The visitor to modern China will find few obvious indications of the traditional beliefs which underpinned the country's civilization for three thousand years. Certainly, the remains of religious buildings litter the cities and the countryside, yet they appear sadly incongruous amid the furious pace of change all around them. The restored temples - now "cultural relics" with photo booths, concession stands, special foreign tourist shops and cheerful throngs of young Chinese on outings - are garish and evoke few mysteries. This apparent lack of religion is hardly surprising, however: for decades, the old beliefs have been derided by the authorities as superstition, and the oldest and most firmly rooted of them all, Confucianism, has been criticized and repudiated for nearly a century. For any student of Chinese culture one of the most striking aspects of modern China is the degree to which, on the surface at least, the ancient ("feudal") beliefs have been eradicated.
Although this may sound disappointing for travellers seeking the Tao ("Way") in China, it should be pointed out that the neglect of the outward forms of religion is by no means a sure indicator of the state of mind of the Chinese people. The resilience of old ideas in China, and the ability of the Chinese people to absorb new streams of thought and eventually to dominate them, has been demonstrated again and again over the centuries. The philosophies which unified China and defined the very idea of what it is to be Chinese for millennia are not likely to be forgotten in a mere half century of communism.
The product of the oldest continuous civilization on earth, Chinese religion actually comprises a number of disparate and sometimes contradictory elements. But at the heart of it all, three basic philosophies lie intermingled: Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. The way in which a harmonious balance has been created among these three is expressed in the often quoted maxim San Jiao Fa Yi - "Three Teachings Flow into One".
Both Confucianism and Taoism are belief systems rooted in the Chinese soil, and they form as much a part of the Chinese collective unconscious as Platonic and Aristotelian thought does in the West. Buddhism , though, was a foreign import, brought to China from India along the Silk Road by itinerant monks and missionaries from about the first century AD onwards. As such, it was the first organized religion to penetrate China and enjoyed a glorious, if brief, period of ascendancy under the Tang in the eighth century. Just as the mutual contradictions of Confucianism and Taoism had been accommodated by the Chinese, however, so Buddhism did not long eclipse other beliefs - as it established itself, its tenets were gradually integrated into the existing structure of thought and in turn transformed by them, into something very different from what had originally come out of India. Buddhism may have been the only foreign religion to have left a substantial mark on China, though it was not, incidentally, the only religion to enter China via the Silk Road. Both Islam and Christianity also trickled into the country this way, and to this day a significant minority of Chinese, numbering possibly in the tens of millions, are Muslims. Unlike most of the rest of Asia, however, China did not yield wholesale to the tide of Islam - the rigid, all-embracing doctrines of the Koran never stood much of a chance with the choosy, flexible Chinese.
Similarly, China may have been periodically dominated by foreign powers, but her belief systems have never been overwhelmed. Instead, conquering invaders such as the Mongolians in the thirteenth and the Manchus in the seventeenth centuries, have found themselves inexorably sinicized. On this strength rests the understandable Chinese confidence in the ultimate superiority of their beliefs , a confidence that survived through the lowest periods in Chinese history.
Confucianism
China's oldest and greatest philosopher, Kong Zi, known in the West by his Latinized name Confucius , was an obscure and unsuccessful scholar. Born in 551 BC, during the so-called Warring States Period, he lived in an age of petty kingdoms where life was blighted by constant war, feuding and social disharmony. Confucius simply saw that society was something that could be improved if individuals behaved properly. Harking back to an earlier, mythic age of peace and social virtues, he preached adherence to ritual and propriety as the supreme answer to the horrifying disorder of the world as he found it. During his lifetime he wandered from court to court attempting to teach rulers a better way to rule, though, like his contemporary Socrates far away in Greece, he was largely ignored by men in power. In the centuries after his death, however, Confucianism, as reflected in the Analects , a collection of writings on his life and sayings compiled by disciples, became the most influential and fundamental of Chinese philosophies.
Never a religion in the sense of postulating a higher deity, Confucianism is rather a set of moral and social values designed to bring the ways of citizens and governments into harmony with each other, and with their ancestors. Through proper training in the scholarly classics and rigid adherence to the rules of propriety, including ancestor-worship, the superior man could attain a level of moral righteousness which would, in turn, assure a stable and righteous social order. As a political theory Confucianism called for the "wisest sage" , the one whose moral sense was most refined, to be ruler. With a good ruler, one who practised the virtuous ways of his ancestors and was exemplary in terms of the five Confucian virtues (benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness), the world and society would naturally be in order. Force, the ultimate sanction, would be unnecessary. As Confucius said:
Just as the ruler genuinely desires the good, the people will be good. The virtue of the ruler may be compared to the wind and that of the common people to the grass. The grass under the force of the wind cannot but bend.
