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Tonight I've finished reading Way and Byway, Taoism, Local Religion and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern China by Robert Hymes. (A lot of reading has been finished in the past couple days) This book had so much information in it it's really hard to know where to start. It was challenging the basic assumption of Chinese religion that it was simply looked on as a celestial bureaucracy mimicking the earthly one. The author looked at a specific local religion cult, the three immortals of Hua-Kai during the southern Sung dynasty. How it was reasonable for local elite families at that time to want a religion that was local to their area and had less to do with the dynasty of the time. How the local religion differed from the Taoist teachings and how the two intersected. He proposed that there were two approaches to religion that could be taken. The traditional Taoist one of a bureaucratic hierarchy used mainly by professional clergy and a more personal religion used by lay-people, one where people were able to request and interact directly with their gods.
He then went on to look at how Taoism and local religions had been presented in modern anthropological and ethnographic studies. He seemed to show that several researchers had a bias towards the Taoists that presented their rituals in a certain light, however he put a different interpretation on the events, by showing that often the local people had their own view of what was going on, outside of the formal views presented, basically, the difference between clergy and lay people. One interesting point that got made was how in the past when people have said that they did not understand the Taoist rituals, it was seen as ignorance on their behalf and made the Taoists seem more important. Whereas Hymes suggested that in the society when such knowledge was beneath someone then they would profess not to know it, oh that, that is the job of the hired laborers, i know nothing of that. Changing the power from the Taoists to the people who hired them, and in reality pointing out the power struggle that was going on between them.
While challenging the bureaucratic model is controversial, (I definitely don't believe that you can give up the bureaucratic model when looking at Chinese religion) Hymes' arguments did have a compelling amount of sense to them. I believe that for religion to be successful it needs to have an amount of personal involvement in the lives of the people, beyond simply rituals and rules. My favorite part of the book was actually a quote from Emily Ahern's work Chinese Ritual and Politics. I'm going to quote some of it here as I found it so compelling.
I feel like there was an awful lot to absorb in this book and I haven't even gotten close to doing it yet. Especially as it's now 4am and I feel a bit brain dead. But it was such an interesting read that I thought I should share.
He then went on to look at how Taoism and local religions had been presented in modern anthropological and ethnographic studies. He seemed to show that several researchers had a bias towards the Taoists that presented their rituals in a certain light, however he put a different interpretation on the events, by showing that often the local people had their own view of what was going on, outside of the formal views presented, basically, the difference between clergy and lay people. One interesting point that got made was how in the past when people have said that they did not understand the Taoist rituals, it was seen as ignorance on their behalf and made the Taoists seem more important. Whereas Hymes suggested that in the society when such knowledge was beneath someone then they would profess not to know it, oh that, that is the job of the hired laborers, i know nothing of that. Changing the power from the Taoists to the people who hired them, and in reality pointing out the power struggle that was going on between them.
While challenging the bureaucratic model is controversial, (I definitely don't believe that you can give up the bureaucratic model when looking at Chinese religion) Hymes' arguments did have a compelling amount of sense to them. I believe that for religion to be successful it needs to have an amount of personal involvement in the lives of the people, beyond simply rituals and rules. My favorite part of the book was actually a quote from Emily Ahern's work Chinese Ritual and Politics. I'm going to quote some of it here as I found it so compelling.
"I asked a sample of Chinese villagers which human relationship most resembles between man and god...I was startled to find that the choice was invariably child- parent. "Parents teach their children to do good and the gods do the same. If you were sick your parents would want to help you. The gods are the same. As long as you do good deeds and respect them they will exert their strength to the utmost to help. Parents will do likewise if you are obedient and good."
When talking about offering gifts to gods not being like offering bribes to people (police) they said, "gods are not like that. It is not that the more things you do for them the more they will help you. It is only necessary to do good deeds and burn three sticks of incense and they will be enormously happy. A god is a being with a very upright heart he is fair and just rewarding without favoritism... A good friend will help you even if you bring nothing."
I feel like there was an awful lot to absorb in this book and I haven't even gotten close to doing it yet. Especially as it's now 4am and I feel a bit brain dead. But it was such an interesting read that I thought I should share.