A World of Their Own: Daoist Monks and Their Community in Contemporary China 1365537528, 9781365537523

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A WORLD OF  THEIR OWN  Daoist Monks and Their Community  in Contemporary China 

ADELINE HERROU 

Three Pines Press

Three Pines Press P. O. Box 530416 St. Petersburg, FL 33747 www.threepinespress.com © 2013 by Adeline Herrou All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. 9

87654321

Originally published as La vie entre soi: Les moines taoïstes aujurd’hui en Chine (Nanterre: Société d’Ethnologie, 2005). Translated by Livia Kohn. First Three Pines Press Edition, 2013 Printed in the United States of America This edition is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standard Institute Z39.48 Standard. Distributed in the United States by Three Pines Press. Cover Art: Mixed technique painting by Frédéric Desportes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Herrou, Adeline, 1971[Vie entre soi. English] A world of their own : Daoist monks and their community in contemporary China / Adeline Herrou; translated by Livia Kohn. -- First [edition]. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-931483-25-4 (alk. paper) 1. Wen Gong ci (Hanzhong Shi, China) 2. Taoist monasticism and religious orders--China--Hanzhong Shi. 3. Hanzhong Shi (China)--Religion--20th century. I. Kohn, Livia, 1956- translator. II. Herrou, Adeline, 1971- Vie entre soi. Translation of: III. Title. BL1941.5.H36H4713 2013 299.5'14657095143--dc23 2012035092

Contents List of Illustrations Map of China Acknowledgments

iv v vi

Introduction

1

PART I: The Wengongci Monastery 1. The Temple

19

2. The Residents

43

3. The Laity

74

4. The Gods

99

PART II: The Individual’s Path 5. Choosing the Monastery

118

6. Entering the Community

147

7. Advanced Training

164

8. Festivals and Services

189

PART III: The Greater Community 9. Pseudo-Kinship Structures

214

10. Gender Issues

230

Conclusion

248

Bibliography Index

255 267

List of Illustrations Map 1: Temples and other religious locations in the Hanzhong region. Map 2: Temples and other sacred locations in China. Map 3: Major Daoist temples in Hanzhong City today. Map 4: Layout of the Dongguan neighborhood. Map 5: Layout of the Wengongci in 2000. Map 6: Layout of the Wengongci (from left): in the 1950s (as based on an oldtime monk’s testimony); in the early 1990s; in 2000. Photographs taken by the author and drawings by Frédéric Desportes Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

1: Monks seated in front of their cells in the first courtyard. 2: The offerings shops of the nearby roads which foreshadow the temple. 3: The small back gate (used most frequently) of the Wengongci. 4: The three characters of the temple’s name, epigraph from the 1920s. 5: Frieze in bas-relief below the engraved inscription naming the temple. 6: The first courtyard. 7: The second courtyard. 8: Remnant of the wall of Zhang Lu Town and of the City behind, Mian County. Fig. 9: Dragons on a wall, unique vestige of the Tianshimiao. Fig. 10: The Wengongci (west side, top down): in 1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2008. Fig. 11: Ordinary garb: I. long robe; II-III. midi robe; IV. short habit. Fig. 12: Ritual robes: I. colorful robe; II, V: flowery robe; III-IV. precepts robe. Fig. 13: Topknots: I. Crown, attached on an Essentials Chaos kerchief; II “Essential Chaos;” III. Celestial Master; IV. Nine Bridges (or the Lü Dongbin); V. Easy Wandering (or the Zhuangzi); VI. Character One. Fig. 14: A Buddhist monk (in a yellow habit) at the Wengongci. Fig. 15: Worship hall of the Judge of the Ministry of Buddhists monks and Daoist masters, Dongyuemiao, Beijing. Fig. 16: The Daoist greeting, representing the Yin-Yang diagram of the Great Ultimate. Fig. 17: The statue of Qiu Chuji in the Dragongate Grotto. Fig. 18: He Mingshan in 1998. Fig. 19: He as a god at the Wengongci in 2008. Fig. 20: The kowtow rite. Fig. 21: During festival day, a lay woman helps the monastics by hitting a gong Fig. 22: Worshipers burning incense. Fig. 23: At the inauguration of the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion, wall posters list the names of donors. Fig. 24: Three large Daoist Association signs in the Wengongci reception room. Fig. 25: The God Wengong. Fig. 26: A small altar at a lay follower’s place. Fig. 27: A monk in his cell, with anatomy boards on the wall (left).

Fig. 28: Retreating into a grotto (right) Fig. 29: Bamboo oracle slips Fig. 30: Making paper clothing for the dead (left). Fig. 31: Striking spirit money with the of the seal temple (right). Fig. 32: Ritual of “transference and salvation of the lost soul.” Fig. 33: The inauguration of the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion. Fig. 34: The recitation of the canonical scripture during evening service (left). Fig. 35: Spirit money: bills printed by the “Bank of Hell” (I to IV) or by the temple (V and VI). Fig. 36: Writing ritual text. Fig. 37: Engraving new steles. Fig. 38: Group photographs of meeting monks on the wall of the reception room Fig. 39: The abbot and one of his female disciples. ÓFrédéric Desportes

Map of China

Acknowledgments This book is a shortened, revised version of La vie entre soi. Les moines taoïstes aujourd’hui en Chine, a book based on my Ph. D. dissertation in social anthropology under the supervision of Brigitte Baptandier at the University Paris-10, Nanterre. I would like to thank her very much. Every day I am more aware of the value of what she passed on to me and for her teaching and advice, which even today continue to be so very precious to me. This book would have never come about without Livia Kohn who offered to translate and publish it. It is hard to put the final stop to ethnological research: she provided me with the great opportunity to have a second chance to get absorbed in this story and extend it a little bit. It was also a great chance to benefit from her comments and those of the readers for Three Pines Press. I am very grateful to her and the huge editorial effort she undertook. Moreover, I am deeply indebted to my other mentors, Laurence Caillet and Catherine Despeux, for their invaluable suggestions. Further sincere thanks go to: Adam Chau who came up with the idea of the title; Frédéric Desportes who created the amazing cover painting especially for the book and also provided another painting inside; Jean-Marc Chavy who drew the lovely watercolors of Daoist garb; Emmanuelle Piard who provided the layout maps of the temple; Sandrine Soriano who helped with proofreading and put together the maps; as well as—last but certainly not least—my parents, my sisters, and my godmother for their continued support over the years. I would also like to thank Sandrine Chenivesse who took me on a memorable journey through Shaanxi, in the course of which I came to know Hanzhong and its Wengongci temple. Above all, there is no way for me to express my continued and deeply heartfelt gratitude to the Daoist monks and nuns of Hanzhong and elsewhere in China. Their limitless patience and the confidence they have had in me has touched me like nothing else in my life, as has the way they have taken care of me during all these years. What I have learnt from them is far broader than the content of this research study. I dedicate this book to Hammou, Yse, and Swann.

Introduction From early on, the Chinese have called those in charge of formal rituals, social regulation, and self-perfection “masters of Dao” (daoshi 道士). Among them, some are described as “having left the family” (chujiaren 出家人). Celibate ascetics, they are today notably members of the Daoist school of Quanzhen 全真 (Complete Perfection). Founded in the late 12th century by Wang Chongyang 王重阳, the school centers around the Longmen branch 龙门派 (Dragon Gate), which goes back to the patriarch Qiu Chuji 邱处机, Wang’s best-known disciple. The Daoists of this school live communally in temples in a world of their own, and dedicate their lives to liturgy and asceticism. There are both male and female adepts—literally called “Heaven/Male-Dao” (Qiandao 乾 道 ) and “Earth/Female-Dao” (Kundao 坤道 ) using the appellation of key trigrams from the Yijing 易經 (Book of Changes). I thus refer to them as monks and nuns or, more generally, as monastics. The latter I use as a generic term in this volume to deal with the officiants of both sexes forming the Daoist community, and then explore how best to understand their role and vision in the Chinese context. One enters the Quanzhen community through a rite of ordination and investiture, accompanied by the transmission of canonical texts as well as of formal robes, the “cap and gown.” Sealing the relation between master and disciple, this passage may also mean to replace, to a certain extent, traditional kinship ties with new ritual bonds. Adepts commit themselves to observe various sets of precepts and monastic rules that are both ethical and ascetic in nature. They thereby enter an alternative way of life: among adults and in celibacy, the latter despite the fact that on occasion, notably in small institutions, monks and nuns share the same temple grounds. Daoist monasteries and hermitages are located preferably in the mountains, offering a degree of tranquility and seclusion. Yet even in the most remote area, these temples still receive numerous visitors. The monastics are thus in frequent contact with the surrounding population as well as with individuals or groups who travel to meet them. They also tend to go on personal trips, for ascetic or initiatory purposes, or engage in more or less lengthy retreats in mountain grottos. However, Daoist temples are never left by all the monastics at the same time: they always remain guarded at least by few monastics who make sure that the holy place opens everyday and welcome the worshipers. In addition, there is no village or urban county without its local temple. Thus, 1 

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many monastics live in the cities, where they play an important part in community life. The role of the temple goes beyond strictly speaking religious practices, since it extends into social organization and occupies a key position in social space. The monastics are intimately connected not only to their fellow brethren of other temples but also to local lay followers, who in turn maintain links with those of other temples, placing the monastics in a strong, tightly woven network. The connection, moreover, is clearly visible in various sets of ritual and material exchange so that, for the most part, Chinese monastics are at the center of various levels of community and not strictly speaking “recluses” at all.

The Wengongci The Wengongci daoguan 文公祠道观 in Hanzhong, the subject of this study, is home to about fifteen permanent monastics plus various temporary fellows. It is a Daoist monastery (daoguan 道观) and thus part of an institution first established in China in the 5th century C.E., and of much prominence since the Tang (see Kohn 2003a) that yet has a different dimension of meaning today. In addition to serving as a monastery, the Wengongci is also a sanctuary to a little known deity called Wengong 文公, the literary appellation of the poet Han Yu 韩愈 (768-824). Daoists venerate him as the god in charge of the South Gate of Heaven (Nantian men 南天门), where the earthly and heavenly realms intersect. His cult is particularly widespread in southern Shaanxi but is also known on a national level, where he is connected with Han Xiangzi 韩湘子, a prominent member of the ubiquitous Eight Immortals (baxian 八仙).1 Since I first visited the Wengongci in 1993, it has undergone major reconstruction. At the time, the only parts rebuilt were the main worship hall as well as a small courtyard facing it. The compound as a whole looked less like a temple than like an accumulation of houses without proper wall or context, singularly lacking in splendor. However, the three monks then in residence made it into a holy place through their vision: they accurately described what had been there in the past and fervently outlined what they had planned for the future. They easily enchanted the visitor with colorful depictions of multiple adjacent venues, describing numerous halls for worship and religious activities that had been there in the past and would rise again as worship grew. Some buildings at the time were still occupied by lay people who had come to reside there during 1 These immortals (Zhongli Quan 钟离权, Lü Dongbin 吕洞宾, Zhang Guolao 张果 老, Li Tieguai 李铁拐, He Xiangu 何仙姑, Lan Caihe 蓝采和, Cao Guojiu 曹国舅, and Han Xiangzi 韩湘子) came together as a group in the late Song dynasty (12th-13th c.). Each of them also kept his personal history. The most famous is indisputably Lü Dongbin, closely followed by Han Xiangzi (Clart 2007, xvi)

Introduction / 3

the Cultural Revolution and who would take a few more years before leaving and returning the property to the temple. Others were already vacant, gradually destroyed for rebuilding in new splendor. Meanwhile, makeshift altars arose here and there from the rubble; people, most often elderly, came to perform prostrations. The sight was disconcerting. When the monastics refer to the Cultural Revolution, they do not mean quite what we learn in history textbooks today, i.e., the period from 1966 to 1976 when Mao Zedong unleashed the Red Guards on the people and their artifacts. Rather, they use the term to indicate the entire time under communism when the practice of Daoism as well as of all other religions in China was prohibited. This means about twenty years from the 1960s to the 1980s, beginning with early campaigns against revisionist intellectuals and thus also monastics and ending with the Four Modernizations and general liberalization under Deng Xiaoping. I will use the term Cultural Revolution in this sense and would like to emphasize how, from my very first contact with the monastics, I have been much impressed with the renewal of the Daoist religion and its vibrancy despite this long hiatus. From the beginning, older monastics who clearly remembered how it was before the prohibition kept on showing the way, eagerly supported by others, often younger ones who joined in the reconstruction effort, not least by becoming monastics themselves. The Wengongci soon took on a completely new level of importance. It was chosen as the office of the local Daoist Association (Daojiao xiehui 道教协会,), created by the authorities to both integrate and control the various Daoist communities in the country. The temple thus came to be right in the center of the interface of ancient and post-revolutionary China. To strengthen this new position, the temple is sometimes credited with a longer history than it has: indeed, the Wengongci has a rather thin historical record, at least in written sources and in comparison to the higher centers of Daoism in Hanzhong. A small place erected in 1743 under the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), it had grown nicely during the 1920s. Then, at the end of the 1950s, it was submerged in the waves of history only to emerge, in the early 1990s, as one of the mainstays in the Daoist network of Shaanxi province. Despite these facts, certain monastics and lay followers still associate it with the first of all Daoist communities, ancient Zhang Lu Town 张鲁城 of the Eastern Han (25-220 C.E.). This claims to be the place where the third Celestial Master established a theocratic state as part of the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice (Wudoumi dao 五斗米道). It is the pride of the region. The temple also owes a great deal of its fame to nearby centers, notably Mount Tiantai 天台山, located about 30 kilometers north of Hanzhong town and not to be confused with the larger and more famous Buddho-Daoist center in Zhejiang. This mountain, covered with temples that go back as far as the Tang dynasty (618-907), is a great monastic center well respected in the national Daoist community. As many Daoist mountains today, it is classified as a “na-

4 / A World of Their Own

ture park” (senlin gongyuan 森林公园) and serves as a major tourist attraction. Many monastics there live in six temples that also mark the stages of ascent to the summit. Today presented as “one of the eight most beautiful sites of the area” (Hanzhong shizhi 1994: 740-41), this holy Daoist place—which also holds a number of Buddhist temples—is one of the mainstays of the cult of Yaowang 药王, the Medicine King and divinized form of the renowned Daoist, physician, and alchemist Sun Simiao 孙思邈 (681-782). More importantly for Daoists today, it is the place where the celebrated centenarian He Mingshan 何明善 lived until 2005: this makes it one of the key local centers of religious renewal. The connections between the holy mountain and the urban Wengongci are very close, especially because the abbot of the latter was among the first disciples of He Mingshan. As I went around the nearby countryside, invited by lay people or monastics to visit the temples of various orders, I soon confronted a multiplicity of Chinese terms for “temple,” terms that reveal the diversity not only of vocabulary but also of institution. Thus, “grottoes” (dong 洞), “belvederes” or “observatories” (i.e., “monasteries”) (guan 观), and “hermitages” (an 庵) clearly designate Daoist temples, while “monasteries” (si 寺) or “pagodas” (da 塔) are Buddhist and “shrines” (ci 祠 ) mostly Confucian but sometimes also Daoist. In addition, “temples” (miao 庙)—the most commonly used term among them— may designate institutions of any religion. Other places might be called “terraces” (tai 台), “palaces” (gong 宫), “courts” (yuan 院), or “altars” (tan 坛)—the latter not necessarily indicating the location of a cult. Beyond all this, certain “mountains” (shan 山) are closely associated with temples housing monastics who speak of them as famous Daoist centers. Plus, certain Buddhist temples have become Daoist without a change of name or, vice versa, Daoist sanctuaries transformed into Buddhist temples. In addition to the nomenclature and architecture often being interchange-able, Chinese religions tend to have porous boundaries and share certain popular deities as well as communal practices. The specific terms for “temple” apparently convey different meanings. They may be informative with regard to the site’s actual location: e.g., “grottos” tend to be at the bottom of a mountain, while “terraces” often indicate an elevated space, “hermitages” are found in remote locations, and “mountains” tend to be at higher altitudes. They may also indicate the nature of their inhabitants so that “belvederes,” the classic Daoist monasteries, often house a community of Daoist masters. Alternatively, they may show the character of the building, such as “temple,” “shrine,” and “altar” in ritual terms and “palace” in an imperial or metaphorical dimension. Yet, far more commonly, they are not what their name suggests. Mountains may very well be simple hills as, for example, the famous Mount Fengdu 酆都山 northeast of Chongqing, whose peak measures all of 288 meters! This means that temples conserve their appellation within the context that led to their name originally, whether or not this may still be appropriate. For this

Introduction / 5

reason, one may find “monasteries” today that have no monastics or “hermitages” that house large religious communities, ancient country temples that have been massively urbanized, and so on.

Fieldwork Settings The present volume focuses on a group of monastics and lay followers of an ordinary Daoist temple located in the southern part of Shaanxi, a region that has played an important role in the history of Daoism. Here Laozi allegedly transmitted the Daode jing 道德经 (Book of the Dao and Its Virtue) during his emigration to the west at Louguantai 楼观台(Terrace of the Lookout Tower). Here the oldest Daoist school of the Celestial Masters (Tianshi 天师) had early centers (Verellen 2003): its founder Zhang Daoling 张道陵 is still a major patriarch in the area. In addition, Shaanxi is also considered the cradle of monastic Daoism, honored to house the tomb and temple of Wang Chongyang as well as the grotto where Qiu Chuji achieved enlightenment. Four major monastic centers (conglin miao 丛林庙) of massive influence are located here: Chongyanggong 重阳宮 (Wang Chongyang’s Palace), Louguantai 楼观台, Baxiangong 八仙宮 (Eight Immortals’ Palace, formerly named an or Hermitage), and Zhangliangmiao 張 良庙 (Zhang Liang’s Temple). Numerous Daoist temples in southern Shaanxi, moreover, see themselves as centers of learned transmission and propagation of ancient cults. The Wengongci is of a more modest stature and belongs to what monastics call a “small monastery” (zisun miao 子孙庙)—a Daoist institution formed by a local religious group and mainly composed of a master and his disciples. Unlike in the major monastic centers mentioned above, the master here accepts novices before ordination. The temple thus affords insights into the entire personal and ritual path typically followed by Daoist monastics. My introduction to the community came from Wu Shizhen,2 a Daoist monk of the Baxiangong in Xi’an, the provincial capital. This connection allowed me to establish a close, confidential relationship with the socio-religious community in Hanzhong. He had never gone there before I went with him in 1993, yet Wu was warmly received by his fellow monastics and offered a place to stay in the temple, as the monastic hospitality rule demands. The abbot and two of his disciples took me to a nearby hotel where I settled during this stay (and many others). 3 When Wu spoke with the local monastics, they found various mutual 2 I have changed all proper names to preserve the anonymity of my informants, except when they have published relevant materials in their own name. 3 At the time, strangers were not allowed to live among monastics, at least beyond the big cities, nor to stay with local people in their own homes. The monks thus ran a nearby hotel authorized to admit “foreign guests,” not far from the Dongguan quarter where the

6 / A World of Their Own

acquaintances in the “great family” of Daoist monastics. That, as well as the fact that the Baxiangong is a much bigger (and famous) monastery than the Wengongci, helped the local abbot to accept my presence. In addition, Wu was well connected in Daoist networks related to Hanzhong. Quite young at the time, he was yet well known for his intellectual and ritual competence as well as his training at the Baiyunguan 白云观 (White Cloud Monastery) headquarters in Beijing. His intervention on my behalf was invaluable. As a result, I spent about thirteen months in Hanzhong between 1993 and 2000. During this time, I absorbed the local dialect as well as the Daoists’ internal language while establishing good relations with monks and followers. I also had the chance to follow them on a variety of transfers and to visit, as an actual community member, many temples in the region and some beyond it. I thus became intimately familiar with both the time and space of the temple’s story. I focused my study on the monastics connected to the temple: despite their various social origins and cultural levels, they can be considered erudite. Not all of them, to be sure, are literati and some are not even literate. Still, even today they receive extensive teachings oral transmission: ancient texts, myths, calendar calculation, and cosmology. They are quite familiar with the traditional symbolic correspondence systems as well as in ritual and divination practices. They apply them in life and continuously refer to the great principles of Daoism—if sometimes in contradictory ways. Generally, the monastics not only value a good education but also peddle histories and legends from a highly knowledgeable perspective. Holders of somewhat secret knowledge handed down orally over numerous generations, they constantly refer to the works of their “philosophical founders” Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi as well as to the Daoist Canon, which modern scholars are working hard to explore. Learning their conceptions of the monastic community, local deities, and life and death in general, one gains an understanding of Daoism as it is actually lived and accepted today. By the same token, among the inhabitants and followers of the Wengongci and its surrounding institutions, I have found frequent and vivid allusions to the great books of the religion—a connection between ancient wisdom and modern life I attempt to present in this work. As fits the genre of the monograph, I try to report the ideas and practices of the community members as literally as possible, including their various contradictions and their full complexity. Monastics and followers often deliver highly elaborate reflections about themselves and the community, discussing them in terms of social organization, politics, symbolism, theology, cosmology, and

Wengongci is located. They offered me a room there, which I accepted and have used many times over the following years. Living in such a “neutral” environment made it easier to me to meet people who were not or no longer Wengongci community members as well as monks or lay followers who enjoyed visiting with me to talk (or even sometimes to gossip) on a different level than possible in the institution itself.

Introduction / 7

more. They often speak in citations yet without mentioning the source or author or even the original context, not even giving a hint that those words are not their own. The most difficult task, then, has been to unravel their explications and citations as much as working through (and maintaining distance from) their evaluation and analysis. One should also recall that access to Daoist thought is quite difficult for the monastics themselves, partly due to the complexity of the concepts in the various works but more importantly because of the philosophical labyrinth they subscribe to. The religion tends to cultivate a veritable cult of mysteries and paradoxes. Not only is it not particularly interested in proselytizing, but it also sees itself as an obscure organization that vacillates between the ostensible and the hidden. Daoist texts are intentionally secretive, and understanding them is intimately dependent on the acquisition of fundamental merit. Without being necessarily formulated in a complicated fashion—the most fundamental ideas are usually cached in very simple terms—they are obscured by textual organization (indexes being all but unknown) and codified in an internal Daoist language, into which one must be initiated to understand it properly. The fact that the texts are in classical Chinese makes them even more difficult to access, notably to members of the younger generation whose entire education is in the modern language. Most recently, even the most erudite of monks have trouble understanding them. Since the introduction of simplified characters, the monastics have worked with a double strategy: continuing the usage of classical Chinese and increasing translations into modern, especially of key scriptures. The monastics of the Wengongci have guided me into the complex representation of humanity, universe, and Dao, which is first highly abstruse to the Western student, then comes to reveal great richness. This ethnographic and personal experience forms the core of this work.

Research Sources To understand the Daoist monastic universe, I have made use of a variety of sources. Principally, I have based my research on the numerous oral materials I collected during my fieldwork, from formal accounts to practical words of advice and information. I have also used ancient Daoist texts that locals refer to frequently. Beyond that, I have worked with texts written by the monks themselves about the history of their monasteries as well as about the foundations of their creed and their major practices. Finding themselves in a time of transition and given the large number of works destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, Daoist masters today have to recreate lost documents from memory and edit them to integrate recent historical developments while also taking into account the work of local historians.

8 / A World of Their Own

There are especially two documents, compiled in 1994 under the auspices of the Hanzhong Daoist Association for internal circulation, which deal with the Wengongci: Hanzhong daojiao de chujing (The State of Daoism in Hanzhong) and Hanzhong shi wengong ci daoguan fuxing jian jieji (A Brief Presentation of the Reconstruction of the Wengongci in Hanzhong) (Hanzhong daojiao xiehui 1994a; 1994b). Approved by the Association, these works are officially listed under its general (and exclusive) authorship, but they were actually written by the local monk Fu Zhian (even his name does not appear anywhere) with the help of various lay followers. They neither are for sale in the temple shop nor distributed communally. I was equally interested in other documents created by the Association: letters, short texts exchanged by members, the Daojiao dacidian (Great Dictionary of the Daoist Religion; Min and Li 1994), and various issues of the journal published by the Chinese Daoist Association in Beijing— Zhongguo daojiao 中国道教 (Chinese Daoism)—and that of its Shaanxi branch— Sanqin daojiao 三秦道教 (Daoism of the Three Qin [Kingdoms]). Beijing headquarters also published several books, specifically for young monks, distributed widely through the temple network; it also put out works addressed to Daoist country priests and some for sale at larger institutions. Among them, I benefited particularly from the Daojiao yifan (Observances of the Daoist Religion) by Min Zhiting (1986), a copy of which I received from a monk before the book came into general circulation. It has been of great value in my studies, especially also since it summarizes a number of ancient texts and conforms closely to the actual practice supported by the Daoist Association in its effort at standardizing and unifying widely growing local cults, temples, and rituals. As regards the vast corpus of Daoist texts, I have concerned myself mainly with those cited most frequently today as well as with recent materials that help with the description and analysis of the role of Daoist monks today. Beyond works written or edited by the Daoists themselves, I have also consulted documents about Daoist history and temples: local gazetteers and dynastic histories, as well as modern studies by Chinese scholars, historians of religion, theologians, or editors of innumerable works on the region’s “famous local sites and ancient traces” (mingsheng guji 名胜古迹). They inevitably discuss temples, since they are among the most important remnants of ancient times, along with museums, traditional edifices, and imperial tombs. Their purpose is to mark the main tourist circuits and provide information on locations essential to national prestige and economy. I also referred to the various glosses in ancient Daoist texts often mentioned by monks and sinological authors alike. Most relevant to my work were studies dedicated particularly to Daoist monasticism, notably Yoshioka Yoshitoyo’s fieldwork during his life at the Baiyunguan in Beijing where he stayed from 1940 to 1946 as an initiate. He was thus able to provide an in-depth account and analysis of its practices (1970; 1979). Another early pioneer was the German missionary Heinrich Hackmann who spent eleven months near the Taiqinggong 太清宫 (Great Clarity Palace)

Introduction / 9

on Mount Lao 崂山 near Qingdao in the 1910s (1920; 1931). His work was studied in some detail by Livia Kohn who also illuminates certain ancient normative texts edited by the Qing master Wang Changyue 王常月 , today regrouped by Min Zhiting (Kohn 2003b).4

A World of Their Own From an ethnological perspective, the liturgical and ascetic activities at the Wengongci are at the root of the need to bring some individuals together. Daoists live solely among themselves and thus form a unique monastics’ “community” that yet connects to a larger community, i.e., the temple as a center for both monastics and lay followers, which is thus a “socio-religious” unit. In its narrow form, the monastic community consists of people who are not related by kin yet adopt family structures in their organization. Not only do its members use terminology based on kinship but they also create a lineage of transmission that echoes family genealogies. These elements make it possible to understand the group in terms of pseudo-kinship, a form of “social relations which are expressed in terms of kinship (of reference or address) without however resulting from effectively recognized kinship ties (created by consanguinity or marriage),” relations that themselves resemble descent, affinal or brotherhood bonds (Bonte 1991: 550). The study of pseudo-kinship is still new in anthropology 5 —except for the concept of adoption, which has been amply studied. It includes a variety of heterogeneous situations: god-parenthood, compadrazgo, sworn brotherhoods, and the like. It is also used in highly dissimilar contexts—affective, judicial, ritual—and in multiple forms of relationship— horizontal and vertical. It is particularly relevant for understanding Daoist communities and, more generally, Chinese society today. The community of monks functions like a domestic group and can be considered a household. The question then is to find out whether networks of multiple monasteries still preserve this character or whether they shift to a different cultural, doctrinal, and political order. Two well-known systems create connections between the temples and their communities. One is the old network of cults, the so-called division of incense (fenxiang 分香): it creates an affiliation of temples through the deities they venerate and to whom their sanctuaries are dedicated. Another is the newly built network of the Daoist Association, put in place by the communist government: it records the numbers of monks and lay followers in a given region and af4 Further documentation includes the works by Oyanagi Shigeta (1934) on the Baiyunguan and by Igarashi Kenryu (1938) on the Taiqinggong in Shenyang. 5 See Mintz and Wolf 1950; Pitt-Rivers 1972; 1973; d’Onofrio 1991; Bonte 1991; Fine 1992; Lauwaert 1991; Héritier-Augé and Copet-Rougier 1995.

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fords hierarchical state control. By obliging its members to bow to a superior authority, the Daoist Association creates a chain of solidarity among practitioners and followers. My ethnographic study of the Hanzhong region shows the great complexity and interconnection of networks in worship, politics, and monastic organization. Examining the notions of asceticism and immortality as found in the Daoist context, especially in comparison to Christian visions, one must also reflect on the connections between the monastery and the world in the religious sense of the word. Using the definition of “asceticism” by Max Weber, one sees that the self-cultivation practices at the Wengongci do not exactly match his concept of “inner-worldly asceticism” (innerweltliche Askese), but are often quite close to what he calls “world-rejecting asceticism” (weltablehnende Askese) and thus mystical contemplation (Weber 1978: 541-44; 1990: 105-85). Does the position “beyond kinship” which monastics occupy necessarily create a situation where they intensify the “care of their self” (le souci de soi)? This expression by Michel Foucault qualifies the way of dealing with oneself by “taking oneself as an object of knowledge and a field of action, so as to transform, correct, and purify oneself and to find salvation” (1986: 42). More than that, does this “world of their own” (la vie entre soi), to use Claude Lévi-Strauss’s term,6 allow them to believe that “the law of exchange can be evaded”? Does it make it possible for them to join a separate group that consists of ritual kin, which in a way receives (its members) without “exchanging” and thus function in an almost completely closed circuit? These and related questions form the theoretical backbone of this study.

Chinese “Monastics” Another key theoretical concern is the term “monastic.” I do not propose to demonstrate whether Quanzhen Daoists are really monks and nuns (which would presuppose a specific definition of the term). Rather, I would like to 6 Lévi-Strauss concludes The Elementary Structures of Kinship as follows, “To this very day, mankind has always dreamed of seizing and fixing that fleeting moment when it was permissible to believe that the law of exchange could be evaded, that one could gain without losing, enjoy without sharing. At either end of the earth and at both extremes of time, the Sumerian myth of the golden age and the Andaman myth of the future life correspond, the former placing the end of primitive happiness at a time when the confusion of languages made words into common property, the latter describing the bliss of the year after as the heaven where women will no longer be exchanged, i.e., removing to an equally unattainable past of future the joys, eternally denied to social man, of a world in which one might keep to oneself [vivre ‘entre soi’]” (1969: 497). One might wonder whether the ritual kinship that links all monks together could embody this dream of a life in a restricted circle, impossible in the usual kinship organization because it is opposed to life in society.

Introduction / 11

provide as much information as possible to allow the proper characterization of Daoists today while thinking about the “monastic” aspect of their identity. Actually, my purpose is to rid the term “monastic” of its narrow sense as defined through the Christian context, claiming it as a more general research category and thus allowing for conceptual elaboration. Within the Chinese context, the inhabitants of the Wengongci are referred to as dignitaries (shi 士) of Dao and thus of the religion. They are masters (shi 师) of Daoist practice or those who excel in it (zhang 长). They speak of themselves and of their Buddhist counterparts as men and women who have left the family or household (chujiaren 出家人). The latter term indicates a reality not that far from what Westerners describe as monasticism.7 Leaving the world is seen as a kind of rupture with one’s birth family, at least to a certain point; it is also an act of renunciation of married life and sexuality, symbolized by the donning of the habit. At the same time, chujia is a highly complex notion that is hard to pin down. It renders the Sanskrit pravrajya, literally one who is “going abroad,” “going forth from home,” or “roaming” (Monier-Williams 1981: 694). Today the word designates a regulated communal life-style in a monastic organization that can be Buddhist or Daoist but means something different in the two religions. Most generally, it means a life that is essentially religious and it thus indicates hermits. The Daoist usage of the term chujia goes back far in history. According to Ozaki, it appears first in the late Six Dynasties (229-589), implying a clear sense of a “specific priesthood.” However, there were also Daoists who in effect followed the way of chujia before the technical designation appeared in the texts (1984: 99) and certainly well before it became dominant in the Quanzhen school in the 12th century. Ozaki even speaks of the “dominance of chujia under the Tang,” monastics ranking above the zaijia 在家 or married priests (1984: 108). People who have left the family are also at the center of the major monastic code of the early 7th century, the Fengdao kejie 奉道科戒 (Rules and Precepts for Worshiping the Dao, DZ 1125; trl. Kohn 2004a; see also Reiter and Cedzich 2004: 451-52). Still, what exactly the reality of chujia was at the time remains somewhat unclear. Most fundamentally it indicated Daoist masters who had left the family to dedicate themselves completely to the religion, established themselves in the state-sponsored institutions called guan 观 (“belvedere” or “observatory”) under the patronage of the emperor or aristocrats. The guan themselves were not 7 According to a priest at the Southern Church (Nantang 南堂) in Beijing, there are no Christian monastic communities in China. On the other hand, there are priestly seminaries and communities of sisters. My informant notes that both the priests and the sisters tend to embrace a celibate life, and one may thus say that they have “left the family” and are chujia ren. However, in the Christian context, practitioners prefer to speak of “taking vows” (fayuan 发愿) and of formal “investiture” (fengxian 奉献).

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always strictly “monastic” but wavered between centers inhabited by celibate masters and priestly seminaries.8 Most normative texts like the Fengdao kejie do not explicitly spell out the requirement of celibacy or chastity, although they demand that inhabitants live and sleep in individual cells and maintain a virtuous lifestyle (Kohn 2004a: 15). The chujiaren strive to follow a model of sainthood, and the Fengdao kejie “does in fact reflect the ideal envisioned for Daoist institutional organization and practice in the early to high Tang” (Kohn 2004a: 46-47). It details the punishments given to those who curse or trouble “the holy person of an ordained monk or nun” (2004a, 75-77). However, the requirements of disciplinary codes and other normative texts were not necessarily reflected in practice, much less well documented. Kristofer Schipper maintains that the Daoist masters who lived in the guan during the 5th and 6th centuries continued to practice sexual rites (e.g., the Harmonization of Qi) and suggests that several institutions were locations of rather lax morals (1984: 213). He asks whether it was in fact possible to be both a Daoist and a monk (1984: 215). Later imperial codes and edicts prescribed a stringent code of moral and social behavior for all chujia communities and members. Even more severely, the Quanzhen order clearly condemned all kinds of licentious activities and followed the model of its founder who left wife and children to dedicate himself totally to the ascetic life. What emerges from all this conflicting information is that chujia does not necessarily mean a celibate life of sexual abstinence (see also Herrou 2012). Still, from a sociological perspective, being celibate is a key requirement for entering the separate religious life that monastics claim as their own: it is the single most important factor that guarantees the perpetuation of the community made up of adults united by Dao and not by blood. In normative proto-monastic texts as much as in those of Quanzhen, living alone is a means for adepts to maintain the integrity of their various bodily aspects and thereby avoid the dispersal of essence and qi. At the same time, celibacy and the avoidance of licentiousness form a standard precept, just as the vegetarian diet and the abstention from alcohol. Yet, the idea of no-desire is not the prerogative of monks and nuns but also appears among observances for other Daoists, notably the Celestial Masters. It is also relevant to certain lay practitioners, whose sexuality is transformed into a ritualized form of asceticism, since they, too, are not supposed to lose their vital essence. In this study, I accordingly examine how modern Daoist communities think and live the ideal of chujia, questioning how “leaving the family” and celibacy relate to a sense of complete detachment from society but also from sexuality and gender differences. 8 Kohn 2004b: 9. On the origin of the use of the term guan, “observatory,” to designate Daoist monasteries, see Schipper 1984: 209-12. On the different meanings of the term chujia, see Ozaki 1984: 102.

Introduction / 13

The link with Buddhist institutions—established by the Daoists themselves—is not limited to the world of chujia. Although it is difficult to determine how extensive and specific Buddhist influence appeared, it is quite clear that ancient Daoist monasticism was greatly inspired by the Indian model (Kohn 2003a: 35-39). Today Daoists not only share the same vocabulary but also various precepts, observances, and myths with Buddhist monks. The latter are exclusively called heshang 和尚, a term that cannot be translated literally; etymologically it represents a phonetic transcription of the vulgar form of Sanskrit upādhyāya , i.e., the “master” or “preceptor” (Nakamura 1981: 124). It is, among all the different terms of Chinese Buddhism, the one most frequently used for “monk,” giving reality to the strangeness of the concept in a culture that depends heavily on the visual and intended rather than phonetic quality of its words.9 I started out using the term “monastic” for Daoists of the Quanzhen order because it was commonly used in Chinese Studies and for lack of a better word, but the more I advanced in my research, the more I have come to see that the comparison with monastics of other religions makes sense. Admittedly, the word “monk” in Western languages is closely marked with its originally Christian meaning. It derives from the Latin monachus (solitary hermit), which in turn goes back to the Greek monakos (lone, sole). It has seen a semantic diversion, at the beginning “the one who lives alone” rapidly become “the one who lives in community.” This shift of meaning firstly appears as being contradictory unless the term monk is understood not in absolute value but in relative one. If living alone means leaving one’s kin, the term also is quite close to the idea of being without a family found in chujia. It, therefore, seems appropriate to use “monastic” for comparative religious specialists of other religions, notably those living in communities that construct themselves along kinship lines (Herrou and Krauskopff 2009; Herrou and Poujeau 2011). Moreover, as an anthropological category, the concept opens a fertile ground for generally reflecting on the family as the prevailing model of collective life and on just how much room here is for the individual to maneuver within this system.

9 As regards the problem of language as an obstacle to religious dialogue, Jacques Gernet has shown convincingly that it was a key issue for missionaries trying to find appropriate Chinese terms for essential Christian doctrines (1991: 191-261).

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Introduction / 15

Map 1: Temples and other religious locations in the Hanzhong region.

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Introduction / 17

Map 2: Temples and other sacred locations in China

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This Book The first part of this book deals with the different aspects of the Wengongci: physical structures, residents, administrators, and customers as much as its deities, networks, and cartographies. I provide a preliminary description of the main protagonists active in temple life and look at how they are placed among various social patterns. They interact in multiple fluid yet tangled networks, each part of which functions according to its own needs and unique criteria, thus creating a monastery that is half-closed, half-open to the outside world. The second part discusses the “making” of a Daoist monastic. It examines how the residents of the Wengongci see themselves and create their unique lifestyle. Beyond taking on new vestments and social placement, becoming a monk means passing through a series of successive initiations, ordinations, and ascetic stages. It also means having one’s name entered into the genealogies of the perfected and entering into a vast network, which transmits knowledge, economic goods, and people—a network that gives structure to the monastic community. The third part questions how Chinese Daoist monasteries interact and provide mutual support, the various ways in which they cement a sense of an overarching, encompassing community that reaches throughout the entire country and even transcends sectarian borders. It turns out that monastics share a particular concept of togetherness: they see themselves as unique while yet adopting kinship patterns from lay society. Yet, by affirming certain modes of monastic lifestyle, in groups of celibate adults of both sexes, they also make use of (or even sublimate, transform, or divert) the distinction between the genders.

Fig. 1: Monks seated in front of their cells in the first courtyard

Chapter One  The Physical Setting The Wengongci is both a private and a public place, inhabited by monastics and frequently visited by lay followers. Its roofs are visible from quite a distance, but the temple itself remains hidden behind an imposing wall, with glimpses of the interior allowed only through the gates that open in the morning and close at nightfall. The temple is a place where locals come to address requests to the divinities and consult the officiants of worship. It is also quite simply a place to take a walk, to meet neighbors or friends and stop to chat. Most certainly, it is the principal Daoist temple of the city and the Dongguan neighborhood shrine.

The Temple Today1 The Wengongci is a small provincial temple in the town of Hanzhong. As its name, “On the Han,” indicates, the town is on the Han River, which flows from Shaanxi into the Yangtze. According to the Bureau of Statistics, it had 510,600 inhabitants in 2001.2 The town is quite ordinary with a majority Han population, yet has also quite a number of Chinese Muslims (Hui), once forcefully moved to Xi’an along the famous Silk Road, which also brought Buddhism to China. Located on the main plain between the high mountains of Tibet and the coastal flatlands, the Hanzhong region is in central China and consists of midrange mountains, hills, and flat plains. To the north is the Zhongnan range 终

1 The temple and its area has been changing very fast for the last decade and it is not finished yet. This chapter aims to give a description of a small provincial monastery in the making and to outline the principles that guide its localization, construction and organization. 2 See www.shaanxi.cn/sx_mzlk/admin/upfile/hzhhantaiqu.htm (accessed Oct. 15, 2009). This number is given for Hantaiqu 汉台区, i.e., inner Hanzhong. Its outlying suburbs are composed of seven small towns (zhen 镇) and two villages (xiang 乡). Altogether they form the Hanzhongshi 汉中市 area. In the old days, Hanzhong or Nanzheng 南郑 was also called Xingyuan 興元 under the Tang (Chen 1988: 1).

19 

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南山, today better known as Qinling Mountains 秦岭山, which separates the loess plateau—the “yellow earth” of China the Yellow River flows through— from the Sichuan basin. More generally, it divides north and south China and is thus in the center of Daoist mythical geography and the home of numerous gods and immortals. The Wengongci is in a rural area, in a province that is still quite poor. In 1997, the standard of living in Shaanxi was at the bottom of the Chinese scale (Pairault 1999: 32-65). Nevertheless, its main city of Xi’an is an economic and culture hub for the whole country; the Daoist temples in the area profit from the flow of tourists visiting its museums and other sites, most importantly the terracotta army at the tomb of Qin Shihuang. In addition, there are now fast connections between Hanzhong and Xi’an by road, rail, and air.

Map 3: Major Daoist temples in Hanzhong City today

The Wengongci is in the Dongguan 东关 neighborhood to the southeast of Hanzhong, in an old part of the city. No longer the geographic or commercial center of the regional prefecture, it consists of popular neighborhoods and is rather poor if compared to more modern and prestigious areas. On its way up

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in the world, it is being “restored,” which means that some sections are demolished to make room for modern construction. However, there are also some old, one-story wooden houses called “flat houses” (pingfang 平房) in traditional style, among the last in Hanzhong. In addition, there are quite a few artisans’ shops interspersed among some small grocery stores, while elsewhere in the town there is a growing number of strip malls and supermarkets. Increasingly replaced as town center by the northern quarters, Dongguan still preserves tradition, is close to the municipal museum, and houses a theater, various mahjong halls, and the Daoist temple.

Map 4: Layout of the Dongguan neighborhood.

The specific location of the temple is also known as Moziqiao 磨子桥 (Mill Bridge), after an old mill that supplied the stones for a bridge over the local irrigation canal. The Daoists even sometimes call their monastery by this name, matching the popular way of calling temples by the original place name in recognition of their local connection. Located above a subterranean creek where the old mill once stood, it borders on houses and fields—some of which were temple property before confiscation by the municipality in the 1960s. As for the temple itself, the four stories of its new Yuhuanglou 玉皇楼 (Jade Em-

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peror’s Pavilion) are visible from afar, rising up almost like a pagoda towering over the town, its height and stature making it a key monument.

Fig. 2: The offerings shops of the nearby roads which foreshadow the temple (left) Fig. 3: The small back gate (used most frequently) of the Wengongci (right)

The Wengongci is the major active Daoist monastery in Hanzhong.3 Although geographically located on the city’s fringes, it is a mainstay of both religious and economic import of the entire region and attracts large numbers of followers, visitors, and vendors, especially on festival days. Still, for the new visitor, whether lay or monastic, it is not obvious that the temple plays such an important local role or even that it is Daoist. The bright orange roof tiles, designed in “mountain fishbone” style and curving up on the edges, as much as the pillars of finely decorated wood with multiple artistic motifs, and the lively and colorful sculpted animal heads could all be part of a Buddhist pagoda or a Confucian temple. The only indication of the Daoist nature of the place is a small triangular yellow banner with the classic symbol of the Great Ultimate (Taiji 太极), showing the interlocking flow of yin and yang. 4 Beyond the small banner fluttering in the wind, which indicates the presence of a religious institution, the name of the temple appears in stylish characters on a red wooden plaque. The latter rises over the small back gate (which is used most frequently); it too shows the Great Ultimate symbol surrounded by the eight trigrams of the Yijing. 3 The Wengongci has been the only active temple in Hanzhong city until the Qinglong guan 青龙观 reopened in 2003 in northwest Hanzhong and became the seat of the Daoist Association of the city. The Wengongci then was the seat of the Shaanxi Daoist Association, matching the new administrative structures. 4 Marcel Granet mentions that first traces of this figure only appear under the Song (960-1279), but that its elements go back to antiquity (1988: 502n.403). The Taiji symbol as we know it developed in the late Ming. See Louis 2003. It shows the union of yin and yang as they engender the myriad things, i.e., the mythical origin of the universe.

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On the side of the gate an inscription, hand-painted in black on the gray wall looks like a warning yet adds a celestial dimension to the place, “People do good and bad deeds—Heaven never does anything bad. People feel hate and fear—Heaven never feels any fear.” This proverb stands in stark contrast with other wall inscriptions in the alley, usually more of a political nature. Roads leading to the temple are complicated and badly signed. Visitors tend to arrive from the north, where a few merchants indicate its presence. From the town center, it is easiest to take the main thoroughfare, then move through a passage full of shops selling incense, spirit money, and other ritual offerings. Crossing a small side alley, one may notice a small arrow panel at the entry of a divided lane that points to the temple. The road is narrow and only allows one car to pass at a time. A minibus, rented for the day by the monks, once found itself jammed there. Usually pedestrians and cyclists dominate—visiting the sanctuary, returning home, or just meandering through the countryside. Low houses border the lane on both sides. On the left is a teahouse, which also serves as the office of a Mahjong gambling den, located to the right of the temple. Access to the sanctuary is through this simple, ordinary alley with garbage cans and toilet facilities. On festival days, however, the road becomes a staging ground for itinerant vendors, while the monks decorate it with signs that recount historical highlights and long lists of donors who have supported the institution. The temple occupies an area of about 2,700 square meters or slightly less than half an acre. The plot is rectangular and extends sixty meters from north to south and forty-five meters from east to west. According to the Hanzhongshi wengongci, the Wengongci belongs to a specific type of Daoist temple, with three successive courtyards (sanyuan sanjin 三院三进 ) on a north-south axis and a multi-story pavilion (louge 楼阁) (Hanzhong daojiao xiehui 1994b: 1)—a fundamentally modular style that matches classic Daoist architecture as well as Chinese architecture in general (Steinhardt 2000: 57). A gray stonewall surrounds the entire compound. In the south it borders the wall of the tower; on the east there is that of a small town clinic. The clinic, with its “red cross,” serves both temple residents and local people. It forms part of the temple and can be accessed from the outside through the only gate that the monks do not fully control. The local nurse, a lay Daoist follower, carries both the keys and the responsibility for its use. The west side, on the other hand, borders on farmland, so that one cannot enter from there. On the north, the temple is next to a white villa. The main entrance is the Big Gate (damen 大门) or Mountain Gate (shanmen 山门). Sheltered by a wide balcony above the ground floor, it stands out due to its scarlet color and window trellis. Part of the south wall, it faces the countryside, following both classic rules of religious architecture and Fengshui, which stipulate that harmful influences, such as cold winds or barbarians, tend to come from the north. Daoists, moreover, associate the north with the world

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of the dead, and have their temples usually organized on the straight compass lines, because it is essential to fix the poles during rituals (Schipper 1965: 48). As a result, the main gate is not popular, and most visitors come in through the back gate that is closest to the city.

Map 5: Layout of the Wengongci in 2000.

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Yet another gate opens onto a courtyard and leads to the meeting and reception room, which also serves as the refectory. It is next to a high, wide wall, covered by a gray roof with round tiles and engraved flower designs—in itself a tourist attraction. The wall has a vertical inscription naming the temple in big characters, each surrounded by a sculptured circle in bas-relief. It was covered with cement during the Cultural Revolution, and the monks had to scour it thoroughly to rediscover the epigraph, slightly damaging it in the process. They restored it because of several factors: the nature of the graphic design, the fact that the work was by a famous calligrapher, and—last but not least—the wall being a symbol of both the border and the link between the old and new temple. A small park with benches near the wall, moreover, allows visitors to rest and circulate. The monks or locals often suggest that visitors or pilgrims who come in through the back door leave by this gate and enjoy its features.

Fig. 5: Frieze in bas-relief below the engraved inscription naming the temple Fig. 4: The three characters of the temple’s name, epigraph from the 1920s

Leaving the temple through the small park, one moves in a completely different direction. Crossing fields, one comes to a hamlet well known for its daily meetings of bird keepers, from where one has a panoramic view of the temple (see Fig. 10): there is no open window in the exterior wall, and only some ventilation shafts suggest its human occupancy. Thus, the Wengongci presents itself on all sides as a closed space, clearly separated from the neighborhood by high partitions. The stone wall, connected in certain places to other buildings, delimits the holy place and materializes the separation between the public and monastic worlds, both in a real and symbolic manner. During the day, the three gates allow a glimpse of the temple. Decorated with writings, diagrams, or other motifs painted in red, their color stands in vivid contrast to the dinginess of the walls and attracts the visitor. Odors and sounds, too, make the place unique. The smoke of candles, the smells of incense gently waft across the street. Soft noises from personal conversations on

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occasion mingle with chantings of canonical texts and the music of their accompaniments. Sometimes there are also radio broadcasts of rituals, such as pieces chosen from the “Grand Offering to All the Heavens” (luotian dajiao 罗 天大醮) of 1993 in Beijing. The gates also indicate, with their opening and closing, that that the monks do not live completely in a bell jar of splendid isolation. The first courtyard after the back gate opens to two imposing rooms of worship, composing the north wing of the temple. The first has wooden doors painted in a chestnut-orange color: lay people may not pass them. There is, however, some stylized lattice in the front façade, allowing them to admire the enshrined statues, as does an open window in the middle of the structure. A sheet-metal canopy covers the front, also sheltering a big incense burner on a wide red table with rolled edges, sealed firmly in the ground. It has three round cushions covered in a patchwork of multicolored fabric at its foot, indicating the place for prostrations to the gods.

Fig. 6: The first courtyard

Not far behind looms a big, gray furnace, shaped as a hexagon and decorated with yellow Yijing trigrams. This is where monks and lay followers burn offerings and sift divine ashes. Nearby, the courtyard also sports a smaller incense burner, designed in gilded metal and decorated with cranes, the birds of the immortals, whose mouths are open—in the old days to let incense escape, today purely ornamental. A local merchant stored it in the temple as a form of advertising while also creating an auspicious contribution to the sanctuary. Its presence and the smell of its incense increase the attraction of the temple in the visitors’ eyes, adding to the other elements in this first courtyard. The other hall here is open to the public. When it is not being used for rituals, one can approach the statues it houses, sheltered behind a pane, to prostrate oneself at their feet and perform the divinatory rite of drawing oracular bamboo-sticks (chouqian 抽签). The place is unassuming and friendly, as also indicated in its decoration: there is a big poster of the Eiffel Tower (purely coincidental and not related to the presence of the anthropologist from

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France!), darkened by time and covered on the left by a Great Ultimate symbol; next to it is a wooden bench, some stools, and a low table. Visitors may linger there, spending time in discussion, doing their sewing, making objects of worship, or just sheltering from the rain. The monks walk through it every so often to reach the two cells in the same building. They use it to store some bags of rice and sometimes have a meal there. On the other side of the courtyard is the south wing, which contains five cells and an administrative office. All cells are well separate, each with a window and a door that opens on to the courtyard. Designed as single residences, they only contain a bed, a table, and a wardrobe. Their doors are always closed and usually padlocked (as are all monastic facilities in China), possibly to prevent theft or to protect privacy, the latter also giving rise to curtains and bars outside the windows. On the sides, next, are the kitchen and toilets. Closer to the gate is the temple store where the monk in charge of commerce observes who comes and goes. Several benches set against the walls together with three rectangular concrete tables surrounded by rock stools make this a place for people to come at mealtimes. During festival days, monastics put up additional round tables for visitors. Recently planted shrubs recall the Daoist notion that nature should always be present in the temple. The homely feeling is complete by monastics hanging their laundry on a long line strung across. Moving south from here, one goes through a covered passage and enters a second courtyard, surrounded by a gallery with red columns and an overhanging roof. Several decorated posters announce Daoist sayings in black ink on white paper. To the right, scarlet lanterns hang from the ceiling; to the left, the gallery opens to a living room that serves as reception and (on ordinary days) as refectory. Here three signs, framed and under glass, announce regulations of the Daoist Association, next to other pictures such as group photographs of monks meeting, and support offered by various partner temples.

Fig. 7: The second courtyard

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Among them, marked in red ink painted on glass or sewn in brocade, are autographs of devote neighbors (Daoist, less commonly Buddhist) or other individuals (ordinary pilgrims), who offered a gift and thus created an explicit link with the temple. The reception room itself has four big, old, mismatched couches around a huge varnished table. The temple’s phone, shut away in a locked metal box, as well as an abacus show that this is indeed an office. Outside, moreover, furniture suggests a small parlor: two armchairs in red next to an ebony bench and a few rattan chairs. In the courtyard’s center stands a tall cypress (baishu 柏树). Nearby several low shrubs are planted around a Sweet Osmanthus tree or Osmanthus fragrans, (guihua shu 桂花树) which enhances the charm of this courtyard as much as of the temple in general. When it blossoms in tiny orange flowers in September and October, the residents relish the tree’s rarity, enjoy its gorgeous smells (between peach and apricot), and delight in the harmonious aesthetics—the flower’s color echoes the roof of the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion. More than that, the tree gives “cinnamon flower” well known among the favored foods of immortals, some of whom only eat cinnamon and water (Kaltenmark 1987: 102-3.) A tap rising from the ground serves as a fountain; as in the other courtyard, laundry hangs from a line. At its end is a wall whose back (as seen from outside the temple) shows bas-reliefs and religious inscriptions. Six cells (including the abbot’s) border on this second courtyard, and another covered passage leads to the third. It opens to a wide stairway, made from white granite and flanked by two old cypresses, which leads up to the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion. Monks and lay followers are proud to note that the stairway was specially designed to fit between the trees. Not (yet) particularly sanctified—as were those on Mount Tai 泰山 (Chavannes 1910: 141)—these trees, over a hundred years old and ancient witnesses of the temple’s history, yet formed an essential part of the holy construction. Moving around to the left, the courtyard opens into an area cluttered with construction materials. On its east side, two cells lean into the wall; on the other side, a round door opens to an empty niche destined to shelter a divinity. In the center, the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion, although unfinished, is an imposing sight. The ground floor of the structure resembles a covered atrium, since the building of the exterior walls has not yet started. Still, there is a small religious space provisionally laid out in front of the main entrance. It consists of a high table, which holds a makeshift incense burner, and sacred paraphernalia, such as red paper tablets symbolizing the divinities. Three round cushions sit on the ground, allowing kowtows; a varnished can serves as a gift receptacle; a yellow notebook records donors’ names. There is no money, so no work is going on. Inside, a curved stairway moves up directly to the second and third levels, bypassing the first—only reached by the exterior stairway. This means that to get from the first to the second or third floors one must first go back down to the ground floor and then ascend on the internal stairs—a unique architectural

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feature of the Wengongci. In addition, every floor in the square structure is different. The first has a wide central space, divided into four triangular rooms that each open to the exterior gallery surrounding the building. Its four doors are supported by red columns and covered by overhangs of the curved roof. The second has a main worship hall centered on the landing of the inner staircase; light enters from lattice windows rising from about two meters above ground all the way to the ceiling. In the northwestern corner of the hall, another stairway leads to the third floor: reduced in size it consists, like the first one, of a big central room also surrounded by an exterior gallery with red columns. The temple construction is heterogeneous, a mix of old and new, including various building styles. Old parts include low houses that look much like the civil dwellings of Dongguan; they date back to the 1950s and are soon to be demolished and replaced with new buildings. As already visible in the newer parts, this construction divides into two types: living/working quarters and worship halls. The cells and other areas (office, refectory, kitchen, and storage) generally follow ordinary style; worship halls, on the other hand, show remarkable structures. Their interior is open, spacious, and fully visible—in contrast to the cells and workrooms, whose windows have curtains or newspaper coverings. Still, the boundaries between the two types of places (living and worship) are not always clear, as shown in the hall in the first courtyard: while remaining sacred, religious space yet can become a place of life. Although their cells are private, the monastics do not live in a special section of the monastery beyond access to lay followers or visitors—as is the case in larger institutions, such as the Baxiangong. Nor is there a division of residence and activity between monks and nuns or permanent and temporary residents. They have isolation in their cells, the personal quiet place par excellence. They can have friends for tea or lunch and are free to invite whomever they want. Local followers knock on their doors to visit or consult them— sometimes standing in line before the cells to wait for a fate-calculation session or other, similar “small” rites. The Wengongci—with the exception of few rooms for specialized worship and ritual—is thus very much a public space during the day. It is not a “cloister” in the strict sense of the term but an open place, which only becomes the monastics’ own home at night.

Local Transformations Dongguan today is a vast construction site. Not far from the Wengongci, entire sections have been razed to make room for new high-rises, while their people are relocated to other city neighborhoods. The temple will soon find itself in an entirely new and “modern” town and is accordingly striving to be worthy of this change. However, the new, upscale remodeling of the town is not the main

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reason for reconstruction: rather this goes back to the destruction it underwent during the Cultural Revolution. The “old temple”—before the cataclysmic changes of the 1960s and 70s—has an ancient history indeed. Daoists claim that the first traces of the temple go back to the 2nd century C.E, the Eastern Han dynasty. At this time, well before the life of the Tang poet Han Yu (768-824) who, as Wengong, became its main deity, it appeared as the local temple of Mill Bridge. This was a small shrine to the earth god (tudimiao 土 地庙), heir to the ancient god of the soil (she 社), where people honored local protector deities. 5 The locals think of it as having been a single building, probably situated outside the inhabited parts and not lived in by any officiants. Even today shrines like that are popular, supported and managed by the local community but unoccupied as far as buildings go. Research has shown that earth god shrines became city god temples under the Tang and that Daoists adopted the city god into their pantheon under the Ming (see Johnson 1985; Kohn 1997). It is nevertheless difficult in this case to dissociate the local temple from the pride of the region: the beginnings of Daoism. Hanzhong was in fact of central importance in both Daoist and Chinese history. Here the first school of organized Daoism developed, the Celestial Masters; here Zhang Lu, the famous grandson of its founder Zhang Daoling, lived and was active. The dictionary Daojiao dacidian, compiled by the Chinese Daoist Association, has Zhang Lu as one of the last chiefs of the Yellow Turbans (huangjin 黄巾), the Daoist-inspired messianic and millenarian movement that rose in rebellion against the Han in 184 (Min and Li 1994: 578; see also Gernet 1990: 137-38.). Schipper notes that the revolt “was so widespread that the Han dynasty was left drained and exhausted by its efforts to repress it” (1993: 9). Around the year 190, Zhang Lu organized a small independent principality right around the city of Hanzhong—Zhang Lu Town 张鲁城 in neighboring Mian County —to set up his organization (Maspero 1971: 95; also Maspero 1981). Ever since, Daoism has been an organized communal religion, quite distinct from earlier proto-Daoist lineages that, as far as the sources reveal, consisted mainly of small groups of master and disciples (see Roth 1997). The new communal organization was called the “Five Pecks of Rice Sect” (wudoumi jiao 五斗米教 ) in reference to grain tax levied on its members (Kaltenmark 1970: 1225). Just as the formation of the Celestial Masters marked a major turn in the history of Daoism, so the city of Hanzhong is a symbolic reminder of this turn. This is highly potent today when once again, there are massive changes in the relationship between political and religious forces and there is a strong resurgence in worship. Even popular tourist guides remark on this today (Chen 1988; Wang 1987; Yan 1991). 5 On early earth gods, see Chavannes 1910: Appendix.; Maspero 1971: 244-48; Baptandier 2008: 142-54.

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Some lay followers associate the Mill Bridge temple with Zhang Lu Town, but today there are no more traces of the latter: the site is just a regular hill covered with terraced fields. On the other hand, there is a nearby temple dedicated to Zhang Lu’s daughter, deified in her own right: the Guanzimiao 观子庙 or Miss Zhang’s Tomb (in Mian County). People pay homage to Zhang Lu, hoping that one day in the future a memorial may be dedicated to him and his old town be resurrected.

Fig. 8: Remnant of the wall of Zhang Lu Town and the city behind, Mian County

There is no documentation providing exact dates for the construction of the original earth god temple in Mill Bridge. Since it forms part of the old city of Hanzhong, both monks and local historians think it legitimate to claim its antiquity, but their descriptions are ambiguous. On one hand, they say that the Wengongci succeeded the earth god shrine and only took on its Daoist role and name in the 18th century; on the other hand, they note that Zhang Lu and other famous Daoists lived there in an important sanctuary that survived the millennia. The Hanzhongshi wengongci says, “Under the Eastern Han, when Zhang Lu established the Five Pecks of Rice Sect in the area, he came many times [to the temple of Mill Bridge] to teach Dao. Succeeding him, many illustrious Daoist followers came there to give lectures on the religion” (Hanzhong daojiao xiehui 1994b: 1). The document continues by saying that those Daoist masters managed to avert several misfortunes threatening the people of Hanzhong. Overall, the official history of the monastery thus claims that it goes back to Zhang Lu; lay followers accordingly appropriate this important personage and phase of Daoist history. The ancient celebrity thus still benefits the local Daoist temple. While the Mill Bridge temple in its early stages may well go back 2000 years, playing a part in the first Daoist movement in the region, written historical records only go back to the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). It appears first in 1675, in the Hanzhong dizhi 汉中地志 (Hanzhong Gazetteer) under the name “Dong-

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guan earth god shrine.” 6 Monks today admit that local administrators in the 17th century probably noticed it due to an expansion or other architectural change. Only after that did it become known as Wengongci and, in the early 18th century, underwent expansion and enhancement. For the first time it is clearly recorded as a monastery and major sanctuary, dedicated to a more important divinity than the anonymous earth god—who yet remained continuously present but in a more personalized and important format. The Hanzhongshi wengongci dates the temple’s elevation to 1744, the eighth year under the Qianlong Emperor. It was probably at this point that the temple changed its name and became a Daoist institution. This identity change also explains why some people say that the Wengongci goes back to the 18th century. Still other sources claim that the monastery was really only founded in the 20th century. Thus, the recent Hanzhong shizhi says that the earth god shrine became the Wengongci in 1918 (1994: 741), but it does not give any further details or specific reasons. There is one rubbing of a stele formerly located at the temple; engraved in 1926, it is now in the Hanzhong museum. Its text indicates that the management of the earth god shrine changed from local officials to the Daoists, under the Republic (Chen 1996: 423). This inscription explicitly states that it belongs to quite a different—and more reliable—genre than the popular legends (which it also mentions) and records more accurate history by attributing the expansion of the temple to an official initiative. It also notes that the earth god shrine was in fact dedicated to Houtu 后土(Earth Sovereign), a divinity charged with the administration of small local hamlets (tulü 土闾) by the son of the sageemperor Zhuanxu 顓須, himself a grandson of the Yellow Emperor. Despite the small size of the territory under Houtu’s control, he remained an important divinity in China. The stele further notes that earth as the central of the five phases should be worshiped in the center, the place of stability (zhongliu 中溜). It adds that in 116 B.C.E. under Emperor Wu of the Han, a text claims that “as long as Houtu does not have a proper shrine, the rites do not conform.” The first national monument to this divinity was thus constructed at Fenyin [on the south bank of the Yellow River about 200 kilometers northeast of Chang’an]. “The emperor went there in person to prostrate himself and to carry out the imperial

6 As for Hanzhong gazetteers, I was able to consult three: one from the Ming (1544) and two from the Qing (1656, 1675). The temple only appears in the latter (the Hanzhong dizhi of 1675), which speaks for the first time of an earth god shrine Tudi ci 土地祠 in Nanzheng’s Dongguan quarter, yet without any further description. These documents suggest that the shrine was founded between 1656 and 1675. Wengongci monastics explain that the sanctuary was too small to figure in this kind of historical record and that it first appeared in 1675 probably because it was just about to take off. However, its “true” transformation or founding is not documented until about a century later.

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rites as befits the emperor. Since Houtu was situated in the center, even the Son of Heaven did not dare to lack in reverence.” 7 To perpetuate this worship, the Qing sponsored the erection of a proper shrine to Hanzhong’s earth god. Until then, the town had control over twelve counties that each worshiped their own earth god, but lacked a place of central worship and had no proper ceremonies. Thus, officials had a temple built in Dongyu where they installed the statues of the twelve earth gods in the county and held central rites. When territorial boundary lines were redrawn under the Republic, the city became the center of altogether twenty-five counties, and officials added thirteen further gods to the shrine. After describing this evolution, the stele concludes, “Popular legends have it that the temple served to honor Han Wengong, the chief deity among earth gods, but no written source testifies to that. One may believe the legend that the temple was erected for this specific worship, but there are no published data on the subject.” Both former and current monks place the true extension in the years 191012 and attribute it to popular rather than official causes. According to a former monk, an old mad woman one day washed a divine statue in the local river. The local people believed that this soiled the god and that they had to make good for the affront. To reestablish order within temple and community, they arranged for a major temple expansion, creating a worship space for merchants and other important personages who each brought money and support. Thus, he says, the Wengongci became a big Daoist monastery. Today, monastics record that the warlord Wu Xintian established a garrison to Hanzhong in 1920. Both he and his wife were fervent followers and went to the Wengongci to pray for a child. Their prayers were successful, and they installed themselves in Hanzhong, making ample offerings to the temple’s divinities. In addition, they made every effort to transform the small sanctuary into a worthy temple and greatly encouraged its embellishment and expansion. Thus, both the prestige and the activities of the temple multiplied (Hanzhong daojiao xiehui 1994b: 1). According to monks of both periods, the local supporters are always a key factor in the temple’s transformation. Typically, the mobilization of the religious community begins with an extraordinary event: a “negative” blasphemous action or a “positive” miracle. Then worship proves efficacious to either heal or enhance and that, in turn, contributes to the promotion of the sanctuary. The fact, moreover, that in the second legend an official personage is at the root of the temple’s rise recalls the imperial tradition studied by Valerie Hansen (1990), which requires recognition by the imperial bureaucracy and a proper record in the “Book of the Sacrifices” for local worship to become orthodox. Following its expansion, the Wengongci enjoyed great prosperity all through World War II. “So much incense was burned that other Daoist tem7 On sacrifices to Houtu, reclaimed by Emperor Wu as counterpart of the cult to the Five Emperors who represent Heaven, see Board 2000: 149-152.

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ples of the region saw their influence diminishing, incapable of equaling the Wengongci. It became one of the most remarkable Daoist temples of Hanzhong and a major center among Daoist sites in southern Shaanxi,” announces the Hanzhong shi wengongci (Hanzhong daojiao xiehui 1994b: 2). Contemporary tourist guides do not go quite this far and fail to classify it among the top Daoist places. For them, primacy locations include Zhang Lu Town, the Temple of Zhang Liang (reputedly of the Former Han), and the Dongyanggong 洞阳宫 (in Chenggu District), built under the Ming (1368-1644). They also emphasize certain sacred mountains: Mount Tiantai north of Hanzhong with its Tang temple to the Medicine King (Sun Simiao), and Mount Wuzi 午子山 in Xixiang District, originally constructed under the Song (Chen 1996: 6). Compared to these, the Wengongci has the least breadth and shortest history. Nevertheless, since the 1920s, it has been empty only during the Cultural Revolution. After its expansion during the Republic and again today, since the 1990s, its has become an essential player in the provincial Daoist network, to the point that one wonders why exactly it gained this privilege, at least in comparison with the less spectacular evolution of older and originally more famous temples. Rising to fame in the 1920s, the Wengongci reached a pinnacle in the 1930s, and then suffered due to political events: the Japanese war, the communist fight against the nationalists, the Liberation in 1949, and especially the Cultural Revolution from the 1950s to the early 1980s. Recent history remains omnipresent in people’s memories. As soon as communism arrived, the temple suffered criticism. It managed to stay active until 1958 when it was partially demolished. At this time, the local authorities requisitioned its buildings for use as official lodgings. Statues were confiscated, steles smashed, and incense burners destroyed. Local people hastened to use its stones, bricks, and wood to construct their houses, placing them squarely on the sanctuary’s ground. The monks left, one after the next, forced back into secular life. In the early 1960s, several families lived in the monastic cells, and the worship rooms became lay residences. During the Cultural Revolution, the state suppressed all religions in the name of modernization and the rejection of tradition. Designating them as “superstitions” (mixin 迷信, literally “misled beliefs”), it prohibited all practices and beliefs of individuals as much as communities. Officials demolished or requisitioned religious structures to transform them into schools, museums, barracks, prisons, machine shops, lodgings, administrative buildings, and the like. As the monk Ren Farong (who witnessed the revival from Louguantai) remembers, the conditions began to improve in 1979, after the Third Plenary of the Eleventh Party Congress (Porter 1993: 52). In the early 1980s, with the arrival of economic and political liberalization, worship began to resume (see Pas 1989). Following Christian churches, Muslim mosques, and Buddhist temples, Daoist sanctuaries too received governmental permission to reorganize.

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Gradually restituting their former territories, the rulers allowed the monks to exist while overseeing their activities. In the mid-1980s, monks and lay followers in Hanzhong got serious about recovering the temple’s properties and getting permission to reopen. In addition to several small sanctuaries, Hanzhong city before the Cultural Revolution had three important Daoist temples: the Tianshimiao 天师庙 (Celestial Master’s Temple), the Chenghuangmiao 城隍庙 (City God Temple) and the Wengongci—the only monastery. Supplanted by the offices of the Hanzhong ribao (Hangzhong Daily), the City God Temple has left no track or trace. Of the Celestial Master’s Temple, dedicated to Zhang Daoling, only a decorated ceramic wall with two dragons remains; the grounds now house an office and apartment complex. The Wengongci alone was able to recover its land; it suffered less in terms of destruction, losing mainly small lodgings and lesser worship halls.

. Fig. 9: Dragons on a wall, unique vestige of the Tianshimiao It took several years of negotiation, but eventually the municipal authorities and state administrators gave their consent to the temple’s reconstruction. All the while they kept a close eye on the reemerging community and made sure it was in line with the framework set by the local branch of the Shaanxi Daoist Association whose seat it was to become. A key player in the revival of the Daoist tradition in Hanzhong was the monk He Mingshan. Having retired to Mount Tiantai, about thirty kilometers north of Hanzhong, in the late 1950s, he remained there throughout the Cultural Revolution, then returned to monastic life already in the late 1970s. One of the few monks in a position (and with the desire) to resume his religious career, he received donations from lay followers and subsidies from national Daoist institutions, distributing them to the different temples in the area while encouraging reconstruction everywhere. In the case of the Wengongci, local lay people greatly supported his efforts, taking charge of the work and contributing funds: some gave were small sums; others, such as a local incense manufacturer,

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brought significant amounts. In addition, several former residents who had fled with the Kuomintang returned from Taiwan or overseas; they, too, contributed significantly to the management and financing of the work. Last but not least, a big Daoist temple in Hong Kong, the Qingsongguan 青松观 (Green Pines Monastery), donated reconstruction money to be used all over Shaanxi, part of which benefited the Wengongci. Bit by bit, over the years the former temple property has come back to the Daoists. The various lay tenants who had taken up residence during the years of turbulence gradually left, coexisting with the monks until they found new homes: in 1994, about ten families lived in the temple; by 1997, five remained; and in 1998, they had all moved on. By the same token, it took both time and money before negotiations were successful that transferred full control of the temple back from the city to the monks. Reconstruction, too, went in small increments. The monks first erected a walled enclosure, including the first structure and its courtyard, in the location of the old vegetable garden, which had lain fallow during the Cultural Revolution. At the same time, they had the statues of the divinities sculpted and, as soon as the first worship room was barely finished, officially declared the temple “reopened” (kaifang 开放). This happened in April 1992. A master and a few disciples became the first new residents. The inauguration of two further buildings took place in the following year, then, supported by the laity, it expanded further back into business. While gradually recovering the lodgings taken over by laymen, the monks carefully planned their future work: they assembled funds, obtained building permits, ordered plans from architects, contacted specialized religious craftsmen, and consulted geomancers and renowned Daoist masters about the proper dimensions and layout of the worship halls. They also had to decide which divinities to place foremost in the temple. In 1996, three years after their initial return, they launched the reconstruction of the Jade Emperor Pavilion on a new and vastly bigger scale. Since then, they have managed the main, big work-site as well as a number of other, smaller ones. They gradually enlarged the first courtyard of the temple and constructed the three wings of the second. To do this, they had to recover the materials of the old buildings as much as was possible. For the most part, they ended up buying new wood for frameworks and façades, but carefully scraped off old bricks and reused them. This was more than just a means to save money. Typically, in any temple building, certain parts undergo periodic refurbishing, and the overall conception is that wood is fleeting while stone or rock is permanent. Little by little, the temple has moved forward until it now occupies a territory larger than before. Today, this new space of the religious community continued to expand—in accordance with popular desire. This new development is also the reason why monks and lay followers assert—simultaneously and with-

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out paradox—that the Wengongci dates back to the 18th century, the early 20th century, and to 1992. They allot great importance to early history and speak of the temple’s reopening. Still, the official stele at the gate dates it to 1992 without any reference to previous history, naming donors and agencies that contributed financially to the construction. It is quite likely that, as time goes on, another stele will relate the former temple’s history. Right now, however, any youngster (born after 1960) coming to the temple for the first time will think it a completely new venture. The same holds also true for most of the monks currently living there—only few realize that the sanctuary has such a checkered past and that merely because they talk to local people and elderly lay followers. On the other hand, there is historical depth to the place, and officials as much as monastics keep emphasizing Daoism as a cause of local pride, “Hanzhong,” they say, “is where the Daoist religion originated in China.” In other words, the very same argument used to destroy the temple today serves to idealize it and attract visitors and donors.

The Past Made New The fact that the stele at the gate gives 1992 as the date of origin refers, among other things, to the fact that its concrete, physical “construction” (jianzhu 建筑) dates from that year. The Wengongci today is in fact not the same as before, a fact both monastics and lay followers make clear when they talk about it. On the other hand, the new buildings in many ways replicate old models and integrate history, in some cases to the point where local people come to deny the rupture that lasted more than twenty years. While the temple in many ways is thus the same, some of its parts are gone: no longer does one find old steles and walls that were defaced, broken by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. The new stele listing modern donors identifies the temple in his current form, referring to a new group of lay followers who share its life. Made to last and in accordance with old custom, it stands prominently in front of the temple. Just as the temple space, so its inhabitants (both human and divine) have undergone many transformations since the Cultural Revolution. Its reconstruction provides a glimpse of what the future layout of the sanctuary will be—more expansive, more influential, more imposing. Monks rebuild their structure in a new form not only because the earlier forms are irretrievably lost but also because they wish to transform it. They use their memory of the past, they use some of the old bricks, but they create a new entity matching the new position of the temple in the city. It was even possible to arrive there by boat, as Laywoman Liang recalls. Then the area became living space, and the watercourse was buried. The monks decided to benefit from this and were able to enlarge both the third courtyard and new Pavilion.

