Religión en China (estudios en 2023) [1]
Religión en China ( CFPS 2016) [2] [3] [nota 1]
La religión en China es diversa y la mayoría de los chinos no son religiosos o practican una combinación de budismo y taoísmo con una cosmovisión confuciana , lo que colectivamente se denomina religión popular china . [1]
La República Popular China es oficialmente un estado ateo , [4] pero el gobierno reconoce formalmente cinco religiones: el budismo , el taoísmo , el cristianismo ( el catolicismo y el protestantismo se reconocen por separado) y el islam . [5] Todas las instituciones religiosas del país deben defender el liderazgo del Partido Comunista Chino , implementar el pensamiento de Xi Jinping y promover la sinización de la religión. [6]
La civilización china ha sido históricamente cuna y anfitriona de una variedad de las tradiciones filosóficas y religiosas más duraderas del mundo. El confucianismo y el taoísmo , a los que más tarde se unió el budismo , constituyen las " tres enseñanzas " que han dado forma a la cultura china. No existen límites claros entre estos sistemas religiosos entrelazados, que no pretenden ser exclusivos, y los elementos de cada uno enriquecen la religión popular. Los emperadores de China reclamaron el Mandato del Cielo y participaron en las prácticas religiosas chinas. A principios del siglo XX, los funcionarios e intelectuales reformistas atacaron la religión en general por considerarla supersticiosa. Desde 1949, el Partido Comunista Chino (PCCh), oficialmente ateo de Estado , ha estado en el poder en el país y prohíbe a los miembros del PCCh la práctica religiosa mientras estén en el cargo. [7] Una serie de campañas antirreligiosas , que habían comenzado a fines del siglo XIX, culminaron en la Revolución Cultural (1966-1976) contra los Cuatro Viejos : viejos hábitos, viejas ideas, viejas costumbres y vieja cultura. La Revolución Cultural destruyó u obligó a muchas observancias y organizaciones religiosas a pasar a la clandestinidad. [8] [9] : 138 Después de la muerte de Mao, los líderes posteriores permitieron que las organizaciones religiosas chinas tuvieran más autonomía.
La religión popular china , el sistema de creencias y prácticas más extendido del país, ha evolucionado y se ha adaptado desde al menos el segundo milenio a. C., durante las dinastías Shang y Zhou . Los elementos fundamentales de la teología y la cosmología chinas se remontan a este período y se volvieron más elaborados durante la Era Axial . En general, la religión popular china implica una lealtad a los shen ('espíritus'), que abarcan una variedad de dioses e inmortales . Estos pueden ser deidades naturales pertenecientes al medio ambiente, o antiguos progenitores de grupos humanos, conceptos de civilidad o héroes culturales, muchos de los cuales aparecen a lo largo de la historia y la mitología chinas . [10] Durante la última dinastía Zhou, la filosofía y las enseñanzas rituales de Confucio comenzaron a difundirse por toda China, mientras que las instituciones taoístas se habían desarrollado en la dinastía Han . Durante la dinastía Tang , el budismo se hizo muy popular en China, [11] y los pensadores confucianos respondieron desarrollando filosofías neoconfucianas . Las religiones salvacionistas chinas y los cultos locales prosperaron.
El cristianismo y el islam llegaron a China durante el siglo VII. El cristianismo no echó raíces hasta que fue reintroducido en el siglo XVI por los misioneros jesuitas . [12] A principios del siglo XX, las comunidades cristianas crecieron. Sin embargo, después de 1949, los misioneros extranjeros fueron expulsados y las iglesias quedaron bajo instituciones controladas por el gobierno. Después de finales de la década de 1970, las libertades religiosas para los cristianos mejoraron y surgieron nuevos grupos chinos. [13] : 508, 532 El islam se practica en la sociedad china desde hace 1.400 años. [14] Los musulmanes constituyen un grupo minoritario en China; según las últimas estimaciones, representan entre el 0,45% y el 1,8% de la población total. [2] [15] Si bien los hui son el subgrupo más numeroso, [16] la mayor concentración de musulmanes se encuentra en Xinjiang , que tiene una importante población uigur . A menudo también se considera a China como el hogar del humanismo y el secularismo, ideologías que comenzaron a afianzarse en la zona durante la época de Confucio.
Debido a que muchos chinos han no consideran que sus creencias y prácticas espirituales sean una "religión" como tal, y no sienten que deban practicar alguna de ellas con exclusión de otras, es difícil reunir estadísticas claras y confiables. Según un erudito, la "gran mayoría de la población de China" participa en la religión (los rituales y festivales del calendario lunar) sin ser parte de ninguna institución religiosa. [17] Las encuestas nacionales realizadas a principios del siglo XXI estimaron que aproximadamente el 80% de la población china practica alguna forma de religión popular, para un total de más de mil millones de personas. Entre el 13 y el 16% de la población son budistas, el 10% son taoístas, el 2,53% son cristianos y el 0,83% son musulmanes. Los movimientos de salvación popular involucran a entre el 2 y el 13% de la población. Muchos en la clase intelectual se adhieren al confucianismo como identidad religiosa. Varias minorías étnicas en China pertenecen a religiones específicas, incluido el budismo tibetano y el Islam entre los hui y los uigures.
Según el sinólogo e historiador estadounidense John King Fairbank , la ecología de China puede haber influido en el panorama religioso del país. Fairbank sugiere que los desafíos creados por el clima de las llanuras fluviales del país fomentaron la incertidumbre entre la gente, lo que puede haber contribuido a su tendencia hacia credos religiosos relativamente impersonales, como el budismo, en contraste con la naturaleza antropocéntrica del cristianismo. [18]
Antes de la expansión de las religiones mundiales en el este de Asia, las tribus locales compartían visiones del mundo animistas , chamánicas y totémicas . Los chamanes mediaban oraciones, sacrificios y ofrendas directamente al mundo espiritual; esta herencia sobrevive en varias formas modernas de religión en toda China. [22] Estos rasgos están especialmente conectados con culturas como la cultura Hongshan . [23]
El filósofo flamenco Ulrich Libbrecht rastrea los orígenes de algunas características del taoísmo a lo que Jan Jakob Maria de Groot llamó "Wuismo", [24] es decir, el chamanismo chino. [25] Libbrecht distingue dos capas en el desarrollo de la teología china , derivadas respectivamente de las dinastías Shang (1600-1046 a. C.) y Zhou (1046-256 a. C.). La religión estatal Shang se basaba en la adoración de los antepasados y los dioses-reyes, que sobrevivían como fuerzas invisibles después de la muerte. No eran entidades trascendentes, ya que el universo era "por sí mismo", no creado por una fuerza externa a él sino generado por ritmos internos y poderes cósmicos. La dinastía Zhou posterior era más agrícola en su visión del mundo; en cambio, enfatizaron un concepto universal del Cielo conocido como Tian . [25] La identificación de Shangdi como su dios-ancestro por parte de los Shang había afirmado su reclamo de poder por derecho divino; Los Zhou transformaron esta reivindicación en una legitimidad basada en el poder moral, el Mandato del Cielo . Los reyes Zhou declararon que su victoria sobre los Shang se debía a que eran virtuosos y amaban a su pueblo, mientras que los Shang eran tiranos y, por lo tanto, fueron privados del poder por Tian . [26]
En el siglo VI a. C., el derecho divino ya no era un privilegio exclusivo de la casa real Zhou. El poder retórico de Tian se había vuelto "difuso" y lo reclamaban diferentes potentados en los estados Zhou para legitimar ambiciones políticas, pero podía ser comprado por cualquiera que pudiera permitirse las elaboradas ceremonias y los ritos antiguos y nuevos requeridos para acceder a la autoridad de Tian . La población ya no percibía la tradición oficial como una forma efectiva de comunicarse con el Cielo. Las tradiciones de los "Nueve Campos" y Yijing florecieron. [27] Los pensadores chinos luego divergieron en "Cien Escuelas de Pensamiento", cada una proponiendo sus propias teorías para la reconstrucción del orden moral Zhou. Confucio apareció en este período de decadencia y cuestionamiento. Fue educado en la teología Shang-Zhou, y su nueva formulación dio centralidad al autocultivo, la agencia humana, [26] y el poder educativo del individuo autoestablecido para ayudar a otros a establecerse. [28] Cuando la dinastía Zhou se derrumbó, los valores tradicionales fueron abandonados. Desilusionado con la vulgarización generalizada de los rituales para acceder a Tian , Confucio comenzó a predicar una interpretación ética de la religión tradicional Zhou. En su opinión, el poder de Tian es inmanente y responde positivamente al corazón sincero impulsado por las cualidades de humanidad, rectitud, decencia y altruismo que Confucio concibió como la base necesaria para restaurar la armonía sociopolítica. También pensó que era necesario un estado previo de meditación para participar en los actos rituales. [29] Confucio enmendó y recodificó los clásicos heredados de la era preimperial y compuso los Anales de primavera y otoño . [30]
La efímera dinastía Qin eligió el legalismo como ideología estatal, prohibiendo y persiguiendo todas las demás escuelas de pensamiento. El confucianismo fue duramente reprimido, con la quema de clásicos confucianos y el asesinato de eruditos que defendían la causa confuciana . [31] [32] El ritual estatal de los Qin era similar al de la siguiente dinastía Han. [33] Qin Shi Huang celebró personalmente sacrificios a Di en el monte Tai , un sitio dedicado a la adoración del Dios supremo desde antes de Xia , y en los suburbios de la capital Xianyang . [34] [35] Los emperadores de Qin también concentraron los cultos de las cinco formas de Dios , anteriormente celebrados en diferentes lugares, en complejos de templos unificados. [36] La religión universal de los Han se centró en la idea de la encarnación de Dios como el Emperador Amarillo, la figura central del Wufang Shangdi . La idea de la encarnación de Dios no era nueva, ya que los Shang también se consideraban divinos. Además de estos acontecimientos, la última dinastía Han se caracterizó por nuevos fenómenos religiosos: el surgimiento del taoísmo fuera de la ortodoxia estatal, el auge de movimientos religiosos milenaristas autóctonos y la introducción del budismo. En la dinastía Han, se creía que el mítico Emperador Amarillo había sido concebido por la virgen Fubao, que fue fecundada por el resplandor de Taiyi .
El emperador Wu de Han formuló la doctrina de las interacciones entre el cielo y la humanidad , [37] y de un destacado fangshi , mientras que fuera de la religión estatal el Dios Amarillo era el foco de los movimientos religiosos Huang-Lao que influyeron en el taoísmo primitivo. [38] Antes del giro confuciano del emperador Wu y después de él, la dinastía Han temprana y tardía tuvo a Huang-Lao como doctrina estatal bajo varios emperadores, donde Laozi era identificado como el Emperador Amarillo y recibía sacrificios imperiales. [39] Los Han del Este lucharon tanto con la inestabilidad interna como con la amenaza de los pueblos no chinos de los bordes exteriores del imperio. En condiciones tan duras, mientras el culto imperial continuaba con los sacrificios a los dioses cosmológicos, la gente común alejada del racionalismo de la religión estatal encontró consuelo en los maestros iluminados y en revivir y perpetuar cultos más o menos abandonados de divinidades nacionales, regionales y locales que representaban mejor las identidades indígenas. La religión estatal Han fue "etnizada" al asociar las deidades cosmológicas a las poblaciones regionales. [40] A finales de la dinastía Han del Este, los primeros registros de un movimiento religioso de masas dan fe del entusiasmo provocado por la creencia en el inminente advenimiento de la Reina Madre de Occidente en las provincias del noreste. Desde el punto de vista de las élites, el movimiento estaba relacionado con una serie de fenómenos cósmicos anormales considerados característicos de un exceso de yin . [41]
Entre 184 y 205 d. C., el Camino de la Paz Suprema en las Llanuras Centrales organizó la Rebelión de los Turbantes Amarillos contra los Han. [42] Más tarde, florecieron movimientos religiosos taoístas en el estado Han de Shu . Se sabe que un chamán llamado Zhang Xiu lideró a un grupo de seguidores de Shu en el levantamiento del año 184. En 191, reapareció como oficial militar en la provincia, junto con Zhang Lu, aparentemente sin parentesco. Durante una misión militar en Hanning, Xiu murió en batalla. Entre 143 y 198, comenzando con el abuelo Zhang Daoling y culminando con Zhang Lu, el linaje Zhang estableció la iglesia primitiva de los Maestros Celestiales . Zhang murió en 216 o 217, y entre 215 y 219, la gente de Hanzhong se dispersó gradualmente hacia el norte, difundiendo el taoísmo de los Maestros Celestiales a otras partes del imperio. [43]
El budismo se introdujo durante la última dinastía Han y se mencionó por primera vez en el año 65 d. C., ingresando a China a través de la Ruta de la Seda , transmitido por las poblaciones budistas que habitaban las regiones occidentales , luego indoeuropeas (predominantemente tocarios y saka ). Comenzó a crecer hasta convertirse en una influencia significativa en China propiamente dicha solo después de la caída de la dinastía Han, en el período de división política. [37] Cuando el budismo se convirtió en una religión establecida, comenzó a competir con la religión indígena china y los movimientos taoístas, desaprobados en las polémicas budistas. [44] Después de la primera etapa de los Tres Reinos (220-280), China se unificó parcialmente bajo el gobierno Jin . La caída de Luoyang ante los xiongnu en 311 llevó a la corte real y a los clérigos de los Maestros Celestiales a migrar hacia el sur. Jiangnan se convirtió en el centro de la "tradición sureña" del Taoísmo de los Maestros Celestiales, que desarrolló una técnica de meditación conocida como "guardar al Uno", que visualiza la unidad de Dios en el organismo humano. [45] : 3.2 Los representantes de Jiangnan respondieron a la propagación del Taoísmo de los Maestros Celestiales reformulando sus propias tradiciones, lo que llevó al Taoísmo Shangqing , basado en revelaciones que ocurrieron entre 364 y 370 en la actual Nanjing , y al Taoísmo Lingbao , basado en revelaciones de los años entre 397 y 402 y recodificado por Lu Xiujing. Lingbao incorporó del budismo las ideas de "salvación universal" y clasificó los "cielos", y se centró en rituales comunales. [45] : 3.3
En la dinastía Tang, el concepto de Tian se hizo más común a expensas de Di , continuando una tendencia que comenzó en la dinastía Han. Ambos también ampliaron sus significados, y ahora di se usa con más frecuencia como sufijo del nombre de una deidad en lugar de referirse al poder supremo. Tian , además, se asoció más con su significado de "Cielo" como paraíso. La proliferación de religiones extranjeras en la dinastía Tang, especialmente sectas budistas, implicó que cada una de ellas concibiera su propio "Cielo" ideal. "Tian" en sí mismo comenzó a usarse, lingüísticamente, como un afijo en nombres compuestos para significar "celestial" o "divino". Este fue también el caso en el contexto budista, con muchos nombres de monasterios que contenían este elemento. [46] Tanto el budismo como el taoísmo desarrollaron panteones jerárquicos que fusionaron el ser metafísico (celestial) y el físico (terrestre), difuminando la frontera entre lo humano y lo divino, lo que reforzó la creencia religiosa de que los dioses y los devotos se sostienen mutuamente. [47]
El principio de reciprocidad entre lo humano y lo divino condujo a cambios en el panteón que reflejaban los cambios en la sociedad. A finales de la dinastía Tang, la difusión del culto a los dioses de la ciudad estuvo directamente relacionada con el desarrollo de las ciudades como centros de comercio y el aumento de la influencia de las clases mercantiles. Los viajes comerciales abrieron China a las influencias de culturas extranjeras. [48]
En el siglo XVI, las misiones jesuitas en China desempeñaron un papel importante en la apertura del diálogo entre China y Occidente. Los jesuitas trajeron las ciencias occidentales, convirtiéndose en asesores de la corte imperial en astronomía, enseñaron matemáticas y mecánica, pero también adaptaron ideas religiosas chinas como la admiración por Confucio y la veneración de los antepasados en la doctrina religiosa que enseñaron en China. [13] : 384 La dinastía Qing liderada por los manchúes promovió las enseñanzas de Confucio como la tradición textual superior a todas las demás. Los Qing hicieron que sus leyes fueran más severamente patriarcales que cualquier dinastía anterior, y el budismo y el taoísmo fueron degradados. A pesar de esto, el budismo tibetano comenzó en este período a tener una presencia significativa en China, con la influencia tibetana en el oeste, y con los mongoles y manchúes en el norte. [49] Más tarde, muchos templos religiosos institucionales y religiosos populares fueron destruidos durante la Rebelión Taiping . [50] Fue organizada por movimientos cristianos que establecieron un estado separado en el sudeste de China contra la dinastía Qing. En el Reino Celestial Taiping , de inspiración cristiana , las políticas oficiales persiguieron la eliminación de las religiones chinas para sustituirlas por formas de cristianismo. En este esfuerzo, las bibliotecas de los monasterios budistas fueron destruidas, casi por completo, en el delta del río Yangtze . [51]
