Chinese Religion: An Overview

1. Chinese Religion: An Overview

2. Language and Cosmology • The Cosmological Resonances of “Civilization”: Texts Writ Large • Comparative Cosmology: The Order of Creation

3. A Diverse Spoken Language Chinese dialects • Cantonese and other regional dialects (8 / 26 / 8,000 ?) • "Mandarin" Chinese:  the "common" dialect 普通話 (putong hua)

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5. A Common Written Language Written Chinese Xiang 漢字 Hakka 漢字 漢字 漢字 Cantonese Minbei Wu 漢字 漢字 Gan 漢字 Mandarin Minnan 漢字 English Spanish French Italian 漢字 Portuguese Latin

6. Written Chinese The Myth of Cang Jie 倉頡 (minister to the Yellow Emperor) “observing the footprints of birds and beasts” ... 文 culture writing civility discovering “culture” in “cosmos” Sculpted bronze figure, Library of Congress , 1939

7. The Pictographic Origins of Chinese Characters Oracle bones from about 1400 BCE

8. Pictographs Ideographs Lexigraphs: Meaning-meaning Combinations Phonetic Lexigraphs: Sound-meaning Combinations Typology of Chinese Characters

9. 1. Pictographs 日ri sun/day 月yue moon/month 田tian field 口kou mouth 水shui water 人ren person

10. 2. Ideographs 上shang up/above 下xia down/below 中zhong middle/center 一yi one 二er two 三san three 凹ao concave 凸 tu convex

11. 3. Lexigraphs: Meaning-meaning Combinations 日 (sun) + 月 (moon) is 明 (bright) 女 (woman) + 子 (child) is 好 (good) 乃 (breast) + 子 (child) is 孕 (pregnant) 手 (hand) over 目 (eye) is 看 (look) 手 (hand) with 手 (hand) is 拜 (worship) 人 (person) in the 山 (mountain) is 仙 (immortal) Three 木 (trees) is a 森 (forest) Three 蟲 (insects) in a 血 (bowl) makes 蠱 (poison) When you die, thousands of bugs stream from your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth! -- especially used by wives and other (bureaucratic) subordinates

12. 4. Phonetic Lexigraphs: Sound-meaning Combinations 水 (water) + 羊 (yang) is 洋 (ocean) 火 (fire) + 登 (deng) is 燈 (lamp) 金 (metal) + 同 (tong) is 銅 (copper) 雨 (rain) + 允 (yun) is 雲 (cloud)

13. Kangxi Zidian 康熙字典 Character Dictionary of the Kangxi Reign Period (1716) 49,030 characters

14. Chinese Romanization Systems of romanization: (representation of a word or language with the Roman [i.e. Latin] alphabet)

15. Advantages of a Pictographic System? • in the face of dialectical diversity • in the face of geographical extent • in the face of temporal/historical scope

16. Note: What you need to know for the first exam General Concepts and Ideas (partial list) • de 德 (power, virtue in Confucian sense) • Tian-ming 天命 (the Mandate of Heaven) • three obediences (women’s roles) • xin 信 (reliability, trustworthiness) Chinese Characters for Recognition (partial list) • 禮 li (rites, propriety)        • 仁 ren (co-humanity, kindness, benevolence) • 孝 xiao (filial piety) • 恕 shu (reciprocity) • 天 Tian (Heaven)                                       You can find the entire list on T-Learn: Unit I:  Chinese Religions Term List Unit I Terms

17. Note: What you need to know for the first exam General Concepts and Ideas (partial list) • de 德 (power, virtue in Confucian sense) • Tian-ming 天命 (the Mandate of Heaven) • three obediences (women’s roles) • xin 信 (reliability, trustworthiness) Chinese Characters for Recognition (partial list) 禮 li (rites, propriety)        仁 ren (co-humanity, kindness, benevolence) 孝 xiao (filial piety) 恕 shu (reciprocity) 天 Tian (Heaven)     

18. Note: What you need to know for the first exam General Concepts and Ideas (partial list) • de 德 (power, virtue in Confucian sense) • Tian-ming 天命 (the Mandate of Heaven) • three obediences (women’s roles) • xin 信 (reliability, trustworthiness) Chinese Characters for Recognition (partial list) • 禮 li (rites, propriety)      • 仁 ren (co-humanity, kindness, benevolence) • 孝 xiao (filial piety) • 恕 shu (reciprocity) • 天 Tian (Heaven) 

19. II. Comparative Cosmology: The Order of Creation Cosmogonic MythsWestern and Chinese

20. Myth • A traditional story, typically involving supernatural beings or forces, which embodies and provides an explanation, etiology, or justification for something such as the early history of a society, a religious belief or ritual, or a natural phenomenon. • A widespread but untrue or erroneous story or belief; a widely held misconception; a misrepresentation of the truth. “myth”: narrative expression of cultural values