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Fig. 10: The Wengongci (west side, top down): 1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2008

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Map 6: Layout of the Wengongci (from left): in the 1950s (as based on an old-time monk’s testimony); in the early 1990s; in 2000

Now built to a height of three stories and decorated with auspicious designs, the building is a lot more imposing than its one-storied predecessor was. Some monks and lay followers say that with this—the highest local edifice—the temple has finally recovered its true place in the neighborhood; others recognize that it certainly exceeds its previous level of importance. This multi-story building adds a new dimension to the temple and imposes a new level of force within the city, creating the expectation that in a few years, when construction is complete, the Wengongci will become a major tourist attraction and one may even have to buy a ticket to enter. The main hall took over half of the temple’s reconstruction budget but it puts it firmly on the map. This in turn will provide the legitimacy necessary to become the seat of the regional branch of the Shaanxi Daoist Association. The courtyards, too, are now bigger than they used to be. Arranged in a row on a north-south line (with the third courtyard a little bit shifted to the east; see map), they provide more open space and more living quarters. The fields that formerly belonged to the temple and afforded it a certain degree of selfsufficiency are now its property—although none too soon. Even in the 2000s, the Wengongci only owned the land within its walls, necessitating trade with lay people or other monastic groups when food donations were insufficient. Temples located in rural areas recovered their land earlier so that resident monastics could cultivate vegetables, but not rice which takes too much time and land. City temples, on the other end of the spectrum, create funds by printing books or they have the facilities to manufacture products. The situation allows a mutual exchange of services and thus generates solidarity among monastics. The Wengongci falls into the middle between the two, but even there the monastics have returned almost to normalcy: they own the fields adjacent to the south and grow their vegetables there.

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Newness and recovery, transformation and continuity come in many different shapes. The monastics expand and modernize their worship halls, they modify organizational structures, yet they continue to respect the basic rules, thus preserving the Daoist identity of the community. Some may speak of architectural immutability, noting that the temple always stands on the old Mill Bridge territory and feeling reassured that the modern structure resembles the old. Monks speak about the temple as ancient (gulao 古老), a trace of the past (guji 古迹) that continues the cultural heritage. From an anthropological perspective, “it is not a matter of choosing between continuity and discontinuity, between permanence and change, or between repetition and sameness” (Jamous 1996: 99). Rather, it is essential to understand the different links that monastics and lay followers see between past and present and how the Daoist Association treats them differently today. Though not marked on the official city map (published in 1980, revised in 1999) the Wengongci is said to be a “remarkable site” (mingsheng 名胜) in city, the region, and province. The recent town monograph calls it a “major scenic spot” (fengjing 风景) of the area, just as Mounts Tiantai, Yagu, and Gu, and the Flowery Pond (Hanzhong shizhi 1994: 741). It praises the charming hamlet of Mill Bridge with its ancient canal and bridge built with the former mill’s stones. The Wengongci completes this idyllic picture with its engraved wall and threestory pavilion, located by the water. This may well be the beginning of a publicity build-up, making the temple into a source of local fame so that soon, as the monks say, it will feature in provincial and even national guidebooks, becoming a major tourist attraction and even pilgrimage center. Mount Tiantai to the north of the city has already gone this route and turned into a popular tourist spot. Mentioned in guides and history books, but not actively promoted by the city until the late 1990s, it is praised less for its Daoist or monastic establishments than for its natural setting, “Make sure to visit the gorgeous parks and lustrous forests of Mount Tiantai.” Yet people reading the new map of the “Tiantai Nature Preserve” on the back of the official map of Hanzhong city, as much as those visiting the mountain itself, inevitably notice that the road to the summit goes past many temples, and take great interest in them. The proximity of this site combined with the upward mobility of the Wengongci causes it to follow naturally in the footsteps of Mount Tiantai. As it becomes a monument in itself, the urban position of the temple and its new political function will make it an outpost of Mount Tiantai. This is yet another form of recovery and renewal in progress, the active mixture of preservation and reinvention. The Chinese way of restoring temples echoes their way of restoring important buildings. An example is found in a site commonly known as Guhantai 古 汉台 (Old Han Terrace), the palace of the Han founder Liu Bang. Presented as “one of the principal sites that safeguard Shaanxi cultural heritage” (Chen 1988: 8), the main part of the palace survived the Cultural Revolution and suffered no

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destruction like the Wengongci. I visited it during my first stay in Hanzhong. The home of the Hanzhong Municipal Museum, it was extolled by tourist guides as a “remnant” of Liu Bang’s palace—which it may well be. A few years later, I went back. As part of the effort to restore China’s “cultural heritage,” it was completely razed in the 1990s, then rebuilt in identical form but with altogether new materials. Today it is a brand-new building. “Cultural heritage” (wenwu 文物 ) and “remnant” (yizhi 遗址 ) are at first glance problematic terms in this context when there is really nothing left of ancient or cultural value. The so-called remnant is not old at all: instead of the actual remainder of an old building, it is its exact copy, matching its predecessor in dimensions and colors and claiming that it recovers its original brightness. Hanzhong people believe that this serves to “safeguard” (baohu 保护) ancient culture, seeing Liu Bang’s palace as authentic not because of its physical building and materials, but because the location and the principles that guided the construction of both the old and the new buildings are identical. Using this, for Westerners rather unusual, concept of cultural continuity and preservation, the Wengongci too is a remnant of the past without being fossilized or forced to remain in its original structure. It lay completely fallow for about thirty years and the monastics there now belong to a completely new generation. Still, both to its inhabitants and to the locals who knew the temple in the past, it is the same temple that survived the Cultural Revolution. It embodies an essence that reaches beyond materiality and people. In the same way, the temples to the Celestial Master and the City God continue beyond their mere buildings: locals like to take visitors and scholars there to show them the former holy places in what remains of their traces. Brigitte Baptandier explains this conflict between the “real” place and its “memory” as follows, “In certain places, where temples were destroyed in recent violence and replaced with new constructions, people still enjoy taking their visitors to stand before a hospital, a school, or a factory and declare that ‘here is the temple,’ as if these new buildings were, at least in their eyes, stripped of any reality” (1996a: 101-2). To remember these holy places thus means to transmit the memory of their existence from generation to generation. It is important that we open ourselves to a change in perspective so we can better understand how permanence in China is not necessarily in the physical walls. Just think how often dynastic changes have led to the massive destruction of all types of books, monuments, and organizational structures. Not to mention how often, under the very same dynasty, imperial favors for one religion or another led to massive oppressions and destructions. Yet worship has often resurged, and so what is going on in China since the early 1980s is just another chapter in a repeating historical pattern. Seen from this angle, the Cultural Revolution is just one phase in a long series of events making a clean sweep, tabula rasa, that have occurred time and again throughout the history of Chinese civilization. The event is just not purely temporary. Also, the temples

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are already geared to redo their woodwork: periodic restorations are part of their make-up. Convinced of the relevance of the poetic intuition of Victor Segalen, Pierre Ryckmans comments on the prose-poem “For Ten Thousand Years” (Aux dix mille années, 1912) contained in the collection Stèles. It says that the Chinese destroy the traces of the past, yielding to the onrush of time the better to deflect it. Chinese architecture working with perishable and fragile materials means that eternity should not inhabit the building but the builder, “The Chinese have realized—in Segalen’s words—that ‘nothing immobile can escape the hungry teeth of the ages’.” Also “the transient nature of the construction is like an offering to the voracity of time; for the price of such sacrifices, the constructors ensure the everlastingness of their spiritual designs” (Ryckmans 1986: 4).8 Immortality then means to create particular virtues, actions, and words in such a way that they survive into posterity. It is conferred by history. The Wengongci, seen in this manner, cannot be reduced to the recent character of its physical structure; its name, the worship it perpetuates, its location, the landscape with the centennial cypresses—they all witness its seniority and ancestral tradition. They make it an antique monument and, more than its materiality, assure its Daoist identity, survival, and permanence. Despite all the modern restorations, China truly worships the past. Thus, following Marshall Sahlins’s statement that “the transformation of culture is a mode of its reproduction” (1989: 138), we could suggest that the transformation of a temple in China is a mode of its perpetuation. Daoism has remained anchored in the local structures of the country; it has undergone destructions and risen time and again while modifying itself over and over! Thus, monastics and lay followers of the Wengongci play the history(s), rethinking and rewriting it in their manner while adjusting sacred to real (political) territory as it is allocated them by the municipality (see Lévi-Strauss 1963, 12; Herrou 2000). The temple’s restoration and expansion in the 1990s is history in the making.

8 As Pierre Rickman’s notes on the spiritual omnipresence of the past in China: “The [Chinese] past was a past of words and not of stones . . . Chinese civilization seems not have regarded its history as violated or abused when the historic monuments collapsed or burned, as long as those could be replaced or restored, and their functions regained. . . The only truly enduring embodiments of the eternal human moments are the literary ones” (1986: 4). The permanence of the Chinese tradition is thus “a permanence of names, covering the endlessly changing and fluid nature of its actual content (1986: 12).

Chapter Two  The Residents The proverb says, “The robe does not make the monk,” yet certain distinctive traits of garb and hair define monastics within society. Often the categories they use to classify themselves overlap, reflecting the complex identity of the community and its sometimes-fuzzy outlines. Given the significance of spiritual lineages in this context, the story of each monastic comes within the framework of the vast network of Daoist masters, even to the point of losing sight of the individual’s life-trajectory. Let us, therefore, see what monastic residents today look like and how they define themselves.

Ordinary Garb The rear door of the temple is open. Coming in from the outside, one notices very similar looking people, all robed in dark-blue or black habits, their hair tied up in a topknot, moving about like shadows of a single man. The “Daoist robe” (daopao 道袍) is a long garment of thick fabric crossed in front that lets only the fingers escape from its long sleeves. High-socks or puttees (wa 袜) of fine white and loose cotton, tied under the knees by a same cloth lace, envelope the calves and enclose the bottom of the pants that are worn under the robe. The feet are clad in black cloth shoes (buxie 布鞋), also known as “shoes of the clouds” (yunlü 云履; see Yoshioka 1979: 237). They have a round toe with a Vshaped slit at the top near the ankle. As one enters the open courtyard, more details become obvious. The faces can have both a masculine or feminine air, revealing individual personalities. Their age varies, but there are no children among them, the youngest temple inhabitant permitted to wear monastic garb being about twenty years of age. Older men, often with long beards and white hair, are treated with due respect. Their individual characteristics—facial expressions, levels of hairiness, body shapes, gait, vocal sound, and other details—allow the observer to go beyond the uniformity of garb and differentiate between them. In addition, certain monastics carry some personal objects—pendants, glasses, a watch, a carved hairpin, a precious rock sewn on a headband—that help distinguish them. 43 

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If one goes there more often, one soon notes that there is certain flexibility in the way the monastics dress. While during rituals formal garb is de rigueur, in everyday life the rules are far from rigid. Some wear tennis shoes or rubber boots, using pants for their various domestic tasks that come in different colors, both darker and lighter. Some even take off their outer robe or jacket in the heat and walk around in T-shirts, generally monochrome but sometimes with print—the monastic Wu Shizhen, for example, has one that says, “I love London.” Nor do they hesitate to cover themselves with an anorak or a slicker when it is cold or rainy. In addition, when the white high-socks are in the laundry, they substitute ordinary socks. Typically, monastics possess several suits of clothing. For everyday life, the rule offers a choice between two “ordinary suits” (bianzhuang 便装): the Daoist robe, long and with wide sleeves, or the two-piece outfit. In Hanzhong, they all wear the Daoist robe as their classic costume, alternating it with a set of pants and top—less specific to the community but much more practical. While the pants set is often sewn by local tailors (easy to get and cheap), the formal robes are made in the temple by the monastics themselves—often by the nuns who transmit the patterns.

Fig 11: Ordinary garb: I. long robe; II-III. midi robe; IV. short habit

I asked them why they had such variety of clothes and what they meant. Most placed the Daoist robe into a form of prioritized series of clothing. It ranks among the Chinese classic garment called gua 褂, which can mean a robe or jacket depending on the context. The monastics speak of their garb as the Daoist gua (daogua 道褂). It can be long (dagua 大褂), midi (zhonggua 中褂), or short (xiaogua 小褂), sleeves varying accordingly. The dagua reaches to the ankles and has sleeves 42 cm (17 inches) wide; the zhonggua stops at mid-calf and has slightly narrower sleeves; the xiaogua just goes to the hips and has sleeves of

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the same size or narrower than the zhonggua—it resembles more a jacket than a robe. The sleeve size of the zhonggua is not specified, because it functions as a popular intermediary between the others. Hanzhong monastics commonly wear the zhonggua, but one among them, called Bai Lixuan, always wears a dagua which he got when traveling. It is less practical for normal wear since it has so much more fabric. Most Daoists only don it for major occasions when they do not have to move about so much but need to look imposing as they stand next to the altars and greet the visitors. In larger temples such the Baiyunguan in Beijing, especially on festival days, monastics will even be decked out in the better known duoluo 得罗 (exceptionally, the first character here is pronounced like the word for “flower”: duo 朵) that has even wider sleeves (of 112 cm or 45 inches) than the dagua. The Daojiao yifan only lists the dagua, the duoluo, and the consecration robe—the latter with sleeves of 104 cm (Min 1986: 22). However, in Hanzhong as in all Daoist monasteries, the monastics always have a xiaogua, which is the two-piece suit composed of a jacket with cloth-buttons and loops in front, combined with wide pants tightened at the ankles (like those worn under the long robe). They use it to carry out daily tasks, such as cooking, cleaning, gardening, pottering about in the temple as well as to go to the market, travel, and visit sacred mountains. In any cases, the physical body is almost invisible excepted for the head (hair and face) and fingers. If hiding his or her body is significant in the monastic context, and at first glance correlated to celibacy, it is not synonymous of denying the body. Daoists (and maybe the Chinese in general) take good care of their bodies to attain long life or even immortality. As Angela Zito shows with regard to emperors, clothes can play an important role in the interface between the inner man and the cosmos (1997: 42-50). Both the colors of ordinary garb and the motives embroidered on ritual robes represent Daoist emblems.

Coloring All Daoist robes and jackets are made from a uniform dark-blue or black fabric. The rules describe this color as qing 青, using an ambiguous term that can mean anything from turquoise through azure and various shades of green and blue to dark navy, gray, or even black. This ambiguity allows certain flexibility in the choice of fabric, yet most monastics agree that the “orthodox” color is darkblue. The Beijing scholar Zhu Yueli confirms this: in Daoism qing is blue and xuan 玄, lit. “mysterious, obscure,” is black (personal communication). Daoist monastics, moreover, associate the color of their clothes with cosmogonic symbols. To those in Hanzhong, it evokes the sky, the sea, and nature, which they aim to follow as their model. The Daojiao yifan explains that blue was chosen because it matches the color of the sky and corresponds to the east

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(Min 1986: 23). It also relates to the world of the immortals. According to the monk Zhu Xinyang, whom I met at the Baiyunguan, blue as a symbol of the east is also associated with Donghua dijun 东华帝君. The Lord Emperor of Eastern Florescence, he is the cosmic match of Xiwangmu 西王母, the Queen Mother of West, serves as the guardian of paradise, and is one of the foremost divinities of the Daoist religion (Yoshioka 1979: 237). In other words, qing represents the very foundations of Daoism. The color of the jacket or short robe is less regulated. Some are white or beige, made in finer cotton, more comfortable for the summer. Pants are sometimes of the same color as the jacket but they can also be different. In imperial China, all colors had strong connotations and were limited in their use. Monastics had no leeway in choosing their vestment code and were subject to the official imposition of colors and fabrics. Wang Yi’e, a columnist for the journal Zhongguo daojiao, whom I also met at the Baiyunguan, explains the origin of the robes’ color rather pragmatically, “In the old days, under imperial rule, everything in China was regulated: colors could not be used in every which way. Daoist masters then used blue and black to create a visible distinction from Buddhist monastics.” The color indeed singles them out in the eyes of the laity. As some monks explained it to me, at some point in history, Daoist monastics imitated Buddhist models in their choice of robes. The Buddhist kasāya (jiasha 袈裟) is a loose cloth wrapped around the body that leaves one shoulder bare, associated with the clothes worn by the bodhisattva Siddhartha, the future Buddha, when he ventured forth into the world. It was modified in China along the lines of the traditional robes worn by officials and other dignitaries—the kind of clothing also chosen by Daoist monastics. Buddhist monastics, too, wear pants under their robes as well as high-socks and cloth shoes. The major difference, then, is in the color and the associated symbolic value. In fact, as Holmes Welch notes, while in Theravada countries monastics wear saffron robes, in China yellow was considered an indication of superior rank (1967: 113). As a result, and as a show of humility, monastics figured they should wear only gray or, to a certain extent, black. Today, the color of Chinese Buddhist robes varies according to schools and lineages. For Chan followers, i.e., Chinese-transmitted schools (Hanchuan fojiao 汉传佛教), it is generally gray. For schools descending from Tibetan lineages, it is yellow or red. However, as a monk I met at the ancient Tanzhesi 潭柘寺 (Pool and Cudrania Temple) about 45 km west of Beijing notes, yellow as used by monastics has to be an earth tone (tuhuang 土黄) or mustard color as opposed to the celestial yellow favored by the imperial court—which is close to that of a young chick. The red, too, must not be too lively so as not be associated with auspicious events, but is more a dull brownish color. Monastics of the Fayuansi 法源寺 (Source of Dharma Temple) in Beijing wear gray, yellow,

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or red robes, “depending on the lineage of their master,” as the monk Long Guang explains. Daoists interpret the contrast between their dark robes and white highsocks in terms of the harmony of the two forces of the Great Ultimate. Thus, some monastics in the Wengongci note that their clothing is emblematic of Daoism in that it represents the essential patterning of yin and yang. The fact that the socks appear fine and soft in comparison to the thick, almost gnarled fabric of the robe similarly emphasizes these opposing—and complementary— principles. Overall, the garb illustrates communal unity or the “One,” the entirety that contains the multiplicity of life. More simply, as the monk Zhu Xinyang underlines, the blue and white represent sky and clouds, thus imitating the celestial world of the immortals the monastics hope to join one day. Nevertheless, beyond these parallels between their garb and the cosmos, Daoist monastics explain that none of this is essential for their daily robes since, unlike those used in ritual, they are not specifically Daoist.

Ritual Robes Each Wengongci monastic also possesses a “ritual robe” (fayi 法衣 ), which consists of an immense, hoodless tunic made from a big square of fabric (generally silk). It is colored and sometimes embroidered, has no sleeves, and is split in front. Often prepared especially for the individual person, the officiant wears it like a cape on top the ordinary robe. There are several types of ritual robes. The simple “colorful robe” (banyi 斑 衣 ) may have embroidered borders but in its central square is usually unichrome (often red). It is worn during daily recitations of canonical scriptures (nianjing 念经 ) that take place before the divinities in the worship hall. The prestigious “flowery robe” (huayi 花衣) has a central square embroidered with certain codified motives, including dragons, clouds, mountains, cranes, and the seven stars of the Dipper. It is the main garb of “deserving” seniors and superiors, and especially of honorary abbots (fangzhang 方丈) but also, at the very least, by younger ones who have the ability to lead a ceremony as Master of High Merit (gaogong 高功) during a ritual. Thick and heavy, it is handmade and quite rare, although today sometimes the embroidery is machine-made. Beyond that, those who have received collective consecration (shoujie 授戒) also possess the “precepts robe” (jieyi 戒衣), which has a central square of monochrome yellow and a simple black trim. In the big monasteries, officiants often have a variety of ritual robes to match different ritual protocols. In Hanzhong as much as in other small monasteries, on the other hand, the monastics usually only have a single formal outfit which they simply call “ritual robe” or “flowery robe.” They use it for all the rituals, whether big or small. It is an enhanced office robe with a mono-

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chrome central square (often a bright yellow, beige, orange, pink, or red) and decorated with printed motives of the immortal world. Its borders (the bottom of the robe, the neckline, and the raised sections at the arms), are of darker than the square: black, green, or red. One among them even has a talisman drawing (tu’an 图案) on the back, such as the Great Ultimate symbol. The current abbot of the Wengongci usually wears a consecration robe he received on Mount Qingcheng in Sichuan in 1995. A monk visiting from Sichuan wears a richly decorated robe of a slightly different look, probably sewn by a tailor matching the pattern of imperial outfits and not following that for Daoist robes. The monk Bai Lixuan explains that it would be unworthy to worship the divinities without wearing dignified garb, and that one should not participate in the daily recitations or other rituals without it. Most ritual texts also assert that the robes “are supervised and protected by divine beings” (Despeux 1986: 89n32). Ritual garb is thus a form of carefully prepared clothing that calls attention to the ritual and honors the gods.

Fig. 12: Ritual robes: I. colorful robe; II, V: flowery robe; III-IV. precepts robe

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The ceremony that marks their entry into the monastic community is accordingly called the Rite of Cap and Gown (guanjin shoujie, 冠巾受戒), already in the early times, the rites of ordination were essentially dressing ceremonies (Schipper 1993: 229n70). The gown or robe invests the monastic with ritual strength, just as his special cap or headdress clearly marks him as separate when in the ritual sphere. Any time the monastics worship the divinities they must first change their outfit or, more exactly, place the flowery robe and headdress on top of their daily Daoist garb and common hairdo. In their role of mediators between the mundane and celestial worlds, they wear both ordinary garb in dark blue or black and white and a sumptuous costume in bright radiance. The line between blue, black, gray, and ochre habits—especially if washed out— may be fluid and the daily robes may not always allow a clear distinction of Daoist and Buddhist monastics, but the ritual robes are significantly different, and so there is their hairdo.

Topknots Wearing the hair long and tying it on top of the head is the most distinctive trait of Daoist monastics. Anyone entering the Quanzhen school will no longer cut his hair but learns to groom it into a finely rolled topknot, held together with a pin of jade or wood. Clearly distinct from Buddhist monastics who shave their skulls, Daoists monastics dress their long hair in a symbol of longevity. The more imposing the hairstyle (the bigger the topknot), the older is the monastics vocation. The worst punishment for bad behavior a master can inflict on a monastic is to give him a haircut, ruining a work of art that has been carefully cultivated over years, since his entry into the monastery. One example was Yang Chengdao, a monk from the Baxiangong, who passed through Hanzhong in 1998: no one knew (or at least they did not tell me) what he had done to deserve such a penalty, but all saw that he had obviously committed a grave mistake. The haircut as punishment also reminded everyone of the power a master holds over his disciple. Yang did not lose his Daoist name or suffered expulsion from the community; it was only a call to order from his master who gave him a new chance by granting him the permission to let his hair grow back. This documented a gesture of clear devotion—in history commonly undertaken by the vanquished who had “to offer themselves personally as a victim” (Granet 1994: 135, 452). In the Wengongci, everyone wears a topknot, formed in the special Daoist way: first one combs the hair and pulls it together in a ponytail on the top of the head, tying it with a strip of cloth or a rubber band. One then divides it into two bunches, makes two loops and secures them in a bun (winding the rest of the hair like a wide ring around the loops); next, one puts a pin through the

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loops. As the monk Zhu Xinyang notes, the two-part topknot “forms the mandala of the Great Ultimate,” the key emblem of the religion. Squeezed tightly, the topknot resembles a ball, divided into two fitted parts, merging into each other to represent yin and yang.

Fig. 13: Topknots: I. Crown, attached on an Essentials Chaos kerchief; II “Essential Chaos;” III. Celestial Master; IV. Nine Bridges (or the Lü Dongbin); V. Easy Wandering (or the Zhuangzi); VI. Character One

On the topknot, the monastics further wear the cap or headdress (guanjin 冠 巾) which comes in two forms: the kerchief (jin 巾) and the crown (guan 冠).1 In daily life they usually wear a black kerchief made from silk (jian 縑) or hemp (ge 葛); in rituals, the master of ceremony places the crown on top. Kerchiefs come in various forms. The simplest is the supple kerchief, such as the “Ker1 Depending on the context, the term guanjin may indicate just the hairdo or the hairdo in combination with the habit, as in the case of the rite of the same name.

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chief” (toujin 头巾), also called the “Character One” (yizijin 一字巾): it is a strip of black fabric, which encloses the forehead and is decorated at the front with a small plate of oblong jade. Then there is the “Easy Wandering” (xiaoyaojin 逍遥 巾,) “Easy Wandering”” 庄子巾, a square of silk covering the topknot. The emblem of the Quanzhen school is a more rigid version: the “Essential Chaos” (hunyuanjin 混元巾), round and perforated on top to allow the topknot to peek through. Another one is the “Celestial Master” (tianshjin 天师巾), flat on top and decorated with a rock in front. The “Nine Bridges” (jiuliangjin 九梁巾), also called the “Lü Dongbin” 吕洞宾巾, consists of nine layers of fabric arranged vertically on top of each other. Crowns, on the other hand, are metallic, decorated with small precious stones (notably jades). The monastics attach them to certain kerchiefs, such as the “Essential Chaos,” or sometimes wear directly on the head. Hanzhong monastics note that most monastics wear kerchiefs that allow the topknot to be visible, such as the “Character One” and the “Essential Chaos.” The latter is not only the most prized but also the most prestigious, advocated during services and rituals. More formally, the Daojiao yifan lists nine forms of kerchief and five types of crowns (Min 1986: 22-23). Usually, the monastics do not choose them individually: they receive the kerchief from their initiation or other major master after it has been subjected to formal consecration. Typically they each have several that they take turns wearing. In daily life, they wear their hair in a topknot and do not need the kerchief. It is essential, however, during official duties, rituals, and journeys. The crown is only worn by the most virtuous monastics or Masters of High Merit (gaogong 高功 ) and prescribed in specific rituals, such as “guiding lost souls to salvation” (chaodu wanghun 超渡亡魂), where it distinguishes the master of the ceremony. Both kerchiefs and crowns are thus directly related to the way in which monastics recognize merit and acknowledge their standing in the community. There are no difference between monks and nuns with regard to headdress.

Long Hair The hair, too, is full of symbolic value. Long hair (changfa 长发) is traditionally associated with long life (changsheng): it expresses the idea of “length” (chang) and, by extension, of longevity (changshou 长寿). Beyond longevity, hair also indicates permanence, and many monastics emphasize that in their hairdo they perpetuate an ancient Chinese tradition. Zhu Xinyang says, “The Chinese are the descendants of the [sage rulers] Yellow Emperor and Divine Farmer, who wore long hair without fail. This is a matter of an ancient tradition.” Laymen, too, offer a similar explanation. Wang Yi’e of the Zhongguo daojiao journal notes that “hair is a gift from our parents; we do not dare touch it.”

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A monk from Mount Luofu whom I met at Baiyunguan similarly connects the hair to filial piety, “The Xiaojing 孝经 (Classic of Filial Piety) says that hair is the synthesis of the parents’ vital essence, the father’s sperm and the mother’s blood.” Associated with the gift of life, hair constitutes an essential vital energy transmitted from the parents. Nowadays, of course, the Chinese do not wear their hair long any more. Still, some people continue to refer back to its former meaning. According to Wang Yi’e, “in antiquity, the Han Chinese would not cut their hair. When, under the Qing rulers [of Manchu origin,], they were at last forced to do it, Daoist monastics alone were authorized to continue the Han tradition.” The hairdo thus marks the Daoists as authentic Chinese, representatives of an immutable ancestral tradition. It also underlines the autochthony of the religion, especially in comparison with Buddhism. Beyond showing respect toward the ancestors—whether parents, religious founders, or imperial sages—long hair also functions, as Wang Yi’e says, as a sign of our inherent nature (xing 性) what we possess “at birth,” something heavenly generated (tiansheng 天生 ), a part of natural so-being (ziran 自然 ). When they let their hair grow and put it up, therefore, the monastics practice xufa 蓄发, which means to “store,” “put in reserve,” “maintain,” or “nourish” the hair. In other words, by putting the hair up, they refine it as part of the transformation of long life in the same way they do with other bodily substances. The hairdo is thus part of the ascetic quest to know, rediscover, and attain the original state of the world and humanity. Monastics hope to perpetuate their original personality while yet keeping its unique components as much as possible, enhancing and developing them to be better able to transform them through self-improvement and realization. The monk I met in Beijing summarized the situation by telling me: “With regard to their hair, Daoist and Buddhist monks have diametrically opposed behaviors: some do not sacrifice a hair (i.e., the Daoists); others do not keep a hair (the Buddhists). ” Indeed, as seen from this angle, the exceptional position of Buddhist monastics in China becomes obvious. Their shaved heads alone signaled their renunciation of filial piety, a renunciation they embodied and manifested in their introduction of the monastic, celibate life. For centuries and again today, they have been mocked for their shaved skulls, nude and “shiny” (guang 光) and full of phallic connotations (Durand-Dastès 2002: 99-103). Inspired by the gesture Siddhartha made after leaving his father’s palace and embarking on the path of renunciation, the shaved head remains a major distinctive trait of all Buddhist monastics, whether in Theravada or Mahayana countries2. They closely represent the renunciation of the world. As Holmes Welch describes in the context of a 20th-century Buddhist initiation, the master explic2 The bodhisattva’s gesture may well be understood as the origin of the tonsure among Buddhist monks, yet this does not mean that he “invented” it. It is much more likely that it began among Indian ascetics well before the Buddha’s lifetime.

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itly tells the novice, “Inasmuch as you have made up your mind to renounce lay life so that you will never regret and withdraw, now the hair on the top of your head goes under the knife, cutting you off forever from all your ties, so that you may cultivate holy conduct in the sangha, and your happiness and wisdom may gradually increase.” (1967: 274).

Fig. 14: A Buddhist monk (in a yellow habit) at the Wengongci (left) Fig. 15: Worship hall of the Judge of the Ministery of Buddhists monks and Daoist masters, Dongyuemiao, Beijing (right)

A belief common to all religions is that hair contains a part of one’s personality, which is cut off with it (Gennep 1991: 238-40). Kim Gutschow, too, in her study of Buddhist nuns in Zangskar, northern India, finds that “As a sacred substance associated with one of the most sacred parts of the body, the head, shorn hair is also associated with a person’s luck (spar kha). In order to avoid anyone stepping on the shorn hair and thereby destroying one’s luck, a nun shoves the shorn hair into the chinks of her cell or hides it under a rock.” (2001: 195). Daoists, too, with their desire for the attainment of immortality hope to perpetuate their personality with their unique attributes, body and soul. Preserving their hair in its natural state thus not only marks them as different from the general public, but it also differentiates them from their Buddhist colleagues and from Daoist household priests of the Celestial Masters. The latter match the evolution of the Chinese society; because they live in the world, they keep their hair short like laymen and wear a kerchief which is flat on top. Historically, too, the Daoist treatment of hair is of unique importance. Wang Chongyang, the Quanzhen founder, created his movement around the idea of “harmonizing the three religions” (sanjiao heyi 三教合一 ), a form of

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convergence but not of syncretism (Marsone 2001: 210-13). As Zhu Yueli interprets it, Wang adopted the notion of filial piety from Confucianism, expressed in the hair that was not to be cut; he integrated the necessity to “leave the family” and live a celibate life from Buddhism, and he took the quest for immortality and the various ritual and meditative techniques from medieval Daoism (personal communication). This integration does not match the general historical development of the time; rather, it reflects an individual interpretation of Quanzhen, which generally matches the tendencies of the Song revival of traditional Confucianism. Both the shaved hair of the Buddhists and the topknot of the Daoists are markers of the celibate life, but the meaning of celibacy differs. In Chan, monastics shave their hair, keep their vital essence, and put an end to sexuality. Tantric Buddhists ritualize sexuality as form of asceticism (Strickmann 1996: 243-90).3 Both forms of asceticism aim to end the cycle of reincarnation and attain nirvana. They follow from the belief in transmigration, deeply rooted in Indian culture and closely linked with the idea of the impermanence of existence (Cheng 1997: 328-31). In other words, in Buddhism the body has not to be perpetuated but the spirit is essential for enlightenment. In my view, this is one of the main differences to Daoism as far as asceticism is concerned. Daoists, on the other hand, groom their hair carefully and tie it in a topknot, thus maintaining their vital force and sublimating their sexuality as part of the overall transformation and extension of life. Wengongci monastics note that hairdo and garb will not make the monastic and recall popular films that often present a criminal hiding from the authorities by donning a Daoist robe. Nevertheless, both are distinctive traits that single them out among other religious practitioners, as well as several other forms of ritualized behavior.

Secret Language and Codified Gestures The temple is often busy and cacophonous, especially on festival days. The monastics do what they can to create this lively, “warm and noisy” (renao 热闹) atmosphere with background hubbub, loud voices, vibrant songs, and firecrackers. It is essential for the happiness of the participants but above all for the success of the rituals—especially since certain sounds are a way of “entering into resonance” (ganying 感应) with the gods. Yet the monastics never walk hastily and avoid all rushed gestures. They tend to keep quiet and say how they like to listen to the silence. They cultivate a certain reserve as part of their quest for “clarity and stillness” (qingjing 清静), a notion fundamental to their asceticism. They sometimes communicate in ways that do not involve words or are 3 On the comparison of Hindu yogis and Buddhist monks with regard to their hair— grown and matter versus shorn, see Leach 1980.

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simply quiet, staying still in their deep appreciation of the ineffable mystery. Some followers come to consult them in their cells; they frequently only see them in the corridors or in the temple courtyards. The monastics advocate softness and withdrawal, virtues that the Chinese commonly associate with the female. Bai Zhigang of the Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing explains, “Daoist monastics speak about living in quietude and purity of spirit because they wish to find release from all things (xiaosa 潇 洒 ).” This attitude of reserve forms an important aspect of Daoist identity. Wengongci monastics note that it allows them to recognize themselves and to assess their peers. They are to avoid any kind of anger, a vice already clearly condemned by the school’s founder (Marsone 2001: 336) as detrimental to the “quietude” found in internal peace. In other words, a monk who is often angry cannot be at an advanced level in the quest for Dao. Precise gestures and codified language, moreover, serve as concrete identity marks. Thus, when two monastics meet they do not bow toward each other with hands joined at waist-level as is traditional, nor do they shake hands as people do more and more nowadays. Rather, they face each other with hands joined at the forehead. This gesture is interpreted in a way often overlooked by the laity: the intertwined fingers represent the Great Ultimate. In fact, it is a very precise gesture, involving the placement of the the left hand over the right while supporting the left thumb on the upper phalanx of the middle finger of the right hand and the right thumb on the lower end of the left thumb. The same intertwining of fingers is also used at chest level when a monastic greets a colleague of the same status or a layman. The traditional greeting, on the contrary, just requires that one cover one hand with the other. Wengongci officiants insist on the fact that the gesture has both a symbolic meaning of reverence and contains a tacit code that allows monastics to identify each other. Despite all this, Daoist monastics have clear individual personalities. On occasion, and preferably far away from lay eyes and ears, they engage in heated discussions and speak about public debates and political issues, often with an inherent softness but not necessarily hiding their emotions. Similarly, in everyday life, they often joke and sometimes make impertinent remarks while yet careful to avoid all exuberance. Young monastics will defy authority and leave the monastery without having the master’s permission, squabble softly amongst themselves, laughing and giggle, or speak of each other in mocking nicknames. More elderly ones will take a glass of ginger wine to keep in shape, joke openly about comical situations they have experienced, or imitate some lay friends. In other words, at various instances both young and old will easily go beyond the rule that requires strict respect for the master and complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages. Besides, many monastics practice long life techniques and martial arts. When they train in battle, they become vivid and vigorous, in stark contrast with the quietude they exhibit most of the time.

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Fig. 16: The Daoist greeting, representing the Yin-Yang diagram of the Great Ultimate

Wengongci monastics have phone access and keep abreast of current events. They engage in discussions with local followers, leaf through local papers, and stop in the streets or at a popular temple to watch a bit of TV. Some also have computer skills, such as the monk Wu Shizhen from Xi’an who used to spend time in a cybercafé to send English e-mails to his Western friends and disciples, until he managed to buy his own computer. Still there are quite a number (and not necessarily the oldest) who continue to write in classical Chinese and to read old texts. Hoping to pass on the ancient rituals they received from their predecessors and which may well have been performed in a similar manner in the middle ages and even in antiquity, they have little interest in modern comforts and material possessions. Daoist monastics today are full of ambiguity, and they sometimes seem to be aware of this fact, or even to play with this. If they recognize that their inscrutability is a mask behind which they hide with full intention, they say more simply that the culture of the body or a lively way of being are not antithetical to a calm voice and controlled gestures. They claim the right to both, and explicitly cultivate a sense of the paradoxical. Their sacred texts—as much as their way of life—are full of oxymorons and intentionally contradictory aphorisms. Another indication of this is that—at least to those who do not know Daoism—monastics often speak in an incomprehensible or highly obscure way. In fact, they use a specialized and coded language known as the “language of internal cultivation” (neilianshu yu 内炼术语 ), which lay people describe as the “language used by Daoist masters” (daoshi de yongyu 道士的用语). It substitutes a number of unique expressions for those used normally and has its own structure, vocabulary, and writing. The neighboring nurse, for example, who has frequent interaction with the monastics, says that she has learned enough to decode their expressions, “For example, they may talk about ‘opening the light’

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(kaiguang 开光),4 but in fact it means ‘big ceremony’ (dadian 大典) or the ‘service inauguration of a new construction’ (luocheng dianli 落成典礼). Instead of saying ‘thank you’ (xiexie 谢谢), they use the words ‘compassion and mercy (cibei 慈 悲).” The monk Wu Shizhen notes that these codes are signs of recognition among officiants, “Genuine monastics never ask, What is your honorable name (nin gui xing 您贵姓)?, but: What is your immortal name (nin xian xing 您仙姓)?” This is how they distinguish themselves from the laity and recognize each other; it also serves to unmask potential fakes. In addition, Daoism as all other religions uses a specialized vocabulary and enjoys the opacity of its internal language. Not much interested in proselytizing, Daoists prefer to remain hidden in secrecy. As Layman Zhu notes, the religion is after all also known as the “gate to the mystery” (xuanmen 玄门) or the teaching of “mystery and wonder” (xuanmiao 玄妙). “It is full of secrets (mimi 秘密) and its doctrine is complex, abstruse, and hard to penetrate.” Daoist belief centers on the concepts of mystery and obscurity, the power that inheres in the entire universe and is the ultimate enigma of creation. As Laozi suggests, it is essential “to go from the mystery to the deeper mystery” (Daode jing 1; see Robinet 1977: 108-9). The entire trajectory of the practice is to open a secret passage to humanity, allowing people to find a way out of the labyrinth of ordinary existence and into the otherworld, the realm of immortality at one with the state of creation. Daoist temples all have archives and “internal registers” (neibu 内部) not accessible to laymen. The monastics carefully preserve manuscripts and rare books, keeping them under lock and key or, ideally, in the libraries of the big institutions. However, over time, the secrecy surrounding the works has eroded so that, as Liu Xun has shown, an important aspect of the renewed interest in Daoism around the turn of 20th century was practices undertaken by lay followers who spread Daoist esoteric knowledge outside the Quanzhen monasteries. These intellectuals published books and periodicals and created a veritable “inner alchemy print culture” (Liu 2009: 234). Monastics also have started to publish and comment on their sacred texts. The Daoist Canon and its various supplements and indexes are easily accessible today in bookstores and online. Many Daoist texts can be bought in monastery stores, and dictionaries that explain obscure terms of the formerly secret language, initially compiled for officiants, are no longer limited to Daoist circles. Monastics may be their first buyers, but scholars and lay followers are closely behind. Thus, while the Wengongci did not possess a copy of the Daoist Canon until very recently, lay follower Zhu has had it for a long time in his personal library and generously made it accessible to the monastics.

4 Kaiguang usually refers to painting pupils in religious images so they can be “open to the light.”

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Generally speaking, Wengongci monastics do not find the opening of the ancient repositories very threatening or upsetting. Some of the texts in the collections were never confidential but addressed to the general public from the beginning. Whatever the case, the more esoteric texts that were transmitted only among initiates are often so obscure that one needs personal instruction and formal consecration to understand them. Most materials are difficult and a simple reading does not suffice to understand their impact, so only seriously dedicated people will really come to grips with them. Daoist monastics often undertake “research” (yanjiu 研究) and “investigations” (tandao 探讨), submitting their results to experimentation. No knowledge, they say, does any good unless put into practice. Choosing to become a monastic already means that one distinguishes oneself from the people of the world. As Bai Lixuan says, “We all keep [our truth] secret from those who have not gone through asceticism, since they cannot grasp it: those entering the monastery are often those who, like Zhang Liang, rise up against all kinds of fakery (maopai 冒牌).”

Appellations and Affiliations When the monastics speak among themselves or converse with laymen, they employ certain terms that echo internal group distinctions. The vernacular categories are numerous, even if not always very precise. Monastics are called “Masters of Dao” (daoshi 道士), using the word dao, which means “way” of communication, “road,” “method,” and “path.” By extension, it also indicates driving directions, the way to follow. For Hanzhong monastics, the “great Dao,” an indefinable and really untranslatable concept, represents the object of their quest, the cosmic power or ultimate truth they pursue throughout their lives. They study it (xuedao 学道), cultivate it (xiudao 修道), understand it (liaodao 了道), realize it (dedao 得道), and become it (chengdao 成道). They say it is useless to try to comment on this obscure principle of the universe: it has no name or form yet is the source of all life; it cannot be apprehended by the discursive mind; one can only approach it through intuition and experimentation. They practice Dao as an art of life, question the essence of its philosophy and venerate it as a divine and supreme principle. Daoists are “masters” in two senses: of ritual practices, which makes them “specialists” (shi 士); and of training, which makes them “teachers” (shi 师) of apprentices with knowledge to transmit and a position to do so. Those that are involved in teaching are called “apprenticeship fathers” (shifu 师父)—a term used both as address and reference—by their “disciples” (tudi 徒弟) who owe them obedience in return. More specialized terms include “ordination master,” literally “crossing master” (dushi 度师,)—the master who leads the rite of pas-

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sage that transforms the novice into an ordained monastic.5 Less often called the Master of Cap and Gown (guanjin shifu 冠巾师父 ), he/she is essentially responsible for the initiation process: he/she receives young followers in the monastery, transmits the investiture, and passes the canonical texts on. By extension, the term shifu is classificatory, used by a monastic to address the entire group of masters who belong to the same generation as his master, used to express respect toward lineage seniors. It is also possible that among those various potential “masters” the disciple may find one who will eventually part with a profound teaching, even if he is not officially his “disciple.” Sometimes this potential relationship is formalized when the master offers a kerchief to the student.6 Most often, a monastic studies with several masters in different places over several years, but it is also possible that a student works with different masters in the same temple. In any case, the monastic always maintains a privileged relation with his first apprenticeship father. For the master, this means that he has both direct and secondary disciples. As most monastics have more than one master in their career, the teaching they receive get them involved in other relationships: fellow student of the same master, disciple of someone’s disciple, disciple of one’s fellow students, etc. These links determine the relations among monastics in the same temple. On the other hand, even with the various respectful attitudes and formal ways of naming, there is still more to the relationship than meets the eye. Some will be called “apprenticeship fathers” without having any disciples, while others turn out to be younger than their disciples—all factors that make things complicated. The term “Daoist master” designates all the different clerics of the religion, whether they live in the world or lead a monastic life. They present themselves as belonging to a huge group of people, known as the “Daoist family” (daojia 道 家), which they recognize was founded by Laozi, the Old Master and alleged author of the Daode jing who, according to tradition lived in the 6th century B.C.E. To them, however, he is the Highest Lord Lao (Taishang Laojun 太上老 君), one of three supreme divinities of the pantheon, the Three Pure Ones (Sanqing 三清 ). Other major “fathers of Taoism” are Zhuangzi, presumed author of the work of this title who supposedly lived in the 4th century B.C.E., 5 Sinologists used to speak about the “ordination of the monks and nuns” in Buddhism and Daoism whereas in the West, notably in a Christian context, the term “ordination” only serves to deal with the priests who receive the sacraments. I will continue this tradition and describe precisely what “ordination” means in the Chinese monastic community (see ch. 6 below). 6 At the Wengongci, the donor is called Master of Cap and Gown by his beneficiary. Similarly the entry into the religion is called Receiving the Precepts of Cap and Gown and the officiating priest is by necessity a Master of Cap and Gown. In common usage, the title can also designate other masters who have offered a cap or a gown to a disciple, that is to say, who have transmitted their teachings to a student after formal initiation.

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and, less often evoked in Hanzhong, Liezi, another early thinker and writer who appears in different episodes of the Zhuangzi. The great Daoist “family” further subdivides into “schools” (pai 派), the most important of which are Tianshi 天师 (Celestial Masters) or Zhengyi 正一 (Orthodox Unity) and Quanzhen. Simplifying things, one may say that the Celestial Masters are priests who live in the world—literally, “remain in the family” (zaijia 在家): they marry and live in a tradition inherited through bloodlines. They usually call themselves “scattered Daoists” (sanju daoshi 散居道士), but monastics prefer to speak of household or “fire-dwelling Daoists” (huoju daoshi 火居道士). Most of them live in individual lodgings; few reside in temple dwellings but even then generally with their families, as in a home and not with other masters as in a community. Most wear civil clothes and only don formal garb when performing rituals. A minority among them lives celibately in monasteries (Zhu 1993: 102). A monk from Xi’an told me he once met a person like that at the Baiyunguan of Beijing, but I have personally not met any of them, so in this work I will speak of the Celestial Masters as living in the world. Quanzhen Daoists, on the other hand, “leave the family” (chujia) and enter a monastery. They live celibately among themselves, working in a master-disciple “lineage.”7 Still, there are exceptions, and some monastics also get married and live outside the institution. Today the Celestial Masters are comparatively scarce in the north of China and thus rather underrepresented in the Chinese Daoist Association. Hanzhong monastics, too, do not deal with them very much and assert that they are in the minority in South Shaanxi.8 This pattern matches the traditional distribution of Daoists in China—the Celestial Masters having developed their school in the south, while Quanzhen dominates the north. At the same time, this may appear paradoxical in that historically the Hanzhong region was where the Celestial Masters first arose. Plus, there was a vibrant tradition of northern Celestial Masters associated with the monastic community at Louguantai, but it was integrated under the Tang (Mather 1979; Kohn 2000: 289-91). Most monastics I talked to are quite aware of the main historical events and major lines of the religion, understanding the essential role that the Celestial Masters played. Their founder Zhang Daoling lived in the Later Han dynasty and received a revelation from the divine Laozi who “again appeared” in 142 C.E. If one cannot actually identify the birth of Daoism as an organized religion with the movement of the Celestial Masters, as certain historians tend to do, 7 Shangri lineages are more like those in civil society, i.e., based on blood ties; in Quanzhen, lineages are those of transmission or spiritual connection. I use the term “lineage” in the latter sense in this study, remaining close to the way the monastics themselves use the semantic field of kinship. 8 On the huoju household Daoists in North China, and notably on their more important presence in North Shaanxi, see Jones 2010. On the popular religion in Shaanbei, see Chau 2006.

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the appearance of their popular organization yet “mark a turning point in the social history of China” (Schipper 1993: 10). The revelation truly marked the beginning of a new era. Since the Tang (618-907), moreover, the Celestial Masters have had their main center of consecration on Mount Longhu 龙虎山 in Jiangxi in southeast China, in a center being restored today (Guo et al. 1990).

The Quanzhen School The Quanzhen school developed comparatively more recently. It was founded under the Jin dynasty (1126-1234) by Wang Chongyang (1113-1170). At the time he only organized some small communities, unaware of the large organization these would eventually grow into (see Marsone 2009). Inspired by Daoist observatories and their monastic component that had developed in Daoism during the 5th and 6th centuries, the guan 观, and become dominant under the Tang as well as by growing Chan Buddhist influence, it grew into a powerful school. The growth of Quanzhen had a lot to do with the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and its related collapse of institutional Daoism (Marsone 2001: 58). Another major factor was the rise of Buddhism, whose structures it borrowed. Like the Celestial Masters originally from Shaanxi, Quanzhen (so named after Wang’s death) spread first to Shandong, then to the whole country in the 13th century (see Marsone 2001; Yao 1986; Goossaert 1997; 2007; Esposito 1993; Eskildsen 2004). Both recognized by the Mongols and later the Ming emperors as official representatives of Daoism (see Sun 1981; DeBruyn 2000: 611-612), the two schools have coexisted without much rivalry or efforts to take each other’s place. They did not create a schism, but developed quite distinctly in their various locations. For the longest time, the “fire-dwelling” priests constituted the majority of masters, but this is not necessarily still the case in mainland China. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, Quanzhen monastics were the first Daoist school to be recognized by the authorities: clearly distinct in looks and garb, limited to formal institutions, they were easiest for state supervision. Gradually the masters of the two schools have resettled and begun once again to perform joint ceremonies. An example is the Grand Offering to All the Heavens, held in 1993 at the Baiyunguan for the first time since the revival. It assembled Daoist masters from all schools and lineages. They came from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and more, and celebrated various rites for several days and nights, addressing the highest gods and divine realms of the religion. More generally, the two schools have established a system of solidarity and mutual support. Thus, for example until recently when a member of the Celestial Masters was in Beijing he was housed at the Baiyunguan instead of staying at the Dongyuemiao 东岳庙 (Temple of the Eastern Peak), their former headquarters in the capital. It has been particularly difficult for Daoist masters to

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reclaim the Dongyuemiao because the city did (and paid for) all the restoration work. It decided to make the many niches of the temple with their scenes from the courtrooms of the celestial administration a tourist attraction and installing a folk art museum in its main hall next to a worship room. Their joint history as well as the practice of extended wandering, required for priestly apprenticeship as well as for monastic asceticism, ensure that monastics know their household colleagues, but sometimes without having met any of them. In South Shaanxi, they rarely have the opportunity to meet them in their everyday lives. Some may connect in big monastic centers that on occasion accommodate practitioners of the Celestial Masters and other schools but usually only for short periods. Another occasion to meet is during official conventions when groups of each school form delegations. As a result, many Hanzhong monastics tend to develop a specific image of their household colleagues. For several, the Celestial Masters and the Mount Mao 茅山 lineage represent an alternative to their monastic life. Which also means that, if they find the celibate life too hard, they do not necessarily have to renounce their Daoist vocation but can join lineages transmitted within a married setting—these usually welcome or “adopt” those desiring a Daoist life in the world. Still, their practice is different, since the Celestial Masters do not devote themselves to the same form of asceticism. To simplify, some Hanzhong monastics say, the self-cultivation of Daoist priests in the world can be practiced in sexual exchange or through what they call “yin-yang paired cultivation” (yinyang gongfu 阴阳功夫; yinyang shuangxiu 阴阳双修) appropriate for husband and wife or mutually devoted partners, while monastics devote themselves solely to celibate practice and internal alchemy. Wengongci monastics claim that they belong to the Longmen (Dragon Gate) lineage of Quanzhen, founded by Qiu Chuji 邱处机 (1148-1227), the most famous of Wang Chongyang’s seven disciples. Today it is the central branch of the school in mainland China, with its headquarters in the Baiyunguan, the first on the list of the “big monasteries” erected at the site of Qiu’s grave and also the seat of the Chinese Daoist Association. The Longmen lineage has the tendency to supplant others as, for example, the Louguan line, centered at Louguantai in the Zhongnan range and the one on Mount Hua 华山—in other words, the two main lineages located in Shaanxi. The way the monastics explain it, there is no serious difference among these monastic lines, their different names reflecting variations in territorial base. The same sense of “family” that connects Quanzhen monastics and Celestial Masters also pertains to the relation between the monastics of the different lineages, however, they tend to mix more often and sometimes even live together in monastic centers. Daoist history is rather decentralized. The monastics are distributed widely, in a rather loose network, all over the different provinces. Still, they all worship certain central ancestors of Daoist genealogies who serve as deities of the entire organization. Shaanxi province has several key genealogical links: Louguantai

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where Laozi allegedly transmitted the Daode jing during his “western emigration;” the Zhangliangmiao where Zhang Liang, the ancestor of Zhang Daoling by eight generations retired; the Chongyanggong in Huxian, about fifty kilometers west of Xi’an where Wang Chongyang was buried; and, last but not least, the Longmendong 龙门洞 (the Dragon Gate Grotto), the mountain cavern where Qiu Chuji sat in meditation.

Fig. 17: The statue of Qiu Chuji in the Dragongate Grotto

The monastics are called “those who have left the family;” they underscore that they are free from family matters unlike Daoists who are “fire-dwelling” or “live in the family.” “Although burdened with the task of worship, they yet have to provide the necessities for their home and do not escape family obligations,” as Layman Zhu says. The characteristic of being beyond the family also applies to Buddhist monastics, who Daoists consider their brothers and with whom they mix frequently. In Hanzhong, they welcome each other in their temples, issue mutual invitations to important festivals, and have agreements to exchange hospitality. This means that when Daoists travel, they can stay at Buddhist monasteries, and vice versa. Both are subject to the same state control and unite to face various aspects of new legislation. They all formally support the government, as is expressed in the slogan, “Love the fatherland, love the religion” (aiguo aijiao 爱国爱教), inscribed on a plaque the Hanzhong Buddhist Association gave to the Wengongci at its inauguration, now clearly visible on the main wall of the reception building. Within the Daoist community, monastics are distinguished according to age and experience at the time of ordination: those who joined the Dao for good at adolescence are simply chujia, their original family having been replaced by monastic structures; those who came to the monastery after having been married and founded a family of their own are banlu chujia 半路出家 or “halfway down the road” recluses, thus having left behind their parents and siblings but

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maybe also a wife or husband and children. Some may choose the monastic life after a divorce or being widowed, others may simply abandon the conjugal residence. There is no age limit to becoming a monastic: it is only necessary to break with one’s kinship group. However, within the Daoist community the experience (more than the age) plays an important role and internal hierarchies depend on the distinction between (relative) elder and younger in apprenticeship, earlier and later ordination, master and disciple. Also, monastics are no longer said to be “men” and “women” but instead use “Heaven/Male Dao” (qiandao) and “Earth/Female-Dao” (kundao) During their novitiate and before formal ordination, they are “Junior Daoists” (tongdao 童道). Considered as manifestations of the principles yin and yang, nuns and monks are treated equally and, in Hanzhong at least, are approximately of the same number. Nuns manage several temples in the region, notably the City God Temple of Mian County and the local Daoist Association. They accept disciples of both sexes and follow the teachings of famous masters—unlike some traditional schools, which strongly separate the sexes with regard to the transmission of certain talismanic texts (Schipper 1965: 59). Even within Quanzhen lines are mixed, and being a teacher has nothing to do with gender. In daily monastic life, all community members follow the same rules, have to perform the same tasks and all receive the same stipend. All have left one family to integrate into another—that of Dao—not the same in nature, very similar in structure and community life.

Monasteries Large and Small Daoist monasteries come in two forms: big and small. Small monasteries (xiaomiao 小庙), of which the Wengongci is one example, are alternatively known as “hereditary temples” or literally “passed-on-to-son-and-grandson monasteries” (zisun miao 子孙庙), referring to its social organization as based on the semantic field of kinship and indicating the perpetuation of the group in a hereditary framework. Generally inhabited by a master and his disciples, it mixes monks (and sometimes nuns) of different ages and experience. Big monasteries (damiao 大庙) are also called “forests” (conglin miao 丛林庙), using a natural metaphor to understand the community. This applies a Daoist reinterpretation of an extrinsic Chinese concept and also borrows from Buddhist organization, which operates along the same distinction. The reference here is not as complex, though, but simply indicates numbers: in big monasteries residents are as numerous as trees in the forest. The institutions are further called “public temples,” “permanent residences,” and “forests of the ten directions” (shifang miao 十方庙 /shifang changzhu 十方常住 / shifang conglin 十方丛 林 )—the four cardinal points, the four intermediary points plus zenith and nadir—meaning that the monastics there come from different lineages and

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various regions. They house Daoist masters of any school but do not include novices before ordination who are first trained and initiated in a small monastery. However, a few monastics told me they were ordained in big monasteries. This means that the rule might make some exceptions, especially in the early 1980s when worship first resurged. Actual numbers of monastics vary: the Baxiangong has about forty residents today; the Baiyunguan of Beijing has about seventy; the Chongyanggong before the Cultural Revolution was one of the biggest, with is said to have housed up to ten thousand at one time. An official list, compiled in the Baiyunguan, lists twenty-four big monasteries before the Cultural Revolution, a number that is again reached today. It also matches the numbers found by Zhu Yueli (1993: 114) and those compiled by Yoshioka Yoshitoyo in the 1940s (1979: 230-31). The list, which does not claim to be exhaustive, shows that not all Chinese provinces have a big Daoist monastery: they are scattered about the country but tend to cluster in small groups of two, three, or four not far from one another (as in the regions around Xi’an, Wuhan, and Guangdong). The Daojiao yifan, however claims that Qiu Chuji established seventy-two big monasteries (Min 1986: 217). In Shaanxi, three temples are traditionally considered big: Baxiangong in Xi’an, Louguantai near Zhouzhi, and Zhangliangmiao near Liuba (see Map 1 above). As Hanzhong monastics point out, some used to be big institutions but are so no longer: the Zhangliangmiao, before the Cultural Revolution one of the biggest, was made into a tourist attraction without monastics; only recently a few monks could resettle there. In addition, the official list often does not match reality as the monastics see it—both traditionally and today. The Chongyanggong in Huxian and the Longmendong near Longxian are called “semi-forests” (ban conglin 半丛林) but hardly anyone knows the precise meaning of this intermediate category. Other temples—such as the Jindingguan 金顶观 (Gold Summit Temple) on Mount Emei in Sichuan—are considered “forests” but do not figure in the Beijing register. The latter even leaves out entire mountains, while commonly the “forest” category includes all “famous Daoist mountains,” including the Daoist “Five Great Peaks” (Wuyue 五岳). The most common understanding is that the big monasteries are rather few in number and serve as stable centers, housing monastics who live there permanently as well as wandering monastics who take temporary refuge. If a master cannot enroll a novice as his disciple in this kind of monastery, he can still receive already initiated students and be a second master for Daoist disciples, choosing young monastics for their merit or according to a particular “predestined affinity” (yuanfen 缘分). This allows individual monastics to study with a variety of masters. The big monasteries also have the benefit of owning numerous books and manuscripts, as well as a complete copy of the Daoist Canon. This makes them major centers of learning and of higher importance than the small ones where teachings tend to be transmitted orally. The big

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centers also have formative qualities and offer ceremonies of collective consecration (of the Three Vehicles). They are also distinct in their strict internal organization. Being so big, they have a tight hierarchy of offices with carefully distributed tasks and committees to run things and structure community activities. The abbot is chosen according to his capacities, elected by a council of monastics as well as state representatives in charge of the Daoist Association. He is not necessarily the disciple of his predecessor. For example, the current abbot of the Baxiangong is not the disciple of Min Zhiting. Housing monastics from different schools, moreover, the management of the big monasteries often passes from one spiritual lineage to another. Small, hereditary temples, on the other hand, have only one lineage. Supervision and property are transmitted from master to disciple. This hereditary transmission works through a rite of ordination that allows the adoption of new community members. The temples’ abbot is also the initiation master of most monastics living there. In addition, there may be others: secondary disciples of the abbot (who have not been ordained by him but who serve him as their master), brothers in apprenticeship of the abbot (disciples of the same master) or their disciples, and also, more rarely, monastics of other lineages who are yet typically members of the same school. The abbot supervises all the comings and goings of monastics in the temple and divides up the tasks, running his place like a family household—commonly called “head of the family” (dangjia 当家)—and endorsing all the different roles. Solely in charge, he makes most decisions, often aided by a close, trustworthy disciple who is in charge when he has to be absent and is also his designated successor. In addition, he delegates various tasks to other disciples and, especially in the case of kitchen work, to lay followers. All monastics participate equally and almost informally in the collective life, each according to what he knows best. At the Wengongci, for example, Zhang Zhifa easily delegates administrative tasks. Himself not very good at writing, he entrusts all forms to a monastic or lay helper and appoints a secretary to do all necessary writing, be it simple correspondence, calligraphy or composition of ritual texts. Other disciples are in charge of specific worship halls. Without any predefined rotation, the distribution of tasks changes to include all members. Beside this way of dividing things, monastics often help each other. When an urgent collective task needs doing, everyone stops his or her own activity to share in the work. Temporary Daoists also participate in communal tasks: those who are just passing through join locals for the work of the day; those who stay longer take their turn in the rotation. On the other hand, the monastics are free to do their readings and selfcultivation practices as they want. The difficulty lies in not disturbing the communal organization while pursuing their learning. For instance, when the need for leaving to travel and study at other institutions arises, they have to confer with the abbot and ideally adjust their plans to allow for the needs of the others.

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Travel—literally “wandering”—is not a prerogative of novices or monastics in training, but is available to all monastics at any stage of their career. For this reason, the organization of small monasteries must be flexible and adaptable. The number of monastics in the Wengongci varies significantly in the course of the year, oscillating between ten and fifteen. Monastics come and stay for a while, then set off again; Zhang Zhifa’s disciples come and go, but he tends to stay and was there every time I visited, except in July-August of the year 2000, when he left for part of the summer to practice asceticism on Mount Tiantai. The monastics, however, were different every year: some I had met earlier were gone, others who were new to me had arrived as well as those whom I had met in other temples. When I stayed there last, in 2010, only two of the original monastics who had been there for the reopening in 1992 were still there. In smaller hereditary temples, the transmission of the teaching can sometimes be a problem so that, quite independent of the political vicissitudes of the 20th century (as much as those in earlier periods of Chinese history), certain lineages were discontinued while others spread both through time and space. A few small temples only house one or two monastics who may not take on any disciples or whose disciples choose to go elsewhere. When they die, the temple remains vacant and in the care of local lay followers until a new monastic comes to take charge. Certain small temples—or groups of temples— accordingly continuously house members of the same lineage while others change from generation to generation. Thus, in the 1950s, three generations of monks lived together in the Wengongci, down to eight members from around ten in the early 1940s and thus some members fewer than today. Soon after 1949, they were criticized by the local authorities, and ordination of new monks or nuns was forbidden by the communist government (as Ren Farong of Louguantai explained) (Porter 1993: 53). In 1958, the official order came to cease all religious activities. The monks had to leave (even they were not thrown out of the monastery from one day to the next), to resume a civil life and embrace productive professions. They went into many different directions: Zhu Chengxin and Li Chengyang became peasants; Huang Xindi learned the trade of carpentry; Xing Zongxing and He Xinde practiced medicine; Yuan Xinyi became an acupuncturist; Fu Chongzhen, endowed with magical powers, managed to get out of the country, reaching Hong Kong in 1955. None of them ever returned to the Wengongci. The oldest among them are now deceased; they never knew that their ways of worship resurged in the country. As far as I know, only two of the youngest are still alive: they have not returned to monastic life. Both Yuan Xinyi and He Xinde got married, and Yuan is now retired in Xi’an, while He works as a physician in Hanzhong. He has no contact with the current monastics, nor has he ever returned to the temple, which reminds him of a painful phase of his life. While he may still be considered a Daoist by some and still works with some lay followers, he him-

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self states that he turned a new page in his life. Although he no longer devotes himself to ritual, he still pursues his own individual asceticism. Both monastics and followers today have distinct memories of the temple as it was in the old days and speak about it quite openly. They evoke especially Fu Chongzhen, a native of Sichuan, who came from a different lineage than the others. Of an unusual personality, he radiated health and walked about barefoot even in the winter. One notes that he knew how to live on stones and was a great master of the “ritual arts” (fashu 法术). While none of the old-timers may remember the name of their master’s master, they can still provide a detailed history of the temple quite different from the official version. As far as they are concerned, in some vaguely remembered year, a monk from Mount Taibai came and transformed the small temple of Mill Bridge into the Wengongci, building a larger sanctuary on the foundations of the earlier one which was dedicated to Han Yu (Wengong). The lineage of teaching of Xing Zongxing and his disciples until the Cultural Revolution was part of a local Daoist group in Shaanxi, centered north of Hanzhong, on the higher slopes of Mount Taibai. Extinct today, it was replaced by a Sichuan-based teaching at the Wengongci; it probably did not survive elsewhere, and there are no known disciples anywhere—unless Fu Chongzhen took the teachings to Hong Kong and they revived there. In addition, the original temple on Mount Taibai never reopened, and only one temple revived there, the Taibaimiao 太白庙 (Great White Temple), on the foot of the mountain. Despite this lack of lineage continuity, both monastics and lay followers see Xing Zongxing as an important temple ancestor.

He Mingshan’s Line The rebuilding of the Wengongci and many other Hanzhong temples in the 1990s would have been impossible without monks like He Mingshan who survived the turbulent years lying low at the Wangmugong 王 母 宫 (Queen Mother’s Palace) on Mount Tiantai and is today considered a hero of the “resistance” during the Cultural Revolution. The instigator of renewed worship, he is the lineage father of most local monastics. Until he passed away in 2005, he lived in a remote temple near the summit of Mount Tiantai, reachable only by climbing about five kilometers on a narrow, winding path (which is now a road suitable for motor vehicles, the municipality having financed its construction as part of an effort to make Mount Tiantai into a tourist site). He lived there under precarious conditions, without water or electricity—not so much an impediment to religious practice, although it reveals a simplicity in the way of life (mainly implying extra domestic chores such as carrying drinking water or cutting fire wood) that often differentiates monasteries located in towns or on plains from those in the mountains. The pure air and the quiet atmosphere

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were propitious to asceticism. Never renouncing the religious life, although he had to conceal it for a few years, nor shedding his vocation, or getting married, He Mingshan kept it as his home during the hardcore communist era, descending daily to work in the fields and thus fulfilling the state rule to embrace a productive occupation. In the early 1980s, he returned full time to Daoist practice and was soon sought after as a teacher. After training several disciples, he ordered them to descend from the mountain and rebuild local temples, thus sending Zhang Zhifa and six others—most of them older and highly learned but junior in the hierarchy and Daoist ability—to recreate the community at the Wengongci. He also acquired considerable wealth from the donations of thousands of pilgrims and lay followers who climb to his temple every month, using the money to finance building materials and reconstruction work. When I first met him, I found the scene surprising: we were in this rather poor temple, yet when a layman gave him a 100-Yuan note (a significant amount at the time), he pulled an impressive bundle of notes from his old robe and placed the new note tidily inside. Keeping nothing for himself, he became the driving force behind the reopening of many monasteries, before they received any support from local communities, the state, or overseas Chinese. Most Hanzhong people are aware of He Mingshan’s important role in the Daoist revival but few know his history or realize that he did not always live on Mount Tiantai. He spoke rarely of his life before the Cultural Revolution, but one day he told me that he was ordained by Zhang Yuanfa 张园发 at the Jindingguan 金顶观 (Gold Summit Temple) on Mount Emei in Sichuan. The old man evoked this temple with regret, noting that it was a big Daoist center on a mounting mainly occupied by Buddhist institutions. After he joined the religion, He Mingshan traveled a lot, staying for quite some time at the Baiyunguan. After that he came to Hanzhong—no one knows why nor did he explain. A former Wengongci monk met him at the time. He notes that He Mingshan had come to study there for a limited period but was overtaken by events and never left the region. Monastics as much as lay followers venerated this man convinced that he would certainly be deified in the future because of his accumulated merit, his advanced centenarian age, and his child-like complexion. After he underwent the “transformation of wings” (yuhua 羽化 ), i.e., became an immortal, they consecrated a cult to him and he was progressively deified. Following the abbot Zhang Zhifa’s wishes, a statue showing He Mingshan with a lifelike face was created and placed in a hall at the Wengongci. When I first saw it, I found it quite disconcerting, since I had known him as a living monk and now faced him transformed into a god! Beyond Mount Tiantai where most of his disciples are concentrated, his lineage continues in several other temples, notably on Mount Wuzi 午子山 (nicknamed “the small Mount Hua,”) and at the Wengongci. Here abbot Zhang Zhifa received ordination from He in 1987 after

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training with him for several years on the mountain; six other disciples came with him to join the rebuilding and reopening of the monastery.

Figs. 18-19: He Mingshan in 1998 and as a god at the Wengongci in 2008

Today four of the six have passed away, one (Yuan Zhilin) returned to civil life in 1999, and one (Yang Zhixiang) was expelled from the monastery, so that only Zhang Zhifa remains at the Wengongci. He has by now dedicated himself for over twenty years to the temple’s rebuilding and works for its transformation into a large monastery—not a big “forest” monastery but a place bigger than most local institutions. Zhang Zhifa periodically says that he gets ready to pass on the leadership. He has numerous disciples: at least fifteen monastics and several tens of lay followers. Some of the latter are seriously invested in the life of the temple and still remember the first disciples and their order of arrival. Some work closely with Zhang Zhifa in the temple administration; others are abbots of other regional temples or train elsewhere in the province. Zhang has already designated Bai Lixin as his successor. Originally his third disciple, he returned to live by his side after several years of peregrination. Lay followers claim that he was always the master’s favorite since he was both well educated and of good character. Ideally, in these small monasteries, the teaching is transmitted to the first disciple but ultimately the master makes his own choice. He’s first disciple, Wang Liqing, was never considered an ideal candidate for the abbacy, and even lay followers know that, instead of succeeding He, he was sent to a small temple on the periphery of Hanzhong to assist its abbot Xu Xingzhao. He’s second disciple, Deng Lifeng, almost made the selection and was his designated successor for a time, while Bai Lixin opened a temple near Ankang and no one knew whether he would come back. After Bai’s return, Deng left the monastery for a small temple near Chenggu—some say as it was

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his turn to travel, others claim because he quarreled with the master. In any case, today Bai Lixin is presumed to succeed He as abbot and already serves in this capacity when He is absent. Other disciples also perform rituals and arrange for festivals in villages with uninhabited temples. Monastics in general and Zhang Zhifa’s disciples in particular are often “courted” by some groups of lay people who want them to come in their uninhabited temples, to settle there permanently and contribute to their revival. He himself, as much as a few of his fellows, is dedicated fully to the local redevelopment of Daoism. He works hard to encourage municipalities to return former monasteries to the Daoist community, lobbies for the authorization to reopen, and helps to find monastics to live there. Whether from his or other lineages, all monastics and monasteries work together in a network and communicate frequently by phone, mail, and email to coordinate activities and join in common celebrations.

Other Local Lineages Another local spiritual lineage that developed on Mount Tiantai around the same time as that of He Mingshan is rather unusual: it goes back to a monk whose master gave him the right to train disciples in his name. While Xu Xinqi (d. late 1980s) lived on Mount Maiji 麦积山 near Tianshui in Gansu, three of his disciples are in Hanzhong: the monk He Chongdi and the nuns Chen Chongtai and Huang Chongxiang, each with several disciples of their own. He Chongdi was the only one personally ordained by Xu. In Hanzhong, he lived on Mount Tiantai in the Doumudian 斗母殿 (Hall to the Dipper Mother) below He Mingshan’s Yaowangmiao. There he trained disciples in the name of his master: in other words, he “represented” (dai 代) his master when accepting disciples, explaining that the link between master and disciple allows the latter to take the place of the former when he is absent; this, moreover, extends to all different tasks, including the training of disciples. He Chongdi’s case is unique in that he accepted disciples in the name of his master after he had already moved away from him and really should have trained them in his own name. He says that he chose his “brothers in apprenticeship” and together they formed a lineage parallel to that of He Mingshan. Xu’s other two disciples, Chen and Huang, are Hanzhong natives who never went to Mount Maiji or even to Gansu. Nor did they ever actually meet Xu and only know him from He Chongdi’s stories. He justifies the fuzzy lineage with the fact that the three of them studied and practiced the Dao together in companionable self-cultivation. It was impossible for them not to be members of the same lineage generation. Chen also notes that they all took He Mingshan as a second master, but feel that they were initiated by Xu Xinqi through his representative He. Both Chen and Huang stayed at the Wengongci

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in different periods before taking on small temples of their own, one in Mian County, the other on Qipan Peak of Mount Tiantai (until she recently came back to live in the Wengongci). Among their disciples, Ma Gaoxuan leads another small temple in Mian, while Liu Gaoshan runs one on the periphery of Hanzhong. There are, however, other Quanzhen lineages in the region which document the territorial mobility of the monastics. Both in Hanzhong region and in the vicinity one can still find old monastics who entered the religion before the Cultural Revolution and since then have returned to the monastic life. Among them is Bi Chengxin, a centenarian who lived in the Dongyanggong in Chenggu District, where he was first ordained and remained until his death in 1997. His lineage was more native than that of He Mingshan from Sichuan. Similarly Wei Zongyi, an active fighter in the revolution—he had a broken back and lost an eye but, according Laywoman Liang, at least he managed to stay alive—entered the order on Mount Tiantai and lived in several Hanzhong temples before leaving again for shores unknown. Yang Yuanzhen, another monk, came from Mount Hua, spent a long time at Louguantai then settled in Yang District where he served as a doctor. Xu Xingzhao, finally, came from Ankang where he used to live in the Leigutai 擂鼓台 (Terrace of Rolling Thunder) and installed himself in Pu village on the outskirts of Hanzhong in 1997 after staying for a while in the Daoist center in London. Younger monastics, too, come from various places. Xu Mingcai, for example, came originally from Louguantai and now lives in a cave from where he manages the Baishidong 白石洞 (White Stone Grotto) in a remote mountain part of Mian County. Bai Lixue, too, originated elsewhere, spending his formative years at the Changchunguan 长春观 (Monastery of Eternal Spring) in Wuhan (Hubei); he took a vow of silence and settled in a hermitage on the foot of Mount Tiantai. Others like that include Fu Xingci who came from the Longmendong and now lives on Mount Dou, Yang Lixian who was ordained on Mount Baiyun in Yulin (northern Shaanxi) and came to study with Zhang Zhifa, and many more. Some monastics are excluded from local temples or marginalized in the community, because they violated the monastic rule of Quanzhen. Such is the case for at least two monks. Yang Zhixiang, a disciple of He Mingshan, was excluded from the Wengongci for having renewed ties with his past wife-herself a nun—and had to move from there to an ordinary apartment. Thinking of changing religious lineages (and even orders), he considered going to Mount Mao south of Nanjing (Jiangsu) but finally stayed in Hanzhong city. Another marginal figure is Xu Xiuzhen who entered the religion in the Qinling range in Shaanxi, moved to Yunnan and Guizhou during the Cultural Revolution, and later returned to Shaanxi where he now directs the monastery on Mount Qinglong 青龙山 in Nanzheng District. However, he does not live there except in the summer, instead staying with his disciples in the small Sanjiaomiao 三教庙

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(Temple of the Three Religions, in Pu village) near Hanzhong. As he says, he has no contact with other Daoist monastics and is a bit of an outcast, not belonging to any of the lineages dominant in the region yet training some youngsters as disciples. Other monastics tend to treat both of them as “fake Daoists” (weidao 伪道), a sobriquet the latter also sometimes use themselves to describe the monastics who rejected them. They are also calling each other “black Daoist masters” (hei daoshi 黑道士 ), “ordinary Daoists” (sudao 俗道 ), “mediocre Daoists” (yongdao 庸道), or men without firm conviction; lay followers report and sometimes exaggerate their words. Abbots retain the right to refuse admittance to any monastic who, according to their judgment, does not suit the community; they can also expel any resident who does not obey the regulations. However, they cannot prevent them from going to another monastery or from setting up their own temples. Nothing keeps such marginal monastics from wearing Daoist robes, call themselves Daoist masters, give Daoist sermons, perform rituals and visit Daoist temples during general opening hours. While they mix little with the established communities in actual life, they yet occupy the same territory and compete for the same crowd of lay followers who may well consult them, completely unaware of internal schisms or refusing to acknowledge them. The Wengongci has always been a small hereditary monastery of the Longmen branch. At the same time it has changed lineages and thus modified its “personality,” joining other transmission networks and establishing different doctrinal contents. The close ties monastics today have with their colleagues on Mount Tiantai, for example, are new as is their participation in the extensive network of He Mingshan’s disciples who lead many institutions in the Hanzhong region. While the lineage is unquestionably old, it has not genealogical depth locally, mainly because decades of persecution have destroyed previous networks and changed the distribution of monastics. However, it is already well established and assimilated to a local lineage. Both monastics and lay followers distinguish between monastics “from here” (bendi 本地), i.e., from Hanzhong, and those “from outside” (waidi 外地), i.e., who have come from other regions or provinces. Whatever they seem to be, either kind belongs to lineages developing in close connection with the overall body of Daoists in the greater Chinese territory, which are for the most part alien to the region. Isn’t He Mingshan’s teaching originally from Sichuan? And is not Xu Xinqi’s lineage which originated in Gansu, given equivalent status to an indigenous? Despite signs of mutual recognition and beyond all judgment of value and affinities, monastics of different lineages and sensitivity yet work together and officiate in the same region. This is because, as a group, Daoist monastics integrate individuals of various origins, bringing them home to a community that has existed long before all of them, a community which reason of being could be above all, according to some monastics, to permit each and every member to find his or her proper Way.