Como reacción, la rebelión de los bóxers a finales del siglo XIX se habría inspirado en los movimientos chinos indígenas contra la influencia de los misioneros cristianos —«demonios», como los llamaban los bóxers— y el colonialismo occidental . En esa época, China estaba siendo invadida gradualmente por potencias europeas y estadounidenses, y desde 1860 los misioneros cristianos tenían derecho a construir o alquilar locales, y se apropiaron de muchos templos. Las iglesias con sus altos campanarios y las infraestructuras, fábricas y minas de extranjeros se consideraban perturbadoras del feng shui y causaban una «tremenda ofensa» a los chinos. La acción de los bóxers tenía como objetivo sabotear o destruir directamente estas infraestructuras. [52]
China entró en el siglo XX bajo la dinastía Qing liderada por los manchúes, cuyos gobernantes favorecían las religiones tradicionales chinas y participaban en ceremonias religiosas públicas. Los budistas tibetanos reconocían al Dalai Lama como su líder espiritual y temporal. Los cultos populares estaban regulados por políticas imperiales, que promovían ciertas deidades mientras reprimían otras. [53] Durante la rebelión de los bóxers , anti-extranjera y anticristiana , miles de cristianos chinos y misioneros extranjeros fueron asesinados, pero tras la invasión de represalia , un gran número de chinos reformistas se convirtieron al cristianismo. [54] Entre 1898 y 1904, el gobierno emitió una medida para "construir escuelas con propiedades del templo". [55] : 3 [56]
Después de la Revolución Xinhai , la cuestión para la nueva clase intelectual ya no era la adoración de los dioses como era el caso en los tiempos imperiales, sino la deslegitimación de la religión en sí misma como un obstáculo para la modernización. [56] Los líderes del Movimiento de la Nueva Cultura se rebelaron contra el confucianismo, y el Movimiento Anticristiano fue parte de un rechazo del cristianismo como un instrumento del imperialismo extranjero. [57] A pesar de todo esto, el interés de los reformadores chinos por los asuntos espirituales y ocultos continuó prosperando durante la década de 1940. [58] El gobierno nacionalista de la República de China intensificó la supresión de la religión local, destruyó o se apropió de templos, [59] y abolió formalmente todos los cultos a los dioses con la excepción de los héroes humanos como Yu el Grande, Guan Yu y Confucio. [60] Sun Yat-sen y su sucesor Chiang Kai-shek eran ambos cristianos. Durante la invasión japonesa de China entre 1937 y 1945, muchos templos fueron utilizados como cuarteles por los soldados y destruidos en la guerra. [50] [61]
La República Popular China mantiene una política de ateísmo estatal . Inicialmente, el nuevo gobierno no suprimió la práctica religiosa, pero consideró que los movimientos religiosos populares podían ser sediciosos. Condenó a las organizaciones religiosas, etiquetándolas de supersticiosas. Las religiones que se consideraron "apropiadas" y a las que se les dio libertad fueron aquellas que implicaban la tradición ancestral del gobierno estatal consolidado. [62] Además, el marxismo consideraba que la religión era feudal . El Movimiento Patriótico de las Tres Autonomías institucionalizó las iglesias protestantes como organizaciones oficiales. Los católicos resistieron el movimiento hacia el control estatal y la independencia del Vaticano. [63] La Revolución Cultural implicó un esfuerzo sistemático para destruir la religión [50] [60] y el Nuevo Confucianismo .
La política se relajó considerablemente a fines de la década de 1970. Desde 1978 , la Constitución de la República Popular China garantiza la libertad de religión. En 1980, el Comité Central del Partido Comunista Chino aprobó una solicitud del Departamento de Trabajo del Frente Unido para crear una conferencia nacional para grupos religiosos. [64] : 126–127 Los grupos religiosos participantes fueron la Asociación Patriótica Católica , la Asociación Islámica de China , la Asociación Taoísta China , el Movimiento Patriótico de las Tres Autonomías y la Asociación Budista de China . [64] : 127 Durante varias décadas, el PCCh consintió o incluso alentó el resurgimiento religioso. Durante la década de 1980, el gobierno adoptó una postura permisiva con respecto a los misioneros extranjeros que ingresaban al país bajo la apariencia de maestros. [65] : 41 Asimismo, el gobierno ha sido más tolerante con las prácticas religiosas populares desde la Reforma y Apertura . [66] : 175–176 Aunque las " enseñanzas heterodoxas " como Falun Gong fueron prohibidas y sus practicantes han sido perseguidos desde 1999, las autoridades locales probablemente siguieron una política de no intervención hacia otras religiones.
A finales del siglo XX hubo una reactivación de los cultos estatales dedicados al Emperador Amarillo y al Emperador Rojo . [67] A principios de la década de 2000, el gobierno chino se abrió especialmente a las religiones tradicionales como el budismo Mahayana, el taoísmo y la religión popular, enfatizando el papel de la religión en la construcción de una Sociedad Armoniosa Confuciana . [68] [69] [70] El gobierno fundó el Instituto Confucio en 2004 para promover la cultura china. China fue sede de reuniones y conferencias religiosas, incluido el primer Foro Budista Mundial en 2006, una serie de reuniones taoístas internacionales y conferencias locales sobre religiones populares. En línea con el énfasis de los antropólogos chinos en la "cultura religiosa", [55] : 5–7 el gobierno considera estas como expresiones integrales de la "cultura china" nacional. [71]
Un punto de inflexión se alcanzó en 2005, cuando los cultos religiosos populares comenzaron a ser protegidos y promovidos bajo las políticas de patrimonio cultural inmaterial . [55] : 9 No sólo se reanudaron las tradiciones que habían sido interrumpidas por décadas, sino que se reinventaron ceremonias olvidadas por siglos. La adoración anual del dios Cancong del antiguo estado de Shu , por ejemplo, se reanudó en un complejo ceremonial cerca del sitio arqueológico de Sanxingdui en Sichuan . [72] Los líderes políticos chinos modernos han sido deificados en el panteón chino común. [73] La comunidad internacional se ha preocupado por las acusaciones de que China ha extraído los órganos de practicantes de Falun Gong y otras minorías religiosas, incluidos cristianos y musulmanes uigures . [74] En 2012, Xi Jinping hizo de la lucha contra el vacío moral y la corrupción a través de un retorno a la cultura tradicional una de las principales tareas de su gobierno. [75] En 2023, el gobierno decretó que todos los lugares de culto deben defender el liderazgo del Partido Comunista Chino, implementar el pensamiento de Xi Jinping y promover la sinización de la religión. [6]
Contar el número de personas religiosas en cualquier lugar es difícil; contarlas en China es aún más difícil. Las bajas tasas de respuesta, las muestras no aleatorias y los climas políticos y culturales adversos son problemas persistentes. [77] : 47 Un académico concluye que las estadísticas sobre los creyentes religiosos en China "no pueden ser precisas en un sentido científico real", ya que las definiciones de "religión" excluyen a las personas que no se ven a sí mismas como miembros de una organización religiosa pero que aún son "religiosas" en sus acciones diarias y creencias fundamentales. [78] Las formas de expresión religiosa china tienden a ser sincréticas y seguir una religión no significa necesariamente el rechazo o la negación de otras. [79] En las encuestas, pocas personas se identifican como "taoístas" porque para la mayoría de los chinos este término se refiere a sacerdotes ordenados de la religión . Tradicionalmente, el idioma chino no ha incluido un término para un seguidor laico del taoísmo, [80] ya que el concepto de ser "taoísta" en este sentido es una palabra nueva que deriva del concepto occidental de "religión" como membresía en una institución eclesiástica.
El análisis de las religiones tradicionales chinas se complica aún más por las discrepancias entre las terminologías utilizadas en los idiomas chino y occidental. Mientras que en el uso actual en inglés "religión popular" significa en términos generales todas las formas de cultos comunes a dioses y antepasados, en el uso chino y en el mundo académico estos cultos no han tenido un nombre general. Por "religión popular" (民間宗教 mínjiān zōngjiào ) o "creencias populares" (民間信仰 mínjiān xìnyǎng ) los eruditos chinos generalmente se han referido a organizaciones religiosas populares y movimientos salvacionistas (sectas religiosas populares). [81] [82] Además, en la década de 1990 algunas de estas organizaciones comenzaron a registrarse como sucursales de la Asociación Taoísta oficial y, por lo tanto, a caer bajo la etiqueta de "taoísmo". [83] Para abordar esta confusión terminológica, algunos intelectuales chinos han propuesto el reconocimiento y la gestión legal de la religión indígena por parte del Estado y adoptar la etiqueta de "religión nativa (o indígena) china" (民俗宗教 mínsú zōngjiào ) o "religión étnica china" (民族宗教 mínzú zōngjiào ), [84] u otros nombres. [nota 4]
Algunos autores occidentales han especulado mucho sobre el número de cristianos en China. Chris White, en un trabajo de 2017 para el Instituto Max Planck para el Estudio de la Diversidad Religiosa y Étnica de la Sociedad Max Planck , critica los datos y las narrativas presentadas por estos autores. Señala que estos autores trabajan a raíz de un "sesgo evangélico occidental" reflejado en la cobertura que realizan los medios populares, especialmente en los Estados Unidos , que se basan en una "considerable romantización" de los cristianos chinos. Sus datos son en su mayoría infundados o manipulados a través de interpretaciones indebidas, ya que "los resultados de la encuesta no respaldan las afirmaciones de los autores". [87]
[nota 1]
Además de las encuestas basadas en el trabajo de campo, el Pew Research Center ha publicado estimaciones utilizando proyecciones como parte de su estudio del Panorama Religioso Global en 2010. Este estudio estimó que el 21,9% de la población de China creía en religiones populares, el 18,2% eran budistas, el 5,1% eran cristianos, el 1,8% eran musulmanes, el 0,8% creía en otras religiones, mientras que las personas no afiliadas constituían el 52,2% de la población. [98] Según las encuestas de Phil Zuckerman publicadas en Adherents.com, el 59% de la población china no era religiosa en 1993, y en 2005 entre el 8% y el 14% era atea (de más de 100 a 180 millones). [77] Una encuesta realizada en 2012 por WIN/GIA encontró que en China los ateos representan el 47% de la población. [99]
La encuesta de Yu Tao del año 2008 proporcionó un análisis detallado de las características sociales de las comunidades religiosas. [90] Encontró que la proporción de creyentes varones era más alta que el promedio entre las personas religiosas populares, los taoístas y los católicos, mientras que era más baja que el promedio entre los protestantes. La comunidad budista muestra un mayor equilibrio de creyentes hombres y mujeres. Con respecto a la edad de los creyentes, las personas religiosas populares y los católicos tendían a ser más jóvenes que el promedio, mientras que las comunidades protestantes y taoístas estaban compuestas por personas mayores. La comunidad cristiana tenía más probabilidades que otras religiones de tener miembros pertenecientes a minorías étnicas . El estudio analizó la proporción de creyentes que eran al mismo tiempo miembros de la sección local del PCCh, encontrando que era excepcionalmente alta entre los taoístas, mientras que la proporción más baja se encontró entre los protestantes. Sobre la educación y la riqueza, la encuesta encontró que las poblaciones más ricas eran las de budistas y especialmente católicos, mientras que la más pobre era la de los protestantes; Los taoístas y los católicos eran los más educados, mientras que los protestantes eran los menos educados entre las comunidades religiosas. Estos hallazgos confirmaron una descripción de Francis Ching-Wah Yip de que la población protestante estaba compuesta predominantemente por personas rurales, analfabetas y semianalfabetas, personas mayores y mujeres, ya en la década de 1990 y principios de la década de 2000. [100] Un estudio de 2017 de las comunidades cristianas de Wuhan encontró las mismas características socioeconómicas, con el agregado de que los cristianos tenían más probabilidades de sufrir enfermedades físicas y mentales que la población general. [101]
Los hallazgos de los Estudios del Panel de Familia de China para 2012 muestran que los budistas tendían a ser más jóvenes y mejor educados, mientras que los cristianos eran mayores y tenían más probabilidades de ser analfabetos. [94] : 17–18 Además, los budistas eran generalmente ricos, mientras que los cristianos pertenecían con mayor frecuencia a las partes más pobres de la población. [94] : 20–21 Se encontró que Henan albergaba el mayor porcentaje de cristianos de todas las provincias de China, alrededor del 6%. [94] : 13 Según Ji Zhe, el budismo Chan y las formas individuales, no institucionales de religiosidad popular son particularmente exitosas entre la juventud china contemporánea. [102]
Las variedades de la religión china se extienden por todo el mapa de China en diferentes grados. Las provincias del sur han experimentado el renacimiento más evidente de la religión popular china, [114] [115] aunque está presente en toda China en una gran variedad de formas, entrelazadas con el taoísmo , las órdenes fashi , el confucianismo , los rituales Nuo , el chamanismo y otras corrientes religiosas. El taoísmo de Quanzhen está presente principalmente en el norte, mientras que Sichuan es el área donde se desarrolló el taoísmo Tianshi y los primeros Maestros Celestiales tuvieron su sede principal. A lo largo de la costa sureste, se dice que el taoísmo domina la actividad ritual de la religión popular, tanto en formas registradas como no registradas ( taoísmo Zhengyi y órdenes fashi no reconocidas ). Desde la década de 1990, el taoísmo ha estado bien desarrollado en el área. [116] [117]
Muchos académicos consideran que la "religión del norte de China" es distinta de las prácticas del sur. [118] La religión popular de las provincias del sur y sudeste se centra principalmente en los linajes y sus iglesias ( zōngzú xiéhuì 宗族协会) y en la adoración de los dioses ancestrales. La religión popular del centro-norte de China ( llanura del norte de China ), por el contrario, se centra en la adoración comunitaria de deidades tutelares de la creación y la naturaleza como símbolos de identidad, por aldeas pobladas por familias de diferentes apellidos, [119] estructuradas en "comunidades del dios(es)" ( shénshè 神社, o huì 会, "asociación"), [120] que organizan ceremonias en los templos ( miaohui 庙会), que incluyen procesiones y peregrinaciones, [121] y están dirigidas por maestros rituales indígenas ( fashi ) que a menudo son hereditarios y están vinculados a la autoridad secular. [nota 8] Las religiones populares del norte y del sur también tienen un panteón diferente , de los cuales el del norte está compuesto por dioses más antiguos de la mitología china . [122]
Los movimientos religiosos populares de salvación han tenido históricamente más éxito en las llanuras centrales y en las provincias del noreste que en el sur de China, y la religión popular del centro-norte comparte características de algunas de las sectas, como la gran importancia dada al culto a la diosa madre y al chamanismo, [123] así como su transmisión escritural. [118] : 92 También las iglesias confucianas y las organizaciones jiaohua han encontrado históricamente mucha resonancia entre la población del noreste; en la década de 1930, la Iglesia Universal del Camino y su Virtud por sí sola reunía al menos el 25% de la población del estado de Manchuria [124] y la Shandong contemporánea ha sido analizada como un área de rápido crecimiento de grupos confucianos populares. [125]
Goossaert habla de esta distinción, aunque la reconoce como una simplificación excesiva, entre un "sur taoísta" y un "centro-norte de aldea-religión/confuciano", [118] : 47 con el contexto norte también caracterizado por importantes órdenes de maestros rituales "taoístas populares", una orden siendo la del yinyangsheng (阴阳生yīnyángshēng ), [118] : 86 [126] y tradiciones sectarias, [118] : 92 y también por una baja influencia del budismo y el taoísmo oficial. [118] : 90
La religión popular del noreste de China tiene características únicas derivadas de la interacción de la religión Han con los chamanismos tungus y manchú ; estos incluyen la práctica de chūmǎxiān (出马仙"cabalgando para los inmortales"), la adoración de los dioses zorro y otras deidades zoomorfas , y del Gran Señor de los Tres Zorros (胡三太爷 Húsān Tàiyé ) y la Gran Dama de los Tres Zorros (胡三太奶 Húsān Tàinǎi ) generalmente posicionados a la cabeza de los panteones . [127] De lo contrario, en el contexto religioso de Mongolia Interior ha habido una integración significativa de los chinos Han en la religión popular tradicional de la región.
