the population and cannot be analyzed as such. Interview subjects one meets through this method may be the most active and best known within a larger community, and thus possessed of “outlier” opinions. More lukewarm or reticent individuals may be absent from interview pools constructed through purposive, non-random sampling. Because of these concerns Zhong states that his analyses “are meant to be hypothesis-generating exercises and are not conclusive generalizations due to the limitations of the data” (46).4 Zhong’s efforts to conduct survey research in China’s challenging environment and his acknowledgement of his study’s limitations are commendable. Still, I wonder about the impact of his findings on the conventional wisdom generated by the social scientific study of religion in China. Despite Zhong’s caveats, the fact that Christians in his survey showed strong support for democratic values and institutions is likely to be misinterpreted and misused by other scholars to generalize about Chinese Christians as a whole, especially compared to the broader population and other groups. Hypothesis-generating research of this sort is necessary and valuable, but scholars need to take care that their hypotheses are not regarded as conclusive. It is certainly possible that Chinese Christians possess relatively democratic political attitudes and

Jiangsu residents “strongly agreed” with the statement while forty-six percent of Beijing and thirty-two percent of Jiangsu respondents “agreed” with it. 4 Zhong also compares the responses of snowball-sampled urban Christians with those of rural Jiangsu residents sampled randomly eleven years prior, without discussing the considerable differences in the political experiences of rural versus urban Chinese (for instance, their participation in democratic elections).

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behaviors. On the other hand, in their study of Chinese dissidents and former democracy activists residing in the United States, the aforementioned Wright and Zimmerman-Liu found that Christian conversion has gone hand-in-hand with a move away from politics and democracy activism towards religious engagement, specifically evangelism (2013a). Their findings, like those of Elizabeth Perry, highlight what Daniel Philpott calls “the political ambivalence of religion”, the fact that religious beliefs and membership rarely correlate neatly with particular political behaviors, ideas or ideologies (Philpott 2007).

Conclusion This chapter has sought to highlight what political science has contributed and can contribute in future to the study of religion in China. Increasing interest in religion within the discipline as a whole has made it possible for China scholars to examine religious phenomena using the methods and constructs of political science. Also enabling this research is the growing field of the social scientific study of religion in China, and the consequent emergence of a cadre of Chinese and non-Chinese scholars interested in the subject. The works analyzed in this chapter demonstrate the value of comparing religious with non-religious phenomena, a strategy that can reveal political dimensions of religion overlooked by other disciplinary approaches. They show also that attention to political institutions, policy-making, and the incentive structures in which officials operate can help us better understand the constraints and opportunities facing adherents and faith organizations in China. And they reveal that in certain circumstances religion can help make government more responsive to the governed even where formal mechanisms of accountability are lacking. Happily, several political science studies of Chinese religion have garnered disciplinary acclaim and influenced scholarship on other regions of the world. At the same time, the scholarship discussed in this chapter suggests the need for political scientists to take seriously the religiosity of religion. That is, scholars should attempt to consider how spirituality, specific beliefs and religious self-understandings – rather than just nominal identities and organizational resources – influence political attitudes and behavior (and vice-versa). Exploring these poses difficulties for political scientists, given the history and predilections of their discipline. Most problematic is the repressive and restrictive political climate of the PRC. While this climate poses obstacles to political science research on many subjects, scholarship on religion is particularly hampered given the sensitivity of religion in the eyes of China’s leaders. Nevertheless, the

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creativity of the scholars discussed here with regard to research design, data collection, and data analysis bodes well for future political science studies of Chinese religions.

Bibliography Aminzade, Ronald and Elizabeth J. Perry. 2001. “The Sacred, Religious, and Secular in Contentious Politics: Blurring Boundaries.” Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics, edited by Ronald Aminzade et al, 155–178. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bellin, Eva R. 2008. “Faith in Politics: New Trends in the Study of Religion and Politics.” World Politics 60, no.2: 315–347. Bovingdon, Gardner. 2010. The Uyghurs: Strangers in their Own Land. New York: Columbia University Press. Chau, Adam Yuet. 2011. “Modalities of Doing Religion.” In Chinese Religious Life, edited by David A. Palmer, Glenn Shive and Philip L. Wickeri, 67–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chen, Yung-fa. 1986. Making Revolution: The Communist Movement in Eastern and Central China, 1937–1945, Volume 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. Converse, Philip E. 1966. “Religion and Politics: The 1960 Election.” In Elections and the Political Order, edited by Angus Campbell, 96–124. New York: Wiley. De La O, Ana L., Jonathan A. Rodden. 2008. “Does Religion Distract the Poor? Income and Issue Voting Around the World.” Comparative Political Studies 41, no.4–5: 437–476. Djupe, Paul A. and Brian R. Calfano. 2013. God Talk: Experimenting with the Religious Causes of Public Opinion. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Dreyer, June Teufel. 1976. China’s Forty Millions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Elster, Jon. 2005. “Motivations and Beliefs in Suicide Missions.” In Making Sense of Suicide Missions, edited by Diego Gambetta, 233–258. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gill, Anthony. 1998. Rendering unto Caesar: The Catholic Church and the State in Latin America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gill, Anthony and Erik Lundsgaarde. 2004. “State welfare spending and religiosity: A cross-national analysis.” Rationality and Society 16: 399–436. Grzymala-Busse, Anna. 2015. Nations Under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Grzymala-Busse, Anna. 2012. “Why Comparative Politics Should Take Religion (More) Seriously.” Annual Review of Political Science 15: 421–442. Hobsbawm, E.M. 1965. Primitive Rebels. New York: W.W. Norton. Iannaccone, Laurence and Eli Berman. 2006. “Religious Extremism: The good, the bad, and the deadly.” Public Choice 128, no.1: 109–129. Jelen, Ted G. 1998. “Research in Religion and Mass Political Behavior in the United States: Looking Both Ways After Two Decades of Scholarship.” American Politics Quarterly 26 (January): 110–134. Kang, Xiaoguang and Heng Han. 2008. “Graduated Controls: The State-Society Relationship in Contemporary China.” Modern China 34, no.1: 36–55.

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André Laliberté

Chinese Political Science and the Study of Religion Introduction Political scientists outside China have expressed an increasing interest in looking at the intersection between religion and politics in that country.1 But how do their Chinese counterparts respond to that interest? How do political scientists in China look at religion’s influence in the politics of their society and that of others? CCP officials express their views often on religion and religious believers, and the government regularly addresses the public on policies about religious matters, whether it is to celebrate the positive contribution of religion to the public interest (gongyi shiye 公益事业), its role in building an harmonious society (goujian hexie shehui 构建和谐社会), or guarding against ‘evil cults’ (fangfan xiejiao 防范邪教). In doing so, they rely on the expert knowledge produced by a growing epistemic community looking at religion from a wide variety of angles. Scholars in social sciences and humanities present their research findings and express their views on religion in their country though a number of research institutes and journals. But how often are political scientists asked to provide their view on religion and politics, keeping in mind that party and state officials commission them to assess government policies on poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and a host of other issues? This question matters for outsiders who want to better understand the politics of religion and the religious dimension of politics in China.2 Political scientists from abroad who want to achieve this understanding, like their colleagues in other disciplines, are aware that they need to know about the institutional constraints, assumptions, concerns, and methods that shape the production of knowledge among their Chinese peers. However, political scientists face a daunting challenge. Many Chinese social scientists and scholars in the humanities are

1 I refer to Susan McCarthy’s chapter in this book for an overview of non-Chinese political scientists’ study of religion in China. 2 The perennial risk of political leaders developing a ‘cult of personality’ reminds us of the importance of thinking about the religious dimension of politics. Note: I would like to acknowledge the help of Lu Lu for her assistance in preparing this chapter, and thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council its financial support. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-010

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researching the religious landscape of their country, its porous boundaries with other spheres of social life, as well as the evolutions of the relations between the state and religions in other countries or periods in Chinese history, but relatively few political scientists do so. The knowledge on religion in China by scholars worldwide has grown remarkably because of the interactions between Chinese scholars and their peers abroad in the fields of history, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. However, the field of political science presents particular challenges, because of the definition of the discipline and its assigned role in contemporary China. The goal of this chapter is to introduce us to the expectations and limitations the state imposes to Chinese political scientists when they look at religion and politics. Its main point is that the framework imposed by the state and which is transmitted by the main institutions training political scientists powerfully influence the production of research in general, and acts as a deterrent. To demonstrate this point, I will first briefly introduce the approach used for that survey of Chinese political scientists’ writings on religion, and describe the material that I have relied upon. I then follow with a description of the institutional context in which political scientists work and which largely prevent them from writing on religion. In a third section, I offer a summary of how official thinking has evolved on the politics of religious affairs and religious work, and link this to an overview of the main research themes that the few political scientists working on religion have explored.

1 Sources and Methodology The survey in this chapter is limited in time to the second half of Jiang Zemin’s tenure as secretary general, and extends to the first two years of the Xi Jinping era.3 It does not aim to be comprehensive, but its goal is to draw attention to the obstacles Chinese political scientists face when trying to write about the relations between the state and religion. There are two ways to look at the production of political scientists interested by the study of religion in China: looking at articles on religion in political science journals, or looking at the production of political scientists writing about religion in academic journals in all disciplines. As often is the case in North America and Europe, few political scientists write on religion, and conversely, those few political scientists

3 The rationale for this time limitation is imposed by the availability of the relevant material at the time of writing.

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working on topics relevant to religion publish in journals that focus on other disciplines. Therefore, an account of research by Chinese political scientists interested by religion should start with a search in political science journals,4 but also it must include an exploration of articles written by political scientists in journals of religious studies, which are often inter-disciplinary. An exploration of articles with keywords such as politics and religion in such journals, not surprisingly, has revealed that many relevant articles are written by scholars who do not work in political science departments, and may have not received their degree in political science. I have included texts such scholars have written when they are published in political science journals, without assuming that they are trained as political scientists, and I have considered that they are relevant because their readership comprises political scientists. Another category of relevant sources are texts written by officials, who may or may not have been trained in political sciences. This may include the Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi 中国人民政治协商会议 or 政协), leaders of CCP organizations such as the United Front Work Department (UFWD, Tongzhanbu 统战部), and state officials such as the director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (Guojia zongjiao shiwuju 国家宗教事务局; hereafter SARA). It is important to take into account their writings because they frame the context in which political scientists and other social scientists do research. However, it is not always clear to what extent state policies and party directives represent the implementation into policies of prior research done by political scientists, and how much more likely it is that the directives of officials set the agenda for the research of political scientists in the first place.5 An invaluable starting point to get a bird’s eye view of the publications on religion is the Yearbook of religious studies in China (Zhongguo zongjiao yanjiu nianjian 中国宗教研究年鉴) published by the Institute for World Religions (IWR), a unit in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). This publication offers a very useful overview of everything published on religion in China in any given year, whether it is in social sciences or humanities.6 It includes a selection of articles,

4 Searching the catalogue of the TKN East View China Academic Journals Economics, Politics, Law, and using the keyword zhengzhi 政治, I have found twelve journals, some of which are provincial or even municipal in scope. 5 In private conversations in 2014 and 2015, colleagues in disciplines other than political science explained that they are sometimes tasked to present their data to officials but they have themselves no way to know if their suggestions or recommendations will be accepted or ignored. 6 There is a gap in this selection, since I did not have access to the Yearbook editions of 2009 and 2010. I have looked into the data from 1996 to 2008, as well as the 2011–2012 edition.

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but most important for this study, an index of all publications in academic journals on religion. On average, over 200 articles on the specific topics of atheism, religious policy, religious affairs, and religious studies were published every year.7 These articles were published in a wide variety of journals, some of which very closely tied to party cadres and officials, and of unequal value in terms of readership. Along publications such as the academic journal of the CCP Central Party Schools (Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao xuebao 中共中央党校学報) which represents the views of the central leadership, articles on religious policies have appeared in the academic journals of local party schools as well.8 Institutes for the study of socialism (Shehuizhuyi xueyuan 社会主义学院) at the central and local levels, which are usually concerned about the more theoretical dimensions of governance, have sometimes published on religious issues as well. To what extent these texts express views that would be considered as objective in the context of Western social science varies. The pages of the Yearbook on religious studies in China usually start the presentation of the scholarship with an overview of policies presented by the ViceChairman of the National People Congress, the director and vice-directors of SARA, and the director of the IWR at CASS, followed by the presentation of policies relevant to religion. The research overview is divided according to disciplines, and according to specific religious studies.9 The first discipline is Marxist studies; followed by religious studies, the latter divided between the study of religions in China and religions abroad. The 2011–2012 yearbook included empirical studies that reported on the co-existence of religions, religious charities, and case studies of specific religions; a selection of annual articles; recommendations grouped in ten categories, three of which should be of interest to political scientists: Marxist religious studies, religion and politics, and

7 For each of the two years period covered by these publications, about 60 articles were written on religious culture and artifacts, religious surveys, and religious history (zongjiao yu wenxue yishu 宗教与文学艺术, zongjiao wenwu 宗教文物, zongjiao gaikuang 宗教概況, zongjiaoshi 宗教史), and about 80 on mythology, ancient religious remains, and popular belief (shenhua 神话, yuanshi zongjiao jiqi canyu 原始宗教及其残余, minjian xianyang 民间信仰). Among the articles published on specific religions, Buddhism received the lion’s share of attention, with on average over 300 publications; followed by Christianity –Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox – with around 200 publications a year; Daoism and Islam, with about 80 publication each; and a catch-all category of more than 80 articles published about religious Confucianism, Hinduism, Judaism, etc. 8 For example, the academic journals of Provincial-level of even municipal-level party schools of mid-sized cities such as Shijiazhuang, Ha’erbin, Jinan, have published articles on religious affairs. 9 Religious studies include the studies of Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, Islam, and Confucianism.

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religious charity. Finally, the yearbook concludes with a list of books published on religion; the ten most important meetings on religious issue; contents for the journals Studies in World Religions (Shijie zongjiao yanjiu 世界宗教研究), World Religious Culture (Shijie zongjiao wenhua 世界宗教文化), Chinese Religions (Zhongguo zongjiao 中国宗教), and Religious Studies (Zongjiaoxue yanjiu 宗教学研究).10 Disciplinary journals in philosophy (Xiandai zhexue 現代哲学, Wenshizhi 文史哲), minority affairs (Zhongguo minzubao 中国民族報, Xibei minzu yanjiu 西 北民族研究), and social sciences (Shehui kexue 社会科学) have also published articles on religious policies, suggesting that there exists an interest for writings on religious affairs or religious work as an academic subject beyond journals on religious studies. Most of the articles on religious policy and religious affairs, however, have been published in academic journals (xuebao 学報) published by universities across the country. Their relevance and their importance vary, as would be expected in a very competitive environment where institutions’ reputation matters.11 In expanding the search across these journals, however, one rapidly faces the problem of managing an overwhelming amount of data of unequal value and relevance. Excluding from this survey the articles written in the less prestigious publications would undoubtedly introduce a selection bias, and would open questions about how much the texts presented in this article reflect the overall production of political scientists interested by the study of the political dimension of religion. With this caveat in mind, I have decided to limit this survey to the dominant views that prevail among the few political scientists working on religion in China who are published in the higher ranking journals in the country. This cannot claim to offer an exhaustive survey of everything that is said, but hopefully gives us a sense of the ideas that are influential or, conversely, the range of ideas that are accepted by the regime. The first crack at the data attempted in this paper is therefore selective. It focuses on top-ranked journals in political sciences and government, as well as the prominent journals in religious studies. With respect to political science, according to the Beijing University national ranking of core journals (Beijing daxue zhuchi de zhongwen hexin qikan yaomu zonglan 北京大学主持的中文核心期刊要目总览),

10 CASS publishes both Studies in World Religions and World Religions Culture, while the research unit at SARA produces Chinese Religions. The Research Institute on Daoism and Religious Culture at Sichuan University publishes Religious Studies. 11 Among the universities’ academic journals that have published on religious policy in 2008 alone: Chengdu daxue 成都大学, Jinan daxue 济南大学, Baoding xueyuan 保定学院, Shanghai shifan daxue 上海师范大学, Shanxi gaodeng xuexiao 山西高等学校, Xinan minzu daxue 西南民 族大学, Anqing shifan xueyuan 安庆师范学院, Zhongnan minzu daxue 中南民族大学.