Chapter Three  THE LAITY Every morning, the Wengongci opens its doors to visitors to close them only at nightfall. A private space in its own hours, it is a public place throughout the day, and for festivals welcomes significant crowds. In addition, it is managed jointly by monastics and lay followers, with certain roles for each, as well as by the municipality. It receives directives from the Bureau of Religious Affairs, government representatives, as well as from the Shaanxi Daoist Association. What, then, are the roles laymen play in the organization of the Wengongci?

Kowtows and Temple Worship Daylight comes, and the temple is open. While the monastics pursue their various occupations, lay folk come to investigate the holy place. They fill the common space, sometimes greeting each other, sometimes passing in silence. On this day, a woman of about forty and her adolescent daughter pass through the back door to enter the first courtyard. No one greets them or inquires why they are there. They move on toward the nearest altar, which faces the worship hall. Closed to the public, it allows visitors to see the divine statues through an open window next to an incense burner and holder for candle offerings. The women pull a package wrapped in newspaper out of their shopping bag and extract three sticks of incense, pink on green stems, plus three red candles. They plant them in the holders and light them—not without difficulty since there is quite a bit of wind. Facing the statues, they back up and kneel on the round cushions prepared on the ground, right at the base of the incense burner. They remain absorbed in prayer for a time, moving their lips to make silent requests or supplications to the divinities. Eventually they prostrate themselves three times, both matching the same rhythm and precise gestures. Their action is known as the kowtow (ketou 磕头), literally “to knock the head.” It consists of kneeling while putting the hands (palms down) on the earth and touching the forehead to the ground, usually three times in a row. On occasion, when rheumatism or some other problem prevents kneeling, wor74 

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shipers execute it from a standing position without bowing from the waist but with a broad motion of the arms, hands joined and moving from the navel to the forehead. An old woman with bound feet and dressed in a black padded jacket and gray pants sits on a bench near the altar. At each bow, she hits an iron bowl-shaped gong with a wooden mallet, punctuating the ritual with the sound of the instrument. The two lay visitors rise and pull some spirit money out of their bag, light it, and drop it to the furnace just before it burns their hands. Next, they go to the table next to the altar where an old man, dressed in blue, holds a yellow notebook. They state their name and address, and indicate the amount of money they wish to donate to the divinities. They slip a few bills of real money in the donation box, a small lacquered container inscribed with the three characters Register of Merit and Virtue (gongdeben 功德本).

Fig. 20: The kowtow rite Fig. 21: During festival day, a lay woman helps the monastics by hitting a gong

Mother and daughter next move on to the second worship hall, which is open to the public. They kowtow once before each statue, closer to them this time. They continue to do this either before or in every worship hall in the various other courtyards, thus doing a complete circuit of the temple. Between two sets of kowtows, they stop in front of the stairway to the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion and have a passer-by take their picture as a memento. They also take time for a rest, sitting on a bench and drinking some tea from their thermos. They speak little, too preoccupied with looking at the temple and the various goings-on: there are other worshipers, and then there is this foreign lady (myself) who—God only knows why—walks about as if she is at home there. Refreshed, the women resume their ambulation. They pass a monk who, although right next to them, does not look their way nor do they acknowledge him. One may even say that they avoid all other people, having come to see the gods—by themselves and without mediators or officiants. While doing their worship, they appropriate sections of the temple for themselves. At the same time, in the first courtyard, a monk empties the ashes from a incense burner into the big furnace for burning spirit money. Two laymen

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crouch next to it, smoking and discussing Deng Xiaoping’s death. Another man in a suit crosses the threshold of the temple, carrying his bicycle into the courtyard. He parks it next to the temple shop and crosses the open space in a hurry, then knocks briefly on the door of Bai Lixuan’s cell before entering. A woman does her laundry in a red basin, while two others peel cabbages squatting on low stools. A group of young women with heavy make-up, elaborate hairdos, and fur coats, come into the temple, laughing. They stop to buy various offerings for the divinities: three red candles about three feet tall and a large package of incense sticks. They move on to perform their devotions, like those carried out by the two women earlier. One of them moves away themselves from her friends and approaches the old woman at the altar. She asks her about the possibility of meeting a monk who tells people’s fortunes by “calculating fates” (suanming 算命). Then she asks how to address the monastics properly. The old woman points her to Yang Zhixiang’s cell in the second courtyard and specifies that one should address him as “Daoist master.” “Another astrology-devotee,” she murmurs softly to her neighbor with a kindly smile. The girl rejoins her group, and they take turns worshiping the divinities before seeing Yang Zhixiang. However, they have to wait: he is busy advising two young men. The Wengongci relies not only on the monastics; lay followers also play key roles. The officiants call them “laymen” (suren 俗人), literally “people of the ordinary world.” The character su 俗 consists of the words “human” and “valley;” it forms a counterpart to the word xian 仙 for “immortal” which is composed of the words “human” and “mountain” and often used by monastics to refer to themselves. In other words, the terms indicate the opposition between lay followers associated with valleys and monastics who belong to the mountains. Lay followers, moreover, are of two kinds, “devout men or women,” “pious people” or “believers” (xinren 信人, xinshi 信士) and “world dwellers” (jushi 居士) or more rarely “fire-dwellers” (huoju 火居). I shall refer to them as “worshipers” and “lay followers.” “Believing” or “worshiping” in this context does not necessarily mean to believe in the Daoist religion but rather to profess faith in the gods, whether popular, Daoist, or Buddhist. Most lay visitors do not worry about the difference, and Hanzhong monastics often note, “Most of them believe in the gods but have no clue about anything Daoist.” As Layman Zhu explains, “Lay followers practice meditation in their ordinary life. They usually have a small altar at home where they present offerings to Daoist divinities and follow the precepts of the religion. Worshipers are men and women who simply believe in the [Chinese] religions.” This distinction is also borne out in the dictionaries: according to the Grand Dictionnaire Ricci, a worshiper (xinshi) is a person of faith and worthy of faith, while a lay follower (jushi) is dedicated to religious practice while living in the world; he could also be a reclusive literatus (Ricci 2001: II, 1148, 309).

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Worshipers The majority of worshipers only visit the temple occasionally. They are easy to spot since they are obviously not familiar with the temple nor used to local customs. In the Hanzhong area, they usually arrive in groups—family members, friends, or acquaintances from the same town, and the like. For monastics, they are pilgrims who visit the sanctuary and worship the divinities. They may also ask the monastics to perform some special rites, but their relation to the officiants ends with this request for mediation. They believe in the gods as beings of supernatural power but rarely know their exact names or history, nor do they usually care whether they are Daoist or belong to another religion. In China, tourism and pilgrimage are closely related; they focus on the same major monuments. The observation or “contemplation” (guanzhan 观瞻) of the sacred place is necessarily participatory: visitors who do not take advantage of the occasion to offer incense and prayers to the divinities are extremely rare or indeed nonexistent—the notable exception being the passing anthropologist. To be effective, the journey has to be ritual in nature: one must go into each of the halls and acknowledge each deity. The visit is religious since the act of devotion forms an inherent part of the expedition; it is also cultural since the location has its own history even if the traveler many hardly know it. The initial motivation to go on a pilgrimage is also often twofold: one cannot pass Hanzhong without going to the Zhangliangmiao in Liuba County, and it is good to go to a holy place if one has a sick mother or a child of marriageable age. At the Wengongci, pilgrims and tourists are often indistinguishable, despite the fact that some pilgrims show a greater devotion and expertise than mere tourists do who are less skillful and less fervent. The categories are interchangeable, as David Brown suggests when he writes that “true tourists are false pilgrims and vice versa; each can transform himself and become the other with confusing ease” (1999: 42). It also happens that tourists turn into pilgrims or vice versa without necessarily experiencing a sense of contradiction. This explains the disconcerting fact that certain city or party officials on occasion loudly proclaim just how superstitious and outdated all religious practices are, then a few days later stand right in the middle of the temple, burning incense and bowing to the gods! There is no major distinction between pilgrims and tourists in terms of geographic distance since they do not necessarily come from very far; rather, they often live in the vicinity but only visit the temple occasionally. The touristic pilgrimage, on the other hand, is a phenomenon explained by the notion of worship in China as expressed in a visit to a temple or mountain as well as by the close connection between “historic personages” and “gods.” Any inhabitant of Hanzhong will have made a pilgrimage to the important temples of the region at least once in his life. This includes visits to the Zhangliangmiao in Liuba and the Wuhouci 武侯祠 in Mian County, dedicated to the worship of

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famous historical advisers Zhang Liang of the Former Han and Zhuge Liang (181-234) of the Three Kingdoms, notably the Shu Han state in Sichuan (22163), of which Hanzhong formed a part. For most pilgrims these temples, despite their religious affiliation, are first of all holy places devoted to notable historical figures. All pilgrims make a monetary donation. Famous historical temples as well as certain Daoist sites (such as Mount Tiantai) charge an entrance fee, which usually goes to the city or the Department of Tourism. In addition, worshipers accompany their kowtow and ritual offerings with some donation of both spirit and real money. They also offer gifts to the divinities and to the community, most commonly fruit or sweets. Monastics put these on the altar for a while, then eat them. Touristic pilgrimage is thus a major source of income for both monasteries and municipalities.

Lay Followers Lay followers have a much closer relationship to the monastics than mere worshipers do. They tend to get actively involved in the “pursuit of Daoism” (yanjiu daojiao 研究道教). Dao being the object of a lifelong quest, monastics generally do not say they “believe” in Daoism but that they “search” or “pursue” it. This also means that they can associate the term “believe” with the simple worshipers or pilgrims and make a distinction of adhering to certain beliefs and practicing. Lay followers thus engage in religious practices with monks, who often want them as “worldly disciples” (sujia tudi 俗家徒弟) and initiate them to a certain point. The masters note that they do not transmit as much knowledge to lay disciples as they do to monastics, keeping secret certain technical aspects of asceticism and esoteric parts of the ritual. They also specify that their relationship is not necessarily mediated through ritual but defined by the giving of a new name, by simple words of agreement, or by a “predestined affinity” (yuanfen) the disciple feels toward the master. Some monastics also perform a brief ritual to enroll lay people as their disciples. Layman Zhu has Ren Fajiu, the abbot of Louguantai, for his master; Laywoman Liang is the disciple of He Mingshan of Mount Tiantai. Mrs. Xu revered Bi Chengxin of the Dongyanggong in Chenggu until his death in 1997. Mr. Tian follows Yang Yuanzhen of Yang County; and Mr. Ji studied with Yang Zhixiang who left the Wengongci in 1996. Other lay followers simply revere a master and learn from him without contracting a formal masterdisciple relationship. At the Wengongci, several followers consider themselves secret disciples of Zhang Zhifa, never having dared to ask the abbot for his official consent.

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In his study of Quanzhen, Vincent Goossaert notes that already in the 12th and 13th centuries Daoist communities distinguished worldly followers from “intimate disciples” (rushi dizi 入室弟子): the former received an initiation in exchange for money but were not registered as members of the Daoist community; the latter became full lineage members and part of the Daoist family (1997: 117-20). Monastics and lay followers in Hanzhong do not express the difference in quite this way, yet some still retain the name of their master and participate to a certain degree in the same genealogies as the officiants. Others maintain less definite relations with those whom they consider their masters. In fact, the term rushi 入室, literally “to enter into the house” and by extension “to deepen one’s knowledge,” expresses the nature of the relation between certain followers and monastics: it indicates the intimacy present as well as the ideas of access to deeper knowledge and of belonging to the Daoist family. It also signals that the master-disciple relationship commits the parties to mutual duties: each has to give assistance to the other. Lay followers often think of themselves as belonging to the Wengongci (and not to other temples), another point that distinguishes them from ordinary worshipers or pilgrims. While the latter come from everywhere to visit the temple, lay followers live in Dongguan or at least in Hanzhong. Most of them, such as Liang and Tian, live in the old city, but others may be further afield. An example is Layman Zhu who lives in Xiguan, west of the city. Each, as their work and daily schedule permit, participates in the temple’s life temple and contributes to the religious and social community. Most worshipers hardly ever talk to Daoist monastics, not knowing how to address them properly and preferring to avoid any disrespect or clumsiness. Following the advice of more experienced lay people, some call them “apprenticeship fathers” (shifu) or “Daoist masters” (daozhang) without necessarily understanding what these terms mean to the monastics or knowing how they are written so that they sometimes confuse shifu 师父 with its homonym shifu 师傅. The latter is frequently used to address people with technical skills or specialized knowledge as, for example, taxi drivers, local workers, craftsmen, etc. Lay followers, on the other hand, show a great deal more assurance. Familiar with the temple, many use kinship terms appropriate for their position when they speak with the monastics. For example, Laywoman Liang and the Wengongci abbot both serve He Mingshan as their apprenticeship master. Nevertheless, out of respect and because she is only a lay woman, Mrs. Liang addresses Zhang Zhifa as “father” rather than “brother,” using the latter for his disciples. In other words, she never assumes a position above a monastic, including even those younger and more recently ordained. Yet her knowledge of the terminology shows that she belongs to the Daoist community. There is also a clear difference in age between temple goers: worshipers include many young people, lay followers tend to be older. This is partly because at this time of their lives they have more free time to pursue the religious prac-

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tices, partly because they still remember the time before the revolution when Daoism played a much stronger role in Chinese communities. Most members of the lay followers’ council are of retirement age. However, they also include people still active in the workforce: Mr. Zhu who works as an engineer in food processing and as an astrologer in his free time, the bookseller Mrs. Wang, the calligrapher and renowned philosopher Tian, as well as Mr. Zhang who repairs bicycles. Yet some lay followers are really involved in Daoism but not frequent visitors. For instance, some lay practitioners undertaking self-cultivation are of various ages: they come to meet and study with their master yet do not participate much in the life of the temple.

Lay Support Lay followers often come to “help” (bangmang 帮忙) at the temple. They do so as caretakers or, as the Chinese say, to wan 玩, a rather vague word that indicates adults “amusing themselves” or children “having fun” or “playing.” In other words, they use their spare time to participate in the life of the holy place or go to the temple to keep themselves busy after retirement. Still, theirs is a real religious and social commitment. Through their efforts, they assist the monastics in various matters and take on regular responsibilities. During community festivals, for example, they help with the preparations, sometimes several days in advance: they write invitations, print paper offerings or, as for the festival of the Middle Prime (on the 15th day of the 7th moon), set up paper clothes and necessities to be burned for the benefit of lost souls. On the day of the actual festival, they fulfill precise functions: welcome worshipers and pilgrims, register donors’ names, relate the gods’ history, organize the bicycle parking lot, or help in the kitchen. In 1997, at the festival of the main deity of the temple—Wengong, on the 2nd day of the 2nd moon—they formed brigades of hosts, distinguished by red armbands or badges inscribed with the words “festival organizer” (hui wuyuan 会务员). Lay followers also help with the reconstruction of the temple and in the daily life of the monastics, performing various services, such as sewing clothes, drawing and sometimes even selecting the characters to be inscribed on the buildings—usually in beautiful calligraphy and of an exorcistic and protective nature—or participating in the compilation of the site’s history. In addition, laymen usually take on the burden of the monastic’s subsistence, both in a literal and more figurative sense. Two major tasks tend to fall on them: to assure the meals and oversee the registration of gifts and offerings. The monastery has a full-time lay cook: not necessarily well paid, he receives room and board. In charge of the meals, he receives assistance from other lay followers who are most often volunteers. He organizes them in rosters so they can take

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turns peeling vegetables, cleaning, and the like. They do not buy the food with their own money or even to plan what to purchase, but it is their job to see that on any given day there is at least one person to help the cook. On the other hand, on festival days, lay followers organize the preparation of the free “communal soup,” offered to all visitors. The same kitchen hands tend to take care of the meals on the 1st and 15th day of the month (new and full moon), as well as when there are special festivals. Lay followers are also implicitly authorized to go begging for charities (huayuan 化缘), literally “to beg for karmic affinities,” in aid of the temple when times are difficult—a relatively rare situation today. Some laymen state that they are ashamed of this practice; they do not perceive it in the same manner as the monastics do who undertake it precisely because of the shame it generates: working through the shame lowers their self-esteem and builds their humility. Despite all this, lay followers acknowledge that it may be necessary to go begging when the position of the monastics becomes critical. They do it by going door to door in the neighborhood or through their network of “relations” (guanxi 关系). The monastics themselves resort to it only in cases of extreme necessity, especially when they are on the road. Another form this takes is lay followers mobilizing various kinds of support to make the monastics’ life easier by “going to find people” they know (qu zhaoren 去找人). For example, Laywoman Liang regularly appeals to a friend of a friend who works at the railway station to help monks buy train tickets. In the past, monks took care of all domestic tasks themselves, gaining a feeling of economic and social independence. However, even when they farmed the land and cooked their own food, they never lived in complete selfsufficiency. As Layman Zhu says, with their donations and offerings, lay followers have always provided for the monastic communities. Right after the Cultural Revolution when the state had not yet returned their original landed property, the monastics were extremely dependent on lay support. In those years, they also had enormous expenses for the reconstruction of their temple and generally the reorganization of Daoism in the region. Today, as their status improves, their dependence lessens. Nevertheless, they recognize that lay followers form a strong basis of their life and greatly appreciate their generosity, which of course also gives them merit. On the other side of the equation, the monastics fulfill not only an essential ritual function but also play a role of social cement within neighborhood, city, and region. The core group of local lay followers forms a lay council which is the connecting point between monastics and lay followers. Daoist masters regularly invite these important supporters to their meetings, consulting with them and requesting their assistance in important matters, such as the position of the Wengongci, its envisioned development, and the like. Besides participating in the internal functioning of the monastery, the lay council is also essential to its external relations in cultural and religious associations. Lay followers represent

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the temple when other sanctuaries of the region hold their festivals. For example, Laywoman Liang recently spent three days at the Erlangmiao 二郎庙 (Temple of the Two Masters) in Mian County, while Tian and Zhu went to Xi’an for the opening of the Qinghuagong 青华宮 (Blue Flower Palace). All were lodged and fed, and received thanks from the local religious communities. Whenever they travel, lay followers visit Daoist temples. Like all pilgrimtourists, they go to many places of historical importance; yet they also pay special attention to Daoist sacred sites. As a game, they often recall the many temples they have visited, trying to outdo each other in length and magnificence: the Baiyunguan in Beijing counts for a lot, bringing a great deal of merit and prestige. Certain followers even go so far as to know the essential characteristics of every temple; others go far out of their way to visit a holy place. Like the monastics, they traverse Daoist roads and think of their journey as a way to “accumulating merit” (chenggong 成功). Whether alone or in the company of monastics, lay followers are always welcomed with good grace. On the other hand, if they visit temples without making it clear that they are serious Daoist adepts and “belong” to the Wengongci community they become simple pilgrims. Thus, two years ago, Laywoman Liang went to Beijing for the first time. She visited the Baiyunguan and paid her entry fee like everyone else, visiting the holy place anonymously. On the other hand, when she stopped at Louguantai on her way back, she was received as an honored guest by Liu Congcai who knew her from Hanzhong. He put her up in the monastery guesthouse and invited her to eat with the monks. Similarly, Layman Hu explains that he comes to the Wengongci as an ordinary worshiper but is a lay follower on Mount Wudang in Hubei.

Responsibilities Lay followers take on a variety of responsibilities in the life of their temple and participate actively in religious matters. In Hanzhong, they played a big role in the recovery of the Wengongci, not only helping with donations and financial support but also applying pressure to the municipality, urging it to allow the temple to reopen and recover its place in the community. Elsewhere, when clerics are lacking, lay followers take charge of the reconstruction of Daoist temples and often form associations of worship. They deal with administrative formalities, obtain building permits, and find the funds to start construction. They visit local monastics for advice and invite them to perform (paid) rituals in their temple. They revive local memories and recover the sanctuary’s history; they are among the first to honor the divinities and make a serious commitment to them, giving offerings of food and money, burning incense, lighting candles, cleaning altars, and so on.

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Still, they do not go beyond their competence but call on the monastics to perform the rituals required for sanctuary inauguration, major festivals, and the god’s birthday. They invite the religious communities of other temples as well as popular theater troops. In their turn, they receive invitations to festivities of other sanctuaries and thus become a firm part in the Daoist monastic network. It is quite impossible to create a complete list of small temples managed by lay followers. Just to give an example, of the about sixty Daoist sanctuaries the Wengongci monastics invited to attend the inauguration of the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion over half were small lay-managed temples. Overall, the Wengongci relies more on lay followers who make serious contributions and come regularly than on monastics who tend to come and go, training in other places. The abbot tends to be a permanent resident and he is the person in charge of the place under the Daoist Association’s authority. He continues to take on trainees, but most of his earlier disciples have gone on to manage other temples, except the one selected as his successor. He welcomes all monastics in training, granting them the right to stay for shorter or longer periods. While these people change, he can count on the very same group of lay followers to be there for him day in and year out, meeting regularly and serving reliably. Lay followers, as much as ordinary worshipers, are registered in the public books of the temple, while the names of monastics only appear in internal documents. The social local religious community forms a stable, persistent entity even if individual members may change—unlike the monastic community, which perpetuates itself in a more anonymous manner. Describing the local communities centering around an incense burner in southern Taiwan, Kristofer Schipper notes that the Daoist master is not the central figure in the group, “In each local group, a council of Elders is formed spontaneously, from the patriarchs of the village clans and neighborhood families, the notables and the scholars, elected to form a permanent authority for the running of things” (1993: 57-58). In Hanzhong lay disciples may not direct the temple per se, yet their role is much like that of the elder council described here. Whoever places a donation in a gift box should be listed in a notebook, the Register of Merit and Virtue or Register of Donations (bushi ben 布施本), unless he expressly wishes to remain anonymous. The attendant writes his basic information (name, address) next to the donated amount, written both in numerals and spelled out in words. During festivals, wall posters list the names of the most generous and more frequent donors in the order of the magnitude of their gift. Those who gave in the early stages of redevolpment had their names and amounts engraved on a stone placed at the center of the Wengongci and thus became founding members of the temple community; they continue to be nominally invited to all major community meetings. Being publicly recognized as donors and earning prestige from their gifts, they might both work for themselves and do for the temple. Yet, besides such quantifiable gifts, temple resi-

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dents and visitors also recognize the many priceless favors they receive. Lay followers tend not to give that much money on a regular basis—they did so mainly during reconstruction—but they provide many services. Beyond the financial transactions, they perform an essential role in the complex system of mutual recognition and support between monastics and lay people as well as among lay people themselves, which makes up the substantive network of the Wengongci.

Fig. 22: Worshipers burning incense Fig. 23: At the inauguration of the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion, wall posters list the names of donors

Fluctuating Categories The division of lay people into ordinary worshipers and lay followers is not as simple and stable as it may seem but made complex by the relations among individuals and various courtesy rules that, in the Chinese context, work to save and enhance “face” (mian 面). As a result, the categories of worshipers and lay followers involve heterogeneous realities. As noted above, lay followers ideally have a relationship with a master, study the Dao, and regularly help in the temple. However, as Layman Zhu points out, some of them do not actually know very much about Daoism and are more like mere worshipers. On the other hand, lay followers of other temples who should theoretically be classified as worshipers or simple pilgrims at the Wengongci have a great deal of Daoist knowledge and may even be asked for advice or assistance here. Also, the category “worshiper” can seem disrespectful with regard to certain renowned visitors, such as big donors among overseas Chinese, so that they are often called “lay followers.” This complexity also applies to my own position. Unable to warm to the idea that “they are tourists, I am an anthropologist” (Brown 1999: 48) nor quite willing to perform devotions to get integrated, I did not fit into any of these categories at first. The locals quickly classified me as a lay follower. The time I spent at the temple, the information and the teachings I received from the

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monastics, and the fact that my name was listed in the register of gifts all made me a “true” lay follower. The way I visited the monastery determined this classification. I went to the Wengongci every single day and helped as much as I could. I participated in the festivals, I established friendships with lay followers, I got to know the monastics both of the Wengongci and of other local temples and, as noted earlier, I devoted myself—as they do—to the “study of Daoism.” Overall, while being foreign made me somewhat special—quite like the English professor at the University of Hanzhong who was the only other foreigner—my activities were not special at all. I was quite like lay followers Zhu and Tian who spend all their free studying Daoism, but I was also like retired Laywoman Liang who hangs out at the Wengongci a lot while also visiting other sanctuaries. For the locals, what I did was not proper work—Chinese anthropologists study mainly ethnic minorities, while Daoist scholars stick to the libraries. I appeared to them like the daughter of well-to-do parents who endlessly studies Chinese language and civilization, yet at the same time it was also as if I was taking the first steps of a Daoist apprenticeship. Although the people never asked me directly, I know they had common questions, “Will you do some real work some day?”—“When will you make up your mind to enter the monastery?” Another unique situation in the monastery is that of people who are simply not named at all, “junior Daoists” (tongdao 童道), novices before ordination. In appearance easily confused with lay followers, they are in a no-man’s land, at least from the standpoint of vernacular categories. They have an intermediary status: although they live in the monastery far away from their families, they have not received garb and kerchief. Some speak of them as lay followers plus; others call them not-yet monastics. Addressing them, one avoids all formal titles. The participation of lay people in temple life evolves in various ways. Most begin as worshipers and grow into lay followers or even full disciples, but the opposite also occurs. A prominent case of the latter happened when some began to withdraw from the local religious community to join Falun gong. Falun gong, founded by Li Hongzhi who now lives in the United States, advocates a mixture of Daoism, Buddhism, and qigong, its symbol being a swastika surrounded by small diagrams representing the Great Ultimate. Unlike Daoism and Buddhism, however, this “new religion” both proselytizes and demands exclusivity. Remaining outside all formal structures, its leaders criticize Chinese religious organizations and require that followers withdraw from all other creeds and practices, avoiding all established religious institutions and sanctuaries1. For example, I observed some of the lay followers of the Wengongci in1 Li Hongzhi wrote, for instance, “temples have become small-scale replica of the society, locked in constant mutual strife” and that “in the temples, there are a lot of practitioners who are not true ascetics” in his famous Zhuan falun fajie (Turning the Dharma

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terested in Falun gong who gradually held themselves aloof from both monastics and lay followers. They did not frequent another temple but changed their religiousness. Until its ban in 1999, Falun gong had no special places of worship. Its followers used to organize themselves around spreading Li Hongzhi’s lectures and instructions, passing blue-cover books, CDs, and DVDs from person to person, quite beyond official distribution lines. In 1998, I looked for these books in the major bookstore in Xi’an but could not find them. I asked a clerk where I could find them; he answered that they did not carry this kind of book. After a while, he pointed at another clerk and suggested that I talk to him. I did so, and he pulled a few books from his own bag, offered to sell them directly to me, and to pay him in cash. Falun gong thus came to develop an organizational if informal network separate from those of other religions. Because of its active demonstrations against the state and because of its closed and independent network, most blue books were burned, Falun gong was prohibited, 2 yet it did not entirely disappear. Many of its followers did not go back to their former beliefs or return to their previous temple. Rather, they chose to keep their faith secret and maintain loyalty to the movement. In fact, they deplore the current development of the monastery and certain Daoist practices—such as the prostration before material images of gods or their formal establishment in a temple—without ever opposing them openly. This means that only few Wengongci members know, or ever mention, why these lay followers no longer come, claiming that they are too busy or that they had to move. Other lay followers should like to withdraw somewhat, if not as radically, from the temple’s community life because they wish to dedicate more time to their own ascetic practice. The resurgence of worship and temple activity having limited their personal cultivation, they prefer at this point to leave more of temple reconstruction and community organization to the monastics. Layman Zhu specifies that while the Daoists needed lay followers after the Cultural Revolution to recover their proper place within Chinese society, they now must regain their own corporation and let the laymen do their own things, not taking such an active part in monastic life. Monastics may lead a life separate from that of lay followers and, in principle, keep certain levels of knowledge to themselves, yet certain lay followers also attain it to a certain degree. Paradoxically, in Hanzhong it happened that some lay followers managed to get hold of Daoist “internal” (neibu 内部) publications and texts—nobody knows quite how—and brought them to the monastery. In addition, the terms designating Daoist officiants are not necessarily Wheel Explained) pt. 2, ch. 16; ch. 2. The book appeared in 1997 in his own publishing house (Hong-Kong: Falun Fofa). 2 On the emergence of Falungong and its ideas of a spiritual salvation for which one has to pass through physical and social suffering, see Palmer 2007: 219-80.

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reserved to Daoists. “Fire-dwelling Daoist” (huoju daoshi) generally refer to a (nonmonastic) cleric but also sometimes to a “lay disciple.” Still, although these two have in common that they do not live in the monastery and are disciples of Dao (if initiated to different degrees), the distinction between Daoist and layman remains clearly marked and without possible confusion. Similarly, the terms dizi 弟子 and tudi 徒弟 for “disciple” are not exclusively the domain of monastics. Tudi applies to lay followers but is limited to the framework of the real master-disciple relationship, whereas dizi is much more widely used. Both terms serve as general names monastics give to individuals in special positions, whether connected distantly or closely to the Daoist organization. “Disciples of Daoism” (daojiao de dizi 道教的弟子) can indicate Daoist masters, lay followers, lay disciples, simple worshipers or pilgrims, scholars, and anthropologists. It may also be the appellation of choice for the nurse of the health center next door, the cook passing through, the local junior Daoist, or anyone famous who left his or her mark on the history of Daoism. Examples of the latter include the military generals Zhuge Liang and Liu Bang or the Daoist masters Zhang Lu, Wang Chongyang, and Qiu Chuji—all now venerated as divinities. More generally, a “disciple of Daoism” can be anyone who gave a donation or rendered community service, thus becoming a member by default. Plain “disciple” similarly may expand to become like “friend of Dao” (daoyou 道友), the least specific category of all. Used by both monastics and lay followers, it includes all “disciples of Daoism” but is also a courtesy term for anyone the community has contact with, including city officials, communist cadres, and Buddhist monastics. The monastics may call each other “friends of the Dao,” yet they use the same term to address a visiting policeman who can return the appellation in courtesy. To sum up, the categories are not quite as fluctuating as they appear at first sight. Their usage leaves enough room to break through distinctions between the ordinary world and the monastery, ordained masters and lay people, generous donors and more modest givers, active council members and others, thus defining the religious community in the city. Lay people also work with the distinction between “those who know” (or, less commonly, have the right to know) and “those who do not know” (or are not supposed to). While putting a barrier between themselves (close lay disciples, Daoist masters) and others (those never initiated, ordinary worshipers), they suggest a tacit ranking of temple users according to their investment in the Daoist way, reaching from Daoist masters at the top to simple pilgrims at the bottom with lay followers of varying closeness in the middle. Another system classifies temple goers according to their degree of being “deserving and virtuous,” an epithet earned by making donations and giving offerings to the gods. The two rankings do not necessarily fuse, however, all are “friends of Dao” and part of the social community of the Wengongci.

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The Bureau of Cultural Affairs The state interferes in religious matters on all levels, national, regional, and municipal, both directly and indirectly. Temples in the Hanzhong region come in three different major administrative forms, depending on who runs (guan 管) them: Daoist masters (inhabited and managed by monastics), lay disciples, or the Ministry of Culture. Temples under the aegis of the Bureau of Cultural Affairs (Wenhuaju 文化 局) of either the city or the province no longer work as Daoist institutions but as museums or “historical” monuments. They require an entrance fee, as do big temples managed by monastics, but if anyone lives there at all they are local officials and the people who work there during the day vary according to the size of the place. For example, a ticket clerk in the Zhangliangmiao also serves as its custodian: he hands out tickets in an army barrack near the temple gate. Two sales ladies run the temple shop and another works in the sales pavilion in the first courtyard. They sell books on the history and legends of the principal divinity as well as works on other holy places of the region. They also have souvenirs and liturgical objects available, such as statuettes, bracelets, charms, ornaments, and postcards, but do not offer devotional necessities like candles, incense, and spirit money—easily available in small shops outside the sanctuary. One person is the main caretaker of the temple, and a few lay followers help to empty the incense burner and arrange the offerings. So far, since recently when few monks were authorized to resettle there, no one was responsible specifically for the supervision of worship halls, but in some places (such as the Dongyuemiao in Beijing) custodians sit in front of most buildings. Very likely things will change also at the Zhangliangmiao once reconstruction is complete. Unlike other temples, those run by the Bureau of Cultural Affairs do not usually have major festivals on important calendar days or celebrate the divinities’ birthdays, yet in some cases lay followers may be able to arrange them. Even then (or on lesser occasions), they do not invite Daoist masters to perform rituals. This, however, does not mean that monastics cannot attend; if they do so they are on a simple visit without receiving lodging or actively participating in the community. Yet, they like to come, since the temple was formerly a major Daoist site, they very much hoped to occupy it again. They had talk to the local authorities many times before being allowed to do so. The Bureau of Cultural Affairs still manages the holy place today. After paying for the reconstruction, it takes ticket money and donations as well as the profits made by the temple shops. It is therefore sometimes for economic rather than political reasons that it refuses reconstitution to the monastic. It also frequently happens that a municipality refuses to manage a historical temple itself or let the Daoist community recover its former territory, mainly because the grounds have already been built over. Such is the case in the City

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God and Celestial Master Temples in Hanzhong whose reconstruction would have necessitated the destruction of the buildings that took their place. The situation on Mount Daye 大爷山, the small Mount Fengdu in Yang County, seems somewhat different and the fact that this important Daoist place, as recalled by lay followers and tourist guides alike, has not yet been rebuilt remains unexplained. Its main sanctuary, the Chongdaoguan 崇道观 (Monastery of the Supreme Dao), dates back to the 11th century and is among the oldest Daoist remnants in the region (Chen 1988: 105-6). The recluse Wei Zongyi attempted to encourage its rebuilding, but his efforts came to naught and he left for other, more welcoming Daoist places. The big Mount Fengdu in Sichuan (to which this one is connected), on the contrary, was not only rebuilt but has been transformed into a veritable true “park of attractions” (Chenivesse 1995: 320-25; 1998). The reasons for the decision to rebuild thus vary, depending on the position of the temple and the attitude of the municipality. Daoist temples are not always managed by Daoist masters and do not necessarily have the same activities. All are frequented by worshipers and pilgrims: some of them house monastics who carry out Daoist rituals, others are run only by a simple association of lay followers in connection with the neighboring monasteries, while yet others have an association of worship without such connection and much less activities as a result. In the latter cases, monastics evoke with nostalgia these “empty shells,” institutions that formerly housed officiants, sometimes even famous ones. They thank the municipalities anyway for their rebuilding efforts, providing a place for the divinities. Nevertheless, they find it disturbing that there are no proper mediators between certain divinities and lay followers and that celebrations are not organized. Fortunately, however, the lay neighbors who take care of it and the pilgrims who pass by assure the religious minimum. In other words, the relations between religious social communities and the state authorities do not recover traditional patterns in actual practice and remain for the most part highly ambivalent.

The Daoist Association When they do not manage the temples directly, the state authorities yet exercise a certain control over them, such as documented in three highly visible signs in the reception room at the Wengongci. They are the “Regulation for the Management of Places of Worship” decreed by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, dated January 31, 1994; the “Application Protocol for the ‘Management Regulation of Places of Worship’ in Shaanxi province,” by the Provincial Government of Shaanxi, dated April 10, 1994; and the “Protocol for the Annual Check of Places of Worship,” by the Bureau of Religious Affairs of the State Council, dated April 6, 1996.

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All three summarize religious legislation mandatory for all places of worship in the country, whether a Buddhist monastery, Daoist temple, Muslim mosque, Christian church, or the like. They indicate the administrative hierarchy that prevails in this domain and the competences of the different offices. Thus, according to the directives of the State Council run by the provincial government, only those local groups and religious organizations properly accredited by the state can run places of worship and make use of their land, goods, and income. Isolated individuals or even “work units” (danwei 单位) cannot do so. The Bureau of Cultural Affairs and the Department of Tourism similarly regulate all touristic uses, in close co-operation with the Bureau of Religious Affairs; they work with prominent local groups in any given county. Thus, all places of worships are registered and delimited in officialdom and strictly overseen. Associations of lay followers can only manage small rural temples. They are not linked together in a formal structure, but even so exert a certain influence on local and national practice. On the contrary, monasteries are federated in a larger network which appears in the form of the Daoist Association (Daojiao xiehui), first created by the communist state in 1957. After its creation, it almost immediately went dormant due to the proscription of worship in the 1960s. Former monks recall that this accelerated the decline of the Wengongci, which began with the advent of communism in 1949. In the mid-1980s, the Daoist Association as an institution revived and has since become the dominant institution that links Daoism and the state. In a setting that is full of ambiguities regarding their relations, it serves mainly to subordinate the temples to state authorities. Established in a hierarchical pattern throughout the entire country, it intensifies the interference of the government in religious matters. Yet, even this situation is not new: already in imperial times, the court employed a serious number of Daoists. After various levels of state control established under the Ming and Qing, with notably the “Bureau of Daoist Registration” (Daolu si 道錄司) (Lai 2012: 30), local authorities in the early 20th century also formed “associations” (hui 会 ) for their religious communities and patronized them in various ways (see Schipper 1997). The first national Daoist Association (Daojiaohui 道教会) was founded in 1912 on the initiative of the Baiyunguan abbot; its local Beijing branch was created in 1929. These associations were not under direct control by the government or the party, as is the Daoist Association today. While national officials in the old days interfered in the election of association leaders and judged cases pertaining to clerics, they yet referred such cases to the association for advice and often followed its opinions; at the same time, there was also conscious self-censorship by association members (Goossaert 2007: 74-79). None of this is specially Daoist; all other religions are equally subject to their own state associations. Then as now, Buddhist temples are controlled by the Chinese Buddhist Association with headquarters in the Guangjisi 广济寺 (Temple of the Wide Salvation) in Beijing.

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Fig. 24: Three large Daoist Association signs in the Wengongci reception room

Nevertheless, unlike the Daoist organization, it is not located in the same place as the Buddhist Academy of China which trains young monastics of the whole country and is housed in two places: the Fayuansi 法源寺 (Source of Dharma Temple) of Chan and the Yonghegong 雍和宫 (Palace of Peace and Harmony, most often called “Lama Temple”) of the tantric school. Local branches of these associations are organized according to a hierarchy which duplicates the administrative divisions of the country, thus creating a web that reaches throughout the country: Beijing at the top has authority over the provincial branches, which in turn head the regional subdivisions in charge of the local county chapters. One does not have a choice in joining the Daoist Association: all monastics and Daoist masters are members by default as well as some members of the council of lay followers. This was the main condition under which they could reinvest in religious institutions after the Cultural Revolution. Additional participants include scholars of Daoism and representatives of relevant municipal services (the latter often closely connected). Thus, all the principal actors of religious activity—clerics and monastics, lay followers, scholars, local authorities—are under close state supervision, which is not to say that they do not at times escape from superior control.

Practical Implications The monastics present the Daoist Association as a structure that permits them to form greater cooperatives on the local level and create more solidarity nation-wide. If necessary, each member can be supported in any other temple, a connection that recalls the hospitality rule of guadan that traditionally linked Daoist monasteries to one another. Today, however, it is specifically an organization controlled by the state, “the other side of the coin,” as the monastics say,

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being that they are all placed under the guardianship of the government, which watches their every move and to which they are accountable. From the standpoint of the local authorities, the Daoist Association checks the interior workings of the religion and relays all state directives. This patriotic religious organization [aiguozongjiao zuzhi 爱国宗教组织] assists the government in its honorable and far-seeing religious policies, exhort religious adepts to love [one’s] country, love [one’s] religion [i.e., there is a patriotic way to think the religion], facilitates research on Daoist culture, harmonizes various religious activities, organizes participation, and activates religious followers to serve the economic and cultural construction of the country. (Wang 1993: 211)

In Hanzhong, police officers explain that the Daoist Association cautions people against possible mistakes that the clerics might commit while protecting clerics from masses of worshipers during crowded festivals. In other words, it plays the roles both of “a guard against foolishness” and of a messenger relaying the proper application of governmental politics. Theoretically the Daoist Association covers all Daoist orders, but the monastic branch of Quanzhen makes up the vast majority of its members and as a result sees itself as more privileged than the secular branch of the Celestial Masters. This imbalance also has to do with the fact that, as far as the government is concerned, Daoist masters who do not live in monasteries are much more difficult to locate and oversee, so that it is on the whole better to encourage the resurgence of monasticism at the expense of the household masters. By modern standards, to fit with the state’s religious policy of confining religious personnel and activities to the inside of temples, some Celestial Masters—such as those of the major Daoist temples of Shanghai (e.g., Chenghuangmiao, Baiyunguan, Daqinggong), not only have to perform all their rituals in the temples and no longer at people’s homes, but are also bound to spend all their days there (clocking in and out!). In the past, they rarely worked at temples, other than on the the 1st and 15th of each month. The Daoist Association also oversees the temples’ finances. These days, substantial sums of money flow through the religious networks. In Hanzhong, monastics and lay followers specify that although the state does not provide any capital for temple reconstruction it is yet concerned with the origin of the funds. For several years now, the Wengongci has had a bank account that makes it possible to both manage its own money and be transparent with respect to the guardianship authorities. However, while local administrators may not be directly responsible for the financing of the works, they indirectly participate in the resurgence of worship by returning former territories to the temples which of course has serious financial implications (and which might justify possible transaction costs). In addition, in Hanzhong the municipality set up a construction project at its own

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expense to improve the access road to Mount Tiantai, extending it all the way to the summit and thus serving all the Daoist temples there. It also voted to provide a small pension to He Mingshan because of his merit and advanced age. The old monk was the only one in the region during the 1990s to benefit from such favorable treatment. In return for the official recognition it granted the monastics of Mount Tiantai, the municipality now receives the revenue from the entrance fees to the new tourist site—fees that monastics, active lay followers, and Daoist Association members do not pay. In accordance with the hierarchical structure of the Chinese Daoist Association, in late 1986 the Provincial Daoist Association of Shaanxi was founded. Beginning with a regional office in Xi’an in 1987, it established further subdivisions in various localities in the following years (Wang 1993: 196). In 1992, the Regional Daoist Association for Hanzhong was set up in the Wengongci, which thus became the rallying point or literally the “departure base” (lizudi 立足地) of the local Daoist community. It thus participates in the following hierarchy: Beijing (national capital)—Baiyunguan; Xi’an (provincial capital)—Baxiangong; Hanzhong (regional prefecture)—Wengongci; Other local counties. The last category includes all counties except Mian: due to its importance in the history of Daoism it was placed directly under the Provincial Association. An exceptional case, the Regional Daoist Association of Mian County is centered at the Chenghuangmiao in the county’s administrative center. It is not accountable to Hanzhong but to Xi’an, yet has no authority over other counties, which report to the Wengongci. Most recently, all regional associations must subdivide into a branch in charge of the temples in the main city and one for the sanctuaries in the rest of the region. The Wengongci thus supervises the temples inside Hanzhong proper, also called Hantaiqu 汉台区, while the Qinglongguan 青龙观 (Green Dragon Monastery), whose restoration has just started, manages those of the region (i.e., of the ten other counties). The same holds true even for Beijing, which for the longest time was an exception, being the national seat of the Association but without its own organization. According to Wang Yi’e, the national branch settled in the only inhabited monastery of the city, the Baiyunguan. Now that two smaller temples have opened—the Huoshenmiao 火神庙 (Fire God Temple) in Gulou (north of Behai Lake) and the Lüzugong 吕祖宫 (Palace of Ancestor Lü [Dongbin]) on Jinrong Street—it was time to create a special Beijing Daoist Association. The overall system is not unlike the structure of temples for municipal deities or city gods (Chenghuangmiao) instituted under the Ming. It systematized temples in three ranks and classes: capital, prefectures, and sub-prefecture; they

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were recognized as official places of worship, yet also categorized as Daoist sites (Baptandier 1996c: 113-14). The Daoist Association in its organizational structure thus resumes the official worship pattern of the local gods as set up by imperial bureaucrats to keep a certain amount of control over popular beliefs and eliminate the more “lascivious” ones.

Organizational Structure Each Daoist Association is run by a central office which has a president (huizhang 会长), a vice president (fuhuizhang 副会长), a secretary (mishuzhang 秘书 长 ), and a vice secretary (fumishuzhang 副秘书长 ). In Hanzhong, monastics from Mount Tiantai fill the superior positions, while the Wengongci abbot and his main disciple do the secretariat work. Although the monastery is the headquarters of the Association, its officers do not in fact lead the hierarchy. Today the two office holders—He Mingshan (former president) and He Chongdi (vice president first, now president)—come from the two main lineages of the area. Standing for the official branches of local Daoism, they have authority over all the regional monastics and temples, even those of Mian County, technically not under their leadership. This is because the nun chosen as president of the Mian County Daoist Association is a former disciple of He Mingshan and a fellow student of He Chongdi, thus belonging to both lineages. Similarly, the Daoist Association matches the administrative structures of the region and adapts to the local religious situation. To maintain legitimacy, it must rely closely on the biggest monastic center of Hanzhong, which is Mount Tiantai, and on the most important local Daoist figure, He Mingshan. The office, however, also includes non-monastics: Layman Zhu served as vice secretary for a long time. He recently passed the job to monk Bai Lixin, saying that he wants to spend more time doing astrology and personal cultivation. Lay followers, moreover, are involved and represented in other ways: members of the council form part of the office as active members with limited responsibilities and access. The main task of the Daoist Association is to integrate the various different players of Daoism today and enhance key historical sites of the religion while at controlling the interior workings of religious institutions. The charter of its various offices includes both temples that are more important now than they were in the past (like the Wengongci) and those located in illustrious sites that were more famous in the old days. To enhance its legitimacy among both clergy and the general populace, it mobilizes well-known, especially older people who entered the religion before the Cultural Revolution or Liberation. During my field work, the Louguantai abbot Ren Farong (later head of the national body) served as president of the Provincial Association, assisted by several vice presidents: the old nun Cao

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Xiangzhen 曹祥真 of the Yuquanyuan 玉泉院 (Jade Spring Cloister) on Mount Hua, Zhang Minggui 张明贵 of Mount Baiyun 白云山 in Yulin County, and the Longmendong abbot Tian Sishun 田嗣舜. Ren Farong grew into the position in 1998, when his predecessor, the Baxiangong abbot Min Zhiting 闵智亭 (1924-2004), also the president of the Xi’an Daoist Association, became head of the Chinese Daoist Association. He in turn took over from the Mount Qingcheng abbot Fu Yuantian 傅圆天 (d. 1998), with headquarters close to Chengdu in Sichuan. The national office, besides important Beijing Baiyunguan figures, also includes the abbots of three of the five sacred peaks—Mounts Tai in Shandong, Hua in Shaanxi, and Heng 衡山 (also known as Nanyue 南岳), in Hunan—as well as of other influential Daoist places: Mount Qingcheng in Sichuan, Mount Luofu in Guangdong, Mount Qian 千山 in Liaoning, and so on. This has the advantage, as lay followers point out, to bring the most important masters together in one place, allowing them to exchanges information and viewpoints informally in corridors, cells, and guest rooms. Besides meetings devoted to the discussion of religious questions, the leadership is also essential for the celebration of collective rituals and most importantly for ordinations. When three monks from Hanzhong underwent the highest level of ordination and “received the great precepts” (da shoujie 大受戒) at Mount Qingcheng in 1995, the master of ceremonies was the president of the Chinese Daoist Association. These kinds of festivities in the old days were available in all conglin monasteries. Wang Yi’e recently reported on a collective ordination at the Wulonggong 五龙宫 (Palace of the Five Dragons) on Mount Qian in Liaoning. She explains that things have changed since the beginnings of the religious revival. Collective ordinations are now theoretically only possible at the temples which have the “required infrastructure” (a criterion established by the Daoist Association). Not many monasteries meet the necessary conditions and often cannot accommodate and feed the large number of monastics who join the festivities. These occasions also serve as census operations for the Daoist Associations: they inventory the monastics, record their numbers, and register them nationally. The entire monastic structure is thus organized according to a new model, involving an eminently political network The top level of the national association publish a journal called Zhongguo daojiao 中国道教 (Chinese Daoism); each provincial association moreover has its own publication, such as Sanqin daojiao 三秦道教 (Daoism of the Three Qin [Kingdoms]) published in Shaanxi. Both individuals and monasteries are able (and encouraged) to subscribe to this official literature which is yet essentially composed by laymen. In Hanzhong, the journals are transmitted very much like the Daoist classics (Daode jing, Zhuangzi, and other old texts). In addition to increasing doctrinal knowledge and practical instructions, they also do newspaper work and describe the various activities organized in different temples. Monastics use them to learn about other monasteries or temples in the coun-

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try—sacred places they may never have heard of—and on that information decide whether to visit them one day. In addition, just as the books published by the Daoist Academy in Beijing, the journals propagate the state politics with regard to religion, treating mainly institutions and events of Quanzhen. Significantly, when they talk about the higher echelons of the Daoist Association, Hanzhong monastics use the term “leader” (lingdao 领导), usually reserved for state representatives. For old monks, this term of subordination clearly clashes with the common classification in Daoist monasteries and notably with that prevailing in big monastic organizations. Today the Wengongci represents the federation of monasteries in its administrative district and is in charge of them. It is especially involved in the management of small temples that are considered its “annexes” (guanli 管理 ) or “sub-courts” (xiayuan 下院): the second Daoist temple in Hanzhong itself, the Shengmugong 圣母宫 (Holy Mother Palace) which is fifteen minutes’ walk east of the Wengongci, in the same area of Dongguan; and the Taibaimiao 太白庙 on Qipan Peak of Mount Tiantai, north of the city. Both have female leaders, unlike the Wengongci, which is firmly in male hands. However, the organization is not clear-cut in terms of nuns and monks, so that the Wengongci welcomes mainly monks but has a few nuns living there. The Taibaimiao too is a mixed institution, housing three nuns and one monk, while the Shengmugong has two nuns now, but was until recently managed by monks. Concerned monastics present the relationship of annex to main temple as one governed by the spreading of the Daoist spiritual lineage. Beyond that, it is also, and maybe especially, an economic relationship, as the Wengongci is the first to provide financial assistance to its sub-courts. The link between the Wengongci and the Taibaimiao may result from the association between the two major official lineages near Hanzhong but also from the proximity of their two abbots, Zhang Zhifa and Huang Chongxiang, who were husband and wife in their pre-monastic life. Those between the Wengongci and the Shengmugong have to do with their geographical proximity: from the position of the municipality, it was preferable that the two temples inside the city (before the Qinglongguan reopened) maintain an even level since both are clearly associated with Mount Tiantai. The installation of such a dependency link goes back to an old Daoist tradition: temples before the Cultural Revolution already had annexes, with which they maintained religious connections—unlike today, when it is more on the political level. In the old days, they included the annexes of big monasteries, affiliates created by the propagation of worship. For example, the Wengongci used to be considered as a “sub-court” of Mount Taibai in Baoji. Its abbot was a monk from the mountain, and it worshiped the same principal divinity. New affiliations today develop from the reorganization of temples by the Daoist Association, following the model of political organization in the country.

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What is mainly new today is that a religious structure on a national scale has been created. According to Vincent Goossaert, before the 20th century, temples connected to one another only through voluntarily contracted, symbolic relations, while dependence patterns existed only among rare affiliates of very large monasteries (2000: 50). With the arrival of new ways of communication and transportation, the globalization of the Daoist network became possible. The movements of monastics and therefore relations between temples found new opportunities, which the Daoist Association channeled and systematized. Striving “to harmonize religious activities,” the Association interferes with beliefs and practices—causing some inconvenience to monastics and lay followers As Hanzhong monastics explain, it prohibits certain practices, particularly all “ritual arts” (fashu 法术) that bear traces of magic and exorcism. One can add that at the same time it clearly discredits certain beliefs. Other aspects of governmental religious policies affect Hanzhong monastics a great deal. They each must carry a Daoist identification card (daoshi zheng 道士 证), stamped with the seal of the Daoist Association, which they usually keep in a pants pocket under their robe. Like the general Chinese identity card (shenfen zheng 身份证) or the student ID (xuesheng zheng 学生证) issued by the universities, it states the master’s ritual name (fahao 法号 ), date of birth, lay name (suming 俗名), and address of his or her original family (laojia 老家). It also records as well as gender, name of the initiation master, date of formal entry, order and lineage, name and address of the temple where he lives, and instruction level. The monastics make this document themselves and use their own vocabulary, however, as a concept it goes back to the request of the local authorities and its main purpose is to satisfy them. The act of putting all that information into writing and making it semi-public stands in complete contrast to common ways within the monastery. Inhabitants here are never obliged to reveal anything about their pre-monastic life, except sometimes to the abbot. The Daoist ID card is used mainly outside “one’s” temple and shown to document the monastic’s “profession.” While it makes the monastics easy to reach and gives them a pass for traveling across country, the card is yet ultimately a form of political control. The area where the monastics tend to feel most vindictive toward the authorities concerns their freedom to maneuver, and especially the authorization to reopen temples. They deplore that permits are rare and only issued with great reluctance. The same scenario repeats every time: negotiations drag on and money is very difficult to find. At the same time, certain monastics regret that the government discourages vocations through strict regulation, a slanted, negative view of religion (including the idea of “superstition”), and its intense bureaucracy. According to Ren Farong, “bureaucratic restriction is making it hard for temples to attract young Daoists.” Having to start the heavy formalities of entering very quickly, and notably to change their household registration,

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followers have no time to do the reflection necessary to make the right choice (in Porter 1993: 55). While modeling the new Daoist network on political administration, the Daoist Association largely performs the role that it received in the beginning: to create a new relay between the state and Daoists and manage to oversee the former networks among the temples. Today it plays a key part in the reorganization of worship, which has gone through the establishing of a new orthodoxy. The new system of relations, however, has not completely replaced earlier networks. Through its national hierarchy and overarching authority, the Daoist Association has created new and different links among monastics of various temples, which in some cases are juxtaposed to those formerly dominant, which yet revived with the resurgence of worship, rebuilding of temples, and reconnection of lineages. With the Daoist masters who form it, its central office, moreover, also reflects the older networks and helps their restoration. Yet the political hierarchy in some cases diminishes the importance of the former organization of Daoism according to “big” and “small” monasteries. However, in Shaanxi, most of the major monasteries formerly at the center of the monastic network—the “big” ones, i.e., Baxiangong, Louguantai, Longmengong, but also Mount Hua, Mount Baiyun, and Chongyanggong—are rediscovering their preponderant place. They are also represented in the regional office of the Daoist Association. Monastics and lay followers thus form a true social-religious community, in close cooperation. The monastics can never be completely in seclusion because they are financially dependent on the lay followers who provide the fuel and backbone of their organization. The city government, then, tries to channel these narrow links through the intermediary agency of the Daoist Association. To do so, it has to get involved in the networks of monastics and lay followers, and work in collaboration with them as well as with neighboring towns and superior state agencies. This is why in the guise of courteous relationships, monastics endeavor to defend their positions and maintain the essential worship and ascetic conditions.

Chapter Four  The Gods At the Wengongci, the monastics live closely with the gods who are a great deal more in evidence and better lodged, residing in the most spacious and auspicious halls. Both monastics and lay followers carefully nourish, revere, and honor them, claiming that the attention is reciprocal: the gods listen to them, protect them, support them in difficult moments, and grant a number of their requests, but acknowledge that they may on occasion become vindictive and potentially unpleasant. The divinities individuals: they each have a unique history as well as specific characteristics, so that people sometimes consult them in private conversation, focusing on questions of their specialty. Together, they form the specific pantheon of the Wengongci, led by the divinity who gave it its name: Wengong 文公, i.e., Han Wengong, the honorary name of the famous Tang scholar Han Yu 韩愈 (768-824), also known by his courtesy name (zi 字) Tuizhi 退之 and by his appellation (hao 号) Changli 昌黎. How then does this personage appear between history and mythology? How does he feature in the religious networks that link the temples to one another today?

Halls and Statues The temple forms a world of its own, and every religious visit is subject to certain tacit rules that provide clear direction and systematic progress. Thus, all newly arriving monastics, passing through or returning after an absence, kowtow before each divinity of the local pantheon. Lay followers, worshipers, pilgrims, and other visitors similarly give offerings in food and money, as well as—on occasion—wads of spirit money to ensure the god’s goodwill. The divinity, on the other hand, has to be worthy of these and needs to respond to the expectations of devotees. Overall, human beings and gods thus depend on each other. Certain monastics, usually the youngest apprentices, are responsible for a specific worship hall and the deity enshrined there. They check it several times a day to make sure that nothing is missing and enough incense is burning. The big monasteries have a duty roster for this purpose. At the Baiyunguan, for example, monastics take two-hour turns in overseeing a worship hall, hitting a 99 

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small gong every time a visitor prostrates himself, taking care of the incense burner, and keeping a record of monetary donations. At the Wengongci, such organization is necessary only on festival days, when lay followers often replace the monastics as gong-ringers and record-keepers. On the other hand, even council members must not enter worship halls closed to the public. Normally, each monastic manages the particular hall or altar he or she is assigned to, but that does not prevent them to pay obeisance to all the divinities of the local pantheon both during special rites and at other, less well-defined occasions. While many worshipers may be unaware of the divinities’ names, monastics and most lay followers know them well and can tell their various related legends—more or less precisely. On festival days, “knowledgeable followers” stand at the entrance of the worship halls and present the consecrated divinities, telling those who show an interest about their Daoist legends and the great deeds they performed. The temple visit thus becomes a kind of efficient and initiatory journey.

Fig. 25: The God Wengong

Fig. 26: A small altar at a lay follower‘s place

Arriving through the main access way facing the wall inscription that shows the three characters for the temple’s name, one enters the second courtyard by a small side door. From here one notices the statue of Wengong holding court in the center of the “big sanctuary” (dadian 大殿), the main hall sheltering the key divinity. During the day, a door with embroidered latticework is open facing the statue while a barrier of yellow painted wood rises about a meter off the ground, closing the access to the hall while allowing a glimpse of the effigy. One can go as far as three keeling cushions at the base of this opening and observe Wengong at leisure. His statue is man-size and dominates the scene

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from a raised platform. Like most statutes in the temple made of clay mixed with chopped straws and lacquered, it is the work of a local lay sculptor specializing in religious art. Although somewhat in the shadows, it is clearly visible due to its lively colored garb and the tied-back pink silk curtains that frame it. Wengong appears in a seated pose, with the attributes of a classical mandarin. Bearded and with the gray hair of an old man, he wears a yellow robe decorated with gold dragons and sleeves lined in red. He holds a scroll of writings in his hand. When they ritually enthroned him in this hall, the monastics had properly “opened” his senses, giving him eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hands. Since then, every day, and especially on his birthday—the 2nd day of the 2nd moon—they worship him by “reciting the scriptures” (nianjing 念经). Out of a deep sense of respect and to avoid giving offense, they do not look at him directly (or at other gods) while they address him or offer incense and food, but cover their eyes with joined hands or a wooden tablet. Beyond his “transformation body,” visible and stable, the divinity has also a “temperament” that is invisible and variable. The monastics point this out—warning worshipers, for example, by having him wear a red fabric on his head to signify that he is suffering. Lay followers may also perceive this directly by the god’s immediate response to their requests.

The Legend of Han Yu The Wengongci, as Hanzhong locals say, is dedicated to the “veneration” (gongfeng 供奉) of Han Yu, established as the “ancestral deity” (zushen 祖神) or “lead deity” (zhushen 主神) of the temple. Before he became a god, Han Yu (768-824) was a renowned writer and politician of the Tang dynasty. Today his various facets—literary, historical, legendary—form clearly divided dimensions in sinological literature and sometimes also in the words of the locals, to the point even that they seem to describe different personages. This was not necessarily the case in the past. Ancient documentary sources include the Jiu Tangshu 旧唐书 (Old History of the Tang, ed. Liu Xu, 10th c.), the Hanxiangzi quanzhuan 湘子全传 (Complete Story of Han Xiangzi, by Yang Erzeng, 17th c.), the Baxian quanzhuan 八仙全传 (Complete Biography of the Eight Immortals, by Wugou Daoren, 19th c.). They all mix genres and combine mythology, hagiography, and history, just like legends today. The legend of Han Yu today is a story people tell widely. In the past, it may also have been transmitted as a Daoist song (daoqing 道情), possibly serving as the centerpiece of the repertory of some local tradition linked with Quanzhen Daoism, as found in the Zhongnan range south of Xi’an and in Shandong (Clart 2007: xx). Nowadays, in telling his story, monastics and lay followers deal with Han Yu directly and speak of his cult in southern Shaanxi. They also use his tales to speak about contemporary aspects of their relationship with the divine as well as about their community life and their vision of state and world.

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During my fieldwork, I have collected many different versions of Han Yu’s legend from monastics and lay followers at the Wengongci and the temples of the Qinling range: Taibaimiao, Chongyanggong, and Longmendong. Common patterns and significant variants emerge. The basic tale runs as follows: During his exceptional career, the great mandarin suffered exile from the imperial court. An illustrious poet, sometimes presented as one of the “Eight Great Ones” (ba dajia 八大家) of the Tang and Song, he was also a fervent defender of Confucian values and a major protagonist of “old-style” (guwen 古文) movement. Some records claim that he served as prime minister (zaixiang 宰相) under emperor Xianzong (r. 805-820), sometimes confused with Xuanzong (r. 712-756), a more Daoist ruler, but the Jiu Tangshu (ch. 160) has him only as the assistant of prime minister Zhong Jin. In 819, he objected to the transfer of a Buddhist relic to the imperial palace, a bone that had been preserved in a stupa of the famous Famensi 法门寺 (Monastery of the Gate of the Law) in Fufeng County of Baoji near the capital of Chang’an (modern Xi’an). Deploring that the classics had been abandoned due to the triumph of Buddhism, Han Yu presented a “Memorial on the Buddha Bone” (lunfogubiao 论佛骨表) to the court, that was a vehement attack against what he did not hesitate to call “one of the religious systems of the barbarian tribes” (Rideout 1965: 250-51; Clart 2007: 260-63). Although Hanzhong made no special mention of this, his diatribe against the people’s intense religious devotion also indirectly attacked Daoism. Han Yu once said about Laozi, “I do not want to diminish him as philosopher, but he really does not see the big picture . . . His views are rather petty” (Yuandao; Hsu 1932: 410). Han Yu claimed that before the arrival of Buddhism, the Chinese lived in peace and the emperors had a much longer life expectancy. This angered the emperor who wished to put Han Yu to death. Thanks to the intervention of several officials who came to the poet’s defense, he escaped the death penalty but was relieved of all official duties and sent to govern Chaoyang county in Guangdong, over three thousand miles (ten thousand li) from Chang’an. It was a place known for its frequent natural catastrophes (storms and typhoons), its harsh climate (fatal to northerners), and its man-eating crocodiles. This life-changing episode in Han Yu’s career is at the core of his legend, his exile from the imperial court becoming a trigger for the myths. Han Yu, the story goes, had been warned of the danger awaiting his wealth and honor by his famous nephew Han Xiangzi 韩湘子. The latter, a well-known member of the Eight Immortals, is generally shown as a child or youth, with hair tied in two small pigtails, a flower bouquet in his hands and a basket of peaches or a flute nearby. He has supernatural powers and one day said to Han Yu, “The object of my studies is completely different from yours.” As proof, he placed earth in a jar and instantly pulled out a bouquet of red peonies. On their petals two famous verses appeared, written in gold letters:

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Clouds hide the Qinling range—where now is my home? Snow falls on Mount Languan—my horse refuses to advance. Han Yu asked him what they meant, but all Han Xiangzi said was that he would understand them later. Eventually, on his way into exile, Han Yu passed through the Qinling range. When he reached the foot of Mount Languan 蓝关 (in Lantian County near Xi’an), the snow fell so heavily that he could not go on. Han Xiangzi appeared him, swept away the snow, and opened a passage. At this instant Han Yu understood his nephew’s verses, to which he added six more to compose the double quatrain of seven-character verse (lüshi 律诗): In the morning, I address a memorial to the emperor, At night, I am exiled to Chaoyang, ten thousand li from there. In only wanted to prevent political damage to the emperor, An old tree, why would I worry about the end of life? Clouds hide the Qinling range—where now is my home? Snow falls on Mount Languan—my horse refuses to advance. I know that you did not come without reason But to bury my remains by the river. At the Wengongci, Bai Lixuan exonerates Han Yu of any crime of lèse-majesté while also excusing the emperor of any error of judgment with regard to his illustrious minister: both, he claims, were victims of impostors who, driven by jealousy, caused the unfortunate incident. Malicious to the core, they had nothing better to do than substitute an object without value for the precious gift Han Yu was offering to his sovereign. Still, his devotion incited the emperor’s anger and caused Han Yu’s dismissal. Bai even suggests that Han Xiangzi himself may have participated in the plot. In fact, wanting to bring Han Yu back to what he considered the right path, did he not predict the exile? Going one step further, the monk Peng Sishun of the Longmendong even thinks that the immortals Lü Dongbin 吕洞宾 and Han Zhongli 汉钟离, upon Han Xiangzi’s request, set up a stratagem to test the poet’s convictions and move him toward Daoism. People have different ideas about what happened after the revelation at the foot of Mount Languan and about where exactly he was going—Chaozhou, Sichuan, or even Fujian. According to some, Han Yu became a bit of an antihero and never again left the Qinling range. Hanzhong folks relate how he did not dare to climb down due to dizziness, so that it was not his bravery but his fear that made him a hermit. He also sent the poem he had written off into the wind as a kind of farewell—the location later known as “the place where Han Yu released his writing.” Another version places the events on Mount Hua, on the “Canlong Peak where Han Yu released his writing” (Han Yu toushu canglongling 韩愈投书苍龙岭), marked by a stone stele. It appears in guidebooks as

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a principal attraction of this Daoist mountain. No matter what, the exile episode always ends with the poet releasing a piece of writing, sometimes into the wind, sometimes into water—possibly symbolic for letting go of worldly goals and achievements. Others see the affair in more positive terms and state that Han Yu disobeyed the emperor in not going to Chaozhou, not because he could not pass through the mountains but because he wanted to build a retreat there. Wugou Daoren, in his Baxian quanzhuan—a book that Baxiangong monks pass on to each other and sell in their bookstore—relates that Han Yu meditated in the mountains for ten years and met the immortals Lü Dongbin and Han Zhongli there (1988: 790-791). However, most of those who told me the legend, had it that Han Yu finally went to Chaozhou and, instead of suffering from the situation, turned it to his advantage. In addition to this immortal connection, Han Yu is also credited with having given an ultimatum to the crocodiles of Chaozhou, which resulted in their disappearance from southern China so that they now remain only in Thailand and further south. This aspect of his tale goes back to the Jiu Tangshu, which relates that after sacrificing a pig and a sheep, roasting them and throwing them into running water, Han Yu launched a document to the river called “Praise to the Crocodile” (Ji’eyuwen 祭鱷魚文) which is today preserved as a model of “new prose” (Rideout 1965: 253-55). The text encourages the ferocious animals to leave the place and is said to have aroused a storm so strong that the river emptied of water. Unable to live without water, the crocodiles left—or they left anyway, being offended by Han Yu’s insults. In any case, the people of Chaozhou were able to live in peace. In a frank and passionate tone, Han Yu asked, “How can I bow to crocodiles?” Then he went on to banish them, condemning them to exile. Layman Zhu notes, “This is an old legend, but the fact is that there are no crocodiles anymore in southern China. The story may be fictitious, unverifiable, and “full of superstitious,” but how else to explain the animals’ absence?” Here is the magic of belief as described by Octave Mannoni that works by saying “I know well . . . but all the same . . .” 1 In this context it translates to, “I know well that one person cannot cause all the crocodiles of southern China to leave by the force of his writing; but all the same there are no more crocodiles in the region.” While nature does not belie it, myth has its own force of reality.

1: Analyzing a section of Talayesva’s Sun Chief: The Autobiography of a Hopi Indian, Octave Mannoni looks at the way how beliefs are produced. The belief in kachina masks, essential to Hopi religion, takes two successive forms: before initiation children believe that they are terrifying figures who appear once a year; during initiation, they discover that their “father” and “uncles” hide themselves behind the masks and that kachina are not in fact spirits or, more exactly, that they no longer come as of yore but in a mystic manner. The new belief is: “I know well that the kachina are not spirits, but all the same they are there all the same when my fathers and uncles dance with their masks on” (Mannoni 1969: 16).

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It is also a typical Chinese motif of deification. As Jean Lévi has shown, quite a few provincial officials are famous for having protected their areas effectively against various blights, such as tigers, river blockages, and the like. Their feats, moreover, are explained more with the strength of will that can take an imprecatory value of these prefects rather than with truly magic powers (1989a: 239). Stephen Owen underlines that in this text, “Han Yu deliberately takes the discourse of moral order in Nature, which was inextricably linked to the moral order of the state, and forces it on a pragmatically unlikely situation” (1996: 59). Others, as some lay followers in Hanzhong, yet see Han Yu’s efforts to save the people from crocodiles or monster fish as sufficient proof of his divine nature. Even simpler, it is an action worthy of a Daoist master: the writings he threw in the river are like the talismans (fu 符) which Daoists trace to protect houses and individuals from malevolent forces.

The Immortal Connection Other variations of the story involve Han Xiangzi, sometimes described as the true source of the kind deeds commonly attributed to his uncle. As legend has it, he provided medicinal drugs to Han Yu so he could handle the humidity of the south (Doré 1995: 506). Some suggest that he rescued him variously, while others claim that he took his place in exile while Han Yu remained in the Qinling range. In the latter case, Han Xiangzi transformed himself twice: first into Han Yu to go to Chaozhou, then into a corpse to simulate his death, creating a fake cadaver like so many other immortals who undergo “deliverance from the corpse.” 2 This was necessary because the population liked the governor so much that they did not want him to leave at the end of his mandate. Han Xiangzi supposedly also prophesied that Han Yu would stay in exile only for a short time, then recover his official position and rejoin his family in the capital. According to the official history in the Jiu Tangshu, a year after the poet’s banishment, Emperor Xianzong was murdered by a eunuch and Han Yu was recalled to court where he became vice-minister of both War and Public Service. Soon after, however, he died, at the age of fifty-seven. According to most legends, he left Chaozhou after having accomplished his mission. One source suggests that he died in exile due to the unhealthy climate of the south (Vandier-Nicolas 1969: 386). Monastics today like to think that he ended his life in Daoist retirement and even suggest that he attained immortality. Several hagiographies insist, more or less implicitly, that Han Yu’s conversion did not occur naturally. After a lifetime dedicated to Confucianism, why “Deliverance from the corpse” (shijie 尸解), also called “surpassing the world” (dushi 度世) is the apparent death one has to feign before becoming an immortal. See Maspero 1971: 445; Robinet 1979; Cedzich 2001. 2

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should he have turned his beliefs around so radically and not only devote himself to Daoism but also practice it assiduously and even attain the Dao? The orthodox answer is that, despite his disbelief in either gods or demons, despite his continuous fight against “superstitions” and pilgrimages, he one day was struck by a massive revelation. Stuck in the snows of Mount Languan, he suddenly understood the reality of the political world and the direction of Dao. As Layman Zhu says, at the end of his life, Han Yu reviewed all the positions he had held, became perceptive, and transformed through illumination. The scholar Zhu Yueli rationalizes the facts while underlining what he sees as evidently simple, “Like all things that age, Han Yu evolved and ripened over time” (personal communication). Thus, he could be installed in the Wengongci, not far from Laozi whom he had criticized so mercilessly. Certain young monastics at the Wengongci say that having a Daoist parent or, even better, an immortal relative facilitates the pursuit of Dao and makes deification easier. Thus, Han Yu’s nephew was essential in changing his attitude, guiding him, directly or indirectly, to a radical turnaround. The legend thus claims an inversion of the master-disciple relationship: Han Yu was initiated into the Daoist way by Han Xiangzi whom he had previously educated. Thanks to his supernatural faculties, Han Xiangzi perceived the intellectual potential of his uncle to understand the true direction of his life and then decided to reveal it to him through a prophetic poem. Some credit the nephew with a more intrusive action in his uncles’ life: having seen a hidden vocation within him, he attempted to relieve him of all the contradictions in which he had entangled himself, forcing him to let go of material goods, develop detachment from the world, and pursue the ascetic life. Yet others think that Han Xiangzi had such great supernatural powers that he simply could have turned his uncle into an immortal, not unlike his magical production of flowers from an earth-filled jar. Thus, Wugou Daoren notes that Han Xiangzi “himself transformed [Han Yu into an immortal]” (dutuo 度脱) (1988: 777). All this makes it clear that the nephew was ultimately at the origin of Han Yu’s sudden transformation. Seen differently, is it possible that Han Yu and Han Xiangzi are a single person? They are certainly inseparable, and even with variations in the exact nature of their kinship (uncle, great-uncle, or even father), they always appear close like parent and child. All texts on Han Xiangzi note that Han Yu was responsible for his education. Yang Erzeng, Han Xiangzi’s biographer and 17thcentury author of the Hanxiangzi quanzhuan, tells their story, showing how Han Xiangzi saved Han Yu several times. Philip Clart, in his translation, picks up that “in terms of historical sources there is of course a serious problem.” Han Xiangzi is said to be Han Yu’s nephew or great nephew. And indeed Han Yu did have a relative named Han Xiang. However, this Han Xiang had an official career but no particular Daoist learning. He may have been conflated with another relative who was known for magical abilities (2007: XVI-XVIII). Since Han Yu’s stanzas are the starting point for the Han Xiangzi’s legend, one may

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wonder whether the latter actually had an existence of his own, separate from that of Han Yu. For some Hanzhong monastics, the two are indeed one, existing one through the other to the point that Han Xiangzi can become the alter ego of Han Yu and undergo exile in his place. Wugou Daoren says that Han Yu became immortal on Mount Shaoshi 少室 山 (1988: 791). The western peak of Mount Song 嵩山 in Henan, this was where Bodhidharma, the first Chinese patriarch of Chan Buddhism, supposedly meditated for nine years in the early 6th century and where the Shaolin monastery 少林寺 has flourished since (see Shahar 2007). Although Han Yu’s transformation occurred three centuries later and although Wugou Daoren does not establish any explicit parallels between the two histories, the notoriety of Bodhidharma’s life creates a symbolic and geographical link between the arrival of Buddhism and the conversion of Han Yu. In other words, if Han Yu followed Bodhidharma’s example and became a recluse on Mount Shaoshi, then grew to considerable religious expertise and fame, he becomes comparable in stature and importance to the founder of Chan. Even more radically, one could see the allusion to Mount Shaoshi as connecting the two to the point where Han Yu becomes the new Bodhidharma, a Daoist version of the Chan patriarch. This implicit parallel appears all the more eloquent since Han Yu slandered Buddhism and is best known for having addressed an anti-Buddhist memorial to the emperor, matching the deification process active for Daoist divinities. This explains the deepest bend of Han Yu’s mind.

