The Religious System of China, Volume IV
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@ J. J. M. DE GROOT THE RELIGIOUS SYSTEM OF CHINA Volume IV Dans le cadre de la collection : “Les classiques des sciences sociales” fondée et dirigée par Jean-Marie Tremblay, http://classiques.uqac.ca Une collection développée en collaboration avec la Bibliothèque Paul-Émile Boulet de l’Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. http://bibliotheque.uqac.ca The religious system of China vol. IV Politique d’utilisation de la bibliothèque des Classiques Toute reproduction et rediffusion de nos fichiers est interdite, même avec la mention de leur provenance, sans l’autorisation formelle, écrite, du fondateur des Classiques des sciences sociales, Jean-Marie Tremblay, sociologue. 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Jean-Marie Tremblay, sociologue Fondateur et Président-directeur général, LES CLASSIQUES DES SCIENCES SOCIALES. 2 The religious system of China vol. IV Un document produit en version numérique par Pierre Palpant, collaborateur bénévole, Courriel : [email protected] à partir de : The Religious System of China, its ancient forms, evolution, history and present aspect. Manners, customs and social institutions connected therewith. par J. J. M. de GROOT (1854-1921), Ph. D. E. J. Brill, éditeur, Leiden, 1901, Volume IV, 464 pages,+ illustrations. Réimpression par Literature House, Ltd, Taipei, 1964. Police de caractères utilisée : Verdana, 10 et 9 points. Mise en page sur papier format Lettre (US letter), 8.5’’x11’’ Les repères bibliographiques sont en notes de fin de volume, sauf quelques rares compléments, mentionnés par le caractère *, disponibles dans le fichier pdf-image. Édition complétée le 17 novembre 2007 à Chicoutimi, Québec. Ouvrage numérisé grâce à l’obligeance des Archives et de la Bibliothèque asiatique des Missions Étrangères de Paris http://www.mepasie.org 3 The religious system of China vol. IV Chinese representations of Good and Evil Spirits 4 The religious system of China vol. IV C O N T E N T S Book II. THE SOUL AND ANCESTRAL WORSHIP. INTRODUCTION PART I. THE SOUL IN PHILOSOPHY AND FOLK-CONCEPTION. Chapter I. Psychological Philosophy. II. Cosmo-psychological Philosophy, and Taoism. III. On the Multiplicity or Divisibility of the Souls of Man. IV. On the Parts of the Body in which the Soul specially dwells. V. Animistic Ideas as suggested by Shadows. VI. On Disease of the Soul, its Debility and Derangements. VII. On Absence of the Soul from living Man. VIII. On Re-animation after Death : 1. Resuscitation of the Dead by their own Souls. — 2. Resuscitation of the Dead by the Souls of Others. IX. On the Reincarnation of Souls through Birth. X. On Zoanthropy : 1. Tigroanthropy. — 2. Lycanthropy. — 3. Cynanthropy. — 4. Were-foxes. — 5. Man-Bears. — 3. Were-Stags. — 7. Were-Monkeys. — 8. Were-Rats. — 9. Domestic Animals as Were-Beasts. — 10. Were- Reptiles. — 11. Were-Birds. — 12. Man-Fishes. — 13. Were-Insects. XI. On the Descent of Men from Animals. XII. On Plant-Spirits : 1. On Anthropomorphous and Zoomorphous Plant-Spirits. — 2. On Amorphous Plant-Spirits. XIII. On the Animation of Lifeless Matter. XIV. On Food and Medicines prepared from Animals and Men. XV. On Apparitions, and their Influence upon the Fate of Man. XVI. On Retributive Justice exercised by Spirits. Notes @ 5 The religious system of China vol. IV P L A T E S Frontispiece. Chinese representations of Good and Evil Spirits. I. The Souls of the Six Viscera. II. Chinese representation of a Man Dreaming : Plate A — Plate B. @ 6 The religious system of China vol. IV B O O K I I T H E S O U L AND A N C E S T R A L W O R S H I P 7 The religious system of China vol. IV INTRODUCTION @ p.VII As we set forth in the General Preface to this work (p. XIII), the Second Book will be devoted to the Soul, that is to say, to the ideas of the nature and characteristics of souls, the ways in which they are thought to manifest themselves or their influence, and to work on human life and society, as also to the main part of the practices and usages born from the belief in their existence and power. It will, in other words, he a Book on Animism, comprising Spirit-lore and Demonology, Exorcism and Divination, treating also of Spiritism and Fetichism, as they manifest themselves by the worship of deceased parents and ancestors in the family-circle, on