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I just finished reading The Spirits Are Drunk: Comparative Approaches to Chinese Religion by Jordan Paper. This was NOT a book recommended to me by my professor. I found it at the UW library while I was looking up other books, and it had a neat title so I thought I'd get it. I later discovered it was on the list of required books for the masters program I want to take and so very excitedly decided that I should read it next.
I hate to say it but this was by far the WORST book on Chinese religion that I have read to date. I have no idea why it is on the list. I think I'm going to inquire. Perhaps I missed something, but it just really seemed like bad scholarship to me. To start with he used practically no original texts to support any of his arguments. Even when he did use original texts, it was always someone else's translation, and he had no original analysis of them. When he wanted to prove points he always used secondary scholarship, and often these were simply his own previous studies. This quickly became very frustrating and put the book at a much lower level than others I had been reading.
He seemed to have very little grasp of the history involved with what he was talking about. He'd frequently make statements that were just blatantly wrong. And forget to include periods of hundreds of years. For example talking of the changes in the elite from a "hereditary land system to an examination based system" when there was a gap of approximately 700 years between the two. He also jumped at one point a 1000 years in time. After having talked about the Zhou, and a little bit about the Han for 3 chapters, suddenly he mentioned the Song, without referring to it by name, or date. I found it a really frustrating book in so many ways.
His basic idea was to look at Chinese religion and compare it with native American (north American) religion, as an alternate to western (in his mind strictly modern Christianity) religion. Not a bad idea however in his excitement to show similarities between the two he made, what I consider, to be some seriously bad logical judgments. This started in his early analysis of Zhou and Shang bronzes, when he stated that in "hunting cultures..." to prove his point. When during the time period he was referring to China had been an agricultural culture for approximately a 1000 years. Later he was looking at the different female deities in China. (he seemed very reluctant to look at the influence of Buddhism in China and just sort of took everything as one "Chinese" religion). And argued that Heaven was principally a male deity, and earth was purely a female deity. Taking the Native American beliefs of "father sky and mother earth" and applying them whole to Chinese beliefs. He said that even though some Gods of the mountains were referred to as male, this was clearly mistaken, and that although some female deities were referred to as being in the sky, this really wasn't their true domain. His discussions of the mountain sacrifices were a bizzare interpretation that didn't really agree with any of the more studious, and supported arguments I'd read. He also talked of how women were the deities in charge of the lakes and seas, which is the typical domain of the dragons, something he acknowledged 3 chapters previously as a symbol of supreme male power. He also talked of the "patriarchalization" of Chinese deities and how it failed. Arguing that it went from an equal situation, to one where women were more oppressed. This however is strictly in contradiction with everything I've read. We have texts from Zhou China saying that it is better to have sons than daughters as sons can help with the ancestral rites and daughters can't. This is the entire reasoning, as I understand it, behind China's patriarchal culture. He talks of women participating equally in possession rites, but no where does he support this idea, which is contrary to traditional beliefs, with any evidence whatsoever. Also I fail to see how it could be viewed as "patriarchalization" of religion, when as time went by more deities were changed from being viewed as male to being viewed as female. Guan Yin, being the prime, and by far the most popular example of this.
While spending a great deal of the book looking at early Zhou and Han religious practices, he didn't mention much about yin and yang, and really nothing about the Five Phases, very important ideas at the time. In fact he seemed to shy away from any ideas about cosmology altogether.
His arguments about Shang and Zhou culture seemed to stem from only a brief interpretation of what he saw as significant in the bronzes found. (At one point he pinned his arguments on one specific and unique bronze, which he said Keightly had told him was kind of a weak thing to do). His argument about early religious ritual was that because the bronzes were food carriers, then the entire point of the ceremonies was to feed the gods. His idea was that all early religious ceremonies involved a large feast, when someone (an elite of either gender) would become possessed. He seemed to completely ignore the oracle bones. Sacrifices were not strictly to feed the God, there was a vast amount of Human Sacrifice in this period, something he doesn't mention once, and I doubt that these Gods were considered cannibals which would be the case if as he claims all sacrifices were not meant to be eaten. Something not at all supported by the evidence.
