The Religion of Confucius

chapter 3 Popular Groups Promoting “The Religion of Confucius” in the Chinese Southwest and Their Activities since the Nineteenth Century (1840–2013): An Observation Centered on Yunnan’s Eryuan County and Environs Wang Chien-Chuan Scholars have held that since the late Qing era, a succession of popular1 Confucian groups have emerged and been preserved in China, for exam- ple, Chen Huanzhang’s Confucian Church (kongjiaohui 孔教會) and Zong Shedang’s Confucius Society (Kongshe 孔社). In fact, before these groups existed, there were quite a few other Confucianist groups of this kind in many parts of China, dedicated to passing down Confucian teachings and enlighten- ing the masses. Examples include Sacred Edict halls (Shengyu tang 聖諭堂), focused on the preaching of sacred edicts; and phoenix halls (luan tang 鸞堂), which sought to enlighten the masses through planchette writing (spirit writing). This Confucian (rujia) culture with Confucius at its center penetrated most deeply into China’s rural civil society. However, such groups have been neglected by scholars researching Chinese culture, and even explorers of Rujia culture have turned a blind eye to them. The present study has two objectives: The first is to provide a brief outline of Confucian groups and their activities in Sichuan, Yunnan and other por- tions of China’s southwest from the late Qing period until 1949, revealing this hidden period in the history of Confucianism, and presenting the infil- tration of Rujia culture among the lower-strata masses and the multi-variant * Editor’s note (EN): Some discussions in this chapter echo another chapter of the same author translated by Vincent Goossaert elsewhere. The present chapter occasionally borrows Goossaert’s translations of certain expressions, references or short quoted excerpts. See Wang Chien-chuan, “Spirit Writing Groups in Modern China (1840–1937): Textual Production, Public Teachings and Charity,” in Modern Chinese Religion II, eds. Vincent Goossaert, Jan Kiely and John Lagerwey (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015), 651–668. 1 Translator’s note (TN): The Chinese term here, minjian, is in the sense of “folk,” established by private individuals and communities rather than by formal institutions. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004374966_005 Popular Groups Promoting “The Religion of Confucius” 91 aspects of its dissemination in the frontier regions. The second is to describe Confucian activities under Chinese Communist rule, in particular the revival of Confucianism from the Reform and Opening period until the present, in order to highlight the continuity of Confucian activities over the past century. The data employed include internal documents of these Confucian groups along with field observation data from Yunnan Province’s Eryuan (洱源) County. 2 1 Phoenix Halls and Confucian Religious Groups in Sichuan and other Parts of China’s Southwest in the Late Qing Era Many people regard Sichuan as the strategic gateway to the Chinese southwest. Sichuan is closely associated with the political and economic activities of southwestern China, and much of the popular culture and religion of the southwest is related to Sichuan. Therefore, in order to clearly understand the phoenix halls and Confucian groups in Xichang 西昌,3 Guizhou, Yunnan and other such localities, it is necessary to begin with the situation in Sichuan. Phoenix halls (luantang 鸞堂 or luantan 鸞壇) are places where groups devoted to spirit writing (fuji 扶乩 or fuluan 扶鸞)—a technique allowing direct communication between humans and deities—congregate and carry out their activities. The basic idea is that a spirit-medium, holding a stick with the shape of a luan-bird (鸞) beak, writes messages in the sand inspired by deities. This method is usually described as “planchette-writing.” By the end of the Empire, spirit-writing activities involved a large number of literati and within the mass of texts produced in that way, many promoted a Confucian ethos. The phoenix halls (luantang 鸞堂), which were established in the mid- Qing period, came in many varieties, but the Tesmple of the Dragon Maiden (Longnü Si 龍女寺) and the Da County Mount Wuling Phoenix Hall (達縣五靈山鸞堂) were the most influential in the southwest region. 1.1 The Planchette-Writing Tradition at the Temple of the Dragon Maiden and Its Influence on the Phoenix Halls of China’s Southwest The Temple of the Dragon Maiden (Longnü Si 龍女寺) is located within the borders of Sichuan’s Wusheng County (Wusheng xian 武勝縣, known during 2 The author carried out two field search studies in the Dali and Eryuan region, the second study gathering the largest amount of material. The general situation of this research was described in a previous paper by the author. See Wang Chien-chuan 王見川, “Yunnan Dali, Eryuan yidai minjian Rujiao kaocha jilüe” 雲南大理、洱源一帶民間儒教考察紀略, Mazu yu minjian xinyang: Yanjiu tongxun 媽祖與民間信仰:研究通訊 6 (forthcoming). 3 TN: The seat of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southern Sichuan Province..

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