History of Religious Ideas, Volume 2

From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity

Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780226027357
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In volume 2 of this monumental work, Mircea Eliade continues his magisterial progress through the history of religious ideas. The religions of ancient China, Brahmanism and Hinduism, Buddha and his contemporaries, Roman religion, Celtic and German religions, Judaism, the Hellenistic period, the Iranian syntheses, and the birth of Christianity—all are encompassed in this volume.

Present Position of Studies:
Problems and Progress.
Critical Bibliographies

Chapter 16. The Religions of Ancient China

126. Especially deserving of mention among the numerous studies of the prehistoric cultures of China are: William Watson, Early Civilization in China (London, 1966), an excellent introduction; Li Chi, The Beginnings of Chinese Civilization (Seattle and London, 1957; 2d ed., 1968); Cheng Tê-k’un, Archaeology in China, vol. 1, Prehistoric China (Cambridge, 1959); William Watson, Cultural Frontiers in Ancient East Asia (Edinburgh, 1971), especially the first chapter, “Neolithic Frontiers in East Asia” (pp. 9–37); Carl Hentze, Funde in Alt-China: Das Welterleben im ältesten China (Göttingen, 1967), which summarizes the author’s views presented in several earlier works; Ping-ti Ho, The Cradle of the East: An Inquiry into the Indigenous Origins of Techniques and Ideas of Neolithic and Early Historic China, 5000–1000 B.C. (Hong Kong and Chicago, 1975).

On the discovery of the Chinese Neolithic (the Yang Shao culture), see J. G. Anderson, Children of the Yellow Earth (London, 1934). In his recent work, Ho maintains the autochthonous origin of Chinese agriculture, metallurgy, and writing; see his Cradle of the East, esp. pp. 341 ff. For his part, Li Chi, in accord with other archeologists, brings out certain Western (i.e., Mesopotamian) influences in the iconography of Anyang (Beginnings of Chinese Civilization, pp. 26 ff.). In any case it is certain that Chinese culture, like all other cultures, was progressively enriched by ideas and techniques that were Western, Nordic, or Meridional in origin. On the other hand, as has often been stated, China is “a window toward the Pacific,” and the influence of the Chinese cosmological symbolism and its artistic expressions can be discerned in the religious art of certain peoples of Borneo, Sumatra, and New Zealand, as well as among the tribes of the northwest coast of America. See, inter alia, two studies of art in the Pacific area: Mino Badner, “The Protruding Tongue and Related Motifs in the Art Style of the American Northwestern Coast, New Zealand, and China,” and Robert Heine-Geldern, “A Note on Relations between the Art Style of the Maori and of Ancient China,” both published in Wiener Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik 15 (Vienna, 1966); see also Douglas Fraser, ed., Early Chinese Art and the Pacific Basin: A Photographic Exhibition (New York, 1968).

On the religious conceptions, see Hermann Koster, “Zur Religion in der chinesischen Vorgeschichte,” Monumenta Serica 14 (1949–55): 188–214; Ping-ti Ho, The Cradle, pp. 279 ff.; Bernhard Karlgren, “Some Fecundity Symbols in Ancient China,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 2 (Stockholm, 1930), pp. 1–54; Carl Hentze, Funde in Alt-China, pp. 20 ff., 219 ff.; Hentze, Bronzegerät, Kultbauten, und Religion im ältesten China der Shang-Zeit (Antwerp, 1951); and Hentze, Das Haus als Weltort der Seele (Stuttgart, 1961). On the “death pattern,” see Hanna Rydh, “Symbolism in Mortuary Ceramics,” BMFEA, no. 1 (Stockholm, 1929), pp. 71–121.

127. On the Chinese Bronze Age cultures, see Cheng Tê-k’un, Archaeology in China, vol. 2, Shang China (Cambridge, 1960); Kwang Chih Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China, pp. 185–225; and Watson, Cultural Frontiers in Ancient East Asia, pp. 38 ff. (esp. pp. 42 ff.).

On religious ideas, see Herlee G. Creel, The Birth of China: A Study of the Formative Period of Chinese Civilization (New York, 1937), pp. 174–216; Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China, pp. 251 ff.; Cheng Tê-k’un, Archaeology in China, vol. 2, pp. 213 ff.; Hentze, Bronzegerät, Kultbauten, und Religion; W. Eichhorn, “Zur Religion im ältesten China,” Wiener Zeitschrift für indische Philosophie 2 (1958): 33–53; F. Tiberi, “Der Ahnenkult in China,” Annali del Pontificio Museo Missionario Etnologico 27 (1963): 283–475; Ping-ti Ho, Cradle, pp. 289 ff.; Tsung-tung Chang, Der Kult der Shang Dynastie im Spiegel der Orakelinschriften: Eine paläographische Studie zur Religion im archäischen China (Wiesbaden, 1970) (cf. the critique by Paul L. M. Serruys, “Studies in the Language of the Shang Oracle Inscriptions,” T’oung Pao 60 [1974]: 12–120); M. Christian Deydier, Les Jiaguwen: Essai bibliographique et synthèse des études (Paris, 1976) (divinatory inscriptions on bone and on tortoise shells); David N. Keightley, “The Religious Commitment: Shang Theology and the Genesis of Chinese Political Culture,” HR 17 (1978): 211–25.