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the journal Political Science Research (Zhengzhixue yanjiu 政治学研究, PSR) stands out in 2015 as the first of its kind in the country. Seek Truth (Qiushi 求是), the CCP theoretical journal, ranks as third, and represents a very valuable source to trace the evolution of official policy, because it is open to the public but it also expresses official policies and objectives. Three other publications ranked among the top five in political science, as of 2015: Chinese Public Administration (Zhongguo xingzheng guanli 中国行政管理), Studies on Marxism (Makesizhuyi yu xianshi 马克思主义与 现实), and Studies on Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping Theories (Mao Zedong Deng Xiaoping lilun yanjiu 毛泽东邓小平理论研究). The second ranking, established at Nanjing University, is the Chinese Social Sciences citation index (Nanjing daxue zhuchi de zhongwen shehui kexue yinwen suyin 南京大学主持的中文社会科学引文索引). It identifies the following top five journals for political science: World Economy and Politics (Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi 世界经济与政治), Journal of Contemporary Asia-Pacific Studies (Dangdai yatai 当代 亞太), International Review (Guoji guancha 国际观察), the Journal of International Studies (Guoji zhengzhi yanjiu 国际政治研究), and PSR. Other publications of note promoted by the CASS Institute of Marxist studies includes Politics and Law, also translated as Political and Legal Forum (Zhengzhi yu falu 政治与法律), and Science and Atheism (Kexue yu wushenlun 科学与无神论 SA). The latter spells out its goals as: “promoting the scientific spirit, getting rid of superstition, spreading a scientific worldview, maintaining overall citizen’s rights to freedom of religious belief, and using scientific educational strategy to build a socialist material civilization and serve spiritual civilization”.12 Among the journals that are likely to publish articles on religious affairs or religious work, I had mentioned above the Yearbook of religious studies, but there are other, equally important sources for the scholarship on religion and politics. I have looked at these publications’ content and sought first to look at their section on religious work and regulation, when available, and tried to identify the disciplinary affiliation of the contributors writing in this topic. As mentioned above, two valuable resources are the World Religious Culture, published by the IWR, and which covers many topics relevant to China despite what its name suggest;13 and Chinese Religions, issued by SARA. The Blue Book

12 Ch: zhi zai xuanchuan kexue jingshen, pochu guishen mixin, puji wushenlun de kexue shijieguan, quanmian weihu gongmin zongjiao xinyang ziyou de quanli, wei tuidong kejiao xingguo zhanlue he jianshe shehuizhuyi wuzhi wenming yu jingshen wenming fuwu 旨在宣传科学精神， 破除鬼神迷信，普及无神论的科学世界观，全面维护公民宗教信仰自由的权利，為推动科教兴国 战略和建设社会主义物质文明与精神文明服务. 13 I have an incomplete set of that journal’s issues from 2010 to 2014, with a complete set only for 2013.

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on Religion (Zongjiao lanpishu 宗教蓝皮书), published on an irregular basis, also provides updates as well as insights on religious policies and religious affairs (Jin and Qiu 2010, 2012). An additional source of information on religious events, the publications of the national religious associations, reveal little besides directives on religious work from Party leaders, SARA directors, or highranking religious leaders.14 I have also looked into books from publishers who specialize on religious studies and in particular those that focus on government’s policy towards religion.15 The selection is not always straightforward. For example, an anthology on contemporary Marxist analyses of religion in China, despite its title and the inclusion of present and former directors of the SARA, offers a selection of texts written by philosophers, sociologists, scholars in religious studies, and language and literature scholars, but not a single political scientist (Lü and Gong 2008).16 Most of the monographs on religion and state, or on religion and politics, as I will discuss below, present official policies and their implementation, and they are usually normative. Finally, I have looked into conference proceedings on the study of religion in China. This represents another kind of source that could reveal candid opinion about the political dimension of religion in China and the government’s religious work. These sources, in declining order of importance in terms of readership, do not reflect the views of the population or the views of the government. As I will argue below, there is also a wide range of perspectives in these publications. Finally, two other categories of scholars deserve mention: scholars from China who have opted to work in the Anglosphere or in Europe on a more or less permanent basis, such as Adam Chau (2006 and 2011) Ji Zhe (2011 and 2014), and Yang Fenggang (2012), and scholars working in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Those in the first group have contributed significantly in their respective countries of adoption to the expansion of the field of British, French, and American scholarship on the relations between state and religion in China. They have been

14 For instance, Voice of the Dharma (Fayin 法音), the monthly journal of the Buddhist Association of China (Zhongguo fojiao xiehui 中国佛教协会), has published in 2015 nine articles related to politics, written by Buddhist leaders, such as the former President of the Association, the monk Xuecheng 学诚 (2015). 15 This includes Religious Culture Press (Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe 宗教文化出版社), the publishing house of SARA, as well as the Minority Press (Minzu chubanshe 民族出版社), and CASS’ publisher, the Social Science Press (Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe 中国社会科学出版社). 16 This book was translated into English by Brill in 2014, thanks to Chi Zhen 池楨, and Thomas Dubois (Du Bosi 杜博思).

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translated and published in China, and maintain networks of contacts, but they are free from most of the constraints that affect their colleagues working in China.17 The second group of scholars, thanks to proximity and the particular political context where they live, have a great access to sources in China, and so far enjoy unfettered contact with the international community. Taiwan-based political scientists such as Kuo Cheng-tian work on relations between state and religion in China, and often from a comparative perspective with Taiwan (Guo 2009, 2011 and 2017).

2 The Structure of Knowledge China presents the world with an interesting paradox: a country governed by a political party that has proclaimed atheism as a matter of principle for membership and as a condition to fulfill for the promotion of its cadre, it has gone to great length to institutionalize religion. In the words of Wank and Ashiwa (2009), “making religion is making the state”, or as Ji Zhe has argued, this is “a politicization of religion by the CCP”.18 On the one hand, the CCP claims to be on the right side of history, because it is a vanguard organization armed with scientific atheism, while religion is bound to wither away in the long run. Religion, in this context, is a historical issue, of relevance to aesthetics, art, and also the anthropological surveys of minority nationalities, perceived as backward. Religion can also become a legitimate research topic for inclusion in the field of sociology, anthropology, economics, commerce, and even, public management, when issues such as tourism, migration, social inclusion, community development, are concerned. Departments of philosophy include sociologists of religions in their ranks, some of whom have succeeded at establishing their field as an inter-disciplinary and autonomous one from other fields, but departments of religious studies remain few at the time of writing. Chinese scholars in social sciences and humanities working on religion in China have engaged with their colleagues abroad during the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao era in increasing numbers. They have grown into an epistemic community that is being recognized internationally, with its scholars being translated and helping the world better understand the realities of religion in China (Li XP 2004; Cao 2011; Sun 2011; Yang and Wei 2005; Fan 2003). I have yet to

17 Although the three scholars mentioned above have written on the political dimension of religion or the religious dimensions of politics, none of them is a political scientist. 18 In a private communication, December 2012.

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find a political scientist working on religion in China who has achieved this level of recognition, however. Among the well-known Chinese political scientists working in comparative politics or international relations, studying public administration, or discussing the application of political philosophy, I have found very little writings that examine the place of religion in Chinese politics, even though religious extremism is allegedly a source of concern for China’s foreign policy and policy towards minority. If there exists a demand for research on the political dimension of religion, as suggested by the concerns of state officials on religious work, they commission little to political scientists to shape their policies. Yet, plenty of evidence shows that the CCP cares about the proper management of religious affairs and seeks to tap into the resources of religions to meet some of its objectives, from the development of charity to the revenues generated by pilgrimages and tourism. Scholars have looked into the official approach to the religious problem (zongjiao wenti 宗教问题), and the state’s approach to address it through the techniques of government known as religion work (zongjiao gongzuo 宗教工作), enforced by a huge state apparatus comprising the CCP UFWD, government institutions such as SARA, and relayed by the ‘patriotic’ religious associations. These organizations rely on a formidable intellectual apparatus to inform them about the nature of religiosity in China, albeit it is often internal. Hence, the CCP relies on its own Party Central School (Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao 中共中央党校), and SARA can count on its own research branch (Dangzu lilun xuexi zhongxin 党组理论学习中心). These two institutions rely on the large pool of scholars trained in academic institutions such as the IWR, and a number of departments for religious studies in major universities. Political scientists are not involved in the process, as their remit does not include religion. This is somewhat intriguing because religion remains deeply intertwined with statecraft in China, as demonstrated by the extent of the state apparatus for the control of religion mentioned above. There is arguably a need for a better understanding of how policies meant to address pressing issues, such as family planning, poverty alleviation, and security in minority nationality area, are influenced by the religious values embraced by significant proportion of the population,19 but I could not find evidence in academic journals that political scientists wrote on these issues. Western political scientists who are used to look at the issues of Church-State separation, religion and multiculturalism, immigration, and the welfare state, the influence of religion on voting, etc. will have difficulty finding counterparts in

19 A point most eloquently made by Goossaert in this book.

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China. An obvious reason is the context of Chinese religiosity, which does not fit the paradigm of state-church relations. Another one is the absence of electoral competition, which makes irrelevant surveys on the beliefs of voters. A final reason is the nature of China’s welfare regime, which has evolved from the People’s Commune ‘cradle-to-the-grave’ social protection to the present residual welfare regime, where the role of religion remains unclear. Inevitably, because of the specific nature of China’s production of knowledge, political scientists interested in the study of religion’s possible impact on the politics of China have to look elsewhere than in the field of political science as presently structured. The nature of political sciences as an academic field of research in China is such that this is not an avenue conducive to a better understanding of religion’s political dimension in China. Taking as example the CASS Institute of Political Science, which sets the tone in the country’s academic system, the discipline is divided into six fields: political theory, administration and management, the study of political systems, comparative politics and international relations, political culture, and Marxist studies. There is no trace of religion as a research subject in the Institute’s website and its key projects, nor in its list of past and present achievements. As I will demonstrate below, there is little trace of religion as a research topic in the Chinese political science journals. There are no equivalents to journals in political science focusing on religion and state, such as Journal of Church and State, Politics, Religion, and Ideology;20 Politics and Religion;21 Journal of Law, Religion, and State;22 and Religion, State, and Society.23 This does not mean a lack of interest on the part of officials for religion, but rather that there exists a division of labor among scholars in which political science as it is defined precludes the study of religion in China, while scholars in other disciplines sometimes look at topics that would be considered political science issues in other contexts. Hence, the philosopher Zhang Zhigang 张志刚 notes that his colleagues interested by religion look at issues such as the ethics propagated by religions in the realm of inter-religious dialogue and conflict prevention (Zhang Z 2010); while economists such as Yu Yingshi 餘英時 look at

20 Known until 2010 as Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, this journal “(p)rovides a forum for the exploration of the politics of illiberal ideologies, both religious and secular”. 21 This is a journal of the Religion and Politics section of the American Political Science Association. 22 Until 1992, the journal was known as Religion in Communist Lands but it has now extended to the study of relations between religion and state in post-communist countries and others as well. 23 The journal is three years old and its readership comprises: “(l)egal scholars and political scientists that (sic!) are interested in realms such as law and religion, law and culture, constitutional law and legal history; scholars of religious studies and modern theologians of all religions”.

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the effects of religious values and ethics on entrepreneurship (Yu 2001). Officials may often task political scientists to analyze and evaluate policies in a wide range of issue, but they seldom expect them to comment on religion and politics, unless this is to reflect on international politics and its impact on China’s foreign policy (Xu and Zou 2014). In this context, few political scientists have evinced interest in the study of religion in its political ramification, even less about the religious dimension of politics. On the other hand, there is an abundance of texts that emphasize the normative and the prescriptive, i.e., how the state and the party should deal with religious matters, and how religious institutions should respond to the government. Many of these texts refer to what is known as the ‘religious question’ (Gong 1998, 2000 and 2002; Liu 2009b and 2010; Zhuo 2002), or the demands of ‘religious work’ (Duan 2013; Li 2014). Government officials within the PRC strive to define a sphere of religious life, which they aim to control, and which would be distinct from that of politics. Moreover, the CCP has tried to establish parameters that distinguish between acceptable religions, of which five have a legal recognition, on the one hand, and a realm that includes ‘evil cults’ (xiejiao 邪教) and ‘superstitions’ (mixin 迷信). This attempt to shape the sphere of the religious, however, is far from complete, as the status of ‘popular belief’ (minjian xinyang 民间信仰) and that of religious Confucianism (rujiao 儒教) remains debated (Li 2010, 187–200). The CCP relies on the knowledge generated by a number of institutions to legitimize its ambition of redefining religion. Hence, its main think tank, the Central Party School in Beijing, trains cadres in national affairs. Its leader has been in recent decades the incoming Secretary-General of the Communist Party, hence its importance.24 Seeking Truth, the most important political science journal, from the perspective of the Chinese authorities, is published by the Central Party School and presents to the public the CCP’s philosophy and policies. Albeit half of the journal’s articles are written by political leaders, political scientists contribute to its content as well. The journal seldom published on religion since 2004. When it did so, it presented the statements of officials, such as the Director of SARA (Wang 2014, 2013, 2010a and 2010b; Ye 2008, 2007 and 2006), party cadres in the UFWD (Zhu 2011), and lower-ranking members

24 There are also local party schools and a publication that serves them: ‘Party cadres’ (dangxiao 党校). The journal has published articles on religious affairs at the local levels.

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in local research centers for autonomous regions (Ergen 2014;25 Li 2014;26 Guo 2007;27 Jia 200628). The few published scholars on that topic are affiliated to the CASS Research Centre for the Study of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the Thought of the ‘Three Represents’ (Tian 2004), or to Higher educations’ institutions such as Nankai University’s department of Philosophy (Li XH 2004). The CCP UFWD also publishes its own journal, the monthly China United Front (Zhongguo tongyi zhanxian 中国统一战线), which discusses more directly the relations between the CCP and other organizations in Chinese society. The journal publishes directives on religious work, which counts as one of the five important targets of the CCP, along with ‘compatriots’ in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau; national minorities; business people; and overseas Chinese. This publication instructs cadres about the latest decisions by the party, as does the publication ‘Party Cadres’ (Dangxiao 党校). Most academic political science journals have shown little interest for religion and politics within China. The journal World Economy and Politics has published 57 papers on religion and politics between 1996 and 2015, but they focused on other countries affairs, not about China.29 The International Review published 30 articles on religion and politics during the same period, but it showed the same limitations: much comment about the situation outside China. Chinese Public Administration, published by the Society for Public Administration, has issued only 14 relevant articles since 1996. Studies on Mao and Deng Xiaoping, published by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences’ Research Institute on the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (Shanghai shi zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi lilun tixi yanjiu zhongxin 上海市中国特色社会主 义理论体系研究中心), has issued 10 articles related to religion and politics in ten years. The most respected journal in its field, the Journal of Political Science has published only 8 articles about religion and politics between 2003 and 2014. In sum, these journals published less than an article per year on the topic. A closer examination of the academic affiliation of the scholars who have written the articles in Journal of Political Science reveals how peripheral it is. Contributors

25 Xinjiang weiwu’er zizhiqu dang 新疆维吾尔自治区党；Zhonghua quanguo zonggonghui 中华 全国总工会；Xinjiang weiwu’er zizhiqu zonggonghui 新疆维吾尔自治区总工会. 26 Ningxia huizu zizhiqu dangwei 宁夏回族自治区党委. 27 Ningxia deng xiaoping lilun he “sange daibiao” zhongyao sixiang yanjiu zhongxin 宁夏邓小 平理论和“三个代表”重要思想研究中心. 28 Zhonggong henan sheng kaifeng shi xunhe huizuqu wei shuji 中共河南省开封市順河回族区 委书记. 29 The choice of these case studies may reveal a lot about the domestic priorities, but this requires another analysis.