En toda China, la religión Han incluso ha adoptado deidades de la religión popular tibetana , especialmente dioses de la riqueza. [128] En el Tíbet , en el oeste de China en general y en Mongolia Interior , ha habido un crecimiento del culto a Gesar con el apoyo explícito del gobierno chino, siendo Gesar una deidad transétnica Han-tibetana, mongol y manchú (los Han lo identifican como un aspecto del dios de la guerra análogamente a Guandi ) y un héroe cultural cuya mitología está encarnada en un poema épico de importancia cultural . [129]
Las escuelas de budismo de la etnia han se practican principalmente en la parte oriental del país. Por otra parte, el budismo tibetano es la religión dominante en el Tíbet y está presente de forma significativa en otras provincias más occidentales, donde los tibetanos étnicos constituyen una parte significativa de la población, y tiene una fuerte influencia en Mongolia Interior, en el norte. La tradición tibetana también ha ido ganando una influencia creciente entre los chinos han. [130]
Los cristianos se concentran especialmente en las tres provincias de Henan , Anhui y Zhejiang. [100] Las dos últimas provincias estaban en el área afectada por la Rebelión Taiping , y Zhejiang junto con Henan fueron centros de la intensa actividad misionera protestante en el siglo XIX y principios del XX . El cristianismo se practica en Hong Kong desde 1841. En 2010 [131] hay 843.000 cristianos en Hong Kong (11,8% de la población total). En 2010, aproximadamente el 5% de la población de Macao se autoidentifica como cristiana, predominantemente católica. [132]
El Islam es la religión mayoritaria en las zonas habitadas por los musulmanes hui , en particular en la provincia de Ningxia, y en la provincia de Xinjiang, habitada por los uigures . Muchos grupos étnicos minoritarios de China siguen sus propias religiones étnicas tradicionales: el benzhuismo de los bai , el bimoísmo de los yi , el bön de los tibetanos , el dongbaísmo de los nakhi , la religión popular miao , la religión popular qiang , la religión popular yao , la religión popular zhuang , el chamanismo mongol o tengerismo y el chamanismo manchú entre los manchúes.
Los registros históricos y el trabajo de campo académico contemporáneo dan testimonio de que ciertas provincias del centro y norte de China fueron focos de sectas religiosas populares y grupos religiosos confucianos.
Según la Encuesta Social General de China de 2012, [135] alrededor del 2,2% de la población total de China (alrededor de 30 millones de personas) afirma ser miembro de las sectas religiosas populares, que probablemente han mantenido su dominio histórico en el centro-norte y noreste de China.
La cultura china Han encarna un concepto de religión que difiere del que es común en las tradiciones abrahámicas , que se basan en la creencia en un Dios omnipotente que existe fuera del mundo y de la raza humana y tiene poder completo sobre ellos. [142] Las religiones chinas, en general, no ponen tanto énfasis como el cristianismo en la exclusividad y la doctrina. [143]
La cultura china Han se caracteriza por un "holismo armonioso" [144] en el que la expresión religiosa es sincrética y los sistemas religiosos abarcan elementos que crecen, cambian y se transforman, pero permanecen dentro de un todo orgánico. La realización de ritos (礼 lǐ ) es la característica clave de la religión china común, que los académicos consideran que se remonta a los tiempos neolíticos. Según el académico Stephan Feuchtwang , los ritos se conciben como "lo que hace visible lo invisible", lo que hace posible que los humanos cultiven el orden subyacente de la naturaleza. Los rituales realizados correctamente mueven a la sociedad en alineación con las fuerzas terrenales y celestiales (astrales), estableciendo la armonía de los tres reinos: el Cielo, la Tierra y la humanidad. Esta práctica se define como "centrado" (央 yāng o中 zhōng ). Los rituales pueden ser realizados por funcionarios gubernamentales, ancianos de la familia, maestros rituales populares y taoístas, estos últimos cultivando dioses locales para centrar las fuerzas del universo en una localidad en particular. Entre todas las cosas de la creación, los propios humanos son «centrales» porque tienen la capacidad de cultivar y centrar las fuerzas naturales. [145]
Este sentido primordial del ritual unía lo moral y lo religioso y no trazaba fronteras entre la vida familiar, social y política. Desde los primeros tiempos, los chinos tendieron a ser omnicomprensivos en lugar de tratar las diferentes tradiciones religiosas como separadas e independientes. El erudito Xinzhong Yao sostiene que el término "religión china", por lo tanto, no implica que exista un solo sistema religioso, sino que las "diferentes formas de creer y practicar... tienen sus raíces en temas y características culturales comunes y pueden definirse por ellos", y que "diferentes corrientes y tendencias religiosas han formado una única tradición culturalmente unitaria" en la que los conceptos y prácticas básicos están relacionados. [144]
La continuidad de la civilización china a lo largo de miles de años y miles de kilómetros cuadrados es posible gracias a las tradiciones religiosas de China, entendidas como sistemas de transmisión de conocimientos. [146] Se espera que un chino digno recuerde una gran cantidad de información del pasado y que recurra a este pasado para formar su razonamiento moral. [146] El recuerdo del pasado y de los antepasados es importante para los individuos y los grupos. Las identidades de los grupos basados en la descendencia están moldeadas por historias, genealogías escritas ( zupu , "libros de antepasados"), actividades del templo y teatro de aldea que los vinculan con la historia. [147]
Esta confianza en la memoria grupal es la base de la práctica china del culto a los antepasados (拜祖 bàizǔ o敬祖 jìngzǔ ), que se remonta a la prehistoria y es el aspecto central de la religión china. [147] Definida como "la religión esencial de los chinos", el culto a los antepasados es el medio de la memoria y, por lo tanto, de la vitalidad cultural de toda la civilización china. [148] Los ritos, símbolos, objetos e ideas construyen y transmiten identidades grupales e individuales. [149] Los rituales y sacrificios se emplean no solo para buscar la bendición de los antepasados, sino también para crear un entorno religioso comunitario y educativo en el que las personas estén firmemente vinculadas con una historia glorificada. Los antepasados son evocados como dioses y se mantienen vivos en estas ceremonias para traer buena suerte y proteger de las fuerzas del mal y los fantasmas . [150]
Los dos festivales principales que involucran el culto a los antepasados son el Festival Qingming y el Festival del Doble Nueve , pero la veneración de los antepasados se lleva a cabo en muchas otras ceremonias, incluidas las bodas , los funerales y las iniciaciones de tríadas . Los fieles generalmente ofrecen oraciones a través de un rito jingxiang , con ofrendas de comida, incienso y velas, y quemando papel de incienso . Estas actividades generalmente se llevan a cabo en el sitio de las tumbas o sepulturas ancestrales, en un templo ancestral o en un santuario doméstico.
Una práctica desarrollada en la religión popular china de la China postmaoísta, que comenzó en la década de 1990 a partir de los templos confucianos administrados por los Kong kin (el linaje de los descendientes del propio Confucio), es la representación de los antepasados en santuarios ancestrales ya no solo a través de placas con sus nombres, sino a través de estatuas. Las efigies estatuarias se usaban anteriormente exclusivamente para los bodhisattvas budistas y los dioses taoístas. [151]
Los cultos de linaje de los fundadores de apellidos y parientes son microcosmos religiosos que forman parte de un organismo más grande, es decir, los cultos de los dioses-ancestros de grupos regionales y étnicos, que a su vez forman parte de un macrocosmos adicional, los cultos de figuras históricas virtuosas que han tenido un impacto importante en la historia de China, ejemplos notables incluyen a Confucio , Guandi o Huangdi , Yandi y Chiyou , los últimos tres considerados dioses-ancestros de los chinos Han (Huangdi y Yandi) y de las minorías étnicas occidentales y extranjeros (Chiyou). Esta jerarquía procede hasta los dioses del cosmos, la Tierra y el Cielo mismo. En otras palabras, los antepasados son considerados como el equivalente del Cielo dentro de la sociedad humana, [152] y, por lo tanto, son los medios para conectarse de nuevo con el Cielo como el "padre ancestral máximo" (曾祖父 zēngzǔfù ). [153]
Tian 天("Cielo" o "Cielo") es la idea del principio absoluto o Dios que se manifiesta como el culmen norte y la bóveda estrellada de los cielos en la religión y filosofía común china . [154] Varias interpretaciones han sido elaboradas por confucianos, taoístas y otras escuelas de pensamiento. [155] Una representación popular del Cielo es la Deidad de Jade (玉帝 Yùdì ) o el Emperador de Jade (玉皇 Yùhuáng ). [156] [nota 10] Tian se define de muchas maneras, con muchos nombres, otros conocidos son Tàidì 太帝(la "Gran Deidad") y Shàngdì 上帝(la "Deidad Suprema") o simplemente Dì 帝("Deidad"). [nota 11]
Di 帝se traduce como "deidad" o "emperador" y describe un principio divino que ejerce un dominio paternal sobre lo que produce. [163] Tengri es el equivalente de Tian en las religiones chamánicas altaicas . Según las palabras de Stephan Feuchtwang, en la cosmología china "el universo se crea a sí mismo a partir de un caos primario de energía material" ( hundun混沌y qi ), organizándose como la polaridad del yin y el yang que caracteriza a cualquier cosa y vida. La creación es, por lo tanto, un ordenamiento continuo; no es una creación ex nihilo . El yin y el yang son lo invisible y lo visible, lo receptivo y lo activo, lo informe y lo formado; caracterizan el ciclo anual (invierno y verano), el paisaje (sombrío y brillante), los sexos (femenino y masculino) e incluso la historia sociopolítica (desorden y orden). [145]
Mientras que la teología confuciana enfatiza la necesidad de realizar el orden estelar del Cielo en la sociedad humana, la teología taoísta enfatiza el Tao 道("Camino"), que en una palabra denota tanto la fuente como su surgimiento espontáneo en la naturaleza. [164] En el texto confuciano "Sobre la rectificación" ( Zheng lun ) del Xunzi , se habla del Dios del Cielo como un poder activo que pone en movimiento la creación. [165] En la tradición del confucianismo de los nuevos textos , se considera a Confucio como un "rey sin trono" del Dios del Cielo y un salvador del mundo. Por otra parte, la escuela de los textos antiguos considera a Confucio como un sabio que dio una nueva interpretación a la tradición de las grandes dinastías anteriores. [166] Pensadores neoconfucianos como Zhu Xi (1130-1200) desarrollaron la idea de Lǐ 理, la "razón", el "orden" del Cielo, que se desarrolla en la polaridad del yin y el yang. [167] En la teología taoísta, el Dios del Cielo es mencionado como la Pureza de Jade (玉清 Yùqīng ), el "Honorable Celestial del Primer Comienzo" (元始天尊 Yuánshǐ Tiānzūn ), el central de los Tres Puros —que representan el centro del universo y sus dos modalidades de manifestación. Incluso el budismo chino se adaptó a la cosmología china común al establecer un paralelo con su concepto de un supremo trino con Shakyamuni , Amithaba y Maitreya representando respectivamente la iluminación, la salvación y el paraíso postapocalíptico, [168] mientras que el Tathātā (真如 zhēnrú , "talidad") generalmente se identifica como el ser supremo en sí. [169]
En la religión china, Tian es a la vez trascendente e inmanente , [170] inherente a los múltiples fenómenos de la naturaleza ( politeísmo o cosmoteísmo , yǔzhòu shénlùn 宇宙神论). [171] Los shén 神, como se explica en el Shuowen Jiezi , "son los espíritus del Cielo. Extraen las diez mil cosas". [172] Shen y los antepasados (祖 zǔ ) son agentes que generan fenómenos que revelan o reproducen el orden del Cielo. Shen , como lo define el erudito Stephen Teiser , es un término que necesita ser traducido al inglés de al menos tres maneras diferentes, según el contexto: "espíritu", "espíritus" y "espiritual". La primera, "espíritu", tiene el sentido de "espíritu humano" o "psique". El segundo uso es “espíritus” o “dioses” (este último se escribe con minúsculas porque “los espíritus y dioses chinos no deben ser vistos como todopoderosos, trascendentes o creadores del mundo”). Estos “espíritus” están asociados con estrellas, montañas y arroyos e influyen directamente en lo que sucede en el mundo natural y humano. Una cosa o un ser es “espiritual” (el tercer sentido de shen) cuando inspira admiración o asombro. [173]
Shen se opone de varias maneras a guǐ 鬼("fantasmas" o "demonios"). Shen se considera yáng 阴, mientras que gui es yīn 阴. [173] Gui puede ser el espíritu o alma de un antepasado llamado de regreso a vivir en la tablilla espiritual de la familia. [174] Sin embargo, la combinación鬼神 guǐshén ("fantasmas y espíritus") incluye tanto buenos como malos, aquellos que son afortunados o desafortunados, benévolos o malévolos, el aspecto celestial y demoníaco de los seres vivos. Esta dualidad de guishen anima a todos los seres, ya sean rocas, árboles y planetas, o animales y seres humanos. En este sentido, se puede decir que el "animismo" caracteriza la cosmovisión china. Además, dado que los humanos, shen y gui están hechos de气 qì ( pneuma o materia primordial), no hay brecha o barrera entre los espíritus buenos y malos o entre estos espíritus y los seres humanos. No existe ninguna diferencia ontológica entre dioses y demonios, y los humanos pueden emular a los dioses y unirse a ellos en el panteón. [173] Si estos espíritus son descuidados o abandonados, o no fueron tratados con rituales de muerte si eran humanos, pasan hambre y quedan atrapados en lugares donde encontraron la muerte, volviéndose peligrosos para los seres vivos y requiriendo exorcismo. [175]
