So with this lecture we come to the end of our first, the first half of this course all about early Chinese religion, and the last topic that we're going to be talking about is popular religion— that is to say the religion of the people not only, but the religion above all of the <i>wu</i>, of the shamans or spirit mediums. And we will see immediately how this contrasted radically with the religion of the elite, namely, it's anthropomorphic and not cosmological in character. And then we'll look at how the Buddhists and Daoists responded to this ongoing challenge of popular religion. To do so we will be looking at, using two chapters— one by Fu-shih Lin, who is also the author of "The Attack on Shamanism" in the first book; here it's simply called "Shamans and Politics," and then the second chapter that we'll be using from this book is by Mu-chou Poo, called "Images and Ritual Treatment of Dangerous Spirits." So these are the two chapters on which we'll be focusing —which we'll be using—in order to understand popular religion in the Period of Division. First, let's talk about emperors and shamans. To what degree did this religion of the people also have a presence at the court? Well, Fu-shih Lin points out that in the entire Han dynasty, over 400 years, only two emperors are said to have had recourse to shamans, whereas in the Period of Division that figure is 21. So we could say a massive return to politics of precisely these priests of the religion of the people, a massive return to the political arena of this form of religion. What were they doing, these emperors? "In some cases they asked shamans to heal an ill or suffering person"—healing: "whether themselves, a family member, or a courtier. In other cases, they asked the shaman to serve as medium so that they could communicate with someone close who had died. Sometimes they turned to shamans to take responsibility for state sacrifices or, in order to wrest away power or solidify their own rule, asked shamans to curse internal or external enemies." But emperors during this period also promulgated edicts of suppression and the first such edict of suppression of which we know in Chinese history dates to the year 224 CE —just four years after the founding of the Wei dynasty— and it's by the founder of that dynasty, Wei Wendi, who reigned from 220 to 226. And I quote the edict: "The former kings established the rites in order to promote filial piety and the worship of the ancestors." So he starts off in a totally Confucian tone. "The most important cults were those of the southern suburb 郊" —that is to say the sacrifice to Heaven— "and [to] the earth god 社. Next came the ancestral temple 宗廟," sacrifices to the ancestors, "the three heavenly bodies and five agents 三辰五行." Well, here we're talking about the cosmological dimension of imperial religion, the three heavenly bodies being the sun, the moon and the Big Dipper or Polar star— in any case the center of the heavens of the night. So first all of the heavenly entities that were worshiped by the emperor and then all of the earthly entities: "famous mountains, rivers, and lakes." So he's describing what he considers to be official state-approved religion based on the Confucian classics. "All other forms of worship were excluded from the register of sacrifices," the <i>sidian</i> 祀典. "But in times of decline," the edict goes on, "in times of decline and disorder, people trust shamans and astrologers 崇信巫史. Be it in the palaces of the court or the houses of the people, everywhere libations are made, so severely are people besotted. From henceforth, whoever dares to make sacrifices that are not in accord with the Rites or use the words of shamans and invokers 巫祝, will be accused of adhering to a sinister Way," <i>zuodao</i> 左道. And right down to the present this is the standard term still used by the Chinese state: the sinister way or the way of the left, sometimes called <i>pangmen zuodao</i> 旁門左道, okay? So anybody who was accused of that "will be dealt with according to the law." So here we have the first edict of suppression in Chinese religious history. So who are these gods who are not in the <i>sidian</i>, not in the register of sacrifices? Well, one of the most famous on which Lin Fu-shih has written a great deal is called Jiang Ziwen 蔣子文 and the first story about him is about his intimate relationship to someone called Sun Quan 孫權, who reigned from 222 to 252, but not over the Kingdom of Wei in the north but the Kingdom of Wu in the south—the southeast