their graves, and in temples. It will at the same time become an introduction to the principles and chief features of Taoism, this system having evolved in the main from the general ideas concerning souls. Pursuing the method adopted in our First Book, we shall build up our Second as much as possible from Chinese texts, thus letting, so to say, the Chinese themselves compose it. This method is, we think, in general the best for ethnographical research among any nation that possesses a literature, as it may ensure the highest attainable degree of correctness in tracing its ideas and the motives of its doings, it being in his writings that man expresses spontaneously his thoughts and beliefs. Besides, the writings of a people are the only authentic sources from which its culture may be studied through its historical phases, and thus pages may be collected for the general history of the civilisation of mankind. which to write is, we dare say, the p.VIII highest aim and object of scientific Ethnography. Ethnography is hardly anything if not historical. Since the publication of our First Book some scholars have openly scorned our historical method. They have declared that it embroils the different phases through which East-Asian culture has moved in the course of time, giving the medley as an image of the actual state of things. To these objections we must respond that we cannot see how there can possibly be any question of an embroilment of times and phases where, as in our work, at 8 The religious system of China vol. IV every quotation the source drawn from is honestly mentioned, and the time when this source was written rendered traceable through an appended list of the works quoted. But still, those censurers fail to see that our Chinese material showing the prevalence of the present ideas and customs in earlier times, and often also their origin, teaches us at every moment that in China’s civilization there cannot even be much question of phases, the manners and customs, religious and social institutions of the past being there, so far as may be ascertained by means of books, so much like those of more modern times and the present day, as to almost enforce the conclusion that they have hardly ever undergone any change at all. Things may have developed in China, but nothing there has changed ; this fact the present Book will make true again by a great number of instances. Indeed, more perfectly than anywhere else in this world, are Religion, Superstition and Custom in China pictures of the past. Her literature may be regarded as the chief creator of this phenomenon. Inseparably combined, as everywhere in the heathen parts of the world they are, Religion, Superstition and Custom have, in truth, been delivered in China from age to age by tradition ; but this tradition was always guided by books in which it was written down, and the oldest of which were always the most esteemed. It was the books that, merely describing them, in fact petrified them, keeping them also remarkably free from novelty, which, in Chinese civilized opinion, always is corruption. Hence it is that, in describing China’s Religion, Superstition and Custom in their history and present aspect, those same books are necessarily to be our guides ; hence also they are to lead us in reviewing the ideas relating to souls, spirits and devils, which form the dominant element in the wide field of Animism. Autopsy and hearsay here become matters of secondary importance. Studying Animism, and in particular the ideas and conceptions p.IX it includes, naturally comes in the main to a study of myth and fable about spirits and the spirit-world. While working in China, we collected a great number of ghost-tales from the lips of the people ; but finding them afterwards by little and little in print, in versions certainly more reliable and enabling us somewhat to make out in how far they existed in past times, we have had to consign most of that hearsay evidence to the paper-basket. From 9 The religious system of China vol. IV such written myth and marvel the reader will find this Book for the greater part composed ; but that material is no myth and marvel in Chinese eyes. Not being advanced enough in science and culture to distinguish between the possible and the impossible, almost everything which the books have to tell, the Chinese take for truth and true event, as reliable as any.