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writing on this issue were working on national minority studies (He 2004); public administration (Tian 2006); public management (Ming and Lin 2007); national studies (Song 2013); and Marxist philosophy (Jing and Wei 2013). Founded in 1983 and published by the Institute for Marxist Studies in Beijing, Studies on Marxism represents one of the rare exceptions to the above: it has published 40 articles on religion and politics during that period. This begs for more research into the readership of the journal and its impact. Looking at the conferences organized on religious studies, the absence of political scientists’ contributions is equally striking despite of the fact that SARA officials and other officials from the CCP attend such events. For instance, of the 10 important meetings on religious studies held in 2011 and compiled by Cao Zhongjian 曹中建 in the 2011–2012 Yearbook of religious studies, six had a theme relevant to political issues.30 In 2012, of the top 10 meetings identified by Cao, four related to politics. The themes were: Marxism and contemporary religious issues; religion, law, and society; Marxist religious studies, and religious charity and social development. A look at the detailed proceedings of one of these meetings, the symposium on the promotion of harmonious society via religious charity (yi zongjiao cishan shiye tuidong shehui hexie fazhan 以宗教慈善事业推动社 会和谐发展), reveals the academic affiliation of the participants. The event, held in December 2012 in Beijing, represented a concrete expression of the state seeing a positive political role for religion in China, with sessions discussing the issue of religious ethics and world-views of charity; others comparing the experience and practice of religious charity in different countries and what lessons can China learn from them; and finally assessing how can laws and policies help the state develop religious charities. (Cao 2012, 1289–1291) The event was attended by the vice-secretary of the CCPPC, the Vice-Chair of the China Charity Federation (Zhonghua cishan zonghui 中华慈善总会), the vice-director of the SARA political research division, the vice-Chair of the Chinese Daoist Association, the CCP UFWD Department, as well as a variety of philanthropic associations from China and abroad. The academics attending the event came from a variety of disciplines such as religious studies and philosophy, and experts on public management and non-profit organizations, to discuss the regulations, laws, and policies that can affect religious charities. It is remarkable that 30 These themes were: the modern social roles of religion; recent political changes and religion in the Islamic world; religious dialogue and harmonious society; religion and the construction of China’s social ethical system; religion and peace development; and religion and modern society.

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in this meeting in which decision-makers and philanthropic associations discussed policies that should helped both reach common ground, there was no mention of political scientists present in these deliberations.

3 Political Scientists and the Evolution of Thinking on Religion and State What is it that religiosity, religious institutions, belief, rituals and doctrines represent for political scientists as institutions distinct from the state, as social practices, as values, or as worldviews? What are the debates that frame the field of political sciences in China with regards to religion? For decades, political scientists outside of China have done studies on the intersection of politics and religion in the West and in other societies, exploring a wide range of issues, ranging from secularism to the provision of social services (Fox 2008; Norris and Inglehart 2004). The choice of these questions has obviously been influenced by the nature of the societies in which they are addressed. Hence, the role of religion in the provision of social services varies whether it is in deeply divided societies such as Lebanon (Cammett 2014) or in Western Europe, where national religions shaped the evolution of the welfare state (van Kersbergen and Manow 2009). Scholars from the Middle East and South Asia have influenced the way we think about these questions, through their writings and exchanges with their peers, leading North American and European scholars to question the universal validity of fundational concepts such as secularism (Asad 2003; Kuru 2009; Bhargava 2010; Burchardt, WohlrabSahr, Middell 2015; Künkler and Madeley 2017). What about Chinese political scientists? To what extent the changes in Chinese politics and society since Jiang Zemin, marked by the emergence of Falun Gong, conflict in Tibet and Xinijang over the expression of local religiosity, cross-strait exchanges involving Buddhist associations, and the rise of Christianity, affected their scholarship? The dramatic increase in the salience of religion in Chinese society that these trends show has unfolded in a context where the CCP had already changed its approach towards religion. Since the reform and opening policy, the CCP had already repudiated Mao Zedong’s approach, known by Chinese scholars as the theory of ‘religion as the opiate (of the masses)’ (zongjiao yapianlun 宗教鸦片论). According to that crude interpretation of Karl Marx’ historical materialist philosophy, that approach saw religion as incompatible with the scientific worldview promoted by a socialist society. A combination of different factors, including religious resilience in Chinese society and the strategic objective of attracting support from overseas Chinese who may hold ancestral religious values, have led to this change. The

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rehabilitation of the theory of the ‘five characterics’ (wuxing 五性) constituted one of the first consequences of that transformation.31 An approach that was articulated during the 1930s by Li Weihan 李维汉, a former director of the CCP Central Party School (Duan 2013, 91–93), the theory reflects the specific historical conditions of China. Since Jiang Zemin, it represents the dominant approach to religion. As articulated by the SARA directors Ye Xiaowen 叶小文 (1995–2007) and Wang Zuo’an 王作安 (2009-), the CCP’s approach to religious works maintains the line adopted by Jiang Zemin, which recognizes that religion will remain an important factor in Chinese society for a long time.32 This has been interpreted in a variety of ways: cooperation with the five religions that are recognized by the government, but also vigilance against the religious manifestations that the state disapproves, such as Falun Gong. In between these two approaches, a zone of indifference expressed through the tolerance for popular beliefs, support for religious tourism, and an acceptance of philanthropic activities by religious institutions. Throughout the Hu Jintao mandate, the idea that religion would be compatible with socialist society has remained in force, with the added qualification that it can contribute to the public interest through philanthropy, humanitarian relief, and the delivery of some social services. Since the accession of Xi Jinping to power, there are no signs of a fundamental change towards religions in general. Throughout the period since Jiang Zemin, however, the fundamentals of party discipline remain the same with respect to religious beliefs for cadre: atheism remains mandatory.33 Publications on religious policies duly reflect these changes and continuities, as articulated by high-ranking officials in SARA (Ye 2006; 2007, 2008; Wang 2010a&b 2013, 2014; Center for Religious Studies 2013),34 the Central Party School (Gong 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003), or the CCP UFWD (Ren 2002). These views have been presented by scholars affiliated to the IWR at CASS (Zhuo 2002, 2009, 2014) and to other academic institutions with a variety of disciplines. These include philosophy (Ren and Liang 2006; Lü and Gong 2008; 31 Religion is long-term (changqi 长期), collective (qunzhong 群众), ethnic (minzu 民族), international (guoji 国际) and complex (fuza 复杂). See Ren 2002. 32 For a detailed description of the CCP policy on religion, see Potter 2003; Laliberté, 2014. 33 There is indirect evidence that this principle is often breached, according to the content of articles published in journals such as Science and Atheism, that assert that the CCP must remain vigilant to ensure cadres are atheists. 34 Some of the relevant publications on religious policies published by SARA have anonymous authorship and are signed by different units within the institution, such as the Center for CCP theoretical studies (Dangzhu lilun xuexi zhongxin 党组理论学习中心 2013) and the political-legal department (Zhengfa si 政法司 2013).

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Gu 2010), history (Xi 2012), minority people studies (Cao 2008); religious studies (Feng 2009; Guo and Chunyi 2009), and legal studies (Wang 2014; Yan 2012). Very rarely do political science scholars get invited to submit their thoughts with their peers in other disciplines to discuss issues of relevance to religion in China’s foreign policy (Xu and Zou 2014). In a publication that was meant to summarize the evolution of the government thinking on religion, edited by the philosopher Lü Daji 呂大吉 and the historian Gong Xuezeng 龚学 增, and of the contributors invited, including the three officials, Wang Zuo’an, Ye Xiaowen, and Zhu Xiaoming 朱晓明, none was a political scientist (Lü and Gong 2008). The CCP claims that to reconcile the promotion of scientific atheism and the rights of religious believers constitutes one of its fundamental principles (Tian 2004). The party ostensibly displayed this principle as the Hun Jintao era neared its end. In March 2012, the research unit on political ethics (Sixiang zhengzhi lilun jiaoxue keyanbu 思想政治理论教学科研部) and the Institute for harmonious society construction (Hexie shehui jianshe yanjiusuo 和谐社会建設研究所) jointly organized at Zhejiang University a seminar discussing research on Marxism and the religious question. Bringing together 40 participants, and presided by Zhuo Xinping 卓新平, it included scholars from the Central Party School, SARA, CASS, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Minority University, Policy and Law University, and the Foreign Languages University. The participants discussed three issues: “the Chinese Marxist view of religion” (zhongguohua de makesizhuyi zongjiaoguan 中国化的马克思主义宗教观), “Religion and national politics, cultural beliefs and social organizations” (zongjiao yu guojia zhengzhi, wenhua xinyang, shehui tuanti 宗教与国家政治，文化信仰，社 会团 体), and “. . . religious education among college students” (. . . daxuesheng zongjiao renzhi jiaoyu 大学生宗教认知教育). Discussion about religion and national politics stressed the importance of relying on scholars and religious people along with CCP organs to “harmonize politics and religion” (zhenggjiao hexie 政教和谐) (Cao 2012, 1259–1261). Less a dialogue or an effort to seek experts’ advice, these kinds of events constituted ritualistic reminder of the CCP power. The CCP UFWD claims it needs to keep a close watch on religious practices that can be harmful to the public interest. Hence, a story published in its journal mentioned the intervention of authorities to regulate incense burning in Changshu 常熟 city, arguing risks of fire hazard because of the large numbers of worshippers, especially during the celebration of the annual Lunar New Year (Du and Liu 2013). It also reveals concerns about the harmonious management of inter-religious relations in the regions on the periphery of provinces, as

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suggested by a story published about two border counties in Henan (Laohekou 老河口) and Hubei (Dengzhou 邓州) that are known for their large ethnic and religious diversity (Zhu 2013). This tight control over religion through regulatory instruments, however, could have unexpected consequences. Hence, the growing emphasis on ‘ruling according to law’ (fazhi 法制)35 could have opened the door for a growing legal protection for religion, an agenda promoted actively by Liu Peng 刘彭, researcher at the institute of North American Studies. His legal activism stood out as an example of a liberal agenda that the authorities appeared to tolerate, if not openly supported (Liu 2006). Under Hu, Confucianism, rather than any of the five official religions, received attention as a possible source of public morality. The Political Science Review published no less than twelve papers on that topic between 2003 and 2013. Between 2006 and 2007, the texts published in the journal addressed the relevance of Confucianism to contemporary politics using the method of comparative historical sociology and its authors looked at Confucian thought in statecraft in the earliest stage of history (Tian 2006; Bai 2007; Sun 2007; Zhou and Wei 2007; Ming and Lin 2007). None of these texts, however, took position on Confucianism as a religion. Zhang Liwen 张立文, professor of philosophy at Renmin University, raised the issue about the religiosity of Confucianism in two consecutives issues of Sciences Monthly (xueshu yuekan 学術月刊) in the same year, but the debate remained inconclusive.36 The issue of Confucianism as a source of public morality would resurface briefly six year later in the pages of Political Science Review, when Song (2013) expressed doubts over the view that Confucianism, even in the new form promoted by his advocates, could be relevant to contemporary politics. Political science journals paid even less attention to the political relevance of other religions, and when they did, they usually framed it negatively. Hence, Political Science Review did not publish any article addressing a religion in particular during the whole Hu Jintao period, with the exception of a short article on Buddhism, which was a critique of the Dalai Lama’s ‘thirteen points’ (He 2004).37 Studies on Marxism published only one article on Christianity for the decade starting in 2004, which was a critique of the influence of that religion on the rise of extremist movements in Western politics (Xi 2013). Quite revealing

35 Not to be confused with the rule of law (fazhi 法治), although the use by authorities is inconsistent. 36 See the chapter by Payette in this volume for more details on this debate. 37 A search with the key words “religion and politics” has also yielded two articles on Stalin and Li Dazhao’s views on religion (Liu 2006, Zhang S 2010).

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of the orientation of that journal is the celebration of Mao Zedong’s view on religion, fifty years ago, when he was planning the radical anti-religious views that would be promoted during the Cultural Revolution, by Tian Xinming, former director of the research center for the development of social science in the Ministry for Higher Education (Tian 2004). The same lack of interest for religion applies to Seeking Truth. Its only three references to religion between 2004 and 2014 served to remind readers about the prohibition to hold religious beliefs as a condition for membership in the CCP (Tian 2004; Zhu 2011), and to argue that religious extremism is a poison for young minds (Ergen 2014). Such articles were revealing. They unwittingly displayed official worries about the abandonment of adherence to atheism by many cadres, but they also heralded mounting intolerance for religious beliefs that would escalate after 2017 in Xinjiang with anti-Muslim campaigns. The pages of Science and Atheism also bear mention for their expression of the most doctrinaire views on religion, which reflect the position of the CCP members who never accepted the official line that religion can serve society and can be compatible with socialism. Their position is that the government should nurture and practice core socialist values, and promote a scientific outlook through atheist education (Zhu 2015).

3.1 Religion and the Public Interest The government’s recognition of religions’ contribution to the public interest stems in good part from the research on religion and philanthropy, conducted by scholars in a wide variety of fields. Throughout the Hu Jintao era, an increasing number of scholars have worked on the issue of the positive contribution of religion to society. For example, the Anhui Academy of Social Science sponsored a study on the idea of equality in religion (Wang and Yu 2006). Among the papers published in social sciences journals, an essay jointly written by the American sociologist of religions Robert Weller and his colleague Wang Yuting, sociologist at the American University in Sharjah, contributed to the debate on research about philanthropy, pointing out to two specific research questions: what are the contributions of Buddhist temples and Christian groups, and what a multi-scalar comparison between large institutions and localised, more informal, charities can tell us (Wei and Wang 2013). Since then, the research has expanded. Du Jiangang, professor in the department of commerce at Nankai University, published in the China United Front journal a summary of the research he has done on the effects of ‘social harmony’ following the implementation of new regulations of religious affairs (Du and Liu 2013). Wang Jia (2014), Vice-Director of the religious Studies Center at the Nationalities Institute in

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Heilongjiang, directed a publication on Chinese Buddhism and charity that brought together scholars in religious and Buddhist studies, philosophy, and history. It is hard to know if the absence of political scientists in that project, which require some knowledge on public policy in matters such as ethics and welfare, reflected a lack of interest on all sides, or a concern that difficult questions could be raised about governance. I could not find any work in Chinese political science journals on that topic, even though the political implications of religious philanthropy are numerous, in terms of coordination between state institutions and religious actors, and the possibility for the latter that they gain political capital at the expense of the state.

3.2 Religion and Terrorism Somewhat surprisingly, religion seldom appears in political science journals as a security issue. Among the rare exceptions, we can include the analysis that two professors in international relations studies at CASS Institute of World Economics and Politics, Jiang An 姜安 and Li Dongyan 李东燕, published in 1998 for an issue of Political Science Review. Writing about the causes of international conflicts, they identified religion as one of the five causal factors in their etiology of war, along geopolitics, imperialism, shifts in the balance of power, and nationalism. In their essay, the authors briefly mentioned the prevalence of religion as a source of conflict in European history, the contemporary Middle East and South Asia.38 There was little interest on this issue from political scientists, even after the events following September 11, and it is only in 2008 that other scholars in the humanities have paid attention to the security dimension of religion.39 Zhang Zhigang 张志刚 (2010), a professor of philosophy at Beijing University, lamented in a widely quoted paper the fact that despite the increasing occurrence of conflicts and issues in which religion has played an important role since the end of the Cold War, the issue has not received enough attention. He believed this shortcomings needs to be addressed because religions have three characteristics that make them an important factor in contemporary politics that need to be recognized: their diffuse character (mimanxing

38 In their analysis of religions’ impact in international affair since the beginning of the modern era, the author glossed over two major conflicts where religion mattered, and which had enormous repercussion for China: the Taiping and the Boxer rebellions. 39 In 2001, the concerns of Chinese foreign policy were over the Millenium development, and the necessity to guard against imperialism. Religion was not a matter of concern.

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弥漫性), their deep-seated influence in societies (shentouxing 渗透性), and their closeness to people’s life (shencengxing 深层性). To sum up, there is very little research published in political science journals about the politics of religion or the religious dimension of politics, even on religious work and the religious question, despite the fact that the official discourse on the latter two is quite present in the public sphere. In the end, it is not because religion does not matter to the CCP that there is so few articles discussing its policies on the matter: as we have seen above, the state devotes a considerable amount of resources to monitor believers and to channel their social capital in direction that the regime approves. The actions of the CCP towards the religions that it disapproves of, as ‘evil cults’, or the actions against the deviation within the officially recognized religions, such as the ‘house churches’, suggest that the government looks at religion as a political issue of importance. The extent to which the government is determined to have the final say on the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama suggests that the CCP considers itself a religious authority. The few exceptions to the lack of interest in Chinese political science journals about religious matters relate to the debate that unfolded during the tenure of Hu Jintao, about whether Confucianism could become a religion for China, and regardless of the answer, whether it can serve as a guide to public morality, ethics, and politics. Even if scholars are willing to challenge established views on religion in China, or even if they have been exposed to foreign scholarship and influence, numerous institutional obstacles limits their ability to overcome the forces that constrain them in their work. The work of Chinese political scientists who want to better understand the impact of religious life in their society is shaped by the framework of religious work imposed by the party, which strives to determine what forms of religiosity are legitimate, and what are the limits to the activities religious believers can pursue. This chapter has shown that in the end very few Chinese political scientists pay attention to religion, and the limited writing that is published in mainstream academic journals most often reflects positions expressed by the authorities. Yet, the government accepts moderate criticism of its policies as long as they do not challenge its fundamental tenets.40 The official views and practices on religious affairs have changed over the years, but I

40 The ability of scholars such as Liu Peng to express his views about a legislation protecting religious freedom in different conferences in China, where officials of SARA are present, suggests this is the case. There are no contradictions between the CCP project to accept the five institutionalized religions and the policy of religious freedom to believe, which the government upholds.

