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Title: Understanding Material Offerings in Hong Kong Folk Religion Author: Kagan Pittman Source: Prandium - the Journal of Historical Studies, Vol

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Title: Understanding Material Offerings in Hong Kong Folk Religion Author: Kagan Pittman Source: Prandium - the Journal of Historical Studies, Vol Title: Understanding Material Offerings in Hong Kong Folk Religion Author: Kagan Pittman Source: Prandium - The Journal of Historical Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Fall, 2019). Published by: The Department of Historical Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga Stable URL: http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/prandium/article/view/16211/ 1 The following paper was written for the University of Toronto Mississauga’s RLG415: Advanced Topics in the Study of Religion.1 In this course we explored the topics of religion and death in Hong Kong. The trip to Hong Kong occurred during the 2019 Winter semester’s Reading Week. The final project could take any form the student wished, in consultation with the instructor, Ken Derry. The project was intended to explore a question posed by the student regarding religion and death in Hong Kong and answered using a combination of material from assigned readings in the class, our own experiences during the trip, and additional independent research. As someone with a history in professional writing, I chose for my final assignment to be in essay form. I selected material offerings as my subject given my history of interest with material religion, as in the expression of religion and religious ideas through physical mediums like art, and sacrificial as well as other sacred objects. --- Material offerings are an integral part to religious expression in Hong Kong’s Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist faith groups in varying degrees. Hong Kong’s folk religious practice, referred to as San Jiao (“Unity of the Three Teachings”) by Kwong Chunwah, Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at the Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary, combines key elements of these three faiths and so greatly influences the significance and use of material offerings, and explains much of what I have seen in Hong Kong over the course of a nine-day trip. In this paper, I argue the nature of material offerings is rooted in a deep history that is connected between the three religious traditions of San Jiao and has evolved over the course of Hong Kong’s history to satisfy several religious and psychological needs and is in fact still evolving today. This paper will begin with a brief review of the history of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism as it relates to their development in response to one another and their eventual amalgamation into San Jiao in Hong Kong before exploring the types of material offerings used in the folk tradition and reasons as to why they are used in such ways. My personal analysis of the subject as I experienced it in Hong Kong will be incorporated throughout to provide additional context, case examples and my own conclusions. A Brief History of San Jiao Leading up to the conversion of emperor Wu Di to Confucianism in around 138 BCE, the Chinese Han empire operated under a state philosophy of Taoism. The Confucian school of thought promoted a system of morals to promote order and peace within the larger state of China, creating a social hierarchy inspired by the Confucian cosmic order that applied to 1 Kagan Pittman is in his final year at UTM, having majored in Anthropology and History of Religion. He is interested in the anthropology of religion as it relates to public issues. Kagan originally wrote this paper in the Winter 2019 term. In the fall of 2020, he hopes to attend graduate studies at the University of Waterloo for Anthropology. 2 governments, the public, and their families.2 This philosophy was in direct competition with Taoism, which rejected human efforts to restore peace and order and instead espoused ascetism, wuwei, or effortlessness, accepting ones’ inner nature and not struggling against the chaotic currents of life.3 After the emperor’s conversion, the Chinese state adopted a Yin-Yang-Legalist- Confucian model of thought, restructuring social and political hierarchies, and promoting rites to honor “heaven, earth, ancestors, natural deities, great men [and] patrons of agriculture” using ritual music, dance, offerings and prayer for the purpose of enriching “the harmony in nature among deities and human beings, with the prospect of ensuring fertility and wealth”.4 The rites promoted a holistic understanding of the universe and its living and spiritual inhabitants, promoting a reciprocal relationship between the two groups, and so the state was refashioned as a sacred and necessary component in this new world-structure. Under Confucian rule, Taoism developed into a religion. Believers were offered self-transcendence and the chance at immortality through the worship of deities, public prayer, penance, meditation and mystic practices designed to unify humanity with the divine.5 The Han dynasty fell in 220 CE and Buddhism began to spread across China in the political turmoil. The new religion became popular