No había ningún término que correspondiera a "religión" en el chino clásico . [177] La combinación de zong (宗) y jiao (教), que ahora corresponde a "religión", estuvo en circulación desde la dinastía Tang en los círculos Chan para definir la doctrina budista. Fue elegida para traducir el concepto occidental "religión" solo a fines del siglo XIX, cuando los intelectuales chinos adoptaron el término japonés shūkyō (pronunciado zongjiao en chino). [178] Bajo la influencia del racionalismo occidental y el marxismo posterior, lo que la mayoría de los chinos hoy entienden como zōngjiào son "doctrinas organizadas", es decir, "superestructuras que consisten en supersticiones, dogmas, rituales e instituciones". [179] La mayoría de los académicos en China usan el término "religión" ( zongjiao ) para incluir instituciones formales, creencias específicas, un clero y textos sagrados, mientras que los académicos occidentales tienden a usar el término de manera más laxa. [180]
Zōng (宗"antepasado", "modelo", "modo", "maestro", "patrón", pero también "propósito") implica que la comprensión de lo último deriva de la figura transformada de los grandes antepasados o progenitores, que continúan apoyando -y correspondientemente confiando en- sus descendientes, en un intercambio mutuo de beneficios. [181] Jiào (教"enseñanza") está conectado con la piedad filial ( xiao ), ya que implica la transmisión de conocimiento de los ancianos a los jóvenes y del apoyo de los jóvenes a los ancianos. [181]
Understanding religion primarily as an ancestral tradition, the Chinese have a relationship with the divine that functions socially, politically as well as spiritually.[142] The Chinese concept of "religion" draws the divine near to the human world.[142] Because "religion" refers to the bond between the human and the divine, there is always a danger that this bond be broken.[181] However, the term zōngjiào—instead of separation—emphasises communication, correspondence and mutuality between the ancestor and the descendant, the master and the disciple, and between the Way (Tao, the way of the divine in nature) and its ways.[181] Ancestors are the mediators of Heaven.[182] In other words, to the Chinese, the supreme principle is manifested and embodied by the chief gods of each phenomenon and of each human kin, making the worship of the highest God possible even in each ancestral temple.[142]
Chinese concepts of religion differ from concepts in Judaism and Christianity, says scholar Julia Ching, which were "religions of the fathers", that is, patriarchal religions, whereas Chinese religion was not only "a patriarchal religion but also an ancestral religion". Israel believed in the "God of its fathers, but not its divinised fathers". Among the ancient Chinese, the God of the Zhou dynasty appeared to have been an ancestor of the ruling house. "The belief in Tian (Heaven) as the great ancestral spirit differed from the Judeo-Christian, and later Islamic belief in a creator God". Early Christianity's Church Fathers pointed out that the First Commandment injunction, "thou shalt have no other gods before me", reserved all worship for one God, and that prayers therefore might not be offered to the dead, even though Judaism, Christianity, and Islam did encourage prayers for the dead.[183] Unlike the Abrahamic traditions in which living beings are created by God out of nothing, in Chinese religions all living beings descend from beings that existed before. These ancestors are the roots of current and future beings. They continue to live in the lineage which they begot, and are cultivated as models and exemplars by their descendants.[184]
The mutual support of elders and youth is needed for the continuity of the ancestral tradition, that is communicated from generation to generation.[181] With an understanding of religion as teaching and education, the Chinese have a staunch confidence in the human capacity of transformation and perfection, enlightenment or immortality.[185] In the Chinese religions, humans are confirmed and reconfirmed with the ability to improve themselves, in a positive attitude towards eternity.[185] Hans Küng defined Chinese religions as the "religions of wisdom", thereby distinguishing them from the "religions of prophecy" (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and from the "religions of mysticism" (Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism).[185]
The cults of gods and ancestors that in recent (originally Western) literature have been classified as "Chinese popular religion", traditionally neither have a common name nor are considered zōngjiào ("doctrines").[186] The lack of an overarching name conceptualising Chinese local and indigenous cults has led to some confusion in the terminology employed in scholarly literature. In Chinese, with the terms usually translated in English as "folk religion" (i.e. 民間宗教 mínjiān zōngjiào) or "folk faith" (i.e. 民間信仰 mínjiān xìnyǎng) they generally refer to the folk religious movements of salvation, and not to the local and indigenous cults of gods and ancestors. To resolve this issue, some Chinese intellectuals have proposed to formally adopt "Chinese native religion" or "Chinese indigenous religion" (i.e. 民俗宗教 mínsú zōngjiào), or "Chinese ethnic religion" (i.e. 民族宗教 mínzú zōngjiào), or even "Chinese religion" (中華教 Zhōnghuájiào) and "Shenxianism" (神仙教 Shénxiānjiào), as single names for the local indigenous cults of China.[187]
The economic dimension of Chinese folk religion is also important.[188] Mayfair Yang (2007) studied how rituals and temples interweave to form networks of grassroots socio-economic capital for the welfare of local communities, fostering the circulation of wealth and its investment in the "sacred capital" of temples, gods and ancestors.[189]
This religious economy already played a role in periods of imperial China, plays a significant role in modern Taiwan, and is seen as a driving force in the rapid economic development in parts of rural China, especially the southern and eastern coasts.[190]
According to Law (2005), in his study about the relationship between the revival of folk religion and the reconstruction of patriarchal civilisation:
Yang defined it as an "embedded capitalism", which preserves local identity and autonomy, and an "ethical capitalism" in which the drive for individual accumulation of money is tempered by religious and kinship ethics of generosity that foster the sharing and investment of wealth in the construction of civil society.[192] Hao (2017) defined lineage temples as nodes of economic and political power which work through the principle of crowdfunding (zhongchou):[193]
In China, many religious believers practice or draw beliefs from multiple religions simultaneously and are not exclusively associated with a single faith.[196]: 48–49 Generally, such syncretic practices fuse Taoism, Buddhism, and folk religion.[196]: 48–49
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Chinese popular or folk religion, usually referred to as traditional faith (chuantong xinyang)[196]: 49 is the "background" religious tradition of the Chinese, whose practices and beliefs are shared by both the elites and the common people. This tradition includes veneration of forces of nature and ancestors, exorcism of harmful forces, and a belief that a rational order structures the universe, and such order may be influenced by human beings and their rulers. Worship is devoted to gods and immortals (shén and xiān), who may be founders of human groups and lineages, deities of stars, earthly phenomena, and of human behavior.[197]
Chinese popular religion is "diffused", rather than "institutional", in the sense that there are no canonical scriptures or unified clergy—though it relies upon the vast heritage represented by the Chinese classics—, and its practices and beliefs are handed down over the generations through Chinese mythology as told in popular forms of literature, theatre, and visual arts, and are embedded in rituals which define the microcosm of the nuclear families, the kins or lineages (which are peoples within the Chinese people, identified by the same surnames and by the same ancestor-god), and professional guilds, rather than in institutions with merely religious functions.[186] It is a meaning system of social solidarity and identity, which provides the fabric of Chinese society, uniting all its levels from the lineages to the village or city communities, to the state and the national economy.
Because this common religion is embedded in Chinese social relations, it historically has never had an objectifying name.[186] Since the 2000s, Chinese scholars have proposed names to identify it more clearly, including "Chinese native religion" or "Chinese indigenous religion" (民俗宗教 mínsú zōngjiào), "Chinese ethnic religion" (民族宗教 mínzú zōngjiào), or simply "Chinese religion" (中華教 Zhōnghuájiào), "Shenism" (神教 Shénjiào) and "Shenxianism" (神仙教 Shénxiānjiào, "religion of deities and immortals"). This search for a precise name is meant to solve terminological confusion, since "folk religion" (民间宗教 mínjiān zōngjiào) or "folk belief" (民间信仰 mínjiān xìnyǎng) have historically defined the sectarian movements of salvation and not the local cults devoted to deities and progenitors, and it is also meant to identify a "national Chinese religion" similarly to Hinduism in India and Shinto in Japan.[187]
Taoism has been defined by scholar and Taoist initiate Kristofer Schipper as a doctrinal and liturgical framework for the development of indigenous religions.[198]: 105–106 The Zhengyi school is especially intertwined with local cults, with Zhengyi daoshi (道士, "masters of the Tao", otherwise commonly translated simply the "Taoists", since common followers and folk believers who are not part of Taoist orders are not identified as such) performing rituals for local temples and communities. Various vernacular orders of ritual ministers often identified as "folk Taoists", operate in folk religion but outside the jurisdiction of the state's Taoist Church or schools clearly identified as Taoist. Confucianism advocates the worship of gods and ancestors through appropriate rites.[199][200] Folk temples and ancestral shrines, on special occasions, may use Confucian liturgy (儒 rú or 正统 zhèngtǒng, "orthoprax") led by Confucian "sages of rites" (礼生 lǐshēng), who in many cases are the elders of a local community. Confucian liturgies are alternated with Taoist liturgies and popular ritual styles.[201] Taoism in its various currents, either comprehended or not within Chinese folk religion, has some of its origins from Chinese shamanism (Wuism).[25]
Despite this great diversity, all experiences of Chinese religion have a common theological core that may be summarized in four cosmological and moral concepts:[202] Tian (天), Heaven, the "transcendently immanent" source of moral meaning; qi (气), the breath or energy–matter that animates the universe; jingzu (敬祖), the veneration of ancestors; and bao ying (报应), moral reciprocity; together with two traditional concepts of fate and meaning:[203] ming yun (命运), the personal destiny or burgeoning; and yuan fen (缘分), "fateful coincidence",[204] good and bad chances and potential relationships.[204]
In Chinese religion yin and yang constitute the polarity that describes the order of the universe,[167] held in balance by the interaction of principles of growth or expansion (shen) and principles of waning or contraction (gui),[10] with act (yang) usually preferred over receptiveness (yin).[205] Ling (numen or sacred) coincides with the middle way between the two states, that is the inchoate order of creation.[205] It is the force establishing responsive communication between yin and yang, and is the power of gods, masters of building and healing, rites and sages.[168]
The present-day government of China, like the erstwhile imperial dynasties of the Ming and Qing, tolerates popular religious cults if they bolster social stability, but suppresses or persecutes cults and deities which threaten moral order.[206] After the fall of the empire in 1911, governments and elites opposed or attempted to eradicate folk religion in order to promote "modern" values while overcoming "feudal superstition". These attitudes began to change in the late 20th century, and contemporary scholars generally have a positive vision of popular religion.[207]
Since the 1980s Chinese folk religions experienced a revival in both mainland China and Taiwan. Some forms have received official approval as they preserve traditional Chinese culture, including the worship of Mazu and the school of Sanyiism in Fujian,[208] Huangdi worship,[209] and other forms of local worship, for instance the worship of Longwang, Pangu or Caishen.[210] In mid-2015 the government of Zhejiang began the registration of the province's tens of thousands of folk religious temples.[211]
According to the most recent demographic analyses, an average 80% of the population of China, approximately 1 billion people, practises cults of gods and ancestors or belongs to folk religious movements. Moreover, according to one survey approximately 14% of the population claims different levels of affiliation with Taoist practices.[93] Other figures from the micro-level testify the wide proliferation of folk religions: in 1989 there were 21,000 male and female shamans (shen han and wu po respectively, as they are named locally), 60% of them young, in the Pingguo County of Guangxi alone;[212] and by the mid-1990s the government of the Yulin Prefecture of Shaanxi counted over 10,000 folk temples on its territory alone,[213] for a population of 3.1 million, an average of one temple per 315 persons.
