Popular Culture in Late Imperial China [Reprint 2019 ed.] 9780520340121

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Popular Culture in Late Imperial China

S T U D I E S ON CHINA A series of conference volumes sponsored by the Joint Committee on Chinese Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council. i. Origins of Chinese Civilization edited by David N. Keightley, University of California Press, ig8s 2. Popular Chinese Literature and Performing Arts in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1979 edited by Bonnie S. McDougall, University of California Press, 1984 3. Class and Social Stratification in Post-Revolution China, edited by James L. Watson Cambridge University Press, 1984 4. Popular Culture in Late Imperial China edited by David Johnson, Andrew J . Nathan, and Evelyn S. Rawski, University of California Press, ig8'5

Popular Culture in Late Imperial China

EDITED BY

David Johnson Andrew J . Nathan Evelyn S. Rawski CONTRIBUTORS

Judith A. Berling • James Hayes • Robert E. Hegel David Johnson • Leo Ou-fan Lee • Victor H. Mair Andrew J . Nathan • Susan Naquin • Daniel L. Overmyer Evelyn S. Rawski • Tanaka Issei • Barbara E. Ward James L. Watson

U N I V E R S I T Y OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley • Los Angeles • London

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England ©1985 by The Regents of the University of California Printed in the United States of America First Paperback Printing 1987 123456789 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Popular culture in late imperial China. Based on a conference sponsored by the Committee on Studies of Chinese Ci vilization of the American Council of Learned Societies. Includes index. 1. China—Civilization—1644-1912. 2. China—Popular culture. I. Johnson, David G. (David George) II. Nathan, Andrew J. (Andrew James) III. Rawski, Evelyn S. (Evelyn Sakakida). IV. American Council of Learned Societies. Committee on Studies of Chinese Civilization. DS754.14.P661984 951'.03 83-18012 ISBN 0-520-06172-1

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / vii P R E F A C E / ÍX

PARTI

. INTRODUCTORY

PERSPECTIVES

i. Economic and Social Foundations of Late Imperial Culture Evelyn S. Rawski / j 2. Communication, Class, and Consciousness in Late Imperial China David Johnson / 34

P A R T II 3. Specialists and Written Materials in the Village World James Hayes / 75 4. Distinguishing Levels of Audiences for Ming-Ch'ing Vernacular Literature Robert E. Hegel I 112 5. The Social and Historical Context of Ming-Ch'ing Local Drama Tanaka Issei j 143 6. Regional Operas and Their Audiences: Evidence from Hong Kong Barbara E. Ward / 161 7. Religion and Popular Culture: The Management of Moral Capital in The Romance of the Three Teachings Judith A. Berling /188 8. Values in Chinese Sectarian Literature: Ming and Ch'ing Pao-chiian Daniel L. Overmyer / 21g

CONTENTS 9. The Transmission of White Lotus Sectarianism in Late Imperial China Susan Naquin / 255 . Standardizing the Gods: The Promotion of T'ien Hou ("Empress of Heaven") Along the South China Coast, 9 6 0 - 1 9 6 0 James L. Watson / 2Q2 1 1 . Language and Ideology in the Written Popularizations of the Sacred Edict Victor H. Mair / 325 12. T h e Beginnings of Mass Culture: Journalism and Fiction in the Late Ch'ing and Beyond Leo Ou-fan Lee and Andrew J . Nathan / 360

PART III • C O N C L U D I N G P E R S P E C T I V E S 13. Problems and Prospects Evelyn S. Rawski / CONTRIBUTORS / 4 1 9 GLOSSARY-INDEX / 4 2 I

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS •IED

T h e conference in which this book originated was sponsored by the Committee on Studies of Chinese Civilization of the American Council of Learned Societies, which also helped defray the costs of publication. Additional support and meeting facilities were provided by the East-West Communications Institute of the East-West Center, Honolulu. Administrative assistance was given by the East Asian Institute of C o l u m b i a University and by the Department of History, University of California, Berkeley. T h e conference proposal was written at a planning meeting in J a n u a r y , 1979, attended by M y r o n L. Cohen, L e o O u - f a n Lee, Donald J. M u n r o , Daniel L. Overmyer, and the editors. Commentators at the conference were G o d w i n C . Chu, Wolfram Eberhard, Perry Link, J o h n M c C o y , Donald J . M u n r o , G . William Skinner, T u Wei-ming, and Eugen Weber, whose contribution was especially valuable because he was the only participant w h o was not a C h i n a specialist. Daniel K w o k , Y . W . M a , and Michael Saso, of the University of Hawaii, also took part in a number of sessions. G o d w i n C h u and M e g White were warm hosts on behalf of the East-West Communications Institute. Barbara W a r d died not long after completing the final version of her chapter. She had just published several important essays and had major projects under way. T h e loss to scholarship was great, but those w h o knew the energy, wit, and sheer delight she brought to every gathering will also understand our deep sense of personal loss.

mi

PREFACE •IED

O n e of the principal purposes of this book is to help b r i n g the study of non-elite culture into the m a i n s t r e a m of a c a d e m i c discourse a b o u t traditional C h i n a . N o one believes t h a t we can u n d e r s t a n d C h i n a by studying only the privileged a n d the educated. But they p r o d u c e d most of the documents, a n d so they have received, a n d still receive, attention from historians far out of proportion to their numbers. This overemphasis on the elite has led to grave distortions in our vision of Chinese history a n d culture, distortions t h a t can only be remedied by serious, systematic study of the world beyond the b o u n d a r i e s of the ruling class. Such study is not as problematic as it is often assumed to be. W e can seldom hope to form more than the dimmest conception of the attitudes a n d values of the illiterate majority, but, as the essays in this book suggest, by late imperial times there were m a n y people who could r e a d , a n d even write, a n d yet were not members of any elite. F r o m this b r o a d a n d variegated g r o u p came the producers or consumers of virtually all the surviving d o c u m e n t s directly relevant to the study of p o p u l a r culture. M a n y such texts m a k e a n a p p e a r a n c e in the papers t h a t follow: scriptures, for example, a n d edifying tales; almanacs, h a n d books, a n d the like; explanations in plain l a n g u a g e of the o r t h o d o x ideology of the Sacred Edict; accounts of the miracles of local gods; scripts of plays; even a novel written to popularize a new religion. These materials were written, b u t at the same time were not too far removed f r o m the illiterate realm. Some were designed to be read aloud; others were used by those w h o could read them as the basis of instruction or advice to those w h o could not. Such materials are the foundation of any a t t e m p t to reconstruct non-elite mentalities in p r e m o d e r n times. I n addition to their i m p o r t a n c e as source materials, these stories, scriptures, plays, a n d so on are often extremely interesting a n d enjoyable in their own right. T h e y frequently have a m o r e direct a p p e a l t h a n the complex, sophistiIX

PREFACE

cated writings of the intellectual and political elites. T h e mental and emotional world revealed in many of the public writings of the late imperial ruling class has a certain formal, self-conscious, subdued character that makes all the more attractive the unselfconscious, vigorous, colorful, and straightforward qualities of village plays, popular ballads, tales derived from storytellers' performances, and the like. M a n y students of C h i n a feel an immediate sympathy with the world of popular culture, and find working in the field a stimulating and even liberating experience. W e hope our readers will sense something of this. Popular culture comprises an enormous range of phenomena, from domestic architecture to millenarian cults, from irrigation techniques to shadow plays. This book does not pretend to cover, or even to touch upon, more than a few of these phenomena. W e have narrowed our focus in two ways: first, by confining our attention to the late imperial period (about 1550 to 1920), and second, by concentrating on values and their communication (to adapt a phrase from the title of the conference at which these papers were first presented). Popular culture was transformed in S u n g and Y u a n times, thanks to the advent and spread of commercial printing, and is being transformed again today as radio, movies, and especially television make deeper and deeper inroads. W h y , then, did we choose to focus on the late imperial period? T o begin with, we felt that the mass media brought such profound changes in their train that popular culture in the modern period was appropriately the subject of a separate book. W e therefore decided to concentrate on the bestdocumented and most accessible period in the premodern epoch, w h i c h of course is the most recent one. This was also the most highly differentiated stage of traditional Chinese civilization, and illustrates the premodern processes of cultural communication and integration at their most intricate. Evelyn Rawski shows in her opening essay that this final phase of imperial history began around the middle of the sixteenth century and extended down to the early twentieth century. T h a t epoch was set apart from w h a t went before by new relations between landlords and tenants, an intensification of economic activity, new educational institutions, new developments in commercial printing, and a more open and competitive social order. People are alive today whose parents and grandparents lived under C h ' i n g rule and who themselves experienced late imperial popular c u l t u r e — w h i c h outlived the political institutions of the empire by many years. This was another reason for choosing the late imperial period as the focus of this book: it allowed us to use the findings of anthropologists and others w h o have lived among people to whom the subjects of this book are, or were, living realities. Because so much that we need to know about popular culture is left unsaid in the surviving documents, this kind of eyewitness evidence is of the highest value. O f course, the use of contemporary data to illuminate the past requires care. James Hayes, for example, shows that m a n y of the books he has collected in H o n g K o n g were first printed in the late C h ' i n g , and, by citing nineteenth-century missionary

PREFACE

xi

sources, he demonstrates that the social conditions governing the circulation and use of these texts have not changed significantly since that time. Barbara Ward argues that colonial administrators in Hong K o n g have preserved the traditional diversity of Chinese opera in a way that the regimes in mainland China did not permit. Moreover, she focuses her report on festival performances, which she maintains are less changed from late Ch'ing times than any other type. And J a m e s Watson places his Hong K o n g field data in the context of the historical evolution of the T'ien Hou cult, as reconstructed from documentary sources. J u s t as we chose to work within a clearly delimited historical period, so too we focused on a restricted group of themes. These, as already noted, fall under the general heading of values and their communication. It is impossible to comprehend behavior without understanding the values, ideas, and beliefs— the mentalities—of those who are acting. And to understand values and the like one must study how they moved from person to person and group to group, and how they changed as they moved. Of course, many other aspects of non-elite life are eminently worth studying—demography, material culture, and economic conditions come immediately to mind—but we believe that focusing on values and their communication offers an especially effective way of understanding late imperial China. At the beginning of our period, the population of China had already passed the ioo million mark, and by the last quarter of the eighteenth century it was approaching 300 million. 1 At that time France, the largest nation in Europe, would have ranked third among the provinces of China, and England would have been one of the smallest, surpassing only remote Yunnan, Kweichow, and Kwangsi. 2 Demographically, China was not a France or an England—it was a Europe. But while Europe was divided into a multitude of nations growing ever more distinct from each other linguistically, economically, socially, and culturally, China was a single polity, and had been since the late sixth century (with interruptions during the Five Dynasties and Southern Sung periods). A direct consequence of these two facts was that Chinese culture in the last centuries of imperial rule was both extremely diverse and highly integrated. T h e diversity is easy to understand—it was an obvious function of China's great size. There were many varieties of popular culture, non-elite subcultures as it were, reflecting differences of power, prestige, education, and wealth, and of region, dialect, and occupation. Elite culture, too, displayed significant internal variations. And, of course, popular and elite cultures were very different from each other. B u t — a n d this is much harder to account for—these diverse elements were 1 Ping-ti Ho, Studies on the Population of China, 1368-^53 (Cambridge, Mass.: H a r v a r d University Press, 1959), pp. 264, 2 8 1 . 2 H o , Studies, p. 283; Pierre Goubert, The Ancien Régime: French Society 1600-1750, trans. Steve Cox (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1974), pp. 33—34; E. A . Wrigley, Population and History (New York: M c G r a w - H i l l [World University Library], 1969), pp. 78, 1 5 3 .

YO"

V

/

MAP I. CHINA, ca. 1 5 5 0 - 1 9 2 0

PREFACE

xiii

integrated into a single c o m p l e x cultural system. T h e intellectual a n d spiritual w o r l d of the scholar or official in late imperial times w a s not utterly alien to the peasant or laborer, nor was the reverse true. T h e r e were c o m m o n elements in the m e n t a l worlds of all Chinese. W e are far from satisfied w i t h our a c c o u n t of the nature of those elements, but w e take it as a x i o m a t i c that they existed. I f they h a d not, the w h o l e idea of Chinese culture d i s s o l v e s — " C h i n a " is r e d u c e d to the semantic triviality of " A s i a . " H o w can w e a c c o u n t for the integration of this extraordinarily diverse culture? W e start from the conviction that the sharing o f values, ideas, assumptions, a n d points o f reference across great social, g e o g r a p h i c , a n d e c o n o m i c distances is the result of specific, identifiable h u m a n actions. H e n c e , one o f o u r m a i n concerns has been with the agents a n d mechanisms b y w h i c h v e r b a l a n d symbolic structures were transmitted. W e h a v e also sought to understand, from the v e r y beginning, h o w beliefs a n d attitudes were modified as they were presented to different kinds of audiences, a n d h o w the mentalities of the various social groups differed from each other. A l l the papers in the b o d y of this book are c o n c e r n e d in one w a y or another with these issues. T h e book begins with two essays that are m e a n t to set the stage for w h a t follows. E v e l y n R a w s k i ' s c h a p t e r offers a c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n of the late imperial period, w i t h special emphasis on the interplay of e c o n o m i c a n d cultural factors. T h e developments that she describes in e d u c a t i o n a n d , particularly, in the printing industry, are f u n d a m e n t a l to a p r o p e r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the n a t u r e of the era. In the second introductory c h a p t e r , D a v i d J o h n s o n develops a general a p p r o a c h to the study of p o p u l a r culture. H e outlines the systems of c o m m u n i cation (oral a n d written) a n d the structure of d o m i n a n c e in late imperial C h i n a . H e proposes a new t a x o n o m y o f social groups based on the position o f individuals in both these structures a n d derives from it a systematic definition of the term " p o p u l a r c u l t u r e . " H e suggests that the groups thus defined h a d their o w n characteristic collective mentalities a n d outlines some of the features of each. Johnson's c h a p t e r is not so m u c h a p r o g r a m for the book as a c o m m e n t on the other papers a n d on the study o f p o p u l a r culture in general. T h e m a i n body o f the book opens with a n a c c o u n t by J a m e s H a y e s o f the m a n y kinds of writings that were intended for non-elite audiences. H e pays particular attention to the individuals he calls " s p e c i a l i s t s " — s c h o o l teachers, letter writers, experts on ceremonial, entertainers, a n d the l i k e — w h o in most cases w e r e the only people in rural communities able to use written materials. T h e y functioned as intermediaries b e t w e e n illiterate villagers a n d townspeople on the one h a n d a n d the e d u c a t e d classes on the other. It was they w h o did most of the w o r k of p o p u l a r i z i n g elite literary a n d intellectual culture. H a y e s draws on his l o n g experience o f life in H o n g K o n g ' s N e w Territories to provide a new a n d v i v i d picture of some of the most i m p o r t a n t w a y s in w h i c h ideas a n d values m o v e d from the u p p e r to the l o w e r strata of late imperial Chinese society. R o b e r t H e g e l focuses on a closely related topic: the w a y in w h i c h a s t o r y — i n

PREFACE

XIV

this case the system o f l e g e n d and history c o n c e r n i n g the early T ' a n g general Li M i — c h a n g e s when presented to different audiences. Hegel stresses the close connection between the a u d i e n c e o f a work and its c o n t e n t , an idea that is fundamental to this book, since it applies not only to fiction and d r a m a , but also to religious teachings, ideas a b o u t medicine a n d the n a t u r a l world, and a n y other widespread narrative construct or system o f ideas. H e concludes by underscoring the c o m m o n elements in the versions o f the L i M i story he has discussed, what he calls an essential unity o f ideology. T h i s is a theme that is central to the book. O v e r the past two decades, T a n a k a Issei has carried out extensive studies o f local d r a m a in the late imperial period, a n d in his c h a p t e r he provides a summary o f his findings. T a n a k a identifies the three m a j o r settings o f local d r a m a t i c performances: the m a r k e t town, the village, a n d the lineage hall. H e suggests that in each o f these venues the theater was d o m i n a t e d by representatives o f a different social stratum. As a consequence, both the plays presented and, if the plays were the same, significant details in their scripts, tended to differ from setting to setting. I n the second o f this volume's two papers on the theater, that most i m p o r t a n t o f the popular arts, B a r b a r a W a r d provides a systematic description o f the regional operas she spent m a n y years observing in H o n g K o n g , especially the type she calls "festival o p e r a s , " which she believes have more in c o m m o n with C h ' i n g popular d r a m a t h a n any other type. S h e also puts forward a stimulating and provocative interpretation o f the nature o f Chinese theater that speaks directly to one o f the m a i n themes o f this book. W h e r e Hegel and T a n a k a pursue the way in which the p e r f o r m a n c e context, or the author's sense o f his audience, served to g e n e r a t e variations in the m a t e r i a l presented, W a r d emphasizes the elements c o m m o n to all d r a m a . " T h e large m a j o r i t y o f Chinese o p e r a s , " she writes, " r e l i e d on the s a m e stylized role categories and m a d e use o f the same popular stories . . . t h a t formed the shared repertoire o f storytellers, puppeteers, ballad singers, a n d other entertainers all over C h i n a . T h e r e is no question but that at least from toward the end o f the first h a l f o f the M i n g dynasty o n w a r d the messages relayed by these traditional media to the Chinese populace were essentially the s a m e " — a

conclusion

similar to Hegel's. T h u s , W a r d stresses the essential unity o f traditional d r a m a , while T a n a k a emphasizes its diversity. W a r d recognizes the conflict between these positions and tries to resolve it, but is not entirely successful. Clearly, identifying the c o m m o n elements in the cultural diversity o f l a t e imperial C h i n a is a m a j o r conceptual p r o b l e m . W i t h J u d i t h Berling's p a p e r we find ourselves in the region where entertainment

and

instruction

meet.

Berling

describes

and

analyzes

an

early

seventeenth-century novel that was written to spread the doctrines o f the T h r e e T e a c h i n g s religion, which h a d been founded in the late sixteenth century. T h e novel is a perfect e x a m p l e o f how men w h o wished to persuade or instruct had to use means that would appeal to the people they hoped to reach. T h e a u t h o r o f

PREFACE

xv

The Romance of the Three Teachings was writing for men who were literate but were neither officials nor scholars—it is not surprising that he wrote a novel to get his message across. Since it h a d to depict improper behavior in order to expose and reform it, the novel provides an unusually revealing account of the tensions, anxieties, and conflicts that were part of life in the lower Yangtze region in the early seventeenth century. The Romance of the Three Teachings belongs to a large class of writings that uses the techniques of popular fiction a n d song to popularize religious teachings. O n e of the most i m p o r t a n t genres in that class was the pao-chuan, the subject of Daniel Overmyer's essay. Overmyer begins with a description of the various types of pao-chuan a n d a brief account of their history. H e then provides a full and systematic treatment of their teachings. O v e r m y e r stresses the i m p o r t a n t role played by w o m e n in the audience of pao-chuan, discussing in considerable detail the Liu Hsiang pao-chuan, the m a i n concern of which is with the "courage, freedom, and salvation of w o m e n . " Susan N a q u i n also writes of popular sectarian religion in late imperial times. But where O v e r m y e r is largely concerned with the values taught by sectarian scriptures, N a q u i n concentrates on explicating the methods used by different kinds of White Lotus sects to propagate their beliefs. She demonstrates that there were two main types of W h i t e Lotus sect in the m i d - C h ' i n g period. In one, written scriptures and their c o m m u n a l recitation played a central role; in the other, whose members seem to have been villagers with little or no education, short chants or mantras, transmitted orally, were the characteristic means by which doctrine was propagated. T h e teachings of the two types of sect also differed considerably, as N a q u i n shows; yet they both accepted the basic ideas o f W h i t e Lotus religion. Thus, Naquin's p a p e r too speaks to the issue of themes and variations that was addressed in differing ways by Hegel and W a r d . T h e Chinese state was in effect a theocracy: the emperor was the Son of Heaven, intermediary between the h u m a n and divine worlds. As a consequence, the civil authorities were extremely sensitive about the religious beliefs of the people, and constantly intervened in the world of popular religion. T h e sects discussed by Overmyer a n d N a q u i n were often criticized a n d sometimes violently attacked by local a n d central government officials. J a m e s Watson shows that ordinary community-based popular cults, which were very different from the White Lotus-type sects, were also subject to close scrutiny a n d frequent manipulation by the authorities. H e describes in detail the process by which " A u n t L i n , " a goddess known initially only to the people of a small coastal town in Fukien, grew more a n d more popular, and ultimately was transformed through governmental p a t r o n a g e into T'ien H o u , Empress of Heaven, one of the most important deities in the popular pantheon. T h e cult of Aunt Lin was then reimposed, in this altered form, on the very communities among which it h a d first appeared. In the process, Watson develops the argument that T ' i e n H o u , like all i m p o r t a n t religious symbols, m e a n t different

XVI

PREFACE

things to different people. H e concludes, in contrast to W a r d and Hegel, that the integration of Chinese culture was made possible by the ambiguity of its symbols. Besides attempting to modify the content of indigenous popular cults, the authorities devised various ways of directly propagating orthodox values. Victor M a i r writes about a characteristic method: the composition by scholars or officials of explanations of the meaning of the so-called Sacred Edict, a set of sixteen brief maxims or commandments composed by the K'ang-hsi emperor (r. 1 6 6 2 - 1 7 2 2 ) . Since few people could understand easily the meaning of the original text, which was written in a compressed, literary style, explanations written in simpler language were prepared. In addition, a regular program of twice-monthly lectures was instituted in settlements of all sizes, at which the sixteen commandments were explained to the people in plain language, since they would have been incomprehensible to most people if simply read aloud. These lectures were often based on the written explanations just mentioned, the texts of which still survive. M a i r has discovered that there were also unofficial lecturers on the Sacred Edict, more akin to storytellers than to preachers, w h o told stories that were intended, officially at any rate, to illustrate the meaning of the sixteen commandments. His paper provides unusually detailed information on the ways in which orthodox ideology was transmitted to the people at large, and how it was modified in the process. In the paper that concludes the main part of the volume, Leo Lee and A n d r e w Nathan focus on journalism and fiction in the period of transition from traditional popular culture to modern mass culture. T h e y show that the problem of accommodating popular tastes while inculcating approved values and providing socially useful information is an even more serious problem in the age of mass communication than it was under the C h ' i n g and earlier. A t the same time, they provide another illustration of the interdependence of values and communication. W e have tried in this book to concentrate on topics of special importance to the study of Chinese popular culture, and to come to grips with some of the major conceptual problems that arose in the course of research, writing, and discussion. But many significant areas of research have been barely touched upon or ignored entirely, and difficult conceptual problems remain to be solved. Evelyn Rawski provides an overview of these topics and problems in the concluding chapter. W h a t kinds of texts were easiest to read for the moderately educated person? H o w is the meaning of a text to be defined? W h a t is the nature of cultural integration? Rawski's discussion of these and other issues leads naturally to the identification of promising areas for future research, a m o n g which are the interrelationship of popular religion and drama; the role of ritual and ritual specialists in popular culture; the whole range of cultural specialists discussed by Hayes; women, their culture and their role in the integration of Chinese culture; domestic architecture and other aspects of material culture;

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xvit

and so on. As Rawski's paper makes clear, Chinese popular culture is an exceptionally interesting and important field that is just beginning to be explored. We hope this book will prompt others to venture into it, and will provide them with some useful guidance when they do. — T h e Editors

ONE • 0 ^

Economic and Social Foundations of Late Imperial Culture Evelyn S.

Rawski

This essay focuses on two questions. In answer to the first—Why do we study the late Ming a n d Ch'ing as one historical u n i t ? — w e argue that this era, the late imperial period (sixteenth through nineteenth centuries), was substantively different from its predecessors and was characterized by considerable continuity in key institutions and socio-economic structure. In investigating this continuity, we discuss three m a j o r phenomena: economic growth a n d change, which led to shifts in the composition a n d character of the elite; an expansion of the educational system, produced in part by economic growth; and the onset of large-scale printing, stimulated by prosperity a n d expanded education. These three factors all have direct bearing on a second question, the concern of m a n y papers in this volume: namely, the degree to which M i n g and Ch'ing citizens shared ideas, values, assumptions, and frames of reference. T h e final section of this essay briefly considers the relationship of long-run economic a n d social trends with the forces of cultural integration and diversity. THE LATE IMPERIAL ECONOMY Despite profound differences of opinion on the contours of the historical landscape, Chinese, J a p a n e s e , and American historians seem agreed on one thing: that Chinese society underwent significant changes in the course of the M i n g dynasty, changes that produced the political, social, and economic institutions of late imperial China. O n e major economic development during the M i n g dynasty was the monetization of silver. This trend was reflected in the sixteenth-century Single W h i p fiscal reforms, which simplified tax levies a n d commuted them to money payments. Monetization was based on an expanded marketing system that 3

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

4

drew regions situated along the coast and the Yangtze River into long-distance and even international trade. What was new was not the existence of such trade but its magnitude, made possible by a shift in the sixteenth-century focus of trade from Central Asia to the southeast coast. As Owen Lattimore notes, the shift to water was critical: "Even a small sailing ship could in one voyage carry from Canton to London more cargo, in a shorter time and at a higher profit, than could be moved by a succession of caravans plodding from ancient or medieval China to the markets of the Mediterranean." 1 Ming junks went not to London but to ports in Japan, the Spanish colony of Manila, and Southeast Asia, but the effect was still the same: a large expansion, in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, in the volume of trade accompanying the shift of focus from China's inner frontiers to the southeast coast. The influence of the foreign trade was first felt in the flow of Japanese and Mexican silver into China. According to William Atwell, who compares domestic silver production with silver imports, foreign trade accounted for the bulk of the new supplies of silver entering China's economy in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He concludes that "Japanese and American silver may well have been the most significant factor in the vigorous economic expansion which occurred in China," an expansion that ended in the 1630s when Spanish efforts to restrict the Manila trade and Japanese efforts (after 1638) to bar the Portuguese from trade in Japan succeeded in substantially reducing trade volumes and in bringing a deflation to China. 2 While this deflation was probably important in stimulating the crises at the end of Ming, China's involvement in the world economy suffered only a temporary setback. In subsequent centuries its involvement increased and deepened. The economic upsurge of the sixteenth century, which G. W. Skinner identifies as the ascending phase of the second great macrocycle in Chinese history, brought increased commercialization of agriculture, further growth in rural and urban handicraft production, and more rural markets in the Southeast Coast, Lower Yangtze, and areas in North China adjoining the Grand Canal. The growth of rural markets occurred in sixteenth-century coastal Fukien and sixteenth-century Ningpo. In Fukien, cash cropping in sugar cane and expanded production of cotton and porcelain appeared in response to new opportunities for trade with the Portuguese, Japanese, and Spanish. In the Lower Yangtze the sixteenth century saw further development of handicrafts, particularly cotton weaving, which was a rural industry. The size of the handicraft sector is revealed indirectly in the development of specialized regions for cotton cultivation along the Grand Canal in North 1

O w e n Lattimore, cited in William S. Atwell, "Notes on Silver, Foreign T r a d e , and the Late

M i n g Economy," Ch'ing-shih wen-l'i 3.8: 30(1977), n. 59. 2

Atwell, "Notes on Silver."

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL

FOUNDATIONS

5

China: we know that cotton grown here was sold to traders from the L o w e r Y a n g t z e for spinning and weaving in K i a n g n a n . 3 Thus, the sixteenth century saw developing markets and commercialization of agriculture in three macroregional cores: the North C h i n a core along the G r a n d C a n a l , and the cores of the L o w e r Y a n g t z e and the Southeast Coast. A l t h o u g h we know less about the L i n g n a n regional economy, the onset in the sixteenth century of Portuguese trade at M a c a o and the increase in numbers of private academies suggest that this region also experienced growth and prosperity. T h e creation of rural markets outpaced population growth and altered the hierarchy of central places. According to Skinner, the r e g i o n a l city systems that d e v e l o p e d in the m e d i e v a l e r a w e r e i m m a t u r e a n d u n e v e n : capitals a n d m a r k e t t o w n s w e r e o n l y v e r y i m p e r f e c t l y m e s h e d into a n i n t e g r a t e d system, a n d the u r b a n p o p u l a t i o n as a w h o l e w a s c o n c e n t r a t e d in the largest cities. By c o n t r a s t , city systems o f the l a t e i m p e r i a l era w e r e m o r e m a t u r e a n d m o r e fully fleshed out: c a p i t a l s a n d m a r k e t t o w n s w e r e better i n t e g r a t e d i n t o a single h i e r a r c h i c a l system, a n d the total u r b a n p o p u l a t i o n w a s m o r e e v e n l y d i s t r i b u t e d t h r o u g h o u t the h i e r a r c h y .

Integration of the urban hierarchy and increased ties between towns and villages facilitated w h a t James Liu calls the " r a d i a t i n g diffusion" of urban culture into rural areas and was thus an important factor in shaping the contours of M i n g - C h ' i n g popular culture. 4 M a r k e t development and economic growth also prompted relaxation of direct government controls over the economy. T h e M i n g founder had continued the Y u a n practice of registering certain households for special service as salt producers, soldiers, or artisans, but this system collapsed in the sixteenth century and was replaced by commuted payments in money. Goods obtained for Imperial Household use with corvée labor in early M i n g were now acquired 3 For a detailed exposition on macroregions, which will be referred to throughout this essay, see G. William Skinner, "Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth-Century China," in The City in Late Imperial China, ed. G. William Skinner (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977). Also G. William Skinner, " U r b a n Development in Imperial China," ibid., p. 28; Yoshinobu Shiba, "Ningpo and Its Hinterland," ibid., pp. 399, 401; Mark Elvin, " M a r k e t Towns and Waterways: T h e County of Shang-hai from 1480 to 1910," ibid., pp. 470-471 ; E. S. Rawski, Agricultural Change and the Peasant Economy of South China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 64-88; Kataoka Shibako frlSl^i"! "Min-matsu Shin-sho no Kahoku ni okeru noka keiei" Bfl 5)5 iff ÌJJ ijl;Jfc l ; } ^ t i 3 J I I ^ M i l i [The peasant economy o f N o r t h China in late Ming and early Ch'ing], Shakai keizai shigaku 2 5 . 2 - 3 : 7 7 - 1 0 0 ( 1 9 5 9 ) ; Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973), pp. 269- 284. "Skinner, " U r b a n Development," p. 28, referring to T ' a n g - S u n g as the medieval period and M i n g - C h ' i n g as the late imperial era. James T . C. Liu, "Integrative Factors Through Chinese History: Their Interaction," in Traditional China, ed. James T . C. Liu and Wei-ming T u (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 14.

6

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

through subcontracts to private firms using w a g e labor. Government direction of water-control projects was similarly replaced by local financing and management. 5 This tendency for the central government to retreat from direct participation and control of the economy continued in C h ' i n g times. Agricultural productivity increased during the late M i n g . T h e effects of economic development on agriculture can be seen most markedly in the emergence of rights of permanent tenure and multiple ownership of land in the riceproducing regions of South and Central China. W h e t h e r or not one agrees with the Japanese scholarship that identifies this development with dissolution of manorial controls on rural peasants and tenants, it is clear that these rights, which are first cited in sixteenth-century Fukien gazetteers, represent an improvement of the tenant's position with respect to the landlord. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, permanent tenure appeared in K i a n g s u , Kiangsi, and other rice-producing regions of C h i n a . 6 Government retreat from economic intervention, increased social mobility resulting from flourishing markets, and improved tenancy rights are signposts of a cumulative process familiar to us from European examples: the replacement of direct controls over individuals by the indirect controls of the market. O f course, neither the late M i n g nor the C h ' i n g economy was dominated by the market. T h e contract, which appears in M i n g and C h ' i n g times for a wide variety of transactions, was still not ubiquitous, and broad regional variations in the importance of contractual obligations versus those of status undoubtedly persisted. T h e significance of these developments, however, lies not in their statistical frequency but in their function as signs of a gradual and long-term trend toward the triumph of the market economy. In the Lower Y a n g t z e core, North C h i n a core, and other regions where 5

Ping-ti H o , The Ladder of Success in Imperial China ( N e w Y o r k : C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y Press, 19(12),

c h a p . 2; M i c h a e l Dillon, " J i n g d e z h e n as a M i n g Industrial C e n t e r , " Ming Studies 6 : 3 9 - 4 1

(1978);

T s i n g Y u a n , " T h e P o r c e l a i n I n d u s t r y at C h i n g - t e c h e n 1 5 0 0 - 1 7 0 0 , " Ming Studies 6 : 4 7 - 4 8 ( 1 9 7 8 ) . S k i n n e r , " U r b a n D e v e l o p m e n t , " p. 25, notes that this w a s p a r t o f a l o n g - t e r m trend, b e g i n n i n g in the T ' a n g , " w h e r e b y the d e g r e e o f i n v o l v e m e n t in local a f f a i r s — n o t o n l y in m a r k e t i n g a n d c o m m e r c e but also in social r e g u l a t i o n . . . a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i o n i t s e l f — s t e a d i l y d e c l i n e d , a retrenchm e n t f o r c e d by the g r o w i n g scale o f e m p i r e . " 6Elvin,

The Pattern of the Chinese Past, c h a p . 15, a n d M i - c h u W i e n s , " L o r d a n d P e a s a n t : T h e

S i x t e e n t h to the E i g h t e e n t h C e n t u r y , " Modern China 6 . 1 : 3 - 3 9 (1980), rely o n J a p a n e s e a n d C h i n e s e scholarship; neither studies the r e g i o n a l distribution a n d first a p p e a r a n c e o f p e r m a n e n t t e n a n c y a n d m u l t i p l e l a n d o w n e r s h i p . O y a m a M a s a a k i / J ^ t l l j E ^ . " M i n S h i n s h a k a i keizaishi kenkyü no kaiko" B ^ t í t t ' É ' i í M ^ i & í i ' F ^ S W H I ®

[ R e t r o s p e c t i v e on research in

s o c i o - e c o n o m i c history], Shakai keizai shigaku í ± z í S Í S Í í E ; ^

Ming-Ch'ing

3 I I - 5 : 2 8 1 - 2 9 3 (1966) s u r v e y s the

v o l u m i n o u s J a p a n e s e literature on p e r m a n e n t t e n a n c y . R e c e n t C h i n e s e w o r k s i n c l u d e F u I - l i n g jx Ü

> " K u a n - y ü M i n g - m o C h ' i n g - c h ' u C h u n g - k u o n u n g - t s ' u n she-hui k u a n - h s i ti hsin k u - c h i " if

+ I S I I Í Í I t # B8

fé

S í fe I t

[A n e w estimate o f social relations in late M i n g a n d

early C h ' i n g villages], Hsia-men ta-hsiieh hsüeh-pao Síf"5 j t ! P ¡ P 2 : 5 7 - 7 0 " L u n C h ' i n g - t a i c h ' i e n - c h ' i ti t ' u - t i c h a n - y u k u a n - h s i " g^iH f^í HÍlSS land o c c u p a n c y relations in early C h ' i n g ] , Li-shihyen-chiu

(1959); L i Wen-chih [5 ^ Bü ^ [ O n

5 : 7 5 - 1 0 8 (1963).

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL

FOUNDATIONS

7

commercial agriculture was practiced, peasants were subjected more intensely than before to the full influence of the market. O n one hand, market participation brought increased productivity, stimulated handicraft production, and encouraged improved conditions for tenants. Increased participation in marketing and the emergence of lower level rural markets meant improvements in communications between town and village, as peddlers, peasants, landlords, and others came together in the periodic markets. T h e increased flow of trade and heightened market participation thus surely influenced the shape of Chinese culture in both rural and urban places. 7 Those w h o produced for the market were exposed to the risk of price fluctuations. Bountiful harvests couid now have negative consequences for individual farmers, as the price for a crop fell; bad harvests, when prices soared, could benefit the producer whose crop had not been damaged. Exposure to market forces m a d e the economic calculations of individual households much more complex, and tied household welfare to forces operating above the level of the village. M a r k e t participation raised the value of knowledge concerning conditions in the larger world. T h e risks and benefits of market participation must have also sharpened the competitive environment in which villagers lived. T h e impact of market participation on peasant mentality lies behind Elvin's observation that "society became restless, fragmented and fiercely competitive." 8 Economic growth affected Chinese social structure in several ways. It stimulated a trend toward increased social stratification, which can be discerned at various levels of Chinese society. Scholars believe that village society became more highly stratified during the M i n g and C h ' i n g . W a g e labor increasingly replaced the labor of serflike households. Absentee landlordism increased and a new group of managerial landlords emerged. Village society now included absentee landlords, managerial landlords, self-cultivators, tenant farmers, and farm laborers. A m o n g the literati, differentiation was reflected in several spheres. In elite lineages we find the more successful branches sloughing ofT poorer descent lines by excluding them from genealogies ànd lineage benefits. We also find tension between the rurally based small landowner and the new absentee landlord, whose interests did not coincide. Rural rent-resistance movements sometimes found the rural landlord at odds with his urban counterpart. Differentiation also characterized elites w h o aspired to leadership of county society. O n e recent work asserts that there was no cohesive county elite, but at least two, if not more, distinct elite strata, that did not intermarry: a local elite group, which cultivated marriage alliances with similar families within the ' G . William Skinner, "Chinese Peasants and the Closed Community: A n O p e n and Shut Case," Comparative Studies in Society and History 13.3:270-281 (1971). sElvin,

The Pattern of the Chinese Past, p. 235; Wiens, " L o r d and Peasant," pp. 8, 15; O y a m a ,

" M i n Shin," p. 283; Li Wen-chih, " L u n Ch'ing-tai," pp. 9 2 - 9 3 , 95-96, 106; Fu I-ling, " K u a n yii," pp. 58, 62-70.

8

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

county and maintained strong community ties, and a group of more ambitious families, who were oriented toward the larger bureaucratic elite world outside the county boundaries, whose marriages cemented bureaucratic alliances, and who normally devoted little attention to the local community. 9 Stratification was probably most marked in the Lower Yangtze core, where absentee landlordism was a prominent development during the late Ming and Ch'ing periods. In advanced economies like the Lower Yangtze core, reliance on contractual rather than personal frameworks of control enabled richer landowners to respond to the economic and cultural opportunities ofTered by an urban milieu, and they began to move out of villages into towns and cities. Urban residence altered patterns of elite investment and consumption. Landlords residing in towns began to invest their surplus funds in pawnshops, commerce, and urban real estate, ventures that promised higher profits than land investments but that also entailed higher risk. Urban-based landlords and scholar families confronted a more insecure financial future than did their rural relatives, not only because of their greater involvement in the marketplace, but because their expenditures tended to soar once they had moved to town. Towns offered improved access to books and an intellectually dynamic urban culture, but they frequently also offered irresistible diversions from the narrow path of examination studies in the form of wine, women, and song. One man's reaction to urban life, Chang Ying's paean to rural tradition, Heng-ch'an so-yen (Remarks on real estate), written at the close of the seventeenth century, tells us a great deal about the dangers of urban life for the Chinese elite. 1 0 Elite insecurity and anxiety were the byproducts of another Ming development linked with economic growth—namely, the emergence of a fluid and flexible status system, largely free of effective legal barriers to status mobility. 9

On village stratification, see Ming and Qing Historical Studies in the People's Republic of China, ed.

Frederic VVakeman, J r . (Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, 1980), pp. 9 6 - 1 0 3 ; on elite differentiation, see J e r r y Dennerline, The Chia-ting Loyalists: Confucian Leadership and Social Change in SeventeenthCentury China (New Haven: Y a l e University Press, 1 9 8 1 ) , chaps. 3, 4; Mori M a s a o l i j s I E ^ , " J u nanaseiki no Fukken Neika-ken ni okeru K o T s u no koso hanran ( 2 ) " - p - f c i f t i K O i S i i l ^ ' f t S C te It -5 S i j ® W i / t i f l R i § l [The anti-rent rebellion of H u a n g T ' u n g in seventeenth-century Ninghua county, 21

Fukien], Nagoya

daigaku bungakubu kenkyu ronshu

3t#{H!{?F3Sira

Jfl

• 1 3 - 3 5 ('974)10 T h e extensive J a p a n e s e secondary literature on the subject of absentee landlords and local

elites is reviewed by L i n d a G r o v e and J o s e p h W. Esherick, " F r o m Feudalism to Capitalism: J a p a n e s e Scholarship on the Transformation of Chinese R u r a l S o c i e t y , " Modern China 6 . 4 : 3 9 7 - 4 3 8 (1980); see Fu I-ling, Ming Ch'ing nung-ts'un she-hui ching-chi K f r a f f i l i f f i t ^ l S K [ M i n g Ch'ing village society and economy] ( 1 9 6 1 ; reprint ed., H o n g K o n g : Shih-yungshu-chii f f / 5 pp. 6 4 - 6 5 ; Fu, Ming-tai Chiang-nan shih-min ching-chi shih-t'an

ft

'972),

¡ I S rtT S i l S P f l i i ? ; [Exploration

of the K i a n g n a n urban economy in the M i n g ] (Shanghai: J e n - m i n ch'u-pan she A R t B H S i i t , 1963), chaps. 2, 3. A translation of Heng-ch'an so-yin is included in Hilary J . Beattie, Land and Lineage in China: A Study of T'ung-ch'eng

County, Anhwei, in the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties (Cambridge:

C a m b r i d g e University Press, >979), pp. 1 4 0 - 1 5 1 .

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS

9

T h e economic boom of the sixteenth century stimulated expansion of the school system and thus increased the number of examination candidates competing for degrees. As competition for examination degrees sharpened, so did the anxiety among households with elite status, who saw threats to the perpetuation of their status through their children and grandchildren in the improved chances for upward mobility among persons of lower status. Nor was this the only source of anxiety for such households. The emergence of commercial opportunities and the relative downgrading of landed investment signaled the growing complexity of the relationship between wealth, derived from commerce as well as land, and elite status. Many descendents of older families might, like Fang I-chih, view money making with disdain, but few could ignore the implications of the new social conditions, which saw rich merchants partaking in such traditionally elite activities as book collection, patronage of the arts, and the creation of elaborate gardens and mansions. Partible inheritance divided the family estate in each generation upon the death of the head of the household. If the succeeding generation failed to win degrees or spent too long pursuing degrees, the family's prospects of maintaining high status were poor. O n e common response to this dilemma is evident in P. T. Ho's case studies of mobility: specialization by sons whereby one made money in order to permit another to pursue studies. Whether this strategy succeeded, however, depended on individual talent and political and economic conditions. There can be little doubt that the psychic pressures on elite households were intensified with the increased competition for examination degrees. 11 O u r view of late Ming and Ch'ing society rests on the socio-economic developments described above. T h e growth of trade stimulated commercial agriculture and handicrafts and spurred expansion of rural markets. Greater integration of the central place hierarchy and growing market participation facilitated the flow of ideas as well as goods between city and country, while the trend to urban residence among some elites, notably in the Lower Yangtze core, stimulated urban culture. Economic growth also sparked competition. T h e regional club (hui-kuan) appeared when advances in the economy lured merchants outside their own local systems to penetrate new markets. These merchants found that they could best pursue their interests in a sharply competitive urban setting by forming native-place associations. Later, these associations also accommodated degree candidates and officials who shared native-place ties, and formed foci for regional competition in an urban setting. Competition in some rural areas was organized around lineages, which also expanded in the late seventeenth century. 11 VVillard J . Peterson, Bitter Gourd: Fang I-chih and the Impetus for Intellectual Change (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), chap. 4; Ho, The Ladder of Success, pp. 2 6 7 - 3 1 8 .

10

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

Lineages were used to advance collective interests in a locality, or to enhance elite control in regions where the penetration of the commercial economy had weakened traditional mechanisms of social control. 1 2 T h e competitive environment that gave rise to these collective strategies also produced the anxiety and psychic tension described above—anxiety regarding personal status, the security of household fortunes, and, on the part of the traditional elite, the perpetuation of their preeminence. As noted, these significant changes in the social and economic order began in the late Ming. But they did not end with the demise of the Ming house in 1644; indeed, there are grounds for arguing that the change of dynasties did not affect these fundamental socio-economic trends. As J o n a t h a n Spence and J o h n Wills note, commercial growth, urbanization, and the increasing numbers of examination candidates resulting from the improved access to education were important secular trends that suffered "only brief interruption" from the Ch'ing conquest. 1 3 In the Lower Yangtze core, despite instances of spectacular resistance to the Ch'ing armies, most regions surrendered peacefully to the changing order. T h e social order of the Lower Yangtze survived the interregnum and such Manchu attacks on gentry privilege as the Kiangnan tax case of 1661. T h e Lower Yangtze economy also recovered quickly in the late seventeenth century. T h e Southeast Coast, especially Fukien, was hard hit by the Ch'ing policy banning maritime trade and evacuating the coastal population during the campaigns against Koxinga, but conditions improved in the eighteenth century as Fukienese migrated to T a i w a n , opened up land for cultivation, and developed marketing links between Taiwan and Fukien ports. Lingnan benefited from the misfortunes of the Southeast Coast, receiving a large stream ofimmigrants from Swatow and southern Fukien, and profiting from Canton's role as China's entrepot for foreign trade before 1840. T h e late seventeenth century saw North China begin another cycle of growth, which continued until the rebellions of the 1850s. T h e Upper Yangtze and Middle Yangtze regions, where civil war (particularly in Szechwan) had been very fierce, also received large groups of new settlers in early Ch'ing who helped rehabilitate the local economy. For 12 O n hui-kuan, see G. William Skinner, "Introduction: Urban Social Structure," in The City in Late Imperial China, pp. 538-46; Ho Ping-ti Chung-kuo hui-kuan shih lun [An historical survey of landsmannschaften in China] (Taipei: Hsiieh-sheng shu-chü íp ^ ^ , 1966); on lineages, see Rubie S. Watson, " T h e Creation of a Chinese Lineage: The Teng of H a Tsuen, 1 6 6 9 - 1 7 5 1 , " Modem Asian Studies 1 6 . 1 : 6 9 - 1 0 0 (1982), and Dennerline, The Chia-ting Loyalists, pp. 98-103. 13 From Ming to Ch'ing: Conquest, Region, and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century China, ed. Jonathan Spence and John Wills, J r . (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), p. xvii; Frederic Wakeman, "Introduction," in Conflict and Control in Late Imperial China, ed. Frederic Wakeman, J r . and Carolyn Grant (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), p. 2.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL

FOUNDATIONS

li

many of China's macroregions, the eighteenth century was a period of peace and prosperity comparable to the sixteenth century. 1 4 EDUCATION Prosperity stimulated expansion of the school system in Ming China. Although we cannot estimate the rates of school attendance, a variety of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence indicates that the sixteenth century brought increased access to education in many regions. T h e community schools (she-hsileh) of the Ming, like their Ch'ing counterparts, were charitable elementary schools established in towns and villages on local initiative with the state's blessing. One study shows that there were 3837 she-hsueh in 472 M i n g administrative units, or an average of slightly more than eight schools per unit. These schools provided education for only a small proportion of the school-age population. In Ming and Ch'ing times, most boys were educated in lineage schools, village schools (where tuition had to be paid), and private schools in the households of the wellto-do. Since the records that would enable us to evaluate the extent of private schooling are rare and scattered, quantitative estimates of the rate of school attendance are at best speculative. Elsewhere I have calculated that there were enough private and charitable schools by the late Ch'ing to teach basic literacy to between one-third and one-half the males of school a g e . 1 5 Anecdotal and circumstantial evidence supports the contention that education expanded during the Ming and Ch'ing periods. Education was the key to prestige, power, and wealth, because it carried the prospect of entry to official careers for highly trained young men, as well as more modest social and economic advantages for men of lesser education. T h e civil service examinations were the primary means of recruitment into the bureaucracy, and they attained heightened significance as the hereditary (yin) privilege was gradually restricted, first to cover only one son and subsequently to encompass only " O n the C h ' i n g conquest of K i a n g n a n , see Frederic W a k e m a n , J r . , " L o c a l i s m and Loyalism During the Ch'ing Conquest of K i a n g n a n : T h e T r a g e d y of C h i a n g - y i n , " in Conflict and Control, pp. 4 3 - 4 4 ; and Hilary Beattie, " T h e Alternative to Resistance: T h e Case of T ' u n g - c h ' e n g , A n h w e i , " in From Ming to Ch'ing, pp. 2 5 0 - 2 5 1 , 256, 262. On the K i a n g n a n tax case and the coastal evacuation, see Lawrence D. Kessler, K'ang-hsi and the Consolidation ojCh'ing

Rule, 1661-1684

(Chicago: Uni-

versity of Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 3 3 - 4 5 . Migration to T a i w a n is treated in J o h a n n a Meskill, A Chinese Pioneer Family: The Lins of Wu-feng, Taiwan,

iysg-i8g^

(Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1979). T i l e m a n n G r i m m , " A c a d e m i e s and U r b a n Systems in K w a n g t u n g , " in The City in ¡Mte Imperial China, pp. 4 7 5 - 4 9 8 , identifies three periods of regional prosperity: the sixteenth, late eighteenth-early nineteenth, and late nineteenth centuries. Skinner discusses the timing of various macroregional cycles in his essays in The City in Late Imperial China, pp. 1 6 - 1 7 , 27, 2 1 9 . 15

W a n g L a n - y i n I j j g , " M i n g - t a i chih she-hsueh" W ft ¿ . ¡ ¡ f t I P [ M i n g community schools],

Shih-tayiieh-k'an

g p ^ c ^ flj 5 . 4 : 4 2 - 1 0 2 ( 1 9 3 5 ) ; Evelyn R a w s k i , Education and Popular Literacy in

Ch'ing China (Ann Arbor: University of M i c h i g a n Press, 1979), pp. 2 4 - 4 1 , 8 1 - 9 5 , 1 8 3 - 1 9 3 .

12

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

officials of the third rank and above who had served in office for a specified term. 1 6 As hereditary privilege narrowed, the groups who were eligible to take the examinations expanded. The examinations were open to all but a very small number of males from certain ethnic groups and occupations. Former slaves, members of families of prostitutes, entertainers, and lictors, and the "mean people" (chien-min) were excluded until 1729 from taking the examinations, but according to P. T . Ho these groups represented less than one percent of the total population. 1 7 If the lure of examination success was a primary cause of the Chinese "profound reverence" for schooling, there were also considerable rewards for literacy in everyday life: innumerable government notices, regulations, and documents to read, fill in, and file, and written contracts for business transactions of all kinds—buying and selling real estate, renting land, borrowing money, and selling children. T h e Ming and Ch'ing police security (pao-chia) and tax collection (li-chia) systems required record keeping; so did the watercontrol organizations that passed into local control in the late Ming. Lineages, undergoing expansion in the late seventeenth century, also required written records of corporate property management and membership. 1 8 Literacy was thus essential "not only for scholarship and official administration, but for successful farm management and commerce, and it was extremely useful if not essential for those wishing to assume a greater than ordinary influence in the affairs of their neighborhood or village." 1 9 Families used literacy as a defense against being cheated. P. T . Ho cites a family of agricultural tenants in East China who, bilked by a villager over a land deal, sent a son to school, "for without an educated man the family could not defend itself against local sharpers in the future." 2 0 T h e incentives for education extended to farmers and traders as well as potential officials. Educational expansion had several consequences for late imperial society. The structure of the examination system, which had quotas at different administrative levels and regional quotas at the higher level examinations, ensured that the educated elite were scattered through China's various regions: because there was a unified curriculum, one could assume homogeneity in elite values regardless of locality, and this was an important element in sustaining a unified empire over such great distances under premodern conditions of transport and communications. T h e significance of China's written language as a 16 17

H o , The Ladder of Success, pp. 1 4 9 - 1 5 3 .

Ibid.; Chung-li Chang, The Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society (Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1955), pp. 1 0 - 1 1 . 18 Rawski, Education, pp. 9 - 1 1 . " M y r o n Cohen, in the introduction to Arthur H. Smith, Village Life in China (1899; reprinted., Boston: Brown, 1970), p. xv. 20 Ho, The Ladder of Success, p. 3 1 4 .

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS

•3

factor working for integration of elite culture cannot be overestimated. Educational expansion was accompanied by stiifer competition among candidates sitting for the civil service examinations, and the resulting frustration was important in stimulating creativity in urban culture. T h e sixteenth century, which witnessed great economic growth, was also a period of intense intellectual development, particularly in the cities of the Lower Yangtze core. The frustrations engendered by examination competition and the dangers of factional politics within the bureaucracy had turned many educated youths away from the orthodox career route to contemplate purposeful activity in other realms. Willard Peterson describes the wen-jen (man of culture) model in the late Ming: For such men, who were only minimally involved in government, or not at all, arts were more than a pastime or entertainment.... Seen in the best light, such "men of culture" eschewed ambitions of wealth and standing as officials in order to devote themselves to literature and art.... Some men put their efforts and trust into literature and books, calligraphy and painting, collecting and appreciating, as other men might put theirs into moral philosophy or politics.21 T h e wen-jen model had existed in earlier dynasties, but its importance increased in late Ming, and it became highly relevant for the men born under the Ming who lived as adults under the Manchus. For the K'ang-hsi generation of scholars, ambivalence regarding official careers was intensified by the pressure of the loyalist ideal to avoid holding office under the conquerors. Then, too, as Lynn Struve shows, Manchu policy in the seventeenth century provided few openings for young H a n Chinese. The thwarted political ambitions of many in this generation were deflected toward the sphere of culture. 2 2 The fruits of deflected literati energy appear clearly in the seventeenthcentury novel, studied by Robert Hegel. Hegel describes the rise of the novel as a serious literary form, a vehicle for political protest and examination of substantive issues confronting intellectuals. Fiction was not escapist, but rather expressed Confucian ideals that were no longer realized in office holding. 2 3 If, as Hegel demonstrates, fiction appealed to a narrow circle of wealthy, well-educated readers, the repercussions of the elite search for meaning in private activities were far broader. While some literati pursued fiction and drama (which had a more socially varied audience than fiction), others turned to religion and the reform of popular mores. The intellectual ferment of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 21

Peterson, Bitter Gourd, p. 32; see pp. 5, 8 as well. Peterson, pp. 3 2 - 3 3 ; Lynn Struve, "Ambivalence and Action: Some Frustrated Scholars of the K'ang-hsi Period," in From Ming to Ch'ing, pp. 3 2 1 - 3 6 5 . 23 Robert E. Hegel, The Novel in Seventeenth Century China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), chaps. 1 - 3 . 22

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

'4

i n c l u d e d a revival of B u d d h i s m , led by four g r e a t monks. O n e o f t h e m , C h u h u n g ( 1 5 3 5 - 1 6 1 5 ) , the s u b j e c t o f a study b y C h u n - f a n g Y i i , displays m a n y o f the characteristics j u s t cited. B o r n into a n elite f a m i l y in H a n g c h o w p r e f e c t u r e , C h u - h u n g studied for the e x a m i n a t i o n s a n d spent his first t h i r t y - t w o y e a r s in pursuits a p p r o p r i a t e to a m e m b e r o f the leisured class. His decision to r e n o u n c e this w a y o f life a n d b e c o m e a m o n k w a s s p u r r e d b y r e p e a t e d failures in the e x a m i n a t i o n s , a n d the successive loss o f several close f a m i l y m e m b e r s . 2 4 C h u - h u n g ' s m a j o r a c c o m p l i s h m e n t s i n c l u d e d the p r o m o t i o n o f l a y B u d dhism. In v i e w o f his C o n f u c i a n e d u c a t i o n a n d social b a c k g r o u n d , it is not surprising that he strove to a c c o m m o d a t e B u d d h i s m to C o n f u c i a n i s m , a n d a c q u i r e d a f o l l o w i n g t h a t i n c l u d e d m a n y m e n from elite b a c k g r o u n d s similar to his o w n . C h u - h u n g ' s t o l e r a n c e o f C o n f u c i a n ideals, his counsel t h a t believers should first fulfill their filial o b l i g a t i o n s , a n d his o p i n i o n t h a t officials c o u l d c a r r y o u t all their duties ( i n c l u d i n g e x e c u t i o n o f criminals) w i t h o u t r e p u d i a t i n g their B u d d h i s t c o m m i t m e n t , reflected tendencies o f late M i n g B u d d h i s m t h a t h e l p e d p r o m o t e e x p a n s i o n o f the faith: e m p h a s i s o n m o r a l a c t i o n in this life, a n d the belief that i n d i v i d u a l s c o u l d find s a l v a t i o n w h i l e fulfilling their social roles within society.25 C h u - h u n g ' s p r o p a g a t i o n o f B u d d h i s m s t o p p e d short o f o r g a n i z a t i o n . H e w a s a f r a i d o f potential i n v o l v e m e n t w i t h h e t e r o d o x sects such as the W h i t e L o t u s societies studied b y D a n i e l O v e r m y e r a n d S u s a n N a q u i n , a n d a t t a c k e d m a n y practices linked w i t h B u d d h i s t sectarianism. H e d i s a p p r o v e d o f lay associations with f e m a l e m e m b e r s , b e l i e v i n g t h a t w o m e n should p r a c t i c e their faith at h o m e . H e criticized m o n k s w h o a c t e d as g e o m a n c e r s , m e d i u m s , p h a r m a c i s t s , or healers o f f e m a l e diseases, a n d h e r e g a r d e d the use of the p l a n c h e t t e in " s p i r i t w r i t i n g " as superstitious. 2 6 O n these matters C h u - h u n g ' s a t t i t u d e w a s entirely o r t h o d o x , w h i c h helps e x p l a i n w h y B u d d h i s t sectarian m o v e m e n t s w e r e not led b y m o n k s b u t b y l a y believers. C h u - h u n g ' s social b a c k g r o u n d w a s similar to those o f o t h e r religious leaders in the sixteenth c e n t u r y . His c o n t e m p o r a r i e s , L i n C h a o - e n ( 1 5 1 7 - 1 5 9 8 ) a n d Y u a n H u a n g ( 1 5 3 3 - 1 6 0 6 ) , w h o w e r e b o t h a c t i v e in p r o m o t i n g v a r i a n t forms o f syncretism, also c a m e f r o m p r o m i n e n t families, w e r e e d u c a t e d for official careers, a n d w e r e e x t r e m e l y k n o w l e d g e a b l e not o n l y a b o u t C o n f u c i a n i s m but a b o u t T a o i s m a n d B u d d h i s m as well. T h i s b r o a d k n o w l e d g e seems to h a v e been quite c o m m o n a m o n g e d u c a t e d m e n o f the p e r i o d . 2 7 A l t h o u g h Y u a n w a s a chin2 4 Chun-fang / 'Yu,

The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis (New

York: Columbia University Press, 1981). 25

Ibid., chap. 4.

26Ibid., 27

pp. 46, 7 6 - 7 8 , 185-186.

Judith Berling, The Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-en (New York: Columbia University Press,

1980), chaps. 3, 4; Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368-1644,

ed. L. Carrington Goodrich and

Chaoying Fang (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), II, 1632-1635; Yii, The Renewal of Buddhism, p. 94.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL

FOUNDATIONS

'5

who served in office, Lin, like Chu-hung, redirected his efforts toward religion after the death of members of his immediate family. Y u a n , like Chuhung, resided in the prosperous Lower Yangtze delta, which was the center not only of the Ming Buddhist revival but of the seventeenth-century advances in fiction. Lin Chao-en's home province, Fukien, was in the heyday of its trade with the Portuguese, Japanese, and Spanish in the sixteenth century, and might well have been prosperous enough to constitute another intellectual center in the empire. Lin's home county, P'u-t'ien, was a center of illegal trade, as was Chin-chiang (Ch'iian-chou prefecture), the native place of Lin's famous contemporary, the iconoclast Li Chih ( 1 5 2 7 - 1 6 0 2 ) . 2 8

shih

The same motives that directed some intellectuals into wen-jen activity thus drew other literati into religion. This religious revival should be seen as another product of the late Ming educational expansion and should be linked to the wenjen effort not only in terms of the social background and education of religious leaders (and some followers), but also as an alternative in the quest for sagehood. Earlier we noted the beginnings of a long-term trend in the economy away from direct controls over individuals and toward the indirect controls of the market, one of the essential elements in the complex sequence of transformations to be found in societies undergoing modernization. In the cultural realm we find a parallel trend, reflected in the morality books (shan-shu), which stress the internalization of values and moral autonomy. We may interpret the Ming emergence of morality books in several ways. In their emphasis on man's ability to exert control over his destiny, morality books can be viewed as an expression of economic changes that created opportunities to quickly raise or depress individual fortunes. Further, since these books specify behavior appropriate to various social strata, we might also see them as guides to new social roles for the upwardly mobile. 2 9 Alternatively, the assumption in these books that moral action was linked to material success may be interpreted as a response to the anxiety produced by enhanced social mobility in the core regions of the Lower Yangtze and Southeast Coast. By drawing on religious beliefs, morality books provided modes of coping with the psychic uncertainties linked with social change. Finally, we may cite status anxiety on the part of the older elite as a motivation for writing morality books, which were seen as a means of halting the moral decline brought about by the rise of new groups to social and economic prominence. T h e morality books of the late Ming and early Ch'ing represent the private complement to vigorous government efforts in the same 28 Berling, chap. 4; Dictionary of Ming Biography, I I , 1 6 3 2 - 1 6 3 5 , and I, 8 0 7 - 8 1 8 ; Yii, chap. 2; on the Southeast Coast in the sixteenth century, see J o h n Wills, J r . , " M a r i t i m e China from W ang Chih to Shih Lang: Themes in Peripheral History," in From Ming to Ch'ing, pp. 2 0 1 - 2 3 8 . 29

Y i i , The Renewal of Buddhism, pp. 1 3 6 - 1 3 7 . According to W. L. Idema, "Storytelling and the Short Story in C h i n a , " T'oungPao 5 9 : 3 4 - 3 5 ( 1 9 7 3 ) , late M i n g novels also reveal a new emphasis on the power of individuals to shape their own destinies.

i6

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

direction, highlighted by the Sacred Edict lectures discussed by Victor M a i r in chapter n of this book. 3 0 Morality books were very popular during the sixteenth century. Both Y u a n H u a n g and Chu-hung enthusiastically advocated one particular text, the Ledger of Merits and Demerits According to the Immortal T'ai-wei (T'ai-wei Hsien-chun kung-kuo-ko), a Taoist work dating from the late twelfth century. Y u a n H u a n g testified that his whole life changed after a C h ' a n monk presented him with this book; Chu-hung was so taken with it that he had it reprinted and distributed for free. 3 1 Chu-hung later wrote his own morality book, the Record of Self-Knowledge (Tz.u-ch.ih lu), which was modeled on the Ledger of Merits and Demerits. W h a t was new in the Record, and especially striking when compared to earlier Sung morality books, was the nature of the sanction, which was no longer supernatural, but the working of an impersonal karmic law. Individuals could affect their fate by their own actions. Not only did human beings now have power over their own destinies, but they were to be judged by the more subtle criterion not of action but of wish or motivation. 3 2 Late M i n g morality books commonly made this distinction between behavior and motivation. T h e new emphasis on moral internalization was the product of contemporary religious, intellectual, and social developments. W a n g Yang-ming's emphasis on the potential of every man to become a sage encouraged a belief in universal sagehood that paralleled the post-Sung Buddhist focus on the potential of all sentient beings to achieve salvation. Neo-Confucian and Buddhist optimism coincided with the increased social mobility resulting from prosperity, educational expansion, and large-scale printing. 3 3 Educational expansion and increased social mobility thus had multiple effects on Chinese culture and society. Those climbing the social ladder and those afraid of downward mobility turned to religion for solace and as a tool of social control. T h e literati and government assigned a high priority to the inculcation of moral and ethical values; social mobility enhanced the receptivity of the commoner population to such attempts. T h e extension of education enhanced the circulation of written materials in Chinese society. Before we turn to the consequences of the attempt to indoctrinate citizens with appropriate values, we must survey the condition and distribution of the publishing industry, whose expansion was also a byproduct of the sixteenthcentury surge. 30Hegel,

The Nooel, p p . 1 0 6 - 1 0 7 , offers a s o m e w h a t different e x p l a n a t i o n . H e identifies elite

e m a n c i p a t i o n f r o m traditional roles as a s o u r c e o f confusion a n d a n x i e t y that s t i m u l a t e d e x a m i nation o f the conflicts b e t w e e n the c l a i m s o f self a n d society in the s e v e n t e e n t h - c e n t u r y novel. 3l

Y u , The Renewal of Buddhism, pp. 1 1 8 - 1 2 4 .

32

I b i d . , pp. 1 0 6 - 1 1 8 .

33

Ibid., pp. 1 1 3 - 1 1 6 .

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL THE PUBLISHING

FOUNDATIONS

•7

INDUSTRY

T h e M i n g period brought four advances in printing technology: the innovation of color printing (t'ao-pan), used to produce multicolored illustrations, maps, or texts; the improvement and increased use of woodcut illustrations; the use of copper movable type; and the production of woodcut facsimiles of earlier editions. Despite these advances, the dominant technology remained unchanged from earlier times. Chinese printing relied on a very simple and inexpensive process, woodblock printing or xylography. M a t t e o Ricci furnishes a good description of this technique: T h e text is w r i t t e n in i n k , w i t h a b r u s h m a d e o f v e r y fine h a i r , o n a sheet o f p a p e r w h i c h is i n v e r t e d a n d p a s t e d on a w o o d e n t a b l e t . W h e n a p a p e r has b e c o m e t h o r o u g h l y d r y , its s u r f a c e is s c r a p e d o f f q u i c k l y a n d w i t h g r e a t skill, until n o t h i n g b u t a fine tissue b e a r i n g the c h a r a c t e r s r e m a i n s on the w o o d e n tablet. T h e n , w i t h a steel g r a v e r , the w o r k m a n cuts a w a y the surface f o l l o w i n g the outlines o f the c h a r a c t e r s until these a l o n e stand o u t in l o w relief. F r o m s u c h a b l o c k a skilled printer c a n m a k e copies w i t h i n c r e d i b l e s p e e d , t u r n i n g o u t as m a n y as

fifteen

h u n d r e d copies in a single d a y . 3 4

This printing method incurred almost no capital costs. There were no foundries for casting type, no machines for printing or binding. T h e tools could be packed u p and carried on a workman's back, and the major costs were instead raw materials (paper, ink, woodblocks) and labor. Woodblock printing could begin on a shoestring, without large printings. Ricci noted: T h e i r m e t h o d o f p r i n t i n g has o n e d e c i d e d a d v a n t a g e , n a m e l y , t h a t o n c e these tablets a r e m a d e , t h e y c a n be preserved a n d used for m a k i n g c h a n g e s in the text as often as o n e w i s h e s . . . . A g a i n , w i t h this m e t h o d , the printer a n d the a u t h o r are not o b l i g e d to p r o d u c e here a n d n o w a n excessively l a r g e edition o f a b o o k , b u t are a b l e to print a b o o k in smaller or l a r g e r lots sufficient to meet the d e m a n d a t the t i m e . . . . T h e simplicity o f C h i n e s e p r i n t i n g is w h a t a c c o u n t s for the e x c e e d i n g l y l a r g e n u m b e r s o f b o o k s in c i r c u l a t i o n h e r e a n d the ridiculously l o w prices at w h i c h they are s o l d . 3 5

O f course, Ricci was evaluating Chinese printing in terms of the European situation. Books were considerably more expensive in Europe in the first centuries of European printing. European presses used movable type, which was obviously superior for an alphabetic language with a limited number of symbols but less advantageous for Chinese, where the number of unique characters used in a book might reach into the thousands.

3 4 Louis J. Gallagher, China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matthew Ricci, i595-1610 York: Random House, 1 9 5 3 ) , pp. 2 0 - 2 1 . 35

Ibid., p. 2 1 .

(New

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

i8

Movable-type printing required greater skill and education than the woodblock method. A printer was a skilled metalworker w h o had been trained through apprenticeship in the craft. T h e early printers were also quite well educated; they had to be, to know enough Latin to set texts correctly. 3 6 In China, literacy was not required because the texts, written on thin sheets of paper, were pasted onto the blocks. C a r v i n g might require some skill, but the other operations such as the inking and pulling of sheets could be done by virtually anyone. A local gazetteer of M a - k a n g , a printing center in the Pearl River delta of K w a n g t u n g , notes that " w o m e n and children can all do it; the men only carve the text on the blocks, according to the handwritten manuscript. T h e rest is done with female labor. Because of their cheapness, the books go everywhere." 3 7 Unskilled female labor was used in other printing centers such as Fo-shan ( K w a n g t u n g ) and Hsu-wan (Kiangsi). 3 8 Movable-type printing also called for a larger capital investment than xylography. Early sixteenth-century European death inventories show that the major items of equipment in printers' workshops were one or more presses and sets of type, the latter usually valued at several times the value of the press. 3 9 These costs were all absent in the Chinese industry. Operating costs were also greater in Europe. Paper had been the one primary component of printing that Europe lacked. Lucien Febvre and HenriJean Martin observe, " W h a t use would it have been to be able to print with movable type if the only medium was skin, which takes ink poorly, and when only the costliest skin, that of the calf, was flat and supple enough to be used under the press?" 4 0 Paper, invented in China, entered Europe in the twelfth century and spread gradually from Italy to other countries in western Europe. By the fifteenth century, paper was available for printing, but its cost remained high because European manufacture relied on rags. Economies of scale, most marked when fixed costs are a high proportion of total cost, were limited in Europe by the high cost of rag paper. Rags were the essential raw material of European papermaking from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and the limited rag supply constrained the potential expansion of the paper industry. As printing developed, the demand for paper soared, and the scarcity of rags became more acute. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the paper cost accounts in 36B.

A . Uhlendorf, " T h e Invention of Printing and Its Spread Till 1470 with Special Reference

to Social and Economic Factors," The Library Quarterly 2 . 3 : 2 3 0 - 2 3 1 (1932). 37

Skun-te hsien-chih J l f i i i ^ ^ (1853 ed.), 3.50a.

38Nagasawa

Kikuya

Wa Kan sho no imatsu to sono rekishi fflgUFCO f P W t

Z

[The printing of Japanese and Chinese books and their history] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa k5bunkan '952), pp. 87-88; Y e h T e - h u i H i g j f , Shu-lin ch'inghua

U f a j f IS [Chats on books]

(3rd ed., N. p., 1920), 7 . i 3 b - i 5 a . 39

Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book:

1450-1800, 40

The Impact of

trans. David Gerard (London: New Left Books, 1976), pp. 1 1 0 - 1 1 1 .

Ibid., p. 30.

Printing

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL

FOUNDATIONS

'9

many cases for more than half the total cost of a book. Paper was one material that had to be supplied to printers by publishers, no doubt because of its expense. 4 1 In China, where paper could be made from bamboo fibers, tree bark, and other plant fibers, the cost of ink, wood, and paper was a relatively minor component of total printing costs. 42 Potential economies of scale in European publishing were further limited by the small market for books and by the production technology. Febvre and Martin conclude that while setting up a print shop was relatively inexpensive, the capital requirement for publishing was very high. Printers and booksellers might have wished to maximize the number of copies in an edition, thus lowering the cost of printing each copy, but the small size of the market limited actual output, since "there was absolutely no point in a publisher printing more copies of a particular book than the market could absorb within a reasonable period of time. T o ignore this meant many unsold copies or, at the best, tying up a substantial capital sum in a commodity that sold all too s l o w l y . " 4 3 An indication of how slowly a book could sell is provided by Florence E. de Roover, who studied an Italian travelling merchant named Girolamo di Carlo di Marco Strozzi. In 1476, Strozzi commissioned the printing of two Florentine histories in the vernacular. He sent 550 of the 600 copies of each title printed to Florence for sale. It took seven years, until 1483, before "almost all" had in fact been sold. 4 4 According to Febvre and Martin, the search for retail outlets was "the constant and central preoccupation of publishers" through the early period of European printing. 4 5 In order to spread risk and minimize the danger of publishing a title that would not sell, European publishers and printers generally produced several titles concurrently; that is, they never concentrated all their efforts on one edition, but tried to print several at one time. This meant that each title took a long time to produce and that the type for a particular page was set, printed, and then broken up for use in another page. Although metal movable type was capable of producing any number of copies, the actual size of editions was very small. Into the 1470s, an edition of several hundred copies was considered good; in the 1480s, the number of copies printed rose to an average of 400-500 an edition, and in the early sixteenth century to 1500 copies. Through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the only works that regularly exceeded 2000 copies were religious titles or textbooks, and in the eighteenth century most 41 42

Ibid., chap. 1 and pp. 1 1 2 - 1 1 3 . Ravvski, Education, pp. 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 ; Sung Ying-hsing, T'ien-Kung K'ai-Wu:

Chinese Technology in the

Seventeenth Century, trans. E-tu Z e n Sun and Shiou-chuan Sun (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1966), chap. 1 3 . 43

Febvre a n d Martin, Coming of the Book, p. 2 1 7 .

44

Florence Edler de R o o v e r , " N e w Facets on the Financing and Marketing of Early Printed

Books," Bulletin of the Business Historical Society 2 7 : 2 2 2 - 2 3 0 ( 1 9 5 3 ) . 45

Febvre and Martin, Coming of the Book, p. 2 1 6 .

20

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

print runs continued to fall below 2000 copies. Febvre and Martin note that the dissemination of popular works such as Luther's German Bible came not from large printings but from repeated printings, often by different printers. 46 The advantages of metal movable type for expanding the scale of production were thus largely unrealized by European publishers and printers in the early period of printing. When good sales of a particular book stimulated a new edition, the type had to be reset, in contrast to the Chinese woodblock, which, once carved, could be stored for future printings. Technically, a woodblock carved of the standard wood, pear or jujube, could be used to print 16,000-26,000 copies. We know very little about the actual size of printings in China. Government-sponsored editions ranged from several hundred up to several thousand copies of a title. T h e size of editions put out by commercial firms is unknown to us. W. L . Idema has complained that our evidence shows that the technical maximum was rarely attained, except perhaps in the case of "readily sold works, like basic schoolbooks and almanacs." 4 7 From the viewpoint of cost, however, the size of a " r u n " was less important in China, where blocks were preserved for future use, than in Europe, where the entire book would have to be reset for a new printing. We do know that printing firms sold engraved blocks to one another. An individual who printed his own work, like Y u a n Mei, the eighteenth-century poet, regarded his inventory of printing blocks as a capital asset, leaving them to his heirs as a source of future revenue. 4 8 There were thus important limits to the expansion of European printing from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries on both the supply and demand side that did not exist in China during the same period. The cost of training, equipment, and raw materials (notably paper) was higher in Europe than in China. It was the Chinese industry and not the European one that profited from scale economies in this era. The limited demand for books was a greater problem for the Europeans too. Europe's population was smaller, and the size of its premodern elite correspondingly limited. In the mid-fifteenth century, when Latin was still the educated language throughout Europe, publishers sold in an international book market, but the Reformation was followed by a retreat into national vernaculars, and book markets shrank into boundaries corresponding to those of the newly developing nation states. T h e aristocratic society of Europe was more decisively divided into rural and urban sectors than was China's, with the result that literacy and book purchases were largely confined to the urban population. Elizabeth Eisenstein notes that many rural areas in 46 Ibid., pp. 2 1 7 - 2 2 0 ; D. F. M c K e n z i e , "Printers of the M i n d : Some Notes on Bibliographical Theories and Printing-House Practices," Studies in Bibliography (University of Virginia) 2 2 : 1 4 - 1 6

(1969) "W. L . Idema, Chinese Vernacular Fiction: The Formative Period (Leiden: Brill, 1974), pp. lvi-lviii. 48 Arthur Waley, Yuan Mei: Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet {Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970), pp. 1 0 8 - 1 0 9 , 2 0 0 .

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL

FOUNDATIONS

21

Europe remained untouched by printed literature until the advent of the railroad, and concludes that the large peasant populations and the persistence of local dialects in rural areas make it probable that only a very small portion of the population of Europe was affected by the initial advent of printing. 4 9 We have already noted why Ming and Ch'ing publishing costs were lower than their European counterparts. 5 0 On the demand side, we can cite demographic, linguistic and social structural reasons why conditions favored the Chinese industry. China, of course, had a larger population, estimated at 150 million in the late Ming, and since the elite in China made up roughly the same proportion of the population as the elite in Europe, the Chinese book market was much larger than the European market. 5 1 Moreover, educational expansion in late Ming and Ch'ing times increased the demand for books. The Chinese book market was not subdivided by dialect or different vernaculars, since the written language was standardized and uniform throughout the empire. The regional quotas in the civil service examinations, which produced an unusually broad dispersion of the literate population, ensured that a demand for books and written materials could be found in every region. Nor were literacy and book purchase confined to cities and towns: how could they be, when the rural and urban sectors were less sharply differentiated than in Europe? In China one could find literati residing in both country and town, and publishing took place in both locales as well. S 2 A comparison of Chinese and European publishing and printing indicates that Chinese technology and market conditions were more favorable to expansion of the industry. We have earlier observed that the technical advances in Ming printing did not play a leading role in stimulating expansion; it was, rather, the increase in education and the economic prosperity of the sixteenth century, continued in subsequent periods under the Ch'ing, that was responsible for the effect. Who were the publishers, and how did the structure of the publishing industry influence the impact of printing on popular culture? Xylography permitted extreme decentralization of China's printing industry: as long as 49

Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as An Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural

Transformations in Early Modem Europe (Cambridge: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1979), I, 62; Fcbvre and M a r t i n , Coming oj the Book, pp. 1 7 8 - 1 9 7 , 2 2 4 - 2 3 9 . 50

T h o m a s F. Carter, The Invention of Printing and Its Spread Westward, rev. L . C. Goodrich (New

Y o r k : Columbia University Press, 1 9 5 5 ) , pp. 1 - 6 ; S u n g , Chinese Technology in the Seventeenth Century, (cited n. 42), chap. 13. 51

P. T . Ho, Studies on the Population of China 1368-1953

(Cambridge, Mass.: H a r v a r d University

Press, 1959), p. 264; R o g e r Mols, "Population in Europe, 1 5 0 0 - 1 7 0 0 , " in The Fontana Economic History of Europe, ed. C a r l o M . Cipolla (Glasgow: Collins, 1974), pp. 2, 38. This estimate includes areas such as Poland, Russia, and the Balkans that were not fully part of a European book market. 52

Frederick W . Mote, " A Millennium of Chinese U r b a n History: F o r m , T i m e , and S p a c e

Concepts in S o o c h o w , " Rice University Studies 5 9 : 3 5 - 6 5 (Fall 1 9 7 3 ) ; Skinner, " C h i n e s e Peasants and the Closed C o m m u n i t y . "

22

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

one could find carvers, one could print. Most studies have concentrated on what may be the smallest (in terms of volume) if most illustrious sector of the i n d u s t r y — n a m e l y , the government and literati p u b l i s h e r s — a n d have neglected the part of the industry producing more humble materials such as elementary primers, almanacs, and religious pamphlets. Government agencies, private individuals, institutions, and commercial firms all published books. T h e government had long been a large publisher of official documents, historical records, and Confucian texts. Its concern for the authenticity of the Confucian classics was a primary stimulus in the development of the printing industry. All levels of agencies, from the Imperial Household down to the county yamen, acted as publishers and printers. 5 3 However, although M i n g and C h ' i n g emperors sponsored notable compilations of religious and secular texts, the government was not the major source for expanded publications during our period. T h e publishing activities of literati, institutions, and commercial firms all increased in the late M i n g , as the expansion of education raised the demand for textbooks at all levels. T h e demand for advanced texts was met most prominently by academies (shu-yuan) and bibliophiles such as H u a n g P'ei-lieh, M a o Chin, and Pao T'ing-po, w h o collected and reproduced rare texts, thus stimulating what became the major field of C h ' i n g historical scholarship. These were books offine quality, clearly intended for a small and wealthy readership. It was the literati, particularly those residing in the L o w e r Y a n g t z e core, w h o also published collections of drama, short stories, and fiction in editions of high quality intended for a limited urban a u d i e n c e . 5 4 T h e demand for educational texts and fiction was also met by commercial firms. Some were famous, like the Huangs of She county, A n h w e i , known for their skilled woodcut illustrations, and the Lius of Chien-yang, Fukien, w h o were prominent printers during the Y u a n and M i n g dynasties. O u r information about the business organization of these firms is very sketchy. Whether the close connection of bookstores with publishing that existed in C h ' i n g times was a new development or a continuation of M i n g conditions is not clear. T h e appearance of bookstore-publishers with regional branches in C h ' i n g is another organizational advance that might have previously appeared in M i n g times. 5 5 53

K . T . VVu, " M i n g Printing and Printers," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 7 : 2 0 3 - 2 2 5 (1943);

Liu K u o - c h i i n g l j g l U / , Chung-kuo shu shih chien-pien ^ H S I t r S & f i i i l j [Concise history o f Chinese books] (Peking: K a o - t e n g chiao-yii c h ' u - p a n she S # l i : W tti)!S ft, >958), pp. 75, 77, 8 3 - 8 7 ; Sun Yii-hsiu

Chung-kuo tiao-panyuan-liu

k'ao c ^ H l t S i ® SfESi [History of Chinese printing]

(Shanghai: C o m m e r c i a l Press, 1926), pp. 1 3 - 2 2 . 54Cheuk-woon

T a a m , The Development of Chinese Libraries under the Ch'ing Dynasty, 1644-igi

1

(Shanghai: C o m m e r c i a l Press, 1935), pp. 1 5 - 1 7 ; Liu K u o - c h i i n , Concise History, pp. 13—22; Hegel, The Novel, pp. n , 50, 120, 185. 55

VVu, " M i n g Printing," pp. 209, 2 3 4 - 3 5 ; T s ' u n - y a n L i u , Chinese Popular Fiction in Two London

Libraries ( H o n g K o n g : L u n g M e n , 1967), pp. 3 8 - 3 9 .

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS

Commercial firms published books varying widely in quality. There were expensive editions of fiction, history, and Confucian texts, and other, presumably cheaper, editions with blurred type and poor editing. The poor editing of cheaper Confucian texts drew official ire, as in this seventeenth-century proclamation from Soochow: Unscrupulous individuals usually reproduce . . . [literary collections] for profit, with blocks poorly cut and the texts defective because of omissions and mistakes. . . . Distant book-dealers h a v e been frequently deceived, and students, in turn, h a v e also been misled. 5 6

While a strong demand for all scholarly aids appeared in late Ming times, the greatest demand stimulated by the educational expansion was for elementary primers, since there were many more students attending school for one or two years than the number continuing on to advanced examination preparation. The late Ming and early Ch'ing brought a proliferation of primers, including rhymed works and glossaries (tsa-tzu).57 Commercial firms engaged in many other kinds of printing for the market. Popular encyclopedias, filled with homely advice as well as arithmetic aids, contract forms, and information useful for daily life, were printed in greater numbers than before. There were almanacs, identified by C. K . Y a n g as the most popular literature in traditional China, and other products that fall outside the realm of the printed word, such as the numerous religious prints intended for use in private homes. In Chekiang, according to Clarence Day, these paper gods (ma-chang) were used in "practically every kind of religious ceremonial" by rich and poor alike. Ma-chang were woodcut illustrations, frequently with a few characters written on them and sometimes with longer inscriptions, printed on cheap paper and frequently burned during religious rites. The production of religious prints goes back to the earliest period of Chinese printing and no doubt continued to flourish in every subsequent era, yet we know very little about this industry despite the probability that it constituted one of the most widespread forms of printing during the traditional period. Paper money, used for religious offerings, was a related product in widespread use, whose manufacture also deserves more study. 5 8 If the printing activities of commercial firms seemed to be more closely oriented to the practical concerns of a poorly educated consumer, it does not 56

Cited in Wu, "Ming Printing,", pp. 2 3 0 - 2 3 1 . Chang Chih-kung Ch'uan-t'ungyii-wen chiao-yii ch'u-t'an [A preliminary study of traditional language education], 2nd ed. (Shanghai: Chiao-yii ch'u-pan she ÉfeWÌtìfiSfitt, 1 9 6 4 ) , pp. I I - I 2 (preface), 1 1 - 2 0 , 2 8 - 3 0 . 58 C . K . Yang, Religion in Chinese Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1 9 6 1 ) , p. 1 7 ; Rawski, Education, pp. 1 1 4 - 1 1 5 ; Clarence B. Day, Chinese Peasant Culls: Being a Study of Chinese Paper Gods, 2nd ed. (Taipei: Ch'eng Wen, 1 9 7 4 ) , pp. 3 - 5 ; Ching-lang Hou, Monnaies d'offrande et la notion de tresorerie dam la religion chinoise (Paris: Collège de France, 1975). 51

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

24

follow that the products of literati printing affected only the e d u c a t e d elite. T h e printing a n d distribution of religious p a m p h l e t s w a s seen as a n act of p i e t y , w o r t h a specific n u m b e r of " m e r i t s " in the Record of Self-Knowledge m o r a l i t y books. S u c h p a m p h l e t s must h a v e been widely

and other

distributed, for

nineteenth-century missionaries f o u n d them e v e r y w h e r e . 5 9 P r i n t i n g touched other sectors in the society. L i n e a g e s e n g a g e d in publishing, for e x a m p l e , a n d the late seventeenth c e n t u r y s a w an increasing n u m b e r of genealogies being printed. Also, c h a r i t a b l e o r g a n i z a t i o n s b e g a n to p u b l i s h reports of their activities, as i n d i c a t e d by the d o c u m e n t s of S h a n g h a i c h a r i t a b l e institutions d a t i n g f r o m the early nineteenth c e n t u r y . 6 0 A n d B u d d h i s t s e c t a r i a n groups m a n a g e d to transmit their scriptures despite g o v e r n m e n t repression, as O v e r m y e r a n d N a q u i n show in chapters 8 a n d 9 of this book. I n c o m p a r i s o n with earlier periods, the late M i n g a n d C h ' i n g witnessed a n increase not only in the v o l u m e of printing but in the p r i n t i n g activities of literati, institutions, a n d c o m m e r c i a l

firms.

T h e e d u c a t e d elite d o m i n a t e d

publishing as creators a n d consumers, but the e x p a n s i o n of p u b l i s h i n g reflected a s p r e a d of literate culture that affected a m u c h b r o a d e r social s p e c t r u m . B y late C h ' i n g times, a n d p r o b a b l y earlier, even illiterates lived in w h a t w a s b a s i c a l l y a literate culture. T h i s is v e r y e v i d e n t in J a m e s H a y e s ' s study ( c h a p t e r 3 of this book) of the written materials to be f o u n d in twentieth-century villages in the N e w Territories. D i d the expansion of the p u b l i s h i n g industry alter the g e o g r a p h i c a l distribution of printing centers? M o s t s e c o n d a r y literature on printing focuses on the L o w e r Y a n g t z e printing centers that d o m i n a t e d the national d e l u x e book m a r k e t d u r i n g M i n g a n d C h ' i n g . In fact, with the e x c e p t i o n of the late developing Y u n - K w e i m a c r o r e g i o n , each region h a d its o w n p r i n t i n g centers. A s one sixteenth-century scholar w r o t e , There are three regions printing books: Kiangsu, Chekiang, and Fukien. Szechwan imprints were the best in Sung, but recently are very scarce. Peking, Canton, Shensi, and Hupei/Hunan all print books . . . but they are not as flourishing as the three. For quality Kiangsu is best, for quantity Fukien is first, and Chekiang is second in both. Kiangsu is the most expensive, Fukien the cheapest, Chekiang is in between. 6 1 I n the sixteenth c e n t u r y , o u t s t a n d i n g printing centers w e r e thus sited in seven of the eight C h i n e s e m a c r o r e g i o n s . A t the s a m e time, there w a s a national m a r k e t in elite books. T h e center of official printing w a s the c a p i t a l city, so the M i n g capitals of N a n k i n g a n d P e k i n g a n d the C h ' i n g c a p i t a l of P e k i n g stood at 59

Mrs. E. T . Williams, " S o m e Popular Religious Literature of the Chinese," Journal of the Royal

Asiatic Society, China Branch, n.s. 3 3 : 1 1 - 2 9 ( 1 9 0 0 - 1 9 0 1 ) ; Y i i , Renewal of Buddhism, p. 2 3 5 . 60

S e e chart, pp. 6 0 - 6 1 , in T a g a Akigoro

genealogies] (Tokyo: T o y o Bunko JiCff 61

E B P , Sofu no kenkyu ^ I t t C O 5 ? F ^ [Research on i960); Rawski, Education, pp. 1 2 1 - 1 2 2 .

H u Ying-lin ( 1 5 5 1 - 1 6 0 2 ) , cited by Liu K u o - c h u n , Concise History, p. 78.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL

FOUNDATIONS

25

the apex of government publishing, which could be found at every administrative level in every region. 6 2 Literati printing was concentrated in the cities of the Lower Yangtze, where many of the most active scholar-printers and writers lived. Nanking, the most important metropolis in the region during the Ming, and Soochow, which replaced Nanking as the central metropolis during the late Ming, attracted large numbers of writers and scholars. Li Yii, the seventeenth-century dramatist, poet, and essayist, spent much of his life in Nanking, the site of his famous bookstore, the Mustard Seed Garden. T h e litterateur Feng Meng-lung, a native of Soochow, may well have owned a printing concern in that city, where he and Ling Meng-ch'u, the short story writer and scholar, were closely tied to publishing circles. Soochow was also the home of Huang P'ei-lieh, who reprinted many Sung texts in facsimile editions. Other Yangtze centers included Ch'ang-shu, where M a o Chin and his son M a o I published about 600 titles, and Hangchow, where the book collectors studied by Nancy Swann also engaged in printing. 6 3 Throughout the Ming and Ch'ing, Chien-yang County, Fukien, was the area producing the largest volume of commercially printed books. Ma-sha chen and Shu-fang chen ("Booktown") in Chien-yang were known for low-quality imprints. Large centers of commercial printing were also located in the Middle Yangtze and Lingnan macroregions during the Ch'ing. According to Nagasawa Kikuya, For size of printings, Kiangsi and K w a n g t u n g are the greatest, Kiangsi's printing is in Chin-hsi county's Hsu-wan; K w a n g t u n g ' s is in Shun-te county's Ma-kang. Both have prospered from large numbers of printings. 6 4

Hsii-wan and Ma-kang were rivals of Chien-yang, producing cheap editions of poor quality with female and child labor. There were similar printing centers in Nan-ch'ang, Kiangsi; Ch'ang-sha, Hunan; and Fo-shan, Kwangtung. Canton was also a major printing center during the Ch'ing. 6 5 In contrast to the centers cited above, the commercial firms in the Lower ' ' L i u Kuo-chiin, Concise History, pp. 77, 8 6 - 8 8 ; N a g a s a w a K i k u y a , Printing History, pp. 8 6 - 8 7 . T h e recent discovery in a grave in Shanghai offifteenth-century song books and d r a m a produced in Peking indicates that Peking also had a commercial printing sector: W a n g Ch'ing-cheng CEJsiiE, " C h i wen-hsiieh, hsi-ch'ii ho pan-huashih shang ti i-tz'u chung-yao fa-hsien" H B i i p , l a i f t f O K S f f i — i n f i l l U S , [A major discovery in the history of literature, d r a m a and printed illustration], Wen-wu 63

1 1 : 5 8 - 6 7 (1973).

Dictionary of Ming Biography, vol. I, pp. 9 3 0 - 9 3 1 and 4 5 0 - 4 5 3 ; Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing

Period, ed. A r t h u r W. H u m m e l , (Washington, D. C . : U . S. Government Printing Office, 1 9 4 3 1944), vol. I, pp. 3 4 0 - 3 4 1 and 5 6 5 - 5 6 6 ; N a n c y Lee S w a n n , " S e v e n Intimate L i b r a r y O w n e r s , " Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 1 : 3 6 3 - 3 9 0 ( 1 9 3 6 ) ; W u , " M i n g P r i n t i n g , " pp. 2 3 9 - 2 4 3 . 64

L i u Kuo-chiin, Concise History, pp. 7 8 - 7 9 ; W u , " M i n g Printing," pp. 2 3 2 - 2 3 6 ; N a g a s a w a ,

Printing History, p. 87. 65

N a g a s a w a , Printing History, pp. 8 7 - 8 8 ; S u n , History of Chinese Printing, pp. 3 8 - 3 9 .

26

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

TABLE I.

Regional Origins of Ming-Ch'ing Books Ming

Macroregion

Lower Yangtze North China Southeast Coast Northwest China Upper Yangtze Middle Yangtze Lingnan Yun-Kwei Outside empire Total SOURCE:

No. of books

88 36 14 1r 8

Ch'ing

Regional percentage of Ming total

49-2 20.1 7.8 6.1

7 7 7 1

4-5 3-9 3-9 3-9 0.6

179

100.0

P e i - c h i n g t ' u - s h u - k u a n , eds.,

No. of books

Regional percentage of Ch'ing total

5' 39 0

42.8 32.8 0

3 3 7 7 5 4

2-5 2-5 5-9 5-9 4-2 3-4

"9

Ckung-kuo yin-pen shu-chi chan-lan mu-lu

100.0 [ C a t a l o g u e of the e x h i b i t of

C h i n e s e p r i n t e d books] ( P e k i n g : C h u n g - y a n g j e n - m i n c h e n g - f u w e n - h u a p u , s h e - h u i w e n - h u a s h i h - y e h kuan-li chii, 1 9 5 2 ) , items # 3 4 9 - 7 2 0 , p p . 5 7 - 9 4 .

Yangtze cities specialized in high-quality, expensive books, although Nanking, Soochow, and Hangchow also published other kinds of materials. T h e Li K u a n g - m i n g chuang in Nanking, for example, was the largest publisher of elementary primers in the Ch'ing, while the Sao-yeh shan fang, run by the Hsi family in Soochow, was reputed to be the single largest Ch'ing commercial publisher. Some L o w e r Y a n g t z e bookstore-publishers had regional branches. Liu Ts'un-yan informs us of one such store, the Shan ch'eng t'ang, which had branches in Soochow, H a n g c h o w , Chekiang, and Fukien. 6 6 During the M i n g and Ch'ing, publishing centers emerged in every region at the same time that the L o w e r Y a n g t z e cities dominated the national elite book market. Analysis of the regional origins of several extant collections of M i n g and Ch'ing books shows both aspects of the regional distribution of the industry. T a b l e i presents the regional origins of several hundred M i n g and Ch'ing editions exhibited at the Peking Library in 1952. This exhibition emphasized nonfiction and included histories, poetry, books on agriculture and technology, local gazetteers, collected writings of scholars, and religious texts. Every region was represented in the exhibition. Peking was the single largest publishing center represented, with fifty-eight titles; Nanking was second, with twentyeight, Soochow third, with twenty-three, and Hangchow was represented by seven books. 66

On the Li Kuang-ming chuang, see Chang Chih-kung, Preliminary Study, illustration 3; on the Sao-yeh shan t'ang, Sun Yu-hsiu, History of Chinese Printing p. 35; Ts'un-yan Liu, Chinese Popular Fiction, pp. 38-39.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL

FOUNDATIONS

T h e P e k i n g L i b r a r y e x h i b i t i o n r e v e a l s the i m p o r t a n c e o f P e k i n g as a c e n t e r o f g o v e r n m e n t p r i n t i n g . A n a l y s i s o f c o l l e c t i o n s o f f i c t i o n s h o w the p r i m a c y o f t h e S o u t h e a s t C o a s t a n d L o w e r Y a n g t z e c e n t e r s . O f t h e t e n texts o u t o f t w e n t y f o u r e x t a n t M i n g a n d C h ' i n g e d i t i o n s o f Romance of the Three Kingdoms (San kuo chih t'ung-suyen-i)

w h o s e r e g i o n a l o r i g i n s c a n b e i d e n t i f i e d , six w e r e p r i n t e d in

F u k i e n , t h r e e in S o o c h o w , a n d o n e in N a n k i n g . 6 7 C a n t o n ' s p r i m a c y in t h e L i n g n a n b o o k m a r k e t e m e r g e s f r o m L i u T s ' u n y a n ' s analysis o f the regional origins of C h i n e s e p o p u l a r

fiction

held by two

l i b r a r i e s in L o n d o n . T h e m o r e t h a n 130 b o o k s h e l d b y these l i b r a r i e s w e r e p u b l i s h e d b y 90 b o o k s t o r e s , 5 6 o f w h i c h h a v e b e e n l o c a t e d . O f t h e l a t t e r , 28.5 p e r c e n t w e r e in C a n t o n ; 9 p e r c e n t i n F o - s h a n ; a n d 5 p e r c e n t in H o n g K o n g , so a t o t a l o f 42.8 p e r c e n t o f t h e b o o k s in t h e c o l l e c t i o n c a m e f r o m t h e L i n g n a n m a c r o r e g i o n . A s L i u explains, the d o m i n a n c e of K w a n g t u n g imprints in a c o l l e c t i o n t h a t i n c l u d e s i m p r i n t s f r o m the L o w e r Y a n g t z e , S o u t h e a s t C o a s t , a n d N o r t h C h i n a stems f r o m the f a c t t h a t C a n t o n is t h e m a r k e t i n g c e n t e r for t h e r e g i o n in w h i c h H o n g K o n g is l o c a t e d . 6 8 T h e c o n t r a s t b e t w e e n this c o l l e c t i o n a n d t h e r e g i o n a l d i s t r i b u t i o n f o u n d b y S u n K ' a i - t i in his s u r v e y o f j a p a n e s e a n d C h i n e s e c o l l e c t i o n s , in w h i c h S o u t h e a s t C o a s t a n d L o w e r Y a n g t z e

books

d o m i n a t e d , u n d e r l i n e s t h e r e g i o n a l flavor o f t h e L o n d o n h o l d i n g s . L o n g - d i s t a n c e t r a d e w a s p r o b a b l y l i m i t e d to b o o k s i n t e n d e d for a w e l l e d u c a t e d a n d w e a l t h y r e a d e r s h i p . F i c t i o n , histories, a n d t h e titles o f t h e b o o k s in the c o l l e c t i o n s w e h a v e a n a l y z e d w e r e m o s t l y r e a d b y m e n b e l o n g i n g to a small elite. T h e h i g h p r i c e s o f b o o k s o f q u a l i t y p e r m i t t e d m e r c h a n t s to b e a r t h e cost o f l o n g - d i s t a n c e t r a n s p o r t a n d still s h o w a p r o f i t . T h e l o n g - d i s t a n c e b o o k trade w a s d o m i n a t e d by m e r c h a n t s from the m a j o r printing centers of the L o w e r Y a n g t z e a n d K i a n g s i . W e find S o o c h o w m e r c h a n t s b r i n g i n g S o o c h o w i m p r i n t s to C a n t o n , a n d p u r c h a s i n g c h e a p e r M a - k a n g e d i t i o n s t h e r e to t a k e b a c k to sell in K i a n g n a n . M e r c h a n t s f r o m S o o c h o w , H u - c h o u , a n d K i a n g s i d o m i n a t e d Peking's f a m o u s book quarter, L i u - l i - c h ' a n g , f r o m the eighteenth u n t i l t h e late n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y . 6 9 A s t h e p r e s t i g e a n d p r i c e o f a p r i n t e d w o r k d e c l i n e d , so d i d t h e d i s t a n c e it w a s t r a d e d . I f w e c o u l d find t h e i n f o r m a t i o n n e e d e d to s t u d y this s u b j e c t , w e c o u l d trace a hierarchy of m a r k e t s a n d p r o d u c t i o n centers, r e a c h i n g from the central m e t r o p o l i s o f a m a c r o r e g i o n d o w n to t h e c e n t r a l o r i n t e r m e d i a t e m a r k e t t o w n , 157

P e i - c h i n g t ' u - s h u - k u a n ^bjSSBIIr

eds>

Chung-kuo yin-pen shu-chi chan-lan mu-lu

cfSEP^

W i l i S c M i i t [ C a t a l o g u e o f the e x h i b i t o f C h i n e s e printed books] ( P e k i n g : C h u n g - y a n g j e n - m i n cheng-fu w e n - h u a p u , she-hui w e n - h u a shih-yeh kuan-Ii chii 1952); S u n K ' a i - t i

A K & J f f J t f t 55,

ttli^C'it

Chung-kuo I'ung-su liriao-shuo shu-mu ^ H S ^ ' M S *

[ C a t a l o g u e of C h i n e s e p o p u l a r fiction] ( P e k i n g : T s o - c h i a c h ' u - p a n she f p ^ fjtj

0

jjr£, 1 9 5 7 ) , pp. 20,

24-37" 8 T s ' u n - y a n L i u , Chinese Popular Fiction, pp. 3 9 - 4 2 . 69

Shun-te hsien-chih, 3.50a; W a n g Y e n - c h ' i u i i n f K , Liu-li-ch'ang shih-hua

[Historical

chats a b o u t L i u - l i - c h ' a n g ] ( P e k i n g : San-lien shu-tien H i ^ H / S i , 1963), p p . 2 1 , 4 1 ; Y e h T e - h u i , Chals, 9 . 2 6 b 32b.

28

E V E L Y N S. RAYVSKI

depending on the population density and degree of economic advance of the specific region. When we study items such as almanacs, which Ricci noted " a r e sold in such quantities that every house has a supply of them," or paper gods, which seem to have been for sale in villages, we are likely to be dealing with objects printed at centers only a step or two higher in the central place hierarchy. 7 0 Further research is needed before we can discuss production of this most popular kind of printed material and the mechanisms that facilitated its dissemination, such as book fairs and peddler's networks.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT A N D I T S I M P A C T ON C U L T U R E T h e development of the economy, expansion of education and functional literacy, and penetration of printed culture into rural villages fundamentally influenced Chinese popular culture. W e have already described some of these influences. Increased participation in marketing opened broader horizons for peasants and increased the value of literacy for everyday life while providing households with the funds to pay for schooling. T h e commercial economy also exposed individuals to a keener competitive environment, in which potential losses loomed as large as the potential profits. Enhanced social mobility was thus linked with increased uncertainty: these dual tensions are reflected in late M i n g fiction and morality books in the new stress on the importance of individual action in determining one's fate and the assumption that material rewards would flow from virtuous action. A mentality resembling that of the marketplace emerges in the "ideology ofmerit making" to be found in these books: one can think of the ledgers ofmerit and demerit that appear during this period as spiritual account books, with "target s a v i n g " — t h a t is, the belief that achievement of a specified total of meritorious deeds will automatically bring good fortune. Chiin-fang Yii provides such a testimonial from Y u a n Huang, who ascribed his success in winning the chu-jen and chin-shih degrees and acquiring a long-desired son to the accumulation of a targeted number of good deeds. 7 1 T h e ideology ofmerit making may thus be interpreted as a response to the uncertainty produced by heightened social mobility. T h e notion of spiritual accounting reveals the penetration of a commercial mentality and rationality into the ethical-religious sphere. Economic advance and educational expansion changed elite culture. In the Lower Yangtze, the most advanced, urbanized, and one of the most densely populated regions in late M i n g China, the movement of large landlords out of 70Gallagher, 71

China in the Sixteenth Century, p p . 8 2 - 8 3 .

Y i i , Renewal of Buddhism, pp. 121 - 1 2 4 ; see P h i l i p p e Aries, The Hour of Our Death ( N e w Y o r k :

K n o p f , 1 9 8 1 ) , pp. 1 0 3 - 1 0 4 , 154, on the t h i r t e e n t h - c e n t u r y E u r o p e a n p a r a l l e l to this C h i n e s e development.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS

villages into towns and cities stimulated urban culture. T h e Lower Yangtze's largest cities, such as Nanking, became centers of intellectual and artistic life, as young men, frustrated by the increasingly difficult competition for examination degrees, sought gratification in private pursuits. A shift from public to private activity did not, however, mean abandonment of Confucian values and goals, and the rise of elite concern about declining morals, itself a product of social change, stimulated production of fiction and works on morality during the late Ming and early Ch'ing. Educational expansion afTected cultural development in several other ways. By enabling more people than ever before to read at least simple materials, this phenomenon encouraged broader use of written communications in society. Educational expansion, most significant at elementary levels of schooling, brought primers into the sphere of popular knowledge as a consequence of the unified curriculum and unified written language. We can explore the implications of this development by briefly examining the primers and their content. The Ming and Ch'ing elementary curriculum rested on three primers: the Trimetrical Classic (San tzu ching), Thousand Character Classic (Ch'ien tzu wen), and the Hundred Names (Pai chia hsing). T h e Trimetrical Classic was the primer with which many boys began their studies. Originally written in Sung times, this text existed in many versions in Ming and Ch'ing. It consisted of approximately 356 lines of three characters each and contained 500 different characters after repetitions were eliminated. Its famous opening lines present a Mencian tenet: " M e n at their birth are naturally good. Their natures are much the same; their habits become widely different. If foolishly there is no teaching, the nature will deteriorate." 7 2 T h e primer blended factual and historical information with strictures on the reciprocal obligations of parents and sons, teachers and students, elders and juniors. The oldest of the primers was the Thousand Character Classic. Compiled in the sixth century, it consisted of a thousand different characters organized into eight-character couplets. The information presented was very similar to that in the Trimetrical Classic: there were names of seasons, plants, animals but also names of dynasties, heroes worthy of emulation, and hortatory sections on the conduct proper for a Confucian gentleman: modesty in demeanor and dress, caution in speech, mental self-discipline, and humility. Like the Trimetrical Classic, the Thousand Character Classic was designed for ease in chanting (and hence memorization) ; the characters introduced were those commonly found in the classical texts to be studied later, and its lines used common easy constructions. In Ming and Ch'ing times many versions of this text were in circulation. The third primer, the Hundred Names, consisted of four hundred family 72 T h e translation is taken from Herbert A. Giles, Elementary Chinese: San Tzu Ching (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1910). The description of these primers draws heavily on Chang Chih-kung Preliminary Study, pp. 6 - 2 7 , 1 5 4 - 1 5 9 .

E V E L Y N S. R A W S K I

3°

s u r n a m e s , b u t since s o m e n a m e s were m o r e t h a n o n e c h a r a c t e r in length, t h e book a c t u a l l y c o n t a i n e d m o r e t h a n four h u n d r e d c h a r a c t e r s . T o g e t h e r these three p r i m e r s p r o v i d e d t h e b e g i n n i n g s t u d e n t with k n o w l edge of a b o u t two t h o u s a n d c h a r a c t e r s a n d c o n s t i t u t e d the v o c a b u l a r y a c q u i r e d by boys in well-to-do households before t h e y enrolled in f o r m a l studies with a t u t o r . T h e t h r e e p r i m e r s — k n o w n as the "San, Pai, Ch'ien"—were also used in village a n d c h a r i t a b l e schools, w h e r e they could be r e a d in a year. As t h e M i n g scholar Lii K ' u n w r o t e , When first entering the community school, those eight sui and below should first read the Trimetrical Classic in order to practice reading and hearing; the Hundred Names for daily use; and the Thousand. Character Classic also has principle. 7 3 I t w o u l d be difficult to o v e r e s t i m a t e the p e n e t r a t i o n of these t h r e e texts i n t o M i n g a n d C h ' i n g c u l t u r e . T h e Thousand Character Classic a n d the o t h e r texts a p p e a r e d not only in Chinese b u t in M o n g o l i a n - C h i n e s e a n d M a n c h u - C h i n e s e editions. T h e absence of c h a r a c t e r repetition a n d its general p o p u l a r i t y m a d e the Thousand Character Classic a useful o r d e r i n g system for all kinds of things. T h e T a o i s t o r d i n a t i o n list w a s " n u m b e r e d " using the c h a r a c t e r s (in sequence) f r o m the Thousand Character Classic, c a r p e n t e r s p u t t o g e t h e r f u r n i t u r e t h a t h a d b e e n disassembled for s h i p p i n g using the s a m e system. I c h i s a d a M i y a z a k i tells us t h a t the cells in N a n k i n g ' s provincial e x a m i n a t i o n hall were a r r a n g e d in lanes, each lane b e i n g identified by a c h a r a c t e r taken in serial o r d e r f r o m the Thousand Character Classic. Since e a c h cell in a l a n e was given a n u m b e r , the system p e r m i t t e d identification of every cell in the e n t i r e c o m p o u n d . T h e s a m e system was used for business a c c o u n t books a n d p a w n tickets. E v e n t h o u g h t h e c h a r a c t e r w o u l d be c h a n g e d each m o n t h , n o t w o tickets f r o m the s a m e p a w n s h o p could b e a r identical code n u m b e r s for m o r e t h a n e i g h t y - t h r e e y e a r s . 7 4 T h e w i d e s p r e a d use of the Thousand Character Classic for such p r a c t i c a l purposes testifies to its p o p u l a r i t y a m o n g persons of diverse social g r o u p s a n d occupations, i n c l u d i n g artisans, clerks, m e r c h a n t s , m o n k s , a n d scholars. C h a n g C h i h - k u n g ' s work shows the e q u a l p o p u l a r i t y of t h e San tzu ching, revealed in t h e n u m e r o u s p r i m e r s b e a r i n g this title: Geographical San tzu ching (Ti-li STC), Western Studies San tzu ching (Hsi-hsueh STC), a n d so o n . 7 5 T e s t i m o n y on the p e n e t r a t i o n of the t h r e e p r i m e r s into M i n g - C h ' i n g society

73

Cited in C h a n g Chih-kung, Preliminary Study, p. 25.

74

Yoshitoyo Yoshioka, " T a o i s t Monastic L i f e , " in Facets of Taoism: Essays in Chinese Religion, ed.

