This course provides an introduction to the study of the history, major teachings, and practices of the major Chinese religions and spiritual practices and is deigned to give conceptual tools to appreciate diverse religious practice in East. It covers the development of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism and wide range of popular and local religions. From historical perspective we will also explore the development of key theological, religious and philosophical doctrines as well as associated practices. An effort will be made to spend time on each tradition according to its importance to Asia as a whole. We will explore the role of religions in politics and social relations in East and South, South East Asia and China in particular, and will analyze the origins, central teachings, divisions and branches, rituals and practices, influences on culture, and responses to modern challenges for each tradition. The emphasis throughout the course is on the hermeneutic difficulties attendant upon the study of religion in general, and Asian religions in particular. We will explore new Asian religions as dynamic, ongoing forces in the lives of individuals and in the collective experience of modern societies.
Basics of Chinese Folk Religions
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來自 National Research University Higher School of Economics 的課程
Religions and Society in China
69 個評分
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從本節課中
Chinese folk religions: ancestor worship, temples, festivals and communal identities
This module's content describes the characteristic traits of Chinese sects and popular cults. This module introduces one of the most important notions in Chinese religious studies: Chinese synctretism.
與講師見面
Aleksey A. MaslovHead
School of Asian Studies
[SOUND] Hello,
today I will speak about
Chinese folk religions.
Sometimes they call it Chinese popular religions.
Sometimes they call it Chinese secret religions.
So, what does it mean, secret religions, or popular, or folk religions?
What about other religions?
For example, Buddhism, Taoism, which we already discussed in our class.
Does it mean that all other religions are not popular, are not folk religions?
No, folk religions, especially in China,
it's a special specific group of religions with very
strong ideas and very strong trends for the development.
And first of all, let's discuss this meaning, what does it mean folk religions,
folk religious tradition?
So in different books, or in different scholar papers,
we can find different names for this group of religions.
Folk religions or popular religions, or even folk beliefs, or popular beliefs.
In Chinese, it's mainly minjian xinyang, which means popular beliefs.
It means that it's a group of religions that share in general the same ideas that
we can find, for example, in Taoism or in Buddhism.
But maybe it's a mixed or an amalgam of different kind of beliefs and traditions.
So it's not a completely separate group of religions.
It's cross-connected to other cults, traditions, and institutions.
For a long time, all these folk religions didn't have any
institutions or its own legal heritage.
But today, a lot of folk religions, especially in Taiwan and
Hong Kong, in Macau, all of them have their own triads,
also called charges, or traditions, institutions, associations.
So they are already institutions of social institutes.
At the same time, in Chinese history,
some of these religious were called secret societies.
Mimi shehui, or secret religious traditions.
Why they were secret?
Does it mean that no one knew about these religions?
No, especially in the county level, or village level.
Everyone knew about the existence of such groups that we call secret societies.
But the tradition of the secretness was very highly praised in China.
So your group could practice some folk festivals, also.
For example, martial arts.
If you call this group secret group, it means that this group ranks very high and
much higher than any other local folk religious or folk traditions.
So to be secret, it means to be inside the tradition.
So it means to be a very highly developed mystical tradition.
So this kind of secret societies mushroomed in China especially
in 18th and in 19th century.
Even in the beginning of 20th century, in the so-called the Republican China, so
it means the China before 1949.
We can find a lot of so-called secret societies, mimi shehui.
Some of them were really large by the number of followers.
Some of them were very small.
We can find, for example, the classical secret society.
A very huge classical, as a triad in the south part of China,
especially in Hong Kong or in Guangdong Province.
But some scholars divide secret societies and
folk religious traditions.
Some scholars think that it's absolutely sin.
So it means the secret societies with a very strong religious indoctrination.
Anyway, I think that in real sense, in real life, it's impossible
to divide these two groups of traditions, especially after the 18th centuries.
Meaning it was the officials in traditional China who called these
societies secret societies.
Because the existence of these societies, or really, these groups,
represented a very traditional opposition of the so-called orthodox and
heterodox, or heretical doctrines, zongjiao yiduan.
A lot of people, especially in rural militias, and
further organizations were the cores of such secret societies.
We can find these secret societies in traditional Shandong Province or
even in Shanghai, near Beijing.
So some of these secret societies were not really just groups but
also groups of the self-defense or groups of the protection of the village.
And they helped, for example, they tried protect the trade from local bandits.
So they played very important social roles.
We know of some cases, especially in the 19th century China,
that one man, or several men in one village,
they force at the same time of four or five secret societies.
So it was called multiple membership.
You can call it membership in different kinds of secret societies.
Anyway, all the secret societies,
almost all of them were based on some religious rituals.
Or on the veneration of some local god, or
usually some local so-called unborn mother.
So anyway,
all the secret societies were closely connected to the religious indoctrination.
What could we name the main parts of these folk religion?
First of all, folk religions or folk religions in China
are based on the generation of the force of nature, for example, fire.
Some of the spirits are close connected to these forces of nature.
For example, the highest goddess in Chinese folk religion.
So the unborn venerated is mother is cross-connected to the fire.
And she was represented as a fire in some pictures.
At the same time, these folk religions are cross-connected to the ancestor's lineage.
And all these religions have a very strict and
straightaway line of the development of the lineage
from the first ancestors to the present day followers.
Another one or some of part of this religious based on the exorcist
calls on rituals that came from shamanism and of the later Taoism.
Finally, we can find the multiplicity of spirits.
And that's what I will speak about today.
Some schools call these religions, also called the Shanese,
from the word shan, which means spirit, so a kind of spiritualism in China.
At the same time, Chinese folk religions are based at least into two main ideas.
We can find these same ideas for example in Western tradition,
especially in Christianity.
But in Chinese folk religions, these two ideas became a core of beliefs,
and of the development of several social movements.
The first idea, it's the idea of the salvationism.
The idea of the salvation and
the idea that some spirit or some god mother or some highest deity
could save humankind from the ocean of sufferings in this world.
There are different explanation how this deity could do it.
For example, could take the humankind
from the Earth sufferings to the to the Heaven paradise.
Another point just to give, this deity could give a different kind
of practices or exercises to cultivate yourself and
to save from the ocean of sufferings by yourself.
So anyway, these are different means of the salvationist.
This salvationist tradition was cross-connected to the idea of the,
it's called the millenarianism.
So the ideal of the belief of the coming major transformation of the society.
In general, it means that some highest deity, for
example, the Buddha will soon come to this Earth and
Earth became completely transformed, completely changed it.
All human kind, all good human kind, who before that time,
followed some good traditions, or good practices, or
were members of some folk religious groups could be saved.
And bad people, bad men, evil part of humankind will be punished.
So, that's one of the ideals of Millenarianist tradition.
Another point of the development of this salvationist,
it's the idea of the eschatology.
A eschatologist is the idea of the ultimate destiny of humanity, and
the idea about the final event of the history.
So it means if in Chinese tradition,
it means the idea of some kind of changes or revolutions.
It means to change the mandate of heaven.
So that's why a lot of such folk religious groups, which were
in general very peaceful groups, all these groups
were dedicated to some religious rituals In small shrines.
Suddenly, this group became very active, very aggressive, and finally,
pushed for these several uprisings and rebellions.
For example, the very famous Taiping Rebellion in China, in 19th century.
Or even more famous rebellion is
Boxer Rebellion at the end of the 19th century of China.
So anyway, the central idea of all these folk religions is the idea of
the salvation of the individual and the society.
Salvationists became a core idea, a core explanation,
at the same time a core of the activity of all these
groups that were and in China.
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