According to Wu and Lansdowne:[214]
According to Yiyi Lu, discussing the reconstruction of Chinese civil society:[215]
In December 2015, the Chinese Folk Temples' Management Association was formally established with the approval of the government of China and under the aegis of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs.[216]
China has a long history of sectarian traditions, called "salvationist religions" (救度宗教 jiùdù zōngjiào) by some scholars, which are characterized by a concern for salvation (moral fulfillment) of the person and the society, having a soteriological and eschatological character.[217] They generally emerged from the common religion but are separate from the lineage cults of ancestors and progenitors, as well as from the communal worship of deities of village temples, neighborhood, corporation, or national temples.[218] The 20th-century expression of such religions has been studied under Prasenjit Duara's definition of "redemptive societies" (救世团体 jiùshì tuántǐ),[219][220] while modern Chinese scholarship describes them as "folk religious sects" (民間宗教 mínjiān zōngjiào, 民间教门 mínjiān jiàomén or 民间教派 mínjiān jiàopài),[221] overcoming the ancient derogatory definition of xiéjiào (邪教), "evil religion".[222]
These religions are characterized by egalitarianism, charismatic founding figures claiming to have received divine revelation, a millenarian eschatology and voluntary path of salvation, an embodied experience of the numinous through healing and cultivation, and an expansive orientation through good deeds, evangelism and philanthropy. Their practices are focused on improving morality, body cultivation, and on the recitation of scriptures.[217]
Many redemptive religions of the 20th and 21st century aspire to embody and reform Chinese tradition in the face of Western modernism and materialism.[223] They include[224] Yiguandao and other sects belonging to the Xiantiandao (先天道 "Way of Former Heaven"), Jiugongdao (九宮道 "Way of the Nine Palaces"), the various branches of Luoism, Zailiism, and more recent ones such as the Church of Virtue, Weixinism, Xuanyuanism and Tiandiism. Also the qigong schools are developments of folk salvationist movements.[225] All these movements were banned in the early Republic of China (1912–49) and later People's Republic. Many of them still remain underground or unrecognized in China, while others—for instance the Church of Virtue, Tiandiism, Xuanyuanism, Weixinism and Yiguandao—operate in China and collaborate with academic and non-governmental organizations.[208] Sanyiism is another folk religious organization founded in the 16th century, which is present in the Putian region (Xinghua) of Fujian where it is legally recognized.[208] Some of these movements began to register as branches of the Taoist Association since the 1990s.[226]
Another category that has been sometimes confused with that of the folk salvationist movements by scholars is that of the secret societies (會道門 huìdàomén, 祕密社會 mìmì shèhuì, or 秘密結社 mìmì jiéshè).[227] They are religious communities of initiatory and secretive character, including rural militias such as the Red Spears (紅槍會) and the Big Knives (大刀會), and fraternal organizations such as the Green Gangs (青幫) and the Elders' Societies (哥老會).[228] They were very active in the early republican period, and often identified as "heretical doctrines" (宗教異端 zōngjiào yìduān).[228] Recent scholarship has coined the category of "secret sects" (祕密教門 mìmì jiàomén) to distinguish positively-viewed peasant secret societies of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, from the negatively-viewed secret societies of the early republic which were regarded as anti-revolutionary forces.[228]
A further type of folk religious movements, possibly overlapping with the "secret sects", are the martial sects. They combine two aspects: the wénchǎng (文场 "cultural field"), which is a doctrinal aspect characterised by elaborate cosmologies, theologies, and liturgies, and usually taught only to initiates; and the wǔchǎng (武场 "martial field"), that is the practice of bodily cultivation, usually shown as the "public face" of the sect.[229] These martial folk religions were outlawed by Ming imperial decrees which continued to be enforced until the fall of the Qing dynasty in the 20th century.[229] An example of martial sect is Meihuaism (梅花教 Méihuājiào, "Plum Flowers"), a branch of Baguaism which has become very popular throughout northern China.[229][230] In Taiwan, virtually all folk salvationist movements operate freely since the late 1980s.
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Confucianism in Chinese is called, 儒教 Rújiào, the "teaching of scholars", or 孔教 Kǒngjiào, the "teaching of Confucius". It is both a teaching and a set of ritual practices. Yong Chen calls the question on the definition of Confucianism "probably one of the most controversial issues in both Confucian scholarship and the discipline of religious studies".[231]
Guy Alitto points out that there was "literally no equivalent for the Western (and later worldwide) concept of 'Confucianism' in traditional Chinese discourse". He argues that the Jesuit missionaries of the 16th century selected Confucius from many possible sages to serve as the counterpart to Christ or Muhammad in order to meet European religion categories. They used a variety of writings by Confucius and his followers to coin a new "-ism"—"Confucianism"—which they presented as a "rationalist secular-ethical code", not as a religion. This secular understanding of Confucianism inspired both the Enlightenment in Europe in the 18th century, and Chinese intellectuals of the 20th century. Liang Shuming, a philosopher of the May Fourth Movement, wrote that Confucianism "functioned as a religion without actually being one". Western scholarship generally accepted this understanding. In the decades following the Second World War, however, many Chinese intellectuals and academic scholars in the West, among whom Tu Weiming, reversed this assessment. Confucianism, for this new generation of scholars, became a "true religion" that offered "immanent transcendence".[232]
According to Herbert Fingarette's conceptualization of Confucianism as a religion which proposes "the secular as sacred",[233] Confucianism transcends the dichotomy between religion and humanism. Confucians experience the sacred as existing in this world as part of everyday life, most importantly in family and social relations.[234] Confucianism focuses on a this worldly awareness of Tian (天 "Heaven"),[235] the search for a middle way in order to preserve social harmony and on respect through teaching and a set of ritual practices.[236] Joël Thoraval finds that Confucianism expresses on a popular level in the widespread worship of five cosmological entities: Heaven and Earth (Di 地), the sovereign or the government (jūn 君), ancestors (qīn 親) and masters (shī 師).[237] Confucians cultivate family bonds and social harmony rather than pursuing a transcendental salvation.[238] The scholar Joseph Adler concludes that Confucianism is not so much a religion in the Western sense, but rather "a non-theistic, diffused religious tradition", and that Tian is not so much a personal God but rather "an impersonal absolute, like dao and Brahman".[234]
Broadly speaking, however, scholars agree that Confucianism may be also defined as an ethico-political system, developed from the teachings of the philosopher Confucius (551–479 BCE). Confucianism originated during the Spring and Autumn period and developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE),[239] to match the developments in Buddhism and Taoism which were dominant among the populace. By the same period, Confucianism became the core idea of Chinese imperial politics. According to He Guanghu, Confucianism may be identified as a continuation of the Shang-Zhou (~1600 BCE–256 BCE) official religion, or the Chinese aboriginal religion which has lasted uninterrupted for three thousand years.[240]
By the words of Tu Weiming and other Confucian scholars who recover the work of Kang Youwei (a Confucian reformer of the early 20th century), Confucianism revolves around the pursuit of the unity of the individual self and Heaven, or, otherwise said, around the relationship between humanity and Heaven.[241] The principle of Heaven (Li or Dao) is the order of the creation and the source of divine authority, monistic in its structure.[241] Individuals may realize their humanity and become one with Heaven through the contemplation of this order.[241] This transformation of the self may be extended to the family and society to create a harmonious fiduciary community.[241] Confucianism conciliates both the inner and outer polarities of spiritual cultivation, that is to say self-cultivation and world redemption, synthesised in the ideal of "sageliness within and kingliness without".[241] As defined by Stephan Feuchtwang, Heaven is thought to have an ordering law which preserves the world, which has to be followed by humanity by means of a "middle way" between yin and yang forces; social harmony or morality is identified as patriarchy, which is the worship of ancestors and progenitors in the male line, in ancestral shrines.[164]
In Confucian thought, human beings are always teachable, improvable, and perfectible through personal and communal endeavor of self-cultivation and self-creation. Some of the basic Confucian ethical and practical concepts include rén, yì, lǐ, and zhì. Ren is translated as "humaneness", or the essence proper of a human being, which is characterized by compassionate mind; it is the virtue endowed by Heaven and at the same time what allows man to achieve oneness with Heaven—in the Datong shu it is defined as "to form one body with all things" and "when the self and others are not separated ... compassion is aroused".[242] Yi is "righteousness", which consists in the ability to always maintain a moral disposition to do good things. Li is a system of ritual norms and propriety of behavior which determine how a person should act in everyday life. Zhi is the ability to see what is right and what is wrong, in the behavior exhibited by others. Confucianism holds one in contempt when he fails to uphold the cardinal moral values of ren and yi.
Confucianism never developed an institutional structure similar to that of Taoism, and its religious body never differentiated from Chinese folk religion. Since the 2000s, Confucianism has been embraced as a religious identity by a large numbers of intellectuals and students in China.[243] In 2003, the Confucian intellectual Kang Xiaoguang published a manifesto in which he made four suggestions: Confucian education should enter official education at any level, from elementary to high school; the state should establish Confucianism as the state religion by law; Confucian religion should enter the daily life of ordinary people, a purpose achievable through a standardization and development of doctrines, rituals, organizations, churches and activity sites; the Confucian religion should be spread through non-governmental organizations.[243] Another modern proponent of the institutionalization of Confucianism in a state church is Jiang Qing.[244]
In 2005, the Center for the Study of Confucian Religion was established[243] and guoxue ("national learning") started to be implemented in public schools. Being well received by the population, even Confucian preachers started to appear on television since 2006.[243] The most enthusiast New Confucians proclaim the uniqueness and superiority of Confucian Chinese culture, and have generated some popular sentiment against Western cultural influences in China.[243]
The idea of a "Confucian Church" as the state religion of China has roots in the thought of Kang Youwei (1858–1927), an exponent of the early New Confucian search for a regeneration of the social relevance of Confucianism at a time when it fell out of favour with the fall of the Qing dynasty and the end of the Chinese empire.[245] Kang modeled his ideal "Confucian Church" after European national Christian churches, as a hierarchic and centralized institution, closely bound to the state, with local church branches devoted to the worship of Confucius and the spread of his teachings.[245]
In contemporary China, the Confucian revival has developed into various interwoven directions: the proliferation of Confucian schools or academies (shuyuan 书院 or 孔学堂 Kǒngxuétáng, "Confucian learning halls"),[244] the resurgence of Confucian rites (chuántǒng lǐyí 传统礼仪),[244] and the birth of new forms of Confucian activity on the popular level, such as the Confucian communities (shèqū rúxué 社区儒学). Some scholars also consider the reconstruction of lineage churches and their ancestral temples, as well as of cults and temples of natural gods and national heroes within broader Chinese traditional religion, as part of the renewal of Confucianism.[246]
Other forms of revival are folk religious movements of salvation[247] with a Confucian focus, or Confucian churches, for example the Yidan xuetang (一耽学堂) of Beijing,[248] the Mengmutang (孟母堂) of Shanghai,[249] Confucian Shenism (儒宗神教 Rúzōng Shénjiào) or the phoenix churches,[250] the Confucian Fellowship (儒教道坛 Rújiào Dàotán) of northern Fujian,[250] and ancestral temples of the Kong (Confucius') lineage operating as churches for Confucian teaching.[249]
Also the Hong Kong Confucian Academy, one of the direct heirs of Kang Youwei's Confucian Church, has expanded its activities to the mainland, with the construction of statues of Confucius, the establishment of Confucian hospitals, the restoration of temples and other activities.[251] In 2009, Zhou Beichen founded another institution which inherits the idea of Kang Youwei's Confucian Church, the Sacred Hall of Confucius (孔圣堂 Kǒngshèngtáng) in Shenzhen, affiliated with the Federation of Confucian Culture of Qufu City.[252][253] It was the first of a nationwide movement of congregations and civil organisations that was unified in 2015 in the Church of Confucius (孔圣会 Kǒngshènghuì). The first spiritual leader of the church is the scholar Jiang Qing, the founder and manager of the Yangming Confucian Abode (阳明精舍 Yángmíng jīngshě), a Confucian academy in Guiyang, Guizhou.
Chinese folk religious temples and kinship ancestral shrines may, on peculiar occasions, choose Confucian liturgy (called 儒 rú or 正统 zhèngtǒng, "orthoprax") led by Confucian ritual masters (礼生 lǐshēng) to worship the gods, instead of Taoist or popular ritual.[201] "Confucian businessmen" (儒商 rúshāng, also "refined businessman") is a recently rediscovered concept defining people of the economic-entrepreneurial elite who recognise their social responsibility and therefore apply Confucian culture to their business.[254]
Taoism (道教 Dàojiào) (also romanised as Daoism in the current pinyin spelling) encompasses a variety of related orders of philosophy and rite in Chinese religion. They share elements that go back to the 4th century BCE and to the prehistoric culture of China, such as the School of Yin and Yang and the thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi. Taoism has a distinct scriptural tradition, with the Dàodéjīng (道德经 "Book of the Way and its Virtue") of Laozi being regarded as its keystone. Taoism may be described, as does the scholar and Taoist initiate Kristofer Schipper in The Taoist Body (1986), as a doctrinal and liturgical framework or structure for developing the local cults of indigenous religion.[198] Taoist traditions emphasize living in harmony with the Tao (also romanised as Dao). The term Tao means "way", "path" or "principle", and may also be found in Chinese philosophies and religions other than Taoism, including Confucian thought. In Taoism, however, Tao denotes the principle that is both the source and the pattern of development of everything that exists. It is ultimately ineffable: "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao" says the first verse of the Tao Te Ching.[255] According to the scholar Stephan Feuchtwang, the concept of Tao is equivalent to the ancient Greek concept of physis, "nature", that is the vision of the process of generation and regeneration of things and of the moral order.[164]
By the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) the various sources of Taoism coalesced into a coherent tradition of religious organizations and orders of ritualists. In earlier China, Taoists were thought of as hermits or ascetics who did not participate in political life. Zhuangzi was the best known of them, and it is significant that he lived in the south, where he was involved in local shamanic traditions.[256] Women shamans played an important role in this tradition, which was particularly strong in the state of Chu. Early Taoist movements developed their own institution in contrast to shamanism, but absorbing fundamental shamanic elements. Shamans revealed texts of Taoism from early times down to at least the 20th century.[257]
Taoist institutional orders evolved in strains that in recent times are conventionally grouped in two main branches: Quanzhen Taoism and Zhengyi Taoism.[258] Taoist schools traditionally feature reverence for Laozi, immortals or ancestors, along with a variety of rituals for divination and exorcism, and techniques for achieving ecstasy, longevity or immortality. Ethics and appropriate behavior may vary depending on the particular school, but in general all emphasize wu wei (effortless action), "naturalness", simplicity, spontaneity, and the Three Treasures: compassion, moderation, and humility.
Taoism has had profound influence on Chinese culture over the course of the centuries, and Taoists (Chinese: 道士; pinyin: dàoshi, "masters of the Tao") usually take care to mark the distinction between their ritual tradition and those of vernacular orders which are not recognised as Taoist.
Taoism was suppressed during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s but its traditions endured in secrecy and revived in following decades. In 1956 a national organisation, the Chinese Taoist Association, was established to govern the activity of Taoist orders and temples. According to demographic analyses, approximately 13% of the population of China claims a loose affiliation with Taoist practices, while self-proclaimed "Taoists" (a title traditionally attributed only to the daoshi, i.e. the priests, who are experts of Taoist doctrines and rites, and to their closest disciples) might be 12 million (c. 1%).[93] The definition of "Taoist" is complicated by the fact that many folk sects of salvation and their members began to be registered as branches of the Taoist association in the 1990s.[226]
There are two types of Taoists, following the distinction between the Quanzhen and Zhengyi traditions.[258] Quanzhen daoshi are celibate monks, and therefore the Taoist temples of the Quanzhen school are monasteries.[258] Contrariwise, Zhengyi daoshi, also known as sanju daoshi ("scattered" or "diffused" Taoists) or huoju daoshi (Taoists "who live at home"), are priests who may marry and have other jobs besides the sacerdotal office; they live among the population and perform Taoist rituals within common Chinese religion, for local temples and communities.[258]
While the Chinese Taoist Association started as a Quanzhen institution, and remains based at the White Cloud Temple of Beijing, that also functions as the headquarters of the Quanzhen sects, from the 1990s onwards it started to open registration to the sanju daoshi of the Zhengyi branch, who are more numerous than the Quanzhen monks. The Chinese Taoist Association had already 20.000 registered sanju daoshi in the mid-1990s,[259] while the total number of Zhengyi priests including the unregistered ones was estimated at 200.000 in the same years.[260] The Zhengyi sanju daoshi are trained by other priests of the same sect, and historically received formal ordination by the Celestial Master,[258][261] although the 63rd Celestial Master Zhang Enpu fled to Taiwan in the 1940s during the Chinese Civil War. Taoism, both in registered and unregistered forms, has experienced a strong development since the 1990s, and dominates the religious life of coastal provinces.[258]
Chinese vernacular ritual masters, also referred to as practitioners of Faism (法教 Fǎjiào, "rites/laws' traditions"),[262] also named Folk Taoism (民间道教 Mínjiàn Dàojiào), or "Red Taoism" (in southeast China and Taiwan), are orders of priests that operate within the Chinese folk religion but outside any institution of official Taoism.[261] Such "masters of rites", fashi (法師), are known by a variety of names including hongtou daoshi (紅頭道士), popular in southeast China, meaning "redhead" or "redhat" daoshi, in contradistinction to the wutou daoshi (烏頭道士), "blackhead" or "blackhat" daoshi, as vernacular Taoists call the sanju daoshi of Zhengyi Taoism that were traditionally ordained by the Celestial Master.[261] In some provinces of north China they are known as yīnyángshēng (阴阳生 "sages of yin and yang"),[118]: 86 [126] and by a variety of other names.