Holmes Welch and A n n a Seidel (New Haven: Y a l e University Press, 1979), p. 2 3 5 ; H . A . Giles, " T h o u s a n d Character Numerals Used by Artisans," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, China Branch 2 0 : 2 7 9 (1885); Ichisada M i y a z a k i , China's Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, trans. C o n r a d Schirokauer (New Y o r k : Weatherhill, 1976), p. 44; T . S. Whelan,

The

Pawnshop in China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1979), pp. 4 2 - 4 3 ; C h a n g Chih-kung, Preliminary Study, p. 8. 75

C h a n g Chih-kung, Preliminary Study, pp. 19, 159.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS

3'

t h u s comes f r o m school r e g u l a t i o n s , p e r s o n a l reminiscences, a n d d o c u m e n t a t i o n of the practical a p p l i c a t i o n s listed a b o v e . T h i s evidence s u p p o r t s the conclusion t h a t the e l e m e n t a r y c u r r i c u l u m w a s k n o w n t h r o u g h o u t t h e M i n g a n d C h ' i n g e m p i r e a n d a m o n g v a r i e d social g r o u p s . W h a t was t a u g h t in the p r i m e r s ? P r i m e r s serve religious causes in m a n y p r e m o d e r n c u l t u r e s — t h i s w a s t r u e in P r o t e s t a n t E u r o p e , w h e r e religion w a s t h e p r i m a r y m o t i v a t i o n for e d u c a t i o n , t r u e in C a t h o l i c E u r o p e , a n d t h e I s l a m i c w o r l d . 7 6 I n C h i n a , the Trimetrical Classic a n d Thousand Character Classic w e r e vehicles for w h a t w e m i g h t i d e n t i f y as C o n f u c i a n doctrines: faith in the perfectibility o f h u m a n n a t u r e , stress on e d u c a t i o n as essential to d e v e l o p m e n t of m a n ' s goodness, p r e s e n t a t i o n of roles ( T h r e e Bonds, Five Relationships) c e n t r a l to C o n f u c i a n society, a n d the v a l u e s a p p r o p r i a t e to a chun-tzu, or perfect m a n : jen ( " h u m a n - h e a r t e d n e s s " ) , i ( " r i g h t e o u s n e s s " ) , li ( " r i t e s " ) , chih ( " m o r a l k n o w l e d g e " ) , a n d hsin ( " g o o d f a i t h " ) . T h e texts also p r e s e n t e d v a l u e s t h a t fit i n t o the e c o n o m i c c l i m a t e of late i m p e r i a l C h i n a : diligence, perseverence, a n d a m bition. I n t h e w o r d s of the text, " M a k e a n a m e for yourselves, glorify y o u r f a t h e r a n d m o t h e r , shed lustre o n y o u r ancestors, a n d e n r i c h y o u r p o s t e r i t y , " for " d i l i g e n c e has its r e w a r d . " 7 7 T h e values t r a n s m i t t e d in e l e m e n t a r y schooling w e r e t h u s c o n s o n a n t w i t h n o t only the C o n f u c i a n o r i e n t a t i o n of C h i n e s e society b u t with the h e i g h t e n e d social m o b i l i t y of late M i n g a n d early C h ' i n g times. T h e values a n d the p r i m e r s in w h i c h they were expressed w e r e n o t new: as w e h a v e n o t e d , the Trimetrical Classic a n d Thousand Character Classic go b a c k to S u n g a n d earlier. T h e difference lay in the e c o n o m i c a n d social c h a n g e s described a b o v e . E d u c a t i o n a l e x p a n s i o n b r o u g h t m o r e boys into the schools, w h e r e they m e m o r i z e d the primers; the p r i n t i n g b o o m p r o d u c e d a l a r g e r n u m b e r of ".San, Pai, Ch'ien" a n d m a n y o t h e r p r i m e r s c o n v e y i n g the s a m e values to b e g i n n i n g s t u d e n t s . V a l u e s t a u g h t in the classroom w e r e f u r t h e r r e i n f o r c e d in t h e larger society, t h r o u g h i m p e r i a l l y sponsored p r o g r a m s such as the village lectures (hsiang-yileh) a n d literati efforts to p r o m o t e m o r a l i t y e d u c a t i o n a m o n g o r d i n a r y citizens. Since e d u c a t i o n was viewed as a vital i n s t r u m e n t of m o r a l i n d o c t r i n a t i o n , it was the focus of i m p e r i a l , official, a n d literati a t t e n t i o n . T h i s is t r u e in most societies, b u t the c o n n e c t i o n b e t w e e n p u b l i c o r d e r a n d i n c u l c a t i o n of values (as o p p o s e d to simple coercion) w a s p e r h a p s m o r e explicit in C h i n a t h a n in m a n y o t h e r p r e m o d e r n cultures. T h e school c u r r i c u l u m a n d the textbooks c a m e u n d e r intense scrutiny: t h e u n i f i c a t i o n of t h e e l e m e n t a r y c u r r i c u l u m was t h u s the p r o d u c t of i n f o r m a l a n d f o r m a l r e g u l a t i o n . Officials a n d literati f r e q u e n t l y espoused p r o d u c t i o n a n d d i s t r i b u t i o n of the p r o p e r primers, a n d we h a v e C h ' i n g r e c o r d s of officials p r o v i d i n g free texts to c h a r i t a b l e schools in their 76 Lawrence Stone, "Literacy and Education in England, 1 6 4 0 - 1 9 0 0 , " Past and Present 4 2 : 7 9 ( 1 969); J a c k Goody, "Restricted Literacy in Northern Ghana," in Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Jack Goody (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 2 2 2 - 2 2 3 . 77 Lines 345-348, 353 in H. A. Giles's translation of San tzu ching, Elementary Chinese.

E V E L Y N S.

RAWSKI

districts. 7 8 B u t e d u c a t i o n w a s v e r y b r o a d l y c o n s t r u e d to i n c l u d e o r a l transmission o f v a l u e s to the p o p u l a c e . T h i s w a s the intent of the C h ' i n g Sacred Edicts studied b y V i c t o r M a i r a n d o f their predecessors, the Sacred Edicts issued in 1388 a n d 1399 b y the H u n g - w u E m p e r o r , M i n g T ' a i - t s u (see c h a p t e r 1 1 ) . A s K u n g c h u a n H s i a o has o b s e r v e d , these edicts w e r e " t h e substance o f the C o n f u c i a n ethic r e d u c e d to the barest essentials." Six in n u m b e r , the c o m m a n d m e n t s o f the M i n g Sacred Edicts w e r e i d e n t i c a l to those p r o m u l g a t e d in 1652 b y the S h u n chih E m p e r o r , the f o u n d e r o f the C h ' i n g : " B e filial to y o u r parents; be respectful to y o u r elders; live in h a r m o n y w i t h y o u r neighbors; instruct y o u r sons a n d grandsons; be c o n t e n t w i t h y o u r calling; a n d d o no e v i l . " T h e

Hung-wu

E m p e r o r o r d e r e d that these m a x i m s be posted on school w a l l s a n d i n s c r i b e d o n stone tablets erected b e f o r e C o n f u c i a n temples a n d e x a m i n a t i o n halls.

In

a d d i t i o n , they w e r e r e a d a l o u d to villagers six times a m o n t h . 7 9 T h e Sacred Edicts a t t e m p t e d to t r a n s m i t core C o n f u c i a n v a l u e s to those w h o h a d not a t t e n d e d school a n d w e r e illiterate. W h a t w a s presented w a s a simplification of the lessons f o u n d in the e l e m e n t a r y primers, not to m e n t i o n the C o n f u c i a n classics themselves. T h e p u b l i c lecture w a s s u p p l e m e n t e d b y o t h e r practices designed to p r o m o t e v i r t u e : the h o n o r i n g o f the a g e d , c h a s t e w i d o w s , a n d filial sons. T h e n there w a s the n e g a t i v e r e i n f o r c e m e n t for g o o d b e h a v i o r , e m b o d i e d in an e l a b o r a t e p e n a l c o d e that s u p p o r t e d the C o n f u c i a n f a m i l y system.80 G o v e r n m e n t efforts to i n c u l c a t e v a l u e s w e r e m a t c h e d b y literati efforts in both the secular a n d religious spheres. I n d i v i d u a l s e n d o w e d c h a r i t a b l e schools; c r e a t e d v e r n a c u l a r , r h y m e d primers to teach n o r m a t i v e v a l u e s m o r e easily; sponsored lay B u d d h i s t a n d o t h e r religious associations; a n d w r o t e , p r i n t e d , a n d distributed religious p a m p h l e t s a n d m o r a l i t y books. E a c h o f these activities, affecting the dissemination o f social values, w a s i m p o r t a n t in the p e r i o d w e are s t u d y i n g . T h e g r o w i n g i n t e g r a t i o n o f late i m p e r i a l C h i n e s e c u l t u r e w a s a p r o d u c t not o n l y o f conscious official p o l i c y b u t o f the increased i n t e g r a t i o n o f m a r k e t s a n d h e n c e o f rural a n d u r b a n places. T h e e n h a n c e d c o m m u n i c a t i o n s

network

h e l p e d b r i n g the v a l u e systems o f the elite a n d p e a s a n t tradition into closer c o n g r u e n c e . T h e final t r i u m p h o f i m p e r i a l l y sanctioned v a l u e s c a n be seen in their a c c e p t a n c e b y g r o u p s w h o explicitly rejected o r t h o d o x y . T h e W h i t e L o t u s sectarians studied b y S u s a n N a q u i n ( c h a p t e r 9, b e l o w ) expressed in their m a n t r a s the s a m e core v a l u e s f o u n d in the Sacred Edicts, a l t h o u g h these e t h i c a l principles w e r e n o w set in the c o n t e x t o f religious s a l v a t i o n a n d r e b i r t h after death. 78

K u n g - c h u a n H s i a o , Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle: U n i v e r s i t y o f

W a s h i n g t o n Press, i 9 6 0 ) , p. 2 4 1 ; R a w s k i , Education, pp. 4 9 - 5 2 . 79Hsiao, 80

Rural China, p. 186; Dictionary of Ming Biography, vol. I, p. 389.

H s i a o , Rural China, c h a p . 6; T ' u n g - t s u C h ' i i , Law and Society in Traditional

M o u t o n , 1961).

China

(Paris:

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS

33

Cultural integration produced the social stability desired by the elite and the state. As J a m e s Liu concludes, " I t was this closely knit economic, social, and intellectual web that made it possible for the government of such a vast empire to confine its formal structure mainly in the cities, while utilizing the social structure for rural control." 8 1 Of course, cultural integration marched hand in hand with increased social differentiation and social tension, which were engendered by the same socioeconomic conditions that produced integration. Economic advance brought greater social mobility and social stratification; increases in trade and marketing heightened awareness of the differences separating regional and ethnic cultures. T h e new emphasis on striving, expressed in fiction and morality books, reflects the competitive milieu that confronted ambitious Chinese during late Ming and Ch'ing times. It was natural that culture became not only a shared language, but a vehicle for communicating power relationships, as demonstrated in J a m e s Watson's essay in this volume (chapter 10) on the T'ien Hou cult in Kwangtung, and that cultural symbols conveyed a multitude of meanings that were different for different individuals in the society. Cultural integration and cultural diversity: these were concomitant developments of the late imperial period. The importance of each factor shifts with our focus. On the macrosocietal level, when we consider the premodern communication and transportation technology of Ming and Ch'ing, we must count the cultural unity of the empire as a major achievement. China also appears to have arrived at a greater degree of cultural homogeneity than many premodern European countries—for example, France, not to mention the disunited and atomized states in Germany and Italy. Several essays in this volume begin from this perspective to investigate why and how this cultural integration was achieved. In seeking to understand how late imperial society functioned at the family, village, and local level, both cultural integration and cultural diversity emerged as extremely important topics for analysis and study. Research on syncretic movements, heterodox and orthodox cults, and analysis of drama and fiction provides us with clues to the values embedded in Chinese culture at various times and places and gives us glimpses of the dynamic interaction between the socio-economic context and the ideas and norms guiding individual behavior. We are at the beginning of a relatively unexplored but fascinating field. 81

Liu, "Integrative Factors," pp. 1 4 - 1 5 .

TWO •DBD

Communication, Class, and Consciousness in Late Imperial China David Johnson

In most of the chapters of this book the leading role is played not by specific individuals, or institutions, or notable events, but by texts—novels a n d plays, lectures and handbooks, scriptures and sermons—almost all of which were directed at people who were neither highly educated nor particularly powerful. These materials are given so much attention because they help us understand better what the great mass of Chinese w h o were not part of the national elite thought and felt about themselves a n d the world around them. V a l u e s can be embodied in nonverbal symbols, a n d exemplified in behavior, but to be communicated with a n y precision, or to be explained, they must find expression in words. For this reason, historians concerned with beliefs, attitudes, ideas, and the like, as we are in this book, naturally begin by studying the verbal forms that were contrived to express them. H o w e v e r , without knowing w h o wrote the tract or guidebook or ballad we are interested in, it is extremely difficult to interpret it properly, to understand what it is actually saying. T h e n , too, adequate assessment of the social a n d historical significance of any text requires that we know how widely it circulated, how many people it influenced, and w h o they were. Finally, if we are concerned with the impact of an entire system of thought, as opposed to a specific text, we must take account of the differences a m o n g versions of that Earlier drafts of this paper were written while I was a Senior Fellow in Columbia University's Society of Fellows in the Humanities, and during a year supported by a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies. I am grateful to both those exemplary organizations. T h e discussions at the Honolulu conference o f a n early version of this paper had a substantial impact on my thinking that I am glad to acknowledge formally. I am particularly indebted to my co-editors, Andrew Nathan and Evelyn Rawski, whose criticisms of the work at every stage were invaluable. I am also grateful to the following persons, who were kind enough to read and comment on the final draft: J a m e s Watson, M y r o n Cohen, R o g e r des Forges, and Gilbert R o z m a n .

34

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

35

system prepared for different audiences or produced by members of different classes. In short, the study of values involves the study of communication and social structure as well. O n e of the chief aims of this book is to develop a better sense of the interrelationships of these three aspects of Chinese culture in the late imperial period, especially in the broad reaches of society beyond the confines of the ruling class. My purpose in this essay is to present a preliminary analysis of how the structures of communication and dominance affected consciousness in the M i n g - C h ' i n g era. I The verbal forms that imagination and intellect create take on social meaning only when they pass from person to person. Conversations, storytelling, gossip, preaching, letter writing, the reading of books—such activities go on constantly, and the manifold connections between people that they create can be seen as a network of enormous complexity involving virtually every member of a culture. Certain features of this network in late imperial China are obvious enough. T o begin with, it had oral and literary components, and the oral component was itself subdivided by dialect. But here we already are moving from the obvious to the obscure. How serious a barrier to communication in the M i n g - C h ' i n g period were dialect differences? How many mutually unintelligible dialects were there? How large were the groups that spoke them? (Obviously, dialects spoken by only a few people will be of little significance to our understanding of the culture as a whole.) If dialect differences did constitute important barriers to communication, further questions arise: How common was the ability to speak both dialects in regions that lay along dialectal boundaries? If the transition between dialect areas was rather abrupt, and bilingualism rather uncommon, individuals who were bilingual would have been of great importance in cultural interchanges between regions. Were they more likely to be found in certain kinds of occupations or social roles than in others? Did they come predominantly from a certain class? How often were civil and military officials bilingual in this sense? The answers to these questions will have a considerable impact on our understanding of (among other things) the spread of legends and cults, and the nature of the relationship between officialdom and the people. Dialect differences also have a direct bearing on our understanding of what appears to be the relatively high degree of cultural integration on the sub-elite level in Ming and Ch'ing times. Such sharing of values and ideas across social and geographic boundaries comes about in general through a combination of two processes. In one, myths, legends, stories, songs, and the like pass from person to person by word of mouth, the values embedded in them thus diffusing slowly until they are familiar to large numbers of people. In the other, certain values are deliberately inculcated by a dominant social group, or a priestly

DAVID JOHNSON

3«

class, to further its own interests, to bring salvation to the people, or both. In such cases, the values almost always have their roots in written texts of some kind, for texts are by far the most effective means of ensuring continuity and uniformity in an ideology. M a n y of the essays in this book provide evidence of the inculcation of values from above. But we know too that things like the M i d - A u t u m n Festival, the legend of L i a n g Shan-po and C h u Ying-t'ai, and the cult of the Stove G o d are found in very similar forms in many regions of China. Since at first glance such matters seem unlikely to have been of much concern to officials or priests, it appears that diffusion was also at work, as we would expect. But we do not yet know how difficult it was for oral messages to move from one dialect area to another. T h e more difficult it was, the more important must have been the role of literate intermediaries even in the spread of popular festivals and cults. If the barriers of dialect were very great, we can predict that the most widespread elements of popular culture will be the ones most likely to carry an ideological burden, the legacy of the participation of educated middlemen in the process of transmission. Although M i n g - C h ' i n g oral culture was naturally compartmentalized and parochial, it goes without saying that in any dialect area every native could speak the dialect. By contrast, while individuals who could read and write were to be found everywhere in China, in any particular region they formed only a small minority of the population. 1 Furthermore, there were wide variations in degree of literacy. But differences in literacy did not automatically lead to the breakdown of communication. A man of modest education could, if he was able to write at all coherently, communicate in writing on at least some subjects with any other literate person. A n d a sophisticated scholar could "write d o w n " to a humble audience and make himself understood, though he may have found the exercise demeaning, and have failed to reach his readers. It follows that only those persons w h o could write as well as read were part of the network of written communications, since those w h o could not write would have been unable to originate or transmit written messages. Hence the image of a communications network is probably more appropriate to the oral realm than to the world of writing. Ability to communicate reciprocally in writing had considerable influence on individual consciousness, of course, but far more important was access to the literary tradition, the great body of texts that had accumulated over the centuries. T h e consciousness of an individual whose access to that tradition was very limited is certain to have been different from that of someone with unlimited access to it. Such access depended on an individual's education, class position, and native intelligence, for taken together they determined the texts he encountered, the time he could spend 1

Evelyn S. Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch'ing China (Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan Press, 1979), pp. 8 - 2 0 .

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

37

on them, a n d his ability to understand them. T h e r e f o r e the a p p r o p r i a t e figure for thinking a b o u t the literate realm is not a n e t w o r k , b u t a h i e r a r c h y . C o m p a r a t i v e l y few people were able to r e a d a n d c o m p r e h e n d e v e r y t h i n g in the literary tradition, a few more were a b l e to read e v e r y t h i n g except the most difficult texts, a n d so on d o w n t h r o u g h the degrees of difficulty or accessibility. T h e result is strongly reminiscent of d i a g r a m s of social stratification, as it should be, since class position a n d education ( w h i c h were strongly interrelated) largely determined h o w well a person could r e a d a n d u n d e r s t a n d the texts of the literary tradition. In fact, the most m e a n i n g f u l subdivisions of the literate realm were related to class, as those of the oral realm were to g e o g r a p h y . T h e boundaries of these subdivisions did not form the kind of barriers that were created b y the boundaries b e t w e e n dialect areas, because they only operated in one direction: the incomprehension was not m u t u a l . A poorly e d u c a t e d person could not understand the abstruse texts studied by the scholar, but the scholar could read with e a s e — i f not p l e a s u r e — b o o k s written b y unsophisticated hacks. S u r m o u n t i n g the barriers w i t h i n the literate realm w a s therefore essentially a matter o f p r o d u c i n g written versions of c o m p l e x texts that could be understood by " t h e c o m m o n r e a d e r . " O n e of the Sacred Edict popularizations discussed in V i c t o r M a i r ' s essay, L i a n g Y e n - n i e n ' s Illustrated Explanation of the Sacred Edict, seems to h a v e been prepared for such a purpose (see below, p p . 3 3 0 - 3 3 5 ) . The Romance of the Three Teachings, the novel that is the subject of J u d i t h Berling's study (see c h a p t e r 7), was written to m a k e the ideas o f the M i n g religious innovator L i n C h a o - e n accessible to a wider literate audience. W e can assume, too, that at least some of the texts used by the local specialists w h o figure in J a m e s H a y e s ' s essay (see c h a p t e r 3) were the result of the conscious simplification of c o m p l e x ideas for readers o f limited educations. T h e r e was in fact considerable interest o n the part of e d u c a t e d men in m a k i n g available to less e d u c a t e d readers the c o n t e n t of texts a n d systems of texts that otherwise w o u l d have been inaccessible to them. T h e i m p o r t a n c e of such " t r a n s l a t i o n " w o r k can hardly be overstated. It plays a large role in this b o o k , and should be a high priority for future research. I shall return to it below. But if w e think of the literate p o p u l a t i o n as a r r a n g e d in a hierarchy, w h e r e shall w e place the lines dividing the various strata? T h e gradations between different levels of literacy were infinitely fine. M o r e o v e r , comprehension itself could exist in v a r y i n g degrees, from c o m p l e t e u n d e r s t a n d i n g to " g e t t i n g the gist." T h e r e were also specialized literacies in the less-educated strata, t h o u g h w e know next to nothing a b o u t them (see b e l o w , pp. 6 3 - 6 4 ) . It appears, therefore, that the distinctions w e m a k e are liable to be s o m e w h a t arbitrary, a n d that in any case the boundaries between g r o u p s of literates will not be sharp. Still, two points are reasonably clear. First, w e can assume that a m a n w h o h a d passed thzyuan examination (that is, a sheng-yuan), or h a d c o m p l e t e d his studies in p r e p a r a t i o n for it, could read v i r t u a l l y e v e r y t h i n g in the literary tradition. Second, there must h a v e been a substantial n u m b e r of individuals whose

DAVID JOHNSON

38

limited schooling had made it possible for them to grasp the meaning of m a n y texts but not to write easily or well. Such persons had some access to the literary tradition and hence had transcended the confines of local oral culture, but were unable to use writing to order and record their thoughts. T h e distinction between those literates w h o could not write, or at any rate habitually did not, and those w h o did, is one of the most significant within the literate realm, perhaps as important as the distinction between those w h o did and did not have full access to the literary tradition. This distinction ought therefore to be included in any model of the literate realm. But since I have no idea how m a n y of these moderately literate but nonwriting individuals there may have been, for the time being I can do no more than note their probable importance, and hope that future research will throw enough light on the subject to allow them to be brought into the model. 2 U p to now, I have tried to show where the most important divisions within the oral realm and the literate realm lay, and how they affected the process of communication and hence the formation of consciousness. I shall turn now to the most basic division of all: that separating the oral and the written realms themselves. T h e illiterate could not transcend the world of folk tales, sermons, legends, gossip, and h e a r s a y — a rich and varied realm, but still confining. T h e teachings of the ritual scriptures, the adventures of the heroes of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the latest edict against heterodox religion, even a letter from h o m e — all these had to be explained to him by someone w h o could read. Communication in the oral realm took place in a complex network of face-to-face encounters, and if a message was irrelevant to present interests and concerns it was forgotten, and ceased to exist. A message that was not forgotten was changed in the process of telling and retelling until eventually many different versions of it came to exist. Each telling was in effect a re-creation, for a new audience, and the most successful of these took on lives of their own. T h u s there were two double barriers around the typical illiterate. He could not understand oral messages in dialects different than his own, or any written message; and he could not communicate with others if circumstances required either that he use another dialect, or the written word. But the oral and literate realms were not mutually inaccessible. Just asstories and beliefs could move from one dialect area to another with the assistance of bilingual intermediaries, so they could move across the gulf separating the oral and the literate realms, although the process was very complex and involved intermediaries of many different types. T h e entire system of intercommunications between the illiterate and the educated is of absolutely central importance to the understanding of Chinese history from at least Sung times on, and 2

For some further remarks on this topic, see below, p. 44.

C O M M U N I C A T I O N , CLASS, AND

CONSCIOUSNESS

39

deserves the close attention of students of all aspects of Chinese cultural history. T h e transformation of texts into oral forms that were accessible to the illiterate masses was probably the most important part of this process. Later chapters provide many examples ofit: officials (and a storyteller) explaining the Sacred Edict; members of the L o and H u n g - y a n g sects reciting their scriptures to groups of peasants; village fortune tellers, geomancers, and experts on ceremonial expounding to their clients or friends the information in the handbooks and encyclopedias they owned; actors presenting to small-town audiences undoubtedly composed largely of illiterates plays that had been written by men with great c o m m a n d over the written language. 3 It also happened that oral compositions of various kinds were reduced to writing, and thus entered the literate realm. A large number of important literary genres are believed to have originated in this way: tz'u poetry, chu-kungtiao ballads, and pien-wen stories, a m o n g others. O f course, important changes must have been introduced into the sung or spoken originals as they were being made into reading matter (just as the oral version of a written text would have been very different from its original), but nevertheless the movement from oral to written did take place. W e are interested in more than the simple transposition of verbal material from one medium into another, though. O u r basic concern is with the movement of beliefs, ideas, values, and the like from group to group, and this could take place in subtler ways. For example, W a n g K e n , in one of his public lectures, could well have explained to his audience things that he had heard during discussions with W a n g Y a n g - m i n g . Here we see how the ideas of a highly educated man could have become part of the consciousness of people with much less education, without ever having been written down. A n d , of course, elements of oral culture could also find their w a y into the consciousness of an educated man without being written down. H e would have absorbed a great deal of such material when he was a child, and throughout his life would have continued to be exposed to it, since every person was able to participate fully in the oral culture of his native region. Y e t it is not quite correct to say, as Peter Burke does, that the educated man was "bi-cultural," though he was indeed familiar with both literate and oral culture. 4 For when he heard a local legend, or a pious tale, it would h a v e meant something rather different to him than to a peasant. Each of them w o u l d have had a different stock of ideas and values with which the new idea had to be integrated and against which it was assessed. Those elements of oral culture that the educated man learned as a child would no doubt have struck deep roots, but he would have come to distrust or even despise many of them as he grew up and underwent the 3Not

discussed in later chapters but of considerable importance in the transfer of written

material into the oral realm was the person w h o read aloud to small groups of illiterate kinfolk or friends. 4Popular

Culture in Early Modern Europe (London: T e m p l e Smith, 1978), p. 28.

4°

DAVID JOHNSON

i n d o c t r i n a t i o n of a classical e d u c a t i o n . E v e n if he r e m a i n e d s y m p a t h e t i c to c e r t a i n aspects o f o r a l c u l t u r e , his peers m a y n o t h a v e b e e n , a n d this w o u l d h a v e e n c o u r a g e d h i m to m a i n t a i n a n e m o t i o n a l distance f r o m such m a t e r i a l o r e v e n to repress it entirely.

2 I n the p r e c e d i n g pages I h a v e tried b o t h to trace the most c o m m o n p a t h s followed b y stories, p r o v e r b s , sermons, histories, a n d all o t h e r c r e a t i o n s of l a n g u a g e as they m o v e d t h r o u g h o u t C h i n a in late t r a d i t i o n a l times, a n d to describe the b a r r i e r s t h e y e n c o u n t e r e d . T h e p a t t e r n s t h u s f o r m e d h a v e t h e i r o w n fascination, b u t it is t h e messages t h a t are really i m p o r t a n t , for t h e w o r d s in w h i c h people express their ideas a n d feelings are the best evidence of t h e i r consciousness, a n d consciousness is w h a t we seek, finally, to u n d e r s t a n d in this book. B u t w h a t does a text reveal a b o u t "consciousness"? If we are h o n e s t w i t h ourselves, I think w e m u s t a d m i t t h a t while we r e g a r d s o m e texts as evidence of the consciousness of their a u t h o r s , we assume t h a t others s o m e h o w r e p r e s e n t o r e m b o d y the consciousness of entire groups. T e x t s t h a t a r e technically sophistic a t e d o r intellectually c o m p l e x , t h a t are u n c o n v e n t i o n a l or idiosyncratic, t h a t display a m a r k e d a u t h o r i a l self-consciousness, a n d t h a t h a v e been w r i t t e n b y well-known intellectual or literary figures—in such texts we u n t h i n k i n g l y assume t h a t it is t h e consciousness of the a u t h o r t h a t is b e i n g revealed. But texts t h a t are a n o n y m o u s , t h a t deal in familiar ways with t r a d i t i o n a l subjects, t h a t are u n c o m p l i c a t e d either artistically or intellectually, t h a t seem to h a v e been c o m p o s e d q u i t e unselfconsciously, a n d t h a t h a v e a f u n c t i o n as simple a n d obvious as a catechism's o r a r i d d l e ' s — t h e s e w e t e n d to t a k e as evidence for the m e n t a l i t y not of a n a u t h o r , b u t of a n entire g r o u p . N o w c e r t a i n e x t r e m e l y original works are p r o b a b l y reliable evidence only of their a u t h o r s ' mentalities, while a t the o t h e r e x t r e m e , t r a d i t i o n a l m a t e r i a l s such as m y t h s a n d legends really d o reflect the values of g r o u p s r a t h e r t h a n p a r ticular individuals, b e c a u s e a f t e r h a v i n g been passed d o w n f r o m g e n e r a t i o n to g e n e r a t i o n they h a v e b e c o m e collective creations. But most t e x t s — o r a l a n d w r i t t e n — c a n tell us s o m e t h i n g a b o u t the consciousness of b o t h the person w h o c r e a t e d t h e m a n d of l a r g e r g r o u p s as well. G r o u p consciousness, or collective mentalities, is a s u b j e c t of m a j o r c o n c e r n for this book, a n d the c o n c e p t therefore d e m a n d s especially c a r e f u l consideration. I believe t h a t in the o r d i n a r y course of r e a d i n g a n d reflection w e tend to assume t h a t texts such as the sectarian scriptures discussed b y O v e r m y e r , or The Romance of the Three Teachings, t r e a t e d by Berling, p r o v i d e evidence a b o u t t h e m e n t a l i t y of o n e or b o t h of two kinds of groups: first, the p e o p l e w h o b e l o n g e d to the s a m e social g r o u p as the a u t h o r ; a n d second, the text's a u d i e n c e . Both these assumptions r e q u i r e c a r e f u l scrutiny.

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND

CONSCIOUSNESS

4'

T h a t every consciousness is u n i q u e a n d that therefore strictly speaking one c a n never extrapolate from an authorial mentality to t h a t of a g r o u p is one of those truisms we all cheerfully ignore every day, a n d rightly so. T h e i m p o r t a n t problems arise w h e n we try to decide w h o m to include in the g r o u p to which the a u t h o r belongs, whose values a n d attitudes his work helps us u n d e r s t a n d . Should it be others of the same economic class? O r should it be those of the same occupation or profession? Those of the same educational a n d cultural level? T h o s e of the same city or region? No final answer is possible to this sort of question; certain problems seem to require that we define these groupings in o n e m a n n e r , other problems in a n o t h e r . But in general we o u g h t to be guided by the factors that shape individual consciousness most strongly. I believe two types of factor are most i m p o r t a n t : those relating to position in the systems of c o m m u n i c a t i o n I outlined above (including access to the literary tradition), a n d those relating to position in w h a t I call the structure of dominance. I shall discuss both of them at some length below. T h e other g r o u p whose collective mentality is believed to be revealed, or reflected, or in some way expressed by a text, is its audience. M u c h confusion exists here. T o begin with, we must distinguish between actual a u d i e n c e — sometimes called the public of a w o r k — a n d intended audience: the person or persons for w h o m the a u t h o r was consciously writing. I n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t the actual audiences of most texts in M i n g - C h ' i n g times is of course virtually impossible to obtain, but we can sometimes m a k e reasonable assumptions. For example, the fifteenth-century shuo-ch'ang tz'u-hua discovered in the coffin of the wife of an official must have been read by her, a n d by other w o m e n of the same class 5 ; the folk plays collected by Sydney G a m b l e a n d his associates were presented to village audiences in T i n g hsien 6 ; folk tales collected in Shansi circulated a m o n g the illiterate peasants there; texts such as the unpretentious editions of the F o u r Books with explanatory notes, discussed by Sakai T a d a o in his article on M i n g morality books, 7 can be assumed to have h a d wide circulation in the non-elite p a r t of the population; a n d so on. But we will have little information on how m a n y copies of a text were printed at one time, a n d how m a n y times it was reprinted. W e will p r o b a b l y not know how m u c h it cost, a n d hence who could not afford to buy it. 8 Nor will we know as m u c h as we should 5

See D a v i d T . R o y , " T h e Fifteenth-Century Shuo-Ch'ang

Formulaic Composition," CH1N0PERL

Tz'u-Hua

as Examples of Written

Papers 1 0 : 9 7 - 1 2 8 (1982). See also W. L . I d e m a , Chinese

Vernacular Fiction: The Formative Period (Leiden: E . J . Brill, 1974), pp. x x x v if. 6

S e e Chinese Village Plays, ed. Sidney S. G a m b l e (Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1970). T h e Chinese

texts, which should be consulted in conjunction with G a m b l e ' s renderings, can be found in Tinghsienyang

ko hsuan / g ^ i f e s f t j H [Ting hsien rice-planting songs], ed. Li Ching-han

C h a n g Shih-wen ^gtft JC (Taipei: T u n g - f a n g wen-hua shu-chü, S 7 J 5 t ft 1 !

and

, 1 9 7 1 ; reprint of

1 9 3 3 ed.), 4 vols. 7

"Confucianism and Popular Educational Works," in Self and Society in Ming Thought, ed. W m .

Theodore de Bary (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), p. 336. 8

For some interesting speculations about these questions and related matters, see I d e m a , Chinese

Vernacular Fiction (cited n. 5), pp. x l i v - l x i v .

DAVID JOHNSON

about what proportion of the population in a given region w o u l d have been educated enough to read and comprehend it, although here at least we can draw on Evelyn Rawski's pioneering book. 9 O u r ignorance of such matters makes it virtually impossible to speak with confidence of the actual audience of any written text in M i n g - C h ' i n g times. W e should therefore be cautious about assuming that a particular text influenced or embodied the consciousness of a particular social group. W e can make such judgments only in cases where we are very sure that the material was genuinely popular among the members of that group, and hence met their expectations or needs in some important w a y , or affected their w a y of looking at the world. There remains the notion of intended audience, which is the sense usually carried by the term " a u d i e n c e " in discussions of Chinese literature. Sometimes, in the preface or elsewhere in a work, the author will identify explicitly the people he hopes to r e a c h . 1 0 In other texts, such as personal letters or official documents, the intended readers are perfectly obvious. But usually it is necessary to guess. T o do so intelligently it is essential to understand the structure of the networks of oral and written communication. N o one could have intended a written text for an illiterate audience (except for the rare cases where a text was composed especially for oral delivery). Nor would an erudite, highly allusive disquisition on statecraft or literary theory have been aimed at an audience of readers who had not gone beyond the village school. Nor would a text that contains expressions peculiar to Cantonese have been intended for readers in Peking. After we have drawn obvious inferences such as t h e s e — a n d they can be extremely h e l p f u l — w e must bring to bear more subtle methods. Here the distinction between literature intended to entertain, and literature intended to instruct or enlighten must be kept in mind. T h e ideological or doctrinal burden of the latter frequently makes it obvious w h o m the author is addressing. A n d since the particular concern of the authors of entertainment literature was to please their readers, their conception of the mentality of their audience will be clearly visible in their writings as well. But here we arrive at the essential problem raised by the notion of intended audience. Even if we can identify with precision the group at which a writer was aiming, his work will inform us not about the mentality of that group but about the author's conception of it. Hence, the most important thing to know about the intended audience of a given text is whether its members belonged to the same social group as the author, or whether, on the contrary, the author expected his work to find its readers among a group significantly different from his own. If author and audience occupied roughly similar positions in the networks of

9

See note i.

10A

number of examples are provided in Sakai's "Confucianism and Popular Educational

Works" (cited n. 7), p. 334, and in Victor Mair's essay in this book.

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

43

communication and the structure of dominance, a text can teach us about the mentality of the audience because the author's mentality will resemble or reflect it. But what if an author is attempting to cross social boundaries to reach his audience? If a highly educated man who occupied a secure position in the ruling elite wrote a novel for a non-elite reading audience, could we use the novel as evidence of non-elite mentality? It goes without saying that we could, if we knew that it had in fact been extremely successful among such readers. But if, as will usually be the case, we have little information about actual readership, and know only who the author had hoped would read the book, then everything will depend on how well he understood their mentality. And obviously we cannot routinely assume that an author was intimately familiar with the mentality of people of a social class different from his own. Unfortunately, most of the premodern Chinese texts with which the historian and literary critic have to deal are either anonymous or attributed to men of whom we know nothing. If these texts are to teach us something about specific social groups, we must be able to guess fairly accurately the group or class to which their authors belonged. It is relatively easy to do this in a limited way. We can be sure that certain works were written by highly educated men, even if they are anonymous, because, for example, they employ a vocabulary and make allusions and in general are written in a style only an educated person could command. And of course we know that the author of any written work belonged to the literate minority. But although such knowledge is useful, it is also limited, and we naturally are impatient to say more. Sometimes this impatience leads to circular reasoning: unexamined intuitions (our own or those of other scholars) tell us that a certain text was not written by or for highly educated readers; we identify a number of what seem to us characteristic features in it; and then, when we encounter these features in another text, we take them as evidence of its popular provenance. We can never eliminate this circularity entirely: we know too little about authors and audiences. There will never be a way of definitively placing a text by an unknown author in a particular social context; we will always have to rely on intuition in the end. But the greater one's knowledge of late imperial society and the more sophisticated one's appreciation of the factors influencing consciousness, the truer to historical reality one's intuitions are likely to be. T h e first step toward these ends should be to develop a better sense of the entire range of social groups that were likely to have had distinctive mentalities. In what follows, I shall first try to show why I believe that position in the systems of communication and in the structure of dominance influenced consciousness profoundly. I shall then show that the careful application of these two criteria allows us to identify significant social groups. Each of those groups had a characteristic collective mentality, but I shall not attempt to describe them systematically—that is impossible at this stage, even for the best-studied groups. I shall simply offer some commonsense suggestions that I hope will serve to make our intuitions more reliable.

DAVID JOHNSON

44

3 T h e consciousness that is more or less revealed by any utterance or text was shaped in part by the entire range of verbal structures that the speaker or writer had encountered. His consciousness was also influenced, in a negative sense, by the information and ideas that for one reason or another could not reach him. A n illiterate seventeenth-century Nan-p'ing storyteller, for example, would have been steeped in Fukienese oral culture, but his knowledge of the oral culture of the Wu-speaking area to the north, or the Yueh-speaking region to the south, would have depended on that material having been translated into M i n by bilingual intermediaries. In the same w a y , his knowledge of the content of written texts could only have been indirect and mediated by one or more literate middlemen, w h o would certainly have introduced changes in the original text. A man w h o could write, but who had received only a limited literary education, would have remained unacquainted with a good deal of the literary tradition. As a consequence, he would not have made certain kinds of literary allusions, would have been limited to a certain range of vocabulary, and would probably have avoided certain genres. These and m a n y other characteristics of his writing will reveal his lack of familiarity with the full literary tradition. T h e writings of a scholar-official, especially if they were aimed at other scholar-officials, will reveal the fact of his classical education and subsequent reading as surely as the storyteller's performance or the imperfectly educated person's letter will reveal their characteristic limitations. T h e entire range of extant writings from all periods of Chinese history was, in theory at least, open to the classically educated man, and under ordinary circumstances he would have encountered a much greater variety of verbal material than either of the other two persons we have been imagining. In addition, not only the content of the literatus's consciousness, but also his very style of thought, differed greatly from that of an illiterate peasant. T h a t a person could, and did, write down his ideas had a profound efTect upon their complexity and abstraction. T h e habit of writing also encouraged the development of intellectual self-awareness, thanks to the process of revision and correction that is part of all composition, and to the opportunity it affords for close study of one's own words. As Ibsen has it, " T o write: that is to sit/in j u d g e m e n t over one's self." This subject is too complex to pursue here, but it deserves serious study. 1 1 1

' J a c k G o o d y ' s The Domestication of the Savage Mind ( C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e U n i v e r s i t y Press,

1 9 7 7 ) , a s t i m u l a t i n g m e d i t a t i o n on the i m p a c t o f the i n v e n t i o n o f w r i t i n g o n preliterate consciousness, u n f o r t u n a t e l y has little to offer the student o f traditional cultures such as C h i n a ' s that w e r e c h a r a c t e r i z e d b y the c o e x i s t e n c e of literate a n d nonliterate traditions. T h e Ibsen passage c a n be f o u n d in R o b e r t s o n D a v i e s , The Manticore ( N e w Y o r k : P e n g u i n Books, 1976), p. 73.

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND

CONSCIOUSNESS

45

Thus, the dialects a person understood and the texts he could comprehend determined to a considerable degree w h a t he knew and how he expressed i t — that is, both the content and the style of his consciousness. These in turn shaped his o w n writings and utterances, and hence were revealed in them. Whether he was one of the creative few or the imitative many, when he put his thoughts or feelings into words he could not help but draw heavily, both consciously and unconsciously, on what he had earlier heard and read. This is w h y it is possible, in theory at least, to reconstruct the influences on a person's thought, or, more accurately, the sources of a particular text. Each individual was constantly engaged in fashioning out of what he had heard and read a more or less coherent view of the world. This w e a v i n g together by each person of the almost infinite variety of verbal material he had encountered in his life was in itself a process of cultural integration, perhaps the most fundamental one. A l t h o u g h each of these personal syntheses was, by definition, unique, those produced by individuals located in a particular segment of the systems of communication naturally shared many features of both form and content. Here we see the direct, necessary connection between communication and consciousness. Consciousness is not shaped by words alone, however. W h a t a person reads and hears has to be integrated with what he has learned about the world simply by living in it. After all, would we not expect the writings of two classically educated men, one wealthy and powerful, the other eking out a precarious existence as the tutor of rich merchants' sons, to reveal somewhat different attitudes and values? A n d would we not expect a well-to-do farmer to enjoy somewhat less heartily than his tenants a village play that excoriated greedy landlords? M a n y social, economic, and psychological factors interact to produce such differences in consciousness, of course, but I believe most of them are directly related to a person's position in w h a t I shall call the structure of dominance. There are many sorts of domination, and hence "structure of dominance" can mean a number of things. This is one of the term's strengths, since in the real world a person perceives his situation as a whole, and not in analytically convenient categories like wealth or prestige. So I will not offer a detailed explication; the meanings I attach to the term will become clearer as we proceed. 1 2 T h e influence upon consciousness of position in the structure of dominance is l2

T h e use of the terms " d o m i n a t i o n " a n d " s u b o r d i n a t i o n " in speaking of class relationships

appears to g o back to the writings of A n t o n i o G r a m s c i , though I first encountered them in books by R a y m o n d W i l l i a m s and G e o r g e R u d e , t w o c o n t e m p o r a r y British M a r x i s t scholars. (See below, pp. 47, 49, and n. 22.) Gramsci's conception of d o m i n a n t and subordinate classes is also f u n d a m e n t a l to C a r l o G i n z b u r g ' s brilliant reconstruction of the mental world of a late-sixteenth-century northern Italian miller: The Cheese

and the Worms,

trans. J o h n and A n n e T e d e s c h i (Baltimore: J o h n s

Hopkins University Press, 1980), pp. xiv, 1 2 9 - 1 3 0 .

46

DAVID JOHNSON

an exceedingly complex problem that can only be treated adequately w h e n the discussion is rooted in concrete historical particulars. All I hope to do in this brief and all too schematic discussion is provide an explicit conceptual basis for further investigations. Before I begin the discussion proper, however, I should like to examine a crucially important phenomenon that at first glance seems intimately related to this topic, but which in fact is quite separate from it. I refer to the dissemination throughout Chinese society of values deemed appropriate by the ruling elite, what Eugen W e b e r has called "official culture." 1 3 O n e of the leading characteristics of M i n g - C h ' i n g culture is the extraordinary degree to which values and beliefs favorable to ruling class interests permeated popular consciousness, as many of the essays in this book demonstrate. This was in part the achievement of Chinese officials and other members of the ruling elite who had worked for centuries to replace " c o r r u p t " or "superstitious" elements in popular culture with ideologically acceptable ones. Thus, worship of the H a n g c h o w tidal bore became connected with veneration of W u Tzu-hsu, w h o had himself been transformed at an early stage by Confucian historians from a martial hero into a paragon of loyalty and selfsacrifice; 1 4 midsummer sacrifices to river and fever gods in central and south C h i n a were partially transformed into worship of "the loyal Ch'ii Y u a n " ; 1 5 and local legends were rewritten to bring them into line with conventional morality. 1 6 James Watson's essay in this volume vividly recounts the appropriation and promotion of the T ' i e n Hou cult, and others, by the C h ' i n g authorities. " T h e state intervened in subtle w a y s , " he writes, "to impose a kind of unity on regional and local-level cults" (see below, p. 293). T h i s process can be observed in many times and places. K e i t h T h o m a s ' s Religion and the Decline of Magic17 shows how the representatives of orthodox Christianity worked to root out ancient practices and beliefs in the English countryside, for example, and the transformation in medieval Europe of pagan sacred places such as springs and grottoes into Christian pilgrimage centers and cathedral sites, complete with appropriate legends and miracles, is 13

In

remarks

delivered

at

the

ACLS

Conference

on

Values

and

Communication

in

M i n g - C h ' i n g P o p u l a r C u l t u r e , H o n o l u l u , J a n u a r y , 1981. W e b e r ' s s u p e r b Peasants Into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870— iyi 4 ( S t a n f o r d : S t a n f o r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1 9 7 6 ) , will richly r e p a y study b y a n y o n e interested in the relationship b e t w e e n the s u b o r d i n a t e classes a n d c e n t r a l i z i n g state a u t h o r i t y . 14

See m y " T h e W u T z u - h s i i Pien-wen a n d Its S o u r c e s , Part I I , " Harvard Journal oj Asiatic Studies

40.2 ( D e c e m b e r 1980). 15

See W o l f r a m E b e r h a r d , Chinese Festivals ( T a i p e i : T h e O r i e n t C u l t u r a l S e r v i c e , 1972), p p .

77-104. 16

1 h a v e discovered a n u m b e r o f e x a m p l e s o f this kind o f elite m a n i p u l a t i o n o f p o p u l a r lore in m y

researches on the origin a n d e a r l y d e v e l o p m e n t o f the city g o d cults, w h i c h will a p p e a r in a f o r t h c o m i n g issue o f the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 17

N e w York: Scribner's, 1971.

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND

CONSCIOUSNESS

47

well known. 1 8 As Northrop Frye has written, " T h e central mythical area [that is, the body of "stories" that illustrate the chief concerns of a society and that are regarded as uniquely important or serious by its members] is an area of special authority, which means that people in authority take it over." 1 9 T h e central myths (in Frye's sense) of a culture, thus appropriated and reinterpreted, become the core of a system of beliefs, values, and ideas that is gradually diffused through the whole society. Such systems invariably contain elements that justify the existing order of things, but to regard them merely as conscious contrivances of a ruling class intent on securing its own privileges and power is to see only part of their significance. It is true that there is indoctrination, but there also is a desire to be indoctrinated—that is, to believe what it is proper to believe. T h e values and beliefs of a dominant class take on the radiance of truth in the eyes of ordinary people. As George R u d e has written in his Ideology and Popular Protest, " T h e people become willing partners in their own subjection." 2 0 This sentence appears at the conclusion of Rude's brief account of Antonio Gramsci's idea of "hegemony." Although his summary does not convey Gramsci's full meaning, nevertheless it contains an important point. He writes that for Gramsci, hegemony is "the process whereby the ruling class imposes a consensus, its dominion in the realm of ideas, by largely peaceful means. This happens through its control of the media of indoctrination in that part of the state he terms 'civil society': through the press [for M i n g - C h ' i n g China, we should say rather "publishing, especially of drama and fiction"], church and education." 2 1 Gramsci's distinction between the private institutions of "civil s o c i e t y " 2 2 and the public institutions of the State has little relevance for China, where a single elite controlled all national institutions. But this very fact made possible a hegemony of startling strength and scope. Nor is this all. "Control of the media 18

For a provocative overview of this process in the early medieval period in Europe, see Jacques

Le Goff, "Clerical Culture and Folklore Traditions in Merovingian Civilization," in his

Time,

Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 1 5 3 - 1 5 8 . Peter Burke argues that there was a "reform of popular culture" in early modern Europe, a "systematic attempt by some of the educated . . . to change the attitudes and values of the rest of the population, or as the Victorians used to say, to 'improve' them." Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (cited n. 4), p. 207. 19

The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1976), pp. 6 - 7 , 27. 20New

York: Pantheon Books, 1980, p. 23. Part O n e of this book is particularly stimulating.

21

Ideology and Popular Protest, p. 23.

22

He speaks of "civil society" as "the ensemble of organisms commonly called ' p r i v a t e , ' " as

opposed to the public institutions of the state; "the so-called private organisations, like the Church, the trade unions, the schools, etc." See Antonio Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey N. Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), pp. 12, 56 n.

DAVID JOHNSON

48

of indoctrination" by the ruling class was unusually c o m p l e t e in M i n g - C h ' i n g times, because C h i n a h a d b e c o m e b y that time a g r a m m a t o c r a c y : the learned ruled. T h e ruling class was composed, b y l a w a n d custom, of m e n w h o h a d achieved great skill in w r i t i n g a n d deep familiarity with the literary tradition. M o r e o v e r , since the purpose of almost all a d v a n c e d e d u c a t i o n was preparation for the civil service examinations, a n d since those examinations tested ideological soundness ( a m o n g other things), intellectuals tended to d e v e l o p variations on received tradition a n d the d o m i n a n t ideology rather than radical alternatives to them. E v e n elementary e d u c a t i o n was in most cases strongly ideological, a l t h o u g h since it was less exclusively in the h a n d s of the ruling elite, it was possible for divergent forms to a p p e a r . 2 3 Finally, the officials were responsible for the protection a n d , if possible, the i m p r o v e m e n t of public morals. T h e y h a d — a n d u s e d — t h e power to censor the books, plays, a n d so on that the people under their administration were likely to c o m e in c o n t a c t with, a n d to punish a n y o n e i n v o l v e d in the p e r f o r m a n c e or dissemination of material they believed to be subversive of public m o r a l i t y . H e r e w e h a v e a m e t h o d for p r o d u c i n g not only cultural integration, but cultural integration based on a particular ideology; cultural integration that is not the natural result of the interaction of people with e a c h other a n d with their traditions, but the willed p r o d u c t of a p a r t i c u l a r class. T h i s is a useful reminder that while systems of c o m m u n i c a t i o n are part o f the cultural landscape, w h i c h , like the physical landscape, changes very slowly, they c a n , like rivers a n d hills, be m a d e to serve specific social purposes b y groups that can mobilize a n d deploy resources sufficient to the task. A p a r t — s o m e t i m e s a very significant p a r t — o f the things a person heard a n d read in M i n g - C h ' i n g times contained values a n d ideas a g r e e a b l e to the ruling class because those books or plays or w h a t e v e r h a d been p r o d u c e d by members of that class or influenced by them. T h a t is w h y it is proper to treat this topic u n d e r the rubric of c o m m u n i c a t i o n . But it is also true that this process c a n n o t be understood w i t h o u t a clear sense of the hierarchy of d o m i n a n c e a n d subordination. H e n c e it supplies a natural transition to the next part o f the discussion. I shall argue in w h a t follows that position in the structure of d o m i n a n c e in itself has a decisive effect u p o n consciousness, a n effect both analytically a n d historically separate from the effects of position in the systems of c o m m u n i cation. A s I h a v e said, this is an enormously c o m p l i c a t e d subject, p r o b a b l y too complicated to be considered a single " p r o b l e m , " certainly too c o m p l i c a t e d to yield simple answers. Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny that consciousness is influenced by position in the structure of d o m i n a n c e . T o suggest w h y this is so, I shall turn once m o r e to G r a m s c i , a n d to several c o n t e m p o r a r y British Marxist historians a n d theoreticians w h o h a v e been influenced b y him. G r a m s c i believed that earlier M a r x i s t theoreticians h a d seriously under23Rawski,

Education and Popular Literacy

(cited n. i ) , p p . 49, 1 2 8 - 1 3 9 .

C O M M U N I C A T I O N , CLASS, AND C O N S C I O U S N E S S

49

estimated the i m p o r t a n c e of p o p u l a r consciousness. R a t h e r than a c c e p t i n g the p r e v a i l i n g notion that the intellectuals w e r e a separate social g r o u p , G r a m s c i insisted t h a t " a l l m e n a r e i n t e l l e c t u a l s , " e v e n t h o u g h t h e y d o n o t all " h a v e in s o c i e t y t h e f u n c t i o n o f i n t e l l e c t u a l s . " 2 4 E v e r y p e r s o n h a s his o w n

"'spon-

t a n e o u s p h i l o s o p h y ' . . . c o n t a i n e d in: i . l a n g u a g e itself, w h i c h is a t o t a l i t y o f determined notions a n d concepts a n d not just words g r a m m a t i c a l l y devoid of c o n t e n t ; 2 . ' c o m m o n sense' a n d ' g o o d s e n s e ' ; 2 5 3. p o p u l a r r e l i g i o n a n d , t h e r e f o r e , also in t h e e n t i r e s y s t e m o f beliefs, s u p e r s t i t i o n s , o p i n i o n s , w a y s o f s e e i n g things a n d of acting, w h i c h are collectively bundled together under the n a m e of ' f o l k l o r e ' . " 2 6 " C o m m o n sense is n o t a s i n g l e u n i q u e c o n c e p t i o n , i d e n t i c a l i n t i m e a n d s p a c e . It is t h e ' f o l k l o r e ' o f p h i l o s o p h y , a n d , like f o l k l o r e , it takes countless different f o r m s . " T h e s e d e p e n d u p o n " t h e v a r i o u s social a n d c u l t u r a l e n v i r o n m e n t s i n w h i c h t h e m o r a l i n d i v i d u a l i t y o f t h e a v e r a g e m a n is d e v e l o p e d " ; t h e y a r e responses t o " c e r t a i n s p e c i f i c p r o b l e m s p o s e d b y r e a l i t y . "

27

G r a m s i r i ' s f r a g m e n t a r y i d e a s o n this s u b j e c t a r e s u m m a r i z e d a n d i n t e r p r e t e d eloquently by R a y m o n d

W i l l i a m s i n his Marxism

and Literature-. " W h a t

is

d e c i s i v e i s n o t o n l y t h e c o n s c i o u s s y s t e m o f i d e a s a n d beliefs [the e x p r e s s i o n o r p r o j e c t i o n o f r u l i n g class interest k n o w n as " i d e o l o g y " in c o n v e n t i o n a l M a r x i s t p o l i t i c a l t h e o r y ] , b u t t h e w h o l e l i v e d s o c i a l p r o c e s s as p r a c t i c a l l y o r g a n i z e d b y specific a n d d o m i n a n t m e a n i n g s a n d v a l u e s . " T h e c o n c e p t o f i d e o l o g y ignores " t h e relatively mixed, confused, i n c o m p l e t e , or inarticulate consciousness of a c t u a l m e n in [a p a r t i c u l a r ] p e r i o d a n d s o c i e t y " 2 8 — w h a t R u d e , also p a r a p h r a s i n g G r a m s c i , calls " t h o s e less s t r u c t u r e d f o r m s o f t h o u g h t t h a t c i r c u l a t e among the common

people, often contradictory

a n d confused and

p o u n d e d of folklore, m y t h , a n d d a y - t o - d a y p o p u l a r e x p e r i e n c e . "

29

com-

Williams

states t h a i G r a m s c i ' s a p p r o a c h of course does not exclude the articulate and formal meanings, values, and beliefs which a dominant class develops and propagates. But it does not . . . reduce consciousness to them. Instead it sees the relations of domination and subordination, in their forms as practical consciousness, as in effect a saturation of the whole process o f l i v i n g . . . of the whole substance o f l i v e d identities and relationships, to such a depth that the pressures a n d limits of w h a t can ultimately be seen as a specific economic, political, and cultural system seem to most of us the pressures and limits of simple experience and common s e n s e . . . . [Hegemony] thus constitutes a sense of reality for most people in the society, a sense of absolute

The Prison Notebooks, p. 9. translators gloss these terms usefully: "Broadly speaking, 'common sense' means the incoherent siet of generally held assumptions and beliefs common to any given society, while 'good sense' means practical empirical common sense in the English sense of the term" (p. 323, n. 1). 26 The Prison Notebooks, p. 323. 27 Ibid., pp. 419, 324. 2 8 Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 109. 29 Ideology and Popular Protest (cited n. 20), p. 23. 24

2 5 The

DAVID JOHNSON

50

because experienced reality beyond which it is very difficult for most members o f the society to move, in most areas of their lives. 3 0

E. P. T h o m p s o n , perhaps the most impressive of the British M a r x i s t historians, supplies

a telling

example

o f the

impact

of s u b o r d i n a t i o n

on

consciousness: Defoe's fictional cloth worker, called before the magistrate to account for default, [says]: "not my Master, and't please your Worship, I hope I am my own Master." T h e deference which he refuses to his employer, overflows in the calculated obsequiousness to " y o u r W o r s h i p . " H e wishes to struggle free from the immediate, daily humiliations of dependency. But the larger outlines of power, station in life, political authority, appear to be as inevitable and irreversible as the earth and the sky. Cultural hegemony of this kind induces exactly such a state o f mind in which the established structures of authority and even modes of exploitation appear to be the very course of nature. 3 1

I accept the basic propositions j u s t o u t l i n e d — t h a t consciousness is strongly influenced by the existential realities in w h i c h each person is immersed, a n d that the most f u n d a m e n t a l of these realities are b o u n d u p with the relations o f dominance a n d s u b o r d i n a t i o n — a n d in w h a t follows I shall try to s h o w that they provide a p o w e r f u l analytic perspective for the study of late i m p e r i a l Chinese society. A point of definition needs to be m a d e first, t h o u g h . I will be speaking of collective mentalities, not of class consciousness in the M a r x i s t sense. M y concern is with characteristic beliefs a n d values that m e m b e r s o f a particular social g r o u p held, not with their consciousness that they constituted a g r o u p with c o m m o n interests that they could act collectively to d e f e n d or promote. I h a v e cited the remarks of W i l l i a m s , R u d e , a n d T h o m p s o n not because I subscribe to their theoretical position in toto—as

should be o b v i o u s

from the first half o f this p a p e r — b u t because they provide the most persuasive a c c o u n t I h a v e seen of the w a y in w h i c h position in the structure of d o m i n a n c e affects consciousness.

4 T h e main features of the structure of d o m i n a n c e in rural C h i n a in l a t e imperial times are well k n o w n . 3 2 In every village there were some families a n d 30

Marxism and Literature, p p . 1 0 9 - 1 i o .

31

" P a t r i c i a n S o c i e t y , P l e b i a n C u l t u r e , " Journal of Social History 7 . 4 : 3 8 7 - 3 8 8 ( S u m m e r 1 9 7 4 ) .

32

It is i m p o r t a n t to p o i n t o u t that w e k n o w m u c h m o r e a b o u t C h i n e s e social s t r u c t u r e in the

eighteenth a n d especially the nineteenth centuries t h a n earlier in the M i n g - C h ' i n g p e r i o d , a n d m y a c c o u n t n a t u r a l l y reflects this i m b a l a n c e . S i n c e m y analysis is essentially s y n c h r o n i c , this l e a v e s the impression that n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y c o n d i t i o n s p r e v a i l e d t h r o u g h the w h o l e period. O f c o u r s e this w a s not the case at all, as E v e l y n R a w s k i ' s historical i n t r o d u c t i o n m a k e s clear. But I do n o t believe that this w e a k e n s m y a r g u m e n t ; the a p p r o a c h o u t l i n e d in this essay c a n be e m p l o y e d regardless o f the size o f the v a r i o u s social g r o u p s .

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND

CONSCIOUSNESS

individuals who either were landless or whose landholdings were too small to support them. T o stay alive, such people rented additional land, worked as laborers of one kind or another, handicrafted small items or engaged in other cottage industries, and in more desperate times borrowed, begged, and even— as Elizabeth Perry has described in considerable detail—stole. 3 3 Such people obviously were profoundly dependent upon the persons from whom they rented land and borrowed money, or for whom they labored, or to whom they sold the things they made. It is impossible to say with confidence what proportion of the rural population this most dependent and vulnerable group represented. Its size certainly varied with both period and region. But most scholars agree that by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the group was very large. In a recent survey, Joseph Esherick concludes that in the 1930s, 40 percent to 80 percent of the rural population, depending on province, was not selfsufficient. 34 This was the massive foundation of the entire structure of dominance. Those who owned more land than they could cultivate themselves, and who either hired laborers or rented out their land, or both, were the most dominant people in the village world. This group included both the "rich peasants" and the "village landlords" of Chinese Communist class analysis, arid may have constituted 10 percent of China's rural population in the 1930s. 3 5 A number of other elements in the structure of dominance in the countryside could be mentioned here, for that structure was exceedingly complex—some tenant farmers, for example, had virtually permanent tenure of large tracts of land and were therefore quite prosperous—but one group merits special attention because it lies near the boundary dividing the obviously dependent from the obviously prosperous. That group was composed of people who never accumulated much in the way of surplus, but either owned enough land or had sufficient income from other secure sources to deserve to be called independent 33 Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845-^45 1980), chap. 3.

(Stanford: Stanford University Press,

34 " N u m b e r G a m e s : A Note on L a n d Distribution in Prerevolutionary C h i n a , " Modern China 7 . 4 : 4 0 4 , table 7 (October 1 9 8 1 ) . T h e national total was 68 percent. Obviously, Esherick's figures are far from ideal for my purposes, since they are (as he admits) based on inadequate data, and also concern what m a y well be an atypical period. But I have turned up nothing better, or even comparable, in the secondary literature on late M i n g and C h ' i n g social history. When considering Esherick's conclusions, readers ought also to bear in mind the following passage by one of the greatest living European historians of rural life:

In no case could a holding of less than twelve hectares assure its o c c u p a n t of the slightest trace of economic independence [in the B e a u v a i s in the seventeenth century]. A s our documents a m p l y illustrate, the great majority of the p e a s a n t s — t h r e e quarters or m o r e — r e m a i n e d well below that level. W e r e they, then, c o n d e m n e d to suffer hunger, or even starve to death? T h e a n s w e r is most definitely in the affirmative.

And Pierre G o u b e r t goes on to demonstrate this chilling conclusion most effectively. See " A Regional Case S t u d y of the Seventeenth-Century Peasantry," in The Peasantry in the Old Regime: Conditions and Protests, ed. Isser Woloch (New Y o r k : Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970), p. 37. 35

Esherick, " N u m b e r G a m e s , " pp. 405, 408 n. 1 1 .

DAVID JOHNSON

or self-sufficient. According to Esherick, they made up 22 percent of the rural population in the 1930s. 3 6 In practice, it is extremely difficult to say where dependency ends and self-sufficiency begins, and obviously there will always be some borderline cases that we cannot with confidence place in either category. Nevertheless, the distinction I have in mind is fundamental. It is the distinction between, on the one hand, those who were dependent directly on members of their own community, people they probably saw every day, whose faces were familiar and whose habits they knew, and on the other those who were free of such dependency, who were able, in the words of Pierre Goubert, "to feed their families from that portion of the harvest left at their disposal." 3 7 The lowest stratum of self-sufficient families probably led fairly insecure lives, since a few bad harvests would have impoverished them. But to be thus vulnerable to the uncontrollable and unpredictable vagaries of nature has, to my mind, profoundly different psychological consequences than dependency on members of one's own community. It is true that these self-sufficient people were subordinate in law to the gentry and officials, and in fact to the local magnates, but this subordination too was of a different quality than that of those whose very survival was in the hands of others. For these reasons, I have placed this transitional group with the less dependent of the two great divisions of rural society, with the landlords rather than the impoverished. 3 8 The relations of dominance and subordination in rural China are summed up effectively in J i n g and Luo's Landlord and Labor in Late Imperial China: T h e [village] landlord class had the right to concern themselves with local affairs. They were frequently the organizers of calamity relief, and other such matters. They were also the arbiters of all forms of dispute, whether within the lineage or within the village. Their word could often carry the force o f l a w . . . . These broad powers deeply influenced the lives of the owner-peasants and poor peasants in the village. Those peasants, including the long- and short-term laborers, who depended for their livelihood in whole or in part on working for the landlords had no option but to tremble before their power and do exactly as they were told. 3 9 36

Ibid.

37

" A Regional Case S t u d y " (cited n. 34), p. 35.

38

Note that J e r o m e Blum, in his magisterial survey The End of the Old Order in Rural Europe

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), while emphasizing the great range o f v a r i a t i o n in the structure of peasant societies, seems in practice to favor a three-part model similar to the one just outlined. T h e r e were peasants who were " p r o s p e r o u s " ; those with " m i d d l i n g " holdings that were "just about large enough or productive enough to support the household"; and those who had "so little land that they had to find other sources of s u p p o r t " (p. 105). Blum does not stress the distinction between the first two groups and the third, however. 39

J i n g Su and L u o L u n , Landlord and Labor in Late Imperial China, trans. E n d y m i o n Wilkinson

(Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, H a r v a r d University, 1978), p. 2 1 0 . A vivid description of the conditions in which the most dependent part of the rural population lived can be found in Part I (pp. 8 - 1 9 ) of P'eng P'ai, Seeds of Peasant Revolution: Report on the Haifeng Peasant Movement, trans. Donald Holoch (Ithaca: C h i n a - J a p a n Program, Cornell University, 1 9 7 3 [Cornell East Asia Papers, number 1]). T h e report describes the organization of peasant unions in K w a n g t u n g in the 1920s.

C O M M U N I C A T I O N , CLASS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

53

A b o v e t h e v i l l a g e l a n d l o r d s in t h e s t r u c t u r e o f d o m i n a n c e w e r e t h e f a m i l i e s that o w n e d large a m o u n t s of land but w o r k e d none o f i t themselves, preferring i n s t e a d to r e n t it o u t w i t h t h e a s s i s t a n c e o f r e s i d e n t m a n a g e r s a n d a g e n t s . T h e s e a b s e n t e e l a n d l o r d s r e s i d e d i n m a r k e t t o w n s a n d l a r g e r cities, l i v i n g o n t h e i r rents a n d on i n c o m e f r o m v a r i o u s c o m m e r c i a l enterprises. T h u s they b e l o n g m o r e to u r b a n t h a n to r u r a l s o c i e t y , t h o u g h n a t u r a l l y t h e y w e r e i n f l u e n t i a l wherever they o w n e d land. T o w n s a n d cities h a d t h e i r o w n s t r u c t u r e s o f d o m i n a n c e , q u i t e d i s t i n c t in t h e lower levels from that of the countryside. (For a brief b u t vivid glimpse of u r b a n s o c i a l s t r u c t u r e i n l a t e M i n g , see p p . 1 9 3 - 1 9 4 o f j u d i t h B e r l i n g ' s essay, b e l o w . ) T h e r e w a s a n i m p o v e r i s h e d class o f l a b o r e r s , s c a v e n g e r s , p e d d l e r s , a n d t h e like, a n d o f c o u r s e a w e l l - t o - d o s t r a t u m c o m p o s e d o f those w h o e m p l o y e d o t h e r s in t h e i r w o r k s h o p s a n d stores. B e t w e e n these t w o w e r e t h e e m p l o y e e s , a g r o u p t h a t w a s c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y u r b a n , a n d t h a t m u s t h a v e b e e n f a i r l y l a r g e , i n c l u d i n g as it d i d a b r o a d v a r i e t y o f w o r k e r s , f r o m u n p a i d a p p r e n t i c e s to p o w e r f u l m a n agers. S i n c e e m p l o y e e s c o u l d b e d i s m i s s e d a t a n y t i m e , t h e y w e r e p r o f o u n d l y d e p e n d e n t in the sense I a m g i v i n g t h e w o r d , t h o u g h s o m e w e r e f a r m o r e comfortable

financially

t h a n o t h e r s . ( T h e s e last a r e a g r o u p t h a t

special study.) T h e relations of d o m i n a n c e a n d s u b o r d i n a t i o n that

deserves bound

employer and employee together were frequently articulated through

the

g u i l d s . T h i s c a n b e seen w i t h p a r t i c u l a r c l a r i t y in t h e c a s e o f a p p r e n t i c e s . P e t e r Golas, discussing C h ' i n g g u i l d regulations, writes, In general, the ideal held out to the apprentice was total submission to those above h i m . . . . [He was required] to address associates with kin terms appropriate to their status and s e n i o r i t y . . . . W h e n his period of apprenticeship was over, he still carried the same obligations toward his master as a son toward his father. 4 0 O n t h e u p p e r levels o f t h e s t r u c t u r e o f d o m i n a n c e in b o t h t o w n a n d c o u n t r y w a s t h e g r o u p k n o w n as t h e g e n t r y . T h e i r d o m i n a n c e w a s n o t o n l y d u e to t h e p r a c t i c a l realities o f w e a l t h a n d p o w e r ; it a l s o w a s l e g a l l y d e f i n e d a n d e n f o r c e d . T h e i r d e g r e e s a n d titles b r o u g h t s p e c i f i c l e g a l p r i v i l e g e s , i n c l u d i n g e x e m p t i o n f r o m v a r i o u s taxes, s p e c i a l t r e a t m e n t in a l l p h a s e s o f l e g a l p r o c e e d i n g s , a n d t h e r i g h t to w e a r d i s t i n c t i v e i n s i g n i a o f r a n k . 4 1 I n t e r t w i n e d w i t h these l e g a l p r i v ileges w e r e m a n y c u s t o m a r y p r i v i l e g e s a n d o t h e r b e n e f i t s o f g e n t r y s t a t u s , w h i c h a l l i n all p l a c e d t h e m e m b e r s o f this t i n y g r o u p in a p o s i t i o n i n d i s p u t a b l y s u p e r i o r to e v e r y o n e else i n C h i n e s e s o c i e t y . A l t h o u g h there has b e e n considerable d e b a t e o v e r details, most scholars n o w a g r e e t h a t in M i n g a n d C h ' i n g times t h e c o r e o f t h e g e n t r y g r o u p w a s c o m p o s e d o f a c t i v e a n d r e t i r e d o f f i c i a l s , a n d t h o s e q u a l i f i e d to h o l d office: c i v i l

and

m i l i t a r y chin-shih a n d chii-jen, kung-sheng b y e x a m i n a t i o n a n d p u r c h a s e , a n d , in 4 0 "Early Ch'ing Guilds," in The City in Late Imperial China, ed. G. William Skinner (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), p. 5G6. 4 1 Chung-li Chang, The Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1955), pp. 32-43.

DAVID JOHNSON

54

M i n g , chien-sheng."'1 W i t h i n this g r o u p , the officials occupied the m o r e d o m i n a n t position, a n d w e r e of course t h e most p o w e r f u l g r o u p in Chinese society. B o t h T ' u n g - t s u Ch'ii a n d C h u n g - l i C h a n g h a v e d e m o n s t r a t e d t h a t in C h ' i n g times the holders of sheng-yuan a n d chien-sheng degrees s h a r e d in the legal privileges of the g e n t r y g r o u p , b u t o c c u p i e d a distinctly lower position in t h e s t r u c t u r e of d o m i n a n c e . 4 3 T h e sheng-yuan ( a n d chien-sheng in C h ' i n g ) were thus a t r a n s i t i o n a l g r o u p , p l a c e d by law a n d c u s t o m a b o v e the people a t large, b u t below t h e g e n t r y p r o p e r . 4 4 I n the eyes of the m a g i s t r a t e , retired officials, a n d h o l d e r s of h i g h e r degrees in a c o u n t y , they w e r e s u b o r d i n a t e , b u t f r o m the perspective of the c o m m o n e r s , t h e y w e r e very exalted, with ffagstafTs outside their houses a n d v e r m i l i o n p l a q u e s a b o v e their g a t e s . 4 5 As Philip K u h n points o u t , " s u c h lower degree h o l d e r s . . . m i g h t easily d o m i n a t e c o m m u n i t y life in p o o r a n d b a c k w a r d rural a r e a s . " 4 6 T h e sheng-yuan-chien-sheng g r o u p helps to show t h a t in the lower r e a c h e s of the s t r u c t u r e of d o m i n a n c e , w e a l t h a n d p o w e r were the p r i m e d e t e r m i n a n t s of position, while a t t h e top, these w e r e r a n k a n d legal privilege, tied to achievem e n t in the e x a m i n a t i o n s . T h e sheng-yuan o c c u p i e d a n a n o m a l o u s position, because they w e r e l o c a t e d in the p a r t of t h e s t r u c t u r e w h e r e o n e t y p e of d e t e r m i n a n t b e g a n to b e r e p l a c e d by the o t h e r . T h e i r e x a m i n a t i o n achievem e n t c o n f e r r e d prestige, b u t d i d n o t necessarily b r i n g d o m i n a n c e . 4 7 ( T h e very w e a l t h y m e r c h a n t w h o h a d not p u r c h a s e d a degree also o c c u p i e d a r a t h e r a n o m a l o u s social position, a n d for similar reasons.) I n s u m , the decisive division in this p a r t of t h e s t r u c t u r e of d o m i n a n c e was t h a t b e t w e e n those w h o h a d legal privileges d u e to official r a n k or e x a m i n a t i o n status on the o n e h a n d , a n d the rest of the p o p u l a t i o n o n the o t h e r . W o m e n p a r t i c i p a t e d so little in the n o n d o m e s t i c side of life t h a t they c a n n o t readily be m a d e p a r t of t h e s t r u c t u r e of d o m i n a n c e whose outlines I h a v e b e e n sketching. But if w e consider e a c h h o u s e h o l d as a n a r e n a in w h i c h the relations of d o m i n a n c e a n d s u b o r d i n a t i o n were p l a y e d o u t , it is clear t h a t in a n y given 42

Philip K u h n , Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, Mass.: H a r v a r d

University Press, 1 9 7 0 ) , pp. 3 - 4 ; Ping-ti H o , The Ladder of Success in Imperial China (New Y o r k : Columbia University Press, 1962), pp. 2 4 - 4 1 ; J i n g and L u o , Landlord and Labor (cited n. 39), p. 1 1 . 43

The Chinese Gentry, pp. 6 - 8 ; T'ung-tsu Ch'ii, Local Government in China under the

Ch'ing

(Cambridge, Mass.: H a r v a r d University Press, 1962), pp. 173—175. 44

H o , Ladder of Success, p. 35.

45

T . C. L a i , A Scholar in Imperial China (Hong K o n g : K e l l y and Walsh, 1970), p. 2.

45

K u h n , Rebellion and Its Enemies, p. 4.

47

T h e image of the impoverished hsiu-ts'ai (the popular term for holders of the sheng-yuan degree)

as an object of contempt and scorn, common in novels of social protest such as Ju-lin wai-shih and Lao Ts'anyu-chi,

and also present in The Romance of the Three Teachings (see below, p. 202), has been

very influential, but it would be good to have more objective evidence on the subject. (Cf. Ho, Ladder of Success [cited n. 42], pp. 3 6 - 3 7 . ) J u s t how common was it for sheng-yuan to be poor and despised in a given region and period during M i n g and C h ' i n g times? Scholars who consign them to a somewhat ignominious role m a y well have unconsciously adopted a high-gentry point of view.

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

55

social g r o u p , the w o m e n c a n be r e g a r d e d as a separate a n d subordinate s u b g r o u p — s i n c e w o m e n seldom a c h i e v e d d o m i n a n t positions in the Chinese family. T h i s suggests that in any social g r o u p , the w o m e n a n d men will h a v e h a d mentalities at least s o m e w h a t divergent in c h a r a c t e r . (Note the p r o v o c a tive remarks of J a m e s W a t s o n o n the differences b e t w e e n male a n d f e m a l e religiosity in his essay, pp. 3 2 0 - 3 2 1 below.) T h i s is a fact of great significance for our u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the inner workings of M i n g - C h ' i n g culture, as I shall try to demonstrate below. T h e main elements of the structure o f d o m i n a n c e in late imperial C h i n a were therefore as follows. A t the b o t t o m were all those w h o could not support themselves a n d their families i n d e p e n d e n t l y of wealthier or more powerful individuals: peasants with tiny plots of land or none at all, poor laborers in the cities, a n d the like, together with hereditary tenants, bondservants, slaves, a n d others whose legal status placed them below o r d i n a r y commoners. A t the top was the small g r o u p of people w h o possessed the ranks a n d titles that b r o u g h t legal privileges. Between them c a m e all those w h o possessed at least e n o u g h land (or other property) to be self-sufficient, a n d p e r h a p s a great deal more, b u t w h o e n j o y e d none of the legal privileges of the g e n t r y , a n d hence were b y no means e x e m p t from the anxieties a n d resentments e n g e n d e r e d by d e p e n d e n c e , t h o u g h they were spared its most d e g r a d i n g consequences. In both this a n d the most d e p e n d e n t g r o u p there were u r b a n as well as rural components, a n d the m e m b e r s o f the m i d d l i n g g r o u p w h o lived in c i t i e s — c r a f t s m e n , shopkeepers, a n d so o n — w e r e subdivided in a n u m b e r of w a y s , as the guild system indicates. Finally, there were the w o m e n , almost a l w a y s subordinate to their husbands a n d parents-in-law, a n d barred from p a r t i c i p a t i o n in nondomestic life. T h e perception of d o m i n a n c e a n d subordination d e p e n d e d greatly u p o n the context in w h i c h a person was acting. A village boss w o u l d have been utterly inconsequential in the prefectural capital. B u t he k n e w this. People understood in their bones the entire r a n g e of relations of d o m i n a n c e a n d subordination, even if they usually experienced only a few of them. T h e village l a n d o w n e r , untitled, perhaps illiterate, w h o did not fear the officials or gentry, w h o did not feel that he must defer to even a hsiu-ts'ai, must h a v e been rare indeed. T h i s is w h y position in the hierarchy of d o m i n a n c e influenced people's consciousness, and it follows that the m e m b e r s of each i m p o r t a n t subdivision in that h i e r a r c h y must h a v e tended to d e v e l o p a characteristic consciousness or collective mentality.

5 W e h a v e seen that both position in the structure of d o m i n a n c e a n d location in the networks of c o m m u n i c a t i o n influenced consciousness. But these t w o aspects of existence were not separate; every person experienced the effects of

DAVID J O H N S O N

56

both simultaneously. Furthermore, position in one system affected position in the other. To identify social groups with real significance for consciousness, we must therefore consider both position in the hierarchy of dominance and position in the systems of communication. For example, in the oral realm, dialect was crucial, but so too was whether one was dependent (in the sense employed here) or self-sufficient. In every dialect, stories told by persons who were poor agricultural laborers or sharecroppers would necessarily have expressed different values and attitudes than those told by people whose livelihoods were secure. Similarly, the consciousnesses of two prosperous farmers, one illiterate and the other (by some quirk of biography) classically educated, must have differed considerably. The three most important strata in the hierarchy of dominance and subordination were the dependent, the legally privileged, and, lying between those two extremes, the self-sufficient commoners; the three most significant subdivisions in the realm of communications—leaving aside the dialect groupings—were the illiterates, the classically educated, and those who were literate in varying degrees but not classically educated. If we combine these categories, we obtain nine distinct social-cultural groupings, as shown in Figure i. FIGURE I.

Chief Social-Cultural Groups o f Late Imperial C h i n a DOMINANCE Least

Greatest

O 2 > 2 o H < < cd 3 u D Q J u

&

Classically educated/ legally privileged

Classically educated/ self-sufficient

Classically educated/ dependent

Literate/ legally

Literate/ self-sufficient

Literate/ dependent

Illiterate/ self-sufficient

Illiterate/ dependent

privileged

Illiterate/ legally privileged

Ideally, a third axis, perpendicular to the other two, would be included, on which the different linguistic regions would be arranged, further subdivided into rural and urban elements. If this were done, the lines dividing the various dialects, and the rural and urban segments, would probably be very faint in the top tier, especially in the classically educated/legally privileged group, and

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND

CONSCIOUSNESS

57

extremely strong in the bottom tier, especially in the illiterate/self-sufficient and illiterate/dependent groups. For while Min-speaking scholar-officials must have exhibited certain attitudes and beliefs that differed from those of their Wuspeaking colleagues, I believe those differences were insignificant when compared with the differences in the mentalities of poor peasants in the two regions. In addition, rural oral culture probably differed substantially from urban oral culture, while literati culture was probably much the same in country or city. 4 8 However, we still know very little about differences in the oral cultures of different linguistic regions, and much work is necessary before we can assess the real importance of these differences. Close study of regional dramatic traditions, at least some of which must have corresponded with linguistic regions, appears to be one promising way to approach this problem. 4 9 Another is the comparative study of proverbs from different regions, which R. David Arkush has proposed, 5 0 and of folk tales. But until these and related studies are undertaken, there is little we can say about the cultural differences of linguistic regions that goes beyond traditional stereotypes. We are on firmer ground, conceptually at least, if we confine ourselves to the nine social-cultural groups in Figure I. Some of them—such as the classically educated/dependent—were probably historically insignificant (though it would be unwise to take this for granted). Others—such as the classically educated/legally privileged and the illiterate/dependent—were very important and have long been recognized as such. And still others—such as the illiterate/legally privileged and the classically educated/self-sufficient—were very significant but have hardly been studied. In what follows I shall discuss briefly each of these groups, pointing out some of their more significant characteristics. There was a very close relationship between position in the two systems—at least for men. This was true because education and access to the literary tradition were almost always dependent on wealth, wealth in turn was closely related to position in the structure of dominance, and entry into the highest reaches of the structure of dominance was impossible without a classical edu-

48

F. W . Mote, in " T h e Transformation of Nanking, 1 3 5 0 - 1 4 0 0 , " while deprecating the idea of

a general u r b a n - r u r a l dichotomy in Chinese culture, believes that " a m o n g the lower ranks of society, there probably were much more clearly identifiable urbanites and ruralites, and no doubt the distinction between city a n d country must have had greater meaning in their daily lives [than in the lives of the elite]." A g a i n , "there certainly were attitudes and characteristics [of consciousness] associated with the c i t y " (The City in Late Imperial China [cited n. 40], pp. 1 1 7 , 106). 49

See Colin M a c K e r r a s , " T h e Growth of Chinese Regional D r a m a in the M i n g and C h ' i n g , "

Journal of Oriental Studies (University of H o n g K o n g ) 9 . 1 : 5 8 - 9 1 50

(1971).

In his " E c o n o m i c Calculation and Social M o r a l i t y as Seen in Chinese Peasant P r o v e r b s , "

paper presented at A C L S - N E H Conference on O r t h o d o x y and Heterodoxy in L a t e Imperial China (Montecito, California, August 2 0 - 2 6 , 1 9 8 1 ) , p. 5.

DAVID JOHNSON

58

cation. Since everyone wanted to rise in the hierarchy of dominance, or at least to maintain their position, families educated sons to the limits of their resources. Only the sons of the truly impoverished received no schooling at all. Furthermore, learning itself was an essential aspect of dominance in traditional China. In the orthodox view, dominance was legitimated by learning; the learned deserved to rule. And, in practice, the people at large paid deference to the learned, not merely because they were usually wealthier or more powerful than ordinary people, but also because they were masters of writing in a culture where the written word had almost magical potency and were experts on the rules of ritual in a society where virtually everyone agreed on the great importance of knowing and following the proper forms of behavior. T h e members of the legally privileged group, the gentry, were by definition classically educated. This is one of the most familiar groups in the structure of power and education whose outlines I am sketching. There is no need to stress the importance of this group or describe its leading characteristics, since it is by far the best-studied segment of late imperial society. What of the other two groups in the top tier of the diagram: the classically educated/dependent and the classically educated/self-sufficient? Very few who were well educated enough to compete in tht yuan examinations would have been as low in the structure of dominance as poor peasants or coolies. We read of impoverished scholars, of course—poor village schoolmasters and the like— but most men with classical educations must have come from well- to-do families, or at least have had patrons who were comfortably off (in village terms). Truly poor youths who acquired classical educations, such as the Li Y u n g ( 1 6 2 7 - 1 7 0 5 ) who provides one of H o Ping-ti's fascinating illustrations of social mobility, must have been as rare as saints—and, indeed, some of Ho's brief biographies have more than a little of the hagiographic about them. 5 1 T h e bulk of this group must therefore have been made up of men who had grown up in easy circumstances and received good educations, but who for one reason or another had later become impoverished. However, I doubt that there were many such men, and feel quite sure that the classically educated/dependent group was rather insignificant. There may well have been large numbers of men with classical educations who regarded themselves as poor, and were so regarded by their wealthier friends, but such " p o v e r t y " was usually of an entirely different order than the poverty of the landless peasant or urban laborer. T h e middle group in the top tier of the chart, the classically educated/selfsufficient, played a very important role in the integration of Chinese culture, and is worth the closest study. One of the most interesting things about this group of highly educated commoners is how large it was. Since virtually everyone who undertook the classical curriculum did so in the hope of passing the literary examinations, the number of classically educated men must have been roughly equal to the number of candidates (t'ung-sheng) for the yuan 51

The Ladder of Success (cited n. 42), pp. 2 8 0 - 2 8 3 .

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND

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59

examinations (for the sheng-yuan degree), plus those who had at one time been t'ung-sheng and had then abandoned the examination life. Since thtyuan shih was only a preliminary or qualifying examination, it was felt to be improper for older men to compete in it, and in fact Chung-li Chang presents evidence that suggests that very few men passed th tyuan examination after the age of thirty. 5 2 Chang estimates the life expectancy of members of the gentry at a little under sixty years. 5 3 If we assume that life expectancy was the same for the pre-gentry (a convenient name for those who had classical educations but did not have gentry status), we can conclude that the number of former t'ung-sheng was about double that of active t'ung-sheng (fifteen years of active candidacy, then an average thirty more years of life). Chang's estimated number of t'ung-sheng in a " l o c a l i t y " — i o o o to 1500—should therefore be tripled, since he is obviously relying on estimates of active candidates for the preliminary examinations. 5 4 Since "locality" must refer to hsien and chou, of which there were roughly 1400 in Ch'ing times, 55 this gives a total of between 4,200,000 and 6,300,000 t'ung-sheng and former t'ung-sheng at any given time in Ch'ing before the late nineteenth century. This conclusion finds support in another calculation based on Chang's data. He states that only one or two percent of the candidates succeeded in passing thtyuan examinations (though it is not at all clear how he arrived at this figure).56 In the pre-Taiping era, the national quota for sheng-yuan was about 25,000, 5 7 and at any given time there would therefore have been between 1,250,000 and 2,500,000 active candidates. Tripling these numbers yields a total of active and former candidates of between 3,750,000 and 7,500,000, nicely bracketing the first estimate. I believe therefore that it is safe to say that there were at least 5,000,000 classically educated male commoners in Ch'ing times—roughly 5 percent of the adult male population at the start of the nineteenth century, and 10 percent in the early eighteenth century. 5 8 There

" M i y a z a k i Ichisada, China's Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, trans. C o n r a d Schirokauer (New H a v e n : Y a l e University Press, 1 9 8 1 ) , p. 19; C h a n g , The Chinese Gentry (cited n. 4 1 ) , p. 95. 53

The Chinese Gentry, p. 97.

54

I b i d . , p. 92.

55

C h ' i i , Local Government (cited n. 4 3 ) , pp. 1 - 2 .

56

The Chinese Gentry, p. 1 1 .

57

Ibid., pp. 7 8 - 7 9 .

58

U s i n g the age and sex ratios given in R a w s k i , Education and Popular Literacy (cited n. 1 ) , pp.

1 8 3 - 1 8 4 , and taking age 1 5 as the beginning of adulthood, there would have been something fewer than 1 1 0 million adult males in the early nineteenth century, when the population was around 300 million and half that many ca. 1700. F. W. M o t e has estimated the number of sheng-yuan candidates in Ch'ing times at " t w e n t y to thirty million." This figure is much too high (as he himself suspected), because he neglected to allow for the fact that many men sat for the examinations more than once. See " C h i n a ' s Past in the Study of C h i n a T o d a y — S o m e Comments on the Recent Work of R i c h a r d S o l o m o n , " Journal of Asian Studies 3 2 . 1 : 1 0 8 - 1 1 0 (November 1 9 7 2 ) . T h e situation in M i n g times is less clear, though before late M i n g the number of sheng-yuan seems to have been much smaller than in Ch'ing. See Ho, Ladder of Success (cited n. 42), pp. 1 7 2 - 1 7 9 .

6o

DAVID JOHNSON

w o u l d in addition h a v e been a small n u m b e r o f w o m e n w h o h a d classical educations a n d yet were not m e m b e r s of gentry households. T h u s (in C h ' i n g , at any rate) there was a rather substantial n u m b e r of classically e d u c a t e d c o m moners. S u c h people w e r e p r o b a b l y to be f o u n d in virtually every small t o w n , a n d in m a n y villages. O n e of the status terms that appears in C h ' i n g population registers is " f a r m e r - s c h o l a r " (keng-tu). It clearly refers to someone w h o was both educated a n d a farmer, a n d a l t h o u g h I do not k n o w w h a t level of scholarly attainment was necessary before this distinction w a s bestowed on a person, it seems reasonable to assume that it must h a v e been fairly high. I n d e e d , another translation of keng-tu c o u l d be "classically e d u c a t e d c o m m o n e r . "

59

W h e t h e r or

not they h a d received official recognition, classically e d u c a t e d c o m m o n e r s w o u l d certainly h a v e been a m o n g the cultural elite, a n d p r o b a b l y the social elite as well, in market towns or villages. S o m e served as c o m m u n i t y leaders a n d lineage managers. O t h e r s were religious innovators, such as L i n

Chao-en

( 1 5 1 7 - 1 5 9 8 ) , whose doctrines The Romance of the Three Teachings was written to p r o m o t e — p r o b a b l y by another classically e d u c a t e d c o m m o n e r . (See J u d i t h Berling's essay, pp. 1 8 9 - 1 9 0 , 196, below.) L o C h ' i n g (fl. early sixteenth century, the a u t h o r o f several w i d e l y circulated p o p u l a r scriptures a n d founder of the sect known as the Lo chiao, m a y also belong in this category, although it is just as likely that he should be placed in the literate/self-sufficient group. (See Daniel O v e r m y e r ' s essay, pp. 231 ff., below.) T h e Buddhist a n d T a o i s t clerical elites should also be placed here, for they too were highly e d u c a t e d , a n d had a substantial influence on the values a n d beliefs of the people at large. Still other m e m b e r s of this g r o u p b e c a m e teachers (a fact that has perhaps received too m u c h emphasis),

ritual experts, private secretaries,

calligraphers,

letter-

writers, physicians, diviners, g e o m a n c e r s , a n d so o n — t h e indispensable local experts and specialists that play such a n i m p o r t a n t part in J a m e s H a y e s ' s essay in this v o l u m e (see especially pp. 93—96, 9 8 - 9 9 ) . S u c h m e n — c l a s s i c a l l y educated commoners, elite monks a n d p r i e s t s — a l m o s t certainly w r o t e most of the texts prepared for non-elite readers, from morality books (shan-shu) to inexpensive chapbook fiction, from encyclopedias for daily use (jih-yung lei-shu) to letterw r i t i n g guides. T h e role that these m e n p l a y e d in the p o p u l a r i z a t i o n o f complex ideas a n d beliefs, a n d a b o v e all in the spread o f C o n f u c i a n elite values, was very great; their i m p o r t a n c e as the shapers of non-elite consciousness c a n hardly be exaggerated. By now it should be obvious that to think of the classically e d u c a t e d in M i n g - C h ' i n g times as a h o m o g e n e o u s g r o u p is a serious error. S o m e classically educated men e n j o y e d g e n t r y status, while others were o r d i n a r y commoners. A l l h a d undergone the same kind of indoctrination, a n d h a d the same degree of

59

1 first learned o f the keng-tu status in a b r i e f presentation m a d e b y J a m e s L e e , o f the C a l i f o r n i a

Institute o f T e c h n o l o g y , at the 1982 m e e t i n g o f the Association for A s i a n Studies ( A A S ) , in S a n Francisco.

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

61

access to the literary tradition, but only a few had passed the examinations. T h e rest remained to one degree or another subordinate and vulnerable. Some of these men must have continued to identify with the gentry and to espouse their values, but many others must have been led by their experiences and situations in life to have greater sympathy for commoners than the typical gentry man had—after all, they were commoners too. These highly educated but disillusioned men were probably more willing to listen sympathetically to, and even advocate, ideas or beliefs that were not quite respectable than full-fledged members of the gentry were, for whom even the appearance of dissent from orthodox values could have had extremely serious consequences. Obviously, the classically educated were not a coherent group with a characteristic collective mentality. Indeed, although most Ming or Ch'ing texts written in classical Chinese by men who appear to have undergone advanced literary educations will probably exhibit the conventional ruling-class world view (see below, p. 69), some may well reveal a mentality ambivalent or even antagonistic toward the ruling elite and its values. 6 0 (There may have been a similar cleavage between the core of the privileged group and the sheng-yuan and chien-sheng on its fringes.) The next tier in the diagram—again divided into three groups—comprises individuals who were at least functionally literate and perhaps quite well read, but not classically educated. If membership in the gentry had been dependent solely upon passing examinations, the first of these groups—the literate/legally privileged—would have had little actual social meaning. But gentry status could also be purchased in late Ming and Ch'ing. 6 1 Now it seems likely that the typical degree purchaser was a man from a comfortable background who had received a standard classical education, but was simply not talented enough at memorization and composition to be able to pass the examinations. This is by no means proven, however, and if it turns out that a large number of the men who bought their way into the privileged elite had not been classically educated, this group will have considerable significance. We can be more certain about another characteristic of the literate/legally privileged group: it included a substantial number of women. While it is true that an upper-class woman was subordinate to her husband (and his parents) both in law and custom, it is also true that in many ways she shared her husband's (or father's, or son's) position in the extradomestic hierarchy of dominance. But women seldom received classical educations, and hence the wives of men with gentry status were likely to be moderately educated at best, and quite possibly illiterate. Thus the women of the privileged group usually 60 1 am assuming that t'ung-sheng would almost always have been capable of writing good classical Chinese. 61 Ho, Ladder of Success (cited n. 42), pp. 46-47; Chang, The Chinese Gentry (cited n. 41), pp. 1 1 - 1 2 , 102—111, and passim.

62

DAVID JOHNSON

had less access to the literary tradition than the men, and this inevitably created important differences in their views of the world. F o r one thing, gentry w o m e n must have remained much closer to the main currents of non-elite culture: they had not been taught to prefer the monuments of the great literary tradition, the subtleties of classical scholarship, the systems of the a p p r o v e d philosophers. These literate, well-to-do women must also have formed a significant audience for popular written literature. 6 2 Such women were entertained by the Hsin-k'an shuo-ch'ang Pao Lung-t'u tuan Ts'ao kuo-chiu kung-an chuan a n d the other printed fifteenth-century tz'u-hua mentioned earlier (above, p. 4 1 ) , and edified by the Liu Hsiang pao-chiian and other popular religious texts discussed by D a n i e l O v e r m y e r in his essay (below, pp. 2 2 8 - 2 3 0 ) . Upper-class w o m e n whose f a m ilies were especially wealthy are likely also to h a v e been a m o n g the purchasers of the elegantly printed editions of unsophisticated novels a n d moralistic tracts that have puzzled literary historians from time to time. 6 3 It is not surprising, therefore, t h a t — i n my experience, at any r a t e — o n e of the hallmarks of true popular literature in C h i n a is the heroine w h o initiates actions, w h o is one of the moving forces of the plot, and who is not submissive but w h o , on the contrary, struggles against the restrictions of conventional domestic morality. A t the same time, upper-class women probably played an important role in the perpetuation of both religious beliefs and oral literature such as legends a n d ballads. T h i s was not some kind of " w o m e n ' s c u l t u r e " (though of course there almost certainly was that too), but was in fact an important part of w h a t we call Chinese popular culture. A n d the things women believed, the maxims they knew, the stories they told, and so on must h a v e been v e r y familiar indeed to their sons a n d husbands. Upper-class mothers (who, as I h a v e said, w o u l d seldom have been well educated) naturally instilled elements of nonclassical and even folk culture into the consciousness of their sons, a n d when those boys grew up, their wives and concubines helped ensure that they did not forget w h a t they had learned at their mother's knee. A n d precisely the same point can be m a d e of the servants w h o surrounded such men throughout their lives. T h u s , it is clear that the legally privileged group contained an important segment that was not classically educated, a n d that this contributed profoundly to the steady infusion of non-elite values and beliefs into the consciousness of gentry men. In short, the fact that classically educated men usually m a r r i e d women who h a d substantially less education created one of the basic m'echan62

See J o a n n a Handlin, " L i i K ' u n ' s New Audience: T h e Influence of Women's Literacy on

Sixteenth-Century T h o u g h t , " in Women in Chinese Society, ed. M a r g e r y Wolf and R o x a n e Witke (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1 9 7 5 ) , pp. 1 6 - 1 9 . 63

See Idema, Chinese Vernacular Fiction (cited n. 5), pp. 9 3 - 9 4 . O n p. lxi he mentions " t h e

problem of the nicely executed but simply written works of the first three quarters of the 16th century, which I think might have been designed for some of the not very highly-literate groups within the social elite." This is not to disparage Idema's excellent book, which is central to the whole subject.

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND

CONSCIOUSNESS

63

isms of cultural integration in China, one whose effects ran directly counter to the effects of that other important agency of cultural integration, gentry hegemony. One of the great challenges facing students of traditional China is to do justice to this largely hidden dimension of elite culture. The second group in this tier of the diagram—the literate/self-sufficient— must have been rather large and heterogeneous, and was also very significant. (It is possible that at least some of the "farmer-scholars" mentioned above ought to be placed here.) Since we know so little about literacy rates in the nonelite segments of M i n g - C h ' i n g society, there is no way to estimate the size of this group, but I would suggest that the proportion of functionally literate adult men in a village must have been comparable to, though somewhat smaller than, the proportion of " m i d d l e " or " r i c h " peasant households in the preceding generation, and similarly for the rural population of a region in general. Families that were living right at the edge of subsistence could not have afforded to send children even to the village school; but every family that was able to accumulate a little surplus probably tried to give at least one of their sons some education. In the early twentieth century, therefore, anywhere from roughly 15 to 45 percent of the adult men in the rural population, depending on province, could have been functionally literate. 6 4 There must have been some women in this group, but I believe that the wives of moderately educated men were seldom as well educated as their spouses (since people tended to marry within their class, and in every class except the lowest the men would have been better educated, on balance, than the women). Therefore, the number of literate women in the middle region of the structure of dominance was probably rather small. An illustration is provided by the brief glimpse of a woman's balladreading circle given in J a m e s Hayes's essay. Village women would gather to listen to someone chant ballads from printed booklets or broadsheets "especially designed for women to read or sing" (below, p. 89). This makes sense only if most of the listeners were illiterate. In the larger towns and cities, many of the shop owners and some of the craftsmen were probably literate in varying degrees short of a full classical education, and they too belong in this category. 6 5 T h e importance of specialized occupational literacies of various kinds has been stressed in recent reports by participants in a large-scale study of popular literacy in Chinese 64

T h e percentages of rich and middle peasants in various provinces in the 1930s are given in

Esherick, " N u m b e r G a m e s " (cited n. 34), p. 404, table 7. These figures are roughly consistent with Rawski's estimates; see Education and Popular Literacy (cited n. 1 ) , p. 23. 65

Information on the literacy rates in various occupations in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century

England, which provides a good starting point for thinking about urban literacy in M i n g - C h ' i n g China, is presented in D a v i d Cressey, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge: C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1980), pp. 1 3 0 - 1 4 1 . This book should be read by anyone concerned with the interrelations of social a n d cultural stratification in the premodern period.

64

DAVID JOHNSON

history that has been o r g a n i z e d a t the C h i n e s e U n i v e r s i t y o f H o n g K o n g , including T h o m a s Lee, D a v i d Faure, and Alice N g . Just how

specialized

literacy c o u l d be is v i v i d l y suggested b y a v o c a b u l a r y b o o k (tsa-tzu) d e s c r i b e d b y F a u r e a n d N g . It consists entirely o f the n a m e s o f f i s h , a r r a n g e d in r h y m i n g couplets to facilitate m e m o r i z a t i o n , a n d o f n u m e r a l s . I t w a s p r o b a b l y used b y apprentices in the fish t r a d e w h e n t h e y w e r e l e a r n i n g to keep a c c o u n t s , w r i t e receipts, a n d so o n . 6 6 O f course, a person w h o k n e w o n l y the c h a r a c t e r s for three h u n d r e d kinds o f f i s h w a s not literate in a n y m e a n i n g f u l sense o f the w o r d . B u t the e x a m p l e points u p the i m p o r t a n c e o f literacy in all b u t the simplest kinds o f c o m m e r c i a l e n d e a v o r s . W e d o not yet k n o w w h a t the l i t e r a c y rates w e r e in C h i n e s e cities in the M i n g - C h ' i n g p e r i o d , b u t they c e r t a i n l y w e r e g r e a t e r than rural l i t e r a c y r a t e s . 6 7 A l l in all, the literate/self-sufficient g r o u p m a d e u p a substantial portion o f the literate p o p u l a t i o n . T h e s e y e o m e n a n d b u r g h e r s w e r e p e c u l i a r l y

well

situated to m e d i a t e b e t w e e n elite a n d folk culture. T h e y lived close to the illiterate peasants a n d t o w n w o r k e r s , often e a r n e d their livings in similar w a y s , a n d p r o b a b l y e n j o y e d similar e n t e r t a i n m e n t s . Y e t t h e y c o u l d r e a d , a n d h e n c e w e r e able to h a v e direct access to at least p a r t o f the r e a l m o f the w r i t t e n w o r d . T h e y closely resemble the ch'u-shih w h o form " t h e central a n d best d e v e l o p e d class o f c h a r a c t e r s in [The Romance of the Three Teachings]," a c c o r d i n g to J u d i t h Berling. It is true t h a t s o m e o f t h e m are hsiu-ts'ai (i.e., sheng-yuan), b u t " t h e bulk o f the ch'u-shih in the n o v e l d o not seem to h a v e c o m p e t e d in the g o v e r n m e n t e x a m i n a t i o n s or studied in g o v e r n m e n t schools. T h e term seems to c o n n o t e simply ' g e n t l e m e n ' in the sense o f m e m b e r s o f the local ( n o n n a t i o n a l [i.e., not l e g a l l y privileged]) t o w n elite. T h e y m a y h a v e a m o d i c u m of e d u c a t i o n , b u t they are not elites b y v i r t u e o f s c h o l a r l y a c h i e v e m e n t " (see b e l o w , p. 194). T h e " l i t e r a t e m e n w i t h interests in l a n d a n d c o m m e r c e , [who] were e a g e r to coo p e r a t e w i t h state authorities in the s t a n d a r d i z a t i o n o f c u l t s , " a n d w h o assisted in the c o n s t r u c t i o n o f s t a t e - a p p r o v e d temples, o f w h o m J a m e s W a t s o n writes in his essay, c a n p r o b a b l y also be p l a c e d in the literate/self-sufficient c a t e g o r y (see b e l o w , p p . 293, 3 1 4 ) . W e also see m e n f r o m this g r o u p in J a m e s H a y e s ' s essay, s h a r i n g w i t h their illiterate n e i g h b o r s i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t p r o p e r ritual forms a n d l u c k y d a y s f o u n d in books t h e y o w n e d a n d c o u l d r e a d (see b e l o w , p. 102). T h e reciters o f the Sacred Edict, discussed in V i c t o r M a i r ' s essay, w h o r e a d stories to fascinated v i l l a g e a u d i e n c e s , s h o u l d p r o b a b l y be i n c l u d e d in this g r o u p , too. T h o u g h they of course w e r e itinerants a n d not " y e o m e n " or " b u r g h e r s , " they p r o b a b l y did as m u c h to b r i d g e the g a p b e t w e e n the l e a r n e d a n d illiterate as their m o r e respectable c o u n t e r p a r t s .

66

T h i s i n f o r m a t i o n , a n d o t h e r p r e l i m i n a r y findings o f the C h i n e s e U n i v e r s i t y o f H o n g K o n g

p r o j e c t , w e r e presented in p a p e r s b y L e e , F a u r e a n d N g , a n d others ( B e r n a r d L u k a n d Y u e - h i m T a r n ) at a p a n e l o n p o p u l a r literacy at the 1982 a n n u a l m e e t i n g of the A A S . 67

R a w s k i , Education and Popular Literacy (cited n. i ) , p . 17.

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND

CONSCIOUSNESS

65

S i n c e the typical m e m b e r s of this g r o u p w e r e c o m f o r t a b l y off b u t n o t w e a l t h y , it is unlikely t h a t they c o n s t i t u t e d a m a r k e t for e x p e n s i v e books. B u t they c e r t a i n l y m u s t h a v e p u r c h a s e d less costly r e a d i n g m a t t e r , such as c h e a p editions o f the classics w i t h simple c o m m e n t a r i e s , a l m a n a c s , shorter therefore less expensive) pao-chiian

and

shan-shu,

ballad

broadsheets

(and and

p a m p h l e t s such as the " w o o d e n - f i s h b o o k s " o f K w a n g t u n g (some o f w h i c h w e r e specially p r e p a r e d for w o m e n , as w e h a v e seen), a n d so o n . 6 8 T h i s g r o u p m u s t also h a v e f o r m e d the b a c k b o n e o f the a u d i e n c e for w h a t W . L . I d e m a h a s c a l l e d "chapbooks."

69

A c c o r d i n g to I d e m a , these novels w e r e w r i t t e n in " a d r e a r y ,

repetitive, a n d m o n o t o n o u s ' n o v e l e s e , ' " q u o t e d v e r y few d o c u m e n t s w r i t t e n in the literary l a n g u a g e (these a p p e a r e d f r e q u e n t l y in novels a i m e d at a m o r e sophisticated a u d i e n c e ) , a n d c o n t a i n e d " f e w if a n y historical or literary allusions, besides the most o b v i o u s . "

70

N o t e t o o t h a t their " s u b j e c t m a t t e r f o l l o w e d

the p o p u l a r t h e a t r e , " t h a t they w e r e a l m o s t all a n o n y m o u s , a n d e v i d e n t l y a i m e d at non-elite readers, a n d that t h e y w e r e f r e q u e n t l y p u b l i s h e d in w h a t w e r e o b v i o u s l y c h e a p e d i t i o n s . 7 1 C l e a r l y such books w e r e i n t e n d e d for p e o p l e v e r y similar to those in the literate/self-sufficient g r o u p t h a t I h a v e

been

discussing. T h e s e novels, a n d all the o t h e r i n e x p e n s i v e texts a i m e d at non-elite r e a d i n g audiences, h a v e h a r d l y been s t u d i e d , since they w e r e despised b y the C h i n e s e scholars w h o t a u g h t the teachers o f o u r teachers, a n d their c o n t e m p t has b e e n passed o n from g e n e r a t i o n to g e n e r a t i o n . M o r e o v e r , these books a r e difficult to find, for the b o o k collectors w h o w e r e interested in such " t r a s h " w e r e rare i n d e e d . B u t in the a g g r e g a t e , such w o r k s m u s t h a v e been far a n d a w a y the most w i d e l y c i r c u l a t e d literature in l a t e i m p e r i a l C h i n a . It w a s the only k i n d o f text t h a t m a n y p e o p l e e v e r r e a d . T h e c u m u l a t i v e i m p a c t o f these w r i t i n g s o n C h i n e s e c u l t u r e w a s v e r y g r e a t , for not o n l y did t h e y g i v e o r d e r a n d direction to the ideas a n d beliefs o f the m o d e r a t e l y e d u c a t e d p e o p l e w h o r e a d t h e m , b u t they p r o b a b l y i n f l u e n c e d significantly a g r e a t v a r i e t y o f oral m a t e r i a l , r a n g i n g from t h e rules of p r o p r i e t y to the a d v e n t u r e s o f J u d g e P a o , that c i r c u l a t e d a m o n g the illiterate e v e r y w h e r e in C h i n a . T h e s e texts, s t a n d i n g as they did on the b o u n d a r y b e t w e e n the w r i t t e n a n d the o r a l , p l a y e d a c r u c i a l role in t h e c o m p l e x process b y w h i c h elements o f elite literary c u l t u r e w e r e translated i n t o terms t h a t the illiterate c o u l d c o m p r e h e n d .

68

See James Hayes's and Susan Naquin's essays, pp. 82-92, 272-273, below. O n "wooden-

fish books" see Leung Pui-chee

Hsiang-kang

ta-hsueh suo ts'ang mu-yii shu

hsu-luyiiyen-chiu

S S ^ ^ ^ f ^ ^ i H I Z ^ P I f f ^ E [Wooden-fish books: critical essays and an annotated bibliography based on the collections in the University of H o n g K o n g ] (Hong K o n g : Centre of Asian Studies, University of H o n g K o n g , 1978). See also Cantonese Ballads from Germany, ed. Wolfram Eberhard (Taipei: T h e Orient Cultural Service, 1972 [Asian Folklore and Social Life Monographs, vol. 30]}. 69

Chinese

70Ibid., 71

Vernacular Fiction (cited n. 5), pp. x i - x i i . p. xi.

Ibid., pp. liii, lxi, 119.

66

DAVID JOHNSON

T h e final group in the second tier of the diagram—the literate/dependent— could not have contained very many people, at least among the rural population. We can say, though, that since the poorest peasants were unable to educate their children, any poor peasant who was functionally literate probably had come down in the world since he was of school age. Such a person was not likely to have had a benign view of the prevailing order of things. Slipping from a comfortable position in the world to the edge of the abyss breeds both anxiety and rancor. It seems probable therefore that this group may have produced more than its share of rebels and members of millenarian cults. Their literacy enabled such people to see beyond the village horizon (if they chose), while their experiences would have made them resentful of the status quo. T h e y could not have afforded even to rent books, but many kinds of pamphlets and broadsides appear to have been given away and posted in public places, and we can be sure that not all of them were uplifting moral tracts. One possible example of what these literate underdogs actually read has recently come to my attention. It is a manual of the Heaven and Earth Society (T'ien ti hui), first discovered in 1 8 1 1 and recently republished, which is discussed by David Faure in an interesting paper. 7 2 In an insightful section called " T h e written word in a semi-literate tradition," Faure demonstrates that texts such as this manual were part of both the written and oral realms. Other probable examples are provided by some of the White Lotus texts discussed by Susan Naquin and Daniel Overmyer in their articles in this book. This is an area where vigorous research is almost certain to produce important results fairly quickly, in my opinion, but at the moment we know all too little. This brings us to the final three groups in the diagram: the illiterate/legally privileged, the illiterate/self-sufficient, and the illiterate/dependent. By definition there could have been no adult men in the first of these groups, but there must have been a certain number of women. They, like their moderately educated counterparts, would have helped make oral culture part of the consciousness of men of the scholar-official class, first as mothers, then as wives. The second group may have been fairly large—although our ignorance of class-specific literacy rates makes it impossible to be sure. For example, the wives of literate merchants and well-to-do farmers were probably usually illiterate, and hence belong in this category. Then, too, many of the so-called "middle" peasants were probably illiterate, either because they had never gone to school or because in the long years of toil following their schooling they had forgotten the little they had once learned. But by far the most important of these three categories was the illiterate/dependent, the bottom dogs of traditional China, the familiar "il72 " T h e Heaven and Earth Society in the Nineteenth Century," presented at the Montecito Conference on Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China (see n. 50).

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

67

literate masses," both rural a n d u r b a n . T h e y could easily have m a d e u p half the rural population in late imperial times, a n d thus were the largest of all the social groups I have been discussing. Not only were they the foundation of the structure of dominance, they also were by far the most i m p o r t a n t reservoir of traditional folk culture, in its various regional versions. It is important to note that the illiterates were no m o r e a single homogeneous social g r o u p — o r a u d i e n c e — t h a n the classically e d u c a t e d were. T h e r e were, of course, the differences between dialect-based subcultures (although, as I have said, we do not yet have a clear sense of how significant such differences were), and there were other important distinctions within the g r o u p as well. T o begin with, m a n y illiterate women were found in the middle a n d even u p p e r ranges of the hierarchy of dominance. It seems unlikely that the oral lore transmitted by such persons was identical in what we might call ideological content to that current a m o n g grindingly poor peasants, nor could the two groups have been receptive to exactly the s a m e ballads or plays. It seems p r o b a b l e to me, however, that these materials h a d a g o o d deal in c o m m o n , in light of the fact that women of all classes were subordinate to their h u s b a n d s and in-laws. Second, not all illiterate m e n were poor agricultural laborers or coolies. S o m e undoubtedly owned enough land to support their families; others owned considerably m o r e than that. T h e mentality of such l a n d o w n i n g illiterates would have differed substantially from that of the truly poor, even though the world of the written word was equally closed to all of them. T h e r e were, in short, a number of differing oral cultures, quite a p a r t from the dialect groups.