On scapulamancy, see Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trans. Willard R. Trask, Bollingen Series 76 (Princeton, 1972), p. 164, n. 97 (bibliography).

On the symbolism of the t’ao-t’ieh mask, see the works by Carl Hentze, especially Bronzegerät . . . der Shang-Zeit, pp. 215 ff., Funde in Alt-China, pp. 171 ff., 195 ff., and “Antithetische T’ao-t’ieh-motive,” IPEK 23 (1970/73): 1–20.

No less significant is the symbolism of the cicada. Since its larva comes out of the ground (hence, it is a symbol of obscurity), the cicada is an emblem of resurrection; this is why it is put in the mouth of the corpse; see Carl Hentze, Frühchinesischen Bronzen und Kultdarstellungen (Antwerp, 1937), pp. 37 ff. Stylized delineations of cicadas are engraved on the tongue of the t’ao-t’ieh mask, the demon of darkness that created light and life (ibid., pp. 66 ff.).

128. On Chou culture, see Ch’eng Tê-k’un, Archaeology in China, vol. 3, Chou China (Cambridge, 1963); Kwang-Chih Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China, pp. 256 ff., 263 ff.

On religion in the Chou period, see Ping-ti Ho, Cradle, pp. 322 ff.; Hentze, Funde in Alt-China, pp. 218 ff., and the works cited in the following two paragraphs.

The “classic books” present a dozen names of the Supreme God, among which the most famous are Shang Ti (“The Lord on High”) and Huang Ti (“August Lord”). But at the basis of all these divine names are the appellatives Ti (Lord) and T’ien (Heaven). The celestial structure of the supreme god is evident: Shang Ti is all-seeing (Shih Ching 3. 1. 7. 1), he hears everything (5. 16. 3. 14); T’ien keeps watch over men (Shu Ching 4. 9. 1. 3), he sees and hears (3. 3. 5. 7), he is clairvoyant (Shih Ching 3. 3. 2. 11–12), his decree is infallible (Shu Ching 4. 3. 2. 5), he understands and observes everything (4. 8. 2. 3), etc. For translations of the Shu Ching, see vol. 3 of James Legge’s The Chinese Classics, 5 vols. (London, 1861–72), and Bernhard Karlgren Shu Ching: The Book of Documents (Stockholm, 1950).

On the cult of the supreme celestial god, see B. Schindler, “The Development of Chinese Conceptions of Supreme Beings,” Asia Major: Introductory Volume (1923), pp. 298–366; H. H. Dubs, “The Archaic Royal Jou Religion,” T’oung Pao 47 (1958): 217–59; and J. Shih, “The Notion of God in the Ancient Chinese Religion,” Numen 16 (1969): 99–138. According to Joseph Shih, Ti was a supreme god and T’ien a personal god. Under the Chou these two divine names were used indifferently to invoke the same god; see also, by the same author, “Il Dio Supremo,” in “La religione della Cina,” Storia delle Religioni 5 (Turin, 1971): 539 ff.

In contrast to what is the case with other religions, books on the general history of Chinese religion are few. The most useful ones are L. Wieger, Histoire des croyances religieuses et des opinions philosophiques en Chine depuis l’origine jusqu’ à nos jours (Hien-hien, 1917), a very personal work, to be consulted with caution; Jan J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, 6 vols. (Leiden, 1892–1910; reprinted Taipei, 1964), irreplaceable for its documentation; Marcel Granet, La religion des Chinois (Paris, 1922); Henri Maspéro, Mélanges post-humes, vol. 1: Les religions chinoises (Paris, 1950); C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society (Berkeley, 1967), an important work, though not a general history of Chinese religion; D. H. Smith, Chinese Religions (New York, 1968) (but see the review by Daniel Overmyer, HR 9 [1969–70]: 256–60); Laurence G. Thompson, Chinese Religion: An Introduction (Belmont, 1969), which chiefly presents religious ideas and practices after the Han; Werner Eichhorn, Die Religionen Chinas (Stuttgart, 1973), an admirable restatement; and Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, ed. Arthur P. Wolf (Stanford, 1974). A short but brilliant exposition has been provided by Max Kaltenmark, “La religion de la Chine antique” and “Le taoïsme religieux,” in Henri-Charles Puech, ed., Histoire des religions, vol. 1 (1970), pp. 927–57, 1216–48.

Pertinent analyses of Chinese religious beliefs and institutions occur in the books by Marcel Granet, Fêtes et chansons anciennes de la Chine (1919), Danses et légendes de la Chine ancienne (1926), and La pensée chinoise (1934). See also Henri Maspéro, La Chine antique (1927; new ed., 1955).