Han Yu as a God Most of those who told me the Han Yu legend agreed that he related to the highest levels of the celestial bureaucracy, the Jade Emperor himself, the supreme deity of the popular Daoist pantheon, bestowing a celestial appointment upon him. Very much like the imperial sovereign on earth who grants positions to central and local mandarins, the Jade Emperor makes all major decisions in the celestial world and assigns functions to the gods. Upon the recommendation of Han Xiangzi, he made Han Yu the “Local Protector of the South Gate of Heaven” (nantianmen de tudiye 南天门的土地爷), a key connecting point between heaven and earth. Anyone reaching for Dao has to pass through it: transforming himself, disappearing from the sensory world, and joining Dao (Huainanzi; Larre et al. 1993: 44n31). According to traditional Chinese concepts also common in Daoism, ascension into heaven is a passage through the mountains via a steep stairway that reaches both to the highest peak on this plane and into the otherworld. The South Gate of Heaven accordingly appears in a number of actual locations, such as on Mount Hua where access to it is by a narrow stairway cut into the rock which one climbs

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while hanging on to iron chains, and on Mount Tai where it is a triumphal arch that dominates the last breathtaking set of stairways leading to the summit. According to some oral versions of the legend, the Jade Emperor first wanted to appoint Han Yu as General in Supervision of Documents (juanlian dajiangjun 卷廉大将君). According to Wugou Daoren, this was his role in an earlier life, before he was sent back to earth for having offended the Jade Emperor (chapter 95; 1988: 777). A high functionary in the celestial bureaucracy, he makes sure people that avoid disgrace and exile. One monk used the term juanluan 卷脔 which, according to the Ciyuan dictionary, means “living honestly within one’s lot.” This suggests that he may have served as a kind of General of Propriety, a title specially created for him matching a term he used in a poem.3 According to this Daoist, Han Yu realized the true nature of human existence due to the various misadventures he had to undergo and overcome, eventually coming to observe propriety: clench the fists and contain all anger, control oneself to avoid impulsive behavior, be content with one’s position and aim at nonaction. As General of Propriety, Han Yu thus personifies the “positive” transformation of an attitude of revolt or even subversion as well as of the anticlericalism he represented in life. However, the story continues, this position did not suit him and he communicated this to the Jade Emperor by remaining in a kneeling position with head lowered but not thanking him. When the ruler asked the poet what displeased him, Han Yu replied that he could not bring himself to abandon his spouse who, having not practiced Dao, had no place in the celestial world. To make it possible for Han Yu to take his wife along, the Jade Emperor then made him Local Protector of the South Gate of Heaven, where the two now reside. However, his statue at the Wengongci does not show her; instead, he is more of a senior earth god and serves as the chief of local deities. According to the 1926 stele (my respondents never actually referred to), he was heir to the ancient Houtu. The fact remains that to enhance the importance of his role some locals state that the senior earth god, who rules over a large number of divine entities, is essentially superior to the City God. More precisely, Hanzhong people represent Han Yu as the “transformation body” (huashen 化身) of the senior earth god, usually an anonymous divinity. As Isabelle Robinet notes, the term was originally Buddhist and applied to the body of the Buddha, then was adopted into Daoism to explain the varied manifestations of the great divinities. In other sources, this kind of body type forms a “trace” (ji 迹) of those who return to life on earth as masters or saviors after having realized their true nature (1977: 191-94). In this sense, then, “transforThe expression juanluan, a synonym of quansuo 拳缩, lit. “tying the fists,” has taken on the extended meaning of anfen zishou 安分自守, which may be rendered “living honestly within one’s lot.” It comes from Han Yu’s poem Cheng nan lianju 城南联句 (“Linked verse on the region to the south of the city”) (see Ciyuan, vol. 1 : 436). 3

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mation body” means the personified incarnation of a divine power. Beyond this, Han Yu also appears as having a potentially “divided body” (fenshen 分身), one capable of multilocation. Thus, he went to south China either in person or through his nephew while at the same time retiring to the Qinling range. In rituals or mediumistic séances, finally, he is a mere spirit (shen 神) that temporarily possesses the body of a follower or of a monastic.

The Spread of the Cult The presence of Han Yu at the temple connects him to an extensive network of places dedicated to his honor. It links at least four kinds of places, including those which relate to his actual deeds and movements, connect locations of official worship, activate the myths surrounding him, and are relevant to worship associations. Locally, the distinction is not necessarily clear. Han Yu as a divinity probably came to the Wengongci through his worshipers. However, monastics and followers both reinforce his local legitimacy by claiming that he passed through the city on his way into exile or that he stayed here and was buried near the Han river. These, of course, are only speculations, and there is no solid documentation of his historical presence in the area. Still, there are several places associated with important episodes of his life, a Han Yu tomb and a temple called Hanyuci 韩愈祠 in Hanzhuang in Meng County in Henan, his area of origin (Guojia Wenwu 1981: 678)4, as well as a temple called Hanwengongci 韩 文公祠 in Chaozhou where he was exiled. Canonized as a literatus, Han Yu is also among those honored posthumously by imperial decree. He thus figures among the sages installed in temples to Confucius (Kongmiao 孔庙), such as the main shrine in Qufu (Shandong). Here officials set up a funerary tablet for Han Yu in 1084, two centuries after his death (Jaeger 1987: 209). Besides, the Imperial Academy (Hanlinyuan 翰林 院) appointed him their “patron saint” (Maspero 1971: 127). Places related to the legend include Mount Languan (in Lantian near Xi’an), Mount Hua, and Xi’an. Mount Languan is the location of his life-changing revelation, commemorated by a stele called the “Old Languan Relay” (Gu languan yi 古蓝关驿) which contains his poem (Yan 1991: 92). This was also where he took refuge, in Han Xiangzi’s Grotto 湘子洞 near Lanqiao 蓝桥 (Lan Bridge). Mount Hua is a stopping point on his way into exile, where he refused According to the Jiu Tangshu, Han Yu came from Nanyang 南阳 in Dengzhou prefecture 邓洲 of the Tang dynasty. Even if the ancient place probably matches the present Meng County 孟县 in Henan, both cities today claim Han Yu as a native and “famous person.” 4

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to descend and said farewell to the world by releasing his poem into the wind (Yan 1991: 132). Here he also meditated in Han Xiangzi’s cave, while the latter went on to govern Chaozhou in his stead—making it a place where his veneration merges most closely with that of his nephew. According to the abbot of the Chongyanggong, Han Yu even died here and his body later buried in his native Henan. Xi’an, finally, is the location of the Baxiangong dedicated to the Eight Immortals, and thus also Han Xiangzi. However, Han Yu has not his own temple in that city, but his nephew has his (and Han Yu’s legend is present through Han Xiangzi’s): the newly rebuilt Xiangzimiao 湘子庙 just outside the south gate, a monastery inhabited by Quanzhen nuns that opened in 2006. The largest number of Han Yu temples is in the center of his cult. In Shaanxi, it began with Mount Taibai, one of the “four great famous mountains” (si daming shan 四大名山). From here, his worship spread in at least two directions: south to Hanzhong and west first to Long County in Baoji, then to Mount Kongdong 崆峒山 in Pingliang (Gansu).5 The revolution interrupted the transmission of local histories, certain episodes and even entire sections being lost. Thus, there is no recollection on Mount Taibai, yet considered the cradle of the cult. Shaanxi Daoist monastics (as reported by lay followers) say that Han Yu installed himself at the Gate to Heaven on Mount Taibai because it is the highest point in the province, peaking at 3,767 meters. Although he never was the principal divinity of the mountain (Ancestor Taibai), he has altars there in three major temples. Fu Xingli, the local abbot and president of the Baoji Daoist Association, knows little about him as a god. Having entered the religion on Mount Hua, he came to Mount Taibai in 1961 and was immediately ordered back to civil life. His control over the existing monastery is shaky since he never received proper transmission from his predecessors, having, for instance, learned the legend of Ancestor Taibai only from an engraved stele.

Mount Taibai and Beyond Few traces of Han Yu remain on Mount Taibai today, most importantly his Nanshan shi 南山诗 (Poem of the Southern Mountains), carved on the entrance wall. It suggests that the poet passed this way, but nothing else. On the summit, there are the remains of a Lesser and Greater Wengong Temple (Xiao/Da wengongmiao 小/大文公庙 ), destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and rebuilt only recently. 6 They are so high up that one can reach them only in

5 After a certain date, he is also the earth god of the major city of Chongqing in Sichuan. There he supervises about thrity lesser local earth gods (Ma 1998: 190). 6 A tourist tour that offers a two-day walk around Mount Taibai that leads past the two temples describes the Lesser Wengong temple as a small stone house and the Greater as

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summer; in the past monks only lived there seasonally, moving back to temples at lower altitudes when the snows came. To cross the mountain on a north-south axis, a line of Daoist temples links Tang Valley in Mi County to the town of Houzhenzi in Zhouzhi: it crosses several peaks, some of which rise over 3,600 meters. Older Wengongci monks remember the journey: from the main Taibai temple, still accessible by car, it leads over 38 km to the (Buddhist) Shangbansi 上板寺 (Temple of the Highest Register) at 3,511 meters. From there, a narrow dirt path leads to the first summit, which has some traces of a former glacier. On its periphery, one finds the Greater Wengongci and, a little lower, the Lesser. Next one comes to a temple called Dayehai 大爷海 (Sea of the First Ancestor), then reaches the Baxiantai 拔仙台 (Terrace of the Brilliant Immortals) on another peak. On the hike down the other side of the mountain, more temples with water in their names appear. They include the Er/San yehai 二/三爷海 (Seas of the Second and Third Ancestors) as well as the Yuhuangchi 玉皇池 (Jade Emperor’s Pond), Sanqingchi 三清池 (Three Pure Ones’ Pond), and Yaowangchi 药王池 (Medicine King’s Pond). Eventually one arrives at the South Gate of Heaven and reaches the Laojundian 老君殿 (Hall of Lord Lao). Wengongci old-time monks remember their master saying that a monk from the southern slope of Mount Taibai first introduced the worship of Wengong to Hanzhong. Sometime during the Qing or the Republic, he left his abode in the Eryehai or Sanyehai, crossed Zhouzhi County, and passed through the Foping city to arrive in the northeast of Yang County. There he first established Wengong worship in a temple on a hill called Mount Fuer or Furen, which has eluded my pursuit. He then continued to Hanzhong, where he renovated and enlarged the local temple of Mill Bridge. Already devoted to the worship of the earth god, whom Wengong also personifies, the small sanctuary was an appropriate holy place to be connected to his worship. The monk duly established himself there and began to teach disciples, thus becoming the abbot of a new monastery and turning Mill Bridge shrine into a Han Yu sanctuary through the “chain” system of foundation typical among Daoist temples. The creation of this temple, then, led to the propagation of the deity’s worship in the region, allowing it to spread to larger areas and even nationwide. In a temple affiliation system known as the “division of the incense” (fenxiang 分香), lay people consecrate new branches of worship with burning coals and ashes from the incense burner of an older temple. This link of seniority makes the new community dependent on the mother temple and connects them through mutual economical structures and related liturgies. Overall, as Kristofer Schipper has shown on the basis of research in southern Taiwan (1985; 1990), it sets up a system of exchange and aid among communities of a bit bigger one (two rooms). http: //www.yododo.com/guide/0128C41C55422095 FF80808128C1A0ED; accessed 8 Feb. 2011.

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worship without establishing a hierarchy that comes with distinct levels of authority—unlike, for example, the current Daoist Association. Hanzhong monastics do not explicitly mention the division of incense, yet the way by which the neighborhood temple became a member of those worshiping Han Yu evokes this affiliation method. Although there are few well documented details on the foundation of the Wengongci, the related temples on Mount Taibai are considered its mother houses while it is itself described as a “lower court” (xiayuan 下院) or a “branch” (fenzhi 分支). It is thus quite possible, as the locals believe, that Wengong worship came to Hanzhong because of the efforts of a single man. Still, this does not clarify whether this person arrived on his own initiative or whether he was invited by the neighborhood community. Today, on the other hand, the links between the temple in Hanzhong and those on the mountain have become looser, the network as a whole disintegrating due to changes caused by the Cultural Revolution. During its expansion, the cult developed other ramifications, but following the network today is like a veritable treasure hunt. On Mount Taibai, a passing monk told me that Wengong is worshiped at the Chongyanggong. While I could not find him there, an old monk told me that there used to be a Wengong temple nearby, in the valley of the Laoyu river. He also noted that the oldest Wengongci in the region (and indeed of China) was on Mount Taibai, while the largest used to be at the Longmendong in a special hall. Again, this information is no longer true, and Wengong has no place anymore in the pantheon of this temple. Still, its abbot Peng Sishun confirms the importance of Wengong in Long County. A shrine to the earth god used to be nearby that was also known as the Hanyumiao and inhabited by a single Daoist (of the 27th Longmen generation). It no longer exists, but is now an inn that the county administration refuses to demolish or return to the local Daoist Association. Rather, the Hanyumiao was “moved” (ban 搬) to the local Yaowangdong 药王洞 (Medicine King’s Grotto), but there is no hall yet nor a statue of Wengong. However, one informant says, the divinity is already present there symbolically, in the texts and in the plans, and confirms that the Yaowangmiao will do as a substitute temple for welcoming Wengong. To sum up, besides the sanctuaries on Mount Taibai, there are at least two other Wengong altars in greater Baoji, where his legend is nowardays better known and told with more details than in Hanzhong. Thus, while the current abbot of the Wengongci knows only little about other temples serving Han Yu, the old-time monks that used to live in the sanctuary mention his worship on Mount Kongdong near Pingliang in Gansu, i.e., about sixty of kilometers from the Longmendong. The worship thus spread westward from Mount Taibai to Hu and Long counties until it reached Pingliang beyond the provincial borders. Overall, beyond the traditional network that is lost today, an intangible and legendary net developed around Han Yu. Famous especially in southern

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Shaanxi, he was venerated widely and his worship traveled by word of mouth through the Qinling range.

The Wengongci Pantheon Entering the Wengongci from the north, one first comes to a hall, first rebuilt in 1993, that is devoted to Xuantian shangdi 玄天上帝 (Highest Emperor of Dark Heaven), i.e., Xuanwu 玄武 (Dark Warrior), an exorcistic deity who frightens off and hunts down all sorts of “demons and ghosts” (mogui 魔鬼). Hanzhong people say that, as he is especially dedicated “to fight off harmful and demonic actions of evil spirits,” the god governs the northern section of heaven and earth as well as water, the first of the five phases. Because he efficiently fights demons (and even confronts their king), he is a warrior: barefoot, in armor, and with a magical sword in his hand. Holding court in the center of the hall, he has two acolytes who are important personages themselves. To his right is the first Celestial Master, Zhang Daoling, who ascended to heaven after having received a major revelation from the deified Laozi who appeared to him on Mount Heming 鹤鸣山 (Sichuan). Daoists claim that Lord Lao bestowed the most venerable function upon him and made him the Master of Humanity (Renzhishi 人之士). On his left is the Leizu 雷祖, the Thunder Lord and director of the Department of Thunder, in whose name all writes of pardon are issued. Presented by Wengongci members jokingly as a member of the current police force (gong’anju 公安局), he is in charge of righting wrongs and of punishing the guilty. He appears as a blue-skinned figure with three eyes (one in the middle of the forehead) and a beak. A sort of owl-man, he rides a black unicorn, travels thousands of miles in an instant, and produces thunder by striking a drum. On the hall’s periphery are six divine acolytes, standing in two groups and facing each other. Human in form but with animal faces, they are monster custodians who protect the earthly and celestial places of the gods. The second hall in this courtyard, slightly lower than the first, honors Qiu Chuji, the foremost disciple of Wang Chongyang and founder of the Longmen branch. Next to him is another well-known Daoist divinity, whose place of origin is nearby: Yaowang, the King of Medicines, the divine form of the illustrious Tang physician and Daoist Sun Simiao. Known also as “the man from Mount Taibai,” he stayed a number of times on this mountain famous for being a natural garden of medicinal herbs and an environment favorable to selfcultivation practices (Fang 2001: 50). Today they are the only two deities in this hall since Wengong moved to the second courtyard. However, there is yet another figure here, the City God resting on an outside altar under a special canopy. Unlike the other divinities, he appears in a porcelain figurine that was commercially bought. The monastics hope to replace this one day with a bronze statue, but it will take some time before they

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can collect the necessary funds. Hanzhong people see the City God as the oldest of the gods: as soon as there were human beings, they reason, there were also dead people, both benevolent and malevolent, and the City God had to keep them under control. He accordingly also plays a major role in guiding the souls of the departed toward salvation, matching rites being performed before him. He probably used to reside in the old Chenghuangmiao, which is not being rebuilt. Certain monastics and laymen say that, unable to recover the territory he lost during the Cultural Revolution, he (symbolically) moved to the Daoist temple, knowing well that Han Yu shares his responsibilities and “welcomes” in his abode. Nearby, a new hall serves “a god in the making”: He Mingshan, the old monk who played a central role in the local Daoist revival and initiated the current abbot, revered in a growing cult. The second courtyard only holds a single hall for Wengong worship. However, the monastics hope to erect a hall to the Three Pure Ones next to it, replacing a reception room, as soon as they can assemble the necessary funds. The Three Pure Ones are the supreme divinities of Daoism. They include: the Heavenly Worthy of Primordial Beginning (Yuanshi tianzun 元始天尊 ), the first being ever to take shape and representative of the Dao at creation; the Heavenly Worthy of Numinous Treasure (Lingbao tianzun 灵宝天尊 ), also known as the Highest Lord of the Dao (Taishang daojun 太上道君), who personifies the supreme principle; and the Heavenly Worthy of Dao and Its Virtue (Daode tianzun 道德天尊), also called the Highest Lord Lao (Taishang Laojun 太上老君), the divinized form of Laozi. They have been central to Daoist temples since the middle ages and are still ubiquitous today (see Kohn 1998). The third courtyard houses the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion, an edifice four stories high entirely dedicated to his worship. The ruler of Heaven and Earth, he is in charge of all the gods and immortal officials of the celestial administration. Hanzhong monastics consider him the head of the Daoist pantheon and depict him—on the highest of the four stories—as surrounded by four smaller statues representing the first Celestial Master and the Thunder Lord (as also found in the first courtyard) plus the two ancestral figures Taibai 太白 and Tianpo 天魄. The floor below houses the four officials (siguan 四官) of Heaven, Earth, Water, and Fire. They are surrounded by numerous servants: to the left is the Green Dragon (qinglong 青龙); to the right, the White Tiger (baihu 白虎); in front, the stellar deity known as the Vermilion Bird (zhuqiao 朱雀); behind, the Black Tortoise, emblem of Xuanwu, the Dark Warrior. These are the four heraldic animals representing the phases of wood, metal, fire, and water as well as the four cardinal directions. Their mission is to protect the Daoist masters in their ecstatic journeys to the stars (Min and Ii 1994: 413). The second floor, reached by climbing an exterior stairway, holds four halls of worship. To the south is a hall to Guangong 关公 (Lord Guan) who governs the realm of earth on behalf of the Jade Emperor. He is a war god ready to

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intervene against all who disrupt the peace of the people and efficacious as the god of wealth. To the east resides Shengmu yuanjun 圣母元君 (Holy Mother Goddess), better known as Bixia yuanjun 碧霞元君 (Princess of the Morning Clouds) whose main area of protection includes women, children, and the birth process. In the north is Wenchang dijun 文昌帝君 (Lord of Literature), responsible for the promotion of civil servants and traditionally revered by scholars and educated officials. In the west, finally, there are two further deities: Songzi Guanyin 送子观音 , the famous Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy, in her aspect as the giver of children; and Songzi Niangniang 送子娘娘 (Lady Who Brings Children) the more popular divinity of the same nature. Best known to lay followers, these two garner the lion’s share of worship at the Wengongci. Surrounded by dolls representing babies hung as offerings, they are invoked “to obtain” children. The ground floor of the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion, finally, shelters Xishen 喜 神 (God of Bliss) and Dimu 地母 (Earth Mother) on simple altars still in the middle of rubble, plus Longwang 龙王 (Dragon King), behind a round door. Although the Wengongci pantheon is explicitly Daoist, it thus yet includes divinities of different kinds. In a harmonious gathering, gods of regional fame—Ancestor Taibai, the Medicine King, and Han Yu—mix with important Daoist deities celebrated in the entire country—the Three Pure Ones, the Jade Emperor, the Dark Warrior, and the Lord of Literature. In addition, there are also cosmological figures, such as those representing the phases, directions, and heraldic animals. Beyond that, the pantheon equally includes emblematic divinities of calendar, geomancy, and long life: Earth Mother, Dragon King, and the God of Bliss; as well as several protective divinities of women and children. There are also important gods of territorial administration: the City God, the earth god, Wengong, and various Daoist lineage deities, including Zhang Daoling, Qiu Chuji, and Laozi. Last not least, one can find a late monk who is on the way to becoming a god. Assembling a large variety of competences, the pantheon allows everyone to find his own protector and divine support, be they man or woman, official or peasant, dead or alive, celestial or earthbound, lay or monastics. Seen in its global nature, the pantheon represents the different dimensions of the world while yet also ordering and arranging them. More prosaically, it creates order in the social-religious community of the temple, and like it is ultimately not an immobile body but a dynamic process.

Daoist Identity In terms of the deities venerated there, the Wengongci thus preserves a fundamentally Daoist identity. Nevertheless, compared to its earlier status, it has

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undergone a significant change in terms of the gods’ position at the temple: their current layout reflects the evolution of the sanctuary as it transformed over the decades and particularly under pressure from the Daoist Association. The biggest change since Liberation in 1949 is the presence of Xuanwu, the Emperor of Dark Heaven, now present so strongly that he even overshadows Wengong. Residing in the main hall of the first courtyard, he was the first god installed in a rebuilt structure. Until 1998, when Wengong received his own hall (after having sat next to Qiu Chuji as a secondary divinity), he dominated the entire compound. As part of the temple’s pantheon, Xuanwu enhances its Daoist identity, but he also represents a power vitally necessary today: his exorcistic control of the restless dead, i.e., those who died bad deaths. Innumerable souls, who died violently or accidentally during the Cultural Revolution, continue to wander through the country, never appeased nor transformed into ancestors by proper rituals. There was never a proper exorcism for them, since the Party prohibited all practice of this kind. People today emphasize that it is high time they protect themselves from the harmful influence of these ghosts and restore proper channels of communication with the beyond. Others say that the temple adopts the particular pantheon to match the current era, just as the Daoist religion has often adjusted itself and changed variously in the past. The local pantheon is therefore adaptable to the needs of the current population as well as to political necessities. In addition, Xuanwu is eminently Daoist and his unequivocal identity contrast with that of Wengong, a less prominent god in the country and ambiguous as a Daoist deity in that, from a popular standpoint, his historical links with the educated Confucian elite are much better known than his feats as the custodian of the South Gate of Heaven. In the pantheon, moreover, his title gong 公, meaning “lord” or “duke” is beneath that of Shangdi 上帝 , “Highest Emperor.” By the same process, the arrival of two other divinities in the Wengongci pantheon contributed to the temple’s Daoist identity. Thus, Qiu Chuji, the founder of the Longmen branch and the chief deity in the Baiyunguan, finds himself in the second building in the Wengongci. The first Celestial Master, too, a key figure of the Daoist masters’ genealogy, is located among Xuanwu’s acolytes. His current presence is due to the fact that the temple originally dedicated to him in Hanzhong no longer exists and he had to fine a new home in the Wengongci. Since the Wengongci became the regional seat of the Shaanxi Daoist Association, its Daoist identity had to be strong and clear. This is also apparent in the name of the temple: in the past it was simply “Wengongci,” as clearly visible in the old inscriptions on the wall; today it is the “Wengongci Daoist monastery,” engraved on the panel above the entrance and in all official documents. In Chinese, the character ci 祠 here means “temple,” but it could indicate either

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a Daoist or Confucian institution. By adding the suffix daoguan 道观 (Daoist monastery), the monastics avoid all ambiguity. Xuanwu’s main sanctuary in China is Mount Wudang in Hubei. By adding him to the Wengongci pantheon, the monastics entered their temple into the network of this important center. Thus, the abbot Zhang Zhifa went to a Lesser North Mount Wudang in Shanxi and taught a disciple there, who came for a while to Wengongci. His disciple-assistant, too, related to this network by staying in Wudang headquarters in Hubei. To sum up, the monastics assume the role of mediators between lay people and gods, knowing fully well that the latter play a similar role among different temples and therefore between religious communities. The worship of each divinity in the Daoist pantheon associates temples with one another. Beyond their religious aspects, the tales of the gods contain ideas that have more to do with the monastics today than with the historical or legendary personages at their root. Monastics nowadays tend to speak about topics that have little to do with politics and do not present any positions that might be constructed as contrary to the laws of the nation—as stipulated by the Daoist Association. In addition, the rule of Quanzhen order prohibits to “talk about political questions” under penalty of expulsion and delivery to the local authorities. Yet modern monastics have political convictions, if in an implicit and diffuse way, often expressed in the legends they tell about the divinities. They use the ambiguity of their position, at the crossroads of history and mythology, to perfection—as the classical process of deification that Han Yu illustrates. Is the story of the poet not a clear example of the quest for Dao being ultimately worth much more than serving the government? Is exile for the affirmation of one’s strong convictions not for the best, opening a path to superior wisdom? A list of the temples Wengongci monastics visit or mention makes it obvious that they form an important network allowing monastics and lay followers to engage in complex patterns of exchange, both concrete and intangible. A map of these temples in relation to the Wengongci in Hanzhong provides an excellent example: neither unchanging nor exhaustive, it yet allows us to determine the different terms of functioning within the network—although its meshing is only partially represented because it is “ego-centered” and it is not possible at this place to map out interactions between all the different temples and create a complete outline. The more one approaches a temple used as reference point, the denser the network becomes; the more one moves away from it, the looser it is and the more it focuses on the big and illustrious centers. This does not include all sorts of temples that were not (or not yet) rebuilt after the Cultural Revolution, that passed from the monastics to the municipal authorities, or that changed over into (or out of) Buddhist institutions. The vast network the monastics have woven on Chinese territory—and even beyond—thus has come to carry quite a bit of weight on the national scene because (or maybe despite) their efforts.

Chapter Five  Choosing the Monastery Nobody is born a monk or a nun. All become recluses after a long initiatory journey. Before even beginning the placement period and taking the test before taking the robe, one has to envision the transition to the monastic life, understand how one passes form the state of a simple layman to a candidate and eventually a member of the Daoist community. Is this transition a matter of an abrupt turn-around as, for example, in a crisis? Or is it the culmination of an old “vocation” that grows gradually? Who in China embraces Daoist monastic life at the turn of the 21st century? How and why do contemporary Chinese leave the family? What does all this tell us about kinship structures and potential changes?

Reasons “Why did you come one day and knock on the door of the Wengongci?” This is without doubt the most delicate question I had to put to the monastics in Hanzhong since in a Daoist monastery nobody talks about their life before initiation. The responses thus varied widely, encompassing a plurality of parameters. Wengongci monastics, both due in age and level of instruction, form a heterogeneous group. Though they live under the same conditions and dress alike, they range in age from young people of about twenty to seniors of over seventy, from the highly educated to the illiterate. Their personal histories sometimes are so unlike that they seem opposite: some are born in the city, others come from the countryside; some married and worked in a profession among laymen, others never knew worldly life and left as adolescents. The reasons that lead different individuals into the monastic life differ widely, plus they adjust and adopt that life to suit their particular needs. Hanzhong monastics thus have vastly different expectations and experiences, some looking for solitude while others come for company and new social ties. The motivations are particularly difficult to understand since the monastics’ life narratives mix religious, economical, sociological, and even political dimen118 

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sions in either a realistic or dramatic style. More than that, there are undertows of other more implicit reasons, known but not told, shared in confidence or plainly inexpressible, which yet sometimes are more important than the more obvious reasons for the decision. In addition, the individuals themselves may not always be completely conscious of what determined their choice and one wonders if their tale of monastic vocation is not actually a reconstruction from hindsight. In fact, it may not have been entirely unpremeditated nor the pure result of long, intense reflection; it may not have been completely spontaneous nor totally planned for years. In this kind of question in particular, the ethnographer has to be concerned with the explanations given by the monastics but cannot stay confined to their discourse, which reflects only what they consciously know and which sometimes merely echoes commonplace statements.1 Some members provided me with an analysis of their life choice as well as an exposition of the concrete circumstances that drove them to the monastery. Others were more hesitant (or discrete) in answering and could not easily commit to one or the other specific explanation. In general, there are two dimensions: a fundamentally noble reason to take the robe (to do with the nature of Daoism) and the actual facts of life (reflecting concerns and difficulties before ordination). Typically, they present the first as the true reason for joining, usually making it out as a voluntary choice, while they reveal the second in bits and pieces, memories and anecdotes of hardships and misfortunes, often not perceived as having had a major impact on their decision. Some express their motivation in a positive and spiritual manner, often using the term jindao 进道 (enter the Dao); the majority use a more pragmatic phrasing and speak of chujia (leave the family). In conversation, more use jindao to designate the rite of ordination and chujia to speak about the first stage in monastic career, when one moves from his/her home to the monastery. Religious explanations and sociological circumstances, however, are not mirroring patterns although one obviously does not go without the other. To enter the monastery means to join another life, but this is not the only way to effect a life change. In the Chinese context, it seems that the two explanations come together in defining the Daoist monastic. Some may retrospectively evoke that they have felt attracted to Daoism for a long time. They begin their narrative by mentioning their long-standing intention to devote themselves to Daoist practices, such as “pure and quiet nonaction” (qingjing wuwei 清净无为). However, it is more typical for them not to know a great deal about Daoism when they chose to enter the monastery. Only 1 This also means that the reasons for becoming a monk collected by Yoshioka (1979: 234) and Goossaert (1997: 120) based on testimonials from earlier periods closely resemble those offered today. Yet the typologies they offer do not suffice to classify the vocations expressed in Hanzhong today.

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after ordination and initiation into the mysteries did they attain this knowledge. Still, some monastics joined the organization because they wanted to lead a life of solitude and quietness, an inclination that often echoes some difficulties they had in ordinary society. In my many years of fieldwork, I have never met anyone who suddenly decided one day to embrace the monastic life and pursue immortality without first experiencing difficulties in civil life. On the other hand, people do not join either just because they have no family left, for example; otherwise, temples would soon become orphanages and homeless shelters. The choice to join always supposes a commitment to the monastery, however small. Weighing the various reasons, religious and societal, I find that the majority of motivations lean toward the second. Even those are not sufficient, though, so that most people express their vocation in terms of fate and a deeply felt urge. In the same vein, although most Daoist monastics come from socially disadvantaged environments, it is quite clear that the main reason for choosing the reclusive life is not economic. Poverty is often at the outset of the journey that eventually takes a person to the Daoist temple. This holds true for many monastics of the Wengongci, which means that if they had been more fortunate in life, they probably would not have entered the religion. Only rare individuals, such as the famous Ma Danyang, choose detachment from society while being independently wealthy (Marsone 2001: 181-227). Nevertheless, economic reasons tend to match other problems, notably concerning family relations. This means that the monastery offers an opportunity to escape one’s native social environment, providing access to a level of education otherwise not available. To sum up, people join a Daoist institution for a complex mix of conscious and unconscious reasons, seeking a change of life and being attracted to the Daoist religion and/or the monastic life. Taken together these reasons document the Chinese idea of vocation as it emerges from their pre-monastic history and discourse.

Predestined Affinity To my question, “Why did you join the monastery?” most people replied “because of yuanfen.” Yuanfen 缘分 is a polysemic notion. The term means “shared connection” or “predestined affinity,” and originally indicates “karmic connection.” In this context, it indicates the reasons that leads to initiation or ascetic pursuit. On the whole, yuanfen designates the monastic vocation less as an intellectual than an emotional or intuitive encounter both between master and disciple, layman and monastery, and, most importantly, oneself. The vagueness that (maybe intentionally?) surrounds the notion applies in many different ways, yet it also allows certain flexibility in the recruitment of Daoist monastics.

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Layman Zhu notes, “in their social relations, the Chinese attach a great deal of importance to yuanfen. It governs heaven and manifests itself as serendipity, the chance encounter or, literally, as ‘what comes about unplanned’ (buqi eryu 不 期而遇), that ‘which has yuan’ (youyuan 有缘).” For example, the last-minute change of program that brought me to the Wengongci just when rebuilding was first starting was no coincidence, “this is yuanfen.” Where in the West people speak of chance (or accident) or unexpected good fortune (or bad luck), Daoists invoke a more universal factor of cosmic order, a sort of motor inherent in one’s own body. Buddhists, too, work with yuanfen—which is originally a Buddhist-related term—understanding it as “karmic causes” (yinyuan 因缘). Here yin translates the Sanskrit term hetu (root cause), while yuan is pratyaya (secondary cause)2 Going beyond causality, Daoist monastics speak about a feeling that one shares (fen 分) or, more precisely, of a “disposition” (ganqing 感情) one has toward someone, something, or a place. There is the yuanfen of time, a certain day or even a precise moment of connection, the yuanfen of a certain phase of life. Monastics explain entire sections of their existence with this. For example, they say, “My parents and I did not have matching yuanfen;” “I met and followed my master due to yuanfen;” “my yuanfen was to retire in the mountains;” or “coming to the Wengongci was yuanfen.” Yuanfen thus connects people with others but also with areas, places, landscapes, and opportunities. Seen from this perspective, the monastic vocation is less due to an outside influence or exterior call as, for example, by the gods, than to a strong attraction, an internal tendency, or an intuitive leaning. In the Daoist context, this is part of the spontaneous nature of things, immanent in existence. On the whole it means having things in common with someone, somewhere, or something that bring us together. This is not the case, however, when it comes to the relationship to the gods. In their role as mediators between the sacred and the mundane, Daoist monastics do not speak of affinities or karmic connections, but of resonance (ganying 感应), literally “impulse and response.” Monastics and gods are in a state of spontaneous resonance with each other and work together in a double movement: humans toward gods via offerings, rituals, and so on; gods toward humans through divine messages, oracles, warnings, and the like—the two complementary fields, together in every religions yet weighed differently, that Olivier Herrenschmidt has defined in terms of sacra (offerings from people to gods)

2 Ricci 2001, 6: 868, 1109; Welch 1967: 262. Yuanfen is not a transliteration of a Sanskrit term and does not appear in the basic Buddhist Chinese-Sanskrit dictionaries (Hirakawa 1997). It includes the yuan component, equivalent to the Sanskrit pratyaya or secondary causes, and was linked from an early period to the idea of “karmic causes” yinyuan 因缘 and “destiny” jiyuan 机缘 or “chance” jiyu 机遇 (Ciyuan, 3: 2455). The term has taken on a broader meaning in Daoism but also in other contexts beyond the religious sphere in Chinese society.

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and signa (signs or demands from gods to people) (1991: 624). Certain days are accordingly favorable for the communication between the realms, certain actions bear particular power, and certain places are most suitable for interaction. Several monastics explain their entry into the religion with the match of their personal yuanfen and Daoism. According to Yang Zhixiang, “Daoist yuanfen is to join nature (ziran 自然), unite oneself with it, match it, and learn to live with it in mutuality. It is a matter of not opposing the ‘flow of things’ (zhengchang 正 常 ).” He further specifies that one should follow the “course of things,” which means not to allow oneself to “be subjected to harmful influences.” In the monastic context, this also means to live a regular life and be free from all outside pressure with the goal of self-realization or ascetic practice. It is not always clear from the monastics’ reports whether they entered the religion while following their yuanfen or did so in order to be able to follow it. In fact, some associate yuanfen with “freedom” (ziyou 自由 ) in the ordinary sense of the term and present the monastic life as a key chance to come into harmony. For Wei Zongyi, this means listening to his heart more than to outside reasons, “Yuanfen means to free oneself from the notion of duty and instead choose, select, and decide entirely oneself.” According to him, it is a “virtuous circle”: joining the religion opens an individual freedom that allows one to listen to one’s yuanfen; listening to yuanfen leads to being more perceptive, distinguishing good and evil, and thus finding the right way to follow. Yuanfen is in fact an expression of the yuan one has in oneself, which in turn matches that of other beings: one “ties the yuan” (jieyuan 结缘). In the ordinary world, the term describes the “binding forces” of relationships, encounters and affinities, mostly among lovers and friends. However, one does so actively and consciously, one exerts a certain amount of force on destiny by weaving affinities and arranging alliances. In Daoism, on the other hand, one just accepts that there either is yuan or not but one does not push it. Certain monastics, such as Bai Lixue of the Shuanglongguan 双龙 观 (Two Dragons Temple) in Wuxiang, thus choose to live in isolation and no longer talk to people; others time and again pack their bags and move from temple to temple. Following yuanfen is a key commandment of ascetic practice. In body language, yuan is the “root of feeling” (qinggen 情根), the “root of perception [and thus contact with the world]” (chen’gen 尘根). Not limited to the interior, it proves itself in the exterior and is a key factor in personal transformation. In the end, the yuan has to be released (fangxia 放下), transmuted, and sublimated if long life is to be achieved. Typical ways of dealing with it include “rouse it and eliminate it” (yuanqi lichu 缘起立除 ), “rouse it and revere it” (yuanqi moshi 缘起膜视), “listen to it and let it be itself” (tingyuan ziyuan 听缘自 缘) (Min and Li 1994: 952). In this sense, the subtle inner root of one’s being spontaneously connects the person to others but can also create more affinity with oneself. Diverted from this natural course, it can serve to enhance selfrealization.

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The monastics often integrate the various reasons that brought them to a life of retirement with the idea of destined vocation and thus of “predestined affinity.” According to the Daoist tradition, as Wengongci monastics noted, the master plays no role in attracting disciples or solicits followers in any way. Nor do parents decide to place a child into the monastery. The candidate himself must take the initiative to leave the family and find a master so that, when asking a master how he met his disciple, the answer inevitably is, “He came to look for me.” In actual practice, however, the rule is less rigid. Quite obviously, certain monastics would never have made it to the monastery by their own actions: family, friends, or acquaintances suggested and even encouraged their vocation. Some of them followed models among the monastics or met monks who make them want to join, maybe even offering them the opportunity. Many in some way or another found that ordinary society offered too many difficulties and was really not their place, thus having the decision taken from them— which they then express by saying, “This was [my] yuanfen.” Here this means, “I had not other choice.” However, if there is a choice to take the robes, it is largely voluntary.

The Life Before Over the years, I have heard many monastics’ life stories, but here I limit myself to presenting only the most representative. They tend to be short, mainly because I had a hard time collecting them: monastics do not readily talk about their lives before ordination. It is almost a custom inside the monastery to remain discreet on this subject, so that some even deny the existence of their original family, just saying they have had no home before the monastery. Even those who confided in me for the most part only told fragments of their stories, showing themselves not very willing to discuss this subject at any great length. Often I received various elements in bits and pieces and had to put them together like a puzzle, sometimes with pieces missing. So, here they are. Wang Liqing lost both parents at the age of twelve and found himself isolated and poor, the responsibility of his maternal grandmother. When he turned sixteen, she also died, and he lived alone in the family house since none of his relatives—being poor themselves—could take him in. The goddess Guanyin “appeared to him in a dream” (tuomeng 托梦 ). In this dream, he saw a tree stump floating down a river that transformed into a beautiful young woman. Guanyin sang a sad song to him. “Are you going back home?” he asked. She responded with, “Do you have a car?” Neither of them did, so he stopped a passing tractor and climbed on it. Trying to help the young woman join him, she was suddenly at his side. After sharing some food with him, she again became a tree stump. Wang Liqing woke with a vivid memory of this. A year later, two lay disciples at the Yaowangmiao on Mount Tiantai suggested that he enter

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the religion but at this point, he had no inclination to do so. At nineteen, however, when he was working for minimum wage in farming and in the construction of a dam, he met them again and this time followed their advice. At that moment, he finally understood Guanyin’s message: she had shown him the way. Yuan Xinyi was only seven or eight when his parents died. One of his mother’s brothers saw that there was no one to take care of him and brought him to the monastery. He was really young—too young for ordination—and traumatized by the sudden (and perhaps violent) death of his parents. Not understanding anything about Daoism, he began by sweeping the temple floors and boiling water while attending the nearby school and learning to read the classics. When he was about fifteen, he joined the monastic community and soon went to other temples in the region to enhance his studies. He focused on history and Daoist medicine, completing acupuncture training at the Baxiangong. In 1958, he was forced back into the laity, found a job in a hospital, and got married. He never returned to monastic life. Yang Lihun was abandoned at birth. Living on welfare and of fragile health, she went to Mount Hua hoping to improve her physical condition as well as to study martial arts and learn to take care of herself. She expected also to learn medicine. She says she spent a long time looking for an “apprenticeship father” (and maybe any father?) before coming to the Wengongci and meeting Zhang Zhifa. Heng Zhixia often tells her fellow sisters that she preferred to enter the monastery rather that support an alcoholic husband and suffer from hunger. When another nun blamed her for this too basic explanation, she noted that these may not be very noble reasons but reflect the facts of life. He Zongcai, the youngest of four boys, was attracted to Daoism from a young age. His parents and teachers did not appreciate this bend toward superstition and suggested that he find something else to pursue. However, one day he saw a Daoist monk on television and left to take refuge in a small mountain temple. For two years, his family did not know where he was or even if he was still alive. Then one of his brothers found him and tried to make him come back but he would not budge. He says his first years in the monastery were very difficult. He had to sit in meditation, not moving for long hours. Although he preferred to remain with his master in the small mountain hermitage, he chose to leave to study in the big monastic centers, such as Louguantai and Baxiangong. The latter gave him permission to study first medicine then Chinese traditional music at Xi’an University. Wu Shizhen came from a large family in a mountain village. To help his parents make ends meet, he had to work even as a child, hunting and selling snakes and doing whatever jobs he could find. One day a monk who liked his father suggested that he give up one of his children so he had one mouth less to feed. The father with little enthusiasm asked him which of his five sons might be suitable. The monk immediately pointed to Wu Shizhen, maybe seeing in him a potential that the other boys did not have. Convinced that his son

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would never leave, Wu senior gave the monk permission to ask him. To his great consternation, the boy agreed and left immediately, without looking back. Unlike his brothers, Wu Shizhen learned to read and write: instead of working the land, he devoted himself to philosophy, martial arts, and music. He traveled a lot and even trained for two years at the Baiyunguan of Beijing. Wu Shizhen notes that his father never accepted his decision and until his death accused him of having betrayed his family, blaming him for not helping financially. Liang Lidong claims to be eighty-one years old, the age of Lord Lao, and then quickly acknowledges that he is only fifty-four. He cries over the death of his spouse whom he loved dearly. When she fell ill, he was unable to save her despite being a medical doctor; after her death, he fell into bleak depression. Distracted with grief, disappointed in his profession and in himself, he took refuge in the monastery—going against the advice of his children who, although adults, felt abandoned by his departure and some of whom are still upset today. He says he joined less from the desire to experiment with a different form of medicine than because he could not handle being alone. Liu Gaoshan became a nun after going through a painful divorce. Rejected by her in-laws, she could not or did not want to return to her native family, i.e., her patrilineage. She found herself alone, without resources, and responsible for a child in its infancy—the daughter of a close friend whom she had vowed never to abandon. Left with little choice, she entered the monastery with the little girl in tow. The Daoist community of the region accepted this, provided the child at reaching adulthood would be allowed to make her own decision: to enter into the order and move to another temple or to leave the monastery and work in ordinary society. In both cases, the girl would part from Liu. One of the lay followers provides a different version of events, suggesting that the child was in fact her own daughter. Yuan Zhilin used to have three girls and five grandchildren. He fell ill and after his father’s death had no more parents or children to take care of. He went to live on Mount Tiantai to relieve his suffering and found a new family there. Luo Zhijin could not find her place in ordinary society. Even as a child, she was seen as a failed son and never lived down being a girl nor developed a good sense of the feminine. Eventually, against her parent’s will, she married a man ten years her senior. Then she fell gravely ill and decided to enter the religion to support herself but also, she says, to resolve her existential problems. The last disciple of the nun Huang Chongxiang, as Laywoman Liang reports, entered the monastery after suffering long-standing relational difficulties and because he could not find a spouse. The boy, with a deformed nose from birth, thought himself too ugly to live in the world and preferred the monastic life. Xu Xiuzhen had persistent health problems throughout his childhood. The son of beggars, he was born in the abandoned ruins of a temple and never lived in a house. His life was extremely harsh. He suffered from chronic bronchitis but his parents had no means to help him. Yet at his birth, a Daoist master with

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extraordinary powers, especially in the magical-ritual arts (fashu 法术), predicted that he would become a Daoist monk. Indeed, as soon as he was old enough to show discernment and (good) judgment (dongshi 懂事), he decided to enter the religion. Due to his fragile health, he developed a deep interest in medicine. When he lived in the Qinling range, he met the learned monk and healer Buxuzi and connected with him in a deep and unchangeable way, i.e., they shared a predestined affinity. He was ordained in 1959 but a few years later had to leave Shaanxi because of the Cultural Revolution. Incognito he wandered around the southern provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou, as many others did at the time of prohibition. At the temple Laojundong 老君洞 (Lord Lao’s Grotto) in Yunnan, he met the renowned Daoist master Li Zhenguo 李真果 and learned a lot from him. In the late 1970s, he came back but had to marry to be able to stay in the Qinling range. As worship resurged, he left his wife and came to live in the mountains of Hanzhong, training three young disciples who, he eventually acknowledged, are in fact his sons. Xu Xingzhao entered the religion in 1960, just before the Cultural Revolution. He relates that he made this choice less because of belief than because he was in very bad health. As a child, he had fallen ill frequently and never managed to improve his condition. His parents had consulted numerous doctors but no one could diagnose him or alleviate his suffering. An old Daoist monk from the nearby mountains one day told his parents that to effect a cure they should send him into the mountains to live as (or at least with) the Daoist masters. Xu’s parents refused to let him go for the simple reason that they had only two sons. The state of the boy worsened until he got to the point where he was unable to go to school and had to stay home the whole time. The old monk had also said that Xu Xingzhao was predestined to join a monastery and that, whatever the parents said or did, this would happen. His prediction did in fact come true. As soon as he reached adolescence, Xu left for the mountains. He joined the old monk’s institution and was ordained there—cured almost immediately, he has not had any health problems since. Zhang Zhifa had liver cancer. He could not afford a lengthy hospital stay where the doctors had declared him incurable anyway. He went to the mountains to die. There he met the monk He Mingshan who took care of him and nursed him back to health. Zhang decided to stay, asked He to accept him as a disciple, and joined the religion. Amazed at the miracle, his wife Huang Chongxiang took vows a few years later. Yang Zhixiang lived most of his life in ordinary society and reached an age where one understands the vicissitudes of life. He had a nervous breakdown, fell physically sick, and became an alcoholic. To get out of this desperate state, he decided to enter the religion. An avid reader, he knew from the Yijing and various Daoist books what dedicated asceticism might do. He thus joined the temple to improve himself but also to serve society. Seeing the monastic life as a way to attain quietude and sit in meditation, he left his wife and children (who

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were already married) and went to Mount Tiantai. His wife Fu Gaotai followed his example a year later, but practiced with another master and in a different temple. Bai Lixuan says he entered the religion because had he stayed where he was he could not have received the education he desired. After graduating secondary school, he left his home and decided to forego marriage in favor of advanced studies. He mastered classical Chinese to be able to read old texts on Daoist therapeutic practices. After joining the order, he tried to convince his parents to follow him but eventually he came to understand that such a quest must develop naturally and accepted their divergent views. He also has a fragile health and frequently goes to the health center next door to the temple, where he spends a lot of time and money, including almost all his monthly stipend, to receive supplementary treatments to the cure he receives from the abbot. He does not mention his physical problems as reasons for joining but they probably played a role in his chosen field of study and in his interest in longevity techniques. Wen Zhifeng entered the religion when he was over forty. At the age of fourteen, he saw his brother forced into the army to fight the Japanese. He himself was too young to for the draft at the time but at the end of the war went to attend the military school of Chiang Kaishek in Xi’an and graduated as an officer. Around the time of Liberation, his battalion received orders to pursue Mao’s army, and Wen ended up spending six months in Henan where he miraculously escaped death in a violent battle, which killed all the soldiers around him. He realized that an invisible master had guided him back to the right path (ganhua 感化) and, moreover, had shown him the way to transmute himself (dianhua 点化 )—the first stage of the alchemical process leading to immortality—so that, after returning to civil life, he would be of service to others. As a result, he went home and became a farmer to provide for his family. Army recruiters came in the hope that he would return to battle, but he refused. Wen explains that after what he had lived through, he no longer wanted to be part of the military. The monk He Chongdi [of Mount Tiantai] appeared to him in dream and told him to follow the Daoist way. Wen accordingly arranged for his departure—entrusting his wife to the care of his married children—and left for Mount Tiantai where he knew some people. Without saying so explicitly, he makes it clear that he deserted either during or after Liberation, greatly disapproved of war, and/or was at odds with the communist forces. Fu Zhifa says simply that he entered the religion because he did not wish to become a farmer like his parents.

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Family Issues Wengongci monastics often speak of escaping family constraints, of an attraction by the therapeutic, educational, and even eschatological opportunities that Daoism opens. They say they can find a life of greater liberty here than they could have in the world. In Hanzhong, it seems, these aspirations often echo painful events or all sorts of misfortunes encountered before joining. This background makes up the other side on the vocation. My hypothesis is that they often enter the monastery due to a bad start in life, a hitch, or a difficult time. Although not enough to explain the monastic vocation, their painful background is one of their few common characteristics. They all experienced a certain something that pushed them in this direction. Still, every single monastic chose the religion—a combination of life difficulties before initiation and something more (or maybe something missing) led them to the decision, unlike many others who faced similar problems. In order of decreasing frequency, the reasons are as follows: 1. family issues; 2. persistent health issues, physical or mental; 3. lack of educational or professional opportunities; 4. difficulties or conflict with state authorities. Family Issues. As regards the first, family problems are at the origin (or integral part) of many vocations. A large number of Daoists evoke the unfortunate circumstances of their childhood or adulthood. The premature death of the parents is a key reason for seeking out the monastery. Several monks became orphans at a young age and had no support in the greater family network. For them familial solidarity did not work. Thus, Yuan Xinyi was taken to the Wengongci by his mother’s brother, after he realized that the patrilateral relatives were not stepping into the breech. As others before him, he was taken in by the temple and lived there for several years before being ordained. Wang Liqing lost both parents a few years apart and had no close relative to join. Ideally, adoptions in China stay within the family as much as possible. As Françoise Lauwaert explains, in accordance with ritualistic thinking they “can only unite beings that share a common nature” (1991: 1). In other words, one generally adopts a boy—usually to replace the son (essential for inheritance and lineage) one did not have or whom one lost—from within the same patrilineage and the same generation as one’s own children (1991: 23-24). Thus, Yuan Xinyi and Wang Liqing both entered the religion for lack of a paternal uncle who either could or would adopt them. As it appears in the Confucian canon, adoption is less to find a family for a child than to find a (male) child for a family. On the other hand, Daoist monasteries not only are not orphanages but as a rule do not admit young children. The rule today is that one has to be at least fifteen to be ordained. This marks an important difference to Buddhist institutions, where many future monastics were sent to the monastery in their childhood or as young boys (Gernet 1995: 84; Welch 1967: 248-58) before the state prohibited this kind of practice (probably since the 1980s, after the creation of

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the Buddhist Association). The fact remains that, even if people are not expected to bring a child to the monastery anymore, it still happens in Buddhism and sometimes also in Daoism; some exceptions might be tolerated. However, it is rare and, since there is now widespread birth control, the question does not arise in the same manner. Unless orphaned, an elder son will practically never leave the family to join a monastery. The central importance of the senior branch of the patrilineal line of descent, the responsibility for ancestor worship, and the inheritance structure of primogeniture all prevent his departure. It is still too early to evaluate the repercussions of the one-child policy on Daoist recruitment, but it is likely that it has made monastic vocations even more difficult. How can a family let their only son leave home? On the other hand, the survival of a kind of brotherhood in the monastery may also appeal new people in need of fraternity (Herrou 2012: 107). For now, several monks, such as He Zongcai, Bai Lixuan, and Wu Shizhen, mention the fact that they were younger siblings in large families. They do not explicitly say so, only alluding to family disagreements. Generally, the inequality among sons is not a big deal in modern society, yet secondary branches are often less well endowed and cared for than the principal line. Nuns face a completely different set of difficulties. Those who enter the monastery at a young age usually do not come because of the death of the parents or an uncomfortable position within the family but because they were abandoned at birth. In fact, it is well known that in China a girl is, from a pragmatic point of view, as Françoise Lauwaert notices, “totally useless to the survival of her father’s lineage” (1991: 16). In many cases, and especially in poor families, a daughter causes “lost” expenditure in food, clothing, and education. For this reason, the parents sometimes remove her, even at birth, from the father’s lineage, which she would have left in any case by marriage. This is not the place to discuss the other effects of this tendency, such as infanticide and the sale of little girls, all the more since it could have started changing with the recent massive campaign aiming to increase their standing. Unless taken to the monastery by her finder, the abandoned girl will grow up in an orphanage before taking the monastic path if she so desires. According to Yang Lihun (herself abandoned), not having a family presents a strong predisposition to the monastic life. Adoption is not really an option. Historically rare3, adoptions of girls diminished again under the one-child policy, when 3 According to Françoise Lauwaert, adoption of daughters as opposed to sons served childless families to “invite a younger brother,” i.e., encouraging a pregnancy This is the only situation where this would be considered advantageous, meaning also that “one might be able to marry [the adopted daughter] to her brother born just after she arrived in her adoptive family or to an adopted son-in-law considered a substitute for the lacking son” (1991: 124-125). Brigitte Baptandier thinks of her as “a spouse raised from infancy” (tongyangxi 童 养媳). That is to say, the girl is not properly speaking an adopted daughter but a fiancée very

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every girl child came to mean the loss of yet another chance to get the male successor so urgently desired. In addition, such girls have few marriage chances since they have no family to support them and thus no dowry to bring along— and women without dowry do not participate in any form of orthodox exchange. Thus, they see in the monastery a valid alternative, a place where they can recreate a family. Other women recluses described by Hanzhong monastics and followers are girls who ran away from home to avoid an arranged marriage. Yet others are unwed mothers rejected by their families. While the monastics talk about the divergence of yuanfen within the same family, lay followers talk about human fate in terms of “destiny” (ming 命) or “fortune” (yun 运 ), but they all agree that certain children—whatever their sex—may enter the religion because their horoscope is incompatible with that of their parents. Unsuitable yuanfen or ming within a family presents a serious obstacle to living together. Brigitte Baptandier has shown that this can even result in the adoption of a child out of the family. Rituals can help to solve the family disorders; in certain cases, however the breach is irreparable (1996a). Among those who entered the religion late in life due to family difficulties, there are men like Liang Lidong who lost their spouse (due to disease or accident) as well as women like Liu Gaoshan or Heng Zhixia who went through a divorce. Laywoman Yuan, who works at Hanzhong station, is the divorced mother of an eighteen-year old boy whom she raised herself. She explains that, when she got divorced, it was legal but common only in the big cities and certainly not at all in southern Shaanxi. To take this dishonorable and prejudiced step, one spouse must have given grave marital offense or maybe suffer from a disease or an infirmity that is a major obstacle to conjugal life. Traditionally, the woman demanding a divorce had to prove the man’s failure to cohabit; while the husband could simply repudiate his wife, a procedure no longer legal today. Laywoman Yuan took this grave step only after long years of suffering from the violence of an alcoholic husband. She adds that divorce is generally more harmful to the woman whose husband’s family rejects her and, in some cases, her own because they suffer from the associated stigma. There are also women condemned for having an “adulterous” child or for supposedly being sterile and thus rejected by their spouse. Some of them find refuge in the temple.4 Some people also enter the monastery to follow a relative, the departure for the monastery becoming another form of family difficulty. Huang Chongxiang early integrated into the family. As a result, she is not actually marrying a brother but growing up with her future spouse (2003: 121-29). 4 Ever since the Tang dynasty, Daoist temples have welcomed celibate women that were excluded from traditional society, in some cases even saving their lives: women whose horoscopes showed a difficult destiny and who refused to marry their selected mates, widows with no prospects, and wives who had committed one of the seven transgressions (disobedience to the parents-in-law, sterility, depravity, jealousy, garrulousness, robbery, or being stricken by an offensive disease. See Despeux 1986: 63-67.

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and Fu Gaotai, the wives of Zhang Zhifa and of Yang Zhixiang, decided to take the robe after their spouses left to embrace the monastic life. This follows an old model. Already Wang Chongyang urged his disciples to “leave their children” (biezi 别子) and “renounce their wives” (xiuqi 休妻), to devote themselves fully to ascetic practice (Marsone 2001: 354). In the cases here, the women only make the religious choice after they find themselves alone. Listening to them, their reasons for following their spouse are twofold. Huang Chongxiang relates that the miraculous cure of her husband by He Mingshan convinced her that she should pursue the Dao. Fu Gaotai says she understood her husband’s choice and decided to follow his example. She entered the religion for the same reasons he did: a strong desire to study Daoist books and devote herself to asceticism. Nevertheless, she adds that she also wanted a more stable life than what they had in civil society, being very poor. She recognizes that if her husband had not made this life choice, she would not have done it either. The two women have also in common that they experienced their husbands’ departure and ensuing aloneness only after their children had already left the house, a position difficult to maintain. Thus, they did not think about following the same way immediately but only about a year later, finding themselves hard put to find new connections. This was also the case for He Chongdi, her spouse, and their son (He Chengyuan). All three joined the monastery at several years’ interval—no one quite knows who left first—both because they persuaded each other of their religious concerns and because their family was falling apart due to relentless difficulties in civil life. In other words, there is a kind of snowball effect. After the departure of a close relative, one follows the same route because of aloneness, for having found him/herself in a problematic kinship situation.

Other Causes Persistent Health Issues. Another reason why people come to the monastery is as an alternative to the hospital. Monastics talk about incurable diseases, infirmities, and physical complexes, problems with alcoholism, existential difficulties, depression, pathological fears of death, and so on. Daoist masters are often famous healers whom one can consult about various problems, from benign conditions to incurable diseases (such as cancer or paraplegia). They represent an alternative form of healing: traditional Chinese medicine reoriented in Daoism. They prepare remedies on the basis of medicinal plants, perform acupuncture and massages, give dietary advice, and more, but they also make sure to clean up the patient’s surroundings, such as through exorcism. Daoist monastics are supposed to have good ways of life and apply these techniques themselves while pursuing an asceticism that aims at greater longev-

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ity. Entering the monastery is often presented as the last recourse in dealing with health problems that have no other cure due to poverty or because the medical centers were inefficient. Certain children or adolescent, such as Xu Xiuzhen, Xu Xingzhao and Yang Lihun, thus turned toward the monastery because of fragile health or a disease that made worldly life impossible. Others, like Luo Zhijin or Yang Zhixiang, came after physiological and psychological difficulties that prevented them from pursuing the life they originally wanted. According to them, the disease—comparatively benign and possibly psychosomatic—was merely the indicator of a deeper evil. Another scenario is, as in the case of Zhang Zhifa, that a serious disease is by some miracle cured due to Daoist medicine, thus leading to one or several monastic vocations. In this case, the person does not join to be cured or cared for but to become a healer himself and serve the greater good. Lack of Opportunities. Several monastics said they joined the community to receive the education their family could not give them. Bai Lixuan explains that he had good family relations but that his thirst for learning drove him to the monastery. Studying at the secondary school was not enough; he wanted an entire life of study. As far as he knew, the Daoist monastery was a place of “research,” and the Daoist order was a “school,” in both the literal and figurative senses. Fu Zhifa says that he did not want to be a farm laborer like his parents; He Zongcai in a more virulent but less explicit way mentions a fundamental disagreement with his family about his future. Commonly in poorer settings and notably among farmers, children have to work from a young age and can rarely choose their profession. The monastery allows them to both pursue extended studies and avoid becoming, for example, a farm worker or laborer. This is even more important when, as in the case of Xu Xiuzhen, they spent their childhood begging and never received any schooling. However, the monastery as a center of instruction is not only attractive to people from lower classes; people of average, and indeed superior, background may also choose it—such as Bai Lixuan who came there to devote himself to erudition. Wang Chongyang’s celebrated disciple Ma Danyang himself was a well-educated and wealthy man searching for other values.5 In Hanzhong, some suggest that the monastics preoccupations make them a group apart. Vincent Goossaert notices that children formerly placed in the monastery were not only orphans, patients, or “antisocial,” but also included “child prodigies” (shentong 神童 ), i.e., specially gifted or miraculously cured (1997: 122). Although the institutions no longer admit children, the idea of almost divine child prodigies may explain the vocation of certain monastics: young masters whose thirst for learning was not quenched by the classical edu5 “Having lived within Confucianism for thirty years,” Ma Danyang suddenly understood the “reason of the mad immortal.” See Marsone 2001: 184.

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cation system and those who possess gifts considered supernatural and thus unfit for ordinary society. Difficulties with the Authorities. Daoist monasteries are not above the law and, according to explicit temple regulations, anyone who commits an offence against state law must be expelled from the order and handed over to the authorities. Nevertheless, on occasion the monastery offers refuge to outsiders of the state system. Thus, after resigning or possibly deserting from the army he had joined voluntarily, Wen Zhifeng found refuge in the Daoist temples on Mount Tiantai. He does not spell out his reasons for leaving his chosen profession—which he joined when he attended the military academy in Xi’an and graduated as an officer—possibly a disagreement with communist policies at the time. By taking refuge in the monastery, he avoided capture, but this would not have been the case if he had committed a murder or other capital crime. Most generally, the public associates the monastic life with a certain form of liberty. Thus, while dreaming of the monastic life, Han Yu wonders, “Is it really necessary to always remain bent under the harness?” in his poem “The Boulders of the Mountain” (Jaeger 1987: 53). In other words, being a recluse allows one to leave behind all sorts of social and political rigidity. To sum up, entering the Daoist monastery can be an act of rebellion against an institution or the political authorities; it can constitute the disavowal of a social organization, a family order, a medical or educational system, that certain persons, in a given moment of their life or in certain situations, judge to be insufficient or unsatisfactory. In some cases, it is also a brutal, indeed radical, revealing reaction of a certain force of character, which thus becomes part of the definition of vocation. In other words, one can interpret the different reasons to take the robe both as causes and as signs of the monastic vocation.

Inevitable Choice The entry into the religion often appears to be an inevitable choice. Although sometimes the culmination of months or even years of reflection, the final departure often seems the last recourse in a crisis, a sudden change of life. It can equally, and less suddenly, come as the continuation of an old and serious condition. Nevertheless, monastics often say that they felt predestined for the monastic life or that it came to them in an announcement. They usually do not say that they could have been co-opted by their peers because it is antithetical to the notions of spiritual quest and Daoist “research”—activities that require individual will and perseverance. As far as they are concerned, no one ever enters the monastery under duress. Even those who experienced terrible setbacks could have stayed in the world and would probably have found their place one day. On the other hand, to leave all to recover

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from adversity or to find oneself, to go against one’s parents’ will, to break with one’s spouse, to anger one’s children, to suffer accusations of treason for “deserting” the family, to run away—recurrent themes in monastic vocations—all reinforce the idea of predestined affinity and personal choice. In a way, they constitute an almost obligatory step in the trajectory that takes one to the monastery. The crisis people face is often a trial that reveals their pure “charisma” needed to embrace the monastic life. The concept is closely linked to the Chinese notion of “virtue” (de 德) which, as Anne Cheng points out, “is used in its original Latin sense of virtus, the natural ascendancy or inner charisma that emerges in people and which causes them to impress you without special effort and especially without resorting to any exterior coercion” (1997: 75). It also refers to the notion of “merit” (gong 功), which means that one can grow by one’s actions or, once engaged in the religious way, by one’s asceticism—merit forming a key aspect of the evolution of the monastic career. Charisma is thus close to personal authenticity, matching the ideal of the “true man” or “perfected” (zhenren 真人) and of “true sincerity” (cheng 诚). The latter, again in the terms of Anne Cheng, “designates much more than mere sincerity—in the too narrow psychological sense—and means the realization, the achievement of the celestial in every human being” (1997: 173). The adversity thus reveals the authentic being capable of engaging in a spiritual quest. The trial reveals the monastic within. Even so, it happens that a monk, a nun, or a lay follower suggest that a certain layman seek a master or consider the opportunity of entering a monastery. However, according to monastics, it is not as much a matter of counsel and hidden proselytism as of warning signs, predictions, and dreams. Thus, He Zongcai saw a Daoist monk on television and recognized himself in him. Xu Xiuzhen and Xu Xingzhao were told they would join the monastic way by Daoist masters who were in fact fortune-tellers. Wang Liqing and Wen Zhifeng both had dream visions: the former saw Guanyin; the latter connected with He Chongdi, one of the better known monks of Hanzhong. They both use the expression tuomeng 托梦, “to appear in a dream to give a recommendation.” They thus interpreted their dreams as apparitions and claimed to have received a message from a spiritual personage. This echoes an age-old theme, already documented in the Zhuangzi, of the close connection between dream and reality as well as between dream and the otherworld. Once they have deciphered it, they first interpret the dream vision as a new element that attests to the vocation. Whether they understand it sooner or later, ultimately they find that the call to take the robe is not a summons from the gods, other monastics, or family but always comes from deep within themselves. In this sense, whether they let the decision ripen before making it real and preparing their entry into the religion, or whether they leave radically against all odds without looking back, they always assert that the choice is

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unique and personal. In sum, the vocation (marked by predestined affinities or karmic connections) can be attested by a fortune-teller’s prediction or an initiatory dream; it can also be confirmed in a charismatic reaction to an unfortunate event or to an extremely difficult time in life. Sometimes, the various reasons add up and create strong roots for the new choice of life. Finally, the Daoist monastery welcomes people initially considered “poor matches,” who refused to be content with their lot and came in reaction to problems they had with themselves, their kin, or society. Before even entering the religion, they are already part of a community that only monastics (and gods) recognize. Their charisma becomes obvious only when they actually enter. As they disengage themselves from family obligations if they have them (yet without compensation), as they become strong individuals (yet in a collectivist society), it is their special personality that the Daoist community accepts in its ranks. It thus becomes clear why Daoist monastics only rarely and in a rather secondary manner invoke the reason for their choice that is most frequently given today by their Christian counterparts: the desire to devote oneself to others, God, and humanity; to pray for the redemption of all humans. Daoists do not think of humanity as being in a state of perdition, although it evidently needs some completion. As Jacques Gernet has shown, one of the most fundamental ethical differences and a major obstacle to intercultural dialogue (for instance between Western Christian missionaries and Chinese people) is that for the Chinese humanity has a natural predisposition to the good (1991: 217). People are inherently good and thus have no a priori need to redeem themselves or to make amends for sins that are essentially part of the human condition. Thus, when Yang Zhixiang talks about his intention to serve society, he expresses the desire to improve himself and put an end to his pathological and degrading alcoholism. Even though the responsibility of the Daoist master is by definition beneficent, this does not necessitate a withdrawal from the world since one could equally have taken the secular road. Monastic life in this religion is essentially a demand of a certain form of asceticism; rather than an act of charity or of contrition, it is a step toward personal improvement. Thus, Yang Zhixiang became aware of his weakness and developed a desire to correct it rather than to find forgiveness for it. In other words, Daoist humility is free from penitence. On the other hand, there is a major common point: whatever the individual motivation, the entry into the religion is always described in terms of family rupture. Does that, then, mean that the monastic life eliminates all ties and attachments toward their kin?

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Leaving the Family Before undergoing the examination prior to ordination, monastic candidates know comparatively little about the organization they hope to join—except that it means by definition separation from relatives and the renunciation of family life. The term that designates the passage from world to monastery makes that clear: to enter the monastic life is literally “to leave the family/home” (chujia). The renunciation concept is further strengthened by the polysemy of the word jia which means both family and home or household. It defines the entry into the monastery as the move of a person from his household to the temple, from the social space of the family to that of the institution. Nevertheless, the vernacular term focuses not on the place where one goes but on the one that one leaves behind. This expression, as well as the rule it covers, is one of the major Daoist borrowings from Buddhist monastic structures. Chujia goes back to the Sanskrit term pravrajya (Nakamura 1981: 671), “going forth from home,” i.e., the “first rite of a layman who wishes to become a monk.” It also means “roaming, wandering about, ” especially as a religious mendicant (Monier-Williams 1981: 694). Translating pravrajya as “going forth” in sense of leaving by oneself and setting out on the road, Holmes Welch also emphasizes that in Chinese civilization, so strongly based on family relations, it is hard to imagine a bigger offense to public decency than the Buddhist path (1967: 247-49). An ascetic life that requires abandoning the family is neither chronologically nor synchronically a specific feature of the Quanzhen school. As Pierre Marsone notes, the history of Daoism is full of immortals withdrawing from the world and leaving their families to practice asceticism. Celibacy, too, is not exclusively a Quanzhen feature: besides numerous Buddhist monks, Daoist masters of other schools also observed and ritualized a single life. New in this case is the force of the call to leave the world (2001: 354). For Wang Chongyang, family and professional life constituted a burden or at least a worldly “impediment” (chan 缠) that hinders clarity and stillness. More than of chujia, he thus speaks of lijia 离家, an abbreviation of chuli jiayuan 出离 家缘, “to let go of karmic family connections,” and even uses more radical expressions, such as cuosui jiayuan 剉碎家缘, “to eradicate karmic family connections” (Quanzhen ji 82; Marsone 2001: 352). He asserts that “those who leave their children and renounce their women are superior masters (shangshi 上士)” (Quanzhen ji 861; 2001: 354). It becomes even more explicit when he says, “Everyone extol the advantage of raising a family, but in fact family members are a fire that burns the body. When this one is dry, the mud pile it formed become dust again” (176; 2001: 354).

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The Daoist monastics I met are not quite as passionate about this as their patriarch is, and chujia for them was often a painful step. Physically, socially, and even economically these men and women are beyond the family unit. Chujia is a graphic term that sounds much like the phrase used when women leave their patrilineage for marriage and join the line of their spouse. This chujia 出嫁 has a slightly different second character: it has the radical for “woman” and is pronounced in the fourth tone.6 Like women who to a certain point break with their ancestors to adopt those of their in-laws, monks and nuns cut the links with their patrilineage. In other words, the men for once share the same process of leaving as the women. Unlike them, monastics do not join a new alliance in the ordinary sense, yet they nevertheless register in a pseudo-lineage constituted by their peers. They break with parents and relatives, and thus leave their ancestors. Yet at the same time, they are tied by the links of a pseudo-kinship with their brethren of apprenticeship. Monastic chujia is different from marriage chujia especially with regard to the erasure of classical kinship. While leaving his patrilineage, the recluse obscures, if not actually denies, its existence. The religious institution is exclusive to the point that it replaces the family of origin (laojia 老家). Following Daoist monastic tradition, Bai Lixuan says that he does not have any “family of origin,” yet his parents are still alive. On the other hand, he speaks of his “temple of origin” (laomiao 老庙)—none other than the Wengongci, i.e. the place where he entered the religion. In other words, the officiant not only withdraws from the ties of his birth but his entry into the religion is a form of rebirth. While marriage is thus part of an exchange system between different social groups or clans, the departure for the monastery simply takes individuals out of their family. In this patrilineal society, the economic and social implications of the monastic departure of a daughter and a son are not equal. Although the girl leaves her patrilineage, her entry into the religion does nothing to widen the circle of exchange. Even if her parents save up to provide her with a dowry (jiazhuang 嫁 妆), they will not benefit from the network of relations that would have been woven had she entered marriage. Nevertheless, the loss caused by her entry into the monastery is incomparable to that suffered when a son leaves, who bears the responsibility of perpetuating the line in name and bone. The central issue here is not only one of material transactions and social relations, but the identity of the whole agnatic lineage is at stake. As noted before, only sons who withdraw to the monastery while leaving a line without descent are extremely rare—unless they are orphans. Even the departure of a second son means the extinction of a potential family branch The term chujia 出嫁 is reserved for women. The male equivalent is “take a wife” (quqin 娶亲); it signifies a movement in the opposite direction: “receiving” the spouse. 6

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and the loss of a source of income. The monastic signs up despite all the rules that prevail in the social organization. In that he is not unlike the son who goes to live with his in-laws when, for lack of a male descendant to perpetuate the line, they decide “to adopt” him as a son-in-law. According to Françoise Lauwaert, the son who accepts an uxorilocal marriage fails in his duties. He leaves his lineage without “reimbursing his relatives for the expenditures in money and in love caused by his education.” A traitor, he is guilty of depriving them of the “interest which they had the right to get on the breeding capital of a lineage member. . . He forever remains indebted to his clan” (1991: 163). For a man, to enter the religion as well as into an uxorilocal marriage thus means a betrayal of his patrilineage, an attitude all the more dishonorable since essentially unmanly. Wu Shizhen accordingly relates how his father reproached him all his life for having given up his family, despite the fact that the father suggested the monastic way to him in the first place—although convinced, as he said afterward, that a son worthy of this name would refuse such a suggestion. Any move toward the monastery is therefore a priori a breach of the obligations of filial piety: the duty of obedience toward the parents and the participation in ancestor worship. Although they think of Daoist monastics as wise and respectable and of the Daoist way as admirable, few Chinese actually wish such a destiny for their son or daughter. They prefer that their children take up a profession that may be less honorable but provides better comfort in life, leaves the family organization intact, and helps with the continuation of the group.