6 These, then, are the nine social groups whose existence in M i n g - C h ' i n g times is suggested by my assumptions about the m a i n factors that s h a p e consciousness and a b o u t the specific character of late imperial society. I trust that m y comments on their leading characteristics will help " t o m a k e our intuitions [about texts a n d their social contexts] m o r e reliable," as I said earlier I hoped they would. T h e r e is not space enough here to pursue in detail this discussion of collective mentalities—nor would my knowledge be equal to the task if there were. But the m o d e of analysis a d v o c a t e d in this e s s a y — t h e simultaneous deployment of communications a n d class criteria in the identification of social groups a n d the interpretation of t e x t s — h a s some other applications and implications that are worth discussing in conclusion. T o begin with, it must now be clear why scholars have in the past found it so difficult to frame satisfactory definitions of " p o p u l a r c u l t u r e " a n d "elite culture." After all, at least three very different kinds of people are included in what is ordinarily thought of, in a v a g u e way, as " t h e elite": classically e d u c a t e d men with the legal privileges of gentry status; the less well e d u c a t e d wives a n d mothers o f such men; a n d classically e d u c a t e d commoners. If, in an effort to

68

DAVID JOHNSON

limit the scope of the term, w e define " e l i t e " as " r u l i n g class," then w e e x c l u d e commoners to w h o m the w h o l e literary tradition w a s open a n d w h o m a y h a v e been extremely creative writers a n d thinkers. I f w e define " e l i t e " in terms o f education or mastery of the literary tradition, n a r r o w i n g it in a different w a y , then w e must include in it some m e n w h o were o f little consequence socially or politically. A n d , of course, the term " p o p u l a r c u l t u r e " presents even h a r d e r problems: under it are subsumed four or five g r o u p s — o r more, it w e take regional differences into a c c o u n t . I am not a r g u i n g that the terms " p o p u l a r c u l t u r e " a n d "elite c u l t u r e " should be a b a n d o n e d — i n fact, they are p r o b a b l y indispensable. But if w e use these terms w i t h o u t a full awareness of the c o m p l e x social realities that they denote, they will only create confusion. T h u s , if w e limit the discussion to v e r b a l structures m a d e by a n d for the members of a single g r o u p , it is obvious that w e c a n use the m e d i u m of c o m m u n i c a t i o n — s p o k e n versus written, unsophisticated versus learned literary s t y l e s — a s a m e a n s of m a k i n g a p r e l i m i n a r y estimate o f their origins. B u t w e cannot stop there. T e x t s written by classically e d u c a t e d m e n for classically e d u c a t e d readers will exhibit a r a n g e o f viewpoints, not simply because each consciousness is unique, b u t because h i g h l y e d u c a t e d men did not all o c c u p y similar positions in the structure of d o m i n a n c e : some belonged to the legally privileged gentry, while the bulk were pre-gentry commoners. It will not d o to assume that a n y text in classical Chinese was written by a m a n w h o w a s a m e m b e r of the legally privileged elite. O n the c o n t r a r y , w e should expect any large s a m p l i n g of classical texts from the M i n g - C h ' i n g period to exhibit various viewpoints. T h e same a r g u m e n t c a n be m a d e for oral material, a l t h o u g h here the discussion must of necessity be largely h y p o t h e t i c a l , since so little material prepared b y a n d for illiterates has survived and is accessible. Still, w e k n o w that successful storytellers, actors, ballad singers, preachers, a n d other performers of oral literature w h o intended to entertain or instruct, were v e r y sensitive to the expectations a n d aptitudes of their listeners, w h e t h e r or not they were of the same class, a n d certainly adjusted their " t e x t s " to fit their audiences. T h e i r performances h a v e vanished, but it m a y be that careful research will e n a b l e us to identify not only regional groupings (and perhaps also u r b a n a n d rural groupings) in Chinese folk tales, ballads, a n d the like, b u t also at least t w o classrelated groupings: the oral literature of the most d e p e n d e n t segment of the population, a n d of those w h o were at least self-sufficient—laborers' tales a n d landlords' tales, coolies' ballads a n d masters' ballads. T e x t s read by a n d p r e p a r e d especially for m o d e r a t e l y e d u c a t e d readers c a n be a p p r o a c h e d in the same m a n n e r , for as a g r o u p they extended across a v e r y large part of the structure of d o m i n a n c e . B u t since I very m u c h d o u b t that y e o m e n wrote w h a t y e o m e n read, w e here confront the problems discussed in the first part of this essay (above, p p . 4 2 - 4 3 ) . W h e n an a u t h o r is trying to reach an audience in a social g r o u p other t h a n his o w n , w e must k n o w

COMMUNICATION, CLASS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

69

something a b o u t his text's actual readership before w e c a n use it as evidence of the target group's mentality. O t h e r w i s e , it c a n only be used as evidence o f its author's conception of the mentality o f his intended audience. Y e t even in such a n unpromising situation, the m e t h o d o l o g y I h a v e outlined a b o v e can be helpful. If w e are dealing with a p o p u l a r text o f some c o m p l e x i t y , such as The Romance of the Three Teachings discussed b y J u d i t h Berling in c h a p t e r 7, or the Liu Hsiang pao-chuan translated a n d a n a l y z e d below b y D a n i e l O v e r m y e r , both of w h i c h were written by individuals with a substantial c o m m a n d of the resources of written Chinese, it is p r o b a b l y safe to assume that the authors either belonged to the gentry or w e r e classically e d u c a t e d commoners. V e r y often the subject matter of the text itself will be e n o u g h to enable us to decide w h i c h of the two it was, for I take it as an a x i o m in the interpretation of M i n g a n d C h ' i n g literature that members of the legally privileged, classically e d u c a t e d elite almost always were c o m m i t t e d to the philosophical-religious o r t h o d o x y that c a n be called N e o - C o n f u c i a n i s m , if that term is construed in its broadest sense. T h e y h a d been thoroughly i m b u e d w i t h a characteristic w o r l d v i e w d u r i n g their pursuit of examination degrees, a n d , as officials, were m e m b e r s of a quasipriestly class, one of whose chief duties w a s the rectification of ideological deviations a n d the extirpation of heresy. N a t u r a l l y there were exceptions, b u t in general I believe w e will usually be o n safe g r o u n d if w e assume pre-gentry or non-gentry b a c k g r o u n d in a n y classically e d u c a t e d a u t h o r in late imperial times w h o a d v o c a t e d new o r unusual religious ideas (especially if they were strongly colored by B u d d h i s m or T a o i s m ) , or expressed d i s a p p r o v a l of the present condition of w o m e n , or a d v o c a t e d the e q u a l i z a t i o n of property, or supported a n y other doctrine that tended to u n d e r m i n e the existing social a n d political order. O f course, d e p e n d e n c y a n d powerlessness did not i n v a r i a b l y engender resentment a n d antagonism in those w h o experienced t h e m — f a r from it. F e w poor people h a d m u c h hope o f i m p r o v i n g their lot, so they usually tried to c o m e to terms with the conditions in w h i c h they lived. In this e n d e a v o r they received the constant e n c o u r a g e m e n t of the ruling class, one o f whose m a j o r concerns it was to m a k e the people " w i l l i n g partners in their o w n s u b j e c t i o n . " It w o u l d be naive to expect only outrage a n d despair in the lowest reaches of the structure of dependence. Deference a n d resignation, expressed in terms partly imposed from a b o v e a n d partly inherited from countless earlier generations of poor a n d vulnerable forebears, were far more c o m m o n . Y e t consciousness of the sheer fact of subordination (or d o m i n a n c e ) is a l w a y s present in one form or a n o t h e r , since it is n e a r the v e r y heart of a person's life experience. T h a t is w h y w e c a n frequently detect a "social v i e w p o i n t " in stories a n d novels. H o w are c o m m o n e r s regarded by the author? F r o m w h a t class does the hero come? H o w does the hero treat characters from various classes? H o w frequently are representatives o f various social groups seen, a n d h o w i m p o r t a n t are they to the action of the plot? E v e n if the protagonist is an official or scholar,

DAVID JOHNSON

70

as is so often the case, a story m a y still h a v e a point of view t h a t is non-elite (as in the story so ably translated by H . C. C h a n g as " T h e Clerk's L a d y " ) . 7 3 Moreover, the position of a person in the systems of communication largely determined the m a n n e r in which he expressed his a t t i t u d e t o w a r d his lot in life, whatever that a t t i t u d e m a y have been. In short, the m e m b e r s of each g r o u p defined above h a d a characteristic sense of where they stood in the great structure of d o m i n a n c e a n d subordination, a n d also a distinctive style in which they expressed the ideology t h a t reflected t h a t sense. A g r o u p ' s mentality thus h a d a characteristic combination of content a n d style—which follows directly a n d necessarily from the fact that consciousness is shaped both by experience a n d by words. This, finally, is w h y the methodology presented above provides a rationale for linking a text a n d its context, something that is essential for the proper interpretation of any d o c u m e n t . T h e m e t h o d of analysis developed in this essay has the additional a d v a n t a g e that it can be combined very effectively with G. William Skinner's regional systems analysis. It is clear, for example, t h a t a wealthy region was liable to have a higher literacy rate a n d general e d u c a t i o n a l level t h a n a n impoverished one, a n d that in consequence their verbal a n d intellectual cultures would have differed noticeably. T h a t " w o m e n poets were particularly a b u n d a n t in Kiangsu a n d C h e k i a n g " in late C h ' i n g surely reflects the fact that in those wealthy provinces a higher proportion of w o m e n were literate. 7 4 F u r t h e r m o r e , in a given region the periphery was likely to have h a d a higher proportion of poor, a n d therefore u n e d u c a t e d , people t h a n the core. T h u s , the educational level of the bitterly poor H u a i - p e i area, which was largely peripheral in Skinner's terms, was very l o w . 7 5 Moreover, the c o m m u n i c a t i o n networks were denser in the cores of regions t h a n in their peripheries. 7 6 A person living in a core area was exposed to a greater variety a n d volume of messages, both oral a n d written, t h a n someone living in a remote peripheral area. It seems probable, therefore, that there were systematic differences between " c o r e " a n d " p e r i p h e r a l " mentalities at all levels of education a n d literacy. T h e more frequent occurrence of s h a m a n i c healing in the peripheries of certain regions than in their cores in the late nineteenth a n d early twentieth centuries, reported by D o n a l d Sutton in a recent p a p e r , is a n example of such differences. 7 7 This line of analysis also leads directly to the conclusion—which Skinner regards

73

Chinese

Literature: Popular Fiction and Drama (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973),

pp. 1 8 4 - 2 0 4 . 74

M a r y B. Rankin, " T h e Emergence of W o m e n at the E n d of the Ch'ing: T h e Case of Ch'iu

C h i n , " in Women in Chinese Society, ed. Wolf and Witke (cited n. 62), p. 4 1 . 75 76 77

Perry, Rebels and Revolutionaries (cited n. 3 3 ) , p. 38. S k i n n e r , TheCityin

Late Impeiial China (cited n. 40), pp. 2 1 6 , 2 8 1 - 2 8 2 .

"Pilot Surveys of Chinese Shamans, 1 8 7 5 - 1 9 4 5 : A Spatial Approach to Social History,"

Journal of Social History 1 5 : 3 9 - 5 0 (Fall 1 9 8 1 ) .

C O M M U N I C A T I O N , CLASS, AND

CONSCIOUSNESS

7'

w i t h some suspicion b u t w h i c h is b o r n e o u t b y the v i r t u a l l y u n a n i m o u s testim o n y , intentional and unintentional, of twentieth-century

Chinese

urban

i n t e l l e c t u a l s — t h a t there w e r e i m p o r t a n t differences b e t w e e n u r b a n a n d rural m e n t a l i t i e s . 7 8 It is interesting to note in this c o n n e c t i o n t h a t o f the t w o types o f White

one—the

"sutra-

r e c i t a t i o n " t y p e — w a s p r e d o m i n a n t l y u r b a n , w h i l e the o t h e r — t h e

Lotus

sect discussed

in

Susan

Naquin's

essay,

"medi-

t a t i o n a l " t y p e — w a s l a r g e l y r u r a l , a n d t h a t the f o r m e r m a d e g r e a t e r use o f texts a n d h a d a h i g h e r p r o p o r t i o n o f literate m e m b e r s t h a n the latter. (See b e l o w , c h a p t e r 9.) T h e s o c i a l - c u l t u r a l analysis e m p l o y e d in this essay also helps us u n d e r s t a n d m o r e c l e a r l y the w a y s in w h i c h ideas a n d v a l u e s m o v e d in M i n g - C h ' i n g C h i n a , w h i c h is o n e o f the m a i n c o n c e r n s o f this b o o k . E v e r y o n e recognizes t h a t the b o n d s o f s y m p a t h y o n w h i c h all persuasion or e n t e r t a i n m e n t d e p e n d s d e v e l o p m u c h m o r e q u i c k l y b e t w e e n p e o p l e w h o o c c u p y similar positions in the structure o f d o m i n a n c e a n d w h o s e c u l t u r a l levels are c o m p a r a b l e . 7 9 T h i s is usually w h a t w e m e a n w h e n w e say o f a n a u t h o r or storyteller or p r e a c h e r t h a t h e u n d e r s t a n d s his a u d i e n c e . H a v i n g s h a r e d their life e x p e r i e n c e s a n d e d u c a t i o n , a n d thus k n o w i n g their needs a n d e x p e c t a t i o n s , such a person is far better a b l e to r e a c h t h e m t h a n s o m e o n e to w h o m their lives are u n f a m i l i a r , a n d w h o s e e d u c a t i o n has been unlike theirs. H e n c e , the m o v e m e n t of v a l u e s or beliefs f r o m one g r o u p in F i g u r e 1 to a n o t h e r , q u i t e distant one m u s t almost a l w a y s h a v e i n v o l v e d t h e m e d i a t i o n o f s o m e o f the g r o u p s l y i n g in b e t w e e n . I f w e w a n t to u n d e r s t a n d h o w , for e x a m p l e , a B u d d h i s t c o n c e p t i o n m o v e d , o v e r the c o u r s e o f centuries, from a classical C h i n e s e translation o f a Sanskrit text i n t o the consciousness o f the a v e r a g e p e a s a n t — t h a t Y a m a w a s the k i n g o f H e l l , for i n s t a n c e — t h e figure will suggest s o m e o f the p a t h s t h a t it m a y h a v e f o l l o w e d on its j o u r n e y . T h e s a m e is true for elements o f folk religion that b e c a m e p a r t o f elite religious b e h a v i o r — s u c h as the m a k i n g o f offerings to the t'u-ti,

the

u b i q u i t o u s e a r t h gods. A n o t h e r , far m o r e i m p o r t a n t point a b o u t the m o v e m e n t o f ideas a n d v a l u e s in C h i n e s e society follows d i r e c t l y f r o m m y m a i n assumptions. It is t h a t as a system of t h o u g h t , or a religious r e v e l a t i o n , o r a n y o t h e r c r e a t i o n o f the h u m a n v e r b a l i m a g i n a t i o n , s p r e a d t h r o u g h C h i n e s e society, it m u s t h a v e c o m e to exist

78

The City in Late Imperial China, pp. 253-269. But see also F. VV. Mote's position on this issue,

summarized in n. 48, above. 79

A n amusing example of what happens when would-be teachers try to bridge too broad a

cultural gap is provided in Judith Berling's essay, when the monk Inner Light tries to explain to a village audience what is meant by " p r a j ñ á - p á r a m i t á " (one villager assumes it is a dialect word) and "contemplating the self-existent." (See below, pp. 199—200.) T h e Sacred Edict storytellers who appear in V i c t o r Mair's essay obviously understood their village audiences far better (below, pp. 354-355). P ' e n g P'ai gives an engrossing account of the difficulties he had in the 1920s, as the educated son of a local landlord, in reaching the peasants with his ideas about peasant unions, and what he did to overcome them. Seeds of Peasant Revolution (cited n. 39), pp. 19-26, especially p. 22.

DAVID JOHNSON

in a number of versions, each produced by or for an important social-cultural group. T h e principal beliefs and dominant ideas that clustered around the most fearsome and fascinating aspects o f h u m a n existence—the systems of traditions, precepts, information, and inspiration that we call religion, law, medicine, historiography, science, and the like—were always formulated and transmitted in ranges of related texts (oral and written), from peasant proverbs and tales to learned treatises and sophisticated narratives. To appreciate the true importance for Chinese history of a complex system of thought, such as NeoConfucianism (or of a less elaborate grouping of ideas, such as the teachings of Lo Ch'ing, or even of a single concept, such as the notion that there is a deity named Ma-tsu), it is essential to study all the versions of it that were produced. These can be treated diachronically or synchronically. Tracing the divergence and amalgamation over time of subtraditions within larger traditions gives what I believe to be the truest picture of the development of Chinese intellectual and religious history. And studying the similarities and differences in the versions of a mature system of thought current in a given era—such as Buddhism in the Sung—is the only way to comprehend what it really meant for Chinese then. The variations in a system of thought, a story cycle, a religious idea, and so on, are important for another reason: they provide the key to the mentalities of the major social-cultural groups. By studying the verbal material that was specific to a given group, and discovering what the versions of various ideas or systems of thought intended for that group had in common, both in form and content, we will gradually achieve a deeper understanding of that group's collective mentality. And as in time our conception of the whole range of collective mentalities becomes clearer, our comprehension of what they had in common will improve as well, until at last we begin to see what made them all Chinese.

THREE

Specialists and Written Materials in the Village World James Hayes

In the old, central part of the industrial town of Tsuen W a n in the N e w Territories of H o n g K o n g , in the streets adjoining the market, can be found a number of letter writers. T h e y cater to people w h o have private business correspondence to attend to or w h o wish to send a letter to a government department but cannot write or cannot write in the approved style. 1 I owe the three editors of this volume my appreciative thanks for the care they took before, during, and since the conference in helping me to discern the specialists' role in traditional Chinese society, especially as that role has persisted, owing to the on-going need for specialists' services, in H o n g Kong. I am also much indebted to Barbara W a r d , who helped me shape this essay; L y n n White III, for obtaining materials I could not find in H o n g K o n g ; R a m o n Myers, for his usual incisive and helpful observations; and to Richard J . Smith, w h o shares my obsessions with the subject matter and himself makes no small contribution to the wider study. M y special thanks go to my late fatherin-law, W o n g K w a n - p u i Jf H'/rfi, w h o died in O c t o b e r 1979, aged 81. It was he who furthered my understanding of the link between the great poets of T ' a n g and Sung and the common people, and the extent of their attachment to their culture. He was not in good health, but took a great interest in my attempts to learn, and gave valuable assistance and tolerant, kindly encouragement, which are keenly missed. In this essay, I have not discussed medical specialists and their texts. This is a substantial omission, given the wealth of printed and manuscript material available on the H o n g K o n g book market. T h o u g h I have collected such items for the K w a n g t u n g Archive at the Center of Asian Studies, University of H o n g K o n g , this field is a specialized one in which I am not qualified to write, and its place in the literature of popular culture must be left to others to determine. T h e interested reader is referred to three other works by the author on the subjects discussed in this essay: "Popular Culture in Late C h ' i n g China: Printed Books and Manuscripts from the H o n g K o n g Region," Journal of the Hong Kong Library Association 7 : 5 7 - 7 2 (1983); the Chinese book lists to go with it are published in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society (hereafter

JHKBRAS)

20:168-83 ( ' 9 8 ° ) (published 1983). M y book, The Rural Communities of Hong Kong: Studies and Themes (Hong K o n g : Oxford University Press, 1983), contains both old and new material from fieldwork. 1

Information derived from a survey undertaken in 1981 by staff of the District Office, Tsuen

Wan, New Territories Administration. T h e types of letter most in demand, after family letters to

75

JAMES

HAYES

The men who find full- and part-time employment in this way are the survivors of an old tradition of service. They are a direct link with the specialists in letter writing and social protocol who, until comparatively recently, could be found in every market town and village in the Hong K o n g area. They are also part of the larger body of specialists described in this essay, who played a major role in transmitting vital elements of Chinese culture from one generation to another and ensuring that diverse elements in the Chinese cosmos maintained harmonious relationships. This essay concerns such men and their stock of written materials, both printed and handwritten. It has been prepared in the face of considerable disadvantages. In the seventy years since the fall of the Ch'ing, and especially in the last forty years, events unfavorable to the preservation of records include the Japanese military occupation of Hong K o n g from 1941 to 1945 2 ; the massive postwar redevelopment of the New Territories by the Hong K o n g government; and the modernization or replacement of many old houses by their private owners in places not affected by general redevelopment. In Southeast China as a whole, the stock of written material must surely have been reduced by the wars and the local disturbances of 1 9 1 1 - 1 9 4 9 , and by the upheavals and destruction that have accompanied political action at various times since 1949. 3 Finally, everywhere in the region, climatic conditions and the ravages of insects must have ruined or destroyed many books and papers. 4 Handwritten materials are, of course, no less vulnerable to these hazards than printed books, and to me it is significant that they have survived at all. China, were those to the H o n g K o n g government's housing department on various aspects of its work in housing large numbers of the population. 2

T h e J a p a n e s e wartime occupiers are blamed for all manner of destruction, ranging from the

Hong K o n g government's prewar files and records, to private documents of all kinds and even to large and venerable trees in the villages. T h e y are overconvenient scapegoats for losses of all kinds of valuable material, though I suspect that little could be laid directly at their door. Indirectly, however, the fears they engendered did lead to much destruction, as recorded in note 4 below. 3

See, for instance, L o Hsiang-lin, " T h e Preservation of Genealogical Records in C h i n a , " in

Studies in AsianGenealogy, ed. Spencer J . Palmer (Provo: Brigham Y o u n g University Press, 1 9 7 2 ) , pp. 5 ° — 5 1 . 554

A s my friend and former senior colleague K . M . A . Barnett (Hong K o n g Administrative

Service 1 9 3 3 - 1 9 6 9 , District Commissioner, New Territories 1 9 5 4 - 1 9 5 8 ) wrote to me with special reference to the wartime J a p a n e s e occupation of Hong K o n g , " m a n y N e w Territories families were afraid to retain written records. In the Clearwater B a y area, the zjukpoo (tsuk-pd; in M a n d a r i n , tsu-p'u) of the L r a w (Loh) and Lreonq (Leung) clans were buried and I was present when the Zrukzeorng (lsuk-cheung\ in M a n d a r i n , tsu-chang) of the L r a w clan d u g up his to find that d a m p and vermin had shredded it. With the z'ttkpoo were several S i 0 0 banknotes and I was able to get the bank (Hong K o n g and Shanghai) to replace them, because the numbers could be made out; but the notes resembled red l a c e . " (Romanization is in Barnett-Chao system of Cantonese, with MeyerWempe form in parenthesis.) A vivid description of adverse conditions in a matshed government office in the New Territories, with their effect upon the records, is given in a long minute by Cecil Clementi to the Honourable Colonial Secretary of H o n g K o n g dated 6 J u l y 1906 (Colonial Secretary's Office ( C S O ) 1624/06 in the Public Records Office, H o n g K o n g ) .

W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S IN T H E V I L L A G E

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77

T h e i r endurance can only be attributable to the great store their owners set by them. In considering them, and the specialists to whom they belonged, this essay represents no more than a preliminary notice of a very wide and potentially important field of enquiry. If these handbooks can be collected in sufficient numbers and variety, they will represent a new body of research material that has much to add to our conception of traditional Chinese society in the countryside and its social and political organization. It is with great satisfaction that I can report that intensive collecting work of this kind is being undertaken by a group of my friends in the Chinese University of H o n g K o n g . 5 I obtained the material for this essay from fieldwork and discussions with old residents as well as from general collecting, and it has seemed useful to provide an account of the base area in which I made local investigations. I chose my workplace, the former small market center of Tsuen W a n with its surrounding villages, for the quite practical reasons detailed below.

T S U E N W A N A N D T H E NEW T E R R I T O R I E S Tsuen Wan is located in the western New Territories, close to present-day urban Kowloon. T h e district includes neighbouring K w a i C h u n g and the adjacent inhabited islands o f T s i n g Y i and M a W a n . 6 A t the 1911 census of the colony of H o n g K o n g the Tsuen W a n district had a population of 2982 persons, 7 of which 2249 were Hakka and 530 were Punti. With the exception of those residing in the market village, all were rural dwellers living in a score of isolated, self-managing communities of one or more lineages, with populations ranging from several tens to several hundreds. T h e villages had their own institutions: among them ancestral halls (one or more for every settled lineage, however small), community temples in the four geographical parts of the subdistrict, a dozen schools, and a considerable number of landholding trusts. 5The

collection effort began in 1978 with a survey of historical tablets: see

JHKBRAS

1 9 : 1 9 2 - 1 9 4 (1979). I began the quest for manuscript handbooks and am continuing the search in areas where I have village friends. However, this search has been greatly extended and more intensively conducted by Dr. David Faure and his colleagues at the Chinese University of H o n g K o n g , with the help of two of my fellow district officers, Dr. Patrick Hase in Shatin and M r . C h a n Sui-jeung in Sai K u n g . Material is coming in fast for photocopying, and some has been bound and deposited in the public library at H o n g Kong's city hall. 6

A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the Mew Territories (Hong K o n g : Government

Printer, n.d. but i960), pp. 148-154; for miscellaneous information on old Tsuen W a n , see my notes in JHKBRAS

16:282-283 (1976); 1 7 : 1 6 8 - 1 7 9 , 183-198, 2 1 6 - 2 1 8 (1977);

19:204-216

(1979). See also my article "Chinese Clan Genealogies and Family Histories: Chinese Genealogies as Local and Family History," in Asian and African Family and Local History (Salt Lake City: Corporation of the President of the Church ofJesus Christ of Latter D a y Saints, 1980), vol. 11. 7

Sessional Papers igti (Papers presented to the Legislative Council of H o n g K o n g , 103) ( 2 1 , 2 6 ,

and 36). Closer investigation of the census returns increases these numbers, since the population of certain villages listed on 29 under A u T ' a u District and on 35 under T a i Po District would have to be added.

JAMES HAYES

78

In this area, in late Ch'ing, the villagers depended for their livelihood upon a farming economy based on two annual rice crops and upon coastal fishing from small boats and stake nets operated from the shore. They supplemented their income by cutting grass and firewood to sell in Hong K o n g and Kowloon, and many families also made bean curd and bean stick to sell in the urban areas. There were some rural industries, such as distilling, fruit preserving, preparing fish paste and soya sauce, manufacturing lime for the building industry, and making incense powder. In the market street, there were general shops and a number of specialists, including persons who built and repaired houses, made agricultural tools, and rendered various other services to the local population. All these villages were fairly typical of settlements in the New Territories, but there was nonetheless a considerable diversity of settlement in the Hong K o n g region. Tsuen Wan was one of the smaller and later settled subdistricts, not to be compared with those around the larger market centers of Yuen Long and Tai Po in the northern New Territories, or with the coastal market centers and boat anchorages of Cheung Chau and T a i O. A t the 1 9 1 1 colony census, these places had land and boat populations of 3964 and 2248, and 4422 and 5 4 1 3 respectively, while the total recorded resident land population of the whole New Territories (excluding New Kowloon) was given as 80,622.® Many of the men were working abroad or on ocean-going steamships. T H E C A T E G O R I Z A T I O N OF R E L E V A N T M A T E R I A L S From the stock of materials that has come to my notice from the New Territories and elsewhere, the books and miscellaneous papers potentially accessible to families in the local villages and market towns of the Hong K o n g region fall into three main categories: various types of books and handbooks; books provided for and by specialists; and written materials providing the cultural and social context of daily life. As I shall attempt to show, this last set of materials constituted a fund of original sources remarkable for its richness and intensity. Together, these three categories of written materials constituted the corpus of "literary" influences that, in varying degrees of presence and effect, attached themselves to Chinese rural and town life in late Ch'ing Kwangtung. BOOKS AND HANDBOOKS The following items fall under the heading of books and handbooks: 1. Genealogical records 2. Handbooks of family and social practice 3. Almanacs 8 Sessional Papers ign: Lantau figure.

103 (26 and 38). The floating population of Tai O is included in the

W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S IN T H E V I L L A G E W O R L D

79

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Collections of couplets for every occasion Educational texts, including classics, primers and other aids to literacy Guides to letter writing, simple and literary Guides to contract forms Encyclopedias of daily use containing a wide range of materials drawn from the preceding categories 9. Ballads 10. Popular poetry 1 1 . Novels and stories relating to behavior and its relevance to good or bad fortune 12. Morality books (including books about the deities worshipped in the popular religion) Although much of this material was printed, there is increasing evidence that a good deal was also kept in manuscript. I shall now briefly describe the various types listed here. 1. Genealogical Records Many Kwangtung lineages had lineage records (chia-p'u), mostly kept in manuscript. The Tsuen Wan subdistrict of the New Territories is a fairly typical case. Among its fifty long-settled lineages, which today vary in size from several tens of persons to between six to seven hundred, more than half have genealogies. Twelve more state that they possessed them until the time of the Japanese occupation, 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 4 5 , but that they either lost or destroyed them before or during that time. All but two of these genealogies, both those extant and those only recalled, are in manuscript and many of them are clearly old, at least in origin. T h e longest handwritten record consists of 136 pages and the shortest consists of about io. 9 These records were normally kept by elders in the various branches of the lineage, and were not available for everyday consultation. However, their existence was probably known to all, which is why, in 1901, E. H. Parker, the British sinologue-consul, was able to state (with a pardonable degree of exaggeration) that "the commonest Chinaman can trace his descent back by memory for from 2 0 0 - 5 0 0 years, or even more by referring to his 'genealogy' book at h o m e . " 1 0 T h e genealogy's main purpose was to serve as a basic reference to enable families to organize themselves in venerating the ancestors. These records brought together all kinds of information on lineage members and lineage property. T h e genealogies contain a greater or lesser number of names and descent lines and provided a varying range of material about (mostly) male persons in past generations. Information on ancestral halls and lineage land, 9

"Chinese C)an Genealogies and Family Histories," pp. 4 - 5 . K. H. Parker, John Chinaman and a Few Others (London: John Murray, 1901), p. 70.

10

8o

JAMES

HAYES

the location and geomantic data of the main tombs, worshipping practices and requirements, schools, academic or purchased degrees, the official ranks or titles held by members in past generations, and the rules governing conduct within the lineage all had their place in a genealogy. 1 1 Thus, genealogies served to heighten the general awareness of the lineage as an institution and to strengthen the family ethic. Naturally, the vast amount of information to be found in the large printed productions of wealthy clans is not usually matched in the smaller, hand-copied works possessed by local lineages, but contents do vary considerably and one cannot generalize with complete accuracy. M a n y genealogies-contain rules for the behavior of lineage members. These were considered to be of such importance for the continuance of the lineage that in some families they were given special attention, published separately, and included in printed collections of material on the subject. A famous early example was the Family Instructions for the Ten Clan (Yen-shih chia-hsiiri) published as early as the sixth century. 1 2 A more recent instance is the Maxims for Family Management (Chih-chia ko-yen) of Chu Pai-lu (Chu Yung-ch'un) of the early Ch'ing, sometimes condensed into a one hundred character essay whose text I have seen repeated in scrolls and paintings to this day. Ssu-yii Teng, the translator of the Y e n Instructions, has listed other types of material in his introduction to that w o r k . 1 3 It is hard to exaggerate the importance of this general body of material for the ancestral cult. This material serves to inculcate ethical values and obedience in families and individuals and, by extension, to encourage and maintain conformist attitudes toward all levels of government, in its private or public forms. 1 4 This powerful function helps to explain the numbers of genealogies of all types that were produced, some of which are still available today though the social circumstances have changed vastly. However, expressing rules of conduct was not the only reason for compiling the genealogies. There is detectable in all instances a strong drive towards the well-being of the living that also helps to explain the survival of the practice. 11

Hsien-chin H u , The Common Descent Group in China and its Functions

1948); a n d H u i - c h c n W a n g L i u , The Traditional

(New York: Viking Fund,

Chinese Clan Rules ( N e w Y o r k : J . J . A u g u s t i n , 1959),

especially pp. 7 - 1 3 a n d c h a p . I I . 12

Ssu-yii T e n g , Family

Instructions

for

the Ten Clan,

An Annotated

Translation

with

Introduction

( L e i d e n : Brill, 1966). 13

I b i d . , p. x.

14These

attitudes w e r e p e r h a p s most p o w e r f u l l y a n d e c o n o m i c a l l y expressed in the texts o f

g r a v e tablets to the deceased. I h a v e o n e f r o m the T s u e n W a n district, d a t e d in the H s i e n - f e n g reign (1851 - 1 8 6 2 ) , w h i c h , in its 120 c h a r a c t e r s , serves as the e p i t o m e o f the k i n d . E m p h a s i s o n the f a m i l y a n d the d u t y o f submission to p a r e n t a l a u t h o r i t y w a s , as Sir G e o r g e S t a u n t o n stated in 1810, a " v i t a l a n d universally o p e r a t i n g principle o f the C h i n e s e g o v e r n m e n t , " w h i c h " c o n t i n u e s to this d a y [to be] p o w e r f u l l y e n f o r c e d , b o t h by positive l a w s , a n d b y public o p i n i o n . " F r o m his Ta Leu Lee\ being The Fundamental

Laws,

and a Selection from

the Supplementary

China ( r e p r i n t e d . T a i p e i : C h ' e n g - w e n , 1966), pp. x v i i i - x i x .

Statutes

Tsing

of the Penal Code of

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This tendency can be illustrated by an interesting and, I think, little known offshoot of the genealogy, one that was common, and in some cases can still be found, among ordinary families, land and boat dwellers alike. The phenomenon consists of a red cloth square marked with black ink characters giving the date and time of birth of all family members. This cloth was drawn up for a man and woman at the time of their marriage, with children's names and other details about them being added as they were born. I have heard such cloths described as genealogies (kang p'd; in Mandarin, keng-p'u) by several families possessing them, and colloquially as meng tsip 'o (in Mandarin, ming-tzup'u) or as name registers. 15 However, their main purpose was undoubtedly to assist with the drawing up of horoscopes for marriage and other occasions when such data were required. In the present context, their interest lies in their being found in very ordinary families, and in the possibility, too, that they might be seen as very modest genealogies and, in small clans of late settlement, as potential beginnings of genealogies proper. 2. Handbooks of Family and Social Practice Handbooks containing descriptions of family and social practices are variously titled chia-li and li-i. They usually comprise two main sections, dealing with the rites and procedures connected with marriage and with death, respectively, usually entitled hsi-shih and sang-shih. These are otherwise included in books under the heading chiao-chi, with "ta-ch'eng" and similar additions to complete their titles. Printed guides of this kind were quite common. T h e later books specify both the old and newly introduced practices; the former grow progressively more complex and tedious as we go back in time, according to their compilers. 1 6 Manuscript versions are also common, and families had their own handwritten guides. They were generally available in even small villages and, in the hands of a few persons, were used to draw up the necessary cards and documentation for occasions such as marriages, deaths, and so on. A detailed investigation of the handwritten books would show whether they were merely copied from the printed handbooks or whether they described local and particular family practices. From a random reference in one of the local village books on how to greet a chu-jen, or senior degree holder—rather an unlikely event, I would have 15

Those seen have come from H o n g K o n g Island, L a n t a u , and T s u e n W a n .

16

T h e wording of the 1842 preface to C h ' e n Ch'in-sheng's BE

Chia-li t'ieh-shih chi-ch'eng

(earlier preface 1770) by an unknown writer implies this. A new style guide to ceremonies prepared during the early period of the Chinese R e p u b l i c is more forthright. It states that many people are still using the old-fashioned and troublesome forms of ceremony of the C h ' i n g dynasty, a n d that because ceremonial is so important, the government is now trying to formulate a (new) standard system for weddings, funerals, and social intercourse, with the aim of getting rid of extravagance, deceit, and superstition. These, it is clearly implied, are characteristic of the old forms! Kuo-min jih-yung pai-liao ch'uan shu i S S f f l S M ^ S

[Encyclopedia of daily use for the

people of the (Chinese) Republic] (Shanghai: K u a n g - i shu-chii (g ££ J | % , 1930), chiian 4, p. 1.

8s

JAMES HAYES

t h o u g h t — i t w o u l d seem that a certain a m o u n t of indiscriminate c o p y i n g from printed books was b e i n g done! W r i t t e n material w a s used in connection w i t h all kinds of family occasions: funerals, weddings, birthdays in later life, a n d the celebrations that took place one m o n t h after the birth of a male child. Papers d r a w n u p on these occasions list the persons a t t e n d i n g a n d note the presents or a m o u n t s o f m o n e y they h a v e given. I h a v e seen e x a m p l e s from the rural c o m m u n i t y o f T s u e n W a n . T h e printed eulogies sometimes prepared for the funeral services of men a n d w o m e n in elite a n d m e r c h a n t families as well as some rural leaders also fall into this c a t e g o r y . 1 7 S u c h d o c u m e n t s are occasionally found in second-hand book stalls, but as they are privately printed productions for distribution rather than sale they are usually k e p t at h o m e , w h e r e they readily fall victim to the hazards that beset all printed materials in times of rapid c h a n g e . 3. Almanacs K u l p states, " A m o n g all the printed books of the village at the present time, the a l m a n a c is the most i m p o r t a n t . "

18

A l m a n a c s are u n d o u b t e d l y a m o n g the

commonest books to be f o u n d in local towns a n d villages, a n d I h a v e seen them frequently in shops a n d old houses. M y local informants' estimates of their distribution a n d availability varied; some said that " p r a c t i c a l l y every family b o u g h t one a n n u a l l y , " others that " o n l y a few households w o u l d purchase t h e m . " S o m e said that copies w o u l d often be given free by shopkeepers to their regular customers at the l u n a r new year. M o s t a d d e d that, w h e t h e r b o u g h t or provided, the a l m a n a c s w o u l d be m a d e available to others, a n d that their simpler contents w e r e therefore generally k n o w n to a l l . 1 9 T h e a l m a n a c ' s main purpose was, of course, to indicate lucky a n d u n l u c k y days. In his m a j o r mid-nineteenth c e n t u r y w o r k , The Middle Kingdom, S. Wells 17

These are described as foo man or not sz luk in Cantonese.

18

Daniel H. K u l p II, Country Life in South China, The Sociology of Familism (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1925), pp. 278-279. In K w a n g t u n g the almanac is known by the name T'ung shing. Strictly speaking, it should be T'ung shue, but this has been changed in popular usage because the correct character carries the same sound as that meaning "to lose" (sc. at gambling), which would never do, especially at the start of a new year. 19

T h e informants were mostly Tsuen W a n villagers. An idea of the contents of the almanac is

given in Adele M . Fielde, Pagoda Shadows, Studies of Life in China (Boston: Corthell, 1884), p. 79; Mrs. J . G . Cormack, Everyday Customs in China (Edinburgh: M o r a y Press, 1935), chap. 1; Juliet Bredon and Igor Mitrophanow, The Moon Year: A Record of Chinese Customs and Festivals (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1927), pp. 1 3 - 1 7 ; Robert K . Douglas, China, 2nd ed., rev. (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1887), pp. 2 9 9 - 3 1

T h e almanac was also used to choose a lucky

date for beginning a child's education; see Irene Cheng, Clara Ho Tung: A Hong Kong Lady, Her Family and Her Times (Hong K o n g : Chinese University of H o n g K o n g , 1976), pp. 6 6 - 6 7 ;

and

K. M.

A . Barnett, " T h e Measurement of Elapsed T i m e in Hong K o n g : T h e Chinese Calendar; Its Uses and V a l u e , " in Some Traditional Chinese Ideas and Conceptions in Hong Kong Social Life Today, ed. Marjorie Topley (Hong K o n g : H o n g K o n g Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, 1967), pp. 36-53, especially 48-50.

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Williams states that the almanac is annually prepared at Peking, under the direction of a bureau attached to the B o a r d of Rites, and, by making it a penal offence to issue a counterfeit or pirated edition the government astrologers have monopolized the m a n a g e m e n t of the superstitions of the people in regard to the fortunate or unlucky conjunctions of each d a y and h o u r . . . . [passages omitted in original]. T w o or three editions are published for the convenience of the people, the prices of which v a r y from three to ten cents a copy. N o one ventures to be without an a l m a n a c , lest he be liable to the greatest misfortunes, and run the imminent hazard of undertaking important events on black-balled d a y s . 2 0

Despite these remarks, the copies to be found in Hong K o n g market towns and villages are not the authorized, officially prepared editions described by Wells Williams, but are copies that were compiled and published annually in Canton, Fo-shan, or Hong Kong itself. Besides including the usual astrological forecasts and information on charms and such matters as the "Twenty-four Examples of Filial Piety," Chu Pai-lu's Maxims for Family Management (mentioned above), and the Hundred Family Names, the local almanacs could also contain practical advice. An example of the latter is the " M a n u a l for Apprentices in T r a d e " included in a Fo-shan almanac of 1905 translated in full by Lien-sheng Y a n g in his article, "Schedules of Work and Rest in Imperial C h i n a . " 2 1 K u l p also styles the almanac "the village textbook in science." 2 2 4. Couplets T h e large number of printed editions devoted to couplets (tui-lien or lien-yii), the wide range of subject heads, the inclusion of sections about them in all guides and encyclopedias, the frequency with which collections of couplets are encountered in handwritten village books, and their common use in religious houses, temples and shrines, homes, and boats and shops testify to the importance of couplets as an item in the inventory of written materials used in everyday life. After describing the origins of the couplet in the late T ' a n g and Five Dynasties, a local schoolmaster friend of mine wrote this for me, knowing my interest: L a t e r [couplets] were used for celebrations, sorrows, for the presentation of gifts and in ever-widening uses. T h e r e is no rule governing the number of characters or whether the style shall be simple or complex. A good couplet not only delights the

20 S. Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom, A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History of The Chinese Empire and its Inhabitants, rev. ed. (London: W. H. Allen, 1883), vol. I I , pp. 7 9 - 8 0 . 21 Lien-sheng Y a n g , Studies in Chinese Institutional History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), pp. 36, 3 8 - 4 2 . In a Hong K o n g book shop, I found a similar woodblock-printed work, issued separately in a cheap edition, undated but from about the same period. 22

K u l p , Country Life in South China (cited n. 18), p. 279.

JAMES

84

HAYES

spirit but encourages virtue. A virtuous couplet educates society a n d creates benefits for the individuals as it continues the tradition.

T h e village handbooks I have seen from Tsuen W a n contain lists of couplets for use on many different occasions. O n e typical example contains 313 couplets of four, five, seven, or eleven characters to the line, seven being the most common. T h e major groupings are for use at the lunar new year (110), at weddings (56), at funerals (20), in various temples and shrines (37), for a new house (24), for schoolrooms (16), and for shops (12), with other couplets for use on the opera and puppet stages, at raising the roof beam in a new house, and at the opening of new ancestral halls. Handwritten books from elsewhere in Tsuen W a n and other subdistricts of the New Territories repeat this wide variety and help to make clear the widespread use and popularity of couplets in the H o n g K o n g region. T h e books collected so far come from villages, but there is every reason to think that they were present in the market towns, with perhaps some printed ones available there also. T h e relationship between printed and handwritten collections of couplets is close, as their contents are often similar or identical to each other, but my village friends agree that it is more likely that the handwritten ones were transmitted from older copies than taken directly from the printed compilations. Moreover, the former often contain couplets for specific local use: for example, for display in community temples in each locality and in worshipping village heroes there (described as hsiang-iyung-lieh shih).23 5. Educational Texts and Aids to Literacy From the number and variety of copies still to be found today, it seems that the Four Books and Five Classics were readily available in cheap red paperback editions, without annotation. These were obviously intended to be learned by rote under the teacher's instructions and bawled out by memory in the famed " b a c k i n g the b o o k " procedure (whereby the pupil turns his back on the master and recites from memory). T h e r e were also annotated printed editions for the 23

C o u p l e t s often e m b o d y local traditions a n d history. A g o o d e x a m p l e is g i v e n b y a n o t h e r

schoolmaster, b o r n in 1895, w h o w r o t e as follows: " O n e d a y w h e n I w a s y o u n g , m y attention w a s a t t r a c t e d by a pair o f v e r t i c a l scrolls w h i c h w e r e posted on the g a t e o f the W a i S a n T o n g F a m i l y T e m p l e at P i n g S h a n [near C a s t l e P e a k , N e w T e r r i t o r i e s o f H o n g K o n g ] , T h e c h a r a c t e r s on the scrolls read: ' W a t c h for the d r a g o n w h i c h rose from the blue w a t e r c i r c l i n g this g a t e : Listen for the deer w h i c h b a r k e d in this l a n d at P i n g S h a n . ' I h a d a n u n c l e then a n d I asked h i m if these c h a r a c t e r s really m e a n t w h a t they said, or if they w e r e j u s t s o m e classical allusions used here for literary style's sake. ' T h e scrolls', he said, ' w e r e w r i t t e n by . . . a s c h o l a r h o l d i n g the literary degree o f chii-jen.' T h e n he b e g a n the f o l l o w i n g s t o r y . . . . " S e e the article in the N e w T e r r i t o r i e s W e e k l y Hsin-chieh

chou-k'an

I f f ^ j g f l J , 24 M a r c h 1962, in w h i c h the w r i t e r p r o c e e d e d to e x p l a i n the m e a n i n g o f the l e g e n d b e h i n d the couplet. A n interesting collection o f c o u p l e t s from b u i l d i n g s o f the C h ' i n g period in the S h a T ' o u C h e n subdistrict o f N a n - h a i C o u n t y o f K w a n g t u n g is g i v e n at p p . 1 0 1 - 1 1 0 o f the 36th a n n i v e r s a r y bulletin of the N a m H o i S h a T a u A s s o c i a t i o n , H o n g K o n g , p u b l i s h e d b y the association in 1964.

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benefit of more a d v a n c e d students and a similar range of editions of such other important educational texts as the Trimetrical Classic, the Thousand Character Classic, and the Hundred Names. M o r e practical primers and word lists were prepared at different times, including the comprehensive modern editions from the later C h ' i n g and early Republican periods. These, too, came in very cheap editions. Practically all the copies of the texts in these genres were printed in Canton or H o n g K o n g . Such productions are well covered in Evelyn Rawski's recent work, a n d the texts, though not the word lists, were given a good deal of attention by nineteenth-century Western writers in C h i n a . 2 4 M y informants have said that such texts, being mainly for school use, could be bought in the Tsuen W a n market street and, of course, in H o n g K o n g . 2 5 6. Guides to Letter Writing J u d g i n g by the number of books old and new to be found on the subject, this type of guide was very popular. It was also necessary, in that letters follow a variety of proper forms depending upon the age, sex, and relationship to the writer of the person being addressed. Reverend H a r d y recalls an incident mentioned by the A b b é H u e that illustrates this point rather aptly. While residing in South C h i n a , Hue was about to send a messenger to Peking. K n o w i n g that the local schoolmaster came from Peking, H u e asked him whether he wished to send a letter to his mother. H u e expressed surprise when a boy was instructed to write the letter, and in response the schoolmaster said, " F o r more than a year [this boy] has been studying literary composition, and he is acquainted with a number of elegant formulae; how then could he not know how a son should write to a m o t h e r ? " 2 6 24

Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch 'ing China (Ann Arbor: University

of Michigan Press, 1979), pp. 46-52, 1 2 5 - 1 3 9 , and Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom, I, 526-541, 572-577. 25The

Tsuen W a n market street was not very large. Around 1911 it had about thirty miscella-

neous undertakings of which one was a general shop selling simple books for children, mainly of an educational type. However, H o n g K o n g seems to have been a flourishing book center. T h e colony census of 1891 listed 57 printers and 122 book binders: "Occupations in Victoria and Villages," Sessional Papers i8gi, 26

T a b l e X V , p. 394.

R e v . E . J . H a r d y , John Chinaman at Home, Sketches of Men, Manners and Things in China (London:

T . Fisher U n w i n , 1907), p. 205. M a n y letter forms in Chinese and English translation can be found in S. Wells Williams, Easy Lessons in Chinese or Progressive Exercises to Facilitate the Study of that Language Especially Adapted to the Cantonese Dialect (Macao: Office of the Chinese Repository, 1842), pp. 210-220. See also James Summers, A Handbook of the Chinese Language Parts I and II Grammar and Chrestomathy (Oxford: University Press, 1863), part II, pp. 32, 8 9 - 9 1 . Translations of other model letters, to and from a go-between for the marriage of a child, and to and from scholars by purchase and examination, are given by Mrs. Arnold Foster, In The Valley of the Yangtze (London: London Missionary Society, 1899), pp. 4 5 - 4 6 , 62-63. T h e passion for letter-writing manuals was carried into the English language in such ports as Shanghai and H o n g K o n g , where smart boys desiring employment with Western firms made much use of them; see Carl C r o w , 400 Million Customers (New York: Pocket Books, 1945), pp. 7 2 - 7 7 .

86

JAMES

HAYES

These books included m a n y letter forms for use between relatives on both the male and female side and across three generations, between friends, a n d between business associates. T h e subject matter covered births, marriages, deaths, birthdays. Specimen letters from and to sons studying a w a y from home were supplied, as were samples on borrowing m o n e y , asking for employment, entering apprenticeship, a n d m a n y more topics of a most varied nature. T h e guides also provided the titles of address to be used for the recipients and by the writers. T h e female side is more prominent in these books than might be expected. A typical example of a letter-writing guide is the "revised and newly a u g m e n t e d " guide entitled Hsin-tseng ch'ih-tu ch'eng-hu ho-chieh. It was published in Canton in 1895, but apparently first issued in 1886, and consists of 167 double pages of woodblock text. M y copy has been marked throughout in red ink, indicating careful study. T h e earliest K w a n g t u n g work I have found in m y collecting to date is the Chiang-hu ch'ih-tu fen-yun ts'o-yao ho-chi, in various printings, and with preface dated 1 7 8 2 . 2 7 S i m i l a r material is also available in appropriate sections of the encyclopedias a n d general guides. Letter forms h a d apparently been both highly stylized and elaborate in this period and earlier, and the first years of the Chinese R e p u b l i c saw a reaction against these tendencies. As with the guides to chia-li, compilers of new guides to letter writing contrasted their simpler a n d more straightforward styles with the complicated format of earlier times. 2 8 Besides these popular guides, there are the many pieces, mainly letters, written by famous scholars and writers across the ages (ch'ih tu, " s a m p l e compositions"). These are literary productions, full of allusions and written in elegant style. T h e y are often difficult to understand, but usually contain explanatory notes. Despite their highly literary nature, these pieces were nonetheless part of the p o p u l a r culture, since some teachers used them in their schools, even if merely asking their better pupils to learn an essay here a n d there by heart. T h u s , some of the writers' names a n d portions of the more famous prose and poetry became widely known at a humble level. 7. Guides to Contract Forms Blank contract forms covering a variety of situations are to be found in different types of handbooks, but publications also exist in which all these forms were brought together. I h a v e one such, Shu-ch'i pien-meng, dated 1895 and 21

Much

of its contents

appear

in

a

later

work,

Kai-liang

tseng-kuang hsieh-hsin

pi-tu

Sfc 5 f&SISMi'fif'.ii© [Improved, expanded primer for correspondence], available in Canton, H o n g K o n g , and Shanghai imprints with Hsiian-t'ung and early Republican dates, but I h a d not until recently connected this with the earlier work described in the text that was used by S. Wells Williams as the basis for his Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialed (Canton: Office of the Chinese Repository, 1856), pp. x i - x i i . 28

See the foreword (undated but, like the hsu, probably 1 9 1 3 ) , entitled "Principles for Editing

the Improved Edition," to the Kai-liang tseng-kuang hsieh-hsin pi-tu. While much of the earlier content was carried forward, replacements and additions in the new style also appeared.

W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S IN T H E V I L L A G E

WORLD

printed in Shanghai, which includes no less than 84 different forms. This book was reissued under the same title in 1923, with some rearrangement of the contents. Other Shanghai book companies published new and larger collections in the 1930s. T h e r e was a great need for widespread knowledge of these forms. J u d g i n g by the volume and variety of documents becoming available, most social and economic transactions in Ch'ing China were apparently documented in writing. 2 9 I n many such cases the writers of these contracts were not parties to the transactions, although, like the middlemen introducing buyer and seller, they were paid for their trouble. M y enquiries show that they were likely to be fellow villagers and clansmen, or fellow townspeople, who in drawing up their documents would be guided by local custom and earlier examples. 3 0 Thus, both the guides (to an unknown extent) and certainly the earlier documents (which were usually passed on to the new purchaser) helped to spread essential knowledge in this vast and vital field. Sometimes account books for certain properties carry the text of the purchase document for ease of reference, and I have found blank forms scribbled in notebooks and on empty spaces in genealogies and other books, indicating widespread use. 8. Encyclopedias of Daily Use (General Handbooks) T h e printed handbooks that served as encyclopedias of daily use were apparently quite common in the late imperial and early Republican periods. Their purpose was to provide the rudiments of what was deemed to be useful knowledge across a wide range of activities. None dated earlier than the Ch'ienlung reign have come to my notice through collecting in local book stores, but we know from library collections that they existed in the early part of our study period. 3 1 T h e Ch'ien-lung publication Ch'ou-shih chin-nang, in six ts'e (preface 29

See Fu-mei C h a n g Chen and R a m o n H. Myers, " C u s t o m a r y L a w a n d the Economic G r o w t h

of China D u r i n g the C h ' i n g Period," Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i

3.5 and 3 . 1 0 (November 1976 and

N o v e m b e r 1978) for examples. U p o n reflection, it seems obvious that the variety and complexity of Chinese economic and social relationships must have been based on a large stock of written material even at the ordinary levels of society, from the baby girl handed over to a religious house (with a red deed of disposal to prove it) to the sworn brotherhood between men of different clan names (with a document to show it) to the complex divisions of family property or the sale of land (again, with documentary proof a n d — a feature of all deeds—witnesses to prove the genuineness of the transaction in case things went wrong). 30

J a m e s H a y e s , The Hong Kong Region 1850-igi/:

Institutions and Leadership in Town

and

Countryside ( H a m d e n , Conn.: Archon-Dawson, 1 9 7 7 ) , pp. 1 2 4 - 1 3 5 . 31

C h ' i u K ' a i - m i n g has described and analyzed sixty-five M i n g encyclopedias and reference

works from the Ssu-k'u Catalogue in " H a - f o ta-hsueh H a - f o Yen-ching hsueh-she t'u-shu-kuan ts'ang Ming-tai lei-shu kai-shu"

* P

JR ¥

ft©

W ft® M f

[An annotated cata-

logue of M i n g encyclopedias and reference works in the Chinese-Japanese L i b r a r y of the H a r v a r d Yenching Institute at H a r v a r d University], Ch'ing-hua hsiieh-pao / p f l j i ^ P S i ,

n e w

series 2 . 2 : 9 3 - 1 1 5

( J u n e 1961)- H e has done the same for another forty-six not recorded in the Ssu-k'u Catalogue in "Ssu-k'u shih-shou Ming-tai lei-shu k ' a o " ¡ 3 Hi

ft

SI

[ M i n g encyclopedias and ref-

erence works unrecorded in the Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu tsung-mu], Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong 2 . 1 : 4 3 - 5 8 (September 1969).

88

JAMES

HAYES

dated 1 7 7 1 ) , seems to have served its purpose so well that it was still being reprinted by Shanghai book publishers at the end of the nineteenth century. I have acquired editions from three separate publishing houses from about that time, adding substance to contemporary complaints about book pirating! 3 2 Another production, very similar in size and style, the Ying-ch'ou pien-lan, in eight ts'e (1896 preface), published by a fourth Shanghai house the following year, does not seem to have (or does not acknowledge) an earlier version. There are yet others of the kind. All these works carry the full range of subjects that can be found in similar guides produced under new titles in the Republican period. That period also saw a fresh wave of guides, apparently inspired by the constitutional change. Revision of certain sections of these traditional works was made necessary by the existence of new social and literary attitudes among the young and western-educated elite, which in turn influenced parts of the Chinese population in the cities. 3 3 Each major Shanghai publishing house produced its own, and revised and usually enlarged editions came out every few years. 3 4 9. Ballads Wolfram Eberhard has produced an interesting book on a collection of ballads that has been in the ownership of the Munich State Library since 1840. He describes them as follows: All these ballads are in the form of poems with seven words per line. Occasionally, a line has more than seven words, and in such cases, two words are pronounced as if they were one single word so that the rhythm is not disturbed. T h e ballads are printed in or near Canton by publishers which are otherwise known. Most of them are of the same small size which is still used today for ballads; they are printed on low quality paper in wood-cut print, which is often smeared and hard to read. T h e size of such ballad books is often quite small, consisting of two or three pages only. Some longer ballads are published in a set of small short booklets; sometimes, two very short ballads are printed together in one booklet. All this is still done with ballads in T a i w a n . 3 5

From the number of ballad books that can still be found in Hong Kong, and from the well-thumbed condition of many of them, it would seem that such 32

S e e a high official's statement on the subject printed at the front of Ts'e-hsueh pei-tsuan

fiilr'finHi

a

general encyclopedic compilation in thirty-two chiian, printed in Shanghai by the

Tien-shih-chai 33

in 1900.

T h e most common revisions are in the sections dealing with marriage and death, which

usually contain both old and new styles of address, format, and rites for readers to follow according to their family's wishes. 34

See the list of Chinese books in JHKBRAS

35

Wolfram E b e r h a r d , Cantonese Ballads (Munich State Library Collection) (Taipei: Orient Cultural

2 0 : 1 6 8 - 1 8 3 (1980).

Service, 1972), p. 1. L e u n g Pui-chee, Wooden-Fish Books: Critical Essays and an Annotated Catalogue Based on the Collections in the University of Hong Kong (Hong K o n g : Centre of Asian Studies, University o f H o n g K o n g , 1978), is an exhaustive examination of that category of Cantonese ballad known as muk-ue-shue (in M a n d a r i n , mu-yii-shu) "wooden-fish books".

W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S IN T H E V I L L A G E W O R L D

89

books were extensively distributed and widely used. Indeed, one of the C a n t o n publishers also set up business in the British colony. 3 6 Ballads were especially favored by women. K u l p states that in Phenix V i l l a g e (northeast K w a n g t u n g ) " t h e women like to gather in a reading circle and listen to one of their number 'sing' ballads. These ballads are in simple and rhythmic popular language, especially designed for women to read or s i n g . " 3 7 In late imperial C h i n a , ordinary men and w o m e n led a virtually separate social existence, even in the villages, it seems. Writing in the 1920s, C h e n g Tien-fang could state (again, with special reference to K w a n g t u n g ) , T h e r e is no social life b e t w e e n m e n a n d w o m e n in the v i l l a g e . T h e c u s t o m a n d the e t h i c a l t e a c h i n g o f the C h i n e s e are t h a t m e n a n d w o m e n , unless t h e y

are

m e m b e r s o f the s a m e f a m i l y , s h o u l d k e e p a p a r t as m u c h as possible; so e v e n the m a l e a n d the f e m a l e m e m b e r s o f the s a m e class n e v e r j o i n t o g e t h e r in a p a r t y , a feast, or a c e l e b r a t i o n . I n m a k i n g calls, e x t e n d i n g c o n g r a t u l a t i o n s o r consolations, the m e n visit the m e n a n d the w o m e n visit the w o m e n . 3 8

T h e same division is reflected in the written forms of social intercourse listed in the handbooks. 1 o. Popular Poetry K u l p uses the term " p o p u l a r p o e t r y " to refer specifically to the Three Hundred Poems of the T'ang and the "Thousand Poets" Anthology (a Sung collection). J u d g i n g by the copies I have seen, cheap editions of T ' a n g poetry were commonly available in nineteenth-century C a n t o n , locally printed and seemingly widely distributed, and cheap editions of this poetry have a good circulation even today. In Tsuen W a n and elsewhere in the New Territories of H o n g K o n g , old men say that these were a m o n g the remembered books of their boyhood, and verses are still to be seen on the walls of many of the surviving old ancestral halls, houses, and schools. T h e r e was, as noted by Lin Y u t a n g , a strong connection between popular poetry and the couplets described in subsection 4 above, since "in the ' T ' a n g p o e m s ' . . . in a verse of eight lines, the middle four lines must perforce be in the form of two couplets. A n d [he adds] good lines of poetry should be popular because every perfect line should have a melody and inevitableness of expression besides the thought, like a p r o v e r b . " 3 9 36

For an account of Wu-kuei T'ang see Leung, Wooden-Fish

Books, pp. 253-256.

K u l p , Country Life (cited n. 18), p. 279. 3 8 C h e n g Tien-fang, Oriental Immigration in Canada (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1931), pp. 17-18. This separation was reflected in the design and layout of mission churches in China. J . A . Turner, Kwang Tung or Five Tears in South China (London: S. W . Partridge, c. 1894), p. 38, writing of the Wesleyan chapel at Tsang Sha, Canton, states that "a partition runs down the middle, to screen off the women from the view of the men, according to Chinese ideas of propriety." 37

3 9 Lin Yutang, ed., The Wisdom of China and India (New York: R a n d o m House, 1942), p. 1092. This explains w h y so m a n y couplets by T'ang and Sung poets are listed under the heads for use on various occasions in, e.g., W a n g Yen-lun 3 i 1 a | S t e t a'-> Jih-yungpai-k'o ch'uan-shu ¡3 ^¡Wi^f^tt >2 vols. (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1919-1920), vol. I , p ' i e n 15, pp. 20-30.

JAMES

90

HAYES

11. Novels and Short Stories Novels and short stories were said to be common, at least in the larger towns and cities. Wells Williams refers to them as "the chief type of books found along the street," 4 0 presumably referring to those sold by the hawkers who appear, along with other types of workers, in the earlier Western books and pictures describing Chinese trades. 4 1 However, I have not found any novels and short stories in my enquiries in the villages so far, though they are plentiful enough in the second-hand book stalls and shops in the city. Elderly villagers do mention the titles of famous books such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West, the Investiture of the Gods and similar great novels. 4 2 But where they may have existed these books seem to have become casualties of war, climate, and change, being (in cheap printings) more fragile and probably less treasured than the handbooks. T h e villagers make no mention of other novels, particularly of those purport40

Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom, vol. I, p. 692.

41

George Henry Mason, The Costume of China, Illustrated by Sixty Engravings with Explanations in

English and French (London: Printed for W. Miller, 1800), includes itinerant booksellers. See also M . Bertin and M . Breton's China: Its Costumes, Arts, Manufactures etc. Translatedfrom the French (London: J . J . Stockdale, 1 8 1 2 ) , vol. I I , p. 10: " C h i n a has its booksellers' shops and warehouses like t h o s e o f Europe: the subject of this [print] is a stall or pedlar bookseller; he does not deal in classical books, but in tales and songbooks for the lower orders." See also J u l e s Arène, La Chine Familière et Galante (Paris: Charpentier et Cie., 1876), pp. 5 (f; and Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy (cited n. 24), pp. 1 1 - 1 2 . 42

By w a y of comparison, an interesting list of twenty-three books from which Peking storytellers

took their stories is included at appendix 7, p. 475, in Sidney D. G a m b l e , Peking: A Social Survey (New Y o r k : George H. Doran, 1 9 2 1 ) . T h r e e articles by Stewart Culin (all made available to me by L y n n White I I I ) on the life of the ordinary Chinese in the United States in the 1880s provide useful information on their reading material, customs, and amusements. These are as follows: " P o p u l a r Literature of the Chinese Laborers in the United States," Oriental Studies: A Selection of Papers Read before the Oriental Club of Philadelphia, 1888-1894 in A m e r i c a , " Journal

of American Folk-Lore

(Boston: 1894), pp. 5 2 - 6 2 ; " C u s t o m s of the Chinese 3 . 1 0 : 1 9 1 - 2 0 0 ( J u l y - S e p t e m b e r , 1890); and " T h e

G a m b l i n g Games of the Chinese in A m e r i c a , " Publications of the University of Pennsylvania, Series in Philology, Literature a n d Archaeology, 1 . 4 : 1 - 1 7 ( 1 8 9 1 ) . T h e first of these indicates that " r o mances, dramas and song books constituted the greater part of the Chinese literature current among the Chinese laborers in the United States, and that the remainder came from the 'folk literature,' including books on divination and other means of fortune telling, fhe 'white pigeon lottery,' use of the abacus, medicine, school texts, history and dictionaries, and letter-writing guides" (including the book cited n. 27). See also Alvin P. Cohen, "Notes on a Chinese Workingclass Bookshelf," Journal of the American Oriental Society 9 6 . 3 : 4 1 9 - 4 3 0

(July-September

1976). Besides handbooks, two " l i b r a r i e s " have been discovered by the History Project team. O n e ( 1981 ) belonged to a "rich p e a s a n t " type o f v i l l a g e r in the small outlying village of Hoi H a in North Sai K u n g . T h e other (1982) came from a family in the market village of Hoi Pa, Tsuen W a n . T h e r e are more than three hundred books in the first collection, and more than one hundred in the latter. T h e Hoi H a books have been catalogued by Dr. Patrick Hase with a view to publication, and the Hoi P a collection was presented to the U r b a n Services Department by its owner; see the illustrated accounts in the English and Chinese language press in H o n g K o n g for 27 M a y 1982.

W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S IN T H E V I L L A G E W O R L D

9'

ing to be set in the home province of Kwangtung. Those seen in the book stalls are usually set in a particular time and place, a device that adds to the realism of the tale for the audience. One early twentieth-century printed collection of short stories in my possession, the Su-hua ch'ing-t'an, set in different provinces of China, contains the following from places in Kwangtung: brothers quarrelling and going to court over their deceased father's land (see the tale "Seven Mou of Fertile L a n d " ) ; how forecast bad fortune could be altered by good deeds (this story, entitled Ch'iu Ch'iung-shan, involves a famous Ming scholar from Hainan island, Ch'iu Chün [ 1 4 2 0 - 1 4 9 5 ] ) ; how brothers should not allow bad friends to turn one against the other, and the part played by a loyal wife in reconciling them (see the tale " T h e Test of Brothers' Love"). Another woodblock collection of stories set entirely in various counties of Kwangtung, Hsun huan chien, is mainly concerned with showing how various bad deeds involved their authors in ill fortune, and how good deeds resulted in good fortune or a return to it. 4 3 (Time has not allowed a check on how many of these stories, if any, are familiar to my informants and others, but it is a task worth the effort. It may, incidentally, be the case that some of these books—especially those with local settings— should be classified as shan-shu, or morality books, their purpose being so obviously to edify and improve behavior.) 12. Morality Books T h e class of books called morality books, which includes books about the deities of the popular religion, was probably in greater supply than the various guides to daily life or even cheaply printed novels. Books and pamphlets stemming from the popular religion, Taoism, and Buddhism, were printed and distributed by monasteries, temples, and religious specialists. Their production was often underwritten by wealthy men and women who turned to religion in their later years as a means of acquiring merit. From various entries in older European and American accounts of China it would appear that such works were plentiful. 4 4 They were usually distributed by itinerant book sellers, of a type who long predated the nineteenth-century Chinese colporteurs of bibles and tracts for Western missions. Besides those devoted to Buddhist and Taoist teachings and doctrines, a type of morality book specifically related to the more popular gods, whose images are still to be found in local temples. This type told of the history and miracles attributed to these gods, usually cautioning readers to behave well and perform meritorious deeds. Such books are today often found in local book shops and 43

1 have only chiian 3 - 4 of this work. See Hardy, John Chinaman (cited n. 26), p. 206; Fielde, Pagoda Shadows (cited n. 19), p. 280; Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom, vol. I, p. 577; and Samuel Beal, Buddhism in China (London: Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, 1884), pp. 4, 96-97, i86ff., 247-248. On the reception of Christian tracts, see Hannah Davies, Among Hills and Valleys in Western China, Incidents of Missionary Work (London: S. W. Partridge, 1901), pp. 68, 210, 275; and W. T . A. Barber, David Hill, Missionary and Saint (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1903), pp. 115—116. 44

JAMES HAYES

92

stalls selling old books. 4 5 It is also likely that, as occurs nowadays, broadsheets were occasionally issued by temple keepers or trustees giving the same type of information. I imagine that, owing to its importance in the popular religion, this type of literature was still to be found in many villages and small towns in Kwangtung.

SPECIALISTS A N D W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S FOR S P E C I A L I S T S T h e large class of people I am calling specialists played, if I am not mistaken, a particularly important role in Chinese society. An example comes from the work of the Catholic missionary Charles Rey, who prepared his study of the Hakka language after many years' service in the countryside near Swatow in northeast Kwangtung. Rey chose to draw on the specialists and their lore for some of his chapters, and it is no surprise to find in his pages geomancers, diviners, blind fortune tellers, and the like (as well as the occasional charlatan) conversing with their clients or themselves serving as the subjects of discussion. We are here receiving the very stuffof rural life from an acute observer close to the people. 4 6 In the H o n g K o n g region such persons are to be seen to this day and were very likely found throughout the land in late Ch'ing and Republican times. T h e y could be engaged to exercise their skills on behalf of groups or individuals over a very wide range of situations. If recent observation, augmented by information from books and informants, is any reliable guide, some pursued their specialist occupations full time, and others combined them with their principal means of livelihood. T w o main groups of specialists played a crucial role at the local l e v e l — namely, those expert in protective rituals and the manipulation of the forces thought to influence human fate, and those knowledgeable in performing social rites and in the forms of polite intercourse. According to elderly informants from Tsuen W a n , their fellow villagers and townspeople knew well enough how to practice the trades or occupations that supplied them with their livelihood, but they were not so well versed in ritual and ceremonial matters. Y e t the former were held to be of crucial importance to safety and well-being in this life as well as the next, while the latter were deemed essential for maintaining a Chinesestyle existence. 47 45Two

typical instances are compilations concerning T'in-hau (T'ien Hou) and K a m - f a (Chin-

hua), two popular deities of South China. For titles, see JHKBRAS 46

20:183 (1980).

Charles Rey, Conversations Chinoises: prises sur le vif avec Notes Grammaticales: Langage Hac-Ka,

reprint of 1937 ed. (Taipei: Chinese Association for Folklore, 1973), pp. v, 244,414!?., 54off., 588ff. 47

Richard J. Smith of Rice University comments, " B y late imperial times li had come to

embrace all forms ofsacred and secular ritual, as well as the entire body of social institutions, rituals and regulations, conventions and norms, that governed human relations in C h i n a . " See his essay " T h e Cultural Role of Ritual in C h ' i n g C h i n a " presented to the A C L S - N E H Conference on Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China: Cultural Belief and Social Divisions (Montecito, California, 1981).

W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S IN T H E V I L L A G E

WORLD

93

Specialists Dealing with Human Fate T h e group of specialists dealing with human fate is perhaps best introduced by an extract from the autobiography of the Republican scholar and official Monlin Chiang, who makes the following statement about his father's beliefs: He believed in feng shui, the spirits of wind and water and in fortune telling and therefore—with a sort of fatalism—that a man's life was predetermined by supernatural forces. However, he also believed that by virtuous conduct and clean thinking one could make these forces respond by bestowing blessings upon oneself as well as one's family; thus the predetermined course of life would gradually shift its ground to a better course.48 This credo is probably fairly typical for a person of the educated class, but by my observation it might also apply to many of the older generation of villagers today, who had a need to consult specialists in all matters concerning fate and the future. The written materials dealing with crises and the manipulation of fortune necessarily constitute a very large corpus, given the frequency of disease, the uncertainty of the elements, and the universality of belief in the existence of malevolent spirits and of good and bad influences. 4 9 Indeed, it was these factors that, taken together, dictated the requirement for one or another of the services offered by the main group of specialists. I wish now to consider this subject under a number of principal h e a d s — n a m e l y , feng-shui, or geomancy; the preparation and varied use of charms; and divination and fortune telling. Feng-shui, or Geomancy T h e Hong K o n g countryside is dotted with graves, and I am told that it was usual to engage geomancers in selecting the place of a coffin burial, and practically obligatory when placing the formal, horse-shoetype masonry grave of the second, or urn, burial. Lineages and individuals attached the greatest practical importance to feng-shui as affecting their good 48

Monlin Chiang, Tides from the West, reprint of 1947 ed. (Taipei: China Cultural Publishing

Foundation, 1957), p. 29. This attitude towards predeterminism was apparently common all through the long Confucian period. See C . K . Y a n g ' s " T h e Role of Religion in Chinese Society," in An Introduction to Chinese Civilization, e d . J o h n T . Meskill (Lexington, Kentucky: D. C. Heath, 1973), pp. 662-663. 49

See, for instance, J . J . M . d e G r o o t , The Religion of the Chinese (New York: Macmillan, 1910), p.

32. " I t is a doctrine of the Chinese nation, a dogma, an axiom, an inveterate conviction, that spirits exist, keeping up a most lively intercourse with the l i v i n g — a s intimate almost as that among men. In every respect that intercourse bears an active character. It brings blessing, and evil as well, the spirits thus effectually ruling mankind's fate. From them man has everything to hope, but equally much to fear. As a natural consequence, it is around the ghosts and spirits that China groups her religious acts, with the sole intent to avert their wrath and the evil it brings, and to insure their goodwill and help." T h e r e is also Mrs. Cormack's two chapters on " T h e Influence of the Spirit W o r l d " and "Spectres and How to Deal with T h e m " , in Everyday Customs (cited n. 19), pp. 2 3 1 - 2 5 6 , and her statement, p. 231, " A l l who have lived in China and studied the people know how strong and real this influence i s . . . . It is a fact that they are bound about with superstitious fear of spirits, spectres and demons, and that they believe these are constantly all about them."

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and bad fortune in this life and the hereafter. 5 0 There was a degree of specialization in this field. Some geomancers concentrated on thefeng-shui of graves (yinchai), others on the feng-shui of houses and buildings (yang-chai). Some were specialists in urban as opposed to rural geomancy, and others concentrated on siting wells. T h e services of all were in frequent demand in the H o n g K o n g r e g i o n — a n d no doubt b e y o n d — n o t only for such relatively simple concerns as siting, resiting, or rebuilding, but also for correcting feng-shui or even for harming or counteracting that of another family or lineage, for the manipulative potential was as strong here as it was in the realm of charms. 5 1 Feng-shui emphasized the siting of graves of apical ancestors and the location of ancestral halls, since the good fortune of the living and future descendants was held to depend upon it. T a k e , for instance, the situation where an ancestral hall was to be rebuilt or resited. In the past, such an event could take place not only when the ruinous state of the old building required a reconstruction, but also when a geomancer advised moving the site or altering the dimensions a n d orientation of an existing building in order to improve family fortunes. T w o such cases, typical of many of the kind, have come to my notice recently, a n d may serve as examples for present purposes. T h e y are contained in manuscript papers, one in a g e n e a l o g y 5 2 and another in a private family notebook entitled A Record of Correcting FengShui (Hsiu-kaifeng-shui chi).53 T h e former, dated about 1925, refers to a reduction in the dimensions and the re-orientation of an existing building, by a lineage long resident on Tsing Y i Island in the Tsuen W a n subdistrict of the New Territories. T h e second, from Shun T a k (Shun-te) County, dated 1907-1908, relates that a particular H o clan had built an ancestral temple in 1450, and for the next 300 years their descendents did not have good fortune. T h e temple was moved to another location in 1808 by three of the writer's great-grandfathers, but despite this and other measures involving the redirection of an adjacent stream, the family's fortunes were still not sufficiently improved. A further reconstruction was planned in the writer's time, on the advice of another geomancer. Geomancers' names and places of origin are often mentioned on grave 50See

Stephen D. R . Feuchtwang, An Anthropological Analysis of Chinese Geomancy (Vientiane:

Editions Vithagna, 1974); M . Freedman, " G e o m a n c y , " in The Study of Chinese Society, Essays by Maurice Freedman, ed. G . William Skinner (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979), pp. 3'3-3335'Hugh

Baker cites an excellent example of 'feng-shui fighting" in appendix II of his Chinese

Family and Kinship (London: Macmillan, 1979)- T h e activities of feng-shui hsien-sheng and their cousins th eyin-yang hsien-sheng are recounted by R. F.Johnston in his Lion and Dragon in Northern China (London: John M u r r a y , 1910), pp. 1 1 8 - 1 2 0 , 264-270. 52The

genealogy of the Chan (Ch'en) lineage of C h u n g Mei, Tsing Y i , H o n g K o n g , of which

copies are now available in the Chinese Library of the University of Hong K o n g and in the Library of the Genealogical Society of Utah (Church o f j e s u s Christ of Latter D a y Saints). 53

T h e original notebook is included in the collection of K w a n g t u n g material in the Centre of

Asian Studies, University of H o n g K o n g .

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tablets, a n d local investigation can assist in identifying these people. Generally, my enquiries into geomancers operating in our area showed that they fell into two groups: sought-after itinerants with good reputations from other places, and local persons, usually of the class of schoolmasters and minor local gentry. T h e latter undertook the work out ofinterest a n d the need to have something to do, a n d , of course, in cases involving requests from their friends and relatives, out of reciprocity and obligation. Geomancy generated a very large body of writings. T o the corpus of p u b lished handbooks on all the ramifications offeng-shui must be added the perhaps even larger stock—much of it probably now destroyed—of handwritten material. It is certain that over a lifetime's practice, most specialists would have prepared their own notes, some copied from rare or standard works a n d their own teachers' writings, a n d others based on their own studies a n d experience. Some of this material would have been passed on to their disciples in turn. Such papers—individual notebooks or even a complete stock of handwritten a n d printed works—come o n t o the market occasionally, but, as with all specialist materials, the numbers that.appear in this way provide a guide not to their real extent, but only to their n a t u r e a n d content. T h e reason we cannot estimate the numbers of such manuscript books in existence is that those addressing these different skills were mostly not for general circulation. T h e y were private property, a n d the information they contained was probably closely guarded. M e a n t for the specialists' own use, they were very likely h a n d e d on or allowed to be copied only when a pupil h a d satisfied his master. In this they strongly resemble the sacred texts of the W h i t e Lotus "sutra recitation" sects discussed in this volume by Susan N a q u i n . Indeed, ordinary people, including family members, probably stood in some awe a n d even fear of these books. 5 4 This category of books also includes the specialists' written statements of personal advice produced for individuals a n d families. These, too, were private and confidential papers that their owners would keep carefully—especially as it was believed that, in the wrong hands, favorable prognostications could be reversed by other specialists. 55 T h e extent 54 T h e family ofone of my acquaintances, a seventy-year-old naam-moh-lo from Ham Tin, Pui O, Lantau Island, burned all his books and papers after his death, before I learned of the event. 55 This applies especially to astrological forecasts for individuals and ancestral graves, which are usually in manuscript because of their highly individual purpose. Forecasts in fortune telling can be brief or detailed. If the former, they are called shiil paai and if the latter taaipaai. These records are usually kept confidential, for if another person gets to know the details and is ill-disposed, it is thought that he or she can bring bad luck, illness or even death to the original person by doing something harmful infengshui such as cutting a tree near his or her house, digging a ditch, erecting a pillar, and the like (I am indebted to my friend Anthony Siu K.wok-kin of Hong Kong for this information). Grave descriptions, again, are private documents of concern to individuals, branches, and even whole lineages. They are detailed papers drawn up by a geomancer with regard to the geomantic properties of a particular grave or graves. I have seen only a few during my collecting, but have every reason to think that many more existed.

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to which these books and papers were understood by the bulk of their clientele (or in some cases even by the specialists themselves) was, of course, quite another matter, but one of less importance than their existence, transmission, and execution. For the mass, the value of these books lay more in the comforting protection given by, or the promise of continued or new prosperity to be acquired through, the specialists' knowledge and expertise. The Knowledge, Writing, and Preparation of Charms Even more than geomancy, an expertise regarding charms was probably one of the most soughtafter specialist contributions to everyday life. This knowledge was especially demanded in times of crisis, in view of the general belief in malevolent spirits and baleful influences emphasized above. As Mrs. Arnold Foster noted, "the Chinese make a very wicked use of charms. When they hate any one, and wish some evil to happen to him, they get certain kinds of charms which are supposed to be able to cause his death, or, at any rate, to make him i l l . . . . Another plan is to buy hurtful charms from a temple." 5 6 She also mentioned that charms could be counteracted by the use of other charms, bringing in the manipulative action referred to above. 5 7 A later missionary, J . L. Stewart, described the charms emanating from Taoist priests: " T h e y are made up of ordinary characters, usually greatly distorted or symbolized, with, at times, the image of a god depicted above and his signature below." 5 8 He also states that Buddhist charms and formulas were often " m a d e from old Sanscrit characters, meaningless in their original but mystic enough to deceive the multitude." 5 9 Charms of the former sort are frequently encountered in the handbooks kept by village specialists of the kind known locally as naam-mdh-ld. Some boxing masters of the type known as Mau-shaan sz-fod (in Mandarin, Mao-shan shih-fu)60 also hold such items, though in their case the charms are also written on crepe or cloth and worn on the body like sashes or breast pieces, for protection. It is more than likely that such charms have come down from earlier specialists, being transmitted from teacher to pupil through the generations. 6 1 56 57 58

M r s . Arnold Foster, In the Valley of the Yangtze (cited n. 26), pp. 9 9 - 1 0 0 . Ibid., p. 100. J a m e s Livingstone Stewart, Chinese Culture and Christianity (New Y o r k : Fleming H. Revell,

1926), p. 180. C h a r m s formed a regular part of the contents of the almanacs. 59 60

Ibid., p. 250. S e e Michael R . Saso, The Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang (New H a v e n : Y a l e University

Press, 1978), pp. 1 2 8 - 1 3 2 . 61

O n e naam-mdh-ld who performs protective rites in Tsuen W a n uses a handwritten book left to

him by his teacher and dated in the K u a n g - h s u reign. A t Sheung L i n g Pei village, T u n g Chung, L a n t a u Island, the seventy-year-old village representative g a v e me (1980) a folded slip of red paper, personally copied by him from an older version twenty-five years before, which was used at dedication ceremonies at temples and shrines of the kind known locally as hoi kwong shan tsz (in M a n d a r i n , k'ai-kuang shen-tzu). T h e first part of the text invited m a n y village deities to the

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T h e provision of charms was an important service for communities as well as for individuals. Specialist practitioners were often called upon by communities when they were thought to be imperiled by evil forces that made themselves felt through the sickness and death of animals and humans. At such times of general alarm, it was the du ty of the village leaders to find specialists who could perform protective rites for the community as a whole and bring it back to stability and health. A notable part of these proceedings, known locally as tan foo, is the preparation of charms and the placing of them, with due ceremony, at each location for which protection is desired. 62 When they have to be extended roughly every six months, the later rites are known as nuen-foo, " w a r m i n g " or renewing the charms. J u d g i n g by the material that is coming to light today, the ritual and charmwriting specialists could be found in most subdistricts and even in many of the larger villages. In an age when communications were limited and slow, the need for a good distribution of personnel was linked not only with the convenience of having specialists at hand, but also with the desirability of having the rituals performed in the local dialect. Specialists in the New Territories were often Hakka or Hoklo as well as Cantonese-speaking. T h e persons who prepared charms and carried out protective rituals were undoubtedly of lesser status than the geomancers, considered above, and the diviners, described in the next section. M a n y seem to have been townspeople and villagers of modest education and social status, though known to all and well-established enough in their occupations. However, both government and the elite society tended to frown on these arts. T h e provisions of the law enabled officials to deal severely with persons who deluded and excited the multitude or ceremony, and the second sent them off to their home H e a v e n (I a m grateful to Professor T a n a k a Issei for this explanation). Religious specialists had m a n y gods and spirits to deal with in each locality. T h e village representative of H a K w a i C h u n g , Tsuen W a n subdistrict of the N e w Territories, told me that he h a d gone round the area when his village was resited in 1964 and h a d summoned forty-six gods to take up their communal abode in a new shrine (at which, however, there was no outward sign-posting of their presence). 62

Such ceremonies are described in chapter 13, "Occasional Protective R i t e s , " of my book, The

Rural Communities of Hong Kong: Studies and Themes (Hong K o n g : O x f o r d University Press, 1983). Great importance is attached to them by village communities. Other common forms of communal action were the processions to drive a w a y pests or disease from the fields and those connected with the rain-making ceremony in time of drought. Specialists and lay people joined in the action. In a letter dated J u l y 7, 1 8 7 7 , the English missionary D a v i d Hill described a rain-making procession at K u a n g - c h i , Hupeh: " T h e people have been praying for rain. From neighbouring temples they form processions carrying a great unsightly idol in their midst, with one or two men carrying burning incense and a priest screaming forth some incantation. T h o s e forming the procession are farmers chiefly; each carries a long bamboo branch in his hand, to which is attached a triangular sheet of paper with their prayer written on it. This consists in almost every case o f f o u r characters: ' S a v e the lives of the people, Quickly let rain d e s c e n d . ' " Barber, David p. 140.

Hill,

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subverted good order and discipline in any w a y . 6 3 This could apply to geomancers and fortune tellers and diviners just as much as to writers of charms. Divination and Fortune Telling Divination and fortune telling are other fields of activity for specialists of this group. This is because of the traditional belief that the human being's fate is linked to cosmological influences, and that human life and activities are dominated by them. Stewart states that divination had its origin in the Book of Changes, and describes the various accessories, both ancient and modern, needed for it. He adds that the ancient plan of divination forms the seventh division of another of China's oldest classics, the Book of Documents. He also condemns the whole, commenting that " t h e use of stalks and the tortoise shell and the choosing of lucky days thus sanctioned, has paved the w a y for various superstitions, magic and astrology." 6 4 Stewart fails to mention either the superior origin and status of the early practitioners, 6 5 or to accept how widespread and compelling these practices have been ever since the earliest times. However, he differentiates usefully between recourse to specialists for divination and the means whereby individuals can secure advice in the temples, it being the usual practice for written "fortunes" to be made available there in conjunction with the divining blocks (kaau pooi or shing pool) or use of the b a m b o o cylinder and its slips (k'au ch'im).66 A l l classes in traditional Chinese society required assistance from specialists in fortune telling and divination. These services were always sought in connec63

For s o m e o f the legal provisions see S t a u n t o n , Ta TsingLeu

Lee (cited n. 14), p p . 175, 179, 2 7 3 ,

3 1 0 , a n d 5 4 8 - 5 4 9 . See also D e r k B o d d e a n d C l a r e n c e M o r r i s , Law in Imperial China Exemplified by 190 Ch'ing Dynasty Cases Translated from the Hsing-an hui-lan ( P h i l a d e l p h i a : U n i v e r s i t y o f P e n n s y l v a n i a Press, 1967), pp. 2 7 2 - 2 7 3 , 2 8 8 - 2 9 0 . T h e existence o f d o u b l e s t a n d a r d s in these m a t t e r s is d e m onstrated b y the differences b e t w e e n p u b l i c a n d official attitudes o n the one h a n d a n d a c t u a l p r a c t i c e on the o t h e r , for almost e v e r y o n e , no m a t t e r w h a t his social s t a n d i n g , a v a i l e d h i m s e l f o f the services o f the three m a i n types o f e x p e r t m e n t i o n e d . (See P a r k e r , John Chinaman [cited n. 10], p. 284; a n d j . O . P. B l a n d a n d E. B a c k h o u s e , China under the Empress Dowager [ P e k i n g : H e n r i V e t c h , 1939], pp. 1 1 9 - 1 2 0 ,

123, for t h e e x a m p l e o f the C e n s o r W u K ' o - t u in 1878.) W e should

perhaps

look for a d i v i d i n g line b e t w e e n those w h o s e expertise w a s g r o u n d e d in s t u d y , a n d those at a m u c h l o w e r level o f e d u c a t i o n w h o w e r e considered to be d e l u d i n g a n d c h e a t i n g the masses. O t h e r w i s e , it is h a r d to e x p l a i n the existence o f the i m p e r i a l l y a p p o i n t e d experts w h o c o m p i l e d the official a l m a n a c , a n d the strictures against others, such as those w h o p r e p a r e d the unofficial but w i d e l y c i r c u l a t e d a l m a n a c s to be f o u n d in the provinces. 64Stewart, 65

Chinese Culture (cited n. 58), pp. 1 2 3 - 1 2 9 , 218.

See, e.g., J a c q u e s G e r n e t , Ancient China from the Beginnings to the Empire ( L o n d o n : F a b e r a n d

F a b e r , 1968), pp. 65, 1 1 5 . 66

S t e w a r t , p. 128. I h a v e used C a n t o n e s e r o m a n i z a t i o n for the d i v i n i n g blocks a n d b a m b o o

c y l i n d e r used in H o n g K o n g , since S t e w a r t calls the first " K w a " (Kua) and does not g i v e a term for the other. A most interesting translation o f fortune-telling slips for use in M a n M o (VVen-wu) temples has j u s t been p u b l i s h e d in H o n g K o n g . See S. T . C h e u n g , Fortune Stick Predictions Man Mo Temple ( H o n g K o n g : T u n g W a h G r o u p o f Hospitals, 1981) t a k e n from a traditional work. M y t e a c h e r a n d friend, F r a n c i s S. Y . S h a m , has c o m p i l e d a similar w o r k for K u a n Y i n temples, w h i c h w a s also published b y the T u n g W a h G r o u p of H o s p i t a l s , 1983.

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tion with marriage, as it was a requirement that the horoscopes of a prospective couple be ascertained and exchanged through the go-betweens handling the negotiations. In ordinary families, the red cloth (meng Isz p'o) listing the names of family members and their astrological details was, as stated earlier, considered essential, since it provided the basic facts with which to cast horoscopes and thereby gauge the suitability of the marriage partners. In another widespread usage, fortune telling was used to determine the cosmological reasons for sickness and ill-health in order to effect cures. 6 7 T h e arts of divination were also utilized to decide w h o ought not to be present at ceremonies to pacify spirits, or at marriages, capping ceremonies, and other rituals. It was the usual practice to advise persons of specified ages whose horoscopes were for various reasons unsuited to the occasion to keep a w a y from such events, for fear of bringing harm to themselves and of nullifying the effectiveness of the ritual. 6 8 In short, timing was everything in life's pursuits, and even in death's domain. A l l the many activities for which a lucky start and auspicious stages were desired required prior divination, so there was plenty of work for these people. 6 9 T h u s the related documents, where they can be found, serve to emphasize the importance laid upon fortune telling and indicate the huge size of the clientele for specialists of this group. W e find that m a n y of the practitioners of fortune telling and divination came from the respectable classes. Like the geomancers, many appear to have been scholars w h o dabbled in such matters in their leisure time, practicing them within their families or circle of personal relationships, producing manuscripts, and publising new books or commentaries on old works. T h e profusion of books on these subjects, each of which has had a long history and a great following, may perhaps be explained in this way. Respectability is further evidenced by 6 1 See Edward H. Hume, Doctors East Doctors West: An American Physician's Life in China (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1949), p. 77. 6 8 In In the Valley of the Yangtze, Mrs. Arnold Foster writes, " T h e y sometimes say that a certain animal is to be feared [caused by the presence of unsuitable or hostile influences] or avoided at the time ofsome wedding or funeral. This means that those born under that animal are not to be present at it" (p. 68). This advice is, to my knowledge, still followed in arrangements made for the periodic protective rites held in various communities, or those held for specific reasons on irregular occasions. See, generally, Theodora Lau, The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes (New York: Harper & Row, 1979). 6 9 A tablet inside the T'ien Hou temple in Sai K u n g Market, New Territories of Hong K o n g , records its reconstruction in 1916. " T h e T'ien Hou temple is situated in the direction of south-east. T h e demolition of the main building began on the 15th day of the fourth moon of the fifth year ofthe Republic of China (1916) at 6 : 1 5 P.M. auspicious time. The scaffolding was erected on the 18th day o f t h e fourth moon at 6 P.M. auspicious time. T h e main beam o f t h e main building was placed in position on the 25 th day ofthe fourth moon at 8:20 A.M. auspicious t i m e . . . . T h e divine image ofthe God of Earth (T'u Ti) was placed in position on the 30th day o f t h e seventh moon at 1 0 : 1 5 A.M. auspicious time. T h e rededication ceremony was performed on the 16 th day of the eighth moon at 2 : 1 5 A.M. auspicious time."

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i n c l u s i o n in, for e x a m p l e , K ' a n g H s i ' s Imperial Encyclopaedia t'u-shu chi-ch'eng),

(Ch'in-ting

ku-chin

w h i c h c o v e r s these t o p i c s o n t h e s e c t i o n o n arts, o c c u p a t i o n s ,

a n d professions ( X V I I ) , a n d p r o v i d e s b i o g r a p h i e s o f f a m o u s p r a c t i t i o n e r s . 7 0 I n the case o f the d i v i n e r s a n d f o r t u n e tellers, I a m n o t , o f c o u r s e , s u g g e s t i n g t h a t all w e r e o f t h e s a m e s o c i a l l e v e l , b u t , since t h e i r p r a c t i c e w a s a l i t e r a t e o n e , f o r w h i c h a basic k n o w l e d g e o f C h i n e s e s y s t e m s o f a s t r o l o g y a n d c o s m o l o g y w a s r e q u i r e d , it w a s l i k e l y to h a v e a n e n h a n c e d s t a t u s , e s p e c i a l l y in the e y e s o f ordinary folks.71 Specialists Dealing with 'Social Rites and Protocol I t u r n n o w to the s e c o n d m a i n g r o u p , t h e v i l l a g e specialists p e r f o r m i n g services c o n n e c t e d w i t h s o c i a l rites a n d p r o t o c o l . T h e s e i n c l u d e d t h e c e r e m o n i e s c o n n e c t e d w i t h all t h e e v e n t s o f the f a m i l y a n d t h e i n d i v i d u a l ' s life c y c l e , i n c l u d i n g t h e a n c e s t r a l rites. T h e y also t o o k in t h e c o m m u n i t y rites u n d e r t a k e n b y l e a d e r s in t h e l o c a l t e m p l e s f o r t h e b e n e f i t o f all r e s i d e n t s a n d for d e p a r t e d v i l l a g e heroes. T h e r e w a s a g r e a t d e m a n d f o r g u i d a n c e a n d i n s t r u c t i o n in c e r e m o n i a l m a t t e r s f r o m all classes. T h e C h i n e s e a t t a c h e d e x t r e m e i m p o r t a n c e to p r o p r i e t y a n d h e n c e to the f o r m u l a s r e l a t i n g to s u c h m a t t e r s . A L o n d o n

Missionary

S o c i e t y w o r k e r w r o t e , in 1908, It is indeed true that a very great deal of time and trouble is taken to make the scholars familiar with the laws of propriety. Every schoolboy seems to know how to conduct himself on all occasions. T o see them saluting guests in their homes, or 70Lionel

Giles, An Alphabetical Index to the Chinese Encyclopaedia Ch'in Ting Ku Chin T'u Shu Chi

Ch'eng ( L o n d o n : British M u s e u m , 1 9 1 1 ) u n d e r the a p p r o p r i a t e heads. A letter-writing c o m p i l a t i o n published in 1895 but p r o b a b l y c o n s i d e r a b l y o l d e r , b e i n g described as Tseng-hsin a u g m e n t e d with detailed c o m m e n t a r y — i n c l u d e s

hsiang-chu—newly

medicine, astrology, divination,

geomancy,

p h y s i o g n o m y , w r i t i n g , art, a n d p r i n t i n g in chiian 4, chi-i lei ( a c c o m p l i s h e d arts). T h e book opens w i t h a list o f t h e o c c u p a t i o n s e n c o m p a s s e d in its title: (Tseng-hsin hsiang-chu) San-pai liu-shih hang ch'ihtu

S i l t j H l i 7 s + i f R I S ? . A useful r e m i n d e r that these professions or practices could be

c o m b i n e d is given in C . C a m p b e l l B r o w n , A Chinese St. Francis or The Life of Brother Mao ( L o n d o n : H o d d e r a n d S t o u g h t o n , 1 9 1 1 ) , p. 199, w h i c h deals w i t h F u k i e n p r o v i n c e in the late nineteenth c e n t u r y . T h e father of o n e c o n v e r t w a s " g c o m a n c c r , d o c t o r , idol m e d i u m a n d fortune-teller" in one. 71

See H o l m e s W e l c h ' s c o m m e n t o n a fortune teller at the L i n g Y i n Ssu in H a n g c h o w in 1948.

S e a t e d at a table w i t h his v a r i o u s aids a r o u n d h i m , he seemed " a m a n o f e d u c a t i o n and v a r i e d talent. D i v i n a t i o n c o u l d be a respected profession in C h i n a " ( c a p t i o n o f o n e o f t h e p h o t o g r a p h s b e t w e e n p. 131 and p. 132 o f The Buddhist Revival in China [ C a m b r i d g e , Mass.: H a r v a r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1968]). It w o u l d be interesting to k n o w if Professor S k i n n e r ' s t h e o r y o f t h e e x p o r t of specialized h u m a n talent as a m a x i m i z a t i o n strategy p u r s u e d b y territorial based social systems in late I m p e r i a l C h i n a " c a n b e a p p l i e d a t the m i c r o (or local) level w i t h the v a r i o u s specialists described here. M o r e research is n e e d e d , especially o n the g e o m a n c e r s . S e e G . W i l l i a m S k i n n e r , " M o b i l i t y Strategies in L a t e I m p e r i a l C h i n a : A R e g i o n a l S y s t e m s A n a l y s i s , " in Regional Analysis, ed. C a r o l A . S m i t h ( N e w Y o r k : A c a d e m i c Press, 1 9 7 6 ) , pp. 3 2 7 - 3 6 4 .

WRITTEN MATERIALS IN THE VILLAGE WORLD

IOI

engaging in any of the many social duties at such times as the New Year Festival, gives one the impression . . . that a well-bred lad just knows exactly what to do and exactly when to do it. 7 2 S u c h instances could be m u l t i p l i e d endlessly, a n d they h e l p to e x p l a i n the w e a l t h of p u b l i s h e d h a n d b o o k s o n letter styles a n d forms of address for all occasions, a n d the wide r a n g e of couplets a v a i l a b l e , the highest c o n c e n t r a t i o n b e i n g for use in c o n n e c t i o n w i t h births, m a r r i a g e s , a n d d e a t h s . It is significant, however, t h a t the c o m p i l e r s of letter f o r m s a n d correct address could claim t h a t these were as m u c h n e e d e d b y scholars as b y u n l e t t e r e d people. W i t h o u t this book, one states in the p r e f a c e , " e v e n scholars w o u l d not k n o w w h e r e to t u r n for a d v i c e " ; a n d in a n o t h e r t h e writer a d d s t h a t they " d o n o t necessarily k n o w the details of all c e r e m o n i e s . " 7 3 Is this fact, o n e w o n d e r s , or defensive sales talk? C e r t a i n l y the w h o l e g r o u p of teachers, letter writers, a n d o t h e r g u a r d i a n s of social e t i q u e t t e were in universal d e m a n d . E l d e r l y village i n f o r m a n t s f r o m T s u e n W a n state t h a t social c e r e m o n i a l w a s closely observed by r u r a l p e o p l e in the p r e w a r period. As o n e of t h e m p u t it, " t h e correct f o r m s of address (ch'ing foo; in M a n d a r i n , ch'eng hu) were t a k e n v e r y seriously, a n d t h e divisions b e t w e e n generations a n d g r a d e s of r e l a t i o n s h i p w e r e very clearly k n o w n a n d reflected in both spoken a n d w r i t t e n a d d r e s s . " O n e a d d e d t h a t , in his village, persons invited to b o t h " r e d " a n d " w h i t e " occasions w o u l d get c a r d s delivered b y h a n d . T h i s rule a p p l i e d irrespective of w h e t h e r they lived in or n e a r the village or in o t h e r settlements. Needless to say, s t a t e m e n t s v a r y , b u t o n the w h o l e b o t h the w r i t t e n a n d verbal e v i d e n c e p o i n t to a h i g h d e g r e e of c e r e m o n i a l in even the smaller, n e w e r settlements. O n e i m p o r t a n t p o i n t m u s t be m a d e in passing. M y i n f o r m a n t s stress t h a t w h e r e h e l p was given w i t h w r i t i n g letters a n d c a r d s it w a s usually free of charge, since most t r a n s a c t i o n s w e r e said to h a v e been c o n d u c t e d on the basis of m u t u a l reciprocity a n d t h e i n c u l c a t i o n of the k e e n sense of obligations d u e a n d favors o w e d t h a t lived in every villager's h e a d . Besides the family use s t a t e d a b o v e , t h e h a n d b o o k s used by the specialists c a n also tell us m u c h a b o u t the i d e n t i t y a n d social ties of a p a r t i c u l a r village or subdistrict, thus f u r t h e r i n g o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of local society in C h ' i n g times. T h e local p r o d u c t i o n s usually i n c l u d e m a t e r i a l o n c o m m u n i t y rites t h a t indicate factors m a k i n g for g r o u p cohesion. T h e y p r o v i d e the text of p r a y e r s to be said at local temples a n d give couplets s u i t a b l e for use in p a r t i c u l a r temples. O n e of the T s u e n W a n h a n d b o o k s gives t h e p r a y e r s to be said a t the twiceyearly w o r s h i p by l e a d i n g elders a t t h e T ' i e n H o u t e m p l e for persons killed in 72 Rev. Bernard Upward, The Sons of Han, Stories of Chinese Life and Mission Work (London: London Missionary Society, 1908), pp. 4 2 - 4 3 . 73

T h e first is from a manuscript compilation Chi-li lu fa ¡¡¡§11:, subtitled Chia-ch'u pien-lan ciE5i> apparently from Canton and dated kuei-hai year (1923). T h e second is from a work printed in Canton, Hsin-ting t'ieh-shih chien-yao Jfj fTlftii^fiSi?> revised edition 1920.

102

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armed clashes with n e i g h b o r i n g villages in the 1860s. 7 4 A n d , as if to show t h a t both the fighting a n d the worship were c o m m o n occurrences, another from a n adjoining district lists similar prayers w i t h o u t m e n t i o n i n g a t e m p l e . 7 5 W h o w e r e the persons w h o o w n e d the h a n d b o o k s a n d k n e w the w r i t t e n formulas that guided village practice in social events a n d c o m m u n i t y affairs? A c c o r d i n g to informants, in some settlements it was the village schoolmaster, a n d in other places it w a s a villager with intellectual curiosity a n d ability a b o v e the norm. S o m e local e x a m p l e s m a y serve to illustrate e a c h type o f person. In the H o n g K o n g region in late C h ' i n g , schoolmasters c o u l d be local or c o u l d c o m e from outside. M a n y were from the same village or belonged to o t h e r villages in the hsiang. T h e local ones were more likely to be effective transmitters a n d helpers in social requirements than the outsiders because of their strong connection w i t h other local families through m a r r i a g e a n d p e r m a n e n t settlement. S o m e were merely teachers, but others held m a n a g e r i a l posts in their lineages, villages, or hsiangs. T h e other type of transmitter was the c a p a b l e villager w h o was not a teacher. T h e o w n e r of one of the T s u e n W a n h a n d b o o k s is a sixty-four-year-old villager of S h e u n g K w a i C h u n g . 7 6 H e belongs to a small lineage that has settled in this a n d several other villages o f the T s u e n W a n subdistrict in the last 300 years. A respectable m a n w h o was e d u c a t e d at the local village school but received no higher e d u c a t i o n , he lives in a house little different from others in the village, and has no m o r e p r o p e r t y than the o t h e r l a n d - o w n i n g families, but he is the kind of m a n w h o takes on c o m m u n i t y chores a n d is looked u p to as a leader. His father, from w h o m the h a n d b o o k descended, was a similar kind o f m a n , a n d an uncle was a t e a c h e r . 7 7

Knowledgeable

informants report that it was the superior villager o f this type w h o linked the teachers a n d specialists of the senior generations with c o n t e m p o r a r y villagers. People in this role were, in truth, themselves specialists t h r o u g h their e d u c a t i o n 74These

h a n d b o o k s h a v e n o p a g e n u m b e r i n g . T h e y are in the process o f b e i n g p r e p a r e d for

library storage a n d use. T h i s p a r t i c u l a r b o o k c a m e from a m e m b e r o f the T s a n g l i n e a g e o f S h e u n g Kwai Chung

(Gazetteer of Place Names, JHKBRAS 1 7 : 1 8 5 - 1 8 6

Village W a r , " 75

150). T h e v i l l a g e w a r in q u e s t i o n is described in m y note, " A (1977).

T h i s h a n d b o o k c a m e f r o m the C h e u n g lineage presently o f T a i U k VVai, T s u e n W a n , b u t

before its r e m o v a l for a reservoir in 1956 resident at K w a n U k T e i n e a r T a i L a m C h u n g (Gazetteer, p. 156). 76

See note 74.

7 7

M y i n f o r m a n t ' s g r e a t u n c l e , T s a n g K w o n g - y u k (tzu L o n g - u e ) ( 1 8 5 1 - 1 9 3 3 ) , is also w o r t h

m e n t i o n i n g . H e c a m e f r o m a tiny ofTshoot o f the m a i n ( S h e u n g K w a i C h u n g ) v i l l a g e , c a l l e d Y a u M a Horn, w h e r e his g r a n d f a t h e r h a d settled in the C h i a - c h ' i n g p e r i o d . H e possessed a s u p e r i o r house a n d , as is u s u a l l y the case w i t h persons o f ability, w a s the m a n a g e r o f s o m e l i n e a g e trusts. H e h a d outside e m p l o y m e n t as a clerk in thtyamen o f K o w l o o n C i t y D e p u t y S u b m a g i s t r a c y and the t w o positions c o m b i n e d to g i v e him a high local status. It is f a s c i n a t i n g that w h e n the family's ancestral hall w a s recently rebuilt, the d e c o r a t i o n i n c l u d e d historical representations o f all f a m o u s m e m b e r s o f the a n c i e n t W u - c h ' e n g T s e n g l i n e a g e , b e g i n n i n g w i t h T s e n g T s ' a n (B.C. 5 0 5 - 4 3 6 ) , w h o was a l e a d i n g disciple o f C o n f u c i u s a n d i n c l u d i n g T s e n g K u o - f a n ( 1 8 1 1 - 1 8 7 2 ) a n d e n d i n g w i t h this m a n !

W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S IN T H E V I L L A G E W O R L D

103

a n d c o m m u n i t y service, f o r m i n g part o f w h a t C . K . Y a n g , as late as the e n d o f the 1940s, described as the " s m a l l p e r c e n t a g e o f l i t e r a t e s " t h a t " s e r v e d a d e q u a t e l y . . . [the] t r a d i t i o n a l literacy n e e d s " o f the v i l l a g e p o p u l a t i o n . 7 8 W h a t is less c l e a r is w h o p e r f o r m e d the rites a n d p r a y e r s listed in the h a n d b o o k s o w n e d b y such persons. T h e most I h a v e been a b l e to g l e a n f r o m T s u e n W a n p e o p l e is that some of the s c h o o l m a s t e r s o f their a c q u a i n t a n c e a n d c e r t a i n respected v i l l a g e elders w o u l d a t t e n d at w e d d i n g s , funerals, a n d o t h e r occasions w h e n the s a y i n g o f prayers a n d the m a k i n g o f offerings r e q u i r e d the presence o f masters o f c e r e m o n y . G e n e r a l l y , these p e o p l e w o u l d c o m e f r o m the v i l l a g e c o m m u n i t y , b u t if there w a s n o o n e a v a i l a b l e , a n e x p e r t w a s c a l l e d f r o m a n o t h e r v i l l a g e or f r o m outside. T h i s h a p p e n s m o r e often n o w a d a y s in T s u e n W a n than before, usually w h e n villages h a v e r e o p e n e d their resited or r e b u i l t ancestral h a l l s . 7 9 WRITTEN MATERIALS PROVIDING THE C U L T U R A L A N D S O C I A L C O N T E X T T O D A I L Y LIFE A l o n g s i d e the v a r i e d c o r p u s o f w r i t t e n m a t e r i a l s there existed in both t o w n a n d c o u n t r y a n e q u a l l y extensive b o d y o f a n c i l l a r y w r i t i n g w h o s e i m p o r t a n c e for villagers, citizens, a n d researchers a l i k e lies in the fact t h a t it c r e a t e d the c u l t u r a l e n v i r o n m e n t in w h i c h C h i n e s e lived. I t is fair to say t h a t the w r i t t e n c h a r a c t e r w a s all a r o u n d t h e m . W e m a y c a t e g o r i z e these w r i t i n g s as b e i n g o f a p e r m a n e n t , s e m i p e r m a n e n t , or e p h e m e r a l n a t u r e . T h e r e w e r e the shop signs and those written m a t e r i a l s that f o r m e d p a r t o f the m o r e or less p e r m a n e n t structure o r d e c o r a t i o n o f p u b l i c a n d p r i v a t e buildings. T h e s e m i p e r m a n e n t g e n r e i n c l u d e d the scrolls a n d couplets w r i t t e n o n p e r i s h a b l e m a t e r i a l s t h a t I h a v e a l r e a d y t o u c h e d u p o n briefly. T h e last g r o u p c o m p r i s e d notices, bills, public a c c o u n t s , a n d so o n , posted o n w a l l s a n d o t h e r e x t e r n a l parts o f b u i l d ings, the true ephemera, t o g e t h e r with those to be f o u n d inside o r d i n a r y p e o p l e ' s homes. I shall consider the p e r m a n e n t stock first, before t u r n i n g to the ephemera. T h e C h i n e s e w r i t t e n l a n g u a g e w a s a f e a t u r e o f the i n t e r n a l a n d e x t e r n a l d e c o r a t i o n o f p r a c t i c a l l y all institutional b u i l d i n g s a n d s u p e r i o r

dwelling

houses. In the H o n g K o n g region, such inscriptions a n d d e c o r a t i v e m a t e r i a l s are a m a j o r p a r t o f v i l l a g e life even t o d a y . I f o n e looks at a n y o f the s u r v i v i n g older a n d l a r g e r b u i l d i n g s of the types m e n t i o n e d , there are a l w a y s c o u p l e t s p a i n t e d on, or cut into, the pillars. M o s t local temples h a v e c o u p l e t s chiseled o n granite pillars or inscribed on v e r t i c a l w o o d e n posts. C o u p l e t s a n d inscriptions 78

C. K . Y a n g , Chinese Communist Society: The Family and the Village, paperback ed. (Cambridge,

Mass.: M I T Press, 1965), p. 182. Most village teachers' salaries were the bare minimum. J . Campbell Gibson notes that in the C h i u C h a u (Ch'ao-chou) area of northeast K w a n g t u n g , teachers supplemented their incomes by writing letters, telling fortunes, providing the calligraphy on hanging scrolls, and even preparing documents for lawsuits. See Gibson, Mission Problems and Mission Methods in South China (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1902), pp. 1 3 2 - 1 3 3 . 19

T w o brief accounts of the reopening of ancestral halls in Tsuen W a n District are given in

appendix 2, " M o v i n g Ancestors," of my Rural Communities of Hong Kong (cited n. 62).

