The Religion of the Chinese De Groot, J

The Religion of The Chinese de Groot, J. J. M. Published: 1910 Categorie(s): Non-Fiction, Religion, Buddhism, Oriental religions and wisdom , Confucianism, Taoism, History of Religions Source: The Internet Archive http://archive.org/details/ religionofchines00groouoft 1 About de Groot: Jan Jakob Maria de Groot (18 February 1854, Schiedam - 24 September 1921, Berlin) was a Dutch Sinologist and historian of religion. He taught at Leiden and later in Berlin, and is chiefly remembered for his monumental work, The Religious System of China, Its Ancient Forms, Evolution, History and Present Aspect, Manners, Customs and Social Institutions Con- nected Therewith. The two "books" of this detailed and well-il- lustrated treatise appeared in six volumes — and, according to the preface in the first volume, the System was originally meant to include several more "books". Like many then and since, he thought that one spiritual essence could be detected beneath a great variety of religious, philosophical, and even political expressions in China, and his lifework was the discov- ery and exposition of that essence. At the end of the 19th cen- tury, he and Schlegel were the chief ornaments of Sinology at Leiden. de Groot in 1902 moved to Berlin. (Biography from Wikipedia and the Sinology Project at University of Massachu- setts in Amhurst, http://www.umass.edu/wsp/sinology/persons/ degroot.html .) Copyright: This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. Note: This book is brought to you by Feedbooks http://www.feedbooks.com Strictly for personal use, do not use this file for commercial purposes. 2 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Is China's religion a world-religion, and as such worth studying? A place as a world-religion must, without hesitation, be as- signed to it on account of the vast number of its adherents. It has extended the circle of its influence far beyond the boundar- ies of the empire proper, and has gained access, together with Chinese culture generally, into Korea, Japan, Manchuria, and Turkestan, as well as into Indo-China, though, of course, in modified forms. Hence a proper understanding of the religions of East Asia in general requires in the first place an understanding of the religion of China. China's religion proper, that is to say, apart from Buddhism, which is of foreign introduction, is a spontaneous product, spontaneously developed in the course of time. Its origin is lost in the night of ages. But there is no reason to doubt, that it is the first religion the Chinese race ever had. Theories advanced by some scientists that its origin may be looked for in Chaldean or Bactrian countries must as yet be re- jected as having no solid foundation. It has had its patriarchs and apostles, whose writings, or the writings about whom, hold a pre-eminent position; but it has had no founders comparable with Buddha or Mohammed. It has had a spontaneous birth on China's soil. Since its birth, it has developed itself under the influence of the strongest conservatism. Its primeval forms were never, as far as is historically known, swept away by any other religion, or by tidal waves of religious movement and revolution. Buddhism eradicated nothing; the religion of the Crescent is only at the beginning of its work; that of the Cross has hardly passed the threshold of China. In order to understand its actual 3 state, we have to distinguish sharply between its native, and its exotic or Buddhist element. It is the native element which will occupy us first and principally. 4 Chapter 2 UNIVERSAL ANIMISM. POLYDEMONISM THE primeval form of the religion of the Chinese, and its very core to this day, is Animism. It is then the same element which is also found to be the root, the central nerve, of many primeval religions, the same even which eminent thinkers of our time, as Herbert Spencer, have put in the foreground of their sys- tems as the beginning of all human religion of whatever kind. In China it is based on an implicit belief in the animation of the universe, and of every being or thing which exists in it. The oldest and holiest books of the empire teach that the universe consists of two souls or breaths, called Yang and Yin, the Yang representing light, warmth, productivity, and life, also the heavens from which all these good things emanate; and the Yin being associated with darkness, cold, death, and the earth. The Yang is subdivided into an indefinite number of good souls or spirits, called shen, the Yin into partides or evil spirits, called kwei, specters; it is these shen and kwei which animate every being and every thing. It is they also which constitute the soul of man. His shen, also called hwun, immaterial, ethereal, like heaven itself from which it emanates, constitutes