Religious Confucianism
Religious Confucianism is an interpretation of Confucianism as a religion. It originated in the time of Confucius with his defense of traditional religious institutions of his time, such as the Jongmyo rites, and the ritual and music system.
The Chinese name for religious Confucianism is, in contrast with non-religious Confucianism, which is called. The differences can be roughly translated with meaning religion, and meaning school, although the term is ancient and predates this modern usage of.
were a "small group of cultural specialists" who preserved older Zhou dynasty rituals and did scholarly work to pass down traditional Zhou "written classics" through the generations.
Religious Confucianism includes traditional Chinese patriarchal religion in its practice, leading some scholars to call it Tianzuism instead to avoid confusion with non-religious Confucianism. It includes such practices as heaven sacrifice,, and.
Elements include the deification and worship of Confucius, the seventy-two disciples, Mencius, Zhu Xi, and Shangdi.
Religious Confucianism has had state sponsorship since the Han dynasty, and in all subsequent major dynasties until the 1911 Revolution. The Four Books and Five Classics became the jurisprudential basis of the national code and the Chinese legal system, as well as the Spring and Autumn Courts. At the end of the Han dynasty, religious Confucianism was widespread. Religious Confucian organizations known as Confucian churches, which emerged during the Qing dynasty, have significant popularity among overseas Chinese people today.
Elements of religious Confucianism can be found in Chinese salvationist religions and Falun Gong, while a number of Japanese and Korean religious sects also claim a Confucian identity.
The origin and development of Religious Confucianism
According to He Guanghu, Confucianism is a continuation of the official religion of the Shang and Zhou dynasties or the main indigenous religion in China for three thousand years. Both dynasties worshipped the supreme deity named, also known simply as by the Shang and by the Zhou.Proto-Chinese
Prior to the formation of Chinese civilisation and the spread of world religions in East Asia, local tribes shared animistic, shamanic, and totemic worldviews. Mediatory figures, like shamans, directly communicated prayers and made sacrifices or offerings to the spiritual realm, a tradition that persists in some contemporary Chinese religions.Ancient shamanism in particular is connected to ancient Neolithic cultures, such as the Hongshan culture. The Flemish philosopher Ulrich Libbrecht traces the origins of some features of Taoism to what Jan Jakob Maria de Groot called Wuism, or, in other words, Chinese shamanism.
Xia-Shang
Libbrecht distinguishes between two periods in the development of Chinese theology and religion: traditions derived from the Shang dynasty and traditions derived from the Zhou dynasty. The religion of the Shang was based on the worship of ancestors and god-kings, the souls of whom were believed to survive as unseen divine forces after death. They were not transcendent entities, as the universe was created by internal rhythms and cosmic powers, not by an external force. The royal ancestors were called, and the primordial progenitor was. Shangdi was—and is—often depicted as a Chinese dragon, a symbol of limitless power and the "protean", primordial force that embodies yin and yang. Shangdi was—and is—associated with the constellation Draco, which wraps around the north ecliptic pole and slithers between Ursa Minor and Ursa Major. In Shang theology, the multiplicity of the gods of nature and ancestors was viewed as parts of Di, and the four and their were his cosmic will.Zhou
The Zhou dynasty was more rooted in an agricultural worldview, and they emphasised a more universal idea of. The Shang dynasty's rulers asserted that, as Shangdi was their ancestor-god, they had a divine right to rule. The Zhou transformed this descendant-based claim to power into a morality-based claim to power by creating the Mandate of Heaven. In Zhou theology, Tian had no singular earthly descendant, but bestowed divine favour on virtuous rulers. The Zhou kings declared that their victory over the Shang was because they were virtuous and loved their people, while the Shang were tyrants and thus were deprived of their power by Tian.John C. Didier and David Pankenier relate the shapes of both the ancient Chinese characters for 帝 and 天 to the patterns of stars in the northern skies, either drawn, in Didier's theory by connecting the constellations bracketing the north celestial pole as a square, or in Pankenier's theory by connecting some of the stars which form the constellations of the Big Dipper and broader Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor. Cultures in other parts of the world have also conceived these stars or constellations as symbols of the origin of the universe, a supreme deity, divinity or royal power.
The rituals, rules, and institutions of the Zhou dynasty were derived from those of the Xia and Shang dynasties and represented the ideal system in the minds of Confucians. Poetry, calligraphy, rituals, and music were central to the education of royal officials in the Zhou dynasty and were also known as the four teachings of ancient times. They also filled the textbooks of the Zhou nobles. The records that Shen Shushi included these six ancient books in his list of teaching materials for the education of the royal princes.