JAMES

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can also b e f o u n d o n o t h e r l a r g e religious b u i l d i n g s , a n d o f t e n on the e n t r a n c e g a t e w a y s a n d pavilions inside their g r o u n d s . 8 0 E v e n street a n d v i l l a g e shrines h a v e them in a b u n d a n c e . I n all save the last the inscriptions a r e c o m p l e m e n t e d by the inscribed presentation b o a r d s to be f o u n d h a n g i n g inside the structures. T h e r e w a s , too, a n i m p o r t a n t , because e x t e n s i v e , stock of written d e c o r a t i o n to be f o u n d on the walls of ancestral halls, schools, temples, a n d also on the better houses. A s stated a b o v e , this f o r m mostly c o m p r i s e d verses f r o m T ' a n g p o e t r y . A l s o in this c a t e g o r y a r e the m a n y d e c o r a t i v e e x a m p l e s of C h i n e s e art symbols used in the decoration of houses, w i t h their direct link to specific written c h a r a c t e r s a n d auspicious m e a n i n g s . 8 1 Besides the buildings themselves, in e v e r y town a n d m a r k e t of a n y size p r a c t i c a l l y every shop h a d its p a i n t e d s i g n b o a r d a n d its inscribed lantern. J a m e s Scott's a n i m a t e d description of C h o l o n (Saigon) in the 1880s, " t o all intents a n d purposes, C h i n e s e , " can serve as a n indication of w h a t w a s to be seen in e v e r y town in C h i n a : the frontage, with the narrow, deep houses, the huge red and black and yellow lanterns, the gay swinging signboards, are all suggestive of the Middle Kingdom. Cornchandler, restaurant-keeper, greengrocer, apothecary, tailor, shoemaker, gold and silversmith, iron monger, furniture dealer, pastrycook—everyone has his name over the door in letters of gold, and pendent signboards painted red, blue, gold, or black, according to taste, recommending his wares; by day, the clerks sitting naked to the waist languidly fanning themselves; by night, the place brilliantly lighted up with lanterns of all sizes and colours, setting forth the Hong name, and the goods to be sold. 8 2 C e r t a i n l y this is all v e r y reminiscent of S o u t h C h i n a a n d old H o n g K o n g . I turn n o w to the ephemera. T o the a r r a y of d e c o r a t i o n on buildings a n d the m u l t i f a r i o u s shop signs must be a d d e d the p l a c a r d s a n d notices plentifully plastered on buildings. Notices of a c c o m m o d a t i o n to sell or rent vied with advertisements for efficacious pills a n d the services of bone setters a n d herbal doctors. Notices a b o u t the f o r t h c o m i n g c e l e b r a t i o n of religious services or p e r f o r m a n c e s of v a r i o u s kinds of o p e r a w e r e a b u n d a n t , together w i t h the statements a b o u t subscriptions a n d e x p e n d i t u r e s posted in p u b l i c v i e w for all to see. 80

S o m e examples of this type of permanent decoration in H o n g K o n g can be found in T . C. L a i ,

Chinese Couplets, 2 n d e d . (Hong K o n g : University Book Store, 1970), pp. 7, 1 7 , 28, 37,40,54,passim. M a n y others are to be found in the close-ups of buildings photographed in Ernst Boerschmann's Picturesque China, Architecture and Landscape (London: T . Fisher U n w i n , c. 1920). 81

See the supplement of 160 "Chinese Art S y m b o l s " by Francess Hawley Seyssel in W. M .

Hawley, Chinese Folk Designs (reprint ed. N e w Y o r k : Dover, 1 9 7 1 ) . M a n y of those listed appear on the older houses and in household and personal items in the H o n g K o n g region. C . A . S. Williams, Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives, 3rd rev. ed. ( 1 9 4 1 ; reprint ed. New Y o r k : Dover, 1976), contains useful summaries of information bearing on this subject. See also Schuyler C a m m a n n , " T y p e s of Symbols in Chinese A r t , " in Studies in Chinese Thought, ed. A r t h u r F. Wright (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1 9 5 3 ) , pp. 1 9 5 - 2 3 1 . 82

J a m e s George Scott, France and Tonking, A Narrative of the Campaign of 1884 and the Occupation of

Further India (London: T . Fisher U n w i n , 1885), pp. 3 1 9 - 3 2 0 .

W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S IN T H E V I L L A G E

WORLD

105

In the t o w n s — I have no information about the villages—the district government added its contribution to the visual accumulation of the written character. It was usual, writes Wells Williams, for the commands of government to be printed in large characters, chopped with an official seal and exhibited in public places, 83 while important legal settlements or pronouncements were carved on stone tablets and put in prominent places or inside well-used public buildings for the people to see and read. It was also official practice for persons convicted of petty offences to sit in the c a n g u e — a heavy wooden board worn across the shoulders and with an aperture for the h e a d — w i t h their name, age, place of residence, offence and sentence pasted on the frame for all to see. 84 Persons sentenced as part of their punishment to parade through the streets also bore placards to the same end, a practice apparently followed by the people's own local apparatus of punishment in the villages. 8 5 Hardy illustrates another, more severe form of public exposure, with men strung up in wooden frames, again, it appears, accompanied by the cataloging of offences. 86 O n e cannot leave this subject without mentioning the placards used to excite popular feeling, especially in towns and cities where the population was dense, against officials, missionaries, foreigners in general, and so on, in war and peace. Wakeman gives examples in his account of K w a n g t u n g in the mid-nineteenth century, as does Archdeacon Moule, describing the contents of a placard directed against him in Chuki (Tz'u-ch'i), near Hangchow: " T h e valiant inhabitants of Chuki, whose stubborn resistance to the T ' a i p ' i n g marauders is bruited throughout the world, will never allow this foreign barbarian intruder (the Missionary Mo) to obtain a foothold in their c i t y . " 8 7 Besides the ephemera to be seen in the streets, there were those to be found in the homes. T h e people's liking for art is mentioned by K u l p who, in his account of a village in northeastern K w a n g t u n g , refers to "the ubiquitous evidences of art appreciation" and gives a chapter to the subject. 8 8 This was, and is, especially noticeable at the New Year. Brush-written couplets for doorways and lintels, together with New Y e a r pictures, are then much in evidence, and can be seen in the streets of towns and market centers before the event. T h e pictures (nien-hua) are of all kinds; they include subjects such as historical tales from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin, representations of longevity and 8 3 Wells 84

Williams, The Middle Kingdom, vol. I, p. 469.

Ibid., vol. I, p. 509. T h e cangue is described by E. Bard, Les Chinois chez Eux (Paris: Librairie

Armand Colin, 1904), p. 179. See also Charles C o m m e a u x , La Vie Quotidienne en Chine sous Les Mandchous (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1970), p. 165 and the note at p. 250; T . L. Bullock, Progressive Exercises in the Chinese Written Language, 3rd ed., rev. by H. A . Giles (Shanghai: K e l l y and Walsh, 1923), which, contrary to Bard, states that the cangue was usually taken off at night. 85

Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom, vol. I, p. 5 1 1 ; Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, p. 146.

86

Hardy, John Chinaman (cited n. 26), p. 232.

87

Archdeacon Moule, New China and Old, Personal Recollections of Thirty Tears (London: Seeley,

1891), p. 150; Frederic W a k e m a n , Jr., Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966). 88Kulp,

Country Life (cited n. 18), chap. I X .

18^-1861

JAMES

io6

HAYES

m a l e c h i l d r e n , a n d o t h e r t r a d i t i o n a l a r t m o t i v e s , a s w e l l as ( n o w a d a y s ) m o d e r n Western art a n d pictorial broadsheets. T h e representations o f m a l e children are a perennially p o p u l a r s u b j e c t a n d , as a People's R e p u b l i c c a t a l o g u e of w o o d b l o c k p i c t u r e s d a t e d 1 9 5 6 h a s it, " r e f l e c t t h e h o p e s o f t h e p e o p l e f o r a n a b u n d a n c e o f p o s t e r i t y a n d a h a p p y l i f e . " T h e i r m a i n p u r p o s e is to h e l p c r e a t e t h a t b a c k g r o u n d a t m o s p h e r e o f j o y f u l e a s e a n d c o m f o r t a b l e f e e l i n g s t h a t m e a n s so m u c h to C h i n e s e p e o p l e o f all d e g r e e s o f e d u c a t i o n , e s p e c i a l l y o n h a p p y f a m i l y occasions a n d at m a j o r festival times.89 I n this g e n e r a l c o n n e c t i o n , o n e m u s t t a k e i n t o a c c o u n t t h e h i g h l y d e v e l o p e d sense o f the i m p o r t a n c e o f the w r i t t e n w o r d . A s L y a l l , w i t h his f o r t y - t w o y e a r s ' s e r v i c e in C h i n a , w r o t e , " T h o u g h f e w C h i n e s e c a n r e a d , t h e y h a v e t h e h i g h e s t r e g a r d f o r l e a r n i n g . " 9 0 W e k n o w t h a t this e x t e n d e d to c h a r a c t e r s a n d t h e p a p e r o n w h i c h t h e y w e r e w r i t t e n , for t h e r e w e r e countless societies d e d i c a t e d

to

retrieving d i s c a r d e d s c r a p s of written p a p e r for b u r n i n g a n d reverential disp o s a l . I n t h e 1 8 6 0 s , D o o l i t t l e d e s c r i b e d this r e v e r e n c e f o r w r i t t e n m a t e r i a l s a s " a n a t i o n a l c h a r a c t e r i s t i c , " 9 1 a n d E v e l y n R a w s k i h a s n o t e d t h a t it e x t e n d e d d e e p into the religious system, w h i c h " u s e d written materials at the h u m b l e s t levels."

9 2

E v e n t o d a y in o l d v i l l a g e s w r i t t e n strips o f p a p e r s e e k i n g after g o o d

f o r t u n e a r e to b e f o u n d p o s t e d o n h o u s e s a n d f a r m b u i l d i n g s , o n

agricultural

tools, o n trees a n d s h r i n e s a n d o n a n d i n s i d e t h e h o u s e s . 89

T h i s prevailing sentiment comes across strongly in the contents of the fortnightly magazine

Hsiang T'u

which contains a rich store of both general and local material on festivals, folklore,

and customs, with special reference to northeastern K w a n g t u n g and occasionally Fukien. (It was published in H o n g K o n g by the Hsin-ti ch'u-pan she from J a n u a r y 1957 for an as yet unknown length of time.) T h e feeling can also be glimpsed in the m a n y interesting and varied short contributions on the cultural background in the monthly issues of China Reconstructs. 90

L . A . L y a l l , China (The M o d e r n World Series) (London: Ernest Benn, 1944), p. 96.

91

R e v . Justus Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, with some Account of their Religions, Government,

Educational, and Business Customs and Opinions, With Special but not Exclusive Reference to Fuchau (New York: H a r p e r Brothers, 1865), vol. 2, pp. 1 6 7 - 1 7 0 . See Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, pp. 96, 2 3 3 , n. 44; R e v . H. J . Stevens, Cantonese Apothegms Classified, Translated and Commented Upon (Canton: E-shing, 1902), pp. 9 - 1 0 , 3 0 - 3 1 . 92

R a w s k i , Education, p. 142. Auspicious couplets and red papers such as those pasted up at the

lunar N e w Y e a r were, as J o h n s t o n records for Wei H a i Wei, " r e g a r d e d by the common people (who can rarely read them) as equivalent to powerful c h a r m s . " See R . F . J o h n s t o n , Lion and Dragon, p. 194. This attitude extended towards the a l m a n a c itself, of which K u l p , in Country Life in South China (cited n. 18), has this to say: " W h e n people cannot read the instructions and advice, they simply select those days under which most of the text occurs, for they consider the large sections or the sections printed in red ink as particularly felicitous for important occasions" (p. 186). Precisely the same thing was said to me this year (1980) by elders of a village in the Tsuen W a n subdistrict, in the course of discussing the extent to which people bought and used the almanac up to twenty years ago. M r s . Arnold Foster states, in In the Valley of the Yangtse (cited n. 26), that " s o m e of the Chinese classics are supposed to keep a w a y evil spirits if you put them under your pillow at night . . . " (p. 98). This talismanic usage was extended to superseded paper currency. " T h o s e who are building, fasten one of these notes to the main b e a m of the house, from a conviction that this species of talisman will preserve their families from every kind of misfortune" (Bertin a n d Breton, China, vol. I I , p. 105).

W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S IN T H E V I L L A G E W O R L D

Entertainers as Cultural Specialists This section would not be complete without a brief mention of entertainers. Though not operating directly through the medium of the written character, they were another group of specialists who contributed much to the cultural context of village and town life. As discussed by Barbara Ward in this volume (chapter 6), the populace depended heavily upon them for visual and oral transmission of historical "facts" and cultural values. Through such frequent and regular activities as village, lineage, family, and association plays, whether full-scale operas or puppet shows; through story telling by villagers or itinerant professionals; through ballad singing by other professionals, often blind persons, who visited homes and teahouses; through the round of activities over the extended lunar New Y e a r period, including guessing games, lantern riddles, and New Year pictures, residents of all ages were instructed as well as entertained. 93 Various forms of entertainment provided a cultural indoctrination of immense strength. As one Republican educationalist has said in his autobiography, " M o r a l ideas were driven into the people by every possible means— temples, theatres, homes, toys, proverbs, schools, history and stories—until they became habits in daily life." 9 4 This social indoctrination and its results were noticed by European observers such as J o h n Francis Davis, who in the 1830s observed that "the Chinese lower classes were better educated or at least better trained than in most other countries." 9 5 BOOKS V E R S U S S P E C I A L I S T S It is necessary to make some assessment of the relative importance of books and specialists among the same "lower classes." From my own observations in Hong K o n g villages before their modernization, I am fairly pessimistic about the presence of books in many village houses and town dwellings at that time. In ordinary villages, the older houses then to be seen were perhaps well over a hundred years old. Their earth floors, dark and narrow interiors, and spartan furnishings—hardly more than board beds, gate legged or trestle tables, and 93 See Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, p. 55, notes p. 216; Monlin Chiang, Tidesfrom the West (cited n. 48), p. 34; and Douglas, China, pp. 264-265 on New Year entertainments. Blind storytellers or legend chanters were popular: " A woman, at her best, in good training, can recite some hundred books, no book taking less than an hour to repeat, most of them three and four hours and some from six to nine" (Mary Darley, Cameos of a Chinese City [Chien-ning, Fukien], [London: Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, 1917], p. 114). On the theater, see Barbara E. Ward, "Readers and Audiences: An Exploration of the Spread of Traditional Chinese Culture," ASA Essays in Social Anthropology (Oxford: Association for Social Anthropologists, 1973), vol. II, pp. 1 8 1 - 2 0 3 . 94 95

Chiang, Tides from the West (cited n. 48), pp. 8 - 9 .

J o h n Francis Davis, The Chinese, A General Description of the Empire of China and its Inhabitants (London: Charles Knight, 1836), vol. II, pp. 2 9 - 3 0 .

JAMES

HAYES

rough benches and stools—reflected the poor and simple lives of their inhabitants. 9 6 It is not for nothing, one supposes, that the older generations in Tsuen Wan emphasize that before the war it was still "very poor," despite the receipt of overseas remittances (the money seems often to have gone into building new houses) and the opportunities for selling produce in urban Hong K o n g that were utilized by some families. Yet I believe that, where it prevailed, poverty alone (as contributing to illiteracy) was not mainly responsible for the lack of books that may have characterized many, even most, rural settlements in our region. Educational requirements apart, books may riot have been needed by most villagers for instruction or recreation, or the social, economic, and religious pursuits of daily life, or in crises or special occasions. I am left with the impression that, even where available, the various printed handbooks cited earlier could not, and very probably did not, take the place of specialists and their large stock of handwritten materials. At all levels, and despite the existence of inexpensively printed popular guides and practical encyclopedias over many centuries, there was probably a far greater reliance on specialists in the workings of Chinese society and their writings and collected materials than one would infer from the high standards of cultural life and the degree and geographical extent of general literacy adduced by Dr. Rawski. 9 7 As I see it, the very complexity of society and the general sophistication perhaps encouraged this reliance on the experts, and it may be argued that this phenomenon was clearly linked to the nature of the society itself. T . D. Selby became very much aware of this through his missionary travels. H e wrote, in 1900, C h i n e s e life is v e r i l y c o m p l e x a n d t h e d i v i s i o n o f l a b o u r c a r r i e d o u t to p e c u l i a r a n d inscrutable lengths. A C h i n a m a n w h o heard a missionary denouncing idolatry w e n t h o m e , not to w e i g h the a r g u m e n t s that h a d been u r g e d against

image-

w o r s h i p , b u t t o c o u n t u p t h e n u m b e r o f t r a d e s t h a t w o u l d b e m o r e o r less a f f e c t e d , if the missionary's m e s s a g e w a s h e e d e d . H e p u t d o w n a h u n d r e d a n d s e v e n t y , a n d c a m e b a c k t h e n e x t d a y t o ask if h e w a s n o t c o r r e c t i n t h e list h e h a d

so

industriously c o m p i l e d . 9 8

Selby was probably thinking of the town of Fo-shan, near Canton, when he wrote this—his mission had a chapel there—but he would have been the first to 96

T h e r e was, of course, a considerable variety in the types of houses, and standard of housing,

to be found in the 6 0 0 - 7 0 0 villages of H o n g K o n g ' s New Territories, and no doubt elsewhere in K w a n g t u n g . (See, for instance, the rather more favorable statement given in Stewart Lockhart's report [1899] after visiting m a n y of the larger villages of the region.) But I am here talking of the larger number of poorer, smaller, more remote villages that were more typical of the mass. ( T h e report is printed in The Hongkong Government Gazette, 8 April 1899. Lockhart states that there were 423 villages, but I know the figure to be considerably higher.) 97 98

Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy (cited n. 24), p. 140. T h o m a s G . Selby, Chinamen at Home (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1900), p. 178.

W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S IN T H E V I L L A G E

WORLD

agree that it is a complexity also to be found in the villages. W h e n I first saw the apparently long-established poverty of many of the villages of the southern district of H o n g K o n g ' s N e w Territories in the mid 1950s, I was surprised that, in these circumstances, there was so little self-sufficiency. Even the smallest village called in masons and carpenters to build houses, and itinerant blacksmiths c a m e yearly to make and repair agricultural t o o l s — a s in former days did the weavers w h o wove cloth and made clothes. Later, as my acquaintance grew, I saw how this diversity extended to many aspects of social and ceremonial life, and the popular religion with it, and noted that there was a cash economy to service it, with land transactions eking out the deficiency on major occasions. It was, eventually, no surprise to learn of the full range of specialists living in the villages and marketing centers and to see how they served the mass, which by one means or another managed to pay for their services in cash or in kind. T h o u g h poor, this was a sophisticated society. M y impression, too, is that this would have been even more the case at, say, the end of the C h ' i n g , as there has been a decline in village life and rural institutions in the New Territories extending over several generations. T h e w o n d e r is, perhaps, that the mass had such diverse needs. Its expectations with regard to family ritual and ceremonial were indeed high, because of the ingrained Confucian ethic and the intensity of social life in settlements where all were neighbors and many were relatives. G r e a t emphasis was placed on social obligations and reciprocity, and, as we know from many sources, the cost was steep in relation to normal farm i n c o m e . " T h e answer, to at least one Chinese anthropologist, writing at a time when it could still be evaluated from life (1923), was that the average peasant was the "earnest imitator of the life patterns established by the gentry-scholar c l a s s . " 1 0 0 If s o — a n d I would certainly agree on the basis of my observation and s t u d y — t h i s would help to explain h o w , across a wide range of incomes, the services of specialists were sought by all and to the same ends. O n l y the extent and the cost varied, according to means. No doubt there were expensive, fashionable practitioners in all occupations to meet the needs of the rich, and others to cater for the humbler b u t no less insistent needs of the poor. From such abstruse specialist concerns such as g e o m a n c y , fortune telling, and the complicated rituals of the popular religion, with their combined concern for creating favorable influences and averting or neutralizing adverse ones, to the more prosaic requirements of social and community life, specialists were at the core of Chinese society. A n d "John

L o s s i n g B u c k , Land

Utilization

in China

( S h a n g h a i : C o m m e r c i a l Press,

1937),

pp.

4 6 7 - 4 7 0 . F o r a N e w T e r r i t o r i e s e x a m p l e (1950) see D . Y . L i n ' s " R e p o r t o f a T r i a l S u r v e y o f the E c o n o m i c C o n d i t i o n s o f 60 Families in the N e w T e r r i t o r i e s , " referred to in T h o m a s R . T r e g e a r , Land Use in Hong Kong and the New Territories ( H o n g K o n g : H o n g K o n g U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1958), p p . 61-65 100

an

d ' h e appendix.

S i n g K i n g S u q u o t e d in S h u - c h i n g L e e , " C h i n a ' s T r a d i t i o n a l F a m i l y , Its C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s a n d

D i s i n t e g r a t i o n , " American Sociological Review 1 8 : 2 7 2 (1958).

lio

JAMES

HAYES

these arts all relied, to a greater or lesser degree, on the written word in the hands of a relatively few people who kept everything moving along and helped to ensure transmission of the culture, taken in its broadest sense.

CONCLUSION Having completed this cursory survey of specialists and their materials in the context of the cultural background and with special reference to rural life in late imperial China, my tentative conclusion is that the specialists were the leaven in the l o a f — t h e means whereby, among the mass of the people, the core elements of Chinese civilization and society as we know them were continued and enriched. Despite the estimated degree of literacy in the society taken overall, and the large production (perhaps not so widespread distribution) of printed material, I am left with the impression that, especially at the lower levels, this was an "entertained" rather than an entertaining society, and that it was also a "facilitated" rather than a facilitating society, owing to the widely observed reliance on specialists of all kinds. T h e manuscript productions to be found in the villages and their long coexistence and perpetuation side by side with printed books, in some places replacing and substituting for them, is evidence for the uniformity of the Chinese cultural heritage and for how highly its written basis was valued, how widely it was spread, and how deeply it penetrated. Since there is no reason whatever to think that this genre is unique to K w a n g t u n g — S h i h - c h ' i n g W a n g has catalogued material of similar and related kinds on T a i w a n 1 0 1 — i t clearly constitutes a major new source of evidence for understanding the means by which Chinese culture penetrated into many parts of the rural population at least by the nineteenth century, if not earlier. Though not yet sufficiently explored, the study of handwritten books in the village world, and the unveiling of the true dimensions of the specialists' effects, have important implications for the nature of Chinese society and, in time, can directly contribute to a re-evaluation of the situation in late imperial times. 1 0 2 Perhaps, among other possibilities, this pursuit holds the key to the mysterious, lingering strength of the traditional Chinese state until well into the twentieth century. 101

S h i h - c h ' i n g W a n g , " C o n t r a c t s a n d O t h e r O l d D o c u m e n t s as Sources for F a m i l y H i s t o r y a n d

G e n e a l o g y in T a i w a n " in Asian and African Family and Local History, vol. 1 1 , W o r l d C o n f e r e n c e on R e c o r d s , Salt L a k e C i t y ( C o r p o r a t i o n o f the President o f the C h u r c h o f j e s u s C h r i s t o f L a t t e r D a y Saints, 1980). A l s o his t h r e e v o l u m e s o f Taiwanese Historical Documents in Private Holdings, Nos. 2, 4, a n d 5 o f S o u r c e M a t e r i a l s Series (in C h i n e s e ) ( T a i p e i : N a t i o n a l B o o k C o m p a n y , 1 9 7 7 , 1978, 1980). 102

G e n e r a l l y s p e a k i n g , h a n d w r i t t e n a n d h a n d c o p i e d m a n u a l s a n d n o t e b o o k s d o not a p p e a r to

h a v e been used o r collected until recently. A s o n e o f m y C h i n e s e friends, a schoolmaster, has said, the m a i n reason for this neglect is that persons w i t h scholastic interests did not consider such materials to be o f any i m p o r t a n c e . H e n c e , they h a v e been g e n e r a l l y d i s r e g a r d e d in C h i n a . It w o u l d be of considerable interest to k n o w w h e t h e r this has also been the case a m o n g j a p a n e s e scholars o f China.

W R I T T E N M A T E R I A L S IN T H E V I L L A G E W O R L D

i n

It was perhaps the richness of Chinese life and its powerful unifying forces, visible to those with eyes to see, that led the late Professor F. S. Drake of the University of Hong K o n g , in his obituary notice of Arthur De Carle Sowerby ( 1 8 8 5 - 1 9 5 4 ) , the great naturalist from Shanghai, to reflect upon "the spaciousness of the closing years of Imperial C h i n a — a n experience that leaves its mark upon all that have had i t . " 1 0 3 As I read the situation at ground level, the specialists and their materials represented an enormous but still mainly unrecognized social and cultural force in the society of late imperial China, and contributed more fully than we know to this spaciousness, supplying both unity and diversity. 103

Journal of Oriental Studies (University of Hong Kong) II: 145 (1955).

FOUR

Distinguishing Levels of Audiences For M i n g - C h ' i n g Vernacular Literature: A Case Study Robert E. Hegel

T h e differences in values a m o n g audiences of different cultural levels in late imperial C h i n a are a complex and elusive subject. First, we must identify audiences of these varying cultural levels at least by the texts intended for them, and then we must compare and contrast the texts themselves in terms of discernible ideological differences in their content. Neither is a simple task. In neither can we totally avoid hypothetical propositions and speculation, although at least we can minimize their use. Consequently, this essay is admittedly as much an explanation of approaches to this sort of study as it is an analysis of cultural differences within a society; the reader must bear in mind that my conclusions at each stage are tentative. For this case study I have chosen a series of vernacular novels and plays written during the M i n g and C h ' i n g periods. But the number of texts examined here is too small to be any more than suggestive of the conclusions reachable after further study. Likewise, I have tried to avoid literary works and approaches through which the differences in values presented might be related more to temporal or geographical variation than to cultural level within society. 1 T h i s 1

G e o g r a p h i c a l a n d t e m p o r a l differentiation m a y a c c o u n t for v a r i a t i o n s in the values expressed

in these texts in a d d i t i o n to those related to social level o f i n t e n d e d a u d i e n c e . H o w e v e r , g i v e n the relative c o n t i n u i t y o f linguistic style t h r o u g h nearly all v e r n a c u l a r l i t e r a t u r e — u s u a l l y essentially a v a r i e t y o f N o r t h e r n C h i n e s e rather t h a n W u (central), M i n (southeastern) or Y u e h (southern) d i a l e c t s — i t is often n e a r l y impossible to identify the g e o g r a p h i c a l origins o f specific texts. L i k e w i s e , single stories m a y be altered b y the c o n v e n t i o n s o f the g e n r e , r a t h e r than the time in w h i c h they a p p e a r , at least a m o n g p o p u l a r works. I discuss the t e m p o r a l setting of these works below; they p r o b a b l y o r i g i n a t e from only t w o regions o f C h i n a , the P e k i n g a r e a (the e a r l y M i n g plays a n d the P e k i n g o p e r a ) , a n d the L o w e r Y a n g t z e . I believe that the effect o f genre or literary form o n v a l u e s expressed in the w o r k s addressed here is slight. H o w e v e r , one w o u l d need to e x a m i n e a m u c h l a r g e r b o d y o f texts before this c o u l d be a s c e r t a i n e d ; see the texts m e n t i o n e d in notes 5 a n d 6 below. F o r insightful c o m m e n t s o n such questions, see P a t r i c k H a n a n , The Chinese Vernacular Story ( C a m b r i d g e , Mass.: H a r v a r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1 9 8 1 ) , p p . 8 - 1 5 .

112

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR

LITERATURE

"3

p r o b l e m , too, is difficult, a n d o n e not fully solved b y this single p a p e r . B u t I b e l i e v e that the conclusions r e a c h e d b e l o w are r e a s o n a b l e , g i v e n o u r present state o f k n o w l e d g e o f elite versus p o p u l a r c u l t u r e in late i m p e r i a l C h i n a ; t h e y a w a i t the r e j e c t i o n , verification, o r revision t h a t o n l y f u r t h e r research c a n occasion.

A U D I E N C E S : SOME P R E L I M I N A R Y C O N S I D E R A T I O N S E v i d e n c e for distinguishing a u d i e n c e s for C h i n a ' s v e r n a c u l a r literary artifacts is sparse at best. T h e r e are no k n o w n d a t a o n n u m b e r s o f copies p r i n t e d for a n y g i v e n w o r k , a n d o f t e n little explicit e v i d e n c e exists to i n d i c a t e its i n t e n d e d a u d i e n c e . C o n s e q u e n t l y , students o f C h i n e s e c u l t u r e c u s t o m a r i l y h a v e often h a d to use r a t h e r p r o b l e m a t i c e v a l u a t i o n s o f styles o f l a n g u a g e to i d e n t i f y the i n t e n d e d readers for specific w o r k s . 2 O b v i o u s l y , literary w o r k s w r i t t e n in a h e a v i l y c o n n o t a t i v e a n d allusive version o f the classical style w e r e i n t e n d e d for the best e d u c a t e d s e g m e n t of society, the c u l t u r a l — a n d u s u a l l y s o c i a l — e l i t e ; oral n a r r a t i v e s , chantefable literature in a m i x t u r e o f prose a n d verse ( n o w c a l l e d shuo-ch'ang wen-hsueh), a n d d r a m a — i n the v e r n a c u l a r — m u s t h a v e b e e n d e signed for h e a r i n g b y the illiterate masses; a n d b e t w e e n these t w o levels w a s a third, w r i t t e n v e r n a c u l a r literature i n t e n d e d to be r e a d b y m o r e

general

audiences. B u t w h o w e r e these " g e n e r a l a u d i e n c e s " ? P r e s u m a b l y , they inc l u d e d upper-class w o m e n a n d y o u n g p e o p l e , m e r c h a n t s , lower-level g o v e r n m e n t a l f u n c t i o n a r i e s , a n d shopkeepers a n d the like w h o w e r e literate b u t not extensively t r a i n e d in aristocratic literature. H o w e v e r , w h i l e this division is suggestive o f the true situation, it is m i s l e a d i n g : style o f l a n g u a g e in itself is insufficient as a criterion for d e t e r m i n i n g a u d i e n c e . Styles o f the v e r n a c u l a r , in p a r t i c u l a r , are not yet sufficiently u n d e r s t o o d to serve reliably: v e r n a c u l a r literature consists o f a v a r i e t y o f levels o f linguistic c o m p l e x i t y , o f d i a l e c t i c a l differentiations, a n d o f g e n e r i c a l l y s h a p e d w r i t t e n m e d i a . V e r n a c u l a r w r i t t e n n a r r a t i v e s a n d t h e a t r i c a l pieces i n c l u d e w o r k s w r i t t e n for b o t h C h i n a ' s c u l t u r a l elite a n d its illiterate a n d d i s a d v a n t a g e d masses. 2

David Johnson's recent articles on popular literature discuss the problems of language and

audiences for popular literature; see " T h e W u Tzu-hsü Pien-wen and Its Sources: Part I , " Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 40.1:95, esp. n. 1 (1980), and "Chinese Popular Literature and Its Contexts," Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, and Reviews 3 . 2 : 2 2 5 - 2 3 4 (July 1981) in particular. T h e most intelligent and persuasive discussions of education and l i t e r a c y — a n d of the two types "functional" and " g e n e r a l " — a p p e a r in a research report presented at the Association for Asian Studies meeting in Chicago, 2 April 1982, by T h o m a s H. C . Lee and Bernard H. Luk of the Chinese University of H o n g K o n g . Proof that audiences were not mutually exclusive is easily found. For example, poorly educated Chinese have read, probably with less than total comprehension and esthetic appreciation, Sui T'angyen-i, which is demonstrably an elite novel. See below and Alvin P. Cohen, "Notes on a Chinese Workingclass Bookshelf," Journal of the American Oriental Society 96.3:425 (1976). Cohen's "workingclass readers" accumulated this book collection in the 1950s; given the limitations on educational opportunities in twentieth-century China available to working people of the late imperial period, his findings are oflimited relevance here, but they do confirm my observation that audiences overlap considerably in reality.

R O B E R T E. H E G E L

" 4

Since we are as yet unable to determine audience on the basis of linguistic medium within vernacular literature, I have tried below to use only nonlinguistic evidence, of types both intrinsic and extrinsic to the texts themselves. Such data include biographical information on authors, the social milieu in which certain forms circulated, literary form, and such internal features as function of verse and generic conventions. While this hodgepodge of information is less complete than one might hope, still it may serve to support (or to throw into question) the yet more hypothetical constructs upon which earlier generalizations about Ming-Ch'ing cultural levels have been based. This evidence suggests a range of audiences for vernacular literature and drama extending from the cultural elite, through the literate non-elite, to the illiterate masses. By "audience" I mean the social stratum or group for which a particular work was intentionally produced; a determination of real audiences would require evidence that is not readily available—if it exists at all.

THE BASIC T A L E OF LI MI'S C A R E E R For this case study in audiences and values I have chosen a portion of a story complex circulated among all levels of Chinese society through many centuries. 3 This is the tale of Li Mi ( 5 8 1 - 6 1 8 ) , an unsuccessful contender for the realm, from the cycle of tales concerning the fall of the Sui and the founding of the T'ang centering on Li Shih-min (600-649). The texts addressed here are the only extant and available Ming and Ch'ing vernacular versions of Li Mi's fall: a trilogy of early Ming plays, a popular chronicle and a modified chantefable narrative from the middle of the sixteenth century, a pair of seventeenthcentury historical romances, an eighteenth-century military romance, and a late Ch'ing Peking opera. The tale of Li Mi meets the needs of this study because his fictional development originated in elite writing and spread to mass forms. Ming-Ch'ing vernacular literature more commonly draws source material from elite written works than vice versa, 4 and it guarantees that more levels of audience will be represented in the various versions of the tale. (Li Mi's development thus proceeded quite differently from that of the upright magistrate Pao Cheng, the central figure in a long story cycle, 5 or Wu Sung, like Li 3

The story complex is a concept used effectively by Hanan in his Chinese Vernacular Story, pp. 7 - 8 . H a n a n , Chinese Vernacular Story, pp. 13, 2 1 , 24, 55. 5 The kung-an £ ^ , or crime-case tales, were apparently popular throughout Ming and Ch'ing China; Magistrate Pao i j i i i was the favorite subject. Pao Cheng "fjjjS lived during the Northern Sung period. By the Y u a n period there were plays about him; see George Hayden, " T h e Courtroom Plays of the Y u a n and Early Ming Periods," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 3 4 : 1 9 2 - 2 2 0 (1974), and also his Crime and Punishment in Medieval Chinese Drama (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978); and Ching-Hsi Perng, Double Jeopardy: A Critique of Seven Yuan Courtroom Dramas (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1978). For textual and other studies of relevant Ming prose narratives, see Wolfgang Bauer, " T h e Tradition of the 'Criminal Cases of Master Pao' Pao-Kung-An (Lung-t'u kung-an)," Oriens 2 3 - 2 4 ( 1 9 7 0 - 1 9 7 1 ) , 4

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR

LITERATURE

"5

Mi a military hero of secondary importance, in the larger Shui-hu cycle. 6 ) Likewise, all versions agree in their outline of the same events, leaving differences only on significant details, particularly the reasons why characters behave the way they do. This range of variations, of course, speaks directly to differences in values from version to version, the final subject of this study. Since the story complex concerning the T ' a n g founding is based on recorded fact, the historical record may serve as the standard version of Li Mi's tale. In order to ascertain the degree of historicity in each literary or dramatic version, the relevance of which will be addressed later, one must compare these fictional accounts with references to Li Mi that are to be found in Chiu T'ang shu [The old T'ang history] and Hsin T'ang shu [The new T'ang History]—his biography is in e a c h — a n d in the chronologically arranged Tzu-chih t'ung-chien [The comprehensive mirror for aid in governing], in the sections that record the years of and Y. VV. M a , " T h e Textual Tradition o f M i n g Kung-an Fiction: A Study of the Lung-t'u kung-an" Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 3 5 : 1 9 0 - 2 2 0 (1975), M a ' s " T h e m e s and Characterization in the Lung-t'u kung-an," T'oung Pao 5 9 : 1 7 9 - 2 0 2 (1973), and, in particular, Patrick H a n a n , "Judge Bao's Hundred Cases Reconstructed," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 4 0 . 2 : 3 0 1 - 3 2 3 (1980). For the Ch'ing novels in this series—Lung-t'u kung-an H B l ^ & i ; [Judge Pao's cases], 1775; San-hsia wu-i 8 [Three swordsmen and five knights], 1879 (Shanghai: Shanghai wen-hua 1956, with a foreword in this edition by Chao Ching-shen J® j R ) ; and Ch'i-hsia wu-i - f c i f e K ® [Seven swordsmen and five knights], 1889—see Liu Ts'un-yan, Chinese Popular Fiction in Two London Libraries (Hong Kong: L u n g Men, 1967), pp. 292-293, and Susan Blader, "San-hsia wu-yi and its Link to Oral Literature," CHINOPERL Papers 8 : 9 38 (1979). A selection of these tales is " r e t o l d " in Leon Comber's The Strange Cases of Magistrate Pao (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1964). A recent publication ofchantefable texts relevant to this cycle is Ming Ch'eng-hua shuo-ch'ang tz'u-hua ts'ung-k'an ft ¡8 fs] IS f!] [Anthology of Chantefables from the C h ' e n g - h u a era of the M i n g Period] (Shanghai: Shanghai po-wu k u a n 1; tf'u j?f;, 1973); of the sixteen pieces reprinted here, eight narrate Magistrate Pao adventures. They were discovered in a fifteenth-century tomb; see the report by C h a o Ching-shen I j j j j ¡ 3 ; , " T ' a n M i n g C h ' e n g - h u a k'an-pen 'Shuo-ch'ang t z ' u - h u a ' " wen-wu 1 1 : 1 9 - 2 2 (1972). 6 O n the Shui-hu story complex, see Richard G. Irwin, The Evolution of a Chinese Novel: Shui-huchuan (Cambridge, Mass.: H a r v a r d University Press, 1953); H u Shih, "Shui-hu chuan k'ao-cheng" tK f t ® ' ® ' [ R e s e a r c h e s on the Shui-hu chuan], Hu Shih wen-ts'un [Extant works of H u Shih] (Taipei: Y u a n - t u n g t'u-shu kung-ssu j a } ^ ® b] , 1971), vol. I, pp. 500-547; C. T . Hsia, The Classic Chinese Novel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), chap. I l l , esp. pp. 76-82. William O. Hennessey translates an early version, the Hsuan-ho i-shih J t i f l S l J i (see the Taipei, Shih-chieh shu-chii ffr ^ U H edition of 1958) in his Proclaiming Harmony (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1982); Sidney Shapiro provides the best translation of the novel form in his Outlaws of the Marsh (Bloomington and Beijing: I n d i a n a University Press and Foreign Languages Press, 1981). Available editions include Shui-hu ch'uan-chuan ed. Cheng Chen-to ®S j f t l f [The complete Shui-hu chuan], a variorum edition based on the 1 oo-chapter edition with the last twenty chapters added from late M i n g recensions (Peking: J e n - m i n wen-hsueh A S S I P > '954); Shui-hu chuan, the 1610 edition with 100 chapters (Peking: J e n - m i n wen-hsueh, 1975); Chin Sheng-fan ch'i-shih-i-hui-pen + — Shui-hu chuan (The 71 -chapter version edited by Chin Sheng-t'an, 1641) (Shanghai: C h u n g - h u a shu-chii 1934). Plays in this story complex are collected in Shui-hu hsi-ch'ii chi ©ifffi jfl [Collected Shui-hu plays], ed. Fu Hsi-hua et al. (Shanghai: C h u n g - h u a shu-chii, 1962); the latest oral version, a Yangchowp'inghua If was recorded in the 1950s; see W a n g Shao-t'ang EE'PIlL, narrator, Wu Sung jKltR (Nanking: Kiangsu wen-i ch'u-pan-she Q l i ^ X E t i i f i S f t . 1959)-

R O B E R T E. H E G E L

I I 6

his prominence. T h e first two of these works enjoyed at least limited circulation in M i n g - C h ' i n g literati circles; the latter, in its abridged editions, was a m o n g the reference books most readily available to students and scholars. (There also existed a sizable body of unofficial historical writing concerning the Sui and the T ' a n g , but this circulated only a m o n g wealthy book collectors. 7 ) A summary of the relevant segments of these histories will make comparisons clearer. Li M i was a member of the aristocratic elite of northwest C h i n a , a protégé of the high minister Y a n g Su. W h e n Sui imperial control began to falter, Li M i readily joined the rebel force led by Y a n g ' s son. Unfortunately for him, the younger Y a n g soon fell, and Li M i turned to brigandage in the year 613. It is at this point that the popular narratives begin to follow the outline of events provided by the orthodox histories (which concur on these events): initially, Li M i joined forces with the outlaw Chai J a n g , w h o relinquished leadership to him. Later, when Chai repented his action, L i had him summarily executed. By 616 he was in control of a coalition of rebel bands in the L o y a n g region. Li Mi's army was subsequently involved in action against the regicide Yii-wen Hua-chi. Their forces arrayed against each other, and L i taunted the traitor for his treachery in destroying the Sui emperor Y a n g , w h o had so trusted a n d supported him. Demoralized, Yii-wen lost the battle and, soon afterward, his life. This left three major contenders, Li Y u a n , W a n g Shih-ch'ung, and Li Mi. His troops lacking uniforms, Li M i traded grain to W a n g for cloth despite the opposition of his advisors; thus resupplied, W a n g attacked and soundly defeated Li M i , his military strength enhanced by the latter's bad strategy in combat. T h e question of loyalty here becomes of supreme importance to the orthodox historians: his earlier arrogance thoroughly crushed, Li M i tried to commit suicide out of shame for being unworthy of his generals' respect. O n e of their number, W a n g Po-tang, prevented him from doing so, vowing eternal allegiance. L i M i thus decided to surrender to the T ' a n g to give his g e n e r a l s — and himself—another chance for glory. Initially the T ' a n g emperor Li Y u a n treated him well, as he did all surrendered contenders, even marrying Li M i to a young w o m a n of the empress's family. However, the quality of his reception 7

Informal sources of Sui and T ' a n g history include Ch'ang-shihyen-chih

g [Oral direc-

tives of the constant attendant] by Liu C h ' e n g f j i g (late eighth century); Tz'u Liu-shih chiu-wen i ^ f P f t S H [Old tales after (the versions recorded by) M r . Liu] by Li Te-yii the anonymous Ta T'ang ch'uan-tsai

chia-hua R f / S H g§ [Fine tales about the Sui and the T'ang], by Liu Su Kuo shih mi-chi

(787-850);

[Current anecdotes on the great T'ang]; Sui T'ang (II. mid-eighth century);

[Supplement to the history of the state], by Li C h a o ^ g g (fl. 820) ; and Chin-luan |g [Secret tales from the palace], by Han W o

(fl. 900). All these collections of

material appear in T'ang tai ts'ung-shu H f f ^ j S i B [A T ' a n g period collection], comp. Ch'en Lient'ang gjtJISij (n.p.: Lien-yuan-ko ij| 7C fïji 1869), first collection. For a discussion of them, see Evangeline D. Edwards, Chinese Prose Literature of the T'ang Period, A.D. 618—go6 (London: Probsthain, 1937). C h ' u Jen-huo % A f f i utilized the last three of these w o r k s — a n d o t h e r s — a s source material for his historical novel; see Robert E. Hegel, The Novel in Seventeenth-Century China (New Y o r k : Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 239-240.

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR LITERATURE

ny

soon declined. Before long, Li Y u a n ordered Li M i to pacify an area the latter had formerly occupied, but Li Y u a n rescinded the order once Li Mi was on his way. Suspicious of the motivation behind the emperor's shift of plans, Li Mi decided to strike out on his own again. Failing in his efforts to dissuade him from rebellion, the faithful Wang Po-tang stood by Li Mi to the death as they rode straight into a T ' a n g ambush. Li Mi was captured and. executed; he was 37 years old at the time. It is ironic that this historical Li M i should have been so keenly aware of the obligations to be observed by others and yet be loath to stand by his own commitments. His battlefield lecture to Yü-wen Hua-chi, Wang Po-tang's impassioned vows to serve his lord to the end—even the debt Li owed to the T ' a n g emperor for a bride and high position—made no impression on this obviously headstrong individual. T o the orthodox historians these are mere empty gestures; they identify him as no different from a brigand. Unquestionably, to the historians, Li Mi was the sole cause of his own downfall. Able to recognize talent in others and in possession of many other leadership skills, he all too often ignored even the most sincere advice. 8 As a consequence, he fell far short of the qualities considered essential for a serious contender for the throne. Now let us consider various vernacular versions of the tale in order to compare the values ofTered audiences of distinguishable cultural levels in Ming and Ch'ing China. F I C T I O N A L AND D R A M A T I C V A R I A T I O N S T h e earliest vernacular texts that preserve fictionalized versions of the tale of Li Mi are a cycle of fourteenth-century tsa-chii plays. This form was commercially very successful during the Y u a n period; it grew to prominence in northern urban theaters playing to audiences of a variety of social levels. Its arias frequently utilize allusions to classical literature and may not have been completely intelligible to all segments of a listening audience, but the import of each aria was normally summarized in prose afterward. Prose portions must have been intelligible to listeners regardless of educational background. From its 8 Sources for the life of Li Mi include Chiu Tang shu fl}® HI. chiian 53 (see the Chung-hua edition, Peking, 1975, vol. 7, pp. 2207-2224); Hsin Tang shu Urfli j i f , chiian 84 (Chung-hua edition, Peking, 1975, vol. 12, pp. 3677-3686); and Tzu-chih I'ung-chien §)in5||$Si, chiian 1 8 4 - 1 8 6 . See Li Tsung-t'ung and Hsia Te-i J E e t al., eds., Tzu-chih fung-chien chin chu (Taipei: Shang-wu ffi 1966), vol. 10, pp. 4 0 1 - 5 3 6 , on the last two years of Li Mi's life. Readers may wish to consult modern scholarly studies of the period. Woodbridge Bingham, The Founding of the T'ang Dynasty: The Fall of Sui and the Rise of T'ang (1941; reprint ed., New York: Octagon, 1971), and C. P. Fitzgerald, Son of Heaven: A Biography of Li Shih-min, Founder of the T'ang Dynasty (1933; reprint ed., Taipei: Cheng Wen, 1970) are pioneering Western works; more recent studies include Arthur F. Wright, The Sui Dynasty (New York: Knopf, 1978) and the relevant volume of The Cambridge History of China, Denis Twitchett, ed., Sui and T'ang China, 589-906, part I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 1 5 8 - 1 5 9 , 1 6 1 - 1 6 2 , 1 6 5 - 1 6 6 .

ii8

R O B E R T E. H E G E L

social c o n t e x t , then, this t y p e o f theatrical w a s o r i g i n a l l y i n t e n d e d for a u d i e n c e s that i n c l u d e d the p o o r l y e d u c a t e d a n d the illiterate, in p a r t i c u l a r . 9 T h e s a m e conclusion m a y be safely a d v a n c e d c o n c e r n i n g the L i M i p l a y s . G i v e n the n u m b e r a n d v a r i e t y o f short tsa-chu p l a y s c o n c e r n i n g T ' a n g heroes c o m p o s e d d u r i n g the Y u a n a n d early M i n g , the events s u r r o u n d i n g the T ' a n g conquest m u s t h a v e b e e n p o p u l a r a m o n g t h e a t e r a u d i e n c e s b y t h a t time. E x t a n t plays c a p t u r e m o m e n t s in w h a t c o u l d o n l y h a v e been a l o n g c y c l e o f fictionalized

stories o n the f o u n d i n g o f the T ' a n g , the i n t e r l o c k i n g a d v e n t u r e s of

a n u m b e r o f larger-than-life h e r o e s — a n d v i l l a i n s — a s p o p u l a r l e g e n d g r e w to fill the g a p s left by the spare b i o g r a p h i c a l sketches in the histories. In t h e m , L i M i h a d b e c o m e a n u n m i s t a k a b l e villain. F o r ease o f c o m p r e h e n s i o n in a f o r m t h a t c o m b i n e s s i n g i n g w i t h d i a l o g u e , all characters a p p e a r e d o n the tsa.-ch.ii stage in s t e r e o t y p e d roles. T h e m o r a l attributes o f e a c h w e r e p r e d i c t a b l e . M o r a l a m b i g u i t y h a d n o easy m e a n s o f expression in this tightly s t r u c t u r e d f o r m , b u t heroism a n d v i l l a i n y w e r e the stock-intrade. T h e actions a n d m o t i v a t i o n s s i g n i f y i n g t r u a n c y o n the p a r t o f L i M i include v i r t u a l sacrilege, the destruction of a shrine in h o n o r o f a p a r a g o n o f loyal service, a n d L i ' s failure to c o m p l y w i t h a n a g r e e m e n t m a d e w i t h a d e i t y . T h e transposition o f L i M i ' s p e r f i d y f r o m the r a t i o n a l political to the fantastic religious r e a l m m a r k s a c o n s i d e r a b l e d i s t a n c e b e t w e e n the scholarly historical record a n d p o p u l a r historical d r a m a . In n o n e of these p l a y s is L i M i the c e n t r a l m a l e c h a r a c t e r (cheng-mo); instead h e is r e l e g a t e d to a s e c o n d a r y (wai) role in each. T h e i r focus is o n o t h e r c h a r a c t e r s : W a n g P o - t a n g , C h ' i n S h u - p a o , a n d the advisors w h o s e integrity a n d w i s d o m are tested b y his presence. U n c a n n y elements l o o m l a r g e in all these e a r l y p l a y s . L i S h i h - m i n is a s t r o n g a n d c a p a b l e leader here, b u t he is also f o o l h a r d y . In Lao-chun t'ang [ T h e t e m p l e o f L a o - t z u ] , b y C h e n g T e - h u i , fl. f o u r t e e n t h c e n t u r y , L i S h i h - m i n disregards the d o o m foretold b y a n a d v i s o r to g o h u n t i n g not far f r o m L i M i ' s c a m p . E v e n t h o u g h h e a c t u a l l y intends to spy o n L i M i , w h e n a w h i t e s t a g a p p e a r s his p r e d a t o r y instincts d r i v e h i m perilously close to his a d v e r s a r y . L i M i ' s g e n e r a l C h ' e n g Y a o - c h i n then s i n g l e h a n d e d l y chases h i m i n t o a t e m p l e ; there a n o t h e r general, C h ' i n S h u - p a o , p r e v e n t s C h ' e n g f r o m k i l l i n g S h i h - m i n . L i M i resolutely imprisons this rival despite a d v i c e to the c o n t r a r y , a n d e v e n detains the T ' a n g emissary sent to p l e a d for his release. T h i s a c t c o n v i n c e s L i M i ' s officers, i n c l u d i n g C h ' i n S h u - p a o , W e i C h e n g , a n d H s u S h i h - c h i , t h a t h e is a petty m a n b y c o m p a r i s o n w i t h L i S h i h - m i n ; L i M i ' s rule is therefore u n j u s t w h i l e the T ' a n g c l e a r l y has H e a v e n ' s m a n d a t e . C o n s e q u e n t l y , t h e y falsify L i M i ' s p r o c l a m a t i o n o f a m n e s t y to i n c l u d e L i S h i h - m i n a n d his officer, w h o then escape. 9

For a general survey of Chinese theatricals, see William Dolby's excellent A History of Chinese

Drama (London: Paul Elek, 1976), esp. pp. 40-70, and the essays in Colin Mackerras, ed., Chinese Theater: From Its Origins to the Present Day (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983). Recent studies of the tsa-chu in particular are Chung-wen Shih, The Golden Age of Chinese Drama (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976) and James I. C r u m p , Chinese Theater in the Days of Kublai Khan (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1980).

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR

LITERATURE

"9

Mention of Li Mi's destruction is made at the end of the play as L i Shih-min pardons C h ' e n g Y a o - c h i n for the attempt on his life. " W e were serving different masters then," the prince concludes. 1 0 A somewhat later play in the same form, Wei Cheng kai-chao [Wei C h e n g alters the proclamation], written during the early M i n g , begins with declarations of loyalty by Li Shih-min's lieutenants, one of w h o m predicts disaster. " I do not believe in this yin-yang prognostication business," L i Shih-min declares, but he takes a sizable force with him to spy on L i Mi's stronghold. C h ' i n Shu-pao challenges him and refuses steadfastly when Shih-min tries to win his allegiance. It is this same general C h ' i n w h o prevents C h ' e n g Yao-chin from slaying their captive in the temple, giving as his excuse the T ' a n g prince's obvious virtue and the orders Li M i had given t h e m — t o capture, not to kill, Li Shih-min. W h e n the latter is imprisoned, Wei C h e n g takes full responsibility for changing the proclamation to free him. T h e play ends with Hsu, W e i , and C h ' i n being feted when they submit to the T ' a n g . 1 1 Ssu-ma t'ou T'ang [Four riders submit to the T ' a n g ] is another anonymous early M i n g play in this sequence. Here, when W a n g Shih-ch'ung petitions Li M i to borrow food grains and fodder, Li M i readily agrees, despite Hsu Shihchi's opposition, because W a n g is Li's nephew. O v e r j o y e d by this turn of events, W a n g is further encouraged when he learns that Li M i has destroyed a temple dedicated to the D u k e of C h o u , the sagely advisor to the C h o u dynasty founder in the eleventh century B.C. As a consequence, spirit soldiers will aid in punishing Li M i for his sacrilege. A brief battle ensues; Li M i realizes that his defeat is proper retribution. W a n g Po-tang chides him for his errors of j u d g m e n t when Li M i decides to j o i n the T ' a n g — t h e worst of which was imprisoning Li Shihmin, who will bear him a grudge. L a c k i n g any alternative, Li M i , W a n g Potang, and two other W e i generals surrender. Li M i ' s initial reception in the T ' a n g capital is warm. But Li Shih-min is vindictive and shames Li M i repeatedly. T h e latter cannot tolerate these affronts, however, and rebels soon afterward. H e and his faithful W a n g Po-tang flee through the mountains. In desperation, Li M i prays for an omen in the temple of the M o u n t a i n S p i r i t — a deity w h o m he had offended by misusing a divine sword! Helpless, Li M i leaps to his death into a gorge; W a n g Po-tang spurns offers to join the T ' a n g and commits suicide to follow his l o r d . 1 2 T h e long middle-Ming historical narrative Sui T'ang liang-ch'ao chih-chuan 10The

text of Lao-chiin t'ang ^ g g

can be found in Yuan ch'ii hsuan wai-pien 7G|fil jH^i-jill [A

further selection of Y u a n plays], ed. Sui Shu-sen p ^ ^ J S (Peking: Chung-hua 4"ljS> 1959), pp. 530-544; the quotation is from p. 543. C h e n g Te-hui 6 i

is also known as Cheng Kuang-tsu

; he served as a minor official in Hangchow. "The

text o f Wei Cheng kai-chao f®iii3fel8 can be found in Ku-pen Yuan Ming tsa-chii [Old editions o f Y u a n and M i n g tsa-chii plays], ed. C h a o Y u a n - t u M j i S t (Peking:

Chung-hua hsi-chii 4 s ¥ S i (M > 1958), vol. 3, pp. 2061-2096; the quotation is from act 1, p. 2065. 12The

text of Ssu-ma fou Tang

can

be found in Ku-pen Yuan Ming tsa-chii, vol. 3, pp.

2 1 2 7 - 2 1 6 7 . In passing, this play notes that Li M i killed his bride before rebelling; see p. 2151. Hsu Shih-chi is known here as Hsu M a o - k u n g ^ I S j f j .

ISO

R O B E R T E. H E G E L

[Chronicles of two courts, Sui and T'ang], ca. 1550, recounts the fall of the Sui and most of the history of the T'ang. While shifting from one contender to another, this work gives Li Mi much fuller characterization, a function in part of its much greater length compared to the short tsa-chü plays. Despite its attempt to appear like the standard histories, its anonymous author ignored the historians' more rationalistic explanation of Li Mi's fall to elaborate on legendary and fantastic elements of his tale. These elements are common in the theater pieces above and were probably current in the oral tradition. Here, as Li Shih-min cowers under the altar in the Lao-tzu temple, a dragon whirls in the air over the T ' a n g prince's head; Ch'in Shu-pao prevents Ch'eng Yao-chin from killing him because he recognizes the dragon as an omen identifying the " T r u e R u l e r " (chen-chu). Li Mi becomes more violent in this version: he would execute Li Shih-min for spying; Wei Cheng barely succeeds in dissuading him from doing so. Li Mi spurns the T ' a n g emperor's offer of land in return for his son and has the T ' a n g envoy beaten. Again, Wei Cheng falsifies Li Mi's edict to justify releasing Li Shih-min; he, Hsu Shih-chi, and Ch'in Shu-pao lament that they are obligated to serve this petty contender and vow to join the T ' a n g as soon as possible. Li Mi is distraught to find his prisoners gone; further angered by Hsu's insistence that he should have allied with the T ' a n g , Li Mi decides to behead the conspirators within his ranks. Finally, Li Mi relents and releases Wei, Ch'in, and Hsu. When Wang Shihch'ung requests food grains, Li Mi discovers that his granaries are ominously infested with scaly winged rats. He fulfills his agreement only to be attacked by the duplicitous Wang Shih-ch'ung. T h e campaign goes badly for Wang until in a dream the Duke of Chou offers spirit soldiers to help Wang gain revenge for Li Mi's destruction of the shrine to the duke. As a consequence, the tide turns against Li Mi, who begins to perceive demons all around him. Convinced that Heaven has withdrawn its favor for his cause, Li Mi attempts suicide. Wang Po-tang stops him and takes the initiative in submitting to the T ' a n g . T h e T ' a n g emperor, for his part, can only stifle his anger against Li M i for the good of the realm. (Note the significant alteration of Li Yuan's personality here.) Despondent because of the shame he feels over being repeatedly rebuked by Li Shih-min, Li Mi gladly accepts Wang Po-tang's advice to wait for an opportunity to rise in rebellion. He explains this to his bride, who spits in his face because of his disloyalty; in a rage Li Mi cuts her down, after which he can only flee with Wang Po-tang and a handful of retainers. Together Li M i and his trusted lieutenant die in a hail of T ' a n g arrows, fit punishment for their treachery. 1 3 Identifying the audience for which Chronicles of Two Courts was written is no ii Sui T'ang liang-ch'ao chih-chuan fitJjSpS^flycf.f!}, attributed to Lin Han (ca. 1550, extant ed., Soochow, 1619), chaps. 3 1 - 3 8 , 4 : 1 b - 5 1 b. This is a rare work; the one known copy, a photocopy of which was used for this study, is to be found in the Sonkeikaku Library 3t)(I in Tokyo.

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR

LITERATURE

121

easy task. The anonymous compiler of this popular chronicle 1 4 (ostensibly based on a text written by L o Kuan-chung in the fourteenth century and revised by Lin H a n in the sixteenth) strove for completeness of narrative and enough verisimilitude to pass for historical veracity. T o this end he makes careful lists of all persons of prominence involved in any action and identifies the years in which the events of each chiian occurred; each chapter concludes with a commentary (p'ing) apparently modeled on the remarks (tsan) appended to biographies in orthodox histories. Chapter 38 of Chronicles of Two Courts contains a final note on the differences between Li M i and Hsiang Y u , adapted, it would seem, from the T ' a n g dynastic histories 1 5 —even though it is of little relevance to the character as developed here. A "poem on history" (yung-shih shih) by the unidentified poet styled Li-ch'iian that lauds Wang Po-tang for his unswerving loyalty, as did the historians, is also to be found here. 1 6 Chronicles of Two Courts presents Li Mi's fall rationalistically as a product of his own actions—but only to a limited degree. Li Shih-min has Heaven's mandate; there is no way that Li Mi might gain it unless Li Shih-min should prove unworthy of the mantle. As proof of its sanction, Heaven sends Shih-min a protecting dragon and Mi rats and bad dreams. Basic loyalty is superfluous to this tale, Princess Tu-ku's clamor notwithstanding; Li Mi's tragedy, such as it is, rests in his attempt to challenge his destiny. Once he fails, Chronicles forgets Li Mi, never to refer to him a g a i n . 1 7 This rambling prose text thus transposes into reading matter the legendary figure of Li Mi and his hopeless fate adapted from the oral tradition, particularly the stage. An outgrowth, or even a continuation, of the earlier p'ing-hua historical narratives of the Y u a n and early Ming, such popular chronicles seem to have been intended, like the. p'ing-hua, to provide both entertainment and instruction for those whose level of literacy was insufficient to read more formal works of history. Both of these vernacular forms use poetry—even by the same poets—in the same way; both Yuan p'ing-hua and Ming popular chronicles are generally highly episodic. In these respects and in use of language, the popular chronicle seems to represent an evolutionary stage between China's first works of lengthy historical fiction and the highly developed historical romance of the seven-

14

T h e term " p o p u l a r chronicle" has been used by students of Chinese fiction writing in English

to distinguish these early works from later and more mature historical novels such as Sui

T'angyen-i

and from military romances, imaginative fiction p a r a d i n g as history. See C . T . Hsia, " T h e Military R o m a n c e : A Genre of Chinese Fiction," in Studies in Chinese Literary Genres, ed. Cyril Birch (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 3 3 9 -390, esp. pp. 3 3 9 - 3 4 6 . 15

Sui T'ang liang-ch 'ao chih-chuan, 4 : 5 1 b ; compare Chiu T'ang shu, y, 2 2 2 5 , and Hsin T'ang shu, 1 2 ,

3687. 16

Sui

17

T'ang liang-ch'ao chih-chuan, 4 : 5 1 .

T h a t loyalty was of some concern to the author can be seen in the frequent discussions of that

virtue between the characters here; see Sui T'ang liang-ch'ao chih-chuan, 5 : 4 b ~ 5 , 5 : 1 3 , 5 : 3 0 , 6 : 2 8 b , 6 : 3 3 , etc.

122

ROBERT E. HEGEL

teenth century. 1 8 Subsequent observations will confirm that it is correct to identify this work as having been designed for audiences who were literate but not well educated. O f approximately the same age as Chronicles of Two Courts is Ta T'ang Ch'inwang tz'u-hua [Prince of Ch'in of the great T ' a n g , a tz'u-hua], dating in its present form from around 1 5 5 0 . 1 9 This has been termed the earliest extant kutz'u, or drumsong text, although its modern editors acknowledge the considerable distance between a transcription of oral performances and this written version. 2 0 T h e confusion over the nature of the work relates to its mixture of prose and verse and the function of the latter here. In contrast to developing novelistic practice, here the verse sections of five-, seven-, and ten-syllable lines 18 F o r a discussion of the p'ing-hua z p f j , see Wilt L. Idema, Chinese Vernacular Fiction: The Foimative Period (Leiden: Brill, 1974), pp. 69-120; C h a n g Cheng-lang "jSigcftji, "Chiang-shih yii yung-shih-shih" Iff Si P li; f$ [The retelling of history and verse about history], Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology (Academica Sinica) 1 o: 601 - 6 4 5 (1948); James I. Crump, "P'ing-hua and the Early History of the San-ktw chih," Journal of the American Oriental Society 71 :249-256 (1951). Liu Ts'un-yan ^¡p discusses Chronicles of Two Courts in his " L o Kuan-chung and His Historical Romances," m Critical Essays on Chinese Fiction, eds. Winston L. Y. Yang and Curtis P. Adkins (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1980), pp. 99-108. Hsia, "Military Romance," p. 350, identifies Hsiung Chung-ku § (fl. 1550), to whom most such chronicles are attributed, as an author of works for popular audiences. 19 T h e problems involved in identifying the sequence of these narratives and their textual interrelations with the various versions of T'ang shuyen-i IS S S f i IS [The history of the T ' a n g , a romance], ca. 1553, by Hsiung Chung-ku, the publisher from Chien-yang £ t f | s , Fukien, are numerous and quite complicated. I hope to address them on another occasion, but for present purposes it is justifiable to consider Prince of Ch'in as the older. Relevant observations concerning these works and their textual relations may be found in Sun K'ai-ti ffcHatft, Jih-pen Tung-ching sochien Chung-kuo hsiao-shuo shu-mu 0 @ [Chinese fiction seen in Tokyo, J a p a n : A bibliography] (Hong Kong: Shih-yung 1967), pp. 32-42; Cheng Chen-to, "Chungkuo hsiao-shuo t'i-yao" 4 s U S ' J N 5 i i l H [Notes on Chinese fiction], in his Chung-kuo wen-hsuehyenchiu c f a S i i p W i E [Studies in Chinese literature] (Hong Kong: Chung-wen shu-chii c ^ S t l r 1961), vol. I, pp. 3 5 1 - 3 5 3 ; Liu Ts'un-yan, Chinese Popular Fiction, pp. 100,255-262; Hsia, "Military Romance," pp. 359 ff; Idema, Chinese Vernacular Fiction, p. xxxvi, n. 47. Although this work, like several other tz'u-hua recently discovered (see n. 5), was meant to be read, it also reflects the oral genre "to a large extent," as P. D. H a n a n puts it in "Judge Bao's Hundred Cases Reconstructed." Liu Ts'un-yan, "Lo Kuan-chung," esp. pp. 88-99, notes significant parallels between this and other works attributed to Lo Kuan-chung U U ^ 20 S u n K'ai-ti, " T z ' u - h u a k'ao" [Studies of tz'u-hua], 1933, in his Ts'ang-chou chi ¡H] |H [Selected essays by Sun K'ai-ti] (Peking: Chung-hua cja 1965), pp. 99, 103; the unsigned explanatory note prefacing the reprinted version, Chu Sheng-lin Ta T'ang Ch'in-wang tz'u-hua ^C iS ^ EE Is] IS (Peking: Wen-hsueh ku-chi k'an-hsing-she i p "¿T l i f l j f f Hit, 1955; hereafter Ta T'ang)-, Cheng Chen-to , Chung-kuo su-wen-hsueh shih cfigg fS^tlfSSti [A history of Chinese popular literature] (Peking: Wen-hsueh ku-chi k'an-hsing-she, 1959), vol. 2, p. 385; Idema, Chinese Vernacular Fiction, pp. xxxvii, 119, considers that it may be an "experimental novel." Yeh Te-yun Sung Tuan Ming chiang-ch'ang wen-hsueh ^jPH^t^p [Chantefable literature of the Sung, Yuan, and Ming] (Shanghai: Ku-tien wen-hsueh ^ j S t i p , 1957), pp. 4 0 49, discusses the development of the (hypothetical) tz'u-hua form. His explanation, he admits, is full of inconsistencies. David Roy, " T h e Fifteenth-Century shuo-ch'ang tz'u-hua as Examples of Written Formulaic Composition," CHINOPERL Papers 10:124, n. 6 (1982), concludes that tz'u-hua in these titles designates only "doggerel verse employed for narrative or descriptive purposes."

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR

LITERATURE

123

in shih format, as well as the tz'u poems, not only record descriptions of scene, costume, and the like, but also share the burden of narration with prose. Even some dialogue is set in verse. Clearly, Prince of Ch 'in owes these formal features in part to the chantefable tradition, and for this reason it is only natural that it exhibit values common to theatrical works for mass audiences. I will return to its intended audience shortly, after observations on its content. T h e prince of the title is Li Shih-min. T h e narrative records his rise to prominence and his eventual unification of the empire as its ruler. All other characters are of secondary interest; Li M i becomes a strikingly contrasting foil to the prince. W. L . Idema has rightly praised the work's central conflict— between Li Shih-min's filial duty to his father (Li Y u a n , the T ' a n g founder) and the responsibility he owes his own loyal followers, attracted to him by his personal virtue. This conflict gives the work a kind of coherence lacking in the structurally much cruder Chronicles of Two Courts. Furthermore, the struggles of the prince for power are given tragic and ironic dimensions through the repeated poetic interludes devoted to life's transience. 2 1 Several scenes contrast sharply with this rationalistic tendency, however. While Li Mi is portrayed in Prince of Ch'in as a contender who fails through his own arrogance and perfidy, supernatural forces also conspire to seal his doom. The Duke of Chou from the eleventh century B.C. sends flying rats to destroy Li Mi's grain stores; Hsi Wang M u , the mythical "Queen Mother of the West," confiscates his magically potent sword—because he had broken the three interdictions limiting its use. 2 2 This latter episode has all the flavor of folklore; it contradicts the historically sanctioned descriptions of Li Mi's disaster as having been self-made. Li Shih-min is no less the victim of capricious forces beyond his ken. Before a big battle with another contender for power, his trusted advisor Li Ching warns that disaster will befall if the prince goes sightseeing, hunts, or practices with his bow. The T ' a n g forces are victorious and the enemy is besieged. T o while away the time, Li Shih-min wishes to visit the nearby tombs of Han period worthies, on Mount Pei-mang. A seer, Li Chun-feng, again foretells doom if he refuses to believe \n yin-yang prognostication—and if he is not back by noon. J u s t as he is about to return, a deer scampers past. Li shoots it, and follows the wounded animal to a tomb. On its wall in bas-relief is a deer with an arrow in its leg. An ominous verse beside it suggests that disaster is imminent. As noon approaches, Li Shih-min sees a city and rides over to inspect it. Its commander, Li Mi, orders out his generals to attack. Ch'eng Yao-chin approaches; the prince wounds him in the leg with another arrow and then flees. Although his prayers in the Lao-tzu shrine bring him temporary safety, Shih21

This is in contrast to the often hackneyed poems on history (yung-shih shih ¡¡j; to be found in other early vernacular historical narratives; verse here having this greater significance is also quite moving. See Idema, Chinese Vernacular Fiction, pp. xxxvi-xxxviii. I refer to verse passages introducing chiian 3, for example. 22 See Ta T'ang, chap. 16, 1.364-368.

R O B E R T E. H E G E L

124

min guarantees his own betrayal: Ch'eng has a woodcutter climb a tall tree to survey the area for the prince. This man does perceive a dragon hovering over the prince but pretends that he sees nothing. So fearful of discovery is Li Shihmin that he shoots the hapless man in the throat, thus giving away his whereabouts. Ch'eng captures him with Ch'in Shu-pao's help. With the Prince in Li Mi's prison, the narrator chides him again, in verse, for his lack of faith in prognostication—even as a star heralds his future regal station. 2 3 Fairy-tale innocence concerning causation appears regularly here. In chapter 9, when Li Mi fails to exterminate the flying rats in his granaries, he has a group of the rats driven past him. He observes that one is gold in color and bigger than the rest. Ch'in Shu-pao shoots it, which causes all the rats to disappear, leaving behind a note predicting fire; this is the proclamation of the king of the rats. A spider web suddenly appears and then reappears across the door of the storehouse. Exasperated by it, Li Mi orders the web burned. A miraculous wind springs up, carrying sparks inside and even to Li Mi's treasuries of precious metals, all of which are consumed by the fire.24 Later the contender Wang Shih-ch'ung wins the general Shan Hsiung-hsin over to his side by getting him drunk and putting his own concubines in Shan's bed. After committing the offense of sleeping with Wang's concubines, Shan must join Wang or die; he chooses the former alternative. When Li Mi begins to worry why Shan has not returned, he gullibly sends three lone envoys to inquire of Wang about him—thus proving himself a total fool compared to the wily Wang, who springs his trap for Li Mi with diabolical glee. 2 5 Likewise, L i Mi follows the most unreasonable advice of an otherwise undistinguished retainer to rebel against the T ' a n g when reliable Wang Po-tang knows full well that such a course is suicidal. Here, when Li Mi's time is up he no longer functions in any capacity as a worthwhile ruler, forgetting even the basics of military strategy. 2 6 But then Li Shih-min's reason had deserted him as well. Through this inconsistent blend of innocent absurdity and intellectual rationalism, 2 7 we 23

Ta T'ang, chaps. 2 - 5 , 1 . 8 2 - 1 3 2 . I n addition to his prescience, L i C h i n g ^ i p f can also

command storms like Chu-ko L i a n g i S i © - ® ' n Romance of the Three Kingdoms', see Ta

T'ang

1.165-168. 24

Ta T'ang, chap, g, 1 . 2 2 9 - 2 3 2 .

25

Ta T'ang, chaps. 9 and 10, 1 . 2 3 5 - 2 4 3 , 1 . 2 4 5 - 2 4 9 . This bedroom deception was already seen

in chap. 1, 1 . 4 8 - 4 9 , in which L i Shih-min tricks his father L i Y u a n into rebelling against the Sui. It is this latter ruse, developed perhaps with details borrowed from the former, that appears in subsequent historical

fiction.

26

See Ta T'ang

27

For the loss of L i M i ' s sword, see Ta T'ang 1 . 3 6 6 - 3 6 8 ; his receipt of the weapon from Hsi

1.340-355.

W a n g M u is not narrated here. Likewise, the circumstances of the Duke of C h o u ' s revenge are related in detail, but the crime meriting this punishment, L i M i ' s destruction of the shrines dedicated to this model minister, is not narrated here. Presumably, all these events appeared in earlier, genuine chantefable, versions of the tale. Perhaps the compiler of the present edition, Chu Sheng-lin, felt that it was unnecessary to do so, as it would have been if these stories were still common in the oral tradition of the middle M i n g . His lapse, then, demonstrates all the more clearly the popularity of the T ' a n g founders story cycle.

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR

LITERATURE

c a n find c o n f i r m a t i o n o f w h a t the s t r u c t u r e o f the w o r k reveals. Prince of Ch'in is a h y b r i d n a r r a t i v e s t r u c t u r a l l y i n d e b t e d to p o p u l a r ch.antefa.ble literature for oral p e r f o r m a n c e a n d to a g r o w i n g b o d y o f

fictionalized

historical n a r r a t i v e s in

prose. A t least in its earlier f o r m as a p u r e tz'u-hua, its i n t e n d e d a u d i e n c e m u s t h a v e been basically u n l e t t e r e d despite the flashes o f self-conscious literary sophistication in its later version; in its present f o r m it m u s t fall n e a r the socially l o w e r e n d o f the a u d i e n c e s p e c t r u m , for a literate b u t

non-elite

audience. S c h o l a r s o f diverse b a c k g r o u n d s a n d l e a n i n g s h a v e d i v i d e d m a t u r e M i n g a n d C h ' i n g novels into t w o g e n e r a l c a t e g o r i e s , those w r i t t e n b y i d e n t i f i e d scholar-novelists for other h i g h l y e d u c a t e d r e a d e r s a n d those c o m p o s e d a n o n y m o u s l y by literate b u t less w e l l e d u c a t e d m e n for c u l t u r a l l y less sophisticated readers. M o d e r n C h i n e s e editors term the f o r m e r " c l a s s i c a l

fiction"

(ku-tien

hsiao-shuo) a n d h a v e r e p r i n t e d some of these w o r k s in c a r e f u l l y p r e p a r e d p u n c t u a t e d a n d e v e n a n n o t a t e d editions. T h e o t h e r w o r k s h a v e often b e e n c o n s i d e r a b l y altered to rid t h e m o f " f e u d a l i d e a s " a n d "superstitious beliefs"; such novels are c a l l e d " p o p u l a r r e a d i n g m a t e r i a l s " (t'ung-su tu-wu). W . L . I d e m a uses the terms " l i t e r a r y n o v e l s " a n d " c h a p b o o k s " to distinguish the t w o types, a n d a l t h o u g h C . T . H s i a o b j e c t s strenuously to I d e m a ' s criteria for this distinction, h e still finds the c a t e g o r i z a t i o n useful. T h e reason for this d i s a g r e e m e n t is a difficulty in d e c i d i n g u p o n defensible criteria. I d e m a , f o l l o w i n g the C h i n e s e lead, tends to v i e w a n o n y m o u s w o r k s as g e n e r a l l y f a l l i n g i n t o this second c a t e g o r y , p a r t i c u l a r l y historical fiction a n d " s w o r d s m a n n o v e l s " (wu-hsia hsiaoshuo) . S t y l e o f l a n g u a g e is a n i m p o r t a n t criterion for I d e m a , w h i c h H s i a easily renders d u b i o u s in its r e l i a b i l i t y . 2 8 I d e m a also uses the cost o f p r o d u c t i o n as a c r i t e r i o n — t h a t is, in his v i e w e x p e n s i v e , l a r g e - f o r m a t editions w i t h m a n y h i g h q u a l i t y illustrations w e r e m e a n t for w e a l t h y purchasers; c h e a p editions w e r e m e a n t for the less affluent. W h i l e this is a self-evident t r u t h , H s i a a g a i n t h r o w s its r e l e v a n c e into q u e s t i o n b y o b s e r v i n g t h a t the w e a l t h y w e r e not necessarily the m o r e c u l t u r a l l y sophisticated, n o r w e r e w o r k s p r o d u c e d in rich f o r m a t o n l y those of greatest art. F u r t h e r m o r e , l a t e r editions m i g h t be c o n s i d e r a b l y less expensive t h a n the first ( w i t h the result t h a t s u b s e q u e n t a u d i e n c e s m a y be different from t h a t o r i g i n a l l y i n t e n d e d b y the novelist). W h i l e I d e m a searches for o b j e c t i v e criteria for the c a t e g o r i z a t i o n o f o l d C h i n a ' s novels, C . T . H s i a insists that o n l y o n the basis o f artistic c o m p l e x i t y c a n w o r k s for different 28

While the literary novels tend toward inventive use ofvernacular language, chapbooks utilize

a simplified classical style devoid ofliterary polish, according to Idema, Chinese Vernacular Fiction, pp. x i - x i i . Hsia, however, illustrates exceptions to this rule: a " c h a p b o o k " in northern colloquial and a pair of presumably elite works written in elegant forms of the classical style; see Hsia, " T h e ScholarNovelist and Chinese Culture: A Reappraisal of Ching-hua yuan"

in Chinese Narrative: Critical and

Theoretical Essays, ed. A n d r e w H. Plaks (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 267-270, esp. notes 4 - 5 . I do not believe that these exceptions invalidate Idema's general rule, but this is a point that needs further consideration.

R O B E R T E.

126

HEGEL

audiences be distinguished. 29 Neither approach is without merit; used together they can reveal the audiences we seek to establish. It seems generally true that highly literate members of the social elite who acknowledged their role in the production of vernacular fiction were usually writing specifically for their peers. These works were normally very well printed and often lavishly illustrated. Moreover, literati novels are generally distinguishable by certain obtrusive literary conventions and by the relative complexity of motivations they attribute to their characters. Foremost in the first category is an aggregation of characteristics now often described as the "storyteller's manner." These novels, like the fully developed hua-pen short story of the seventeenth century, engage the reader in a fictive dialogue with the narrator, who frequently interrupts the narrative to elucidate the meaning to be drawn from plot and characterization. By contrast, works for non-elite readers merely present action to be appreciated on its own terms without this further distancing device. Literati novels also provide commentary at the ends of chapters to continue this dialogue from a somewhat different perspective: the commentator may not in fact be other than the novelist himself, but this new stance allows discussion on matters of structure, narrative skill, and historical veracity, for example, that are inappropriate to the perspective of the storyteller. T h e pace of action is deliberately slowed in mature novels for the elite by frequent insertion of verse, usually attributable to the narrator or " q u o t e d " by him from earlier, characteristically anonymous, sources. Such poems describe character, setting or moral evaluation of events. 3 0 Literati novelists, or, as Hsia terms them, scholar-novelists, utilized the novel form to meet specific intellectual needs: social and political commentary, philosophical exploration, selfexpression, and even their own and their friends' enjoyment. 3 1 More popular works seem to have entertainment of less educated readers as their primary function.

29

See I d e m a , Chinese Vernacular Fiction, p. lxi; H s i a , " S c h o l a r - N o v e l i s t , " p. 269, n. 6. I n a recent

s t u d y o f t w o late M i n g ch'uan-ch'i

ÍJnf- plays, C y r i l B i r c h c o m p a r e s them on six v a l u e s — t h e

musical, lyric, m y t h i c , m i m e t i c , c o m i c , a n d s p e c t a c u l a r . H e discovers t h a t the p l a y designed m o r e specifically for elite a u d i e n c e s e m p h a s i z e s the earlier v a l u e s o n this list o v e r the later ones; the m o r e p o p u l a r p l a y presents m o r e c o m e d y a n d s p e c t a c l e b y c o m p a r i s o n . S u c h o b s e r v a t i o n s do not conclusively distinguish w o r k s for different a u d i e n c e s , b u t they do reinforce m y assertions b e l o w . See B i r c h , " T h e D r a m a t i c P o t e n t i a l o f X i Shi: Huanshaji a n d Jiaopaji C o m p a r e d , "

CHINOPERL

Papers 10: 1 2 9 - 1 4 0 (1982). 30

For a discussion o f the " s t o r y t e l l e r ' s m a n n e r " in M i n g a n d C h ' i n g fiction, see I d e m a , Chinese

Vernacular Fiction, pp. 70, 122; a n d H a n a n , Chinese Vernacular Story, p p . 2 0 - 2 2 . A n d r e w H . P l a k s describes the use o f ironic distance b e t w e e n novelist a n d events n a r r a t e d most p e r c e p t i v e l y in his " F u l l - l e n g t h Hsiao-shuo a n d the W e s t e r n N o v e l : A G e n e r i c R e a p p r a i s a l , " New Asia Academic Bulletin t : 1 6 3 - 1 7 6 (1978), esp. pp. 1 7 1 - 1 7 3 . See also Plaks's recent "Shui-hu

chuan a n d the S i x t e e n t h -

C e n t u r y N o v e l F o r m : A n I n t e r p r e t i v e R e a p p r a i s a l , " Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles and Reviews 2 . 1 : 3 ~ 5 3 ( J a n u a r y 1980), a n d m y discussions of literati fiction in Novel. 31

H s i a , " S c h o l a r - N o v e l i s t , " pp. 2 6 9 - 2 7 1 .

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR

LITERATURE

/2 J

Textually related 3 2 versions of the tale of Li M i appear in two literati novels of the seventeenth century, Suishih i-wen [Forgotten tales of the Sui, 1633] by the poet and dramatist Y u a n Yii-ling ( 1 5 9 9 - 1 6 7 4 ) and Sui T'angyen-i [Romance of the Sui and the T ' a n g , ca. 1675, first edition 1695], by the scholar-publisher Ch'u Jen-huo (ca. 1 6 3 5 - c a . 1705). Both authors considered the writing of novels a serious literary endeavor T o Y u a n Yii-ling, no literatus should be without such classics of popular fiction as Hsi-yu chi [Journey to the West]. 3 3 He re-edited at least one earlier historical novel, but it was on Forgotten Tales that he lavished his attention. In his preface to that work Y u a n relates, in pseudojocular vein, that he wishes to supplement standard historiography by describing the early life of a famous figure while he was still in youthful obscurity. What Y u a n presents is a dramatic view of maturation, imbued with sensitivity and good humor, but replete with strident warnings about the state of society and the monarchy. 3 4 Ch'u Jen-huo was a publisher and a compiler of anthologies. In the former capacity he produced an edition of a sixteenth-century novel of myth and adventure, Feng-shenyen-i [Investiture of the gods], that is still considered the standard today. Ch'u's publishing venture produced editions of highest quality; his Romance is a first-rate example of the xylographic printer's art. Its format is large; he used high-quality paper and engaged an artist who signed his illustrations for the work. As a compiler Ch'u demonstrates his devotion to reading broadly; he regularly cites hundreds of works in his own anecdote collections. The same scholarly tendency is visible in his Romance of the Sui and the T'ang: here Ch'u copied, often verbatim, segments from dozens of works of fiction and informal history concerning the Sui and early T'ang. Clearly he was writing for readers as well versed in historiographical sources as he was himself—that is, other literati. Furthermore, the overall structure of the novel is experimental and keyed to contemporary literary trends—among the elite. 35 His work, like Yuan's, could only have been intended for an elite audience of sophisticated readers. Li M i appears as a peripheral character in these two literati novels. Forgotten Tales concentrates on the early career of the warrior Ch'in Shu-pao, while the Romance sets its sights, more broadly, on the rise and fall of political forces over a 32

While textual problems are not of central concern here, they m a y not be disregarded. C h ' u

J e n - h u o acknowledged in his preface to Sui T'angyen-i

that Sui T'ang iiang-ch'ao chih-chuan formed

the basis foi his own work. T o its spare framework he grafted nearly all of Sui shih i-wen, either verbatim o; in outline, and major portions of another late M i n g novel, Sui Yang-ti yen-shih P S l t S ' S ^ i [ T h e merry adventures of E m p e r o r Y a n g of the Sui], and a variety of shorter prose narratives. For details, see Hegel, Novel, appendix I, pp. 2 3 9 - 2 4 0 . 33

See Y i a n ' s T'i-tz'u

H f ^ in an edition of Hsi-yu chi g§ j g |g, ostensibly edited by L i Chih

quoted in S j n K ' a i - t i , Jih-pen,

$

p. 77.

34

S e e Htgel, Novel, pp. 1 1 2 - 1 3 9 ,

35

S e e Robert E. Hegel, "Sui T'angyen-i

es

P- PP- 129— 1 3 0 . and the Aesthetics of the Seventeenth-Century Suchou

Elite," in Clinese Narrative, ed. Plaks, esp. pp. 1 2 6 - 1 3 9 , 1 4 1 - 1 4 2 , 1 4 5 - 1 5 3 . Liu T s ' u n - y a n discusses illustrations in novels in his Chinese Popular Fiction, pp. 2 5 - 2 9 .

128

R O B E R T E. H E G E L

two-hundred-year p e r i o d . 3 6 Forgotten Tales introduces into the tale a test of the hero's loyalty: with Li M i firmly in power, his a m b i t i o n s grow to encompass the empire. W a n g P o - t a n g dissuades his lord from a t t a c k i n g the T ' a n g ; Li Y u a n ' s armies are simply too strong to be defeated, he argues. Consequently, C h ' i n S h u - p a o a n d the strategist Wei C h e n g take a proposal of alliance to t h e T ' a n g court o n Li Mi's behalf. Impressed by his valor, Li Shih-min invites C h ' i n to shift his allegiance to their side. Reluctantly C h ' i n refuses; he must fulfill his commitments to Li M i . 3 7 C h ' u J e n - h u o ' s concern in Romance of the Sui and the T'ang was to d e m o n s t r a t e the workings of H e a v e n in the rise of the T ' a n g . T o this end he introduced a new element into the Li M i tale. W h e n the various W e i generals debate ways to help him escape from Li M i ' s prison, they dismiss the alternative of c h a n g i n g the p a r d o n as too simplistic to be convincing. I n s t e a d , the jailor a n d his attractive d a u g h t e r ferry Li Shih-min to safety on the pretext of transferring him to a n o t h e r prison. 3 8 M o r e like rationalistic history a n d yet still mysterious are the explanations in these elite versions of the tale. T h a t is, Y u a n Yii-ling's concern has been with the n a t u r e of the hero, his m a t u r a t i o n a n d the m e a n s by which he might properly establish himself in the eyes of the world. T o become a behavioral model deliberately constructed for society's leaders, the hero Ch'in S h u - p a o must develop a keen sensitivity to those qualities demonstrative of moral greatness a n d the capacity to rule. Li M i falls short in both of these areas in contrast to Li Shih-min. T h e novelist even set himself the task of fabricating a plausible biography of Ch'in's early life to supplement, not to s u p p l a n t , the histories 3 9 ; thus his view of Li Mi comes closer to that of the historians t h a n of the professional dramatists a n d p o p u l a r chroniclers of the M i n g . Given C h ' u J e n - h u o ' s emphasis on the larger motive forces behind historical change, the role of H e a v e n a n d the inherent weaknesses of political institutions, he was unwilling to leave any of his m a j o r characters stereotyped as good or wicked. Li M i is not a villain in Romance. Nor is Li Shih-min pure m o r a l e x e m p l a r — l i k e most other emperors in this novel, he falls prey to the temptations of the flesh. As a consequence, he neglects his official duties a n d his state suffers t h e r e b y . 4 0 Fantasy can be f o u n d here, but C h ' u J e n - h u o ' s Li M i falls through his own i n a d e q u a c i e s — t o which Heaven responds. 36 These essential differences are never so clearly demonstrated as in their treatment of Ch'in Shu-pao; see Robert E. Hegel, " M a t u r a t i o n and Conflicting Values: T w o Novelists' Portraits of the Chinese Hero Ch'in Shu-pao," in Critical Studies on Chinese Fiction, ed. Yang and Adkins, pp.

115-15°37

Sui shih i-wen R | Stiifi

by Y u a n Yii-ling M T ' ^ f

(Taipei: Yu-shih yueh-k'an she

M f U S t . r 975). c h a P - 49. PP- 338-34238 Sui T'angyen-ifJ/iFi|i| d , by C h ' u j e n - h u o (Shanghai: Ku-tien wen-hsueh lifiBlJfcip, 1956), chap. 51, pp. 389, 392-393. 39 See.Su! shih i-wen, "Sui shih i-wen hsu" pp. 3 - 5 . 40 See Hegel, "Aesthetics," pp. 124-159.

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR

LITERATURE

T h e one extended narrative that corresponds most closely to the theatrical recreations of Li Mi's fall is Shuo T'angyen-i [Tales of the T'ang], later retitled Shuo T'ang ch'ien-chuan [First series], when sequels began to appear a century after it was written. This work may be safely considered a novel for a less well educated, non-elite readership, on the basis of these characteristics: this anonymous early eighteenth-century novel is textually indebted to older fiction and d r a m a concerning the Sui and the T ' a n g , but in its action-packed pages is to be found a certain amount of innovative content. A m o n g this new material is a new character, the fourth son of L i Y u a n , named Li Y u a n - p a . Historically, this person died as a small child; here he is pure prodigy. A t the age of twelve he is bigger and far stronger than a normal man. H e can defeat any number of soldiers in personal combat; the hyperbole with which he is described far surpasses the only occasionally extravagant descriptions in literati novels. In its version of Li Mi's later career, Tales of the T'ang has Li M i lead the allied forces to punish the regicide solely in order to obtain the imperial insignia with which he may legitimize his own claim to the throne. C h ' e n g Y a o - c h i n heads the expedition, having won that honor by virtue of his m a g i c a l — i n addition to his military—prowess. Li Mi's forces are initially successful until L i Y u a n - p a singlehandedly holds the entire allied army at bay, demanding the insignia and their surrender to the T ' a n g . W h e n one leader objects to the second demand, Y u a n - p a tears the man limb from limb with his bare hands. 4 1 Because of this one act, subsequent military action against the T ' a n g in Tales of the T'ang is motivated in large part by a thirst for revenge. A l l complexities of characterization to be found in the literati novels are swept aside in this adventure novel to leave a disproportionate supply of the more gross motivations for human behavior. Fear, greed, revenge, blind r a g e — w h i l e it cannot be said that Tales of the T'ang endorses these feelings as just cause for action (all characters fail when their exploits are so motivated), because it presents raw emotion in crude form, the reader might more readily respond to these expressions and to pure physical strength than to the intricacies of conflicting moral obligations and refined strategy. Even Li M i is made more immediate by the exposure of his physical lusts here: upon his defeat of the regicide he gladly trades treasure for the Empress Hsiao, with w h o m he has become infatuated. 4 2 By contrast with characters in the literati novels, the simple heroes and villains of Tales of the T'ang are far more easily understood. From their different approaches, C . T . Hsia and W . L. Idema both conclude that this work was 41

Hsiu-hsiang Shuo T'angyen-i ch'iian-chuan ¡ B f i j i f t d i i i i l j i ^ f f

illustrated] (Shanghai: Chin-chang t'u-shu-chii

jp: g H c a .

[Complete tales of the T ' a n g ,

1915), hereafter Shuo T'ang, chap.

42, 2 : 1 6 . This edition is the complete 68-chapter version; other recent editions are condensed to 66 or even 64 chapters. Li Y u a n - p a $ 7 c f | is introduced in chap. 35, 2 :10b. *2Shuo T'ang, 2 : 1 6 b . Li Y u a n - p a is miraculously destroyed by Heaven here, apparently because he cursed it for breaking a thunderstorm over his head!

R O B E R T E. H E G E L

•3°

i n t e n d e d for less sophisticated r e a d i n g a u d i e n c e s than Forgotten Tales Romance of the Sui and the

and

T'ang,43

F r o m at least the Y u a n , l o c a l a n d r e g i o n a l d r a m a t i c f o r m s

flourished

all

o v e r C h i n a . T h e p r i m a r y p o i n t o f difference a m o n g t h e m w a s in the m u s i c a l traditions they i n c o r p o r a t e d , a l t h o u g h o f course they differed in d i a l e c t of p e r f o r m a n c e as well. S o m e story m a t e r i a l w a s n e a r l y universally shared a m o n g these different traditions. T h e best k n o w n a n d m o s t i m p o r t a n t f o r m in r e c e n t centuries d e v e l o p e d in the P e k i n g a r e a , calledp'i-huang hsi ( d r a m a using m u s i c in the hsi-p'i a n d erh-huang styles) or ching-hsi ( P e k i n g o p e r a ) . H e r e , on a simple stage, actors p e r f o r m in c o n v e n t i o n a l role c a t e g o r i e s , e a c h w i t h its a p p r o p r i a t e c o s t u m i n g , m a k e u p , stage properties, a n d style o f singing. C o n v e n t i o n s of m a k e u p a n d gesture are p a r t i c u l a r l y c o m p l e x b u t s y m b o l i z e the c h a r a c t e r ' s level o f m o r a l a n d aesthetic r e f i n e m e n t . W h i l e t h e form is o b v i o u s l y d e s i g n e d to delight the e y e , n o r t h e r n a u d i e n c e s o f all social classes w e n t , as c o m m o n term i n o l o g y has it, to " h e a r the p l a y " (t'ing-hsi), music b e i n g the most i m p o r t a n t element. E x p e r i e n c e at the t h e a t e r m i g h t h a v e b e e n r e q u i r e d to a p p r e c i a t e fully its art, b u t literacy w a s not a prerequisite. W e m a y safely c o n c l u d e t h a t these c o m m e r c i a l e n t e r t a i n m e n t s w e r e designed to a p p e a l to a u d i e n c e s consisting in l a r g e p a r t o f the u n l e t t e r e d masses. B e c a u s e it w a s a p e r f o r m e r ' s , n o t a p l a y w r i g h t ' s , art f o r m , texts o f p l a y s w e r e fluid entities until b y h a p p e n s t a n c e or b y scholarly effort they c a m e to be r e c o r d e d . T e x t s n o w c u r r e n t represent nineteenth- or t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y stage v e r s i o n s . 4 4 T h e compilers o f P e k i n g o p e r a s presented further n e w elements in the d o w n f a l l o f L i M i . In Shuangt'ou

T'ang [A p a i r shift a l l e g i a n c e to the T ' a n g ] , the

central c h a r a c t e r is W a n g P o - t a n g in a lao-sheng (distinguished a n d u p r i g h t older male) role. A t his i n t r o d u c t i o n , W a n g has j u s t r e t u r n e d f r o m a mission to c a p t u r e the advisors H s u S h i h - c h i a n d W e i C h e n g ; they h a d deserted L i M i to j o i n the T ' a n g . T r u e to his v o w s o f s w o r n b r o t h e r h o o d w i t h t h e m , W a n g w o u l d rather lie to his lord than to b r i n g t h e m h a r m . L i M i sees t h r o u g h W a n g Po43

Here again Hsia's criterion is art. His proof lies in the total failure of Tales of the T'ang to

present the superior strategic planning of historical military advisors in any convincing manner. Instead, this military romance makes such characters into w i z a r d s — a s they are in the plays and the chantefable of the Ming. However, here the characters are altered to fit role categories of the developing military-romance genre: they are provided with astral origins, masters from whom they learn their skills, and lifelong friends; see Hsia, "Military R o m a n c e , " pp. 359-362. Likewise, Tales of the T'ang is almost certainly an adaptation of the literati novels discussed above; see Hsia, "Military R o m a n c e , " pp. 379-389, esp. n. 55. No early edition, to my knowledge, had the artistic q u a l i t y — o r , presumably, the high p r i c e — o f Forgotten Tales or Romance. 44

For detailed descriptions of Peking opera, see Dolby, History, pp. 1 5 7 - 1 9 6 , 216-230; Colin P.

Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera, iyyo—i8yo

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972); and

Mackerras's The Chinese Theatre in Modern Times From 1840 to the Present Day (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1975). In addition to these excellent historical surveys, noteworthy among older works is L. C. Arlington, The Chinese Drama (Shanghai, 1930; reprint ed. New Y o r k : Benjamin Blom, 1966) and Famous Chinese Plays, trans, and ed. Arlington and Harold Acton (Peking: Henri Vetch, 1937).

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR

LITERATURE

'3'

tang's lie that they outran him, however. A m o n g his essential lieutenants, only W a n g remains in Mi's c a m p — t h e others have defected to Li Shih-min. For that reason, one should not be suspicious of his sole loyal follower, W a n g suggests, to which Li M i replies prophetically, " I f I misjudge your good heart, may I die in a hail of arrows!" W a n g Po-tang suggests that they surrender to the T ' a n g , giving up glory and independence to guarantee survival. Every enterprise has its rise a n d its fall, W a n g declares. For his part, Li Shih-min in this play wants revenge for being imprisoned. While hunting he downs a goose but cannot locate it. Li M i and W a n g Po-tang find the dead bird; the latter uses it as an introduction to the T ' a n g commander. Li Shih-min here declares his willingness to forgive and forget; it is his father's anger that needs assuaging. T o assure his loyalty, the emperor awards Li M i with a princess for wife. But when Li M i tries to enlist her aid in his rebellion, she refuses and he slays her and all of her m a i d s — a n act he here justifies as k a r m a from a previous life. W a n g Po-tang had earlier refused to swear allegiance to the T ' a n g in order that he might continue to serve Li M i personally; now he reprimands his lord sternly for his treachery. W a n g even laments that his fate is to serve such a perfidious leader. Nevertheless, W a n g distracts their pursuers to allow Li M i a last chance for freedom. Failing in that, he dies together with his lord in a hail of arrows. W a n g ' s reward is forthcoming, however; Li Shih-min orders a formal funeral for h i m — b u t not for Li M i . 4 5 Loyalty within the social hierarchy has been displaced by other, lateral obligations in this version of the tale. Here oaths of brotherhood and commitment to an individual supplant loyalty to a cause or to a state. It is true that W a n g ' s ties to Li M i bring him to his death, but clearly he places a higher priority on protecting his friends than he does on truthfulness to his l o r d — h e maintains his pretense that they evaded his pursuit until Li M i is finally convinced. Li Mi's trust is thus ironic in the context of the play and reveals the considerably simpler view of human motivations presented here. A g a i n , as in Tales of the T'ang, this play emphasizes immediacy of appreciation by its frequent references to fate or karma and simple cause-and-effect relationships. T h e demands of the theater account for certain variations from the tale as presented in literati fiction, but the degree of attention to the more concrete obligations to individuals rather than merely to some abstract cause or nebulous political entity can only have been the result of conscious choice on the part of the dramatist. Personal considerations and higher forces take precedence over public concerns here; this fact is certainly essential in understanding the values presented in art forms such as this. From this brief overview, it is obvious that the fall of Li M i appeared in vernacular narratives intended for a range of a u d i e n c e s — f r o m novels written 4 5 T h e text appears in Kuo-chii ta-ch'eng g§§1] ^ [ A compendium of the national opera], ed. C h a n g Po-ch'in S Í É H (Taipei: Kuo-fang-pu yin-chih-ch'ang g g p f g ® . 1969), vol. 5, pp. 359-372; the quotation is from p. 361.

132

ROBERT E. HEGEL

for the highly cultured members of the well-to-do social elite to plays designed for audiences specifically including the illiterate masses. If we take these groups as poles of a spectrum, then the other three popular narratives fall between them: the modified chantefable Prince of Ch'in near the plays and Chronicles of Two Courts nearer the elite novels, when formal features are considered. Its anonymous authorship and emphasis on fast-paced action suggest a less sophisticated readership for Tales of the T'ang, thus placing it with Prince of Ch'in near the play end of this continuum. These relationships may be represented as follows:

Elite Highly literate

'K f*

5o

I " Moderately literate

Non-elite Primarily illiterate

s c -3 w -5 -g S i s

M

.5 S

CO

Pi

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR LITERATURE

'33

C O R R E L A T I O N S OF C O N T E N T A N D V A L U E S WITH DIFFERENT AUDIENCES By concentrating on dissimilarities among the different versions of Li Mi's fall, we have overlooked the significant overlaps in story material. T a b l e i presents a hypothetical "complete" tale of Li Mi's fall by listing in a single chronological sequence all of the incidents from these seven sources (taking the M i n g play cycle as a single entry), noting the ones that occur in more than a single version. Sixty separate incidents appear when the texts are compared. When sources provide dissimilar accounts of the same incident, these cases have been designated as subcategories of the numbered entries (e.g., 29a, 29b, 29c). For easy comparison I have grouped these works by intended audience as identified above. "History" here means the standard histories Chiu T'ang shu and Hsin T'ang shu and the chronological history Tzu-chih t'ung-chien. While it is possible that less formal but still reliable sources may have been used by some of the writers involved, I have not taken such works into account here; these three histories by themselves serve adequately to make clear distinctions between the various popular versions. Even at first glance, Table 1 presents a considerable degree of overlap between the vernacular versions of Li Mi's fall for different audiences. All versions vary appreciably from the historical record, inserting speeches, battles, and even characters that have little or no basis in the official histories. Clearly, all M i n g - C h ' i n g writers of historical fiction and drama, like their counterparts in other cultures and eras, were motivated to flesh out the bare facts with dramatic detail. Mere reference to a behavioral model (of the negative sort) like Hsiang Y u would not suffice; writers for all audiences felt the need to exemplify their understanding of this historical character in concrete ways by showing (either literally or figuratively) the events and forces that contributed significantly to Li Mi's fall. T a b l e 1 also shows that a certain number ofincidents from the tale of Li occur only in vernacular works for non-elite readers and for illiterates, including M i n g and C h ' i n g plays, while others are present only in the elite works, Forgotten Tales and Romance. Thirty-seven of the total of seventyeight incidents and variations occur only in the more popular works, 47 percent of the total. In the elite novels there are nine unique incidents, or 12 percent of the total. T h e rest are shared by one or more works from each of these two major categories. It is through these differences in the tale that we may seek differences in values presented to separable audiences. First, it would appear either that writers for non-elite literate and illiterate audiences were the more innovative in incorporating new incidents into the tale, or that literati novelists were less willing to present legendary or irrational materials to elite audiences. I suspect that both observations are accurate to a certain extent; regardless of the sources for these accretions to the tale, major categories of vernacular literature are distinguishable on this basis. After all, the

ROBERT

'34

TABLE i.

E.

HEGEL

Incidents in the Fall of Li M i from History and Vernacular Literature Original sources

«

1

; « g "§

i. 2. 3-

Non-elite

narratives

h.

§ 13 a 05 t?

-3 e 6

c -5 Í

s

Plays

«

-ft ^ »,

"3. 60

•=

1 £

S

T*

i-

1

Li M i joins C h a i j a n g , becomes primary leader (A3a)

X

X

X

X

L i M i executes C h a i (E3)

X

X

X

X

X

X

S u b o r d i n a t e s flee L i M i t o j o i n Tang

4-

X

Incident

Tales

Number

Forgo

IS> V

'C 0

tv c

Elite novels

(C3)

X

W a n g P o - t a n g dissuades L i M i from attacking T ' a n g , urges X

alliance (A3, F) 5-

Ch'in Shu-pao and W e i C h e n g take X

l e t t e r to T ' a n g ( A 3 , F ) 6.

C h ' i n S h u - p a o refuses i n v i t a t i o n to X

j o i n T ' a n g forces ( A 2 ) 7-

Li M i gloats over T ' a n g response ( G i )

8a.

X

L i M i leads expedition against the X

regicide (A3, E 2 ) b 8b.

L i M i participates in the attack (A3)

910.

R e g i c i d e ' s deserters j o i n L i M i (A2)

11.

L i Y u a n - p a takes insignia, forces

X

X

X

X

X X

Li M i obtains imperial insignia ( E i )

X

surrender (A3, G i )

X

12.

Li M i obtains Empress Hsiao (G5)

X

'3-

L i M i desecrates the D u k e of C h o u shrine ( G i ) Li Shih-min makes war on W a n g

14b.

W a n g Shih-ch'ung makes war on

S h i h - c h ' u n g ( A 3 [plays], E 6 )

X

X

T ' a n g (E6) '5a-

X X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

C h ' e n g Y a o - c h i n p u r s u e s ( E 7 [plays], E 5 [Chronicles, Romance], E 6

[Tales],

G 2 [Prince]) >9-

X

L i M i declines to h a v e S h i h - m i n p u r s u e d (F [Chronicles], E 1 )

18.

X

D r u n k e n S h i h - m i n f o l l o w s stag/ h e r o n t o M i ' s c a m p ( G 6 [plays], C 2 )

"7-

X

L i M i supplies W a n g S h i h - c h ' u n g with food grains (D)c

16.

X

X

14a.

C h ' i n S h u - p a o rejects L i Shih-min's offer (A2)

20.

shrine a For bThe

X

C h ' e n g chases L i S h i h - m i n into the X

X

X

X

X

explanations of A i , A2, A 3 , etc., see T a b l e 3. subdivisions of a single entry (8a, 8b; 14a, 14b; etc.) indicate alternative versions of what is (essentially the

same incident in the tale of Li M i as a whole. CI

have located the two versions of this incident, 15a and 15b, in different sections of the table to cllarify the plot

relations: in two sources the incident is a consequence of others; in the non-elite narratives it is tthe cause of a number of other incidents.

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR

•35

LITERATURE

T A B L E I . (continued) Original sources

Elite I novels -s C « I a ^

Number

i i

Non-elite narratives

«

-i §

Incident

21.

T h e d e i t y hides S h i h - m i n ( C 2 )

22.

D r a g o n portends S h i h - m i n ' s

a. C

K K

future ( C 2 ) 23a.

D r a g o n protects S h i h - m i n ( C 2 )

23b.

S h i h - m i n shoots w o o d s m a n ( E i )

24.

C h ' i n S h u - p a o protects S h i h - m i n ( C 3 , E 7 [plays, Prince, Tales], E 4 [Chronicles, Romance])

25-

[Tales], A 3 , E i ) 26.

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Li M i to e x e c u t e S h i h - m i n (E6 Li M i imprisons S h i h - m i n (A2 [Tales], F , G 2 )

27a.

W e i C h e n g tricks M i to treat

27b.

Jailor'^ d a u g h t e r d r e a m s o f w a y

28.

W e i C h e n g , Hsu S h i h - c h i , C h ' i n

S h i h - m i n well ( C 3 , E4)

X

to s a v e S h i h - m i n ( C 2 )

X

S h u - p a o d r a w n to S h i h - m i n ( C 3 ) 29a.

W e i C h e n g ( C 3 , E 3 , E4) 29c.

X

X

X

X

X

L i M i ' s d e c l a r a t i o n altered b y D e c l a r a t i o n altered b y W e i a n d H s u S h i h - c h i ( C 3 , E3, E4)

29c.

D e c l a r a t i o n altered by W e i , H s u , and Ch'in Shu-pao (C3)

30a.

W e i C h e n g takes responsibility (B)

30b.

C h ' i n S h u - p a o gives S h i h - m i n

31a.

L i M i imprisons H s u a n d W e i ( G 4 )

31b.

L i M i exiles W e i C h e n g ( G 4 )

a horse

32-

H s u a n d W e i flee to T ' a n g (E3, C 3 )

33-

W a n g Po-tang allows Hsu and W e i

34-

W a n g P o - t a n g lies to L i M i (B, E3)

35-

for failing to c a t c h H s u , W e i ( G 4 )

X

X X X

to escape (B) C h ' i n a n d L o C h ' e n g to b e e x e c u t e d X

C h ' i n , L o , C h ' e n g desert L i M i 36. 15b. 37-

after dismissal (E3)

X

L i M i supplies W a n g S h i h - c h ' u n g w i t h g r a i n (F, B [Prince])

X

L i M i distributes g r a i n s to the h u n g r y (E2)

38a.

L i M i ' s g r a i n ruined b y rats ( C 2 )

38b.

M i ' s treasury d e s t r o y e d b y fire ( C 2 )

39a-

M i defeated by W a n g S h i h - c h ' u n g

X

X X

X X

( G 3 , C 2 [Tales, Prince], F [Prince, Romance]) 39 b -

S h a n Hsiung-hsin's t r e a c h e r y ( G 7 )

X

X

X X

X

'3

R O B E R T E.

6

TABLE I.

HEGEL

(continued)

Original

Number

Elite novels S

'S K

Incident

Non-elite narratives K s

Î C

a: to

h. è-.

Li M i hallucinates demons ( C i ) L i M i loses h o p e o v e r desertions ( C 2 ) X

W a n g P o - t a n g suggests n e w strategy M i expresses contrition [Forgotten], a t t e m p t s suicide ( E 5 , C 2 )

X

W a n g Po-tang vows loyalty (D7)

X

X

X

W a n g P o - t a n g suggests s u r r e n d e r ( A i [Chronicles], E i [Tales],

Ei,

G 2 [A Pair])

X

J a o Chiin-su suggests s u r r e n d e r (F) X

L i M i leads s u r r e n d e r ( E i ) W a n g Po-tang, Li admit retribution ( C i , C 2 ) W a n g P o - t a n g tries to w i n L i Shih-min's favor ( A i , E i ) M i s h a m e d in a r g u m e n t w i t h Li Shih-min ( G i )

X

M i shamed by Shih-min's snub ( G i ) L i M i a c c e p t e d by L i Y u a n (A3)

X

W a n g reaffirms l o y a l t y to M i

X

M i given a T ' a n g bride

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X X

L i M i waits the time to rebel (E5 [Romance], E 5 , F [Chronicles]) Ts'ai Chien-te provokes X

rebellion ( G 2 , G 3 ) M i slays his bride E6, C 2

X

(A Pair), E6, G 7 L i M i sent o n mission, recalled (F)

X

X

X

X

X

M i rebels ( E i [history], E 5 [plays, Romance], Gi

[Forgotten], F, G 2 [Prince]

X

X

W a n g P o - t a n g objects to revolt

(A3, C a )

X

X

L i M i p r a y s for o m e n s , gives u p h o p e (G2) L i M i destroys o w n astral b o d y ( C i , C2) W a n g P o - t a n g tries to protect Li M i (Ai) M i shot b y T ' a n g forces

X

X

X

X

X

M i c o m m i t s suicide ( E 5 ) M i ' s followers recruited b y T'ang (C3) 6ob.

H s u a n d W e i m o u r n M i , then j o i n T ' a n g (A2)

X

X

X

X

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR L I T E R A T U R E

'37

illogical and supernatural are most often seen in works toward the less well educated and uneducated end of the scale of audiences. Incidents to be found in works for non-elite audiences include numbers 1 0 - 1 2 , 3 3 - 3 4 , 39b, 4 7 - 4 8 , 49a, 56, and 57a, 57b, and 58; among them the fictional elements that were utilized by two or more anonymous creators of non-elite works—and by neither of the literati novelists—are numbers 49a, 56, and 58. (In number 58, the Peking dramatist probably used Tales of the T'ang as his source, although all four incidents could well have been in circulation among storytellers before the seventeenth century; in the other two cases the source substantially predates the literati novels.) T h e incidents in question go beyond mere use of the supernatural; they compose a scene that pits Li Mi against Li Shih-min—both haughty in their positions of authority—in a confrontation of will and of literary skills, a moving speech by Wang Po-tang in which he attempts one last time to dissuade Li Mi from rebellion against the T ' a n g , and Wang's final effort to shield his master's body from the weapons of their foe. All of these scenes portray either unmitigated heroism or the highest villainy; they are immediate and highly dramatic, and likely to appeal to culturally less sophisticated audiences for that reason. Incidents that occur only in elite works, the literati novels, are numbers 3—7, 22, 27b, and 42. The first group here serves to clarify the moral contrast between Li Mi and the T ' a n g leaders: they demonstrate the awareness on the part of Li Mi's lieutenants that he is unworthy to rule in contrast to Li Shihmin; they also give testimony to the moral uprightness of these men. Ch'in Shupao, as one example, honors his obligation to serve Li Mi when a personally more satisfactory alternative is presented. Incidents 21 - 2 2 illustrate Ch'u J e n huo's preoccupation with the workings of higher powers in the establishment of dynasties (from Romance of the Sui and the T'ang)-, only the first is shared with the chantefable Prince of Ch'in. In incident 42, Wang Po-tang illustrates his diligent service to his chosen lord by proposing a new military strategy in an effort to bolster Li Mi's courage after defeat. T h e reasons behind these acts are complex; the acts demonstrate a keen awareness of moral responsibility, of moral order in the universe. One might go so far as to see here concerns for the political role of the literatus in society, not as one who has to beware of the world's "great men," as in the less morally complex works, but as interpreter of the times, the fate of the realm, and the responsibility of ministers to the throne to maintain social order (which function they were trained to perform). As a consequence, we may conclude that these works are more appropriate for a relatively sophisticated audience. Furthermore, they are somewhat less emotionally dramatic and more thought-provoking than the comparatively straightforward, actionoriented mass and general works, presumably meant to appeal to an audience accustomed to relating intellectually, on a philosophical level, to works of more formal literature, poetry and classical prose.