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cannot substantiate any claim that political science research has contributed to these transformations. At the very least, we can observe what form of scholarship is allowed and what Chinese political scientists can say about religion, which is not much.

Conclusion Obviously, the reliance in this chapter on the official and quasi-official sources in mainstream academic publications presents a portrait of the scholarship on religions and politics that is heavily biased towards the views that the authorities of the CCP, the state, and their affiliated institutions, want to promote. This survey had no claim to be exhaustive: the amount of publications on religion and on politics is considerable, and research about the intersection between the two is made difficult by the absence in China of journals such as Religion, State, and Society, or research institutions such as the Groupe Sociétés, Religions, and Laïcités in France, that put this intersection as their core object of study. I did not elaborate on the reasons behind this absence as my goal was rather to present from within the conditions under which Chinese political scientists can approach this subject in their country, by considering an institutional context in which the sphere of the political expressed by the CCP selfconsciously relegate the sphere of the religious as a subordinate social phenomenon, rather than a separate one. We have seen that many scholars outside of the field of political science write on religion and politics, or politics and religion, and it is among them that one can find the boldest views about the nature of religion in their country, its influence in society, on thought and mentalités, and, ultimately, on politics itself. For political scientists coming from abroad who are interested by the study of the intersection between religion and politics in China – and elsewhere – the nature of the Chinese epistemic community studying religion and politics is such that the best interlocutors to meet may not be political scientists, who have been socialized into believing that religion stands in the way of China’s modernization and even represents a threat for social stability. When looking for colleagues in academia that can have a fruitful conversation on the issue of politics and religion, foreign scholars have to look for the rich insights offered by their colleagues in the fields of history, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, and, naturally, talk directly to the believers and their spiritual leaders.

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The debates about the place of religion under a socialist regime and the relative openness of the regime, compared to the limitations experienced during the Cultural Revolution, have provided the government-approved institutionalized religions with promising opportunities to entrench the gains they have made since the beginning of the reform and opening policy. However, existing conditions within the country and on the international stage prevents the government from relaxing its mechanisms of control over religious affairs. The demands of the national minorities for the survival of their religious culture are too often interpreted by the central government as acts of sedition, and the international turmoil generated by Daesh (the Islamic State) and other radicalized religious movements all over the world worries the CCP because of the threat such groups can represent to China’s interests abroad. In the end, however, the fundamental constraint of the Chinese epistemic community researching religion and politics in their country is the fact that they labor to study a phenomenon that the government strives to subordinate to its will.

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Yang, Fenggang and Wei Dedong. 2005. “The Bailin Buddhist Temple: thriving Under Communism.” In State, Markets, and Religions in Chinese Societies, edited by Fenggang Yang and Joseph B. Tamney, 63–86. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Yang, Fenggang. 2012. Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule. New York: Oxford University Press. Ye Xiaowen 叶小文. 2008. “Zai zongjiao gongzuozhong shenru guanche luoshi kexue fazhanguan” 在宗教工作中深入贯彻落实科学发展观. Qiushi 求是 11: 20–23. Ye Xiaowen 叶小文. 2007. “Fahui zongjiao zai cujin shehui hexie fangmian de jiji zuoyong” 发挥宗教在促进社会和谐方面的积极作用. Qiushi 求是 11: 37–40. Ye Xiaowen 叶小文. 2006. “Zhengque renshi he chuli shehuizhuyi shehui de zongjiao guanxi – xuexi Hu Jintao tongzhi zai quanguo tongzhan gongzuo huiyishang de zhongyao jianghua” 正确认识和处理社会主义社会的宗教关系——学习胡锦涛同志在全国统战工作会议上的重 要讲话. Qiushi 求是 16: 43–45. Yu Yingshi 余英時. 2001. Zhongguo jinshi zongjiao lunli yu shangren jingshen 中国进世宗教 伦理与商人精神. Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu chubanshe. Zhang Liwen 张立文. 2007. “Lun Rujia de zongjiaoxing wenti (shang)” 论儒教的宗教性问题(上). Xueshu yuekan 学术月刊 8: 29–38. Zhang Liwen 张立文. 2007. “Lun Rujia de zongjiaoxing wenti (xia)” 论儒教的宗教性问题(下). Xueshu yuekan 学术月刊 9: 28–32. Zhang Shifei 张世飞. 2010. “Li Dazhao: Zhongguo Makesizhuyi zhengzhixue de xianqu” 李大 釗:中国马克思主义政治学的先驱. Zhengzhixue yanjiu 政治学研究 4: 15–24. Zhang Zhigang 张志刚, ed. 2010. Zongjiao yanjiu zhiyao 宗教研究指要. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe. Zhengfa Si 政法司 (Guojia zongjiao shiwuju sisi, zhengfa si 国家宗教事务局四司, 政法司) ed. 2013. Zongjiao zhengce fagui jiaocheng 宗教政策法规教程. Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe. Zhou Sijing 周思敬, Wei Shu 魏澍 2007. “Luelun xian Qin Rujia de dezhi sixiang” 略论先秦儒 家的德治思想. Zhengzhixue yanjiu 政治学研究 3: 98–104. Zhou Yue (Adam Yuet Chau). 2011. “Zuo‘shanshi’ haishi goujian ‘shanshi’? – zongjiao rushi yu zongjiao zhutihua zai Zhongguo” 做'善事'还是构建'善世'？―宗教入世与宗教主体化在中国. Zongjiao renleixue 宗教人类学 3: 153–170. Zhu Houlun 朱厚論. 2013. “Nian hao minzu zongjiao gongzuo ‘wuzijing’” 念好民族宗教工作 “五字经”. Zhongguo tongyi zhanxian 中国统一战线 11: 46–47. Zhu Weiqun 朱维群. 2011. “Gongchandangyuan bu neng xinyabng zongjiao” 共产党员不能信 仰宗教. Qiushi 求是 24: 25–28. Zhu Xiaoming 朱晓明. 2015. “Peiyu he jianxing shehuizhuyi hexin jiazhiguan, tazhan kexue wushenlun yanjiu xuanchuan jiaoyu de xin jumian” 培育和践行社会主义核心价值观, 拓展科学无神论研究宣传教育的新局面. Kexue yu wushenlun 科学与无神论 2: 13–16. Zhuo Xinping 卓新平, ed. 2009. Zongjiao zhihe: hezhizongjiao 宗教之和：和之宗教. Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe. Zhuo Xinping 卓新平. 2002. “Quanqiuhua jincheng yu zongjiao wenti.” In Zhonyang dangxiao ketizu: xian jieduan woguo minzu yu zongjiao wenti yanjiu 中央党校课题组：现段我国民 族与宗教问题研究, 34–65. Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe. Zongjiao Yanjiu Zhongxin 宗教研究中心, ed. 2013. Zujin zongjiao hexie yantao wenji 促进宗教 和谐研讨文集. Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe.

Vincent Goossaert

For a History of Religious Ideas in Modern and Contemporary China Introduction The study of Chinese religions has long focused on early periods; with the current religious revival, a boom of studies on post-Mao religious life has been taking place since the 1990s, and then most recently studies on Republican-period religious developments have taken off the ground as well. This is obviously a very welcome development. Yet, it seems to me that it has led to a divide between Sinology on the one hand, with its focus on wenyan sources and the ideas found therein, and social sciences in the other, examining the modern and contemporary conditions based on fieldwork observations. Of course there are cases of fruitful collaboration between the two types of scholars,1 but textual approaches of the modern and contemporary seem to fall in the cracks in many cases. The present think piece proposes to explore how more sustained work on religious ideas from the late Qing to the present would enrich the field of Chinese religion; it also argues that this is now considerably more feasible than it was even recently, and that it should be done with a larger timeframe in mind. Such a divide is hardly surprising, and much the same can be said of many other area studies – indeed the tension, and sometimes distrust, between the two approaches seems even more acute in some fields, such as middle eastern and Muslim studies, where textual scholars working on classical Islam on the one hand and political scientists and sociologists explaining social and political movements among contemporary Muslims on the other are sometimes quite critical, and ignorant of each other. Yet, it still seems to me that the field of Chinese religion suffers from a certain lack of dialogue between the two scholarly communities. Textbooks on Chinese religion reflect this to some extent: while some

1 An early and influential example is Jordan & Overmyer 1986; a more recent one is Goossaert & Palmer 2011. Note: I am very grateful to David Ownby for his comments on a draft. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-011

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are decidedly contemporary and social-science-oriented, others are mostly historical with one sole chapter devoted to contemporary issues.2 To be sure, some scholars, among the most prominent ones, talk to and from both worlds. An incomplete and subjective list includes Philip Clart, David Ownby, Paul R. Katz, Taiwanese scholars such as Wang Chien-ch’uan and Fan Chun-wu, and Mainland scholars such as Wang Mingming. There is also the highly influential tradition of historical anthropology: some scholars engage very intensively in fieldwork and thus understand very well current conditions while unearthing documents (manuscripts, epigraphy. . .) that allow them to reconstruct the historical processes through which the society as we see it was formed over time. At the same time, such scholars vary very much in their approach to the field:3 some are actually looking for remnants of late imperial society, rather than at the end result of modern transformations, while others (looking at the same type of cults, festivals and religious events) are more attuned to the effects of current globalization and commodification – to name but one here, Kenneth Dean. Concerned with this issue, Jan Kiely, John Lagerwey and myself have edited a two-volume reference work on Modern Chinese Religions, starting from the mid-nineteenth century (rather than 1912, or 1949), without a predefined conception of modernity. The book brought together historians, anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists who were asked a common question: how did the Chinese value systems as we know them formed? Crucially, this book was compiled in continuity with three other sets of volumes that dealt with earlier periods when Chinese value systems changed. One of the lessons we learnt from Modern Chinese Religions is that the current state of scholarship is rather strong on politics (even though as the two political scientists in this volume deplore, political scientists in general and in China especially do not pay enough attention to religion), and rather weak on religious ideas – such as: what is a good life? What happens after death? Is there retribution and judgment, and if yes, how does it work? What is the future of humanity? These questions have been left for too long to scholars of modern intellectual and cultural history who have focused on leftist intellectual discourse, all the way from Lu Xun and Chen Duxiu and the May Fourth people to Communist writers. Most authors of Modern Chinese Religions (and those on whose work they built) have tended to focus on religious institutions, their leaders, their relation with the state

2 Nadeau 2012 is a good example of the text- and history-oriented textbook; Palmer, Shive & Wickeri 2011 is a good example of social science-, contemporary-oriented type. See also the discussion in Cheung, Valerio, Kunu & Bingenheimer 2016. 3 David Faure, oral remarks at the “Historical Anthropology of Twentieth Century Chinese Society” international conference, CUHK, Dec. 18–20, 2016.

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and their social impact; the expression of values rather than the values themselves. Obviously, institutions are key aspects of any religious studies; but the contents and forms of the religious ideas often remain at the backstage – by contrast to earlier periods when we usually read about doctrines and beliefs.

1 The Continued Life of ‘Ancient’ Texts The starting point for research on religious ideas in modern and contemporary China is that it is a society awash with religious texts. Anyone who has been in bookstores in China knows how large the religion and spirituality sections are (arguably larger than in many European bookstores); some authors who rewrite earlier religious texts for a contemporary audience meet with huge success – one example being the recently deceased Nan Huaijin 南怀瑾 (1918–2012) (Despeux 2017, 349–393). This is merely the top of the iceberg; many more religious texts are circulating outside the official book circulation channels. It is clear for any student that in Chinese culture texts are everywhere. Since the contemporary Chinese are much more educated and have more access to texts than they ever had, it would seem natural that the use of texts would feature quite prominently in scholarship on modern and contemporary Chinese religion. This however, is not quite the case. A few authors mention the texts they see being circulated – such as Gareth Fisher’s work on grassroots lay Buddhist activists, who invest considerable resources in circulating religious tracts, some of them premodern (Fisher 2011, 53–80). This is a fact that begs serious attention. People with low levels of education consider it important to print, read and distribute religious texts composed in imperial times, for reasons vastly different from, but not less respectable than our scholarly interest (or often, alas, disinterest) in such texts. Any explanation that would focus on the mere iconic value of such texts (‘they represent tradition’) goes only that far: many ancient texts lay forgotten while others are ‘alive’: reprinted, adapted, read, commented, and we should ask why certain texts belong to the second category. Not all attempts at keeping ancient religious texts alive are as low-brow as Fisher’s activists. On the other end of the scale we find for instance the huge enterprise run by Jingkong 淨空 (1927–), a major actor in the twenty-first century landscape of religious book production and distribution. The vast amounts of morality books printed or posted online by the organizations around Jingkong often feature the editorial hand of Yinguang 印光 (1861–1940), his spiritual grandfather who was the towering Pure Land authority in Republican times. Several authors have reflected, from a sociological perspective, on

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Jingkong’s role in reshaping the Buddhist field and creating new types of lay networks and organizations, not entirely unlike the Christian house churches. Sun Yanfei has brought him to the limelight with a biography in a volume on modern and contemporary religious leaders and saints (Sun 2017, 394–418). As Sun shows, part of his story is related to his appropriation, dissemination and teaching on texts, including classical Pure land scriptures, but also late imperial morality books. We cannot understand his huge appeal if we do not take seriously these texts and their meanings. This is but one example of a much larger phenomenon: the continued dissemination and impact of late imperial religious texts throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is well-known that the period from the last years of the Qing to the Sino-Japanese war was marked by radical revisiting of the Classics, as well as rediscovery of hitherto neglected ancient texts (Mozi, the Buddhist Weishi ‘consciousness-only’ texts, . . .); but, just as important and much less well-known, there was a continued interest in and circulation of late imperial religious texts. Quite often, borrowing from the spirit of modern Chinese history in general, the onus of scholarship on twentieth-century religion has been on rupture and innovations: modern ideas were interpreted as something new, a clean break from a dead past. Things, on closer examination, may turn out to be more muddled, or indeed, interesting; the intellectual and religious histories of modern China have so far been skewed toward leftist or reformist leaders, typically male, and as a result large sectors have been largely unrepresented. In the field of Buddhist studies, for instance, there may have been too much focus on Taixu 太虛 (1890–1947) and his revolutionary writings,4 and not enough on Yinguang, who may have commanded a much larger audience of lay disciples.5 Yinguang was a very active participant in the world of religious publishing in his day, prefacing and sponsoring reprints of huge numbers of Buddhist and morality books, many of them products of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His large collection of letters to his lay disciples sheds light on the dissemination of the ideas contained in such texts.6 Indeed, the recent upsurge of research on Republican-period Buddhist publications, notably by Gregory

4 Many surveys of modern Buddhism (especially in Chinese) give him the lion’s share. For a survey of Taixu’s life and works, that follows the common vision of his role as the leading figure of his times, see Pittman 2001. 5 On Yinguang, see Kiely 2017, 30–77. 6 See Wang 2013, 531–568; Zhang 2011.

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Adam Scott,7 has shown that while there were major innovations in format (periodicals, dictionaries, primers, not to mention audio media) and publishing structures (modern presses combining for-profit and merit-based business models), many of the thousands of titles were actually earlier contents, and not only canonical scriptures. The historiographical situation for Daoism is largely similar.8 Buddhist presses were not the only players in the market for religious books; the redemptive societies9 were equally important. The first studies on the redemptive societies tended to focus on their organization, their politics and their ideology. Now that the topic has been established within modern Chinese religious history, scholars are turning to their texts and doctrinal contents. An examination of the very abundant material published and disseminated by these societies (see for instance the Mingshan shuju 明善書局, affiliated with Tongshanshe 同善社, one of the largest redemptive societies)10 shows that they mix late imperial, especially nineteenth-century material, and newly composed texts, thus showing direct continuity. Furthermore, simplistic oppositions between conservative groups (the Yinguang networks, the redemptive societies) reprinting ‘old’ texts with ‘traditional’ ideas and modern ones disseminating new ideas would be very far off the mark. In a separate publication,11 I have discussed the fascinating case of a very large canon (92 volumes) of religious texts selected and edited by the famous businessman and philanthropist Wang Yiting 王一亭 (1867–1938), a star of cosmopolitan Shanghai society, renowned painter and KMT friend.12 This canon, the Fushou baozang 福壽寶藏, published in 1936, contains 140 individual titles, from early Buddhist scriptures and Daoist self-cultivation manuals, to classical morality books, to large numbers of nineteenth-century spirit-writing productions, to twentieth-century works. The latter cover a very large span, from modern ethics in vernacular baihua that join Western and Eastern wisdom

7 Scott 2016. 8 In my own state-of-the-field piece on modern Daoism, I suggested that one of the main avenues for future research was to look at the textual production beyond a few ‘progressive’ authors: Goossaert 2013a, 7–40. The main study of Republican-period Daoist ideas is Liu 2009. On another major Daoist publisher, Xiao Tianshi 蕭天石 (1909–1986), see Valussi 2017, 143–189. 9 For the notion of redemptive society, see Goossaert & Palmer (2011, 91–121) and Ownby (2016, 685–727); the double special issue of Min-su chü-i (Redemptive societies and modern Chinese religious movements), 172–173, edited by David Palmer, Paul R. Katz and Wang Chiench’uan (2011). Goossaert 2012, 123–153 discusses the role of redemptive societies in the religious book market of Republican China. 10 See Wang 2016, 233–264; and Katz 2015, 265–294. 11 Chapter 4 in Katz and Goossaert (forthcoming). 12 On Wang Yiting, see Katz 2014, chapter 3.