Here, the Spring and Autumn Period and the World are both historical records, and the Order is about the astronomical calendar of seasonal festivals, such as the Ritual Record – Lunar Order. "Language" refers to the "State Language" and "Family Language", such as the "Confucius Family Language" that had been passed down. "Guzhi" refers to the "Letters of Zhongxu," "Letters of Tang," "Letters of Da," "Letters of Kang," "Letters of Wine," and "Letters of Luo," which Confucius included in the Shangshu. The "Disciplines" are the "Yao Dian", "Shun Dian", and "Yi Xun" from the Shangshu. Confucius brought to the people of the Zhou dynasty the knowledge that had been reserved for royal officials. Confucianism is a religious tradition based on poetry, calligraphy, rituals, and music, which was refined by Confucius' interpretation of the Five Classics. Xunzi said: "Therefore, the way of poetry, calligraphy, ritual and music is to be carried forward. The poem is its will, the book is its deeds, the ritual is its deeds, the music is its harmony, and the spring and autumn are its microcosm. Religious Confucianism takes Confucius as the supreme sage and Shangdi as the supreme god, and God assigns kings and teachers to human beings to teach and govern God's people. "Heaven sends down the people as the ruler and the teacher, but it is said that they help God and favor the four directions."
Origin of the term Ru
The character "ru" referred to a jurist who was familiar with the poetry, calligraphy, rituals, and music of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. It evolved from the four branches of shamanism, history, prayer, and divination of the Spring and Autumn Period.According to the Fayan, the Zhou dynasty "emphasizes the five teachings of the people, as well as food, funerals, sacrifices. emphasize honesty and righteousness, revere the morally upright, and reward credit where credit is due. By doing so, all under heaven will naturally achieve peace and harmony."
File:Cangnan - Longgang - Dutianmiao - P1210230.JPG|thumb|Temple of All-Heaven in Longgang, Cangnan, Wenzhou, Zhejiang.
Latter Zhou and Warring States
By the 6th century BCE, the concept of Tian and the symbols that represented it on earth had become widespread. The Mandate of Heaven was claimed by different rulers of the Zhou states to legitimise their economic, political, and military ambitions. The divine right to rule was no longer understood to be exclusive to the Zhou royal house; it was something that could be bought by anyone able to afford the elaborate ceremonies and rites required to access the authority of Tian.Besides the waning Zhou ritual system, what may be defined as "wild" traditions, or traditions "outside of the official system", developed as attempts to access the will of Tian. The population had lost faith in the official tradition, which was no longer perceived as an effective means of communication with Tian. The traditions of the "Nine Fields" and of the flourished. Chinese thinkers, faced with this challenge to legitimacy, diverged in a "Hundred Schools of Thought", each proposing its own theories for the reconstruction of the Zhou moral order.
Background of Confucian thought
Confucius appeared in this period of political decadence and spiritual questioning. He was educated in Shang-Zhou theology, which he contributed to transmit and reformulate, giving centrality to self-cultivation and human agency, and the educational power of the self-established individual in assisting others to establish themselves. As the Zhou reign collapsed, traditional values were abandoned, resulting in a period of moral decline. Confucius saw an opportunity to reinforce the values of compassion and tradition in society. Disillusioned with the widespread vulgarisation of the rituals to access Tian, he began to preach an ethical interpretation of traditional Zhou religion. In his view, the power of Tian is immanent and responds positively to a sincere heart driven by humaneness, rightness, decency, and altruism. Confucius conceived these qualities as the foundation needed to restore socio-political harmony. Like many contemporaries, Confucius saw ritual practices as efficacious ways to access Tian, but he thought that the crucial knot was the state of meditation that participants enter prior to engaging in the ritual acts. Confucius amended and recodified the classical books inherited from the Xia-Shang-Zhou dynasties, and composed the Spring and Autumn Annals.Philosophers in the Warring States period, both "inside the square" and "outside the square", built upon Confucius's legacy, compiled in the Analects, and formulated the classical metaphysics that became the lash of Confucianism. In accordance with the Master, they identified mental tranquility as the state of Tian, or the One, which in each individual is the Heaven-bestowed divine power to rule one's own life and the world. Going beyond the Master, they theorised the oneness of production and reabsorption into the cosmic source, and the possibility of understanding and therefore reattaining it through meditation. This line of thought would have influenced all Chinese individual and collective-political mystical theories and practices thereafter.
According to Zhou Youguang, Confucianism's name in Chinese,, originally referred to shamanic methods of holding rites and existed before Confucius' times, but with Confucius, it came to mean devotion to propagating such teachings to bring civilisation to the people. Confucianism was initiated by Confucius, developed by Mencius, and inherited by later generations, undergoing constant transformations and restructuring since its inception, while preserving the principles of humaneness and righteousness at its core.