of China. Here is his story: "Jiang Ziwen came from Guangling 廣陵. He loved wine, women, and fighting"— clearly not a very good Confucian. "He often said of himself: 'My bones are pure: when I die, I will become a god.' At the end of the Han [dynasty], commandant of <i>Moling</i> 秣陵尉, he once chased a bandit to the foot of Bell Mountain 鐘山. The bandit struck and wounded his forehead. He untied his silk sash to bind up the wound but died shortly thereafter." Now what does that mean? That means he is a <i>ligui</i>—one of these vengeful dead, a person who did not live out his life normally. "At the beginning of the reign of the former ruler of Wu, one of Wen's—Jiang Ziwen's—subordinates saw him on the road riding a white horse and holding a white fan, with retainers as when he was alive. Startled, this man ran away, but Wen caught up with him and said: 'I am to be the tutelary god of this area, <i>ci tudishen</i> 此土地神, so <i>tudi</i> earth god—tutelary god—the god who protects this territory, 'and I will bring good fortune 福 to the people under you. [But] if you do not, there will be a great catastrophe 大咎.'" So, good, bad, you choose. You worship me? You get wealthy, you have a stable regime. You don't worship me? I'll destroy you, okay? "That year in summer there was a major epidemic, the people were terrified, and some worshiped him stealthily 竊祠之"—it's illegal. "Wen again came down and spoke through a medium 下巫祝." So here we're clearly in the religion of the mediums and in fact that's the term that's used here—<i>wu</i>. "He said through this medium: 'I am going greatly to succor the Sun clan,'" so I'm going to help them, "'which must set up a temple for me. Else, I will cause worms to enter your ears.' Shortly thereafter, there were small creatures like gadflies. Whoever's ears they entered doctors could not heal. The people were even more terrified, but the Sun ruler still did not believe. Again, Wen spoke through a medium: 'If you do not make sacrifices to me, I will cause a huge fire.' That year, fires broke out on a massive scale, every day in several tens of places, and fires reached the government offices and palaces. Discussion led to the conclusion that, when ghosts have a place to return to, they stop taking vengeance 厲." This is based on a Chinese pun, "<i>gui, guiye</i> 鬼, 歸也." Ghosts are entities—or which—have a place to go back to. If they have a place to go back to, they're happy, they receive their ordinary sacrifices, and so they stop behaving like <i>ligui</i>— they stop taking vengeance, okay? So they should find a way to comfort him—Jiang Ziwen, that is. "They thereupon appointed an envoy to enfeoff Ziwen as marquis of Zhongdu" —so in other words to give him a title— "and his younger brother Xu as commandant of Changshui. Both were given seal of office and silk sash, and they built a temple 廟堂 for him." So here we're seeing all the elements of popular religion: he is a human figure, somebody who lived, somebody who died an unfortunate death, someone who then after his death speaks through a medium and demands that they worship him and sacrifice to him, and finally the creation of a temple. "The name of Bell Mountain was changed to Jiang Mountain 蔣山." And if I'm not mistaken, it's the mountain on which, or the hill outside of Nanjing today, where the mausoleum to Sun Yat-sen or Sun Zhongshan is located. "From that time, the haunting catastrophes 災厲 came to a stop, and the people worshiped him lavishly." And Lin Fu-shih goes on to trace his ongoing presence in the dynasties of the south. The Wu was the period of the Three Kingdoms, but after the fall of the Wu, you have a whole series of southern kingdoms usually referred to in Chinese as the <i>liuchao</i> 六朝 or Six Dynasties. And one of them in the year 501, an emperor who was about to be assassinated, raised the god's title, so we saw he had been named a marquis and he gradually goes up the ranks and becomes not a king but a Di, like the emperor himself: Efficacious Emperor, <i>lingdi</i> 靈帝. As Fu-shih Lin says, Jiang Ziwen had thus "become the highest god in the pantheon." In the year 444, we have a new edict of suppression. What's happening in 444? Well, we've talked about that already, this is under the Northern Wei dynasty, the so-called Tuoba Wei, <i>toba</i> 拓跋 being, referring to the non-Han ethnic minority that governed under the Northern Wei. And you may recall that when Kou Qianzhi received —a Daoist who received revelations and then came to court, worked together with