Women in the Secret Popular Religions of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (喻松青, “明清时期民间秘密宗教中的女性”)*

CHAPTER EIGHT

WOMEN IN THE SECRET POPULAR RELIGIONS OF THE MING AND QING DYNASTIES (喻松青, “明清时期民间秘密宗教中的女性”)*

Yu Songqing

Abstract

This paper consists of four parts: gender in the scriptures of popular religion; female deities; female patriarchs and followers; and their impingement on the feudal ethical code. It examines the theological discourse about women in popular religion and the status of female patriarchs and followers in popular religious sects. Furthermore, it argues that those naive but distinctive ideas of the two sexes undermined fundamental social norms, and realities of the times. Keywords: local society; secret folk religions; women

Views of Gender in Scriptures

(315, original page number, similarly hereinafter) Among the scriptures of secret folk religions in Ming and Qing dynasties, there are only two known texts that directly discuss a view of gender. One was The Precious Scroll the Medicine King of Loyalty, Filial Piety and Deliverance ( Jiuku zhongxiao yaowang baojuan 救苦忠孝药王宝卷), which said: “There is man. There is woman. Originally, they had no difference. Both relied on the Eternal Venerable Mother (wusheng laomu 无生老母) and were

* This paper was originally published in The Nankai Journal (Nankai xuebao 南开学报), no. 5 (1985), “Special Collection of Treatises on Ming and Qing History in Honor of Professor Zheng Tianting” ( Jinian Zheng Tianting jiaoshou mingqing shi xueshu lunwen tekan 纪念郑天挺教授明清史学术论文特刊). 316 yu songqing born from the vital breath of Former Heaven.”1 The other was the “Building the Dharma Ship” section ( paizao fachuan pin 排造船法品) of The Precious Dragon-Flower Scripture Veriﬁed by the Ancient Buddha as It Originally Is (Gufo tianzhen kaozheng longhua baojing 古佛天真考证龙华宝经. Hereinafter called the Dragon Flower Scripture). It wrote: “It is required that all male and female members gather with neither difference nor discrimination.” The former scripture signiﬁed that all men and women were equally the children of the Eternal Venerable Mother. (316) That is to say, men and women were originally (lit. in Former Heaven) equal. The latter sentence stressed the relationship between man and woman, in which there should be neither grudge nor misunderstanding, because both sexes derived from the Mother. From Former to Latter heaven (i.e., mythical past to the present), scriptures of the secret folk religions of the Ming and Qing claimed an ambiguous equality of the two sexes. Such an egalitarian view was not similar to the modern idea of equality between men and women; rather, it was a simple but distinctive idea of the two sexes, which emerged in feudal China. This simple idea of sexual equality originated from the traditional Chinese view of yin-yang. The interaction of yin and yang formed all things and were indispensable to each other. The “Heaven and Earth of the Ancient Buddha” ( gufo qiankun pin 古佛乾坤品) section of the Dragon Flower Scripture said: “The Eternal Venerable Mother conceives from herself and begets yin and yang”; “The yin is the daughter and yang is the son. Their names are Fuxi (伏羲) and Nüwa (女娲) respec- tively.” Here, yin and yang are equal. Above them, there was the Eternal Venerable Mother, who was the supreme deity. This supreme deity was “female.” This hierarchy ran counter to orthodox Confu- cianism, in which yang was dominant to and higher than yin. Yin, however, was regarded as the symbol of subordination and inferiority. In fact, the secret folk religions of the Ming and Qing did not further discuss the relationship and reciprocal status of yin and yang, men and women. These plain and simple scriptures were not exempt from the dominant convention that “yang is superior to yin.” Even so, there

1 Huang Yupian (黄育楩), A Detailed Refutation of Heterodoxies (Poxie xiangbian 破邪详辩). If there is no speciﬁc annotation, all cited scriptures or scrolls in this paper are from this book.