Although the two types of priests, daoshi and fashi, have the same roles in Chinese society—in that they may marry and they perform rituals for communities' temples or private homes—Zhengyi daoshi emphasise their Taoist tradition, distinguished from the vernacular tradition of the fashi.[261][263] Some Western scholars have described vernacular Taoist traditions as "cataphatic" (i.e. of positive theology) in character, while professional Taoism as "kenotic" and "apophatic" (i.e. of negative theology).[264]
Fashi are tongji practitioners (southern mediumship), healers, exorcists and they officiate jiao rituals of "universal salvation" (although historically they were excluded from performing such rites[261]). They are not shamans (wu), with the exception of the order of Mount Lu in Jiangxi.[265] Rather, they represent an intermediate level between the wu and the Taoists. Like the wu, the fashi identify with their deity, but while the wu embody wild forces, vernacular ritual masters represent order like the Taoists. Unlike the Taoists, who represent a tradition of high theology which is interethnic, both vernacular ritual masters and wu find their institutional base in local cults to particular deities, even though vernacular ritual masters are itinerant.[266]
Shamanism was the prevalent modality of pre-Han dynasty Chinese indigenous religion.[267] The Chinese usage distinguishes the Chinese "Wuism" tradition (巫教 Wūjiào; properly shamanic, in which the practitioner has control over the force of the god and may travel to the underworld) from the tongji tradition (童乩; southern mediumship, in which the practitioner does not control the force of the god but is guided by it), and from non-Han Chinese Altaic shamanisms (萨满教 sàmǎnjiào) which are practiced in northern provinces.
With the rise of Confucian orthodoxy in the Han period (206 BCE – 220 CE), shamanic traditions found an institutionalized and intellectualized form within the esoteric philosophical discourse of Taoism.[267] According to Chirita (2014), Confucianism itself, with its emphasis on hierarchy and ancestral rituals, derived from the shamanic discourse of the Shang dynasty (c. 1600 BCE – 1046 BCE).[267] What Confucianism did was to marginalize the features of old shamanism which were dysfunctional for the new political regime.[267] However, shamanic traditions continued uninterrupted within the folk religion and found precise and functional forms within Taoism.[267]
In the Shang and later Zhou dynasty (c. 1046 BCE – 256 BCE), shamans had an important role in the political hierarchy, and were represented institutionally by the Ministry of Rites (大宗拍). The emperor was considered the supreme shaman, intermediating between the three realms of heaven, earth and humanity.[267] The mission of a shaman (巫 wu) is "to repair the dysfunctionalities occurred in nature and generated after the sky had been separated from earth":[267]
The female shamans called wu as well as the male shamans called xi represent the voice of spirits, repair the natural disfunctions, foretell the future based on dreams and the art of divination ... "a historical science of the future", whereas shamans are able to observe the yin and the yang ...[This quote needs a citation]
Since the 1980s the practice and study of shamanism has undergone a great revival in Chinese religion as a mean to repair the world to a harmonious whole after industrialization.[267] Shamanism is viewed by many scholars as the foundation for the emergence of civilisation, and the shaman as "teacher and spirit" of peoples.[268] The Chinese Society for Shamanic Studies was founded in Jilin City in 1988.[268]
In China, Buddhism (佛教 Fójiào) is represented by a large number of people following the Mahayana, divided between two different cultural traditions, namely the schools of Chinese Buddhism followed by the Han Chinese, and the schools of Tibetan Buddhism followed by Tibetans and Mongols, but also by minorities of Han. The vast majority of Buddhists in China, counted in the hundreds of millions, are Chinese Buddhists, while Tibetan Buddhists are in the number of the tens of millions. Small communities following the Theravada exist among minority ethnic groups who live in the southwestern provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi, bordering Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, but also some among the Li people of Hainan follow such tradition.
With the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, religion came under the control of the new government, and the Buddhist Association of China was founded in 1953. During the Cultural Revolution, Buddhism was suppressed and temples closed or destroyed. Restrictions lasted until the reforms of the 1980s, when Buddhism began to recover popularity and its place as the largest organised faith in the country. While estimates of the number of Buddhists in China vary, the most recent surveys found an average 10–16% of the population of China claiming a Buddhist affiliation, with even higher percentages in urban agglomerations.
First introduced to China during the Han dynasty and promoted by multiple emperors since then, Han or Chinese Buddhism is a Chinese form of Mahayana Buddhism which draws on the Chinese Buddhist canon[269] as well as numerous Chinese traditions. Chinese Buddhism focuses on studying Mahayana sutras and Mahāyāna treatises and draws its main doctrines from these sources. Some of the most important scriptures in Chinese Buddhism include: Lotus Sutra, Flower Ornament Sutra, Vimalakirtī Sutra, Nirvana Sutra, and Amitābha Sutra.[270] Chinese Buddhism is the largest institutionalized religion in mainland China.[271] Currently, there are an estimated 185 to 250 million Chinese Buddhists in the People's Republic of China.[271]
Tibetan Buddhism evolved as a form of Mahayana Buddhism stemming from the later stages of Buddhism (which included many Vajrayana elements). It thus preserves many Nepali Buddhist and Indian Buddhist tantric practices of the post-Gupta early medieval period (500–1200 CE), along with numerous native Tibetan developments.[272][273] In the pre-modern era, Tibetan Buddhism spread outside of Tibet primarily due to the influence of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), founded by Kublai Khan, who ruled China, Mongolia, and parts of Siberia. In the modern era, practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism can be found in the Chinese autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, in addition to the areas around the Tibetan Plateau.
Theravada Buddhism is the oldest existing school of Buddhism, which is practiced mainly in the Yunnan region of China, by ethnic minorities such as the Tai-speaking Dai people. According to historical records, Theravada Buddhism was brought from Myanmar to Yunnan in the mid-7th century. At first, the classics were transmitted only by word of mouth. Around the 11th century, Buddhist sutras were introduced to Xishuangbanna through Burma. Currently, Theravada Buddhism in Yunnan can be divided into four schools: Run, Baozhuang, Duolie, and Zuozhi.[274]
Besides Tibetan Buddhism and the Vajrayana streams found within Chinese Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism is practised in China in some other forms. For instance, Azhaliism (Chinese: 阿吒力教 Āzhālìjiào) is a Vajrayana Buddhist religion practised among the Bai people.[275] The Vajrayana current of Chinese Buddhism is known as Tangmi (唐密 "Tang Mysteries"), as it flourished in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907) just before the great suppression of Buddhism by imperial decision. Another name for this body of traditions is "Han Chinese Transmission of the Esoteric (or Mystery) Tradition" (汉传密宗 Hànchuán Mìzōng, where Mizong is the Chinese for Vajrayana). Tangmi, together with the broader religious tradition of Tantrism (in Chinese: 怛特罗 Dátèluō or 怛特罗密教 Dátèluó mìjiào; which may include Hindu forms of religion)[55]: 3 has undergone a revitalisation since the 1980s together with the overall revival of Buddhism.
Various Chinese non-Han minority populations practise unique indigenous religions. The government of China protects and valorises the indigenous religions of minority ethnicities as the foundations of their culture and identity.[276]
Benzhuism (本主教 Běnzhǔjiào, "religion of the patrons") is the indigenous religion of the Bai people, an ethnic group of Yunnan. It consists in the worship of the ngel zex, Bai word for "patrons" or "source lords", rendered as benzhu (本主) in Chinese. They are local gods and deified ancestors of the Bai nation. Benzhuism is very similar to Han Chinese religion.
Bimoism (毕摩教 Bìmójiào) is the indigenous religion of the Yi people, the largest ethnic group in Yunnan after the Han Chinese. This faith is represented by three types of religious specialists: the bimo (毕摩, "ritual masters", "priests"), the sunyi (male shamans) and the monyi (female shamans).[277]
What distinguishes the bimo and the shamans is the way through which they acquire their authority.[278] While both are regarded as the "mediators between humanity and the divine", the shamans are initiated through a "spiritual inspiration" (which involves illness or vision)[278] whereas the bimo—who are always males with few exceptions[279]—are literates, who may read and write traditional Yi script, have a tradition of theological and ritual scriptures, and are initiated through a tough educational process.[280]
Since the 1980s, Bimoism has undergone a comprehensive revitalization,[277] both on the popular level and on the scholarly level,[277] with the bimo now celebrated as an "intellectual class"[281] whose role is that of creators, preservers and transmitters of Yi high culture.[282] Since the 1990s, Bimoism has undergone an institutionalization, starting with the foundation of the Bimo Culture Research Center in Meigu County in 1996.[283] The founding of the centre received substantial support from local authorities, especially those whose families were directly affiliated with one of the many bimo hereditary lineages.[283] Since then, large temples and ceremonial complexes for Bimoist practices have been built.
"Bon" (Tibetan: བོན་; Chinese: 苯教 Běnjiào) is the post-Buddhist name of the pre-Buddhist folk religion of Tibet.[284] Buddhism spread into Tibet starting in the 7th and 8th century,[285] and the name "Bon" was adopted as the name of the indigenous religion in Buddhist historiography.[284] Originally, bon was the title of the shamans of the Tibetan indigenous religion.[284] This is in analogy with the names of the priests of the folk religions of other peoples related to the Tibetans,[286] such as the dong ba of the Nakhi or the bø of Mongolians and other Siberian peoples.[287] Bonpo ("believers of Bon") claim that the word bon means "truth" and "reality".[284]
The spiritual source of Bon is the mythical figure of Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche.[285] Since the late 10th century, the religion then designated as "Bon" started to organise itself adopting the style of Tibetan Buddhism, including a monastic structure and a Bon Canon (Kangyur), which made it a codified religion.[285] The Chinese sage Confucius is worshipped in Bon as a holy king, master of magic and divination.[288]
Dongbaism (東巴教 Dōngbajiào, "religion of the eastern Ba") is the main religion of the Nakhi people. The "dongba" ("eastern ba") are masters of the culture, literature and the script of the Nakhi. They originated as masters of the Tibetan Bon religion ("Ba" in Nakhi language), many of whom, in times of persecution when Buddhism became the dominant religion in Tibet, were expelled and dispersed to the eastern marches settling among Nakhi and other eastern peoples.[289]: 63
Dongbaism historically formed as beliefs brought by Bon masters commingled with older indigenous Nakhi beliefs. Dongba followers believe in a celestial shaman called Shi-lo-mi-wu, with little doubt the same as the Tibetan Shenrab Miwo.[289]: 63 They worship nature and generation, in the form of many heavenly gods and spirits, chthonic Shu (spirits of the earth represented in the form of chimera-dragon-serpent beings), and ancestors.[289]: 86
Manchu folk religion is the ethnic religion practised by most of the Manchu people, the major of the Tungusic peoples, in China. It may also be called "Manchu Shamanism" (满族萨满教 Mǎnzú sàmǎnjiào) by virtue of the word "shaman" being originally from Tungusic šamán ("man of knowledge"),[290]: 235 later applied by Western scholars to similar religious practices in other cultures.
It is a pantheistic system, believing in a universal God called Apka Enduri ("God of Heaven") that is the omnipotent and omnipresent source of all life and creation.[291] Deities (enduri) enliven every aspect of nature, and the worship of these gods is believed to bring favour, health and prosperity.[290]: 236 Many of the deities are original Manchu kins' ancestors, and people with the same surname are viewed as being generated by the same god.[292]
Most Miao people in China have retained their traditional folk religion. It is pantheistic and deeply influenced by Chinese religion, sharing the concept of yin and yang representing, respectively, the realm of the gods in potentiality and the manifested or actual world of living things as a complementary duality.[293]: 59
The Miao believe in a supreme universal God, Saub, who may be defined a deus otiosus who created reality and left it to develop according to its ways, but nonetheless may be appealed in times of need. He entrusted a human, Siv Yis, with healing powers so that he became the first shaman.[293]: 60 After his death, Siv Yis ascended to heaven, but he left behind his ritual tools that became the equipment of the shaman class. They (txiv neeb) regard Siv Yis as their archetype and identify as him when they are imbued by the gods.[293]: 60–61
Various gods (dab or neeb, the latter defining those who work with shamans) enliven the world. Among them, the most revered are the water god Dragon King (Zaj Laug), the Thunder God (Xob), the gods of life and death (Ntxwj Nyug and Nyuj Vaj Tuam Teem), Lady Sun (Nkauj Hnub) and Lord Moon (Nraug Hli), and various deified human ancestors.[293]: 60–62
Mongolian folk religion, alternatively named Tengerism (腾格里教 Ténggélǐjiào),[294] is the native and major religion among the Mongols of China, mostly residing in the region of Inner Mongolia.
It is centered on the worship of gods called tngri, and the Qormusta Tengri, the highest such deity. In Mongolian folk religion, Genghis Khan is considered one of the embodiments, if not the most important, of the Tenger.[295]: 402–404 In worship, communities of lay believers are led by shamans (called böge if males, iduγan if females), who are intermediaries of the divine.
Since the 1980s there has been an unprecedented development of Mongolian folk religion in Inner Mongolia, including böge, the cult of Genghis Khan and the Heaven in special temples, many of which built to resemble yurts,[296] and the cult of aobao as ancestral shrines. Han Chinese of Inner Mongolia have easily assimilated into the spiritual heritage of the region.[297] The cult of Genghis is also shared by the Han, claiming his spirit as the founding principle of the Yuan dynasty.[295]: 23
敖包; áobāo are sacrificial altars of the shape of axis mundi that are traditionally used for worship by Mongols and related ethnic groups.[298] Every aobao represents a god; there are aobaoes dedicated to heavenly gods, mountain gods, other gods of nature, and also to gods of human lineages and agglomerations.