in Chinese high courts, thanks to its ability to adapt to Chinese values,6 and flourished until the rise of the Neo-Confucian Sung Dynasty (960- 1279) which tried to answer metaphysical and spiritual questions, providing opportunities for moral development and self-transcendence in response to the popularity of Buddhism and Taoism. The continued development of the three religions in response to one another began to blur the lines of distinction for practitioners outside of elite circles who were not educated in the respective religion’s schools of philosophy. Believers were able to practice teachings from each faith syncretically, together in a complimentary fashion, “fulfilling social responsibility as a Confucian in active life, by reading Taoist scripture at leisure time… and at the same time offering prayers with the family in Buddhist temples for special intentions”.7 As the religions became increasingly related, San Jiao institutions began to provide simplified scriptures, ritual opportunities and congregational-style worship not available from religiously exclusive temples, and as such generated a stronger sense of belonging.8 San Jiao is the most explicitly visible popular religious tradition in Hong Kong today. An interesting distinction to note however, is the powerful influence Taoism has over Buddhism and Confucianism in the San Jiao triad in Hong Kong. Chunwah cites a study by Bartholomew P. M. 2 Kwong Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion in Post-Colonial Hong Kong: An Historical Overview of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), 25. 3 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 25-26. 4 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 28. 5 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 28-29. 6 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 29-30. 7 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 31-32. 8 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 32. 3 Tsui on influential Chinese Taoist groups, in which he recorded the influence of Taoist practices on San Jiao: [This Chinese popular cult tradition] governs the way of veneration, the bows and prostrations, the way of holding the joss-sticks, and the offerings to make. This tradition also dictates the hierarchy of gods, spirits and other powers, headed by the Jade Emperor. Ideas of purification and dietary rules are also provided by this tradition. The concept of merits and their acquisition by means of rituals is readily accepted as true… The function of the rituals for the dead is simply an automatic deliverance of the dead from the punishment of hell and the ascension into the pleasures of heaven.9 Furthermore, Chunwah reveals that San Jiao temples, like Wong Tai Sin Temple, are registered as members of the Hong Kong Taoist Association.10 San Jiao is organized under Taoism to promote acceptance and the “Unity of the Three Teachings”,11 as Taoism’s philosophical focus on the promotion, prolonging and nourishment of life and its natural course of development offers room for Buddhist and Confucian philosophies. Taoist beliefs in chengfu, or the inheritance of sins,12 is compatible with Confucian notions of sin erasure through honouring the deceased to clean sins from the living,13 and Buddhist understandings of karma and the generation of merit.14 Wong Tai Sin Temple, New Kowloon, Hong Kong. (Photo by Kagan Pittman) In places like Wong Tai Sin, I have seen how the histories of these three religions begin to intersect and how these intersections effect religious practice and sentiments towards material objects, like offerings. Joss money, or paper replica money, began use as an offering for the gods, spirits, and the deceased as early as the beginning of the Three Kingdoms Period from 221 9 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 70. 10 Ibid. 11 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 71. 12 Cecilia Lai Wan Chan, Amy Yin Man Chow, Death, Dying and Bereavement: A Hong Kong Chinese Experience (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006), 89. 13 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 90. 14 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 101. 4 to 420 CE,15 and a large variety of paper replicas of everyday objects were first used during the Song Dynasty, replacing ceramic grave goods.16 Today, such offerings and more are used for a variety of purposes, sometimes exclusively and sometimes in combination with one another. Types of Offerings and Their Use Over my time in Hong Kong, material offerings were made wherever a temple or shrine stood, and they came in a variety of types. Fruit, drink, incense and paper objects were all used by worshippers and in some cases in different ways, or for different reasons. Janet Lee Scott, in For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, offers an in-depth exploration of the practice of making and sacrificing paper offerings, revealing information that was not known over my trip. For example, humanoid joss paper offerings I identified as servants are known as “Honorable People Papers”, which are helpful people whose purpose is to assist the dead and even deities in a variety of tasks.17 Paper offerings found at the Fook Memorial Hall in Tai Wai, Hong Kong.
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