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and align with KMT New Life worldviews,13 to sombre apocalyptic stories that tell of the terminal decline of humanity that has lost its moral compass and yearn to a return of an enlightened emperor. Simplistic dichotomies of conservative (or reactionary) and progressive will not do – they exist in the discourse, of course, but as rhetoric; they cannot account for the facts on the ground (or on paper). The Fushou baozang and other collections of texts show the imbrications and intense dialogue between very different ideas of the good life and salvation in times of dramatic change. The situation in Republican times, when massive amounts of late imperial religious literature was circulating, explains the continued relevance of this literature in the contemporary period. As we have seen in the case of Jingkong, some Buddhist milieus continue to reprint and disseminate late imperial religious texts; so do the redemptive societies and their heirs, for instance the numerous ‘Confucian’ grassroots movements.14 To give one example, the Yidan xuetang 一 耽學堂, an important Beijing-based organization of volunteers established in 2001, is one of many groups distributing the texts of Wang Fengyi 王鳳儀 (1864– 1937), a Republican-period moralist deeply immersed in late imperial traditions of popular Confucianism, grassroots preaching and faith healing. David Ownby has also drawn attention to the intellectual filiation between Falun Gong and Republican-period redemptive societies (see Ownby 2008). Last but not least, one must not think that the Maoist-period chasm cleared the slate for entirely new ideas: presses, libraries and spirit-writing groups diffused very vigorously throughout East and southeast Asia from the nineteenth century on, and from their new locations they never stopped producing texts and ideas, which found their way back to China much more easily than we would imagine.15 In all these groups, too, seemingly ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ ideas and references are deeply intertwined. In other words, a purely sociological analysis of the above groups that would not take into account their ideas and the embeddedness in specific intellectual traditions (rather than just an illusory ‘traditional Confucian morality’) would be incomplete.

13 On this type of religious-political writings, see Fan 2015, 225–259. 14 On these movements, see Billioud & Thoraval 2015. 15 See for instance Yau Chi-on’s study of the expansion of a cluster of redemptive society presses in southeast Asia: Yau Chi-on (You Zian) 2015, 141–167. Extant Chinese temple libraries in places such as Vietnam or Indonesia will further add thousands of volumes to our corpus when made widely available.

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2 Taking Seriously the Textual Production of Contemporary Chinese Religions Having established the continued relevance and audience of late imperial religious literature, the study of the new textual and intellectual productions may appear in a somewhat different light – because the writing of religious ideas is a continuous process of building on and engaging with existing texts. To be sure, many of these productions clearly position themselves as products of a new, modern age, from the communist-led ‘theological construction’ and doctrinal reformulations found in the five patriotic associations’ journals, teaching materials for their seminars, primers, to hagiographies put out in huge numbers by presses such as the Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe 宗教文化出版社. So do the works of the new Taiwan-based Buddhist organizations, and a number of new religions. It would be naïve, however, to suppose that earlier religious texts and ideas are irrelevant to these productions. No less important and interesting is the world of morality books (shanshu 善 書) and spirit-written texts. A recent survey in Taiwan has shown the massive impact of the diffusion of morality books as free volumes available in temples but also other public spaces, with many people picking them up and reading them.16 The phenomenon is also on the rise in mainland China. Furthermore, the internet has become the most important medium for diffusion of this type of religious literature, with both huge web-based repositories of early and modern texts, and many spirit-writing groups posting their revelations as soon as they are written in sand or ashes.17 Similarly, the central role of spirit-writing (fuji 扶乩, fuluan 扶鸞, feiluan 飛鸞, jiangbi 降筆) in modern Chinese cultural, intellectual and religious life is now fully recognized. A major international project dedicated to the Daozang jiyao 道藏輯要, a canon published around 1806, and republished in Chengdu in 1906, and that contains a large number of spirit-written texts, has opened the field of Daoism to the study of century spirit-writing as a (if not the) major avenue for intellectual innovation.18 Recent collections of modern Daoist texts (see below) are full of nineteenth and twentieth century spirit-written texts. This should put to rest the long-held (and highly ideologically charged) theories of modern decline of Daoism (and Buddhism). These texts elaborate on the notion

16 See Ling 2005, 203–227. 17 See Clart 2009, 127–142; Clart 2016, 560–578. 18 See the special issue 7 (2015) of Daoism. Religion, History and Society (Daojiao yanjiu xuebao 道教研究學報).

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of retribution of good and evil (baoying 報應), which recent surveys have shown to be the most widespread common belief in China (and is claimed by many more people than specific religious affiliation),19 and which is widely echoed in popular culture. Yet, there too, there is a certain divide between studies that focus on the imperial-period spirit-written texts,20 and those that focus on fieldwork and observation of contemporary spirit-writing groups21 – knowing that the contemporary groups documented by these studies are often not of the type that produced the largescale, doctrinally substantial revealed texts that historians study. We still lack a unified history of spirit-writing, its social role and its productions. One of the reasons why so little work has been devoted to the post-1911 production of religious ideas, apart from very modernist writers such as the ‘Buddhism in this world’ (renjian fojiao 人間佛教) movement, is a widespread conception that such productions are mostly uninteresting, because unsophisticated, and largely repetitive of ‘traditional’ ideas. While the very fact that ‘traditional’ ideas are deemed significant enough to be reprinted, rephrased and commented is in and by itself very significant, the intellectual value of this production may be somewhat underestimated. To be sure, not all of this massive production is intellectually mind-blowing, yet actual reading of the material shows it has more to offer that many scholars think. In an article on a contemporary scripture, Philip Clart has convincingly shown how close reading repays with insights on the creativity of these texts, and that dismissing them as mere elaborations on traditional ideas is simply inaccurate (Clart 2011, 101–128). Naïve and unqualified interpretations of these texts and ideas as ‘Confucian’ or ‘Buddhist’ will not do; other elements are at play, including the so-called ‘sectarian’ (jiaomen 教門) tradition which has since the second half of the nineteenth century permeated very large parts of Chinese culture, way beyond identified sectarian groups such as Yiguandao (themselves major players in the production, transmission and diffusion of religious texts and ideas). We need to take the texts seriously and trace the history of their production, interpretation and use outside their original religious and intellectual sphere. In order to do this, we first need to chart this world of religious texts, to get some sense of the size of this new continent and its features. A first and crucial step in that direction has just been taken by scholars who have worked on the history of religious publishing. Philip Clart and Gregory Scott’s edited volume

19 See Goossaert & Palmer 2011, 274 on social surveys on beliefs. 20 See Goossaert 2015, 82–125. 21 See Katz 2011, 103–184; see also Luo Dan 2015.

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on religious publishing (2015) opens a whole new field as they show the vibrancy and diversity of the scene, from modern presses (secular, Buddhist or otherwise, mostly based in Shanghai) publishing essays, encyclopaedias, scriptures and primers to smaller groups using various technologies to put out huge numbers of religious tracts, many of them revealed by the gods.22 The next two steps would now seem to be to chart the ideas contained in this literature, and its reception among readers (who they are, what they read, and how they combine and put these ideas into effect). Exploring the contents of this massive new continent of texts and ideas is now possible because of the massive collections of reprints. Here below are some of these collections – this list is by no means exhaustive and is obviously skewed toward my own research interests. While they are familiar to scholars of Daoism, ‘sectarian’ traditions and other fields respectively, they are less often considered together as the shared corpus of modern and contemporary Chinese religion. Here are twelve collections for a total of 308 volumes, containing several thousand texts, mostly late Qing and Republican period (even though some of these collections also contain earlier texts). Baojuan chuji 寶卷初集 (precious scrolls, both of the ‘sectarian’ and narrative types), 40 vols. Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1994. Jindai Guandi, Yuhuang jingjuan yu Xuanmen zhenzong wenxian 近代關帝、玉皇經卷與玄門 真宗文獻 (revealed scriptures by Guandi and the Jade Emperor – the former being consider by some groups as now filling the latter position – from the mid-19th c. down to a present Taiwanese group), 6 vols. Wang Chien-ch’uan 王見川, comp. Taipei: Boyang, 2012. Jindai Zhongguo minjian zongjiao jingjuan wenxian 近代中國民間宗教經卷文獻 (popular scriptures and manuals, mostly 20th. c.), 12 vols. Wang Chien-ch’uan 王見川, Fan Chun-wu 范純武, comp. Taipei: Xinwenfeng, 2015. Ming Qing minjian zongjiao jingjuan wenxian 明清民間宗教經卷文獻 (12 vols.) (late imperial scriptures, liturgical manuals and morality books); Wang Chien-ch’uan 王見川, Lin Wan-ch’uan林萬傳, comp. Taipei: Xinwenfeng, 1999. Ming Qing minjian zongjiao jingjuan wenxian xubian 明清民間宗教經卷文獻續編 (12 vols.) (late imperial scriptures, liturgical manuals and morality books). Wang Chien-ch’uan 王見川 et al., comp. Taipei: Xinwenfeng, 2006. Minjian baojuan 民間寶卷 (precious scrolls, both of the ‘sectarian’ and narrative types), 20 vols. Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 2005. Minjian sizang: Taiwan zongjiao ziliao huibian: minjian xinyang, minjian wenhua 民間私藏臺 灣宗教資料彙編 : 民間信仰・民間文化 (Taiwanese scriptures, manuals and morality books). Wang Chien-ch’uan 王見川, Li Shiwei李世偉, comp. Taipei: Boyang, 2009–2010, series 1: 34 vols.; series 2: 33 vols.

22 See also chapter 3 in Katz & Goossaert (forthcoming).

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Minjian sizang: Zhongguo minjian xinyang minjian wenhua ziliao huibian 民間私藏 : 中國民間 信仰民間文化資料彙編 (more modern scriptures, manuals and morality books). Wang Chien-ch’uan 王見川 et al., comp. Taipei: Boyang, 2011–2013, series 1: 34 vols.; series 2: 34 vols. Minzhong jingdian: Yiguandao jingjuan, Liu Bowen jinnang yu qita 民眾經典: 一貫道經卷、 劉伯溫錦囊與其他5 vols (Yiguandao scriptures and prognostication books). Wang Chien-ch’uan 王見川, comp. Taipei: Boyang, 2011. Sandong shiyi 三洞拾遺 (Daoist books – with some ‘sectarian’ cases – mostly late imperial), 20 vols. Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 2005. Zangwai daoshu藏外道書 (Daoist books – with some ‘sectarian’ cases – mostly late imperial), 36 vols. Chengdu: Bashu shushe, 1992–1994. Zhongguo yuyan jiujie shu 中國預言救劫書 (Prognostication and eschatological scriptures – mostly late Qing and Republican), 10 vols. Wang Chien-ch’uan 王見川, Song Jun 宋軍, Fan Chun-wu 范純武, comp. Taipei: Xinwenfeng, 2010.

It is an entire field of studies that has barely begun to be noticed. An international collaborative project, CRTA (Chinese Religious Texts Authority) is now starting to build a database that will provide basic bibliographic information on each text (with detailed table of contents, since many of these works are actually anthologies, and paratexts: prefaces, postfaces etc.). Such a database will allow us to start mapping this literature, which is highly cumulative in nature (many texts and revelations are taken over and anthologized in subsequent publications) and yet innovative, as new ideas emerge all the time and circulate at remarkable speed. Of course, the ultimate goal of a full-text, high-quality searchable database of these texts is highly tantalizing (considering that there are large numbers of these texts online on various non-scholarly websites)23, but a more reasonable, albeit already very ambitious, goal is to have the available titles, in reprints collections and in catalogues of major libraries, gathered in one searchable site.

3 A History of Religious Ideas: Two Proposals Given the extremely preliminary state of knowledge outlined above, it is obviously too soon to outline what a history of religious ideas from the late Qing to the present, accounting for both modern innovations and continuities, would look like. As a programmatic exercise, however, I would like to provide two examples of promising avenue for research, in which I have started to make forays.

23 To give one important example: http://www.taolibrary.com/ (accessed on May 9, 2019).

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3.1 Eschatology The first example is the theme of eschatology (i.e. discourses about the end of the world). The Chinese religious tradition has since the Han period a continuous and dense tradition of eschatological teachings, particularly of the apocalyptic type, that warn or predict an apocalypse in which most humans will perish, and only some elect will be saved, ‘cross the end of the kalpa’ (dujie 度劫) and know the world of bliss that will ensue (sometimes in a messianic mode). There are many strands to these teachings that have been nourished by successive Daoist, Buddhist, ‘sectarian,’ (and more recently Christian) revelations. This discourse was extremely widespread during the nineteenth century, at all levels of society from the topmost officials down to marginals; it took obvious meaning in the contexts of disasters such as the Taiping war. Indeed during the war, a massive output of eschatological revelations was produced, that represented a major way through which loyalist, anti-Taiping Chinese made sense of the cataclysmic events they were going through (Goossaert 2016, 81–94; Goossaert 2018). One might think that apocalyptic texts produced in the context of the Taiping war may have been put aside when the war was over, some order was restored, and everybody could see that the demons sent out by the gods had not annihilated humanity after all – just killing several tens of millions of people. Yet, that proved not to be the case. These texts continued to be regularly reprinted, distributed, anthologized, and developed. Most of the Taiping-period texts we now read are actually Guangxu period (1875–1909) reprints, or from Republican-period editions. As Shiga Ichiko (2016) has shown, post-war activists trying to rebuild imperial society were still largely thinking in terms of impending apocalypses, and further bouts of revelations were triggered by new disasters, such as flooding and famines (especially in north China) as well as plague epidemics (especially on the southern coast). But, post-war eschatologies were not merely a continuation of earlier ones. Wang Chien-ch’uan and other historians have proposed to differentiate ‘classical’ morality books and scriptures from those revealed after 1840, often linked to devotional/‘sectarian’ traditions such as Xiantiandao 先天道 (and its later offshoots including the redemptive societies), more ‘popular’ in style and more apocalyptic in tone. The post-1840 texts frequently mention dates when the apocalypse should occur and introduce the Three Ages 三期 theory,

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which was not the case in the elite scriptures.24 The convergence of ‘sectarian traditions’, notably Xiantiandao, that carry a millenarian, messianic message and elite spirit-writing cults, which typically had a non-messianic form of eschatology, that started in the mid-nineteenth century (Wang 2016, 651–684), indeed represents a turning point in the history of the production of scriptures and eschatological ideas, with hybrid eschatological scenarios. Such hybrid scenarios take many different forms. One of their most common characteristics is that they are revealed by elite savior gods (Guandi 關帝, Lüzu 呂祖, but also Guanyin) and take many elements of the classical elite eschatology, while calling for a return to the sectarian goddesses; we have both a bureaucratization of the ‘sectarian’ movements and a ‘sectarianization’ of elite spirit-writing cults. The ‘sectarian’ idea that a set number of humans will be saved also becomes prevalent during the Taiping war. The date of the ultimatum (1814, 1840, 1900, among other dates) as the beginning of the last of the Three Ages (moqi 末期) keeps being postponed as the eschatological narrative is updated in pace with the unfolding of actual historical events. Meanwhile, events were interpreted in this light: the end of empire and the warlords chaos, Westernization, the rise of the Communists, the Japanese invasion, among others, were described and interpreted in eschatological terms. The widely-diffused Dongmingji 洞冥記 (A Record of the Abyssal Underworld), a spirit-written tour of hells and heavens written in the form of a novel25 was revealed between 1920 and 1921 at a spirit-writing altar in Eryuan 洱源, Yunnan province: one of its theme is that we are living in endtimes, a fact manifested by the apocalyptic evils of ‘equality, freedom, and negation of father and lord (pingdeng ziyou wufu wuqun 平等自由無父無君). This text was included by Wang Yiting, a star of cosmopolitan Shanghai, in his 1936 canon Fushou baozang. The proliferation of such hybrid scenarios and mixed textual anthologies shows to what extent boundaries between the realms of ‘Buddhism’, ‘Daoism’, ‘Confucianism’, ‘redemptive societies’, and ‘sectarian religions’ were porous. Wang Chien-ch’uan has made the important point that, during the same period (second half of the nineteenth century), morality book presses (shanshuju 善書局) started to distribute ‘sectarian’ texts and thereby contributed to make them mainstream and acceptable (Wang 2016, 233–264). By the Republican period, this merging had coalesced into redemptive societies that had a largely elite and

24 Among works discussing twentieth-century spirit-writing groups and eschatological ideas, see Jordan & Overmyer 1986. 25 This genre and style invented with the Dongmingji proved influential, and was renewed in the 1980s Taiwan, where the Diyu youji 地獄遊記 was spirit-written, widely diffused and met with impressive success.

