Early Chinese Religion is an encyclopedic overview of Chinese religion from ca. 1250 BC–589 AD. It is an extraordinary source for the student of Chinese religion, whether a specialist or comparativist, offering an up-to-date survey of the sources for early Chinese religion—literary, epigraphic, and archeological—as well as of the modern literature about early Chinese religion.
The sources for the earliest Chinese religion are very limited: as Lagerwey and Kalinowski note in their introduction to volume 1: “From Robert Eno’s very careful account of the Shang ‘pantheon,’” they write, “we get our first lesson in sources: 60 per cent of all recovered oracle bones [which were used for divination] date to the reign of Wu-ding ([who reigned ] ca. 1250–1192 BC), and virtually all our knowledge of the Shang gods comes from his reign” (4). As their statement implies, while there is much that can be said about ancient Chinese religion, care must be taken not to make generalizations about Chinese religion in this period that cannot be supported by the evidence. There are also intriguing shifts in Chinese religion that can be seen in the Shang to Han periods: one major shift is the decline in prestige of the shamans, whose role is supplanted by other ritual and religious specialists. But there are other shifts as well, in addition to continuities that follow through to the modern period.
There is so much in these books that is useful to the folklorist that this reviewer is tempted to simply say that anyone interested in Chinese folk religion or mythology, or folk religion and mythology in general, should read these books. But it will be of more help to suggest where to start among the wealth of essays. Part One, Shang through Han, begins with a useful introduction by Lagerwey and Kalinowski (1-37) which highlights how these volumes and past studies of Chinese religion differ. Perhaps the most important difference is that these volumes are a "multidisciplinary endeavor" (1) drawing from a range of disciplines rather than the more limited approach of many of the traditional histories of Chinese religion: archeology and material culture, for instance, play a much more prominent role in these books than is often seen in histories of Chinese religion. Immediately following the introduction is Robert Eno’s "Shang State Religion and the Pantheon of the Oracle Texts" (41-102). Although Eno’s essay focuses on state religion, it goes beyond that to consider what we know of Shang religion and gods and how we know it. His essay is important both for the information he presents about Shang religion and the methodology used in discovering and explaining Shang religion. Mu-chou Poo surveys "Ritual and Ritual Texts in Early China" (281-313) in his contribution to the volume. Shamanism was an important aspect of Chinese religion in the period, and Fu-shih Lin offers an overview of what is known about these religious specialists in "The Image and Status of Shamans in Ancient China" (397-458). Mark Edward Lewis gives us a survey of ancient Chinese mythology and critique of previous scholarship in "The Mythology of Ancient China" (542-94). Much of what has been written on Chinese mythology has been overly speculative or too Western in its conceptions of what mythology is. There are only a few overtly mythological texts from early China, but as Edwards notes, "the belief that the limited number of accounts dealing with gods results from censorship hinges on taking the Greek and South Asian cases—where the distinction between gods and men is fixed and fundamental—as definitive of ‘mythology.’ For the entire historical period [in this volume], the boundary between gods and men in China was blurred and porous; the vast majority of the gods were dead men" (548). Two other general essays in Part One are worth special note to those approaching the books with little background in Chinese religion: Grégoire Espesset’s "Latter Han Religious Mass Movements and the Early Daoist Church" (1061-1102) is a useful survey of popular religious movements; and Li Jianmin offers an intriguing survey of the intersection of demonological beliefs and medicine in "They Shall Expel Demons: Etiology, the Medical Canon, and the Transformation of Medical Techniques before the Han" (1103-50).
Part Two, The Period of Division, opens with a long introduction by John Lagerwey that sets out the scope of the volumes and their connection to the previous two. "Although [The Period of Division] stands as a separate set," he writes, "they also presuppose cultural givens whose emergence was the heart of the story in Part One: a unified, qi-based cosmology; a space-time continuum built around the notion of ‘five phases’ and the related concepts of ‘resonance’ and ‘correlative thinking’; a history of elite reflection on ritual that led to a rejection of shamanism; a state sacrificial system in restless search of a supreme god, and which was also committed to sacrifices to the ancestors and local tutelary gods; a unified empire and set of five Confucian classics...; [and] the earliest evidence of local religion" (1). As with Part One, Part Two begins with the state religion, and, as in Part One, much of what is written about state religion has direct relevance to folklorists: one example is Fu-shih Lin’s essay on "Shamans and Politics" (275-319). Part Two, volume 2, is of special importance for students of folk religion, in particular the sections on spirits, rituals, and geography. Bai Bin’s essay, "Religious Beliefs as Reflected in the Funerary Record" (989-1074), opens the section and is followed by Mu-chou Poo’s "Images and Ritual Treatment of Dangerous Spirits" (1075-940), Hou Xudong’s "The Buddhist Pantheon" (1095-1168), and finally Stephen Bokenkamp’s "Daoist Pantheons" (1169-1203). The next section, "Rituals," has only two essays: Sylvie Hureau’s "Buddhist Rituals" (1207-44) and Lü Pengzhi’s "Daoist Rituals" (1245-1349). The final section also has only two essays: James Robson’s "Buddhist Sacred Geography" (1353-1397) and Gil Raz’s "Daoist Sacred Geography" (1399-1442). It is especially nice to see such thorough coverage of the Buddhist and Daoist pantheons, rituals, and sacred geography: the belief that Buddhism and Daoism lack these things is a misconception still widely encountered among Western scholars and students.
Early Chinese Religion is an extraordinary achievement. At once a summa of what we know about early Chinese religion, a critique of previous views, and an occasionally radical reimagining of early Chinese religion, it can function both as a reference work and as an introduction to the state of the art in the study of early Chinese religion. For the student of Chinese religion, of comparative religion, and of folk religion, it is a work of fundamental importance.
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[Review length: 1095 words • Review posted on April 20, 2011]