I38

R O B E R T E. H E G E L

TABLE 2.

Historical and "Original" Material in Various Versions of the Fall of Li Mi Number of incidents

Source

Histories

'3

Shared with histories Number Percentage

No known source Number Percentage

(100)

(13)

Forgotten Tales

'9

9

47

7

Romance

31

9

29

4

Total elite novels

18

50

Chronicles

3'

8

26

7

34

5

'5

•9

30

5

'7

8

Total "general"

Ming plays A Pair Total plays

works

18

95

22 18

7

6 40

•3

'9

22 23 56 27 38

34

32

'5

33

4 33

'3 11

36

Prince Tales

37

68 22 '9

48

Needless to say, the differences between these two sets of scenes are small and, perhaps, are distinguished in a manner that is insufficiently objective for a genuinely convincing argument. Likewise, nearly half of the total number of incidents in the complete tale are shared by works toward both poles of the spectrum. Thus, these findings are only suggestive, not definitive, in themselves. However, tabular arrangement of these data does tend to confirm the intended audiences tentatively identified for each work thus far. First, let us compare the amount of material ultimately derived from recorded history, the dynastic histories and Tz.u-ch.ih t'ung-chien, to w h i c h all writers might have had access (leaving aside the question of unofficial, privately compiled histories) with that for which there is no extant source, presumably oral and original material. O n the basis of the relative degrees of rational versus fantastic or supernatural explanation given for the causes of actions and events, in T a b l e 2 I have arranged these works tentatively along a spectrum of intended audiences. T h e table confirms that the arrangement, in general, is valid: elite novels have a relatively high degree of historicity compared with written works for non-elite audiences. Conversely, the intellectually less complex narratives demonstrate a higher degree of "originality" than do the elite novels. O f course, this originality must include on the one hand elements from folklore and oral narratives as well as from vernacular written sources now lost and, on the other, genuine innovations to the story. Presumably, the first of these two untraceable types of material accounts for the large amount of apparent originality in the plays composed for oral performance before mass audiences. T h e same can be said for Prince of Ch 'in, an adaptation of an oral work. T h e high percentage of incidents common to the plays and the histories paradoxically may confirm this obser-

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR LITERATURE

•39

vation: since p o p u l a r theater tended to present stories a l r e a d y familiar to listening audiences, a n o n y m o u s dramatists p r o b a b l y a d h e r e d m o r e closely to the factual record than the m o r e i m a g i n a t i v e writers for non-elite

readers.

C e r t a i n l y relationships b e t w e e n plays a n d p o p u l a r written narratives w a r r a n t m u c h further study. T h e literati novelists were p r o b a b l y the only ones a m o n g these writers w h o could h a v e access to unofficial historical sources c o n c e r n i n g Li M i , and yet reference to these works becomes irrelevant for present purposes. T h a t is, the elite novels h a v e m o r e material in c o m m o n w i t h recorded history than do more p o p u l a r works w h e n only the best k n o w n histories are considered. T a b l e 2 thus reinforces our separation of these works into different portions o f the audience spectrum. In order to determine w h e t h e r writers consistently e x p l a i n e d their c h a r a c ters' actions differently for elite audiences than for non-elite audiences, I h a v e recorded in T a b l e 3 the m o t i v a t i o n b e h i n d each act or incident w h e n — a n d only w h e n — c a u s a t i o n was m a d e clear in the texts. Similarities between works for different audiences can be interpreted as evidence of cultural integration across different levels of society; differences w o u l d indicate values a n d interests distinguishable by social g r o u p a n d class. In total, these texts m e n t i o n twenty-three different reasons behind the actions they narrate. T o limit the effect of m y subjective reading on this analysis, I h a v e avoided i m p u t i n g m o t i v a t i o n w h e n none w a s m a d e explicit in a text. I have g r o u p e d these rationales into seven categories for convenience. T h i s analysis is preliminary, of course; the classification scheme could well be improved by reference to social scientific work b e y o n d the r a n g e of this study. T a b l e 3 lists these various motivations in their separate categories a n d indicates the frequency with w h i c h each was cited in the texts. Designations derived from this list a p p e a r following the incidents in T a b l e 1 a b o v e . In T a b l e 3, I h a v e again g r o u p e d the texts to facilitate comparisons b e t w e e n those intended for elite and non-elite audiences. C o l u m n 1 is history, columns 2 a n d 3 are the literati novels designed for sophisticated readers, columns 4 a n d 6 the prose narratives intended for non-elite r e a d i n g audiences, c o l u m n 5 the chantefable, a n d columns 7 a n d 8 are the plays. T h e reader will notice that no one explanation of characters' motivations is offered consistently in a n y one text; all twenty-three are cited in nearly every version of the tale, a l t h o u g h some rationales are cited more frequently than others. A n d yet even here patterns emerge that serve to distinguish elite works from works for non-elite audiences. C o m m i t m e n t to a state or to a cause such as righteous g o v e r n m e n t is most often offered as motivation in b o t h elite a n d non-elite works. Self-preservation, too, occurs as a frequent rationale for action in both types of works. B u t blind chance, sometimes identified as H e a v e n ' s favor, serves as a very c o m m o n rationale in the non-elite works, i n c l u d i n g the plays a n d Prince of Ch'in.

The

a p p e a r a n c e of this rationale in Romance is a function o f the novelist's preoccupation with ultimate causes a n d is not shared with the other elite novel, Forgotten

140

R O B E R T E. H E G E L

Tales. A corollary, recognition of Heaven's favor, is a c o m m o n rationale for action in less intellectual works but not in the literati novels. Strategic planning and acting on advice in matters of strategy (F in T a b l e 3) is cited in the histories, in Prince of Ch'in and Chronicles, and in the literati novels; a desire for personal honor and glory motivated the historical Li M i — b u t only his counterparts in works for more general audiences. Using T a b l e 3, we can compile lists of motivations and rationales of greater interest to one or another audience: 1. Rationales more often offered to readers a m o n g the literate elite: a. Shame concerning failure or errors (E5) b. Strategic planning and advice concerning strategy (F) 2. Rationales more often offered to non-elite audiences: a. Personal devotion to one's leader ( A i ) b. Altruism; personal devotion to friends (B) c. Heaven's favor, or chance (C2) d. Recognition of Heaven's favor (C3) e. Personal revenge for humiliation (E6) f. Desire for personal honor and glory (G2) These lists again suggest that elite readers are more concerned with greater issues—for example, those affecting a political, social, or military group. Shame, which is cited often, also involves an awareness of the views of other people. Works of fiction and drama for the less well educated, on the other hand, are concerned to a greater extent with the individual: devotion to a leader, a friend, one's reputation, one's status, and comfort. Non-elite literature also addresses matters far beyond the human being's feeble reach, such as Heaven's inscrutable mandate for a ruling house to succeed. O n e might infer that writers for non-elite audiences focused on action that fell more within the experience of common people; matters of political or military planning might not be ofinterest, but attention is given to events that put even the elite in their p l a c e — t h e acts of H e a v e n itself. Likewise, the second group of rationales for behavior are more readily and immediately comprehensible—they require neither strong commitment nor penetrating contemplation on the part of an audience. Consequently, they confirm our intuition that relatively uneducated readers and illiterate listening audiences are less likely to respond to the concerns of another class in society, but are more inclined to respond to supernatural references and to the acts of individuals. Certain motivations are common to both the elite and non-elite versions of Li Mi's tale. Pride and arrogance (G1) motivate individuals in the histories and the vernacular narratives; figures in all renditions may choose an unwise course of action (G3). Self-preservation ( E i ) is similarly of importance to all audiences. Surprisingly, the need for commitment to higher causes, either the state or the principle of just government, motivates the actions of characters in all

141

MING-CH'ING VERNACULAR LITERATURE TABLE 3.

Frequency of Motivations and Rationales Cited as Causes for Events in the Fall of Li Mi Original sources . tx C ' 9 8 1 ) ' T h e archaic language referred to, known as "stage M a n d a r i n " (in Cantonese, hei

foikoon wa

j ^ ' g ' g S ) , is said to have been based on Kweilin pronunciation and to have been the

normal pronunciation used for all Cantonese operas before the early years of this century. T h e use of Cantonese apparently spread quickly after the revolution of 1911. Elderly informants mention being unable to understand everything they heard from the stage when they were children.

i68

B A R B A R A E. W A R D

F o r the purposes of this p a p e r , it is unnecessary to perform a detailed analysis o f the role a n d m e a n i n g of the ritual plays. T h e i r b r o a d l y auspicious nature is well-known to their audiences, though few are able to explain the plays' symbolism in any but the most general terms, a n d — w i t h the exception of the longest a n d most spectacular (which, incidentally, h a v e the least religious s i g n i f i c a n c e ) — m o s t people a p p e a r to take little interest in their performance. A s with m a n y other rituals, the i m p o r t a n t thing is that they be done a n d d o n e properly; there is no assumption that c o n g r e g a t i o n a l participation a n d understanding are necessary a d j u n c t s to a p e r f o r m a n c e or h a v e any effect upon its efficacy. Present and Past It is c o m m o n l y assumed in H o n g K o n g t o d a y that festival performances are " m o r e t r a d i t i o n a l " a n d c o m m e r c i a l and other ones " m o r e m o d e r n . " It w o u l d follow that festival performances w o u l d be the m o r e likely to provide useful clues to past practice, b u t the matter is not so simple. L e t us take, for a n e x a m p l e , the fact that in present-day H o n g K o n g c o m m e r c i a l a n d other shows require tickets for admission whereas festival performances typically d o not. It does not follow that c h a r g i n g for admission is a m o d e r n phenomenon.

A

delightful p o e m of the thirteenth century entitled " A Peasant U n f a m i l i a r with the T h e a t e r " and written in the first person describes h o w I c a m e to t o w n to b u y s o m e spirit m o n e y a n d incense. A s I w a l k e d d o w n the street I s a w a c o l o r f u l p a p e r notice; N o w h e r e else w a s there such a b u s t l i n g t h r o n g . I saw a m a n l e a n i n g w i t h his h a n d a g a i n s t a w o o d e n g a t e , S h o u t i n g l o u d l y , " S t e p right u p , step right u p , " W a r n i n g that l a t e c o m e r s w o u l d find the p l a c e full a n d n o m o r e benches. H e d e m a n d e d t w o h u n d r e d in c a s h a n d t h e n let m e pass. 8

Six h u n d r e d years l a t e r — a n d one h u n d r e d years a g o — a t the p o p u l a r theaters of the late C h ' i n g dynasty (there were m o r e than t w e n t y such theaters in Peking alone), one paid "seat m o n e y " v a r y i n g in price a c c o r d i n g to place a n d degree of comfort, or b o u g h t a " t e a t i c k e t " for a w h o l e b o x seating a b o u t a dozen people. 9 T h e b r o a d distinction b e t w e e n different levels of c o m m e r c i a l theater is not new either. D o l b y ' s description of nineteenth-century theaters distinguishes between " p l a y establishments" (or " e m p o r i a " ) a n d " p l a y g a r d e n s . " A t the former, select groups of elite a n d w e a l t h y customers held banquets accompanied b y plays, d a n c i n g , singing, a n d music; the latter were the m a i n popular theaters, at w h i c h , t h o u g h tea was served, w i n e a n d meals were u n a v a i l a b l e , 8 Chung-wen Shih, The Golden Age of Chinese Drama: University Press, 1976), pp. 198-199. ' D o l b y , History, p. 191.

Yuan Tsa-chii

(Princeton: Princeton

REGIONAL OPERAS AND THEIR AUDIENCES

i6g

and the large audiences composed people of every social class. Private entertainment somewhat similar to that described for the " p l a y establishments" continues to this day in the big hotel restaurants and tea houses of H o n g K o n g , though the range of possible entertainers is now vastly extended and includes contemporary popular singers, variety shows of all kinds, j a z z , discos, and ballroom dancing. Certain well-known opera stars may still be invited to sing on such occasions, but the engagement o f a whole opera troupe is hardly ever heard of n o w . 1 0 M u c h more significant for the history of Chinese opera is the current distinction between different types or grades of commercial performance proper referred to already: on the one hand, the performances that take place in one or another of the handful of prestigious central locations, and, on the other hand, those that appear in the small, cramped theaters in the amusement parks or, occasionally, in temporary matsheds. Admission to the former is expensive, performances are relatively few, and the theater management commonly imposes upon the audience a number of behavioral constraints based upon westernized middle-class norms. These performances are usually widely advertised, seats are booked in advance, and the numbers of people w h o can see them are necessarily few and preponderantly middle- and upper-class. In short, the performances are restricted (though by different means and rather less rigorously) to much the same kinds of wealthy audience as frequented the nineteenth-century " p l a y establishments." Needless to say, such performances are always given by well-known troupes with star players. T h e audiences at the amusement-park theaters are much more mixed and, except in size and class composition, resemble those of the " p l a y gardens" described by Dolby. Although the presence of the better known troupes and star players is not unknown in them, most performances are of inferior quality. However, despite their small capacity, the amusement-park theaters cater to a great many more people than the prestigious central theaters, because their tickets are cheap, their performances frequent, and their location within easy reach of some of the most densely populated areas of mass housing. Moreover, their patrons are not forbidden to walk about, smoke, eat, talk, take photographs, make sound recordings, or share their seats with their small children. For these reasons, and because in any case the other amusement-park attractions appeal more to the lower than the upper classes, it is not surprising that these theaters reach down to a mass audience in a w a y that the grander commercial shows do not. A t the same time, it is likely that some kind of polarization of class interests is occurring, since proportionately fewer people from the upper and educated classes w h o used to frequent the old opera houses

' " D o l b y , History, pp. 154-196. In 1 9 5 1 - 1 9 5 2 I saw Cantonese opera being performed at a private party on board two Chinese junks lashed together on the waterfront on H o n g K o n g Island. However, only a few actors were employed.

B A R B A R A E. W A R D

go to the amusement-park theaters of the present day. (It is also certainly true that the formal theater manners today demanded in, say, Hong Kong's city hall were unknown in the old-style Chinese theaters at any level.) However, it is important to realize that, except for being required to buy tickets, the amusement-park audiences in contemporary Hong Kong are similar to those one sees at festival performances, and, with the exception of the obligatory presence of the ritual plays at the latter, so are the performances they see. In other words, the distinction between "more traditional" and "more m o d e r n " does not correspond to that between "commercial occasion" and "festival occasion," but rather cuts clean across it. One may ask further about the performances as such. If the restricted audiences who pay a great deal to see the shows that are put on from time to time in the centrally located theaters are new in the sense that they behave in a more "modern" way, does it follow that the performances they come to see are also "modern"? Certainly some of these performances are innovative, with new plots, new types of costume, more adventurous music, Western lighting effects and scenery and so on, but a good many others, especially when the older and most famous stars take part, exhibit a marked traditionalism. What seems to be happening is that these high-class shows before restricted audiences are often occasions for the appearance of a more self-consciously artistic approach to Chinese opera—an approach long ago made familiar by Mei Lan-fang and others with regard to Peking opera, but less widely adopted for most forms of regional opera outside the People's Republic. As a generalization, that statement is far too sweeping to fit all the facts (particularly, as we shall see, with regard to Cantonese and Ch'ao Chou opera), and in any case it requires a paper in itself. Moreover, the distinction is not clearcut, since most of the same actors (and many of the same plays) who appear in, say, a high-class secular performance at the city hall also play in matshed theaters at religious festivals and every now and then in the amusement parks too. Nevertheless, I would argue that the self-consciously artistic opera is a feature of the current scene in Hong Kong, which, though it does not invalidate the use of all aspects of the high-class commercial shows as pointers to the past, does make them less useful in many respects than the much less prestigious lower class commercial shows and the festival operas. It is these performances that carry on, albeit in a reduced way, the traditions of Hong Kong's two or three big commercial opera houses, which, as we already know, are now defunct. 1 1 11

T h e big commercial opera houses were specialist houses, not adapted cinemas or multipur-

pose public auditoria. It is said that from the m i d - 1 9 2 0 s to m i d - 1 9 5 0 s (with the exception of the period of J a p a n e s e occupation) they played to full houses every night. T h e y were the real counterparts of the " p l a y g a r d e n s " described by Dolby. Dolby notes the same lack of clearcut differentiation discussed here: " T h e major troupes would tend to monopolize the bigger theatres, and the lesser troupes to stick to the smaller, less savoury theatres, but the divisions were not rigid. Troupes would move around the various theatres" (History, p. 189).

REGIONAL OPERAS AND T H E I R AUDIENCES

Social Class Enough has been said about the class composition of the opera audiences in the " p l a y gardens" to make it clear that at least by the middle and late Ch'ing period they were remarkably like the Elizabethan audiences of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries at the Globe in London. There, a complete cross-section of social classes, courtiers, groundlings, and all inbetween enjoyed the same spectacle (though no doubt interpreting it in different ways, and being affected by different aspects), and even when the occasion or place of performance restricted the audience (say, at a royal reception or private banquet) the same plays and players would usually appear. This continued to be the case in Hong K o n g up to about the mid-1950s, when two of the old opera houses were still in operation, when neither the new high-class shows nor television had been developed, and when cinema and radio programs still included great chunks of Cantonese every day. T h e differentiation noted in the preceding section has been developing over the last twenty years or so, but it is still at an early stage and what the future will bring is still uncertain. 1 2 As Dolby puts it, the d r a m a of the rich and the d r a m a of the poor h a v e not been very rigidly divided and h a v e been the more easily able to replenish and renew each other. A s we h a v e seen, from S o n g times and earlier, the street, market and village actors and v u l g a r popular plays m o v e d readily into the palace and back a g a i n , while in turn palace taste and distaste could rapidly affect the grass roots d r a m a . 1 3

At first sight that conclusion may appear to be denied by the argument put forward by Professor T a n a k a Issei in chapter 5 above. Professor Tanaka's meticulous textual research into different versions of the same operas reveals that certain verbal variations can be correlated with the social class of their audiences and, particularly, their sponsors. T h e thesis that drama was influenced by the demands of sponsors and audience can be supported by a great deal of evidence, but it does not follow that the general thesis that "the drama of the rich and the drama of the poor have not been very rigidly divided" is therefore invalid. Exact adherence to a script was not demanded of Chinese opera actors in the past. Indeed, scripts were often regarded more as guidelines than as texts, while at least some regional conventions positively required verbal as well as musical invention on the part of the singers. In other cases there Was no script at all, merely a scenario. 1 4 It is obvious that such flexibility would have allowed for the appearance of almost innumerable variations, in much the same way as the 12 There are signs of a marked increase in interest in Cantonese opera among young people in Hong Kong. 13 Dolby, History, p. 184. 14 Bell Yung, "The Role of Speech Tones in the Creative Process of the Cantonese Opera," CHINOPERL News 6 : 1 5 7 - 1 6 7 (1975); see the B. E. Ward articles cited.

BARBARA E. W A R D

I?S

flexibility of English p a n t o m i m e today allows performers to ad-lib as they themselves j u d g e appropriate for the audience of the moment. But (and this is the nub) in much the same way, too, this feature also allows for the general process of borrowing and counterborrowing that every writer on Chinese opera describes, and that also applies to pantomime. In short, the structure of Chinese opera in performance explains both the possibility of variation a n d the process of homogenization. W h e t h e r one concentrates on the former or the latter depends upon the focus of one's interest. In any case, whatever the verbal differences between versions of the " s a m e " opera performed in private and in public or before different kinds o f m o r e or less restricted audience, two countervailing facts are important: the first, discussed immediately below, is that the plots of the operas and, with them, the sets of values they embodied were universally distributed; the second is that, just as in H o n g K o n g today so all over China in the M i n g a n d Ch'ing dynasties, the overwhelming majority of opera performances took place in public (whether in such commercial establishments as the "play gardens" or in connection with religious festivals), in front of unrestricted audiences as mixed as a n d very m u c h larger than those of sixteenth-century England. Region All the historical evidence indicates that the comments about the relative unimportance of class differences apply to regional differences too. T o quote Dolby once more, Local and national forms merged, adapted to new conditions and borrowed and appropriated from each other.... The total result was a dazzling kaleidoscope.... Vogues for a local kind of drama or music could rapidly have nationwide consequences. 15

Script writers everywhere learned from one another. T h e r e was no concept (still less a law) of copyright or ownership in a particular plot or version of a text, and, in any case, all the stories used were drawn from a single great shared repertoire of history, legend, a n d fiction. As a result, the same plots appeared virtually everywhere a n d cross-fertilization constantly occurred. T h e distinctiveness of the various regional styles lay mostly in their music and partly in such matters as costume and choreography. Characterization in the sense made familiar in modern realistic d r a m a was not a feature of Chinese opera, all varieties of which relied on very similar stylized role categories. By the middle of the M i n g dynasty at the latest, C h i n a h a d developed opera as its own distinctive mass medium, and the existence of regional differences in music a n d style did not detract from the China-wide n a t u r e of its messages. T h e evidence from H o n g K o n g supports this argument. In addition to the 15

Dolby, History, p. 101.

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three regional styles performed by locally based troupes, which are the main focus of this paper, opera-goers in contemporary Hong Kong have the chance to see performances of Capital (Peking) opera fairly often and a number of other regional styles when they are performed by visiting troupes from time to time. Though only a very small proportion of the three hundred or so regional styles of Chinese opera, the styles that are represented provide at least some opportunity for comparison. Also, experience suggests that regional differences are much greater in music (especially singing) than in anything else, although differences in costume, choreography, and general presentation are also distinctive enough to be diagnostic. In narrative content, however, in the values and attitudes that are expressed in it, and in the broad outlines of characterization there is marked similarity. Urban and Rural

T h e current image of H o n g K o n g is essentially urban and westernized. Can anything that comes out of the high-rise concrete environment of one of the most densely populated townscapes in the twentieth century be used to illuminate the predominantly rural past of premodern China? T o this objection there are a number of possible rejoinders. T h e rural nature of much of Hong Kong itself must not be forgotten, nor must the fact that until little more than twenty years ago its countryside was still dominated by traditional rice farming. Of course, today even the most remote New Territories settlements are thoroughly in touch not only with the town but also, through emigration, with Europe, in a way that makes most of their inhabitants a good deal more cosmopolitan in outlook than most H o n g K o n g urban dwellers. In short, many of H o n g Kong's villagers today can be said to be more urbane (as well as, often, richer) than most of the town dwellers. T h e rural-urban dichotomy has become blurred. Leaving aside its purely modern aspects (such as electricity, good roads, access by air to Europe, and so on), however, it is possible to wonder to what extent this blurring of the so-called dichotomy is really a new phenomenon in the context of traditional theater and its audiences, and, for that matter, in a number of other contexts as well. T h e sociological model that distinguishes sharply between village and town is essentially a Western one and G. William Skinner's marketing studies, together with the work of C. K. Yang and Martin C. Yang, make it abundantly clear that in the late imperial period spatial separation and differences in size and productive function did not mean that Chinese villages were cut off from towns, for they depended economically, administratively, maritally, educationally, ritually, medically, and for various kinds of sociability—including entertainment—upon local market towns and often upon higher urban centers too. 1 6 W h a t is needed, therefore, is an analysis 16

G . William Skinner, "Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China, Part I," Journal of

Asian Studies

24.1:32 -43 (1964).

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of the relative degrees to which different contexts of activity b r o u g h t villagers a n d townspeople in different areas of C h i n a into contact with one a n o t h e r . T h r e e points are relevant here. First, Skinner a n d others have m a d e it very clear t h a t m a r k e t - d a y contacts were by no means restricted to market m a t t e r s . It is also i m p o r t a n t to r e m e m b e r that villagers' contacts with towns were not necessarily confined to m a r k e t days. In m a n y parts of C h i n a emigration to t o w n or even overseas is a long-established tradition. A n d it is apposite to recall t h a t China's inland communications were at least as good as a n d often much better than those of any o t h e r p a r t of the world before the railway age. Second, contacts between villages a n d towns were by no m e a n s only oneway. T h o u g h more villagers went to towns, nevertheless some townsmen also went to villages, a n d not seldom. I n addition to such people asyamen servants, tax a n d rent collectors, a n d the like, certain types of petty craftsmen a n d traders m a d e their rounds in traditional C h i n a in m u c h the same w a y as their c o u n t e r parts in nineteenth- a n d twentieth-century E n g l a n d . Again, j u s t as in E n g l a n d , entertainers—storytellers, jugglers, a n d , most i m p o r t a n t in this context, troupes of professional opera players—also toured the villages. T h e professional theater in C h i n a was a n u r b a n p h e n o m e n o n j u s t as it was in Western countries, but, like the circus in E u r o p e a n d North America or the showboats on t h e Mississippi River, it was a n u r b a n p h e n o m e n o n t h a t also went down to the country. Finally, it is no denigration of the market model to point o u t t h a t despite t h e care Skinner has taken to build in its n o n m a r k e t aspects, the model u n avoidably tends to d r a w a t t e n t i o n away from matters t h a t occur outside the m a r k e t framework. T h e a t r i c a l performances did just that. In describing the occasions that are here called "religious festivals," earlier Western writers often use the term " t e m p l e fairs." It is i m p o r t a n t not to allow the use of this term to confuse the issue. Although fairs have economic connotations, they a r e quite distinct from markets. W h e r e a s m a r k e t cycles are short, as is required by their primarily economic function, a n d continue t h r o u g h o u t the year, each m a r k e t day being but a single day, fairs a r e usually a n n u a l occasions, linked to a ritual calendar a n d lasting for several days. Moreover, fairs m a y or m a y not be held in market centers, a n d even w h e n they are, the fact that they m a y overlap with one of the regular m a r k e t days is strictly coincidental. So m u c h is obvious, b u t there is another relevant point. Skinner's m a r k e t model persuades us t h a t each s t a n d a r d m a r k e t a r e a was typically discrete. This was not true of temple festival areas, which, though organized by local committees a n d focused on particular temples, nonetheless often drew participants a n d probably always drew opera audiences from m u c h f u r t h e r afield. This is certainly true of temple a n d o t h e r festivals in H o n g K o n g today. Besides opera, such festivals provide a n u m b e r of other attractions, which d r a w in townspeople a n d c o u n t r y people alike, a n d , indeed, the general patterns of

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these festivals are basically similar wherever they are located. For example, they all include a main day for special worship with all the colorful panoply and often excitement of the Taoist or Buddhist rituals performed on such days; they often include at least some period for especially good eating, drinking, and gambling; and they are times for meeting old friends and relatives, renewing networks, catching up on gossip, and settling personal and business affairs. In short, festival days are holidays, understandably popular in the sense that people enjoy them, flock to them, take time off to visit them. Nor, as I have argued above, is interest confined only to the festival in one's own village or area. Any festival within fairly easy reach may be visited by anyone who can afford to go. Some are based upon town temples and some on village temples, while still others take place in any convenient open space, whether in town or country, like the playgrounds in Kowloon today or the dry river beds described by Robert Fortune writing about Anhwei province in the 1840s. 1 7 In every case, the matshed theaters with their brave flags and elaborate red and white announcement boards, their colored lights and amplified music, stand foursquare in front of temporary or permanent temples where incense smokes continually, Taoist and Buddhist priests gesture and chant, and scores of small processions come bearing personal or group offerings of whole roast pigs, fruit, flowers, cakes, red-colored eggs, wine, and tea, led by the clamor of dancing lions and unicorns and followed by great, tall, red and multicolored paper shrines. T e a houses, temporary and permanent, do a roaring trade; dozens of small booths sell foodstuffs and drinks; and there are possibly scores of tiny stalls where one can buy religious paraphernalia and toys for children. Even those town and country people who experience their festivals separately have similar experiences. T o argue thus is not, of course, to deny that there were any differences between villages and towns in China, but it is to claim that in certain areas and in some of the most widespread and typical theatrical contexts such differences were unimportant. I am convinced that this was true for most parts of the Canton Delta area in the late Ch'ing and probably earlier, and I suggest that it is inherently likely to have been true in a good many other parts of China as well—for example in all of Skinner's core areas. 1 8 In practical terms this must have meant that in such areas very large numbers of people, town and country folk alike, watched the same players performing the same operas and mixed in the same or same kinds of audiences. 17 Robert Fortune, A Journey to the Tea Countries of China (London: John Murray, 1842), pp. 74-76, and A Residence Among the Chinese (London: John Murray, 1872), pp. 2 5 6 - 2 5 7 , quoted in Dolby, History, p. 186. 18 G . William Skinner, "Cities and the Hierarchy of Local Systems," in The City in Late Imperial China ed. G. William Skinner (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), pp. 2 7 5 - 3 5 1 , and his "Urban and Rural in Chinese Society," pp. 1 5 3 - 2 7 4 in the same volume.

BARBARA E. WARD

A U D I E N C E S IN C O N T E M P O R A R Y H O N G K O N G In this section I concentrate upon festival performances, following my previous argument that (together with those in the amusement-park theaters) they are the most nearly like those o f the late Ch'ing period and possibly even earlier. I first give a little more detail about seating and organization and then briefly discuss the audiences for each of the three local types o f regional opera in turn. Seating At most festival performances admission and seating are free; the sides and back of the auditorium are open, and members of the audience come and go at will. Nonlocal spectators are assumed to be members offamilies who have made or will make offerings in the temple, at which time they also contribute a larger or smaller amount of heungyao ts'in (incense and oil money). T h e heads of the families of local spectators (or the better-off among them) are in any case likely to have contributed or promised quite substantial sums in addition. T h e common explanation is that to see a festival opera one does not need to pay, since the plays are for the gods' delight. I f humans see them too that is a kind of bonus, a sharing in the offering, not unlike sharing the pork, cakes, and other foodstuffs that are offered in the temple on the main day o f the festival and later divided up among all contributors for their own consumption. T h e idea that the operas are offerings to the gods is made still more explicit in the practice of performing " d a w n p l a y s " . 1 9 These take place overnight, starting some time after the end of the evening show and continuing until dawn. T h e y are usually played by j u n i o r members of the troupe, only sketchily costumed and scarcely made up, before rows of almost empty seats where a few beggars and visiting peddlers who have nowhere else to sleep are lying down. Whether or not dawn plays are performed at any given festival is a matter of local custom. Asked about them, informants nearly always evince a knowing interest and have no hesitation in explaining that they are provided for the sake of the divine, not the human, audience. Duration, Timing, and the Size of Audiences Sets of festival operas run for varying periods of time, the most common being the "five nights and four days" described earlier—nine regular performances in all (all different, of course), starting two or three evenings before the main day of the festival and continuing with one afternoon and one evening show each day. I f dawn plays are also performed, the total number o f plays is greater. Usually the whole troupe packs up and the matshed builders start dismantling the stage and theater immediately after the end of the last evening performance and the very brief ritual playlet that marks the completion of the series. 19

Cantonese: t 'in kwong hei

•

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Some runs are shorter than the usual five nights and four days—for two or three days only ("three nights and two d a y s " ) — a n d some are longer. Very long runs—for, say, two or three weeks—tend to be in town, correlated with dense population, and are more likely to occur with Cantonese operas. A fairly recent practice, however, is for a single matshed to be used in sequence by different regional opera troupes. Throughout the 1970s, for example, the festival for T'ien Hou (who is M a Tsu, Queen of Heaven) at Sai K u n g in the New Territories was celebrated first by a week or more of Cantonese opera after which a Ch'ao Chou troupe took over the stage for five nights and four days of Ch'ao Chou opera. In more than one of the most thickly populated newly developed areas of urban Kowloon, runs of Waichow operas are regularly followed in a rather similar way by runs of Cantonese opera. In general, evening performances are much better attended than afternoon ones, which, except on the main day of the festival, are usually given by the troupe's second-rate actors and musicians before an audience of women and children. At afternoon performances the seats are rarely full. Evenings or the afternoon of the main festival day bring on the first-rank musicians and star performers, and attract the biggest and most varied audiences. The most popular plays, the best stars, and the largest attendance appear on the eve of the main day and on the afternoon and evening of that day. Then the seats are completely taken up, rows of extra seats are set out (usually in front), and several rows of standing spectators—mainly men—crowd the back and sides of the auditorium. T h e afternoon performance on the main day is usually preceded (or interrupted) by a secular community ceremony on the stage: speeches are made; awards in the form of specially embroidered silk banners are presented to the leading players, the impresario, locally significant government officers, and other dignitaries; and the all-important " d r a w " for lucky numbers connected with certain temple offerings is made. 2 0 T h e ceremony is often preceded or followed by one or more of the short ritual playlets. In marked contrast to the 20

A t most temple festivals in H o n g K o n g , groups known in Cantonese as fa p'aau ooi ^ E ^ ^

[firecracker or fireworks associations] bring offerings in procession. These include tall red and multicolored shrines made of bamboo and paper and hung with figurines. Each shrine houses a small glass-sided box containing an image of the temple god. Each is numbered, and, after being presented before the temple, is stood outside it beside the others in a elaborately colorful display. Each association then buys a great m a n y numbered tickets for the lottery. A t the ceremonial meeting on stage, local dignitaries are invited to d r a w lucky tickets up to the total number of shrines. I n this w a y , the images are redistributed among the shrine associations for the coming twelve months, at the end of which they will be mounted in new p a p e r shrines and brought back for re-presentation and redistribution. In most places the draw is a recent substitute for an older custom, in which numbered slivers of bamboo were shot out of small

firecracker

rockets and

scrambled for by the young men of the shrine associations. Such more exciting but often dangerous goings-on were abandoned after the 1967 riots and the ensuing government ban on fireworks of all kinds. F o r a description of the shrine associations, see C . Fred Blake, Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town (Honolulu: University Press of H a w a i i , 1 9 8 1 ) , pp. 9 4 - 9 7 .

B A R B A R A E. W A R D

intent c o n c e n t r a t i o n w i t h w h i c h the largest a u d i e n c e o f the w h o l e festival follows the presentation of b a n n e r s a n d , especially, the " d r a w " , little a t t e n t i o n is p a i d to these. T h e a u d i e n c e o n t h a t a f t e r n o o n a n d the i m m e d i a t e l y p r e c e d i n g a n d f o l l o w i n g evenings is g r e a t l y swollen b y the presence o f a mass of n o n l o c a l visitors w h o c o m e to m a k e offerings in the t e m p l e . E v e n in tiny villages w i t h a few h u n d r e d i n h a b i t a n t s , a f a m o u s t e m p l e a n d a g o o d C a n t o n e s e o p e r a t r o u p e c a n a t t r a c t as m a n y as t w o or three t h o u s a n d persons o n such occasions. In l a r g e r centers w i t h f a m o u s temples there are likely to be at least twice that m a n y . 2 1 N o t all o f t h e m w a t c h the operas, but a n a p p r e c i a b l e n u m b e r do so for at least p a r t o f the t i m e . Ethnicity and Opera Going T h e size a n d c o m p o s i t i o n of the a u d i e n c e s v a r y not o n l y at different p e r f o r m a n c e s in e a c h run o f festival o p e r a s a n d from p l a c e to place, b u t also w i t h the kind of r e g i o n a l d r a m a b e i n g p e r f o r m e d . N o t surprisingly, in p r e p o n d e r a n t l y C a n t o n e s e - s p e a k i n g H o n g K o n g , C a n t o n e s e o p e r a attracts the largest a u d i ences. L o c a l l y sponsored C a n t o n e s e festival operas in t o w n , w h e r e n o w a d a y s the m a t s h e d theaters are usually e r e c t e d in the p l a y g r o u n d s of m u l t i s t o r y h o u s i n g estates or o n c l e a r e d b u i l d i n g sites or r e c l a m a t i o n s , c a n p l a y for three weeks or m o r e to full houses. C h ' a o C h o u a n d W a i c h o w p e r f o r m a n c e s a p p e a l (in that order) to smaller a u d i e n c e s . F e w C a n t o n e s e e n j o y t h e m or try to d o so, b u t C a n t o n e s e o p e r a s are intelligible to a m u c h w i d e r f o l l o w i n g , since C a n t o n e s e is not o n l y the n a t i v e l a n g u a g e o f the m a j o r i t y b u t also the lingua franca. T h u s , w h e r e a s the a u d i e n c e s for C h ' a o C h o u a n d W a i c h o w o p e r a s s h o w a strong p r e p o n d e r a n c e o f C h ' a o C h o u a n d W a i c h o w speakers respectively, the a u d i e n c e s for C a n t o n e s e o p e r a s a r e a g o o d d e a l less e t h n i c a l l y h o m o g e n e o u s . 2 2 W i t h the e x c e p t i o n o f the c u l t u r e d elite, w h o r e g a r d the C a p i t a l O p e r a o f P e k i n g as the only style w o r t h discussing, the m a j o r i t y o f the o p e r a - g o i n g p u b l i c in H o n g K o n g consider C a n t o n e s e o p e r a to be " t h e real t h i n g " ; C h ' a o C h o u a n d W a i c h o w o p e r a s a p p e a l to m i n o r i t y interests. Waichow operas and their audiences.

In H o n g K o n g , as in o t h e r places w h e r e

there are l a r g e n u m b e r s o f i m m i g r a n t s , there is a t e n d e n c y for c e r t a i n i m m i g r a n t ethnic g r o u p s to be m o r e or less class specific. T h i s not to say t h a t all m e m b e r s o f a p a r t i c u l a r e t h n i c g r o u p c a n be p l a c e d in a p a r t i c u l a r social class, b u t simply t h a t a l a r g e m a j o r i t y c a n be so p l a c e d . W a i c h o w o p e r a takes its n a m e from the city o f W a i c h o w in northeastern K w a n g t u n g . T h e H o k k i e n 21

T h e matsheds c o n s t r u c t e d for the chiao fid at F a n l i n g in 1980 a n d in the L a m T s u e n V a l l e y in

1981 h a d seats for 2200 a n d 3200, respectively. B o t h occasions b r o u g h t several h u n d r e d e m i g r a n t s b a c k f r o m overseas (the m a j o r i t y from the British Isles) for a stay of several weeks. 22

T o the best of m y k n o w l e d g e , the l a r g e H a k k a - s p e a k i n g p o p u l a t i o n o f H o n g K o n g is not

served b y a distinct H a k k a o p e r a t r o u p e . H a k k a speakers s u p p o r t C a n t o n e s e o p e r a as a rule, b u t H a k k a o r i g i n a t i n g from the H o k k i e n d i a l e c t a r e a s , especially those f r o m W a i c h o w city, also a t t e n d p e r f o r m a n c e s g i v e n b y the W a i c h o w troupes.

REGIONAL OPERAS AND T H E I R AUDIENCES

m

language in which it is performed is one of the M i n dialects spoken in H o n g K o n g by immigrants from that area and the coast. Commonly referred to in Cantonese by the rather derogatory term Hoklo, these people are predominantly working and lower-middle class. T h e audiences for Waichow operas, therefore, tend to be homogeneous as to both ethnicity and class. T h e y are also relatively small in size, and usually drawn from tightly knit communities who, in putting on their distinctive operas for their own pleasure (and that of their usually equally distinctive temple gods), are also making a symbolic gesture of ethnic solidarity and assertion, whether consciously or not. There are two professional Waichow troupes in Hong K o n g . A t certain times of the year, especially but not only in the seventh month of the lunar calendar, they are in continuous d e m a n d . 2 3 T h e occasions are all strictly religious, and taken together they attract virtually the whole of the Hokkienspeaking population. T h e opera performances that go with them divide neatly and nightly into two halves. T h e former, which runs from 7 : 3 0 or 8 : 0 0 P.M. until shortly before midnight, is always a " m i l i t a r y " play (in Mandarin, wu hsi), usually a long sequence from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Here K u a n K u n g , Ts'ao T s ' a o , and their companions posture endlessly about the stage, marching and countermarching their flag-waving armies back and forth. There are few female roles, and little or no singing takes place. These are curiously archaic performances, full ofstylized but unpolished movement, more like pageants than operas. There are no acrobatics. T h e audience is intent, following every move, and unusually silent. T h e seats are full, about half the spectators being males of all ages. A n onlooker can have no doubt but that they are gripped by the drama. As soon as it is over people relax, cough, stand up, move about, talk, l a u g h — a n d most of them go away. A t midnight the second half of the program begins. Instead of masculine fighting to the sound of sona, cymbal, and drum, there now comes a feminine " c i v i l " play (in Mandarin, wen hsi). There is no fighting, little speaking, and only light percussion with a great deal of singing accompanied by strings and the flute. T h e plot, dominated by a woman singer, usually hangs on a theme of filial piety and motherly devotion. T h e audience is now much smaller. Perhaps a score or so will see the whole play through. T h e rest come and go, chat or listen as they feel inclined, discuss the singing or the latest gossip, nibble snacks, swallow soft drinks, and fidget. On the next night the sequence is repeated with different stories but the same two types of play, and the same two types of audience. 2 4 23 The seventh lunar month is marked by the so-called Hungry Ghost Festivals celebrated by all Chinese ethnic communities in Hong Kong but most elaborately by Hokkien and Ch'ao Chou speakers. 24

T h e similarity between the second kind of Waichow performance described here and the refined, somewhat feminine charms of Ming k'un-ch'ii opera lends force to the argument that k'unch'ii, so beloved by the literati, was probably always a minority interest.

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BARBARA E. WARD

Ch'ao Chou operas and audiences. T o the best of my knowledge there were few if any festival performances of C h ' a o Chou opera in H o n g K o n g before World W a r I I . T o d a y the C h ' a o Chou are the second largest ethnic group in the territory and, while evincing a strong preference for residential concentration, are to be found almost everywhere. C h ' a o Chou people in Hong K o n g exhibit the usual immigrant propensities for occupational specialization, but their large numbers and the fact that their specialties include several types of highly successful business activity have allowed them to spread right across the local spectrum of socioeconomic class. Unlike the Hokkien speakers, they maintain a highly conspicuous ethnic profile and display their solidarity not only on occasions of specifically C h ' a o Chou significance but also at a number of festivals that until quite recently were organized by local Cantonese or Hakka interests alone. T h e result is that Hong K o n g now has many C h ' a o Chou festival performances every year in addition to a number of municipally and entrepreneurially sponsored shows that are well advertised and attract considerable attention. C h ' a o Chou performances have a mannered sophistication allied with realistic facial expression that contrasts strongly with the archaism of the Waichow military plays on the one hand and the many-sided and innovative Cantonese opera on the other. O n e aspect of their sophistication is that, unusually among regional styles, the music and libretti of several C h ' a o Chou operas have been published. These books include the texts of several performances that have been polished to near perfection by a group of talented artists and now exist in more or less definitive forms for which their audiences have developed a high degree of informed critical appreciation. It is not unknown for members of the audience at a C h ' a o Chou performance to follow their copies of the score, like students at a concert of classical European music. Such detailed connoisseurship is made easier by the fact that the C h ' a o Chou repertoire (at least as it is to be seen in contemporary H o n g K o n g ) is somewhat limited. Cantonese informants give two different but not unconnected explanations. T h e first is musical. T h e distinctive C h ' a o Chou opera music most commonly heard in Hong K o n g is often described by Cantonese in an unkind phrase that implies (among other things) that it is squeaky. T h e point here is that it is not appropriate for fighting plays. Most C h ' a o Chou plots are, in fact, rather light comedies. This characteristic is said to be linked also with the rather special types of players who are employed. In the past these are said to have been mostly boys in their teens and below; today they are mainly women and girls. Both then and now the number of adult male actors was small, with the result that there was a heavy preponderance of " c i v i l " plays—the light comedies mentioned above. It is as if the C h ' a o Chou script writers had taken a Waichow program and, discarding the first half altogether, concentrated upon polishing and refining a lighter, much gayer version of the second. Cantonese, who enjoy fighting plays and like their stage heroes to be men, tend to sniff at Ch'ao Chou opera and call it (literally) "child's p l a y . "

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T h e a u d i e n c e s for C h ' a o C h o u p e r f o r m a n c e s a r e , o f course, c o m p o s e d a l m o s t exclusively o f C h ' a o C h o u residents, t o g e t h e r w i t h o t h e r M i n ( m a i n l y H o k k i e n ) speakers, a n d p e r h a p s some visitors f r o m T a i w a n a n d the N a n y a n g . T h e C a n t o n e s e , w h o in a n y case c a n n o t u n d e r s t a n d the d i a l e c t , usually dislike C h ' a o C h o u o p e r a , a n d it is n o t i c e a b l e that w h e n a set of C h ' a o C h o u perform a n c e s follows a set o f C a n t o n e s e shows the o r g a n i z e r s r e m o v e a g o o d m a n y rows o f seats. W o m e n in the C h ' a o C h o u a u d i e n c e s a n d the m e n w h o k n o w a n d love their o w n p l a y s follow intently, but it is m y impression t h a t y o u n g e r males, w h o o f t e n speak C a n t o n e s e better t h a n C h ' a o C h o u , tend to stay a w a y . L i k e m a n y y o u n g p e o p l e in H o n g K o n g t o d a y , t h e y are likely to d e c l a r e t h a t t h e y dislike all t r a d i t i o n a l o p e r a a n d prefer the c i n e m a a n d television. I n terms o f social class, C h ' a o C h o u a u d i e n c e s c a n be r o u g h l y d i v i d e d i n t o three categories: first, there are the m i d d l e - a g e d a n d elderly o f b o t h sexes a n d the y o u n g e r w o m e n a n d g i r l s — f r o m middle, l o w e r - m i d d l e , a n d w o r k i n g classes, w i t h a m a j o r i t y f r o m the l o w e r e n d o f the r a n g e ; second, there are sometimes a few e d u c a t e d middle- a n d upper-middle-class y o u n g p e o p l e — o f t e n in c o u p l e s — some o f w h o m b r i n g their scores a n d follow t h e m c a r e f u l l y ; finally, a r o u n d the outskirts o f the a u d i e n c e , l o o k i n g o n from t i m e to time, t a l k i n g , e a t i n g , g a m bling, a n d l o u n g i n g a b o u t in a h o l i d a y m o o d b u t not really t a k i n g m u c h interest in the s h o w , a r e the vast m a j o r i t y o f l o w e r a n d l o w e r - m i d d l e class males, y o u n g a n d not so y o u n g . T h e y are there for all sorts o f reasons, the o p e r a s being only one of them. Cantonese opera.

C a s u a l c o n v e r s a t i o n w i t h p e o p l e in most w a l k s o f life in

H o n g K o n g leads o n e to believe that C a n t o n e s e o p e r a is d e c l i n i n g in p o p u l a r i t y a n d is n o w w a t c h e d o n l y b y the old, the late m i d d l e - a g e d (especially w o m e n ) , the v e r y p o o r , a n d p e o p l e in N e w T e r r i t o r i e s villages w h o h a v e no o t h e r forms o f e n t e r t a i n m e n t . T h i s q u i t e c o m m o n l y expressed v i e w is s i m p l y not b o r n e o u t by o b s e r v a t i o n . G i v e n a w e l l - k n o w n troupe, a n e v e n i n g p e r f o r m a n c e in the u r b a n a r e a s attracts c r o w d s several t h o u s a n d strong, filling e v e r y seat in the m a t s h e d t h e a t e r , a n d s t a n d i n g five o r six d e e p d o w n the sides a n d t w e n t y or m o r e d e e p at the b a c k . O u t s i d e the u r b a n areas, too, e v e n i n g p e r f o r m a n c e s are well a t t e n d e d , a n d the a u d i e n c e s i n c l u d e m a l e s o f all a g e g r o u p s as well as w o r k i n g f e m a l e s w h o h a v e been u n a b l e to l e a v e their j o b s in the d a y t i m e , together w i t h the w o m e n a n d c h i l d r e n w h o h a v e a l r e a d y w a t c h e d the a f t e r n o o n shows. B u s a n d ferry c o m p a n i e s m a y run special services for such p e r f o r m a n c e s ; minibuses a n d taxis do g o o d business; tea houses, f o o d h a w k e r s , a n d peddlers are all f u l l y o c c u p i e d . C a n t o n e s e o p e r a a u d i e n c e s are i n v a r i a b l y the largest a n d the most h e t e r o g e n e o u s . B r o a d l y s p e a k i n g , these a u d i e n c e s are m a i n l y w o r k i n g a n d l o w e r - m i d d l e class, but t h e r e m a y w e l l be a g o o d m a n y middle-class p e o p l e there (nurses, p r i m a r y s c h o o l teachers, l o w e r clerks in g o v e r n m e n t service, a n d the like) a n d if the p l a y e r s are f a m o u s a n d the v e n u e easily accessible it is not u n u s u a l to see small g r o u p s o f u p p e r - m i d d l e - or e v e n o c c a s i o n a l l y upper-class types w h o h a v e

B A R B A R A E. W A R D

come because they are opera fans. At evening shows the sexes are fairly evenly balanced, and literally all age groups are represented (from one-month-old babies to great-grandparents in their nineties). Despite the common view that all young people dislike Chinese opera, about half the people presen-t are likely to be under 25 years of age. 2 5 In most places, but especially the smaller, more remote ones and where seating is free, an evening audience comprises a solid core of local residents with their personal friends and kinsmen—mainly women and girls, babies, small children, and older men—who pack the front seats whenever possible and fill the central area. The outer edges (sides and back) are the domain of the middleaged and younger men, who tend to move about more than the women. Except at the more riveting moments of the play, they are relatively easily distracted by conversation or invitations to go and eat or drink or gamble, and they more often sit on the outside seats, or stand, shifting their place from time to time, moving in and out of the auditorium. Children, especially boys, run up and down the aisles, press themselves right up against the front of the stage gazing raptly upwards, or climb up onto it in order to watch from the wings or investigate the dressing rooms backstage. Except at moments of great dramatic tension or greatly admired song, everyone eats, chats, discusses the unfolding plot and the latest gossip, takes flash photographs, and makes tape recordings; there is almost constant movement and little silence. The total professionalism of the leading actors is the more marked as they continue the performance regardless of the din and confusion in front of them. No wonder the habitues of festival shows find the austerities of city hall performances somewhat daunting! Despite the sprinkling of middle-class people, the general standard of education in these predominantly lower-middle and lower-class audiences is low, though nowadays the large majority are likely to be literate. Lack of school education does not necessarily connote lack of knowledge about Cantonese theater, however. Not only has each mature adult seen many operas before, but everyone is also familiar with radio, television, and cinema, and, as in the days before any of those media existed, most people still know the majority of the stories in the repertoire. CONTENT: C U L T U R E AND V A L U E S Readers accustomed to evaluating plays in terms of plot construction and characterization may need to be reminded that the large majority of Chinese operas relied on the same stylized role categories and made use of the same popular stories based on history, legend, and fiction, that formed the shared repertoire of storytellers, puppeteers, ballad singers, and other entertainers all 25 Evidence based upon informal counts made in 1980-1982. This is but one of a number of signs of a marked recrudescence of interest in Cantonese culture in contemporary Hong Kong.

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over C h i n a . T h e r e is no question but t h a t at least from t o w a r d the end of the first half of the M i n g dynasty o n w a r d the messages relayed by these traditional m e d i a to the Chinese populace were essentially the same. T h e pertinent questions here a r e W h a t were those messages? a n d W i t h w h a t degree of success were they transmitted? Plots: The Historical and Literary Tradition Chinese writers divide the plays of the traditional theater into wu hsi a n d wen hsi—the former being concerned with brigands, battles, a n d affairs of state, the latter with love stories a n d social a n d domestic m a t t e r s — b u t the division is not absolute a n d both styles can be intermingled. Fighting plays usually require large a n d varied casts, elaborate costumes, a n d complicated choreography. Typically, plots are d r a w n from the San kuo chihyen-i (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms) a n d Shui-hu chuan (Water Margin). O t h e r sources a r e the famous tale Hsi-yu chi (Journey to the West), known m o r e familiarly in English as Monkey, a n d a large n u m b e r of other historical a n d quasihistorical chronicles a n d legends. Several of the wen hsi derive from tales known at least since the T ' a n g dynasty, a n d from early Y u a n plays, a n d M i n g courtly d r a m a (K'un-ch'u). Domestic novels like Hung-lou meng (The Dream of the Red Chamber) a n d Chin P'ing Mei (Golden Lotus), and so on, a n d ghost stories, Taoist a n d Buddhist legends, a n d folk tales h a v e also all been used over a n d over again. It is clear that the total n u m b e r of plots available in the c o m m o n repertoire was very great, a n d t h a t it covered virtually every aspect of traditional history, folklore, a n d literature. It c a n n o t be said too often that these were the same stories as those told by the storytellers to the n o n r e a d i n g public a n d read (albeit surreptitiously) by the scholars. Lin Y u t a n g p u t the m a t t e r in a nutshell nearly fifty years ago: Apart from teaching the people an intensive love of music the theatre has taught the Chinese people . . . a knowledge of history truly amazing, crystallizing, as it were, the folklore and entire literary and historical tradition in plays of characters that have captured the heart and imagination of the c o m m o n men and women. Thus any amah has a livelier conception than I have of m a n y historical heroes from her intimate knowledge of Chinese plays, as I was prevented from attending the theatres in my childhood . . . and had to learn it all piecemeal from the cold pages o f history books. 2 6

It follows, of course, t h a t j u s t as the plots of Chinese operas recapitulated the common repertoire of the Chinese historical a n d literary tradition so they repeated a t the same time the m a j o r themes of Chinese morality, for the plots invariably turned u p o n points of good a n d evil. Moreover, by presenting these values on the stage, represented in h u m a n form by characters with w h o m the audiences could identify or from w h o m they dissociated themselves, the operas almost certainly achieved an i m p a c t greater t h a n t h a t of either the spoken or 26

Lin Yutang, My Country and My People (London: Heinemann, revised ed., 1939), pp. 251-252.

BARBARA E. W A R D

184

t h e w r i t t e n w o r d a l o n e . A g a i n L i n Y u t a n g expresses t h e p o i n t c l e a r l y : Practically all the standardized Chinese notions of loyal ministers and filial sons and brave warriors and faithful wives and chaste maidens and intriguing maidservants are reflected in the . . . plays. Represented in the form of stories with human characters, w h o m they hate or love as the case m a y be, they sink deep into [the people's] moral consciousness. T s ' a o Ts'ao's hyprocrisy, M i n T z u ' s filial piety, Wenchiin's romance, Inging's passion, Y a n g Kweifei's pampered tastes, Ch'in K w e i ' s treason, Y e n Sung's greed and cruelty, C h u k o Liang's strategy, C h a n g Fei's quick temper, and Mulien's religious s a n c t i t y — t h e y all become associated in the Chinese minds with their ethical tradition and become their concrete conceptions of good and evil conduct. 2 7 L i n Y u t a n g is h e r e d i s t i l l i n g in E n g l i s h t h e c o n s i d e r e d o p i n i o n o f g e n e r a t i o n s o f Chinese writers on the theater. Experience a m o n g the H o n g K o n g audiences described a b o v e bears Lin out. V i l l a g e r s o f the s m a l l fishing s e t t l e m e n t o f K a u S a i , for e x a m p l e , s t a g e n i n e m a j o r p e r f o r m a n c e s o f C a n t o n e s e o p e r a a n d five d a w n p l a y s e v e r y y e a r in connection with the so-called b i r t h d a y of their tutelary divinity. T h e p r o g r a m i n c l u d e s t h r e e or f o u r fighting p l a y s a n d five o r six d o m e s t i c d r a m a s . T h e f o r m e r d r a w r a t h e r l a r g e r c r o w d s , b u t t h e l a t t e r a r e a l m o s t as e a g e r l y

followed,

e s p e c i a l l y w h e n t h e t o p singers a r e b i l l e d to a p p e a r . L o o k i n g at t h e a u d i e n c e f r o m the s t a g e , o n e sees a t i g h t l y p a c k e d c a r p e t o f u p t u r n e d f a c e s a n d , e x c e p t a t moments of greatest d r a m a t i c e x c i t e m e n t or most p o p u l a r singing, hears a c o n s t a n t b u z z o f t a l k . I f o n e listens to t h e t a l k , o n e s o o n d i s c o v e r s t h a t t h e m a j o r t o p i c is the p l a y itself. T h e r e is c r i t i c i s m o f t h e a c t i n g , s i n g i n g , c o s t u m e s , a n d so o n , b u t the g r e a t e r p a r t o f t h e c o n v e r s a t i o n is a b o u t t h e p l a y : " W h a t

is

h a p p e n i n g n o w ? " " W h o is t h a t ? " " W h a t ' s g o i n g t o h a p p e n n e x t ? " T h o u g h usually quite well k n o w n , the plots are exceedingly c o m p l i c a t e d a n d usually v e r y l o n g ; p e o p l e n e e d h e l p in u n d e r s t a n d i n g . B u t t h e y also m a k e

moral

c o m m e n t s : " T h a t ' s a t e r r i b l e t h i n g to do; she'll s u r e l y b e p u n i s h e d f o r t h a t ! " " T h a t ' s n o t fair, t h e j u d g e d i d n ' t listen; b u t t h e n h e ' s b e e n b r i b e d ! " S h e ' s p u t t i n g p o i s o n in t h e w i n e ! "

"Aiya!

( V e r y o c c a s i o n a l l y a s p e c t a t o r is r e a l l y

carried a w a y : " L o o k out! H e ' s b e h i n d y o u with a s w o r d ! " ) In short, the fact t h a t t h e plots m a y h a v e b e e n seen m a n y t i m e s a n d t h a t m u s i c , s i n g i n g , a n d a c t i n g style a r e i n d e e d o f g r e a t i m p o r t a n c e d o e s n o t m e a n t h a t a u d i e n c e s like this a r e w i t h o u t a m o s t l i v e l y i n t e r e s t in t h e stories t h e m s e l v e s a n d t h e i r m o r a l implications. Heightened Occasions and Total

Theater

T h e v i l l a g e o f K a u S a i is i s o l a t e d o n a s m a l l i s l a n d . U n t i l a b o u t 1 9 5 0 , w h e n o n e v i l l a g e r a c q u i r e d his first r a d i o , t h e o n l y k i n d o f p r o f e s s i o n a l e n t e r t a i n m e n t the people k n e w w e r e the operas p e r f o r m e d at their o w n temple festivals a n d 27

Ibid.

REGIONAL OPERAS AND THEIR AUDIENCES four or five others within easy reach. O n m y reckoning, the a v e r a g e

185

fishing

family in K a u Sai w a t c h e d twenty or m o r e entertainment operas a y e a r , sometimes more. By the age of 40, m a n y persons must h a v e seen nearly a t h o u s a n d , a n d as they saw n o t h i n g else, the effect c a n n o t h a v e been small. E v e n today, w h e n four families h a v e m e m b e r s living in E n g l a n d a n d several residents h a v e visited them there, w h e n local travel is swift a n d easy a n d almost e v e r y o n e has long experience of the c i n e m a , a n d w h e n every house has color television, the contrast between the color, excitement, a n d g l a m o r of festival d a y s a n d the d r a b m o n o t o n y of e v e r y d a y life has to be seen to be believed. T h i r t y years ago, w h e n I first lived in the village, it w a s o v e r w h e l m i n g . S u d d e n l y , almost overnight, a single strip o f l e s s than t w e n t y houses a l o n g the w a t e r ' s edge is transformed into a fairground with stalls a n d g a m b l i n g pitches, t e m p o r a r y tea houses spring u p from n o w h e r e , h a w k e r s arrive with exotic wares to sell, the p o p u l a t i o n zooms u p to several thousand, a n d the matshed theater towers over all with its flags and colored lights a n d blaring loudspeakers. If the operas are the highlight of the fair, the festival in its turn highlights the operas. In 1975 an old informant in H o n g K o n g recalled for me w h a t must h a v e been essentially similar but even larger scale occasions in S h u n T a k

County,

K w a n g t u n g , to w h i c h his father h a d taken him as a n excited ten-year-old nearly seventy years before: M y father liked Cantonese opera very much. H e used to take me to all the nearby temple festivals to see the plays. In those days, of course, all the actors were men and they used to travel in the R e d Boats on the river. T h e crowds were very big, so I used to go right up to the front near the stage in order to see properly. Sometimes I even climbed up onto the stage and watched from the side. M y father bought me water chestnuts on sticks to eat, too, and once or twice a wooden sword. O f course I remembered all the stories, and later I read them too.

F u r t h e r m o r e , a l t h o u g h it is h a r d to suggest a n y w a y in w h i c h it could be measured, the sense of heightened occasion is not merely secular. T h e temple fair is a temple fair. T h e cycle of events is a n c h o r e d in religion. It builds u p through the rituals of the " b i r t h d a y " eve to a crescendo of offerings, processions, and feasting on the m a i n d a y itself, and the plays are part of the offerings. It is noticeable that w h a t e v e r his or her individual v e r b a l professions of belief or disbelief, n o one in K a u Sai fails to take part in temple worship on the m a i n d a y , no y o u n g m a n absents himself from the rituals on the p r e c e d i n g d a y , a n d every family with a new b a b y (even in E n g l a n d ) is at pains to register the fact properly w i t h the a p p r o p r i a t e gift of red-colored eggs to their local deity. It is, to say the least, p r o b a b l e that the messages put across in e n j o y a b l e operatic performances that themselves play a ritual role on such h i g h l y c h a r g e d religious occasions will stick. T h e r e is still o n e m o r e consideration. A s I h a v e demonstrated elsewhere, Chinese o p e r a is " t o t a l t h e a t e r . " A g o o d p e r f o r m a n c e both b o m b a r d s a n d woos

¡86

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the audience with almost every possible combination of color, movement, sound, and sense, and caters to several different levels of understanding at the same time. A t its best (judged in local terms, which may or m a y not be the same as Western or modern ones), Chinese opera engenders a high degree of audience participation, too easily missed by outsiders, who are often misled by the lack of handclapping applause or the rush to get away to bed or the tea house before the final curtain. Here is yet another reason for us to expect that the content of such performances will remain memorable long after the event. A n d , in any case, the event is likely to be experienced all over again next year, if not before. Not only scholars and writers like Lin Y u t a n g and the players themselves have been aware of the influence of opera performances. Successive Chinese governments have constantly sought to control opera in the interests of public order and conformity. As Mackerras says in his study of the rise of Peking opera, this impulse indicates that they well knew that " t h e theatre was more than a place for enjoyment and relaxation; it was also a major social force, the influence of which extended deeply into the lives of the p e o p l e . " 2 8 C h ' i n g governments seem to have been especially harsh towards dramatic performances, and there is a good deal of evidence that they were wise to be suspicious. T h e fact that the drama was a major vehicle for the inculcation of values did not at all guarantee that the values so inculcated were necessarily either orthodox or politically innocuous. T h e contrary might just as easily be the case. Certainly throughout the period of anti-Manchu sentiment that was a very real possibility. It was not by accident that players insisted on wearing Ming-type costumes on stage, and there were good grounds for the continued suppression of Cantonese opera after the T a i p i n g rebellion. But, as Dolby points out, it seems that the complete suppression of the theater " w o u l d have entailed grave and possibly perilous disruptions—worse even than the evils it was deemed to provoke." 2 9 In any case, it was not done. T h a t suppression was ever contemplated at all, however, shows that Chinese governments of the day, like their successors in the People's Republic of China and like their Elizabethan and J a c o b e a n counterparts faced with a rather similar situation in England, were convinced of the importance of the theater as a moral force. T h e evidence from H o n g K o n g indicates that they were right. For the great mass of the population of M i n g and C h ' i n g China, the entertainment media, especially the festival operas, were the most significant source of information about the believed-in historical past, the values and manners of the elite, attitudes and relationships between and a m o n g people of different status, and ideas of good (which usually triumphed in the end) and evil

28

Colin Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera iyyo-i8yo

p. 218. 29Dolby,

History, p. 141.

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972),

REGIONAL OPERAS AND THEIR AUDIENCES

,87

(which was usually routed). In short, w h a t the Chinese theater disseminated was the m a j o r part o f w h a t o r d i n a r y people in the matshed audience k n e w a b o u t the vast c o m p l e x of Chinese culture a n d v a l u e s — b o t h orthodox a n d h e t e r o d o x — o f w h i c h (as they also knew) the one small corner of their o w n e v e r y d a y experience w a s only a minute fraction. For all b u t the (predominantly male) 5 percent or so w h o a c t u a l l y carried the high culture, the theater was the literal e m b o d i m e n t of C h i n e s e culture a n d values. It w a s a superbly successful teacher.

SEVEN •GCD

Religion and Popular Culture: The Management of Moral Capital in The Romance of the Three Teachings Judith A. Berling

Between 1612 and 1620, a Nanking publishing house of some repute published a novel entitled San-Mao k'ai-mi kuei-cheng yen-i [The romance of the three teachings clearing up the deluded and returning them to the true way]. N o trace of this work is found in Chinese bibliographies and catalogues except as a work "not seen"; we know of its existence thanks to the work of S a w a d a Mizuho, w h o discovered a copy in the Tenri University L i b r a r y . 1 T h e novel was not a success among those w h o collected and catalogued fiction; whether it had a more popular readership we will probably never know. Although we cannot identify its audience, this novel is an important source for the study of popular literary culture. T h e author, P'an Ching-jo, by his own report, was selfconsciously outside the national elite, and was deliberately aiming at a popular audience. T h e novel depicts the world of the local elite in the highly commercialized, urbanized region of Southeast China, and the religious content was inspired by an actual movement in that region. P'an Ching-jo portrays the mentality and distinctive religious attitude in the middle-level popular culture of the region in a way that deepens our understanding of the significance of ' S a w a d a M i z u h o vflffliiSiS " S a n k y o shiso to heiwa shosetsu" HiSt,®ifS t T I S ' . h B i [Colloquial novels a n d T h r e e T e a c h i n g s thought], Biburia 1 6 : 3 7 - 3 9 ( ' 9 6 0 ) - Some years later, he published a second essay discussing the evidence on p u b l i c a t i o n , d a t e , a n d a u t h o r s h i p in his book Bukkyo to Chugoku bungaku ftfiit [Buddhism a n d Chinese literature] (Tokyo: K o k u s h o kankokai [£] ^S-flJ i f ^ > '975)> PP- 1 6 3 - 1 6 7 . T h e r e is to d a t e n o scholarship o n the novel in Western languages. T h e T e n r i University copy is eight h u n d r e d Chinese pages long, plus p r e f a t o r y material; the b o d y contains o n e h u n d r e d chapters divided i n t o twenty chiian of forty pages each. T h e prefatory material is written in elegant classical Chinese, a n d o n e preface is carved in r u n n i n g script. T h e rest of the novel is in large, s t a n d a r d woodblock c h a r a c t e r s , with no illustrations. T h e r e is no indication in the text that t h e novel was sponsored or edited by a g r o u p as an act of religious merit; it was either privately f u n d e d or a n outright commercial v e n t u r e .

188

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i8g

religious developments in the late Ming, and of their specific cultural and social base. P'an Ching-jo's work is not a historical record of the documented attitudes of a specific religious organization; he calls it ayen-i, which generally designates historical novels. 2 However, compared with its contemporaries, this novel is highly realistic. It is situated in the present (the late Ming) and centered in the region in which it was published. It deals not with the great events of history like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (San kuo yen-i), but with the day-to-day problems of relatively ordinary people. Despite the inclusion of some fantastic and supernatural motifs, the overwhelming focus is on ordinary human characters and not larger-than-life heroes, as in Water Margin (Shui-hu chuan), or monsters and gods, as in Journey to the West (Hsi-yu chi). The Romance of the Three Teachings portrays the impact of social forces and historical changes on the everyday lives of real people in the present world: in this sense it echoes the realism of Golden Lotus (Chin P'ing Mei) and foreshadows that of The Scholars (Julin wai-shih) . 3 P'an Ching-jo's work does not rank among the best of the Chinese novels. However, it is a valuable resource for studying the mentality of popular culture in Southeast China during the late Ming.

THE ROMANCE OF THE THREE TEACHINGS AS P O P U L A R C U L T U R E The Author According to the novel, the ancestors of author P'an Ching-jo had participated in T'ai-tsu's invasion and occupation ofNanking, and at least one was a master of Taoist spiritual arts ( i 5 . 2 i a - 2 i b ) . 4 P'an appears briefly in the novel, described as "about fifty and a military degree holder from the capital" 2

A n d r e w H . Plaks has drawn attention to the close links between history and fiction in the

Chinese tradition. H e writes, "Because theyen-i category sits astride the watershed between history and fiction, it is in a position to deal with the private lives of public

figures...

as well as the public

affairs of men who would otherwise not come up for extensive historical scrutiny." From " T o w a r d s a Critical T h e o r y of Chinese N a r r a t i v e " (p. 320) in Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, ed. A n d r e w H . Plaks (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 3 0 9 - 3 5 2 . 3

Ian Watt has argued that the realism of the early English novel (time as the sequence of daily

events, specific settings, easy plots devoid of heavy allegory and fantastic motifs) reflected the bourgeois life in eighteenth-century British cities. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962). I am making similar claims for this novel, but the claim has to be qualified. This novel has allegorical and fantastical elements that Watt would consider prenovelistic; however, the Chinese genre is not precisely comparable to its Western counterpart. This is a very early Chinese novel, and it falls somewhere between Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe in its treatment of realistic moral issues. 4

S a w a d a Mizuho also relied on this passage to develop the background of the author; Bukkyo to

Chugoku bungaku, p. 166. T h e parenthetical reference is to the novel. See n. 1, above. T h e citation I 5 . 2 i a - 2 i b means chiian 1 5 , folio 2 1 , recto a n d verso. Subsequent references to the novel are given parenthetically in the same form.

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( 1 . 1 5 b ) . In all p r o b a b i l i t y he was a military officer stationed in the N a n k i n g area. H e cuts a rather imposing

figure:

Thick eyebrows and piercing eyes. Broad back with high shoulders. Long ears frame the sea of his mouth. Hemp robes make him look like T'ai-kung going to meet Wen Wang. His whole countenance dignified and imposing, He wears a square soldier's turban And a six-cloud pattern embroidered jacket. (1.15b) 5 O n meeting him, a g e n t l e m a n laments that P ' a n must b e a r the disgrace of military status: " W i t h his virtuous a p p e a r a n c e a n d g r e a t talent, h o w c o u l d he be in the inferior military? T o d a y w h e n civil virtues are a s c e n d a n t and military p o w e r is slight, one w h o has followed the scorned p a t h must be h a r d put to avoid sighs of d e j e c t i o n " ( i . i 5 b - i 6 a ) . Despite his e d u c a t i o n a n d w o r t h y a p p e a r a n c e , P ' a n is not a m e m b e r of the elite, since he does not h a v e the allimportant chin-shih degree from the civil service e x a m i n a t i o n system; the chinshih was by far the most i m p o r t a n t route to high status. T h e military degree a n d military office were v i e w e d by the e l i t e — a n d most o f s o c i e t y — a s second-rate a n d marginal. T h e marginality of military officers is a recurring theme in the novel. O n e officer becomes so e n r a g e d that a mere stable h a n d c a n treat military m e n with insolence that he is a b o u t to h a v e him beaten to death; he is restrained by the a r g u m e n t that respect can be g a i n e d only by e m u l a t i n g the virtues a n d courtesies of the civil elite ( 1 4 . 1 2 a - 1 3 a ) . A n o t h e r officer is scorned by his civilian counterpart in the c o u n t y because he hires opera players for his b i r t h d a y party; the civil officer c a n n o t e n d u r e such v u l g a r entertainments. T h e civil officer is persuaded to stay a n d v i e w the d r a m a on the g r o u n d s that it is a local custom to present a play to wish the host a long a n d h a p p y life ( 1 5 - 3 o b - 3 1 a). T h e passage is surprising, since other writings of the period suggest that even very eminent families had plays p e r f o r m e d w i t h i n their households. E m i n e n t patrons might w o r r y a b o u t the level of v u l g a r i t y in the themes a n d l a n g u a g e o f the d r a m a , and the style in w h i c h it w a s p e r f o r m e d , 6 but in this story it is the v e r y performance of the play that h a d to be defended. T h e a u t h o r is satirizing w h a t he perceives to be an excessively straitlaced attitude a m o n g some m e m b e r s o f the official class w h o were suspicious o f all forms o f p o p u l a r entertainment. H e is correct to the extent that a l t h o u g h the elite m a y h a v e e n j o y e d p o p u l a r amusements such as

5

T'ai-kung and W e n W a n g were moral exemplars from the golden age of the early Chou

dynasty who appear in popular dramas as sage heroes. T h e poem has a theatrical flavor, and establishes P'an's imposing figure as though he were a heroic character in an opera. 6

See T a n a k a Issei's discussion of these issues in the first half of his paper in this volume, chap. 5.

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fiction and drama, many of them condescended to anyone whose cultural tastes were limited to this sphere. A u t h o r P'an Ching-jo is quite conscious of the marginal status of the military and of the disdain some members of the elite have for unrefined and vulgar (i.e., popular) tastes. Y e t as a military man writing a work of popular fiction, he claims the highest moral purposes for his work. He writes in the fan-li (general principles), which precedes the novel, T h i s tale stresses only the constant principles of h u m a n relationships taught by Confucians in order to unite Buddhists and Taoists with the strictly orthodox teaching. It uses their doctrines . . . to p u r g e d e p r a v i t y , encourage the g o o d , and transform the w i c k e d in order to aid the orthodox teaching.

He defends his use of popular motifs as consistent with this moral purpose: T h i s tale includes p o p u l a r (su) tunes because I w a n t people to be able to understand it. Y e t in the v u l g a r is hidden something subtle; even the coarse places are pure and sincere. T h i s is not the work of a clumsy artisan.

T h e novel uses not only popular songs, but simple language; it is a combination of simple classical Chinese with kuan-hua, the standard vernacular of official business. Although far removed from the spoken dialect of the Nanking area, kuan-hua was a useful lingua franca for those whose lives involved extensive travel across dialect lines. In addition, proverbs and sayings rather than literary or classical allusions illustrate the morals. Frequent recapitulation keeps the reader from losing the thread of the story. Lest the reader miss the crucial points, the author highlights them by adding circles beside each character in the passage. In a variety of ways, P'an Ching-jo has worked to make the novel easy to understand. P'an defends both his realism (treatment of familiar, everyday situations) and his inclusion of fantastic elements: A l t h o u g h the matters discussed in the tale are sometimes trivial and a n n o y i n g , one meets more than h a l f o f them in a lifetime. If the discussions are correct, it will really serve to clear u p delusions. T h i s is like saying that g o o d medicine is bitter to the m o u t h . If some of the stories are fantastic, that is also to cure delusions. T h i s is like saying that w i n e cures drunkenness.

T h e stories in the novel are meant to give the readers a model of selfimprovement through moral self-examination. If people can lessen their empty boasting, listen to admonishment, examine their daily c o n d u c t , not g o too far or fail to g o far e n o u g h , then naturally the w h o l e mind will be clear, the b o d y will be comfortable, a n d they will progress t o w a r d enlightenment.

While many fictional works bow perfunctorily to proper morals before m o v i n g on to the real business, this novel is about moral self-examination in real-life

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situations. T h e didacticism is central to the enterprise. P ' a n C h i n g - j o is w r i t i n g as a teacher, to reform the w o r l d . H e is c l a i m i n g for himself the e l e v a t e d m o r a l f u n c t i o n o f elite scholars w h o write essays a n d c o m m e n t a r i e s on the Classics. A s w e shall see, P ' a n believes t h a t the Classical discussions o f the elite are ineffective as m o r a l e d u c a t i o n for o r d i n a r y people. In w r i t i n g this novel, he is s h o w i n g that h e c a n e d u c a t e t h e m m o r e effectively b y using the techniques o f fiction. A s h e says in the general p l a n , " t h i s is not the w o r k o f a c l u m s y a r t i s a n . " It m a y be useful at this point to c o m p a r e this n o v e l to the literary pao-chuan (precious scrolls), w h i c h i n c l u d e d i d a c t i c tales o f k a r m i c r e t r i b u t i o n . 7 W h i l e some o f the themes a n d v a l u e s o f the literary pao-chuan o v e r l a p w i t h those in The Romance of the Three Teachings, the two genres are q u i t e distinct: 1.

L i t e r a r y pao-chuan did not coalesce as a s e p a r a t e g e n r e until the late nineteenth c e n t u r y , t w o h u n d r e d fifty years after P ' a n C h i n g - j o ' s novel w a s published.

2.

T h e novel is m u c h l o n g e r t h a n a pao-chuan.

3.

W h i l e both a l t e r n a t e prose a n d verse, the prose sections o f the n o v e l a r e l o n g e r a n d m o r e e x p a n s i v e t h a n in pao-chuan; p o e t r y is b r i e f a n d serves occasionally to s u m m a r i z e the m o r a l o f a n episode or to set the m o o d o f a scene.

4.

T h e novel is set in the present, w h i l e the literary pao-chuan are set in the

5.

T h e novel deals w i t h o r d i n a r y p e o p l e , w h i l e the pao-chuan a r e a b o u t

6.

T h e novel treats a w i d e r a n g e o f c h a r a c t e r s in a series of r e l a t i v e l y brief

distant past. families o f h i g h officials or v e r y w e a l t h y m e r c h a n t s . episodes, w h i l e the literary pao-chuan (as r e p o r t e d by O v e r m y e r ) d e v e l o p a d r a m a t i c plot a r o u n d the figures in o n e f a m i l y . 7.

T h e novel is less pious a n d puts less e m p h a s i s on l e a d i n g a n explicitly religious life t h a n the literary pao-chuan. T h e T h r e e M a s t e r s i n c u l c a t e m o r a l a n d religious attitudes b y stressing their p r a c t i c a l a n d u t i l i t a r i a n benefits in real-life situations. T h e pao-chuan e m p h a s i z e religious p i e t y , see values in b l a c k - a n d - w h i t e terms, l a u d those w h o suffer for virtue, a n d teach t h a t the B u d d h a will u l t i m a t e l y r e w a r d the faithful. It w o u l d be a n e x a g g e r a t i o n to say that the n o v e l is secular, b u t its t e a c h i n g s have a strong this-worldly a n d p r a c t i c a l bent. The Social Perspective

T h e social perspective o f the novel reflects c o n d i t i o n s in the r e g i o n t h r o u g h w h i c h the c h a r a c t e r s travel. T h e story begins a n d ends in the fictional t o w n of

7

See D a n i e l O v e r m y e r ' s p a p e r in this v o l u m e , c h a p . 8, especially his fourth c a t e g o r y

oipao-

chuan. In m y description o f the g e n r e I a m h e a v i l y i n d e b t e d to O v e r m y e r a n d to a n e x a m i n a t i o n of the text he provides as the m o d e l for the f o u r t h c a t e g o r y .

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Ch'ung-cheng li (Orthodox Town), which is located in Mo-ling County, a real place just south of Chin-ling (Nanking), where the novel was published. T h e Three Masters, protagonists of the novel, first journey by boat along the waterways of the region. On the way to Wu-lin (modern Hangchow), they visit the island called M t . Tung-t'ing in Lake T ' a i in K i a n g s u ; then they continue on to Chia-shan j u s t across the border in Chekiang, and then go south to Ch'ungte. In Wu-lin, they learn that the person they are looking for has gone north, so they head back to Chin-ling, on to Wei-yang in central K i a n g s u , west to T'iench'ang in Anhwei, and then farther west to Hsiu-chou, Anhwei. From there they leave the familiar Lower Yangtze region and head through the unfamiliar north toward Peking, passing through Te-chou in Shantung; they go to Chingchou in southern Hopei, and to Hsin-ch'eng, which is a southern gateway into the capital, Peking. They stay only briefly in the capital, for, as outsiders to the national elite, they are intimidated by its grandeur. They arrange to take an ocean-going boat back to Fukien. From there they make their way to Ch'ungcheng, with an intermediary stop in P'u-t'ien, Fukien. T h e main action of the novel is centered precisely in the Lower Yangtze core, a flourishing urbanized region where waterways teemed with traders. As Evelyn Rawski discusses in her paper, although some of the changes go as far back as the Sung, the development of this region was greatly stimulated in the sixteenth century when the Southeast became the focus of maritime trade. T h e economies of the Southeast and the Lower Yangtze core were stimulated by the influx of silver and growing domestic and overseas markets for goods. Economic growth was accompanied by urban growth and increasing integration of town and rural markets into the urban hierarchy. Urbanization stimulated cash crops, handicraft industries, and specialization in luxury goods, giving rise to a highly competitive atmosphere with a high degree of social mobility. U r b a n patterns and opportunities, such as luxury consumption, entertainment, education, economic specialization, and written contractual agreements gradually displaced older village patterns of social interaction based on stable and longterm networks of personal obligations. 8 T h e journey of the Three Masters follows the commercial waterways of the Lower Yangtze core and the maritime shipping route between Peking and Fukien. T h e towns and cities they visit in their journey reflect the urban life of this region. T h e towns are depicted as flourishing commercial centers: shopkeepers know all the gossip and loud marketplace squabbles give them plenty to gossip about. Inns, tea houses, brothels, and gambling dens provide lodging and urban pleasures for all travelers. In this urban setting young wastrels dissipate family fortunes in whoring and gambling: sycophants sponge off the rich; phoney literati while away their days in poetry while all goes to ruin about 8

1 have relied heavily on Evelyn Rawski's essay in this volume, chap, i.

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them; con artists, hustlers, and pettifoggers ply their trades. T h e towns of the novel are peopled with entrepreneurs, from wealthy salt dealers to lowly pao-tzu peddlers and fruit vendors and a wide range in between: silversmiths, traveling and stationary wine merchants, innkeepers, jewel dealers, sandal weavers, coffin makers, medicine shop owners, signmakers, butchers, and so on. T h e towns also contain an underclass including thieves of necessity and professional thieves, beggars, kidnappers, boatmen, fishermen, prostitutes, runaway servants, boat haulers, and local bullies. Rich or poor, all are struggling to get ahead in the competitive urban environment. Rawski has noted that one facet of this period was the collapse of government controls of the economy and the shift to local financing and management. 9 This may account for the minor and relatively negative role of government in the novel. Government is discussed only at the local level, and is represented by two magistrates, a military officer, axid.yamen runners and functionaries. It is not a major force in the rectification of social problems. T h e central and best developed class of characters in the novel, however,are the ch'u-shih. Ordinarily this term designates local scholars, usually possessors of the chin-shih degree living in their home communities while they are not serving in official posts. However, in this book the term carries a less exalted sense; aside from the two magistrates, no one in the novel has a degree beyond the hsiu-ts'ai. In the late Ming, hsiu-ts'ai were not ranked among the national elite: they were commoners. 1 0 T h e bulk of the ch'u-shih in the novel do not seem to have competed in the government examinations or studied in government schools. T h e term seems to connote simply "gentlemen" in the sense of members of the local (nonnational) town elite. T h e y may have a modicum of education, but they are not elites by virtue of scholarly achievement. Local elite status in late traditional China was the result of wealth, education, power, or ability sufficient to put one in a leadership role. Leadership meant organizing religious festivals or markets, sponsoring drama performances, or playing a significant role in local organizations such as a lineage 9

See Rawski's essay in this volume, chap. i. are not "commoners" in the sense of poor peasants, but are depicted as those who vear

10They

cotton as opposed to official robes. Ping-ti Ho has noted the great social distance between hsiu-ts'ai and holders of higher degrees in The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of Social Motility, 1368-igu

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), pp. 26-43. T'ung-tsu Ch'ii argues from

concrete usages in C h ' i n g documents of the terms shen-chin

and shen-shih

(translated

variously as "gentry," "ruling class," "scholar-officials," "gentry-officials," but clearly designating the social elite) that the term did include lower-degree holders, in Local Government in China under the Ch'ing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 318, n. 22. Philip K u h n has stressed that hsiu-ts'ai are in an intermediate position, part of the local as opposed to the national elite. Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 3 - 4 . T h e debate on this issue is discussed and evaluated by Paul S. R o p p , Dissent in Early Modern China: Ju-lin wai-shih and Ch'ing Social Criticism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981), pp. 1 1 - 1 5 , esp. pp. 2 1 - 2 6 . See also David Johnson's paper, chap. 2 of this volume.

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merchant guild or a religious s o c i e t y . 1 1 T h e first g r o u p of " g e n t l e m e n " in the novel certainly fits the profile o f l o c a l elite: But our story goes that in Ch'ung-cheng li there were a dozen households of gentlemen (ch'u-shih). It was their habit to spend leisure time sitting in the temple, but they did not understand at all the abstruse principles of the Way. Now when word spread that a Master of the Three Teachings had arrived, they went to the temple to have a look. One of these gentlemen was called Hsin Te (Goodhearted), with the sobriquet Pen-hsii (Originally Void). He was a loyal, generous, sincere, and honest gentleman. Another was named Hsiao Hsien (Sighing Leisure), with the sobriquet Wu-shih (Easygoing); he was an openhearted, non-opinionated gentleman. Another was named Lin Se (Stingy) with the sobriquet Pi-fu (Niggardly); he was a stingy and greedy gentleman. Another was called Fei Yung (Spendthrift) with the sobriquet Pu-ching (Reckless; literally No Management); he was an extravagant gentleman who was fond of winning. Another was named Wu Ming (Dim) with the sobriquet Ta-liang (Big Light); he was a narrow man with a shallow sense of right and wrong, (i .4b) These " g e n t l e m e n " are active in local temple activities; they spend their leisure time there, collect for the renovation of the temple ( 1 . 8 b ) , sponsor the lectures of visiting teachers ( 1 . 7 a ) , a n d organize major ritual occasions. T h e y are not sophisticated either religiously or culturally; they understand neither the W a y nor the literature of the Classical tradition. T h e y are educated, but are not notable for their learning. T h e y are the elite only in their tiny corner of the world. It is mainly through the eyes of " g e n t l e m e n " such as these that the novel views the life of the late M i n g . T h e y view government (represented by the yamen) with some distaste, seeing it as corrupt a n d unnecessarily h a r s h . 1 2 O n the other h a n d , they view with alarm the disorderly elements of society (young bullies, riffrafT, r u n a w a y servants, religious charlatans). T h e y feel responsible as the local elite to sponsor educational lectures a n d as family heads to m a n a g e property and reduce f a m i l y tensions, but they lack the confidence and knowhow to meet these responsibilities in a changing world. T h e y are frightened because they do not get the respect they feel their position merits from wives, servants, children, neighbors, relatives, and friends. T h e old (village-based) patterns of relationship are breaking d o w n , and new ones h a v e not yet emerged to fit the urbanized world. T h i s local elite lacks the prestige, connections, a n d broad responsibilities of the national elite; they are concerned with problems at the ground level a n d close to home. 11

On the local elite, see James Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, 1850-igi 1: Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1977), and Hilary J . Beattie, Land and Lineage in China: A Study of T'ung-cheng County, Anhwei, in the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 1 - 2 2 . 12 For the institutional realities that created tension betwtenyamen and the local community see John R . Watt, " T h e Yamen and Urban Administration," in The City in Late Imperial China, ed. G . William Skinner (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), pp. 3 5 3 - 3 9 0 .

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Didactic Content T h e m o r a l content o f The Romance of the Three Teachings w a s inspired by the T h r e e T e a c h i n g s R e l i g i o n o f L i n C h a o - e n ( 1 5 1 7 - 1 5 9 8 ) , the temples o f w h i c h d o t t e d the region d e p i c t e d in the n o v e l . 1 3 A l t h o u g h a scion of a v e r y e m i n e n t f a m i l y o f P ' u - t ' i e n , F u k i e n , L i n C h a o - e n b u r n e d his student c a p before the official school after r e c e i v i n g his hsiu-ts'ai d e g r e e in o r d e r to seek the true W a y a n d e m b o d y it in his life a n d actions. T h e r e a f t e r , he considered himself a c o m m o n e r . A f t e r ten y e a r s he h a d a vision o f a n e n l i g h t e n e d M a s t e r (in o n e version, C o n f u c i u s h i m s e l f ) , w h o t a u g h t h i m a s t e p - b y - s t e p m e t h o d o f y o g i c self-transformation c o m b i n i n g elements o f T a o i s t a n d B u d d h i s t m e d i t a t i o n techniques w i t h C o n f u c i a n v i e w s o f m o r a l c u l t i v a t i o n . N o t o n l y did this m e t h o d p r o v i d e a concrete p r o g r a m for c u l t i v a t i n g s a g e h o o d , b u t at e v e r y stage the results w e r e a c t u a l l y e x p e r i e n c e d in b o d y a n d m i n d . T h e p u p i l k n e w e x a c t l y w h a t he h a d a c h i e v e d . O n e o f the first signs o f progress w a s the ability to h e a l illness; L i n w a s instructed b y the E n l i g h t e n e d M a s t e r to use h e a l i n g as a sign o f the p o w e r of his W a y . H i s f a m e as a h e a l e r a t t r a c t e d thousands of followers. A m o n g these w a s the c o m m a n d e r C h ' i C h i - k u a n g ( 1 5 2 8 - 1 5 8 7 ) , w h o m a y a p p e a r , u n d e r a n o t h e r n a m e , in The Romance of the Three

Teachings,14

In his early years, L i n C h a o - e n w a s a m o d e s t t e a c h e r in the t r a d i t i o n a l C o n f u c i a n m o l d . H o w e v e r , d u r i n g the e a r l y 1560s h e b e c a m e f a m o u s b e c a u s e o f his d e e p i n v o l v e m e n t in p h i l a n t h r o p i c activities a n d ritual services for the homeless souls of those killed d u r i n g several years o f J a p a n e s e pirate raids. T h i s p h i l a n t h r o p i c a n d priestly a c t i v i t y led h i m to a s s u m e the role o f religious teacher. A f t e r this he e x p a n d e d his " s c h o o l " to i n c l u d e halls a n d c u r r i c u l a for all social classes; h e t a u g h t a n d h e a l e d a l o n g the r o a d s to a u d i e n c e s i n c l u d i n g the poor; h e w r o t e simple tracts in the v e r n a c u l a r to r e a c h a b r o a d e r a u d i e n c e w i t h his writings. A l t h o u g h n o g o o d figures are a v a i l a b l e , his followers p r o b a b l y n u m b e r e d in the thousands. Shrines proliferated a n d p u b l i c a t i o n s m u l t i p l i e d . L i n C h a o - e n ' s R e l i g i o n o f the T h r e e T e a c h i n g s i n c l u d e d m e r c h a n t s a n d s o m e modest religious seekers w h o s e n a m e s m a d e their w a y i n t o the local gazetteers. L i n C h a o - e n a t t e m p t e d — n o o n e k n o w s h o w s u c c e s s f u l l y — t o reach a p o p u l a r a u d i e n c e , p e o p l e similar to the c h a r a c t e r s o f the n o v e l . 1 5 l3The

Chao-k'o

Lin-tzu nien-p'u ^ T~ ^f- Ha [Chronological biography of Master Lin], ed. 1610 by Lin now preserved in the Hosa Bunko, N a g o y a , J a p a n , includes a listing of the Three

Teachings Shrines erected by 1610, twelve years after Lin's death. T h e r e were more than twenty shrines established in P'u-t'ien County, and ten more centers (several with multiple shrines) stretching as far as Nanking. None of the shrines listed are in towns visited in the journey of the Three Masters (except for Nanking). 14The

military officer A n Pien

(Pacifier of the Borders) is said to have campaigned against

the Japanese pirates (14.3a). Ch'i Chi-kuang's success against pirates in Fukien was the start of his rise to fame. See R a y H u a n g , 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), pp. 1 5 6 - 1 8 6 . 15

Further information on Lin's life, writings, and his religious organization can be found in

Judith A. Berling, The Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-en (New York: C o l u m b i a University Press, 1980).

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THE STORY AND S T R U C T U R E OF THE NOVEL T h e basic plot of the novel is as follows: Lin Chao-en goes to call on his friend a n d disciple Tsung K ' u n g (Honors Confucius), whose sobriquet is Ta-ju (Great Scholar); Scholar is a hsiu-ts'ai like Lin himself. Scholar has gone off with his friend the Taoist (Tao-shih) Y u a n Ling-ming (Originally Enlightened; I will call him Spirit Power because his ling-ming, spiritual or ritual clarity, is the source of his ritual prowess) to visit the H u n - y u a n miao (Temple of the Undifferentiated Origin) in Ch'ung-cheng. Lin's presence there attracts a Buddhist monk from M o u n t O - m e i in Szechwan, who is called Pao-kuang (Precious Ray; I will call him Inner Light, since it is his meditative vision that he wields as a weapon in the novel). T h e gentlemen in the town ask Lin Chaoen to stay a n d lecture, b u t since he has other obligations he leaves the Masters of the T h r e e Teachings—Scholar, Spirit Power, a n d Inner L i g h t — t o lecture in his place. T h e public lectures of the T h r e e Masters go completely over the heads of the local audience. In the wake of the lectures it becomes clear that a g r o u p of young men in the town are no-goods who spend all of their time drinking, gambling, and womanizing. T h e poor a m o n g them sponge from their richer friends, while the affluent filch cash from their parents. Scholar invites them to lunch with the goal of reforming them, but the delinquents grow so wild they knock over an ancient stele a n d thus release a long-confined fox spirit (yao), who begins to cause trouble by stealing wine a n d women, assuming various guises to seduce local youth of both sexes. While the T h r e e Masters try in vain to c a p t u r e the fox spirit, one of the young delinquents so upsets his father that the old m a n suffocates to death in a box he is trying out as a coffin (he is convinced he will die impoverished because of his wastrel son). A visiting Buddhist monk n a m e d C h e n - k ' u n g ( T r u e Emptiness, but in this case Really Empty!) feels sorry for the old man; in an act of excessive compassion he ritually opens a crack in Hell to retrieve the old man's soul. T h e crack allows ten thousand deluded souls to escape the darkest reaches of Hell. C h e n - k ' u n g retreats into a meditative trance and does not reemerge until the mess has been cleared u p at the end of the novel. T h e deluded souls, now a b r o a d in the world, find a place for themselves in the minds of persons who share their delusions; the invading souls exaggerate the character flaws of their victims until they are caricatures of themselves. 1 6 16 "Delusion" is not a fully adequate rendering of the Chinese term mi as used in this novel. The Chinese have no notion of radical sin or evil, and believe that every human being is born with a good nature, which can be obscured or forgotten in the course of living but can never be fully destroyed. Mi in its lightest form is simply confusion or error, a departure from innate wisdom. However, this confusion has a clouding effect, and tends to obscure the heart and mind so that correct decisions become more difficult in the future. The clouding of the moral nature through confusion distorts the person's self-image and gives rise to one or more character flaws. Wrong or confused thinking inevitably leads to wrong actions, so that delusion has a social side; it is visible in

J U D I T H A. BERLING

T h e T h r e e Masters are c h a g r i n e d at the moral ineffectiveness of their teaching. T h e y set out to seek instruction from L i n C h a o - e n , v o w i n g that on their j o u r n e y they will cure the victims o f delusion a n d c a p t u r e and return the escaped souls to Hell. T h e y are a c c o m p a n i e d by C h i h - c h ' iu (Seeker), a reformed y o u n g m a n of the village formerly k n o w n as Hsin F a n g

(Mind

A m o k ) . 1 7 Seeker represents E v e r y m a n : he c o m m e n t s on the situations they meet and slowly learns to control his unsteady heart, w h i c h is profoundly shaken by lust. O n their j o u r n e y , the T h r e e Masters g r a d u a l l y learn to diagnose and cure delusions. In the end they c o n q u e r all the deluded souls a n d the fox spirit a n d place them in the charge o f a spirit general. T h e y return to C h ' u n g - c h e n g , w h e r e they finally catch u p with L i n C h a o - e n a n d discuss with him the proper disposition o f the souls. T h e souls are given a last c h a n c e to repent a n d be blessed b y a chiao ritual of r e n e w a l . 1 8 T h e temple is repaired, a new bell cast and donated, a T h r e e T e a c h i n g s H a l l constructed, a n d the town is healthy a n d h a p p y once again.

POPULAR

PEDAGOGY

W h e n the T h r e e Masters are asked to lecture on the W a y , each chooses to lecture on a great Classic from his tradition. A f t e r all, the norms a n d truths o f the W a y are recorded in the Classics; hence the Classics are the basis of all education. H o w e v e r , their a u d i e n c e in C h ' u n g - c h e n g w a s quite diverse; the entire p o p u l a c e had been mobilized to participate in this event. A l l families — rich a n d p o o r — c o n t r i b u t e d m o n e y or materials to repair the temple a n d build a T h r e e T e a c h i n g s H a l l for the lectures. W h e n it w a s completed, The faithful men and women of the town all came to celebrate: old and young, loud and quiet, worthy and ignorant. There was a troop of women: Aunty Chang from Father's side, Aunty Li from Mother's side, Madam W a n g — f a t and thin, dressed in black cotton or hemp, tall and short, flower-footed and big-footed, painted and powdered—each in a class by herself. They were all coming and going, pressing and crowding: altogether it was quite lively. (i .8b)

the personal interactions of an individual. T h e opposite of mi in the novel is cheng: true, orthodox, or upright attitudes that issue in correct actions. Cheng is correct in the sense of " o n target," not distorted. Often in the story characters with opposite delusions are brought together to help them both see the folly of their attitudes and their behavior; the interaction of the two distorted extremes points up the correct middle way, the mature and balanced view. 17

A n allusion to Mencius 6 A : 11: " T h e y let the mind run amok and do not know enough to seek

for it." " O n the chiao ritual, see Michael Saso, Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal (Pullman, Wash.: Washington State University Press, 1972).

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S c h o l a r o p e n e d the c e r e m o n i e s b y a s k i n g the a u d i e n c e to v o w to a c c e p t a n d follow the W a y t h e y w e r e a b o u t to e x p o u n d , a n d then h e w e n t

first.

H e selected the Great Learning, l e c t u r i n g o n the p h r a s e , " T h e W a y o f the Great Learning lies in m a n i f e s t i n g b r i g h t v i r t u e . "

19

A v i l l a g e r asked, " W h y is it c a l l e d the Great

Learning?"

S c h o l a r r e p l i e d , " I t is the l e a r n i n g o f the g r e a t m a n . "

20

T h e v i l l a g e r a s k e d , " I s t h a t a g r e a t m a n w h o w e a r s a h a t , or a b i g fat m a n ? " S c h o l a r s m i l e d a n d said, " I t refers to a g e n t l e m a n o f v i r t u e . " (i . i o a ) S c h o l a r w e n t o n to e x p l a i n t h e p h r a s e " m a n i f e s t i n g b r i g h t v i r t u e . "

The

c r o w d discusses h o w p e o p l e c a n m a n i f e s t b r i g h t v i r t u e if t h e y d o n o t

even

recognize their errors. F o r instance, some p e o p l e (they m e a n Stingy) think they are a model of frugality, while in reality they are just plain stingy.

Scholar

discourses o n the n e e d for m o d e r a t i o n , e v e n in f r u g a l i t y , b u t S t i n g y c a n o n l y see the dangers of spending too m u c h . H e thinks that Scholar's ideas are

very

strange ( i . i o a - i ib). A f t e r S c h o l a r , t h e B u d d h i s t , I n n e r L i g h t , h a s his t u r n : I n n e r L i g h t a s c e n d e d the d h a r m a - s e a t , o p e n e d the Heart Sutra a n d l e c t u r e d o n prajna-paramita (the p e r f e c t i o n o f w i s d o m ) . A v i l l a g e r a s k e d , " W h a t sort o f t h i n g is prajna-paramita aroused b y i t ? "

that people are not

21

I n n e r L i g h t s m i l e d a n d r e p l i e d , " T h i s is a S a n s k r i t t e r m . " A n o t h e r v i l l a g e r said, " I t h o u g h t it w a s a local dialect! Please e x p l a i n it c l e a r l y for u s . " I n n e r L i g h t said, " T h i s is w h e n the m i n d h a s a c h i e v e d w i s d o m ; it is like a b o a t r e a c h i n g the o t h e r shore. O n e is s a v e d f r o m b i r t h a n d d e a t h . " E a s y g o i n g a s k e d , " W h a t d o y o u m e a n b y c o n t e m p l a t i n g the self-existent?"

22

I n n e r L i g h t r e p l i e d , " W h e n the m i n d o f selfish desires is a r o u s e d , t h a t is not the original true n a t u r e . O n l y i n a s a g e or B u d d h a is the true n a t u r e a l w a y s so c l e a r that t h e y c a n look i n t o the p u r e self-existent. In the s a m e w a y , w h e n p e o p l e h a v e no guilt or s h o r t c o m i n g a n d a r e n o t d e l u d e d b y g r e e d o r passion, their h e a r t s will not be a g i t a t e d or fearful, b u t p e a c e f u l a n d u n a r o u s e d . T h i s is c a l l e d the selfexistent. O n c e w r o n g t h o u g h t s arise, it is as t h o u g h the m i n d goes o u t [after the object o f desire] a n d is not present. W h e n present, it is a g i t a t e d a n d u n e a s y . H o w 19

The first line of the Great Learning, which was singled out by the Neo-Confucian Chu Hsi as one

of the Four Books that were to have the first place in the Confucian curriculum. 2 0 Chu Hsi's standard commentary on the first line. See Chu Hsi ife J l , Ssu-shu chi-chu O f i i f l |£ 7 r : fir ^, (Hong Kong: T'ai-p'ing shu-chii 1968), p. 1. Scholar is starting at the beginning of the basic Confucian curriculum. 2 1 T h e villager is responding to the sutra's litany about the absence of sensory and mental stimulation in the state of perfected wisdom. 2 2 Seeing into the self-existent (kuan lv-tsai, ¡ ¡ I g i E ) >s a name of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva whose practice of perfected wisdom is discussed in the sutra. T h e villager hears the name, but not knowing about the bodhisattva, asks rather about the meaning of the term.

200

J U D I T H A. B E R L I N G

could this be the self-existent? If people can look into this self-existent, they will obtain the prajñá oar of the raft of dharma and cross the river of páramitas to the shore of the Way. These are the principles of manifesting the nature and enlightening the mind." ( i . n b - i 2 a ) Rustic complains that he already has too much to worry about. " M y mind is busy all d a y planning for m y f a m i l y until I cannot even sleep at night. H o w c a n I also work at seeing some self-existent?" Others, however, are willing to try. Inner Light said, "Close your eyes and think: the self-existent is before me. Sort out the ways in which it permeates the myriad things." Dim closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and said, " I looked before and behind, but I saw no self-existent. I only saw the rise and fall of kindness and hatred, a crowd of conflicting and confusing things." The villagers all began to laugh. (1.12b) T h e section ends, " H o w could the villagers understand the broad and deep teachings of the B u d d h a ? But they d a r e d not argue. E a c h believed, saluted, praised, and w i t h d r e w " ( 1 . 1 3 a ) . Spirit Power, the Taoist, had no more success, s i n c e — i n e v i t a b l y — w h e n the people heard about the T a o they laughed and laughed ( 1 . 1 3 b ) . 2 3 Despite their polite praise, the c r o w d did not understand even the simplest sayings from the Classics of the three religions, and the technical language was utterly foreign to them. It was not only the " i g n o r a n t " folks from the countryside; even the " g e n t l e m e n " Stingy a n d D i m failed to get the message. T h e depth of the failure of the T h r e e Masters became only too apparent when they could not reform the y o u n g delinquents. T h e abstract doctrines a n d Classical phrases of the high traditions were not effective as popular p e d a g o g y ; the officials confronted similar problems in their lectures on the Sacred Edict.2* In the course of the story, the T h r e e Masters gradually develop more effective methods of moral instruction. T h e y learn to use persuasion a n d gentle satire. Persuasion in this novel does not entail rational debate over the meaning of universal ethical constructs or passages from the Classics, but rather making the deluded see the unfortunate long-term consequences of their actions. Satire demonstrates how ridiculous their actions make them look, how they are "losing f a c e , " embarrassing themselves and their families through their foolish actions. Both gentle persuasion a n d satire appeal to enlightened self-interest based on the doctrine of moral retribution. When reason fails, extraordinary measures are invoked; Spirit P o w e r m a y use his ritual powers to visit the dream world and instruct people in their dreams, or Inner Light m a y use his meditative vision to see a n d dramatize the spiritual forces at work in a given situation. " A l l u s i o n to chapter 41 of the Tao te eking =¡tí : "When the worst student hears about the Way I He laughs out loud. / If he did not laugh / It would be unworthy of being the way." Cited from Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, D. C. Lau, trans. (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1963), p. 102. 24 See Victor Mair's paper in this volume, chap. 1 1 .

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201

Scholar defends this cooperation: We Confucians have established a life-line of ancient and eternal principles for human relationships, but because our orthodox way (cheng-chiao) cannot transform every spot in the world, Buddhism and Taoism provide some principles to aid us. (13.35a) T h e spiritual arts and magical exploits always support the rational message of the story; they provide a convenient w a y to dramatize in powerful terms the effects of moral delusions. T h e y are teaching aids, both for the characters in the novel and for the reader. The Deluded World of T h e Romance of the Three Teachings The Romance of the Three Teachings is about curing the delusions in the world. Despite the rhetorical bow to the glories of the M i n g at the opening of the work, it is clear even before the ten thousand souls escape from Hell that there is plenty of delusion around. T h e r e is something rotten in late M i n g society, as shown in the lament of the Ch'ung-cheng townsmen over the loss of the good old days: " T o d a y and yesterday are different times. Is it only civilian and military that have changed? 2 5 Customs change often and sharply. When people first sat down together, they discussed filiality, brotherly love, official service, love for the people and true government. But today when we open our mouths, we praise the family with money, the family with power, the family with officials: how much their land earns, or what they will leave to their sons." A teacher nodded and said, " I t is not only that old customs and names have been lost. In the beginning of the Way, the employers came to the gate to salute and invite the teacher; today it is often the teacher who goes around to the gates seeking students. With sweet talk he courts his employer as though he doesn't know how to t e a c h . . . . " A lifelong silk merchant said, " . . . Even the feelings of the world are in disorder. In former times the poor bought cotton and the rich bought silk. Today rich families save their money by buying cotton, while the poor buy silk on credit to put on airs." A tailor said, " I t is true that ancient times were better. In the old days silk clothes were lined, while gauze clothes were unlined. Today everything is money and power. Those with linings act as though they have none [to hide their wealth], while those without act as though they have them [to pretend they are wealthy]." T h e gentlemen and townsmen all began to laugh, each sighing for the Way. (i.i6a-i6b) This group perceives their world as one in which customs have changed; money and influence have replaced traditional virtues as the standards of behavior; teachers are mere employees and no longer command the respect they once enjoyed; conspicuous consumption buys the appearance of wealth; frugality 25 This passage immediately follows Virtue's lament that P'an must suffer the disgrace of military status, cited above.

JUDITH A. BERLING

202

helps the prosperous to a c c u m u l a t e savings; m o n e y is a source of e n v y a n d social display. T h e T h r e e Masters in their travels cure the delusions of a variety of people w h o h a v e been affected by the decline o f traditional virtues a n d rise of greed. T h e length and episodic structure of the novel allows for a w i d e range o f incidents. T h e following list provides a very r o u g h idea o f the range a n d relative balance of issues treated: M o n e y : its p o w e r a n d its dangers (42 incidents) Proper a n d w i c k e d uses of religious beliefs, rites, a n d practices (37) Tensions in the practice of business (25) A m b i t i o n : its strategies a n d dangers (23) M a r i t a l conflicts a n d jealousies (19) C o r r u p t i o n in local g o v e r n m e n t (14) T h e use a n d abuse of education (12) G e n e r a l personality flaws (12) N o n m a r i t a l family quarrels ( 1 1 ) a n d feuds (2) Quarrels in public places (10) C r i m i n a l acts (8) Money and Self-Image T h e novel portrays a w o r l d in w h i c h people are t r y i n g to get rich, stay rich, or pretend that they are rich. T h e obsession with m o n e y gives rise to m a n y delusions a n d affects people's views of themselves. T r a d i t i o n a l l y , m e n o f learning a n d virtue were respected in C h i n a as the embodiments of the highest values o f the society. N o w a virtuous hsiu-ts'ai, w h o has demonstrated considerable learning b y passing the first of the arduous g o v e r n m e n t examinations, is disconsolate: Spirit Power saw that this scholar's mournful eyebrows were locked into a frown and that his good countenance was full of shame. His body looked like a raindrenched chicken, and his appearance was like a dog in a house observing mourning. (4.1 ib) H e is scorned by neighbors a n d friends because of his poverty. In another incident even poor b o a t m e n with n o e d u c a t i o n treat a p o o r student w i t h utter contempt

(19.24a). L e a r n i n g counts for nothing; m o n e y

a n d status are

everything. O t h e r characters, a l t h o u g h quite c o m f o r t a b l y w e a l t h y , are p l a g u e d b y profound insecurities. T h e y w o r k ceaselessly a n d obsessively, fearing t h e y w i l l never h a v e e n o u g h (14.25b). T h e y w o r r y that the p r o p e r t y they h a v e amassed will be destroyed b y flood or fire (1 i . 2 o a - 2 3 a ) . E v e r y o n e dreams o f m o n e y ; it is the p a n a c e a , the key that opens all doors. T h e poor h a v e g r a n d plans a b o u t w h a t they could do with a little m o n e y .

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They saw a poor man (min-jen) who said, " I am called Chi Tso (Lucky Aid). A month ago I came up with a plan for my family, and I figured out that I needed a hundred liang for it. In half a month, I was not able to figure out how to get even fifty liang. In the next ten days I couldn't figure out how to get even twenty or thirty. In the next few days I couldn't even figure out how to get five or seven liang, so now I don't even have that much. My mind seems either to lose by going too far or not going far enough." Inner Light smiled and said, "You shouldn't think about five or seven liang of silver. You have a job before you. Clean yourself up and get through the day." Lucky Aid said, "But if there's no money, even when I'm cleaned up, my mind cannot be at ease." (15.7b) L u c k y A i d has g r a n d plans, but no strategy for building up his nest egg. M o n e y breeds e x t r a v a g a n c e , a n d town culture provides m a n y temptations for those w h o wish to spend their money: singsong houses, g a m b l i n g dens, wine shops, and the like. T h e wealthy enjoy a life ofleisure a n d pleasure. Seeing that, the ambitious are sometimes tempted to pursue their romantic dreams of personal success or adventure; they abandon their f a m i l y obligations to make their names or fortunes in the world ( 1 3 . 5 a ; 1 6 . 2 1 a ) . O n the other hand, money also breeds avarice. Stingy has become a laughingstock for his tightfistedness. W h e n the town plans to install an image of the T h r e e Teachings, he recommends a paper drawing; bronze, w o o d , or clay are too expensive ( 1 . 1 5 a ) . H e w o n ' t call a doctor when he is ill, for the medicines are too expensive ( 2 . 1 3 b ) . H e gives his grown son no spending money, forcing him to steal from the family coffers. Although he is quite prosperous, he thinks of himself as in imminent d a n g e r of destitution, and so he is stingy. The Corruption of Human Relationships T h e pervasive influence of money not only w a r p s one's self-image; it also distorts relationships with others. A n extremely rich m a n named F u J a o (Wealthy) disdains the traditional polite arts, so his relationships are all defined and distorted by his money: His fields stretch for a hundred ch'ing26 and he occupies another thousand scattered plots. But he does not practice poetry or literature or study courtesy and ethics. He spends all his time surrounded by flatterers. Local people of little pride cultivate friendships with him; if it is not idlers it is false and sycophantic friends. (4.16a-16b) Wealthy treats the T h r e e Masters with such arrogant lack of courtesy that 26 A standard mou was 6000 square feet, and a ch'ing was 100 mou, or a little more than 15 acres. However, the measurements varied from region to region. See R a y Huang, Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 40-41.