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self-declared Confucian following and at the same time developed the Three Ages type of apocalyptic teachings; it also, even more largely, resulted in the wide acceptance of such teachings in all sorts of elite groups. One should also note that these religious presses also put out considerable amounts of novels and other narrative genres, often with a very dense and explicit religious message, and these novels were also one important conduit for new religious ideas into the cultural mainstream (Durand-Dastes 2013, 78–112). The circulation of morality books, spirit-written scriptures, baojuan, novels and eschatological tracts continued unabated during the twentieth century, as it helped people make sense of dramatic changes such as the end of the imperial regime, various famines and natural disasters, the Japanese invasion, or Communist takeover (itself draped in highly messianic language). It was a very powerful counter-discourse to that (better studied) of the linear time of scientific progress. It is still very present in the popular discourse, not only in various new religious movements that talk of natural and man-made disasters (SARS epidemics, the Fukushima accident, etc.) as warnings and forerunners of the upcoming apocalypse, but more largely in a popular culture where fate and destiny are often thought in collective terms and eschatological ideas are not far beneath the surface. Understanding precisely the different strands of eschatological discourse and their diffusion should thus illuminate the whole modern and contemporary political and cultural sphere.

3.2 Gender, Sexuality and Social Values The second example is that of sexual morality. It is a key theme in sociological studies of religion in the West, where issues of gender roles, marriage and sexual practices have become one of the most, if not the most salient point of tension between religious groups and their secular discontents. It has been much less studied in the Chinese world, and yet it is also a topic of considerable concern and doctrinal production. The issue of sex and gender relationships has been central from the earliest morality books. This discourse largely dealt with uncontrolled desire (especially, but not uniquely, outside the conjugal bond); such desire, if left uncontained was described as desacralizing marriage and ruining families on the social level, and causing loss of energy, illnesses and even bad death on the level of the individual (primarily male).26

26 Here I am summarizing Goossaert 2013b, 37–46.

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The importance of the theme grew however, from the ‘puritan turn’ of the eighteenth century onward, to elevate sexuality to a dominant theme to which countless specialized morality books were devoted. Nineteenth-century eschatological writings give sexuality pride of place among the sins that will usher in the final apocalypse. At the same time, this discourse was more complex than pure and simple patriarchal condemnation of female sexuality and autonomy, as is often described. Parallel to English puritanism, late Qing Chinese moralists upheld all women’s rights to their honour, passionately fought the idea of the sexual availability of female servants, nurses and tenants, and tended to describe women as victims in asymmetrical relationships with powerful men (landowners, officials, senior lineage members). Divine law codes such as the Yuding jinke jiyao 玉定金 科輯要 (Compilation of the Golden Rules, on order of the Jade Emperor, revealed in 1856–59 during the Taiping war, and massively distributed in the 20th century by the Tongshanshe) certainly castigated promiscuous women, but most of all condemned abusive men; so do anecdotes on sexual misbehaviour which typically stage such situations where a powerful man abuses a subservient woman. Obviously, this rang bells with people like Wang Yiting or Nie Qijie 聶其傑 (1880–1953)27 who made fortunes (with which they printed the morality books we read) employing cheap female labour in their textile, tobacco and other factories. This is the historical background to the many contemporary Christian, Buddhist or Confucian employers who preach/educate their employees.28 Morality books revealed, compiled and published during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries largely carried on the key themes of their predecessors – which is why they are largely seen today as expressions of social conservatism – while they do adapt their discourse to the sea changes that have affected society in general, and gender roles in particular, in the meantime. Sexual segregation has been largely abandoned, and female education, independent work, and financial autonomy are largely accepted; yet, gendered roles and norms remain strong. Even if she earns more than her husband, the virtuous woman of the contemporary morality books still treats him as her superior. The emphasis has moved from female submission to the couple’s harmony, but the moral discourse still holds divorce in horror – even though the second marriage of widows is no longer the sin it once was (Clart 2003, 84–97). Late imperial morality books largely represented women as victims (seduced, raped) of the sexuality of uneducated or undisciplined men. Their contemporary successors tend to talk of moral discipline by placing both sexes on a footing of

27 On the morality books published by Shanghai industrialist Nie Qijie, see Kiely 2011, 4–22. 28 See for instance Huang 2015, 73–91; Cao 2010.

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equality; yet, sexuality is always discussed in terms of its asymmetrical consequences. For men, lapses in sexual discipline are described as causing a lack of selfcontrol resulting in failures in their studies and career; for women, the consequence is their loss of honour. This urge to discipline does not demean the sexual act, but conceives it as licit and thus sacralised only within the marital bond and the observance of the ritual calendar: one contemporary text claims that unfettered sexuality (allowed by contraception and to the risk of abortion) transforms “the holy act in the bedroom” (shensheng de fangshi 神聖的房事) into bestiality.29 A new trait in the discourse on sexual morality since the beginning of the twentieth century is the depiction of Western sexual mores as the evil other against which Chinese civilization is (should be) built – a trait found in other moral themes (respect for life, for instance) and indeed in other cultures. Respect for marriage and high requirements of sexual self-discipline are presented as antithetical to a Western amoralism bent on submerging China, notably through pornography (even though rejection of Chine erotic arts was already all over Qing-period morality books), unrestrained mixing of genders in public spaces, absence of gender distinction (including in clothing) and free unions. The first victims of sexual freedom are women, claims the contemporary postface to the Guandi jieyinjing 關帝戒淫經 (originally revealed around the turn of the twentieth century).30 This discourse thus offers what at first sight seems to be a religious reaction reaffirming ‘traditional’ norms in the face of secular modernity and its fast-changing attitudes to gender, family and privacy, similar to other such reactions observed throughout the world. This is certainly true, but can only be meaningfully explored if we remain attentive to the specificities of the Chinese discourse, its many references to earlier texts, its particular emphasis on the medical dimensions of sexual disorders and on spiritual discipline, and its relative lack of interest in issues of homosexuality and contraception. Sexual morality was still a hotly debated topic in a context where the Republican regime had ushered in drastic changes in gender roles, both in the law (the civil code of 1931 introduced marriage as a free choice of individuals) and in social attitudes. The liberation of women from both ‘Confucian’ patriarchal society and from superstition was a major theme of revolutionaries and reformists of all stripes.31 As a result, morality books tended to portray Westernization as corrupting women, and to defend ‘traditional’ ideas of gender segregation, female submissiveness and chastity, but they did not do so by rejecting all forms of social 29 Guandi jieyinjing, 79. 30 Guandi jieyinjing, 110. 31 For a masterful survey of the evolution of discourses on women and superstition during this period, see Kang 2016, 491–559.

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change. Philip Clart has looked at Republican and contemporary morality books discussing women and finds accommodations with social change in more recent texts: late twentieth-century morality books quietly acknowledge female labour outside the home, and love marriage (Clart 2003). He contrasts this to one text contained in the above-mentioned Fushou baozang canon (the 1921 Xunnü baozhen 訓女寶箴) for which, he writes, Republican China is “the end of civilization” (Clart 2003, 91). But we equally find in Fushou baozang texts on female morality and sexuality that appear ‘progressive’ when compared to late Qing ones. At the same time, Buddhists were also actively engaged in redefining gender roles, family life and acceptable sexuality. Paul R. Katz is currently engaging in a study of Buddhist family life manuals that promises to shed light on this issue.

Conclusion As one can see from the two above examples, a thorough study of modern and contemporary religious texts promises to illuminate much more than a few supposedly marginal groups; it would allow us to revisit the whole of Chinese value systems and social issues. Many other themes than the collective destiny of the Chinese nation or sexual morality are discussed at great length in the Chinese modern religious literature, including: money, the economy and acceptable business practices; charity, equality and the moral duty of the rich and powerful; filial piety and care of the elderly; Chinese cultural identity and universalism; political systems. . . There is hardly any of the key social issues that has not been thoroughly been appropriated by religious groups and discussed in their literature. Social, political and cultural historians of modern and contemporary China cannot ignore anymore the tens of thousands of religious texts that circulate and address the very issues that they study through other types of sources. For this reason, as the same time as fieldwork-oriented scholars bring to our attention the many ways in which religious groups actively shape social life in contemporary Chinese societies, they can now join forces with those who study the texts that inspire them and insert them in a deeper historical tradition. Members of modern and contemporary religious groups do not read texts as we scholars do, but they are in no way indifferent to their contents. Ideas that can be traced back to early modern times still shape social values as well as modes of religious commitments and mobilization. Therefore, fieldworkers should inquire into the texts people read and disseminate; and historians

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should look into the modern destiny of earlier texts – who reprints them and why. With the fast-expanding source base made of reprints of religious texts since the 2000s, and hopefully the emergence of an integrated database to map this continent of texts, we will soon be able to match texts, ideas, movements and people and therefore get an entirely new sense of how religion shapes modern and contemporary China.

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Goossaert, Vincent. 2012. “Daoists in the Modern Chinese Self-cultivation Market: the Case of Beijing, 1850–1949.” In Daoism in the 20th Century: Between Eternity and Modernity, edited by David Palmer and Liu Xun, 123–153. Berkeley: University of California Press. Goossaert, Vincent. 2013a. “L’histoire moderne du taoïsme. État des lieux et perspectives.” Etudes chinoises 32, no.2: 7–40. Goossaert, Vincent. 2013b. “La sexualité dans les livres de morale chinois.” In Normes religieuses et genre. Mutations, résistances et reconfiguration, xixe- xxie siècle, edited by Florence Rochefort & Maria Eleonora Sanna, 37–46. Paris: Armand Colin. Goossaert, Vincent. 2015. “Spirit-writing, canonization and the rise of divine saviors: Wenchang, Lüzu, and Guandi, 1700–1858.” Late Imperial China 36, no.2: 82–125. Goossaert, Vincent. 2016. “Guerre, violence et eschatologie. Interprétations religieuses de la guerre des Taiping (1851–1864).” In Guerre et Religion, edited by Jean Baechler, 81–94. Paris: Hermann. Goossaert, Vincent. 2018. “Animals and eschatology in the nineteenth-century discourse.” In Animals Through Chinese History. Earliest Times to 1911, edited by Roel Sterckx, Martina Siebert and Dagmar Schäfer, 181–198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goossaert, Vincent and Palmer, David A. 2011. The Religious Question in Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Guandi jieyinjing 關帝戒淫經. Taipei: Heyu, 2010. Huang Weishan. 2015. “The Blissful Enterprise: Buddhist Cultural Turns In the Workplace In Contemporary Shanghai.” Entreprises et histoire 81: 73–91. Jordan, David K. and Overmyer, Daniel. 1986. The Flying Phoenix. Aspects of Chinese Sectarianism in Taiwan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kang Xiaofei. 2016. “Women and the Religious Question in Modern China.” In Modern Chinese Religion II: 1850–2015, edited by Vincent Goossaert, Jan Kiely and John Lagerwey, 491–559. Leiden: Brill. Katz, Paul R. and Vincent Goossaert. The Fifty Years that Changed Chinese Religion. Ann Harbor: AAS (forthcoming). Katz, Paul R. 2005. When Valleys Turned Blood Red: The Ta-pa-ni incident in colonial Taiwan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Katz, Paul R. 2011. “Spirit-writing Halls and the Development of Local Communities: A Case Study of Puli (Nantou County).” Min-su chü-i 174: 103–184. Katz, Paul R. 2014. Religion in China and its Modern Fate. Waltham: Brandeis University Press. Katz, Paul R. 2015. “Illuminating Goodness: Some Preliminary Considerations of Religious Publishing in Modern China.” In Religious Publishing and Print Culture in Modern China, 1800–2012, edited by Philip Clart and Gregory Adam Scott, 265–294. Boston and Berlin: de Gruyter. Kiely, Jan. 2011. “Shanghai Public Moralist Nie Qijie and Morality Book Publication Projects in Republican China.” Twentieth-Century China 36, no.1: 4–22. Kiely, Jan. 2017. “The Charismatic Monk and the Chanting Masses: Master Yinguang and His Pure Land Revival Movement.” In Making Saints in Modern China, edited by David Ownby, Ji Zhe, and Vincent Goossaert, 30–77. New York: Oxford University Press. Ling Chi-Shiang. 2005. “Morality Books and the Moral Order. A Study of the Moral Sustaining Function of Morality Books in Taiwan.” In State, Market, and Religions, edited by Yang Fenggang and Joseph Tamney, 203–227. Leiden: Brill. Liu Xun. 2009. Daoist Modern. Innovation, Lay Practice, and the Community of Inner Alchemy in Republican Shanghai. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.

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Luo Dan. 2015. “History and transmission of Daoist spirit-writing altars in Hong Kong: a case study of Fei Ngan Tung Buddhism and Daoism Society.” PhD dissertation, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Nadeau, Randall Laird, ed. 2012. The Wiley-Blackwell companion to Chinese religions. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Ownby, David. 2008. Falun Gong and the Future of China. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press Ownby, David. 2016. “Redemptive Societies in the Twentieth Century.” In Modern Chinese Religion II: 1850–2015, edited by Vincent Goossaert, Jan Kiely & John Lagerwey, 585–727. Leiden: Brill. Ownby, David. 2017. “Sainthood, Science, and Politics: The Life of Li Yujie, Founder of the Tiandijiao.” In Making Saints in Modern China, edited by David Ownby, Ji Zhe, and Vincent Goossaert, 241–271. New York: Oxford University Press. Palmer, David A., Glenn Shive and Philip L. Wickeri, eds. 2011. Chinese Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pittman, Don Alvin. 2001. Toward a modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu’s reforms. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Scott, Gregory Adam. 2016. “A revolution of ink: Chinese Buddhist periodicals in the Early Republic.” In Recovering Buddhist China in the Twentieth Century, edited by Jan Kiely & Jessup, J. Brooks, 111–140. New York: Columbia University Press. Shiga Ichiko 志賀市子. 2016. “Qingmo minchu de jiuqie jing suo fanying de weiji shuyi, jindai xiyang wenming ji gongchan ge” 清末民初的救劫經所反映的危機－鼠疫、近代西洋文明及 共產革命. Unpublished conference paper presented at the conference “Coping with transnational crisis: Chinese economic and social lives in East Asian Ports-Cities, 1850–1950,” held at CUHK. Sun Yanfei. 2017. “Jingkong: From Universal Saint to Sectarian Saint.” In Making Saints in Modern China, edited by David Ownby, Ji Zhe, and Vincent Goossaert, 394–418. New York: Oxford University Press. Valussi, Elena. 2017. “War, Nationalism and the transmission of Daoist scriptures from China to Taiwan: the case of Xiao Tianshi.” Asia Major 30, no.1: 143–187. Wang Chien-ch’uan 王見川. 2013. “Jindai Zhongguo de fuji, cishan yu ‘mixin’ – Yi Yinguang wenchao wei kaocha xiansuo” 近代中國的扶乩、慈善與「迷信」– 以印光文鈔為考查線索. In Belief, Practice and Cultural Adaptation: Papers from the Religion Section of the Fourth International Conference on Sinology, edited by Paul R. Katz and Liu Shufen 劉淑分, 531–568. Nankang: Academia Sinica Press. Wang Chien-ch’uan 王見川. 2016. “Spirit-writing groups in Modern China (1840–1937): textual production, public teachings, and charity” (translated by Vincent Goossaert). In Modern Chinese Religion: 1850 to the present, edited by Vincent Goossaert, Jan Kiely and John Lagerwey, 651–684. Leiden: Brill. Yau Chi-on (You Zian) 游子安. 2015. “Lun Daoyuan zai Xianggang jianli zhi qiji jiqi yu Gang, Xing Tianqing caotang zhi guanxi” 論道院在香港建立之契機及其與港星天清草堂之關係. In Gaibian Zhongguo zongjiao de wushinian 1898–1948 改變中國宗教的五十年 1898– 1948, edited by Paul R. Katz and Vincent Goossaert, 141–167. Taipei: Academia Sinica, Institute of Modern History. Zhang Xuesong 張雪松. 2011. Fayu lingyan: Zhongguo fojiao xiandaihua lishi jinchengzhong de Yinguang fashi yanjiu 法雨靈岩:中國佛教現代化歷史進程中的印光法師研究. Taipei: Fagu wenhua.