He spent two chapters looking at the shamanistic approaches of early Chinese religion, however, unlike Chang, he never really set out what these beliefs were. And though he claimed there was an ecstatic tradition, he never offered any proof of that at all. Something which, as his main argument, would seem to be necessary to support the book. Despite really liking Chang's work on the subject, which was much more detailed and supported, I'm beginning to see why Puett argued that most of the writing on the Shamanistic aspects of ancient Chinese religion was hardly proved.
One chapter was interesting, that was a brief look at the history of ink stones and seals. He relied far less on other scholarship in this chapter, analyzed much more of the actual evidence, and wrote a nice concise history of their use. (Though did fail a little to point out their intrinsic mythic and religious significance which was his entire point of the chapter)
He also had some interesting views on modern Chinese religion that were all fairly interesting. Though sporadic.
In the end his arguments against Christianity as he saw the "Western" viewpoint of Chinese religion were as annoying as the earlier chapters. He argued that Western view of Chinese religion came from Ricci's 16th century mistakes, (something I doubt was studied greatly by most missionaries, particularly the protestants going in to China 100-150 years ago!) And ignored the influence of the Dutch completely. He seemed to totally ignore all western origins of Greece and Rome. Particularly the fact that the West had a polytheistic culture the same time as the period of China he was mostly studying. Hence all the studies that have been done comparing Ancient China with Ancient Greece. He argued about the "western idea of separation of church and state" a very modern ideas, when using it to compare to the history of religion in China, as during much of that history in Europe they were experiencing the same, if not greater, influence of the church.
I can't really recommend this book, it annoyed me so much. I don't think I would have bothered to finish it if it weren't for the fact that it was on the reading list. I'm just dying to find out from Professor Ebrey, and the professor at SOAS, what might be considered good about it. Perhaps it's just there to have something to contrast and argue against. But I am very much looking forward to those discussions.
I hate to say it but this was by far the WORST book on Chinese religion that I have read to date. I have no idea why it is on the list. I think I'm going to inquire. Perhaps I missed something, but it just really seemed like bad scholarship to me. To start with he used practically no original texts to support any of his arguments. Even when he did use original texts, it was always someone else's translation, and he had no original analysis of them. When he wanted to prove points he always used secondary scholarship, and often these were simply his own previous studies. This quickly became very frustrating and put the book at a much lower level than others I had been reading.
He seemed to have very little grasp of the history involved with what he was talking about. He'd frequently make statements that were just blatantly wrong. And forget to include periods of hundreds of years. For example talking of the changes in the elite from a "hereditary land system to an examination based system" when there was a gap of approximately 700 years between the two. He also jumped at one point a 1000 years in time. After having talked about the Zhou, and a little bit about the Han for 3 chapters, suddenly he mentioned the Song, without referring to it by name, or date. I found it a really frustrating book in so many ways.