Ages of Joining The parallels between monastic entry and marriage do not stop with the notion of chujia and the consequences of departure: both types of engagement ideally happen at the same age, i.e., at the transition between adolescence and adulthood. According to Wengongci monastics, one must have passed the threshold of adulthood (sixteen years) to enter the monastery. Nevertheless, as the Daojiao yifan notes, the monastic rule allows children be “put to the test”—not an initiation into asceticism or into rituals but a way of getting used to the monastic life—as early as age seven for boys and age ten for girls. On the other hand, to take robes, any Daoist, male or female, must be over fifteen years of age (Min 1986: 89). Nevertheless, Hanzhong monastics indicate that, in accordance with the politics of the Daoist Association, they do not welcome children in their temples any longer, be they young followers or public charges, before they are old enough to receive initiation. Children in temples are thus an exception. Although the rule does not explain these ages, seven to ten traditionally marks the midpoint of childhood, while sixteen is the transition away from it. In addition, the minimum age for the placement test is also a destiny question,

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which in Daoist thought means that each person has a different ideal age for entering, depending on his or her “eight characters of birth.” As Brigitte Berthier notes, “before destiny begins”—between four months and ten years—the children can already “clash” (chong 冲) with the destiny of those they are linked with or those they meet. They can energetically connect with them possibly endangering them and thus suffering themselves (1987: 88-89). Not having begun their own destiny, however, their identity is not yet sexed.7 In addition, they can undertake asceticism only when their inherent stock of “essence” reaches maturity, which is at puberty when sperm and menses manifest—the basic ingredients of internal alchemy. Because they have to make their own conscious choice to become a monk or nun, children cannot enter the monastery. The principal reason for this ban is that the monastery organizes itself around another kinship that already has its own “children”: those of apprenticeship. Novices are junior Daoists, literally “children of Dao.” In order to perpetuate the symbolic line, disciples are the masters’ adopted sons. Yet, from the standpoint of the age of the officiants, the monastery is a world entirely of adults despite all this. The rule of chujia does not require that one has to be unmarried before joining the monastery: the important part is that one can no longer be married once one joins. Wengongci monastics explain that it is preferable to begin ascetic practice already in adolescence, without having known marital life, which causes the loss of vital energy that is essential for personal cultivation. Having passed the threshold of adulthood, however, any age will be acceptable for joining. Several monks who came “half way down the road,” i.e., were married for several years, still insist they can recover both the time and energy they lost when they created a family of their own through work and merit. Even Zhang Liang who left society late in life still managed to become immortal. From a sociological standpoint, too, the implications of late chujia are different from that in adolescence: the lineage left behind not only consists of forebears and collaterals but also that of married partners and children. While the religious commitment sometimes comes as a more or less direct consequence of a rupture of this line—through divorce or death—it can also mean a serious abandonment to those left behind (spouse or children). Thus, when Liang Lidong joined the monastery after the death of his wife, his children—although already married—reproached him and felt deserted and uncared for. They came several times to the temple, hoping to convince him to renounce the monastic life and to stay with them. Eventually they gave up, although still upset; they 7 Before this age, children are bisexual (Schipper 1965: 61). As Marcel Granet notes, the division between the sexes—which starts at age 7 and ends at age 60—streches from the first to the last signs of the “generating force” (Granet 1953: 212-13). In the interim, life’s destiny proceeds differently. Males move along the succession of time, flowing leftward within the wheel of life, while females move inversely within the same cyclical order of time, flowing toward the right (Granet 1953: 205-6).

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have not contacted him since. So, for real this time, Liang Lidong, as most monastics, no longer has a family. Some individuals abandon women and children for their vocation, but only rarely do young fathers or mothers fail to honor their marriage obligations and abandon their home to embrace a different life. For example, Liu Gaoshan entered shortly after getting married, due to intense and continued marital conflicts; Xu Xiuzhen gave up a marriage that he had contracted after being forced to return to civil life and in the belief that the monastic life was closed to him forever. Yet neither abandoned his underage children but instead took them along to the monastery. Zhu Zongcai is the only one I know who left his wife and young son to take the robe (again). He was a monk when he met her, left the monastery to marry her, then left her to join a new monastery. However, his position remains marginal since the departure for the monastery is not a real break with his family: they do not live together most of the time but they are not separated. He returns regularly to what he considers his second home It is by far more common that men and women separate from their spouses to enter the religion after the children have left home. Having fulfilled their parental role and raised a son to continue the ancestral line, they yet give up their role of grandparents as well as the possibility to become ancestors after their death: they are parents whose descendants will not mourn them. In accordance with the Liji 禮記 (Book of Rites), all formal categories of mourning which determine the relatives’ ranks that shape family life (and thus society) operate through ancestor worship. Mourning is the strongest experience of filial piety; it also cements the kinship group as a whole (Couvreur 1951: 38587). Ancestors who lack worship are considered malevolent; families without ancestors, too, are problematic. In the last analysis, unless one is an orphan and unmarried, entering the religion at any age constitutes a breach of family obligations. That said, there are two points in life when departure from society is easiest: before getting married and after the children have left home. The Cultural Revolution inevitably delayed vocations, yet older monastics say that in the past late entries into the monastery would also have occurred under the same circumstances. Certain monastics note that merit acquired in religious service will eventually be reflected on their parents and create a way to pay back the filial debt. Wang Chongyang quantified this: each time someone joins the order, seven generations of ancestors are released from hell; each time one succeeds in ascetic practice nine others go directly to heaven. In other words, an exemplary religious career provides salvation for sixteen ancestors in addition to oneself. It is therefore a powerful means of aiding and benefiting the family. It even constituted, when Quanzhen first emerged, an “important motive for conversion and for entering the religion” (Marsone 2001: 335-36). Still, this particular reason did not appear among Hanzhong monastics who yet describe ascetic practice as being of benefit at least in the long term to the relatives they left behind.

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This, then, means that leaving for the monastery instead of getting married, remarrying, or having a male descendant to continue the family line is not only an alternative to family alliance but also to filiation. What kind of connections, then, are there between these two apparently dual structures: kinship and monastery?

Alternate Modes In principle, the monastic life ends either with death (immortal transformation) or by leaving the monastery. Monastics can choose to “return to secular life” (huansu 还俗) or be forced into it as a punishment by expulsion from the temple. Resecularization can also occur due to political reasons, as was the case when the monasteries were closed during the Cultural Revolution. Today there is yet another alternative: a kind of semi- monastic life which may indicate a new form of monasticism). Chujia fundamentally means meeting three conditions: live in the monastery (zhumiao 住庙); respect the rule of celibacy and not create a family (bu chengjia 不 成家); and break with one’s original family or at least not live with them (bu huijia 不回家). These seem simple and self-evident, but in practice the situation is much more complex. Even when Quanzhen first arose, the requirement to leave the family was not as radical as Wang Chongyang’s writings may suggest (Marsone 2001: 358-61). Today there are several complex positions some of which are tolerated while others are punished. In the Hanzhong region, several monastics have chosen to go back to living among their own. For example, Layman Hu entered the religion late in life and states that he could not bear the separation from his family and the overall conditions of monastic life. Wen Zhifeng left the Shengmugong and returned to lay life as a very old monk after the death of his only colleague. Rather ill, he preferred to be back home rather than staying alone in his small temple, nor did he want to join another monastery, such as the Wengongci, afraid that he would be neglected there. Yang Yuanzhen, on the other hand, returned to his family after a long monastic career, but in everyone’s eyes he remains a renowned master. Very old today, he joined even before the Liberation in 1949, training at the highly respected center on Mount Hua. Like many others, he got married when he had to return to lay life in the 1960s due to the Cultural Revolution. He relates that he resumed his monastic life in the 1980s, but his wife and son did not accept his decision and came to take him home. Today, he is still married but claims to have always been a Quanzhen master, which in theory means being a monk or a nun. Both lay followers and his peers recognize him as such, even if some prefer to consider him a secular Daoist master who “remains in the family,” yet without connecting him to another school. He still participates in certain rituals

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when his colleagues call him to the temple, treats monastics and laymen who come to consult him at home, and teaches self-cultivation practices. One of his more fervent disciples is none other than Zhang Zhifa, abbot of the Wengongci, who regards him as having exceptional healing skills. His past life and his charisma cause him to be highly respected, even within the Daoist Association. Thus, some monastics returned to lay life under threat by the government. However, forced secularization is not the only way one can remain a Quanzhen Daoist master while being married. There is also a new voluntary secularization phenomenon. Zhu Zongcai, for example, was a young monk at Louguantai when he fell in love with a laywoman who worked in the temple bookstore. After telling his abbot about the situation, he left the monastery to marry her. Since he was an orphan by birth, they settled in her family’s place and had a son. He set up a home, yet never renounced his monastic status. Passionate about his vocation, he never even considered the possibility of changing orders or return to the laity. His brethren really appreciated him and so did his master who even selected him as second in command at Louguantai, where he would in due course have succeeded the abbot had he not relinquished his celibate status. He was never excluded from his temple, but when the abbot suggested that he change monasteries, he decided to move to the Mingshenggong 明圣宫 on Mount Li. Since this was still under construction at the time, he went to live for a time with his parents-in-law. Eventually he chose yet another temple, in the Ankang region, and has since become its abbot. After the facilities and formalities were ready, he could not bring his family along, so he lives there by himself while his wife and son are still with her parents. Yet, for Zhu Zongcai living apart is no reason to get a divorce. Instead, he visits his wife on a regular basis and thus lives between two realms. His main problem is financial: to provide for the family and especially his son’s education. His young spouse hopes to go back to work as soon the child is weaned. Saving on the stipend that comes with his monastic duties, Zhu Zongcai provides her with a modest and largely symbolic income. For the moment, both live on money they had put aside earlier and accept the support of the family. One may conclude that Zhu Zongcai did not renounce the monastic life nor completely converted to marital life. He found an intermediary position, allowing him to continue serving the Dao. While monastic marriage was rather problematic (or even taboo) in the 1990s and 2000s, one now more and more frequently comes to meet Quanzhen monks who have a wife or maintain a girlfriend outside the monastery. As long as this fact is not made public and does not interfere with monastic duties, this is disapproved of but tolerated. This has traditional roots: both in the middle ages and in Quanzhen, sexual abstinence is a form of accumulating merit but

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not the only one. 8 Before the rise of Quanzhen, even if some Daoist masters chose to lead an (often itinerant,)single life, sexual relations were not expressly prohibited (Goossaert 1997: 125-29). Other schools, notably the Celestial Masters, even supported a ritual form of sexual relations. Quanzhen sources mention conjugal obligations in terms of physical exhaustion: it is hard to be serious about practices of nourishing life and growing an immortal embryo while having a spouse (Goossaert 1997: 125-27). Wang Chongyang required his disciples to follow his example and leave the family—such as Ma Danyang whom he asked to separate from his wife Sun Buer, who eventually also made it into the monastery. All that suggests that chastity exists in the rules of the temple as a corollary of the rule of leading a single life, without yet being upheld in an absolute manner. What it boils down to is that if monastics renege on the rule of chastity outside the temple, they will bear the consequences in the quality of their ascetic practice. The masters look the other way, following the Quanzhen teaching to look not at the defects of others but only at one’s own—an ancient Daoist feature linked to the idea of quietude (Marsone 2001: 350-53). In sum, abstinence of sexual relation and single living may be separate things. The former is a private question of asceticism, while the latter is a collective concern to keep the community in good working order. In certain cases, it is thus possible nowadays to be a Quanzhen master and to have a family. Why not simply join another order that allows married priests? Usually it is because they have little opportunity to meet masters of other orders in the region. An example is Yang Zhixiang. He transferred from the Quanzhen to the Maoshan order despite the fact that he never went to any of its temples, having only once met a Maoshan master who yet did not take him formally as a disciple. He thus affiliated himself to the order, interpreting it in accordance with his own ideas of what it should be like. His attitude reflects the general understanding of Hanzhong monastics that in-family Daoist masters belong to other schools and that it is quite easy to transfer to them.9

8 Celibacy was an important feature of the leaders of the Daoist theocracy in north China in the early 5th century, whose organization heavily imitated Buddhist structures (see Mather 1979). More generally, it was already prominent as a way of gaining merit in the Dongyuan Shenzhou jing (Scripture of the Divine Incantations of the Abyssal Caverns), the main work on medieval Chinese apocalyptical eschatology. Choosing this lifestyle was a way of consecrating oneself to the religion and proving the merit required to receive the Talismanic Registers which assured a good standing in the otherworld (Mollier 1990: 151). 9 Not being overly familiar with Daoist masters from other schools, such as Maoshan or the Celestial Masters, certains Hanzhong monastics tend to liken them to each other to the point where differences are eliminated and they are all just married practitioners. Despite the fact that there is a long-standing connection between the Maoshan, Longhushan, and Lüshan schools, they engage in significantly different ritual, exorcistic, and ascetic practices. See Saso 1972.

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Former Relatives The third “imperative” of the monastic life—to cut oneself off from one’s family of origin—is the least flexible: it played a role in the two cases of exclusion at Hanzhong. Some monastics, it is obvious to the observer, maintain regular contact with family members, visiting them at home or receiving them in the temple—a practice done but not talked about. Others yet completely cut off all relations with their families of origin. Between these two extremes, there are also those who stay in touch by mail, anonymous gifts, or by other ways of long-distance communication. Then again, to prevent the temptation of returning home on a regular basis, many monastics set themselves up far away from their former residence. In that case, the departure for the monastery is true reclusion. Monastics also continue to mix with some of their relatives when they also join the religion. It is entirely possible that the whole family adopts the monastic life if each member individually expresses the desire to join, if they each live in different institutions, and if each has a different apprenticeship father. The model couple of Ma Danyang and Sun Buer, who both studied with Wang Chongyang, form a counter-example to this rule—an exception in the early stages of the school. Thus, He Chongdi, his wife, and their son He Chengyuan all made the decision to become monastics at the same time (with an interval of few years) but did not stay together: the first came to Hanzhong, the second remained in Gansu, and the third joined the monastery at Louguantai near Xi’an. They still meet occasionally, during festivals or for meetings of the Daoist Association, but no longer think of each other as relatives. They are fellow apprentices with different masters and lineages, yet all part of the Quanzhen school. Their lineage positions are different, too: Because he became a monk first, He Chengyuan is now senior to his biological father. Their kinship connection commuted to teaching links, they now mix with each other on a new basis. A somewhat more delicate situation applies to Zhang Zhifa and his wife Huang Chongxiang. They both entered the religion but remained in the Hanzhong region, not far from their old home. They regularly pass their former house—where their children still live—on the road to Mount Tiantai and often meet for liturgical reasons, sometimes even staying in the same monastery. The temple where Huang Chongxiang lives is in fact an annex of Zhang Zhifa’s. Some monastics and lay followers point out that the way in which the former spouses—who are each abbots in their own right—make use of their geographic proximity sometimes pushes the limits of propriety. Zhang Zhifa spending his summers at the Taibaimiao on Mount Tiantai would be entirely normal if his former wife did not live there, the good mountain air benefiting his fragile health and supporting his asceticism. However, since they do live in the same area—maybe also because they have serious responsibilities in the

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Daoist Association—their relation, as ambiguous as it may be, is generally tolerated. On the other hand, some cases push the limits. Thus, while Liu Gaoshan’s adopted daughter remains in her temple as a simple laywoman, it is not acceptable to Wengongci monastics that Xu Xiuzhen’s three sons live at his side dressed as monks. First, the children are between eight and twelve years old and thus not ready to join the order. Second, they have not “left their family” since they remain with their father and conceal their biological connection behind links of teaching—which are, moreover, the exact replica of their family positions. Thus, their robes are considered scandalous and harmful to the monastic community at large. Xu Xiuzhen is thus a renegade monk. He says that his children came of their own free will and that his living situation is beside the point and secondary to the essential focus of the tradition. Others claim that he co-opted his sons and thus violated the regulation in full knowledge and understanding. However, because his situation is partly due to the disruption caused by the Cultural Revolution (he had entered the religion before and resumed a lay life under state pressure), he was not officially expelled from the community, but he is clearly an outcast, shunned by the monastics of the Daoist Association. He no longer participates in the same networks and, as he himself says, does not stay at the Baiyunguan when he goes to Beijing but with one of his sisters. Yet nobody seems to be able (or want?) to prevent him from remaining a monk, especially since he was authorized by the state authorities to direct the temple on Mount Qinglong (in Nanzheng) and has rebuilt it with his personal funds. Xu Xiuzhen thus lives on the fringes, neither accepted nor outcast. Some lay followers of the Wengongci, too, still solicit his services, fully aware of his marginal position. The other case of a violation with consequences is Yang Zhixiang, officially expelled from the Wengongci by Zhang Zhifa. The reason given is twofold: he allegedly diverted money to make a personal profit; and he lived with his spouse within the walls. According to both monastics and lay followers, the second violation was even more serious than the first, showing that he was unfit for the monastic life. Like the abbot, Yang Zhixiang entered the religion in mid-way, followed some time later by his wife Fu Gaotai. She trained under the former spouse of Zhang Zhifa and joined the Taibaimiao of Mount Tiantai before going off on a journey to complete her training. After a few years, she came back to stay at the Wengongci, where she had a separate cell from her former husband. However, their deeds clearly showed that they still had a relationship: she put her stuff in his closet, shared his meals, and so on. When the abbot tried to stop this, she refused to leave, supported by Yang Zhixiang. After an official reprimand by the order—in a “verbal ultimatum,” says Zhang Zhifa—and not changing their ways, both were expelled. They moved to a nearby house, which a supportive lay follower found for them. To maintain his marital life without having to return to the laity, Yang Zhixiang

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decided to change orders. He acknowledges today that he could not live without his wife, but denies all other accusations. He explains that some of the brethren accused him unfairly of despoiling the temple by using the ample donations he received from lay people for ritual services to add books to his personal library instead of putting the money into the common jar as the rules demand. He says he needed the books for his special practices, but that he did not take advantage of his position and feels deeply hurt by the accusation when he was in fact among those who provided the most for the needs of the community. The abbot Zhang Zhifa, he continues, just drummed this up as a pretext to get rid of him when he could not in all good conscience expel him for having a family arrangement so similar to Zhang’s own—even if more visible and therefore more potentially disturbing. In the last analysis, the rule requires that to establish a close link of teaching with other monastics, one must relinquish all previous ties unequivocally, undoing all kinship links of one’s former life. More than that, one must not reestablish a family-type setting within the monastery, neither a conjugal union nor a relation with one’s children. The renunciation of these social ties ultimately is the only conditio sine qua non of the monastic life. *** While challenging the established social order, the Daoist monastery is also its guarantor. Through the concept of yuanfen, it promotes charisma and the tendency to listen to oneself—which, however, goes together with a self-oblivion (wangwo 忘我), even if on occasion at the expense of others and especially close family members. While integrating marginal individuals, it maintains the balance of the organization as based on the family so that sometimes it is not easy to determine whether some people leave their family to enter the monastery or enter the monastery to leave their family, or maybe leave because they are already cut off. Besides, there is a relative flexibility in the application of the chujia rule. Does this mean that this Buddhist facet is not integrated into Daoism? Not really. While the religion does not demand strict celibacy, it yet recommends monastic discipline and supports a type of asceticism whose first step is separation from the family. In any case, chujia alone does not make the Daoist monastic: it is only one aspect in the pursuit of self-realization.

Chapter Six  Entering the Community The day finally comes when the lay disciple, after having made the decision to leave the world, arrives at the threshold of the monastery. Still, this is only the beginning of another long journey—it means crossing the kind of double door that separates the Daoist temple from the remainder of society. The newly arrived monk has to state his choice clearly to the community he wishes to join. However deep and predestined his yuanfen vocation may be, his path henceforth is not only for him to decide. His first test begins: the candidate has to find a “passage guide” in the person of a Daoist master who can lead him through the process of transforming from layman into monastic. He must also subject himself to a long trial period to get used to the monastic life and fulfill the proper “mourning” for his civil existence. Only after that will he be able to undergo ordination, which allows him to begin the apprenticeship proper. It takes several years to become a Daoist monastic. What, then, are the main steps of the journey required in the process?

Finding the Right Place Unlike secular Daoist masters, whose position is mainly hereditary, monastics perpetuate themselves by the aggregation of exogenous elements. In accordance with their refusal to proselytize, they never (or very rarely) resort to cooptation: their recruitment occurs through voluntary service. To take on a disciple is thus called “to receive a disciple” (shou tudi 受徒弟), as Zhang Zhifa explains, for masters do not seek out followers: they come to them. Quite possibly someone comes to follow a master with whom he feels a certain affinity, who maybe helped him to resolve some difficulties, or who appeared to him in a dream. He can more simply be the abbot of the monastery he wanted to join. Nevertheless, many Hanzhong monastics present their encounter with the master as decisive in their decision to leave the world. Still, many also lead us to believe that the time of the personal decision is distinct from the encounter with the master. It was only after they made this choice, they recall, that they went to knock on the door of a monastery, usually one close to their home. There the abbot met with them, listened to their sto147 

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ries, and questioned their motivations. Based on these first conversations, he then offered them refuge for a trial period. In some cases, he sent them back home; in others, he suggested another monastery. Lay followers are theoretically free to choose their master. The rules of propriety require that the abbot of the temple should be the first to contact. However, one can solicit another monastic if one so desires, even if he or she has no disciples and risk refusal. There is no need to choose a master of the same sex: in the master-disciple relationship, one does not distinguish between men and women. On his or her side, the master has the right to accept or reject the layman’s request, with no need to give a justification to him or his peers: the decision is a function of “predestined affinities” and needs no explanation. According to Hanzhong monastics, this connection is highly spontaneous and resembles a “strike of lightning” or a “love at first sight.” The master can also ask the applicant to let his decision mature for a while and eventually suggest that he turn to one or the other of his brethren who might better match his expectations. Thus, it took Yang Lihun quite some time to find an “apprenticeship father” (shifu 师父). She first asked Yang Lixian, but she already had two disciples and did not wish to establish a teaching relationship with Lihun—Yang confides that she found her somewhat strange at first sight. Nor did she tell her to go to a specific other master but gave her to understand that she might consider going to Zhang Zhifa and maybe ask his advice. When Yang Lihun wanted “to revere” (bai 拜) him, he first refused but, as Yang Lixian suggested, she was so persistent that he ended up taking her on. In the final analysis, the monastics get to decide themselves who receives initiation into the religion and integration into their community. The decision to admit, however, is not joint but individual. The ordination master alone agrees to take on a certain disciple and thereby imposes his choice on the remainder of the community, sometime after having asked his colleagues for their opinion but not necessarily. The group, then, has to welcome the disciples received by any one of its members, necessitating a keen awareness of both the separate parts and the whole among established Daoists. For all these reasons, the commitment made by the main protagonists (the master and the disciple) has to be well thought out.

The Trial Period Ordination formalizes the passage from ordinary society into the monastery. A threshold between two rather opposite and incompatible modes of life, it is not undertaken lightly and follows a series of prerequisites. Once considered admissible, the lay disciple first becomes a “junior Daoist” (tongdao). He is then subjected to a “trial examination” (kaoyan 考验), the length of which is also decided by the master but commonly lasts about three years. It is not so much a time of performing specific services, since all ritual and community activities

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require the passing of ordination, but a chance to slowly acclimate to the community and familiarize oneself with the life and rules of the institution. Junior Daoists do not wear monastic garb, but live in the temple and participate in its daily activities, typically, those also open to lay followers. The abbot Zhang Zhifa summarizes it, “Junior Daoists must render service with honesty and sincerity.” They worship the divinities by prostrating themselves before them and offering candles and incense. They help with meal preparation, sweep the courtyards, clean and oversee the worship halls, empty the ashes from the incense burners participate in construction, maintain registers of donations, sell objects of worship in the temple store, and so on. Yet while these juniors are by their very nature highly exploitable, they do not carry all the material tasks. Serving the community is the beginning of apprenticeship. Yet with all their work, nothing prevents junior Daoists from reading or rereading certain classical works on Daoist thought, such as the Daode jing or the Zhuangzi. They may well study the doctrine on their own to get a head start on their main job after ordination, to understand the philosophical and religious universe that will be their world, and to appreciate the practices and behaviors of their colleagues. They also begin to learn the secret language of the monastics, i.e., the internal language of the ritual arts, and to integrate into the group with whom they mix at leisure every day. There is no explicit rule regarding the exact nature of their trial or testing, no set program of apprenticeship. By definition, juniors Daoists serve their master and owe him respect and obedience. It is not clear which services they owe him, but custom prevails as well as the rules of propriety and filial piety of Chinese society in general. Disciples must answer all requests of their master but also anticipate them in a variety of areas: take dictation for a letter, carry the bags of the senior disciple, bring him food in his cell, do his laundry, go out shopping for him, and more of this sort. It is on this basis of daily interaction and in a rather informal manner that they learn. Junior Daoists observe their master and, act by act and moment by moment, keep track of what it means to be a Daoist monastic. As tradition prescribes, teaching occurs less through discourse that by imitation. This intermediary or preliminary period also allows junior Daoists to test their vocation and their ability to live far away from their family, the hurdle that, as many monastics say, is hardest to overcome. The separation from loved ones is always painful, and one often sees junior Daoists cry when they think of their pre-monastic life and families. It is thus no accident that the standard length of this trial period—three years—equals the time of mourning required after the death of an immediate relative: of a son or unmarried daughter for their father or mother (if she dies before the father), of the parents for an oldest son, of a wife for her husband. Because separation from the world requires a complete break with family members sometimes to the point of denying their existence, juniors in fact lose their parents. The mourning process, however, is all the

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harder as there was no actual death and the monastic still remains “indebted to his clan.” At last, junior Daoists get to prepare to “leave the world” formally. They decide to renounce marriage and sexuality, and every day will confirm and activate this resolution. Not having descendants means at least to go against the social law of filial piety, according to the traditional understanding that having a son, more than getting married, is the final sign of passage into adulthood. Beyond common family structures, the monastics symbolically maintain the status of children; also, as they explain, their ascetic practices serve to recover and nourish a childlike state within. On his side, the master has time to appreciate the personality and disposition of his future disciples. It is too early to initiate them into the mysteries of Dao but he can prepare them when replying to certain questions and guide them when suggesting certain books to read. Sometimes, to cover all the basics, he may even teach them to read and write. The master also subjects his junior Daoists to some endurance tests that are both physical and mental to evaluate their aptitude for the ascetic practices, which will mobilize their body and spirit and are essential to monastic life. He sends them shopping by bicycle, has them take vigorous hikes in the mountains, remains silent in their presence, has them copy texts, and makes them do all sorts of domestic tasks, difficult and tiring. The master eventually decides that enough is enough and declares the trial period over, scheduling the junior Daoists for ordination or making them leave the monastery. He does not have to explain his choice or list his criteria of assessment, which remain completely subjective. The master must assure that his future disciples have the necessary qualities and aptitudes, while yet understanding that these qualities do not depend primarily on knowledge or expertise but on personal (and maybe also interpersonal) skills, an inherent propensity for the monastic life. The key question is of personal affinity, yuanfen, which created the relationship of master to junior in the first place and has now to be confirmed to the point where the link is strong enough for reinforcement and become more serious. From here on, the relationship is quasi inalterable and will last a lifetime: forever Daoist father and apprenticeship son. In addition, the master chooses an auspicious day for the rite of passage, when celestial configurations and the calendar are in favor of the union of their destinies.

Monastic Regulations Wengongci monastics agree that what is most important is that junior Daoists are deserving people. It is difficult to predict how they will stand up when required to perform lengthy rituals or practice asceticism before actually having seen them do it. The selection of candidates thus does not pertain to this level but is a matter of making sure that the candidates are “good people” (haoren 好 人) or “persons of goodwill and high integrity” (zhishi 志士). In this context, to

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be good means to be benevolent, dedicated, and disciplined. The young Daoists must take certain “precepts” (jie 戒 ), devote themselves to the “observances” (yi 仪), engage to uphold the “rules” (gui 规), and at all times obey the “law” (lü 律). Daoism has brought forth a vast body of prescriptions of all orders, called “general rules and dignified observances” (guifan ji weiyi 规范及威 仪): Hanzhong monastics simply call them guijie 规戒. The rules of discipline and morality, while partly available in some historical sources (see Kohn 2004a), are for the most part transmitted orally from master to disciple. Since worship resurged in the 1980s, they have also been propagated in writing, notably in the Daojiao yifan by Min Zhiting, Baxiangong abbot and president of the Chinese Daoist Association. Published in 1986, in a collection of the Chinese Daoist School, it treats various aspects of daily monastic life as well as the history of the patriarchs of this religion. It also outlines appellations, robes, duties, lineages, orders, monastery types, classical texts, liturgies, incantation formulas, talismans, divinities, and much more. It combines the oral tradition put down in writing with records found in traditional texts (in the Daoist Canon) without always specifying the source. Despite its comprehensiveness and central status, it is not compulsory reading; only few monastics own a copy and—unlike official state regulations—the rules it contains do not appear posted on the temple walls. The official documents, compiled by the state, such the Bureau of Religious Affairs, state counsel, or provincial government, form a constitution of sorts that changes with time. The monastic rule, on the other hand, attributed to the founders of Quanzhen, is thought to be unchanging and creates a more serious obligation than the state-imposed constitution. Yet it seems that the rule under which the monastics live today and its concrete application vary considerably from one a temple to another, the abbots having a certain room to maneuver within their walls. Yet, as soon as they come to the monastery, junior Daoists must peruse the rule and are tacitly required to follow it. In case of a violation, they will meet with the same disapproval and punishment as established monastics, the main difference being that instead of suffering expulsion, they may not receive ordination.

Principal Precepts Several series of precepts—of five, eight, ten, and twenty-seven—provide the elementary rules of the Daoist monastery. Junior Daoists only receive them at ordination or even later in their monastic career, such as at the more advanced stage of “high consecration.” In order to understand their spirit junior Daoists should appreciate (and make their own), let us look at the principal precepts used today (Min 1986: 54-58). First, the Five Precepts (wujie 五戒) go back to rules attributed to Lord Lao, the deified Laozi. Based also on the Buddhist

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model, they first arose in the Six Dynasties (222-589) (Seidel 1992: 78; Kohn 1994; 2004a, ch. 2). They are: 1. Do not destroy life. 2. Do not ingest meat or alcohol. 3. Do not to speak lies. 4. Do not to steal things. 5. Do not give in to vices or luxury.

Next are the Ten Precepts which today appear prominently in the Chuzhen jie 初 真 戒 (Precepts of Initial Perfection) by the Qing master Wang Changyue (1622-1680). They are: 1. Do not be disloyal or unfilial, without benevolence or good faith. Always exhaust your allegiance to your lord and family. Be sincere in your relation to the myriad beings. 2. Do not secretly steal things, harbor hidden plots, or harm others in order to profit yourself. Always secretly practice virtue and widely aid the host of living beings. 3. Do not kill or harm anything that lives in order to satisfy your own appetites. Always behave with compassion and grace to all, even insects and worms. 4. Do not be lascivious or lose perfection, defile or insult the numinous energy. Always guard perfection and integrity, and remain without shortcomings or violations. 5. Do not ruin others to create gains for yourself or leave your own relatives of flesh and bone. Always use the Dao to help others and make sure that the nine generations of the family all be in harmony. 6. Do not slander or defame the wise and good or exhibit your skill and elevate yourself. Always praise the beauty and goodness of others and never be contentious about your own merit and ability. 7. Do not drink alcohol, eat meat nor violate the prohibitions. Always maintain a harmonious energy and peaceful nature, focusing on your quest for purity and emptiness. 8. Do not be greedy and acquisitive without ever being satisfied or accumulate wealth without giving some to others. Always practice moderation in all things and show grace and sympathy to the poor and destitute. 9. Do not have any relations or exchange with the unwise or live among the mixed and defiled. Always strive to control yourself; in your living raise purity and emptiness. 10. Do not speak or laugh lightly or carelessly, increasing agitation and denigrating perfection. Always maintain seriousness and speak hum-

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ble words, making the Dao and its virtue your main concern. (Min 1986: 67-72)1

In addition, the text also has Nine Precepts specifically for women: 1. Be filial and respectful, soft and harmonious, careful in speech, and never jealous. 2. Be chaste and pure, and always separate from all foul activities. 3. Make all beings that have life worthwhile, be compassionate and friendly, and never kill. 4. During rites and recitations, be diligent and circumspect, and give up eating meat and drinking wine. 5. In your garments be practical and simple, never favoring make-up or ornaments. 6. Maintain an even and harmonious disposition, never giving rise to anger and afflictions. 7. Do not frequently go out to attend communal rites of fasting. 8. Do not be cruel in your employment of servants and slaves. 9. Do not steal other people’s things. (Min 1986: 73; Despeux 1990: 150; Kohn 2004a: 263; Kohn and Despeux 2003: 162)

Inspired by Buddhist rules, these precepts are the object of specific interpretations by Daoist monastics. They serve to maintain moral order and ethical; standards, but are also very practical in their support of pacifism (not to kill), honesty (not to lie, not to steal), integrity (not to behave negatively or maliciously), and their recommendation of certain key abstinences. While the very first precept—not to destroy life, whether human or animal—already covers vegetarianism, the abstention from alcoholic drinks and the general refusal of pleasure, which in this context means no sex, create a strong theme of asceticism and abstemiousness. Wengongci monastics consider all these as rules as essential to their ascetic discipline and think of them as applying to individual practitioners in different measures.

Pure Rules In addition, there is also what monastics use to call the “pure rules” (qinggui 清 规), regulations devoted to specific monastic values, concrete forms of behavior, and specific duties. Monastics speak of them as well-known common rules that all have internalized. Some of them have received it orally from their master; others have memorized their written version in the Daojiao yifan (Min 1986: 48-59). Min Zhiting first cites “Founding Lord Chongyang’s Ledger of Pun1

See also Daozang jiyao 278, 292; Zangwai daoshu 404: 22b-23a; Kohn 2004a: 155-56.

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ishments” (Jiaozhu Chongyang dijun zefa bang 教主重阳帝君责罚榜 ), one of twelve texts contained in the longer Quanzhen qinggui included in the Daoist Canon.2 This text lists the ten fundamental points that govern the life inside the monastery. Next, Min outlines the more detailed Qinggui bang 清规榜 (Charter of Pure Rules ), which consists of “do not’s” and outlines of offenses and punishments. He explains that all big monasteries traditionally had such a charter and that the compendium of rules of conduct may have varied noticeably from a monastery to another, one can suppose that even only the big monasteries may have had a written version of the rules, they were also known and used in the small temples. The Charter is not etched in stone; it changes over time. For example, the 1856 Baiyunguan version stipulated that certain crimes were punishable by death at the stake: failure to respect the law of the land, depraved behavior, offenses against the religion or against the Pure Rules (Min 1986: 55-59). Both abbot An Shilin 安世霖 (1901-1946) and his prior were found guilty and burned alive by their fellow Daoists, giving vivid testimony that these were not empty words (Goossaert 2007: 177-81). The Charter no longer contained the death penalty in the late 1940s, when Yoshitoyo Yoshioka reported on the Baiyunguan, having probably been removed shortly after An’s death. Of course, it is unimaginable today. The 1946 Baiyunguan Charter has remained valid until today (Min 1986: 5152); it is widely used for reference due to the wide diffusion of Min’s work.3 It lists offenses by punishments in order of seriousness: Prostration at the altar for the duration of burning one stick of incense (guixiang 跪香): 1. Failing to get up when the bell rings in the morning. 2. Failing to attend obligatory ceremonies and assemblies. 3. Failing to execute proper worship. 4. Leaving the monastery without permission. 5. Encouraging others to be laze or malevolent. 6. Failure to attend properly to personal hygiene. Demotion in rank (qiandan 迁单) and increase in domestic tasks:

2 The Quanzhen qinggui goes back to the period of Quanzhen consolidation in the early 14th century (Schipper and Verellen 2004, 1170). Partly attributed to Wang Chongyang, it addresses Quanzhen monasteries and contains sanctions for misdeeds too elaborated to concern only Wang’s few disciples. It meets the requirements of a group already well institutionalized (Marsone 2001: 175-176). 3 On the 1843 list of the Zhang Liang temple which probably concerned Shaanxi monastics more than the Beijing’s one before the Maoist period, see Min 1986: 55-59.

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7. Provoking gossip or slander. 8. Failing to act on hearing the bell or other signals. 9. Failing to keep worship halls in one’s custody clean. 10. Abusing one’s higher authority. Exile from the community (cuidan 催单): 11. Taking forbidden foods or alcohol. 12. Neglecting one’s duties. 13. Refusing to run errands when asked. 14. Being disrespectful or violent toward his seniors. 15. Failing to execute his functions properly. 16. Taking advantage of the weaknesses of others. 17. Failing to respect the rules of rank. 18. Wronging visitors. 19. Participating in bad jokes, quarrels, or scuffles. 20. Failing to return to the monastery at night fall. 21. Lying about the reasons for failure to return. Expulsion from the order (kaige 开 革 ), i.e., loss of ritual name, sometimes after caning (zhangge 杖革): 22. Failing to respect the regulations. 23. Being indecent or immoral. 24. Destroying common property with deliberate intent. 25. Misappropriating monastery funds. Extradition to the civil authorities (songjiu 送究) and expulsion after caning (#28, 31, 32): 26. Defiling canonical books or public goods. 27. Giving rise to rebellion or disturbances in the monastery. 28. Being implicated in arson. 29. Taking advantage of the goods of vulnerable people. 30. Lying to obtain gifts. 31. Speaking out on political issues. 32. Failing to respect the law of the land.

The monastery sees itself as a small state within the state, complete with its own judiciary system. Yet, its regulations are not above the laws of the country; on the contrary, they clearly stipulate that anyone committing an offence against state laws must be expelled from the temple immediately and handed over to the authorities. Daoist monastics are thus not only subject to national laws, but also to governmental politics—or at least not obviously go against them. This condition also played an important part in the foundation of the

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Daoist Association. Thus, any monastic who violates a civil law incurs a double punishment: one from the Daoist community, the other as outlined in the penal code of the state. Within the institution, the abbot holds the responsibility of upholding and executing the law, his abbacy granting him administrative powers and judicial authority. This has nothing to do with basic seniority—Zhang Zhifa is not senior to many others in age or erudition. Nor is he the most deserving monk, although his hard work is a source of great merit. In terms of asceticism, too, he is like others—the distribution of tasks is organizational, not ideological. With their general precepts and occasionally vague guidelines, the rules confer a certain power upon any master working with apprentices and disciples, whose behavior he can judge and correct quite subjectively. They also serve to help evaluate junior Daoists. They not only emphasize basic discipline and living properly but also underline the importance of integrity and respect for others, especially toward the laity. They punish malevolence as well as simple oversights; they guarantee the harmonious functioning of the community by insisting on respect for schedules, the prompt fulfillment of daily tasks, cleanliness of rooms and public spaces, as well as proper procedures in the office. Yet the rules are not only an organizational tool. While not directly regulating ritual activities or ascetic practices—subject to other guidelines mainly for transmission and apprenticeship—they are yet understood by Wengongci monastics as fundamentally necessary for the proper execution of rituals and personal cultivation. They insist on features not required in the ordinary world, such as giving up rivalry, avoiding aggressive behavior, applying the principle of “noncompetition” (wuzheng 无争), pursuing “clarity and purity” (qingjing 清净), and working toward “complete emptiness” (jiekong 皆空). According to the monastics, recruiting meritorious people is particularly important because Daoist technical knowledge can be dangerous if used in a negative way. For example, if a malicious person learned how to place potent spells or if he ever—one doesn’t know how—attained a state of immortality, he could cause enormous harm to community, society, and even humanity. For this reason, the ordination master must have faith in those whom he allows to enter the Daoist community. He must also measure the determination of his disciples in order not to initiate someone who might sooner or later return to civil life and then possibly divulge secret Daoist information.

Ordination Rites To be “admitted among the Daoist masters” (jieshou wei daoshi 接受为道士), one must be formally invested by a Daoist master. One’s future apprenticeship father will bestow the Daoist cap, a new religious name, and the canonical texts, as well as a certificate of ordination (shuwen 疏文) and several emblematic objects of the monastic life. This occurs in one of the most symbolic or at least

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the most visible steps of entering the religion: the ordination ceremony, known as the “rite of cap and gown” (guanjin keyi 冠巾科仪), often also called “minor consecration” (xiao shoujie 小受戒) or “consecration of cap and gown” (guanjin shoujie 冠巾受戒). The Daoist Association today strongly recommends formal ordination rites, but they are not practiced everywhere or systematically. Thus, as Wu Shizhen of the Baxiangong remembers, about six month after he first started entered the monastery as a junior Daoist at the Leigutai near Ankang, his master offered him one of his own Daoist robes and handed him the canonical books needed as an officiant. Later he also gave him a ritual name. Wu had started to let his hair grow out since he arrived and put it up in a topknot as soon as it was long enough. His entry into the monastery, therefore, happened entirely without a formal ceremony, in a fluid and almost haphazard fashion. Like him, several monastics told me that they entered the Dao without any specific rites, just through a simple exchange with their master and few prostrations. The nun Wu Gaolan, on the other hand, received formal investiture in an ordination ceremony entirely off limits to the laity. It occurred in the main worship hall of the Wengongci, which usually has limited public access. Surrounded by secrecy, oscillating between the visible and the obscure, the rite took place where laymen could catch sight of it yet was in a closed space open only to initiates. Her family was not invited nor even informed of the event— because technically her entry into the religion had occurred when she first left home. Her master, the nun Huang Chongxiang, abbot of the Taibaimiao on Mount Tiantai chose the day of the ceremony. It was an auspicious day: double two, i.e., the 2nd day of the 2nd moon (10 March 1997). Not only a favorable date for success in terms of numerology, it is also important in the Daoist calendar. It is the holy day of Lord Wengong and the various earth gods; the day of Longtaitou 龙抬头, the popular “dragons-head-raising” festival; and (less well known but applied locally) the day of King Qinguang 秦广王, the first among the ten kings of hell who is notably in charge of punishing unworthy monastics. This multiplicity increases the auspicious nature of the date. Associated with the temple’s celebration in honor of its principal divinity—an important event that lasts three days, from the 1st to the 3rd—the ordination ceremony became part of the worship of Han Yu and benefited from its good fortune. Wu Gaolan consecration thus did not take place in her master’s temple, as is the general rule. It occurred in a different environment because the Taibaimiao is an annex of the Wengongci, the rule being that monastics of lesser institutions can (and even must) receive ordination at the principal temple. In addition, the Wengongci abbot, having received high consecration, was among the few officiants in the area empowered to lead the ceremony as Master of High Merit (gaogong) required for this kind of ritual. Events began around noon just after the recitation of canonical scriptures. Divinities invited immediately after the ordinary daily service are supposedly

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more receptive to human prayers and thus increase the power of the ordination. Wu Gaolan arrived in the morning, in a group of masters from the Taibaimiao, wearing ordinary clothes, her hair hanging loose to her shoulders. Her master gave her items of Daoist daily garb (robe, pants and high-socks, made to measure by the master herself ahead of time) before the ritual in one of the cells commonly used for monastic guests. She also gave her the four canonical books used in daily recitation and for occasional rituals in the form of sewn or stapled photocopies. This is significantly different form the old days when new initiates had to hand copy them all. According to several monastics, the master may also have offered Wu a bowl as an emblematic object of temple life traditionally used to begging, eating, and purifying, 4 either before or after the ceremony. After Wu had changed into Daoist clothes but before she had her hair combed into a topknot, the two women went to the Wengong Hall, where the abbot Zhang Zhifa and three of her fellow students waited in full ritual garb. Then the ceremony could begin.

The Ceremony The officiants started by creating a “Daoist sacred area” (daochang 道场), surrounding an altar which holds sacred writings, offerings, and various ritual objects to open communication with the celestial powers. They outlined the way of the Daoist devotee: study the scriptures of the Three Caverns, honor the master and obey him within the divine law, and practice serious selfcultivation with the intention of ascending to the immortals’ isles of Penglai 蓬 莱, a group of legendary islands only reached by flight with divine wings. Next, they invited the gods and perfected, and expressed their request for ordination on behalf of the new follower. They presented her to the gods, first giving by her former name, then mentioning that she wished to devote herself to the quest for long life, purifying her spirit and studying Dao. Next, the officiants expressed their compassion and reverence for the celestial powers. Then the master of the ceremony, a Master of High Merit, read the certificate of ordination, written in black ink on yellow paper. It addressed the divinities and contained the formal request for ordination with all necessary specifics: the place—the Wengongci of Hanzhong, Shaanxi province, People’s

4 The bowl is a key symbol of the monastic life in the sense that it is essential for daily nourishment and for begging (a practice that monks today do not engage in very much any more but which they tend to leave to lay followers). It is also used specifically for certain rituals—Hanzhong monastics call them “rites of the bowl”—often associated with the consecration of sacred space. The bowl is thus one of three major ritual objects, joining the wooden tablet and a piece of red cloth with black borders on which to knock the head during kowtow. Monastics receive them during the first level of ordination, usually in large, collective ceremonies at a large monastic center.

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Republic of China; the name of the ordination master—Huang Chongxiang of the Taibaimiao, the ordinand’s “original master” (benshi 本师); the ordinand— Wu Gaolan, the “new entry” (xinjin 新进); the date—2nd day of the 2nd moon; the religious name and her proper registration as a member of the 27th generation of the Longmen branch of Quanzhen. To transmit the certificate to the inhabitants of the celestial world, the master next burned it in the “transformation by fire” (huohua 火化) as he would with formal offerings. He prostrated himself and kowtowed to the gods. Next, the masters offered veneration to the highest divinities of the Daoist religion—the Three Pure Ones and Four Imperial Deities5—as well as to the divinities responsible for new Daoist followers: the Three Officials (Sanguan 三 官 ) and the Numinous Officer (Lingguan 灵官 ). The former, in charge of Heaven, Earth, and Water, examine people’s merits and demerits, watch over the accomplishment of rites, and reward devotees. They receive an official record of ordination so they can appreciate the value of the disciple and the proper procedures of the rite. The Numinous Officer, gate keeper of the Jade Emperor’s palace, receives and submits all written requests. After having asked for his support and protection, the officiants thanked him profusely. They also paid brief homage to the ordinand’s parents for having brought her up but without giving their names. Eventually the ordination master gave thanks to the gods. Interspersed with further recitations of canonical texts, she summarized what would now be required of the new ordinands: to follow the Merit Ranking of the Three Vehicles (Sancheng gongfa 三乘功法) and to harmonize the five phases. While chanting this, she passed a big-toothed comb through the ordinand’s hair and tied it into a topknot. She then formally draped the embroidered ritual robe over the ordinand’s shoulders and concluded the ceremony by placing the headdress on her head. Officially presented to the gods under her new ritual name, Wu Gaolan thus received ordination at the hands of her master. The master of the ceremony next invited the new initiate to give thanks to the five sources of kindness (wu’en 五恩): ancestors, parents, siblings, friends, and spouses. She then prostrated herself to the ten directions (beginning with the east and moving first through the cardinal directions to end with zenith and nadir). Thereby the master presented the new follower to them and traced the outline of the divine territory, from where she will draw her spiritual powers. After thanking the Three Pure Ones, he dissolved the sacred area. Thus, Wu Gaolan was introduced to the greater Daoist community in the large sense, to people as well as gods.

5 Known as Siyu 四御, these are the Jade Emperor, the Northern Emperor, the High Emperor of Heaven, and the Powerful Emperor of Earth.

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Min Zhiting’s Record The text that serves as the main reference for this rite today is the Guanjin keyi (Proper Rites of Cap and Gown), contained in the Daojiao yifan (Min 1986: 21823). Although attributed to Qiu Chuji, it is not clear whether the ritual for ordination described here goes back to his lifetime in the 12th century, was only practiced later, or is actually quite recent. Still, Min Zhiting strongly recommends its powers, explaining it as follows: After entering the Dao, Ancestor Changchun [Qiu Chuji] traveled widely and taught the observance of Dao. He designated seventy-two major monasteries (conglin) and composed extensive writings to leave to posterity with the intention of helping future generations in their effort to gain the celestial spheres immediately while avoiding the suffering of reincarnation. To enter the monastery (chujia) without proper indicators means to risk perturbing the Mysterious Rules and lose oneself. He thus composed the Zanguan keyi 簪冠科仪 (Proper Rites for Hairpin and Garb) to initiate those who enter the gate of all mysteries for the first time. It contains ritual details and warnings as well as obscure doctrines and precepts. Thus, it enables later generations to become deserving and experienced disciples, to have their names entered in the (nominative and precisely dated) registers of the Heavenly Worthies, and to be revered in the right way due to their rank. In sum, it helps them become people of goodwill and high integrity. The printing blocks of this text were moved variously and eventually stored in the Zitonggong 梓潼宫 (Zitong’s Palace) in Sichuan. However, there they perished in a fire when the temple burnt in the late Ming. Ever since, junior Daoists have been poorly guided in their efforts and, from generation to generation, the officiants of the Daoist religion have become more negligent: sons took their father for their master; women, their husbands; even children passed through the temple gates. Once ordained, disciples no longer studied the meritorious teaching of the Three Vehicles but instead stole the topknot and failed to dress as required, Moreover, they angered the venerable immortals in Supreme Heaven by offending them for running the risk of having a ghost of bad-death destiny. When I left the world (chujia), I too became victim of this confusion. This only ended when I was wandering to Mount Luofu 罗浮山 in Guangdong and met a Dao companion with an extraordinary face. I bowed to him, and we exchanged teachings of the obscure Daoist doctrine. When talking about the time and age required for leaving the world, he said, “You left the world without formally undergoing the secret ceremony of ordination, so that your name was never entered in the proper celestial registers. As a result, you have not benefited from the

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protection [of the celestial powers]. Although you are benevolent and sincere, too many malevolent forces come to hinder your progress.” Hearing this, I asked him to explain me the reasons. He continued, “The ordination master of every follower must recite the canonical texts and perform the proper rite of contrition. Only after paying for one’s faults, can one properly receive cap and gown and tie one’s hair into the topknot of the Highest Lord [Laozi]. It is also necessary to submit a report to the Great Emperors of the Three Officials [Sanguan dadi] and to transfer the certificate to the Numinous Officer [Lingguan] so one can benefit from his protection. Then, even if you go into the mountains at night, walk through a dangerous pass, or encounter bandits, you will escape healthy and stay safe. Finally, on the day when you reach the highest cinnabar [immortality], you are worthy to obtain the protection of the Three Officials themselves. “On the other hand, if you do not undergo the secret ceremony and fail to submit a request for ordination [to the celestial powers], the celestial world does not know about you. As a result, you remain subject to the cycle of transmigration, and even if you wear the cap and gown you are still a simple layman and, like ordinary people, [after death] remain tied to [the underworld realm of] Fengdu. Those of superior aspirations who attain immortality will certainly be welcomed and protected by the gods. Those of ordinary aspirations who succeed in ascetic practice will be received by the Guardians of Death. Those who, after retiring to the mysterious gate, do not follow the Dao correctly and inevitably commit various crimes will be punished for their bad actions by the Messenger of Death [Wuchang 无常] and taken to the Ministry of Darkness to undergo severe corporal punishments. On the contrary, the Guardians of Death will not venture to punish who receive ordination before becoming ancestors. For all this, formal rite of ordination is essential.” Having said that, he took a book out of his sleeve and opened it for me: this was the Guanjin keyi. Suddenly, the ascetic disappeared. Stupefied, I prostrated myself on the ground, realizing that I had met a true immortal. Thanking him profusely, I made ten copies of the manuscript to offer it to companions in the Dao, waiting for an opportunity to publish it and spread it more widely. It should come to the attention of all those hoping to withdraw through the mysterious gate and help them observe the prescribed rites, thereby paying homage to the True Immortal for having transcended the World [dushi 度世]. Let us assume that you first left the world and your master did not perform the proper ordination rites but now he has left to pursue ascetic practices in the mountains or has already undergone the transformation of wings. In this case, you can specially solicit a master of study to complete the rite, to be held before in your first master’s ancestral tablet, knowing fully well that one should not ever change one’s master or one’s Daoist name. Should your own temple be unsuitable or unwilling to accommodate your Dao companion for this rite, you can also undertake it

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at his or her temple. Whatever you do, realize that time passes quickly and that the years flow by in an instant. None of us can foresee the length of our lives or predict our success. Thus, we don’t have to look at the faults of others, it may well compromise your own future and set you on a path—like common folk—toward a destiny of becoming a “restless ghost” (sugui 俗鬼), which is distressing indeed! So that people of goodwill and high integrity can follow this book, the ancestral master [Qiu Chuji] states in his preface, “Anyone without roots who does not practice [asceticism], passes through the gate to the mystery without proper permission, and meets numerous obstacles cannot bestow the cap and the gown or observe prescribed behaviors. The master’s words are precise and clear!” I strongly suggest to all Dao companions that they accept only people of goodwill and high integrity as disciples. Even if they do not succeed in flying off as immortals after leaving the world, they should still escape from the rebirth cycle and avoid severe penalties [in the underworld] that one does not expect monks to suffer. This is important because, if you think only of your own benefit and help bad elements enter the Daoist religion, you not only harm the gate of Dao but also create prejudices in the wider community due to the limitless bad deeds they may commit. As a master, you carry partial responsibility for all misdeeds committed by your disciples. Letting this happen, you will have failed in your duties as a responsible master of transmission, a failure that will remain with you to the end of your days. So be very careful, and tremble with fear—this is not a commitment that you can make thoughtlessly! (Min 1986: 217-18).

Ordination Today Min Zhiting thus emphasizes the importance of the ordination rite after an extended trial period as the final ratification of the new Daoist’s departure from the world. He bases his outline on a ritual text, allegedly transmitted by a Daoist master whom he regards as an immortal. According to him, any monastic who did not receive ordination in accordance with proper Daoist rites is not only in error but even in danger since—with the exception of rare Masters of High Merit who have special gifts or aptitudes—they have lost an essential privilege: to avoid death and forgo punishment in the underworld prisons or hells. The Daoist Association’s support of this rite today, moreover, adapts the tradition in a way that is typical for the current resurgence of worship in alignment with state politics. Min Zhiting strongly recommends the return to a rite that, as he says, was lost in its proper form already in the 17th century, a long time before the Cultural Revolution. This means that monastics describing a

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similar rite before the communist era, i.e., some I met in Hanzhong and Xi’an as well as Yoshioka who recorded a rite named guanjin li 冠巾礼(1979: 234), indicating a ceremony that was probably less formal and official and not systematically performed in contrast to Min’s highly formalized way. He is deeply dedicated to finding true orthopraxy, eager to remedy possible breaches and deviances that occurred over time and caused a rupture in the chain of transmission. To renew the tradition to a state before it was lost, he goes back to ancient, elucidating the practices as prescribed by the patriarchs. Today the dominant tendency is for officiants to claim that they follow the model of their own lineage ancestors. At the same time, there is a governmentsponsored effort to standardize this ordination rite and unify its practice in the entire country as a means to organize and streamline the religious community. As ordination forms the basis of monastic registration in the divine registers of the celestial realm, moreover, it also allows the establishment of worldly registers, controlled by the Daoist Association. In his introduction, Min Zhiting also compares modern ordination rites and the accompanying transmission of precepts with the ancient practice of “register transmission” (shoulu 授籙), which goes back to the early Celestial Masters. According to him, the purpose of either rite is the same: to have the ordinand recognized by the gods and let him receive their protection through the sacred writings. Just as the registers of old, the canonical text today are full of divine power—ancient ritual practice, comparable to the investiture of emperors (Seidel 1983), still serves to legitimize the current rite. To sum up, the ordination of the junior Daoist is a rite of investiture through ritual garb and a sacred name as well as through the transmission of sacred writings and ritual powers. As the young follower undergoes the ceremony, he or she is linked to both the masters and the gods. He bows (bai 拜) to both in the same fashion, but the level of adoration is different. 6 As the language makes clear, the relation of master and disciple is one of personal devotion and mutual dependence—the master being committed to transmit and protect—while the gods serve as cosmic and universal masters who keep returning to earth to instruct human beings. Through the ritual of ordination, then, the new Daoist is presented by his earthly master to the divine masters and invested by them all.

6 Monks use the same term, bai 拜, to say they honor the gods (bai shen 拜神) and the master (bai shifu 拜师父).

Chapter Seven  Advanced Training Once ordained, the junior Daoist is a full member of the community, yet still only knows very little about Daoism. His new identity is just the starting point of his real apprenticeship, guided by the master’s teaching, which tends to be diffuse and slow. There is no special time for learning. Rather, the transmission operates by impregnation and imitation of others in everyday life, acquisition of knowledge and self-experimentation flowing into each other.

Names and Genealogies At ordination, the new initiate receives not only Daoist garb but also a religious name, which clearly marks the link between master and disciple. He keeps his original surname, but “changes his name” (gaiming 改名 ): receiving a “ritual name” (faming 法名) or “Daoist name” (daoming 道名 ) from his master and giving up his “civil name” (suming 俗名). In designing the name, the master refers to the sacred lineage poem (paishi 派诗) of his order, in this case, the Longmen branch of Quanzhen. The first character of the name always comes from the poem, where it succeeds the master’s, signifying the lineage generation. The second character comes from the master himself, picked for its specific meaning. Wengongci monastics today belong to the 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd generations after the first Longmen patriarch Qiu Chuji. Their names each have the character matching their specific generation. Thus, the abbot Zhang Zhifa has the 21st-generation character zhi 至, lit. “utmost.” His master He Mingshan has the 20th-generation word: ming 明, “radiant.” He, in turn, received this name from Zhang Yuanfa, a master of the 19th generation and accordingly called yuan 圆,”complete,” “full.” All He Mingshan’s disciples—well over a thousand— share the same character in their Daoist name as Zhang Zhifa, while the latter’s disciples (about twenty so far) are named using the 22nd-generation character li 理, “cosmic order,” “principle.” Among them, only Deng Lifeng, his second disciple, so far has a disciple of his own, Wu Zongqin, named with the next generation’s word zong 宗, “ancestor.” In the poem, these characters are part of 164 

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the last line of the first stanza and the first line of the second stanza, “The unified teaching is fully radiant. Utmost cosmic order has its ancestor in sincere faith.”

Every order has its own poem. Yoshioka Yoshitoyo explains, “As a rule, every verse is the fundamental expression of its teaching’s essence” (1979: 231). Chinese allows this use of a sacred text: its monosyllabic nature makes it possible to cut individual words out of the text and place them into names as generational markers. The Longmen branch poem has 100 words (5 words per line, 4 lines per stanza) which in itself is a symbol of totality: it does not contain the same character twice. The system allows monastics to situate themselves clearly in the monastic community. Anyone who knows the poem and the order of words can immediately identify a Daoist’s generational standing, which in turn facilitates proper forms of address and reverence as required by the person’s relative position, elder or younger. This way of naming matches the traditional Chinese family. Here, too, the clan or lineage chief chooses a poem, a sentence, or a passage from the classics and installs it as the master key. Each character forms part of the personal name of each individual in the same generation. Matching this, the monastics arrange themselves in true genealogies: newly entering disciples are literally in line as signified by the “line of characters” (zipai 字派). Still, the genealogies are not those of kinship but based on links of teaching. The generations are relative and do not always match the actual age of the people involved. It thus may happen that two disciples of the same master are thirty years apart in age, or that a disciple is senior in age to his master. Entering the monastics in a common genealogy facilitates the order of responsibilities and the inheritance of charges. Just as in a family where the order is determined by the children’s birth (the oldest, the second, the third, and so on), monastics are ranked in the order they were received by the master, an

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order which is generally quite well known inside the community but also by its close lay followers. The first disciple usually takes over the master’s role as abbot—i.e. “family chief” (dangjia 当家) another term borrowed from civil life. In addition to providing the generational key, the lineage poem also serves as a phrase of passage. Recited from memory, it proves their membership to other Daoists, just as they should be able to recite passages from the Daode jing or master the various coded gestures and terms of the religion. The written version of the Longmen lineage poem originally only survived in certain big monastic centers. A secret formula, it was transmitted only orally among initiates. Through the medium of sacred verses and characters, Daoists see themselves as “registered.” The Wengongci has its own genealogy, but it functions simultaneously as a section of the immensely vaster genealogy of the entire country—since all monastics are technically descendants of Wang Chongyang, the founder of Quanzhen. The school soon divided into branches, established by his main disciples, the Seven Perfected, among whom Qiu Chuji was most influential. Later members of Quanzhen have retraced and recorded their genealogy to their patriarchs, so that today it is known as the tree of the spiritual descendants of Quanzhen. The genealogical tree of Wang Chongyang, or at least its branches of the first five generations, moreover, is part of the knowledge transmitted directly from master to disciple, generation to generation, today recorded in several Daoist works. Another aspect of the complex genealogical tree is that it relates branches and lineages to each other. Thus, looking at their names, one understands that previous Wengongci monastics are not actually the spiritual fathers of those today. In contrast to their chronological order, the earlier monastics do not actually precede the more recent ones in the lineage poem but succeed them. That is to say, members of the older generation carried names identifying them as members of the 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and 25th generations after Qiu Chuji, while the more recent ones belong to the 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd. This shows—as He Xinde and Yuan Xinyi confirm—that they do not actually belong to the same line of teaching.

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Similarly, in the spiritual lineage associated with Mount Tiantai, six generations separate He Mingshan (20th) and He Chongdi (26th), which makes it clear that the two perpetuate different teaching lineages—originating in Sichuan and Gansu.

These genealogies and their networks form the backbone of the local group’s history, which in turn forms part of Daoist history on the national level. The continuation of the monastic order accordingly goes beyond the destruction of temples and even of sacred books. It follows a cycle: once the monastics have run through all the words of the poem, they start again with the first. This concept of cyclical temporality joins the understanding of time as a loop, connecting with the traditional calendar as expressed in the sexagenary cycle. Monastics may also have a Daoist nickname (daohao 道号), often chosen by themselves, but many Daoist do not have one or, if they do, do not make much use of it. Thus, one is Piaoyazi 飘涯子 (Who Walks on Air); another is Donghang daoren 东航道人 (The Daoist of the Eastern Boat). Most often they just sign with a name like that but some also ask people to call them by it. Lacking any connection to their original family or to the Daoist order (no surname or genealogical character), this way of naming is yet another way of creating confusion and dispelling firm identity.

Apprenticeship After ordination, the new Daoist becomes a full apprentice in the monastery. His entry into the Daoist lineage gives him the right to partake of all its secrets while demanding his active engagement with prevailing rules. The monastics explain that they have their own method of transmission. They call themselves pupils or students and say that they are studying, but their methods of learning are quite different from those of the ordinary Chinese school system. Beyond the specific framework of the Daoist Academy in Beijing (and its provincial annexes on Mounts Qingcheng and Nanyue), the formation of Daoist monastics is difficult to analyze. Nor is it, as far as I know, the subject of any written charter. Instead, it depends on the relation between master and disciple and is the function of individual personalities.

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Nonetheless, fieldwork has shown that Daoist apprenticeships tend to conform to certain basic criteria. They operate strictly in binary relations, such as master and disciple or senior and junior student—literally “among four ears.” As Yang Yuanzhen explained to his lay disciple, Mr. Peng: “The Daoist religion talks about ‘individual transmission’ (danchuan 单专) because the Dao cannot propagate itself between six ears but only between four, i.e., between two people.” At the same time, teaching ideally occurs in non-discursive ways— through imitation, repetition, gifts of books, and so on. It could also work through the dialectic of questioning and confidence, notably when it comes to exchanging “recipes” communicated only orally from generation to generation. The apprenticeship, therefore, is long, slow, and progressive. Daoism being the teaching without words (buyan de jiao 不言的教) is a recurrent theme in the classics. The ineffability of Dao even forms the opening passage of the Daode jing, “The Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao.” In chapter 2, the text says, “The sage adopts methods of nonaction and practices the teaching without words.” Similarly, chapter 56 has, “Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know.” As Kristofer Schipper notes, this does not mean that the sage expresses himself through silence, but that his speech is a form of pure expression “like the sound of a brook” (1993: 205). Nor does it mean that the words of ordinary people are merely vain but that, like those of the sage, they do not suffice to express the underlying truth or perfection of the universe. Thus, certain monastics, such as the hermit Bai Lixue near Hanzhong, refuse to speak or talk very little. On the other hand, if the texts of the founders cite the words of the sages and report on questions from their followers and their responses, it means that speech in general is not useless. The right words—not to be confused with gossip—just as other means of communication are instruments of the quest that aims at the transformation of the self into oneness with Dao. As Wu Shizhen says, “When one does not understand something one wants to know, one asks the master.” While the master rarely takes the initiative in opening a dialogue, he always will respond to direct questions. Still, he may not always choose to reply with words or, when he chooses to speak, just formulate a metaphor or even give a brief affirmative or negative. So, anticipating a yesor-no answer, when formulating his question, the disciple must already know what is important to ask and maybe even find elements of response. In other words, he must induce certain hypotheses on what he believes and wants to know. Another aspect of this topic is my own ethnographic experience, which was like an apprenticeship in a way. No one at the Wengongci ever told me anything unless I asked a precise question. This means that I always had to formulate questions and had to go and find the monastics to answer them. Even when I had detailed requests, certain officiants were rather unforthcoming with their responses, even over several years. Others wanted to put my motivation

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to the test before answering any questions. Bai Lixin offered the Daode jing, then waited for me to talk about its contents before agreeing to deliver some teaching points. Zhang Zhifa took me on several mountain climbs and long bike rides, with stops in remote hermitages, before agreeing to give either an answer to my questions. Still, beyond this apparent muteness (which he recommended his disciples also observe), he showed me landscapes that he found particularly favorable to meditation, presented me to Daoist masters of renown, and gave me many opportunities to observe his behavior. One day the monk Wei Zongyi suggested me that I might not be asking the right questions. Similarly, Bai Lixuan insisted that I stop reading and questioning, and rather begin practicing asceticism. These reflections and positions made me understand how words— including those that deny all discursive thinking—and silent transmission are narrowly articulated and come to translate a certain conception of apprenticeship, of the world, and of asceticism. Even if he has multiple disciples, the master will not teach collectively. He addresses each student individually, at different times and in different places. This is because—as lay follower Tian says—he matches the intellectual level, the life rhythm, the motivations, and the personality of each. Tian also notes that confidence is established more easily in a bilateral relationship than within a group—just as it is harder to keep a secret when there are more mouths to spread it. The best verbal exchanges are also the briefest. In the Zhuangzi, the best disciple is like Nie Que with his master Bei Yi, who falls asleep instead of listening to him answer the question he has just asked, such as “what is Dao?” Rather than being annoyed or frustrated by Nie Que’s behavior and the fact that he does not listen, Bei Yi is happy and proclaims, “Indeed, he has solid wisdom; he is detached from any acquired knowledge” (ch. 22). Wengongci monastics and lay followers also attach another, more pragmatic value to the teaching without words: if nothing in effect works to describe the ineffable, it is better to avoid all rhetoric and find alternative ways of communication. Several monastics accordingly refuse to speak about the doctrine, explaining that it is better not to talk about precepts one has not completely mastered, implicitly suggesting that each person should understand it according to his or her unique faculties. Not all monastics are so adamant about this point, but few tend to be chatterboxes. According Hanzhong monastics, verbalization is essential in the early stages of apprenticeship and soon becomes inappropriate. As soon as he had given him a little Daoist instruction, the master will prefer that this apprentice practice the fasting of the heart-mind—the abode of the spirit: renouncing all critical intelligence and discernment and freeing oneself from the constraints of the world. Books, on the other hand, play a key role in monastic instruction. Rather than giving their teaching verbally, certain monastics provide or suggest written

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works to their disciple. They may, if need be, help him in his reading, indicating the pronunciation of characters he does not know and providing a basic interpretation of concepts or passages he does not understand. Even more elementary, the master may read the work with him or even to him—especially if he is illiterate. The abbot Zhang Zhifa also gives his disciples books he probably never read himself. The most important time for learning the basic doctrine is during the daily services. Through “reciting canonical texts” (nianjing 念经), the foundation of the daily liturgy and all occasional rituals, the apprentices receive basic instruction in Daoist thought. To recite correctly they must understand the content of the text, written in classical Chinese. They first listen to the others, then imitate their diction, gradually learning to pronounce every word and punctuate the text correctly. Doing so, they grasp the text’s intention and gradually come to appreciate its concepts. No one explains how to do anything, everyone just “does.” These recitations are called “lessons” (ke 课), so that the three daily services are literally the “morning,” “noon,” and “evening lessons.” While ke normally designates a course in the secular schools, in the Daoist context it refers to lesson given without teacher, supported only by the sacred texts. This also includes the practice of divination, which represents yet another meaning of ke. In content, the canonical texts contain the names and attributes of divinities. They are not philosophical or theoretical treatises (like Daode jing and Zhuangzi), but constitute a certain exegesis of the doctrine and contain technical language and Daoist concepts. They present a cosmology of which they themselves form a part. As Schipper notes, “Each holy scripture is, in principle, a cosmic writing, created out of Chaos from spontaneous characters. The recitation corresponds to the reactivation of that moment of creation” (1993: 232n42). In addition, the scriptures possess supernatural powers. Hanzhong Daoists, understand them—as much as the registers of old and most Daoist manuscripts—as expressions of divine essence and attribute them to various, often anonymous, divinities. Wu Shizhen asserts that only the most learned Daoists know the names of the texts’ human transmitters. The possible consubstantiality between the sacred writings and the gods causes them to play an essential role in Daoist transmission. Thus, refraining from speaking about scriptures and Dao does not mean to refuse dialogue but asserts that Daoist thought is not an improvisation: it is formulated and repeated continuously in its original form. Every word has its own essence and therefore is of unique importance. Trying to comment on the scriptures is to devote oneself to a pious act of paraphrasing, which inevitably weakens the power of the original message and tends to undo the energies incorporated in the original writing or, even worse, divert them. The canonical texts thus have twofold power of performance: they give Daoist monastics knowledge (doctrines) as well as ritual expertise (mastery over

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transcendent forces incorporated in the texts). A simple reading of the sacred texts does not suffice: one most speak and repeat the canonical texts. Their words are just right; they empower people and must be heard. Of divine essence, they allow the communication between people and the gods as well as among the officiants. Still, the relationship between monastics and sacred texts is ambivalent. Some spend most of their days deciphering old manuscripts and memorizing various texts, yet then they say that what they are looking for can never be found in a books.

From Imitation to Experimentation Daoist teaching lineages do not transmit all knowledge in books. For example, Wengongci monastics relate how two colleagues came from Louguantai to teach them how “to consecrate a sacred area,” which essentially meant that they participated in the inauguration ritual of the Doumudian on Mount Tiantai, giving the locals the chance to observe and learn from actual practice. An even more striking case is the teaching of ascetic practices, hardly or only obscurely described in books, which—unlike the teaching of doctrines— requires verbal instruction. Nevertheless, the master’s explanations are usually brief. As Wu Shizhen notes, “The master provides some keys, but it is up to the disciple to open the door.” In other words, only experimentation and personal experience allow proper comprehension. Like learning the doctrine, so assimilating ascetic practices is progressive and requires infinite repetition of the same words and gestures. It requires a state of detachment from all thinking, speech, and judgment, an activation of the fundamental attitude of nonaction, which insists that adepts let go of all acquired knowledge and reach out for emptiness. This makes it clear that in Daoist apprenticeship there cannot be a firm schedule of daily study with the master, a set program, or a definite evaluation of progress. Whatever the master says to his disciple concerns only the two of them. The time of the ritual services centers around the recitation of the canonical scriptures and occasional rituals. Besides this, the monastics take care of various necessary domestic tasks, often a good occasion for a disciple to learn from the master: he observes him in his ritual activities as well as in his ordinary daily behavior. The rest of the time, he pursues his study through individual practice as well as through reading, repetition, and copying. What the monastic does during his “free time,” which really is most of his time, is entirely up to him. Nobody is judged by others a priori. This transmission method means that it is for the master to guide his disciples. He usually does it in a rather unpredictable manner, step by step, according to the unique ability and progress of each disciple. This is because having a

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too educational attitude toward the disciple will influence him in a preconceived way and prevent him from listening to his intuition and from experiencing the Daoist precepts for himself. The relation between master and disciple resembles that of father and son in several respects. As Wei Zongyi explains, “The father teaches all that he knows to his son, just as the master transmits all his knowledge to his disciple. The son obeys his father while the disciple does what the master tells him to do.” One may add that the disciple remains indebted to his ordination master all his life, just as the son can never fully discharge the obligation to his father. However, once he has obtained the master’s expertise, in part or in entirety, the disciple— unlike the son—may leave to establish other apprenticeship relations and obtain multiple “spiritual fathers.” When Bai Lixuan says that the “apprenticeship is not regulated,” he means that everyone has to find his own way, that each monastic has to learn on his own. Learning by themselves from various masters, Daoist apprentices may well be considered self-taught, yet they also work with various masters and thus receive formal transmission. The master speaking little, the disciple finding his way on his own, may sound hard but it also renders it possible for each person to select his or her own aspects of the teaching, depending on what is important to the individual and the variety of teachings he or she receives. All progress on the quest, then, is due to personal observations, practice, and perseverance. Apprenticeship is progressive, but because it takes so long, because advice is rare, and because the student must be well versed in both doctrines and practices, assiduousness and stubbornness are essential. It is, therefore, a matter of, as Geneviève Delbos and Paul Jorion call it, an “apprenticeship by clearing one’s own way” (1984: ch. 1). It may also happen that the disciple surpasses the master. The apprenticeship relation can be inverted, but only occasionally and partially. Even if, for example, Zhang Zhifa in Hanzhong sometimes asks his heir-apparent for advice, the latter continues to revere him as his master, with all the reverential obligations the relation requires. The seniority structure is irreversible, as it is in kinship. As a result, Daoist monastics never think of themselves as finishing their apprenticeship: part of their being alive, it is a life-long undertaking. Wu Shizhen specifies that even Ren Farong, the famous senior monk of Louguantai who is renowned for his merit all over China, has still a lot to learn. In fact, only death or transformation into an immortal can end the quest and single out the most advanced: those who, after a long life, pass from the human world to that of the immortals.