his intellect and the finer parts of his character, his virtues, while his kwei, or poh, is thought to represent his less refined qualities, his passions, vices, they being borrowed from material earth. Birth consists in an infusion of these souls; death in their departure, the shen returning to the Yang or heaven, the kwei to the Yin or earth. Thus man is an intrinsic part of the universe, a microcosmos, born from the macrocosmos spontaneously. But why should man alone be endowed by the universe with a dual soul? Every animal, every plant, even every object which we are wont to call a dead object, has received from the universe the souls 5 which constitute its life, and which may confer blessing on man or may harm him. A shen in fact, being a part of the Yang or the beatific half of the universe, is generally considered to be a good spirit or god; a kwei, however, belonging to the Yin or other half, is, as a rule, a spirit of evil, we should say a devil, specter, demon. There is no good in nature but that which comes from the shen or gods; no evil but that which the kwei cause or inflict. With these dogmata before us, we may now say that the main base of the Chinese system of religion is a Universalistic Anim- ism. The universe being in all its parts crowded with shen and kwei, that system is, moreover, thoroughly Polytheistic and Polydemonistic. The gods are such shen as animate heaven, sun, moon, the stars, wind, rain, clouds, thunder, fire, the earth, seas, mountains, rivers, rocks, stones, animals, plants, things—in particular also the souls of deceased men. And as to the demon world, nowhere under heaven is it so populous as in China. Kwei swarm everywhere, in numbers inestimable. It is an axiom which constantly comes out in conversing with the people, that they haunt every frequented and lonely spot, and that no place exists where man is safe from them. Public roads are haunted by them everywhere, especially during the night, when the power of the Yin part of the universe, to which specters belong, is strongest. Numerous, in fact, are the tales of wretches who, having been accosted by such natural foes of man, were found dead by the roadside, without the slightest wound or injury being visible: their souls had simply been snatched out of them. Many victims of such encounters could find their way home, but merely to die miserably shortly after. Others, hit by devilish arrows, were visited with boils or tu- mors, which carried them off, or they died without even any such visible marks of the shots. And how many wayfarers have fallen in with whole gangs of demons, with whom they engaged in pitched battles ? They might stand their ground most heroic- ally, and ultimately worst their assailants; yet, hardly at home, they succumbed to disease and death. Ghosts of improperly buried dead, haunting dwellings with injurious effect, and not laid until re-buried decently, are the subject of many tales. Especially singular, but very common, it is, to read of hosts of specters setting whole towns and 6 countries in commotion, and utterly demoralizing the people. Armies of spectral soldiers, foot and horse, are heard moving through the sky, especially at night, kidnaping children, smit- ing people with disease and death, playing tricks of all sorts, even obscenities, compelling men to defend themselves with noise of gongs, drums and kettles, with bows, swords and spears, and with flaming torches and fires. They steal the pig- tails of inoffensive people, cutting these off, actually in broad daylight, even from very respectable gentlemen and high nobles, preferably while enjoying some public theatrical per- formance in a square or bazar, or when visiting a shop, or even in their own houses, in spite of securely barred doors. To some the idea occurs that the miscreants may be men, bad charac- ters, bent on deriving advantage somehow from the prevailing excitement. Thus tumults arise, and the safety of unoffending people is placed in actual peril. Unless it be admitted by general consent that the mischief is done exclusively by invisible ma- lignant specters, the officials interfere, and, to reassure the populace and still the tempest of emotion, imprison persons upon whom suspicion falls, preferably sending out their police- men and soldiers among members of secret religious sects, severely persecuted by the government as heretics because en- emies of the old and orthodox social order, as evil-intentioned outlaws, the corroding canker of humanity. In most cases, their judicial examinations corroborate their pre-conceived suspicion, for they admirably understand the art of extorting, by scourge and torture, even from the most obdurate tempera- ments, any confessions, but especially such as they beforehand have assumed to be true.

Load more