His basic idea was to look at Chinese religion and compare it with native American (north American) religion, as an alternate to western (in his mind strictly modern Christianity) religion. Not a bad idea however in his excitement to show similarities between the two he made, what I consider, to be some seriously bad logical judgments. This started in his early analysis of Zhou and Shang bronzes, when he stated that in "hunting cultures..." to prove his point. When during the time period he was referring to China had been an agricultural culture for approximately a 1000 years. Later he was looking at the different female deities in China. (he seemed very reluctant to look at the influence of Buddhism in China and just sort of took everything as one "Chinese" religion). And argued that Heaven was principally a male deity, and earth was purely a female deity. Taking the Native American beliefs of "father sky and mother earth" and applying them whole to Chinese beliefs. He said that even though some Gods of the mountains were referred to as male, this was clearly mistaken, and that although some female deities were referred to as being in the sky, this really wasn't their true domain. His discussions of the mountain sacrifices were a bizzare interpretation that didn't really agree with any of the more studious, and supported arguments I'd read. He also talked of how women were the deities in charge of the lakes and seas, which is the typical domain of the dragons, something he acknowledged 3 chapters previously as a symbol of supreme male power. He also talked of the "patriarchalization" of Chinese deities and how it failed. Arguing that it went from an equal situation, to one where women were more oppressed. This however is strictly in contradiction with everything I've read. We have texts from Zhou China saying that it is better to have sons than daughters as sons can help with the ancestral rites and daughters can't. This is the entire reasoning, as I understand it, behind China's patriarchal culture. He talks of women participating equally in possession rites, but no where does he support this idea, which is contrary to traditional beliefs, with any evidence whatsoever. Also I fail to see how it could be viewed as "patriarchalization" of religion, when as time went by more deities were changed from being viewed as male to being viewed as female. Guan Yin, being the prime, and by far the most popular example of this.
While spending a great deal of the book looking at early Zhou and Han religious practices, he didn't mention much about yin and yang, and really nothing about the Five Phases, very important ideas at the time. In fact he seemed to shy away from any ideas about cosmology altogether.
His arguments about Shang and Zhou culture seemed to stem from only a brief interpretation of what he saw as significant in the bronzes found. (At one point he pinned his arguments on one specific and unique bronze, which he said Keightly had told him was kind of a weak thing to do). His argument about early religious ritual was that because the bronzes were food carriers, then the entire point of the ceremonies was to feed the gods. His idea was that all early religious ceremonies involved a large feast, when someone (an elite of either gender) would become possessed. He seemed to completely ignore the oracle bones. Sacrifices were not strictly to feed the God, there was a vast amount of Human Sacrifice in this period, something he doesn't mention once, and I doubt that these Gods were considered cannibals which would be the case if as he claims all sacrifices were not meant to be eaten. Something not at all supported by the evidence.
He spent two chapters looking at the shamanistic approaches of early Chinese religion, however, unlike Chang, he never really set out what these beliefs were. And though he claimed there was an ecstatic tradition, he never offered any proof of that at all. Something which, as his main argument, would seem to be necessary to support the book. Despite really liking Chang's work on the subject, which was much more detailed and supported, I'm beginning to see why Puett argued that most of the writing on the Shamanistic aspects of ancient Chinese religion was hardly proved.
One chapter was interesting, that was a brief look at the history of ink stones and seals. He relied far less on other scholarship in this chapter, analyzed much more of the actual evidence, and wrote a nice concise history of their use. (Though did fail a little to point out their intrinsic mythic and religious significance which was his entire point of the chapter)
He also had some interesting views on modern Chinese religion that were all fairly interesting. Though sporadic.
In the end his arguments against Christianity as he saw the "Western" viewpoint of Chinese religion were as annoying as the earlier chapters. He argued that Western view of Chinese religion came from Ricci's 16th century mistakes, (something I doubt was studied greatly by most missionaries, particularly the protestants going in to China 100-150 years ago!) And ignored the influence of the Dutch completely. He seemed to totally ignore all western origins of Greece and Rome. Particularly the fact that the West had a polytheistic culture the same time as the period of China he was mostly studying. Hence all the studies that have been done comparing Ancient China with Ancient Greece. He argued about the "western idea of separation of church and state" a very modern ideas, when using it to compare to the history of religion in China, as during much of that history in Europe they were experiencing the same, if not greater, influence of the church.
I can't really recommend this book, it annoyed me so much. I don't think I would have bothered to finish it if it weren't for the fact that it was on the reading list. I'm just dying to find out from Professor Ebrey, and the professor at SOAS, what might be considered good about it. Perhaps it's just there to have something to contrast and argue against. But I am very much looking forward to those discussions.