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The Daoist Academy Some monastics are selected to undergo advanced theoretical training and further applied practice at the Beijing Daoist Academy (Beijing daojiao xueyuan 北 京道教学院 ). Founded at the end of the Cultural Revolution to renew the interrupted chain of Daoist knowledge, the Academy is designed for Daoist masters only, welcoming the officiants of the diverse orders, with Quanzhen monks the most numerous. It serves as a supervising agency of the state. Daoist masters as well as laymen, usually connected to government institutions, teach Daoist doctrines, texts, history, and (to a lesser extent) practices they have received from their masters, as well as the various religious observances. Managed by the Chinese Daoist Association, the Academy promulgates a method of official apprenticeship completely different from that of classical Daoism. In addition to the Beijing Academy, two provincial annexes were also created: one at the foot of Mount Qingcheng in Sichuan and one specific for Daoist nuns at the Southern Peak (Nanyue) near Changsha, Hunan (see Wang 2009). Courses have been relocated there for few years. In the immediate future, monks are supposed to go back to study in Beijing but nuns will continue to be trained in Nanyue. Yet another school of this type, the Shanghai Daoist Academy, opened in 1986. It was located at the Shanghai Baiyunguan until its move in 2004. The temple is now two kilometers north of its original site and separated from the Academy, now in the suburb of Songjiang 松江 (see Herrou, Forthcoming). More specifically intend for the Celestial Masters and other married Daoists, none of the Shaanxi monastic I met had attended it or ever talked about it. According to Wengongci monastics, not everyone who wants to study at the Academy can go. Admission follows upon a complex selection process, whose criteria are not always clear to the monastics in the provinces. The rule is that only the most virtuous can be candidates for this exclusive elite school. The masters accordingly present only those disciples they think most capable for attending these kinds of courses. The procedure also requires a selection of candidates on each of the different levels of the various Daoist Associations. Thus, for temples in Shaanxi, a committee at the Baxiangong in Xi’an will make the decision who gets to go to Beijing. There is no formal exam but space being limited, competition is tacit. Candidates must show that they have a strong desire to attend the Academy and that they can follow instructions. Still, the entire evaluation and selection again rests with the subjective assessment of the masters involved. There are no specific quotas for the different regions, but the Academy tries to include trainees from all areas of the country. The effort is not only an academic one, though. The procedure also requires significant funds since, as the Wengongci abbot notes, the trainee’s temple must pay for both traveling expenses and registration fees.

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Wu Shizhen’s story, as he told it to me, illustrates the long journey to the Daoist Academy. He departed for the monastery, as noted earlier, upon inspiration from his father and with the encouragement of the abbot of the Leigutai in Ankang. Once he entered the religion, Wu took his Daoist career very much to heart and became a specialized apprentice of scriptural study and martial arts. His ability to understand Daoist doctrine with ease and, as he describes it, his suppleness and physical aptitude were determining factors in his quick progress through the Daoist ranks. Showing photographs in support, he tells how he soon could do major splits in the air, leading his master to suggest that he go to see a fellow monk at the Baxiangong. Without hesitation, he packed his bags and left the next day. Without even a letter of recommendation, he was admitted to the big monastic center in the provincial capital—a brief narration of his short career path with the mention of his master’s name and his abilities and capacities were sufficient to gain him admission. He stayed for a year, studying mostly Daoist music and making such good and consistent progress that his master decided to send him to study in Beijing. He remained there for two years, also taking courses in English to be able to help the Daoist Association create or renew ties with monasteries abroad. After his return to Xi’an, he continued his studies. To deepen his musical knowledge, he collaborated with certain members of the Xi’an Conservatory of Music, and with their help recorded a cassette of ritual music now on sale in several big monasteries. To enhance his mastery of the English language even more, his monastery gave him the opportunity to attend courses at the University of Foreign Languages in Xi’an. Today Wu is in charge of international relations at the Daoist Association, taking care to provide a proper welcome of monastics from other countries. He also manages the small temple Qinghuagong 青华宫 (Palace of Blue Florescence) on the periphery of Xi’an, to whose foundation the London Dragongate Temple contributed: the two are affiliated and see themselves as closely linked. Wu Shizhen says that he was educated and accredited to run these different charges by the Daoist Academy in Beijing. However, he specifies also that he made it himself, step by step. Then he quotes a famous Chinese proverb, “The master guides one to the door [of knowledge], the practice rests with each individual.” That is to say, the master does not make the disciple: he only shows him the beginning of the way. He initiates his student but success comes from his or her own efforts and personality. To Wengongci monastics, the Beijing Academy is practically inaccessible. None of them have so far gained acceptance there, rather using the Baxiangong or other big monasteries that offer a good study environment as preferred places of apprenticeship. Providing a climate favorable to intellectual emulation, they are also good for ascetic practice. The overall system of the Academy is quite controversial in the Daoist community, among young monastics who have never had any personal contact with it as much as among senior masters who have taught there. Thus, while

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Bai Lixin dreams of studying the Daoist Canon in Beijing, his colleague Fu Zhifa deplores this type of lesson which, he says, is not given by the greatest masters. To him, it is most reprehensible that certain courses are taught by laymen. Their interference in religious matters obstructs the essence of Daoist transmission. In addition, he claims, the Academy inevitably modifies the content of the Daoist teaching with respect to official state policies and political considerations, thus opening the door to censorship and state influence. Similarly, the monk Zhao Jiaxian says he did not like being a professor at the Academy: the overall atmosphere and structure did not suit him well, and in general this kind of collective organization makes him uncomfortable. He prefers to live in a small temple in the countryside where he can meditate as he sees fit. Group apprenticeship under the guidance of standardized manuals in general is contrary to the foundation of the religion in the master-disciple relationship. Layman Tian, a disciple of the monk Yang Yuanzhen, accordingly emphasizes that it is impossible to teach Daoism in an organized or standardized manner, with particular study hours and a set curriculum. It demands constant attention: every moment with the master counts. By the same token, lectures and readings alone do not suffice to convey Dao. Their benefits are limited, yet one must work through them to get to the experiential stage. Thus, Bai Lixuan relates how much he loved Daoist literature until he realized that Dao is ultimately not in books. He also says that after going astray in a bad way, he stopped or at least significantly reduced his reading and devoted himself to practice, learning how to listen to his intuition. Along the same lines, even in the early stages of Quanzhen, Ma Danyang, a scholar with a solid literary education, ended up being opposed to all book learning, noting that is was quite useless (Marsone 2001: 181-227). Bai Lixuan, too, notes that he learned so much from Bai Lixue precisely because the latter refuses to speak. Not all is learned in school: individual practice is more important than theory, and school only serves to save time during the apprenticeship and fill the holes the Cultural Revolution left in the chain of transmission. After attending school, monastics return to their original temples and pursue practical, applied studies. Those who have come back from the Academy in Beijing tend to find that the two methods of instruction develop different aspects of the same process and are not opposed to each other. In any case, one does not preclude the other, and there is, even within the formal school, a close relation of master and disciple. Sometimes more work happens in the hallways than in the classrooms, more Daoist culture is active in the everyday life of the Baiyunguan than during lectures. The Academy course takes two to four years; apprenticeship with a master is indefinite and lasts until death. The disciple models himself on his master, but does not necessarily stay with him forever. Rather, after a certain time, the master often encourages his disciple to travel so that he can benefit from the teachings of other masters. “Wandering like the immortals” (xianyou 仙游 )

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forms an important part of the Daoist training. It is a privileged way to exchange (jiaoliu 交流) knowledge and expertise with new companions—its primary goal according to my informants. Monk Liao says, “From the beginning, people have guided each other to the One.” Layman Zhu speaks about the necessity of “learning through interaction” (qiecuo 切磋 ). It is essential that Daoists meet others and establish resonance “in mind and in eyes” (xinzhong yanzhong 心中眼中). Some take to the road and never return to their original temple; others stay with their main master despite the possibility of travel; yet others go off for while but come back once in a while to renew their apprenticeship ties. They often decide on their course before they leave, the community guessing what will happen: does he leave things behind in his cell (and thus goes off only for a short while) or in a trunk (and thus thinks of travelling for few months)? Or does he pack everything in a bag and takes it with him (and thus may not be back for a long time)? Anyone chosen as an abbacy successor generally stays, but that does not keep him from leaving from time to time to visit other holy places and encounter new masters. The connection between a monastic and his or her secondary lineage masters, such as established with Academy teachers, often lasts for a long time, depending on personal compatibility and the trajectories of life.

Masters of High Merit Monasteries tend to assign rank and roles based on merit in a system known as the “merit ranking of the Three Vehicles” (san cheng gongfa 三乘功法). To become a renowned master, one must pass through all the steps of acquiring theoretical understanding and practical expertise. What, then, does “merit” (gong) mean? In the monastic context, it indicates the “sustained practice” of individual improvement. The word closely reflects the term gongfu 功夫, which, as Anne Cheng notes, “designates the time and energy one devotes to a practice, with the intention of attaining a certain level—an idea comparable to the notion of ‘training’ as outlined by Michel Serres. It means practical expertise that cannot be transmitted in words” (Cheng 1997: 119). It usually means sustained practice, both physical and spiritual. Qigong 气功, the “work on the breath/ energy,” is one facet of such gongfu. Hanzhong monastics speak of their progress in terms of “accomplishment” or “realizing merit” (chenggong 成功), an idea that closely relates to the concepts of “virtue” (de 德) and “sincerity” (cheng 诚). According to Hanzhong monastics, the Three Vehicles are the main stages in the Daoist career. They differ in how they define the precise content of these levels, at least for the first two. Thus, a monastic on the basic level, the Lower Vehicle (xiacheng 下乘), performs menial tasks such as sweeping courtyards and

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assisting masters while beginning to learn the basics. He acquires elementary literacy, memorizes the cosmological reference system, gains rudimentary knowledge of the calendar, perfects the right posture for prostrations, and so on. On the second level of the Middle Vehicle (zhongcheng 中乘 ), he or she learns how to recite the scriptures unless he is more eductated in which case this happens on the first stage of apprenticeship. Once he has mastered basic liturgy, he works on ascetic practices, i.e., “improving by refinement.” At this stage, he receives more important material and ritual responsibilities: he or she learns to manage the temple’s accounts, to supervise food purchases, to plan reconstruction, and to supervise a worship hall. On the third level of the Highest Vehicle (shangcheng 上乘), a monastic becomes a Master of High Merit (gaogong), i.e., the master of ceremony during a ritual. Wearing a metal crown on top of the kerchief, he now can perform major rituals such as at a god’s birthday, for healing, statue inauguration, or burials, all of which require setting up a Daoist ritual area. In addition, local monastics often use the term gaogong to refer to advanced ascetics, indicating that it is common for Daoists on this level to devote themselves to ascetic practices, especially seated meditation. Assisted by their disciples in all necessities of daily life, they take on formal representation and transmission, participating only occasionally in collective rituals. Some of them, despite their rank and high attainment, still subject themselves to humble tasks, considered helpful for asceticism. Closely connected to the first teachings of Daoist thought, many grand masters continue to participate, from time to time, in scripture recitations, beneficial for both others and themselves. In addition, they usually have a chosen specialty among subsidiary practices: astrology, calendar studies, medicine, or textual exegesis. The specific contents of the three levels, moreover, rests with the masters’ own assessment. Seen from a different perspective, the system of the Three Vehicles indicates stages of enhanced initiation. After the first ordination, the Daoist career consists of a series of further consecrations. Monastics from all over China participate in large-scale events that include an advanced examination and a special ritual matching the rank they are supposed to accede. For example, the instructors may provide eight characters, challenging each applicant to write an original, personal poem. Through such ceremonies, Daoists successively receive the precepts of initial perfection (chuzhenjie 初真戒), those of “medium ultimate” (zhongjijie 中级 戒), and those of “celestial immortality” (tianxianjie 天仙戒).1 Today all three are usually grouped together in a single ceremony known as “great consecra-

1 On the three levels of precepts developed in the 17th century through the simplification of the medieval seven-rank system, see Despeux 1986: 54.

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tion” (da shoujie 大受戒) as opposed to the “small consecration” of initial ordination. The great consecration combines a series of rites and involves the bestowal of three ranks, formally ratifying the passage of an ordinary monastic (whose experience allows him sometimes to be already considered of “average merit”) to a Master of High Merit. At the end, within each of the three groups (first, second and third levels), the instructors rank the best candidates Theoretically granted only to the highly deserving monastics, the great consecration makes them more like immortals. The ritual itself comes in the form of a three-day offering (jiao 醮), during which the new master is introduced to the hierarchy of all the divine authorities so that his name is known to them (Schipper 1993: 68). Even more auspicious than ordination, the ritual is celebrated by the major masters who grant the advanced disciple an elevated celestial function and provide him with a Immortal’s Certificate in a specially constructed open-air “consecration platform” (jietai 戒台 ). Many monastics see their first ordination as comparatively less important than this: it marks the beginning of apprenticeship while the great consecration sanctifies its improvement and formally acknowledges the acquisition of high merit. Since the revival of worship, the Daoist Association has sponsored three great consecration rituals: in 1989 at the Baiyunguan in Beijing, in 1995 at the Tianshidong on Mount Qingcheng (Sichuan), and in 2002 at the Wulonggong on Mount Qian (Liaoning). During the latter, all three levels of precepts were transmitted in a single ceremony—which consecrated 200 disciples—as had already been done in the past, before the Maoist period (Goossaert 1997: 517). In 1989, most monastics only received the precepts of initial perfection because one has to have the first level to take the second, and few (or even none) Daoists had the opportunity to participate in a proper consecration. In 1995, three Hanzhong monks attended the ceremony on Mount Qingcheng as representatives. It was financially impossible to send all those who wanted to go, since the local Daoist Association had to pay for the train or bus tickets, plus give 500 Yuan per participant to the host temple, about the average monthly wage in China in those days. These various levels of rank and consecration are not the only way of monastic distinction: individual charisma and abilities occasionally mark differences. He Mingshan, the illustrious centenarian, was the object of true worship by disciples and followers alike. A resident of Mount Tiantai near Hanzhong, he attracted and trained a large number of monastics and created the biggest Daoist community in the region. The patriarch of local worship resurgence, he is a typical example of a Master of High Merit who has reached extensive longevity. Even before he passed away, people already thought of him as an earth immortal on his way to celestial immortality. He received this status not through formal consecration but through local veneration. He was considered an exceptional man: not everyone is capable of such a life! All monastics learn the basic rites and practice ascetic techniques that allow

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them to obtain the merit needed for immortality, hoping for ultimate transformation. Courage, honesty, tenacity, good actions will also enable them to gain skills and to reach this level. The idea of “merit,” then, expresses the accumulation of qi within the individual and allows a degree of measurement on a ladder of perfection that takes into account ritual standing as much as actual Daoist behavior. The ongoing transformation process that “makes” a Daoist monastic, moreover, comes with a series of rites of passage that present, in the terms of Arnold van Gennep (1991), a tripartite structure. Ordination constitutes the aggregation to the Daoist community, following both the separation from one’s kin as one enters the monastery and a liminal phase characterized by undergoing a test. At the same time, the process creates the community inasmuch as it requires each new member to adhere to the monastic rule. It enlists individuals of unequal virtue and background in a common system of self-improvement along a structured progression and clear ladder of merit, with dimensions that are not immediately obvious but emerge gradually during apprenticeship. In addition, ordination and precept transmission join men and women in communal tasks and ritual responsibility, supported by the canonical texts as transmitted by the masters. It thus becomes clear that the information listed on the official Daoist ID as established by the Daoist Association bears no relevance to the actual identity of monastics. Listing the details of civil reality, it reports information no longer relevant to them. The Daoist name replaces the birth name; the address of the initiation monastery becomes his or her place of origin. They no longer have a civil family; what matters are the different rituals that punctuate their life and forge other sort of ties. Still, they do not think of themselves as new beings but as monks and nuns, each with their personal experiences, knowledge, and expertise that they try to sublimate by asceticism.

Immortality Daoists show less concern for death and what happens after than for life itself. Their focus is on longevity and life extension, with the goal of gaining “immortality,” often expressed with the phrase “attaining long life and not dying” (changsheng busi 长生不死). This quest goes back far in history. A desire for eternal life already appears among certain rulers of antiquity who expended much wealth and effort to find the elixir of immortality (xiandan 仙丹; see Lévi 1985; Schipper 1965). Expressions used include immortal being (xianren 仙人), ranked immortal (liexian 列仙), or divine immortal (shenxian 神仙), all using the word xian whose graph shows a “man” next to a “mountain” and indicates a hermit or otherworldly creature. However, these terms only go back to the Han or Qin dynasties (Kaltenmark 1987: 10). Before then, Zhuangzi talks about perfected

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persons (zhenren 真人), divine persons (shenren 神人), and utmost persons (zhiren 至人), while Laozi speaks of the saint or sage (shengren 圣人). Today Hanzhong monastics use the terms “immortal” and “perfected” almost interchangeably— with a tendency to use “immortal” when referring more to mythology and “perfected” when talking about ascetic practice. The etymology of the character xian, “man” and “mountain,” can be read in two ways: man of the mountain and human mountain. It implies the close connection that these beings have with the mountains and suggests that immortals enjoy high altitudes. Riding on air, they move quickly and cover vast distances. Hanzhong monastics relate, for example, how the immortal Han Xiangzi would fly from Mount Qinling to Chaozhou to help his uncle Han Yu after having seen his difficulties in a dream. Becoming immortal implies liberation from the bonds of gravity, to be able to change places, vanish, reappear only to disappear again, to be light and elusive as a bird. In ancient texts, such the Liexian zhuan (Biographies of Ranked Immortals) of the Han dynasty, immortals often have feathers or soft hairs that grow after extensive ascetic practice. Daoists today still present them as “airy” or “winged beings” (yuren 羽人): the character shows two wings and indicates the ability to move easily through the air. The expression “winged being” in the old days also indicated people on the fringes of the Chinese realm, tribal men or “barbarians” (yi 夷) whose religious rites may have influenced early Daoist ideas on immortality (Kaltenmark 1987: 14-16). By extension, the country of the bird-men was like that of the immortals (Granet 1994: 339). Today, too, people call living Daoist masters “bird-men” or “masters of wings” (yushi 羽士) because of their potential for immortality. They supposedly can fly after long years of Daoist exercises, moving on to immortality from there. According to the monastics, the Daoist quest aims at “immortal transformation” (xianhua 仙化), also called the “transformation of wings” (yuhua 羽化) or “ascension in flight” (feisheng 飞升). The word “ascend” again has two dimensions, indicating both “climb” or “rise” in the sense of attaining a certain height and “promotion” to a higher level. Daoists in addition tend to refer to the Yijing, where “ascend” appears as Hexagram 46 and indicates promotion: the moment when the weak element makes the effort to rise up to a superior level. “Ascend in flight” thus means promotion to immortality, rising up into the heavens. By saying that they strive for the “transformation of wings,” the monastics distinguish themselves from ordinary people and signal that they have left the common world behind. The knowledge they have allows them access to certain celestial spaces and makes it possible for them to avoid death and escape the underworld darkness. The Chinese generally associate ascension with elevation and the lightness of the sky, seeing the world of the dead deep in the earth and ordinary death as a descent into its dark depths.

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A winged being or bird-man is special but hardly recognizable: no longer completely human, yet he or she does not really look like a bird and is in fact anthropomorphous. For the monastics I met, it is not question of plumage unlike in certain ancient texts that describe immortals with feathers all over their bodies (Kaltenmark 1987: 10). The feathers are symbolic for the ability to keep on living on earth among ordinary people or to come back as need be without being discovered. However, a few knowledgeable people make a difference based on other unique attributes: they can fly and do not throw a shadow (wuying 无影). Max Kaltenmark explains the latter, saying that immortals “no longer project a shadow because they themselves have become a source of light” (1987: 193). Absorbing solar energy, the vapors of dawn, and various longevity drugs, such as cinnabar, has rendered them radiant. To be holy is, therefore, both to radiate light and to conceal one’s shadow, to appear and disappear at will. As Isabelle Robinet says, “To disappear means to ‘hide one’s light’ (yinjing 隐景); and it also means to veil the truth or to hide one’s transparency. However, through his exercise the saint has become luminous… The saint also hides his shadow (ying). The perfect saint is like the gnomon— that is, in full sunshine, he does not cast a shadow… By concealing one’s shadow or light, one appears or disappears” (1993: 165-66). Immortals hide among ordinary people: not showing their light, they are noticeable by the absence of their shadow. The monastics say that, however discreet, the perfected are recognizable by their reactions to the elements: they do not get wet in water and do not burn in fire. They also have the capacity to eat little or, as Zhuangzi says, can breathe all the way to their heels (ch. 6). Another indicator, less obvious to outsiders, is that the perfected does not dream. The transformation of wings presents a challenge to our concept of time and space. Didn’t the monk Wang Liqing say, “One can undergo the transformation of wings and then live for ten thousand years”? Daoists distinguish between earth immortals and heavenly ones: the former do not die but continue living on earth for many years; the latter do not die either but ascend into heaven, altogether more prestigious. The process comes in two forms: first, it may involve the eternity of the hun (魂, “heavenly/spirit soul”) which—unlike the po (魄 “skeleton/material soul”) that stays with the corpse—can detach from the body.2 Bai Lixuan notes, “The transformation of wings occurs when a master of Dao leaves the human world. His soul escapes from his body and 2 Laywoman Zhu describes the Daoist understanding of the souls: “According to the Daoist scriptures, there are three hun and seven po souls.” Human beings live through these two groups of spirit entities, each of which is considered complete: one does not distinguish individual hun or po, to the point where people are said to have two major kinds of souls. The translation reflects the characters’ makeup: the word hun consists of the word for “ghost” combined with that for “cloud,” while po has “ghost” with “white” a color which, in this context as Kaltenmark made it clear, is closely linked to the skeleton where reside vital principles as the marrow and the sperm (1960).

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ascends in flight.” The process can also involve an extended existence in the body, preserved by keeping the two kinds of souls together.3 Death is the separation of the two kinds of souls, except when the hun’s departure is only temporary as during dreams or in trance. Immortality has, therefore, a clear physiological dimension. Immortals can either evolve with almost the same body they had in their human existence or release it, obtaining a new skin—a process often compared to the cicada’s shedding of its shell. In the latter case, after the transformation of wings, they move with a body transfigured by immortality. This scenario is suggested by an expression monastics still use: “to become immortal” is “to emerge from the womb and change one’s bones” (tuotai huangu 脱胎换骨), to leave one’s earthly matrix or release one’s carnal sheath in order to transform one’s bones into eternal, immortal ones.4 According to an ancient commentary, it is a matter of “releasing the bones and disappearing in transformation” (jiegu huaqu 解骨化去) as do the dragons whose skeletal remains are occasionally found in the mountains (Kaltenmark 1987: 45). In this context, changing into an immortal means metamorphosis up to the marrow.

Self­Cultivation The quest for immortality implies mastery over the body and its various components. Daoists work toward long life by exercise of “cultivation and refinement” (xiulian 修炼) which means to “practice cultivation” (xiuxing 修行) as well as “cultivate and refine Dao” (xiudao liandao 修道炼道). The transmutation of metals is a strong metaphor for the transformation of bodily energies. The crucial element is cinnabar (dan 丹): a red or vermilion mineral, it is essentially a mercury sulfate (HgS), from which the metal is extracted. Daoist monastics see the cinnabar or elixir field (dantian 丹田) as the center of the body, locating it in the abdomen, slightly below the navel. It is the energetic center, from which qi and essences, i.e., essentially semen and menstrual blood, arise. The goal of the practice is the alchemical “refinement” (lian 炼). Like alchemists refine mercury sulfate into pure mercury, so Daoists strive to refine their body and its composing parts into a level of purity that confers immortal3 Zhu Yueli explains: “The ascension in flight (feisheng) is a term used in Daoist religion to speak about those who succeed in their self-cultivation practices and physically ascend into heaven (routi shengtian 肉体升天) (1993: 192). 4 On another level, tuotai means the “deliverance from the matrix,” the third stage of the alchemical process: the: transformation of the spirit and its reintegration into cosmic emptiness. The adept enters a deep concentration which allows his spirit to exit from the body through the top of the head. See Despeux 1990: 276-78; Eskildsen 2009.

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ity. As other Daoists, Hanzhong monastics distinguish two categories of alchemical practice, yet with vague delimitation and occasional conflation: external or laboratory alchemy (waidan 外丹) and internal alchemy (neidan 内丹). External alchemy means concocting an immortality elixir or taking certain herbs, drugs, or fruits (especially peaches) that confer long life. Because the preparations involve dangerous substances, they require detailed recipes and formulas as well as conscientious and complex procedures. Judging such practices irresponsible and superstitious, the state today prohibits them, but older monastics still remember when Daoists actively pursued them. The Daoists were well aware of the danger, knowing well that there was always an element of risk and the practice could be disastrous (or fatal). The practitioner has to be very careful and not to devote him/herself to laboratory practice alone but needs companions. For instance, the ingestion of mercury in the wrong proportion can provoke uremia, leading to death. There is even a claim that several rulers during the Tang and Song succumbed to such beverages! Similarly, Wengongci followers claim that the death of a local nun at the age of thirty in 1999 was due to an alchemical drink prepared by a colleague: as Laywoman Liang explains, she had fallen ill and her friend hoped to cure her. Still, the fact that even lay followers talk about the making and potentially harmful effects of an elixir suggests that Daoists still concoct longevity potions.

Fig. 27: A monk in his cell, with anatomy boards on the wall (left) Fig. 28: Retreating into a grotto (right)

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Internal alchemy is the main focus of Daoist monastic cultivation today. It works with controlling and increasingly refining the components of the body in “seated meditation” (dazuo 打坐), combined with respiratory techniques and the absorption of qi (fuqi 服气). Supplementary methods include self-massages and dietary practices, such as vegetarianism and fasting, literally the “avoidance of grain” (bigu 辟毂 ) as well as healing exercises, “bending and stretching the body” (daoyin shenti 导引身体 ), and various forms of qigong, taiji quan, and martial arts. The transmutation of the body is what creates long life. Although monks and nuns have different ascetic techniques, adapted to their metabolism and psychology, their goal is the same: to attain “transformation” (bianhua 变化). The methods all serve to alter the habitual behavior patterns of the different components of the body, especially those that animate it: the Three Treasures (sanbao 三宝) of essence (jing 精), vital energy (qi 气), and spirit (shen 神). The idea is that the spirit that gives the individual his or her personality is purely temporary: it is formed at birth through the union of energy from the outside and essence from the inside. It disappears again at death, when the components separate (Maspero 1971: 283). To keep one’s vital factors together, then, is the only way to perpetuate oneself as the same person. Why should one even try to preserve this entity that is so fleeting and bound to disperse? The answer is to bypass death yet keep one’s personality. Some Wengongci members also speak about the potential rebirth of the soul (hun), reincarnating on earth after a certain period in the underworld. Others talk about the annihilation of people in death, the dissolution of the personality through the separation of the two kinds of souls. All agree that only the most evil among the dead are imprisoned in the dark zones of hell to eventually dissolve and disappear, while the immortals—who never return to earth—most likely preserve their personality. Immortality is thus a goal for those who refuse to accept a life without tomorrow. Wu Shizhen outlines the classic stages of internal alchemy. “Refine essence into vital energy; refine vital energy into spirit; and refine spirit into emptiness which then transforms into Dao.” Layman Hu explains that Wu implicitly refers to an ancient work on breath control, the Cantong qi 參同契 (Joining Three into Unity). Others acknowledge that they do not know (nor need to know) the origin of the three stages, since many expressions have passed into the “language of the arts of internal cultivation” (neilian shuyu 内炼术语). The dictionary published by the Daoist Association also mentions them as part of specific Daoist terminology (Min and Li 1994: 779). What, then, is the perfected being like that monastics hope to become?

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Forms of Ascension Daoist primarily hope to push back the limits of human life; they also try to find access to another world, different from the earthly space of humanity and death. Overcoming human limits may occur at the end of mortal life, or more unexpectedly when the immortal “ascends to heaven in broad daylight.” However, scenes of this kind are rarely witnessed, and most monastics speak of reaching the departure point of a journey of no return. “To wander to the immortals” (xianyou 仙游) is an alternative to ordinary death, one that reaches beyond space and time. The transformation of wings is thus associated with a movement, the birdman also known as “winged traveler” (yuke 羽客). These terms are both common in Chinese mythology and frequently used by Daoist masters today. According to some monastics, undergoing this transfiguration, one reaches a special place or paradise, such as the isle of Penglai. Not all monastics describe precisely what the destination of the transformed immortal is, and their vagueness is sometimes intentional. However, all agree that there is a immortal world, clearly distinct from the terrestrial realm. The transformation, moreover, does not necessarily have to occur when one is fated to die. Already the Zhuangzi says, “After a thousand years, tired of this world, the sage leaves, ascends to the immortals, riding a white cloud and reaching the heavens” (ch. 12). Penglai is thus accessible to the seeker from one moment to the next since he or she knows (at least a little) how to fly or ascend into heaven. Still, the immortal does not just vanish without a trace; rather, he or she pretends to die. Hanzhong monastics talk about “faking death” (jiazhuang sile 假装死了). They relate the story of Han Xiangzi who, transformed into Han Yu, rid Chaozhou of demons and monsters, releasing the locals from a terrible scourge. His mission accomplished, he wanted to return to Mount Qinling to find his uncle, but the local population refused to let him go since he was such a good governor. As a result, Han Xiangzi faked his death, received a proper funeral, and had a statue erected in his honor. Only by doing so could he escape from Chaozhou. Henri Maspero describes the faked death of immortals or deliverance from the corpse, “Before they leave, in order not to disrupt the society where death is a normal event, they pretend to die. They leave behind a sword or stick, which appears like their corpse. The mourners cry over it and proceed to bury it” (1971: 284). The subterfuge of leaving a pseudo-corpse behind thus serves to comply with the laws of the country, avoid disruption of the social order, and allow proper mourning to take place. One has to give the illusion that one dies to maintain human order, then can move on to the heavenly prime.

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Return to the Prime Daoist today often combine immortality with ideas of longevity and eternity. For Hanzhong monastics, self-improvement through continuous energetic refinement leads to the intention “to extend one’s years” (yannian 延年), to live “forever” (yongyuan 永远), to reach everlasting youth or “eternal vision” (jiushi 久视)—all ways of saying that they hope to return to the origin, the prime of the universe. Another way of talking about it is to say that one “moves backwards” (nixing 逆行) in order to “return to the pre-celestial state” (fanhui xiantian 返回先天).5 As the Daode jing says, “The movement of Dao is to return” (ch. 40). Monastics today read this in two ways, “reverse the present and recover the origin” (fanben huanyuan 返本还元); and “reverse old age and recover youth” (fanlao huantong 返老还童). To them, the state before creation, literally “Anterior Heaven” (xiantian 先 天 ), corresponds to Chaos Prime (hunyuan 混元 ), a cosmic level before the world formed and the primordial energies divided into yin and yang. Bai Lixuan evokes the Daoist myth of origins and implicitly refers to the Daode jing when he says, “Dao generates the One, the One generates the Two, the Two generate the Three, the Three generate the myriad things” (ch. 42.) In other words, the origin of the cosmos is associated with the power of Dao, that gives unity, which itself becomes the creator of the two principles yin and yang and of the three forces heaven, earth, and humanity, as well as of all beings. To recover the Anterior Heaven, therefore, means to invert the natural process of evolution and entropy: to bring the myriad things back to the Dao. To do so, one must reintegrate the “Two” into the “One,” i.e., overcome duality. Since the human body, moreover, is the world in miniature, one must rediscover—through purification or refinement of gross, impure energies and substances—the irreducible matter that constitutes the quintessence of the planet as well as of our very own being, the core power that confers immortality. Layman Tian says, “Long life is a development of the state of being born.” He means that human life is at one with the world at large. In addition, it is necessary to retrace one’s steps to avoid death, to return to a state close to that of the infant, even the embryo. According Hanzhong monastics, the Anterior Heaven is a state they already knew in this existence, which just has to be rediscovered. Some claim that it corresponds to the fetal period, “when one did not need to eat or drink,” before being born, or even before conception; others think of it as very early childhood. In any case, in the state before creation the perfected sees what he or she can no longer perceive in the state after creation, literally “Posterior Heaven” (houtian 后天): the divinities, the souls of the dead, 5 The character fan 返 indicates a “return” in the sense of inversion, of coming back . It is often used in place of its homonym fan 反.

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and all entities beyond form and color. The Zhuangzi details this state of infancy with reference to Daode jing 55: Can you be as a child, like an infant? The newborn cries all day long without getting hoarse, and that is the perfection of harmony. It will clench its fists all day, without holding a thing, and that is the ultimate in strength. It will gaze all day long without moving its eyes, for nothing outside interests it. It progresses without knowing where, it rests without knowing what it does. It unconsciously mingles with all things, adapting itself to the pulse [of life]. These are the basic rules for preserving good health. (ch. 23; see Schipper 1993, 199)

For Daoists today, childhood is a state of naturalness and spontaneity (ziran 自 然), of being “just so” in one’s own “nature,” matching the demands of one’s deep and original inner nature (xing 性) before one is transformed by the life in society. This is why they talk about seeking the One in themselves, about “guarding the One” (shouyi 守一), a process of going against the flow of ordinary life, of pursuing the counter-current to become perfected. Common mortals go with the natural flow of life toward old age and death, by “following the order” (shunze 顺则) they become “accomplished persons” (chengren 成人), 6 i.e., they fulfill an honest and well-deserved term of existence until they exhaust their given life-energy. Layman Zhu notes, “All things and people in this world start from zero, they begin weak and small, then grow big and prosperous, only to decline before they disappear again; but it is also conceivable to try not to move toward death.” He implies that it is possible to avoid decrepitude and attain no-death, return to the state before creation, attain long life, and realize Dao. The monastics also speak of “returning to emptiness” (fanxu 返虚). Emptiness is a key attribute of Dao, both as cosmic core and human quality. Moving toward a state of emptiness or detachment means embracing the absence of thought, desire, or projects. Besides complete emptiness—of the four great ones: Dao, heaven, earth, and humanity (sida jiekong 四大皆空)—Bai Lixuan also talks about peace, “being free from competition with the common world” (yushi wuzheng 与世无争), and about ataraxy, the “clarity and purity of the six roots” (liugen qingjing 六根清净), i.e., the sense organs and the mind. By moving 6 The accomplished person is typically a candidate for the good death. Even if Daoist masters may consider him inferior to the perfected person who is a candidate for immortality, yet he is certainly the most virtuous among mortals. Another use of the word chengren indicates someone who suffers a bad death and then finds self-recovery in the beyond through exemplary behavior or with the help of rituals conducted by descendants or Daoist masters. The term is used further, if more rarely, to designate someone who reincarnates on the human plane. It connotes adulthood where zhenren implies a return to childhood.

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in this direction as individuals, adepts reach a state Daoists call “nonaction” (wuwei 无为), which does not mean doing nothing but, on the contrary, implies a cultivating an attitude that can be particularly effective, allowing all sorts of realizations, starting with full self-realization. It is a way of doing by not doing and implies an art of self-mastery that consists mostly of no-speech and nojudgment. Hanzhong monastics emphasize that asceticism is an individual and personal endeavor. The presence of others may hinder concentration, stop meditation from reaching its proper results, and impede the encounter with divinities. Still, while certain steps of self-cultivation require isolation, this is not universally the case. For example, while the monastics withdraw to their cells or to the mountains for seated meditation, their fasting or abstention from grains do not necessarily require a cloistered lifestyle. If undertaken in a monastic setting, however, the practitioner may have to rely on his companions for daily necessities. Asceticism practiced mainly by and for oneself does not mean it is impossible to pursue it in community with other monastics or lay followers. Almost at any time and under any circumstances, Daoist monastics can use their various activities, domestic and ritual, to contribute to their quest. Personal life and communal culture connect closely, as does the effort at improving the world at large.

Chapter Eight  Festivals and Services After receiving ordination, the monastic becomes a member of the whole Daoist community and participates in all temple activities. He or she progressively obtains all the relevant knowledge regarding calendar, astronomy, and divination, at the root of the ritual system and the foundation of the festivals. He learns the daily activities of Daoists as he goes along: rituals as much as communal services. Rituals are key activities of the monastic life; collective and performed for others, they constitute the visible face of the religion and mark the monastics’ social connection. Monastics think of the rites as closely linked to (and even part of) their ascetic practices.

The Ritual Calendar While the Gregorian calendar serves as the official way of determining time in China today, Daoist monastics still use the traditional calendar, which counts days and years by the sun and months by the moon. People in rural areas still widely use it to organize the rhythm of the year and the whole country applies it to determine the cycle of religious festivals. The first among them is the Chinese New Year, which remains the most important annual festival in the country. As Daoists everywhere, Wengongci monastics regularly consult the old almanac (lishu 历书), also known as the “Calendar of the Old Yellow Lord” (laohuang li 老黄历). Although sold in the markets and highly popular, not many people know how to use it properly. The almanac gives the lunar month, the solar division of twenty-four nodes, and the sexagenary cycle for each year. Daoist monastics are partially responsible for keeping this calendar active, since they are the guarantors and carriers of ancient calendrical knowledge that is increasingly lost in urban environments. They use it for calculating the auspicious or inauspicious nature of specific days and for determining whether a certain date is favorable for worship, thus planning their rituals and festivals. Reciting the canonical texts, they offer daily worship to the divinities, except on taboo days (jiri 忌日) when they have to abstain from all ritual activity. The temple remains open but the monastics postpone all services lay followers may 189 

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request and do not undertake any form of worship, not even burning incense or lighting candles. Daoists count time in the traditional way with the help of the ten heavenly stems (tiangan 天干) and twelve earthly branches (dizhi 地支). In Hanzhong, taboo days where no work is done include all those designated by the signs wuxu 戊戌, i.e., the 5th heavenly stem and 11th earthly branch, which means the 35th day of the sixty-day cycle. More broadly, especially in the old dunjia 遁甲 divination, the days that included the last two earthly branches, xu 戌 and hai 亥 were taboo because they “signify the remainder” (gu 孤) of the first round of ten heavenly stems (Schipper 1965: 34-35). The modern day of rest (wuxu) thus falls into the middle of the cycle. Other taboo days are Lord Yang’s Bane (yanggong ji 杨公忌); they occur once every twenty-eight days from the 13th day of the 1st lunar month (1/13) onward. Both monastics and lay folk agree that they are funeral days, commemorating the death of a certain Lord Yang whose biographical details are obscure. Various stories circulate. Bai Lixuan claims that he lived in the Southern Song (1127-1279) and died on the day he was appointed to office. Layman Zhu claims that he was a geomancer who died in an accident. Whichever it is, as Bai notes, “the days of Lord Yang’s bane have nothing really to do with Daoism.” However, because they are dangerous and signify a time of potential adversity and calamity, Wengongci monastics use them to have their monthly day off— days “when we do nothing for others.” Many lay followers, too, adhere to this belief and make it clear that one should never get married on such a day. When an important festival falls on a taboo day, the monastics usually change it from a one-day occurrence to one of three days, the common length of big rituals, and declare a day of rest in the middle. For example, in 1998, the Qingming 清明 (Pure Clear) Festival fell on April 5, which was Lord Yang’s Bane. The monastics accordingly started their rituals for the safe passage of the souls to deliverance on April 4 by formally setting up the sacred area and concluded them on April 6 by taking it down. All activities were suspended on the second day. Another way of dealing with the situation is by postponing the celebration. This occurred in 1997, when the birthday of Qiu Chuji (2/19) fell on a day of rest (wuxu). Other dangerous and funeral days also include 7/7 and 7/15, when the doors of hell open to release the souls of the dead to receive big banquets from the living. On those days, and sometimes even throughout the 7th lunar month—called Ghost Month—some temples remain completely deserted with their doors closed. The Wengongci, protected by the exorcistic Xuanwu, does not close but functions at a reduced level. On the 15th day, the residents avert misfortune by performing the Middle Prime ritual, dedicated to the second of the Three Primes (Sanyuan 三元), by burning paper clothing to garb the dead in the otherworld. In contrast to the baneful times, there are also greatly auspicious days that provide wondrous good fortune: the “good days of the yellow way,” i.e., of

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ecliptic (huangdao jiri 黄道吉日). Among them are the days of celebrations of the Northern Dipper (Beidou 北斗). At dusk, the monastics chant its scripture, the Beidou jing, and light the altar are with candles representing the Great Dipper constellation. They keep the temple open later than usual but mostly perform the rites by themselves; lay followers rarely attend the ceremony—some having heard about it, others because they happen to be there at the time. These days are the 1st and 57th days of the sixty-day cycle (jiazi 甲子 and gengshen 庚申) as well as the 3rd and 27th of each lunar month. Jiazi combines the first characters of both stems and branches, and is a mark of renewal and revival. As Laywoman Liang notes, such days favor worship “when one can ask for all sorts of things.”1 Gengshen, on the other hand, close to the end of the cycle, is the time for assessment. According to ancient Daoist beliefs, on this day, the Three Deathbringers (sanshi 三尸), demonic parasites and divine observers that live in the three regions of the body, ascend to heaven to make their report to the celestial authorities, detailing the sins and shortcomings of the person and receiving orders to punish him or her by sickness, misfortune, or death (Despeux 1990: 152-53, Kohn 1995). These days are good for worship, giving a more positive impression to the gods on high. The 3rd and 27th lunar days, on the other hand, are when the Northern Emperor (Beidi 北帝 ), the lord of the world of the dead and manager of the registers of life and death, descends to the earth to inspect the acts and ethics of humanity (Mollier 1997: 347). When several events are commemorated at the same time, moreover, the celebration becomes that much more auspicious. In 1997, Laozi’s birthday on 2/15 fell on a jiazi day—making the occasion very fortunate indeed. These various days of beginning and end, of renewal or examination are always occasions to worship the Northern Dipper—both because of the constellation’s shape which is a receptacle and because of its function as the central administrator of the universe, closely linked with the Northern Emperor and his role as the Director of Destiny. Worship of the Great Dipper brings good fortune to the greater community and serves to ease personal destiny, notably among monastics. During its worship days, they extend the three daily scripture recitations and add a fourth in the night. Sometimes they also take the opportunity of certain auspicious days to perform other rituals.

Community Festivals The greater community, including both parish and monastery, meets periodically at the Wengongci to celebrate “temple meetings” (miaohui 庙会). The tem1 This also holds true for entire years. Thus, the year 184, the jiazi or first year of the cycle, was when a new age was supposed to commence and the Yellow Turbans rose in rebellion. See Levy 1956.

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ple’s mood changes completely at those times, as major crowds invade its quietude. The three courtyards are never empty until nightfall, being most crowded during midday (11 am-1 pm). During very large festivals, the temple is barely big enough to contain all visitors who have come from near and far. Both neighborhood streets and the south-facing esplanade change to accommodate the masses: locals provide a parking lot for bicycles and set up stalls for itinerant merchants who sell souvenirs, ritual utensils, as well as food. The 1st and 15th days of every lunar month, also known as the “days of new and full moon” (shuowang 朔望), are particularly favorable to worship. They are community festivals on “set dates.” Lay followers arrive at the temple in great numbers, some staying from morning to afternoon, others spending only a few hours, yet others just dropping in to pay obeisance to the gods. They traipse through the temple and prostrate themselves before the gods, burn incense and light candles to enhance their prayers, and provide generous food offerings— fruit, peanuts, rice, etc. They also offer cash donations and burn spirit money: bills printed in various denominations by the “Bank of Hell” easily obtained in the small shops nearby or leaves of yellow or silver color paper sold in the temple, which they fold into ingot shapes or dispose as fanned cards. Dedicated lay followers, usually the same people, come to assist the monastics on these days, serving in the worship halls by keeping gift registers and hitting the small gong to punctuate the prostrations. They also welcome visitors, help in the kitchen, and work in the temple shop. These festivals being regular, they soon become routine: the monastics place food orders well ahead of time, and lay helpers leave at night, saying: “See you in fifteen days!” The scripture chanting occurs at the same hour as on ordinary days, but the services involve more officiants and sometimes take more time, when they feel like repeating the chantings one or several times. They also have to manage the lay participants, guiding them in the worship sequence and performing subsidiaries rites for them. Important community festivals usually fall on the new or full moon. The first one is the New Year. A national event, it is family focused, and people get at least a week’s vacation so they can return to their old home. It is also an auspicious time to go to the temple. People come to burn incense, offer cash, burn firecrackers, and make New Year’s resolutions. They also come to buy new objects of worship for protection and to place on their home altar as well as the widespread “parallel sayings” good wishes written in exquisite calligraphy on red paper that are hung on both sides and above the doors of homes, offices, stores, restaurants, and more. People find those composed by monastics or lay Daoists more efficacious than those they can buy in shops, so the monastics have a major demand to fill. Lay people also tend to engage monastics in the performance of rituals to improve and enhance their destiny. In 1997, the monastics claim, they had over ten thousand people over the three days of New Year’s.

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The main events in the Daoist year are three big festivals, known as the Three Primes: Upper Prime (1/15), Middle Prime (7/15), and Lower Prime (10/15). Closely linked to the Three Officials regulating heaven, earth, and water, they mark the beginning, midpoint, and culmination of the agricultural year.2 The first of these, dedicated to heaven, is also called the Lantern Festival (Yuanxiaojie 元宵节); it serves as the official conclusion of the New Year’s celebration. The second, for earth, also matches the Ghost Festival (guijie 鬼节);3 it is the culmination of the Festival of the Dead, which lasts the entire 7th month. At this time, the monastics offer paper garb to the souls of the dead, which they transmit through “transformation by fire,” hoping to still their hunger and appease their wrath. A few days before the occasion, they ask a group of lay followers to help make small paper suits—about 60 cm (2 feet) for pants and 40 cm (1.3 feet) for jackets—meticulously cut from big sheets of colored paper, then assembled with glue. This festival is probably the most important of the three events; it is certainly the most popular. Layman Zhu says, “It is a festival not to miss.” The third of the Three Primes, on the other hand, dedicated to the cosmic power of water, just means that one goes to the temple to pray to the gods for peace and stability. Another group of “set date” festivals is the Eight Nodes (bajie 八节)—the first days of the seasons, plus the solstices and equinoxes—and the Four Beginnings (sishi 四始)—the first days of the 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th months. The Wengongci celebrates them, but more simply than the Three Primes. A popular annual festival is Qingming, the veneration of ancestors through tomb cleaning, celebrated on the 4th or 5th of April, at one of the twenty-four solar divisions. The monastics do not organize any special events at the temple, but perform a ritual for the deceased members of their community and support lay followers in their ceremonies. The rites usually involve tracing a chalk circle on the ground outside of one’s house, followed by the burning of spirit money to support the ancestors in the otherworld. Hanzhong lay people insist that they visit the dead on that day as much as they can— which happens less and less often and is also regarded as not quite as essential since, over the last three decades, cremation has increasingly replaced burial. Nevertheless, there is still a tumulus, a grave or a funeral urn to tend, and on Qingming, people go to sweep it. Some also still follow the old custom and eat only cold food for three days. Others use the time of closer connection to the otherworld to go to the temple and offer prayers to the divinities. In addition, many lay followers choose this day to ask the monastics for special rituals 2 Among the early Celestials Masters, these festivals were linked with community organization, the so-called Three Assemblies (sanhui 三会). See Kobayashi 1992. Today these are different occasions that take place on 1/7, 7/7, and 10/5 respectively (see Min 1986: 95). Celebrating the annual rites to the Three Primes, Daoists sometimes schedule them to start earlier, on the dates of the Three Assemblies, conflating the two sets of festivals. 3 7/15 matches also the Buddhist Ullambana. On the parallels between the two festivals, and the possible influence of the Buddhist on the Daoist, see Teiser 1988: 35-42.

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of passage, aiding the souls of their ancestors. Although focused on the dead, it is thus equally an event of reproduction and creation. The Daojiao dacidian says, “When the myriad things were created, they were pure and clear. This is the root of the festival’s name: Pure Clear” (Min and Li 1994: 885). The Daoist origin myth thus provides, from the standpoint of the monastics, a specific value to the worship of the dead—implying a distinctly different value than that associated by lay followers. Besides, the death of a monastic is considered a transformation, a chance to recover cosmic origins.

Daoist Days In addition to set-date festivals, the monastery also celebrates specific Daoist events, such as the holy days of the gods (shengdan jieri 圣诞节日), that is, their birthdays as divinities. They do not commemorate the death anniversaries of historical people who became gods, because some of them transformed into immortals. Each temple houses some standard figures of the religion as well as certain gods of importance in the local pantheon. The main annual festival in the Wengongci, not surprisingly, honors its ancestral deity, Wengong, coinciding with the main festival of the earth god on 2/2. Additional events depend on the financial position of the temple which, as Zhang Zhifa deplores, does not permit the celebration of all deities’ birthdays as ideally required. In 1997, the Wengongci did not hang lanterns for the Lantern Festival and could hardly afford the public celebration of the gods. The monastics do as much as they can to honor the public festivals and holy days, but they can only organize community meetings for some. On the other hand, they also participate in festivals organized by neighboring temples. Thus, in 1998, a Wengongci delegation went to Lesser Wudang Mountain on 3/3 to celebrate Xuanwu’s birthday and to Dongyuemiao in Longxian village on 3/28 to honor the God of the Eastern Peak. While the birthday of Sun Simiao, the King of Medicines, is on 4/20, Hanzhong custom demands that it be celebrated on Mount Tiantai throughout the 6th month. He Chongdi, abbot of the Doumuguan on the mountain and vice president of the Daoist Association, deplores this, saying that the people’s ignorance led to climatic considerations prevailing over liturgical accuracy. In other words, temples take turns in commemorating Daoist divinities. While the gods’ days provide an occasion to activate the monastic network and pay visits to communal neighbors, the government tends to discourage such activities. Layman Zhu notes that certain festivals get lost in the urban environment and under the constraints of the local authorities. For example, while Hanzhong no longer has the traditional dragon dance parade on 2/2, neighboring Yangxian still celebrates it with dressed-up villagers riding around on decorated trucks and tractors. Villagers surge about in jubilant crowds, there

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are vivacious rituals and boisterous pantomimes—all activities that regional authorities find too folkloric (archaic?) and tend to contain or even to condemn. Daoist festivals have often a specific significance and require unique practices, such a special foods. The Daojiao yifan notes, for example, that at the celebration of the Heavenly Worthy of Primordial Beginning on the winter solstice monastics should eat dumplings or steamed buns. To honor the Heavenly Worthy of Numinous Treasure on the summer solstice they should consume noodles as signs of longevity. On the other hand, there are no special requirement to feast the third or the Three Pure Ones, Laozi as the Heavenly Worthy of Dao and Virtue on 2/15 (Min 1986: 79). The following lists the different occasions celebrated at the Wengongci. It is not exhaustive or immutable, but reflects my observations and the information I have received over the years. Deity Date* Deity Date* New Year.春节 1/1 Emperor of Eastern 3/28 Peak 东岳大帝 Heavenly Worthy of Primor- 1/1 Lü Dongbin 4/14 dial Beginning 元始天尊 winter 吕洞宾 solstice Jade Emperor 玉皇大帝 1/9 King of Medicines 药 4/28 王 6th mo. Heaven Official, Upper 1/15 City God 城隍 4/28 to Prime 上元天官 5/7 Qiu Chuji 邱处机 1/19 Erlang 二郎 6/24 Wengong 文公 2/2 Earth Official, Mid7/15 dle Prime 中元地官 Wenchang 文昌 2/3 Heavenly Worthy of summer Numinous Treasure solstice 灵宝天尊 Highest Lord Lao 2/15 Water Official, 10/15 太上老君 Lower Prime 元水官 Guanyin 观音 2/19 Earth Mother 地母 10/18 Highest Emperor of Dark 3/3 Han Xiangzi 韩湘子 11/9 Heaven/ Xuanwu 玄天上帝 Niangniang 娘娘 3/20 Stove God 财神 12/24 *Using the traditional lunar calendar (nongli 农历) Other festival occasions arise when there is need to reaffirm the socioreligious community and sometime for fund-raising purposes, when the temple needs money for reconstruction or renovation. Then the key issue is choosing a proper event to celebrate and finding a suitable time. Such extraordinary festivals may or may not connect the holy days of a certain deity; they may also honor the founding, inauguration, or reopening of a temple. For example, in

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addition to the festival in honor of Wengong, always early in the year, Hanzhong monastics often hold festivals at one or two other occasions. In the fall of 1995, for example, they feasted the birthday of the Earth Mother (10/18); in late spring of 1998, they celebrated the opening of the upper floors of the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion, inaugurating an empty building, followed by another festival to consecrate the statues a few months later. Such festivals require special organization: they can last between one and three days and are announced through handwritten posters stuck on the outer walls of the temple as well as on those of other Daoist temples in the region, and especially on Mount Tiantai. The monastics also send formal invitations to their Daoist and also Buddhist brethren in the area as well as to lay followers of record—those who have given donations on one or more occasions. They produce most letters on the temple’s manual printing press and ask lay followers to hand deliver them. Some special invitations, such as to local dignitaries, they write by hand on commercially bought cards. Word of mouth does the rest. In general, the monastics do not skimp on advertising: the more visitors they attract, the greater they can make the occasion. Thus, when the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion was inaugurated, the temple invited fellow monastics and lay followers of about fifty local temples. On the day of the event, they thanked their guests for their presence and had the speeches broadcast throughout the temple with the help of rented sound equipment. A troop of lay dancers and musicians performed in honor of the gods: they did not wear fancy costumes or make-up but used various implements, such as big fans in vibrant colors and pompons. In the old days, the temple even had a proper theater stage (yanyi butai 燕佾 舞台), installed permanently next to the main gate outside the temple. Theater troops (yijutuan 佾剧团) doing dances and pantomimes as part of rituals used to perform there. Frequented mainly by locals, it was active throughout the year, on festival days also offering a place for guest performances. The monastics hope to rebuild such a stage soon and already have plans for one; in the meantime, they stage informal performances in a temple courtyard, in the center of a circle formed by the audience. The close connection between theater and ritual, well established from the imperial era (see Johnson 1989), thus continues even today. To sum up, the Daoist calendar includes both a set-date series of festivals and a number of fluctuating events. It includes both Good and bad, fortunate and taboo days. Its festivals vary from temple to temple as well as from year to year. Daoist monastics serve as the guarantors of the traditional way of punctuating time; they transmit their knowledge from master to disciple. Experts in calendar calculation, they help lay followers find the best possible dates for all sorts of events and life changes, one of their key tasks being to know the implications and auspices for every single day and help regulate the rituals of social life. Managers and communicators of the celestial world, they play an important

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role in Chinese society—a role that was officially recognized in the old days and is only socially reaffirmed today.

Fortune­Telling Lay followers may go about worshiping the gods in the temple without consulting a monastic or even without seeing one. They may also go to them and ask for a specific service. Daoists practice fate calculation (suanming 算命) and divination (zhanbu 占卜). They have several methods at their disposal that may also be used by lay followers, such as for example by Layman Zhu who gives consultations at home. The most common method involves the Yijing with its trigrams and hexagrams that consist of two kinds of lines: a solid, strong line that signifies yang, and a broke, weak line that marks yin. The approach of the Eight Trigrams (bagua 八卦) involves two main diagnostic methods, yin and yang: the trigrams of the Six Lines (liuyao bagua 六爻八卦) and those of the Nine Palaces (jiugong bagua 九宫八卦). The Six Lines method (the yin one) involves tossing three ancient coins (with a hole in the center) six times in order to draw the lines of a hexagram as the basis for the master’s reading. The Nine Palaces technique (the yang one) means throwing so-called divination blocks, two half-moon shaped wooden blocks with one flat and one rounded side; they provide “yes” or “no” answers depending on how they fall—one up, one down means “yes,” two sides the same means “no” if rounded or “uncertain” if flat.4 Each monastic fortune-teller uses his or her own preferred method, sometimes combining several techniques. For example, when a lay follower asks a more or less detailed question, the monk may interpret a hexagram after having her throw the divination blocks. Usually fate calculation takes place in private conversation in a cell or as part of a ritual. It may happen during a funeral ceremony, when a member of the deceased’s family wishes to ascertain the best course of action. Then, while several officiants perform the mortuary ritual before a special outside altar, usually set up in the first courtyard near the City God’s statue, the leading priest receives the lay follower in his cell and consult with him. He may take him to the ritual compound and have him throw the divination blocks, then again return to the cell. The response to the question does not come from the monastic but from the invited divinities or the ancestor in the making. Daoists merely serve as mediators between the celestial and earthly spheres, interpreters of the signs given by otherworldly agents.

These ritual objects are sometimes called “wooden signals”(beijiao 杯珓/jiaobei 珓杯); Hanzhong, monastics prefer to call them gua 挂, because, as the monk Yang Zhixiang points out, there are different types made of bamboo, wood, metal, jade, or stone. 4

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Another form of fortune-telling involves “picking a bamboo slip engraved with scriptures” (chouqian 抽签 ). The seeker prostrates before the gods and formulates a question in his mind, then shakes a wooden jar containing ninetyone numbered bamboo sticks, allowing one to rise up above the others. He takes this to the temple attendant who identifies its number and provides the corresponding oracle found in the temple’s divination book, made up of “divine slips” (shenqian 神签),thus relaying and interpreting the gods’ advice.

Fig. 29: Bamboo oracle slips

Yet another way involves the “eight characters” (bazi 八字)—the stems and branches for one’s year, month, day, and hour of birth. On their basis, monastics establish a horoscope for newborn babies but also for anybody at any age, providing guidance as to specific periods of prosperity and danger as well as marking major life events. They can calculate the “great fate” (dayun 大运)—the major changes that will occur in each decade of life—as well as the “future fate” (liunian yun 流年运)—major tendencies over the next few years. As the monk Yang Zhixiang explains, “Fate (mingyun 命运) always has a part on which one can act (i.e., yun, good and bad fortune) and one about which one can do nothing (ming, life’s destiny)” (see Herrou 2010: 140-43). When the need arises, the monastics may also undertake writing analysis: interpreting a Chinese character the seeker picks at random, answering a given question by working on the various parts and possible etymologies of the character, interpreting each part separately and in combination. They use glyphomancy, that is, as they say in Hanzhong, “probing” or “conjecturing” writing (cezi 测字) or, as they say elsewhere, “breaking it open” or “dissecting it” (chaizi

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拆字) (Bauer 1979; Baptandier-Berthier 1991).5 Other fortune-telling techniques of Daoists include geomancy (fengshui 风水) and astronomy or “patterns of Heaven” (tianwen 天文). They use the former to help placing houses in auspicious sites and ensure good fortune through construction, often personally examining the site in question. They use the latter to predict and advise on meteorological phenomena, to change the weather and make it rain. Yet other services include the spiritual activation of small statues of deities that lay followers buy in stores to install on their home altars: they open the statue’s eyes so it can see, its ears so it can hear, its nose so it can feel, and generally animate it by blowing air and light into various vital points.

Disease and Death Another major area where Daoists perform ritual services for the community involves disease and death. They tend not to officiate at births or weddings, although lay followers come to the temple to have their fate calculated to secure an auspicious engagement, ensure fertility, offer prayers for the health of a newborn baby, or enhance the happiness of a young bride. Anytime a family suffers from disaster or when someone has a terrible disease, the monastics hold collective curing rituals called “Prayer for Happiness and the Elimination of Misfortune” (qifu rangzai 祈福禳灾), “Prayer for Peace and Security” (qiqiu pingan 祈求平安 ), and “Prayer for Good Fortune” (qiqiu jixiang 祈求吉祥 ). Formal prayers, offerings, and the burning of spirit money help to overcome the calamity in question. The monastics also warn lay followers of the pollution due to bad deaths, helping them “to avoid pathogenic qi” (bixie 避邪) by means of talismans (fu 符) and incantations (zhou 咒)—in other words, various ritual arts (fashu 法术). To help in cases of disease, some monastics specialize in the “medical arts” (yishu 医术) and become practitioners of Daoist medicine, a combination of ritual practices and traditional Chinese medicine. They establish a diagnosis and prescribe potions made from leaves, roots, or—common in Hanzhong—from the dried bark of orange trees. Just as in classical medicine, they care for and consult with patients, working not just as herbalists but often also as massage therapists and acupuncturists. Some take the patient’s pulse; others resort to physiognomy (kanxiang 看相), the art of reading the situation or even the character of a person through for instance the features of his or her face (mianxiang 面相), to determine how serious what kind of problem is and what remedies might be required. Some of their more ritual healing techniques (such as talis5 On the way a monk uses glyphomancy to deconstruct the character dao 道 in order to attempt to decrypt the enigma it contains, see Herrou 2010: 122-130.

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mans and incantations) are officially prohibited today, but still practiced in secret on occasion. Some healers combine several techniques. For instance, one may decide to draw a talisman suitable for the pain or evil detected, fold it, and order the patient to carry it with him for a certain period. Or else, he may prescribe an herbal concoction he prepares himself that may also contain parts of a talisman: he burns the talisman and mixes its ashes into the compound, then dilutes the mixture in boiling water and has the patient drink it. To support lay followers in cases of bereavement, Daoists, although not involved with the burial itself, perform various post mortem rites that transform the deceased into an ancestor. Like the ancient “summoning the soul” (zhaohun 招魂; Maspero 1971: 236), these rites involve setting up a special ritual space so they can communicate with the dead and provide them with offerings and prayers. Called “Transference and Salvation of the Soul,” they come in several variations, depending on what kind of soul is involved: “transference and salvation of the numinous soul” (chaodu hun 超度灵魂), “the lost soul” (wanghun 亡 魂), or “the orphaned soul” (guhun 孤魂). This reflects the three kinds of souls in Chinese culture. Numinous souls are most common; they are the blessed and beneficent dead. Lost souls have not quite realized or accepted that they are dead because they died suddenly due to accident, suicide, crime, disease, or war. Orphaned souls have no living descendants or are strangers in the area where they died and thus without ritual support. In addition, Hanzhong people mention a fourth kind: the evil dead who caused many wrongs to others while alive.

Fig. 30: Making paper clothing for the dead (left) Fig. 31: Striking spirit money with the of the seal temple (right)

In the old days, Daoists would go to the house of the dead to carry out the ritual. Today, they may no longer do so and only rarely visit the follower’s house, instead performing the ritual in the temple. Both monastics and lay followers agree that the rites are less systematically and less sumptuously performed today. Originally carried out right in the house with the corpse present and within three days of the death, today they are often held far away from the place of death, without any mortal remains, and within an unspecified period. The family of the deceased sponsors the ceremony and picks the date.

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One common choice is to have the ceremony as soon after the death as possible. It is important to act before the hun escapes from this realm and disperses, thus losing its connection with the bodily remains, which house the po. As long as the two kinds of souls are still somewhat together the person of the deceased is still present, that is, he is no longer alive but not completely dead yet. He is still himself for a short transitional period, during which the officiant in some cases may even be able to bring him back to life. Another popular choice is to hold the rites at an auspicious date as determined by the stars and the ritual calendar, so that the souls receive the best possible passage to the afterlife—the best being when the two choices can match. Whenever it occurs, the ceremony is a major rite of passage that requires at least six monastics; it is also necessary that the parents or other close relatives of the deceased are present and actively involved.

Fig. 32: Ritual of “transference and salvation of the lost soul” Fig. 33: The inauguration of the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion

The main purpose of the rite is twofold: it transforms beneficent dead into proper ancestors and saves unhappy dead from suffering while getting them out of hell; it also serves to protect the living from the “fiery mouths” (yankou 焰口) of hungry ghosts and lost spirits. Wang Liqing says, “Daoists are virtuous masters due to their practice of self-realization; they can deliver the souls of the dead from the Dark Pass [hell] where they reside as orphaned souls. Once they go across the Dark Pass and leave the underworld prisons, they are restored to the surface of the earth and can become proper ancestors.” Another way of expressing this is by speaking of a mission of “rescue and extraction of the dead” (jiuba sizhe 救拔死者), the character ba, “to pull out” or “extract,” implying both deliverance and elevation. Perfection, therefore, happens after death with the help of ritual.

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Scripture Recitation Within the monastery, a key service is to the gods, which involves scripture recitation (nianjing 念经), a term used both as a verb to indicate the activity and as a noun to designate the rite. At the core of all Daoist liturgical activity, it forms the foundation of the three daily services (morning, noon, and evening), of the consecration rite of the Northern Dipper, and also of the rituals celebrated during festivals or at the request of certain lay followers. Every recitation focuses on a certain canonical scripture as it is chanted by one or more officiants. The word for “scripture,” jing 经, has multiple levels of meaning: before it came to designate canonical texts—Confucian classics, Daoist scriptures, and Buddhist sutras—it indicated the warp thread of a fabric and, by extension, the various vessels and fluids of the body: arteries, veins, nerves, meridians, even menstrual blood. At the heart of the transmission from master to disciple as well as at the center of community life, the scriptures constitute a weaving link between the monastics, comparable to blood ties in the ordinary world. The rule requires that the morning service (zaoke 早课) occurs during the mao 卯 hour (5-7 am); the monastics recite the Zaotan jing 早壇經 (Scripture of the Morning Altar,” more formally called Zaotan gongke xianjing 早壇功課仙經 (Immortal Scripture of the Teaching of the Morning Altar). The noon service (zhongke 中课) is scheduled during the wu 午 hour (11 am-1 pm); it involves reciting the Sanyuan jing 三元經 (Scripture of the Three Primes), also called Sanyuan gongke zhenjing 三元功課真經 (Perfect Scripture of the Teaching of the Three Primes). The evening service (wanke 晚课) occurs during the you 酉 hour 5-7 pm); it centers on the Wantan jing 晚壇經 (Scripture of the Evening Altar), known also as Wantan gongke xianjing 晚壇功課仙經 (Immortal Scripture of the Teaching of the Evening Altar). On the 3rd and 27th days of the sixty-day cycle as well as on all jiazi and gengshen days, the monastics in addition recite the Beidou jing 北斗經 (Scripture of the Northern Dipper), more formally the Beidou jing 北斗功課真經 (Perfect Scripture of the Teaching of the Northern Dipper). This usually occurs at nightfall, which means around 8 pm in the winter and around 10 pm in the summer. Beyond these four basic books (sipin jing 四品经), they also chant the Huangjing 皇經 (Scripture of the [Jade] Emperor). Older monastics relate that, before the Cultural Revolution, this text formed the center of a midnight service, held at the zi 子 hour (11 pm-1 am), but that this practice is now quite rare. Today this text is used mainly on the 1st and 15th days of the month, during important

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festivals, such the holy days of the gods and the first nine days of the year.6 In some temples, but not in the Wengongci, the monastics also chant the Yankou jing 焰口經 (Scripture of the Fiery Mouths) as part of the ritual that leads the souls of the dead to deliverance—notably during Qingming or when a fellow Daoist undergoes the transformation of wings. Hanzhong monastics use instead the Sanyuan jing, which also serves in healing rites; they also refer to certain other texts recorded in the Daojiao yifan. On the other hand, the scriptures used during morning and evening services are limited to this usage. Scripture recitation varies in duration depending on the ritual’s purpose and the participants’ choice. On ordinary days, most often a single officiant takes on the task of chanting and usually runs once through the sacred text, which takes about an hour. On festival days, three or four monastics are usually active: they determine the length of the services. The festival schedule permitting, they can take their time and chant the noon service (at a time when lay followers are most numerous) for as long as three hours. On the other hand, when they have to accomplish another, more specific ritual such as a soul passage, a healing, or an ordination, they do not hesitate to make an accelerated performance. Scripture recitation has both an external and internal dimension. Most obvious is its visible aspect, designed for the eyes and ears of others and performed in public. Bai Lixuan says, “As regards its external dimension, scripture recitation is an ostensible performance of the religion.” Nevertheless, it is also very much an individual practice that forms the basis of self-cultivation and refinement, done for and by oneself. In effect, it works most potently by merging these two activity levels. Equally called ke, which literally means “lesson,” the services activate both, apprenticeship and asceticism. A foundational practice of Daoism, scripture recitation is an obligatory step for all monastics. It merges the acquisition and assimilation of knowledge with mastery over the body and musical performance. It also requires a basic comprehension of the sacred text—composed in classical Chinese—lest one chant it incorrectly. Since the reading, moreover, is done in a rather monotonous way, it forces the reader to pronounce every word clearly, to punctuate the text properly, and to understand it deeply. Daoist scriptures are obscure and hard to access, compiled to reflect esoteric teachings: even educated Chinese cannot understand them. Their regular, rhythmical reading, then, requires a great deal of concentration. The repeated practice, moreover, affords a progressive comprehension of Daoist doctrine: every new chanting opens additional and deeper layers of meaning. On another note, scripture recitation also requires physical endurance. A performance may last over three hours without interruption; chanters must 6 The Daojiao yifan specifies that on these first days of the year the monastics should chant the Huangjing in the morning and perform a rite of penitential litanies named the [Jade] Emperor repentance Huangchan 皇忏 in the afternoon (Min 1986: 21).

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remain standing, holding themselves upright and perfectly composed. They have to gain strong mastery over the qi, keeping their breathing uniform and deep, lest they cannot hold the rhythm, which can be fast and jerky. Similarly, the repeated sounding of the various instruments demands vigor. In addition, a certain amount of multitasking is needed: someone may well be in charge of both chanting the text and playing one or several instruments. The leading officiant marks the rhythm with his chant and keeps the beat of the music by hitting a wooden fish (muyu 木鱼), alternating it with a bronze bowl or lithophone (qing 磬). All other instruments (winds and strings) follow his lead. Another skill needed is a good memory: the officiant has to memorize the ritual scenario, the variations in rhythm, the modulations of tempo, and the necessary ritual gestures—and that not only for the daily services but also for all kinds of manifold rituals.

Fig. 34: The recitation of the canonical scripture during evening service (left) Fig. 35: Spirit money: bills printed by the “Bank of Hell” (I to IV); bills printe by the temple (V and VI)

Hanzhong monastics see scripture recitation as serving several purposes: to provide an effective rite for lay followers, their family, the community, and the gods, as well as to increase the vital energy of the practitioner. Nevertheless, they see it as less important, from the ascetic point of view, than self-cultivation practices such as, for example, seated meditation. Still, all monastics, even those of old age and high rank, perform scripture recitations from time to time, just as they fulfill the most menial tasks in the community—both being essential to ascetic success as much as more formal or “superior” practices. Scripture recitation and the domestic upkeep form the foundation of everyday life; they maintain the internal order and time structure of the institution, making sure its inhabitants are balanced in life and in harmony with their environment—a necessary precondition for all ascetic endeavors. Those who cannot manage their daily lives are, as Zhuangzi says, like the hermit Shan Bao

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who lived among rocks and drank only water, “Even at seventy years of age, he looked young and had the complexion of a baby. Unfortunately, he encountered a hungry tiger which devoured him. . . Shan Bao cared for his interior, but the tiger ate his exterior” (ch. 19). In other words, preoccupied by his asceticism, he was unaware of the dangers lurking in the environment! It is, therefore, necessary to take good care of both. In addition, the concept of merit, expressed also as the accumulation of vital energy qi, is measured on a scale that takes the practitioners’ social behavior into account. Wu Shizhen says, “One cannot travel on a road unless one has first repaired the bridges.” This means, it is necessary to understand that the constant return to the core values and basic teachings, clearly expressed in these ordinary tasks, forms an essential part of the training. Another basic task is the copying and rewriting of the scriptures; it forms another major portion of monastic life today. At the Wengongci, the monastics are working on a history of their temple, but they also translate certain texts from classical into modern Chinese, from traditional into simplified characters. Some deplore this change. Bai Lixuan, for instance, notes that “the word for ‘love’ (ai 愛) used to be written with the element for heart 心 but is now without it: 爱. How can there be love without heart?” But despite such regrets and despite the occasional tedium of the work, the re-edition of old texts and the compilation of a temple history are of undisputable teaching value. Yet another fundamental job is the study of plants and herbs, in the hope of providing remedies to lay followers and creating alchemical drugs for advanced cultivation. To give one’s time and effort in service to the community, whether monastic or lay, is to provide for the temple’s continued existence.

Fig. 36: Writing ritual text

Fig. 37: Engraving new steles

In all these various activities, tasks undertaken for others and those done for oneself interlock and even merge in a pattern like yin-yang symbol. To pursue long life, one must refine body and spirit. Simple domestic tasks, communal services, and scholarly studies all offer invaluable opportunities for selfcultivation. In return, asceticism has its own practical rewards. For one, it con-

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tributes to the success of rituals: the more worthy the officers are, the more efficacious is their intervention with the gods. For another, it enhances the harmonious functioning of the community: the quieter and self-contained its members are, the less tension is there within the monastery. Whether done for others or for oneself, the various service activities aid overall balance and enhance group cohesion. Ordinary and ritual activities have no defined priority because both are essential to temple life. They all depend on who does them— yet they also bestow merit, subsistence, economic health, and social status.

Community Structure Wengongci residents undertake their daily tasks in accordance with a rather laid-back roster, as opposed to the rigorous schedules of the big monastic centers. Each has a specific job, whether in housekeeping or in ritual. Thus, Zhang Zhifa serves as abbot with all the obligations that entails. His assistant Bai Lixin is in charge of scripture recitation in the two first courtyards, i.e., in the halls of Wengong and Xuanwu; he has the keys to their sanctuaries and makes sure they are clean and in good order. Wu Congqing has the same job with regard to the Jade Emperor’s Pavilion; Yang Lixian has been in charge of accounts and supplies for the longest time, while Yuan Zhilin manages the ritual calendar and Yang Zhixiang handles the temple literature (historical compilations, ritual documents, study materials). Anytime someone leaves to travel or moves on to another institution, new people take on these responsibilities. In addition, while junior Daoists take care of the majority of routine housekeeping, many older monastics still help doing ordinary jobs: sweeping, laundry, incense preparation, candle set-up, and so on, without prompting or regulation. Ultimately, the collective management of the temple makes it possible for its residents to devote themselves to scholarly research and ascetic practice. Once the household is in order and the rituals are complete, they have plenty of time for individual improvement. The monastics do not receive personal remuneration for the services they perform on behalf of lay followers but hand over any money or gifts to the abbot or the bursar. Their services are essentially free of charge, but custom requires that lay followers make a donation of some sort to the divinities they address in their prayers. As the monastics serve as intermediaries in providing the rituals, they also receive the gifts. Each follower can give what he or she wants; there is no standardized list of prices for rituals in Hanzhong, as there is in the big monastic centers. Still, in cases of major ceremonies (such as a funeral ceremony, a ritual for happiness and the elimination of misfortune, etc.), the officiant may suggest an appropriate sum. The money received goes into the basic temple fund, which also holds the anonymous donations in the offertory boxes before the gods’ statues and the money lay followers give when they

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register at the temple. The money then goes to procure community needs: food (daily for monastics, on festivals for everyone), residents’ stipends (danfei 单费) and travel expenses (lufei 路费) for the officiants, as well as expenses for temple reconstruction and renovation. Because the Wengongci is a small monastery, the bursar is also the cellarer and plans all food purchases: basic staples (rice, noodles) in bulk, vegetables and tofu daily, as required by the menus created by the cook or the monastic in charge. In addition, the residents consume the various food offerings that lay followers bring to the gods (fruit, bread, etc.), after leaving them on the altars for a day or two—depending on temperature and ritual needs. Big monasteries used to have a more structured organization but because there are fewer monastics nowadays having many officers is no longer convenient, and most communities make their own arrangements. In theory, there should be three leading officers in each institution. The first is the honorary abbot (fangzhang) when the monastery has one. By definition a respectable and virtuous elder who ideally has received the highest monastic rank, he serves as the moral and spiritual center of the temple and of the entire Daoist community as well as its public representative; he “guides” his colleagues in Dao and is in charge of major collective consecration ceremonies. The second is the superintendent (zongli 总理), the abbot’s assistant and second in command. The third is the prior (jianyuan 监院), the de facto manager of the monastery, usually of middle age, who ensures the proper observance of the rules and punishes transgressions.7 Unlike in Buddhism, where almost every big monastery has its honorary abbot, in Daoism, there is theoretically only one person in charge of the entire monastic community. From the 1950s until very recently (when Wu Chengzhen 吴诚真 was nominated at the Changchunguan in Wuhan in 2009), there was no abbot because of the break in transmission and the long hiatus in ordinations during the Cultural Revolution. Instead, the prior, commonly called the “family chief in charge of residents” (dangjia zhuchi 当家住持), often serves as the de facto abbot. Whoever the leading officers are, they traditionally supervise “eight major officers” (bada zhishi 八大执事), variously assigned charges in oral and written sources (Min 1986: 12-21) but largely identical with those in the Buddhist monastic structure (Welch 1967: 35). They are: —guest provost (kefang 客房): he receives visitors, lay followers, and pilgrims, and who reports directly to the prior

7 The Daojiao yifan also mentions these three functions (Min 1986: 13-15). ZhuYueli in contrast leave out: the superintendent and places the prior into second position (1993: 103).