The aobaoes for worship of ancestral gods may be private shrines of an extended family or kin, otherwise they are common to villages, banners or leagues. Sacrifices to the aobaoes are made offering slaughtered animals, joss sticks, and libations.[298]
Qiang people are mostly followers of a native Qiang folk religion.[299]: 14 It is pantheistic, involving the worship of a variety of gods of nature and of human affairs, including Qiang progenitors. White stones are worshipped as it is believed that they may be invested with the power of the gods through rituals.[299]: 14 Qiang people believe in an overarching God, called Mubyasei ("God of Heaven"), which is related with the Chinese concept of Tian and clearly identified by the Qiang with the Taoist-originated Jade Deity.[300]: 140–144
Religious ceremonies and rituals are directed by priests called duāngōng in Chinese. They are shamans who acquire their position through years of training with a teacher. Duāngōng are the custodians of Qiang theology, history and mythology. They also administer the coming of age ceremony for 18 years-old boys, called the "sitting on top of the mountain", which involves the boy's entire family going to mountain tops, to sacrifice a sheep or cow and to plant three cypress trees.[299]: 14–15
Two of the most important religious holidays are the Qiang New Year, falling on the 24th day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar (though now it is fixed on 1 October), and the Mountain Sacrifice Festival, held between the second and the sixth month of the lunar calendar. The former festival is to worship the God of Heaven, while the latter is dedicated to the god of mountains.[299]: 14
The Yao people, who reside in and around Guangxi and Hunan, follow a folk religion that is deeply integrated with Taoism since the 13th century, so much that it is frequently defined as "Yao Taoism".[301] Yao folk religion was described by a Chinese scholar of the half of the 20th century as an example of deep "Taoisation" (道教化 Dàojiàohuà). In the 1980s it was found that the Yao clearly identified themselves with Chinese-language Taoist theological literature, seen as a prestigious statute of culture.[302]: 290
The reason of such strong identification of Yao religion with Taoism is that in Yao society every male adult is initiated as a Taoist. Yao Taoism is therefore a communal religion, not identifying just a class of priests but the entire body of the society; this contrasts with Chinese Taoism, which mostly developed as a collection of sacerdotal orders. The shared sense of Yao identity is further based on tracing back Yao origins to a mythical ancestor, Panhu.[302]: 48–49
Zhuang folk religion, sometimes called Moism (摩教; Mójiào) or Shigongism (师公教; Shīgōngjiào; 'religion of the ancestral father'), after two of its forms, is practised by most of the Zhuang people, the largest ethnic minority of China, who live mainly throughout Guangxi.[303] It is polytheistic, monistic, and shamanic, centred on a creator god, usually expressed as the mythical Buluotuo, progenitor of the Zhuang. Beliefs are codified into mythology and the sacred he "Buluotuo Epic" scripture. A similar religion by the same name is practised by the Buyei people, who are related to the Zhuang. ince the 1980s, there has been a revival of Zhuang folk religion, which has followed two directions. The first is a grass-roots revival of cults dedicated to local deities and ancestors, led by shamans; the second way is a promotion of the religion on the institutional level, through a standardisation of Moism elaborated by Zhuang government officials and intellectuals.[304]
Zhuang religion is intertwined with Taoism.[305] Chinese scholars divide the Zhuang religion into several categories including Shigongism, Moism, Daogongism, and shamanism, according to the type of specialists conducting the rites.[306] "Shigongism" refers to the dimension led by the shigong (师公) ritual specialists, variously translated as 'ancestral father' or 'teaching master', and which refers both to the principle of the Universe and to men able to represent it. Shigong specialists dance in masks and worship the Three Primordials: the generals Tang, Ge and Zhou.[306] "Moism" refers to the dimension led by mogong (摩公), vernacular ritual specialists able to transcribe and read texts written in Zhuang characters and lead the worship of Buluotuo and the goddess Muliujia.[307] "Daogongism" is Zhuang Taoism, the indigenous religion of Zhuang Taoists, known as daogong (道公 'lords of the Tao') in Zhuang.[308] Zhuang shamanism entails the practices of mediums who provide direct communication between the material and the spiritual worlds; these shamans are known as momoed if female and gemoed if male.[308]
Christianity (基督教 Jīdūjiào, "Religion of Christ") in China comprises Roman Catholicism (天主教 Tiānzhǔjiào, "Religion of the Lord of Heaven"), Protestantism (基督教新教 Jīdūjiào Xīnjiào, "New-Christianity"), and a small number of Orthodox Christians (正教 Zhèngjiào). Mormonism (摩门教 Móménjiào) also has a tiny presence.[309] The Orthodox Church, which has believers among the Russian minority and some Chinese in the far northeast and far northwest, is officially recognized in Heilongjiang.[310] The category of "Protestantism" in China also comprehends a variety of heterodox sects of Christian inspiration, including Zhushenism (主神教 Zhǔshénjiào, "Church of Lord God"), Linglingism (灵灵教 Línglíngjiào, "Numinous Church"), Fuhuodao, the Church of the Disciples (门徒会 Méntúhuì) and Eastern Lightning or the Church of Almighty God (全能神教 Quánnéngshénjiào).[311]
Christianity existed in China as early as the 7th century, living multiple cycles of significant presence for centuries, then disappearing for other centuries, and then being re-introduced by foreign missionaries. The arrival of the Persian missionary Alopen in 635, during the early period of the Tang dynasty, is considered by some to be the first entry of Christianity in China. What Westerners referred to as Nestorianism flourished for centuries, until Emperor Wuzong of the Tang in 845 ordained that all foreign religions (Buddhism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism) had to be eradicated from the Chinese nation. Christianity was reintroduced in China in the 13th century, in the form of Nestorianism, during the Mongol Yuan dynasty, which also established relations with the papacy, especially through Franciscan missionaries in 1294. When the native Han Chinese Ming dynasty overthrew the Yuan dynasty in the 14th century, Christianity was again expelled from China as a foreign influence.
At the end of the Ming dynasty in the 16th century, Jesuits arrived in Beijing via Guangzhou. The most famous amongst them was Matteo Ricci, an Italian mathematician who came to China in 1588 and lived in Beijing. Ricci was welcomed at the imperial court and introduced Western learning into China. The Jesuits followed a policy of adaptation of Catholicism to traditional Chinese religious practices, especially ancestor worship. However, such practices were eventually condemned as polytheistic idolatry by the popes Clement XI, Clement XII and Benedict XIV. Roman Catholic missions struggled in obscurity for decades afterwards.
Christianity began to take root in a significant way in the late imperial period, during the Qing dynasty, and although it has remained a minority religion in China, it influenced late imperial history. Waves of missionaries came to China in the Qing period as a result of contact with foreign powers. Russian Orthodoxy was introduced in 1715, and Protestant missions began entering China in 1807. The pace of missionary activity increased considerably after the First Opium War in 1842. Christian missionaries and their schools, under the protection of the Western powers, went on to play a major role in the Westernisation of China in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Taiping Rebellion (1850–1871) was influenced to some degree by Christian teachings, and the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901) was in part a reaction against Christianity in China. Christians in China established the first clinics and hospitals practising modern medicine,[312] and provided the first modern training for nurses. Both Roman Catholics and Protestants founded numerous educational institutions in China from the primary to the university level. Some of the most prominent Chinese universities began as religious institutions. Missionaries worked to abolish practices such as foot binding,[313] and the unjust treatment of maidservants, as well as launching charitable work and distributing food to the poor. They also opposed the opium trade[314] and brought treatment to many who were addicted. Some of the early leaders of the early republic (1912–49), such as Sun Yat-sen, were converts to Christianity and were influenced by its teachings. By 1921, Harbin, the northeast's largest city, had a Russian population of around 100,000, constituting a large part of Christianity in the city.[315]
Christianity, especially in its Protestant form, gained momentum in China between the 1980s and the 1990s, but, in the following years, folk religion recovered more rapidly and in greater numbers than Christianity (or Buddhism).[316] The scholar Richard Madsen noted that "the Christian God then becomes one in a pantheon of local gods among whom the rural population divides its loyalties".[317] Similarly, Gai Ronghua and Gao Junhui noted that "Christianity in China is no longer monotheism" and tends to blend with Chinese folk religion, as many Chinese Christians take part in regional activities for the worship of gods and ancestors.[137]: 816
Protestants in the early 21st century, including both official and unofficial churches, had between 25 and 35 million adherents. Catholics were not more than 10 million.[318][319] In the 2010s the scholarly estimate was of approximately 30 million Christians, of whom fewer than 4 million were Catholics. In the same years, about 40 million Chinese said they believed in Jesus Christ or had attended Christian meetings, but did not identify themselves with the Christian religion.[320] Demographic analyses usually find an average 2–3% of the population of China declaring a Christian affiliation. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, before 1949, there were approximately 4 million Christians (3 million Catholics and 1 million Protestants), and by 2010, China had roughly 67 million Christians, representing about 5% of the country's total population.[321][322] Christians were unevenly distributed geographically, the only provinces in which they constituted a population significantly larger than 1 million persons being Henan, Anhui and Zhejiang. Protestants were characterized by a prevalence of people living in the countryside, women, illiterates and semi-literates, and elderly people.[100] While according to the Yu Tao survey the Catholic population were characterized by a prevalence of men, wealthier, better educated, and young people.[100] A 2017 study on the Christian community of Wuhan found the same socio-economic characteristics, with the addition that Christians were more likely than the general population to suffer from physical and mental illness.[101] In 2018, the government published a report saying that there are over 44 million Christians (38M Protestants; 6M Catholics) in China.[323]
A significant number of members of churches unregistered with the government, and of their pastors, belong to the Koreans of China.[324] Christianity has a strong presence in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, in Jilin.[325]: 29–31 Yanbian Koreans' Christianity has a patriarchal character; Korean churches are usually led by men, in contrast to Chinese churches that most often have female leadership. For instance, of the twenty-eight registered churches of Yanji, only three of which are Chinese congregations, all the Korean churches have a male pastor while all the Chinese churches have a female pastor.[325]: 33 Also, Korean church buildings are stylistically very similar to South Korean churches, with big spires surmounted by red crosses.[325]: 33 Yanbian Korean churches have been a matter of controversy for the Chinese government because of their links to South Korean churches.[325]: 37
According to a report by the Singapore Management University, from the 1980s onwards, more people in China and other Asian countries have converted to Christianity, and these new converts are mostly "upwardly mobile, urban, middle-class Chinese".[326] According to the Council on Foreign Relations the "number of Chinese Protestants has grown by an average of 10 percent annually since 1979".[327] According to The Economist, "Protestant Christianity is booming in China".[328] If the current trend continues, China will have the largest Christian population in the world as some have estimated.[329]
In recent decades the CCP has remained intolerant of Christian churches outside party control,[330] looking with distrust on organizations with international ties. The government and Chinese intellectuals tend to associate Christianity with subversive Western values, and many churches have been closed or destroyed. In addition, Western and Korean missionaries are being expelled.[331] Since the 2010s policies against Christianity have been extended also to Hong Kong.[332]
In September 2018, the Holy See and the Chinese government signed the 2018 Holy See-China Agreement, a historic agreement concerning the appointment of bishops in China. The Vatican spokesman Greg Burke described the agreement as "not political but pastoral, allowing the faithful to have bishops who are in communion with Rome but at the same time recognized by Chinese authorities".[333][334]
As of 2023, there are approximately 44 million Chinese Christians registered with government-approved Christian groups.[196]: 51
The introduction of Islam (伊斯兰教 Yīsīlánjiào or 回教 Huíjiào) in China is traditionally dated back to a diplomatic mission in 651, eighteen years after Muhammad's death, led by Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas. Emperor Gaozong is said to have shown esteem for Islam and to have founded the Huaisheng Mosque (Memorial Mosque) at Guangzhou, in memory of the Prophet himself.[335]
Muslims, mainly Arabs, travelled to China to trade. In the year 760, the Yangzhou massacre killed large numbers of these traders, and a century later, in the years 878–879, Chinese rebels fatally targeted the Arab community in the Guangzhou massacre. Yet, Muslims virtually came to dominate the import and export industry by the Song dynasty (960–1279). The office of Director General of Shipping was consistently held by a Muslim. Immigration increased during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), when hundreds of thousands of Muslims were relocated throughout China for their administrative skills. A Muslim, Yeheidie'erding, led the construction project of the Yuan capital of Khanbaliq, in present-day Beijing.[336]
During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Muslims continued to have an influence among the high classes. Hongwu Emperor's most trusted generals were Muslim, including Lan Yu, who led a decisive victory over the Mongols, effectively ending the Mongol dream to re-conquer China. The admiral Zheng He led seven expeditions to the Indian Ocean. The Hongwu Emperor even composed The Hundred-word Eulogy in praise of Muhammad. Muslims who were descended from earlier immigrants began to assimilate by speaking Chinese dialects and by adopting Chinese names and culture, mixing with the Han Chinese. They developed their own cuisine, architecture, martial arts' styles and calligraphy (sini). This era, sometimes considered a Golden Age of Islam in China, also saw Nanjing become an important center of Islamic study.
The rise of the Qing dynasty saw numerous Islamic rebellions, including the Panthay Rebellion which occurred in Yunnan from 1855 to 1873, and the Dungan Revolt, which occurred mostly in Xinjiang, Shaanxi and Gansu from 1862 to 1877. The Manchu government ordered the execution of all rebels, killing a million Muslims after the Panthay Rebellion,[336] and several million after the Dungan Revolt.[336] However, many Muslims like Ma Zhan'ao, Ma Anliang, Dong Fuxiang, Ma Qianling and Ma Julung, defected to the Qing dynasty side and helped the Qing general Zuo Zongtang to exterminate the rebels. These Muslim generals belonged to the Khufiyya sect, while rebels belonged to the Jahariyya sect. In 1895, another Dungan Revolt (1895–96) broke out, and loyalist Muslims like Dong Fuxiang, Ma Anliang, Ma Guoliang, Ma Fulu, and Ma Fuxiang massacred the rebel Muslims led by Ma Dahan, Ma Yonglin, and Ma Wanfu. A few years later, an Islamic army called the Kansu Braves, led by the general Dong Fuxiang, fought for the Qing dynasty against the foreigners during the Boxer Rebellion.