JUDITH A. BERLING

204

Spirit P o w e r c a n n o t resist needling him by asking h o w m a n y local gentry a n d notables he knows. W e a l t h y sweats a n d squirms a n d tries to e v a d e the question by asking them to discuss the relative i m p o r t a n c e of w e a l t h a n d titles

(kuei). 21

Spirit P o w e r sees that b e c a u s e the m a n is scorned by the local g e n t r y , he hopes to h e a r that w e a l t h is m o r e i m p o r t a n t . H e a n d I n n e r L i g h t p l a y a l o n g , s a y i n g w h a t he w a n t s to h e a r until " h e r e g a i n e d his c o m p o s u r e a n d his a r r o g a n t m a n n e r f a d e d " ( 4 . 1 8 a ) . T h e n S c h o l a r m o v e s in: Spirit Power's saying that titles are not as good as wealth is too vague, and Inner Light's statement that the wealthy can easily acquire titles is too simple. As I see it, wealth and titles are mutually opposed. The wealthy honor titles, and men with titles honor wealth. But the arrogance and lawlessness of the wealthy earn then the scorn of the highly placed, while the elite's dissatisfaction with their position [they also covet money] earns them the contempt of the rich. Each is inferior in some sense, so they are mutually opposed. I have met many wealthy people, but in the end none achieved filiality towards his parents, respect for his elders, refinement in literature, and understanding of proper behavior. If you had these, both the eminent and humble would respect you. The local people would look up to you and friends and relatives would love you. How could they offer you empty veneration?' (4.18a-18b) T h e last point strikes h o m e ; W e a l t h y realizes that he is s u r r o u n d e d by

flatterers

a n d sycophants. A s he orders his f a w n i n g friends a w a y , one g r o v e l s a n d weeps that he c a n n o t s u r v i v e w i t h o u t " t h e a b u n d a n t sea of W e a l t h y ' s l i b e r a l i t y . " Spirit P o w e r attempts to cure this m a n of his self-abasement. H e has endured countless public h u m i l i a t i o n s f r o m W e a l t h y in the h o p e of getting a f e w paltry gifts from h i m . Spirit P o w e r w a r n s the f a w n e r that he will n e v e r discover a n honest w a y to m a k e a living until he breaks out of this d e g r a d i n g relationship (4.2oa-2ob). W h e n people use f r i e n d s h i p to get a h e a d it is easy to b e c o m e bitter about h u m a n relationships. O n e m a n c o m p l a i n s a b o u t a f r i e n d w h o took m o n e y a n d gifts from him a n d then a b s c o n d e d , s p r e a d i n g lies a b o u t his benefactor ( 8 . 2 a - 2 b ) . A n o t h e r m a n pretends to c o m f o r t t r o u b l e d friends by p l a y i n g chess with them, while in reality he fleeces them to replenish the f a m i l y f o r t u n e he lost g a m b l i n g ( 6 . 2 i a - 2 2 b ) . R e l i g i o u s c h a r l a t a n s , q u a c k doctors, f o r t u n e tellers, a n d g e o m a n c e r s all feign s y m p a t h y a n d interest w h i l e p r o f i t i n g f r o m the hopes a n d fears of innocent p e o p l e . Suspicion of people's motives in this c o m p e t i t i v e u r b a n setting leads to a b r e a k d o w n of traditional n e t w o r k s of m u t u a l support a n d generosity. O n e m a n confesses that he failed to help a poverty-stricken student so that he could compete in the e x a m s ( 1 1 . 1 5 b ) . A 27

pao-tzu

p e d d l e r defends his lack of charity

Kuei means " h o n o r a b l e " or " h i g h - c l a s s , " but in this passage it refers to the honor or status that

results only from holding official position, or h a v i n g a n official title.

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towards a beggar: You three say I did not give that beggar apao-tzu, but you don't understand that I worked hard to make these pao-tzu. Why should I let him eat them for no reason? One can always feel sorry for the poor, but a few pao-tzu can hardly do the trick. This door of charity cannot be closed. If you three give him a pao-tzu, that is just one instance of humaneness. You do it once and move on. I sell pao-tzu here all day long. How could I keep it up? (14.23a) I n the city c h a r i t y is difficult, for the poor k e e p c o m i n g . U n l i k e the small v i l l a g e w h e r e the lines of responsibility c a n be d r a w n in terms of a h i e r a r c h y of relationships a n d obligations, in town there is a vast h u m a n sea of " t h e p o o r . " T h e relative i m p e r s o n a l i t y a n d scale of town life c o n t r i b u t e to the b r e a k d o w n of h u m a n relationships. 2 8 M o r e o v e r , the c o m p e t i t i v e a t m o s p h e r e of the u r b a n setting m a k e s a travesty of the traditional ideal of h a r m o n y . Inns a r e so c o m p e t i t i v e that w o r k e r s sent out to " i n v i t e " guests e n g a g e in violent t u g s - o f - w a r w i t h the l u g g a g e of the customers ( 1 6 . 2 3 a ) . P e t t y thefts a n d street incidents l e a d to quarrels a n d fistfights

( 1 6 . 7 b ) . D u r i n g these s q u a b b l e s onlookers l a u g h or c o w e r , but there

seems to be n o effective m e c h a n i s m for m e d i a t i n g the disputes. T h e o r e t i c a l l y , a system of elders a n d m u t u a l security teams (pao-chia) should h a n d l e it, but it is not f u n c t i o n i n g in these towns; in fact the system seldom f u n c t i o n e d effectively. T h e T h r e e M a s t e r s a d v i s e a v o i d i n g the police a n d thzyamen, since a n y j u s t i c e there will be g a i n e d only at the cost of e x o r b i t a n t g r a f t a n d c o n s i d e r a b l e h u m a n suffering ( 4 . 2 6 b - 2 7a); theyamens a r e so c o r r u p t that a n honest official c a n barely survive ( 1 0 . 2 5 a

ff).29

N e w m e c h a n i s m s a r e n e e d e d for resolving

disputes. The Battleground of the Family I f the m a r k e t p l a c e s a n d the streets a r e noisy with s q u a b b l e s , things a r e j u s t as b a d at h o m e . In the s t o r y , wives pit b r o t h e r against brother, each w a n t i n g for her h u s b a n d a n d children the m a x i m u m slice of the f a m i l y ' s pie. T h e y c a r e little for the ideal of a c o o p e r a t i v e e x t e n d e d f a m i l y . 3 0 S e e k e r n a i v e l y tries to resolve 28 Keith Thomas has argued that in England after the decline of the manorial system the breakdown of the traditional network of mutual assistance gave rise to guilt that spawned popular witchcraft accusations; people believed that those refused help were angered and took their vengeance in curses. Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Scribner's, 1971), pp. 555-567. Thomas's discussion of forces emanating from the lower levels of society that helped to give rise to a new conception of religion in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England suggests many questions that it would be useful to ask about late traditional China. 29 On the failure of the pao-chia system, see Kung-chuan Hsiao, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, i960), pp. 43-83, 184-258. On the forces contributing to corruption, see John Watt, "Yamen and Urban Administration." 30

See Margery Wolf, Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan (Stanford: Stanford University Press,

>972). es P- PP- 32-4I-

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such a case, sweetly explaining to the w o m e n the ideal of family harmony. O n e wife hits him, asserting, " P r i n c i p l e or no principle, I w a n t to divide the family (fen-chia)r (15.32b).31 T h e marital system is viewed by m a n y as a w a y to get a h e a d (8.24.b-25a). Some families in regions famous for beautiful w o m e n make a business of marketing their daughters as concubines. Spirit P o w e r asks a salt dealer how such parents can "sell them like so much m e a t . " T h e m a n replies, You don't understand. Wei-yang is a prosperous area, a hub and destination for many; this is how our daughters come to be sought for by outsiders. Some [of these women] are in hiding [presumably runaway wives or servants], evading the law or doing business. Some are not raised by their own families. I hear it has become a custom for poor families with too many daughters to adopt some out. These other families raise them and train them in music and the arts, regarding them as assets they can sell as concubines. There are also hard-hearted parents who seek only wealth through their daughters, and thus ask the matchmakers to marry them far away. They really have the heart to destroy basic values! (io.2a-2b) Scholar adds that those w h o purchase such overpriced concubines are also to blame for depriving some poor m a n of a bride w h o would enable him to carry on his family line. I n a competitive world it is tempting to break off an engagement if a better match comes along (8.2 7 a - 2 g a ) . H o w e v e r , the bride m a y feel degraded if she is married to a horrid m a n whose only virtue is his money. In one episode such a w o m a n resists the marriage, and nags her boorish husband unmercifully ( 8 . 3 1 a ) . O n e group of y o u n g w o m e n is so a n g r y about being p a r a d e d before matchmakers as potential concubines that they form a secret sisterhood to meet at night a n d seek their own romantic trysts in defiance of their parents (1 o. 10b). People w h o m a r r y to get a h e a d are almost never satisfied with w h a t they have, and town life and travel provide plenty of opportunities for roving eyes. This is not limited to men. O n e wife, attracted to a fisherman she sees, agrees on the spot to help him m u r d e r her husband ( i y . 2 7 b - 2 8 a ) . A n o t h e r falls for a y o u n g student, and thereafter cannot stomach her ugly and stupid husband ( 1 . 2 9 a ) . A husband and wife fantasize about each other's deaths, dreaming hat the second m a r r i a g e will be sweeter (17.34b—36a). Parents get little respect when they fail in their parental obligations; howcan children be filial if they h a v e not known parental love ( 1 2 . 2 1 a ) ? H u s b a n d s get little respect when they are stupid a n d foolish. O n e m a n defends his lifelong habit of beating his wife: When I tell my old lady to make me clothes, they are too short; when she makes me shoes, they are too small. Yet she scolds me, saying it's not the clothes and the 3 ' O n the volatile process of family division, see Maurice Freedman, Lineage Organization in Southeastern China (London: Athlone Press, 1958), pp. 1 8 - 2 7 .

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shoes, but that I a m too tall and m y feet are too large! C a n I let her say that without beating her? ( 1 3 . 2 9 a )

T h e wife is insolent in part because the husband is crude and violent. Like other couples in the novel, they are caught in a vicious cycle of vituperation, jealousy, nagging, and violence until their home becomes a battleground. Distorting Education The obsession with wealth and status has also warped people's views of education. Some err by thinking that social display is more important than education; they are willing to spend more on weddings than to educate their sons (g.8b-9a). This is a misplaced investment in a world where official position is still the only source of real eminence. On the other hand, the prosperity of the region provided more people with the means to pursue an education. 3 2 M a n y of the newly literate class are quite romantic about their learning and laughably unrealistic about its limitations. One fellow describes a friend who read histories on the rice-drying floor: His wife told him to see that the cows did not eat the rice, but when she went into the house the cow started eating it. T h e m a n put down his book and ordered the cow not to eat the rice. H o w could the cow obey his order? T h e wife c a m e out, picked up a stick, and beat the cow until it went a w a y . T h e man laughed and said, " I understand the rituals of the D u k e o f C h o u , and I study the writings of the sages. But I don't see how you get those animals to fear an old w o m a n . " (9.5a)

Li Wei-i (Only One Principle) is so fond of his learning that he spends all his time reading histories while enjoying the lakeside scenery (7.37b-38a). He introduces the Three Masters to Y u Meng-hsin (Very Stupid), whose parents want him to succeed so much that they locked him in a room for three years to encourage him to pursue his studies. Recently they saw him nodding his head, so they assume he has made some progress. T h e old man unlocked the door and let S t u p i d out. See how arrogantly he surveys the g r o u p just like a g r a d u a t e stufFed with learning! T h e old man said, " S o n , you have studied for three years in that room. Y e s t e r d a y I saw you nod as you read the histories. Y o u must h a v e understood some truth. W e have invited these teachers to examine you and to see the obedient a n d educated son w e have raised." Stupid happily said, " I have indeed understood something." T h e old man asked, " W h a t did you u n d e r s t a n d ? " Stupid smiles, " T h r e e years ago I thought these histories were hand-copied; now I realize they are printed. S o I n o d d e d . " W h e n the group heard this they laughed, and the old man laughed too. H e

32

On the expansion of literacy, see Rawski's paper in this volume, chap. 1.

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said, "Son, you were behind closed doors for three years and have gained such a clever insight! Indeed your parents have not educated you in vain." (7.393-3913). T h e m a n is ready to send servants to the local officials to sign S t u p i d u p for the next official e x a m i n a t i o n . H e really believes his son will be a great official. T h e T h r e e Masters realize that a l t h o u g h the boy is stupid, the father is even more deluded in believing he can succeed. H e long a g o dismissed the teachers w h o refused to tutor his untalented son. " M a g p i e s can be t a u g h t to speak, a n d monkeys c a n be t a u g h t to d a n c e . H o w could a h u m a n b e i n g be u n a b l e to learn to r e a d ? " (8.1 a). Inner L i g h t explains that it is one thing to learn the basics a n d quite another to master the high degree of literary skills needed to compete in the g o v e r n m e n t e x a m i n a t i o n s (8.1b).

THE ANSWER: RELIGION AS THE M A N A G E M E N T OF M O R A L CAPITAL A l t h o u g h they sigh for the g o o d old days, the T h r e e Masters learn that they cannot cure delusions simply by citing ancient books or m o u t h i n g old values. Delusions arise from the e v e r y d a y struggles a n d tensions of life; the forces o f m o n e y , competition, conflict, a n d social aspiration h a v e to be faced directly if religion is to be relevant in the lives o f real people. T h e o l o g i c a l l y , the novel centers on the tension between h u m a n i t y (jen) a n d righteousness (i), on the one h a n d , a n d profit (li) a n d desires (yii) on the o t h e r . 3 3 T h e stories of the religious professionals in the novel d r a m a t i z e the dynamics of this tension in the h u m a n soul in traditional religious terms: their spiritual and ritual powers depend directly on a pure heart free o f cupidity a n d lust. W h e n the heart-mind is pure, the inner light leads to wise discernment a n d the p o w e r of the spirit can c o n q u e r all evil forces. Jen a n d i are defined in concrete a n d practical terms. Jen is generosity, charity, a n d tolerance t o w a r d the less fortunate. I is honesty, d e c e n c y , a n d simple courtesy. Jen a n d i are also treated as moral capital, earned a n d saved like m o n e y . M o r a l capital ( a c c u m u l a t e d merit) is just as important as a legacy for one's descendents as land or m o n e y . In fact, the successful long-term m a n a g e m e n t of property depends on the m a n a g e m e n t of moral capital; the two cannot be separated. T h i s view is s u m m e d u p in the story o f C h i n I - c h ' u ( G o l d D i g g e r ) . G o l d D i g g e r suddenly b e c a m e w e a l t h y w h e n he discovered a cache of gold in his back yard. L a t e r he d r e a m t that some m e n d e m a n d e d r e p a y m e n t with interest of the " b o r r o w e d " money. Since his assets in the spirit w o r l d (moral merit) were insufficient to cover the debt, they took his children hostage until he c o u l d p a y off. W h e n he a w o k e his children h a d indeed c o n t r a c t e d a mysterious illness. 33

T h e tension goes back to Mencius 1 A : 1. Expressed more generally as pure mind versus desires,

it is a common theme in all Chinese religion.

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Spirit P o w e r sends his spirit to the other w o r l d a n d asks a r e d - r o b e d official w h y G o l d D i g g e r is being punished. H e is told, Money in this life is related to the fortunes of one's ancestors. When this poor man suddenly came up with a fortune, people misunderstood and told him that fate (ming-yun) had brought it. How could they know it was the result of his grandfather's accumulated merit (cki-te)? Since his grandfather accumulated merit but died before he could enjoy its benefits, it flowed down to his grandson. If he had understood his sudden reversal of fortune, he would have been careful to continue diligently accumulating good deeds. Then the humanity (jeri) could be handed down from generation to generation, and the wealth could have been preserved always. But he did not think about his sudden reversal of fortune, and acted recklessly and arrogantly. He will be able to preserve his life, but he has exhausted the merit of his grandfather. If his wickedness gets worse, his grandfather's merit may not be able to compensate, and he will gradually sink back into poverty. ( 1 9 . 3 3 - 3 ^ G o l d D i g g e r ' s success w a s not d u e to fate or even to his o w n efforts; it w a s the result of the deeds o f h i s g r a n d f a t h e r . T h e g r a n d f a t h e r ' s g o o d deeds a r e a kind of c a p i t a l , a m o r a l collateral b e h i n d the m o n e y G o l d D i g g e r u n e a r t h e d . G o l d D i g g e r ' s debt is in the spirit w o r l d , but he is p a y i n g in the real w o r l d through the sickness o f h i s children. Spirit P o w e r is given a c h a n c e to e x a m i n e the a c c o u n t (chang-pu-tzu) that details G o l d D i g g e r ' s debt: 1. The grandfather buried five thousand ounces of gold. '2. 3. 4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

The grandfather lacked sufficient merit to hand it on to his son. The father had no moral base for receiving it. Gold Digger was poor without resenting it, and he was able to maintain what was allotted to him. Thus he could receive his grandfather's legacy with three-fold profit. After he dug up the gold, he agitated his Earth and Wood components and injured his moist life force. 3 4 His faults were many. This is the first reason to press for payment. After digging up the gold, he lent money at a high profit, so that [the borrowers] were trapped in poverty. This is the second reason to press for payment. After digging up the gold, he became arrogant. He abused his servants until they moaned that he had destroyed their hope [of living long enough] to continue their lines. This is the third reason to press for payment. After digging up the gold, he was no longer grateful for the support of Heaven and Earth, for the rulers who govern water and soil, for the shining of sun and moon, or for the nurturance ofhis parents. All day long he savored

34 Earth and Wood are two of the five phases (wu-hsing S. f j ) . Gold Digger used a hoe (Wood) to disturb the soil (Earth) when he dug up the gold; subsequently he disturbed his inner moral balance (the harmony of the five phases in his internal microcosm) by behaving recklessly and to excess.

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9.

10.

fine food and wine and indulged his passions and excesses. T h i s is the fourth reason to press for payment. After he dug u p the gold, he fiddled with weights and measures, cheated, and lent money [at high interest] under the false pretext of concern for the orphaned and cold. H e is truly a silkworm w h o feeds on fields and property! This is the fifth reason to press for payment. After digging u p the gold, he was wealthy without being humane [i.e., generous]. He did not get along with his relations and did not aid the unfortunate. He overstuffed his mouth and belly until he harmed his life. This is the sixth reason to press for payment. ( i g . 4 a - 4 b ) .

T h e i n d i c t m e n t is n o t v a g u e o r a b s t r a c t , n o r is it a g e n e r a l list o f t h e g o o d a n d b a d d e e d s o f his life. I t o u t l i n e s h o w t h e w e a l t h h e f o u n d h a s r u i n e d h i m ; h e b e c a m e a usurer, a cruel master, an u n g r a t e f u l son, an i n d u l g e n t lecher, a d i s h o n e s t b u s i n e s s m a n , a n d a s k i n f l i n t . H e h a s m i s u s e d a n d a b u s e d the b l e s s i n g h e r e c e i v e d , a n d t h u s h a s e x h a u s t e d t h e m o r a l c a p i t a l t h a t serves as c o l l a t e r a l for this w e a l t h . N o r is this a p u r e l y i n d i v i d u a l m a t t e r . G o l d D i g g e r ' s sins a f f e c t n o t o n l y h i m s e l f , b u t his d e s c e n d e n t s . W h e n S p i r i t P o w e r asks, " W h y n o t s i m p l y kill h i m a n d s p a r e his c h i l d r e n ? " t h e o f f i c i a l replies, " F i r s t , his y e a r s a r e n o t l i v e d c u t , a n d s e c o n d it w o u l d b e w r o n g to h a n d his w i c k e d n e s s d o w n to his c h i l d r e n in t h e f o r m o f p r o p e r t y " ( 1 9 . 4 a ) . T h e C h i n e s e v i e w ( e m b o d i e d in the c o n c e p t o f face) is t h a t t h e a c t i o n s o f a n i n d i v i d u a l a f f e c t t h e r e p u t a t i o n o f t h e g r o u p ; i n this v i e w g o o d or b a d d e e d s a r e f a m i l y p r o p e r t y , n o t t h e i s o l a t e d acts o f a n i n d i v i d u a l . T h i s r e i n f o r c e s the C h i n e s e v i e w o f t h e self as p a r t o f a l a r g e r n e x u s o f h u m a n relations. T h e final p o i n t o f t h e s t o r y is t h a t G o l d D i g g e r c a n confess his f a u l t s a n d v o w to c h a n g e his b e h a v i o r , t h u s b e g i n n i n g t h e task o f r e b u i l d i n g t h e a c c o u n t o f m e r i t ( 1 9 . 5 a ) . T h e story is n o t s i m p l e t h e o d i c y , a n e x p l a n a t i o n o f w h y h e a n d his c h i l d r e n m u s t suffer. H e is c h a l l e n g e d to t a k e r e s p o n s i b i l i t y for his a c t i o n s a n d to l e a r n to m a n a g e his m o r a l c a p i t a l as c a r e f u l l y as h e h a s m a n a g e d his money. R e l i g i o n as t h e m a n a g e m e n t o f m o r a l c a p i t a l thus i n v o l v e s t a k i n g r e s p o n sibility: l e a r n i n g t o m a n a g e o n e ' s life a n d h u m a n r e l a t i o n s h i p s so as n o t t o e x h a u s t m o r a l c o l l a t e r a l . I n o n e e p i s o d e , t w o f a m i l i e s a r e s e e k i n g to a v e r t a f e u d b y r e s o l v i n g the c o n f l i c t s b e t w e e n t h e m . T h e y d i s c o v e r t h a t t h e i r q u a r r e l h a s been inflamed by a troublemaker called T w o - e d g e d Sword (Liang-mien T a o ) , w h o h a s b e e n f e e d i n g e a c h side w i t h false r e p o r t s o f t h e vile s c h e m e s a n d plots o f the o t h e r . T h e T h r e e M a s t e r s e x p l a i n t h a t t h e r e a r e t h r e e m e t h o d s for h a n d l i n g t h e s i t u a t i o n : ( 1 ) u s i n g r i t u a l s a n d c h a r m s to e x o r c i s e the d e m o n in T w o - e d g e d S w o r d ; (2) g o i n g to t h e jamen

to h a v e h i m a r r e s t e d ; a n d (3) t a k i n g c a r e o f it

t h e m s e l v e s . T h e last a n d p r e f e r a b l e c o u r s e i n v o l v e s w r i t i n g d o w n t h e r e a l facts, g e t t i n g T w o - e d g e d S w o r d to c o m m e n t o n t h e m , a n d t h e n j u d g i n g his c l a i m s a g a i n s t the e v i d e n c e b e f o r e a p a n e l o f r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s o f n e u t r a l

lineages

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( 8 . i o a - i i a ) . I n r e c o m m e n d i n g the latter course, the T h r e e M a s t e r s suggest a strategy in w h i c h these p e o p l e will not be s u b j e c t to the w h i m s o f the g o d s (as in the case of ritual) o r decisions o f the officials (as in g o i n g to the.ya.men). T h e y will c i r c u m v e n t t h e priests a n d officials a n d h a n d l e m a t t e r s o n their o w n . 3 5 T h e y will use their l i t e r a c y b y p u t t i n g the facts in w r i t i n g a n d will d e v e l o p o r g a n i z a t i o n a l a n d m e d i a t i o n a l skills in the i n f o r m a l h e a r i n g . T h e y will b e c o m e the m a i n actors a n d shapers o f their o w n lives. T h e v i e w o f religion as m a n a g e m e n t o f m o r a l c a p i t a l is o n e result o f the d e v e l o p m e n t o f M i n g m o r a l i t y books (shan-shu) a n d ledgers o f m e r i t

and

d e m e r i t (kung-kuo ko). O r i g i n a l l y , m o r a l i t y books served to illustrate the w o r k ings o f m o r a l r e t r i b u t i o n a c c o r d i n g to the B u d d h i s t l a w o f k a r m a , w i t h special emphasis on p i e t y — t h e h i d e o u s p u n i s h m e n t s for sacrilege a n d the g r e a t rew a r d s for acts o f devotion to the B u d d h a . B y the M i n g , m o r a l i t y books h a d taken on a n o t h e r c h a r a c t e r entirely. W h i l e t h e y w e r e still illustrated w i t h tales o f saintly p a r a g o n s a n d d e p r a v e d sinners, d e v o t i o n a l v a l u e s w e r e o v e r s h a d o w e d by v e r y p r a c t i c a l m o r a l t e a c h i n g s , g e a r e d to the w o r k a d a y activities o f p e o p l e in all w a l k s of l i f e . 3 6 M i n g m o r a l i t y books h a d a n e w t h e o l o g i c a l u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f retribution. E a r l i e r m o r a l i t y books h a d d e p i c t e d k a r m a as the fruit o f m a n y lifetimes; one's k a r m i c b u r d e n w a s g r e a t a n d c o u l d not be w i p e d o u t s i m p l y b y g o o d deeds d u r i n g one lifetime. T h e believer h a d to p e r f o r m acts o f g r e a t d e v o t i o n to entrust h i m s e l f to the c o m p a s s i o n o f the b o d h i s a t t v a s

whose

s u p e r h u m a n p o w e r s w o u l d a i d the k a r m a - b u r d e n e d sinner. In the M i n g , m o r a l i t y books no longer stressed the k a r m i c b u r d e n o f m u l t i p l e i n c a r n a t i o n s o r the compassion of the b o d h i s a t t v a s . T h e y h a d b e c o m e a p r a c t i c a l science o f m o r a l c u l t i v a t i o n . O n e started w i t h a c l e a n slate (no k a r m i c d e b t ) or w i t h the l e g a c y o f one's i m m e d i a t e forebears, a n d f r o m t h a t point r e c o r d e d g o o d a n d b a d deeds to e a r n (or r e p a y ) blessings a n d a v o i d c a l a m i t i e s . 3 7 A c t s o f piety a n d d e v o t i o n c o u n t e d , b u t o n l y as g o o d deeds, not as a special c a t e g o r y w i t h special spiritual merit. T h e r e is a n a c c o u n t i n g m e n t a l i t y b e h i n d M i n g m o r a l i t y books; one earns or pays for life's blessings w i t h the " c a s h " o f g o o d deeds. T h e deeds are classified a n d sometimes assigned w e i g h t e d v a l u e s , as t a u g h t b y C h u - h u n g 351

(1535-

am grateful to David J o r d a n for suggesting to me that anticlericalism may be an important

key to interpreting the novel's attitude toward rituals. His suggestion led to the larger thesis concerning the rejection ofintermediating authorities. Arthur P. Wolf has developed the thesis that the attitude of worshipers towards the gods reflects their attitude toward bureaucratic authorities as influenced by their social position in the culture. See his " G o d s , Ghosts, and Ancestors," in Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, ed. Arthur P. W o l f (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), pp. 1 3 1 182. 36SeeSakai

Tadaojgj

Chugoku zensho no kenkyu

morality books] (Tokyo: K o k u s h o kankokai H i J f l J i T 37

[Researches on Chinese i960), passim.

See W m . Theodore deBary, "Individualism and Humanitarianism in Late M i n g T h o u g h t , "

in Self and Society in Ming Thought, ed. W . T . deBary and the Conference on M i n g T h o u g h t (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), p. 176.

212

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1 6 1 5 ) . 3 8 T h e y c a n be e a r m a r k e d for a specific g o a l ; Y u a n H u a n g ( 1 5 3 3 - 1 6 0 6 ) v o w e d three t h o u s a n d g o o d deeds for a son a n d ten t h o u s a n d for a chin-shih d e g r e e . 3 9 A s a person k e p t his d a i l y ledger, h e c o u l d see the g r a d u a l a c c u m u l a tion o f savings t o w a r d his g o a l . The Romance of the Three Teachings m a k e s e v e n m o r e explicit the a n a l o g y o f a c c o u n t i n g b e h i n d the m o r a l i t y books, a n d it d e v e l o p s the a c c o u n t i n g system a step further. T h e story of G o l d D i g g e r goes b e y o n d a simple classification a n d n u m e r i c a l w e i g h t i n g o f g o o d deeds as g e n e r a l m o r a l c a p i t a l . It a n a l y z e s the m i s m a n a g e m e n t o f w e a l t h in m o r a l terms. C o n v e r s e l y , it teaches that moral m a n a g e m e n t forms the basis o f p r o p e r t y m a n a g e m e n t . G o l d D i g g e r ' s misuse o f his w e a l t h c r e a t e d enemies: the b o r r o w e r s ruined b y his e x o r b i t a n t interest rates; the servants he a b u s e d ; his parents, w h o m h e scorned; the p o o r , w h o m he c h e a t e d ; his relatives, w h o m he refused to help. T h e s e p e o p l e — a m o n g w h o m he a n d his c h i l d r e n h a d to l i v e — w o u l d be out to get h i m . H e h a d not d e v e l o p e d a base o f h u m a n g o o d will, w h i c h w o u l d allow h i m to m a i n t a i n his w e a l t h w i t h o u t i n c u r r i n g d a n g e r o u s resentment. It w a s not j u s t the gods w h o w e r e a n g r y ; t h e a b u s e o f w e a l t h h a d s u r r o u n d e d the f a m i l y w i t h resentments t h a t w o u l d e v e n t u a l l y l e a d to its d o w n f a l l . In sum, the m a n a g e m e n t o f m o r a l c a p i t a l has t w o sides. First, it is a lesson in m a n a g e m e n t : (1) t a k i n g the initiative in s h a p i n g one's life a n d responsibility for one's actions, a n d (2) a n a l y z i n g the l o n g - t e r m effects of one's actions in o r d e r to p l a n a n d a c t m o r e effectively. T h i s m a n a g e m e n t side reinforces the enterprising actions o f g r o u p s a n d i n d i v i d u a l s in the c o m p e t i t i v e u r b a n milieu o f the L o v e r Y a n g t z e region. S e c o n d , it is p r a c t i c a l m o r a l i t y : (1) r e c o g n i z i n g the necessity o f m a i n t a i n i n g g o o d will in the n e t w o r k o f h u m a n relationships, a n d (2) c u r b i n g r a m p a n t g r e e d , i n c l u d i n g desire for selfish (individualistic) a n d q u i c k profits at the expense o f h u m a n relations. T h e r e is a positive v a l u e p u t on m a n a g e m e n t a n d enterprise, but they m u s t not c o n t r o v e r t the basic v a l u e s of society. Examples of Proper Management In the c o m p e t i t i v e ,

r a p i d l y c h a n g i n g , u r b a n i z e d L o w e r Y a n g t z e core

region, v a r i o u s areas o f life r e q u i r e d m a n a g e m e n t a n d responsible m o r a l reflection. T h e T h r e e M a s t e r s try to m a k e p e o p l e see s o u n d e r m o r a l a p p r o a c h e s to the m a n a g e m e n t o f life's p r o b l e m s . R e s p o n s i b l e m a n a g e m e n t of e d u c a t i o n in the n o v e l m e a n s seeing it as a m a j o r investment w i t h s h o r t - t e r m a n d l o n g - t e r m payoffs. T h e u l t i m a t e goal o f 38

See Y ü Chün-fang, The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis (New

York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 . Y ü gives a brief history of morality books and discusses M i n g developments; she stresses the "greater premium on moral internalizationand ethical intention" (p. 113) in the M i n g books. I would go on to argue that the Gold Digger story moves beyond quantification-plus-intention to the analysis of mismanagement of blessings previously earned. 39Sakai

T a d a o , Chügoku zensho no kenkyü, p. 320 ff.

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213

education in Chinese society was passing the examinations and gaining an official position. But since very few achieved that coveted prize, it was important to understand the less exalted uses of education. 4 0 One use was illustrated in the story about conflict resolution through written evidence and mediation discussed in the last section. Literacy is a tool for managing property and conflict more effectively. Members of the national elite in the late Ming were bitter and angry about the extreme competitiveness and over-refined pedanticism of the government examinations. 41 However, according to this novel, many of the poor believed they could achieve high office through education. Pa K a o (Reaching High) had longed to be an official ever since he saw one in full regalia. When told that success in the examinations requires " a firm foundation in fate," he retorts, "Common households produce great officials!" Spirit Power informs him that the foundation is not wealth, but "accumulated virtue and skillful means." He advises him to "teach his sons to read early in life." Then he may be able to live in the wonderful surroundings of the official (i5.6b~7a). Reaching High must recognize that fulfilling his ambition is a long-term project based on the accumulation of moral capital and investment in the education of his sons. What he cannot gain for himself he may be able to achieve indirectly through his sons by means of a long-term investment in education. Another area requiring moral management is sexuality. T h e novel depicts the deterioration of family life as a result of the exploitation and distortion of sexual relationships: selling daughters as concubines; wasting wealth on prostitutes and concubines and thus poisoning wives with jealousy; compromising patriarchal authority by indulging in boorish behavior. Husbands and fathers must curb their greed and manage their sexual desires to maintain peace and respect in the family. Town life also gave restless women opportunities for illicit sexual relationships that threatened the legitimacy of the family line. T h e wife of Li T u n g (Shaken) was seduced by a fox spirit disguised as her husband. Religious rites failed to capture the fox. Ultimately, the husband and wife themselves defeated him by making a temporary vow of celibacy, which gave her a way of distinguishing the fox from her husband (3.13a). The moral is not that sexual management means celibacy. Rather, husband and wife were willing to curb their desires to the point of abstention in order to resolve the crisis that was destroying their marriage. Moreover, the husband demonstrated his faith in his wife by agreeing to the vow; he believed her when she said that she was deceived and was not intentionally unfaithful. He was willing to cooperate to unmask the villain. 40

G. William Skinner, "Social Mobility Strategies in Late Imperial China: A Regional Systems Analysis," in Regional Analysis, ed. Carol A. Smith (New York: Academic Press, 1976), I: Economic Systems, pp. 327-364, esp. pp. 336-343. 41 See Paul Ropp, Dissent in Early Modern China, pp. 91 - 1 1 9 .

214

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Respect, affection, and cooperation of husband and wife defeated the threat o f infidelity. 4 2 Another aspect of the management of moral capital is work. W o r k is the cure for the ills of poverty. T h e poor in the novel moan that the wealthy locals or their rich relatives refuse to help them and treat them with contempt. T h e Three Masters tell them that the man of character can bear poverty as long as he has the W a y . But, one poor man asks, w h a t about the real sufferings of cold and hunger? Scholar replies, Y o u r insight is p e n e t r a t i n g . W h e n people fear they will freeze o r starve, they a p p l y themselves to seek food a n d c l o t h i n g . I f they c a n n o t find a w a y , they face real misery; the m i n d is i n j u r e d a n d the b o d y m a y perish. B u t if y o u k n o w this truth, then H e a v e n a n d E a r t h w h i c h g a v e y o u life will not let y o u starve or freeze. Y o u must o b e y y o u r n a t u r a l instincts w i t h a c a l m m i n d , a n d y o u will k n o w that y o u must c u l t i v a t e v i r t u e a n d find a livelihood w h i c h suits the specific talents you w e r e allotted. T h e n b o d y a n d m i n d will be h e a l t h y . B u t to e n v y the rich a n d the " h a v e s " is a g r e a t m i s t a k e w h i c h leads to d e a t h ; y o u will try so h a r d to get a h e a d that y o u will w o r k y o u r s e l f to d e a t h before y o u r time. ( i 9 - 2 8 a - 2 8 b )

Hard work for survival is instinctual; people somehow find a w a y to survive. But bemoaning one's poverty is another matter; self-pity saps the energy and warps the mind. O n e must work to survive and then, if one has built up a supply of merit, it will serve as a base for future prosperity. Work is essential even for the wealthy; the idle rich are no different from a horse or a dog (6.24b), simply feeding all the time. W o r k is a basic part of being human. Given the value placed on work, it is not surprising that the T h r e e Masters argue that the mental labor of the gentleman (chiin-tzu) is just as much work as the physical labor of the little m a n . 4 3 Scholar describes the work of the T h r e e Masters: " W e w a n d e r around the mountains and seas endlessly preaching and teaching. W h a t is that if not using both body and mind to w o r k ? " (18.17b). He does not defend their role as teachers on the basis of their wisdom or their value as moral models; they work at traveling, talking, persuading others. Last, but by no means least, the novel deals with the management of property. It not only criticizes the waste of property in licentious pleasures and

42

T h i s is particularly striking because o f the increasingly rigid ideal of female chastity from the

S u n g dynasty on; widows w e r e not to remarry a n d wives were to die rather than yield to another. A n unfaithful wife could be summarily divorced, a n d was sometimes executed by her h u s b a n d . This, at least, was the elite ideal; there is reason to d o u b t that it extended v e r y far d o w n the social scale. In any event, L i T u n g ' s trust of his wife is all the m o r e impressive since it turns out t h a t she is c a r r y i n g the illegitimate twins of the fox spirit. 43

Reference to Mencius 3 A : 4. " T h o s e w h o labor with minds govern others; those w h o l a b o r w i t h

strength are g o v e r n e d . " T h i s passage is often cited to prove the C o n f u c i a n elite's class prejudice and their disdain for physical labor.

RELIGION AND POPULAR

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lavish social display, it also criticizes excessive f r u g a l i t y . I n the c o m p e t i t i v e u r b a n w o r l d o f the novel, there are m a n y o p p o r t u n i t i e s for families to d e v e l o p their p r o p e r t y . It thus b e c o m e s c r u c i a l t h a t g r o w n a n d m a r r i e d sons be a c t i v e l y i n v o l v e d in the m a n a g e m e n t a n d d e v e l o p m e n t o f the f a m i l y ' s fortune. F a t h e r s w h o hold too tightly to the purse strings are d o i n g their families a g r e a t disservice. In c o n f r o n t i n g one f a m i l y h e a d w h o is o p p o s e d to d i v i d i n g his property a m o n g his sons, Spirit P o w e r feigns a g r e e m e n t to s h o w h i m the folly o f his views: Certainly you are right in not wanting to divide it. If you divide it into three portions, they would fill out, and then there would be a lot of wealth to manage. You might forget your former livelihood with all that money to spend! Not only would your own portion shrink, but the sons would quarrel over it after your death. Better not to divide! One person can maintain the property a long t i m e . . . . But if you don't divide it, you had better cultivate your health to live a thousand years. Still, you could give one son a thousand ounces of gold and have him draw up a written guarantee (pao-kuan wen-chiian).... With a written guarantee, years later when there are many descendents, they will not go hungry, and will be unable to encroach on each other against your wishes. If they do, the contract will order the officials to punish them and adjudicate, so that two-thirds (after court costs) of the property will be assigned to the management of two households. (i9.2ib-22a) T h e last point alarms the old m a n , since h e doesn't w a n t s o m e u n k n o w n a n d p r o b a b l y c o r r u p t official d e c i d i n g the division o f his p r o p e r t y . 4 4 T h e passage seems to suggest that the

financial

position o f the f a m i l y will be s t r e n g t h e n e d

t h r o u g h division, since e a c h son will w o r k to preserve a n d e x p a n d his share. I f that is the i m p l i c a t i o n , it runs c o u n t e r not o n l y to the ideal o f the e x t e n d e d family, but also to the g r o w t h in the late M i n g a n d e a r l y C h ' i n g o f l a r g e u n i f i e d lineages u n d e r c e n t r a l i z e d m a n a g e m e n t . 4 5 H o w e v e r , w e l l - o r g a n i z e d ,

large

lineages a t t e m p t e d to d e p l o y the talents o f all a d u l t m a l e m e m b e r s in such a w a y as to m a x i m i z e l i n e a g e prosperity a n d strength. T h e stingy fathers o f The Romance of the Three Teachings m a y be c r i t i c i z e d for b e i n g too c o n s e r v a t i v e a n d for ineffective utilization o f c o m m u n a l p r o p e r t y a n d resources. P r o p e r m a n a g e 44On

the bitter disputes involved in dividing property, see Freedman, Lineage Organization, and

n. 26, above. Jonathan K . O c k o describes a number of lawsuits involving division of family property in "Family Disharmony as Seen in C h ' i n g Legal Cases," presented at " O r t h o d o x y and Heterodoxy in L a t e Imperial China: Cultural Beliefs and Social Divisions," A . C . L . S . Conference at Montecito, California, August 20-26, 1981. T h e written management guarantee in the passage may reflect the late M i n g growth of large lineage organizations with written guidelines for handling lineage properties and for handling internal disputes. See Charlotte Furth, " T h e Orthodox Family and Its Discontents: T h e V i e w from Household Instructions," also presented at the " O r t h o d o x y and Heterodoxy" conference. 45See

Fu-mei C h a n g and R a m o n H. Myers, " C u s t o m a r y L a w and the Economic G r o w t h of

China during the C h ' i n g Period," Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i 3 . 1 0 : 4 - 2 7 (1978) for examples of growth of cooperation within lineages.

si6

J U D I T H A. B E R L I N G

ment involves the use of both property and manpower for the benefit of the lineage in the long run. In all of these examples, the individual is encouraged to take a broad and long view, considering not only him- or herself, but the nexus of human relationships in the present and future. T h e fierce competition of late Ming society provided a drive toward unbridled "individualism" and sharp rivalry. The novel articulates a counterview, which balances work and enterprise with a recognition of the need for success to be grounded in the long-term interestsof the family and in the good will of the people who make up the world in which the family lives and does business. T h e Romance of the Three Teachings and Late Ming Religion The Romance of the Three Teachings is a work of literature; we must exercise caution in moving from it to the actual historical realities of late Ming popular culture. However, because the picture it paints of late Ming society in he Lower Yangtze region is generally corroborated by historical evidence, and because it reflects actual religious movements of the period, we can draw some cautious conclusions. T h e novel helps to illumine the mentality behind some of what we know of late Ming religion, and to highlight its social significance The Romance mentions the religion of Lin Chao-en with sufficient specificity to demonstrate that the author was familiar with the writings and practices of the religion. However, the Three Masters modestly decline to discuss any of the technical aspects of Lin's meditative system, claiming that they are only proficient in its basic ethical teachings (8.2 7 b - 2 8 a ) . This is not a serious distortion of the popular teachings of the religion. Lin's writings confirm that basic ethical training and vows to Heaven geared to the circumstances and livelihood of the student were the core of religious training until the student proved himself ready for further instruction. 46 The Three-in-One Religion and the lay Buddhist movement of Chu-hung are examples of lay religious movements largely independent of religious professionals. The Romance of the Three Teachings describes the building of a Three Teachings Hall at the initiative of the local lay elite with the cooperation of the entire community. T h e novel encourages grass-roots cooperation and discussion in the resolution of all sorts of disputes, and discourages resorting to religious professionals, fortune tellers, government officials, or professional gobetweens. This suggests that the popularity of the lay syncretic organizations may have stemmed from an interest in self-help organizations. It ties these movements more explicitly to the contemporary developments of merchant guilds, brotherhoods, and laborers' organizations. 47 It suggests that the syn46

See Berling, The Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-en, p. n o . See Daniel Overmyer's paper in this volume, chap. 8, for a discussion of how millenarian Buddhist organizations reflect the same trend. 47

RELIGION AND POPULAR

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2/7

cretism of these groups may be rooted in the diverse backgrounds of persons now banding together to pursue common goals and seeking a common ideological vision. Perhaps because the leadership and organizational skills of the local elite had long been developed largely in temple-related activities, virtually all the new organizations had some religious dimension. 4 8 However, their concerns are also secular, and some (like merchant guilds and boatmen's associations) became increasingly secular over time. 4 9 However, religion is perceived as the vehicle through which to promote group interest (and selfinterest) within the guidelines of accepted values. In a broader sense, The Romance of the Three Teachings makes explicit some of the values implicit in the thought of W a n g Y a n g - m i n g ( 1 4 7 2 - 1 5 2 9 ) , especially as developed by the popularizing T'ai-chou branch of his disciples. W a n g Yang-ming's notion ofinnate good-knowing (liang-chih) meant that moral truth was already present in the minds of all people. Further, his identification of knowledge with action helped him to break out from under the weight of tradition and an overrefined scholasticism. In the W a n g Y a n g - m i n g school, the Confucian ideal of sagehood was no longer confined to the profoundly learned and deeply reflective scholar w h o embodied the most rarified of cultural ideals. Dynamic action in the world and moral activity in daily life were also manifestations of the sagely W a y . These two ideas paved the w a y for the popularization of Neo-Confucianism; disciples of W a n g Y a n g - m i n g literally took to the streets to teach the universal applicability of the W a y of the sages. 5 0 If W a n g Yang-ming's identification of knowledge with action and his affirmation of dynamic action in daily life implicitly bring all forms of honest work under the umbrella of the sagely W a y , The Romance of the Three Teachings makes it explicit. Self-cultivation in The Romance is self-improvement through morally responsible activity, including work. W a n g Y a n g - m i n g ' s notion of liang-chih seemed to obviate the need for a formal classical education as a prerequisite to sagehood, although W a n g himself stressed the importance of learning. His iconoclastic follower Li C h i h ( 1 5 2 7 - 1 6 0 2 ) went further to argue that novels are better than the Classics or history as a means for learning about real values. 5 1 P'an Ching-jo seems to have taken Li Chih at his word; he wrote a novel about the moral struggles of everyday life as his w a y of transforming the world. Moreover, the story suggests that the Classics are ineffective as the direct basis of popular pedagogy; to teach real people, religion must deal with the problems of real life in terms accessible to the people. Finally, as we have seen, The Romance of the Three Teachings espouses a view of religion as the management of moral resources that both reflects and develops 48

See H a y e s , The Hong Kong Region, passim.

49

See D a v i d E. K e l l y , " S e c t and Society: T h e Evolution of the L o Sect a m o n g G r a i n T r i b u t e

Fleet B o a t m e n , 1 7 0 0 - 1 8 5 0 , " presented at " O r t h o d o x y a n d H e t e r o d o x y in L a t e Imperial C h i n a . " 50

See d e B a r y , " I n d i v i d u a l i s m and H u m a n i t a r i a n i s m , " pp. 1 7 1 - 1 7 9 .

51

See d e B a r y , " I n d i v i d u a l i s m and H u m a n i t a r i a n i s m , " p. 196.

JUDITH A. BERLING

2l8

the M i n g morality book m o v e m e n t . By m a k i n g explicit a n d developing the analogy o f m a n a g e m e n t o f m o r a l c a p i t a l , The Romance reveals the mentality behind the morality book m o v e m e n t a n d its deep roots in the highly commercialized u r b a n culture o f the Southeast. W e see here the seeds o f a religiously based work ethic not unlike the Calvinist ethic in the W e s t . The Romance

valorizes work as a vehicle o f self-improvement a n d self-

cultivation. I t espouses realistic a n d carefully planned strategies for getting ahead that would work through the family a n d network o f h u m a n associations. I t encourages family cooperation in property matters, especially giving adult sons an opportunity to work for the family's future. T h e novel deals with the costs o f competition a n d risk, a n d gives advice for dealing with sudden successes a n d failures without a b a n d o n i n g traditional values. I t encourages the saving a n d earning o f money so long as obligations to family a n d neighbors are not forgotten. I t seeks a b a l a n c e between the individual a n d family obligations, wealth a n d traditional values, self-interest a n d generosity. T h e religious attitude o f the novel, then, affirms basic Chinese values while at the same time e n c o u r a g i n g behaviors a n d strategies suited to coping with a highly competitive u r b a n world. V i e w i n g religion as the m a n a g e m e n t o f moral capital stresses the practical a n d c o n c r e t e side o f religion, a n d adapts ancient values to the perceptions, attitudes, a n d concerns o f a particular segment o f late Chinese popular culture.

EIGHT

Values in Chinese Sectarian Literature: Ming and Ch'ing Pao-chuan Daniel L. Overmyer "For every household there is a road to Ch 'ang-an."—

( C h i n - k a n g c h i n g k'o-i pao-chuan)

INTRODUCTION O f the many different types of Chinese vernacular literature one was developed primarily in popular religious sects. These voluntary associations first appeared in their late traditional form in the Y u a n dynasty (1271-1368). T h e y were characterized by a predominantly lay membership and had their own forms of leadership, hierarchical organization, scripture texts, mythology, and rituals. T h e earliest extant texts related to these groups are Buddhist in origin and orientation, though with some Taoist and Confucian elements. These books date from the first half of the M i n g dynasty (1368-1644). However, from the beginning, sectarian groups were subject to strong influence from a popular religious tradition that emphasized healing, divination, exorcism, and other pragmatic values and rituals. In texts we have from the mid-sixteenth century, these pragmatic values are more in evidence, together with mythological themes of Taoist origin. 1 T h e generic name for M i n g and C h ' i n g sectarian scriptures is pao-chüan, "precious volumes," though several other terms are used as well. In style, these texts alternate between prose and seven- or ten-character rhyming verse. T h e verses sum up each prose section and introduce the next. T h e typical pao-chüan begins with pictures of deities or characters important in it, short verses invoking blessings on the emperor and realm, one or more prefaces, and a table of contents. The text itself opens with the title of the first chapter, a "psalm of praise while offering incense," and a prose section. There are one or two chiian, with in some cases twenty-four or more divisions {fen) or sections (p'in). A t the 1

F o r a recent description of the sectarian context of these books, see my article, " A l t e r n a t i v e s :

Popular Religious Sects in Chinese S o c i e t y , " Modern China 7 . 2 : 1 5 3 - 1 9 0 (April 1981). See also my book, Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in Late Traditional China ( C a m b r i d g e , Mass.: H a r v a r d University Press, 1976). 219

DANIEL L. OVERMYER

220

end there m a y be a note on the reprinting, a n d a list of donors with amounts contributed by each. V a r i a t i o n s occur in this structure, but e n o u g h constants remain for a book of the pao-chiian type from a n y period to be quite easily recognizable. Needless to say, this continuity of structure does not necessarily m e a n sinilarity of content. T h e pao-chiian form was e m p l o y e d by those w h o wished to c o m m u n i c a t e religious teachings or m o r a l lessons at a p o p u l a r level. T h o u g h such writers were a w a r e of a n d consciously followed the pao-chiian type, any discussion of the " d e v e l o p m e n t of pao-chiian literature," of course, reflects our perspective, not that o f participants in the tradition. T h e r e are different subtypes of pao-chiian, w h i c h c a n be roughly distinguished by content and/or date of production. T h e earliest texts c o n t a i n i n g the term pao-chiian in at least some versions of their titles are v e r n a c u l a r discussions of orthodox Buddhist teachings a n d hero tales. H o w e v e r , their structure does not fully conform to that outlined a b o v e . T h e dates of extant texts of this type are unclear, but w e k n o w that they a p p e a r e d in some form before 1500, because they are quoted in early sixteenth-century pao-chiian. T h e y were composed by Buddhist monks. T h e second type of pao-chiian was b e g u n by the sectarian leader L o C h ' i n g ( 1 4 4 3 - 1 5 2 7 ) , w h o used this form to e x p o u n d his o w n doctrines. In the process he quoted a variety of earlier Buddhist scriptures. T h e third type first appears later in the sixteenth c e n t u r y , clearly i n d e b t e d to L o C h ' i n g in style and orientation, but exhibiting different religious content. M a n y of these late M i n g books are centered on the m y t h o f a m o t h e r creator, w h i c h is not a part of L o C h ' i n g ' s teachings. L o C h ' i n g ' s books are a mosaic of quotations from other texts, but pao-chiian of the third type rarely e m p l o y quotations. T h e y establish the characteristic style a n d content of sectarian texts from the M i n g on. It was this type that was used b y the ".rufra-recitation sects" discussed by Susan N a q u i n in this v o l u m e . T h e fourth type of pao-chiian has a m o r e literary character, and is dominated b y long stories a b o u t the struggles a n d victories of moral persons w h o in the end attain salvation. T h e r e is no d o u b t that the m a j o r i t y of these stories were first published as pao-chiian in the late nineteenth century. T h e y represent a stage w h e n this genre w a s losing c o n t a c t with sectarian history, a n d b e c o m i n g a form of didactic literature c o n c e r n e d as well with entertainment. M a n y of these books were p r o d u c e d b y local publishers as c o m m e r c i a l ventures. N o t every story pao-chiian is late, h o w e v e r . In some cases the story line goes far back in the history of Chinese d r a m a a n d v e r n a c u l a r literature; in others the story pao-chiian itself first a p p e a r e d l o n g before the nineteenth century, as in the case of the Hsiang-shanpao-chiian a n d the Liu Hsiangpao-chiian discussed below. T h e values of this type of pao-chiian are similar to those of the moralistic seventeenth-century novel discussed in this v o l u m e by J u d i t h Berling. H o w e v e r , this one-hundredc h a p t e r novel is of course very different in form, a n d appears to be more C o n f u c i a n in its orientation than these story pao-chiian.

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PAO-CHÛAN

By the nineteenth century, a n o t h e r form o f text was e m p l o y e d for the exposition of m y t h o l o g y a n d ethical injunctions, believed to be composed by direct revelations from deities a n d spirits through fu-chi, spirit w r i t i n g with the planchette. P o p u l a r religious sects c o n t i n u e d to be active, but now some o f their books a p p e a r e d in t h e f u - c h i form, with scores of ethical injunctions f r o m specific deities. T h i s spirit-writing tradition b e g a n d u r i n g the S u n g dynasty

(960-

1279), a n d w a s p r a c t i c e d b y both literati a n d commoners. B y the seventeenth century, this m e t h o d w a s used to p r o d u c e books of moral teachings. Scattered references to a sectarian use o f spirit w r i t i n g a p p e a r before the nineteenth c e n t u r y , but they refer to it as a source of divination a n d medical prescriptions, not as a means o f c o m p o s i n g books. T h e earliest sectarian book I have yet encountered, w h i c h is a collection o f f u - c h i revelations, is the Yii-lu chinp ' m [Golden basin of the j a d e dew], published in 1880, but with references in the text to revelatory activity earlier in the c e n t u r y . I call this text " s e c t a r i a n " because it is used as revered scripture by p o p u l a r religious groups in T a i w a n , ar.d because its teachings are based on the late M i n g sectarian m y t h of a saving mother deity. F r o m the Yii-lu on, if not before, fu-chi texts b e c a m e i m p o r t a n t carriers of sectarian teaching, a n d still play this role in T a i w a n . T h o u g h doctrinal content v a r i e d , the ethical values of sectarian literature remained fairly constant from the M i n g dynasty on. T h e y were a c o m b i n a t i o n of popularized Buddhist a n d C o n f u c i a n principles within a f r a m e w o r k of karmic retribution. T h a t is to say, the explicit ethical injunctions of these texts are basically orthodox a n d traditional. In this orientation, pao-chiian a n d fu-chi texts are agreed. It could be a r g u e d , h o w e v e r , that some o f the implicit values of th;se books are not in full accord with established family-centered principles. The earlier pao-chiian in p a r t i c u l a r assume the equality of m e n a n d w o m e n , rich and poor, noble a n d h u m b l e in the perspective of a socially

transcendent

principle, such as the " L i m i t l e s s , " or the " V e n e r a b l e M o t h e r " of m a n k i n d . W e need to remember that the texts w e are discussing are the literary expression of voluntary associations that cut across family lines. A Utopian theme in some late M i n g pao-chiian e n c o u r a g e d some of these associations to try to create their o w n states or safe areas, in the n a m e of Maitreya, the future B u d d h a , using military force if necessary. H o w e v e r , in the fu-chi texts eschatological tension is resolved, for in them M a i t r e y a has a l r e a d y come, a n d the third a g e of the w o r l d has d a w n e d . T h e chief sign of this new dispensation is direct revelations from the gods. W i t h the exception o f the egalitarianism a n d Utopian h o p e of late M i n g paochian, values in Chinese sectarian literature are quite conservative. In T a i w a n today, this literature continues to be a bearer of traditional principles, ideas, and l a n g u a g e in a rapidly c h a n g i n g world. A s a n expression of p o p u l a r attitudes a n d beliefs, such writings should be given serious consideration in our atiempts to understand C h i n a , past a n d present. T h i s paper is a discussion of the values expressed in pao-chiian—that

is, w h a t

they represent as i m p o r t a n t a n d w o r t h w h i l e in the proper living of h u m a n life.

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For the most part, such values are explicitly stated in ethical injunctions and comments concerning rewards or punishments to be sought or a v o i d e d . In addition, there are implicit values in these texts, ones not clearly stated hut nonetheless assumed to be i m p o r t a n t . T h i s p a p e r attempts to deal with both the explicit a n d implicit values. Since this study is a b o u t values, it does not deal extensively w i t h the history, l a n g u a g e , a n d style of these p o p u l a r texts, w h i c h I h a v e discussed in earlier studies, a n d w h i c h in the case ofpao-chiian, S a w a d a M i z u h o has dealt with at length. H o w e v e r , since for the most part these books are as yet little k n o w n , I h a v e in each case included some information a b o u t the text itself a n d its basic ideas or story line. T h i s article summarizes the values of t w o presectarian books of the pao-chiian type to indicate the i m m e d i a t e textual b a c k g r o u n d of L o C h ' i n g ' s writings. T h e r e follows a section on the social context of this literature, a n d a more detailed discussion of values in the second, third, a n d fourth types of pao-chiian mentioned above, sectarian a n d literary, each illustrated by a representative text.

SECTARIAN

PAO-CHÜAN:

THE

TEXTUAL

BACKGROUND

T h e earliest extant text related to a Chinese p o p u l a r religious association is the T'ai-p'ing

eking [Scripture o f great peace], w h i c h was used b y proto-Taoist

groups in the second c e n t u r y A.D. 2 A n n a Seidel has discussed other T a o i s t texts that reflect the ideas of p o p u l a r m o v e m e n t s . 3 T h o u g h there were a n u m b e r of predominantly lay associations in the first centuries of Chinese Buddhist history, I h a v e not yet c o m e across clear evidence that they p r o d u c e d their o w n texts. P o p u l a r M a n i c h a e a n groups, h o w e v e r , possessed texts with distinctive titles, as described by a report in the early twelfth c e n t u r y . 4 In a recent article, I h a v e suggested that the characteristic early modern 2Max

Kaltenmark, " T h e Ideology of the T'ai-p'ing

ching," in Facets of Taoism: Essays in Chinese

Religion, ed. Holmes Welch and A n n a Seidel (New Haven: Y a l e University Press, 1979), pp. 19-52. 3 A n n a K . Seidel, " T h e Image of the Perfect Ruler in Early Taoist Messianism: Lao-tzu and Li H u n g , " History of Religions 9 . 2 - 3 : 2 1 6 - 2 4 7 (November 1969/February 1970). 4 Samuel N. C. Lieu, The Religion of Light: An Introduction to the History of Manichaeism

in China

(Hong K o n g : Centre of Asian Studies, University of H o n g K o n g , 1979), pp. 29-30. In a recent study, E. Zürcher describes Buddhist texts from the sixth century A.D. that were evidently produced in China. T h e y include language about the coming end of the world that is similar to that of late M i n g pao-chiian. O n e text criticizes monks and asserts that they will be the last of eight categories of people to be saved. T h o u g h the social origin of these books is unclear, there is enough evidence to permit Zürcher to say that " w e are dealing with beliefs and movements that (1) primarily belong in the sphere of lay religion, and (2) are operating on a local scale." E. Zürcher, "Prince Moonlight: Messianism and Eschatology in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism," T'oung Pao L X V I I I , 1 - 3 (1982), pp. 3 9 - 4 4 , 4 7 . Hence, it is possible that the production of texts by predominantly lay groups began in the sixth century.

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PAO-CHOAN

form of sectarian association appeared in the White Lotus school (Pai-lien tsung) during the Y u a n dynasty. T h e popular wing of this school blended Buddhism together with a variety of Taoist practices aimed at health, sexual vitality, and long life. A n early fourteenth-century account by a Buddhist monk named Y u - t ' a n P'u-tu (d. 1 3 3 0 ) describes adherents' beliefs in some detail, and in the process mentions the names of two scriptures composed by this group, the Chen-tsung miao-i kuei-k'ung chi [The returning to emptiness collection of the excellent purport of the true school] a n d the Ta-mo hsueh-mai chin-sha lun [ T h e golden sand discourse of the blood tradition of Bodhidharma]. P'u-tu's discussion is based in part on these texts, particularly the Chen-tsung miao-i ching. His account stresses circulation of the vital force, prognostication, medicinal practices, and anticlerical attitudes. 5 T h e oldest extant texts of the early modern sectarian tradition were written by a lay Buddhist named L o C h ' i n g in the first decade of the sixteenth century. These books became scriptures of the L o chiao (sect) or Wu-wei chiao. L o Ch'ing's texts in turn were based on early M i n g Buddhist penance texts, amplifications of sutras, and stories of religious heroes. Some of the books he quotes are called chiian orpao-chiian, but they a p p e a r to h a v e been composed by orthodox monks to a m p l i f y Buddhist teachings and thus are not carriers of sec tarian teachings per se. L o C h ' i n g cites a variety of sources in his books, including such sutras as the H(art, Diamond, Nirvana and Hua-yen (Avatamsaka). T h e values of these sutras are of course those of orthodox M a h a y a n a Buddhism, with its combination of wisdom a n d compassion. T h e y are all concerned in various ways with liberation from the sufferings of birth and death through the attainment of enlightenment. I have two of the presectarian pao-chiian quoted by L o C h ' i n g , the Hsiang-shan pao-chiian and the Chin-kang ching k'o-i pao-chiian, both in C h ' i n g editions. T h e copy of the Hsiang-shan pao-chiian in m y possession is of an edition published in Ch'ien-lung 38 ( 1 7 7 3 ) , at H a n g c h o w . 6 This edition, in one chiian with 1 3 0 5

Overmyer, "Alternatives."

° T h e original text of this edition is owned by Yoshioka Yoshitoyo c j [ S l f t S , who published it in Dolyo kenkyu Henkyosha

[Taoist studies], vol. 4, ed. Yoshioka and Michel Soymie

(Tokyo,

1 9 7 1 ) . T h e title given is Kuan-shih-yin fi'u-sa pen-hsing eking H f t U H ^ ^ i T i S

[The sutra of the deeds of the bodhisattva K u a n - y i n (Avalokitesvara)]. In the Ch'ing colophon it is called Hsiang-shan pao-chiian H i l l

Yoshioka lists twelve editions printed in the C h ' i n g and

early Republican periods (pp. 1 1 8 - 1 1 9 ) , while Li Shih-yii ^ i f t ^ s St iff

in his Pao-chiian tsung-lu

f A general bibliography oipao-chiian] (Shanghai: C h u n g - h u a shu-chii

¥

flrlj,

'961),

pp. 5 6 - 5 7 , lists ten, in twenty-one reproductions, including six in manuscript, all dating from 1 8 5 0 to 1934. T h e titles given by Yoshioka are all called ching g , and begin with K u a n - y i n or Kuan-shihyin. but give Hsiang-shan pao-chiian as an alternate title. In the Pao-chiian tsung-lu, all but two of the texts listed have the name Hsiang-shan in their titles, with the most frequently reprinted title being the Ta-ch'eng/a-pao

Hsiang-shan pao-chiian

dharma jewel of the great vehicle].

fe

H S I U tt @ [ T h e F r a g r a n t M o u n t a i n pao-chiian,

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D A N I E L L. O V E R M Y E R

leaves, begins with a p i c t u r e o f K u a n - y i n r o b e d in w h i t e , seated, a n d attended by t w o acolytes. T h e r e follow a n h o m a g e to the e m p e r o r ( " 1 0 , 0 0 0 y e a r s to the present e m p e r o r , 10,000 times 10,000 y e a r s ! " ) , a n d a n u n d a t e d p r e f a c e by a m o n k n a m e d H a i - y i n . T h e p r e f a c e , in classical C h i n e s e , praises the b r e a d t h and u n f a t h o m a b l e w o n d e r o f the B u d d h i s t W a y , w h i c h brings benefit, protection, a n d blessings for u n e n d i n g kalpas (eons). T h e text itself begins b y listing its editor a n d c o m p i l e r , d i s t r i b u t o r , reviser a n d transmitter, all described as B u d d h i s t m o n k s . T h e editor is g i v e n as the C h ' a n M a s t e r P ' u - m i n g o f T ' i e n - c h u (in m o d e r n C h e k i a n g ) . T h e i n t r o d u c t i o n gives the d a t e o f P ' u - m i n g ' s w o r k as S u n g C h ' u n g - n i n g 2 ( 1 1 0 3 ) . T h e pao-chiian opens w i t h a n i n t r o d u c t i o n d e s c r i b i n g its origin a n d purpose, a n d then proceeds to the story o f a y o u n g princess n a m e d M i a o - s h a n , w h o , after a l o n g struggle, b e c o m e s e n l i g h t e n e d a n d discovers t h a t in fact she is K u a n - y i n . T h i s story in effect provides m y t h i c b a c k g r o u n d for the c u l t o f K u a n - y i n of 1000 eyes a n d arms, w h o sees a n d aids all. Elsewhere, I h a v e s u m m a r i z e d the story o n w h i c h this text- is based, and discussed antecedents g o i n g b a c k to the b e g i n n i n g o f the t w e l f t h c e n t u r y . 7 In 1978, G l e n D u d b r i d g e p u b l i s h e d a w h o l e b o o k o n this topic, The Legend of Miaoshan, in w h i c h he d e m o n s t r a t e s that t h o u g h t h e story did not b e c o m e well k n o w n until a b o u t 1100, there are references to it as early as 667. T h o u g h the pao-chiian version w a s subject to some later m o d i f i c a t i o n s , D u d b r i d g e notes c o r r o b o r a t i v e external e v i d e n c e for the 1103 d a t e p r o v i d e d b y the text itself, a n d concludes that, " W h a t e m e r g e s is . . . a sense o f internal

preservation

t h r o u g h a t r a d i t i o n . " T h u s , he discusses the Hsiang-shanpao-chiian in his c a t e g o r y o f texts c o m p o s e d before 1500. 8 A t the level o f values, this b o o k p o r t r a y s a contest b e t w e e n t w o different u n d e r s t a n d i n g s of filial p i e t y , traditional C h i n e s e a n d B u d d h i s t , this-worldly a n d transcendental. Princess M i a o - s h a n is the third d a u g h t e r o f a k i n g w i t h no sons, w h o tries to force h e r to m a r r y in o r d e r to p r o v i d e h i m w i t h a son-in-law and descendents. S h e , h o w e v e r , decides to b e c o m e a n u n , for w h i c h after m u c h bitterness she is e v e n t u a l l y e x e c u t e d . H o w e v e r , she is resurrected by the gods a n d proceeds to h e a l her f a t h e r of a l o a t h s o m e illness b y d o n a t i n g her o w n eyes a n d arms to m a k e m e d i c i n e for h i m . In the e n d she saves her w h o l e f a m i l y a n d is revealed to be the b o d h i s a t t v a K u a n - y i n . T h u s , t h o u g h at o n e level she is unfilial because she refuses to o b e y her p a r e n t s ' i n j u n c t i o n to m a r r y , at a n o t h e r level this disobedience b e c o m e s a n essential p r e c o n d i t i o n for her o w n enlightenment, w h i c h in turn gives her the p o w e r to d e l i v e r others. T h e highest v a l u e in this text is salvation t h r o u g h r e b i r t h in A m i t a b h a ' s P u r e L a n d . T h e

chief

p r o x i m a t e values are d e v o t i o n to the s y m b o l s a n d t e a c h i n g s o f B u d d h i s m , c o u r a g e in m a i n t a i n i n g religious ideals, c o m p a s s i o n , service, a n d forgiveness. 7 Daniel L. Overmyer, "Pao-chiian: Types and Transformations" (unpublished paper, 1978), pp. 7 - 1 4 . 8 GIen

Dudbridge, The Legend of Miao-shan (London: Ithaca Press, 1978), pp. 10-50.

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225

PAO-CHVAN

At the level of practice, this pao-chiian encourages celibacy, meditation, recitation of Amitabha's name, and vegetarianism. Perhaps the most important implicit value is that women also can be saved in this present life, and can even become religious heroines of the highest order. W e shall see that this theme continued to be influential in pao-chiian literature. T h e most important pao-chiian source for L o C h ' i n g — h e cites it regularly—is the Chin-kang ching k'o-i pao-chiian [The precious volume amplifying the Diamondsutra], which may go back to Sung times. 9 T h e Chin-kang k'o-i is in one chiian with thirty-two divisions {fen). After three leaves of introductory discussion it proceeds to quote K u m a r a j i v a ' s translation of the Diamond sutra, one section at a time. Following each quoted portion there is a prose explanation, called pai. This is followed by a short question, called wen, which in turn is succeeded by an answer, ta, in paired lines of seven character verse. Whereas the sutra is in Buddhist classical Chinese, the amplification contains many vernacular constructions. It is thus not surprising that the majority of L o Ch'ing's citations are from the amplification, not the sutra. This book is based on a combination of C h ' a n and Pure Land Buddhism, with an emphasis on attaining enlightenment through realizing the Buddhanature within. This nature is in turn equated with Amitabha and the Pure Land of the West, though in some passages a more literal spatial imagery seems still to be present. T h e key to transcending the insubstantiality and fleetingness of life is to attain a nondual perspective, based on the inner potential for attaining Buddha cognition that is shared by all beings. Thus, all are promised deliverance. T h e basic teaching of the Chin-kang k'o-i is indicated by the following passages: . . . the illusory body does not last long, the floating world is not firm. (p. 130a) *

*

*

Some follow the w r o n g path of spiritual discipline and do not e x a m i n e the m e a n i n g [of this text]; they d o not recognize that the enlightened bodhi

nature is

complete in each [being]; e v e r y o n e is able to understand the good roots of wisdom. D o not ask a b o u t degrees o f enlightenment; stop differentiating between those w h o remain in the household life and those w h o leave it, do not adhere to [the difference between] clergy a n d laity. O n e needs only to understand that in the mind there is f u n d a m e n t a l l y neither male nor female; w h y must one cling to outer form? (p. 130b) *

*

*

'There is an 1835 edition of this text in Hsu Tsang-ching 129:129b-144, edited by a monk named Chien-chi . This book appears to have been composed by a monk named Tsungching , whose name is in an introductory section. In his -Zoho Hokan no kenkyu Jf ^ CO jjjf 5£ (Tokyo: Kokusho kanko kai IHlIFflJii j o '975). PP- 101-102, Sawada Mizuho discusses a Ming edition of this book, written by Tsung-ching of the Sung. I have not been able to determine Tsung-ching's dates. K'o-i f4i§i here refers to a text that amplifies and explains a sutra.

226

DANIEL L. OVERMYER

Do not seek afar off for the Buddha on Spirit Vulture Peak (Ling-shan), for this peak is in your own mind. Everyone possesses a Ling-shan p a g o d a . . . . (p. 1 3 1 a ) *

*

*

Question: "Where does the T a o mind manifest itself?" Answer: . . . Everyone possesses the Pure L a n d of the West; Do not in error devote yourself to what has already appeared [in the outer realm]. If superior beings and good people see into their natures, they stand side by side with Amitabha Buddha, (p. 132a) *

*

*

Every step and everything is the W a y . Amitabha never lived in the West. T h e dharma body fills all the 3000 worlds, (p. 133a) *

*

*

Poverty, wealth, nobility and humble position are all like a dream. When one awakens from this dream he returns [to true understanding], (p. 133b) *

*

*

In the dharma there is neither high nor low. Therefore, sentient beings in the minds of the Buddhas constantly attain the W a y , apart from " s e l f " and " o t h e r . " A n d , the Buddhas in the minds of sentient beings with every thought realize the true. So, to recite the Buddha's name does not block meditating, and meditating is no obstacle to reciting the Buddha's name, to the point that one recites without reciting and meditates without meditating . . . [and] thoroughly understands the Pure L a n d of mind only (wei-ksin Ching-t'u). (p. 140a) *

*

#

For every household there is a road to Ch'ang-an. (p. 140a) *

*

*

Here it is made clear that all can attain deliverance directly and easily, because such deliverance is simply a matter of insight into the true nature of one's own mind. Buddhahood consists essentially of a detached attitude, an attitude that brings acceptance and peace. T h i s being the case, conventional Buddhas depicted in images and mythology are simply symbols of w h a t w e have the potential to become. T h i s perspective is egalitarian; there is no justification for distinctions based on social or religious status, wealth or sex. T h e r e is no need to adopt a celibate life style in a monastery, to worship Buddhas imagined to be in some other realm, or to spend years in arduous meditation. L o C h ' i n g seized upon these teachings with great enthusiasm and much repetition. It is instructive to realize that this father of the early modern

V A L U E S IN M I N G A N D C H ' I N G

PAO-CHOAN

sectarian scriptural tradition was strongly influenced by a text with such an egalitarian point of view, made to order for a lay leader speaking to ordinary people. T h e chief value of the Chin-kang k'o-i is salvation as spiritual freedom; it is a doctrinal text that contains very little discussion of ethics. O f course, Buddhist morality is assumed, but the emphasis is on going beyond the duality and meritbuilding this morality implies. Thus, the texts that formed the immediate background of the sectarian pao-chiian tradition were sober popularizations of orthodox Buddhism, with an overriding emphasis on spiritual deliverance. L o C h ' i n g continued this emphasis, but was more concerned to put forward a doctrinal position of his own, distinguished from a variety of competing points of view.

THE SOCIAL C O N T E X T S OF

PAO-CHUAN

LITERATURE

T h e immediate social context of pao-chiian literature from L o Ch'ing on is that formed by the popular religious sects discussed in my 1976 book and in articles and papers mentioned in the notes for this chapter. For the most part, members of these groups were from the middle to lower levels of prestige, wealth, and literacy. T h e majority were lay persons, though a few were Buddhist monks. W e have noted that the earliest pao-chiian, such as the Hsiang-shan and Chin-kang k 'o-i, were written by such monks, and that monks edited and commented on L o Ch'ing's scriptures. Historical accounts of the L o chiao and other sects frequently mention monk participants, though their level of literacy is not always clear. 1 0 During the late Ming, some sects received high-level support from court eunuchs, officials, and the wives of officials, as Sawada Mizuho has emphasized. Some of the pao-chiian from this period were printed in an elaborate style by the Nei-ching ch'ang, a government office for printing Taoist and Buddhist texts. However, as the Ch'ing government consolidated its control, the sects were more effectively suppressed, and thus cut off from support by the wealthy and powerful. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some of these groups were forced to operate in a clandestine manner, for the mere possession of their own scriptures could lead to arrest and punishment. Hence, production of paochiian declined, and many of the books that remained were confiscated and burned. 1 1 Susan Naquin's work has done much to clarify the social situation of the sects in this period, 1 2 and to indicate their changing relationship to the pao1 0 O v e r m y e r , Folk Buddhist Religion, pp. 1 1 3 - 1 1 5 , 1 6 2 - 1 7 6 ; Daniel L. Overmyer, "Boatmen and Buddhas: T h e L o chiao in M i n g Dynasty C h i n a , " History of Religions 1 7 . 3 - 4 : 2 8 4 - 2 8 8 (February/ M a y 1978); O v e r m y e r , "Pao-chiian," pp. 1 5 - 2 1 . 11

S a w a d a , Hokan, pp. 35-38.

Susan Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), pp. 3 1 - 4 9 . See also Professor Naquin's essay in this volume. 12

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chiian tradition. O n e suspects that the decline in the production of these books, discussed by S a w a d a M i z u h o , is related to the transition between the two types of sects that N a q u i n discusses in her contribution to this volume (chapter 9). T h e " T r i g r a m " groups did not emphasize scripture texts, in part because paochiian were less readily available and possession of them was so dangerous. T h e question of audience arises naturally here. F o r w h o m were these books written? W h o recited a n d distributed them? T h e r e is some internal evidence bearing on these questions, particularly in the lists of donors of contributions for the expenses of printing that are appended to pao-chiian. T h e basic fact to keep in mind is that all pao-chiian were written not for an educated clergy, but for lay people at a variety of social levels. These books began as popularizations of Buddhist sütras and hero stories. F r o m L o C h ' i n g on, pao-chiian were written in the vernacular. L a t e r texts incorporated more and more popular deities, themes, and tunes; terms and characters from operas also appeared in t h e m . 1 3 These books were recited in small g r o u p settings, from a sectarian worship service, to a room in the women's quarters, to the corner of a busy market. T h u s , their audience included nonliterate persons, as Susan N a q u i n indicates. Perhaps the most distinctive internal evidence regarding audience in paochüan is their frequent direct address to " p i o u s men and w o m e n , " a n d their denial of the validity of sexual distinctions in the quest for salvation. T h i s is particularly true for L o chiao texts, but later sectarian scriptures also promise salvation to the "sons a n d daughters of the V e n e r a b l e M o t h e r beyond life and d e a t h . " T h e point is that here women are included; they are an integral part of the religion, as was the case to some extent in orthodox Buddhism as well. N o r were w o m e n slow to respond. Historical accounts emphasize the presence and equality of w o m e n in popular sects from the thirteenth century on. B y the nineteenth century, some pao-chiian texts were produced specifically with women in mind, and w o m e n h a d a role in their preaching and distribution (hsuan-chiian) So it was that in C h i n a as well as E u r o p e there was, in the words of K e i t h T h o m a s , an "association of w o m e n [with] small religious sects." As T h o m a s writes, Women seem to have played a disproportionate role in the history of mysticism and spiritual religion. Almost all the mediaeval sects from Manichaeans to the Waldenses, the Donatists to the Cathars, received to a marked degree the support of women, and welcomed them, sometimes as influential patronesses, but more often . . . as active members on a basis of practical equality . . . it is hardly surprising that women were attracted to those groups or that form of religion which offered spiritual equality, the depreciation of educational advantages, and 13

Overmyer, Folk Buddhist Religion, pp. 1 8 2 - 1 8 3 ; Sawada, Hokan. pp. 5 0 - 5 1 . Overmyer, "Alternatives"; Overmyer, "Pao-chiian", pp. 3 1 - 3 8 ; Sawada, Hokan, pp. 65-66, 81-85. 14

V A L U E S IN M I N G A N D C H ' I N G

PAO-CHVAN

that opportunity to preach or even hold priestly office which they were otherwise denied.... T h e same factors must h a v e operated a m o n g the women of the Civil W a r sects (that is, the Baptists, Quakers etc. of seventeenth century E n g l a n d ) . 1 5

These factors operated among Chinese women as well. I have discussed before the pious lay donors of Lo sect texts, who by their contributions hoped to gain merit for a l l . 1 6 In his Hokan no kenkyu, Sawada Mizuho has a chapter on the spread, printing, and distribution of pao-chiian that discusses in some detail evidence provided by lists of donors at the end of some texts. He begins with the example of the Mantra of the spiritual influence of Kuan-yin [Kuan-yin ling-kan chenyen], a short verse invocation of only fifty-four characters published in the Ming Hung-chih period ( 1 4 8 8 - 1 5 0 6 ) . Fourteen donors of thousands of copies of this broadsheet are listed for a period of about one hundred and seventy years, beginning with a Y u a n censor from Chi-nan, who contributed a thousand copies in gratitude for a pardon. Other donors included pious women, a provincial inspector, a military officer, and a eunuch. Sawada points out the pao-chiian were longer and more difficult to reprint than this short text, so that those who produced them had to rely on wealthy contributors, as had been the case with Chinese Buddhist texts from the beginning. Sawada also discusses two pao-chiian published in 1584 by the West T a ch'eng sect in Shun-t'ien prefecture of Chihli. T h e printing of this text was supported by a number of Ming officials, aristocrats, and their wives, while the prefaces for both texts were written by Chiang Chien-yuan, Marquis Who Pacifies the West, Chief Military Commissioner of the Vanguard Army. Sawada provides evidence of high-level support for pao-chiian printing from a variety ofother texts as well, including those of the Hung-yang sect, which were also published through connections with officials and eunuchs. Some of these officials were associated with the Nei-ching ch'ang, so it seems likely that the Hung-yang chiao texts were printed there as well. Sawada then suggests that severe investigation of the sects during the Ch'ing made it impossible for them to maintain such powerful connections, and that funds for publishing pao-chiian in the eighteenth century had therefore to come from more donors with less money. He discusses a K'ang-hsi period ( 1 6 6 2 1722) text, which provides a list offorty-seven donors from Ho-chien fu in Chihli, none of them officials or wealthy people. Fifteen of these contributors were women. Sawada describes in addition a Ch'ien-lung period (1736—1795) text reprinted in 1909 to which is appended a fifty-six-page list of the names of more than 1600 donors from Hopei and Shansi. T h e largest contribution listed is five silver dollars, with others as small as twenty-five cents. 15 16

K e i t h Thomas, "Women and the Civil War Sects," Past and Present 1 3 : 4 2 - 6 2 (April 1958). Overmyer, Folk Buddhist Religion, pp. 1 1 5 - 1 1 6 .

D A N I E L L. O V E R M Y E R

230

From the mid-Ch'ing on, many pao-chiian were printed or reprinted by morality book publishers, usually "on demand" from those who wished to gain merit by distributing such texts. Both Sawada and Li Shih-yii provide long lists of the names and locations of these book shops, most of them located in East C h i n a — S h a n g h a i , Hangchow, Soochow, Ningpo, and so on. O f course, local sects continued to publish their own books as well. Sawada goes on to describe the mass reprinting of more than two hundred pao-chiian in Shanghai during the Republican period. 1 7 All this evidence, of course, tends to support Evelyn Rawski's thesis that functional literacy was widespread in the M i n g and Ch'ing periods. 1 8 T h e audience for pao-chiian thus ranged from officials and eunuchs to sect members and a variety of ordinary folk. Perhaps variations in this audience explain in part the differences of pao-chiian style and content. For example, as there are no explicitly sectarian references in the Chin-kang k'o-i, its audience may have been adherents of a monastery, clerical and lay, some with enough education to understand the relatively abstract language of this text. Lo Ch'ing's many references to Buddhist scriptures indicate that he must have had a teacher learned in Buddhism; no doubt these references were appealing to the monks among his followers as well. Later sectarian texts do not quote scriptures in this way. In texts of the Hung-yang sect, mentioned above, there is praise for saints who in fact were eunuch supporters of the sect at court. However, the clearest evidence of the role of audience is the attention given to women in a number of pao-chiian. As Sawada emphasizes, women played a substantial part in the printing and dissemination of these books from the beginning, until by the late nineteenth century the special role ofpao-chiian reciter (hsuan-chiian che) was often filled by women, many of whose listeners were female as well. From the early twentieth century there is even evidence for the recitation of these texts in brothels on festival days. 1 9 In other words, it appears that by this time women had come to play a very important role in the pao-chiian tradition, and, as we shall see below, this role is reflected in the texts. O n the other hand, some spiritwriting texts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were produced and distributed by local officials and military men. T h e influence of this social setting can be seen in the conservative Confucian values of these books and in their very traditional injunctions to women. 2 0 In sum, it is obvious that paochiian were influenced by their immediate social contexts, an issue that could be " S a w a d a , Hokan, pp. 70-80; Li Shih-yii, Pao-chiian tsung-lu, "Introduction," pp. 1 0 - 1 3 . 18

Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch 'ing China (Ann Arbor: University

of Michigan Press, 1979). See also her article in this volume. 19

Sawada, Hokan, pp. 8 5 - 8 6 .

20

For a discussion of spirit-writing texts and their values, see David K . J o r d a n and Daniel L.

Overmyer, The Flying Phoenix: Aspects of Chinese Sectarianism in Taiwan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985).

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PAO-CHÙAN

231

e x a m i n e d in m o r e detail in a s t u d y o f the relationship o f p a r t i c u l a r texts to the history of the sects that p r o d u c e d a n d used t h e m . 2 1

V A L U E S IN T H R E E T Y P E S O F

PAO-CHOAM,

SECTARIAN AND L I T E R A R Y T h e first of the four types o f pao-chiian l i t e r a t u r e m e n t i o n e d at the b e g i n n i n g of this essay comprises texts s u c h as the Chin-kang k'o-i discussed a b o v e . I n this section, I discuss o n e m a j o r text from e a c h o f the latter three types, b e g i n n i n g w i t h the P'o-hsieh

hsien-cheng yao-shih

chiian [ T h e key to r e f u t i n g heresy a n d

m a k i n g truth manifest], c. 1509, b y L o C h ' i n g . L o C h ' i n g w a s a literate lay B u d d h i s t (chii-shih) f r o m C h i - m o C o u n t y n e a r the eastern tip o f S h a n t u n g w h o served for a time in a g a r r i s o n n e a r P e k i n g . M i l i t a r y service w a s a n h e r e d i t a r y o c c u p a t i o n in his f a m i l y . A u t o b i o g r a p h i c a l passages in the texts he w r o t e tell us t h a t h e m e d i t a t e d a n d p r a c t i c e d religious austerities for thirteen y e a r s b e f o r e r e a c h i n g e n l i g h t e n m e n t , after w h i c h h e " p r e a c h e d the d h a r m a to s a v e o t h e r s , " a n d w r o t e his texts " t o e n a b l e y o u to e s c a p e suffering in the r e a l m o f b i r t h a n d d e a t h , a n d o b t a i n eternal s a l v a t i o n , n e v e r to r e t u r n . " S o m e o f L o ' s disciples e v i d e n t l y w o r k e d a m o n g g r a i n c a n a l b o a t m e n , because it is c h i e f l y in their ranks t h a t his religion s p r e a d to C h e k i a n g , a n d from there all o v e r C h i n a . W e d o not k n o w w i t h w h o m L o studied, or w h e r e he o b t a i n e d the m a n y texts h e quotes, b u t j u d g i n g f r o m the contents o f his w o r k his source m a y h a v e b e e n a C h ' a n m o n k . I n a n y e v e n t , it is Lin-'chi m o n k s w h o later c o m m e n t e d o n his scriptures. S t a t e m e n t s b y L o C h ' i n g a n d his followers, as w e l l as e v i d e n c e f r o m e x t e r n a l sources, i n d i c a t e that the L o sect w a s a n i n d e p e n d e n t t r a d i t i o n , conscious o f its o w n i n t e g r i t y , at first distinct f r o m other p o p u l a r sects. H o w e v e r , w i t h the rise o f m a n y o t h e r g r o u p s in the late sixteenth c e n t u r y , there w a s s o m e b l e n d i n g o f m o r e r a d i c a l traditions w i t h the L o c h i a o , at the levels o f b o t h o r g a n i z a t i o n a n d t e a c h i n g . T h o u g h this g r o u p b e g a n as p o p u l a r B u d d h i s m , in the history o f sectarian

move-

ments it a p p e a r s as an i m p o r t a n t " a n c e s t r a l " t r a d i t i o n , w h o s e beliefs a n d scriptures w e r e a p p r o p r i a t e d b y later g r o u p s , often w i t h different interpretations. L o C h ' i n g served as a m o d e l to later sectarian leaders w h o w a n t e d to teach a n d g a i n a d h e r e n t s t h r o u g h texts they themselves w r o t e . P a r t l y b e c a u s e 21

However, the relative importance of female protagonists in pao-chiian may also be related to

female roles in earlier Chinese literature, particularly in Y u a n operas. In several of these dramas, particularly those by K u a n Han-ch'ing BSg§JJip, women have the most interesting and important parts, and are exemplars of moral courage. O n this see, for example, "Injustice Done to T o u N g o " in Six Tiian Plays, trans. Liu Jung-en (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1972), and other opera texts in Y a n g Hsien-yi and Gladys Y a n g , trans., Selected Plays of Kuan Han-ching (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1958). See also W a n g Shih-fu, The Romance of the Western Chamber, as translated with this title by T . C. Lai and Ed Gamarekian (Hong K o n g : Heinemann Educational Books [Asia], 1973). For this information I am indebted in part to Jennifer Parkinson, a graduate student in the Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia.

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of this association, the L o sect was proscribed in the late sixteenth century as just another heretical religion (hsieh-chiao), though it continued to exist until the twentieth century. L o Ch'ing, or L o Tsu (the Patriarch Lo), wrote five pao-chiian, commonly called the wu-pu liu-ts'e, "five books in six volumes," because one of them was in two chiian. Sect adherents wrote commentaries on these texts in the late sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, and the works were reprinted as late as the nineteenth century. I have described these books in some detail elsewhere, 22 and have summarized the teachings of one of them, the Cheng-hsin ch'u-i wu hsiu cheng tzu-tsaipao-chiian [The precious book concerning the (truth) which is selfexistent, needing neither cultivation nor realization, which rectifies belief and dispels doubt]. 2 3 The P'o-hsieh text is in two chiian. I have two editions, first the text alone, collated and verified by L o Wen-chü in 1 6 1 5 . This edition has only the first chiian in eleven sections (p'in). It is elegantly decorated, with pictures of saints and Buddhas, dedicatory verses, and an appeal for long life for the emperor. There follows a table of contents with chapter titles in full, each beginning with the character p'o, " t o destroy" or "refute." T h e introductory portion of chiian one begins with four five-character verses: "heretical teachings (hsieh-fa) are confused and chaotic, [but] emptiness is free from fetters. If one does not use a key to open up [confusion], where can one escape from birth and death?" Then follows, "to benefit both self and others, on behalf of bodhisattvas both clerical and lay, this text refutes heresy and makes realization [truth] manifest," after which there is a section expressing gratitude for the kindness of emperors and officials, the various Buddhas, and Hsuan-tsang (here called the " T ' a n g monk") who brought back scriptures from India. At the end of this introduction emperor and officials are promised Buddhahood and unending merit if they "protect the Buddhist dharma (hu Fo fa)." The first section begins with prose quotations from the Diamond sütra and the Sütra of Complete Enlightenment. After eight lines of prose the dominant pattern of ten-character verse begins, arranged in two sets of three characters, with one of four. This alternates with occasional sections of verse in two seven-character lines. T h e other sections follow this basic pattern of several lines of prose at the beginning, followed by ten-character verse. M y other edition of the P'o-hsieh text is a commentary edition in four chiian, with the complete text. It begins directly with title and table of contents; each chapter heading is followed by an explanatory ode. The chief object of criticism " O v e r m y e r , "Pao-chiian," pp. 1 5 - 2 4 . See also Richard Hon-chun Shek, "Religion and Society in Late Ming: Sectarianism and Popular Thought in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century China" (Ph.D. diss. University of California, Berkeley, 1980), pp. 1 5 5 - 2 5 1 . " O v e r m y e r , "Pao-chiian," pp. 20-24; Overmyer, "Boatmen and Buddhas," pp. 285-287; and Overmyer, Folk Buddhist Religion, pp. 1 1 4 - 1 2 9 , 232.

VALUES IN MING A N D CH'ING

PAO-CHÛAJV

*33

is a n y form of externalized piety that does not understand the f u n d a m e n t a l emptiness a n d unity of all things, and therefore abides in false distinctions, such as that between laity and clergy, (tsai-chiajch'u-chia).

O t h e r views attacked are

those stressing recitation of A m i t a h b a ' s n a m e , quests for immortality or supernatural powers, a n d so on. C h a p t e r Six criticizes reliance on meditation, and attacks the W h i t e Lotus sect for its political ambitions, techniques of " c i r c u l a t ing ch'i,"

emphasis on prognostication, rituals of burning paper, and vener-

ation of non-Buddhist deities, including the sun and m o o n . N o n e of these practices leads to enlightenment and escape from samsara. T h e thought of the P'o-hsieh chiian is based on that of the Chin-kang k'o-i, with its emphasis on transcending all dualities. L o C h ' i n g quotes long sections of the earlier text almost verbatim, including some of those translated above. T o these he adds supporting material from other books, linked together with his o w n comments in verse form. T h i s style of composition served to keep L o close to his orthodox Buddhist sources, and distinguishes his w o r k from earlier texts such as Chin-kang k'o-i, which amplify only one scripture. T h e primary value of the P'o-hsieh

chiian is spiritual freedom and indepen-

dence, tzu-tsai (in Sanskrit, Isvara), w h i c h L o combines with the term tsung-heng "vertical and h o r i z o n t a l " or " i n all directions," for him m e a n i n g to m o v e e v e r y w h e r e without spiritual impediment. T h i s freedom in turn is based on the capacity for salvation that all possess in the mind; if one will only turn within to this B u d d h a mind, then salvation is assured, samsara transcended, and all false obstructions and dichotomies left behind. T h i s simple "restoring the m i n d " (.hui-hsin)24

is all that is needed; e v e r y t h i n g else is misleading activism ( y u - w e i

fa). Hence, L o C h ' i n g extols at length a nonactivist a p p r o a c h , wu-weifa,

which

gained for his sect the n a m e W u - w e i chiao. A l l this provides little comfort for those looking through the P'o-hsieh

chiian

for clear-cut ethical injunctions; on the contrary, L o C h ' i n g explicitly and repeatedly denies the validity of conventional ethical distinctions, including that between good and evil. For him, all forms of charity a n d piety are inferior to enlightenment because they remain within the self/others duality of samsara. As L o affirms in a quotation from the Chin-kang

k'o-i,

T h e r e is no self a n d n o other; sentient b e i n g s a c c o m p l i s h true r e a l i z a t i o n b y themselves . . . ( 1 : 2 6 ; section t w o ) . Y o u s h o u l d not settle [reside] a n y w h e r e ( y i n g wu so chu); be an i n d e p e n d e n t person (tzu-tsai jen).

Y o u s h o u l d h a v e n o p l a c e to

reside; m a n i f e s t the b r i l l i a n t l i g h t [of y o u r true n a t u r e ] . . . . h o n o r i n d e p e n d e n c e (tu wei tsun)....

T o reside in a n y t h i n g is the p a t h o f samsara', y o u s h o u l d not b e fixed

a n y w h e r e ; [thus y o u w i l l ] cut o f f b i r t h a n d d e a t h a n d f o r e v e r b r e a k a w a y f r o m samsara....

A c t i v i s t m e t h o d s a r e precisely the h i g h r o a d to birth a n d d e a t h .

( 1 : 4 8 - 5 0 ; section four)

24

Hui-hsin

HMJ, "to turn the mind around" can mean "to repent," but in Lo Ch'ing's usage

indicates returning or restoring the mind to its true nature.

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DANIEL L. O V E R M Y E R

T h i s is so b e c a u s e s u c h m e t h o d s a r e o r i e n t e d t o w a r d g a i n i n g m e r i t

or

a v o i d i n g d e m e r i t , w h i c h is still i n t h e r e a l m o f c o n c e r n f o r self. F o r L o C h ' i n g , " t h e r e is b a s i c a l l y n o m e r i t a t all in d o i n g g o o d a n d n o d e m e r i t in d o i n g e v i l " (i : 8 g ; s e c t i o n s e v e n ) (hsiu shanyuan wu kung-te; tso e i wu

tsui-kuo).

L o C h ' i n g d o e s n o t flinch f r o m t h e r a d i c a l i m p l i c a t i o n s o f this p o s i t i o n : W i t h neither words nor wonderful teachings, be independent (tsung-heng tzu-tsai). T u r n things upside down, be established by yourself. O n l y when the good is bad and the bad good does one attain self-sufficiency. O n l y w h e n white is black and black white is one independent e v e r y w h e r e . . . . Sweep a w a y the 10,000 phenomena to become independent wherever you are. ( 1 : 2 7 ; section two) L o C h ' i n g a c c e p t s t h e o r t h o d o x B u d d h i s t t e a c h i n g t h a t t h e devas ( g o d s ) d w e l l i n g in t h e h e a v e n s a r e still tied to samsara, h o w e v e r j o y o u s t h e y m a y b e for a t i m e . S i n c e r e b i r t h in H e a v e n is a n essential p a r t o f t h e c o n v e n t i o n a l m e r i t s y s t e m , he p o i n t s o u t t h a t e v e n for t h e m o s t e x a l t e d b e i n g s s u c h r e b i r t h l e a d s nowhere: A l t h o u g h all of the devas are joyous, they are not liberated; when the merit of the ten kinds of immortals is exhausted, they return to samsara. (1 :go; section seven) A l l o f this l e a d s to r e p u d i a t i o n o f c o n v e n t i o n a l e t h i c s . Y o u yourself are a brilliant light; if you do not preserve it, from heaven above you will be reborn and enter darkness. Those w h o preserve it of themselves manifest a brilliant light. W h e n you enter birth and death, the light is extinguished. T h e true precepts of the selfare beyond birth and death; if you maintain [the conventional] precepts you will enter into samsara. T h e five precepts a n d the ten forms of goodness are the path of birth and death; those w h o cling to doing good fall into samsara.... T h e true precepts of the selfare the Western L a n d . (1 : 4 0 - 4 1 ; section four) T h e s e s a m e strictures a p p l y to o r d i n a r y r e l i g i o u s p r a c t i c e , w h i c h is lost in t h e w o r l d o f sense a n d f o r m . S o , L o C h ' i n g w r i t e s o f pitiful religious practice which knows not the root, so that when birth and death come there is no w a y to escape. (1 :46; section four)

H o w pitiful to love darkness while sitting in meditation; a drunken man w h o binds himself up is not independent and sits until morning for nothing. (1 : 79; section six) S o it is w i t h t h e " f r u i t s o f t h e W a y , "

arduous discipline, leaving

the

h o u s e h o l d life, r e m a i n i n g a t h o m e , r e p a i r i n g m o n a s t e r i e s , r e c i t i n g s c r i p t u r e s , b e c o m i n g a B u d d h a , c a r r y i n g o u t r i t u a l s , b o w i n g to false i m a g e s (pai hsiang)....

chia

A l l a r e to b e r e j e c t e d b e c a u s e t h e y l e a d o n e a s t r a y o n e x t e r i o r p a t h s ,

a w a y f r o m t h e s o u r c e o f e n l i g h t e n m e n t w i t h i n ( 1 : 8 4 - 8 5 ; s e c t i o n six). T h u s , e t h i c a l v a l u e s a r e s u b o r d i n a t e d to t h e q u e s t f o r u l t i m a t e d e l i v e r a n c e .

VALUES IN MING AND CH'ING

PAO-CHVAN

*35

A s o n e c a n see f r o m s u c h m a t e r i a l , this r e j e c t i o n o f c o n v e n t i o n a l r e l i g i o u s practice includes charity, w h i c h has been an expression of Buddhist devotion f r o m the b e g i n n i n g .

Lo

Ch'ing,

citing

t h e Sutra

of Complete

Enlightenment

[Yuan-chueh ching\, w r i t e s , " T o fill u p t h e 3000 g r e a t w o r l d s w i t h s e v e n k i n d s o f p r e c i o u s j e w e l s , a n d d i s t r i b u t e t h e m in c h a r i t y is n o t so g o o d as o n e s e n t e n c e o f w o n d e r f u l s i g n i f i c a n c e " ( 1 : 9 ; s e c t i o n o n e ) . T h e " s e n t e n c e o f w o n d e r f u l signific a n c e " refers to the m i n d as t h e f o u n d a t i o n o f e n l i g h t e n m e n t . E l s e w h e r e i n t h e P'o-hsieh

chiian w e r e a d ,

T o distribute wealth is samsara, not d e l i v e r a n c e . . . . T o bestow drink and food saves life for one day; to bestow precious jewels, money and goods supplies the needs of a lifetime, but increases entanglements. T o preach salvation is called bestowing the dharma; with this one can cause all living things to escape the way of the world T o distribute wealth is w h a t ignorant men love; to bestow the dharma is w h a t the wise love. ( 1 : 9 7 ; section eight) *

*

*

O n e should not abide in material charity. ( 1 : 1 0 1 ; section eight) A l l this is t h e c a s e b e c a u s e " t h e t r u e p r e c e p t s a r e t h e o r i g i n a l

nature"

( 1 : 1 1 7 ; s e c t i o n n i n e ) , a n d this " o r i g i n a l n a t u r e is p r e c i s e l y t h e t r u e T h r e e J e w e l s " ( B u d d h a , d h a r m a , s a n g h a ) ( 1 : 4 2 ; s e c t i o n f o u r ) . S o L o r e m i n d s his readers, Y o u yourself are originally old A m i t a b h a . ( 1 : 8 5 ; section six) *

*

*

Recognize that you yourself are heaven. (1 :57; section five)

Recognize that all the Buddhas assemble in oneself; the realms of all the Buddhas are in the mind. (1 :42; section four) L o C h ' i n g w a s t h u s c o n v i n c e d t h a t t h e w a y to s a l v a t i o n d i d n o t lie i n e x t e r n a l o b s e r v a n c e s o f a n y sort. F o r h i m t h e w h o l e r e a l m o f o r d i n a r y p i e t y is r e l a t i v e , i n c l u d i n g m a i n t a i n i n g a v e g e t a r i a n d i e t a n d r e p r i n t i n g sutras; all o f this is b u t " m a n i p u l a t i n g p u p p e t s " ( 1 : 2 0 ; s e c t i o n n i n e ) . H o w e v e r , this r a d i c a l a n t i n o m i a n l a n g u a g e is n o t in t h e i n t e r e s t o f license b u t o f s a l v a t i o n . A s L o w r i t e s , " I f p e o p l e a r e n o t y e t e n l i g h t e n e d t h e y s h o u l d n o t seize u p o n these w o r d s to a c t in d i s o r d e r l y w a y s ; [if t h e y do], a t d e a t h t h e y w i l l c e r t a i n l y see Y a m a [lord o f t h e u n d e r w o r l d ] a n d o n l y w i t h d i f f i c u l t y a v o i d b e i n g b o i l e d in a c a u l d r o n a n d g r o u n d u p in a m i l l [ p u n i s h m e n t in p u r g a t o r y ] " ( 1 : 8 9 ; s e c t i o n seven). I n o t h e r L o c h i a o texts, B u d d h i s t e t h i c s a r e s t r i c t l y e n j o i n e d , p a r t i c u l a r l y vegetarianism, w h i l e the Buddhist precepts are correlated with such C o n f u c i a n v i r t u e s as filial p i e t y a n d c o h u m a n i t y (jen).

B u t e v e n i n these s o u r c e s it is c l e a r

D A N I E L L.

OVERMYER

that such principles are to be i n f o r m e d by faith a n d are seen as l e a d i n g t o w a r d the liberation of all beings from samsara. T h e effectiveness o f a c t i o n d e p e n d s u p o n its intention; as w e r e a d in the Cheng-hsin pao-chiian, " i f a

fisherman

r e m e m b e r s the m i n d he returns H o m e ; a v e g e t a r i a n w h o does not believe in the B u d d h a returns to fall into

samsara."25

L o C h ' i n g thus t a u g h t an i n t e r n a l i z a t i o n o f religion a n d ethics in a lay sectarian c o n t e x t , w h e r e h e m a d e a v a i l a b l e the quest for i n d i v i d u a l e n l i g h t e n m e n t l o n g a d v o c a t e d b y the C h ' a n a n d P u r e L a n d traditions. It w a s a l o n g these lines that his a t t a c k on c o n v e n t i o n a l piety seems to h a v e been u n d e r s t o o d , w i t h the result that the L o c h i a o tradition b e c a m e k n o w n for its c o m m u n i t i e s o f earnest religious devotees. F o r the most p a r t , the r a d i c a l i m p l i c a t i o n s o f ethics m a d e relative do not seem to h a v e been d r a w n ; h o w e v e r , I h a v e e n c o u n t e r e d t w o brief historical a c c o u n t s that i n d i c a t e t h a t some M i n g W u - w e i g r o u p s rejected i m a g e w o r s h i p a n d v e n e r a t i o n of a n c e s t o r s . 2 6 D e G r o o t also indicates t h a t W u - w e i c o n g r e g a t i o n s in n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y A m o y did not use i m a g e s . 2 7 M a h a y a n a B u d d h i s t p h i l o s o p h y has criticized c o n v e n t i o n a l piety f r o m the b e g i n n i n g because it is based o n the a s s u m p t i o n that o n e c a n earn o n e ' s o w n salvation as a r e w a r d for g o o d deeds. T h i s a s s u m p t i o n is e g o - c e n t e r e d , a n d simply replaces a t t a c h m e n t to w o r l d l y success w i t h a t t a c h m e n t to religious practices, both o f w h i c h miss the point o f B u d d h i s m , the a t t a i n m e n t of a n e n l i g h t e n e d a n d selfless perspective. B u d d h i s t leaders h a v e long s u p p o r t e d c o n v e n t i o n a l ritual a n d ethical teachings as a m e a n s o f c o m m u n i c a t i n g w i t h p e o p l e at a level they c a n easily grasp. W h i l e it is u n d e r s t o o d b y the intellectuals that this level should be transitional a n d t e m p o r a r y , in fact it has been the m a i n s t r e a m o f p o p u l a r B u d d h i s m for centuries. L o C h ' i n g ' s c o n t r i b u t i o n is his insistence w i t h i n C h i n e s e p o p u l a r c u l t u r e that e n l i g h t e n m e n t can be s o u g h t directly, w i t h o u t c o m p r o m i s e — t h a t his o w n followers c a n attain the highest goals o f B u d d h i s m . T h e u n i v e r s a l potential for e n l i g h t e n m e n t h a d l o n g been p r o c l a i m e d by both C o n f u c i a n i s m a n d B u d d h i s m , b u t discussions o f h o w to a t t a i n such e n l i g h t e n m e n t directly w e r e i n t e n d e d for the most part for a n elite 25Overmyer, 26

" P a o - c h i i a n p . 23.

T h e first o f these a c c o u n t s is b y F a n L i e n ?E ift in his Tun-men chu mu ch'ao j * H i t

preface d a t e d 1592, chiian 2, p. 7 a in Pi-chi hsiao-shuo ta kuan |(E chii f f JSIlIr^j, 1962), vol. 1, p. 1272. " T h e W u - w e i c h i a o M M i k

g

^ jgj ( T a i p e i : H s i n - h s i n g shuP u t s aside B u d d h a i m a g e s and

incense o f f e r i n g a n d does a w a y w i t h t h e m . W h e n parents die, they d o not p e r f o r m sacrifices for t h e m " ( f u - m u chih sang,pu tso chi-hsiang t C f O . 3§,

f f I S - ? ) - T h e s e c o n d reference is f r o m C h u

K u o - c h e n ^ g l i i j S ( 1 5 5 7 - 1 6 3 2 ) in his Tung-ch'uang hsiao-p'in

introduction dated 1619,

3 2 : 1 3 , in Pi-chi hsiao-shuo ta-kuany vol. 2, p. 2120. C h u discusses a F u k i e n sect l e a d e r " w h o s e title w a s W u - w e i " w h o o r d e r e d p e o p l e to sell all their possessions in o r d e r to o f f e r t h e m to the m u l t i t u d e s . " H e said, ' c h a o s is a b o u t to a r r i v e . T h e i r i g n o r a n t rustic (sic) possessions are all y o u r possessions.' H e p r o h i b i t e d p e o p l e from sacrificing to ancestors a n d spirits w i t h a v i e w to b r e a k i n g their [ f a m i l y ] loyalties. T h e y sacrificed only to the sect h e a d . " 2 7 ,J.

J . M . D e G r o o t , Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in Chirm ( A m s t e r d a m : J o h a n n e s M u l l e r ,

1903), vol. 1, pp. 1 8 3 - 1 8 5 .

V A L U E S IN M I N G A N D C H ' I N G

PAO-CHÜAN

o f literati a n d m o n k s . L o C h ' i n g ' s i n n o v a t i o n w a s to p r o c l a i m this old truth in a n e w social setting. T h e significance o f a s t a t e m e n t such as " r e c o g n i z e t h a t y o u yourself are H e a v e n " is that here it is d i r e c t e d t o w a r d a n a u d i e n c e o f m e r chants, artisans, a n d farmers. T h e s t a t e m e n t p r o m i s e d t h a t at least in the r e a l m o f religion they c o u l d be masters o f their o w n fate. T h e p r o b l e m s o f a n x i e t y a n d fear of d e a t h that beset t h e m c o u l d b e solved, b e c a u s e in the perspective o f e n l i g h t e n m e n t there is n o self to be t h r e a t e n e d b y hostile forces, a n d at d e a t h one departs forever f r o m samsara a n d all its ills. T o represent the third t y p e ofpao-chiian, I will discuss the v a l u e s of the Ku Fo T'ien-chen k'ao-cheng Lung-h.ua pao-ching [ T h e D r a g o n F l o w e r precious scripture, verified b y the O l d B u d d h a T ' i e n - c h e n ] , 1654, w h i c h S a w a d a M i z u h o calls the "Lotus Sütra o f heretical t e x t s . " 2 8 T h i s Lung-hua ching is one o f the most i m p o r tant sectarian scriptures o f the s e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y , a n d later writings d e r i v e d from it v o c a b u l a r y a n d m y t h o l o g i c a l themes. L a t e M i n g texts represent a n e w a n d i n n o v a t i v e stage ofpao-chiian d e v e l o p m e n t , w i t h a n e w m y t h o l o g i c a l f r a m e w o r k . A s I h a v e discussed before, the belief system o f these books centers on W u sheng l a o - m u , the E t e r n a l V e n e r a b l e M o t h e r , a n d her c h i l d r e n Fu-hsi a n d N ü k u a , whose u n i o n p r o d u c e s m a n k i n d . A t first, h u m a n beings lived in a p a r a d i s a l condition, b u t they g r a d u a l l y fell f r o m g r a c e , so that n o w all b u t a few are " s c a t t e r e d a n d l o s t . " T h i s " f a l l " is c o n c e i v e d o f spatially as well: the o r i g i n a l a n d true h o m e o f m e n a n d w o m e n is the E t e r n a l M o t h e r ' s p a r a d i s e in the W est, but n o w they live in the " E a s t e r n L a n d , " the " r e d d u s t " w o r l d of samsara, d e v o t e d to a v a r i c e a n d lust, forgetful o f their true n a t u r e . W u - s h e n g l a o - m u in her compassion w e e p s for her c h i l d r e n , a n d sends d o w n g o d s a n d b o d h i s a t t v a s to rescue them. T h e c h i e f m e a n s o f this s a v i n g message is the pao-chiian, w h i c h r e m i n d m e n a n d w o m e n of their true o r i g i n , a n d p r o v i d e the d e v o t i o n a l a n d ritual m e a n s to return to their " r e a l h o m e " (chia-hsiang). In this m y t h o l o g i c a l c o n t e x t , the pao-chüan call u p o n those w h o h e a r t h e m to believe, a n d b e c o m e m e m b e r s o f the sects to w h i c h the texts are related. F o r this some o f t h e m p r o v i d e m e m b e r s h i p rituals, stories t h a t tell o f sect f o u n d e r s w h o are a m o n g the Eternal M o t h e r ' s messengers, a n d assurances that at d e a t h those w i t h the p r o p e r talismans will be w e l c o m e d in H e a v e n . T h i s is all g i v e n m o r e i m m e d i a t e social r e l e v a n c e b y the c o n n e c t i o n m a d e in some of these texts b e t w e e n the E t e r n a l M o t h e r a n d M a i t r e y a , the f u t u r e B u d d h a , w h o is described as one o f her e n v o y s . M a i t r e y a is in turn related to a three-stage cosmic time scheme o f B u d d h i s t origin in w h i c h the p o w e r o f the B u d d h a ' s t e a c h i n g progressively declines. In sectarian m y t h o l o g y , the last period o f the " d e c a y o f the d h a r m a " is i m m i n e n t o r a l r e a d y u p o n us, a n d j u s t at this time M a i t r e y a will a p p e a r , b r i n g i n g w i t h h i m the promise o f a n e w w o r l d . A s w a s true in o r t h o d o x I n d i a n B u d d h i s t texts, M a i t r e y a ' s arrival is i n t i m a t e l y

28Sawada

Mizuho í f f f l J S S . Kocku haja shoben

fé&j&JjWif

[ " A detailed refutation of

heresies," with corrections and commentaries] (Tokyo: D o k y ó k a n k ó k a i j B t f c f U Í T z f , 1972), p. 164.