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—proctor (liaofang 寮房): also called fighter (haofang 豪房) or inspector (xunzhao 巡照): he maintains order, inspects cells, supervises the worship halls, and handles quality control of all handiwork; —cellarer (dianzaofang 典造房): he supervises food purchases and meal preparation; —registrar (haofang 号房): he manages new Daoists wishing to join, investigates their background, and decides on their admission; —manager of the “ten directions” (shifangtang 十 方 堂 ) or of the “clouds and water” (yunshuitang 云水堂): he installs newly arrived Daoists and integrates them into temple life; —cellarer (kufang 库房 ): he is responsible for purchasing, stocking, and selling various ritual objects and books of worship; —bursar (zhangfang 账房): he manages accounts and financial administration; —scripture master (jingtang 经堂 ): usually a deserving and educated elder of high merit, he is in charge of the liturgical schedule, the daily services, and the ritual performances. This division of labor, clearly structured and shared among the various monastics, governs both the internal life of the monastery—the joint living of the monastics—and its relations with the outside world—the community of other Daoists and visits of lay followers. All Wengongci residents, whether monks or nuns, masters or disciples, long-term residents or traveling Daoists, have to participate in the organization of the whole. They all receive the same stipend of 30 Yuan a month, to be used for personal purchases, such as clothing, shoes, books, medicines, toiletries, and so on, as well as for other needs, such as visits to the public bath, medical services, dental care, etc. All cell furnishings, including bed linens, duvets, crockery, and even their coal braziers, on the other hand, belong to the temple, which either buys them commercially or receives them as donations from lay followers. The two or three bicycles as well as the pull cart used for transporting merchandise are also common property. There is no specific budget for various expense categories. Anyone who wants to travel has to seek official permission for the expense from the abbot who judges the feasibility of the trip. If there are no funds, the plan has to be modified or the monastic has to organize it himself, using personal savings or obtaining the support of some lay followers. At this point in time, temple reconstruction is still a major task, just as basic maintenance entirely the responsibility of the monastics. To collect the necessary funds, they apply to the Daoist Association, encourage donations from lay followers and charitable organizations, and organize large-scale festivals. The temple is neither managed nor financed directly by the local authorities, but they help with infrastructure improvements as, for example, on Mount Tiantai,

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where the municipality constructed the summit road that also serves the Daoist temples. Hanzhong monastics decided to rebuild their temple on a much larger scale, including also a major building with four costly floors. They were hard pressed to purchase necessary construction materials and pay the workers. To keep the work going, they celebrated inaugurations whenever a part of the structure reached completion. Thus, in 1998, they invited the local community to celebrate the completion of the outer walls and roof over the upper floors; in 1999, they feasted the arrival of the Jade Emperor’s statue. The proceeds were over 10,000 Yuan each time. Festivals such as these form a major economic pillar of the temple: they activate the community network and engage human as well as financial support. Receiving the support from outlaying temples and towns, the Wengongci community is also obliged to participate in the various festivals organized by other regional temples: monastics join in the rituals while lay followers help with organization and give donations. The countrywide map of Daoist and certain Buddhist temples thus forms a vast system of exchange based on mutual giving. Seen from another angle, the local economy, too, develops along with temple activities. In nearby streets, shops sell incense, candles, offerings, and other objects of worship, some even specializing in this merchandise. On festival days, itinerant vendors set up little stalls around the temple to sell all sorts of things—all sorts of food, meals, beverages, bird cages, charms, etc. Neighbors construct paid parking lots for bicycles; taxis wait in the vicinity; and so on. Daoist monastics have an organization of their own that is semiindependent, working like a big family and in fact resembling a domestic group. On the other hand, since they are not actually a family—or concerned with family planning—and have no need to apply for government housing, they do not form an actual work unit (danwei). They are also, as much as their Buddhist counterparts, exempt from various taxes and civil duties (Gernet 1995: 31). Still, they are subject to the regulations and control of the Daoist Association, which serves as a danwei by answering for its members and permitting state involvement in monastic affairs. Nevertheless, the Daoist Association might not have as much hold as it expects over individual monks and nuns, because of the freedom they have to travel and to move with relative ease from one temple to another.

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Residence and Hospitality Unlike some Christian monks who take a vow of local stability, Daoist monastics engage in religious travel as part of their required training. To make this possible, monasteries have established a mutual rule of hospitality, known as guadan 挂单, which literally means to “enroll” or “take refuge” in the monastery, and is also shared by Buddhists (Welch 1967: 135). The system goes back far in history, forming already part of the Indian ideal of houselessness. Described in three pages in the Daojiao yifan, the rule of hospitality is simple: any monastic is promptly accommodated in any Daoist temple in the country. They can have room and board for three days as soon as they prove their monastic standing by showing the proper identification in accordance with both the old rules of the religion and the new guidelines of the Daoist Association (Min 1986: 23-25). At the gate of the desired institution, new arrivals request to meet the abbot or, in big monasteries, the guest provost. In the ensuing interview, they have to recite the order’s poem or maybe a passage from the work of the founders as well as show that they know the internal language, garb, gestures, and attitudes required for their rank. According to custom, nobody asks them where they come from, and each is free to talk or keep quiet about his journey. However, lineage affiliation is essential and at the heart of the interview: it is not so much a matter of personal history than of lines of apprenticeship and of generations of officiants. The central concern is to weed out vagrants who don Daoist garb and pretend to be monastics: their admission would offend the divinities, and create a potential danger for both monastics and lay followers. The ritualized welcome thus enhances the monastic community as a secret, confined organization in a setting that is as much material as it is symbolic. Each monastery reserves a number of cells for visiting clergy and provides for them in its budget, allowing for food and drink as well as for a small travel stipend should they be short of money. Those authorized to stay for more than three days receive the same stipend as permanent residents. This system allows the monastics to move around without risking extreme poverty, homelessness, and lack of resources. Able to receive accommodation in practically all Chinese cities, they have multiple residences that are a great enticement to travel. The guadan rule creates a territorial mobility otherwise unknown in China, setting the monastics apart from ordinary people who have to have a “household register” (hukou 户口), which establishes their permanent home and rules their life together with their work unit. As Hanzhong laymen point out, until the massive privatization of houses and apartments in the mid-1990s, it was very difficult to change one’s household register; it still remains a major obstacle to moving. Monastics in comparison often move without undergoing serious administrative formalities. They usually take their time before they install themselves firmly in a temple and become permanent residents. City administrators rarely offer objections to their installation since they are assured work

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and lodging; they also follow the traditional custom that requires free passage for monastics. On the other hand, the civil authorities tend to be reluctant to allow the reopening of a temple, the installation of one or more monastics, and its frequentation by lay followers. Thus, Xu Mingcai had to wait over two years before he could move into and rebuild the small temple Baishigong in Mian County, staying at the Wengongci in the meantime. The feeling of being at home everywhere sometimes comes with a certain degree of detachment. Some monastics accordingly assert that they do not have any laojia 老家—an expression that indicates both “family of origin” and “native soil”—meaning that they left their relatives behind and consider themselves homeless, a sentiment of “leaving the old home” (lixiang 离乡) being a frequent topic in Quanzhen poetry (Goossaert 1997: 124). Daoists generally think of themselves more as earth wanderers than as belonging to a specific region or country. Some place a special importance on their initiation temple and speak of it as their “temple of origin” (laomiao) in analogy to laojia. This may manifest variously: in bouts of periodic return or as the main point of original departure.

Travels Following one’s yuanfen or predestined affinity is both a necessity and a privilege of the monastic life. “Is traveling not inherent in Dao?” asks Layman Zhu, then underlines that the very word “Dao” is composed of the characters for “head,” shou 首, and the radical zuo 辶 for ‘slow walk,’ thus evoking the idea of a journey and a spiritual wandering. The monk Bai Lixuan notes, “Each can decide to leave the monastery when he or she wants, without having to justify the choice or even specify any destination: just announce your departure, pack a bag, and hit the road.” Predestined affinity by definition does not lend itself to planning and premeditation. Departures can be quite sudden, following a decision made from one day to the next. This feature of the institution, moreover, puts a number of monastic rules into perspective since every member has the possibility to leave at any time. Still, people do not come and go constantly, and monastics are not entirely free in their movements. If they were, some temples might find themselves deserted at times and in danger of being abandoned. The responsibility to remain in one place falls primarily on the abbot and his second in command (often his chosen successor) who is in charge when he has to be absent. In addition, to serve the needs of daily management and to maintain community life, the monastics have to work within a certain level of organization and must ask permission from the abbot to leave the temple. According to the Pure Rules, whoever leaves the monastery without permission must prostrate himself before the altar for the time it takes a stick of incense to burn and who

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stays out for a whole night is expelled. Yoshioka explains that absence without leave for over fifteen days will result in irrevocable expulsion from the order, literally the “erasure of the name” (1979: 240). This does not apply at the Wengongci. It has happened variously during my stay that someone left the temple without permission when the abbot was away, for example, or that someone went with permission but stayed away for longer than expected. No punishment followed. The practice of traveling tends to weaken state authority. The local Daoist Association can prevent a monastic from entering a regional institution or exclude him from temples in its county, but it has no power over monasteries in other regions and has no way of letting them know if someone should be barred. It has tried to encourage the use of recommendation letters for people from other areas, but to no effect since they would interfere with the overarching rule of hospitality. Monastics need no recommendation or formal letter to cross the threshold of a monastery; the guadan rule exempts them from any previous approbation and from all intermediaries. It is unique in a society where interpersonal connections (guanxi) are of paramount importance: as the geographer Thierry Sanjuan says, China is “a culture of networks” (2000: 37). The system works because the link among all the Daoist monastics of China is an established fact based on the presupposition that they share the same predestined affinity for the monastic life. It also works because they have common spiritual ancestors and share a link of ritual kinship. On the other hand, certain monastics regret that the spiritual wandering cannot be practiced vigorously any longer. Improvement in transportation having facilitated movement, certain monasteries, such as the Baiyunguan, face such large crowds of monastics that they had to limit the number of admissions for prolonged stays. This also means that permanent residents are becoming reluctant to wander off for fear of losing their place in the temple. Still, monastics still do not divide into two kinds, sedentary and traveling. Rather, there are two phases of the monastic life: wandering and hermitage. These phases intermingle frequently, and most monastics, even if firmly installed in a temple, move about a lot. Wengongci monastics distinguish three kinds of movement. The first are “wanderings of the immortals” (xianyou 仙游) or “cloudlike wanderings” (yunyou 云游), the noblest form, for the purpose of encountering landscapes good for meditation and the wondrous regions of the immortals, such the isles of Penglai. The second are “humble visits” (canfang 参访) in order to “exchange” (jiaoliu 交流) with a master known from hearsay during a sort of initiatory journey. The third are “gatherings of clouds” (yunji 云集—like perching on a tree, which again suggests bird imagery), more commonly called “meetings” (kaihui 开会—obviously a modern term) and convened for various reasons. They may serve to carry out a ceremony for a temple opening; to hold a collective ritual such as an advanced consecration; to help a neighboring temple with an exceptional festival or other important event; to visit as a group a major place of

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worship; to discuss common problems; to participate in symposia or Daoist Association meetings , to name a few (see Herrou 2011). Some of these gatherings bring together tens or even hundreds of monastics. They inevitably take a group photo and each participant duly takes it home, has it framed, and hangs it in the temple’s reception hall or in his personal cell. To attend large-scale community rituals such as the Grand Offering to All the Heavens, monastics often travel in groups and arrive in a procession under the banner of their various temples. In some cases, groups of lay followers go with them and they form a veritable delegation, representing their community. In addition, abbots as a rule have to visit their various subtemples or annexes, for which they are directly responsible. In actual fact, all three forms of travel are closely connected and even confused at times. Whether it is initiatory wandering, ascetic wandering, or occasional travel, each journey can become a chance to do different things besides its primary purpose. It can also contribute to the quest of long life—nobody can ever know what landscapes, what natural features, what people, or what gods one may encounter on the road. Whether an adventure without preset destination or a trip with a precise goal, the monastic form of traveling is an open-ended hike, an aimless wandering, a journey of discovery—looking both for masters and for oneself. In fact, true wandering can take place even without physical movement—in an ecstatic journey, dreams, meditation, or ritual. Then it becomes a form of time travel, a return to the state of cosmic origins, of universal primordiality. In a kind of “virtuous” cycle, the monastics perfect themselves to better serve society; they serve society to better perfect themselves. The distinction between household work, ritual tasks, and asceticism is fine for analysis, but it is not significant in actual living. Monastics follow all these ways jointly and in close connection to accumulate merit and come closer to their ultimate goal of immortal transformation. This, in turn, comes with advanced and even supernatural powers, which increase the potency of helping others and serving the greater community. Daoist monastics aspire to a certain level of mastery over time in its different forms, to be able to act on social time but also on the weather and on local atmosphere—eventually impacting the duration of their own lives.

Chapter Nine  Pseudo­Kinship Structures Daoist monastics say of themselves that they have left the family, but is this really possible? Whether possible or not, on what principles do they found their community? Fieldwork shows their organization, unique and special at first glance, turns out to be comparatively close to that of kinship. Wengongci monastics address each other by kinship terms: there are apprenticeship brothers, fathers, uncles, and so on. The usage of these terms, moreover, is not merely metaphorical: they come with behavior patterns and organizational structures closely modeled on family relations. The monastics thus represent an interesting case of ritual brotherhood, a particular instance of pseudo-kinship bonds and a specific way of reinventing the family model.

Kinship Terminology Wengongci monastics use a wide range of terms to address each other. Rather than applying a unified form of address, they resort to all kinds of different expressions, using them with great care and with proper consideration of their respective rank. The term one hears most often is shifu, used by most monastics but also by lay followers to address the abbot but also anyone perceived as superior. There is, however, a pervasive ambivalence about this. I realized this first in an anecdotic fashion: Layman Zhu, about to look the term up in a specialized dictionary, claimed that the monastics are not called shifu 师父, “apprenticeship fathers,” but shifu 师傅 “apprenticeship masters.” The latter employs a different character with the same pronunciation, meaning “one who transmits” and typically related to practical expertise among artisans, tradesmen and qualified workers. As Zhu notes, it can refer to any master of technique, from carpenters through barbers to taxi drivers and also monastics. They really have no legitimate grounds to be called “father,” since there are no blood ties in the monastery, he says. Somewhat surprised and contemptuous, Zhu finds that, according to the dictionary, “apprenticeship father” is in fact “a respectful title given to Buddhist monastics, Daoist masters, and nuns [of both religions].” He admits that he made a mistake and that the monastics are actually “apprenticeship 214 

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fathers,” but insists that this is not self-evident because its homonym has a more pertinent meaning. The fact that Layman Zhu, a serious and well-educated follower, is confused on this score shows just how specialized—and deceptive—the Daoist language is. Still, the degree to which Wengongci monastics resort to kinship terminology borrowed from ordinary society shows that their system of address reflects terms more than mere “respectful titles.” Some terms commonly employed include, grandson (shisun 师孙, son of the son), elder brother (shixiong 师兄), younger brother (shidi 师弟), father (shifu 师 父); uncle (shibo 师伯, father’s older brother) or shishu 师叔, father’s younger brother), grandfather (shiye 师爷, father’s father); and great-grandfather (shitaiye 师太爷, father-father’s father). Each term carries the prefix “master” or “apprenticeship” before the defining kinship term. The one missing is a term for “apprenticeship son,” which is because the master calls his disciple by his “personal name” (ming), again following the model of the father in the Chinese family and expressing a particularly close and intimate relationship. However, one cannot reduce the monastic community to a pile of masterdisciple appellations, nor is it a mere brotherhood. It is a group that thinks of itself as consisting of several generations, whose “ancestors” (zuxian 祖先 ) came before them in the genealogies. The monastics operate by differentiating generations but they also have subtle ranks within the same generation—yet all these come in terms of traditional Chinese kinship structures. Chinese kinship terminology is one of the most precise in the world. From a comparative standpoint, as Claude Lévi-Strauss notes, “the Chinese system, which allows any kinship situation to be expressed with an almost mathematical exactness, appears to be an over-determined system; and Kroeber has clearly seen that in this regard, it should be contrasted with European systems, with their marked tendency towards indetermination” (1969: 328). 1 In fact, these terms distinguish nine generations plus four collateral degrees. Just as each member of a Chinese family has a special designation, so do monastics. The master’s generation and the chronological order of entry determine group order, giving each one a place and a relative rank. For example, Bai Lixuan is the fourth disciple of Zhang Zhifa as well as the apprenticeship grandson of He Mingshan. In addition, he is the nephew of the fellow student of Zhang Zhifa, the younger brother of Wang Liqing, Deng Lifeng, and Bai 1 Feng Hanyi has studied Chinese primary sources devoted to kinship nomenclature. Its systematic recording goes back to the dictionary Erya 爾雅 (ca. 200 B.C.E.) and to ritual works such as the Yili 儀禮 (On Ceremonies and Rites; ca. 400 B.C.E.). Examining its development from ancient to modern systems, he reviews 338 literary kinship terms (1937: 64125) and diagrammatically shows the architectural structure of the Chinese system. It is based on two principles: lineal and collateral differentiation as well as generational stratification (1937: 20-27). Following Feng, Lévi-Strauss argues that Chinese kinship terminology cannot be the result of a spontaneous and unconscious evolution but “has been fabricated, and fabricated with a certain end in view” (1969: 329). See also Lin-Rosolato 2001.

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Lixin, the older brother of all Zhang Zhifa’s disciples who came after him, the uncle of Deng Lifeng’s disciple, and more. Zhang Zhifa no longer lives with his apprenticeship father but has his own temple nearby. At the Wengongci, monastics call him “family chief”—used as a term of reference—just like a father in an ordinary household. The rank among the monastics, that is to say, corresponds to their relative seniority in the order (or, as the monastics have it, in Dao): Zhang Zhifa’s fellow students who live with him in the temple may have received ordination before his disciple Bai Lixuan, while his other disciple Deng Lifeng’s disciple came after them. This is not quite the same for Zhang Zhifa’ last disciples who are younger in Dao than their apprenticeship nephew. Still, there is again a close parallel to large traditional families where the children of the oldest brother were often older—and more experienced—than the youngest brothers. Besides these terms of address and reference, Daoist monastics use many expressions that evoke the semantic field of kinship. For example, they speak of “family property” (jiachan 家产 ) to refer to the jointly-owned goods the monastery possesses. They are those who have “left the family.” But they also think of themselves as “family” in both senses of the word, whose graph shows a pig under a roof and thus represents the essential agricultural unit of traditional China. “Family” here is the house where one lives, the home; it is also the family as household, as parental group. Thus, when monastics speak of an absent colleague, they say, he “is not at home,” meaning not at the temple. On another level, the Wengongci is a hereditary monastery, literally a “son to grandson” (zisun) institution, which means its leaders are members of the same apprenticeship lineage. The expression “as temples so family” (yimiao yijia 一庙一家 ), used by the monk Fu Xingci, then, means that each hereditary monastery is a similar unit as a lay household. Kinship terminology is the most evident—but not necessarily the most significant—borrowing from family organization. Beyond calling each other by family based appellations, Daoists also live as if they were a family, using certain positions of ordinary life to structure their organization.

Family Life Wengongci monastics claim that Daoist officiants resort to kinship nomenclature for the simple reason that they “are a family.” Wang Liqing adds, “We use these names because we are a united, realized family [yizhijia 一致家].“ The expression “united, realized family” reflects their wish to remain a unique group. It also stresses a particular quality associated with kin as they view it. Some may note that “family” in this context is only a convention but it is obviously more than a mere image or metaphor: a conceptualization deeply rooted in language, it enjoins behavior appropriate to kin.

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The monastics organize themselves around a joint residence and common property; when they enroll in a monastery, they make it their home and register it as such with the state. Following the example of a household, the monastic community works like a domestic group. The members share whatever they receive from lay followers—donations, offerings, remunerations—as well as what they get from the different levels of the Daoist Association, usually funds for reconstruction or repair. Payments for meals, temple buildings, cell furnishings, as well as the monastics’ stipend and health care all come from this collective fund. Beyond using kinship terms to describe the link between officiants, Wengongci monastics also adopt various forms of reverential behavior to which the terms theoretically commit. They behave in accordance with their rank of seniority and, within the same generation, their relative position. The duties of the disciple toward his master resemble those of the son toward his father The monastics say that they behave with filial piety, and treat their master with due reverence and obedience. Disciples generally inherit jointly from their master; the eldest or sometimes a chosen one succeeds the abbot as head of the temple. In accordance with their order of arrival at the monastery, they listen to the advice and directives of their “elder brothers” while supporting and assisting their juniors. They also behave “like parents” when it comes to major life events. Thus, at New Year’s, when ordinary people crowd the trains to return to their old home and visit their parents, the two young monks of the Fengzhengong 奉真宫 (Palace of Reverential Perfection) on Mount Dou 斗山 who study at the Academy return to their old temple, making their master Fu Xingci very happy. Monastics generally have a strong sense of generational continuity, beginning with the founder of their order, again seeing their “lineage” in terms of kinship. Following the model of the family poem (jiashi 家诗) that serves as generational marker in the kinship group, every Daoist order has its own sacred lineage poem (paishi 派诗), a character of which forms part of the personal name of all members of the same generation. Receiving a religious name marks the entry into the Daoist family: it comes with the obligation of worshiping the “ancestors.” While claiming descent from Qiu Chuji, the patriarch of the Longmen lineage, in the 20th to 23rd generations, Wengongci monastics equally revere his master, Wang Chongyang, as well as also Laozi and the first Celestial Master Zhang Daoling. Beyond the genealogy of their monastery, Daoists also belong to a lineage that encompasses the monastics of the entire country, which means that they show solidarity with each other as in a kinship group. They freely travel throughout the country also because they technically have the possibility of being hosted by their many uncles, cousins, and nephews in religious institutions. Wengongci monastics thus connect in a very real way, not just in an idealized kinship.

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Certain sworn brotherhoods idealize the relationship they use as their model (Fine 1992: 196-99). Julian Pitt-Rivers notes that when members of ritual kinship groups employ the language of consanguine kinship, especially brotherhood, they do so “by analogy with the ideal of brotherly love rather than with the reality of brotherly behavior, which opens with sibling rivalry and in time becomes subject to the dissonant demands of new families of procreation and the disintegration of the family of origin” (1972: 412). Unlike outlined in this scenario, Hanzhong monastics reproduce some aspects of social organization and family representation without nevertheless magnifying them. Ordination accordingly signifies a personal engagement in the Daoist way as much as in the communal life at the temple. For some, everyday living was what attracted them first to the monastic life. Thus, as Yuan Zhilin explains, after his daughters married and his father died, he found a new family among the monastics of Mount Tiantai. The same is also apparent when others report that they entered the monastery after encountering serious difficulties in their original family or suffered a major loss. They are quite clear that their native and Daoist families are not of the same nature, yet they readily admit that at a certain moment in their life they chose to replace one with the other. Also, as in a family, monastics engage in disputes, rivalries, and ambivalent feelings, which they do not hide. When the conflict is serious to the point that the contestants violate the rules, the ties can be broken by the erasure of their name from the registers and their deletion from the genealogies. This, too, has a parallel in kinship groups, which may exclude certain members from the family registers: women who become nuns or get divorced, sons who make an uxorilocal marriage and take the name of their spouse, and the like. Nevertheless, generally the links to the monastery are just as durable as kinship relations: they connect the group members, despites the inevitability ups and down in relationships, in a genealogy and with obligations that go beyond the limits of their life on earth.

Pseudo­Kinship The monastic group is an “association” as originally defined by the anthropologist Robert H. Lowie in 1920. The term designates “the social units not based on the kinship factor,” i.e., whose members are related neither through marriage connections nor of blood ties (though some may be intermingled with kinship phenomena) (1920: 257). Max Weber defines “voluntary association” (Ger: Verein) as “an organization which claims authority only over voluntary members . . . with rationally established rules“ (1978: 52). Paradoxically, Daoist monasteries present themselves as a social unit clearly distinct from a kinship group to the point where members have to renounce their kinship formally to join the monastery. They enter because of personal choice, in due accordance with their predestined affinity to follow Dao. Once admitted into the group

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and having undergone its formal rites of passage, they must respect all rules and internal observances under penalty of losing their Daoist name and thus their place in the monastery. A better anthropological category for the Wengongci is “community,” defined as a subdivision of a larger association whose members share the same residence and possess common goods. Daoist monasteries are, therefore, a special form of community: unlike villages and family lineages, they are not determined by birth. This distinction is essential and may even be one of the few common traits among all the different monastic communities in the world. The analogy with the organizational model of kinship, then, makes it possible to understand Daoist communities in terms of pseudo-kinship, that is, as Pierre Bonte notes, a form of “social relations expressed in terms of kinship (of reference and address) without, however, resulting from effectively recognized ties of kinship (created by consanguinity or marriage)” (1991: 550). In other words, they are relations that themselves resemble bonds of descent, affinity, or brotherhood. Julian Pitt-Rivers expands the definition further, explaining that “pseudo-kinship includes those relationships, in which persons are described or addressed by kin terms (or terms derived from the idiom of kin) but do not stand in such a relationship by virtue of the principles, however they happen to be conceptualized, of descent or marriage” (1972: 408.) This pattern is known variously as parallel kinship, fictive kinship, artificial kinship, or quasi-kinship. It can include different social links and institutions such as neighborhood connections, guilds, trading partnerships, as well as adoptions, godparents, ritual coparenthood, compadrazgo, blood brotherhood, fosterage, and milk kinship (Fine 1992). Monastics accordingly use kinship terms that, even if not taken in their ordinary sense, make it possible to create relations and behaviors similar to those in social kinship organizations. A significant fact is that they use both horizontal ties of kinship or brotherly links and vertical ones or links by affiliation. We thus should regard the monastic community as an interesting case of pseudo-kinship and finally of kinship. I thus follow Julian Pitt-Rivers who suggests that, because it is sometimes difficult to distinguish when kinship is artificial and when it is ‘“true kinship” (1973: 90-91), it can be relevant to consider common kinship and pseudo-kinship as two poles of the anthropological field of kinship, with room in between for variant relationships that can be more or less formalized or ritualized. The usage of kinship terms beyond biological kinship limits is comparatively common in China. Hugh Baker notes, “The Chinese applied kinship terms to people who were unrelated to them, and they also had a penchant for organizing non-kin institutions along kinship lines” (1979: 162). The rules of propriety demand that one addresses a friend as “big brother” (gege 哥哥) and a senior person as “paternal uncle” (shushu 叔叔) or “maternal aunt” (ayi 阿姨). On the other hand, one should address a servant with terms appropriate for an inferior or younger person. In this context, kinship names serve to situate relationships of courtesy and respect. Baker explains, “Using these terms was not merely a

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politeness: their use carried the expectation of commensurate respectful treatment” (1979: 163). Kinship terms may also establish a strong link between two people (as in sworn brotherhoods) or cement group cohesion (as in secret societies whose members may exchange blood). Kinship terminology as used in Daoist monasteries, thus, goes beyond simple courtesy and professional links. Unlike sworn brotherhoods, triads, and secret societies, the monastic community is exclusive and replaces effective links of kinship. It goes so far as to supplant the family in a retroactive way by creating systematic histories and genealogies to facilitate transmission and community life, thereby allowing its members to pursue their unique quest. Entering the monastery does not just mean leaving the family; it also means changing one’s residence, name, and ancestry. One loses the connection to one’s blood parents and honors one’s masters to the point of having no other home beyond the temple. This is why, from the standpoint of pseudo-kinship, Wengongci monastics constitute an extreme case. They belong to the pseudodescent line of He Mingshan yet are also members of the pseudo-lineage of Wang Chongyang and of that of the first Celestial Master Zhang Daoling, himself part of the pseudo-clan that goes back to the mythical ancestor Laozi. Here line, lineage, and clan are taken in their minimal sense: the recognition of genealogical links (regardless of exogamy or territoriality) and a commonly known ancestor, whether alive or recently dead (for the line), real (for the lineage) or mythical (for the clan) (Bouju 1991: 152; Copet-Rougier 1991: 421).

Death and Dying Daoists call living monastics “winged masters” and say that their deceased colleagues have undergone the “transformation of wings”—calling them “dead” is a form of blasphemy, since Daoist masters do not die, they transform. It is surprising to notice that these officiants, actively involved in funerary rites and other rituals for the dead, themselves strongly maintain a position of death avoidance. At first sight, there is a fundamental paradox here. Daoists enter the monastery and leave the family, thereby condemning themselves to a celibate life without spouse and children. Being without descendants in the traditional Chinese system means that one will become a hungry ghost, an orphaned soul without ritual support. Pushed by a desire for vengeance and unable to find rest, such spirits are condemned to wander about continuously, presenting a grave danger to the living. This is because, unless one has descendants to worship one’s soul after death, one cannot become a benevolent and caring ancestor. What, then, about monastics who rest beyond common kinship links and are logically destined to become restless dead—a fate after a bad death far removed from immortality and a potentially destructive social force? Could they really be in such an intolerable position: specialized ritual masters of death yet

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restless dead themselves? Actually, they do not face this problem because it is essentially irrelevant. Daoists bypass death altogether—through the transformation of wings they escape the sad fate of becoming uncared-for dead. Moreover, and above all, their practices of self-refinement and belief in immortal transformation create a Daoist level of soul that goes far beyond the ordinary: they transfigure the very essence of their souls. The language bears this out. Daoists after transformation no longer consist of the two forms of souls, but of numen, of spirit-endowment, of pure wonder. In order to signify their quest for the realm of cosmic oneness, they speak of themselves as if they have already gone beyond the duality of ordinary people. From this perspective, the question of beneficent versus harmful dead, cared-for ancestors and hungry ghosts no longer arises. Enjoying a rare privilege, Daoists continue to exist due to their “longlasting” or “advanced” numen (xialing 遐灵). Hanzhong monastics merge this concept with its homonym “auroral” numen (xialing 霞灵), which indicates rosy clouds or red vapors around the sun, the softly colored mist of dawn. Xia means the light of the rising sun whose absorption has been a mainstay of Daoist practice for centuries; it sometimes also indicates the light of the setting sun. Monastics usually get up before dawn and expose themselves to the early light to ingest it. Known as “absorbing the morning light” (fuxia 服霞), this is a key method of self-refinement, in the same way as “abstention from grain” (bigu). Wengongci Daoists sometimes call the immortals “friends of the clouds and companions of dawn” (yunpeng xiayou 云朋霞友).2 They also refer to xialing, be it ”long-lasting” or “auroral” numen, as “immortal numen” (xianling 仙灵) and “perfect numen” (zhenling 真灵)—in other words, indicating subtler and more superior forms of vital energy. The general idea is that all monastics, after passing from this life, go to heaven. The “internal language of the ritual arts” grants them a predisposition toward eternity and a long-lasting numen instead of an ordinary set of souls. Nevertheless, most agree that speaking of the “transformation of wings” for most is just a convention and that only the most advanced Masters of High Merit actually make that transition, the result of many years of accumulating knowledge and practice. The merit realized during the apprenticeship in combination with persistent ascetic practice over many years allows monastics to reach a level of distinction and ascend to the immortals.

2 An immortal by the name of Lingyang Ziming, whose legend goes back to the Han, is said to have followed this procedure: “In the spring, he would absorb the emanations of the sunrise, the orange qi of the sun at the moment of rising. In the fall, he would absorb the vanishing shadow, the orange qi of the sun at the moment of setting. In the winter, he would absorb the white northern qi of the midnight sky. In the summer, he would absorb the perfect yang southern qi of the sun at its zenith” (Kaltenmark 1970: 1238). On the term xia, see Kaltenmark 1987: 135-37.

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Yet even those who behave with moral rectitude but do not excel in selfrefinement move toward a destiny beyond that of ordinary people and will certainly be “accomplished persons” (chengren 成人). Those, however, who do evil and violate the rules incur the same penalties as non-monastics. If they commit crimes, they will be imprisoned and punished in the hells—after having already been expelled from the Daoist community during life and thus facing death like everyone else. The celestial ascension, moreover, of the Masters of High Merit is usually accompanied by an “apparent death” and requires a funeral. Consequently all monastics, independent of merit, receive similar funeral ceremonies as ordinary people. They are given a requiem service, guiding their soul toward salvation, yet everyone knows that they do not actually need it. However, as the monk Fu Zhifa notes, “following the model of the trees, there are [among monastics] those old and young, straight and bent, deeply rooted and shallow.” The ritual may be helpful for some of them. Depending on the level of Daoist quest the deceased has reached, funerary rites ensure his or her passage or consecrate their ascension. They also address another concern: like a smokescreen, they maintain public order, preventing lay people from discerning what exactly is going on. Although they are called immortals, possess a “certificate of immortality,” know the different dimensions of the celestial realm, and should not properly be called “dead,” Daoist monastics not are above the laws of humanity. Of course, they die like everyone else, even if they speak about certain monastics bypassing the process after reaching a high level of refinement and undergoing the transformation of wings. Whatever level they reach, they all challenge death. They avoid becoming hungry ghosts or orphaned souls both by occupying a special place in traditional Chinese eschatology as well as by performing rituals of empowerment. In addition, the pseudo-kinship relations established in the monastery provide them with substitute descendants. Taking the solidarity of the family system as their model, they also borrow the ancestor worship, which assures them of continued services and an existence as beneficent dead.

Monastic Funerals Although no longer part of ancestor worship within their native families, Wengongci monastics receive funeral and other death services. The community steps in where the family is no longer present, each member considering himself connected to the others by links of kinship and thus obliged to worship the dead. They, therefore, celebrate Qingming, cleaning graves and performing rituals that benefit the deceased like ordinary people, but with a slight difference: rather than aiming toward salvation from hell, it guides their “long-lasting numen” to the heavens of the immortals.

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When a monastic passes and undergoes the “transformation of wings,” the survivors hold a ceremony called Escorting to Highest Enrollment (songdadan 送 大单 )—instead of the common Escorting to the Grave (songzang 送葬 ) for ordinary people. It echoes Daoist wanderings and the rule of hospitality, which involves “enrolling in a monastery” (guadan) as a temporary resident. The songdadan ritual sends the deceased off to the supreme refuge in heaven. Zhu Yueli describes it: The monastics wash and clothe the corpse and place him on a bier. Officiants assemble. The abbot burns incense while the monastics prostrate themselves and the master of ceremony chants the praise of the deceased. They form a procession and carry the coffin to the cemetery where they bury it while chanting canonical texts. After they return to the temple, they select an auspicious day to dispose of the deceased’s personal effects in the courtyard and divide them up among the community. On the chosen day, the monastics pick the things they can use, taking them while depositing money on the ground. The proceeds of this Sale of Highest Enrollment (maidadan 卖大单) and anything not sold revert to the community (Zhu 1993: 293). The belief in apparent death explains the insistence on burial rather than cremation, but this is becoming more difficult under current Chinese legislation, which enforces cremation. Daoists still do their best to have the authorization to bury their dead (in general in the mountains), at least for the oldest and more famous ones. Otherwise, they adapt the ritual accordingly, now having their ashes buried in urns. The sale of the person’s effects assures their sharing among his or he fellow monastics. As the monk Huang Zhixin notes, it comes in various forms: sometimes it may become an auction, at other times it may remain symbolic with only tiny amounts of money offered, at yet other times, no money may pass hands. In his experience, he sees the last most often, participants acquiring something they would like to use for free. According to Xu Mingcai, “although the masters are said to have transformed into winged immortals, during the Qingming festival their disciples still go to their graves and carry out ancestral rites, worshiping them like their kin.” The monastics, therefore, substitute for the descent groups and perform rites, which are theoretically characteristic of the family. They thus establish an ancestral line among themselves, another strong, real and concrete pseudo-kinship connection. For instance, Fu Zhian died at the Wengongci in 1996 and was buried on Mount Tiantai north of the city. Because burials within city limits are illegal, the monastics set him up in a tumulus on the mountain, close to the temple of his master, He Mingshan. His disciples as well as his apprenticeship brothers, especially those living near the site, take care of his grave and worship him properly.

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Ritual Kinship Wengongci monastics use kinship terminology in a twofold modification: designating monks and nuns in terms of affine or consanguine relations yet not always matching the real age or sex of the person in question. They have no old home and usually no longer see their former family, yet they maintain a strong identity based on it: they only receive a new personal name, their old surname remains, a core definition of the Chinese kinship group, transmitted in the male line and unchanged even for married women. It may be legally possible to change one’s personal name, but the family name is rarely modified, artists’ pen names and sinicized names of minority people being the main cases (Pimpaneau 1988: 324-26; Alleton 1993: 155-58). For Wengongci monastics, the family name has a different (maybe lesser) value than for ordinary people, but it reminds others that they are not part of a line of descent. Thus, it sets them apart from Celestial Masters Daoists who are married priests and, in their main line, share the family name Zhang 张 as a pledge of transmission of their hereditary responsibility. Monastics take a few liberties with the way kinship terminology usually ranks people according to age. Thus, Bai Lixuan is twenty years younger than his “younger” apprenticeship brother, Fu Lidao. Zhang Zhifa’s fellow students call him “older apprenticeship brother” and “family chief,” while in an ordinary family he would actually be their younger brother or even their son. In the monastery, apprenticeship lines take precedence over the civil order to the point where it supersedes, both in theory and practice, real age seniority. An important axiom that comes with reverential behavior, seniority does not work in the ordinary direction of the term but within the framework of transmission. Gender distinction reveals another unusual way of using kinship terminology, a point that is of great anthropological interest. The nun Yang Lixian introduced me to another nun, saying, “Here is Liu Gaoshan. She is my big apprenticeship brother.” Qualifying the link between officiants as that of brothers may not be specific to the Daoist community, but making the feminine alterego look masculine is unique. The common language of Daoists does not account for apprenticeship sisters, mothers, aunts, or daughters: it reveals a world entirely of men. The women are called by masculine appellations, even though feminine versions of the main terms of address could be coined: “big apprenticeship sister” (shijie 师姐) “younger apprenticeship sister” (shimei 师妹) and “apprenticeship mother” (shimu 师母). However, these are never used.3 Beyond these elementary designations, monks and nuns deal with gender differentiation in an ambiguous manner, thereby creating a reaction to civil society. All monastics partially use kinship nomenclature, favoring not only masculine terms but also those of the patrilineage to designate both men and 3 “Apprenticeship mother” sometimes refers to the wife of a married Daoist master (also called shifu), but the term is not used in the monastery.

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women. As we will see in chapter 10, they explain that, by the way of their appellations they assert a certain primacy of yang over yin. In other words, they modify the kinship terminology of ordinary usage. The fact remains that the way they use kinship as a model and act as if they were kin strengthens community cohesion. Like the connection between father and son, the relation of master and disciple anchors in an old lineage structure, reproduced from generation to generation. It confers a level of legitimacy much like that of blood-lines and involves both rights and duties usually associated with kinship. Most simply, it assures the elementary “trust” necessary for all apprenticeship relations and for the weaving of the extensive network. As Layman Tian says, “There is no transmission without brotherhood.” “As soon as we ask explicitly about the functions of kin relationships, or more bluntly, about the usefulness of kinsmen, a question which kinship theorists prefer to treat as resolved,” Pierre Bourdieu notes, “we cannot fail to notice that those uses of kinship which may be called genealogical are reserved for official situations in which they serve the function of ordering the social word and legitimating that order. In this respect they differ from the other kinds of practical uses made of kin relationships, which are a particular case of the utilization of connections” (1977: 34). Both the uses of the connections one says one has and those one says one cultivates are active in Daoist monasteries but, as Jean-François Gossiaux says, “one of the functions of classificatory or genealogical extensions of kinship [is] precisely to surpass it, even if it means continuing to borrow its language” (1991: 166). Monastics thus sublimate the framework of kinship organization. They borrow it to divert it again immediately, reinvent it and in fact propose yet another vision of kinship.

Filial Piety Bai Lixuan, talking about the “family” in civil society as well as among secular Daoists, says, “This kind of family is of no concern to us.” He continues, “In the bosom of the family, one is embedded in civil society, having a wife, children, and a restricted life, conforming to social norms.” Bai thus sees wife and children as a constraining responsibility and the family as a source of social rigidity, yet also indicates that in his mind there are several or at least two kinds of family. In other words, it is possible to live within a social group in another way, with a different kind of kinship, which is less restricting and which allows the individual to be freer. He adds, “The order of Quanzhen grew first under the Song. Before that time, the emperor did not recognize such an organization, and those who had left the family were like beggars, roaming here and there.” Before that time, anyone wishing to pursue a celibate life had no proper place in society and had to accept the life of a pauper, wandering about and practicing asceticism with great difficulty. The other kind of family, the monastic

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community, holds an intermediary position between ordinary family life with its numerous obligations and the eremitic solitude of the houseless wanderer: it is a form of ritual kinship. The two kinds of family at first glance appear incompatible, but they are not entirely separate because they are mutually dependant. Thus, the break with the origin family remains a thorny and often painful issue for Hanzhong monastics. This has to do mainly with the importance in Chinese society of the “gift of life received from the parents.” Françoise Lauwaert notes that the expression “parents of flesh and bones” is meant literally. Even today, people think that giving one’s own flesh to nurture a parent with an incurable disease is the best remedy and a supreme act of filial piety. “Children, and especially sons, are the same flesh as their parents. Whether by the breath that gives life and the blood that supports it, or by the hair or even by the womb, it is always in references to the biological reality that is expressed the link uniting children to parents” (1991: 109). Once one enters a monastery, he or she replaces the parents of flesh and bones without yet being offensive or disrespectful. The departure for the monastery is like marriage in that it affiliates people with a new lineage, a vaster network. However, unlike marriage, the monastery does not participate in a system of reciprocal exchange. Rather, it ratifies an almost total rupture with the original family and offers an alternative to marriage. Daoists do not think of leaving the family as a way of disavowing their parents, denying the family link, or breaking off relations. As the fifth rule of the Chuzhen jie stipulates, monastics should “not part from their parents of flesh and bones” (buli rengurou 不离人骨肉), in other words, they must not sever their ties, but make sure that “all nine generations [of paternal blood relations] are in harmony.” The precept is clear: monastics are “not to sow discord among their kin,” nor do anything that might “result in disagreement or conflict.” Rather, they must strive “to enhance harmony and dissipate discord” (Min 1986: 57). They stringently should “maintain filial piety,” as the first precept says, yet the reference to kinship remains ambiguous. The commentary to the fifth precept places all the relations of “father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, as well as master and disciple” on the same level. It creates a parallel (or maybe assimilation) between the family of origin and that of the monastery. The commentary to the first precept similarly notes, “To serve one’s master as one’s parents is to repay the benefits of the teaching.” It explicitly extends the definition of filial piety in the Daoist monastic context. “Dedicating oneself to the laborious apprenticeship of Dao . . . is filial piety realized by leaving the family” (chujia zhi xiao 出家之孝). That is to say, there is proper filial piety among monastics, an expression that sounds at first like an oxymoron. The text continues, “To work for perfection and carefully watch one’s deeds is to repay the kindness of birth” (Min 1986: 56). In other words, “not to part from one’s parents of flesh and bones” in devotion and intention is to uphold proper filial piety, especially while accumu-

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lating merit through asceticism and committing good deeds whose benefits will also reach one’s native family. The filial piety of monastics is often called “great filial piety” (daxiao 大孝)-it connects to the celestial powers, on the one hand, and to the nation on the other. It is thus unlike the “little filial piety” (xiaoxiao 小孝) of ordinary people that is limited to the parents. The monastics assert that their original parents are of no concern to them anymore, not unlike a lesson one has repeated many times for better assimilation. They nevertheless suggest that the virtuous and meritorious acts they do in the course of their monastic career will benefit their parents. Those who excel in their practice and attain immortality will bestow immediate advantage upon them, just as Han Xiangzi who not only aided Han Yu during his exile but also helped him to retire in Dao. Some young monastics note that having a relative who is a Daoist master or, even better, an immortal in the family is a great help for becoming a divinity oneself.

True Parents The monastic family, then, replaces consanguine ties with ritual links but this also registers its members in a true genealogy—of a chosen and elective kinship. As Isabelle Robinet notes when speaking of the teachings of Highest Clarity, “The parents of the flesh are ultimately not one’s ‘true’ parents.” She draws a distinction between “temporary parents” and “primary parents” who are “true” (1991: 157). In the Quanzhen context, too the true parents are the monastic ancestors and patriarchs, the inhabitants of the celestial realms, and—more importantly—the essential energies of Dao. Thus, the last stanza of the Longmen lineage poem has the line, “In the Three Worlds, all beings are kin (sanjie dou shi qin 三界都是亲).” The Three Worlds of Daoist cosmology are those of Non-Ultimate (wujijie 无极界), Great Ultimate (taijijie 太极界), and the current world (xianshijie 现世界) in terms of time; they are the realms of Heaven, Earth and Water in terms of space. In ascetic practice, they are the worlds of Formlessness (wuseji 无色界), Form (sejie 色界), and Desire (yujie 欲界). In a wider context, they are the “realms of immortals” (xianjie 仙界) (Min and Li 1994: 79-80). This means that all different beings of the universe share the same origins and are descents of primary energies that created heaven, earth, and humanity. Whether within or beyond what one perceives through his/her senses, all beings come from the same filiation. Whether kin or non-kin in this world, ultimately and among the immortals, we are related. According to the Daoist origin myth in Daode jing 42, humanity was “generated” in the same way as heaven and earth, all brought forth from the two fundamental forces yin and yang, which in turn were came from original oneness emanating from Dao. In the Daode jing, Dao is the mother of all beings

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(wanwu zhi mu 万物之母) (ch. 1). Its practice means acting “maternally” and “playing a female role” (ch. 10). The language of myth, as much as that of asceticism, takes frequent recourse to the vocabulary of procreation—in civil society the foundation of all alliances. The universe thus has an “original father” (yuanfu 元父) and a “mysterious mother” (xuanmu 玄母) who “give birth” to the human being as their “embryo” and make it come to life. And just as they think of creation as the successive unfolding of births, Daoist monastics in their effort to overcome death pursue the reversal of this birthing process. Beyond the question of common origin, Hanzhong monastics also talk about the filiation of immortals: those beings who, in essence, do not reproduce but, after living a very long life, transform to consist of permanent bones, sometimes described as being made of jade or of gold, unless they are born with “immortal bones” (xiangu 仙骨). Then their names are recorded in secret divine registers, the “registers of bones” (gulu 骨录).

Fig. 38: Group photographs of meeting monks on the wall of the reception room

Daoist monastics also transpose kinship into their body. Kristofer Schipper notes, “It might well be that, from the perspective of Zhuangzi, parents and body organs recover the same immediate reality. “Is it not true that, in the inner landscape, father and mother dwell in the kidneys? In other words: the free human being carries his heritage, his kinship and the family organization of which he is a part, within his own body” (1993: 211). Every monastic carries in himself a miniature replica of extended kinship—a multiple family that comes in an infinite variety of registers. He or she has as many families as the universe has levels. As the monastic tends to transform his body, he also endeavors to act on his family of flesh and bones. Substituting a ritual family for the original parents is thus a means to sublimate all kinship. It means not remaining content with what one is by birth but choosing (re)birth through entry into the religion. Wengongci monastics thus form a kinship group that can be considered ritual since it depends on a rite (ordination) for membership yet is also kinship

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because it defines member relationships in kinship terms and refers to the symbolic components of kinship (filiation, procreation, gestation). Consequently, it creates a kind of ritual consubstantiality among members that guarantees the efficacy of ritual performance. It also assures a particular link between them and the divinities or other powers of the celestial world. Their ritual link imitates the kinship connection, whether by consanguinity or by marriage, but it also goes far beyond it. Monastics honor their ritual kin more than their parents of flesh and bones. In the ordination rite, they bind themselves to their masters and monastic ancestors as well as to the inhabitants of the celestial world—divinities, immortals, and perfected. They establish a relation to them in ascetic practice, as well as through integral parts of themselves, the organs and internal qi of their body, which they cultivate as part of immortal refinement. These various ritual parents are different in nature: some remain “temporary,” notably the pseudo-kin of the monastery and the internal parents in the human body; others are long lasting, especially the essential energies of the universe as well as all figures considered immortal. The ritual kinship group, then, has its own system and works with alternative norms. It is possible to have a younger brother who is actually older in years or to call a nun by a male form of address. This united, realized family serves to transcend age and gender and becomes a prelude to the real transformation of self into divinity, which means modifying the yin and yang parts within each.

Chapter Ten  Gender Issues Monastics think of themselves as having passed through and gone beyond all categories of gender, advocating full equality between monks and nuns. They live together in the monastery (on a temporary or permanent basis) and they perform all household and ritual tasks almost equally. Their training encompasses—and diverts—aspects of both sexes: they use names that are all male based, thus placing themselves in the realm of yang; at the same time, they all work toward cultivating a fundamentally feminine attitude and temperament, thus deliberately following the way of yin. They thereby match the representation of yin-yang duality, giving primacy alternately to one or the other. Yet in their ascetic endeavors, they also strive to reduce psychological and morphological distinctions. Their actual behavior reinforces celibacy while certain practices involve the sacred marriage of yin and yang within themselves: this cements the unique life they lead in this world of their own.

Double­Houses Like several other monasteries in the Hanzhong region, the Wengongci houses both monks and nuns. Yuan Xinyi, who lived there before the Cultural Revolution, notes that this was not the case in the old days and that the current situation is not orthodox and may be only transitional. According to him, in contrast to this smaller institution, the big monasteries always served as doublehouses. In contrast to Yuan’s perspective, according to the old monk Ren Fajiu, big monasteries have never welcome nuns. This was his experience at Louguantai, which used to be, and still is, reserved only for monks. As far as I have seen myself, however, this is not the case for all of them: the Baxiangong, for example, is a large institution that houses both. Louguantai, too, makes a few exceptions and has done so in the past even though technically it did not welcome women—as the old nuns Cao Xiangzhen and Zhao Zongyun report. Cao recalls that her master on Mount Hua had to insist that she be admitted to Louguantai under a special permit so she could study medicine. It thus seems that Daoist monks and nuns cohabit in monasteries of all kinds and sizes. According to Vincent Goossaert, this may have been always the case in Quanzhen 230 

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(1997: 127); Livia Kohn has documented it with regard to medieval Daoist institutions (2003a: 80; see also Strickmann 1978, 470). How, then, do the monastics reconcile cohabitation and celibacy? Yang Zhixiang summarizes the ambivalence today, “There is a distinction between Female-Dao [Kundao/nuns] and Male-Dao [Qiandao/monks] because they are women and men. However, as they undertake self-cultivation practices, they are all one.” How, then, does this play out in actual life? In Hanzhong, there are as many nuns as monks. Not differentiated in garb or status, or even in the lines of teaching, they all receive the same monthly stipend and do the same jobs. Nor are there special quarters for either of them: they live in individual cells scattered throughout the temple territory. Having single rooms avoids problems possibly could caused by too much closeness and facilitates ascetic practice. The administrators assign rooms as they become available, to no particular scheme or layout. Thus, in 2000, after spending several days in a guest cell, the nun Feng Gaode received the abbot’s permission to become a long-term resident and received the cell vacated by the monk Bai Lixuan, who had gone on a long trip. Plainly furnished, it is in the second courtyard, next to the cell of the monk Bai Lixin. The latter and Feng are on neighborly terms and regularly eat together. Should she still be there when Bai Lixuan returns, he will get another room. The monastics being highly mobile, there is no firm plan or organization of cell distribution. The spatial organization of the temple does not show a pronounced separation between monks and nuns—the only fully segregated area being the toilets. Bathrooms are not an issue, since the temple only has two faucets: one is the kitchen sink, the other an open spigot in the second courtyard. There, monks and nuns brush their teeth, wash their hands, and fill a basin to cleanse themselves in their cells. Some have a brazier to heat water for washing or making tea. For showers they all go to the clearly segregated public bath in Dongguan, where they mix easily with lay people. Thus, each resident being able to find personal isolation makes cohabitation in the monastery possible. The same pattern also holds true for community organization. According to the rule, monks take on the same domestic tasks as nuns. Yet the rule also says that each has to work according to his or her skill and expertise. In practice, this means that nuns tend to work more in cooking and sewing: they plan food purchases and menus, prepare food during festivals, take care of all clothes making—from choosing fabrics through sewing monastic habits to mending. Still, they do not have exclusive hold over these domains, and one frequently sees one or the other monk cleaning vegetables or washing linens. On the other hand, the monks tend to do more heavy labor and work on reconstruction and repairs. They carry packages of books and merchandise and are more active than nuns when it comes to mountain excursions, on which they carry food and water. They also help lay workers recover bricks from old buildings and engrave stone steles. Yet here again, nuns are not excluded, and one may well

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see them with heavy bags on their back carrying loads to where they are needed and pushing a cart to transport provisions. On the whole, even if monks and nuns have their preferred work areas, all residents participate in housekeeping, gardening, accounting, and other necessary tasks independent of gender. In this respect, the Daoist institution is quite different from other Chinese organizations, which divide tasks more rigidly along gender lines. Just how unusual this is becomes obvious when considering the hardship of women with bound feet. There are still very few elderly lay followers at the temple who had their feet bound during childhood and now hobble about with difficulty, a clear remnant of a time—not all that long ago—when women were in a position of physical and symbolic submission. Even though these practices are part of the past now, even in today’s patriarchal society men still hold a large amount of power.

Ritual Equality Even in ritual activities, the core work of the temple, Daoists observe parity between men and women. Like monks, nuns wear richly decorated ritual robes and participate in daily scripture recitation; they can perform all rites alone or in cooperation with their male colleagues, serving in the same ritual roles as monks and running entire ceremonies, be they funerary, healing, celebratory, or inauguration rites. Until very recently, there was one exception to this general rule: nuns could not become honorary abbots (fangzhang), a special status which used to involve the transmission of a secret only in a male line. The 2009 nomination of the nun Wu Chengzhen has put an end to this tradition. There is, however, some gender-based difference in ritual roles and actions, already documented in Tang sources (Despeux 1986, 67; Kohn 2003a: 134). Men should do things with the left (yang) hand or step first with the left foot, while woman should use the right (yin), as they do more generally for entering a hall of worship or taking a stick of incense. This reflects the common preeminence of the left side for men and the right for women traditional in Chinese society (Granet 1953: 265). Also, the precepts nuns take at their first consecration are not quite the same as those of monks. While both promote basic feminine virtues, such as purity, diligence, and softness, they also warn against excesses that appear gender-specific: women should guard against coquettishness, jealousy, and a desire to have servants; men need to watch out for the temptations of power, financial profit, notoriety, competition, and vanity. The precepts thus aim at moderation and unity; they can be considered equivalent and of even parity. There is no gender-based division of work in the Daoist monastery, whether domestic or ritual, but there is the distribution of roles according to merit. Before reaching the rank of a Master of High Merit, both monks and nuns must pass through all the steps of acquiring wisdom and skills. They must

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serve the community, fulfill household tasks, and become competent at scripture recitation. Only then can they start to learn techniques of body cultivation, take on larger responsibilities, specialize in certain kinds of rites, and devote themselves to ascetic practice. Nuns lay claim to immortality as much as monks do. “Isn’t there a woman among the illustrious Eight Immortals?” Bai Lixuan asks. The immortal lady He Xiangu carries flowers in pictures and stories, showing her femininity (Despeux 1990: 79-82). Their feminine qualities in some cases ensure that women achieved divine status. As Bernard Faure notes, one may object that she was only successful because, according to the legend, she beat the immortal Lü Dongbin at his own game when he tried to rob her of her female essence (1994: 127). Hanzhong monks (notably Bai Lixuan) similarly think that she played a major role in Daoist sexual rites and attained her celestial status with strong merit, having outwitted a male trap and diverted their activities for her own benefit. In the Hanzhong region, only few monastics have attained the rank of Master of High Merit, and most of them are monks. Although they all have the potential, only few nuns have reached this level to date. On the other hand, several nuns—along with the majority of current Hanzhong Daoists—are considered medium deserving. In the temple environment, they are equal and two major criteria prevail (over gender division): the formal entry into the religion that distinguishes Daoists masters from lay people and the acquisition of merit, which establishes a differentiation among Daoists. When Yang Zhixiang notes that his fellow monks and nuns are “all one,” he means two things. In the social register of the monastery, “realizing oneness” (yizhi) indicates both unity within the group as well as realizing oneness, one’s true original being or immortality, in individual and ritual practice. Going beyond the group, this means being united with and “returning to” oneness, merging with the origin of world and humanity. On the one hand, all monastics are brothers, fathers, uncles, grandfathers, and grandsons, forming one familylike body and pursuing the same path. On the other hand, when speaking about “realizing oneness,” they relate back to cosmogony, “Dao generates One, One generates Two. . .” (Daodejing 42). The power of Dao is the foundation of oneness, the creator of the two forces yin and yang, of heaven, earth, humanity, and all beings. To return to the state before creation, they endeavor to invert the process of cosmic unfolding and thus to reintegrate duality into oneness. “Guarding the One” or “maintaining oneness” (shouyi) is a concentration method that, among other things, helps to keep the souls permanently together in the body. According to Max Kaltenmark, when Zhuangzi speaks of immortals whose “spiritual power is made concrete,” he expresses the core of Daoist asceticism. “To immobilize the faculties of the soul like freezing water, like collecting them in a single point. This matches a precept of Laozi: embrace oneness and empty your spirit of all cluttering notions” (Kaltenmark 1965: 117).

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Monastics thus seek to prevent the disintegration of both the group and themselves. Immortals look like human, sexual beings because people shape them after their own image. They are somewhat closer to humanity than angels or transcendent divinities. Originally sharing existence on earth, they undergo an immortal transformation yet preserve their personality throughout, maintaining it for extended longevity if not eternity. Still, beyond all appearances and differences, immortals all have realized cosmic oneness. “Return” (fan), then, means “transformation” (bianhua): the effort of realizing one’s true being, reaching for a oneness that reintegrates duality and ultimately overcoming the gender differences of the body.

Fig. 39: The abbot and one of his female disciples. ÓFrédéric Desportes

Fundamental Differences Daoist monks and nuns quite obviously recognize gender differences, speaking of nuns and monks in terms of yin and yang as Kundao and Qiandao. Qian 乾, which serves to designate monks, in the Yijing is the trigram consisting of three unbroken lines ☰ and corresponding to heaven, head, vigor, father. It is also the first of the sixty-four hexagrams; consisting entirely of unbroken lines, it indicates the momentum, basic dynamism, or active power that causes transformation and movement—a key attribute of heaven. Today, qian also designates the firmament, the male, and the sovereign. Kun 坤, the word used for nuns, in the Yijing is the trigram consisting of three broken lines ☷ and corresponding to earth, docility, womb, mother. As a

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hexagram, it is number two and consists entirely of broken lines. It indicates docile welcome, fundamental rest, and the passive powers of realization, all considered attributes of earth. Kun often designates obedience and submission, traditionally female virtues, as well as woman and the female in general. In other words, monks and nuns are assimilated to the dichotomy of yang and yin, manifesting the Great Ultimate in the monastery. They still work, through ascetic practice, toward erasing their sexual characteristics—semen and penis, menses and breasts—to realize their true being. Secreted essences such as seminal fluids and menstrual blood are at the center of body cultivation and refinement in the monastery. They are stored in the lower elixir field beneath the navel, the energetic core of the person and the residence of the immortal embryo in advanced practice. Mother’s milk, another female essence, playing no role in this is because, as Hanzhong monastics point out, nuns stay single and thus never lactate. It is also because the Chinese in general see it as a derivative of menstrual blood, which transforms into nourishment for the fetus during pregnancy and into breast milk after birth (Furth 1986: 46). Women’s alchemy (nüdan 女丹) accordingly works to sublimate the yin secretions of the breasts and return then “to the southern sea” (heart). These secretions are a “magic grease” (lingzhi 灵脂); they help women in their transformation of their constitution of breaths (Despeux 1990: 207-8). 1 The goal is not to make these essences disappear, but rather to reverse their natural flow for sublimation. To this end, males and females work differently, in accordance with their respective metabolisms. Women have to “decapitate the red dragon” (zhan chilong 斩赤龙) to stop the menstrual cycle; men work to “decapitate the white tiger” (zhan baihu 斩白虎 ) to prevent ejaculation. The cessation of the production of menses or semen means that secondary sexual characteristics recede: the breasts and penis shrink to children’s size. Still, monastics have different opinions about which transformation comes first or generates the other. For example, some nuns say that circular breast massages caused them to stop menstruating; others claim that they reversed their menstrual flow with the help of meditation, which lead first to a decreased flow, then to shrinking breasts. Along the same lines, some monks claim that they made the semen move up along the spinal cord into the brain rather than letting it flow out and thus achieved a retraction of the penis, while others worked it the other way round.2 In some cases, the shrinking of the penis comes with a slight increase in breast size, which, they say, is merely a biological consequence of the practice, a side-effect of hormonal modifications. All assert that they are not trying to invert gender characteristics or sexual morphology. Their transmutations all serve to “nourish life” (yangsheng 养生): they work to transform 1 Vaginal secretions as cyprine, rarely invoked among nuns, constitute another form of these yin secretions. 2 There is no trace of atrophy or castration (Schipper 1993: 128). While Hanzhong monks speak of the retraction of the penis, other sources talk about the shrinking of the testicles (Despeux 1990: 240).

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the body and its composing parts in order to attain Dao and create an immortal embryo. Monks and nuns try to attain oneness both physically and symbolically. While trying to lessen the naturally preponderant yin in women and the dominating yang in men, Daoists maintain the double polarity of male and female and strive to recover their true being. Neither androgynous nor asexual, their position is understood as being beyond gender, having sublimated all characteristics. “Placed in oneness, they are unaware of duality,” as the Huainanzi 淮南子 (Book of the Prince of Huainan) says (Larre et al. 1993: 88). In emptiness, there is no more dichotomy of yin and yang: the One absorbs the Two, oneness contains yin and yang in an undifferentiated state, or as the monk Fu Zhifa says, in a state “without form” (wuxing 无形). Once beyond gender distinctions, one can start playing with them. Many Daoist legends tell of personages who alternated their sexual identity: men appearing as women and women transformed into men. Kristofer Schipper notes that the immortal Wang Zideng was the master of Lady Wei Huacun. He transmitted the Highest Clarity Scriptures to her, a collection that confers immortality upon recitation. Yet in another story Wang Zideng was a jade maiden who announced the arrival of the Queen Mother of the West to Emperor Wu of the Han. Too famous a personage in the Daoist world for this to be coincidence or scribal error, one understands that the immortal intentionally transformed. “Male to transmit a text to a female follower, he changes his sex when dealing with Emperor Wu of the Han” (1965: 59-62). Dongfang Shuo is another “dual personality.” Schipper qualifies him as an “autonomous mediator, since he incorporates opposing elements: profane and sacred, earth and heaven. When he is not asexual (a young child), he is bisexual” (1965: 61). Playing a mediating role between heaven and earth—a contrasting pair that matches male and female—the Daoist immortal has a twofold sexual polarity to the point that s/he can appear at will as a man or as a woman, and is not both at the same time, nor half man, half woman. This sort of body capable of alternating between roles and identities, then, is what inspires Wengongci monastics in their practice of self-cultivation. Mythology frequently refers to the idea of male-female polarity inherent in human beings or of people’s “bisexuality,” a term coined by Sigmund Freud. He proposed the presence of an original bisexuality in all human beings, part of the inherent psychological order and manifest in the fact that each person has both male and female traits (Laplanche and Pontalis 1967: 49-50).3 The question is therefore not one of anatomical bisexuality (androgyny or hermaphrodism) nor yet of behavioral patterns (among people who belong sometimes to 3 Freud explains this theory in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). Thirty years earlier, Charles Darwin had shown that the human embryo embraces two main qualities, male and female in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). Freud describes bisexuality more as a psychic reality, specifying that further advances in biology at a latter date will eventually prove his hypothesis (Roudinesco and Plon 1990: 125).

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the same sex, sometimes to the opposite), but of representations. Hanzhong Daoists play with the idea of bisexuality, physically and socially, to better transcend it in a process of continuous alternation. To do so, they also overcome the traditional Chinese way of thinking of gender and the differences of yin and yang.

Beings of Pure Yang Gender differentiation among monastics is not at all like that of lay people who use sex-based distinctions in their clothing and division of labor. Seen from this perspective, the monastics clash massively with the entire social organization of traditional China. Still, at a symbolic level, they place a higher value on the male (yang), which seems to echo the dominant ideology. Monks and nuns only use male forms of address, and female equivalents play no role whatsoever. While the language could easily coin terms like apprenticeship mother, elder or younger sister, monastics never use them. In addition to being borrowed from kinship terminology, Daoist terms of address are not only male but also exclusively patrilateral ones. Among all the many possible terms, Daoists choose to use for “apprenticeship uncle” the younger brother of the father (shu 叔) when they could just as easily use the brother of the mother (jiu 舅), the father’s sister’s husband (gufu 姑父), or the mother’s sister’s husband (yifu 姨父). By the same token, when they refer to an apprenticeship “grandfather,” they chose the word for father’s father (ye 爷) rather than mother’s father (waigong 外公). They faithfully reproduce the core of the Chinese kinship system and match the overall patrilineal society with its dominantly patrilocal residence. To perpetuate their group, they borrow the (agnatic) line of inheritance, which is used in civil society for official genealogies and ancestor worship. This is, of course, the ethnographer’s perspective. Wengongci Daoists claim that they use male or yang appellations precisely because they are pursuing “pure yang” (chunyang 纯阳), unmixed with any yin. In other words, they try to break the fundamental human law, which determines that there are two sexes needed to guarantee future existence. In Chinese cosmology, this law closely connects to the continued alternation of yin and yang, forces that collaborate harmoniously to maintain the natural and human order. By extension, yin and yang designate death and life. Those extremely on the yin side, those of unadulterated “pure yin” (chunyin 纯阴), are the restless dead and other demons and ghosts, while those of “pure yang” are the immortals. Between them, human beings are half yang and half yin. Daoists in their pursuit of long life strive to diminish their yin and increase their yang, thus hoping to have yang, at least temporarily previously, prevail over yin. Attaining eternal life means to end the continued alternation of life and death and reach only for life.

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Thus, they prefer its symbol. In Hanzhong, this quest of pure yang is at the core of body-cultivation and self-refinement practices. Yang Zhixiang says, “All Daoist make pure yang their true home because yang is associated with heaven and the Great Ultimate.” He thus emphasizes the apparently preferred place that pure yang occupies in Daoist representations. As yin and the yang are originally expressions of shadow and light, Daoists strive to become blazing, radiant beings like the immortals. Yet, as much as pure yang is an end in itself, it is also a means. To become yang, Daoists immerse themselves in all that is yang by, for example, absorbing the energy of the sun or the pure qi of dawn or turning the pupils inward—concrete seats of yang, they are a source of light (Kaltenmark 1965: 177). Since yin and yang, moreover, symbolize female and male, the quest for pure yang means an apparent rejection of yin while adopting all male-based names. Being called such, all monks and nuns think of themselves as beings of pure yang and increasingly supplant all gender categories. In monastic language, the way of yang is that of individual practice. Because of this, monastics choose male terms to designate community members. It is not a form of misogyny nor does it mean that women by necessity must become male before reaching attainment. Here Daoism is different from Buddhism which requires that “the woman has first to become a man” before she can reach full enlightenment (Faure 1994: 122). Wengongci monastics insist that they are all brothers, not brothers and sisters. Matching their vision of the family as a model organization and living expression of realized oneness, all are members of the same lineage and the perfected is a male parent. Of course, nowhere in China or the world are there male-only families, all kinship groups being organized around the bisexual couple as the foundation of alliance and biological reproduction. Still, Daoist monastics propose the alternative symbolic model of an all-male kinship— making their organization unique: to my knowledge, nowhere else are nuns called by men’s names in that (extreme) way even if lots of recluses of other religions resort to family vocabulary too (Herrou and Krauskopff 2009). In catholic convents, for instance, sisters are sometimes named after male saints (Sister Samuel) and monks after female saints (Brother Maria), yet I have never heard of nuns who, like in China, address each other as “Brother” or “Father.” Yang Zhixiang goes even further, “Apprenticeship mothers, elder sisters, younger sisters, and daughters are civil names. Daoists do not use civil names.” In other words, these appellations are unsuitable to designate nuns because they are not (or not anymore) mothers, daughters, and spouses, and thus have given up an essential part of their femininity. However, his comments can also be read from the standpoint of ritual: there is no room in the monastery for women to be the kind of yin that runs the ordinary world. While taking the reasoning to its very end, one may say that Daoists reach for an ideal: to perpetuate themselves without resorting to marriage or procreation, to reproduce another generation of the same and a world of their own.

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Seen from this perspective, Daoist monasticism evokes the Confucian model and its system of adoption as traditionally practiced in China. In ordinary society, it is common to adopt a nephew—the father’s brother’s son (Lauwaert 1991: 2). In that way, adoption is a male affair, or rather one of brothers, which closely reflects the way Daoists think about their organization. Yet it does not mean that the monastic community is conceived as a men’s world or that there is a dissymmetry between masculine and feminine adepts. On the contrary, monks and nuns explain that their system reveals a will toward uniform equality.

Pseudo­Incest Daoist monastics are not the only ones in the greater Chinese civilization to work toward transformation into pure yang. The same goal is also present in lay society, although to varying degrees and with different methods. In an ethnological study of two Cantonese towns, James Watson observed mortuary rites whose object was to exhume and cleanse the bones of the deceased, primarily yang and passed in the patriline, while yet making the flesh disappear, which is of yin essence and inherited from the mother. The preservation of the bones reflects “the conception of the patrilineage as a corporate group of males that exists through time, irrespective of death. The realm of ancestors is thus exclusively male, or yang, in the total absence of women, or the female essence. The androcentric ideology of the ancestral cult is such that Cantonese men seek to create in thought what they cannot attain in life, namely a pure state of maleness—without sex, affinity, or the messy, corrupting necessities of biological reproduction” (Watson 1988: 113-14). In effect, this “androcentric ideology” makes sexual relations superfluous. The same phenomenon also appears among Buddhist monks who, according to Bernard Faure, equally strive “to realize the dream of a purely male lineage that can perpetuate itself without intercession of woman” (1994: 137). More than to a purely male kinship, though, Daoists seem to assimilate their group to a family of yang beings, of potential immortals whose power centers in their bones, ideally made of jade. From a sociological standpoint, their partial and diverted usage of kinship terminology has far-reaching implications and points to deep-seated, underlying cultural intentions. Thus, just as using the term “parent” implies a prohibition of sexual relations linked to incest, all kinship appellations applied in the monastery enhance the prohibition of sexual relations between monks and nuns. While nuns are not men but of yang quality, using male forms of address symbolically, having relations with a monk would mean that two “brothers” or a “father” and “son” mate. Would that not imply the presence of symbolically incestuous relations? Françoise Héritier notes that incest usually implies heterosexual relations. Still, although evoked rarely, sexual contact between father and son, two brothers, or generally among blood relations of the same sex would be the height of

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“combination of the identical,” creating the worst possible effect (1997: 13). The next question is whether the notion of incest applies in sexual relations between two people of the same or opposites sex who call themselves “father and son” or “brothers” without actually being biologically related, yet behaving as such. More generally, can one to talk about incest when there is no exchange of bodily fluids or identical humors, the basic criterion of incest according to Françoise Héritier? As it turns out, in some societies the prohibition of incest extends to individuals who have no affine or consanguine relations but are connected by pseudo-kinship links. Thus, the Chinese consider the adopted son an actual son, both in mourning and with regard to the incest prohibition. This holds true even more when he is the father’s brother’s son and thus shares the same surname and “bones.”4 Similarly, Catholicism supports elective kinship links created through adoption or baptism; it prohibits sex and marriage between adopting and adopted, godfathers and goddaughters, godmothers and godsons (Fine 1998b: 91). The question then arises: are there other types of incest, like spiritual incest, which might characterize certain situations of pseudo-kinship, notably of ritual kinship? Salvatore d’Onofrio, for example, speaks of “incest of the third type” in the context of compadrazgo (1991). Or is it better to reconsider the nature of consanguinity itself? Agnès Fine says If one refuses to reduce consanguinity to links of blood created by birth or engendering a basic legal definition, an otherwise fundamental definition, other essential elements come into play: the transmission of property, the sharing of a surname, the giving of the personal name of an ancestor, co-residence, the daily “nourishment” given to an infant (which matches the obligation to feed aging parents), the exchange of feelings, the duties by the dead, and the prohibition of sexual relations. (1998a: 12-13)

Another question concerns the performative nature of the monastic entry rites, ratifying links and sexual prohibitions comparable to those of kinship. Daoist monastics do not share the same surname or have bodily substances in common. On the other hand, they transmit sacred texts—canonical scriptures used as the registers of old—as much as specialized knowledge and technical expertise. This can be considered a common substance. As Françoise Héritier 4 The Guoyu 国语 (Discourses of the States) from the Jin dynasty says clearly: “Those who have the same name share identical virtue and have the same heart. Having the same heart, their fundamental tendencies are the same. Their fundamental tendencies being the same, they must not get married, even if only distantly related, lest there be defilement” (see Lauwaert 1991: 144). The word used for “defilement” (du 黷) can accordingly be translated as “incest.,” It concerns most of all people of the same surname and from there expands to include all the lineage members who fall within the different mourning-groups: parents in the uterine line and spouses of the consanguineal relatives (Lauwaert 1991: : 146-148.).

