Chinese folk religion


Chinese folk religion comprises a range of traditional religious practices of Han Chinese, including the Chinese diaspora. This includes the veneration of shen and ancestors, and worship devoted to deities and immortals, who can be deities of places or natural phenomena, of human behaviour, or progenitors of family lineages. Stories surrounding these gods form a loose canon of Chinese mythology. By the Song dynasty, these practices had been blended with Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist teachings to form the popular religious system which has lasted in many ways until the present day. The government of modern China generally tolerates popular religious organizations, but has suppressed or persecuted these that they fear would undermine social stability.
The People's Republic of China is officially an atheist state, but the Chinese government formally recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, and Islam. Chinese folk religion, being a syncretism, the government does not consider it a religion because it has ambiguous boundaries and a poorly defined structure, which is why Taoism and Buddhism are recognized as the country's historical religions, but folk religion is considered part of China's cultural heritage.
After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, governments and modernizing elites condemned 'feudal superstition' and opposed traditional religious practices which they believed conflicted with modern values. By the late 20th century, these attitudes began to change in both mainland China and Taiwan, and many scholars now view folk religion in a positive light. In China, the revival of traditional religion has benefited from official interest in preserving traditional culture, such as Mazuism and the Sanyi teaching in Fujian, Yellow Emperor worship, and other forms of local worship, such as that of the Dragon King, Pangu or Caishen.
Feng shui, acupuncture, and traditional Chinese medicine reflect this world view, since features of the landscape as well as organs of the body are in correlation with the five powers and yin and yang.

Diversity

Chinese religions have a variety of sources, local forms, founder backgrounds, and ritual and philosophical traditions. Despite this diversity, there is a common core that can be summarised as four theological, cosmological, and moral concepts:, the transcendent source of moral meaning; qi, the breath or energy that animates the universe; ancestor veneration; and 'moral reciprocity'. With these, there are two traditional concepts of fate and meaning:, the personal destiny or burgeoning; and 'fateful coincidence', good and bad chances and potential relationships.
Yin and yang is the polarity that describes the order of the universe, held in balance by the interaction of principles of extension and returning, with yang usually preferred over yin in common religion. The and are common diagrams representing the forces of nature, and the power that deities like Zhong Kui wield. is the medium of the two states and the inchoate order of creation.

Terminology

The Chinese language historically has not had a concept or overarching term for "religion". In English, the terms 'popular religion' or 'folk religion' have long been used to mean local religious life. In Chinese academic literature and common usage refers to specific organised folk religious sects.
Contemporary academic study of traditional cults and the creation of a government agency that gave legal status to this religion have created proposals to formalise names and deal more clearly with folk religious sects and help conceptualise research and administration. Terms that have been proposed include,, or viewed as comparable to the usage of the term "Hinduism" for Indian religion. In Malaysia, reports the scholar Tan Chee-Beng, Chinese do not have a definite term for their traditional religion, which is not surprising because "the religion is diffused into various aspects of Chinese culture". They refer to their religion as or, which prompted Alan J. A. Elliott to suggest the term. Tan, however, comments that is not the way the Chinese refer to their religion and suggests it is logical to use "Chinese Religion". Shenxianism, literally 'religion of deities and immortals', is a term partly inspired by Elliott's "shenism" neologism.
During the late Qing dynasty, scholars Yao Wendong and Chen Jialin used the term shenjiao not referring to Shinto as a definite religious system, but to local shin beliefs in Japan. Other terms are,,,, and., is a seldom used term taken by scholars in colonial Taiwan from Japanese during Japan's occupation. It was used between the 1990s and the early 21st century among mainland Chinese scholars.
Shendao is a term already used in the I Ching referring to the divine order of nature. Around the time of the spread of Buddhism during the Han dynasty, it was used to distinguish the indigenous ancient religion from the imported religion. Ge Hong used it in his Baopuzi as a synonym for Taoism. The term was subsequently adopted in Japan in the 6th century as Shindo, later Shinto, with the same purpose of identification of the Japanese indigenous religion. In the 14th century, the Hongwu Emperor used the term "Shendao" clearly identifying the indigenous cults, which he strengthened and systematised.
"Chinese Universism"—not in the sense of "universalism" as in "a system of universal application", as that is Tian in Chinese thought—is a coinage of Jan Jakob Maria de Groot that refers to the metaphysical perspective that lies behind the Chinese religious tradition. De Groot calls Chinese Universism "the ancient metaphysical view that serves as the basis of all classical Chinese thought. ... In Universism, the three components of integrated universe—understood epistemologically, 'heaven, earth and man', and understood ontologically, 'Taiji, yin and yang'—are formed".
In 1931, Hu Shih argued that: "Two great religions have played tremendously important roles throughout Chinese history. One is Buddhism which came to China probably before the Christian era but which began to exert nation-wide influence only after the third century A.D. The other great religion has had no generic name, but I propose to call it Siniticism. It is the native ancient religion of the Han Chinese people: it dates back to time immemorial, over 10,000 years old, and includes all such later phases of its development as Moism, Confucianism, and all the various stages of the Taoist religion."