On the Earth Mother, see Berthold Laufer, Jade: A Study of Chinese Archaeology and Religion (Chicago: Field Museum, 1912), pp. 144 ff. (against these views, see B. Karlgren, “Some Fecundity Symbols in Ancient China,” pp. 14 ff.); Marcel Granet, “Le dépôt de l’enfant sur le sol: Rites anciens et ordalies mythiques,” Revue archéologique (1922), reprinted in the volume Etudes sociologiques sur la Chine (1953), pp. 159–202. According to Edouard Chavannes (Le T’ai Chan. Essai de monographie d’un culte chinois [Paris, 1910], esp. pp. 520–25), the personification of the Soil as a Great Earth Goddess would be a comparatively recent phenomenon: it seems to have taken place about the beginning of the Han dynasty, in the second century B.C.; before that date there would have been only local cults crystallized around gods of the soil (p. 437). But Granet has shown that these gods replaced very ancient feminine or “neuter” divinities who had preceded them. This is a widespread phenomenon; see Eliade, “La Terre-Mère et les hiérogamies cosmiques” (1953), published in English as “Mother Earth and the Cosmic Hierogamies,” in Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries: The Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities, trans. Philip Mairet (New York, 1960).

For a detailed analysis of the various provincial and marginal cultures that were integrated into Chinese culture, see Wolfram Eberhard, Kultur und Siedlung der Randvölker Chinas (supplement to vol. 36 of T’oung Pao [Leiden, 1942]); and Eberhard, Lokalkulturen im alten China, 2 vols. (vol. 1 was published as a supplement to vol. 37 of T’oung Pao [1943]; vol. 2 was published as Monumenta Serica, monograph no. 3 [Peking, 1943]). A corrected and enlarged version of the second volume of Lokalkulturen has been published under the title The Local Cultures of South and East China (Leiden, 1968).

On Chinese shamanism, see Eberhard, The Local Cultures, pp. 77 ff., 304 ff., 468 ff.; cf. Eliade, Shamanism, pp. 448 ff.; Joseph Thiel, “Schamanismus im alten China,” Sinologica 10 (1968): 149–204; John S. Major, “Research Priorities in the Study of Ch’u Religion,” HR 17 (1978): 226–43, esp. pp. 236 ff.

129. The most important cosmogonic texts have been translated by Max Kaltenmark, “La naissance du monde en Chine,” in Sources Orientales, vol. 1: La naissance du monde (Paris, 1959), pp. 453–68. The problem of Chinese mythology, especially that of cosmogonic myths, has been discussed, from different viewpoints, by these authors: Henri Maspéro, “Légendes mythologiques dans le Chou King,” JA 204 (1924): 1–100; Bernhard Karlgren, “Legends and Cults of Ancient China,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 18 (1946), pp. 199–365 (irreplaceable for its rich documentation, but see the critique of Karlgren’s method in the review by W. Eberhard, Artibus Asiae 9 [1946]: 355–64); Derk Bodde, “Myths of Ancient China,” in S. N. Kramer, ed., Mythologies of the Ancient World (New York, 1961), pp. 369–408; J. Shih, “The Ancient Chinese Cosmogony,” Studia Missionalia 18 (1969); 111–30; N. J. Girardot, “The Problem of Creation Mythology in the Study of Chinese Religion,” HR 15 (1976): 289–318 (critical analysis of some recent approaches).

On the myth of P’an Ku, see Maspéro, “Légendes mythologiques,” pp. 47 ff.; Edouard Erkes, “Spuren chinesischer Weltschöpfungsmythen,” T’oung Pao 28 (1931): 355–68; Eberhard, The Local Cultures, pp. 442–43; Bodde, “Myths of Ancient China,” pp. 382 ff.; Girardot, “The Problem of Creation Mythology,” pp. 298 ff.

On the cutting of communications between Earth and Heaven, see Maspéro, “Légendes mythologiques,” pp. 95–96; Maspéro, Les religions chinoises, pp. 186 ff.; Bodde, “Myths of Ancient China,” pp. 389 ff.; and Eliade, Myths, Dre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 16. The Religions of Ancient China
• 17. Brahmanism and Hinduism: The First Philosophies and Techniques of Salvation
• 18. The Buddha and His Contemporaries
• 19. The Message of the Buddha: From the Terror of the Eternal Return to the Bliss of the Inexpressible
• 20. Roman Religion: From Its Origins to the Prosecution of the Bacchanals (ca. 186)
• 21. Celts, Germans, Thracians, and Getae
• 22. Orpheus, Pythagoras, and the New Eschatology
• 23. The History of Buddhism from Mahākāśyapa to Nāgārjuna. Jainism after Mahāvīra
• 24. The Hindu Synthesis: The Mahābhārata and the Bhagavad Gītā
• 25. The Ordeals of Judaism: From Apocalypse to Exaltation of the Torah
• 26. Syncretism and Creativity in the Hellenistic Period: The Promise of Salvation
• 27. New Iranian Syntheses
• 28. The Birth of Christianity
• 29. Paganism, Christianity, and Gnosis in the Imperial Period
• 30. The Twilight of the Gods
• List of Abbreviations
• Present Position of Studies: Problems and Progress. Critical Bibliographies
• Notes
• Index