238

DANIEL L. O V E R M Y E R

associated with the reign of a world emperor. Some Chinese popular sects identified their founder or leaders with both Maitreya and the new emperor, and rose up in the name of this potent combination of beliefs. Sect members were promised comfort, wealth, and office in the new world, if they would but give their allegiance and support now. Thus, adherence to the Eternal Mother cult could offer both individual and communal hope, either at death or in one's own lifetime. All of this is presented in a Buddhist framework, and with much Buddhist terminology, but in relation to the thought of earlier pao-chiian an important transposition has taken place. Deities from Chinese popular religion are mentioned in early texts such as the Hsiang-shan pao-chiian, but always in a minor and supporting role that reminds one of the role of Indian gods in the Pali suttas. In the Hsiang-shan text Buddhist concepts, Buddhas and bodhisattvas are dominant throughout; Shang-ti, the supreme deity, orders gods and animals to aid Miao-shan in the nunnery or manifests himself as an old man to show her the way to Fragrant Mountain, but all of this is to assist a thoroughly Buddhist figure on her way to enlightenment. In the Lo chiao texts, popular deities are mentioned as well, but always in a subsidiary position. In fact, direct appeal to them to meet immediate needs is condemned as heretical. In the late Ming pao-chiian, this relationship between Buddhism and popular religion is reversed, for here it is deities of popular origin that are dominant, particulary Wu-sheng lao-mu. It is she who orders bodhisattvas to descend to the world with her message of deliverance; her paradise in the K'un-lun mountains has absorbed many of the characteristics of Amitabha's Pure Land; chanting her mantra, chen-k'ung chia-hsiang wu-sheng fu-mu ("Eternal Progenitor in our real home in the realm of true emptiness") has to a large extent replaced reciting Amitabha's name. In addition, there are references in these and other sources to sectarian practices of meditation, charm writing, and magic, all of popular Taoist origin. 2 9 T h e earliest dateable text known to me that discusses this mythology is the Huang-chi chin-tan chiu-lien cheng-hsin kuei-chen huan-hsiangpao-chiian [Precious book of the golden elixir and nine lotuses of the imperial ultimate (which leads to) rectifying belief, taking refuge in the real and returning to the native place]. In the summer of 1981, I found a copy of this text in Peking that was printed in 1523. (See the comments on it by Susan Naquin in this volume). A detailed study of this book must wait for a later time, and in any case, the Lung-hua ching describes the Eternal Mother mythology in more detail. T h e Lung-hua ching is ascribed to a sect leader named K u n g Ch'ang, who is understood to be a reincarnation of the Old Buddha, T'ien-chen, in turn a transformation of the Venerable Patriarch Chen-wu, the Buddha of Measureless Life (Wu-liang shou Fo), and Amitabha himself. K u n g Ch'ang 29

Overmyer, "Pao-chiian," pp. 26-27.

V A L U E S IN M I N G A N D C H ' I N G

PAO-CHOAN

239

lived in central Hopei Province, in Ts'ao-ch'iao kuan of modern Kao-yang County. Through careful investigation, S a w a d a Mizuho has determined that K u n g Ch'ang founded a sect called the Yuan-tun chiao (Religion of complete and instantaneous enlightenment) in 1624, after receiving instruction from Wang Sen (d. 1619) ofShih-fo k'ou in Hopei, the leader of the Ta-ch'eng chiao (Mahayana sect). These were both sects of the " S u t r a recitation" type discussed by Susan Naquin in chapter 9. In the following years, K u n g Ch'ang traveled about preaching and gathering disciples, so that by the mid-1630s his sect was well established. During his travels, he collected various religious books, on the basis of which he began to write a scripture for his own sect in 1641. This task was completed by his disciples, who published the Lung-hua ching in 1654. S a w a d a traces this book back in part to a ritual penance text, the Ku Fo T'ien-chen shou-yuan chieh-kuo Lung-hua pao-ch'an [The Dragon-flower precious penance, the results of restoring wholeness by the Old Buddha T'ien-chen], which was offered to the throne by a Buddhist monk in 1 5 9 9 . 3 0 I have earlier discussed the lengthy extracts from this text included by Huang Yii-p'ien (fl. 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 4 0 ) in his P'o-hsieh hsiang-pien [A detailed refutation of heresies], 1834. M y comments here are based on a Japanese description and translation by Sawada Mizuho, who has two copies of the Lung-hua ching, reprinted in 1 9 1 7 and 1929. 3 1 T h e Lung-hua ching is in four chuan with twenty-four p'in (sections). It is composed in a combination of prose and seven- and ten-character verse, and includes a number of invocations for inviting the gods, purifying the mind and body, and so on. An introduction to the text reads in part, T h e U n b o r n [Mother] says, " T h i s Lung-hua pao-chiian is from the time when creative chaos was first divided, before the beginning of things, when the O l d B u d d h a T'ien-chen opened u p the precious storehouse of the native place [paradise], took out this Lung-hua true scripture a n d transmitted it to later generations to save both men and gods. [Thus he sought] to recover all the ninety-six myriads of the children of the imperial w o m b , that they might return home, recognize the patriarchs (tsu), penetrate to the origin, return to the source and attain eternal life." (p. 168)

The basic mythological framework of the text is as described above. Section one, "Hun-tun ch'u-fen" [Creative chaos first divided], describes how the Old Buddha of the Limitless T'ien-chen first appeared by transformation within creative chaos to establish Heaven and earth. Before the beginning there was no Heaven and earth; no sun or moon; no above, below, or four directions; and no seasons. Then, in an obscure and mysterious way, pure and impure were distinguished, and in a period of 5048 years the true vital force of the prior realm was made complete. With a slight movement, an apex (chi: focal point of order) 30 3l

Sawada, Kochu, pp. 1 9 2 - 2 1 2 . Overmyer, Folk Buddhist Religion, pp. 1 3 5 - 1 3 8 : Sawada, Kochu, pp. 164-218.

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DANIEL L. O V E R M Y E R

w a s b o r n as if in a n e g g ; v i t a l f o r c e w a s g a t h e r e d t o g e t h e r a n d its f o r m s w e r e completed. F r o m within true emptiness, a shaft of brilliant light burned forth, a n d w i t h i n this l i g h t a g o l d e n b o d y a p p e a r e d . It w a s t h e O l d B u d d h a o f t h e Limitless T'ien-chen. F o r m i n g an interwoven precious network with inexh a u s t i b l e t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s , h e skillfully e s t a b l i s h e d t h e e a r t h a n d t h e u n i v e r s e (p. 1 6 9 ) . A v e r s e at the e n d o f this s e c t i o n r e a d s , The Old an apex was were joined throughout,

Buddha T'ien-chen divided the chaotic origin. From within an egg produced which transformed the prior realm. Mountains and water together; the light was glistening and pure. O n e vital force flowed and the myriad phenomena became manifest, (p. 170)

T h i s c r e a t i o n a c c o u n t is c o n t i n u e d in s e c t i o n t w o , w h e r e " T r u e E m p t i n e s s " ('Chen-k'ung)

is e q u a t e d w i t h " t h e U n b o r n " (Wu-sheng). T h i s W u - s h e n g as a

m o t h e r g a v e b i r t h to a s o n a n d d a u g h t e r , y a n g a n d j z ' n . T h e y w e r e L i F u - h s i a n d C h a n g N i i - k u a , the ancestors of m a n k i n d . T h e O l d B u d d h a T ' i e n - c h e n i n v i t e d W u - s h e n g l a o - m u , w h o w a s in t h e T u s h i t a p a l a c e o f t h e G r e a t I m p e r i a l H e a v e n (a r e f e r e n c e to t h e p a r a d i s e o f M a i t r e y a ) , to talk w i t h h i m , a n d t h e y a r r a n g e d t h e m a r r i a g e o f N i i - k u a a n d Fu-hsi. I n t h e i r m a r r i a g e , y a n g a n d j z r c w e r e i n c a r n a t e d as a m a n a n d w o m a n . T h e w o m a n b e c a m e p r e g n a n t , a n d g a v e b i r t h to n i n e t y - s i x m y r i a d s o f c h i l d r e n o f t h e i m p e r i a l w o m b . W u - s h e n g l a o - m u o r d e r e d these n u m b e r l e s s c h i l d r e n to l i v e in t h e E a s t e r n L a n d (the e a r t h ) : T h e children, receiving the Venerable Mother's decree, went to the Eastern L a n d , wearing precious gems and crowned with brilliant light. Since they possessed their original divine nature, they freely travelled about [between heaven and earth?] and did not dwell in a fixed p l a c e . . . . Later the Venerable Mother took the light from their heads, withdrew the five colors from their bodies and removed the two wheels from under their feet, and decided that the children would remain in the Eastern L a n d . Wu-sheng lao-mu in the Native Place looked out on her children, and commanded them saying, " Y o u have gone to the Eastern L a n d , and act in a negligent w a y day and night; if you think of your parents, return immediately to Ling-shan of the Native Place a n d receive blessing in front of the O l d B u d d h a . " However, one day the children in the Eastern Land, confused in this dusty world, attached to wine, sex, wealth and material things, forgot their original divine nature, and until today are still drowned in the sufferings of samsara. [Lao-mu] looking on this from afar was unbearably grieved, and called on the people of the origin to awaken. She sent them a letter, calling the children of the Eastern L a n d to return, to meet together in their Dragon Flower assemblies at their home, to restore the original number of ninety [sic] myriads, (p. 170) W u - s h e n g l a o - m u a s s e m b l e d all t h e g o d s a n d B u d d h a s to d e c i d e w h o w o u l d d e s c e n d to e a r t h w i t h h e r m e s s a g e o f d e l i v e r a n c e . T h e O l d B u d d h a T ' i e n - c h e n

VALUES IN MING AND CH'ING PAO-CHÛAN

241

w a s chosen, a n d w a s reborn as K u n g C h ' a n g (pp. 1 7 0 - 1 7 1 ) . O t h e r deities w e r e sent down as well, f o r the time w a s late, a n d the end of this c o r r u p t a g e w a s soon to come. A s w e r e a d in section eighteen, " T h e people of the last a g e "

[Mo-chieh

chung-sheng]: One day the Venerable Patriarch K u n g Ch'ang was quietly sitting on his meditation bed, and entered samadhi. Manifesting his "emptiness body," he went to the Tushita Palace of the Native Place, where he had an audience with Wu-sheng laomu. Lao-mu asked K u n g Ch'ang, " I n the lower world there are omens of coming natural disasters. Are you familiar with them?" K u n g Ch'ang replied that he was not. Lao-mu said, " I n the chia-tzu year of the lower yuan period, disasters will arrive; in the hsin-chi year there will be famine, drought and floods. The people of Shantung will starve to death while they eat each other; husbands and wives will not look after each other, and fathers and sons will be divided. When they move to northern Chihli, they will again meet with famine and die." K u n g Ch'ang asked Lao-mu, "When will it become easier to live?" The Mother replied, " I n the jen-wu year things will be a little better, but again calamities will occur, mountains will shake, the earth will move, the Yellow River will overflow and people will drown. There will be a plague of grasshoppers, a dark rain will fall continually, houses will collapse, and there will be no place to dwell. These disasters of the last age, formed by bad karma accumulated for 500 years, are deserved and brought by people on themselves, so there is no way of escape. In the kuei-wei year there will be an epidemic." K u n g Ch'ang asked, "What should one do to be saved from these disasters?" The Mother said, " F o r people who sincerely believe there will be no calamities; for those who cultivate the Way, there will be no difficulties." (p. 183) T h e text goes on to describe spirits w h o protect the " i m p e r i a l c h i l d r e n , " a n d provides invocations a n d meditation exercises for w a r d i n g oiTdanger. It is m a d e clear that o n l y those w h o a d h e r e to the teachings of this text will be saved f r o m the catastrophes m a r k i n g the end of the era. T h e Lung-hua ching thus promises aid in this life as well as salvation a f t e r d e a t h t h r o u g h re-uniting with the V e n e r a b l e M o t h e r in paradise. F i v e (sic) " D r a g o n F l o w e r assemblies" are promised in this text, great eschatological reunions of gods a n d m e n , m o d e l e d on assemblies of the B u d d h a M a i t r e y a . A t e a c h of these meetings some of the M o t h e r ' s children return h o m e (pp. 1 6 8 , 1 8 5 - 1 8 6 ) . H e r e a g a i n , then, the basic v a l u e is religious salvation, a n e w f o r m of life after d e a t h , described in m y t h o l o g i c a l terms a n d a c c o m p a n i e d by promises of relief from present dangers. T h o u g h Lung-hua ching m y t h o l o g y is not in a c c o r d with orthodox beliefs, its ethical teachings a r e a c o m b i n a t i o n of c o n v e n t i o n a l Buddhist a n d C o n f u c i a n principles. T h e s e teachings a r e to a l a r g e extent presented in a n e g a t i v e w a y , by listing evils to a v o i d . W e h a v e seen a b o v e that a t t a c h m e n t to w i n e , sex, w e a l t h , a n d m a t e r i a l things brings disasters, a n d that one aspect of the calamities to c o m e will be alienation of f a m i l y m e m b e r s . O t h e r

242

D A N I E L L. O V E R M Y E R

causes for celestial punishment include ingratitude for kindness, wasting food, cutting up silk gauze, failing to reverence Buddhism, destroying images of gods and Buddhas, being unfilial, not living in harmony with relatives, and despising the good (p. 187). During K u n g Ch'ang's quest for enlightenment he saw that, "the people of the world were given to sexual indulgence and competing for fame and profit, and he sighed because they had lost their true nature" (p. 1 7 1 ) . At a more positive level, the ethical values of this text are presented through the image of Ju-t'ung Fo, the "learned youth B u d d h a , " who rides around on horseback preaching Buddhism. This J u - t ' u n g Buddha is a reincarnation of Confucius. In the context of advocating the harmony of the Three Teachings, our text has the following to say about this interesting figure: When the S a g e [Confucius] established his teaching, he proclaimed the W a y while travelling about on horseback. L a t e r , the B u d d h a J u - t ' u n g appeared in the world; he was a manifestation of the S a g e w h o travelled about on horseback to preach the W a y . G o i n g round to all the states he converted the ignorant, and was considered a worthy. H e called on the people of the world to maintain a vegetarian diet and recite the B u d d h a ' s name, to reform evil and turn toward the good. H o w e v e r , it was the last age, and people's minds were evil and deceitful, with all sorts of artifices; there was not one good m a n in a hundred. So, the gods of heaven became a n g r y , and sent down the three calamities and eight forms of distress; sentient beings were treated cruelly but did not awaken. N o w the last age draws closer and closer, a n d peoples' lives are in danger. A s the V e n e r a b l e O l d B u d d h a could not bear this, he sent down the B u d d h a J u - t ' u n g to descend to the world, to save all people and reform their formerly wicked minds. T h u s , for the first time the w i n d and rain were harmonious, the nation prosperous, and the people secure, waiting only for the B u d d h a to come to restore wholeness. T h e various schools a n d sects go to the D r a g o n - f l o w e r assembly, and the [teachings of the (?)] patriarchs and teachers of each sect can also be gathered together in the Lung-h.ua book. (p. 1 8 4 ) 3 2

This section continues by saying that Lao-chun (Lao-tzu) saves Taoist immortals and priests, Sakyamuni, monks and nuns, and Confucius, lay households. Confucius is assisted in the task of salvation by seventy-two followers, including Tzu-lu, Yen-hui, Tseng-tzu, and Meng-tzu (p. 185). From this material we can see that the chief implicit value of this text is the restoration oflost unity, in particular the unity of the family ofhumankind. It is 32 T h e sectarians did not invent this image of Confucius as an itinerant Buddhist preacher. In the Hai-lu sui-shih preface dated 1149, by Yeh T'ing-kuei S t f t i j ; , there is a reference to a Ju-t'ung p'u-sa fffirSlf f § (bodhisattva) in a quote from the Ch'ing-ching fa-hsing ching fp&fe ff® , a Chinese Buddhist text now lost. In this passage we are told that the Buddha sent three disciples to China to preach. The first was the "Ju-t'ung Bodhisattva, otherwise known as K'ung Ch'iu" - J L i i , the second Yen Hui H @ (an historical disciple of Confucius), and the third Lao-tzu ^ ^ . The Ch'ing-ching text is not dated here, but was clearly in existence by the twelfth century. This reference is in chilan 13, first section, pp. 1 7 7 0 - 1 7 7 1 in vol. 3 of a Taipei, 1969 reprint of a 1598 edition of the Hai-lu.

VALUES IN MING AND CH'ING

PAO-CHÛAN

243

a promise of collective paradise a n d i m m o r t a l i t y in which the sufferings of this life no longer occur. T h e fourth type of pao-chiian is characterized by long a n d complex stories illustrating karmic retribution a n d the v a l u e of religious living. I have thirtyone such texts, all reprinted in the early R e p u b l i c a n period. Except for the Ho Hsien-ku pao-chiian, which opens with an invocation to Taoist immortals, these texts all begin by invoking the presence of B u d d h a s a n d bodhisattvas a n d promising to the pious blessings a n d long life. All those that are complete end either with a s u m m a r y of the moral lessons of the story or with assurances of salvation in A m i t a b h a ' s paradise. T h e endings of several include both. T h e s e books are all composed with the familiar alternation of verse a n d prose sections, with the verse in r h y m i n g seven-character lines. T h o u g h they m a y employ some terms derived from sectarian mythology, these story pao-chiian do not a p p e a r to be sectarian in origin or content, b u t r a t h e r are vehicles of m o r e generalized morality a n d piety, published for profit by religious book houses, as is discussed above. T h e stories in all b u t four of these texts involve the families of g o v e r n m e n t officials, usually of high rank, or those of wealthy merchants. T h e tales are set in the distant past, usually the T ' a n g , S u n g , or M i n g dynasties, t h o u g h one purports to go all the way back to the H a n . For the most p a r t , the characters are located in time a n d space, though in a stereotyped a n d obviously fictional style. Seventeen of these books begin with basically the same story line, t h a t of a wealthy a n d pious official (or m e r c h a n t ) a n d his wife, w h o have everything they w a n t except a child. T h e y proceed to beseech the gods a n d B u d d h a s for a child, through both ritual offerings a n d acts of benevolence. Eventually, as a r e w a r d for their faithfulness, the wife, usually beyond n o r m a l child-bearing age, is miraculously m a d e p r e g n a n t . T h e resulting child, usually a boy, turns out to be a model of intelligence a n d responsibility w h o cares for his parents t h r o u g h becoming a high official. An alternative p a t t e r n is for a girl child to become a Buddhist n u n who in the end leads her parents to salvation. In some cases the child is in fact the incarnation of a deity or bodhisattva. T h e r e can be m a n y obstacles on the p a t h to success, but these stories all have h a p p y endings. T h e y are intended to illustrate that goodness brings its own r e w a r d . O f the remaining fourteen texts, three deal with family situations in which there is only one son or d a u g h t e r . H e r e the initial problem is to find a p r o p e r wife or h u s b a n d . A n o t h e r three stories describe the struggles of o r p h a n s to survive, succeed, a n d continue the family line. O t h e r m a i n characters include a ten-year-old o r p h a n girl, the slave of a wealthy family, an old m a n w h o wishes to leave the household life to become a m o n k , a n d a crown prince in hiding whose rightful place has been u s u r p e d by the son of a rival concubine. T h u s , twenty-six of the thirty-one tales a r e concerned with family life a n d its preservation. Female protagonists form a significant minority. T h e ethical perspective of these books can be illustrated by passages from

DANIEL L. O V E R M Y E R

244

t w o o f t h e m . First, let us l o o k a t a c l o s i n g s u m m a r y a n d e x h o r t a t i o n (ch'uan-shih wen) f r o m t h e Chin Pu-huan pao-chiiam " T h e C h i n f a m i l y w e r e o l d a n d h a d n o sons; f o r t u n a t e l y t h e y d i d m a n y g o o d d e e d s , [ a n d ] to c o n s t a n t l y d o g o o d is to s a v e o n e ' s l i f e . . . . H e a v e n d o e s n o t t u r n its b a c k o n g o o d p e o p l e , a n d g a v e t h e m a son to c o n t i n u e t h e f a m i l y line. T h e y h a d this son w h e n t h e y w e r e fifty y e a r s old." T h e n f o l l o w s a list o f m o r a l e x h o r t a t i o n s to t e n t y p e s o f p e o p l e ,

each

i l l u s t r a t e d b y a c h a r a c t e r in t h e s t o r y . 1.

Officials: " b r i n g about good order for all the people; do not covet wealth, or injure others."

2.

T h e wealthy: " a i d the p o o r , " remembering that the "spirits are three feet above your heads" [and watching what you do].

3.

Scholars: "study industriously; there are rooms of gold in books; don't worry about being poor. If you study with all your might for ten years w h y fear that your name will not appear on the notice board [with the names of those w h o have passed the civil service examinations]? Look at the son of the Y a n g family [in the story] w h o gained great merit and a position at court."

4.

Merchants: " b e fair in business transactions, and you will become rich. Just devote yourself to your business; doing good does it no h a r m . "

5.

Y o u n g people: " b e filial and obedient to your parents. Filial children always obtain a good r e w a r d . "

6.

O l d wives: "if you have children, you must teach them the correct principles of behavior, and must not allow them to idly roam around." Y o u n g wives: "record in your hearts the 'three obediences' [to father, husband, and son] and the 'four womanly virtues' [right behavior, proper speech, proper demeanor, proper employment]. Be obedient to your parents and in-laws; you also want to become a mother-in-law. If your husband doesn't act properly, you should urge him [to change his ways]." Unmarried daughters: "read the Classic of Female Sages (Nii-sheng ching); obey your parents, study needlework, never go outside to stand in front of the gate. Look at the girl in the story w h o followed these precepts and married the son of the Y a n g family." T h e licentious: "never reap any good rewards, but just sorely harm their bodies and minds." [Here the example is given of an evil man in the story who goes to purgatory.] Those who go out to work in the world [lit. " g o out the gate"]: " t o seek

7.

8.

9.

10.

wealth, profit and fame; they just bring calamity on themselves." T h e s p e c i f i c m o r a l a c t s t h a t b r i n g r e w a r d s a r e c o n v e n i e n t l y listed o n t h e first p a g e o f the Lan-ying pao-chiian. T h e y a r e to • print morality books (shan-shu) to exhort the multitudes; • collect paper with writing on it; • respect the five grains; • repair bridges and roads; • provide vegetarian food for Buddhist monks; • repair temples;

V A L U E S IN M I N G A N D C H ' I N G

• • • • • •

PAO-CHÛAN

H5

give money to the poor; buy and release living creatures in the spring; provide cold tea for travelers in the s u m m e r ; provide aid for o r p h a n souls in the a u t u m n ; give w a d d e d clothing in the winter, thus forming good k a r m a ; maintain a vegetarian diet a n d diligently recite the B u d d h a ' s n a m e ;

• concentrate with one's whole m i n d on a t t a i n i n g B u d d h a h o o d or i m m o r t a l i t y . 3 3 A discussion of similar values m a y be f o u n d in J u d i t h Berling's contribution to this v o l u m e (chapter 7). W e see here a c o m b i n a t i o n of traditional Chinese values with those of popular B u d d h i s m , so that aid for the living a n d dead not only expresses compassion, but brings s a v i n g merit to the donor as well. M o s t of these injunctions are self-explanatory, but perhaps one should add that releasing living creatures is an old Buddhist practice for d e m o n s t r a t i n g nonviolence a n d g a i n i n g g o o d k a r m a . O r p h a n souls in p u r g a t o r y h a v e no living families to look after them, so ritual offerings on their b e h a l f show compassion, relieve their sufferings, a n d encourage them not to bother the living. M a i n t a i n i n g

a

vegetarian diet has, of course, been a B u d d h i s t ideal from the beginning as a symbol of nonviolence, a sign of dedication, a n d a means o f g a i n i n g merit. T h e sense of moral causation in B u d d h i s m gives coherence a n d direction to ethical actions, so that they benefit both giver a n d receiver. T h i s c o m b i n a t i o n of values no d o u b t g a v e the pao-chuan a wider a p p e a l . T h e text I h a v e chosen as an e x a m p l e o f this type of story text is the Hui-t'u Liu Hsiang pao-chuan [The Liu H s i a n g pao-chuan, illustrated], for w h i c h the full title is T'ai-hua shan Tzu-chin chen liang-shih hsiu-hsing Liu Hsiang pao-chuan ch 'iian chi [A complete edition of the L i u H s i a n g pao-chuan of T z u - c h i n town o f M t . T ' a i - h u a , (which deals with) two lifetimes of spiritual discipline], two chtian, reprinted in S h a n g h a i , 1930. C h o u T s o - j e n describes an edition printed in 1870 for w h i c h the printing blocks w e r e preserved in the S h a n g h a i

city-god

t e m p l e . 3 4 T h e summary and excerpts he presents are in accord with the 1930 text. Li Shih-yii lists twenty-one editions of this book, published from 1 7 7 4 to 1930 or later, all but the first d a t i n g from the nineteenth a n d twentieth centuries. 3 5 G l e n D u d b r i d g e discusses it under the title " A charter for celi b a c y , " as part of a " w h o l e class o f pao-chuan [which explore the fate o f ] pious w o m e n at odds with their secular d e s t i n y . " H e suggests that such books were closely related to small communities "specially dedicated to the m a i n t e n a n c e and welfare of w o m e n pursuing a life of celibacy a n d v e g e t a r i a n i s m , " 3 6 as I discuss in more detail below. Professor D u d b r i d g e also understands L i u H s i a n g

" O v e r m y e r , "Pao-chuan," 34

pp. 3 2 - 3 4 .

C h o u Tso-jen ffl f p A . Kua-tou chi J K s ^ ( K o w l o o n : S h i h - y u n g shu-chu J f f f l l i l l . '9^9;

first published in 1937), p. 45. 35Li 36

Shih-yii, Pao-chiian, pp. 2 7 - 2 8 .

D u d b r i d g e , Miao-shan, pp. 8 5 - 8 9 . C e l i b a c y in Buddhism is a symbol of high dedication to

cutting off the sensual desires that bind one to the wheel o f rebirth.

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246

n i i , t h e h e r o i n e o f o u r t e x t , a s p a r t o f t h e t r a d i t i o n o f s u c h figures i n i t i a t e d b y t h e story of M i a o - s h a n , w h i c h

is i n t r o d u c e d

H e n c e , t h o u g h t h e Lui Hsiang pao-chiian l i t e r a r y pao-chiian

that b e c a m e

n e a r t h e b e g i n n i n g o f this

essay.

is c e r t a i n l y r e p r e s e n t a t i v e o f t h e t y p e o f

m o r e p o p u l a r in the nineteenth

century,

it

derives from an earlier tradition a n d m a y h a v e h a d connections with sectarian groups composed of w o m e n . T h e b o o k o p e n s w i t h a p r o m i s e o f t h e b l e s s i n g s t h a t flow f r o m l i s t e n i n g t o it: "When

t h e Liu

Hsiang

pao-chiian

is f i r s t o p e n e d ,

the various

Buddhas

and

b o d h i s a t t v a s all d e s c e n d a n d d r a w n e a r , a n d as pious m e n a n d w o m e n e v e r y w h e r e listen sincerely, their blessings a n d life s p a n a r e i n c r e a s e d , a n d c a l a m i t i e s dissipated." T h e story begins as follows: It is g e n e r a l l y k n o w n t h a t the Liu Hsiang pao-chiian first a p p e a r e d in the S h a o - y u a n reign p e r i o d o f the S u n g e m p e r o r C h e n - t s u n g (r. 9 9 8 - 1 0 2 3 ) . 3 7 I n T z u - c h i n t o w n o f M t . T ' a i - h u a in S h a n t u n g there w a s a m a n n a m e d L i u K u a n g w h o f r o m birth w a s c o r r e c t a n d u p r i g h t , w i t h his m i n d a n d n a t u r e fair a n d j u s t . H i s ancestors f r o m o f old w e r e a f a m i l y o f l o y a l a n d g e n e r o u s g o o d persons, w h o p r o v i d e d v e g e t a r i a n feasts for m o n k s a n d b e s t o w e d alms. In m o r e r e c e n t times, b e c a u s e o f p o v e r t y L i u K u a n g ' s f a m i l y . . . h a d o p e n e d a r e s t a u r a n t , for w h i c h t h e y b u t c h ered pigs a n d served w i n e . It w a s a business in w h i c h t h e y did evil at e v e r y turn. L i u ' s wife w a s a v e r y g e n e r o u s a n d k i n d w o m a n o f the H s u f a m i l y , g o o d a n d c o m p a s s i o n a t e . T h e t w o o f t h e m lived t o g e t h e r in h a r m o n y a n d afTection, [yet] t h o u g h they w e r e close to f o r t y , t h e y h a d n o c h i l d r e n . F o r t u n a t e l y a n a u s p i c i o u s star d r e w n i g h , a n d [Liu's] wife b e c a m e p r e g n a n t . In n o t i m e ten m o n t h s passed, a n d she g a v e birth to a girl. A t the time o f the b a b y ' s b i r t h t h e r e w e r e m a n y a u s p i c i o u s p h e n o m e n a , w h i l e music a n d a s t r a n g e f r a g r a n c e filled the r o o m . . . . H e r face w a s like the full m o o n , h e r a p p e a r a n c e w a s d i g n i f i e d , a n d her p a r e n t s w e r e v e r y h a p p y . T h e y n a m e d her H s i a n g nii ( F r a g r a n c e ) . *

*

*

By the time H s i a n g nii w a s six o r seven y e a r s old she u n d e r s t o o d the n e e d to m a i n t a i n a v e g e t a r i a n diet. S h e w a s filial a n d o b e d i e n t to her p a r e n t s , w h o l o v e d h e r as m u c h as if she w e r e a p r e c i o u s j e w e l . T i m e passed q u i c k l y ; soon she w a s ten sui old, g o o d , g e n e r o u s , m o d e s t , p e a c e f u l , h u m a n e , a n d filial, not lustful or a v a r i c i o u s . W i t h a c o m p a s s i o n a t e m i n d she recited the B u d d h a ' s n a m e . N e a r her h o m e there w a s a c o n v e n t for n u n s c a l l e d the F u - t ' i e n a n . In this c o n v e n t there w a s a n o l d n u n w h o s e religious n a m e w a s C h e n - k ' u n g ,

who

m e d i t a t e d e v e r y d a y . S h e h a d c u l t i v a t e d her m i n d a n d r e a l i z e d the W a y . O n the first a n d fifteenth o f the m o n t h she p r e a c h e d a b o u t B u d d h i s t d h a r m a a n d k a r m a , to c o n v e r t m e n a n d w o m e n . M a n y c a m e to h e a r h e r a n d all w h o d i d p r a i s e d a n d r e v e r e n c e d her, a n d w e r e c o n v i n c e d . 37

There was no Shao-yuan reign period in the Sung dynasty, so this date reference is either in

error or deliberately fictional.

VALUES IN MING AND CH'ING PAO-CHUAN

247

O n e day while sitting in the shop, Fragrance saw a large number of men and women going by carrying incense and candles. She asked her parents where these old gentlemen and ladies were going, and her father replied that they were going to the Fu-t'ien convent to hear the old nun preach. (chiian i, p. ia)

F r a g r a n c e prevails on her mother to take her to the c o n v e n t , w h e r e they hear a powerful sermon a b o u t karmic m o r a l i t y , salvation, a n d the toils of w o m a n hood. T h e girl is deeply impressed, a n d u p o n returning h o m e convinces her father to b e c o m e a pious Buddhist, give u p b u t c h e r i n g , a n d open a vegetarian restaurant. T h i s new enterprise prospers, time passes, a n d soon F r a g r a n c e is fifteen. N o w , in the town there is a rich a n d p o w e r f u l m a n n a m e d M a Hsin, w h o has three sons. H e is not a Buddhist, a n d likes to kill things. O n e d a y M a a n d his sons stop at the restaurant after a h u n t i n g trip, a n d M a is impressed by Fragrance's b e a u t y . H e asks that she be betrothed to his youngest son, M a Y i i , a n d w i t h o u t thinking, M r . Liu agrees. A l m o s t a year later M a Hsin sends a g o - b e t w e e n to d r a w u p a m a r r i a g e contract. H o w e v e r , F r a g r a n c e refuses the gifts she brings, a n d asks that M a Y i i c o m e in person. T h i s he does, a n d she says that she will m a r r y him if he agrees to ten moral conditions (described b e l o w ) . H e is a g o o d m a n , a n d assents. Soon afterwards, H s i a n g nil's parents die of illness, a n d after a period of m o u r n i n g she marries M a Y i i . Problems begin as soon as she moves into the M a household: her two sisters-in-law are j e a l o u s of the attention she receives a n d persistently slander her to their m o t h e r - i n - l a w , w h o is nasty but bides her time. F r a g r a n c e asks her h u s b a n d w h a t he does with his time, a n d sharply criticizes him w h e n he replies that he is s t u d y i n g for the civil service examinations. She says, " W h a t ' s the use of r e a d i n g books? . . . It's better to study the W a y ; profit lies therein. T o be an official for one life is to gain enemies for 10,000 lifetimes. I am pointing out to y o u the p a t h to the W e s t e r n L a n d . I urge you, husband, to take the earliest opportunity to practice spiritual discipline" (chiian 1, p. 8b). W h e n this conversation is reported to M a Y i i ' s m o t h e r she is enraged, a n d orders her son off to school, forbidden to see his wife. H e sadly takes leave of F r a g r a n c e , w h o says he should obey his m o t h e r , a n d thinks to herself that it is a p p r o p r i a t e for the h u s b a n d to study while the wife recites the B u d d h a ' s name. W i t h M a Y i i gone, his mother s u m m o n s F r a g r a n c e , berates her, a n d orders her henceforth to work in the kitchen. W h e n she refuses to cook g a m e , she is put to tending the stove; this she does, c h a n t i n g Buddhist tunes all the while. ( T h e song texts are provided.) F r a g r a n c e is twice beaten senseless b y her mother-in-law for singing a n d h a v i n g a religious influence on the other servants. She is then banished to work in a v e g e t a b l e g a r d e n , b u t is beaten a g a i n for h i d i n g a r a b b i t from the two older brothers, w h o were h u n t i n g it. N e x t , she is transferred to live with the family of

248

DANIEL L. O V E R M Y E R

the c l a n g r a v e k e e p e r , b u t t h r o u g h it all b e c o m e s e v e n m o r e d e v o u t .

The

g r a v e k e e p e r a n d his w i f e a r e s o o n c o n v e r t e d a n d t a k e h e r as t h e i r r e l i g i o u s t e a c h e r , j u s t as a k i t c h e n m a i d h a d d o n e e a r l i e r . I n the m e a n t i m e M a Y i i h a s b e e n s t u d y i n g d i l i g e n t l y a n d h a s a t t a i n e d t h e hsiu-ts'ai a n d chii-jen d e g r e e s . E a c h t i m e h e r e t u r n s h o m e , b u t is d e n i e d p e r m i s sion to see his w i f e . F i n a l l y h e takes h i g h e s t h o n o r s at the p a l a c e e x a m i n a t i o n , a n d is a p p o i n t e d p r e f e c t o f C h ' a o - c h o u P r e f e c t u r e i n K w a n g t u n g . T h e M a f a m i l y r e j o i c e s at t h e n e w s , b u t t h e t w o sisters-in-law a r e w o r r i e d t h a t F r a g r a n c e w i l l l o r d it o v e r t h e m as t h e w i f e o f a n o f f i c i a l , so t h e y falsely r e p o r t t h a t she has h a d illicit s e x u a l r e l a t i o n s . A t this she is a g a i n b e a t e n b y h e r m o t h e r - i n - l a w , h e r h a i r is c u t off, a n d she is d r i v e n o u t o f t h e h o u s e . B y d a y she b e g s for f o o d , at n i g h t she stays in o l d t e m p l e s , all t h e w h i l e c h a n t i n g A m i t a b h a ' s n a m e a n d p r e a c h i n g to those a r o u n d her. S o o n m a n y a r e c o n v e r t e d a n d b e c o m e h e r disciples; s e v e r a l e x a m p l e s a r e g i v e n in s o m e d e t a i l . F r a g r a n c e e v e n c o n v e r t s t w o r u f f i a n s w h o t r y to r a p e h e r i n a n a b a n d o n e d t e m p l e . In s u m , she b e c o m e s a c h a r i s m a t i c r e l i g i o u s l e a d e r . W h e n M a Y i i r e t u r n s h o m e , a l o y a l m a i d tells h i m t h e w h o l e s t o r y , a n d h e r u s h e s o u t to the g r a v e y a r d to l o o k for his w i f e . I n his h u r r y , h e k n o c k s h i m s e l f u n c o n s c i o u s o n a p i l l a r , w h i c h m o v e s t h e w h o l e f a m i l y to look for F r a g r a n c e . A b r o t h e r finds h e r in a c o u n t r y t e m p l e , a n d t a k e s h e r b a c k to t h e a s s e m b l y at t h e g r a v e y a r d . T h e r e h e r h u s b a n d u r g e s h e r to r e t u r n h o m e w i t h h i m , b u t she refuses, a n d g o e s b a c k to h e r t e m p l e . A t this t h e m o t h e r - i n - l a w insists t h a t M a Y i i t a k e a s e c o n d w i f e to k e e p u p a p p e a r a n c e s , a n d a f t e r s o m e resistance, h e obeys,

and

marries

the

daughter

of a

wealthy

family.

On

the w a y

to

K w a n g t u n g , M a Y i i a n d his n u m b e r t w o w i f e t a k e l e a v e o f F r a g r a n c e , w h o g i v e s h e r blessing, a n d u r g e s h i m to b e a k i n d a n d j u s t o f f i c i a l , s a y i n g t h a t w h e n t h e y r e t u r n , all t h r e e c a n p r a c t i c e r e l i g i o n t o g e t h e r . N o t l o n g a f t e r w a r d s , t h e e n t i r e M a f a m i l y in T z u - c h i n dies o f f o o d p o i s o n i n g a f t e r e a t i n g t a i n t e d g a m e at a b i r t h d a y feast for t h e m o t h e r , a f a t e o r d a i n e d for t h e m b y the J a d e E m p e r o r . U p o n h e a r i n g t h e n e w s , H s i a n g nii r e t u r n s h o m e a n d sends a letter to M a Y i i . H e , in t h e m e a n t i m e , h a s s u d d e n l y

become

u n c o n s c i o u s w h i l e his s o u l takes a trip to P u r g a t o r y . T h e r e h e sees his w h o l e f a m i l y w e e p i n g in p a i n a n d r e m o r s e b e c a u s e t h e y h a d n o t listened to F r a g r a n c e . T h e y p l e a d , " S o n , p l e a s e ask y o u r w i f e to s a v e u s . " A f t e r t w o d a y s , M a Y i i w a k e s u p , j u s t as t h e l e t t e r c o m e s f r o m h o m e t e l l i n g h i m t h a t t w e l v e m e m b e r s o f his f a m i l y h a v e d i e d f r o m f o o d p o i s o n i n g . W i t h his n e w w i f e h e hastens to S h a n t u n g , t h e r e to ask F r a g r a n c e to s a v e his f a m i l y from P u r g a t o r y . T h e three of them meditate together, a n d F r a g r a n c e preaches a sermon attended by " a large n u m b e r of g e n t r y , their wives, monks, nuns, priests a n d l a y p e r s o n s . " H e r e m y c o p y o f this t e x t e n d s , b u t S a w a d a M i z u h o ' s s u m m a r y i n d i c a t e s t h a t a t t h e e n d o f t h e s t o r y H s i a n g nii's p i e t y d o e s i n d e e d r e s c u e the w h o l e M a f a m i l y , a n d t h a t l a t e r she, M a Y i i , a n d his s e c o n d w i f e a r e w e l c o m e d in t h e

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249

Western L a n d . T h e r e they are blessed by A m i t a b h a , w h o predicts they will become gods.38 T h e explicitly ethical teachings o f the Liu Hsiang pao-chuan are those of pious lay Buddhism, well s u m m a r i z e d in the old nun's sermon, and in the ten conditions for marriage imposed by H s i a n g nii. T h e sermon is a s u m m a r y of k a r m a , the doctrine of moral cause a n d effect: If you want to know what happened in your last existence, look at what you are going through now. W h a t your next existence will be depends on what you do in this life. If you practice religious discipline now, then you will be rewarded. However, if you are not willing to maintain a vegetarian diet, read sutras, and recite the Buddha's name; if you do not reverence H e a v e n and earth, the gods and Buddhas, but rather do evil, kill living beings, steal goods, beat monks and curse priests, cheat good people, and commit all manner of crimes in disobedience to Heaven, then when your life is ended, your hun soul will go to purgatory and [in all of its ten courts] endure a myriad kalpas of suffering. W h e n they have paid for their crimes, some will be reborn as cattle, horses, or other domestic animals. Some will be reborn without eyes, hands, or feet, some as those who are starving and cold, afflicted with all sorts of illness, or punished as animals. All of this is retribution for sins committed in one's previous existence. (.chiian 1, p. 1 b) If [on the other hand] in one's previous existence one has reverenced and esteemed the Buddhist dharma, monks, and the T h r e e Jewels; if one has gilded Buddha images, repaired bridges and roads, provided vegetarian feasts for monks, bestowed alms, aided the poor, abstained from killing, released living beings, maintained a vegetarian diet, read sutras, and recited the Buddha's name, then in one's next existence one will obtain the rewards of pure blessings, become a Buddha or patriarch or become an official or minister, with wealth, high position, and honor. O n e will amass gold and j a d e , have children and grandchildren who are good and filial, and blessings and money as one wishes, with all things as one wills. These are all rewards for accumulated goodness in a previous existence, (ichiian 1, p. 1 b)

F r a g r a n c e ' s ten conditions for betrothal are these: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Recite the Buddha's name and reverence Buddhism. Be filial to parents a n d friendly with fellow villagers. Stop hunting; don't kill living things. Don't be greedy, or injure or cheat others.

8.

Do not be greedy for the cup; abstain from wine, meat, and strong smelling vegetables.

9. 10.

By no means be lustful or sexually immoral. D o not lie or deceive. D o not act in violent ways, but restrain anger and be peaceful.

Be merciful; release living beings and do good. Help the poor. (chiian 1, p. 5b)

3 8 Sawada,

Hokan, p. 156.

2J0

DANIEL L. OVERMYER

T h e s e values a r e r e i t e r a t e d t h r o u g h o u t t h e book. T h o u g h the Liu Hsiang paochiian is still c o n c e r n e d w i t h u l t i m a t e s a l v a t i o n , d e t a i l e d ethical i n j u n c t i o n s h a v e a m u c h m o r e p r o m i n e n t place in it t h a n in M i n g s e c t a r i a n pao-chiian, which a r e d e v o t e d to d o c t r i n e a n d m y t h o l o g y . T h i s text is a vehicle of a m o r e generalized Buddhist piety, w i t h a s t r o n g e m p h a s i s on filial d e v o t i o n . T h e r e is a conviction t h r o u g h o u t t h a t t h e best w a y to r e p a y o n e ' s p a r e n t s is to gain deliverance on their behalf. T h e questions " w h y these v a l u e s ? " a n d " w h a t d o they m e a n ? " of course directly involve a discussion of the l a r g e r issue of the role of B u d d h i s m in Chinese c u l t u r e , a discussion b e y o n d the scope of this p a p e r . T h e first translations of Buddhist texts expressing m a n y of these values w e r e d o n e in the m i d second c e n t u r y A.D., so by t h e time thesepao-chiian w e r e w r i t t e n such principles h a d been k n o w n in C h i n a for a b o u t s e v e n t e e n h u n d r e d years; they were a n established p a r t of w h a t it m e a n t to be a B u d d h i s t . V a l u e s such as a b s t a i n i n g f r o m m e a t , sexual i m m o r a l i t y , a n d h u n t i n g w e r e u n d e r s t o o d as a m e a n s of d e t a c h m e n t f r o m sensual desires. Actions m o t i v a t e d b y such desires h a v e a n inevitable reaction or effect, w h i c h c o n t i n u e s o u r p r e s e n t s t r e a m of existence i n t o a n o t h e r one, b e y o n d d e a t h ; the q u a l i t y of o u r life t h e n is c o n d i t i o n e d b y w h a t we d o n o w . T h e u l t i m a t e goal of such i n j u n c t i o n s is to p r e p a r e for a state of c o m p l e t e d e t a c h m e n t a n d desirelessness. I n such a s t a t e of m i n d , one's actions n o longer p r o d u c e effects o r residues, so t h a t at d e a t h o n e is n o longer r e b o r n , b u t enters t h e ineffable d i m e n s i o n of N i r v a n a . H o w e v e r , such a n e n l i g h t e n e d c o n d i t i o n m a y take m a n y lifetimes to a t t a i n ; in the m e a n t i m e ethical living c a n p r o d u c e " g o o d k a r m a , " w h i c h will e n s u r e a quick passage t h r o u g h P u r g a t o r y a n d a felicitous r e b i r t h t h e r e a f t e r . T h e pao-chiian s u p p o r t these values b e c a u s e they w e r e p r o d u c e d by persons of a Buddhist f r a m e of m i n d w h o w r o t e for a l i k e - m i n d e d a u d i e n c e . But of course, writing, p r i n t i n g , a n d d i s t r i b u t i n g such books were acts of merit in themselves, so the p o p u l a r i t y of these books was n o t entirely d u e to the t e a c h i n g they espouse. T h o u g h the explicit ethical values s u p p o r t e d in t h e Liu Hsiang pao-chiian a r e q u i t e c o n v e n t i o n a l , the chief implicit v a l u e is not, b e c a u s e at a basic level this text is d e v o t e d to the c o u r a g e , f r e e d o m , a n d salvation of w o m e n . H s i a n g nii is a full-scale religious h e r o i n e w i t h g r e a t s t r e n g t h of conviction a n d p o w e r s of persuasion, j u s t as M i a o - s h a n was. She firmly r e m o n s t r a t e s with h e r social superiors, a n d e v e n t u a l l y brings t h e m all a r o u n d to h e r side. She e n d u r e s the worst insults a n d beatings a n d yet r e m a i n s r e a d y to forgive. She b r e a k s social custom b y insisting on h e r o w n b e t r o t h a l a g r e e m e n t , w i t h o u t a n i n t e r m e d i a r y . She opposes t h a t most established of t r a d i t i o n a l values, o b t a i n i n g office t h r o u g h the civil service e x a m i n a t i o n system. W h e n she is e v e n t u a l l y driven o u t of h e r h u s b a n d ' s h o m e , she develops h e r o w n v o c a t i o n as a religious p r e a c h e r a n d leader. A n d in t h e e n d she succeeds, a n d all the rest d e p e n d on her for deliverance.

V A L U E S IN MING A N D CH'ING

PAO-CHOAN

From the social point of view, perhaps w h a t is most i m p o r t a n t is that H s i a n g nii never really has a n o r m a l m a r r i a g e . T h e text does not say that she didn't sleep with her husband in their few d a y s together, but she certainly r e m a i n e d celibate thereafter. W h a t she values is meditation, not sex a n d children. T h e r e is in this text, then, a strong implicit resistance to m a r r i a g e a n d all the toil a n d submission it requires. T h i s is m a d e a b u n d a n t l y clear in the sermon p r e a c h e d by the old nun, which contains a long section on the suffering a n d dangers of p r e g n a n c y a n d childbirth a n d other difficulties a wife must endure. T o be sure, the point is m a d e that these are all g r o u n d s for b e i n g filial to one's o w n mother, and that a w o m a n should be especially pious so as to be reborn a m a n . B u t the resentment is strong, a n d the implication not far off that it is better not to m a r r y at all, as the nun herself h a d not. T h e nun notes that w h e n a boy is born, his m o t h e r is j o y o u s , the neighbors all congratulate her, the relatives are h a p p y , and father a n d mother love the child as if he were a precious j e w e l . W h e n he grows u p he studies books, a n d perhaps becomes w e a l t h y , honored, a n d famous t h r o u g h o u t the world. W h e n he goes out he is honored; w h e n he returns h o m e his wife diligently looks after him. A s a husband he fulfills his aims and honors his ancestors. H o w e v e r , w h e n a girl is born, everyone hates her, a n d no one in the household rejoices. " W e w o m e n (wo nii tzu) are despised for troubling our mother's bodies, a n d for not c a r i n g for our parents. W h e n a girl g r o w s u p she a b a n d o n s her parents a n d is married to a n o t h e r " (chiian I, p. i b ) . By giving birth to children she befouls heaven and earth, and offends the river god by washing bloody skirts. If she is on good terms with her mother-in-law she can visit her mother every year or so. But if she is not in accord with her mother-in-law's wishes, she is never able to return to her mother's home. She thinks of the pain in the hearts of her parents, and of when she will be able to repay their kindness. No matter how many plans you might have, women have always submitted to others and served them. This is because of serious sins in their former existences. ( M a n i, p. 2a) *

*

*

W h e n a woman is married to a husband for her whole life she is controlled by him. A l l her joys and sorrows derive from him. After they are married she necessarily suffers the pains of childbirth, and cannot avoid the sin of offending the sun, moon, and stars with a flow of blood. Now I will speak-with you in more detail about the sufferings women endure in childbirth, (chiian i, p. 2a)

T h e n follows a description o f t e n different forms of childbirth b r o u g h t on as retribution for past sins, including several forms of birth in w h i c h the hands or feet c a m e out first, or w h i c h involve e n t a n g l e m e n t in the mother's viscera, stillbirth, a n d so on. T h e theme is repeated that menstrual blood a n d the blood

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of childbirth offend the gods. T h e nun continues: Now the suffering of giving birth which I have discussed, the suffering of ten months of pregnancy and of three years of nursing, and after birth, the bitter toil day and night of exchanging dry and wet [clothing], these are what is called, " i n loving a child, there is nothing one won't do." T h e nun then recites the Pregnancy pao-chiian (Huai-t'ai pao-chiian), w h i c h is a detailed month-by-month account of the pains and anxieties of pregnancy. This text expresses the point of view of one w h o has been through all this; one wonders if it was written by a w o m a n . It begins: At the beginning of the first month of pregnancy, the mother does not yet know what is happening inside her abdomen, and is afraid she is becoming ill. H a l f anxious, half joyous, she fears the thickness of her body. This narration continues by describing such problems as sleeplessness, w e a k ness, and loss of interest in food and appearance. In the fifth month the child starts to kick, and she [the mother] can't put on h e r embroidered shoes [because of swollen feet]. When the child is born, the mother is happy, but must nurse it, wash its clothing, and worry that it may become ill. In one day a child nurses three times, in three days nurses nine times; b u t a mother's milk is not like the Yangtze river, nor the sap of forest trees. (chiian i, P- 3 a ) T h e explicit conclusion the nun derives from all this is that children should repay the suffering and pain their parents have gone through by " v o w i n g to bring about their salvation in the Western L a n d " (chiian i , p. 3a). It seems reasonable to suggest, however, that such material might have led some w o m e n to question marriage itself, as did those described by M a r j o r i e Topley i n her " M a r r i a g e Resistance in Rural K w a n g t u n g . " T o p l e y writes, Aimed expressly at women was the "precious volume" (pao-chiian) which comtained biographies of model w o m e n . . . . M a n y of my informants had "precio>us volumes" . . . which further emphasize that refusing to marry is not morally wrong.... These books were read by women w h o lived in "girls' houses" or joined religious sects that "stressed sexual equality." Most of these w o m e n were involved in making silk, and hence had independent means of support. 3 9 Thus, there was 3 9 Marjorie Topley, " M a r r i a g e Resistance in Rural K w a n g t u n g , " in Women in Chinese Society, ed. Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), pp. 71 —7(6. For other discussions by Dr. Topley of these and similar groups see her "Chinese Women's Vegeitarian Houses in Singapore," Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 2 7 . 1 : 5 1 - 6 7 (1954); Topley, " T h e Great W a y of Former Heaven: A Group of Chinese Secret Religious Sects," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 26.2:362-392 (June 1963); and Topley and James Hayes, "Notes on Some Vegetarian Halls in Hong K o n g Belonging to the Sect of the Hsien-t'ien tao: T h e W a y of Former Heaven," Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 8 : 1 3 5 - 1 4 8 (11968).

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a specific social context in which such books as the Liu Hsiang pao-chuan made sense, that of religious voluntary associations in which unmarried women played an important or dominant role. It seems reasonable to suggest that the Liu Hsiang pao-chuan was related to such a group, but I have not as yet found a specific reference to this effect. CONCLUDING COMMENTS In sum, there is a curious duality of values in pao-chuan literature. T h e earliest texts focus mainly on religious deliverance, beside which conventional ethical injunctions are of secondary importance or even without validity. Here the ambivalence is between ordinary piety and the need for the enlightened to go beyond it. From the late Ming pao-chuan on, the split is between explicit conventional values and implicit dissenting ones. In the Lung-hua ching, the chief implicit value is the whole structure of sectarian mythology, loyalty, and organization; general ethical teachings are not emphasized. In nineteenth-century texts, ethical principles are described in much more detail, but a certain tension remains between them and the freedom from social restraints demanded by the quest for enlightenment. In addition, in some of these texts there is a powerful undercurrent of empathy for women. Put in another way, this is a duality between Confucianism and Buddhism, with Buddhism providing the theoretical support for dissent. T h e P'o-hsieh paochuan is essentially popularized Madhyamika, with little comfort for Confucian ethical positivism. T h e ethical theory in this text is thoroughly radical and relativistic, an understanding that for the most part was directed to enlightenment rather than social reform. Lung-hua ching mythology is a combination of Taoist and Buddhist themes, with but passing references to Confucian principles. When Confucius is mentioned he is described as a popular Buddhist preacher. T h e Liu Hsiang pao-chuan advocates filial piety, but in a distinctly Buddhist form, and with a strong dash of remonstrance. Here Buddhism reinforces the old ethical-critical dimension of filial devotion, a devotion that popular Confucianism tended to interpret as sheer obedience. W e have already discussed the strongly Buddhist orientation and life style of Hsiang nii, much of which an orthodox Confucian could not approve. From this perspective, Buddhism at the popular level continued to provide an alternative point of view that was institutionalized in religious groups and a long textual tradition. However, in the spirit-writing texts of the nineteenth century much of this residual tension is lost, except in those books that continue the old Wu-sheng lao-mu mythology. From the beginning, most fu-chi texts reiterate popular Confucian morality, though with some Buddhist influence still evident. Ming and Ch'ing pao-chiian were produced by and for persons in a middle

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level of learning and status, neither scholars on the one hand nor illiterate laborers and peasants on the other. These texts are important sources for our understanding of the perspectives and values of this cultural level. In addition, they testify to the piety and moral earnestness of a segment of the Chinese population down through the turmoil of late traditional history. For some, the old values were still strong, and were being expressed in new ways as that history came to a close.

NINE

The Transmission of White Lotus Sectarianism in Late Imperial China Susan Naquin

WHITE LOTUS

HISTORY

By the sixteenth century, a new sectarian religion had a p p e a r e d in C h i n a , an outgrowth of venerable traditions of p o p u l a r Buddhism a n d T a o i s m . T h e Chinese state labeled it heterodoxy, but the religion survived and grew ever more popular during the next four centuries. Believers and historians h a v e referred to this religious teaching, a n d to the sectarian organization through which it was perpetuated, by a confusing variety of names; I shall here employ the generic term in most general use, " W h i t e Lotus religion" (Pai-lien chiao).' T h e new White Lotus religion was characterized by a belief in a female deity known as the Eternal M o t h e r (wu-sheng lao-mu), creator of mankind, and by the I am grateful to the participants in the Conference on Values and Communication in M i n g - C h ' i n g Popular Culture, and to the organizers in particular, for their comments and criticisms. I would also like to express my thanks to the curators of the C h ' i n g archives in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and of the M i n g - C h ' i n g Archives in Peking for their invaluable assistance. Dates used in the notes are given for each document according to the Chinese lunar calendar: year/month/day. T h e reign periods have been abbreviated as follows: Y C , Yung-cheng ( 1 7 2 3 •735); C L , Ch'ien-lung ( 1 7 3 6 - 1 7 9 5 ) ; C C , Chia-ch'ing ( 1 7 9 6 - 1 8 2 0 ) ; T K , T a o - k u a n g ( 1 8 2 1 1850). ' T h e term chiao meant both " t e a c h i n g " and " s e c t . " It is this same religious tradition that Daniel Overmyer discusses elsewhere in this volume, although not under the name White Lotus. As a matter of definition, I use the term White Lotus religion to refer only to sectarian activity after 1500 and not before. (This is the second phase ofpao-chiian development in Overmyer's chronology.) I intend not to deny the religion's complex antecedents, but merely to indicate the decisive transformation I see taking place when the Eternal Mother cosmology and millenarian eschatology were combined with sectarian organization and written scriptures in the sixteenth century. For a general history of this tradition in English, see Daniel L . Overmyer, Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in Late Traditional China (Cambridge, Mass.: H a r v a r d University Press, 1976); for additional sources in J a p a n e s e and somewhat more attention to Taoist antecedents, see T . H . Barrett, "Chinese Sectarian Religion" (a review), Modern Asian Studies 1 2 : 3 3 3 - 3 5 2 (1978).

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conviction that personal salvation could be found only through adherence to the teachings transmitted by her emissaries. These beliefs were first articulated by several preachers 2 who, in the course of the sixteenth century, lectured in 2 T h e earliest and best known of these teachers was Lo C h ' i n g ( ' 4 4 3 _ I 5 2 7 ) > whose five books were in print by 1518. Lo Ch'ing's pivotal role in early White Lotus history makes him somewhat difficult to categorize. Hispao-chiian do not contain the basic White Lotus cosmology and eschatology. For this reason, Daniel Overmyer places the Lo texts at the end of his first phase of paochiian development. O n the other hand, Lo's life as a preacher and a u t h o r of sacred texts was similar to that of the White Lotus teachers (named below) who m a y also have emulated him. Furthermore, a great many White Lotus believers later came to view Lo C h ' i n g (perhaps inaccurately) as a founder and patriarch of their religion. M a n y of those who later called their religion the Lo sect (Lo ckiao Jg f$;) had adopted some White Lotus ideas that their patriarch never espoused (at least not in print). For these reasons, I have preferred to see Lo C h ' i n g as the earliest ancestor of White Lotus sectarianism. For Lo Ch'ing, see Daniel Overmyer, chapter 8, above, and "Boatmen and Buddhas: T h e Lo Chiao in Ming Dynasty C h i n a , " History of Religions 1 7 : 2 8 4 - 3 0 2 (1978); Tai-shang tsu-shih san-shihyin-yu pao-chiian ; f c _ h f f l l S H t S r i S f i 3 J | % [Precious scroll explaining the highest patriarch teacher's three incarnations] (hereafter, T'ai-shang tsu-shih pao-chiian), (1875 reprint of 1682 edition; Li Shih-yii ^ t t t i t private collection, Tientsin), part I; Sawada Mizuho [El irfn^S, Hokan no kenkyusL^? COffif 35 [A study of precious scrolls] (Tokyo; Kokusho kankokai PI © fll fT z h ! 9 7 5 ) . pp. 101-104; Richard Hon-chun Shek, "Religion and Society in Late Ming: Sectarianism and Popular T h o u g h t in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century C h i n a " (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1980), pp. 202-251. Evidence on the activities of subsequent teachers and their relationship to one another is less full. T h e most important men a p p e a r to have been the u n n a m e d author of the Chiu-lien pao-chiian reprinted in 1523, the earliest dateable text

setting forth White Lotus cosmology and beliefs; Li P i n ^ f f , founder of the Huang-t'ien-tao f f ^ j M and active in the 1560s northeast of Peking; Patriarch Yin ISlffl, 1540-1582, a follower of Lo Ch'ing who proselytized in the 1570s in Chekiang; Patriarch H a n P'iao-kao JSBj, a c t ' v e ¡ n the 1570s-1590s in Chihli, whose activities are described in the texts of the H u n g - y a n g sect j f l l ^ t i : ; and W a n g Sen -H of Luan-chou in eastern Chihli, who had followers at the court of the Wan-li emperor and was arrested in 1595. For the 1523 text, see Huang-chi chin-tan chiu-lien cheng-hsin kuei-chen huan-hsiang pao-chiian l l S i f e f l ' A j S I E i e K f i i S i f f H ® [Precious scroll of the imperial ultimate's golden elixir and nine lotus (path to) rectifying belief, espousing what is true, and returning to our real home] (hereafter, Chiu-lien pao-chiian), (1523; W u Hsiao-ling private collection, Peking). For Li Pin, see Kung[Palace memorial archive], hereafter K C T (Taipei: National Palace Museum) chung tang 14593, C L 28/4/1; Li Shih-yii, Hsien-tsai Hua-pei mi-mi tsung-chiao M'&^^t&.-^^ik [Contemporary secret religious sects in North China] (Ch'eng-tu, 1948; reprint ed. Taipei, 1975), pp. 14-17; Richard Shek, "Millenarianism Without Rebellion: T h e H u a n g t i a n D a o in North C h i n a , " Modern China 8 : 3 0 5 - 3 3 6 (1982). For Patriarch Yin: T'ai-shang tsu-shih pao-chiian, part II. For H a n P'iaokao, see Sawada Mizuho, "Koyokyo no shitan" iJA ISlii; O fSffi [Preliminary investigation of the Hung-yang sect], Tenri daigakugakuho 2 4 : 6 3 - 8 5 (1957); Wai-chi tang ^f [Outer court record], hereafter W C T (Taipei: National Palace Museum) C C 22/12/21; J a m e s Inglis, " T h e H u n Yuen M e n , " Chinese Recorder 3 9 : 2 7 0 - 2 7 1 (1908); Hun-yuan hung-yang t'an-shih chen-ching [True sutra of the original chaos red sun lament for the world], (no date, Ming edition; Peking: Institute ofReligion, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences). For W a n g Sen, see Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368-1644, ed. L. C. Goodrich a n d F a n g Chao-ying (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 587-589; Susan Naquin, "Connections Between Rebellions: Sect Family Networks in North China in Q i n g C h i n a , " Modern China 8 : 3 3 7 - 3 6 0 (1982). I am much indebted to Daniel Overmyer, to the Institute ofReligion of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to Li Shih-yii, and to W u Hsiao-ling for making it possible for me to consult the various scriptures cited here.

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public in the cities of north and central China and whose ideas were subsequently written down and published in "scriptures" (ching) and "sacred books" (pao-chiian) , 3 Believers formed small congregations bound by strands of teacher-to-pupil ties, and met to worship and to read these scriptures together. Some, inspired by their patriarch's predictions that the end of the present cosmic era would be signaled by great catastrophes and by the appearance of a savior sent by the Eternal Mother, rose in rebellion in order to usher in the new world. Although outlawed by the Ming ( 1 3 6 8 - 1 6 4 4 ) and Ch'ing ( 1 6 4 4 - 1 9 1 1 ) governments for their beliefs, deemed incompatible with official orthodoxy and conducive to violent political action, communities of White Lotus adherents survived and grew in subsequent centuries. For those who believed, the White Lotus religion provided a process for salvation that did not necessitate reliance on the temples and priests of either popular religion or the state cult, and it ofTered a community supplementary to those of family, village, market, and bureaucracy. It also held out a unique promise of imminent and direct salvation in the form of divinely guided apocalypse and millennium. In consequence, this religion appears to have had a particular attraction for individuals for whom the normal paths to salvation were unappealing or unattainable or for whom ordinary community structures were unavailable. White Lotus ideas and organizations were appealing, it seems, to those who for all or part of their lives were not completely absorbed by orthodox institutions: men and women who were elderly or without families, monks without temples, migrant laborers and other itinerant workers, urban immigrants, peasants whose village and temple organizations were dominated by others, and so forth. 4 By the early eighteenth century, a variety of different sects (groups of believers linked by the bonds between pupils and teacher) had appeared, some relying on written scriptures and congregational life, others emphasizing the recitation of mantras and individual yogic meditation. Although uprisings were few, government persecution (arrests of sectarians, confiscation of books, destruction of meeting places) slowly intensified; both congregational and meditational sects nevertheless continued to attract followers. By the 1760s, martial arts had been added to the techniques for circulation of breath and became an increasingly prominent part of the repertory of meditational sects. In the late eighteenth century, a period of population growth and growing social and 3 Books used by White Lotus sectarians commonly had as the final word of their title the terms pao-chiian ^ ^ or ching g ; in the Ch'ing, believers usually called the books ching or ching-chiian fg • Daniel Overmyer chooses to use the term pao-chiian, and thus, because not all pao-chiian were sectarian, he places White Lotus books in the larger context of the emergence and development of this genre of popular religious literature. Following Ch'ing usage, I have employed the term "scripture" and occasionally "sutra." I have used "sutra" only when sectarian ching were being explicitly chanted like the Buddhist sutras (also called ching) on which they were unquestionably modeled. Not all sectarian scriptures, however, were recited like sutras.

" T h e hypotheses set forth in this essay about the social contexts of White Lotus sectarianism are meant to be suggestive but not definitive. Further research is necessary.

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economic tensions, White Lotus millenarianism found more and more adherents, and starting with the Wang Lun uprising of 1774, there followed a series of rebellions (especially among meditational sects) that lasted through the next century. 5 As social order broke down in the mid-nineteenth century and after, sect organizations merged with community structures and entire villages adopted White Lotus leadership and techniques of self-defense. Ming and early Ch'ing editions of scriptures were in short supply and the planchette (fu-chi) became popular as a fresh source of religious revelation; new books were dictated by sectarian deities through this technique of spirit writing and became the basis of authority for new sects. 6 These books restated White Lotus eschatology but amplified the doctrine to meet the changed world of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A variety of urban sects of the congregational sort, many with planchette sessions as their primary activity, appeared and flourished in the cities of China and among overseas Chinese. At the same time, the Boxer (1898-1900) and Red Spear (1920s-1940s) movements in the countryside revealed the continued importance of sectarian organization and martial arts in rural North China. By the time of the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, a wide variety of what the new regime termed "reactionary Taoist cults" with demonstrable White Lotus antecedents could be found all over China. They survive today in Taiwan and Southeast Asia. In order to examine how the White Lotus religion adapted itself to the political, social, and geographic environment of late imperial China, this essay will concentrate on one segment of this historical development, the middle Ch'ing. Because there is excellent documentation for the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it is my hope that a focus on that period will reveal patterns and dynamics of more general applicability. 7 I shall attempt to show how different modes of communicating and perpetuating basic values made 5

For more on the 1 7 7 4 and subsequent rebellions, see my Shantung Rebellion:

Uprising of 1JJ4 6

The Wang Lun

(New Haven: Y a l e University Press, 1 9 8 1 ) , especially pp. 153— 159.

Daniel L. O v e r m y e r , " V a l u e s in Sectarian Literature: M i d - M i n g to Twentieth C e n t u r y , Part

I I , Spirit-writing (fu-chi T e x t s " (unpublished paper, 1 9 8 1 ) . 7 T h e ideas presented in this essay are based on a large corpus of several thousand documents on those White Lotus sects prosecuted by the C h ' i n g state in the period 1 7 2 0 to 1840. (Cases dated before 1 7 2 0 are few and fragmentary.) I have been able to look at nearly all the documents on White Lotus sects before 1840 preserved in archives in both Taipei a n d P e k i n g — t h a t is to say, the great preponderance of surviving records. T h e investigations so documented give information only about sects discovered by the government, not about the entire universe of C h ' i n g sects. ( T h e efforts of the state in ferreting out sectarianism varied in time and space; for example, the throne took a less intense interest in sub-Yangtze China, and temporary bursts of arrests elsewhere often followed the discovery of a particularly offensive—usually rebellious—group.) T h i s evidence has suggested the typology presented here, but to cite all the cases I have seen illustrating each generalization would drown the reader in footnotes. I have, therefore, faute de mieux, given citations only for specific information mentioned in the paper and cited secondary sources when relevant.

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possible the survival of the religion and its dissemination to different constituencies. And in order to contribute to our skimpy knowledge of Ch'ing popular religion more generally, I shall also examine briefly the relationship between popular sectarianism and popular orthodoxy and try to suggest the extent to which White Lotus beliefs and activities may fairly be termed heterodox. A number of factors affected the ways in which White Lotus religious values were communicated within the changing society of late imperial China. T h e existence of several sect founders whose teachings were carried on by expanding networks of pupils (and their pupils) fragmented the religion from the outset. The lack of any overall religious organization—no church to regularize doctrine and ritual or to train clergy—only further encouraged diversity. The hostility of the state, moreover, made contact and coordination between believers difficult and hastened subdivision and segmentation. O n the other hand, an identifiably common cosmology and belief system did persist despite organizational fission. At first the survival of this religious doctrine was tied directly to those sacred books produced in the late Ming and to the patriarchs who wrote them. These scriptures became the repository of the religious ideology (just as sutras were to Buddhism and the Classics to NeoConfucianism); those who owned and could read and understand these texts acquired considerable religious authority. There was thus a felt need to study the old texts, to preserve them carefully, and to make more copies for future believers, an imperative made all the more urgent by the eagerness with which Ch'ing authorities confiscated and destroyed White Lotus scriptures. 8 This emphasis on mastery, preservation, and reproduction of scriptures, while providing ideological continuity, might also have limited participation in sectarian activities to the relatively literate and well-to-do, but White Lotus teachers did not ignore the possibilities for conversion among the large semiliterate and illiterate population. In order to appeal to poor or uneducated men and women, some teachers quite naturally reduced their reliance on scriptures and tried to popularize doctrine and alter ritual for a nonreading, less affluent audience. A variety of circumstances thus produced considerable diversity in sect organization and activities by the eighteenth century, yet we can discern within the diversity two analytically distinct modes. Generally speaking, one was characterized by an active congregational life in which recitation of scriptures played a central role, the other by a looser structure and a concentration on meditation and martial arts. T h e role of written texts, importance of oral transmission, functions of ritual, nature of sect structure, relationship to ortho8

T h e expansion of the printing industry a n d the increases in education and urbanization during this period may also have helped enlarge the audience for books, even unorthodox ones. See Evelyn Rawski's article in this volume, chapter 1.

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dox popular religion, a n d social background of the membership all varied (relatively systematically) between these two modes. W e shall look closely at the dynamics of both continuity and change in each type in order to reach a better understanding of the general processes by which sectarian values were communicated in the Ch'ing period. SUTRA-RECITATION SECTS Sutra-recitation sects should be seen as p a r t of the long development of congregational and devotional institutions for pious Buddhist laymen previously described by Daniel O v e r m y e r . 9 Typically, sect members, like monks a n d nuns, practiced lifelong vegetarianism, made a formal commitment to explicitly Buddhist precepts, and met regularly to engage in the ritual recitation of scriptures. T h e y also performed religious services (especially mortuary rites) for the community at large. W h e n possible, believers met in buildings formally designated for a religious purpose. Congregational activities were emphasized and men and women were allowed to meet together; at the same time, a high value was placed on celibacy. In such groups, horizontal ties among sect members were strong, and the believer's life was usually very much absorbed by religious activities. Vertical connections did exist, however, because like all White Lotus sects, these groups were perpetuated by the transmission of doctrine from teacher to pupil. Each sect traced its teaching back to a patriarch (ideally in the Ming dynasty) a n d members usually knew the names of past sect masters. Because of the central role of sutra recitation, these sects attracted relatively literate followers, and because the public buildings and printed books necessary to their worship were conspicuous, these groups a p p e a r to have prospered in cities and away from areas of active government surveillance. (Those mid-Ch'ing sects that conformed most closely to this sutra-recitation model used the names Lo sect and H u n g - y a n g sect. 1 0 ) Sutra-recitation sects created a quasi-monastic life for their adherents. Sect members m a d e formal, lifelong commitments to a vegetarian diet (as did Buddhist and Taoist clerics) a n d regarded the " b r e a k i n g of the vegetarian fast" (.k'ai-chai) as a serious m a t t e r equivalent to leaving the sect. T h e y also formally acknowledged key precepts of the Buddhist faith. T h e most common ritual procedure for entering such a sect was to pledge adherence to the Buddhist Five Vows (wu-chieh), promising not to kill, steal, drink alcohol, lie, or perform immoral sexual acts. Believers also acknowledged the T h r e e Refuges of 9 In addition to other work cited in notes i , 2, 6, 19, and 80, see his " T h e White Cloud Sect in Sung and Y u a n C h i n a , " Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 4 2 : 6 1 5 - 6 4 2 (1982). 10 T h e r e already exists a substantial scholarly literature on the L o sect. See Overmyer, "Boatmen and B u d d h a s , " and the works cited therein and David E . Kelley, "Temples and Tribute Fleets: T h e L u o Sects and Boatmen's Associations in the Eighteenth C e n t u r y , " Modern China 8 : 3 6 1 - 3 9 1 (1982). For the Hung-yang sect, see S a w a d a Mizuho, " K o y o k y 5 no shitan."

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Buddhism (san-kuei), the B u d d h a , the D h a r m a (Buddhist law), and the Sangha (religious c o m m u n i t y ) . 1 1 Sect members also imitated monks and nuns by taking religious names (fa-ming), with members of one sect or one generation often using a common element to emphasize the role of the community as a surrogate family. Celibacy, although not required of men and women who wished to enjoy the rewards of a pious life without giving up a family, was still prized. T h e existence o f all-female sects and the creation of halls for residence during celibate periods in the lives of believers (for example, for men living a w a y from home, or for unmarried or widowed women) made a partially monastic life possible. 1 2 It appears, in fact, that this sort of sect was especially appealing to women, providing them with a supplementary community, new avenues for education and leadership, and an escape from their families. T h e assembly (hui) was central to the life of members of this type of White Lotus sect. It was the occasion when members met together as a group and was the locus for their congregational devotions. These assemblies also distinguished sectarian worship from that of ordinary popular religion (where such meetings had few counterparts). T h e frequency of assemblies could vary widely. A t their most intensive, sects met twice a month, on the new and full moon (the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month), and then on certain other special days during the year. Some sects imitated monasteries by meeting to take their scriptures outside to be aired (shai-ching) every year in the sixth lunar month. In others, a teacher's birthday or deathday might be the occasion for an assembly. T o the normal offerings made by the ordinary person to ancestors or to a particular domestic or neighborhood g o d , 1 3 White Lotus sects added worship of their own deities; assembling for such worship emphasized their separate community. Regular and frequent sect assemblies promoted solidarity and formalized it through collectively performed rituals. (The possibilities for community life may explain w h y sectarianism appealed to people w h o had no immediate family or permanent residence.) Assemblies would usually take place in the homes of sect members or of a senior teacher, but believers also tried, when possible, to establish separate ' 1 In his description o f a Lung-hua f|Hjl sect in Amoy in the late nineteenth century, J. J. M. de Groot gives a lengthy and detailed account of an initiation ceremony in which strong similarities to monastic ordination are pointed out. See Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China (Amsterdam, 1903-1904; reprint ed. Taipei: Ch'eng-wen, 1971), pp. 204-215. Public declaration of these vows was also a common way of proclaiming oneself a devoted lay Buddhist in the twentieth century. See Holmes Welch, The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, igoo-ig^o (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 317, 358-364. 1 2 For an example of an instance when several male believers demonstrated their commitment to celibacy by the extreme gesture of voluntary castration, see W C T , T K 3/12/22. 1 3 For daily religious practice, see Stephan Feuchtwang, "Domestic and Communal Worship in T a i w a n , " in Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, ed. Arthur P. Wolf (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), pp. 107— i l l .

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rooms or buildings for their worship. T h e s e places, p r o b a b l y m o d e l e d on temples or ancestral halls, were called, variously, " h a l l s for p u r i f i c a t i o n " (chait'ang),

" h a l l s of r e t r e a t " (an-t'ang), or " s c r i p t u r e h a l l s " (ching-t'ang). In the

absence of g o v e r n m e n t prosecution, there a p p e a r s to h a v e been a developmental cycle ( c o m m o n to most cults in C h i n a ) from o r d i n a r y rooms in private homes to particular rooms in such homes, to small separate buildings n e a r b y , to large independent halls with e n d o w e d property. S e p a r a t e halls served several purposes. T h e y could be places of t e m p o r a r y or p e r m a n e n t residence for members, a n d they could house a p e r m a n e n t altar to sect patriarchs a n d deities. Images of patriarchs were most c o m m o n ; those o f the Eternal M o t h e r or of the B u d d h a M a i t r e y a (the savior to come) were rarer. In these halls, believers could also store objects necessary to their worship: candles, incense, musical instruments, a n d scriptures. T h e public nature of a n y hall, h o w e v e r , constituted a d a n g e r for the c o m m u n i t y . T h e g o v e r n m e n t k n e w that the existence of sectarian buildings signaled the presence of a w e a l t h y a n d n u m e r o u s W h i t e Lotus c o m m u n i t y a n d , w h e n discovered, these halls w e r e taken o v e r a n d either destroyed or converted to public u s e . 1 4 T h e primary activity at sect assemblies (wherever held) w a s the collective recitation of sacred scriptures (sung-ching).

S u c h c h a n t i n g was n o r m a l l y c o m -

bined with the presentation of offerings to sect deities a n d the c o n s u m p t i o n of a vegetarian meal by participants. S o m e sects m a y h a v e h a d e n d o w e d l a n d that generated a regular income, but usually m o n e y h a d to be c o n t r i b u t e d for each assembly t o w a r d the purchase of incense, offerings, a n d food. Detailed descriptions of sutra recitation are rather rare, a n d there was surely variation from g r o u p to g r o u p a n d over time. In most cases, the c h a n t i n g of sutras by Buddhist monks a n d nuns a p p e a r s to h a v e p r o v i d e d the m o d e l . 1 5 W h e n the g r o u p met, they b o w e d to the altar a n d to the scriptures themselves, lighting incense a n d offering fruit or tea (as was also done in o r d i n a r y wors h i p 1 6 ) . T h e n they sat a n d c h a n t e d the scriptures in unison, simultaneously beating out a r h y t h m with the tok! tok! of the w o o d e n - f i s h d r u m a n d the ding! ding! ding! of the brass-bowl bell. T h e length of such meetings p r o b a b l y v a r i e d with the leisure time of the participants but typically w o u l d h a v e been no more 1 4 A particularly intense government campaign to locate and tear down sectarian halls occurred in the mid-eighteenth century. See David E. Kelley, "Sect and Society: The Evolution of the Lo Sect Among Grain Tribute Fleet Boatmen, 1700-1850," paper presented at the Conference on Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China: Cultural Beliefs and Social Divisions (Montecito, California, August 20-26, 1981). 1 5 For descriptions of recitation of sutras by monks, see J. Prip-M011er, Chinese Buddhist Monasteries (Copenhagen, 1936; reprint ed. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1967), pp. 365-367; Welch, chap. 3. For White Lotus practice: Overmyer, Religion, pp. 186-188. 1 6 Ordinary home or temple worship might involve a variety of offerings. See Feuchtwang, pp. 110-111, and Arthur Wolf, "Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors," in his Religion and Ritual, pp. 176-182. By Feuch twang's criteria, these White Lotus offerings were relatively "pure," characteristic of those presented to the highest gods.

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263

than several hours a d a y . Sect members described the purpose of sutra recitation only in v a g u e l a n g u a g e — " d i s p e l l i n g malevolent influences and attracting good f o r t u n e " 1 7 — b u t their chanting was surely intended to acquire karmic merit for the reciters and for others to w h o m they, like Buddhist clerics, could transfer such merit. As would seem obvious from the central role of sutra recitation, possession of religious books was crucial to the operation of these sects. " I f one is not familiar with the scriptures," said one text, " i t will be difficult to understand about life and d e a t h . " 1 8 Despite the post-sixteenth-century increase in printing in C h i n a that made popular literature available to an unprecedented degree, sectarian scriptures were still rare in the eighteenth century. J o i n i n g a sect meant gaining an opportunity to see a n d hold these books, to learn to chant and to read them, and perhaps even to m a k e handwritten copies. T e a c h e r s , like monks, m a y h a v e lectured on the scriptures and taught reading indirectly through character-bycharacter explications. 1 9 T h e books most commonly found in the possession of sutra-reciting sects in the middle C h ' i n g were those associated with two important sixteenth-century teachers later revered as the patriarchs (tsu) of the L o and of the H u n g - y a n g sects: L o C h ' i n g (fl. 1500) and H a n P'iao-kao (fl. 1 5 8 0 ) . F i v e texts are attributed to Patriarch L o , and in the centuries after his death these books were treasured and read by sects using various names. In their original printed editions, these books present the Salvationist message of late M i n g popular Buddhism, use relatively abstract l a n g u a g e ("boundless emptiness is the body of the limitless"), and do not contain the cosmology a n d eschatology associated with the Eternal M o t h e r . 2 0 T h e late M i n g scriptures identified with Patriarch P'iao-kao and his teachings, 2 1 although not the earliest texts to do so, set 17

It is difficult to tell if the generally unsophisticated explanations of religious activities given by

believers reflect a shallow understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the religion or the hostile atmosphere in which depositions were recorded. 18

T'ai-shang tsu-shih pao-chiian, part I I , p. 1 2 .

" T h e fact that commentaries were written on these texts (just as they were on Confucian Classics) suggests that sect teachers were in the habit of explaining texts to students. O n e commentary on the T'an-shih wu-wei chiian H tft te ® ®

[Scroll on nonaction and lamenting for the

world], for example, gave the pronunciation of unusual characters. See O v e r m y e r , " M i n g Dynasty Popular Scriptures: A n Introduction to the Pao-chiian of Lo C h ' i n g and His Wu-wei C h i a o " (unpublished paper, 1976), pp. 1 1 - 1 2 . 20

Overmyer has analyzed these texts in " B o a t m e n and B u d d h a s " and " M i n g

Dynasty

Scriptures." A few pages from these books are illustrated in Fou Si-houa -(If fit f s " C a t a l o g u e des P a o - k i u a n , " Mélanges Sinologiques (Paris: Université de Paris, 1 9 5 1 ) , p. 46. 21

S a w a d a Mizuho lists twenty-one H u n g - y a n g sect scriptures in his " K o y o k y ô no shitan";

several of these provide information on H a n P'iao-kao himself. A t least seven of these titles appear to be clearly distinct scriptures dating from the M i n g . See also H u a n g Y u - p ' i e n ^ ¡ ^ f j j , P'o-hsieh hsiang-pien ¡KSIÎj^Jff [A detailed refutation of heresies] ( 1 8 8 3 ) , where most of these texts are mentioned or quoted from. S o m e of these scriptures borrowed the names (and perhaps the content) of L o Ch'ing's five books, simply adding hung-yang or hun-yuan to the title.

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forth the historical vision that shaped the thinking of White Lotus believers: the story of the Eternal Mother's concern for the suffering of her human children, her decision to send a teacher (here, P'iao-kao) w h o will reveal the path to salvation, and the promise of deliverance by the Buddha Maitreya. (Later books claiming to represent L o Ch'ing's teachings also incorporated this message.) A number of penance texts (used especially in H u n g - y a n g sects) were important in the performance of funeral rites (of which, more below) and describe how one can be saved from the torments of hell. 2 2 Scriptures printed in the late M i n g continued to circulate during subsequent centuries. Routine loss, confiscation by the state, an increase in the number of believers, as well as the Buddhist injunction to disseminate and distribute sacred books as an act of piety, all encouraged reprinting and copying. In a H u n g - y a n g scripture reprinted in Shantung in 1697, to cite only one example, the sponsor noted, [This edition] follows the M i n g d y n a s t y version in the possession o f m y ancestors. M y f a m i l y a n d the p e o p l e in o u r a s s e m b l y h a v e t o g e t h e r c o n t r i b u t e d - [ t o this reprinting] as a n expression o f o u r h e a r t s ' desires. I f a n y o n e wishes to r e p r i n t [further], please ask for the w o o d b l o c k s so t h a t this m a y be c a r r i e d o u t . 2 3

New books were also produced. Early C h ' i n g scriptures often imitated earlier books and retold the lives and teachings of M i n g patriarchs, adding similar descriptions of later disciples. T h e T'ai-shang tsu-shih san-shihyin-yu paochiian [Precious scroll explaining the highest patriarch teacher's three incarnations], printed in 1682, for instance, contains an account first of Patriarch L o and then of two followers, Patriarch Y i n (1540-1582) and Patriarch C h a o ( 1 5 7 8 - 1 6 4 6 ) , who were allegedly his reincarnations. 2 4 C h ' i n g government records give ample illustration of the desire of sect leaders to create their own 2 2 Many penance (ch'an 1® texts are discussed in Huang Yu-p'ien. See also, inter alia, K C T 45833, C L 48/9/17; K C T 24036, C L 34/1/22; K C T 15334, C L 28/6/28. 2 3 One volume from this printing was discovered in 1817, confiscated, and then burned. Shang-yii tangfang-pen Us/tH")} ^ [Imperial edict record book, long form], hereafter S Y T (Taipei: National Palace Museum) 211, C C 22/12/21. In 1652, two sect members collated, verified, and reprinted the Lo scripture K'u-kung wu-tao chiian ^ J i j ' I S i g ^ [Scroll on enlightenment through religious austerity]; there was another reprinting in 1798 using a printer in Kiangsi and woodblocks from a family of sect members. S Y T 255-256, C L 21/2/22; Sui-shou teng-chi g g ^ - g l g [Daily record], hereafter S S T C (Taipei: National Palace Museum) C C 19/5/20; Overmyer, " M i n g Dynasty Scriptures," p. 9. 2 4 This text makes clear that by the end of the sixteenth century, White Lotus cosmology had been fully accepted into some L o sects. There is archival evidence for the continuation of this sect into the early nineteenth century. See K C T : Secret society category ¡£pil, hereafter K C T N M (Peking: M i n g - C h ' i n g Archives) 461, for documents on the 1814 case of W u Tzu-hsiang

-f-ffi. There we learn how a pupil o f W u ' s collected between 1000 and 2800 cash from each ofhis twenty pupils (a total of 20-56 taels) in order to reprint Patriarch Lo's five books. References to the Eternal Mother and to the three cosmic eras and their three buddha-patriarchs are to be found in the lives of patriarchs Y i n and Chao but not Lo Ch'ing.

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books (both to enhance their own prestige and to supply written materials where lacking), but not many were educated enough for such work. For those who were, the hazards and expenses of printing usually meant that copies had to circulate in manuscript and could not easily be widely distributed. In an atypical case in the 1810s, an ambitious boatman named Fang Jung-sheng composed six books in an astonishing 130 volumes (ts'e). All were written out by hand; they were eventually confiscated after Fang's arrest and circulated no further. 2 5 Occasionally one finds sect leaders who relied on spirit mediums to give added authority to their own pronouncements, but there are few instances of texts transmitted through such an intermediary. 2 6 (By the nineteenth century, as mentioned above, spirit writing using the planchette became a popular way of creating new texts.) In general, new scriptures lacked the prestige of the old, richly bound, and beautifully printed Ming volumes and rarely became widely known. It is difficult to estimate the number of White Lotus scriptures in circulation at any one time. In general terms, the number of Ming editions diminished while the number of handwritten books increased. At least two thousand books (nearly four hundred different titles) were seized and destroyed by the government between 1720 and 1840. 2 7 We will never know how many were not confiscated. At least until the middle of the eighteenth century, texts associated with Lo sects existed in large quantities. In 1734, for instance, the magistrate of K a n county (the seat of Kan-chou prefecture) in Kiangsi arrested a sect member who owned seven copies of the Lo-ching (Lo scripture), another man who had forty-seven volumes (chiian) of sectarian books, one who had fiftythree, a monk who had six, a widow with six left to her in a trunk, a group of people who owned nineteen between them, and three other men who had six copies each of the Lo-ching. Four months later, the same magistrate had located 970 more copies of the Lo-ching.2S Texts associated with Hung-yang sects, although they turn up throughout this period, were not discovered in such large quantities. Few individuals owned more than one book, and those books were as often handwritten as printed. (This situation seems to reflect a somewhat less affluent and geographically more scattered membership.) Several official investigations into Hung-yang sects in the early nineteenth century reveal, however, that sect teachers occasionally had relatively large supplies. In 1 8 1 7 , a man from a 25 Chiin-chi-ch'u lu-fu tang W-WtM^m^i^ [Grand Council copy archive, peasant uprising category H g f ^ ] , hereafter C C T - N M (Peking: M i n g - C h ' i n g Archives) 2764, C C 20/9/13. 26 The clearest reference to such a practice apparently involved trickery. In 1766, a Hupei man confessed to deceiving others by first writing a book himself, and then giving it to a spirit medium to memorize so that he could pretend to transmit it from a god. C C T - N M Second Supplement (hereafter C C T - N M S S ) 5 4 : 1 , C L 31/5/19. 27 This figure represents my own calculation from evidence I have seen so far. 28 K C T 10568, Y C 12/7/21; K C T 3445, Y C 12/11/20.

266

SUSAN NAQUIN

county near the Grand Canal in Shantung who counted himself the twelfthgeneration disciple of Patriarch Han P'iao-kao had eighty-eight volumes of religious literature. Of these, sixteen books (in twenty-one volumes) were singled out for their sectarian content, but of those sixteen, only four were printed. In another investigation in 1 8 1 4 in Peking, another sect teacher had nineteen different scriptures—thirty-five volumes—but no more than half of them were clearly sectarian. 2 9 These examples are indicative of the quantities of books usually available. They also illustrate that sutra-reciting sects did not limit themselves to White Lotus scriptures but, out of a combination of necessity and perceived compatibility, acquired and chanted more orthodox books such as the Chin-kang ching [Diamond sutra], Hsin ching [Heart sutra], and Kuan-yin ching [Kuan Yin sutra]. T o illustrate the content of a single scripture and its survival over time, let us look at an early dateable White Lotus text: the Huang-chi chin-tan chiu-lien cheng-hsin kuei-chen huan-hsiang pao-chuan [Precious scroll of the imperial ultimate's golden elixir and nine lotus (path to) rectifying belief, espousing what is true, and returning to our real home], hereafter, Chiu-lien pao-chuan. One surviving copy of this book was printed in 1523 and consists of two large ( 1 5 by 4 inch) rectangular printed volumes in the accordion-folded style typical of Buddhist sutras, with large-type characters, brocade covers, and woodblock illustrations at the beginning and end of each volume. T h e text (in twenty-four chapters) describes how a patriarch (called the Imperial Ultimate or Wu-wei Patriarch, but never named) was sent to earth by the Eternal Mother, revealed the path to salvation, left this book, and returned to paradise. T h e true p a t r i a r c h c a m e quietly into this w o r l d , Disguising his identity a n d living a m o n g us, Secretly teaching the golden elixir p a t h . A f t e r the three assemblies, w e shall all return to o u r origin.

Much of the text (possibly derived from actual debates during his lifetime) consists of the patriarch's answers to questions posed by individuals seeking to understand his system; White Lotus cosmology and eschatology are thus explained in language that is relatively concrete and straightforward. T h e patriarch also urges believers to burn a stick of "returning-home incense" and teaches them the Three Refuges and Five Vows and a special technique of meditation that enabled one to travel to see the Eternal Mother in the "heaven 29

W C T , C C 22/12/21; Chiao-pu tang 11] IS fit [Suppression and arrest record book], hereafter C P T (Taipei: National Palace Museum) 435, C C 18/12/21. The best-known confiscation of White Lotus scriptures was carried out by Huang Yii-p'ien, an energetic magistrate of the Tao-kuang period. Serving first in Chii-lu and then in Ts'ang-chou (both in Chihli), Huang collected twenty different pao-chuan in 1833 and thirty more (of which only five were duplicated) in 1839. He discussed these books in his P'o-hsieh hsiang-pien, a work in which he attempted to demonstrate the implausibility and heterodoxy of the White Lotus religion.

T R A N S M I S S I O N OF W H I T E L O T U S S E C T A R I A N I S M

267

beyond the heavens." T h e text is full of phrases in which simple terms are invested with a new and special meaning: "recognizing the patriarch and returning to one's roots," "attending the Dragon Flower Assembly," "seeing our Mother, receiving verification, and registering one's name," "securing one's fate and one's nature," "entering the holy womb, never to be reborn." 3 0 Such phrases recur throughout most White Lotus scriptures. We know that the Chiu-lien pao-chiian dates from at least 1523, but details on later editions are fragmentary. There were reprintings in 1693 and in 1899 (both in Soochow), and another in 1909. No fewer than eight copies of this book were confiscated by the Ch'ing government—in 1775, 1788, 1805 (two copies), 1814, 1816, 1 8 1 7 , and 1 8 2 3 — i n widely separated parts of China (Kansu, Shensi, Shantung, Chihli, Honan, Kiangsu, and Kwangsi). Some of these confiscated books were printed, some handcopied. Several other copies survived and found their way into the hands of scholars in the twentieth century. Three of these were two-volume Ming editions; two others were one-volume abbreviations, one with a new preface dictated by planchette. 3 1 Sutra-recitation sect members not only chanted sacred books as monks and nuns did, they also acted more generally like religious professionals. M a n y sects provided mortuary rites for members. One purpose of funeral rites in Chinese society was to expedite the passage of the soul of the deceased person through the underworld (that is, to assure a speedy and better rebirth). Such services ordinarily ranged from the simple to the very elaborate. They were one of the important services that Buddhist and Taoist priests performed for communities and were the main source of their livelihood. By their own admission, sectarians supplemented the orthodox professionals and performed funeral services not only for followers of their religion but for other people who were too poor to afford monks or priests. 32 (The frequent membership of monks in White Lotus sects probably made it easier for believers to acquire these skills.) Such mortuary rites could include recitation of entire sutras (some sectarian, some not) and of shorter penance texts (ch'an) that could cancel the bad deeds of the deceased by transferring merit already stored up by others. As White Lotus scripture halls imitated the traditions of monastic Buddhism, so sectarian funeral rites copied other less prestigious but lucrative clerical services. Some sects provided a more informal (and less conspicuous) service: supply30

Chiu-lien pao-chiian. The verse comes from chap. 3. Huang Yu-p'ien 4 . 2 3 - 2 7 ; C C T - N M S S 106, C L 39/4/9; K C T 50279, C L 52/2/27; K C T 54485, C L 53/7/9; S Y T 49-50, C C 10/5/7; W C T (Peking: Ming-Ch'ing Archives), hereafter WCT-P, 93, C C ig/2*/4; Na-wen-i-kung tsou-i S P i t i j & H ¡ 8 [The collected memorials ofNa-yench'eng], hereafter N Y C (1834; reprint ed. Taipei, 1968) 4 2 . 4 1 - 4 5 , C C 20/12/21; S Y T 5 3 - 5 6 , C C 22/7/9; W C T , T K 3/11/24; C C T - N M 2297:6, C C 10/5/21; K C T - N M 4 9 3 : 1 , C C 2 1 / 1 / 1 0 . For surviving copies, see n. 2, above; Fou Si-houa, p. 6 1 ; Li Shih-yii, Pao-chiian tsung-lu fl^g^iS [A comprehensive bibliography of sacred scrolls] (Peking: Chung-hua t f ^ i ' 9 6 ' ) , number 167. 31

32 K C T - N M 490:2, C L 40/2/21. For monks, Welch, Practice of Chinese Buddhism, pp. 99,491, and chap. 7. Laymen were not supposed to perform these services.

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SUSAN NAQUIN

ing passports (lu-yin) that would expedite the soul's passage from the underworld into paradise. These passports probably resembled those made up and sold by priests and monks. 3 3 They were single sheets of paper or silk cloth, with writing on them that invoked the power of sectarian deities, and on which official-looking seals were usually stamped. Sect members printed up the forms in bulk, leaving blank spaces for the name of the bearer; then the passports were sold to individuals or to the relatives of deceased people. T h e papers would either be burned or placed in the coffin on the chest of the corpse (two copies may have been used) so as to be near at hand in the underworld. T h e lu-yin could be used by anyone, sect member or not. Similar documents were available for White Lotus adherents exclusively, documents that attested to membership among the elect and assured exemption from the cycle of rebirth and entry into the Eternal Mother's paradise. Drawing on the language of their scriptures, some sects called these documents "contracts" (ho-t'ung). New members were given a set of four sheets of paper: two consisted of religious passages to be chanted, two constituted the ho-t'ung. T h e contracts were pieces of yellow paper on which the bearer's right to passage through the underworld was asserted and sect membership guaranteed so that the bearer "could have his name checked off and then be led to the Golden City, ferried across [the Sea of Bitterness] on a silver boat." 3 4 T h e idea of providing documentary proof of membership among the elect (yu-yuan) was characteristic of all White Lotus sects, and references to the process of registering one's name and then, upon arrival in Cloud City to attend the Dragon Flower Assembly, having one's name compared and checked oiT (tui-hao) are ubiquitous in White Lotus scriptures. 35 (This approach to salvation also reflects the extent to which bureaucratic practices pervaded Chinese popular culture.) The above discussion has set out in general terms the constellation of characteristics typical of one kind of White Lotus sect. T h e historical reality was, of course, not only far more complicated but also constantly in flux. There were sects that closely resembled the prototype and did so for long periods of time; others evolved away from it. Preliminary data suggest that "classic" sutra-recitation sects—the best examples of which are the early eighteenthcentury L o sects—flourished under certain conditions. A n understanding of these conditions can help explain why these sects had to change if they were to be successful elsewhere. Sutra-recitation sects could take their fullest form not only when public meetings and the construction of buildings for worship were possible but also 33

There are illustrations of this sort of passport in Henri Dore, Researches into Chinese Superstitions (Shanghai, 1 9 1 4 - 1 9 3 8 ; reprint ed. Taipei: Ch'eng-wen, 1966), 1 : 69-79. 34 K C T 47961, C L 49/4/26; K C T 48013, C L 49/5/4; K C T 50279, C L 52/2/27; S Y T 292-295, C L 52/3/2; C C T - N M S S 5 8 : 7 , C L 18/8/3. 35 See the Chiu-lien pao-chuan, chap. 9 and 19.

TRANSMISSION OF WHITE LOTUS S E C T A R I A N I S M

26g

when members were literate enough to read and understand the texts, leisured enough to have the time for frequent meetings, and wealthy enough to support the infrastructure of halls, scriptures, and religious objects. And because statutes accumulated banning all White Lotus sects, believers could therefore practice their religion most freely and safely when and where government scrutiny was minimal. Preliminary evidence confirms that well-developed sects of this type were most likely to be found in cities, and particularly in the large and busy cities of Peking and of the Lower and Middle Yangtze. There, sects had large memberships (hundreds or thousands of individuals), many books, and complexes of well-established halls. (In most big cities, with the exception of Peking, government and elite interest in sectarian activities was apparently minimal.) Members of monastic communities could devote all their time to religious activities because they were free from the concerns of daily life and because they belonged to an institution that gave them both discipline and training. Sutrarecitation sects emulated these conditions but accommodated them to the lay person's life. Their communities were only partially (and intermittently) separate, they had only occasional leisure for their activities, and their religious training was far less intense. Maintenance of this lay devotional life could be difficult and expensive. A government investigation that destroyed scripture halls, confiscated books and objects, and disbanded the community would require that the group renew its commitment and slowly and carefully accumulate new resources in order to recreate the old life. L o sects located near the southern terminus of the Grand Canal never recovered from the prosecutions of the mid-eighteenth century. Those sutra-recitation sects located in uncongenial environments found it difficult even to build and then maintain the simplest of infrastructures. Consider the problem faced by nine men from a village in Po-chou, Anhwei, in the late eighteenth century. 3 6 Several of them had learned about religious books, sutra recitation, and vegetarianism in their youth from older members of their families. As elderly men in 1 7 8 1 , they decided to revive these activities and to hold an assembly. Wang Fu brought a L o sect scripture and some other material used by his deceased grandfather; Liu P'ei had similar items belonging to his mother; Li Tzu-ching retrieved a L o scripture from descendents of an acquaintance; Li Shih-teng inherited one volume from a maternal uncle. In these scriptures, we are told, were recorded the Five Vows and words urging people to do good deeds. Then, [because] they wanted to dissipate calamities and attract benefits, they went to Wang Fu's house on the new and full moon each month and chanted. 36

Ta-Ch'ing li-ch'ao shih-lu ^ ( R S I S J ? I I [Veritable records of successive reigns of the Ch'ing dynasty], hereafter C S L (Mukden, 1937; reprint ed. Taipei, 1964) 9 8 0 . 1 0 - 1 1 , C L 40/4/10; K C T 42617, C L 47/9/29.

SUSAN NAQUIN Subsequently [five other m e n , here named], all of w h o m knew W a n g Fu well, c a m e to his house to listen to the chanting. T h e n they learned to recite the words of the scriptures for themselves.

T w o of these converts then sought out copies of books for their own use, one borrowing a volume from a friend, the other obtaining five scriptures from a deceased relative and then copying W a n g Fu's Lo ching. Thereafter, in addition to the twice-monthly assemblies, if anyone in the household of a member of this group fell ill, all would meet at that person's home to chant the sutras in order to "dissipate this c a l a m i t y , " and then share a vegetarian meal. This sect was not highly institutionalized to begin with: they had no separate hall or objects of worship. O n the other hand, memory of past practices (organizational and ritual), literacy, and the easy availability of texts made it possible for these men to recreate with little alteration the pious activities that had been interrupted by a hiatus of more than twenty years. T h e ease with which L o scriptures were obtained was obviously critical to the success of this group. T h e case of another sect, this one in P'ing-yuan C o u n t y in Shantung, illustrates continuity under even more adverse conditions. 3 7 Since at least the middle of the eighteenth century, members of the Sun family from a village in this county had practiced their sectarian religion. T h e y owned printing blocks, wooden seals, and a trunk full of scriptures that had been handed down for generations. T h e sect had expanded or contracted its activities in response to the leadership of this family. In the spring of 1822, because sect members had recently been reciting sutras only by memory and at home, Sun Wen-chih (into whose hands the books and other items had been transfered seven years before) decided to revive the regular assemblies of believers that had characterized past practice. He called together two dozen sect members from the vicinity and arranged that each would serve in rotation as an assembly head. Every month they met in one person's home and there made offerings and chanted scriptures brought by Sun. W h e n people in the community at large asked for their services, the group went to funerals or to the home of a sick person to chant. (Some thirty-three people requested such help in a period of twenty months.) Although the Suns had in the past financed the reprinting of a scripture, most members of the group did not own one. In the two examples given above, sects as a g r o u p made money by the performance of funeral rituals. Because both free time to engage in religious activities and the reprinting of books required money, sect members w h o were not wealthy were led to find ways to generate income. T h e C h ' i n g state regarded such activities as the misuse of religion for deception and personal profiteering; "tricking ignorant countryfolk in order to make a profit for 37

WCT, TK 3/11/24.

T R A N S M I S S I O N OF WHITE L O T U S S E C T A R I A N I S M

oneself" was an oft-repeated charge against White Lotus adherents. 3 8 Books, images, and offerings had to be paid for, however, and leisure too was costly. In the cases just described, groups of believers performed services for the public for pay, and individuals donated money and food to their group. These "profits" were thus shared and used to benefit the sect as a whole. Other, poorer groups undertook different money-making activities, and it is in this context that the other-worldly passports and contracts (described above) printed by some sects and sold on demand can be understood. A particularly expensive silk lu-yin was sold in 1769 in K i a n g s u for 1.2 taels, a substantial sum; paper passports cost a fraction of that amount but if produced and sold in large quantities represented a considerable i n c o m e . j 9 Enterprising sect teachers, copying the services offered by Buddhist and Taoist professionals, had found new ways to serve their pupils' needs and to recruit a m o n g the population at large. T h e Sun family sect also illustrates the fact that when large numbers of books were unavailable, the continued existence of a community of believers could be dependent on the leadership and resources of a single teacher and on memory not only of rituals and sect structure but also of the sacred texts themselves. Even without halls or books for everyone, this group was able to re-establish a pattern of assemblies and to generate an income. Fluctuations between participation in and abandonment of religious activities, reliance upon teachers (not the group) as the chief custodians of books and doctrines, and a lower public profile are quite typical of the sutra-recitation sects that were common in North C h i n a in the middle Ch'ing. T h e sect led by the W a n g family of L u a n chou in eastern Chihli illustrates this variant; by such modifications it was able to grow without always h a v i n g the more elaborate institutions one finds in the H u n g - y a n g or L o sects. 4 0 A scarcity of books encouraged teachers to rely on memorization of excerpts from the scriptures, rhymed passages that could be chanted in place of an entire book. Even a member of the W a n g family itself, which owned a copy of the Chiulien pao-chiian (but stored it in a temple some distance from their home), admitted to learning about sect doctrine from oral transmission. He quoted 3 8 T o my mind, the more important question is not whether sectarian activities generated income, for they did, but if this money was used for the collective purposes of the group or the private pleasures of one individual. Regarding with suspicion all income-generating activities that could not be taxed, the Ch'ing state did not recognize this distinction. 3 9

K C T 50279, C L 52/2/27; K C T 54821, C L 53/8/21; K C T 24036, C L 34/1/22.

See the information on W a n g Sen in note 2 above and my "The High R o a d and the Low R o a d : Lineage Strategies of the W a n g s o f Y u n g - p ' i n g Prefecture, 1500-1800" (paper prepared for the Conference on Family and Kinship in Chinese History, Asilomar, California, J a n u a r y 2-7, 1983). The most readily available collection of documents on the W a n g family has been published in Ch'ing-tai iang-an shih-liao ts'ung-pien í r a f t í ^ S ^ M S i ® [Archival sources on Ch'ing history] (Peking: Chung-hua 4 a ¥> r 979)> 3 : ' - 9 0 . 40

SUSAN N A Q U I N

2J2

l o n g sections o f the t e x t ( a b o u t t h e t h r e e B u d d h a s sent b y the E t e r n a l M o t h e r to s a v e t h e w o r l d ) b u t m a i n t a i n e d d i s i n g e n u o u s l y , " a l l this w a s w h a t m y g r a n d m o t h e r t a u g h t m e ; w h e t h e r it c a m e f r o m t h e Chiu-lien

pao-chiian,

I

don't

k n o w . " 4 1 Effective m e m o r i z a t i o n required prolonged and intimate relations b e t w e e n m e m b e r s o f t h e sect (or a t least b e t w e e n t e a c h e r a n d p u p i l ) . I n t h e c a s e of the W a n g family, m a l e m e m b e r s w e r e continuously on the m o v e , k e e p i n g in touch with their scattered congregations. Books were sometimes copied out b y p u p i l s , b u t o f t e n o r a l t r a n s m i s s i o n h a d to suffice. E x c e r p t e d p a s s a g e s (or a t least t h o s e l a t e r r e v e a l e d to g o v e r n m e n t a u t h o r i t i e s ) d i d n o t n e c e s s a r i l y c o n c e n t r a t e o n r a d i c a l s e c t a r i a n t h e m e s b u t o f t e n s i m p l y r e s t a t e d B u d d h i s t cliches. O n e c h a n t e x h o r t e d p e o p l e to b r e a k free o f evil h a b i t s in o r d e r to g a i n l o n g life. Wine, lust, avarice, and anger are like four walls, T h e deluded do not recognize them and are trapped within. T o leap beyond these walls Is the prescription for long life and never g r o w i n g old. ( T h e o r i g i n a l consists o f f o u r lines o f s e v e n c h a r a c t e r s e a c h ; t h e first, s e c o n d , a n d f o u r t h lines r h y m e . ) 4 2 T h e w a y s in w h i c h t h e desire for access to s a c r e d texts a n d for a r e g u l a r i n c o m e c o u l d c o m b i n e to g e n e r a t e a l a r g e r f o l l o w i n g a m o n g t h e u n e d u c a t e d are well illustrated by the case of T u n g M i n , a m a n from rural C h i h l i w h o lived in the i 7 8 0 s . 4 3 I n 1 780, a sect m e m b e r f r o m t h e s o u t h e r n p a r t o f the p r o v i n c e r e - e s t a b l i s h e d c o n t a c t w i t h t h e f a m i l y o f T ' i e n C h i n - t ' a i , a w e l l - k n o w n sect t e a c h e r f r o m S h a n s i w h o h a d b e e n e x e c u t e d in

1762. H e h a d

previously

r e c e i v e d f r o m T ' i e n p r i n t e d m a t e r i a l s to b e u s e d for c h a n t i n g , a n d w a n t e d to o b t a i n m o r e . T h e s e " s o n g s " (ko-tz'u) w e r e a p p a r e n t l y r h y m e d a n d p r o b a b l y h a d their o w n t u n e s (as d i d p a s s a g e s in l a t e M i n g W h i t e L o t u s s c r i p t u r e s ) ; j u d g i n g from e x a m p l e s a v a i l a b l e , they represented condensed versions o f real s c r i p t u r e s . T h i s m a n l e a r n e d t h a t T ' i e n ' s s u p p l y h a d b e e n c o n f i s c a t e d , so o n his o w n i n i t i a t i v e , u s i n g his o w n c o p i e s , h e h a d b l o c k s c a r v e d , a n d t h e s o n g - s h e e t s r e p r i n t e d . I n o r d e r to g u a r a n t e e the a u t h e n t i c i t y o f these d o c u m e n t s , h e p a i d t h e s u r v i v i n g g r a n d s o n o f t h e T ' i e n f a m i l y for t h e r i g h t to d e c l a r e ( t r u t h f u l l y ) t h a t t h e texts h a d o r i g i n a l l y c o m e f r o m t h e m . I n t h e n e x t d e c a d e , h e a n d a c o l l e a g u e p r i n t e d s e v e r a l h u n d r e d sets o f these s o n g - s h e e t s a n d t h e n g a v e t h e m to their p u p i l s in r e t u r n f o r c o n t r i b u t i o n s . T u n g M i n w a s a m e m b e r o f a sect t h a t c h a n t e d a t f u n e r a l s a n d for sick p e o p l e . I n 1 7 8 6 h e h e a r d a b o u t these s o n g sheets a n d a c q u i r e d n i n e t y sets, for w h i c h h e p a i d five t h o u s a n d c a s h . T u n g t h e n m a d e these s o n g s a v a i l a b l e to m e m b e r s o f his o w n s m a l l g r o u p , i n s t r u c t i n g 41SYT

333-336, 341-342, C C 20/12/26. K C T - N M 476:14, C C 21 /3/8. 4 3 K C T 50279, CL 52/2/27; K C T 50323, CL 52/2/30; S Y T 292-295, CL 52/3/2; K C T 51t68, CL 52/6/12. Tung's profit was about thirteen taels. The income he and others gave to the T'ien family was about ten to twenty taels a year. 42

T R A N S M I S S I O N OF W H I T E LOTUS

SECTARIANISM

m

them how to read them and asking for contributions in return. T h e availability of extra song-sheets, the model of Buddhist distribution of pious tracts, and the possibilities for profit clearly also encouraged teachers like T u n g to sell these sheets to people who were not sect members. And indeed T u n g Min sold sixtyone sets (for between one hundred and five hundred cash each) to women in his neighborhood. T u n g Min's case illustrates the further adaptation of sutra-recitation practices to groups that had no public space and no books and to believers who were poorer and less literate. Other sects simplified the ritual even further and made room for other levels of participation. One group in Shantung, for instance, held assemblies and chanted sutras to the accompaniment of drum and bell, but for those who could not read, it was enough to kneel to present a single stick of incense while the others chanted. 4 4 In White Lotus sectarianism, as in Chinese culture generally, the quest for salvation and immortality was closely entwined with the search for good health and long life. In those sects that most closely imitated monastic life, a greater emphasis was placed on accumulating spiritual merit and escaping from the cycle of birth and rebirth, but other sect teachers (such as the Sun, Wang, and T'ien families) tended to physical as well as spiritual needs and thus reached a wider audience. T h e ability to heal was a sign of spiritual power in China, and for White Lotus members, healing became a way of attracting converts and securing a regular income. Some sects chanted sutras as a group at the bedsides of sick people, some teachers did the same by themselves, without the group. T h e above examples show the changes in organization and activities that some sutra-recitation sects underwent. T h e need for income encouraged professionalism and rewarded entrepreneurial personalities. As horizontal ties between assembly members became weaker, the vertical connections between teachers and pupils became more important. But although rituals and religious ideas were simplified and occasionally supplemented with orthodox texts, written materials conveying sect doctrine remained central and the basic organizational framework was unchanged. Whereas, at one extreme, Lo sect members participated in funeral rites as semiprofessionals, familiar with the chants and rituals and practiced in their performance, at the other extreme, individual sect members performed this sort of service themselves merely by selling song-sheets or passports that could be used by strangers. Sutra-recitation sects thus ranged from close-knit quasi-monastic groups with leisure, halls, images, and fine books, to those who were pressed for income, met in private 44

W C T , T K 3 / 1 2 / 2 2 . T h e emphasis on special techniques ofincense presentation is a charac-

teristic of many White Lotus sects. A m p l e authority can be found in their scriptures. T h e Chiu-lien pao-chuan, for example, describes the great power of the right incense, with its special fragrance, to attract irresistibly the attention of the gods (chap. 1). T h e I-chu-hsiang — ffilf (single stick of incense) sects incorporated this imagery into their name and met sometimes to chant songs but often simply to bow, burn incense, and pray. See K C T - N M 5 9 6 : 2 , C C 19/5/28 for one illustration.