Attributes

Contemporary Chinese scholars have identified what they consider the essential features of the Chinese indigenous religion: according to Chen Xiaoyi local indigenous religion is the crucial factor for a harmonious, that is the balance of forces in a given community. Han Bingfang has called for a rectification of names: distorted names are or, that were derogatorily applied to the indigenous religion by leftist policies. Christian missionaries also used the label 'feudal superstition' as propaganda to undermine what they saw as religious competition. Han calls for the acknowledgment of the ancient Chinese religion for what it really is, the.
According to Chen Jinguo, the ancient Chinese religion is a core element of Chinese. He has proposed a theoretical definition of Chinese indigenous religion in a, apparently inspired to Tang Chun-i's thought:
  • Substance : religiousness ;
  • Function : folkloricity ;
  • Quality : Chineseness.

    Characteristics

Diversity and unity

Ancient Chinese religious practices are diverse, varying from province to province and even from one village to another, for religious behaviour is bound to local communities, kinship, and environments. In each setting, institution and ritual behaviour assumes highly organised forms. Temples and the gods in them acquire symbolic character and perform specific functions involved in the everyday life of the local community. Local religion preserves aspects of naturalistic beliefs such as totemism, animism, and shamanism.
Ancient Chinese religion pervades all aspects of social life. Many scholars, following the lead of sociologist C. K. Yang, see the ancient Chinese religion deeply embedded in family and civic life, rather than expressed in a separate organizational structure like a "church", as in the West.
Deity or temple associations and lineage associations, pilgrimage associations and formalized prayers, rituals and expressions of virtues, are the common forms of organization of Chinese religion on the local level. Neither initiation rituals nor official membership into a church organization separate from one person's native identity are mandatory in order to be involved in religious activities. Contrary to institutional religions, Chinese religion does not require "conversion" for participation.
The prime criterion for participation in the ancient Chinese religion is not "to believe" in an official doctrine or dogma, but "to belong" to the local unit of an ancient Chinese religion, that is the "association", the "village" or the "kinship", with their gods and rituals. Sociologist Richard Madsen describes the ancient Chinese religion, adopting the definition of Tu Weiming, as characterized by "immanent transcendence" grounded in a devotion to "concrete humanity", focused on building moral community within concrete humanity.
Inextricably linked to the aforementioned question to find an appropriate "name" for the ancient Chinese religion, is the difficulty to define it or clearly outline its boundaries. Old sinology, especially Western, tried to distinguish "popular" and "élite" traditions. Chinese sinology later adopted another dichotomy which continues in contemporary studies, distinguishing "folk beliefs" and "folk religion", the latter referring to the doctrinal sects.
Many studies have pointed out that it is impossible to draw clear distinctions, and, since the 1970s, sinologists like Kristofer Schipper, swung to the idea of a unified "ancient Chinese religion" that would define the Chinese national identity, similarly to Hindu Dharma for India and Shinto for Japan. Other sinologists who have not espoused the idea of a unified "national religion" have studied Chinese religion as a system of meaning, or have brought further development in C. K. Yang's distinction between "institutional religion" and "diffused religion", the former functioning as a separate body from other social institutions, and the latter intimately part of secular social institutions.