Gods play no part in this structure - man is capable of perfection in his own right, given a superior ruler whose virtues are mirrored in the behaviour of his subjects. Instead of God, five hierarchical relationships are the prerequisites for a well-ordered society, and given proper performance of the duties entailed in these, society should be "at ease with itself". The five relationships outline a strict structure of duty and obedience to authority: ruler to ruled; son to father; younger brother to older, wife to husband and, the only equal relationship, friend to friend. The intention is to create order and stability through rule by a moral elite, though in practice adherence to the unbending hierarchy of these relationships as well as to the precepts of filial piety has justified a form of totalitarian rule throughout Chinese history. The supreme virtue of the well-cultivated man and woman was always obedience .
From the time of the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) onwards, Confucianism became institutionalized as a system of government which was to prevail in China for two thousand years. With it, and with the notion of the scholar-official as the ideal administrator, came the notorious Chinese bureaucracy . Men would study half their lives in order to pass the imperial examinations and attain a government commission. These examinations were rigid tests of the scholar's knowledge of the Confucian classics. Right up until the beginning of the twentieth century, power in China was wielded through a bureaucracy steeped in the classics of rites and rituals written five hundred years before Christ.
The Confucian ideal ruler, of course, never quite emerged (the emperor was not expected to sit the exams) and the scholar-officials often deteriorated into corrupt bureaucrats and exploitative landlords. Furthermore, the Confucian ideals of submission to authority would not seem to have much of a shelf-life at the end of the twentieth century. On the other hand, with its emphasis on community and social cohesion , Confucianism has played an enormous role in keeping China free of the bigotry and religious fanaticism that have been bringing war to Europe for two thousand years. And today it is clear that Confucius does still have a role to play, not least in his new encarnation as the embodiment of the much trumpeted "Asian values" , namely, the non-confrontational (and undemocratic) system of government. On the grass-roots level, too, old practices such as ancestor-worship within the family are making a comeback. Now that the latest foreign religion of Marxism has been thoroughly discredited, it appears that Confucianism is simply reoccupying its rightful position.
Taoism
The second of the three major teachings which form the roots of Chinese beliefs is
Taoism . The
Tao translates literally as the "Way" and, in its purest form, Taoism is the study and pursuit of this ineffable Way, as outlined in the fundamental text, the
Daodejing (often written as Tao Te Ching) or "The Way of Power". This obscure and mystical text essentially comprises a compilation of the wise sayings of a semi-mythical hermit by the name of
Lao Zi , who is said to have been a contemporary of Confucius. The Daodejing was not compiled until at least three centuries after his death.
The Tao is never really defined - indeed by its very nature it is undefinable. To the despair of the rationalist, the first lines of the Daodejing read:
The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal name.
In essence, however, it might be thought of as the Way of Nature, the underlying principle and source of all being, the bond which unites man and nature. Its central principle is Wu Wei , which can crudely be translated as "no action," though it is probably better understood as "no action which runs contrary to nature". Taoism was originally the creed of the recluse. Whereas Confucianism is concerned with repairing social order and social relationships, Taoism is interested in the relationship of the individual with the natural universe. It simply looks at human problems from another, higher plane: having good relations with one's neighbours is of no use if one is not in harmony with nature.
Taoism's second major text is a book of parables written by one ideal practitioner of the Way, Zhuang Zi . Like the master Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi is a semi-mythical figure. Acknowledged in his lifetime as a great sage, he rejected all offers of high rank in favour of a life of solitary reflection. His works - allegorical tales which have delighted Chinese readers for centuries - reveal humour as well as perception; in the famous butterfly parable Zhuang Zi examines the many faces of reality:
Once upon a time Zhuang Zi dreamed he was a butterfly. A butterfly flying around and enjoying itself. It did not know it was Zhuang Zi again. We do not know whether it was Zhuang Zi dreaming that he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zi.
As it became part of Chinese culture, Taoism offered a contrast to the stern propriety of Confucianism. In traditional China it was said that the perfect lifestyle was that of a man who was a Confucian during the day - a righteous and firm administrator, upholding the virtues of the gentleman/ruler - and a Taoist after the duties of the day had been fulfilled. The practice of Taoism affirms the virtues of withdrawing from public duties and giving oneself up to a life of contemplation and meditation . If Confucianism preaches duty to family and to society, Taoism champions the sublimity of withdrawal, non-committedness and "dropping out". In its affirmation of the irrational and natural sources of life, it has provided Chinese culture with a balance to the rigid social mores of Confucianism. The art and literature of China have been greatly enriched by Taoism's notions of contemplation, detachment and freedom from social entanglement, and the Tao has become embedded in the Chinese soul as a doctrine of yielding to the inevitable forces of nature.