Index Amdo 165, 167, 172, 174 ancestors 1, 57 – ancestor worship (see worship) ancient texts. See texts Ando. See Amdo androcentrism 144 Annual of Religious Studies in China 116 anthropology v, vi, 3, 10, 15, 27, 33, 36, 86, 101, 141, 148, 156, 158, 159, 165, 171, 181, 182, 193, 206, 212, 225, 232 – historical anthropology 232 anti-religious movement. See religion apocalypse/apocalyptic 9, 236, 241–243, 244 atheism 24–25, 26, 33, 36, 37, 38, 149, 150, 191, 195, 208, 210, 212, 219, 220, 222 authenticity 147, 167 Bai Tongdong 白彤東 48, 55, 60 baojuan 寶卷. See scrolls Beijing 15, 96, 100, 101, 115, 141, 146, 169, 176, 195, 198–199, 215, 217, 236 belief 3, 10–11, 15, 16, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32–34, 35–39, 69, 72, 76, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 116, 143, 146, 150, 159, 182, 183, 187–188, 192, 194, 196, 200, 210, 214, 215, 218, 219, 220, 222, 233, 238 benevolent rule 52–53 bentuhua 本土化 123 Bhutan 163, 167 Bla rung sgar. See Larung Buddhist Institute Blue Book on Religion 210 bookstores 233 borderland Buddhism. See Buddhism borderlands 5, 10, 13, 80, 81, 163–164, 165–167, 169, 170, 172–174, 175, 178, 220 botany 164, 170, 171 Bourdieusian sociology. See sociology British Empire. See Empire Buddha’s Light Mountain (foguangshan 佛 光山) 6, 124, 128 Buddhism – borderland Buddhism 13, 163–164 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547801-012

– Buddhist charity 130–131 – Buddhist international networks 125, 131 – Buddhist monks 122 – Buddhist networks 116, 119, 121, 234 – Buddhist nuns 122, 127, 128, 141–146 – Buddhist reforms 117 – Chan Buddhism 116–117 – Chinese Buddhism 12, 115–119, 121–125, 127, 128–131, 142–143, 148, 153, 157, 176, 222 – conservative Buddhism 117, 168 – Dharma 35, 39, 121, 122–124, 127, 147, 148 – digital Buddhism 13, 148, 157 – folk Buddhism 4, 177 – hereditary (small) monasteries (zisun miao 子孙庙) 13, 153 – Indian Buddhism 117 – Japanese Buddhism 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 127 – Japanese Buddhist universities 125–126, 127–128 – Mahāyāna 5–6, 120, 126, 143, 165 – Mijiao 密教 166 – Mizong 密宗 166 – modern Buddhism 119, 123, 128, 173, 234 – pan-Asian Buddhism 118, 173 – renjian fojiao 人間佛教 (‘Buddhism in this world’; ‘Humanistic Buddhism’; ‘Buddhism for the Human Realm’) 116, 119, 122–124, 129–130, 238 – rensheng fojiao 人生佛教 (‘Humanistic Buddhism’; ‘Buddhism for the Human Life’) 123 – Sangha education 121, 127 – secularization 117, 120, 123 – Sino-Japanese Buddhist Association (Zhongri fojiao xuehui 中日佛 教學會) 127 – study of Buddhism 12, 117, 119, 140–141, 152, 158–159 – Taiwanese Buddhism 116, 119, 123, 131 – Tantra 165, 166 – temple administration 154

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– temples 5–6, 119, 142, 151–152, 153–156, 157, 222 – Theravāda 5, 142, 165 – Tibetan Buddhism 5, 7, 10, 12, 13, 99, 126, 142, 163–169, 170–174, 175–178 – Tibetan Buddhism (construction of) 166–167 – transnational Sangha networks 121 – Vajrayāna 5, 7, 165 – vegetarian female monastic orders (zhaigu 齋姑) 128 – women in Buddhism 128–129, 142–145, 157 – youth camps 129–130 Buddhism for the Human Life. See Buddhism Buddhism for the Human Realm. See Buddhism Buddhism in this world. See Buddhism Buddhist networks. See Buddhism Buddhist youth camps. See Buddhism bureaucracy 195, 196 capitalism – capitalism as religion (see religion) Catholic Church. See Catholicism Catholicism 7, 26, 26, 68, 71, 83, 84, 85, 131, 169, 193–194, 197, 208 – Catholic Church 193–194 Central Party School 208, 215, 219, 220 Chan Buddhism. See Buddhism charisma – charismatic religious leaders (See religion) charity – Buddhist charity (see Buddhism) Ch’en, Kenneth 116 Chen Ming 陈明 31, 48–49, 51, 56, 57, 58, 60 Chen Shui-bian 陳水扁 6 Chen Weihua 陈卫华 115 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 214, 216, 219, 220, 223 Chinese Buddhisn. See Buddhism Chinese Christianity. See Christianity Chinese Communist Party (CCP). See Communism

Chinese Communist Youth League. See Communism Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) 207 Chinese political scientists 13, 206–209, 212, 213, 214–215, 217, 218, 222, 223, 224, 225 Chinese Protestantism. See Christianity Chinese Protestantism. See Protestantism Chinese Religions 209, 210 Ching Kong. See Jingkong 淨空 Christian house churches. See Christianity Christianity – Chinese Christianity 68, 72, 82–86 – Chinese Protestantism 7, 11, 67–68, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86–88, 197 – Christian house churches 196, 224, 234 – and democratic attitudes 198 – Eastern Thunder Sect 8 – Orthodox Christianity 7, 191, 208 – Patriotic Catholic Church (and Vatican relations with) 7 – Protestant Christianity 7, 68 – unorthodox (unrecognized by the State) Christian sects 8 Cihang 慈航 123 civility 6, 131 civil religion. See religion Clart, Philip 4, 45, 232, 237, 238, 244, 246 colonialism – post-colonial 122, 123, 184 communal religions. See religion communism – Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 3, 7, 25–26, 68, 85, 145, 151, 185–186, 187, 189, 205, 207, 208, 210, 212–213, 215, 216, 217, 218–219, 220–222, 224, 225–226 – Chinese Communist Youth League 26 comparative politics 183, 186, 188, 191, 213–214 comparative religions 11, 68–69, 78–79 compatriots 15, 216 Confucian fever. See Confucianism Confucian liberalism. See Confucianism Confucian Nation. See Confucianism Confucian revival. See Confucianism

Index

Confucianism – Confucian fever 47 – Confucianists 11, 30, 46, 49, 57, 58–59, 61 – Confucianity 23, 29–31, 54 – Confucianization 51, 57, 61 – Confucian liberalism 53 – Confucian Nation 53 – Confucian revival 16, 45, 47, 49, 56, 58 – Confucians 11, 30, 46, 47–51, 53–54, 57–58, 59, 61, 100 – conservative/action-oriented Confucians 11, 46, 50–51, 52, 58, 60–61 – constitutional Confucianism 47, 50, 53–55, 58, 59 – Great Unity (datong 大同) 57–58, 60, 123 – institutional Confucianism 50, 52, 57 – liberal/theory-oriented Confucians 11, 50 – Mainland New Confucianism 11, 46, 47–48, 50–51 – Neo-Confucians 47, 48, 49, 55, 57 – New Confucians (xin rujia 新儒家) 11, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 55, 58, 59 – political Confucianism 45, 50, 52, 56, 59, 61 – popular Confucianism 4, 236 – red Confucians 48 – religion (as) 52 – religious Confucianism 45, 57, 59, 61, 208, 215 – State religion (as) 23, 29–31, 51, 53, 55, 60 Confucianism as religion. See Confucianism Confucianism as State religion. See Confucianism Confucianists. See Confucianism Confucianity. See Confucianism Confucianization. See Confucianism Confucians. See Confucianism conservative – conservative/action-oriented Confucians (see Confucianism) – conservative Buddhism (see Buddhism) Constitution 25, 26, 30, 51, 53, 54–55, 184 constitutional Confucianism. See Confucianism Constitutional Confucianism. See Confucianism contentious politics 13, 181, 185

253

Cui Zhiyuan 崔之元 50 cult – evil cults 8, 26, 27, 205, 215, 224 – guild cults 36 – Mao cult 24, 39–40 cultural fever 47 Cultural Revolution 25, 30–31, 39, 47, 50, 115, 116, 119, 130, 154, 156, 157, 221, 225 cyber-Islam/cyber-Islamic environment. See Islam Dalai Lama, Fourteenth 7, 178, 221, 224 Dalai Lama, Thirteenth 175 Daoism – Daoism on environment 5 – Daoist arts 5 Daoism on environment. See Daoism Daoist arts. See Daoism Daozang jiyao道藏輯要 237 Darjeeling 163, 167 database 67, 105, 240, 247 David-Neel, Alexandra 164, 166, 174–176 Dean, Kenneth 3, 15, 34, 37, 118, 141, 232 death 232, 243 de Bary, William 4 decline 12, 28, 40–41, 68, 116, 118, 119–121, 125, 236, 238. See also revival democratization 6, 50, 52, 55, 118, 185, 192 Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 119, 120, 121, 141 – Deng Xiaoping Theory 210, 216 Deng Zimei 邓子美 115 Dharma. See Buddhism dialogical discipline 14–15 diaspora – diasporic Chinese communities 2, 9, 16, 29 – Muslim diaspora (see Islam) digital Buddhism. See Buddhism Ding Yun 丁耘 59 diversity – diversity of religions (see religion) divorce 244 Dongchu 東初 117, 118 Drepung 176 Durkheim, Emile 24, 32–35, 184

254

Index

East Asia v, 123, 125, 167, 236 Eastern Thunder Sect. See Christianity East and West 10 education – Sangha education (see Buddhism) emic 12, 142 empire – British Empire 72, 73, 163, 165–169 epidemics 241, 243 epigraphy 232 epistemic community 11, 12, 13, 46–48, 50, 54, 57, 59, 61, 115, 205, 212, 225–226 eschatology 14, 240, 241–243, 244 ethnography 14, 15, 28, 99, 115, 129, 139–149, 151–152, 157–159 etic 12, 142, 144–145, 148–149, 152, 155, 158 evil cults. See cult evil sects. See sectarianism explorer v–vi, 10, 13, 163–164, 167, 170, 172, 174 faith-based charity 191, 194–196 Falun Gong 法轮功 26, 39, 156 famines 241, 243 Fan Chun-wu 范純武 232–240 Fang Litian 方立天 115 Fazun 法尊 164, 167, 174, 176–177 feiluan 飛鸞. See spirit-writing female labour 244, 246 fetishism 36, 37 filial piety 4, 29, 56, 76, 246 Fisher, Gareth 6, 117, 120, 129, 130, 141, 143, 146–149, 152, 155, 156, 158–159, 233 five characteristics of religion. See religion folk Buddhism. See Buddhism folk religion. See religion foreign interference 15 foreign relations 13, 67, 181 foyuan 佛缘 146, 147, 148 free China (ziyou zhongguo 自由中國) 119 freedom of religious belief. See religion Fujian 141, 143, 153 fuji 扶乩. See spirit-writing full religion. See religion fuluan 扶鸞. See spirit-writing Fushou baozang 福壽寶藏 235–236, 242, 246

Gan Chunsong 幹春松 48, 57, 60 Gan Yang 甘樣 47, 50 Geertz 24, 33 Geluk 176 gender 4, 5, 98, 101, 128–129, 141, 143–145, 158, 182, 183, 243 – gender relationships 243, 245–246 geomancy (fengshui 風水) 3 Gernet, Jacques 12, 84–85 ghosts 1 global China 14 global Islam. See Islam gods 33, 37, 40, 239, 241–242 Golok 171 Gongyang 公羊 49 greater China v, 16, 105 Great Leap Forward 115 Great Unity (datong 大同). See Confucianism Guandi 關帝 242, 245 Guangji Temple (Guangji si 广济寺). See Temple of Universal Rescue Guanyin 觀音 39, 145, 242 Guoluo 果洛. See Golok Guo Peng 郭朋 117, 118 Guo Qiyong 郭齊勇 48, 57–58 hagiographies 83–84, 237 Han Kitab. See Islam ‘harmonious society’ 45, 104, 150, 151, 205, 217, 220 He Jianming 何建明 115 hereditary (small) monasteries (zisun miao 子孙庙). See Buddhism Himalayas 163, 165, 166, 171, 174, 177 historical anthropology. See anthropology history – history of ideas 1, 14 Hodous, Lewis 120 homosexuality 198, 245 Hong Kong v, 10, 11, 16, 28, 32, 45, 47, 49, 53, 58, 61, 72–73, 75, 78, 99, 100, 102, 105, 116, 124, 140, 153, 197, 211, 216 Hong Xiuping 洪修平 115 house churches 67, 88, 196–197, 224, 234 Hui 回. See Islam Hu Jintao 胡锦涛 45, 212, 219, 220, 221, 222, 224

Index

humanistic Buddhism. See Buddhism Hu Shih 胡適 30 identity 4, 11, 48, 52, 55, 61, 98, 101, 105, 116, 118–119, 123, 141, 143, 144–145, 148, 149, 154, 166, 175, 182, 183, 185, 191, 246 immortality 5 India 28, 117, 126, 163, 166, 173 Indian Buddhism. See Buddhism Institute for World Religions (IWR) 207, 208, 210, 213, 219 institutional Confucianism. See Confucianism interaction settings 152 interdisciplinarity v, 14, 105, 169, 182 inter-disciplinary investigation 14 inter-faith dialogue 99, 107, 122 Islam – cyber-Islam/cyber-Islamic environment 105–106 – global Islam 12, 94, 104–105, 106–107 – Han Kitab 100, 105 – Hui 回 8, 96, 98, 100–101, 105 – Islamic radicalism 8, 12, 94, 97, 102, 103, 226 – Muslim 1, 8, 12, 29, 93, 94, 96–98, 99–101, 102–104, 106–107 – Muslim diaspora 104–106 – Muslim studies 93, 94, 95, 98–99, 101–102, 231 – Sufi 96, 100 – Uyghur 8, 93, 96–97, 98, 101–102, 103, 105, 106 Islamic radicalism. See Islam Japan vi, 28, 29, 30, 37, 118, 125, 126–127, 128, 166 – Japanese Buddhism (see Buddhism) – Japanese Buddhist universities (see Buddhism) Japanese invasion 115, 118, 123, 128, 156, 234, 242, 243 jiangbi 降筆. See spirit-writing Jiang Canteng 江燦騰 115 Jiang Qing 蒋庆 31, 48–50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60–61

255

Jiang Zemin 江泽民 6, 13, 45, 148, 206, 212, 218, 219 jiaohua 教化 46, 55, 608 jiaomen 教門. See Sectarianism Jingkong 淨空 150, 233–234, 236 Journal of Political Science 216 kaifa Xibei 開發西北 172 Kaiyuan Temple (Kaiyuan si 开元寺) 86, 141, 153, 154, 155 Kanbusuodaji 堪布索达吉. See Sodargye, Khenpo Kang. See Kham Kang Xiaoguang 康晓光 31, 48, 49, 52, 55, 56, 60 Kang Youwei 康有為 11, 46, 47, 51, 53, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60–61 – new Kang Youwei-ism 59–60 Kan Zhengzong 闞正宗 115 Katz, Paul R. 2, 232, 235, 246 Kham 165, 167, 169–170, 176 Kidd, Samuel 11, 71–72 Kiely, Jan 6, 10, 232 Kingly Way 51, 57, 58, 60 Kleinman, Arthur 156 KMT (Guomindang 國民黨) 115, 118, 235–236 Koesel, Karrie 190–191, 192–195 Ladakh 166 Lagerwey, John 10, 141, 232 laity – Buddhist laity 118, 121, 122, 126, 158 Lai Yonghai 赖永海 115 Lamaism 164, 165, 168, 170–171, 178 – Lama(s) 163, 166, 168, 170–171, 173, 175, 177 Lan Jifu 藍吉福 115 Larong huoxi wenshu zenghui foxueyuan 喇榮霍西文殊增慧佛學院. See Larung Buddhist Institute Larung Buddhist Institute (Ch: Larong huoxi wenshu zenghui foxueyuan 喇榮霍西文 殊增慧佛學院; Tib: Bla rung sgar) 177 Latourette, Kenneth 83–84 Legge, James 11–12, 69, 72–79, 81–82, 87–88