someone called Mr. Cui who then was a Confucian, and then together the Daoist and the Confucian convinced the emperor of the Northern Wei to wipe out Buddhism, to suppress Buddhism and also of course to make Daoism the national religion. So this is the context—the political context—of this edict of suppression. "The foolish people, lacking knowledge, believe erroneously in perverse spirits 信惑妖邪, privately entertain master-shamans 師巫." This term "master-shamans" is a very interesting one, because later on it will become very very difficult in the Song dynasty to know whether we're talking about a shaman or spirit medium or about a Daoist and of course we don't really know here either, but anyway. So, they're privately taking care of master-shamans and "collect books of prophecy 讖記, <i>yin</i> and <i>yang</i> 陰陽," probably <i>fengshui</i>—geomancy, "symbolic diagrams 圖維," like we've talked about and "techniques 方伎之書." "There are also Buddhists who, relying on the empty lies of the western barbarians, give rise to evil undertakings. This is not the way to achieve unity through government nor to spread pure virtue throughout the empire. From the princes down to the commoners," from now on "whoever privately entertains Buddhist monks, master-shamans, or gold and silver craftsmen"— what do they have to do with it? Well, of course they're making the statues and all of the other paraphernalia of the cults, of the Buddhist gods, and the master-shaman gods. So: "from the princes down to the commoners, whoever privately entertains Buddhist monks, master-shamans, or gold and silver craftsmen must turn them over to the authorities and not hide them. The limit set is the 15th day of the second month of this year." Now: "Those who pass this date without coming forward will, if they are master-shamans or Buddhist monks, be put to death and, if they're their host, will be put to death with their entire household. Let this be clearly announced so that everyone knows." That was 444, but already in the year 460—same dynasty— all state cults that had been destroyed were restored. We saw this happened in the Han dynasty; five centuries later, we see it happening again. In the year 473 there were state-sponsored cult sites—1,715 of them— that required total annual sacrifices of 75,500 animals. So as we've talked about before, the state investment in religion was expensive! It was a lot of money laid on the line to support the sacrifices to the gods that the state had decided were legitimate and not sinister. A 485 decree ordered that "all diagrams, prophecies, and secret esoterica" be burned. So once again, this idea that these occult personalities became heads, charismatic heads of social movements that threatened the stability or even the legitimacy or the survival of the government. And it added: "Also, all shamans who pretend they speak for the gods," <i>jiacheng shengui</i> 假稱神鬼. "For the gods": here the term is <i>shen</i>—gods, <i>gui</i>—ghosts, but together still today <i>shengui</i> or <i>guishen</i> that refers to all the spirits. So: "who pretend they speak for [these spirits] and wildly predict good and bad fortune." Well, it's exactly what we saw: Jiang Ziwen said, "You worship me, good fortune. You don't, catastrophe." So: "and wildly predict good and bad fortune, as well as those who engage in divination in the alleyways, according to non-classical texts"—non-Confucian texts— "are all to be strictly forbidden." A hundred years later, the founder of the Sui dynasty, Yang Jian 楊堅, who reigned from 581 to 604, "used both shamanesses and family rites" —family rites from the Confucian tradition, shamanesses from the religion of the people— "to announce his accession to the throne in his father's temple." So he goes to his father's temple —we're in a very Confucian context— but the priests that accompanied him to do this are priests from the classical Confucian tradition and also from the mediumistic tradition. He also employed—once on the throne— 24 shamans in certain local cults, just as the Former Han had done, as well as "20 masters of divination, 10 physiognomists" —people who looked at faces to divine what that person was about— "16 shamans, [and] eight shamanesses" in the office of the great diviner. So under the Sui, just as way back at the beginning of the third century or second century BC under the Former Han, the shamans had once again become a structural part of the government under the Sui dynasty which unifies China after nearly four centuries of division.