Buddhism
The Tang dynasty (618-906 AD) was a period of unprecedented openness and prosperity for the Chinese court and it was then that
Buddhism , originally imported from India through Central Asia around the first century AD, gained acceptance and came for a time to be the dominant religion in China. In the eighth century there were over three hundred thousand Buddhist monks in China, and it was a period which saw the creation of much of the country's
great religious art - above all the cave shrines at
Luoyang (Henan),
Datong (Shanxi) and
Dunhuang (Gansu), where thousands of carvings of the Buddha and paintings of holy figures attest to the powerful influence of Indian art and religion.
Gradually, though, Buddhism too was submerged into the native belief system. Most schools of Indian Buddhism of the time taught that life on earth was essentially one of suffering, an endless cycle in which people were born, grew old and died, only to be born again in other bodies; the goal was to break out of this cycle by attaining nirvana, which could be done by losing all desire for things of the world. This essentially individualistic doctrine was not likely to appeal to the highly regimented Chinese, however, and hence it was that the relatively small Mahayana School of Buddhism came to dominate Chinese thinking. The Mahayana taught that perfection for the individual was not possible without perfection for all - and that those who had already attained enlightenment would remain active in the world (as Bodhisattvas ) to help others along the path. In time Bodhisattvas came to be ascribed miraculous powers, and were prayed to in a manner remarkably similar to that of conventional Confucian ancestor-worship. The mainstream of Chinese Buddhism came to be more about maintaining harmonious relations with Bodhisattvas than about attaining nirvana.
Another entirely new sect of Buddhism also arose in China through contact with Taoism. Known in China as Chan (and in Japan as Zen) Buddhism, it offered a less extreme path to enlightenment. For a Chan Buddhist it was not necessary to become a monk or a recluse in order to achieve nirvana - instead this ultimate state of being could be reached through life in accord with, and in contemplation of, the Way.
In short, the Chinese managed to marry Buddhism to their pre-existing belief structures with very little difficulty at all. This was facilitated by the general absence of dogma within Buddhist thought. Like the Chinese, the Tibetans , too, found themselves able to adapt the new belief system to their old religion, Bon , rather than simply replacing it. Over the centuries, they established their own schools of Buddhism often referred to as Lalaist Buddhism or Lamaism, which differ from the Chinese versions in minor emphases. The now dominant Gelugpa (or Yellow Hat) school, of which the Dalai and Panchen Lamas are members, dates back to the teachings of Tsongkhapa (1357-1419).
Popular religion
When Jesuit missionaries first arrived in China in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they were astounded and dismayed by the Chinese flexibility of belief . One frustrated Jesuit put it: "In China, the educated believe nothing and the uneducated believe everything." For those versed in the classics of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, the normal belief was a healthy and tolerant scepticism . For the great majority of illiterate peasants, however, popular religion offered a plethora of ghosts, spirits, gods and ancestors who ruled over a capricious nature and protected humanity. If Christian missionaries handed out rice, perhaps Christ too deserved a place alongside them. In popular Buddhism the hope was to reach the "Pure Land", a kind of heaven for believers ruled over by a female deity known as the Mother Ruler. Popular Taoism shared this feminine deity, but its concerns were rather with the sorcerers, alchemists and martial arts aficionados who sought solutions to the riddle of immortality.
Modern China
One of the reasons why modern China appears to lack the outward manifestations of her ancient beliefs is that they are not really essential. You will see the traditions more clearly expressed in how the Chinese think and act than in the symbols and rituals of overt worship.
During the twentieth century, confronted by the superior military and technical power of the West, the Chinese have striven to break free from the shackles of superstition. The imperial examinations were abolished at the turn of the century and since then Chinese intellectuals have been searching for a modern yet essentially Chinese philosophy. The Cultural Revolution can be seen as the culmination of these efforts to repudiate the past. Hundreds of thousands of temples, ancestral halls and religious objects were defaced and destroyed. Monasteries which had preserved their seclusion for centuries were burnt to the ground and their monks imprisoned. The classics of literature and philosophy - the "residue of the reactionary feudal past" - were burned in huge celebratory bonfires. In 1974, towards the end of the Cultural Revolution, a campaign was launched to "criticize Lin Biao and Confucius", pairing the general with the sage to imply that both were equally reactionary in their opposition to the government.
Yet the very fact that Confucius could still be held up as an object for derision in 1974 reveals the tenacity of traditional beliefs . With the Cultural Revolution now long gone, they are once again being accepted as an essential part of the cultural tradition which binds the Chinese people together. The older generation, despite a lifetime of commitment to the Marxist revolution, are comforted and strengthened by their knowledge of the national heritage. The young are rediscovering the classics, the forbidden fruit of their school days. The welcome result is that Chinese temples of all descriptions are prosperous, busy places again, teeming with people who have come to ask for grandchildren or simply for money. The atmosphere may not seem devout or religious, but then perhaps it never did.