21. “cosmology” vs. “cosmogony” 1. The –logy vs. the –gony of the cosmos Gk. “discourse” vs. “begetting” • universality of cosmogonic myths • diversity in relative importance of cosmogonic myths 2. Creation: Bringing Form to Chaos

22. The Western Cosmogonic Myth

23. Quiz: The Order of Creation In the book of Genesis, a cosmogonic myth describing the creation of the world in six days is recounted. What was created each day, and in what order? 1 2 3 4 5 6 Extra credit: In a different version of the myth (Genesis 2), the first two humans are named. Who are they? ________________________________________

24. Quiz: The Order of Creation • In the book of Genesis, a cosmogonic myth describing the creation of the world in six days is recounted. What was created each day, and in what order? • light • water/land • vegetation • heavens • animals • humankind • Extra credit: Adam and Eve ________________________________________

25. “God separated the light from the darkness” (Genesis 1:4) “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters … God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas” (Genesis 1:6, 10) God separatedseed-bearing plants from fruit-bearing plants (Genesis 1:12) separation of light from darkness (Genesis 1:14) as well as the light of the day (the sun) from the light of the night (the moon) (Genesis 1:16) God distinguished between creatures of the air and creatures of the sea God distinguished between creatures of the land and humans the separation of male and female in Adam and Eve Creation as Separation/Distinction 1. light 2. water/land 3. vegetation 4. heavens 5. animals 6. humankind

26. The Chinese from Patterns of Faith Around the World by Wilfred Cantwell Smith   “Conflict Dualism” We in the West are familiar with [a] type of dualism, which we may callconflict dualism. In this, two basic forces are in collision, as opposites that struggle and clash: good and evil, right and wrong, black and white, true and false. This type of dualism ... found its way into the Jewish, Christian, and the Islamic traditions... In our religious traditions a Devil, over against God, was long accepted; Heaven and Hell are postulated; and the saved and the damned, the sheep and the goats... [A] final unity, whether synthesis or ultimate triumph of one side, is envisaged; but meanwhile the world is analyzed in bi-polar terms. For two and a half thousand years the Near East and the Western world have either postulated or sympathized with acosmic conflict dualism; or, in a dichotomy of less antagonism, witha dualism of opposition. If not God and the Devil, at least God and the world, man and nature, matter and spirit, either/or. The West as 对抗文化[duìkàng wénhuà]

27. “quiescent yin” “active yang” The “five phases”: earth, water, metal, fire, wood The Chinese Cosmogonic Myth “The dao of femininity birthed women” “The dao of masculinity birthed men” and gave birth-through-transformation to the ten thousand things

28. The Chinese Cosmogonic MythFrom the Huai-nan-zi (Han Dynasty) light (yang 陽) qi 氣-- fire, sun, stars, summer 道 Unfolding of the Dao from Primordial Chaos Creation as Continuous Unfolding 混沌 Hun-dun (chaos) heavy (yin 陰) qi 氣 – water, moon, winter

29. The Chinese Creation Myth (Key Terms) Hun-dun (Chaos) Qi/Ch’I (Breath, Steam, Pneuma) Dao/Tao (Way or Path) Yin (Potentiality of Dark: Receptivity) Yang (Potentiality of Light: Activity)

30. The Chinese Creation Myth (Key Terms) Hun-dun (Chaos) Qi/Ch’I (Breath, Steam, Pneuma) Dao/Tao (Way or Path) Yin (Potentiality of Dark: Receptivity) Yang (Potentiality of Light: Activity)

31. Hun-dun (Chaos) 混 to mix 沌 confused, turbid 氵water radical Won-ton Soup

33. Qi/Ch’i (Breath, Steam, Pneuma)

34. Contrasts between Judeo-Christian and Chinese Cosmogonic Myths

35. Judeo-Christian Orientations • anthropomorphism • anthropocentrism • mechanistic model • conflict dualism

36. Chinese Orientations • non-anthropomorphism • non-anthropocentrism • organistic model • complement dualism

37. “Complement Dualism,” Yin-Yang and Chinese Religious Pluralism (based on Wilfred Cantwell Smith) “The symbol itself represents and affirms the harmoniousholding together of contrastsin a balanced synthesis, the integrating of divergence into a rounded whole.”

38. Yang Confucianism Yin Taoism The Chinese Religious System: A non-exclusive (complementary) religious whole “In light of Chinese cosmology, are Confucianism and Taoism “two religions,” or are they opposing alternatives within a single religious tradition? From a Chinese cultural perspective, Confucianism and Taoism are opposing but complementary aspects of the unifying Dao or “Path” of religious cultivation. Most Chinese are, to one extent or another, “both” Confucian “and” Taoist, and very few are exclusively one or the other. So, describing Confucianism and Taoism as the “two religions” indigenous to China, and further identifying their “branches,” distorts the actual practice of religion in China.” R. Nadeau, Confucianism and Taoism (Greenwood Press, 2006), p. 125

39. … as cultural ideal “Harmony” 和 (he) …