After the fall of the Qing, Sun Yat-sen proclaimed that the country belonged equally to the Han, Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan and Hui peoples. In the 1920s, the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia came under the control of Muslim warlords known as the Ma clique, who served as generals in the National Revolutionary Army. During the Cultural Revolution, mosques were often defaced, closed or demolished, and copies of the Quran were destroyed by the Red Guards.[337]
After the 1980s Islam experienced a renewal in China, with an upsurge in Islamic expression and the establishment Islamic associations aimed to coordinate inter-ethnic activities among Muslims. Muslims are found in every province of China, but they constitute a majority only in Xinjiang, and a large amount of the population in Ningxia and Qinghai. Of China's recognised ethnic minorities, ten groups are traditionally Islamic. Accurate statistics on China's Muslim population are hard to find; various surveys found that they constitute 1–2% of the Chinese population, or between 10 and 20 million people. In the 2010s they were served by 35,000 to 45,000 mosques, 40,000 to 50,000 imams (ahong), and 10 Quranic institutions.[93]
Judaism (犹太教 Yóutàijiào) was introduced during the Tang dynasty (618–907) or earlier, by small groups of Jews settled in China. The most prominent early community were the so-called Kaifeng Jews, in Kaifeng, Henan province. In the 20th century many Jews arrived in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Harbin, during a period of great economic development of these cities. Many of them sought refuge from anti-Semitic pogroms in the Russian Empire (early 1900s), the communist revolution and civil war in Russia (1917–1918), and anti-Semitic Nazi policy in central Europe, chiefly in Germany and Austria (1937–1940). The last wave of Jewish refugees came from Poland and other eastern European countries in the early 1940s.[338]
Shanghai was particularly notable for its numerous Jewish refugees, who gathered in the so-called Shanghai Ghetto. Most of them left China after the war, the rest relocating prior to, or immediately after, the establishment of the People's Republic. Today, the Kaifeng Jewish community is functionally extinct. Many descendants of the Kaifeng community still live among the Chinese population, mostly unaware of their Jewish ancestry, while some have moved to Israel. Meanwhile, remnants of the later arrivals maintain communities in Shanghai and Hong Kong. In recent years a community has also developed in Beijing through the work of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
Since the late 20th century, along with the study of religion in general, the study of Judaism and Jews in China as an academic subject has blossomed with the establishment of institutions such as Diane and Guilford Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies and the China Judaic Studies Association.[339]
The Baháʼí Faith (巴哈伊信仰 Bāhāyī xìnyǎng, 巴哈伊教 Bāhāyījiào, or, in old translations, 大同教 Dàtóngjiào) has had a presence in China[309] since the 19th century.
Hinduism (印度教 Yìndùjiào) entered China around the same time as Buddhism, generally imported by Indian merchants, from different routes. One of them was the "Silk Route by Sea" that started from the Coromandel Coast in southeast India and reached Southeast Asia and then southeastern Chinese cities; another route was that from the ancient kingdom of Kamrupa, through upper Burma, reaching Yunnan; a third route is the well-known Silk Route reaching northwest China, which was the main route through which Buddhism spread into China. Archeological remains of Hindu temples and typical Hindu icons have been found in coastal cities of China and in Dali, Yunnan.[340]: 125–127 It is recorded that in 758 there were three Hindu temples in Guangzhou, with resident Hindus, and Hindu temples in Quanzhou.[340]: 136–137 Remains of Hindu temples have also been discovered in Xinjiang, and they are of an earlier date than those in southeast China.[340]: 135
Hindu texts were translated into Chinese, including a large number of Indian Tantric texts and the Vedas, which are known in Chinese as the Minglun or Zhilun, or through phonetic transliteration as the Weituo, Feituo or Pituo.[340]: 127 Various Chinese Buddhist monks dedicated themselves to the study of Hindu scriptures, thought and practice.[340]: 128–129 In the Sui (581–618) and later Tang dynasty (618–907), Hindu texts translated into Chinese included the Śulvasūtra, the Śulvaśāstra and the Prescriptions of Brahmin Rishis. The Tibetans contributed with the translation into Chinese of the Pāṇinisūtra and the Rāmāyaṇa.[340]: 134
In the 7th century there was an intellectual exchange between Taoists and Shaktas in India, with the translation of the Daodejing in Sanskrit. Some breathing techniques practised in Shaktism are known as Cīnācāra ("Chinese Practice"), and the Shakta tantras that discuss them trace their origin to Taoism. Two of these tantras report that the Shakta master Vaśiṣṭha paid visit to China specifically with the purpose of learning Cīnācāra from the Taoists.[340]: 133–134 According to the Tamil text Śaivāgama of Pashupata Shaivism, two of the eighteen siddha of southern Shaktism, Bogar and Pulipani, were ethnically Chinese.[340]: 133–134 Shaktism itself was practised in China in the Tang period.[340]: 135
The effect of Hinduism in China is also evident in various gods, originally of Hindu origin, which have been absorbed into the Chinese folk religion. A glaring example is the god Hanuman, who gave rise to the Chinese god Hóuwáng (猴王 "Monkey King"), known as Sun Wukong in the Journey to the West.[340]: 135 In the last decades there has been a growth of modern, transnational forms of Hinduism in China: Yogic ("Yoga" is rendered as 瑜伽 Yújiā, literally the "Jade Maiden"), Tantric,[55]: 3 and Krishnaite groups (the Bhagavad Gita has been recently translated and published in China) have appeared in many urban centres including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Harbin.[341]
Manichaeism (摩尼教 Móníjiào or 明教 Míngjiào, "bright transmission") was introduced in China together with Christianity in the 7th century, by land from Central Asia and by sea through south-eastern ports.[9]: 127 Based on Gnostic teachings and able to adapt to different cultural contexts, the Manichaean religion spread rapidly both westward to the Roman Empire and eastward to China. Historical sources speak of the religion being introduced in China in 694, though this may have happened much earlier.[343] Manichaeans in China at the time held that their religion was first brought to China by Mōzak under Emperor Gaozong of Tang (650–83). Later, the Manichaean bishop Mihr-Ohrmazd, who was Mōzak's pupil, also came to China, where he was granted an audience by empress Wu Zetian (684–704), and according to later Buddhist sources he presented at the throne the Erzongjing ("Text of the Two Principles") that became the most popular Manichaean scripture in China.[344]
Manichaeism had a bad reputation among Tang dynasty authorities, who regarded it as an erroneous form of Buddhism. However, as a religion of the Western peoples (Bactrians, Sogdians) it was not outlawed, provided that it remained confined to them not spreading among Chinese. In 731 a Manichaean priest was asked by the current Chinese emperor to make a summary of Manichaean religious doctrines, so that he wrote the Compendium of the Teachings of Mani, the Awakened One of Light, rediscovered at Dunhuang by Aurel Stein (1862–1943); in this text Mani is interpreted as an incarnation of Laozi.[344] As time went on, Manichaeism conflicted with Buddhism but appears to have had good relations with the Taoists; an 8th-century version of the Huahujing, a Taoist work polemical towards Buddhism, holds the same view of the Manichaean Compendium, presenting Mani as Laozi's reincarnation among the Western barbarians.[345]
In the early 8th century, Manichaeism became the official religion of the Uyghur Khaganate. As Uyghurs were traditional allies of the Chinese, also supporting the Tang during the An Lushan Rebellion at the half of the century, the Tangs' attitude towards the religion relaxed and under the Uyghur Khaganate's patronage Manichaean churches prospered in Nanjing, Yangzhou, Jingzhou, Shaoxing and other places. When the Uyghur Khaganate was defeated by the Kyrgyz in 840, Manichaeism's fortune vanished as anti-foreign sentiment arose among the Chinese. Manichaean properties were confiscated, the temples were destroyed, the scriptures were burnt and the clergy was laicised, or killed, as was the case of seventy nuns who were executed at the Tang capital Chang'an.[345] In the same years all foreign religions were suppressed under Emperor Wuzong of Tang (840–846).
The religion never recovered from the persecutions, but it has persisted as a distinct syncretic, and underground movement at particularly in southeastern China. Manichaean sects historically have been known for resurfacing from their hiding from time to time, supporting peasant rebellions.[345] The Song dynasty (960–1279) continued to suppress Manichaeism as a subversive cult.[346] In 1120, a rebellion led by Fang La was believed to have been caused by Manichaeans, and widespread crackdown of unauthorised religious assemblies took place.[344] During the subsequent Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), foreign religions were generally granted freedom,[344] but the following Ming dynasty (1368–1644) renewed discriminations against them.[344] Despite this, small Manichaean communities are still active in modern China.[347] Manichaeism is thought to have exerted a strong influence on some of the currents of popular sects, such as that which gave rise to Xiantiandao.
Zoroastrianism (琐罗亚斯德教 Suǒluōyàsīdéjiào or 祆教 Xiānjiào, "Heaven worship teaching"; also named 波斯教 Bōsījiào, "Persian teaching"; also 拜火教 Bàihuǒjiào, "fire-worshippers' transmission"; also 白頭教 Báitóujiào, "old age teaching")[349][350]: 149 was first introduced in northern China in the 4th century, or even earlier, by the Sogdians, and it developed through three stages.[350]: 148–149 Some scholars provide evidences that would attest the existence of Zoroastrianism, or broader Iranian religion, in China, as early as the 2nd and 1st century BCE. Worship of Mithra was indeed performed at the court of Emperor Wu of Han (157-87 BCE).[350]: 149
The first phase of Zoroastrianism in China started in the Wei and Jin dynasties of the Northern and Southern dynasties' period (220–589), when Sogdian Zoroastrians advanced into China. They did not proselytise among Chinese, and from this period there are only two known fragments of Zoroastrian literature, both in Sogdian language. One of them is a translation of the Ashem Vohu recovered by Aurel Stein in Dunhuang and now preserved at the British Museum. The Tang dynasty (618–907) prohibited Chinese people to profess Zoroastrianism, so it remained primarily a religion of foreign residents. Before the An Lushan Rebellion (756–763), Sogdians and Chinese lived as segregated ethnic groups; however, after the rebellion intermarriage became common and the Sogdians were gradually assimilated by the Chinese.[350]: 150
In addition to the Sogdian Zoroastrians, after the fall of the Sasanid dynasty (651), through the 7th and 8th centuries Iranian Zoroastrians, including aristocrats and magi,[350]: 151 migrated to northern China.[350]: 148 Fleeing the Islamisation of Iran, they settled in the cities of Chang'an, Luoyang, Kaifeng, Yangzhou, Taiyuan and elsewhere.[349] In the Tang period it is attested that there were at least twenty-nine Zoroastrian fire temples in northern urban centres.[350]: 150 During the great purge of foreign religions under Emperor Wuzong of Tang also Zoroastrianism was target of suppression.
The second phase of Zoroastrianism in China was in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907–960), and saw the development of an indigenous Chinese Zoroastrianism that lasted until modern times. During this period, the gods of Sogdian Zoroastrianism were assimilated into the Chinese folk religion; Zoroastrian currents of the Chinese folk religion were increasingly practised by the Chinese and survived until the 1940s.[350]: 149 Chinese Zoroastrian temples were witnessed to be active in Hanyang, Hubei until those years.[350]: 153
The third phase started in the 18th century when Parsi merchants sailed from Mumbai to Macau, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Parsi cemeteries and fire temples were built in these coastal cities, in east China. The Parsis were expelled when the CCP rose to power in 1949.[350]: 149 A Parsi fire temple was built in Shanghai in 1866, and was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.[350]: 154 Starting in the 1980s there has been a new wave of Parsis settling in China.[350]: 155
In Classical Chinese, Zoroastrianism was first referred to as 胡天 Hútiān, which in the Wei-Jin period became the appellation of all northern nomads. In the early Tang, a new character was invented specifically for Zoroastrianism, 祆 xiān, meaning the "worship of Heaven". Curiously, in the Far East the Zoroastrians were regarded as "Heaven worshippers" rather than "fire worshippers" (in Japanese the name of the religion is Kenkyō, the same as in Chinese). At the time it was rare for the Chinese to create a character for a foreign religion, and this is an evidence of the effect of Zoroastrians in Tang Chinese society.[350]: 149
Between 1931 and 1945, with the establishment of the Japanese-controlled Manchukuo ("Manchu Country") in northeast China (Manchuria), many shrines of State Shinto (神社, Chinese: shénshè, Japanese: jinja) were established in the area.
They were part of the project of cultural assimilation of Manchuria into Japan, or Japanisation, the same policy that was being applied to Taiwan. With the end of the Second World War and of the Manchu Country (Manchukuo) in 1945, and the return of Manchuria to China under the Kuomintang, Shinto was abolished and the shrines were destroyed.
During Japanese rule also many Japanese new religions, or independent Shinto sects, proselytised in Manchuria establishing hundreds of congregations. Most of the missions belonged to the Omoto teaching, the Tenri teaching and the Konko teaching of Shinto.[351]
Presently, the PRC government officially promotes atheism,[4] and has engaged in antireligious campaigns.[8] Many churches, temples and mosques were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, which also criminalized the possession of religious texts.[352] Monks were also beaten or killed.[353] As such, China has the most atheists in the world.[354]
China has a history of schools of thought not relying upon conceptions of an absolute, or putting absolutes into question.[clarification needed] Mark Juergensmeyer observes that Confucianism itself is primarily pragmatic and humanist, in it the "thisworldliness" being the priority.[355] Given the differences between Western and Chinese concepts of "religion", Hu Shih stated in the 1920s what has been translated in Western terminology as "China is a country without religion and the Chinese are a people who are not bound by religious superstitions".[356]
The Classic of Poetry contains several catechistic poems in the Decade of Dang questioning the authority or existence of the God of Heaven. Later, philosophers such as Xun Zi, Fan Zhen, Han Fei, Zhang Zai, and Wang Fuzhi also criticised contemporaneous religious practices. During the efflorescence[peacock prose] of Buddhism in the Southern and Northern dynasties, Fan Zhen wrote On the Extinction of the Soul (神灭论; Shénmièlùn) to criticise ideas of body-soul dualism, samsara and karma. He wrote that the soul is merely an effect or function of the body, and that there is no soul without the body—after the death and destruction of the body.[357] He considered that cause-and-effect relationships claimed to be evidence of karma were merely the result of coincidence and bias. For this, he was exiled by Emperor Wu of Liang (502–549).
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) p. 13, reporting the results of the CGSS 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2011, and their average (fifth column of the first table).Subsequently, a new China was found on the basis of Communist ideology, i.e. atheism. Within the framework of this ideology, religion was treated as a 'contorted' world-view and people believed that religion would necessarily disappear at the end, along with the development of human society. A series of anti-religious campaigns was implemented by the Chinese Communist Party from the early 1950s to the late 1970s. As a result, in nearly 30 years between the beginning of the 1950s and the end of the 1970s, mosques (as well as churches and Chinese temples) were shut down and Imams involved in forced 're-education'.
Seeking a complete annihilation of religion, places of worship were shut down; temples, synagogues, churches, and mosques were destroyed; artifacts were smashed; sacred texts were burnt; and it was a criminal offence even to possess a religious artifact or sacred text. Atheism had long been the official doctrine of the Chinese Communist Party, but this new form of militant atheism made every effort to eradicate religion completely.
Yet in the first years after Liberation there were places in China where monasteries were destroyed, monks were beaten or killed, copies of the Buddhist canon were burned, and sacred images were melted down for their metal.
China tops the list of the world's least religious nations by far; it's followed by countries in Europe – about three fourth of all Swedish and Czech also said that they were either atheists or not religious. Although China's society has deep religious traditions, decades of Communist rule have installed a widespread atheistic materialism that still surprises many visitors.