256

Index

liberal/theory-oriented Confucians. See Confucianism liberal values. See value Lijiang 171 Lin Qiuwu 林秋悟 123 Li Silong 李四龙 115 Liu Shuxian 劉述先 48 Liu Wenhui 劉文輝 169, 173 Li Zehou 李澤厚 47, 49, 53, 59 locality – local religions (see religion) – regional/local based research 14 London Missionary Society 11, 69, 76 Luhmannian approach. See sociology Lüzu 呂祖 242 Macao 71, 124 magic 36, 165 Mahāyāna. See Buddhism Mainland New Confucianism. See Confucianism Manchuria 173 manuscripts 232 Mao Zedong 毛泽东 6, 54, 68, 141, 185, 210, 216, 218, 221 – Mao cult (see cult) Marx, Karl 184, 186, 218 – Marxism 30, 31, 49, 51–52, 54–55, 57–58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 86, 127, 143, 208, 210, 211, 214, 216–217, 220–221 May Fourth 30, 232 Mazu worship. See worship media 1, 30, 106, 122, 142, 157, 235 Meiji Restoration 125–126 messianism 241, 242, 243 Mijiao 密教. See Buddhism Milne, William 11, 69, 72, 73 Mingshan shuju 明善書局 235 minority nationalities 96, 102, 104, 185, 209, 212–213, 216, 219, 220 Mizong 密宗. See Buddhism modernity 2, 7, 46, 47, 49, 52, 54, 60, 61, 149, 152, 155, 164, 184, 232, 245 – modern Buddhism (see Buddhism) – modernization theory 184 Mongolia 173 morality 120, 221, 224

– morality books (shanshu 善書) 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 239, 242, 243, 244–245 – sexual morality 235–236, 243–244 morality books (shanshu 善書). See morality Morrison, Robert 11, 69, 70–73 Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 47, 48, 58, 60 Mt. Emei (Emeishan 峨眉山) 129, 141, 142–143, 145 Mt. Wutai (Wutaishan 五台山) 176 museumification 154–155 Muslim. See Islam Muslim Diaspora. See Islam Muslim studies. See Islam My Journey to Lhasa 174 Nan Huaijin 南怀瑾 233 Nanjing 96, 115, 127, 141, 142, 149–152, 172, 210 National Geographic 170 nationalism 11, 33, 53, 59, 61, 96, 98, 107, 167, 191, 223 nation-building 11, 46, 52, 55, 59, 61, 173 nation state 55, 169 Naxi 171 Neo-Confucians. See Confucianism networks 87, 96, 98, 152, 211, 234, 235 – Buddhist international networks (see Buddhism) – Buddhist networks (see Buddhism) – transnational Sangha networks (see Buddhism) New Confucians. See Confucianism New Culture Movement (xin wenhua yundong 新文化運動) 30, 54, 118 new Kang Youwei-ism. See Kang Youwei Nian rebellion 187 Nie Qijie 聶其傑 244 non-Chinese scholarship 10, 13, 131, 200, 205 novels 243 official history 12, 116 One Belt, One Road 94, 102, 106 online 51, 105, 106, 233, 240 orientalism 12, 94, 95, 106, 140, 164, 165, 168, 173, 177–178 Orthodox Church. See Christianity Ownby, David 1, 231, 232, 236

Index

Paganism 27–28 pan-Asian Buddhism. See Buddhism Panchen Lama, Ninth 173, 175 party-state 24, 25, 26–27, 29, 31, 181, 182, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193–195, 197 patriarchy 143, 144 Patriotic Catholic Church (and Vatican relations with). See Christianity patronage 15, 173 People’s Republic of China (RPC) 3, 5, 25–27, 93, 97, 102–103, 104–107, 122, 130–131, 181, 185, 191, 195, 200, 215 periodicals 172, 235 Perry, Elizabeth 186, 187–188, 190, 200 persecutions 15, 156, 177, 197 philanthropy 6, 9, 130–131, 194, 217, 219, 222–223, 235 philosophy 4, 25, 30, 33, 46, 55, 77, 100, 165, 171, 176–177, 182, 183, 206, 209, 211, 212–213, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 225 photography v, vi, 10, 13, 164, 167, 170, 172–174, 176 Pickens, Claude L. 95 pilgrimage 5, 130, 175, 213 political Confucianism. See Confucianism political science – and Chinese politics 13, 181, 182–183, 185, 192, 213, 218 – neglect of religion by 183, 232 – political scientists v, 13, 86, 181, 182, 183–184, 192, 198, 200, 205–207, 208, 209, 212, 213–215, 217–218, 222, 223–224, 225, 231, 232 political scientists. See Political science politics 2, 6, 13, 14, 24, 34, 46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 53, 60, 70, 120, 121, 174, 177, 181–183, 184–185, 188, 190–191, 192, 218, 220–221, 223–224, 225–226, 232, 235 – politics as religion (see religion) popular beliefs 3, 208, 215, 219 popular Confucianism. See Confucianism post-colonial. See colonialism Pratt, James Bissett 120

257

precious scrolls. See scrolls print culture 233–234, 235–236, 238–239, 240, 241, 244, 247 Protestantism. See Christianity pseudo-religion. See religion public interest 205, 219, 220, 222 Pudong 172 Pure Land 淨土 159, 233, 234 – Pure Land on Earth (renjian jingtu 人間 淨土) 124, puritanism 99, 244 qi 气 35, 144 Qian Mu 錢穆 47 qigong fever 9 Qing dynasty 2, 7, 73, 93, 96, 102, 119, 120, 165 quasi-religion. See religion rational choice theory 185, 187, 191 A Record of the Abyssal Underworld (Dongmingji 洞冥記) 242 red Confucians. See Confucianism redemptive societies 8–9, 34, 235–236, 241, 242 Red Spears 186–187 reforms – Buddhist reforms (see Buddhism) regional/local-based research. See locality release of captive animals (fangsheng 放生) 130 religion – anti-religious movement 221 – capitalism as 24 – charismatic religious leaders 1, 121, 141, 194 – civil religion 24, 33, 36, 37, 51, 52, 55, 60–61 – communal religions 3, 28, 37 – and Communist ideology 31 – definition of 11, 23–24, 25, 27, 32–33, 35–36, 41, 45 – diversity of 1, 2, 6, 8, 15, 16, 142, 167, 220 – five characteristics of religion 218 – folk religion 3, 11, 26, 27–29, 36, 37–38, 40

258

Index

– freedom of religious belief 10, 25–26, 34, 197–198, 210, 224 – full religion 35, 36, 38 – and government accountability 189 – local religions 3 – politics as 24 – pseudo-religion 37, 38, 39, 40 – and public goods provision 188–190 – quasi-religion 37 – rationality of 150, 187, 190 – religiosity of 29, 42, 146, 149, 151, 155, 183, 184–185, 192, 200, 213, 218, 221, 224 – Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) 192, 195 – religious Confucianism (see Confucianism) – religious monopoly 34, 41 – religious oligopoly 40–41 – religious pluralism 41 – religious policy 8, 25, 145, 151, 195–196, 208, 209, 210, 211, 219, 223 – religious press 126, 211, 235–237, 238, 242, 243 – religious publishing 78, 172, 211, 234, 238–239 – ‘religious question’ 14, 215, 220, 224 – and revolution 185–186 – semi-religion 36–37, 38 – sociology of religion (see sociology of religion) – and solidary groups 188–189, 190 – sports as 24, 33 – State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) 195–196, 207, 208, 209, 210–211, 213, 215, 217, 219, 220, 224 – state-religion relations 190–191, 193, 195 – three characteristics 223 – as tradable resource 191, 194 – zongjiao 宗教 25 Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB). See religion religious Confucianism. See Confucianism religious monopoly. See religion religious oligopoly. See religion religious pluralism. See religion religious policy. See religion religious press. See religion religious publishing. See religion ‘religious question’. See religion

Ren Feng 任峰 54 renjian fojiao 人間佛教. See Buddhism rensheng fojiao 人生佛教. See Buddhism Ren Naiqiang 任乃强 164, 167, 169 repression 9, 13, 96, 195–196 Republican Period vi, 6, 9, 59–60, 95, 99, 117–119, 121, 128, 131, 166, 169, 173–174, 177, 231, 233–234, 236, 239, 241, 242, 246 – Republican Government 116, 123, 167, 176, 245 respect for life 245 retribution 159, 232 – retribution of good and evil (baoying 報應) 237 revival (fuxing 復興) 6, 12, 16, 31, 45, 47, 49, 54, 56, 58, 106, 116, 118, 119–121, 125, 130, 141, 142, 148, 149, 153, 155, 157, 176, 181, 197, 231. See also decline revolution 2, 25, 30–31, 38–39, 47, 49, 50, 67, 116, 119, 130, 143, 154, 156–157, 184, 185–186, 221, 225, 234, 245 Rock, Joseph F. 164, 167, 170–171, 173 Said, Edward 102, 140, 165 salvation 34, 236 science 30, 41, 79, 81, 82, 88, 118, 120, 150–151, 165, 169, 171, 177, 210, 219 Scott, Gregory Adam 238 scrolls 239 – precious scrolls (baojuan 寶卷) 239, 243 – evil sects 8 – and peasant rebellion 185–188, 190 – schools (zong 宗) 118, 121–122, 125 – sectarian (jiaomen 教門) 3, 238, 239, 240, 241–242 – sectarianism 8, 9, 26, 28, 34 secularization 40, 41, 117, 120, 123, 194 – secularization of Buddhism (see Buddhism) Seeking Truth 215, 222 self-cultivation 49, 235 semi-religion. See religion sexual morality. See morality Shamanism 3 Shanbei 15 Shanghai 15, 76–77, 172, 216, 235, 239, 242

Index

Sheilaism 28 Sheng Hong 盛洪 48, 49, 51, 54 Shiga Ichiko 志賀市子 241 Shintoism 28, 29, 37 Sichuan University (Sichuan daxue 四川 大学) 169, 209 Sikkim 163, 166, 167, 175 Sino-Japanese Buddhist Association (Zhongri fojiao xuehui 中日佛教學會). See Buddhism sinology 9, 11, 24, 68, 69, 74, 75, 78–79, 82, 84–85, 87–88, 104, 231 Skinner, William 16 sociology – Bourdieusian sociology 2 – Luhmannian approach 2 – sociology of religion 1, 40, 182 – sociology of religion (new paradigm of) 40 Sodargye, Khenpo 177 South Asia 125, 218, 223 Southeast Asia 72, 101, 102, 103, 105–106, 125, 236 spiritualities 36, 104, 177, 194, 200, 233 spirit-writing 235, 236, 237, 238, 242–243 sports as religion. See religion State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA). See religion state-building 11, 47, 58, 61 statecraft 164, 213, 221 state-religion relations. See religion Strickmann, Michel 140 Sufi. See Islam Sun Yanfei 234 superstition 10, 15, 24–26, 30, 120, 150–151, 168, 171, 177, 187, 192, 210, 215, 245 survey research 10, 26, 29, 36, 81, 94, 95, 106, 116, 151, 159, 181, 183, 184, 188–189, 192, 198–199, 206, 208, 209, 212, 214, 225, 234, 237, 238, 245 Taiping War 67, 82, 185, 223, 241, 242, 244 Taiwan v, vi 2, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 16, 26, 28–29, 32, 36, 45, 47, 49, 58, 61, 102, 115, 119, 140, 141, 145, 177, 211–212, 216, 232, 237, 239, 242 – Taiwanese Buddhism (see Buddhism)

259

Taixu 太虚 117, 119, 122, 123–124, 128, 176, 234 Tang Junyi 唐君毅 47, 48 Tang Wenming 唐文明 54, 60 tantra. See Buddhism technologies 239 temple administration. See Buddhism Temple of Universal Rescue (Guangji si 广 济寺) 141, 146 textbooks. See texts texts – ancient texts 14, 233–234 – textbooks 29, 81, 231 theosophy 177 Theravāda. See Buddhism Tiandijiao 天帝教 36 tianxia 天下 system 57, 60 Tibet 7, 12, 13, 99, 126, 163, 164, 165–167, 168–170, 172, 173, 174–176, 177–178 Tibetan Buddhism. See Buddhism Tong, James 195–197 tongshanshe 同善社 235, 244 totemism 33 tourism 3, 130, 153–155, 191, 212, 213, 219 tradition(s) 1, 2, 3–4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10–12, 15–16, 26, 27–28, 29, 31, 36, 47, 48, 53, 58, 67–69, 71–72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 79–80, 81–84, 85–86, 87, 94, 96, 99, 102, 104, 105, 107, 118, 125, 129–130, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 152, 153, 155, 156, 158–159, 164, 165, 170, 171, 175, 176–178, 184, 186, 190, 232, 233, 235, 236, 238–239, 241–242, 245, 246 transnationalism 85, 87, 97–98, 105, 107, 118 – transnational Sangha networks (see Buddhism) trauma 156–157 Tsai, Lily 188–190, 192–194, 195 Tu Weiming 杜維明 48 Tylor, E. B. 32, 35 Tzu Chi Foundation (ciji gongdehui 慈濟 功德會) 6, 128, 129 United Front Work Department (UFWD) 207, 213, 215–216, 217, 219, 220

260

Index

unorthodox (unrecognized by the State) Christian sects. See Christianity urbanization 121 Uyghur. See Islam Vajrayāna. See Buddhism value 181, 185, 195, 197–198, 199, 213, 214, 218, 222 – liberal values 4 – value systems 232, 246 vegetarian female monastic orders (zhaigu 齋姑). See Buddhism Waddell, Laurence Austine 163, 164, 166, 167–169, 170, 173, 175 Wang Chien-ch’uan 王見川 232, 235, 239–240, 241, 242 Wang Fengyi 王鳳儀 236 Wang Hui 汪暉 50 Wang Mingming 232 Wang Yiting王一亭 235, 242, 244 Wang Zuo’an 王作安 219, 220 Weber, Max 23, 184 Welch, Holmes 116–118, 119–120, 121, 153, 157 West China Union University (Huaxi xiehe daxue 华西协和大学) 169 Wicca 27 women 5, 30, 70, 77, 97, 98, 244, 245, 246 – in Buddhism (see Buddhism) – in Chinese religions 129 worship 15, 28, 29, 36, 37, 40, 68, 143, 154, 155, 168, 220 – ancestor worship 1, 36, 57, 77 – Mazu worship 36 Wright, Teresa 196–197, 200 Wutaishan 五台山. See Mt. Wutai Xiantiandao 先天道 241, 242 Xi Jinping 习近平 13, 45, 106, 206, 219

Xikang 西康 166, 169, 173 Xingyun 星雲 119, 124 Xinjiang 新疆 8, 93, 96, 97, 98, 101, 222 Xizang 西藏. See Tibet Xizang fojiao 西藏佛教. See Tibetan Buddhism Xuan Fang 宣方 115 Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 47, 48 Yang, Chin-kung 2, 33, 34, 37 Yang, Fenggang 1–3, 10, 11, 16, 23–42, 45, 46, 61, 62, 103, 151, 211, 212 Yang Huinan 楊惠南 115, 123 Yang Wenhui 楊文會 126 Yao Zhongqiu 姚中秋 48, 49, 53, 60 Yellow Emperor 3 Ye Xiaowen 叶小文 219, 220 Yidan xuetang一耽學堂 236 Yiguandao 一貫道 9, 28, 36, 238, 240 Yinguang 印光 233, 234, 235 Yinshun 印順 119, 123, 126, 127, 129 Yongden, Aphur 175 Yuding jinke jiyao玉定金科輯要 244 Yu Yingshi 余英時 47, 214 Zangchuan fojiao 藏传佛教. See Tibetan Buddhism Zeng Yi 曾亦 48, 49, 54, 60 Zhang Xianglong 張祥龍 48, 56 Zhaohui 昭慧 123, 129 Zhao Puchu 赵朴初 123 Zhengyan 證嚴 119, 123, 129 Zhonghua 中华 172 Zhong, Yang 198, 199 Zhuang Xueben 莊学本 130 Zigon, Jarrett 148 Zimmerman-Liu, Teresa 196, 197, 200 zongjiao 宗教. See religion Zwemer, Samuel 95