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says, “Mystical substances or bodily substances—it makes no difference. . . Relations created by god parenthood are equivalent also to those creates by the hiring of a wet nurse. Here, the Word is a substitute for the milk in creating a community of substance which forbids, for example, marriage among godchildren of a same godfather” (1997: 288-89). The knowledge transmitted in Daoist ordination may well explain the apparent consubstantiality among monastics. Nevertheless, in their case, prohibitions are less concerned with sexual relations than with conjugal life. It is essential that they do not form couples within the community that would create factors of division or give birth to children whose existence would be problematic both for the parents and for the community. What kind of beings would the children of such special personages be? It seems that immortals (the goal of the practice and standard of comparison) in essence cannot reproduce themselves. The relation of master to disciple provides a method of reproduction between generations based on the integration of exogenous elements. Becoming a monastic is primarily a matter of personal choice, and there is little if any proselytism among Daoists. The lay follower must go to find his or her master and show the proper motivation before he can enter the monastery. In actual practice, there may be some exceptions to the rule of celibacy. However, those still belong to the group whose rules demand the renunciation of sexuality, at least in the sense ordinary society uses the term. The fact remains that decapitating the red dragon or the white tiger means being no longer fertile in the sexual sense. As Catherine Despeux says, in the Daoist context the interruption of the menstrual cycle means a return to a state before puberty (1996: 109). Through ascetic practice, monastics transform their body into something almost asexual, making it childlike and closer to the state of ultimate return. Seen from this perspective, the Daoist community at the Wengongci participates in an andocentric ideology that symbolically places it permanently beyond sexuality and biological reproduction.

Sexual Practices A major ambiguity in Quanzhen monasticism is that its Daoist masters observe the rule of chastity while Daoism traditionally promotes sexual relations as a form of ritualized ascetic practice. Monastics are very aware of this: they speak about sexual practices as another way of reaching immortality, which they do not use in accordance with the rules of Quanzhen. Sexual practices, therefore, mark a major difference among monastic and secular Daoists. Among the priests of the Celestial Masters, who for have long represented the majority of Daoists, the “harmonization of qi” (heqi 合气) and the “bedroom arts” (fangzhong shu 房中术) are ancient and codified practices. Like herbal concoctions,

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healing exercises, breathing techniques, and dietary restrictions, sexual practices for them serve as a form of asceticism or ritualized practice. Bai Lixuan defines this “art,” which he himself does not practice, as “making love without letting the essences flow, joining physically without letting go of one’s inner powers.” This is not merely the retention of essence since otherwise, as a Daoist author remarks sarcastically, “if it were simply a matter of not ejaculating, every eunuch would become immortal” (Schipper 1993: 150). Studying these techniques in some detail, Henri Maspero shows how the techniques do not serve the pursuit of pleasure but form an ultimate expression of bodily mastery (1971: 479-589). Controlled and regulated, sexuality is free from eroticism and enticement and serves to reinforce vital energy, enhance it with the help of a partner’s sexual essence.5 Kristofer Schipper notes, “The sacred union does not appear as a goal; it is a means, an act of initiation” (1965: 59). A precisely codified and highly stylized sexual rite formed part of Celestial Masters’ initiation in ancient China. Criticized from an early date and officially abolished by the fifth century, it yet continued and, according to Schipper, was still around in the beginning of the modern era (1984: 207). Furthermore, Daoist sexual treatises spread far beyond the circle of Daoist masters. Robert van Gulik emphasizes that laymen made use of Daoist materials as sexuality manuals, within the limits of being able to decipher these alchemical opus which could be read according to different levels of meaning (1971: 74). Whatever remains of these practices today, they tend to be still well known, including also among Daoist monastics. Hanzhong Daoists explain that historically the “harmonization of qi” was soon limited to the officiant and his spouse and has continued in this format until today, celebrated when two followers get married and at periodic ritual renewals of their alliance. It reproduces macrocosmic phenomena of creation and cosmic transformation at the level of the human microcosm: a sexual rite of passage, it enacts the union of cosmic forces through the body. The union of two followers thereby becomes the true joining of the cosmic forces yin and yang. In the middle ages, when the Celestial Masters conferred the highest level of initiation not on individual adepts but on couples, “during the ritual of ordination, they were supposed to unite their registers, that is, their respective spiritual forces” (Schipper 1993: 150). In other words, Daoist masters through the sexual rite form and reform the inherent pattern of humanity while reassembling the two core forces of creation: yin and yang. Sexual relations accordingly have traditionally played an important part in Daoism. 5 On these rites and their implications (gestures and prayers, choice of participants, etc), notably regarding the fact that it was preferable for a male master to join with a female of pronounced feminine characteristics—not, for example, having a deep, male voice—and, vice versa, for a female master to mate with a strongly male partner, see Maspero 1971: 553578. As this kind of sexual activity was thought as a mystical pregancy, the gestation of the true self, the instructions given to the practitioner insisted that the act should never been consummated. It requires real self-control (Schipper 1993: 144).

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Monastics, on the other hand, tend to prefer celibacy and individual asceticism to guarantee that they do not lose their essence: semen in men, vaginal secretion or blood in women.6 They refuse to procreate, another major loss of non-replaceable energy. As much as the flow of semen diminishes a man’s inner forces, pregnancy does great harm to a woman’s energetic stock: it causes a depletion of vital energies and major loss of qi.7 In addition, as some legends have it, to be pregnant means to lose ritual strength, at least for a time and as Brigitte Baptandier says “real maternity and long-life alchemy, as mirror images of each other, are also marked here by the sign of their incompatibility (2008: 70). From the standpoint of asceticism and communal ritual, it is much better to perpetuate the group through non-biological ways. In the Daoist monastic context, the refusal of marital life means not having biological descendants. The “children” of monks and nuns are thus not of their own flesh and blood, and often do not have the same age as they would in civil society. Yet they are the only ones who, after proper ordination and with the correct Daoist name, can perpetuate Daoist symbolic lineages. Because their physical essence has already matured, moreover, and because they have semen and menses in their bodies, they can undertake ascetic practices. Chastity serves both to maintain the celibacy necessary for these practices and to create the detachment required for spiritual advancement. Highest Clarity Daoists insist that only complete chastity makes “mystical marriages” possible (Robinet 1988: 58). In Quanzhen, violating the prohibition of sexual relations does not necessarily lead to expulsion. Daoists in general do not condemn sexuality either fundamentally or morally. On the contrary, they see sexual energy as “a form of primordial, universal qi . . . a power of new life; in Daoism, this is inseparable from gestation and birth” (Robinet 1988: 52). Some monks today even suggest that sexual relations between followers, if mastered properly, might help individual refinement. However, since monks and nuns are of different level of advancement in self-cultivation and control, it would be too risky to authorize them. The monastic organization as a whole has rules against sexual activities. Worldly life causing the loss of time and qi, monastics also recommend what Zhuangzi calls the “fasting of the heart-mind” (xinzhai 心斋), a purification of the mind since the heart houses the mind, i.e., an emptying of thoughts and feelings. In the monastery, this translates also into celibacy. The monk Wu Shizhen notes that one must not “give in to either sexual or emotional desire if one wishes to guard the One.” He specifies further, “The more one approaches 6 Generally, vaginal secretions and ova are considered less as feminine essences than blood, which constitutes a core energy in women. As Catherine Despeux explains, it echoes the Chinese idea of embryogenesis, according to which an embryo is formed from the blood of the mother and the semen of the father (1990: 216). 7 Among secular masters and lay practitioners, men can find the path of long life by controlling their sexuality, while women get pregnant at the cost of harming their health and vitality . See Furth 1986: 63.

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the One, the less one gives in to desires and of feelings. This also holds true for the attainment of nonaction.” All things unfold themselves: the practice is less about intentional abstinence than about the progressive diminishing of cravings, desires, and affections. From this perspective, then, in this ritual kinship group, chastity or celibacy does not mean the renunciation of any form of “sexuality.” Called qian and kun or “heaven” and “earth” in Yijing terms, monks and nuns go beyond the reality of being sexual men and women, thinking of themselves as cosmic principles that, according to the Daoist myth of origins, came before humankind. In both Daoist representations and Chinese thought, yin and yang flow together in a constant cycle, alternating and interchanging one with the other and together constituting oneness. As already described in the Yijing, they generate each other in a repetitive, circular movement: yang contains essential yin; yin contains embryonic yang. When yang is at its minimum, it transforms into yin; when yin reaches its high point it transforms into yang. Both the Celestial Masters and Daoist monastics agree that it is necessary “to conjoin yin and yang,” since the two forces cannot exist without each other: their connection and continuous flow are essential to all life. While secular masters actualize this unity communally and externally in sexual practices, monastic apply it individually and internally in self-cultivation, as recommended by Wang Chongyang who strongly supported celibacy (Robinet 1991: 222). The union of male and female forces within the individual means realization of Dao within oneself. To this end the perfected sublimate sexuality. The immortal Lü Dongbin, for example, refused to make love to a courtesan, saying, “The yin and yang energies of Anterior Heaven are already joined in my body. The sexual union has taken place inside me, the embryo is already formed. I am about to give birth. Do you really think that in my present state, I still desire exterior sex?” (Schipper 1993: 128). Wengongci monks and nuns thus devote themselves to an asceticism that can be described as an internalized form of sexuality or, as Catherine Despeux calls it, an “imaginary sexuality” (1986: 60). They unite the various sexual forces to create an immortality embryo—“union” taking place either within their own bodies or by connecting to a divinity. This form of Daoist practice is not specific to Quanzhen but goes back to the middle ages, before the first monasteries. Highest Clarity Daoists already connected to celestial companions in sexual relationships (see Cahill 1985). Obviously, to them it was not a question of engaging in carnal frolics—or the “marital act” the Highest Clarity medium Yang Xi talks about (Despeux 1986, 60)—but of a union of sexual and spiritual essence. Celibacy in Daoism is thus sexuality sublimated into hierogamy, entirely incompatible with ordinary sexual or conjugal relations, described as constituting a major source of physical and energetic exhaustion. At the same time, ritual kinship makes it possible for monastics to have children, but again in a way entirely incompatible with biological reproduction. Just as the deified Laozi

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was his own mother (Schipper 1993: 122), so Daoists as beings of pure yang deliberately borrow the way of yin.

The Primacy of Yin Daoists generally place a high value on the principle of yin. Already the Zhuangzi says that yang as located in limitless expansion needs the counterweight of yin with its regressive dynamic, so that the natural balance can be preserved. “If there are only roosters and no hens, how can there be eggs?” (ch. 7). Similarly Bai Lixuan explains, “To perfect oneself in Dao, one must induce yin to attain pure yang.” To pursue pure yang, yin is thus necessary and even essential. As is well known, from the beginning yin generated yang. The Daode jing speaks of Dao as a maternal power, “a mother” or “mysterious female,” the source of all life. All beings, including humanity, are children of Dao understood as a feminine/yin entity, and eternal life lies in the return to the mother (Kaltenmark 1970: 1220). This means that one must realize the female force in oneself. To do so, Laozi invites his followers to cultivate the virtues of yin or pure emptiness. Know the male and keep to the female, be the valley of the world. As the valley of the world, universal virtue will never leave you, And you return to be a small child! (ch. 28)

The “valley of the world” is where everything converges, where all is transformed (Schipper 1993: 203). The female force of yin is thus the object of ultimate primacy; in the outward pursuit of pure yang, it may even be the true goal of the quest. What can be better than extreme yang to take one to ultimate yin and thus to Dao itself? Daoist monastics always cultivate their female aspect. As Isabelle Robinet notes in internal alchemy, “adepts do not need women because they already are women or, as some texts say, because they contain a female inside themselves. They are both men and women, female on the inside and male on the outside” (1988: 63-64). Wengongci monastics accordingly insist on the importance of realizing this double sexual nature—a key factor that distinguishes them from laymen. To find oneness within, Daoists have to carry an embryo to term and become mothers, fulfilling an essentially female function. As Layman Tian says, this is why women progress more quickly in interior cultivation than men, “If guided by a competent master, nuns attain realization more easily than monks.” Because physiological practices of nourishing life focus on the realization of inherent femininity, Daoists believe that nuns are naturally better at this pursuit and that monks have a longer path to traverse. It is also said that because their

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spirit gets calm and stable more easily, nuns apprehends emptiness faster (Despeux 1990: 240). Monks must follow the example of their female counterparts in reintegrating the One and adopt certain aspects of female behavior to cultivate their yin properties. Some monks, for example, squat to urinate. Wei Zongyi explains that, while this is not necessarily the imitation of a female posture, but the consequence of the gradual shrinking of the penis, there are yet numerous female attitudes prescribed for Daoist masters. Even the ancient code of the Celestial Masters, the Laojun shuo yibai bashi jie 老君說一百八十戒 (Lord Lao’s 180 Precepts), prescribes that “one must be cheerful, never raise one’s voice, never stare, carry arms, hunt, or amuse oneself with cars and horses, and, sure sign of antivirility, never urinate while standing” (Schipper 1993: 128). Even today monastics thoroughly disapprove of giving rise to anger and rage, being aggressive, or showing other manifestations of what the ordinary world considers virility. On the contrary, they require discretion in all situations. Monks and nuns should be soft and gentle toward their masters, their colleagues, and other citizens. Yang Yuanzhen recommends a behavior that is quiet and soft, weak and withdrawing (ruo 弱). Bai Lixuan, people say, could easily rise to be a Master of High Merit if he did not have such a quick temper. The nun Heng Zhixia, they say, speaks too much and too loudly; her counterpart Luo Zhijin, they approve, has a deep inner quietude. She notes that before she entered the monastery, she was a boy in a girl’s body. “In the old days, I felt I was man. Now I feel that I am a baby.” The young monk Fu Zhifa says he stopped smoking not only for health reasons but also because it is such a masculine custom in China. Calmness is both a key property of yin, as manifested in the earth and the trigram kun; it is also an essential characteristic of Dao and ascetic practice. “The passive waiting state is appropriate to meditation is also that of gestation” (Stein 1990: 111). In Daoism, the practice of nonaction with its goal of ultimate stillness consists precisely, in Laozi’s terms, of “playing the female role” (Daode jing 10). Daoist monastics strive to transform their body and also their character or personality, which is by far the most difficult. As Zhou Gaode of the Baiyunguan says, “In dual cultivation of inner nature and physical body (xingming shuangxiu 性命双修), inner nature is the heart-spirit and one’s inherent behavior (xintai 心态) which correspond essentially to one’s temperament (xingge 性格) or character (gexing 个性). The physical body, on the other hand, is the living body (shenti 身体) or the flesh body (routi 肉体).” This reflects the specific meaning Quanzhen Daoists give to the notion of ming, better known in its meaning of fate, destiny, or life. Zhou Gaode goes so far as to quantify the work. “The health or physical vigor (jiankang 健康) of the person depends to 30 percent on the physical body (ming) and to 70 percent on inner nature (xing).” It is a great challenge to transform one’s inherent character. Thus, while men are called to behave more like women, both nuns and monks challenge the gender categories prevalent in Chinese society. As Roger Ames notes, “The

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Laozi does not advocate the substitution of a feminine-oriented set of values for the prevailing masculine,” but emphasizes the need to restore the fundamental balance of yin and yang (1981, 32-33). Equality, chastity, singlegendered appellations, and a unified temperament thus are expressions of the sublimation of both male and female characteristics. To explain gender categories, Daoist monastics mix the language of cosmology with that of social organization, speaking variously about the individual and collective levels. They see oneness as realized both in the social and the transformed physical body. Aware of this double conception of oneness, they consider themselves as humans yet also realize themselves as dichotomous and unified cosmic forces. Monks and nuns form a family of potential perfected or realized beings. They divide the inhabitants of the universe into three kinds: immortals, humans, and the dead. Through longevity and other cultivation practices, they assimilate their lives to the immortals and situate themselves beyond gender classifications. Yet, while preparing for the ultimate transformation of immortality, they still have to live among mortals. They thus use the language and categories of this world while yet discreetly transposing it into their idealized perception of the greater universe. On one hand, they value yang, emphasizing the heaven they wish to attain, using patrilineal kinship systems that legitimate their separation from ordinary society and applying pseudo-ancestor relations to enable the transmission of teachings within the group. On the other hand, they accord great importance to yin, the feminine qualities such as quietude and the ability to give birth to the embryo of immortality. However, they also consider that both yin and yang are forces that mingle with each other and continue to change into each other until they reach ultimate oneness. Called qian and kun, they see themselves as representing two different poles, yet they also claim to have attained a state that transcends heaven, earth, and humanity but which is still less than ultimate oneness.

Conclusion At first sight, the Daoist monastics of the Wengongci seem difficult to place or define. They are recluses yet are also active in the world; they cultivate secret practices yet also leave the doors of their monastery open to lay visitors. They use a language of their own yet also employ that of China in general; they transmit knowledge among the initiated yet also teach lay disciples. They propagate Daoism, the indigenous religion of China, yet also adopt certain points from their Buddhist counterparts. That is to say, they are both extraordinary and yet ordinary people. Nevertheless, to observe them properly, one has to reckon with this form of permanent ambiguity as their primary characteristic. However familiar one may think one is with them and however reassuring it is to consult with them about various subjects, they yet remain disturbing personages, surrounded by mystery and engaged in an otherworldly immortality quest that is not merely an abstract ideal but a life pursuit into which they launch themselves “body and soul.” Other disturbing features are their frequent trips that cause them “to appear and disappear” from the institutions, their organization in networks which links them to the monastics of other temples, and their choice of lifestyle that for the most part is opposed to family living. In other words, Daoist monastics contribute as much to local social organization as they put it into question by their liminal position between humanity and Dao, adepts and gods, here and elsewhere, similar and different—or generally between yin and yang. They are in between all these, knowing all the while that these various opposing principles are necessarily complementary, like the two sides of the same coin. Wengongci and other local Daoist monastics, as much as their colleagues in the country at large, occupy a key place in Chinese society, itself undergoing massive changes. They occupy a position both at the heart of society yet outside and beyond ordinary social life, a position that is essentially ambivalent. Comparatively not very numerous in relation to the overall population of the country, they yet play a major role in the religious as well as social, political, and economical organization of the country. On the one hand, they are on charge of essential social rituals, involving calendar sciences, computation of baneful times and auspicious days, calculations of destiny, geomancy, glyphomancy, as well as services in cases of disease and death. On the other hand, they also propose various alternative models and visions in the social, political, economical spheres: in their community-based lifestyle, in the histories and legends they transmit, and especially in their cosmological thought, in their asceticism, and 248 

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long life practices, as well as in their liturgical activities which aim to regulate these spheres. They celebrate regular festivals on the new and full moon as well as on the birthdays of the divinities or the major nodes of the year. Doing so, Wengongci monastics punctuate life in the Dongguan neighborhood and enhance the city’s network of followers. They carry out rituals, provide appropriate counsel, and are patient and willing listeners. They thus help families and individuals through important stages of life. On some days, they are standing in line to be received. Daoist monastics are different from lay people not only through the robes and topknots they wear but also in their fundamental lifestyle and the freedom to travel almost where they like. Thanks to the rule of hospitality of guadan that allows them to stay in any other temple in the country, they live in semi-selfsufficiency, if not in a social structure that is uniquely theirs. In addition, by perceiving of themselves as different yet participating in the current affairs of their fellow citizens, they can sublimate the most basic categories of human life: male and female, identity and difference, life and death. Saying things with half the words, using an encoded and secret language, surrounding themselves— their temple and their life—with a veil of mystery, they surreptitiously challenge society completely. In fact, the local authorities apply themselves to control them or at least to supervise them, suggesting they could hold a force of opposition. Besides, in the long history of China, while Daoism on occasion reached the level of state religion (such as under the Tang), it was for the most part anti-political and suffered persecution or restriction by the powers-that-be. Deeply anchored in the local structures of the country as much today as in the old days, Daoist officiants exercise an authority over large numbers of followers who vary widely in age and social status. The social relevance of their rituals and their general popularity force the government to tolerate them. Refusing to proselytize while advocating pacifism and individual self-cultivation, Daoist monastics do not present a direct danger to the state, yet they have to be reckoned with as quiet possessors of force. The state does not fight against them, unlike other new religions (notably Falungong) who oppose the authorities openly. Nevertheless, just as the messianic and millenarian movement of the Yellow Turbans contributed to the fall of Later Han dynasty in the 2nd century, Daoists today might also be a force that could destabilize the government. After all, they adopted Han Yu into their pantheon after his diatribe against imperial power, which caused the emperor to strip him of all his functions and exile him to the distant region of Chaozhou, infested with man-eating crocodiles and supernatural monsters. It may well have been the great statesman’s frankness, clarity of vision, and tenacity that convinced his inspired nephew, the immortal famous Han Xiangzi, to initiate him into the mysteries of Dao. In addition, Daoist followers like to recall that, at the end of his life, Han Yu preferred retirement in the mountains to return to political action despite sincere imperial invitations. In fact, asceticism here

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appears all the less marginal and inoffensive choice when compared to serving in the highest political functions. In other words, the pursuit of long life—of interest to a much wider circle than merely Daoist officiants—can be even more important than the position of governmental minister. Paradoxically, then, Daoist monastics embody essential values such as quietude, self-mastery, and erudition, yet they embrace a career that (almost) no one in China wants his children or relatives to pursue. They are very much in demand for rituals and help of many sorts; they form models for all and anyone in society, sometimes allotted the status of superior immortals or even deified while still alive. Nevertheless, they pursue a way of life abhorrent to most people, not only because it seems too constraining but also because it is simply unthinkable. Thus, the (relative) material poverty of the monastic life may well discourage many people, yet monastics are not among the neediest in Chinese society. For instance, Wengongci residents have equipped their common rooms in the various buildings quite comfortably thanks to the furniture—they receive from lay followers, numerous if distinctly odd pieces. Being detached from material objects does not mean that they have to live miserably. Actually few people in Hanzhong live in such a vast space, enjoy such magnificent courtyards, live in the city while having close contact with nature, and—even more elementary— have a room of their own. Little by little, moreover, the temple acquires more equipment to improve the comfort of daily life. In addition, monastics receive a monthly stipend that is entirely their own, destined purely for their personal purchases. This money, together with the small gifts that lay followers choose to offer to one or another monastic according to specific circumstances or individual affinities, allows them to fulfill their daily necessities with ease. To the basic rule of self-improvement through refinement means that they have to take care of their body as much as of the spirit. They have to sleep well, eat correctly, and commit to daily hygiene in the effort to live a long life and in the mean-time they have time to practice internal alchemy and seated meditation. Finally yet importantly, monastic life is an open invitation to travel. Although entering the monastic community means that monastics subject themselves to the Pure Rules, their “predestined affinity” (yuanfen) ultimately decides where they go and whom they follow. Their initiatory wandering and overall asceticism create a certain community organization even more so than the monastic structure itself, which—not to forget—was originally adapted from Buddhism. The prime obstacle that keeps people from taking the monastic path, which prevents many fervent followers of Daoism from ever crossing the threshold, is the chujia, the necessity to leave the family. This rule represents a most fundamental uprooting, moving on to a different and unique world—a world of their own—beyond the family system so essential to life in China. Each one dreads this passage from lay society to the monastery: It signifies a rupture of the con-

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nection with one’s parents of flesh and bone—the core essence of individual and social identity. Yet this also means a reverse kind of justice: seen from a sociological perspective, among others, those to whom family links are less important or who are among the less fortunate in society rise to the virtuous rank of Daoist monastics. Many of them come to the monastery because they were unable to find a proper place within their kinship organization. Some simply have no family left, while others have failed to find their role within society due to fragile health or subversive thinking. Orphans, abandoned daughters, divorced women, widows and widowers, handicapped people, terminally or severely ill ones, those rejected or mistreated, gifted or miraculously cured, people on a quest for more knowledge than they were destined to have in their initial situation, social misfits, and all those living in relative poverty—these are the people for whom taking the robe is the lesser evil compared to what they face in civil society. Nevertheless, none of these situations suffices to explain the Daoist monastic vocation. Did the difficulties in a certain phase of life drive the person to the monastery? Or did the inner transformation wrought by these hardships give rise to the vocation? Or again, is turning to religion the inherent way in which the person reacts to adversity, revealing a predestined affinity for the monastic life that has been there all along? The situations and motivations tend to appear in a tangle and, being of a deeply intimate and personal nature, are often kept private among monastics. Their premonastic life, they all say, does not concern them anymore: mourning the separation from one’s relatives is part of ascetic training. In addition, the attraction of long life often presents a strong counterweight to the pain of leaving family and society, to the point where the individual takes the decisive step across the monastic threshold. Hardly anyone ever enters the monastery under pressure: each goes there of his or her own free will, following an adult decision. This is quite different in Buddhism, whose institutions also accept children. Without any condition other than the express motivation of yuanfen, the monastery offers an alternative to one’s situation at birth, to one’s social environment or to an appropriate (or arranged) marriage, to widowhood and other situations beyond personal choice. Aside from having reached adulthood, there are no other conditions to a disciples’ admission by a master: no age limit, no social demands, no economic criteria. The native families are the ones to feel wronged: they often perceive their family member’s entry into the religion as an irretrievable loss. In certain cases, however, his or her departure may help them to escape from a difficult (or even intolerable) social, economical, or moral position. More commonly, however, it remains comparable to the death of a close relative. Once the time of “mourning” is over, however, the prestige and merit accumulated by the monastics will benefit their kinship group. Thus, by becoming true and perfected beings—or even famous immortals—Daoist monastics always pay back the debt they had run up to their par-

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ents when they left them. The attainment of perfection serves as proper reciprocity for the gift of life the monastic received from his parents as well as for all the benefits he or she got from their relatives over the years. For this to have value retroactively, the monastic must traverse a long road and make a life choice that is poorly if at all understood by the people he leaves behind. The latter generally have no doubt about the seriousness of the Daoist career; on the other hand, they usually do not admit just how big the sacrifice is that the monastic requires of his entire family, as if entering into the monastery and leaving the family could be dissociated. By donning the robe, the monastics find themselves in a bind that only asceticism—the fundamental, and probably primary, motivation for their choice of life—can help them to loosen. In the long run, by continuously rendering services to society, they can continue to honor their parents; in the short run, those left behind often see their relative’s departure as a form of betrayal. The three steps that lead from the world to the monastery punctuate this difficult transition from the original kinship group to another context and underline the required identity change. The departure for the Daoist temple marks the separation from the previous status in the ordinary world. The trial period as a novice signifies the liminal phase. Ordination through the Rite of Cap and Gown ratifies the separation from the world while, through the adoption of a new name and rank, it endorses the aggregation to the person’s new status within the monastic community. As the monastics describe it, the passage is in itself a form of asceticism and serves as a source of “merit” (gong). The initiation into Dao precedes the rite, yet they present it as the beginning of apprenticeship. However, there again it is necessary to remember that for the Daoist the essential often appears in the unexpected. One may schematically say that predestined affinity, said to be the core factor that drives people to take the robe, echoes a motivation that can be either collective (and selfless?) or individual (and selfish?). That is to say, one either strives to become a ritual master and serve the social community or hopes to devote oneself fully to self-realization. The two dimensions are often closely connected and may well represent two aspects of the same path in the mind of the individual Daoist. Still, the fact remains that family groups often feel abandoned. Yet, although separate from their families, monastics do not eliminate their family completely from their thoughts, continue to visit them, and care about them through a number of silent transactions. They do not deny them but rather distance themselves from them in order to better serve them in the long-term through the ritual services they are about to perform. Filial piety in the monastery, demanded in the very first of the ten precepts, is different from that prevailing in civil society. The monastics transform or sublimate it in accordance with the idea that “our true parents are not those of flesh and bone.” It may seem that, because of their preoccupation with immortality, Daoist monastics should have a particular relationship with the world. Rather than rejecting or fleeing the world, they set out to transmute it, both on the individ-

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ual and communal levels. Their motivation and activities do not entirely fit the categories of asceticism as proposed by Max Weber: Daoist monastics place themselves in a position away from the world less to reject it than to become instruments of God, pursue ascetic practice and become perfected or realized beings themselves. Nevertheless, their practices are not merely contemplative, but they also have a strong ethical dimension. From the standpoint of social organization, Daoist monastics may leave the world, yet they reintegrate themselves almost immediately into social structure with the help of pseudo-kinship relations that they establish within the monastery and within the larger community including lay followers and disciples, forming a complex and wide network of connections. According to their eschatological vision, they aspire to transformation into bird-men, which means, among others, that they want to remain on earth for a very long period or even eternity. In sum, they withdraw from the world because they wish to reverse its natural course. Positioned at the heart of city and society, Wengongci monastics in the last analysis embody the “other possibility,” that is, the potential of being radically different from the norm. They embody the understanding that nothing is ever inevitable and that one can shape and transform life, as one’s own body, in all different dimensions (physical, mystical, social), but also time (cosmic, calendrical), weather (making the rain come), death (delaying, sublimating), situation at birth (challenging to move oneself from his or her personal and social environment). However, to do so one must leave the family and, to a large extent, use ordinary models of kinship and reinvent it in an infinite number of ways. Part of this being different is that, within their own institution, monastics may engage in minor behaviors that transgress the rules yet not necessarily suffer major consequences. In some cases, such breaches in discipline even appear as signs of a certain level of personal and spiritual charisma. That is, the individual disciple may express himself in small acts of disobedience toward his master: for example, one may steal a sheet of the temple’s official paper, write a leave permit and fake the abbot‘s signature it to extend an already authorized trip. They sometimes also get away from dispensations that are more serious as, in Quanzhen, the requirement of celibacy. However, it doesn’t mean they are free to behave in any odd way or to break the fundamental rules. It indicates that the scale of merit and the possibility of progress in terms of personal virtue and achievement are important in this context, a constituting elements of Daoist rules. Finally, when Hanzhong monastics classify the Wengongci as a small hereditary temple handed down from “father to son,” this it at first glance surprising and seems out of place or even an oxymoron, yet in fact fits the organization perfectly. Despite the fact that the community consists of unmarried and (usually) unrelated individuals, the monastics consider themselves a united family and use the terminology of kinship to make it obvious. They present genealogies that trace their line all the way to the ancient times. The range of their ramifications and network connections, moreover, pervades a large part of the

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country. This may well mean that we should expand our notion of “family” to include religious communities that claim similar structures but without links of consanguinity or marriage among their members, interpreting them with the help of the phenomenon of pseudo-kinship. It might also suggest that the anthropological concept of “monastery” can be elaborated and enhanced in analogy to the family model. However monastic the kinship or familial the monastic institution, the Daoist case suggests that the question of consubstantiality goes beyond bodily factors, that the body itself may be considered to lie beyond flesh and bone. The teaching link that connects the Daoists centers on their relation to the scriptures, which they describe in terms of the “bone.” They attribute (performative) values to the sacred texts and notably to the registers transmitted in the various rites that mark the ascent along the monastic ladder. These texts— beginning with the Daode jing Laozi transmitted at Louguantai on his way into emigration, and reaching all the way to the canonical texts disciples receive and copy during the Rite of Cap and Gown and then recite and thus incorporate into their daily life—root the Quanzhen organization of ritual kinship in China. They form the monastics into one body that spreads through the vast community network and permits them to live in a world of their own. We may also suggest that in China the link to the sacred text “makes the monk” more than the fact of leaving the world. From in this perspective, we may then come to reconsider other forms of monasticism elsewhere in the world.

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Index abandonment, 64, 108, 124-26, 129, 136, 139, 251 abbot: and apprenticeship, 147-148; authority of, 151; and family, 216; as family chief, 166; and guests, 209; honorary, 47, 207, 232; and leadership, 70; obligations of, 206; powers of, 73; responsibility of, 211; role of, 28, 48, 66, 83; selection of, 66; and seniority, 156; succession of, 176; and travel, 212; and women, 232 Academy: Daoist, 96, 167, 173-176; Imperial, 109; of Social Sciences, 55 accomplished persons, 187, 222 adoption, 128-129, 145, 239-240 adulthood, 125, 128, 138-139, 150, 187, 251 adversity, 134, 190, 251 age, 42-43, 63-64, 79-80, 106, 138-140, 156, 160, 165, 186-187, 198, 224, 229, 243, 249 agnatic (line), 137, 237 alchemy: internal, 184, 245; operative, 179, 182-183; women’s, 235 alcohol: abstention from 012, 55, 152153; -ism, 124, 126, 130-135 all beings, 157, 186, 227, 233, 245 alliance, 122, 137, 141, 228, 238, 242 almanac, lishu, 189 alternation, 237 Ames, Roger, 247 An Shilin, 154 ancestors, 52, 129, 138, 140, 165, 193, 200, 215, 220, 229, 237, 247 ancestral line, 140, 233 ancestral worship, 129, 138 andocentric ideology, 239 anger, 55, 108, 153, 246 Ankang, 70, 72, 142, 157, 174 Anterior Heaven, 186 anthropology: association in, 218; and information, 168; of hair, 53; and vocation, 119; and worship,85

apprenticeship: 064, 85, 137, 147, 167171, 252; and Academy, 173; brother, 224; and children, 139; and education, 175; father, 148, 150, 214-215; and immortality, 179; for laity, 79; lines of, 210, 216, 224; mother, 237-238; and recitation, 203; stages of, 177 architecture of temples, 4, 23, 40 architecture, 21-22, 29, 40, 42 ascension, 185, 222 asceticism, 1, 10, 12, 52-53, 62, 127, 136, 144, 150, 156, 162, 169, 171, 177, 179, 203-204, 227, 233, 233, 241, 243, 244, 249-250, 251, 253 Bai Lixin, 70-71, 94, 169, 175, 206, 216, 231 Bai Lixuan, 187, 44, 48, 58, 75, 103, 127, 129, 132, 172, 175, 181, 186, 190, 203, 205, 211, 215, 224, 225, 231, 233, 242, 245, 246 Bai Lixue, 72, 122, 168, 175 Bai Zhigang, 55 Baishidong, 72, 210 Baiyunguan, 6, 8, 45, 46, 51, 60, 62, 65, 82, 90, 92, 93, 95, 99, 125, 145, 154, 173, 178, 212, 246 Baker, Hugh, 219-220 Baoji, 96, 102, 110 Baptandier, Brigitte, 41, 130, 243 Baxian quanzhuan, 101, 104 Baxiangong, 5-6, 29, 49, 65, 65-66, 93, 95, 98, 104, 110, 124, 151, 157, 173, 174, 230 bedroom arts, fangzhong shu, 241 begging, 81, 158, 225 Bei Yi, 169 Beidi, 191 Beidou, 191, 201 Beidou jing, 191, 202 Beijing, 6, 8, 26, 45, 46, 52, 65, 82, 88, 90, 93, 95, 125, 145, 167, 173-175, 178 Berthier, Brigitte,139 Bi Chengxin, 72, 78 bird-men, 180, 187, 253 267 

268 / Index

birthdays, 83, 88, 101, 177, 190-91, 194, 196, 249 Bixia yuanjun, 115 blood, 226; menstrual 182, 202, 235, 243; ties 12, 60, 214, 218, 239-240, mother’s 51-52; brotherhood 219-220; lines 225 Bodhidharma, 107 body: and breathing, 181; components of 182, 184; cultivation of, 246; culture of, 56; and death, 187, 191, 201; dimensions of, 253; female, 235; and immortality, 182; of monastics, 254; and personality, 184; refinement of, 205; and return, 186; and scriptures, 202; transformation of, 182; see also selfcultivation bones, 182, 226, 228, 239 Bonte, Pierre, 219 Bourdieu, Pierre, 225 brother, see family brotherhood, 9, 218-220, 225 Brown, David, 77 Buddha, 46, 52, 1086 Buddhism: Academy of, 91; Association of, 129; Chan, 46, 54, 61, 91, 107; and 128-129, 251; in China, 19; and chujia, 136; and Daoism, 34, 248; in Falun gong, 85; and family, 63; and festivals, 196; and hair, 49, 52-53; and Han Yu, 102; institutions of, 13; organization of, 11; pagoda in, 22; precepts of, 152, 153; ranks in, 207; robes of, 46; and state, 90, 209; sutras in, 202; tantric, 54, 91; terms in, 214; Theravada, 52; and travel, 250; and women, 238-239 Bureau: of Cultural Affairs, 88, 90; of Religious Affairs, 74, 90, 151; of Tourism, 78, 90 Buxuzi, 126 calendar: 189-197, 201, 206, 248; taboo days, 189-190; stems and branches, 190 Cantong qi, 184 Cao Xiangzhen, 94, 230 Celestial Masters, 3, 5, 12, 30, 50-51, 53, 60-62, 92, 163, 173, 224, 241-242, 244, 246 celibacy, 1, 12, 62, 136, 142-143, 153, 220, 225, 241-244, 253 cells, 27-29, 76, 188, 231

certificate, 156, 159, 178, 222 Chang’an, 32, 102 Changchunguan, 72, 207 Changsha, 173 Chaozhou, 102-104, 105, 109, 180, 185, 249 Chen Chongtai, 71 Cheng, Anne, 134, 176 Chengdu, 95 Chenggu, 70, 72 Chenghuangmiao, 35, 41, 64, 89, 92-93, 114 Chiang Kaishek, 127 children, 125-126, 131, 133, 138-140, 145, 150, 160, 241, 243, 250 Chongdaoguan, 89 Chongqing, 4 Chongyanggong, 5, 63, 65, 98, 102, 110, 112 Christianity, 10-11, 90, 135, 209, 238, 240 chujia, 11-13, 52-53, 60, 63-64, 119, 136, 141, 143, 146, 160, 220, 226, 250, 252 Chuzhen jie, 152-153, 226 City God, 30, 108, 113-114, 197 Clart, Philip, 106 communism, 3, 9, 34, 67, 69, 90, 127, 133 community, 9, 83, 87, 89, 135, 162; and apprenticeship, 148; expansion of, 36; and laity, 79; and men, 239; monastic, 219; and ritual, 179; and selfcultivation, 205; services for, 199; and women, 231 Confucianism, 4, 22, 54, 102, 105, 128, 202, 239 connections, 61, 81, 56 consanguinity, 9, 218-219, 223, 227, 229, 240, 254 courtyards, 2, 23,025-27, 36, 39, 54, 75, 88, 113, 192, 206, 250 Cultural Revolution, 3, 7, 25, 29, 34-37, 41, 61, 65, 67-69, 72, 81, 91, 94, 96, 110, 112, 114, 116-117, 126, 141, 145, 163, 173, 175, 202, 207, 230 cypress, baishu, 28, 42, Cyprine, 235 d’Onofrio, Salvatore, 240 danwei, see work unit Dao: chang, 158; meaning of, 58; as mother, 245; mysteries of, 249; power

Index / 269

of, 233; realization of, 187; term of, 211 Daode jing, 5, 57, 59, 63, 95, 149, 166, 168-170, 186-187, 227, 233, 245, 247, 254 Daoist Association, 3, 8-10, 27, 30, 40, 60, 62, 64, 66, 83, 89-98, 95, 110, 112, 116, 138, 142, 144-145, 151, 156, 157, 162, 167, 173-176, 178-179, 184, 208, 209, 211-212, 217 Daoist Canon, 6, 57, 65, 151, 154, 170 Daoists: fake, 210; fire-dwelling, 60-63, 76, 87; identity of, 115-17; types of, 73; see also masters Daojiao dacidian, 8, 30, 194 Daojiao yifan, 8, 45, 51, 65, 138, 151, 153, 160, 195, 202, 209 Daqinggong, 92 death, 141, 161, 172, 179, 182, 184, 185, 187, 191, 199-201, 200, 202, 220-223, 228, 237, 239; apparent, 105, 185, 22223; bad, 116, 160, 187, 199-200, 220; funerals, 222-223; see also immortality decapitation: of red dragon, white tiger, 235 Delbos, Geneviève, 172 Deng Lifeng, 70, 164-165, 215-216 Deng Xiaoping, 3 desire, 12, 187, 227, 243-244 Despeux, Catherine, 241, 244 destiny, 138-139, 191-193, 197-199 Director of Destiny, 191 disciples, lay, 78-79, 83, 87-88, 124, 14748, 168, 248 divination, 6, 26, 29, 197 Divine Farmer, 51 doctrines, 57, 160, 169-171, 203 donations, 37, 39, 69, 75, 78, 81, 82, 83, 87, 92, 146, 206, 208, 217, 250 Dongfang Shuo, 236 Dongguan, 19-21, 29, 31, 79, 81, 96, 231 Donghua dijun, 46 Dongyanggong, 34, 72, 78 Dongyuemiao, 61-62, 88, 194 double-houses, 230-232 Doumu: dian, 71, 171; guan, 194 dreams, 135, 180, 213; and apparition, 123, 127, 134 earth god, 30-31, 33, 108, 196 economics, 22, 88, 96, 118-120, 123, 128, 142

education, 6, 142, 169-171, 250; and apprenticeship, 149-150 of Daoists, 167; methods of, 175; of monastics, 127, 128; and others, 176; practical, 171-172; and recitation, 203-204; self, 172; stages of, 176; standardized, 175; and vocation, 132 eight characters of birth, bazi, 139, 177, 198 Eight Immortals, 2, 102, 110, 233 eight major officers, 207 Eight Nodes, bajie, 193 elixir, see alchemy emptiness, 152, 156, 171, 182, 184, 187, 236, 245-246 energy, vital: 052, 139, 179, 184; energy, absorption of, 184; of creation, 227; and death, 221; dispersal of, 12; and essence, 184; and immortality, 181; harmonization of, 241-242; pathogenic, 199; and recitation, 204; and sex, 243 Erlangmiao, 82 Escorting to Highest Enrollment (ceremony of) Songdadan, 223 ethics, 179, 253; and apprenticeship, 150151; and death, 222; and ordination, 162; and recruitment, 156; and sex, 243; standard of, 153 exchange, jiaoliu, 212 experimentation, 58, 164, 171 external alchemy, waidan, 183 face, 84 Falun gong, 85-86, 249 Famensi, 102 family: break with, 136-138, 141, 146; civil, 225; Daoist, 59-60, 66, 79, 123127; and incest, 239-240; life of, 216218; loss of, 120; and monastics, 6, 128, 134, 165, 172, 209, 214, 227, 253254; name, 224; of origin, 137, 144146, 210, 218, 220, 224, 226, 250-251; and ordination, 159; rejection of, 140; ritual, 228-229; and vocation, 128-131, 131; separation from, 149; word for, 216; of yang, 239; and yuanfen, 121-122 Faure, Bernard, 233, 239 Fayuansi, 46, 91 feminine, 230 Feng Gaode, 231 Fengdao kejie, 11-12

270 / Index

Fengzhengong, 217 Fenyin, 32 festivals: 022, 54, 75, 83, 83, 95, 189, 249; of community, 191-194; and Daoist Association, 92; of ghosts 193; of Eight Nodes, 193; extraordinary, 195196; and finances, 208; flexible, 194; and gods, 100; and laity, 80-82; of lanterns, 193-194; performances during, 196; and recitation, 203; sales at sales, 192, 209; and taboos, 190; and women, 231 filial piety, 138, 140, 153, 172, 217, 225227, 252 Fine, Agnès, 240 Five Peaks, 65 Five Pecks of Rice Sect, 30, 31 five phases, 32, 113-114 five sources of kindness, 159 Flowery Pond, 40 food: 012, 184, 192, 76, 82, 177, 206, 208, 221, 250; abstention from, 184, 221; and festivals, 195; and laity, 80-81; and women, 231, release from, 186 Foping, 111 formlessness, 236, fortune: 121, 130; and destiny, 139; telling, 76, 126, 134, 135, 177, 189, 197-199, 248 Foucault, Michel, 10 four basic books, 202 Four Beginnings, 193 four heraldic animals, 114 Four Imperial Deities, 159 freedom, 187, 122, 225 Freud, Sigmund, 236 Fu Chongzhen, 68 Fu Gaotai, 127, 131, 145 Fu Lidao, 224 Fu Xingci, 72, 216, 217 Fu Xingli, 110 Fu Yuantian, 95 Fu Zhian, 8, 223 Fu Zhifa, 127, 132, 175, 222, 246 Fujian, 103 Gansu, 73, 110, 112, 144, 167 gaogong, see Master of High Merit gates, 23, 25-26 gender, see women genealogies, see lineages gengshen, 191, 202

Gennep, Arnold van, 179 geomancy, 199, 248 Gernet, Jacques, 135 gestures, Daoist, 55-56 ghost, restless, 162 glyphomancy, 199 godparents, 219, 241 gods: birthdays of, 195; Han Yu as, 107111; and laity, 99; legends of, 100; local, 100; making of, 104-105; in pantheon, 113-15; and travel, 213; types of, 99; worship of, 26, 28, 77, 99, 197; and yuanfen, 121; see also ritual Goossaert, Vincent, 79, 96,132, 230 Gossiaux, Jean-François, 225 Grand Dictionnaire Ricci, 76 Great Dipper, 191; see also Northern Dipper Great Ultimate, 22, 26, 47-48, 55-56, 85, 227, 235, 238, 55-56 guadan, 91, 209, 211, 223 Guangdong, 65, 95, 102, 160 Guangjisi, 90 Guangong, 114 Guanjin keyi, 160, 161 guanxi, interpersonal connections, 81, 212 Guanyin, 115, 123-124, 134 Guanzimiao, 31 Guhantai, 41 Guizhou, 126 Gulik, Robert van, 242 Gulou, 93 Gutschow, Kim, 53 Hackmann, Heinrich, 8 hair, 49-54, 159, 226 Han dynasty, 3, 30-33, 34, 41, 60, 77, 179-180, 236 Han River, 109 Han Xiangzi, 2, 102-107, 110, 180, 185, 227, 249; Grotto of, 109 Han Yu, 2, 30, 99, 101-110, 157, 180, 185, 227, 249 Han Zhongli, 103-104 Hansen, Valerie, 33 Hantaiqu, 93 Hanxiangzi quanzhuan, 101, 106 Hanyumiao, 112 Hanzhong daojiao de chujing, 8 Hanzhong dizhi, 31 Hanzhong ribao, 35

Index / 271

Hanzhong shi wengong ci daoguan fuxing jian jieji, 8 Hanzhong shi wengongci, 34 Hanzhong shizhi, 32 Hanzhong: passim; map of, 14-15, 40; temples in 065 Hanzhongshi wengongci, 23, 31-32 He Chengyuan, 144 He Chongdi, 71, 94, 127, 131, 134, 144, 167, 194 He Mingshan, 4, 35, 68-73, 78-79, 92-94, 114, 126, 131, 164-165, 167, 178-179, 215, 220, 223 He Xiangu, 233 He Xinde, 166 He Zongcai, 124, 129, 132, 134 headdress, 50-51, 177 health, 125-126, 131-132, 183, 199-201, 251 Heavenly Worthy, 160, 195 hell: 184, 190, 192, 201, 220, 222; Bank of, 192, 204 Henan, 107, 109, 127 Heng Zhixia, 124, 130, 246 Héritier, Françoise, 239-241 hermits, 11, 188, 204, 212 Herrenschmidt, Olivier, 121 hexagrams, see Yijing hieararchy, 91, 93-98, 178 Highest Clarity, 143, 227, 236, 243-244 history, Daoist, 8, 40-42, 60, 231 honesty, 149, 153, 179 Hong Kong, 35, 61, 67, 68 horoscope, 130, 198 hospitality, see guadan household register, hukou, 210 Houtu, 32, 108 Hu, Layman, 82, 141, 184 Huainanzi, 236 Huang Chongxiang, 71, 96, 125, 126, 131, 144, 157, 159 Huang Zhixin, 223 Huangjin, 202 Hubei, 117 humility, 46, 81, 135 hungry ghosts, 201, 220 Huoshenmiao, 93 Huxian, 63, 65 imitation, 149 incantation, 151, 199-200 internal alchemy, neidan, 57, 183

ID card, 97, 179 imitation, 149 immortality: 010, 42, 105, 141, 161, 172, 179-182, 185, 227, 229, 247, 252; and death, 221; through deliverance from the corpse, 105; embryo of, 143; and ethics, 156; and filial piety, 227; and hair, 53; and language, 57; merit for, 179; and motherhood, 245; and ordination, 158; precepts of, 177; realm of, 57; and vocation, 120; and women, 233 immortals: and angels, 234; bones of, 239; and light, 238; and ordination, 162, 178; powers of, 180; and robes, 47; superior, 250; symbols of, 26; terms for, 180; wandering of, 212 inauguration, 36, 57, 63, 83-84, 171, 177, 195-196, 201, 208, 232 incantation, 151, 199-200 incense: 023, 25, 192, 209; burner, 28, 75, 83, 149; division of, 9, 111, 112 incest, see sexuality initiation, 79, 148, 242 inscriptions, 23, 25, 27, 32, 37, 100 internal alchemy, neidan, 57, 183 Islam, 34, 90 Jade Emperor: 107-108, 114-115, 159, 202; Pavilion of, 21, 28-29, 36-37, 39, 75, 83-84, 114, 196, 206; statue of, 208. Japanese war, 127, 34 jealousy, 103, 131, 153, 232 jiazi (cyclical signs), 191, 202 Jindingguan, 65, 69 Jiu Tangshu, 101-105 Jorion, Paul, 172 junior Daoists, 85, 139, 148-150, 156-157, 163, 217 kachina, 104 kaiguang, opening the light of a statue (rite of), 56-57 Kaltenmark, Max, 233 karma, 120-121, 184 kinship, and ancestors, 220; beyond, 10; and body, 228; and death, 222; as model, 225; and monastics, 1, 172, 251; pseudo, 9, 214, 218-220, 254; renunciation of, 218; ritual, 224-225, 245, 254; and sex, 240; terms, 225, 237; ties of, 219; and women, 238; and worship, 223

272 / Index

kitchen, 27, 29, 81, 192, 206 Kohn, Livia, 9, 231 Kongmiao 109 kowtow, 74-75, 157, 159, 177, Kundao, see women laity: council of, 81, 87, 91; associations of, 89-90, 218; and categories, 84-87; and Daoist Association, 94; meetings of, 83, 95, 192, 212; and monastics, 74-98, 249; names for, 76; and ordination, 157; respect for, 156; responsibilities of 082-84; return to, 67-69, 141-142; role of 026, 58; teachers, 175 language: 170, 247, 249; and apprenticeship, 149; classical Chinese, 7; and Daoism, 168; detachment from, 171; and education, 175; guwen, 102; internal, 7, 210; of kinship, 218; monastic, 55-61; of scriptures, 205 Lanqiao, 109 Laojun shuo yibai bashi jie 246 Laojun, 114, 125, 161; Grotto of, 126 Laozi, 5-6, 6, 59, 60, 63, 102, 106, 113, 115, 151-152, 180, 191, 195, 217, 220, 233, 245, 246, 254 Lauwaert, Françoise, 128, 129, 138, 226 laws, 89-90, 185, 222 lay followers, 2, 12, 29, 35, 78-80, 148, 165, 253 Leigutai, 72, 174, 157 Leizu, 113-114 Lévi, Jean, 105 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 10, 215 Li Hongzhi, 85-86 Li Zhenguo, 126 Liang Lidong, 125, 130, 139-140 Liang, Laywoman, 72, 78-82, 85, 125, 183, 191 Liao Daoshi, 176 Liaoning, 95, 178 Liexian zhuan, 180 Liezi, 6, 60 Liji, 140 line: of characters, 165; of descent, 129, 224 lineages, 64, 66, 73, 219, 243; agnatic, 138; development of, 70; and family, 144, 225; fuzzy, 71; and history, 67-68; and kinship, 217; local, 71-73; and names, 164-167; poem of, 227; and reproduction, 239-241; and travel, 210

Lingguan, 159, 161 liturgy, see ritual Liu Bang, 41, 87 Liu Congcai, 82 Liu Gaoshan, 72, 125, 130, 140, 145, 224 Liu Xun, 57 Liuba, 65, 77 Lixuan, 169 London, 72, 174 Long Guang, 47 longevity, 51, 178, 182, 184, 186, 212, 234; see also self-cultivation Longmen: 001, 62, 73, 112, 113, 159, 164-165, 217, 227; dong, 63, 65, 72, 94, 102-103, 112; gong, 98 Longtaituo 157 Longwang, 115 Longxian, 65 Louguantai, 5, 34, 60, 62, 65, 67, 72, 78, 82, 94, 98, 124, 142, 144, 171, 172, 230, 254 Lowie, Robert H., 218 Lü Dongbin, 50-51, 103-104, 233, 244 Luo Zhijin, 125, 132, 246 Lüzugong, 93 Ma Danyang, 120, 132, 143-144, 175 Ma Gaoxuan, 72 magical-ritual arts, fashu, 68, 97, 126, 199 management, 9, 206, 232, 206, 89 Mannoni, Octave, 104 Mao Zedong, 3 marriage: 011, 67, 129-130, 137, 142, 251; arranged, 130, 251; and chujia, 139; and divorce, 64, 125, 130, 139, 142, 218, 251; and expulsion, 72; and kinship, 219; of monastics, 124-127, 131, 140, 143-146, 226; mystical, 243; renunciation of, 150; and sexuality, 241; uxorilocal, 138 Marsone, Pierre, 136 martial arts, 124-125, 174, 184 Maspero, Henri, 185, 242 massage, 132, 184, 199, 235 masters: and apprenticeship, 147-148, 150, 168; masters, beneficence of, 135; change of, 161; and disciples, 87-88, 172, 174-177, 251; of High Merit, 47, 51, 157-159, 162, 176-179, 221-222, 232-233, 246; kinds of, 58-59; lay, 142; in monasteries, 65; of ordination, 156, 159, 161; and rules, 156; and temple

Index / 273

administration, 89; and yuanfen, 123; term for, 215 materiality, 42 maternity, 243 matrix, 182 meals, 27 Medicine King, see Yaowang medicine: 127, 128, 132, 177; Daoist, 124, 126, 132, 199-200, 205 meditation, 146, 177, 184, 187-188, 204, 212-213, 221, 233, 243-244, 250 Memorial on the Buddha Bone, 102 menses, 139, 235, 245 menstrual cycle, 235, 241 mercury, 182-183 merit: accumulation of, 69 082, 134, 139, 143, 159, 172, 176, 178; ladder of, 179; and recruitment, 156; and travel, 213 Messenger of Death, 161 metamorphosis, 182 Mian County, 31, 64, 93-94, 72, 77, 82 middle ages, 142 milk, 219, 235, 241 Mill Bridge, 21, 30-31, 40, 68, 111 Min Zhiting, 8, 66, 95, 151, 153, 160-162 Ming dynasty, 30, 34, 61, 93, 160 Mingshenggong, 142 miracles, 33, 104, 123 modernization, 21, 34, 40 monasteries: conglin, 5, 47, 64-65, 70, 95, 97, 160, 207, 230; definition of, 10, 248; entering of, 147-15; types of, 1, 64-68, 98; and family, 217; hereditary, 64-67, 73, 147, 216, 224, 253; history of, 61; organization of, 206-210; terminology of, 13; types of, 1, 64-68, 98 money: and funerals, 223; monastic, 208; personal, 206, 208, 250; spirit, 23, 204; and travel, 210 monks: addresses of, 11; Buddhist, 11, 13; life stories of, 123-127; making of, 118-132; numbers of, 65, 67; origins of, 72; Qiandao, 1, 64, 231, 234; renegade, 145; Western, 13 motherhood, 130 motivation, 64, 168-169, 253 mountains: 001, 4, 180; Baiyun, 72, 94, 98; Day, 89Dou, 72, 217; Emei, 65, 69;Fengdu, 4, 89, 161; Fuer, 111; Gu, 40; Heming, 113; Hua, 62, 72, 94, 98, 103, 107, 109, 124, 141; Kongdong,

110,112; Languan, 103, 106, 109; Lao, 9; Longhu, 61; Luof, 51, 95, 160; Ma, 62; Maij, 71; Mao, 72; Nanyue, 167, 173; Qian, 95, 178; Qingcheng, 48, 95, 167, 173, 178; Qinling, 20, 72, 102-103, 105, 109, 112, 126; Qinglong, 72, 145; Qinling, 180, 185; Shaoshi; 107 Song; 107; Tai, 28, 108; Taibai, 68, 96, 110113; Tiantai, 3, 34-35, 40, 67-73, 78, 92-94, 96, 124-125, 133, 144, 157-158, 167, 171, 178, 194, 196, 208, 218, 223; Wudang, 82, 117; Wuzi, 34, 69; Yagu, 40; Zhongnan, 19, 62, 101 mourning, 140, 147, 149, 251 moving backwards, 186 music, 25, 174, 203 myriad things, 22, 152, 186, 194 mystery, 54, 57, 162, 249 myth of origins, 186, 244 names: avoidance of, 85; change of, 220; for Daoists, 58-59, 79, 164; family, 58; masculine, 224; nicknames, 167; titles, 215 Nanshan shi, 110 Nantian men, see South Gate of Heaven Nanzheng, 73 nature, 4, 122, 4, 187 neidan, see alchemy, internal neighborhood, see Dongguan networks: of exchange, 209; and Han Yu, 109; and infrastructure, 97; and laity, 83-84; and lineages, 167; local, 6; monastic, 2, 9-10, 91-92, 95, 145, 248; restoration of, 98 New Year, 189, 192, 217 Niangniang, 115 Nie Que, 169 nirvana, 54 no-desire, 12 nonaction, 171, 188, 244, 246 noncompetition, 156 novice see Junior Daoist numen, see souls nuns, see women Kundao, see women obedience, 149, 172, 217, 253 offerings: 023, 26, 74, 76, 80, 87, 121-122, 192, 199, 209 one-child policy, 129 oneness, 47, 187, 233, 236, 244-247 oracle slips, 198

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ordination: 001, 49, 58-59, 65, 95, 156159, 179, 219, 252, 254; experience of, 160-162; hiatus of, 207; and kinship, 218; levels of, 177-178; master of, 148; and procreation, 243; and recitation, 203; and rules, 151; and sexuality, 241; today, 162-163 ornamentation, 22, 47-48, 51 orphans, 124, 128-129, 133, 140 Orthodox Unity, see Celestial Masters otherworld, 107, 134 Owen, Stephen, 105 owl-man, 113 Ozaki, Masaharu, 11 paper clothing, 80, 190, 200 parallel sayings, 192 parents, see family parity, 232 patrilineage, 125, 128-129, 136-138, 224, 237, 239, 247 pavilions, 23, 88 peaches, 102, 183 Peng Sishun, 103, 112 Penglai, 158, 185, 212 penis, see sexuality perfected, 18, 134, 158, 166, 179-181, 184, 186-187, 229, 244, 247, 252-253 perseverance, 134, 172 personality, 52-53, 68, 135, 174, 184, 234, 236, 246 pilgrimage, 40, 77, 106 pilgrims, 25, 27, 77, 82, 89, 89 Pingliang, 110 Pitt-Rivers, Julian, 218, 219 poems: 042, 110, 217; Daoist, 101; and Han Yu, 102-103, 109; and lineages, 164-165; recitation of, 210; and test, 166 politics, see state Posterior Heaven, 186 posters, 83, 196 poverty, 124, 210, 250 pratyaya, 121 pravrajya, 11, 136 precepts, 1, 12, 117, 151-158, 160, 177179, 232-233 predestined affinity, see yuanfen primordiality, 186-188, 213 procreation, 228, 238 proselytism, 7, 57, 134, 148 ; 243, 249 punishments: 072, 145, 154-156, 211, 222; divine, 113; of expulsion, 141;

and hair, 49; and hell, 157; karmic, 161-162; and vocation, 133 pure yang, 237-239, 245, pure yin, 237 qi, see energy, vital qigong, 85, 176, 184 Qin Shihuang, tomb of, 20 Qing (color), 45 qing (color), 45 Qing dynasty, 31-33, 52, 111, 152 Qingdao, 9 Qinguang (king), 157 Qinggui bang, 154 Qinghuagong, 82, 174 Qinglongguan, 93, 96 Qingming, 190, 193, 202, 222-223 Qingsongguan, 36 Qiu Chuji, 1, 62, 63, 65, 87, 113, 115-116, 160, 162, 164, 166, 190, 217 Quanzhen qinggui, 154 Quanzhen: 001, 11-13, 49, 53, 57, 60, 79, 96, 110, 117, 136, 140-144, 159, 164165, 175, 225, 227, 230, 241, 244, 246, 253, 254; and Academy, 173; and Association, 92; founder of, 166; and Han Yu, 101; history of, 61-62; lineages of, 72; poetry of, 210; rules of, 72, 151-156; and vocation, 134 Qufu, 109 ranks: of immortals, 179-181; monastic, 207-208 recitation, 25, 47, 170-171, 189, 192, 201206, 232-233 reconstruction, 2, 29, 35-36, 69, 71, 8081, 89, 110, 177, 208, 231-232 recruitment, 118-120, 127, 129, 147, 156 Red Guards, see Cultural Revolution refectory, 25, 29 registers: celestial, 160; of Daoists, 90, 166; and death, 223; family, 228.; household, 210; of immortals, 228; officer of, 207; and ordination, 163; and state, 217; temple, 57; transmission of, 254 reincarnation, 54, 160, 184, 187 relationships, 59, 79, 215 Ren Fajiu, 78, 230 Ren Farong, 34, 67, 94, 97, 172 renunciation, 11, 52, 136, 146, 241, 244 reproduction, 194, 238, 241, 244 Republic, 32-33, 111

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reserve (attitude of), 54-55 resonance, 54, 121 resurgence of worship, 86, 93, 98, 162 retreat, 1, 104, 183 return, 186, 234, 241, 246 revival, 95,178 Rite of Cap and Gown, see ordination ritual: 002, 6, 9, 248; ancestral, 223; arts, 68, 97, 126, 199; calendar, 189-191; of death, 222-223, 239; for good fortune, 199; jiao, 61, 178, 212; and language, 56; links of, 229; Luotian dajiao, 26, 61, 212; of passage, 51, 150, 190, 200-201, 242; and sex, 240-242; and travel, 212; and women, 232-234, 238; of ordination, 158-159; purpose of, 203; robes for, 47-49; sexual, 12; structure of, 179; training in, 177-179 rituals: 026, 83, 88, 89, 92, 121, 177, 249; and apprenticeship, 150; of consecration, 178; and death, 222; of exorcism, 132; and fate, 130; and Han Yu, 109; and rules, 156; for laity, 77; social, 248 river, near temple, 33, 37 robes: 1, 43-49; colors of, 45-47; fabric of, 46; illustrations of, 44; meaning of, 44; and ordination, 157-159, 163; names of, 43-44; and rules, 44; ritual, 47-49; and women, 231-232 Robinet, Isabelle, 108, 181, 227, 245 rules, 138, 150-156, 160, 202, 211, 218222, 226, 231, 240, 250, 253; Pure 153-154 rupture , 37, 135, 139, 163, 226, 250 Ryckmans,m Pierre, 42 ranks: of immortals, 179-181; monastic, 207-208 recitation, 25, 47, 170-171, 189, 192, 201206, 232-233 reconstruction, 2, 29, 35-36, 69, 71, 8081, 89, 110, 177, 208, 231-232 recruitment, 118-120, 127, 129, 147, 156 Red Guards, see Cultural Revolution refectory, 25, 29 registers: celestial, 160; of Daoists, 90, 166; and death, 223; family, 228.; household, 210; of immortals, 228; officer of, 207; and ordination, 163; and state, 217; temple, 57; transmission of, 254 relationships, 59, 79, 215

Ren Fajiu, 78, 230 Ren Farong, 34, 67, 94, 97, 172 Republic, 32-33, 111 return, 186, 234, 241, 246 revival, 95,178 Rite of Cap and Gown, see ordination ritual: 002, 6, 9, 248; ancestral, 223; arts, 68, 97, 126, 199; calendar, 189-191; of death, 222-223, 239; for health, 199; jiao, 61, 178, 212; and language, 56; links of, 229; and sex, 240-242; and travel, 212; and women, 232-234, 238; of ordination, 158-159; purpose of, 203; robes for, 47-49; sexual, 12; structure of, 179; training in, 177-179 rituals: 026, 83, 88, 89, 92, 121, 177, 249; and apprenticeship, 150; of consecration, 178; and death, 222; of exorcism, 132; and fate, 130; and Han Yu, 109; and rules, 156; for laity, 77; social, 248 river, near temple, 33, 37 robes: 1, 43-49; colors of, 45-47; fabric of, 46; illustrations of, 44; meaning of, 44; and ordination, 157-159, 163; names of, 43-44; and rules, 44; ritual, 47-49; and women, 231-232 Robinet, Isabelle, 108, 181, 227, 245 rules, 138, 150-156, 160, 202, 211, 218222, 226, 231, 240, 250, 253 Ryckmans, Pierre, 42 sacra, and signa, 120-121 sacred area, 158-159, 171, 190 Sahlins, Marshall, 42 sangha, 53 Sanjiaomiao, 73 Sanjuan, Thierry, 212 Sanqin daojiao, 8, 95 Sanyuan jing, 202 Schipper, Kristofer, 12, 30, 83, 111, 168, 170, 228, 236, 242 scriptures: 047, 56, 127, 170-171, 175, 254; and Academy, 173; and apprenticeship, 171; copying of, 205; and fortune-telling, 198; master of, 208; meaning of 201-202; opening of, 58; and ordination, 158; and power, 163; and rules, 151; and statues, 101 secrecy: 007, 58, 86, 97, 249; and language, 56-57; and ordination, 157, 161 secularization, 142 Segalen, Victor, 42

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selection, 150, 173 self-cultivation: 012, 62, 66, 68, 142, 158, 182-184, 238, 241-242, 247; embryo in, 235, 244-245; and inner nature, 246247; and recitation, 203; and rules, 156; and sexuality, 236, 241-246; and women, 231, 233, 243 self-realization, 122, 146, 188 seniority, 42, 111, 156, 172, 216-217, 224 senses, 101, 227 Serres, Michel, 176 service, 149-150, 252 services, daily, 170-171, 201-202 Seven Perfected, 166 sexuality, 11-12, 234-241; see also celibacy Shandong, 101, 109 Shanghai, 92, 173 Shaolinsi, 107 Shengmu yuanjun, 115 Shengmugong, 96, 141 shoes, see robes Shuanglongguan, 122 Shu-Han, 78 Sichuan, 68, 72, 73, 89, 95, 103 113, 160, 167, 173, 178 Siddhartha, 46, 52 silence, 55, 69, 72, 74, 143, 168, 246 Silk Road, 19 sincerity, 134, 149, 176 Six Dynasties, 11 society: difficulties in, 120, 135; and monastics, 133, 248; organization of, 2, 6; service to, 135 sociology, 118-119, 139 solstice, 193, 195 Song dynasty, 34, 61, 102, 183, 190, 225 songzi Niangniang, 121 sons, 129, 138 souls, 181-184, 190, 200-201, 221 South Gate of Heaven, 2, 107-108 space, 25, 79 sperm, 51, 139, 181, 235 stability (vow of), 209 state, and administration, 88-94; authorities of, 34; and alchemy, 183; control of, 92, 97; council of, 90; directives of, 209; discussion of, 117; and education, 173, 175; and finances, 208; forces in, 30; and news, 56; and ordination, 162163; provincial, 90; and punishments, 155; and reconstruction, 82; and religion, 6, 10, 63, 249-250; and rules, 151;

and slogans, 23; and travel, 210; and vocation, 127 statues, 26, 100-101, 113-114, 196 Stèles, 42. steles, 34, 37, 103-104, 109, 205 stillness, 053, 136, 246 stipends, 65, 250 study, see education 58, 78 subcourts, 96-97 Sun Buer, 143-144 Sun Simiao, 4, 34, 194 superstitions, 34, 77, 106, 124 taboos, see calendar Taibai: 110, 115; miao, 96, 144-145, 157159 Taiqinggong, 8 Taiwan, 83 talismans, 48, 105, 199-200 Tang dynasty, 3, 11, 30, 60, 61, 101-102, 183, 232, 249 Tanzhesi, 46 teaching without words, 168 temples: of Confucius, 109; Daoist, 1; Buddhist, 4; documents on, 8; and freedom, 97; grounds of, 23; of Han Yu, 109; and laity, 85-86; management of, 96; map of, 117; meetings at, 191; mixed, 64, 96; role of, 2; terms for, 4 terms: of address, 237; gendered, 230; kinship, 214-216, 219-220, 224-225, 228 Thailand, 104 theater, 83, 196 Three Caverns, 158 Three Deathbringers, 191 Three Kingdoms, 78 Three Officials, 159, 161, 193 Three Primes, 190, 193 Three Pure Ones, 59, 114-115, 159, 195 Three Treasures, 184 Three Vehicles, 66, 159, 160, 176, 177 Three Worlds, 227 Tian Sishun, 94 Tian, Layman, 81-82, 85, 169, 175, 186, 225 Tianshidong, 178 Tianshigong, 41 Tianshimiao, 35, 89 Tianshui time: and apprenticeship, 148, 171, 175; and funerals, 223; and immortality,

Index / 277

181; and lineages, 167; and ordination, 157-159; and ritual, 189-191, 248; of services, 202; sexagenary cycle, 167, 189 tourism, 40, 77, 84, 88, 93, 164 trace of the past, 008, 040 training, and recitation, 203-204 transformation, 37, 179-182, 184, 185, 230, 234, 236, 247 transmission: 067, 168, 236, 248; and apprenticeship, 171; and family terms, 224; individual, 168; and kinship, 220; oral, 6, 166; silent, 169; system of, 167; and temples, 66 travel: and apprenticeship, 148-150; of Daoists, 63, 66-67, 69, 204, 209-213, 249, 250; and education, 175-176; kinds of, 212-213; and kinship, 217; and laity, 81-82; and service, 208; wandering, 175, 185, 212 trigrams, see Yijing Upadhyaya, 13 vanity, 232 vegetarianism, 12, 153, 184 virility, 246 virtue, 122, 134, 153, 179, 232, 235, 245; see also merit visitors, 1, 22-23, 26, 27, 74-76, 77, 80, 84, 99, 192, 207, 212-213, 248 vocation, 118-120, 134, 147, 149, 220, 251; see also motivation Wang Changyue, 9, 152 Wang Chongyang, 1, 5, 53, 61, 63, 87, 113, 131-132, 136, 140-144, 166, 217, 220, 244 Wang Liqing, 70, 123-124, 128, 134, 181, 201, 215, 216 Wang Yi’e, 46, 51-52, 93, 95 Wang Zideng, 236 Wang, Laywoman, 80 Wangmugong, 68 Wantan jing, 202 Watson, James, 239 Weber, Max, 10, 218, 253 Wei Huacun, 236 Wei Zongyi, 72, 89, 122, 169, 172, 246 Welch, Holmes, 46, 52 Wen Zhifeng, 127, 133-134, 141 Wenchang dijun, 115 Wengong, 2, 33, 80, 99-101, 112, 157, 194, 196, 206

Wengongci: passim; annex of, 96, 167, 173, 212; fields of, 36, 39; history of, 2-3, 30, 37; map of, 24, 39; walls of, 23, 25, 39-42 Wengongmiao, 110 widows, 64, 130, 251 wings, transformation of, 69, 180-181, 185, 220-223, 253 women:, apprenticeship of, 148; and chujia, 137; in community, 179; and Daoists, 1, 43, 160, 224, 230-247; and Daoist Academy, 173; differences of, 234-237; equality of, 230, 232-234, 247; and family, 129-130; and Han Yu, 108; precepts for, 153; pregnancy, 235; and relationship terms, 224; roles of, 208; and sexuality, 244 work unit, 90, 209-10, 217 worship: days of, 190-191; halls, 2, 26, 35, 62, 66, 74-75, 99-100, 113, 158, 176, 192; practice of, 10; resurgence of, 41; and state, 98 worshipers: 076-78; and, 92; and lay followers, 84 Wu Chengzhen, 232 Wu Congqing, 206 Wu Gaolan, 157, 159 Wu Shizhen, 5-6, 44, 56-57, 124-125, 129, 138, 157, 168, 170, 171, 174, 184, 204, 244 Wu Xintian, 33 Wu Zongqin, 164-165 Wugou Daoren, 104-108 Wuhan, 65, 72, 207 Wuhouci, 77 Wulonggong, 95, 178 wuwei, see nonaction Xi’an, 5, 19, 20, 56, 60, 63, 65, 82, 86, 93, 95, 101, 109, 124, 127, 133, 144, 163, 173, 174 Xiangzimiao, 110 Xiaojing, 51 Xing Zongxing, 68 Xishen, 115 Xiwangmu, 46, 236 Xu Mingcai, 72, 210, 223 Xu Xingzhao, 70, 72, 126, 132, 134 Xu Xinqi, 71, 73 Xu Xiuzhen, 72, 126, 132, 134, 140, 145 Xuanmu, 113 Xuanwu, 113-116, 190, 194206

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Yang Chengdao, 49 Yang Erzeng, 106 Yang Lihun, 124, 129, 132, 148 Yang Lixian, 72, 148, 206, 224 Yang Xi, 244 Yang Yuanzhen, 72, 78, 141, 168, 175, 246 Yang Zhixiang, 70, 72, 76, 78, 122, 126, 131-132, 135, 143, 145-146, 198, 206, 231, 233, 238 yang, pure, 237-39, 245 Yanggong ji), 190 Yangxian, 194 Yankou jin, 202 Yaowang, 4, 113, 194, 196; dong, 112; miao, 71, 124 Yellow Emperor, 32, 51 Yellow River, 20, 32 Yellow Turbans, 30, 249 Yijing, 1, 23, 26, 127, 180, 197, 234-235, 244, 246 yin, power of, 245-247 yin-yang, 22, 47, 62, 186, 205, 224, 227239, 242-248 Yonghegong, 91 Yoshioka Yoshitoyo, 8, 65, 154, 1630, 165, 211 Yuan Xinyi, 124, 67, 128, 128, 166, 230 Yuan Zhilin, 70, 125, 206, 218 Yuan, Laywoman, 130 yuanfen, 65, 78, 120-123, 126, 130, 133, 146, 147-148, 150, 211-212, 250-252 Yuanfu, 114 Yunnan, 126 Yuquanyuan 玉泉院, 94 Zhanglianggong, 34, 5, 63, 65, 77, 88

zaijia, 011, 060 Zangskar, 53 Zanguan keyi, 160 Zaotan jin, 202 Zhang Daoling, 5, 30, 35, 60, 63, 113, 115, 217, 220 Zhang Liang:, 58, 63, 77, 139; miao , 34, 5, 63, 65, 77, 88 Zhang Lu, 30-31, 87; daughter, 31; Town, 3, 30, 34 Zhang Minggui, 94 Zhang Yuanfa, 69, 164-165 Zhang Zhifa, 132, 66-72, 78-79, 96, 117, 124, 126, 131, 142, 144-49, 156, 158, 164-165, 169-172, 194, 206, 215-216 Zhao Jiaxian, 175 Zhao Zongyun, 230 Zhengyi, 60; see also Celestial Masters Zhong Jin, 102 Zhongguo daojiao, 8, 46, 51, 95 Zhou Gaode, 246 Zhouzhi, 65 Zhu Xinyang, 46-47, 50-51 Zhu Yueli, 45, 53, 65, 106, 223 Zhu Zongcai, 140, 142 Zhu, Layman, 57, 63, 76, 78, 80-86, 94, 104, 106, 121, 176, 187, 190, 193, 194, 197, 211, 214-215 Zhuangzi, 6, 50, 59-60, 95, 134, 149, 169-170, 179, 181, 185, 187, 204, 228, 233, 243, 245 Zhuanxu, 32 Zhuge Liang, 78, 87 ziran, 52, 122, 187 zisun, 005, 064-67, 216 Zito, Angela, 45 Zitonggong, 160