SUSAN N A Q U I N

274

homes, relied on song-sheets or their memories, and provided medical as well as clerical services for a larger public. Clientele ranged from literate city dwellers to semi-educated country folk. Considered in this light, meditational sects, which we will discuss below, represent a development even further from the congregational mode. M E D I T A T I O N A L SECTS Let us now turn to the second major type of White Lotus group: the meditational sect. These sects were not characterized by the lay monastic practices so far described: they had no halls, no sutras, no vows, no vegetarian diet, no funeral rituals. The act of meditation was the primary focus of religious activity. Meditational chants were transmitted orally and ritual was simple. Martial arts were sometimes passed along together with methods of breath circulation; both were intended to benefit the practitioner in this world as well as the next. Individual sect teachers routinely used healing to attract new converts. T h e values they taught seemed marked as much by Confucian as by Buddhist influence and emphasized participation in society rather than withdrawal from it. Sects had no single geographic focus, assemblies were not a regular activity, and horizontal ties between members were weak. Because the most important bond was between pupil and teacher, vertical links within long chains of masters and disciples were strong. A well-developed system of formal and regular contributions to teachers strengthened their power and resources. Late Ming patriarchs played no role in the history of these sects, although one family was a focus for millenarian expectations. Members of this type of sect appear to have been rural people with little or no education; the great majority lived in the villages of North China. Sects of this type appear to have emerged in the early eighteenth century (possibly earlier) among the pupils of a single family of teachers, the Liu family of Shan County in southwestern Shantung. Such sects used a variety of names, but most commonly borrowed the name of one of the eight trigrams—symbols derived from The Book of Changes and commonly used to represent basic configurations of the universe. 4 5 (For this reason, I shall here use the terms Trigram sect and meditational sect interchangeably.) T h e history of the development of White Lotus meditation is not presently very clear. In her book on Lin Chao-en, Judith Berling has described the rich traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Neo-Confucian meditation that Lin used as the basis for his sixteenth-century popularization of meditation as a path to enlightenment. 4 6 All three of those traditions surely influenced the White 45

Some information on the Lius may be found in my "Connections" article and in my Shantung

Rebellion, pp. 5 1 - 5 3 . 46Judith

A . Berling, The Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-en (New York: Columbia University Press,

1980), esp. chap. 5. In the twentieth century, certain monasteries concentrated on meditation (as opposed to sutra recitation); monks meditated in the morning, noon, and evening according to a complex schedule that alternated periods of sitting with periods of rapid circumambulations. See Welch, Practice of Chinese Buddhism, chap. 2; Prip-M^ller, Chinese Buddhist Monasteries, pp. 7 4 - 7 7 .

T R A N S M I S S I O N OF W H I T E L O T U S S E C T A R I A N I S M

275

Lotus. In fact, many late Ming White Lotus scriptures devoted considerable attention to meditation as the route to salvation. (The Golden Elixir technique described in the Chiu-lien pao-chiian was a special system of meditation.) Nevertheless, it was the Trigram sects, which had no such books, that turned to meditation as their central concern. (Further research on meditation in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sects is necessary.) T h e meditational techniques used in White Lotus sects in the middle Ch'ing have been described at length elsewhere, 47 and I will simply restate the essentials here. Prior to meditation, a believer would perform a few simple acts: making an offering, kneeling while holding a stick of burning incense (to attract the attention of the gods), and kowtowing (kneeling to knock one's head on the ground) a certain number of times. No altar or special place was necessary. There were chants (chou-yii) of various lengths to be recited during these rituals, chants that described (and served as a guide to) the actions performed ( " a single stick ofincense will easily rise up to the heavens," and so forth). Then he (rarely she) sat cross-legged and "circulated the breath" (yun-ch'i). One teacher of a Ken Trigram system of meditation was described (in 1820) as follows: H e practiced an exercise (kung-fu) that w o u l d nourish one's nature (hsing) a n d one's life store (ming). H e told people to close their eyes a n d circulate their vital breath, thus cultivating their virtue (te). T h e ming would negotiate the five viscera and emerge; the hsing would go through the five gates and then emerge. T h u s one could reach our real home in the realm of true emptiness and see the Eternal Progenitor face to f a c e . 4 8

On one level, meditation was intended to benefit one's health and lead to long life; on another, it made possible direct contact with the Eternal Mother. In late Ming scriptures, patriarchs are often said to have ascended to heaven through meditational trance, but the average believer in a sect of the sutrarecitation type expected to meet the Eternal Mother only after death. Immediate access to the supreme deity was obviously a more appealing possibility, and promise of such a face-to-face meeting (between "Mother and child") surely increased the relative popularity of meditational sects. The language of meditational chants borrowed directly from Confucian and Taoist notions that were not only found in White Lotus scriptures but were part of popular culture generally. Some chants emphasized that meditation established basic correspondences between the human, natural, and supernatural worlds and thus created harmony among them: H e a v e n represents the larger heaven, M a n represents the smaller h e a v e n . . . . 47 Susan Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising 0/1813 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), pp. 26-29; Overmyer, Religion, pp. 1 8 8 - 1 9 2 . Neither of these books makes a distinction between sutra-recitation and meditational sects. 48 W C T , T K 1 /11 /16. For these terms in each of the three meditational traditions, see Berling, Syncretic Religion, pp. 37, 43, 95-98. I have used her translation for ming ^¡J.

SUSAN N A Q U I N or As there are eight trigrams in heaven A n d eight rivers on earth, So there are eight mansions in your b o d y . . . . O n e c h a n t o r i e n t e d the h u m a n b o d y to p h y s i c a l s p a c e (the five d i r e c t i o n s ) , to t i m e (the t e n s t e m s ) , a n d to n a t u r a l processes (the five p h a s e s ) : T h e ear corresponds to the east, to chia and z, and to wood. T h e eye corresponds to the south, to ping and ting, and to fire. T h e nose corresponds to the west, to keng and hsin, and to metal. T h e mouth corresponds to the north, to jen and kuei, and to w a t e r . . . . T h i s c h a n t t h e n i n s t r u c t e d t h e d e v o t e e to " c l o s e the f o u r g a t e s a n d thus n o u r i s h y o u r t r u e n a t u r e , w h i c h is l o c a t e d in the p l a c e b e t w e e n y o u r e y e b r o w s . " T h a t p l a c e , t h e " d a r k g a t e " (hsuan-men), w a s t h e p a s s a g e t h r o u g h w h i c h o n e e m e r g e d to rise u p t o w a r d t h e E t e r n a l M o t h e r . 4 9 M e d i t a t i o n a l c h a n t s s e e m to h a v e u s u a l l y c o n s i s t e d o f n o m o r e t h a n

fifty

c h a r a c t e r s ; t h e m a j o r i t y w e r e e v e n s h o r t e r a n d thus easier to r e m e m b e r . M o s t h a d lines o f seven c h a r a c t e r s e a c h

(as d i d l a r g e p o r t i o n s o f W h i t e

Lotus

scriptures), often r h y m e d a n d with parallel g r a m m a t i c a l structures that c o u l d also s e r v e as aids to m e m o r y . T h e first f e w lines c o u l d s o m e t i m e s s u b s t i t u t e for an entire passage. T h e best k n o w n a n d m o s t p o p u l a r m e d i t a t i o n a l m a n t r a consisted o f e i g h t c h a r a c t e r s , a l t h o u g h l o n g e r v e r s i o n s also e x i s t e d . T h e first line w a s " E t e r n a l P r o g e n i t o r i n o u r r e a l h o m e in t h e r e a l m o f t r u e e m p t i n e s s " (chen-k'ung chiahsiang wu-sheng fu-mu).

T h i s w a s s o m e t i m e s f o l l o w e d b y a s e c o n d line, s u c h as

" P a s t , P r e s e n t , M a i t r e y a - t o - C o m e " (kuo-ch'ii hsien-tsai mi-le wei-lai) . 5 0 T h e t w o lines r e f e r r e d to t h e c e n t r a l h i s t o r i c a l v i s i o n o f these sects: their b e l i e f in t h e E t e r n a l M o t h e r in h e r p a r a d i s e , in t h e t h r e e h i s t o r i c a l eras i n t o w h i c h all t i m e is d i v i d e d , a n d in the p r o m i s e o f d e l i v e r a n c e b y t h e M a i t r e y a B u d d h a . T h e b a s i c e i g h t - c h a r a c t e r m a n t r a c o u l d thus n o t o n l y refer to v i s i t i n g t h e E t e r n a l M o t h e r in

trance

but

encapsulate

the

more

radical

message

of

White

Lotus

millenarianism. By contrast, some m a n t r a s consisted o f simple ethical exhortations

and

c o m m u n i c a t e d very o r t h o d o x m o r a l messages. O n e p o p u l a r c h a n t was d r a w n d i r e c t l y f r o m the S i x M a x i m s (liu-yii) o f t h e first M i n g e m p e r o r . I n its s i m p l e s t six- o r e i g h t - c h a r a c t e r f o r m , it s a i d , " b e n e i g h b o r s " (hsiaofu-mu, mu hsiang-li).

filial

to p a r e n t s , a m i c a b l e

should be

49

W C T , CC 23/9/19; K C T 1044, T K 17/6/2; W C T , T K 3/11/24. T K 3/12/20.

50WCT,

toward

A longer form elaborated, saying that one

TRANSMISSION OF WHITE LOTUS SECTARIANISM

277

Reverential toward heaven and earth, Filial t o w a r d f a t h e r a n d m o t h e r , R e s p e c t f u l t o w a r d elders, Amicable toward neighbors.51

Believers were also told to revere life and kill no living thing, to be benevolent {jen), righteous (i), polite (li), wise (chih), and thoughtful (t'i-i'ieh), not to be wicked and not to cheat those with more or oppress those with less. 52 This behavior constituted " d o i n g g o o d "

( h s i n g - h a o , hsing

hao-shih,

hsing-shan)

and

brought the merit that would assure salvation. T h e same hortatory tone found in these chants appears, of course, in Buddhist and Confucian works. 5 3 W e might speculate that just as sutra-recitation sects emphasized pious Buddhist values as part of their public appeal, so meditational sects appear to have readily incorporated more elements from the popular orthodoxy into their teachings. U n o r t h o d o x White Lotus ideas could be identified with (or hidden behind) conventional values: the Eternal Progenitor could be presented as one's own father and mother, the "real home in the realm of true emptiness" as one's own village, and so forth. Such seeming similarities could speed conversion by making the sectarian religion taught together with meditation seem less bizarre and frightening. In their most elaborate forms, the act of meditation and the recitation of mantras, like the repetition of a catechism, were ways in which the individual b e l i e v e r — w i t h o u t any i n t e r m e d i a r y — r e v i e w e d some of the basic tenets of the religion, adjusted the correspondences between h u m a n beings and the world so as to assure a spiritually and physically healthy life, and remembered how to live correctly. Sect members phrased these goals as "protecting one's body from illness," "dissipating disaster and extending one's life," "attracting good fortune and avoiding calamity," " p r e p a r i n g for the life to c o m e . " For sects without the more formal and detailed discussions of doctrine found in religious scriptures, the chants used in meditational rituals were an important source of continuity, but they also clearly encouraged a simplified understanding of the religion.

5 1 The full text of the six maxims is SCSo^&ftiofPBÉ*®fio&Pli fF # M • In 1 652 these exhortations were ordered displayed on stone stele throughout the empire. See Ch'in-ting ta-Ch'ing hui-tien shik-li ikfeizW (1899), 397.1. White Lotus versions (of

which there were many) included the following: from 1815 ( K C T 18834, C C 20/6/1), # 3 £ e o B £ J ® S ; f r o m 1788 ( K C T 54228, C L 53/6/8), For other versions, see N Y C 70.40-47, T K 7/8/10; K C T 41681, C L 47/5/28; W C T , T K 5/12/22; N Y C 38.67-72, C C 20/9/6; W C T , T K 1/11/16; C C T - N M 2308, C C 18/12/11; K C T - N M 779:4, T K 16/1/24; C C T - N M S 295:13, C L 51 /8/g; K C T - N M 4 5 8 : 1 1 , C C 24/4/26. For official popularizations of Ch'ing sacred edicts, see Victor H. Mair, chapter 11, below. 5 2 Naquin, Eight Trigrams, p. 47. 5 3 S e e Evelyn Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch'ing China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979), pp. ' 3 6 - 1 3 7 , for the similar tone of Confucian primers.

2j8

SUSAN NAQUIN

Altars and special halls were not necessary to these T r i g r a m sects. Believers did not worship physical images of the Eternal Mother and usually disguised their references to her. Some sects kowtowed to Heaven (which, they would admit, was the same as the Eternal Progenitor), others to H e a v e n and Earth. (This term "eternal progenitor" [wu-shengfu-mu] had come into common usage by at least 1724 as a w a y of referring to the Eternal Mother [wu-sheng lao-mu], perhaps because it had a less heterodox sound.) T h e ostensible object of many meditational-sect rites was the sun (t'ai-yang). (I cannot demonstrate that this too was a surrogate for the Eternal Mother.) Some groups addressed the sun as " V e n e r a b l e Sagely R u l e r " (sheng-ti lao-yeh or sheng-chiin lao-yeh) and gave money " t o be used for the worship (chi-ssu) of the s u n . " Believers kowtowed facing east at sunrise, facing south at noon, and facing west at sunset, reciting as part of the ritual certain chants that described their a c t i o n s — " y o u r humble disciple receives and welcomes the Sagely R u l e r and begs the Venerable Sagely R u l e r to shine forth," and so o n . 5 4 Entry into one of these sects could mean no more than the transmission of meditational techniques and mantras by a teacher to a new pupil. T h e level of training in breath circulation could, furthermore, vary a great deal: some believers knew how to go into deep meditation, others did no more than sit quietly and recite mantras. But even when the therapeutic value of regular meditation was not fully realized, new converts were aware that this system could give them access to the Eternal Mother's benefits in the next world as well as this. In many cases, the religious message was no more elaborate than this. T h e martial arts that sometimes accompanied training in meditation (possibly influenced by the ritualized circumambulations of meditating monks?) were likewise intended to be beneficial to the health. T h e y were also designed to provide this-worldly protection as well as useful skills during the expected apocalypse. These arts included various sorts of boxing, fencing (with poles or swords), and kicking. Like meditation, the martial arts were ritualized, preceded by offerings of incense, and accompanied by the recitation of chants. In the early 1770s, W a n g L u n taught the following lines: If a thousand arms impede me, ten thousand arms will intercept them; The azure dragon [yang] and the white tiger [yin\ will come to give protection. If I call on Heaven, Heaven will assist me; If I call on Earth, Earth will give me magical strength. Their guns will not fire, What men will dare impede me? T h e relationship between the meditational and martial arts was theoretically complementary: the former were called " c i v i l " [wen) arts, the latter " m i l i t a r y " (wu). Sect members adopted the assumption common to elite and popular 54

K C T 8014, YC 12/3/24; KCT 54994, CL 53/9/13.

TRANSMISSION OF WHITE LOTUS SECTARIANISM

m

c u l t u r e in C h i n a t h a t wen a n d wu w e r e i n t e r d e p e n d e n t p a r t s of a n i n t e g r a t e d system.55 In T r i g r a m sects, the m i l l e n a r i a n ideas originally set f o r t h in W h i t e L o t u s scriptures were, like rituals a n d ethical values, c a r r i e d in easily r e m e m b e r e d c h a n t s . A g r e a t m a n y s h o r t couplets t a u g h t believers a b o u t t h e f u t u r e ; it is n o t yet possible to k n o w if such lines w e r e originally b o r r o w e d f r o m scriptures. Change the universe, change the world, The year of rebellion, the year of the end of the kalpa.... The seventy-two families will open up the yellow way, We wait only for one family to come and return us to the origin.... If the time of the purple sprouts has not yet arrived, The true form will not dare manifest itself... .5 P- 7716 Pasternak, Kinship and Community, pp. 111 - 1 1 2 , 125-126. 77 J o h n A. Brim, "Village Alliance Temples in Hong Kong," in Wolf, Religion and Ritual, p. 102. 78 See also Marjorie Topley, "Chinese Religion and Rural Cohesion in the Nineteenth Century," Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 8 : 9 - 4 3 (1968), p. 19, and James Hayes, "Chinese Temples in the Local Setting," in Some Traditional Chinese Ideas and Conceptions in Hong Kong Social Life Today (Hong Kong: Royal Asiatic Society, 1966), pp. 9 2 - 9 3 . Eugene Anderson also notes that the Durkheimian approach is useful when analyzing many of the T'ien Hou cults which serve Hong Kong's boat people (personal communication).

STANDARDIZING THE GODS

3'7

Although the approach adopted in this paper is different from that espoused by C. K . Y a n g and others, I would not contend that my findings necessarily contradict those of earlier fieldworkers. Rather, I prefer to think of the two approaches as complementary. It is possible, for instance, to attend a T'ien Hou festival at Eastern Mountain Temple and gain the impression that everyone present shares an identical set of collective values. When asked about their role in the local cult, people in all walks of life express such views as the following: " W e all work together to run this festival," or "Eastern Mountain Temple belongs to everyone in this hsiang and T'ien Hou helps us all." If the fieldworker is willing to restrict the analysis to publicly expressed values, the two cults under study do indeed serve the needs of everyone concerned. However, on closer inspection, it becomes apparent that these public expressions of solidarity conceal more than they reveal. T h e best way to approach this problem, I discovered, was to ask people to tell me their own versions of the T'ien Hou myth. In particular, I asked informants from every settlement in the two hsiang to explain how they and their ancestors related to the goddess. When the results were compared, I found that every category or class of people had a different representation of T'ien Hou. These findings are not unique to the area under study. Arthur Wolf has argued, for instance, that a common feature of Chinese peasant religion is that "it mirrors the social landscape of its adherents. There are as many meanings as there are vantage p o i n t s . " 7 9 W o l f ' s insight helps explain how religious cults like the ones under investigation can incorporate people from such diverse backgrounds. As long as tenants or clients participated in the public rituals and professed an allegiance to T'ien Hou, they were free to develop their own representations of the goddess. Those at the top of the regional and national hierarchies (i.e., local elites and government officials) were only concerned with actions, not beliefs. In earlier sections of this paper I argued that T ' i e n Hou was promoted by imperial authorities because, to them, she represented "civilization" and approved culture. This view of the goddess is projected in official documents that circulated at the national level. Government functionaries may have had private beliefs regarding T ' i e n Hou but these did not find public expression. A t the local level, members of the landlord-merchant class had their own reasons for promoting T'ien Hou cults. Being literate, men in this category related more easily to the vision of T ' i e n Hou presented in government publications. T h e goddess appealed to them primarily as a symbol of coastal pacification but she carried other, "deeper" messages as well. In effect, by building temples to T'ien Hou the local elite signaled that they wished to join the mainstream of Chinese culture. Educated men who lived in the countryside were anxious to have their temples, and by implication their lineages, mentioned in the hsien gazetteers. The vision of T'ien Hou as a bearer of "civilization" and a guardian of social 79

Wolf, "Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors," in Wolf, Religion and Ritual, p. 131.

3I8

J A M E S L. W A T S O N

order thus appealed primarily to literate decision makers at all levels of the political hierarchy in China. When one looks at other categories of people, the pattern is rather different. For ordinary, semiliterate members of the landowning lineages T'ien Hou is perceived as a symbol of territorial control. Since the foundation of the local cults in the postevacuation period, most people in San Tin or H a Tsuen have been unable to read the documents pertaining to T'ien Hou's exploits. This does not mean that they are unaware of the goddess's associations with the imperial court, but rather that they choose not to dwell on these points in their own renditions of the T'ien Hou myth. When asked, men in this category (the views of women are discussed later) refer almost exclusively to the goddess's ability to quell pirates in the nearby delta and her conquest of parochial deities such as Sand River Mother. T'ien Hou's assistance to lineage ancestors is the most common theme of these stories. In many respects, ordinary members of the lineage have taken on the religious attitudes of their educated kinsmen. The local elites are keenly aware that "uncivilized" behavior lowers the status of the entire lineage. This, I would argue, is one reason why spirit possession, flagellation, and self-immolation play no role in the local T'ien Hou cults. T h e M a n and Teng do have female mediums who communicate with the spirits of deceased people, but these activities have not evolved into cults as such. 8 0 It is significant that males in San Tin and H a Tsuen do not themselves act as mediums. This concern for "proper" behavior (in their own terms) sets lineage members apart from many of their clients and neighbors in the surrounding countryside. During my stay in San Tin ( 1 9 6 9 - 1 9 7 0 ) , I attended a spirit medium session held by Teotiu immigrants in the city of Tsuen Wan. When I returned to the village with photographs of flagellation and tongue cutting, my neighbors were horrified, and yet fascinated. They had heard of such behavior but had never actually witnessed anything like it themselves. Their reactions were revealing: " H o w can anyone who calls himself'Chinese' act like such a barbarian." In contrast to what I have seen in other parts of Hong K o n g and Taiwan, the temple festivals in San Tin and Ha Tsuen are remarkable for their utter lack of religious fervor. T h e hua p'ao hui competitions sometimes dissolved into brawls and the ta chiao processions occasionally led to organized violence, but the religious content of the two T'ien Hou cults under study is understated in the extreme. Nor is the efficaciousness of the local T'ien Hou temples a matter of great concern. In my discussions with M a n and Teng (male) elders, it became apparent that T'ien Hou's divine intervention on their behalf is perceived in generalized, abstract terms. The goddess is thought to have assisted their ancestors but she is not credited with specific miracles in living memory. Women, as demonstrated below, have a different vision of T'ien Hou, but local 80

On female mediums see J a c k M. Potter, "Cantonese Shamanism," in Wolf, Religion and Ritual.

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males a r e not p a r t i c u l a r l y c o n c e r n e d w i t h t h e spiritual p o w e r s o f their p a t r o n deity. F o r m e n w h o b e l o n g to p o w e r f u l lineages, she is, a b o v e all else, a s y m b o l of territorial h e g e m o n y . M o v i n g d o w n the h i e r a r c h y o f p o w e r , w e m u s t consider the residents o f satellite villages. U n t i l r e c e n t l y , p e o p l e in these small c o m m u n i t i e s h a d little choice b u t to p a r t i c i p a t e in t h e T ' i e n H o u cults. A l t h o u g h they are n o l o n g e r tenants as s u c h , 8 1 m a n y r e m a i n clients of their f o r m e r l a n d l o r d s a n d c o n t i n u e to p l a y a s u b o r d i n a t e role in l o c a l politics. B e i n g clients, they c a n n o t , o f course, a c c e p t T ' i e n H o u as a s y m b o l o f territorial c o n t r o l ; to d o so w o u l d m e a n t h a t the goddess w o u l d represent their o w n oppression. A c c o r d i n g l y , most satellite villagers h a v e reinterpreted the T ' i e n H o u m y t h to " e x p l a i n " their position in the social h i e r a r c h y a n d to gloss o v e r the f a c t that they p l a y such a m i n o r role in cult activities. T h i s m e t h o d o f i d e o l o g i c a l self-justification is c o m m o n a m o n g oppressed minorities w h o find it difficult, if not impossible, to affect a c h a n g e in their political c i r c u m s t a n c e s . 8 2 If asked, therefore, p e o p l e in smaller villages d e n y — o f t e n a g g r e s s i v e l y — t h a t there is a n e x p l o i t a t i v e d i m e n s i o n to the T ' i e n H o u cults. T h e y d o not hide their r e s e n t m e n t o f the l o c a l security forces b u t , they a r g u e , this h a s n o t h i n g to do w i t h their r e l a t i o n s h i p to the goddess. Clients o f d o m i n a n t l i n e a g e s w e r e t r a d i t i o n a l l y illiterate (this is still true for those o v e r 45) a n d , as a c o n s e q u e n c e , their m y t h s a n d legends w e r e n e v e r r e c o r d e d in w r i t i n g . In c o l l e c t i n g T ' i e n H o u m y t h s f r o m satellite villagers, I f o u n d that their versions all h a v e o n e t h i n g in c o m m o n : the M a n a n d T e n g a r e presented as usurpers w h o a r e u n a b l e to harness the p o w e r o f the d e i t y . A n interesting, a n d r e v e a l i n g , m y t h w a s told to m e by elders in S a K o n g W a i ( " S a n d R i v e r V i l l a g e " ) , a satellite o f H a T s u e n . A s the n a m e implies, residents o f this c o m m u n i t y c l a i m a special r e l a t i o n s h i p to S a n d R i v e r T e m p l e . In their version o f local history, the f o u n d e r s o f S a K o n g W a i a r r i v e d o n the scene prior to the T e n g a n d w e r e responsible for s t a r t i n g the T ' i e n H o u cult. T h e T e n g took control o f the t e m p l e after they h a d d e s t r o y e d S a K o n g W a i ' s f a v o r a b l e f e n g shui ( " w i n d a n d w a t e r , " g e o m a n t i c influences) a n d u s u r p e d the l a n d in H a T s u e n hsiang. T o this d a y , h o w e v e r , the g o d d e s s will n o t h e l p the T e n g a n d will o n l y respond w h e n she is a p p r o a c h e d b y a d e s c e n d e n t o f the p e o p l e w h o

first

installed her in S a n d R i v e r T e m p l e . O n c e e v e r y ten years, a c c o r d i n g to the story, T e n g elders bribe a m a l e resident o f S a K o n g W a i to initiate the c a s t i n g o f lots r e q u i r e d for the selection o f ritual leaders w h o preside o v e r the ta chiao. T h e goddess will not " c o o p e r a t e " unless s o m e o n e f r o m S a K o n g W a i starts the p r o c e d u r e , s u p p o s e d l y u n d e r the c o v e r o f darkness to hide his actions f r o m fellow villagers. I n p u n i s h m e n t for t r i c k i n g the goddess, h o w e v e r , the m a n w h o breaks ranks a n d accepts the T e n g b r i b e is said to die b e f o r e the n e x t ta chiao. N o 81

In 1905, colonial officials gave full ownership rights to sitting tenants, but these rights were

largely unenforceable until the 1950s. 82

A similar theme is explored by Barrington Moore, Jr., Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and

Revolt (New York: R a n d o m House, 1978).

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WATSON

one has actually witnessed any of these events, of course, but the people in Sa K o n g W a i are convinced that the goddess is really their patron and not the Teng's. This is only one of the ways that satellite villagers use myth to justify their participation in the local T ' i e n H o u cults. T h e discussion to this point has concentrated almost exclusively on local males. W o m e n , as indicated earlier, have a very different vision of T'ien Hou from that held by any category of m e n — s o different, in fact, that one begins to wonder if we are dealing with the same deity. W o m e n play no role whatsoever in the formal organization of the temple cults, not even to the extent o f f o r m i n g a women's auxilliary to complement the activities of their husbands or fathers. For women the worship of T ' i e n H o u is usually defined in personal or family terms. Wives appear at the annual festivals with individual sets of offerings, which they present to the goddess on behalf of their households. M e n never make these prestations, as they are said to be " t o o b u s y " attending to the collective rituals associated with the cult. In considering the religious conceptions of village women, one must bear in mind that until recently all but a handful were totally illiterate. 8 3 Most women over 45 are not even able to recognize the characters for common surnames or the names of their own villages. It is not surprising, therefore, that they know little about the traditions of T ' i e n H o u preserved in writing. A n d , yet, I was amazed to discover that women's conceptions of the goddess did not seem to reflect their own (or their husbands') position in the social hierarchy. T h e myths told to me by w o m e n varied somewhat in content, but the underlying messages were basically the same: T ' i e n Hou is a personalized deity who, if approached properly, will answer individual pleas for help. W o m e n usually refer to the goddess as T ' i e n H o u N i a n g Niang, adding a feminizing suffix that (in the local dialect) carries maternal connotations. In this guise, T ' i e n H o u is perceived primarily as a fertility goddess and her efficaciousness is very much at issue. L a n d women (I cannot comment on the views of boat women) bring their gynecological and childbearing problems to the goddess and make personal appeals for divine intercession. In anthropological terms, a dyadic contract is established between supplicant and deity 8 4 ; should T ' i e n H o u keep her side of the bargain, the w o m a n presents a special offering in repayment. These individual arrangements have nothing to do with the formal structure of the T ' i e n H o u cults and the prestations are made at times other than the goddess's annual festival. M e n , at least those I am familiar with, do not make individual contracts with the deity; they rely on their mothers or wives to handle this aspect of religious life. T h u s , the women's personalistic vision of T ' i e n H o u is 83

R . S. W a t s o n f o u n d o n l y five w o m e n in H a T s u e n o v e r the a g e o f 45 w h o w e r e literate. T h e s e

w o m e n b e l o n g e d to the wealthiest f a m i l y in the v i l l a g e . I did not d i s c o v e r a n y literate w o m e n o v e r 45 in satellite villages. 84

G e o r g e M . Foster, " T h e D y a d i c C o n t r a c t : A M o d e l for the S o c i a l S t r u c t u r e o f a M e x i c a n

P e a s a n t V i l l a g e , ' ' American Anthropologist 6 3 : 1 1 7 3 - 1 1 9 2 ( 1 9 6 1 ) .

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not necessarily opposed to the various male representations outlined above. Nonetheless, the differences are so striking that I am led to speculate that village women and men inhabit separate conceptual worlds—at least in respect to religion. Before concluding, one further category of people remains to be considered—namely, the shui shangjen ("people on the w a t e r " ) . 8 5 M a n y observers of the Hong K o n g scene assume that T'ien Hou originated in this region as a boat people's goddess and that land people began to worship her only after the cult had become popular. As I have tried to illustrate in earlier sections of this essay, the historical origins of the T'ien Hou cult are difficult to trace and, although the deity has always been associated with the sea, she was not monopolized by a single category of people. In the two hsiang under study, boat people play a very minor role in temple activities. Only twice in twenty-nine months of fieldwork did I encounter boat people worshipping in the local T'ien Hou temples. I overheard one of the women concerned ask the keeper for permission to worship the goddess because, as she put it, "this temple does not belong to us." (Women from the dominant lineages, in contrast, worship whenever they please and treat the keepers like servants.) Even those boat people who maintain regular anchorages in H a Tsuen hsiang rarely use Sand River Temple. They prefer to worship at temples located on Hong Kong's smaller islands where the local population is more receptive to boat people (see note 64). M y own research among people who call themselves shui shangjen has been restricted to the inhabitants of two client settlements (actually shanty towns built from the remnants of boats) along the H a Tsuen and San Tin coast. These people no longer rely on boats, but they continue to fish from the shore and work in oyster fields. Nonetheless, it is doubtful that they can still be categorized as boat people and it is unclear (to me) whether their views are representative of those who live on boats and make their living at sea. T h e residents of these small communities have been co-opted into the T'ien Hou cults controlled by the M a n and Teng in the sense that they are expected to present altars at the annual festivals. However, they also pay regular visits to the temples that cater to the floating population. In my talks with sedentary fishermen (not women), it became clear that their vision of T'ien Hou had very little in common with the representations held by land people. For these men the goddess symbolizes 85 O n Cantonese boat people see Eugene N. Anderson, J r . , Essays on South China's Boat People (Taipei: Orient Cultural Service, 1972) and The Floating World of Castle Peak Bay (Washington: American Anthropological Association, 1970); and Barbara E. Ward, " A Hong Kong Fishing Village," Journal of Oriental Studies 1 : 1 9 5 - 2 1 4 (1954) and "Varieties of the Conscious Model: The Fishermen of South China," in The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology, ed. Michael Banton (London: Tavistock, 1965). Barbara Ward's article "Varieties" is particularly relevant to the theme of this paper because she deals with the boat people's own conceptions of their place in Chinese society.

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mastery of the sea; she appealed to them primarily for her ability to quell storms—not disorderly elements. In fact, the myths presented by my informants (all, incidentally, illiterate) had nothing to do with social stability or coastal pacification. Their stories dealt primarily with T'ien Hou's divine intervention on behalf of people who make their living at sea. In a real sense, therefore, boat people and land people in this part of China have diametrically opposed representations of a religious symbol that, on the surface, would appear to unite them. They both claim T'ien Hou as their patron deity, but this does not mean that they are part of the same "moral community." In this respect, there are some intriguing hints that, among sea peoples, the goddess is associated with pirates and other entrepreneurs of violence who operated along the South China coast. Many researchers claim to have found a connection between T'ien Hou temples and pirate outposts, particularly in the islands of the Canton Delta. Da Silva notes, for instance, that the famous eighteenth-century pirate Chang Pao-tzu was a lavish contributor to the T'ien Hou temple on Lantau Island—according to local tradition, at least. 86 Lo also argues that two of Hong Kong's island temples were associated, in legend, with pirates; a stone tablet, dated 1752, in one of these shrines commemorates Cheng Lien-ch'ang, a "notorious pirate," who paid for the temple's renovation. 87 It is quite possible that T'ien Hou, in her guise as a mistress of the seas and a queller of storms, could have been adopted by pirates as their patron deity. The ultimate irony is that the landed elites of the Kwangtung coast worshipped the same goddess, and accepted her as their own special patron, precisely because she was—for them—a symbol of coastal pacification and an enemy of pirates. CONCLUSION In concluding, I return to the problem of cultural integration in late imperial Chinese society. The literate elite, I have argued, played an important role in the standardization of culture by ensuring that religious cults conformed to nationally accepted models. The question remains, however, whether the state led or followed the masses in the promotion of specific deities. Were Chinese peasants "easy material for ideological molding," as Kung-chuan Hsiao has suggested, 88 or were they detached and self-confident enough to resist those 86

Armando M . Da Silva, " F a n Lau and its Fort: An Historical Perspecti ve," Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 8 : 8 2 - 9 5 (1968), pp. 87-88. 87 Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and Its External Communications Before 1842 (Hong Kong: Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963), pp. 1 2 9 - 1 3 0 and plate 34. On the pirate connection see also S. F. Belfour, "Hong Kong Before the British," Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 1 0 : 1 3 4 - 1 7 9 (1970) and Dian Murray, " S e a Bandits: A Study of Piracy in Early Nineteenth Century China," Ph.D. diss., Cornell University (1979), pp. 1 5 9 - 1 6 0 . 88 Kung-chuan Hsiao, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, i960), p. 225.

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3*3

who attempted to c h a n g e their religious traditions? T h e answer, of course, lies somewhere in between. T h e state both led the masses a n d responded to p o p u l a r pressure; it both promoted a n d co-opted deities. T ' i e n H o u is a n excellent case in point. As outlined in the first p a r t of this p a p e r , she b e g a n as an obscure, parochial deity on the Fukien coast a n d rose to become one of the luminaries of the imperial pantheon. Obviously, a transformation like this could not h a v e occurred without state intervention. But it is equally true that imperial officials did not have the power, or the resources, to impose a n u n p o p u l a r deity on the masses. R a t h e r than relying on coercion, therefore, the state exercised control over the religious lives of ordinary people by more subtle means. F o r instance, it was m a d e " a d v a n t a g e o u s " for local elites to p r o m o t e deities that were represented in the imperial pantheon. R e c o g n i z e d deities such as T ' i e n H o u carried all the right messages that literate decision makers wished to convey a b o u t their communities: civilization, order, a n d loyalty to the state. One's perception of cultural uniformity in late imperial Chinese society depends entirely upon perspective. At the highest level of abstraction, the acceptance of religious symbols such as T'ien H o u does indeed indicate unity a n d integration. Although I have not m a d e a complete survey, a glance through Fukien a n d K w a n g t u n g gazetteers reveals that literally thousands of local cults were dedicated to three or four state-approved deities. S t a t e officials might have accepted this as evidence that they h a d h a d a "civilizing" effect on the masses a n d that they h a d succeeded in their efforts to introduce a s t a n d a r d form of religion. M e m b e r s of the national elite preferred not to p r o b e too deeply into the religious beliefs a n d conceptions of ordinary people. Herein lies the genius of the Chinese government's a p p r o a c h to cultural integration: the state imposed a structure b u t not the content. T h e actual organization of temple cults devolved to local elites who h a d a vested interest in m a i n t a i n i n g g o o d relations with state officials. T h e system was flexible enough to allow people a t all levels of the social hierarchy to construct their own representations of statea p p r o v e d deities. Put another way, the state p r o m o t e d symbols a n d not beliefs. T h e fact that deities such as T ' i e n H o u represented different things to different categories of people does not in itself m a k e the Chinese pattern of cultural integration particularly unique. O n e need only consider how a prim a r y symbol of Christendom (the Virgin Mother) is variously interpreted in E u r o p e a n peasant societies. Nevertheless, one characteristic of the Chinese political system that does set it a p a r t from other traditions is that state authorities did not try to legislate beliefs. As long as proper ritual forms were observed, including the worship of a p p r o v e d deities, the state did not intervene. T h e educated elite at all levels of the national a n d regional hierarchies thoroughly understood the rules of acceptable behavior. By observing proper forms, therefore, the local elites cooperated with state authorities in the construction of a national culture that a p p e a r e d — o n the s u r f a c e — t o be re-

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markably integrated, especially when compared to the cultural systems of other premodern societies. T h e conflicting and at times contradictory representations of T ' i e n H o u must be understood in this national context. T h e cults dedicated to the "Empress of H e a v e n " were like microcosms of Chinese culture. T h e y incorporated people from a wide variety of social backgrounds, all with their own visions and beliefs regarding the deity. But, to the outside observer, a T ' i e n Hou temple symbolized respectability and "civilization." T h e ambiguity of fundamental symbols was thus an important element in the creation of a unified cultural tradition in China.

ELEVEN

Language and Ideology in the Written Popularizations of the Sacred Edict Victor H.

Mair "So that the correct doctrine may be known to every family and household" (chia yii hu hsiao). —Stock expression of orthodox propagandists—

"Ouang-iu-p'uh on the edict of K'ang-hsi in volgar' eloquio taking the sense down to the people." —Ezra Pound—1

TEXTS

From its promulgation in the latter part of 1670 until the end of the Ch'ing dynasty, the hortatory Sacred Edict (Sheng-yu) of the K'ang-hsi emperor was widely recognized as the most concise and authoritative statement of Confucian ideology. At the time he issued the Sacred Edict, K'ang-hsi was sixteen years old and in the ninth year of his reign. T h e edict consisted of sixteen maxims, all seven characters in length and possessing an identical grammatical structure that is evident even in translation: 1.

Esteem most highly filial piety a n d brotherly submission, in order to give

2.

Behave with generosity toward y o u r kindred, in order to illustrate h a r m o n y

3.

Cultivate peace and concord in y o u r neighborhoods, in order to prevent

due importance to the social relations. and benignity. quarrels and litigations. 4.

Recognize the importance of h u s b a n d r y a n d the culture of the m u l b e r r y tree, in order to ensure a sufficiency of clothing a n d food.

5.

S h o w that you prize moderation a n d economy, in order to prevent the lavish waste of y o u r means.

1 The Cantos of Ezra Pound (New York: New Directions, 1975), canto 98, p. 688. For studies of Pound's extensive knowledge and application of the Sacred Edict, see Caroll F. Terrell, " T h e Sacred Edict of K ' A N G - H S I , " Paideuma 2 . 1 : 6 g - i 12 (Spring 1973); David Gordon, "Thought Built on Sagetrieb," Paideuma 3.2 : 1 6 9 - 1 9 0 (Fall 1974); and David Gordon, "Pound's Use of the Sacred Edict in Canto 98," Paideuma, 4 . 1 : 1 2 1 - 1 6 8 (Spring 1975). I am grateful to Achilles Fang for this information.

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Give weight to colleges and schools, in order to make correct the practice of the scholar. Extirpate strange principles, in order to exalt the correct doctrine. Lecture on the laws, in order to warn the ignorant and obstinate. Elucidate propriety and yielding courtesy, in order to make manners and customs good. Labor diligently at your proper callings, in order to stabilize the will of the people. Instruct sons and younger brothers, in order to prevent them from doing what is wrong. Put a stop to false accusations, in order to preserve the honest and good. Warn against sheltering deserters, in order to avoid being involved in their punishment. Fully remit your taxes, in order to avoid being pressed for payment. Unite in hundreds and tithings, in order to put an end to thefts and robbery. Remove enmity and anger, in order to show the importance due to the person and life. 2

H e r e were, so to speak, the bare bones of C o n f u c i a n orthodoxy as it pertained to the average citizen. It was not long, however, before the need was felt to flesh them out. Within a few years of the issuance of the Sacred Edict, adaptations, commentaries, paraphrases, a n d exegeses began to a p p e a r . W h a t is most interesting about these derivative works is that m a n y of them were written in the colloquial language. W h o wrote these versions a n d w h y ? W h o read them? A n d w h a t significance did they have for Chinese society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? T h e tradition of explicating classical texts in written colloquial versions seems to h a v e grown u p during the Y u a n period. 3 Hsu H e n g ( 1 2 0 9 - 1 2 8 1 ) wrote a Chih-shuo Ta-hsueh yao-lueh [Directly expounded essentials of the Great Learning], a Ta-hsueh chih-chieh [Direct explanation of the Great Learning, and a Chung-yung chih-chieh [Direct explanation of the Doctrine of the Mean]. These were still a bit bookish, a n d served as lecture outlines for the M o n g o l emperors. A f t e r Hsu H e n g a n d inspired by him, in the y e a r 1 3 0 8 , K u a n Yun-shih ( 1 2 8 6 - 1 3 2 4 ) prepared a Hsiao-ching chih-chieh [Direct explanation of the Classic of Filial Piety], This was written in fluent colloquial and, according to its preface, was intended to educate the masses. But there also seems to h a v e been a close connection between the a p p e a r a n c e of the Direct Explanation of the Classic of Filial Piety and the presentation to the M o n g o l princes of copies of the Classic of

2

S l i g h t l y modified from J a m e s Legge, " I m p e r i a l C o n f u c i a n i s m , " The China Review 6 . 3 : i 5 o a - b

(>877). 3 This is not the place to g o into such forerunners of popular oral education in China as the H a n institution of the " T h r e e E l d e r s " (san-lao), Six Dynasties and T ' a n g Buddhist lectures for laymen (ck'ang-tao and su-chiang), or S u n g village association (hsiang-yueh) instructional methods.

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Filial Piety itself the year before. 4 A n o t h e r Y u a n work of this type is W u Ch'eng's (1255-1330) Ching-yen chin-chiang [Lectures presented by the interpreter of the classics]. D u r i n g the M i n g , C h a n g Chii-cheng ( 1 5 2 5 - 1 5 8 2 ) wrote a Ssu-shu chi-chu chih-chieh [Direct explanation of the Four Books and collected commentaries] and a Shu-ching chih-chieh [Direct explanation of the Book of Documents].5 Aside from the fact that these colloquial-language explications constitute a clear precedent for the various popularizations of the Sacred Edict in the Ch'ing, it is noteworthy that all of them were written by members of the elite. 6 A n even more explicit model for the C h ' i n g popularizations is C h u n g H u a min's Sheng-yii t'u-chieh [Illustrated explanation of the Sacred Edict], dated 1587. 7 C h u n g , whose choice of personal name is conspicuous since it means "transforming the people," was the ch'a-ma ssu ("tea and horse administrator") for Shansi and elsewhere. T h e Sacred Edict referred to here was not K'ang-hsi's but the M i n g Liu-yii [Six maxims], usually ascribed to the emperor T'ai-tsu. It may be translated as follows: B e filial to y o u r p a r e n t s . B e respectful to y o u r elders. L i v e in h a r m o n y w i t h y o u r n e i g h b o r s . Instruct y o u r sons a n d g r a n d s o n s . Be content with your calling. D o no evil.

Chung's work consisted of the following parts: (1) a moral precept in classical Chinese; (2) a prose development on the precept that varies from highly colloquial to easy classical; (3) a poem ("song") on the same theme in language more purely classical; (4) a picture with a caption; and (5) a story 4 See Tuan-shih 7C5t [History of t h e Y u a n ] ( K a i m i n g ed.), chiian 22, p. 6184, col. i , a n d Hsin Tuan-shih Sf 7c Si [New history of the Y u a n ] ( K a i m i n g ed.), chiian 160, p. 6927, col. 2. 5 Lü K ' u n ( 1 5 3 4 - 1 6 1 6 ) , a n i m p o r t a n t M i n g scholar-official, was n o t e d for his p o p u l a r i z a t i o n s of classical texts. Cf. J o a n n a F. H a n d l i n , " L ü K ' u n ' s N e w Audience: T h e I n f l u e n c e of W o m e n ' s Literacy on S i x t e e n t h - C e n t u r y T h o u g h t , " in Women in Chinese Society, ed. M a r g e r y Wolf a n d R o x a n e W i t k e (Stanford: S t a n f o r d University Press, 1975), p p . 1 3 - 3 8 a n d 2 7 7 - 2 8 3 . 6 Most of the i n f o r m a t i o n in this p a r a g r a p h is d r a w n f r o m O t a T a t s u o ES M ^ , Chügoku rekidai kôgobun 4 1 i l B fÇ P I § [Colloquial Chinese texts f r o m successive dynasties] (Tokyo: K ô n a n shoin ffffilrIS, >957), PP- 7 0 - 7 1 . W m . T h e o d o r e de Bary discusses H s u H e n g ' s v e r n a c u l a r interpretations of basic C o n f u c i a n texts in his Meo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart (New York: C o l u m b i a University Press, 1981), pp. 137, 1 4 1 - 1 4 4 . 7 Ed. C h a v a n n e s , " L e s saintes instructions de l ' e m p e r e u r H o n g - w o u ( 1 3 6 8 - 1 3 9 8 ) ; publiées en 1587 et illustrées p a r T c h o n g H o u a - m i n , " Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient 3 : 5 4 9 - 5 6 3 (1903). In 1901-1904, w h e n Berthold L a u f e r led a n expedition to C h i n a for the A m e r i c a n M u s e u m of N a t u r a l History (New Y o r k ) , the original stela was still located in t h e Confucius T e m p l e at Sian. See entry no. 1066 in H a r t m u t W a l r a v e n s et al., eds., Catalogue of Chinese Rubbingsfrom Field Museum, Fieldiana Anthropology, n.s., No. 3 (Chicago: Field M u s e u m of N a t u r a l History, N o v e m b e r 30, 1981), p. 256. M o n i k a ( j b e l h o r , w h o p r o v i d e d m e w i t h t h e reference to C h a v a n n e s ' s article, has also kindly read a n d c o m m e n t e d on a n earlier version of this p a p e r .

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3*8

about the picture in vernacular Chinese with a slight admixture of classical. It will be well to remember this format, because we shall see elements of it cropping up in the Ch'ing popularizations. We should be particularly mindful of the incorporation of materials written in different language levels, because it is typical of the later efforts to make the message conveyed accessible to people of varying degrees of literacy. Also pertinent is the obvious effort of Chung to make his Illustrated Explanation widely available, ideally to every household in the empire. According to its inscription, the stele on which the Illustrated Explanation was cut was meant to serve as a huge lithographic printing block from which copies could be taken. These were to be distributed to magistrates having administrative responsibility for chou (subprefectures or departments) and hsien (counties or districts). The local officials were in turn directed to make blocks from which to print additional copies. These would be distributed to each family (ten sheets per tithing \chia\). The elders of each district and the heads of the village associations (pao) were to lecture on the maxims twice a month (on the first and the fifteenth). It is clear that the broadest possible exposure of the maxims throughout the populace was envisaged, though we cannot be certain that these measures were faithfully executed in all areas. Around the beginning of the K'ang-hsi reign period, presumably in connection with the 1652 promulgation, a Liu-yiiyen-i [Elaboration of the hortatory edict of six maxims] 8 was composed by Fan Hung of Li-ch'eng in Honan. The village lecture system described in the postface was not yet highly formalized. Fan Hung suggests that his book be used for discussions among brothers, officials, village association members, and so on. Furthermore, it is important to note that, at this time, heterodoxy is not really an issue, being referred to only in passing. Fan's attitude toward Buddhism and Taoism, particularly the former, is that they have their legitimate place. 9 The language of the Elaboration is decidedly colloquial but embraces many classical elements (e.g., the use of tz'u instead of chea for "this," yun instead ofshuo for " s a y , " wei{-ts'eng\ instead of [ts'ung-lai] mei\-yu] for "have/has not/ never," ho instead of shen-me for " w h a t , " cheb instead of te as nominalizer, the frequent use of erh as an adversative, etc.). There is, furthermore, an unvernacular tendency toward a four-six prose rhythm and other classical cadences. The treatment of each maxim includes extensive quotations from the Ch'ing legal code in classical language and concludes with twelve lines of heptasyllabic verse rhyming A A B A C A D A E A F A . 8

1 have used the text reprinted in Ogaeri Yoshio

kokutt tions on

e

d> Kago kanbun Ko-ki kotei Sei-yu

[Classical and vernacular versions of the amplified instruc-

the Sacred Edict of the K'ang-hsi Emperor] (Osaka: Y a g o s h o t e n HHjjKIUs, 1943)- T h e edition Chin-tai Chung-kuo shih-liao ts'ung-k'an hsu-pien jffft't'S^S-KflJiSilS

I have used is available in

[Materials for the study of recent Chinese history, continuation], seventh series, no. 6 1 , pp. 139-205. 9

See his discussion of the sixth maxim.

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Thus, by the time of the K'ang-hsi emperor, there already was a wellestablished tradition for the popularization of imperial apothegms. It is not surprising that the vulgarizers soon directed their attention to the Sacred

Edict.

Throughout the Ch'ing period, they issued a constant stream of exegetic and metaphrastic texts based on it. T h e first of these works to consider is the Sheng-yii ho lii chih-chieh [Direct explanation of the Sacred Edict in combination with the laws]. This was published in 1679, just nine years after the appearance of the Sacred Edict itself. T h e Combination was compiled from extant glosses (yen-shuo) and edited by the Manchu governor of Chekiang, Ch'en Ping-chih, who had copies printed and distributed to villages throughout the empire. 1 0 Provided with prefaces by the lieutenant-governor of Chekiang, Li Shih-chen, and another high official, Ch'eng J u - p ' u , the work was divided into two sections: a general survey of the Sacred Edict, and discussions of each of the sixteen maxims with examples of applicable legal guidelines. T h e following extract from the first section will give an idea of Ch'en's approach: Since taking up our post, we have observed that, among you commoners, there are quite a lot who are good but there are also not a few who are bad. You have a penchant for litigation and like to get in quarrels. This is ruinous for local customs. Since it is true everywhere, the village lectures that have been held must not be concrete and detailed enough. Now we shall take these sixteen maxims of the Imperial Edict as the text of our lecture. We shall begin with a brief overview of the gist of the sixteen maxims for you to listen to carefully. T h e language used throughout is natural a n d familiar. A rather polished style of the vernacular, it still would have been easily understood by the average listener. There can be little doubt that the explanations in the Combination were meant to be delivered orally at the official semimonthly lectures on the Sacred 10

Suerna ^ ^ ¡ ^ j

(18th c.) et al., comp., Ch'in-ting

hsueh-cheng ch'iian-shu

[Imperially commissioned complete book of the directorate of education] ( 1 7 7 4 ) , reprinted in the Chin-lai Chung-kuo shih-liao ts'ung-k'an ¿ 5 f t + 1 1 5 £ f » H l f l J [Materials for the study of recent Chinese history], thirtieth series, no. 293, 74.3a; Ta Ch'ing hut-lien shih-li

[Precedents for the

combined regulations of the great Ch'ing Dynasty] (1899 lithograph), 3 9 7 . 3 3 b , under the year 1679. T h e Combination appeared together with Wei Hsiang-shu's ( 1 6 1 7 - 1 6 8 7 ) Liu-yu chi chieh [Collected explanations of the Hortatory Edict of Six Maxims] as Shang-yii ho lit hsiang-yueh ch 'uan-shu [Complete book of the village lectures on the Imperial Edict in combination with the laws). T h e Combination was also referred to in various prefaces (dated 1670, 1679) and in a postface (dated 1678) to this edition as a "direct explanation" (chih-chieh) or an " a n n o t a t e d e x p l a n a t i o n " (chuchieh). It was reissued during the year 1693 under the same title in a crudely printed edition of one fascicle without Wei's Collected Explanations. In their stead, we find three pieces of moral encouragement (on agriculture, general diligence, and the proper behavior of women) by W a n g Tseng-yuan, the county magistrate of Han-tan County in K u a n g - p ' i n g Prefecture of Chihli Province. Wei's Collected Explanations, provided with a 1678 postface by the magistrate of Hai-ning C o u n t y in Hangchow Prefecture, Hsu San-li, is particularly interesting because of the musical notations provided for the songs that end the treatment of each maxim. I have used a copy of the 1679 edition of the Combination kept in the library of the Institute of Oriental Culture, University of T o k y o (Tokyo Daigaku T o y o b u n k a Kenkyujo).

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Edict. C h ' e n repeatedly states t h a t he a n d his representatives are " l e c t u r i n g [on the maxims] for you to h e a r " (chiang yii ni-men t'ing che). T h e prefaces a n d postface are also very clear on this point. A sizable proportion of the m a t e r i a l for presentation consists of songs with w o r d - b y - w o r d indication of musical notes. C h ' e n displays no particular a n i m u s against Buddhism a n d Taoism, a n d even goes so far as to a d m i t t h a t they thoroughly illuminate the m i n d a n d personality. His emphasis in the discussion of the seventh maxim (a scant two a n d one-half pages long in contrast to his seven-and-one-half-page lecture on the first maxim) is on the positive qualities of orthodox Confucianism. But C h ' e n is w a r y of unrecognized sects (tso-tao) a n d says in the general survey t h a t they are "most h a t e f u l . " 1 1 His greatest effort seems to go into explaining in a p p r e h e n sible language how the laws work. Accordingly, he devotes fourteen a n d onehalf pages to the eighth m a x i m . T w o years after the a p p e a r a n c e of C h ' e n Ping-chih's Combination, in 1681, the Sheng-yii hsiang-chieh [Illustrated explanations of the Sacred Edict], a large work in twenty fascicles, was published by the magistrate of F a n - c h ' a n g C o u n t y in Anhwei, L i a n g Yen-nien. T h e original edition p r o b a b l y did not circulate m u c h beyond the confines of Liang's o w n district b u t , more t h a n two h u n d r e d years later, it was twice reprinted by one En-shou a n d , as I shall show below, was broadly disseminated. T h e Illustrated Explanations a d o p t s the following format: ( i ) citation of the maxim; (2) a straightforward explanation of it in easy classical l a n g u a g e with punctuation; (3) a finely e n g r a v e d picture; (4) a caption description of the picture in classical Chinese; a n d (5) a discussion of the maxim in relation to the picture written in a semiclassical style (i.e., m i d w a y between classical a n d colloquial). Altogether there a r e 248 pictures, most of them based on wellknown personalities a n d incidents f r o m history. L i a n g Yen-nien's " G e n e r a l Principles" ( f a n - l i ) declare that the pictures were intended to stimulate those w h o did not know h o w to read. It is possible t h a t the pictures m a y h a v e been shown to small groups of onlookers. T h e f o r m a t of the original edition, retained by Yeh Chih-hsien (b. 1779) of H a n - y a n g (Hupei) in his 1856 reprinting, is quite large: 6 1 / 4 " x 9 3 / 8 " for the printed portion of each page (as opposed to 4 7 / 8 " x 7 1/8" for the editions published by En-shou). T h e following quotation from Liang's discussion of the thirteenth m a x i m shows t h a t it was probably m e a n t to serve as the basis for an actual lecture: T h i n k of it yourselves, O people. W h e r e can you best enjoy repose,—in the sandy desert of the frontier regions, or in the village in the country amid its ancestral trees? W h i c h is more c o m f o r t a b l e , — t o dine on the w i n d and sleep beneath the rain, or to get up in the morning a n d go to bed at night in your own homes? W h i c h is the more pleasant, to be supporting y o u r aged a n d leading your y o u n g as they trudge along the w e a r y road, or to know that you have plenty with which to serve 11

Combination, 4a.

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the former class and to nourish the latter? Which is the preferable life,—to hear your wives weeping and you and your children wailing or to be free from all trouble and embarrassment? Even if the runaways were your own relations and acquaintances, you ought sternly to repel them; for even a fool would not plunge after another into a deep well to try to rescue him; and how can you involve yourselves and your neighbours, and run such risks for worthless parties, whom you know nothing about? 1 2 L i a n g Yen-nien and his associates definitely saw themselves as operating in a long tradition of popularization. In his preface, K u n g Chia-yü ( 1 6 2 2 - 1 6 8 5 ) records that [of] old, when Feng K ' a n g (744-809) was administering Li-ch'iian, he wrote Yü meng shu [A book of parables for beginning learners] in fourteen chapters. In it, he taught the people to devote themselves to the fundamental occupation of agriculture. As a result, Li-ch'üan was well governed. When Chang Tsai ( 1 0 2 0 1077) was administering Yun-yen, on the first of every month he would prepare wine and food and invite the villagers to a meeting in his court, where he instructed them in the principles of caring for parents and serving elders. As a result, Yun-yen was well governed. 1 3 T h e author of the Illustrated Explanations

is not opposed to Buddhism and

Taoism as such but to the abuse of their doctrines. Writing in 1681 or earlier, he is not at all preoccupied with heretical sects. This is in stark contrast to the later paraphrasts, whose chief concern is often the suppression of heresy ("discrepant doctrines" [i-chiao\). Indeed, as we shall see below, individuals responsible for the publication of various versions of the Sacred Edict

after the eighteenth

century often view it as being in direct competition with religious movements. 1 4 En-shou twice reprinted the Illustrated Explanations,

once while he was the

governor of Kiangsu and a second time while he was the governor of Anhwei. A s stated in his "General Principles," he reprinted the Illustrated

Explanations

following the original edition of L i a n g Yen-nien. There were no revisions or modifications—except in the one transcription that was presented for imperial

12 13 14

J a m e s Legge, trans., in " I m p e r i a l C o n f u c i a n i s m , " /he, China Review 6 . 6 : 3 6 5 b ( 1 8 7 8 ) . Illustrated Explanations, 2a. T h e religious dimensions of the village lecture system were present from its inception. I n a

fascinating article pointed out to me by Evelyn Rawski after I had completed this study, O m u r a K ó d ó z J c t t J S j t í shows how the aim of the village lectures gradually changed from being one of prompting cooperation among the local people during the S u n g to that of propagating the teachings of the emperor during the M i n g and Ch'ing. T h e ritualistic, incantatory aspects of the lectures also became increasingly evident, especially during the Ch'ing. It is significant that, in some early C h ' i n g lectures on the Sacred Edict, the presence of Buddhist monks and Taoist priests was required. " M e i - m a t s u Shin-sho no senk5 zushiki ni tsuite' study of the figures o f X i i a n j i a n g at the turning point of the M i n g and Ch'ing], Tokyo gakugei daigaku kiyo J f C s T i p S r ^ ^ i S l c [Bulletin of the T o k y o University of Arts], 2, J i n b u n kagaku [Humanistic sciences], 3 0 : 1 9 3 - 2 0 3 (1979).

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VICTOR H. MAIR

inspection. Even the original typographical errors were repeated. En-shou specifically states that this procedure was adopted to ensure the rapid completion of the project. All that was done to improve the original was to append a list of eleven errata in the 1902 edition (it is omitted from the 1903 edition). En-shou had submitted to the throne a copy of the Illustrated Explanations with a memorial requesting that it be reprinted and distributed throughout the land. Both the memorial and the imperial response are recorded at the beginning of the 1902 edition. T h e imperial rescript recognizes that the Sacred Edict is "the basis for transforming the people and reforming customs. Every household throughout the land, whether of scholars or commoners, surely already knows it." The rescript further recognizes that the simple and clear language of the explanations that accompanied the pictures was "calculated to allow all women and children to understand easily and thoroughly. It is indeed a worthy supplement to the Sacred Edict for educating the ignorant and the benighted." Following the suggestion of En-shou's original memorial, the decision was made—from the throne itself—to reprint the book by lithography and to send copies to each of the provinces. There the governors-general and the governors would instruct their subordinates in the prefectures, subprefectures, departments, and counties to see that it was made available in each school. En-shou's memorial had been prompted by repeated directives from the empress dowager to take some active steps with regard to the system of education that would stop the rampant spread of heterodoxy. It was agreed that there was an urgent necessity to influence the students during the initial stages of the learning process so that they did not stray onto unwelcome paths. T h e Illustrated Explanations, En-shou claims, is even more effective in reaching the people than were Li Hsi-yii's Chung hsiao t'u [Pictures of loyalty and filial piety], written during the T ' a n g , or the Wai-p'ien ("Outer Chapters") of Chu Hsi's Hsiao-hsueh [Minor learning], written during the Sung. Unfortunately, the work has had only limited circulation and minimal influence. Consequently, En-shou proposes that three thousand copies of the book be lithoprinted and distributed to all primary and middle schools throughout the country. His proposal was approved and this lengthy work was consequently reprinted in a run of three thousand copies. We cannot say with any certainty how many copies were made of the 1903 edition, for it simply reprints all of the prefatory materials of the 1902 edition without adding any new information. One of the most prolific popularizers of the Sacred Edict was Li Lai-chang ( 1 6 5 4 - 1 7 2 1 ) , a native of Hsiang-ch'eng in Honan. He became a provincial graduate (chii-jen) in 1675. After having been involved with several academies in his home province, both as lecturer and administrator, he was assigned to the magistracy of Lien-shan (literally, "connected mountains") County in Kwangtung. It took him more than four months to reach the place, so isolated and distant was it. T h e county included a population of approximately ten thousand Y a o tribesmen as well as a lesser number of the Han race (seven

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villages consisting of two thousand individuals). T h e Y a o s lived together in clusters ranging f r o m five to less than twenty families. It was a mountainous district with dangerous paths and v e r y little arable land (one-tenth, b y Li's estimate). M o v e d by the difficult environment, L i is reported to h a v e said, "Though the Yao are a different type of people, they possess a human nature. I ought to treat them with sincerity." Whereupon, following the legacy of Wang Yang-ming of the Ming period, he daily received the elderly and inquired about the sickness and suffering of the people. He summoned to him those who were deserters, encouraging them to open up new lands, and lessening their taxes. Furthermore, he went straight into their hovels and engaged teachers for them, impressing them with his utter sincerity. He founded the Lien-shan Academy and wrote its academic rules. He had the people come to him daily so that he could teach them. The superior members of the Y a o tribes, too, responded to this opportunity for learning. The sound of people reciting books filled the precipitous valleys. 1 5 J u d g i n g from this brief sketch of a part of L i L a i - c h a n g ' s life, it would h a v e been quite in character for him to provide texts that would facilitate the dissemination of the ideals of the Sacred Edict a m o n g even the lowest levels of society. T h e r e are three works by L i L a i - c h a n g dealing with the Sacred Edict. T h e y are the Sheng-yii t'u-hsiangyen-i [Illustrated elaboration of the Sacred Edict] in two fascicles, the Sheng-yii yen-i san-tzu-ko su-chieh [Vernacular explanation of the Trimetrical Song f r o m the elaboration of the Sacred Edict] in one fascicle, and the Sheng-yii hsuan-chiang (hsiang-pao) i-chujt'iao-yueh. [Regulations/Usages for lectures on the Sacred Edict (by village elders)] in one fascicle. 1 6 S o m e copies were given a w a y at government expense to inhabitants of Lien-shan C o u n t y w h o L i thought could profit f r o m them personally or, more often, could use them to teach others. In all of L i ' s popularizing, there is an evident wish to contribute to the sinicization of minority peoples. T h e Illustrated Elaboration, preface dated D e c e m b e r 22, 1 7 0 4 , treats each of the sixteen m a x i m s with the following apparatus: ( 1 ) a picture; (2) an elaboration in stilted M a n d a r i n ; (3) examples of suitable behavior in the same style; (4) pertinent extracts from the C h ' i n g code in legalistic classical language; (5) a " p o p u l a r " song; a n d (6) instructions for the Y a o written in easy classical with some colloquial elements. L i claims that he did not devise this arrangement

15

K u o - f a n g yen-chiu-yuan Ch'ing-shih pien-tsuan wei-yuan-hui [Editorial Committee for the

Ch'ing History of the National Defense Research Institute], ed., Ch'ing-shih (Ch'ing History) in Erh-shihliu shih [Twenty-six histories] (Taipei: C h ' e n g - w e n ch'u-pan-she, reprint of 1 9 6 1 ed.), chüan 4 7 9 , p. 5 1 5 2 a . T h e compilers of the Ch'ing History have drawn heavily on Li's own prefaces in writing his biography; most of the statements made here about the education of the Y a o are corroborated in them. 16

All of these are preserved in Li's collected works, which are poorly printed and on bad paper.

Li-shanyuan ch'iían-chi jj® |JL| IS

ífc, vols. 2 5 - 2 6 , 2 7 , a n d 2 8 respectively.

VICTOR H. MAIR

334

himself but was following earlier examples. H e further states in the preface that he has "used the literary language with an admixture of the local dialect, the elegant and the vulgar presented together." Li declares that he wrote the Illustrated Elaboration because he feels that the teachings of the sages are so deep that not even learned scholars can be sure to understand them fully. H e basically treats his auditors as children. His attitude toward Buddhism and Taoism is that they confound the people, are replete with useless customs, and hence are " n o t to be believed in overly m u c h . " But heretical sects are a menace to society, a genuine source of chaos and are " n o t to be believed in mistakenly." 1 7 T h e Trimetrical Song, patently an attempt to duplicate the popularity of the famous and influential Trimetrical Classic, was written within the first year of Li's arrival in Lien-shan County. H e then made it a part of the Illustrated Elaboration but has here printed it separately with a colloquial commentary, without which it would be virtually unintelligible to the average citizen. In his preface, dated the summer of 1706, L i justifies his use of the vernacular by referring to the practices of the Sung Neo-Confucians. He states that his Illustrated Elaboration was so successful in the semimonthly lectures on the Sacred Edict that he was prompted to extract the song portion of it and provide it with annotations and explications " i n the local dialect." T h e commentary, however, is written neither in Y a o nor in Cantonese but rather in slightly pompous Mandarin. W h a t L i must have meant is that, during the lecture, the Mandarin text was extemporaneously rendered into the local dialect. There is an occasional tendency for the text, which is punctuated, to lapse into the four-six rhythm of parallel prose. L i maintains that he wants " t o make it as thoroughly understandable as daily speech." Indeed, the song is fully interpreted for the reader, very little being left to the imagination. T h e r e are even a few pronunciation notes for difficult words in the song. E a c h maxim of the Sacred Edict has fortyeight lines of verse devoted to it, and these are commented upon a quatrain at a time. Here is the first of the twelve quatrains on the first maxim, together with its commentary: [To be] freed [from] bosom's care, [They] must [wait] three years; [The] kindness [of] father [and] mother, [Is] equal [to] Vast Heaven. These four lines say: after a father and a mother give birth to a child and for the next one or two years, how concerned they are about feeding and nursing him! In the winter months, they only fear he will be cold; in the summer months, they only fear he will be hot. And, even when they go to work in the fields or gather firewood, they strap him on their backs and take him along with them. They are unwilling to leave him alone in the house. How hard it is! Only after three years, 17

Maxim 7.

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when he can talk and walk, are they freed somewhat from the labor of caring for him in their bosoms. The great kindness of a father and mother is as that of Heaven Above. " V a s t H e a v e n " means " H e a v e n A b o v e . " 1 8

The Regulations for Lectures on the Sacred Edict, bearing a preface dated 1705 and newly recut in that year, was printed from blocks kept in the Lien-shan Countyyamen. It offers complete instructions on how to carry out a lecture ceremony on the Sacred Edict where to hold the lecture (different in city, town, and country); how to purify the site; where to place the incense, candles, and flower vases; how to wrap and store the Sacred Edict', where various groups of the auditors are to stand; what furniture is required; when the musicians are to play; what is the appropriate time for the cantor's singing; when the drums and clappers should be hit; and when the auditors should kneel, bow, kowtow, and so on. There can be no doubt that Li and others like him were attempting to provide a ritualistic setting for the liturgical text embodied in the Illustrated Elaboration. As a matter of fact, Li stipulated in the Regulations that a copy of the Elaboration was to be kept on the altar during the Sacred Edict lecture service. Four record books were to be placed on the altar as well. As Li traveled from village to village to lecture on the Sacred Edict, he would order the local headmen to record the behavior of the villagers in these four registers or ledgers. 1 9 In the books were recorded instances of good behavior (subdivided good, better, best), bad behavior (likewise subdivided bad, worse, worst), repentance for misdeeds leading to improved behavior, and amicable settlement of conflict through arbitration by respected members of the community. Li would use these records to gauge the effectiveness of his preaching and would also give rewards or mete out punishment where appropriate. Li says that, after he had published and distributed the Regulations, they were widely used as the basis for the twicemonthly lectures on the Sacred Edict in all parts of his county, no matter how remote. This represented a deliberate attempt to extend the Sacred Edict lecture system beyond the towns and cities, where it was a simple matter to organize because of the presence of centrally appointed personnel, into the villages and countryside. Li Lai-chang's complex apparatus for lectures on the Sacred Edict described in his Regulations and presented in his Illustrated Elaboration would seem to have allowed for ready adjustment to different types of audiences. We know that other officials from around this time who were actively engaged in popularizing 18 Sheng-yu yen-i san-tzu-ko su-chieh, i a . T h e translation is deliberately crude. Cf. The Chinese Repository 1 1 2 4 4 - 2 4 6 ( M a y 1 8 3 2 - A p r i l 1 8 3 3 ) , where it is incorrectly stated that these songs are taken chiefly from W a n g Y u - p ' u ' s paraphrase. This is impossible, since the Trimetrical Song was written at least twenty-two years before the Discussion and Explanation (see below). 19 Compare the M i n g " L e d g e r s of Merit and D e m e r i t " discussed by T a d a o Sakai in his " C o n f u c i a n and Popular Educational W o r k s , " pp. 3 4 2 - 3 4 3 of Self and Society in Ming Thought, ed. W m . Theodore de B a r y (New Y o r k : C o l u m b i a University Press, 1970), pp. 3 3 1 - 3 6 6 .

33^

V I C T O R H. M A I R

the Sacred Edict did take into account the level of sophistication of their audiences. While Chang Po-hsing was governor of Fukien ( 1 7 0 7 - 1 7 1 o), he used one version of the Sacred Edict "embellished with classical allusions for the literati, one illustrated with popular sayings for those of medium intelligence and scholarly ability, and one with memorable jingles for the simple country folk." 2 0 In the second year of his reign (1724), the Yung-cheng emperor issued the Sheng-yii kuang-hsun [Amplified instructions on the Sacred Edict], consisting of approximately ten thousand characters. He was evidently concerned that the K'ang-hsi emperor's sixteen maxims were so concise as to be incomprehensible to the common man. Yung-cheng's preface begins with a justification by ancient example: " 'Every year in the first month of spring, the herald with his wooden-tongued bell goes along the roads, p r o c l a i m i n g . . . . " ' 2 1 It is clear that, within the confines of the literary language, he was aiming at lucidity: " O u r text attempts to be clear and precise; our words, for the most part, are direct and simple." 2 2 T h e prose is easily understandable for someone with a modicum of training in the literary language. A statistical study of the frequency of graphs in the Amplified Instructions in comparison with a standard list for classical Chinese is revealing. 2 3 There is a close correlation for most of the graphs, particularly those that function as grammatical particles. It is striking, however, that the Amplified Instructions has such an extraordinarily high number of occurrences for " p e o p l e " (min) and "soldiers" {ping). These two graphs do not occur until much farther down on the standard list. Conversely, the standard list has " H e a v e n " (t'ien) and " r u l e r " (chun) among the first twenty graphs, but they are not so prominent in the Amplified Instructions. It is obvious to whom the Yung-cheng emperor was directing his remarks. Unfortunately, his intended audience was unable to comprehend him because he wrote in a language that was alien to its members. Yung-cheng's failure to communicate with the bulk of his subjects and the " J o n a t h a n Spence, " C h a n g Po-hsing and the K'ang-hsi Emperor," Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i 1 . 8 : 3 - 9 (May 1968), esp. 5; quoted in Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch'ing China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979), p. 15. 21 Book of Documents, Hsia-shu, 4.3, trans. James Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. 3, pt. 1 (London: Triibner, 1865), p. 164. Fan Hung had also quoted this sentence in his postface to the Elaboration of the Hortatory Edict of Six Maxims. 22 My translation follows that of A. Théophile Piry, trans, and annot., Le Saint Edit: Elude de littérature chinoise (Shanghai: Bureau des Statistiques, Inspectorat Général des Douanes, 1879), p. 7. William Milne, trans, and annot., The Sacred Edict, Containing Sixteen Maxims of the Emperor Kang-he, Amplified by His Son, The Emperor Yoong-ching; Together with a Paraphrase on the Whole by a Mandarin (London: Black, Kingsbury, Parbury, and Allen, 1817; second ed. by American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1870), p. xxii, is mispunctuated. 23 Based on data supplied by a chart in Piry, Le Saint Edit and from the classical lists in E. Bruce Brooks and A. Taeko Brooks, Chinese Character Frequency Lists (Northampton, Mass.: SinFac Minor, >976), PP- 6 - 7 .

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urgent necessity his officers felt in seeing that he did so led to the repeated vernacular paraphrasis of his Amplified. Instructions. T h e Amplified Instructions was eventually also issued in a Manchu version. 2 4 A trilingual (Chinese, Mongolian, Manchu) edition of the text, the San-ho Shengyü kuang-hsun, was published no later than the Ch'ien-lung period. 2 5 By far the most influential and best known popularizations of the Sacred Edict are a series of related texts emanating from Wang Y u - p ' u ( 1 6 8 0 - 1 7 6 1 ) , who, when he composed the original work on which they are based, was serving as assistant salt controller in Shensi Province. Wang Yu-p'u was a man of Tientsin. He attained the advanced scholar (chin-shih) degree in 1723 and subsequently became a Bachelor in the National Academy. T h e highest rank he achieved was first-class subprefect of Lu-chou prefecture. 2 6 It seems odd that Wang chose not to mention the paraphrase in his autobiography, especially since he is best known for having written it, although he did have a minor reputation as a scholar of the Book of Change. Wang completed the autobiography on March 9, 1 7 6 1 , not long before he died, clearly waiting for his end and using the autobiography to assess the course and import of his life. He stated that, in writing it, he would "hide nothing, whether good or b a d . " 2 7 He also gave a fairly complete list of his writings. Why, then, did he avoid the paraphrase altogether? The answer is, quite probably, that he simply did not wish to be remembered for this work of basse vulgarisation. Nor did his biographers in the Gazetteer of Tientsin Prefecture28 and the Ch'ing History29 think the paraphrase worthy of mention. They were wrong; Wang Yu-p'u's place in 24

T r a n s l a t i o n s are available in Russian and in Italian. A . A g a f o n o v , trans., Manzhurskago i

Kitaiskago Khana Kan'siya Kniga ... (St. Petersburg, 1788; reissued in 1 7 9 5 with a different title) and Lodovico Nocentini, trans, and annot., II santo editto di K'añ-hi, e l'amplificazione di Yuñ-ceñ, 2 vols, in one (Florence: Successori L e Monnier, 1 8 8 0 - 1 8 8 3 ) . For various editions of the M a n c h u text, see W a n g Y u n - w u j £ H 3E, ed., Hsu-hsiu ssu-k'u ch'iian-shu i'i-yao

H S S ^ i m i J I [Continuation

of abstracts of the complete collection of books in four categories] (Taipei: T a i w a n Commercial Press 1 9 7 1 ) , vol. 10, pp. 1048, 1 0 5 0 - 1 0 5 2 , including one work that significantly dealt exclusively with the seventh maxim (against heterodoxy). " O g a e r i , Kago (cited n. 8), p. 6. 26

W a n g Y u - p ' u ' s autobiography (the Chieh-shan tzu-tingnien-p'u

;j"Mi| 0 / É ^ H Í ) , in one fascicle,

is available both in his collected works (the Shih-li l'ang ch'iian-chi jHf J Ü ^ í f e í f t , also called Wang Chieh-shan hsien-sheng ch'iian-chi EE

ill j f e 4 . i t

reprint series published by Chin Y u e h

published in 1 7 5 1 ) and in a R e p u b l i c a n period

(Ping-lu ts'ung-k'e P J S j g f l j , 1924). T h e same is true of

his Shih-li t'ang tsa-tsuan ! # ¡ Ü I 1 í £ l t l S [Compilation of miscellaneous materials], in two fascicles, which has been useful in determining Wang's own views on a number of matters touched upon in his famous paraphrase of the Sacred Edict. Chin Y u e h ' s interest in W a n g Y u - p ' u was due largely to the fact that he, too, was a native of Tientsin. T h e Ping-lu ts'ung-k'e consists of materials that had been brought together by the bureau charged with the compilation of the Tientsin gazetteer. 27 28

Autobiography, preface, i a . S h e n Chia-pen ÜCgíifc

and Hsu Tsung-liang

comp., T'ien-chin

Ju-chih

(Taipei: T ' a i - w a n hsueh-sheng shu-chü, 1968 rpt. of 1899 ed.), 4 3 . 1 4 b (p. 3840). 29

Ch'ing shih lieh-chuan ipf

Jl] f ¡ | [Biographies from the C h ' i n g history] (Taipei: C h u n g - h u a

shu-chü c f ^ l r 1 9 6 2 ) , 68.25b.

V I C T O R H. M A I R

338

history is assured for no other reason than that he was ultimately responsible for the most widely circulated vernacular paraphrase of the Sacred Edict.30 Wang Yu-p'u's paraphrase has a rather complicated history. It was originally written in 1726, just two years after Yung-cheng issued the Amplified Instructions. T h e original title of the work would appear to have been Chiang-chieh Sheng-yii kuang-hsun [Discussion and explanation of the Amplified Instructions on the "Sacred Edict"].31 When it was republished, with minor modifications, by various officials here and there throughout the empire, it came to be known as Sheng-yii kuang-hsun yen [Elaboration of the Amplified Instructions on the "Sacred Edict"]. This is also the title it bears in W a n g Yu-p'u's Collected Works.32 Later, when the text was subjected to major changes and distributed still more widely, it was entitled Sheng-yii kuang-hsun chih-chieh [Direct explanation of the Amplified Instructions on the "Sacred Edict"]. Bailer's translation 33 of W a n g Yu-p'u's Direct Explanation went through no 30

W a n g Y u - p ' u was by no means the only person to write a "direct explanation" of the Amplified

Instructions. One L ü Shou-tseng also wrote a work entitled Sheng-yii kuang-hsun chih-chieh [Direct explanation of the Amplified Instructions of the Sacred Edict] in one fascicle. This is mentioned in L i u Chin-tsao f l J f S Ü , comp., Ch'ing-ch'ao hsu Wen-hsien t'ung-k'ao

[Continuation of

the comprehensive examination of documents relating to the C h ' i n g Dynasty] (Commercial Press, Wan-yu wen-k'u ed.), 2 6 9 . 1 0 1 2 9 b . 31 32

Ogaeri, Kago (cited n. 8), postface, p. 3. O u t s i d e of the Collected Works, the oldest extant copy of the Elaboration known to me is that

consisting o f f o u r volumes printed in Canton (after 1808) from crudely cut blocks. It is available in the typeset edition of O g a e r i , Kago, pp. 1 - 1 0 1 . I have also used a rare copy of this text, in one volume, that is kept in the University of Pennsylvania V a n Pelt L i b r a r y . T h e r e are a few small differences between the Canton text of the Elaboration and that appearing in Wang's Collected Works (vols. 37—38). O n e of the most noticeable is the consistent use of " H i s M a j e s t y " (wan-sui-yeh) to refer to the Yung-cheng emperor in the former as opposed to " E p o c h a l Progenitor" (Shih-tsung huang-ti) in the latter. T h e Elaboration continued to be reprinted as late as 1 8 7 6 , when it was recut at the request of the Censor of Y u n n a n Circuit, Wu Hung-en. In his postface, Wu states that he used a "presentation c o p y " of the Ying-chou (in Anhwei) Prefectural Director of Schools, Hsia Hsing, as the basis for his reprinting. 33

F. W . Bailer, The Sacred Edict with a Translation of the Colloquial Rendering (Shanghai: American

Presbyterian Mission Press, 1892; later editions published in Shanghai by the C h i n a Inland Mission and issued in London, Philadelphia, Toronto, and M e l b o u r n e by the Religious T r a c t Society of London). T h e citations in this study are to the sixth edition (1924). Bailer also published a lengthy study aid entitled A Vocabulary of the Colloquial Rendering of the Sacred Edict (Shanghai: American Mission Press, i8g2). It is somewhat unfortunate that Bailer chose the Direct Explanation, which was usually issued in two volumes, as the basis for his English translation. T h e choice was unfortunate, as we shall see below, because the Direct Explanation was a slightly classicized adaptation of the Elaboration, which was written in unadulterated colloquial. Milne (cf. note 22), working in M a l a c c a toward the end of 1 8 1 5 , did follow the Elaboration in his English translation of W a n g Y u - p ' u ' s paraphrase. Since Bailer's rendition of the Direct Explanation is commonly known and widely available in this country, however, it will be convenient to refer to it in many cases instead of to the Elaboration. Furthermore, Bailer provides the Chinese text of both the Amplified Instructions and the Direct Explanation whereas Milne's translation, itself rare and difficult to obtain, includes neither. I have also examined three Chinese editions of the Direct Explanation. T h e first is a rare edition from the Yung-cheng period printed by movable wooden type. T h e second is a block print of 1850 and

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less than six editions between the years 1892 and 1924. It was sold widely in general bookstores and had a sizable influence. T h e original purpose for bringing out this publication was to provide authentic material for the study of Mandarin by Protestant missionaries. Yet, in the end, the work had a much deeper impact upon the foreign community than its sponsors could have imagined. The British magistrate in Weihaiwei, for example, was fond of citing the Direct Explanation "in delivering judgments in both civil and criminal cases." 3 4 He vigorously defended this practice in spite of the fact that a local missionary pointed out to him that he could have found a " f a r more appropriate text" for his purpose in the Bible. M y impression is that roughly half of the Direct Explanation was taken over intact from the Elaboration and much of the rest of it follows closely. But there are telling differences, partly due simply to the persistent classicizing tendency in the Direct Explanation to avoid prolixity and partly due to a harsher, more condescending attitude toward its audience. Where Wang Yu-p'u tells the people that the government collects taxes to pay the officials who "take care of your affairs," the Direct Explanation says that it does so to "control you, the populace." 3 5 There are also fewer explicit references in the Direct Explanation to the solicitude of the K'ang-hsi emperor for the people. Where the Direct Explanation simply tells its auditors to use the money they have left over from paying taxes "to buy some things," the Elaboration has the more solicitous " t o buy some nice things." 3 6 Yung-cheng had advised the scholars that "the books which you read should all be proper." Wang Yu-p'u displays a keen sense of the real state of affairs when he counsels that "what you read must all be proper books. Don't look at so much as a single line of those lewd lyrics and short stories." T h e editors of the Direct Explanation bring the admonition back more closely to Yung-cheng's formulation with the dull "you must read some proper books." 3 7 In an attempt to pare down Wang Yu-p'u's smoothly flowing, expansive prose, the Direct Explanation editors sometimes construct ungrammatical sentences. For example, they rewrite Chei-ke ch 'ien-liang tsui shihyao-chinte ("This tax revenue is most important") as Che ch'ien-liang tsui shihyao-chin?8 The the third a reprinting of 1 8 6 5 with an added preface dated 1876. M a n y other editions of the Direct Explanation were published. Legge, " I m p e r i a l C o n f u c i a n i s m " (cited n. 2), p. 1 4 9 a , states that the Direct Explanation was sold everywhere in China. O n e edition was printed entirely in vermilion ink by the archivist of Soochow Prefecture sometime during the K u a n g - h s u reign period ( 1 8 7 5 - 1 9 0 8 ) . See Ogaeri, Kago, plate 6. 34

R . F . J o h n s t o n , Lion and Dragon in Northern Chirm (New Y o r k : E. P. Dutton, 1 9 1 0 ) , p. 1 2 3 . It is

possible that Johnston knew of the Direct Explanation apart from Bailer's rendering because one passage he quotes from it (about fellow-villagers quarrelling) is in his own distinctive translation (cf. Bailer, Sacred Edict, p. 3 1 ) . 35

Ogaeri, Kago, p. 82; Bailer, Sacred Edict, p. 149.

36

B a l l e r , Sacred Edict, p. 1 5 1 ; Ogaeri, Kago, p. 83.

37

Bailer, Sacred Edict, p. 1 9 3 ; O g a e r i , Kago, p. 3 3 ; Bailer, Sacred Edict, p. 65.

38

Ogaeri, Kago, p. 82; Bailer, Sacred Edict, p. 149. Current usage would prefer Chei-ke ch'ien-liang

shih tsuiyao-chin-te.

VICTOR H

340

MAIR

Direct Explanation has a g r e a t e r t e n d e n c y to use m o n o s y l l a b i c n o u n s a n d v e r b s than does the Elaboration, a n d its h a n d l i n g of c o l l o q u i a l particles a n d c o m p l e m e n t s is less fluent a n d assured. T h e Elaboration is a n a l m o s t flawless m a s t e r piece o f n a t u r a l , c o l l o q u i a l prose. T h e Direct Explanation,

o n the other h a n d ,

is a w k w a r d in m a n y instances w h e r e it d e p a r t s f r o m the Elaboration.

There

are other subtle distinctions b e t w e e n the t w o texts. T h e Elaboration

relies

m o r e o n persuasion to c a j o l e a n d c o a x the p e o p l e , w h i l e the Direct Explanation is s o m e w h a t p e r e m p t o r y a n d t h r e a t e n i n g . B o t h texts are c o n d e s c e n d i n g to their a u d i t o r s b u t the Direct Explanation

is m o r e so. It calls the p e o p l e " s t u p i d , "

"doltish," "ignorant," "idiotic," "dullards," and "imbeciles."

39

The

Direct

Explanation cites l a r g e s e g m e n t s o f the C h ' i n g c o d e in classical C h i n e s e b u t the Elaboration does not. T h e r e is little d o u b t t h a t b o t h the Elaboration a n d the Direct Explanation w e r e i n t e n d e d to be r e a d a l o u d to the p e o p l e . T h e r e are f r e q u e n t direct addresses to a listening audience: " Y o u masses o f the p e o p l e , " " y o u soldiers a n d c i v i l i a n s , " " I ask y o u , " " y o u l o o k , " " y o u j u s t t h i n k , " " y o u w h o are sons," a n d so on. R h e t o r i c a l questions a b o u n d : " D o y o u m e a n to say . . . ? " " I s it not . . . ? " " E x a m i n e y o u r s e l v e s — h o w c a n y o u d o it in all c o n s c i e n c e ? " " W h a t is filial p i e t y ? " " S i n c e y o u k n o w the kindness o f y o u r parents, w h y are y o u not filial to t h e m ? " a n d so forth. T h e r e c u r r e n c e o f the w o r d s " l e c t u r e " (chiang) a n d " h e a r " (t'ing) is a n o t h e r i n d i c a t i o n o f the p u r p o s e o f these texts. Both also display a fondness for p r o v e r b s a n d p o p u l a r sayings that w o u l d h a v e b e e n a n effective element in p u b l i c lectures. T h e Direct Explanation a n d the Elaboration are e x p l i c i t in i d e n t i f y i n g their i n t e n d e d auditors: " A l t h o u g h these r e m a r k s are addressed to the soldiers a n d civilians, w e still wish y o u c o u n t r y squires, m e n o f r a n k , elders w e l l u p in years, g r a d u a t e s in letters, a n d l e a d i n g m e n in the c o m m u n i t y , first o f all to set an e x a m p l e of c o n c o r d : then y o u will be a b l e to e d u c a t e the i g n o r a n t p e o p l e . " 4 0 It w o u l d , a d m i t t e d l y , h a v e been impossible for a n official in C a n t o n or F u k i e n , say, simply to r e a d off W a n g Y u - p ' u ' s M a n d a r i n ( C h i h l i ) p a r a p h r a s e a n d e x p e c t the local d e n i z e n s to c o m p r e h e n d it. T h i s difficulty w a s o b v i a t e d b y the fact that, " i n r e a d i n g , the o r a t o r d e v i a t e s c o n s i d e r a b l y f r o m the p r i n t e d c o p y ; s u p p l y i n g w h a t he thinks n e e d f u l to r e n d e r the sense p e r s p i c u o u s to the hearers, a n d a l t e r i n g the p h r a s e o l o g y to suit it to the i d i o m o f the spoken l a n g u a g e of t h a t p a r t i c u l a r p r o v i n c e , or district."

41

T h i s , o f course, is p r e m i s e d

u p o n the ability o f the o r a t o r to speak the local d i a l e c t . In m a n y cases, the centrally a p p o i n t e d officials w e r e not linguistically e q u i p p e d to speak to the p e o p l e in the districts they a d m i n i s t e r e d . 39

See, for example, Bailer, Sacred Edict, pp. 85, 93, 95, 137, 153, 177, and passim.

40

Bailer, Sacred Edict, p. 38, cf. p. 48; Ogaeri, Kago, p. 17.

41William

Milne, "Bibliotheca Sinica," The Chinese Repository 16:504 (1847). For sample

translations of the Amplified Instructions into various dialects, see S. Wells Williams, A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language, rev. ed. ( T u n g Chou: North C h i n a Union College, 1909), pp. xlii-xlvii.

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34'

T h e problem of language barriers comes up again in a report of Wang Chih (Advanced Scholar, 1 7 2 1 ) , like Wang Yu-p'u, also from Chihli. While serving as magistrate of Hsin-hui in Kwangtung Province, Wang Chih wrote a Shang-yu t'ung-su chieh [Popular explanation of the Imperial Edict], Although Wang Chih refers to the work he paraphrased as the Imperial Edict, because of his mention of the Amplified Instructions, it is clear that he means the Sacred Edict. He explains how he had come to write this work in the following words: Formerly I had developed a method of explaining the Imperial Edict, using colloquial language to paraphrase the text of the Amplified Instructions. I ordered the lecturers to preach in the native dialect. Listeners were able to understand and appreciate quite well. T h e Overseer of Hsin-ning, Wang Chun-sung, whenever he lectured on one of the maxims himself, would [make the people] understand by going over it again and again. Because my accent was not right, I could not do that. Upon arriving at the place where the village lecture was to be held, I ordered elderly inhabitants over eighty or ninety to sit behind the gentry. All were served tea; but none [of this privileged group of listeners] was permitted to report on public affairs. Commoners were ordered to stand and listen during the village lectures. 4 2

T h e frank admission of a language barrier is revealing; Wang Chih was unable to address the people of the county in which he was the highest ranking government officer. Wang Yu-p'u reveals his own ambivalence toward colloquial speech when he speaks derogatorily about the "local dialects in the various parts of China." 4 3 Several of the editors and publishers of Wang Yu-p'u's famous paraphrase have provided helpful information about how they came to know of it and why they decided to undertake the responsibility for making it available to others. Shortly after 1808, the acting viceroy of the province of Canton, Han Feng, was shown a copy of the Discussion and Explanation (i.e., the Elaboration) by Wang Hsun-ch'en, the superintendant of land revenue. " H a v i n g received and read the explanation," he confesses, " I couldn't help liking it. Therefore, I ordered the officer in charge of instruction to select, from among the fourth class of the literary candidates, four persons whose teeth and mouth were formed for clear and distinct utterance; that on the first and fifteenth of each moon, they might proclaim the original text in the Canton dialect." It is obvious that oral interpretation was an essential part of the presentation, for it would have been impossible simply to read off Wang Yu-p'u's northern dialect Elaboration in

42

H s u Tung

comp., Mu-lingsku

chi-yao^^^^^

[Compilation of essential documents

relating to the shepherds of the people], ed. Tingjih-ch'ang T B I

(Kiangsu shu-chu

flljijcill^,

1868 rev. and printed, preface 1838), 6.18a. Cf. Kung-chuan Hsiao, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, i960, second printing, 1967), p. 619, n. 5 1 . 43

Bailer, Sacred Edict, p. 83; Ogaeri, Kago, p. 41.

VICTOR

3-P

H.

MAIR

C a n t o n e s e . A p p a r e n t l y it w a s easier to i n t e r p r e t o r a l l y f r o m t h e Elaboration t h a n to t r a n s l a t e d i r e c t l y f r o m Y u n g - c h e n g ' s

c l a s s i c a l Amplified

Instructions

into

C a n t o n e s e . H a n F e n g , n o t w i t h o u t e x a g g e r a t i o n , d e c l a r e s t h a t the l e c t u r e s w e r e a success a n d t h e n g o e s o n to d e s c r i b e his i n s t r u c t i o n s to s u b o r d i n a t e officials: I accordingly distributed it throughout the districts; gave it to the local officers, the pastors of the people, ordering that they should widely proclaim the Edict; and not leave a single person, even in the huts thinly scattered along the shores of the ocean, ignorant and disobedient. Should we at a future time receive your imperial order to remove to other places, we will teach the same in the dialects of those places to all the p e o p l e . . . , 4 4 J u d g i n g f r o m these a n d o t h e r r e m a r k s , t h e p u b l i c a t i o n a n d d i s t r i b u t i o n o f v e r n a c u l a r p a r a p h r a s e s o f t h e Sacred Edict w e r e d e p e n d e n t u p o n the i n d i v i d u a l i n i t i a t i v e o f officials o u t s i d e t h e c a p i t a l . I n t h e s t a t e m e n t o f t h e C a n t o n e d i t o r o f t h e Elaboration, W a n g H s u n - c h ' e n , w e find t h e f o l l o w i n g p a s s a g e : From the time that your Imperial Majesty began to reign until now, you have earnestly commanded all statesmen and officers to hold lectures in accord with precedent so as to encourage and guide the ignorant villagers. W e , your ministers, have not failed, each in the vulgar dialect of his own district, by various methods, to lead on the people to the knowledge of the Edict. But our lectures are only occasional and we fear that they m a y not reach everyone. Hence I have searched out the Discussion and Explanation of the [Amplified] Instructions on the Sacred [Edict] published by the Assistant Salt Controller of Shensi, W a n g Y u - p ' u . 4 5 W a n g H s u n - c h ' e n w o u l d s e e m to b e l i e v e t h a t p u b l i c a t i o n o f t h e Discussion

and

Explanation w o u l d a l l o w t h e Sacred Edict to r e a c h a g r e a t e r a u d i e n c e t h a n h e a n d his c o l l e a g u e s c o u l d in t h e c o u r s e o f t h e i r o w n l e c t u r e s . B u t he d o e s n o t e n t e r t a i n a n y serious e x p e c t a t i o n t h a t t h e c o m m o n p e o p l e w o u l d a c t u a l l y r e a d t h e Sacred Edict, e v e n in this p o p u l a r i z e d f o r m . H e s i m p l y t h i n k s it his d u t y as a n o f f i c i a l to m a k e it m o r e w i d e l y a v a i l a b l e , p r o b a b l y to l o c a l literates, b e c a u s e " t h e sense o f t h e discussions a n d e x p l a n a t i o n s is e a s i l y u n d e r s t o o d a n d is t r u l y b e n e f i c i a l to t h e i g n o r a m u s e s w h o hear t h e m . " 4 6 W i t h this i n m i n d , h e " a c c o r d i n g l y rep r i n t e d Y u - p ' u ' s t e x t a n d d i s t r i b u t e d it to t h e p r e f e c t u r e s a n d c o u n t i e s so t h a t it m i g h t b e k n o w n to e v e r y f a m i l y a n d h o u s e h o l d a n d t h a t t h e y w o u l d c o m m e n t o n a n d e x p l a i n it to e a c h o t h e r . "

47

W a n g H s u n - c h ' e n ' s s t a t e m e n t closes w i t h a

c h a l l e n g e to t h e " g o o d c i v i l a u t h o r i t i e s " to a n i m a t e a n d e n c o u r a g e t h e p e o p l e without wearying and by a variety of methods. • " T r a n s l a t i o n s of this a n d the p r e c e d i n g q u o t a t i o n (with slight alteration) are by M i l n e , Sacred Edict, pp. x x v i i - x x v i i i . 45

O g a e r i , Kago, p. i o o ; cf. M i l n e , Sacred Edict, p. x x v .

46Elaboration 47

(cited n. 32 a b o v e ) , italics m i n e .

O g a e r i , Kago, p. 100.

L A N G U A G E A N D I D E O L O G Y IN T H E SACRED

EDICT

343

On J u n e 2 1 , 1 8 1 5 , the judicial commissioner of the province of Shensi, Chich'ang (a Manchu bannerman who had become a provincial graduate [chiijen] in 1800), finished his Sheng-yü kuang-hsun yen-shuo [Glosses for the Amplified. Instructions on the "Sacred Edict"]*8 It is obvious that this text is an abridged adaptation of the Direct Explanation. Entire sentences and even paragraphs are left out, while others are rearranged and rewritten. T h e language, though still fluent colloquial Mandarin, is less assured than that of the Direct Explanation, not to mention the Elaboration. It is also less graphic and earthy. In short, Glosses is an assiduous but unsuccessful attempt to camouflage wholesale plagiarism from its famous predecessor. But it is more than just that, for Glosses also evinces a different attitude and tone. Where the Elaboration and Direct Explanation, in decrying the growth of heretical sects, declare that such sects are prone to " d o bad things," 4 9 Glosses warns that they " d o rebellious things until they are discovered, exposed, and attacked from all sides by soldiers and officials." 5 0 Glosses is more threatening than the Direct Explanation, partly through greater emphasis on specific punishments cited from the Ch'ing code, 5 1 partly through increased insistence on the necessity for individuals to "mind their own business" (shou pen-fen), as it were. 5 2 There is also more frequent reference to the "stupidity" and "ignorance" (yii-mei, wu-chih) of the people. 5 3 The most telling indication of Chi-ch'ang's intentions in issuing this paraphrase, however, is to be found in the conclusion to his own postface: Fearing that the stupid men and w o m e n are not fully acquainted with the profound m e a n i n g of [the Emperor's] writing [in the Sacred Edict] and still cannot completely c o m p r e h e n d it, I h a v e respectfully elaborated the royal words in common language. T h u s the twice-monthly explications in the various prefectures and counties as well as the p r o p a g a n d i z i n g (hsuan-ch'uan) by instructors in each village a n d c o m m u n i t y will be intelligible to the ear of w o m e n and children while the recalcitrant and the craven alike will be moved with enthusiasm. It is hoped that the officials w h o guide the people will carry out these orders without being remiss. T h e y will be endlessly supportive and p r o t e c t i v e 5 4 in order to

48 1 have used a rare copy preserved in the Gest Library of Princeton University. It is bound together with a standard edition of the Amplified Instructions published by Chu Hsun (from Kiangsu), the Governor of Shensi, a post he assumed in 1813. The two texts retain their separate paginations, ia~54a for the Amplified Instructions and ia~93bplus i a - 2 b (postface) for the Glosses. On the cover is a seal indicating that the bound volumes were once owned by a Wang I-ch'ang i E d rl49 Ogaeri, Kago, p. 43; Bailer, Sacred Edict, p. 84. 50 Glosses, p. 36a. 51 E.g., pp. 5B-6a, 36b~37a; cf. Ogaeri, Kago, pp. 6 - 7 , 42-43, and Bailer, Sacred Edict, pp. 1 6 17, 85-86. 52 See, for example, p. 39a, and contrast Ogaeri, Kago, p. 45 and Bailer, Sacred Edict, p. 88. " S e e pp. 6b, 33a, 34a, 34b; cf. Ogaeri, Kago, pp. 7, 37, 38, 39, and Bailer, Sacred Edict, pp. 18,

74. 76, 7854 Based on a passage in the Book of Change Jf, ¡¡g!. See Shih-san ching chu-shu -f - H ¡¡Sit ipS (Taipei: Iwen yin-shu kuan fiJtEP^fl, 1965 reprint of 1815 [1896] ed.), 3.7a (p. 59a).

V I C T O R H. M A I R

344

achieve for o u r c o u n t r y the blessing of peace a n d h a r m o n y a n d in o r d e r to assist the sage Son of H e a v e n in the task of e n l i g h t e n i n g t h e people t h r o u g h e m u l a t i n g his ancestors a n d m a k i n g t h e m s u b m i t for all time. M a y this be of some assistance. 5 5 T o w a r d the e n d of the T a o - k u a n g reign p e r i o d ( 1 8 2 1 - 1 8 5 0 ) , h e r e t i c a l sects w e r e p r o l i f e r a t i n g w i l d l y . I t w a s t h o u g h t t h a t a l a r g e p a r t of the responsibility f o r this unrest l a y w i t h the local officials, w h o w e r e s u p p o s e d l y too l a x in c o m b a t i n g t h e m . C o n s e q u e n t l y , s t u d y of the Sacred Edict

in all schools a n d

a c a d e m i e s w a s r e q u i r e d as a c o r r e c t i v e . T h e e d i t o r of the 1 8 5 0 edition of the Direct Explanation

expresses a d e e p c o n c e r n a b o u t the i n c r e a s i n g l y o v e r t a c -

tivities of illicit religious g r o u p s : Recently, h e t e r o d o x doctrines h a v e been t r a n s m i t t e d to all the provinces a n d a r e s p r e a d i n g across t h e m . A t first, it was only a m a t t e r of b u r n i n g incense, collecting m o n e y , a n d stirring u p d o u b t in t h e m i n d s of the stupid people. G r a d u a l l y , w e h a v e c o m e to a situation w h e r e crowds g a t h e r a n d disturbances a r e incited. T h i s is all because the local officials a r e ineffective in their daily g u i d a n c e of t h e people. F u r t h e r m o r e , the seniors a n d leaders a m o n g the people are u n a b l e to teach a n d enlighten t h e m f r o m time to time so t h a t the i g n o r a n t m i g h t b e g o v e r n a b l e a n d fear p u n i s h m e n t a n d , hence, not b e confused by h e t e r o d o x p r o n o u n c e m e n t s . N o t w a n t i n g to b e b l a m e d as a n i r r e s p o n s i b l e o f f i c i a l , the e d i t o r c h o s e to r e p r i n t the Direct Explanation

as his c o n t r i b u t i o n to the s t r u g g l e a g a i n s t h e r e s y .

T h e s a m e concerns i n f o r m the p r e f a c e of the 1 8 6 5 e d i t i o n of the Explanation,

Direct

w h i c h I q u o t e in full:

O f old, the people were m a d e u p of four classes; now there are six classes of people. O f old, there was b u t a single doctrine; now there a r e t h r e e . 5 6 T h e m o r e these doctrines diverge, t h e m o r e confused people become. Divergence multiplies u p o n divergence until the oppression of the masses caused by these h e t e r o d o x pron o u n c e m e n t s exceeds t h a t of Y a n g - t z u , M o - t z u , B u d d h a , a n d L a o - t z u . 5 7 T h e d a m a g e they cause c a n n o t be told in words. O u r Sacred Ancestor, the Benevolent E m p e r o r [K'ang-hsi], himself h a v i n g been given great a u t h o r i t y by H e a v e n , was disposed to display his s y m p a t h y for the b e n i g h t e d . H e expressly p r o m u l g a t e d the Sacred Edict composed of sixteen items to constitute forever a m e t h o d of i n d o c t r i n a t i o n . O u r E p o c h a l P r o g e n i t o r , the E x e m p l a r y E m p e r o r [Yung-cheng], in t u r n , composed the Amplified Instructions in ten t h o u s a n d words. H e also instituted s t u d y halls a n d lectures on t h e first a n d fifteenth of each m o n t h . T h e Plans of the Sages a r e f a r - r e a c h i n g a n d b r i g h t as the sun a n d the m o o n . N o w the Son of H e a v e n , a t a m o m e n t w h e n t h e e m p i r e ' s fate turns, brings a b o u t 55

Glosses, 2ab.

56

T h e four classes are scholars, farmers, artisans, a n d merchants; the six classes are these four

plus monks and priests. T h e single doctrine is, of course, Confucianism; the three doctrines are Confucianism, Buddhism, and T a o i s m . 57

Representing Hedonism, Universal L o v e , Buddhism, and Taoism, respectively.

L A N G U A G E A N D I D E O L O G Y IN T H E SACRED

EDICT

345

restoration b y d i l i g e n t l y seeking o r d e r . T h e S i l k e n W o r d s o f the E m p e r o r rep e a t e d l y disseminate clear e x p l a n a t i o n s as h e lectures o n the essentials o f the o l d statutes. T r u l y this is a n i m p o r t a n t w a y to t r a n s f o r m the p e o p l e a n d to r e f o r m c u s t o m . H o w e v e r , his l a n g u a g e is l i t e r a r y a n d his p u r p o r t is d e e p . T h e l e a r n e d doctors w h o p r o c l a i m his w o r d s a n d e l a b o r a t e u p o n t h e m m a y p e r h a p s not f u l l y e l u c i d a t e their m e a n i n g . T h e dull a n d s l o w - w i t t e d p e o p l e o f the villages a n d lanes c a n n o t f a t h o m the instructions o f the classics n o r c a n t h e y a p p r e h e n d

their

p r o f u n d i t y , so they d o not fully see the i n t e n t o f the Sages. T h i s is not the w a y to p r o p a g a t e the S u p r e m e D o c t r i n e . F o r m e r l y , w h e n I was s e r v i n g as a n official in the c a p i t a l , I h e a r d t h a t in K i a n g s i , H u p e i , a n d o t h e r p r o v i n c e s , there h a d b e e n p r i n t e d a b o o k c a l l e d the Direct Explanation.

T h e authorities, o u t o f respect for the E x c e l l e n t T e a c h i n g o f the

C o u r t , p r o b a b l y h o p e d that t h e r e b y a p a r t o f it m i g h t be k n o w n in e v e r y h o u s e h o l d . I regret t h a t before I h a d h a d a c h a n c e to see it, I w e n t to fill a post in A n h w e i . It so h a p p e n e d that m i l i t a r y m a t t e r s w e r e q u i t e pressing a n d I w a s no l o n g e r a b l e to think o f the Direct Explanation.

T o d a y , f o r t u n a t e l y , the r a v a g e s o f the

soldiers h a v e a b a t e d s o m e w h a t . I d e e p l y m a i n t a i n that, in o r d e r to i n c u l c a t e the d o c t r i n e o f p r o p r i e t y , w e m u s t c a u s e the eyes a n d ears o f the p e o p l e to be s t e e p e d in it so t h a t it is easy for t h e m to k n o w a n d follow. B y c h a n c e , in a c o n v e r s a t i o n w i t h the f o r m e r C o m m i s s i o n e r o f E d u c a t i o n , the A c a d e m i c i a n M a Y i i - n u n g , the s u b j e c t o f this b o o k c a m e u p . H e b r o u g h t o u t from a chest a c o p y that he o w n e d a n d s h o w e d it to m e . I r e a d it c a r e f u l l y a n d s a v o r e d its details. T h i s b o o k r e s p e c t f u l l y a d h e r e s to the Instructions

Amplified

on the Sacred Edict by e x p l a i n i n g its i m p o r t in l a n g u a g e t h a t y o u n g a n d

o l d a m o n g the p e o p l e c a n u n d e r s t a n d a n d h e n c e b e c o m e t h o r o u g h l y c o n v e r s a n t w i t h its message. G o i n g o v e r them a g a i n a n d a g a i n renders the instructions p e r s p i c u o u s a n d m a k e s t h e m c l e a r as s p e e c h . T h i s causes the a u d i t o r s to t a k e t h e m to h e a r t a c t i v e l y w i t h o u t w e a r y i n g o f t h e m . F o r the i g n o r a n t a n d the u n e d u c a t e d , it is q u i t e beneficial. S o , h a v i n g b o r r o w e d the b o o k , I took it b a c k to m y o w n p l a c e . T h e r e I c o p i e d it d o w n a n d re-edited it w i t h the i n t e n t i o n o f b r o a d e n i n g its circulation. P e r h a p s s o m e o n e m i g h t say, " W h e n there is g r e a t disorder in society, o n e m u s t first a l l e v i a t e suffering. Before y o u h a v e b e e n a b l e to rescue the p e o p l e f r o m the clutches o f d e a t h , w h a t leisure h a v e y o u to c u l t i v a t e c e r e m o n y a n d r i g h t e o u s ness? 5 8 W h a t are y o u d o i n g w i t h these w r i t i n g m a t e r i a l s ? " H e w h o asks this does n o t realize that g r e a t disorder in society arises in the hearts o f m e n . I f the h e a r t s o f m e n a r e not c h a n g e d , the disorder in society will not soon a b a t e . T o d a y the a r e a south o f the Y a n g t z e is s o m e w h a t settled a n d the p e o p l e are g r a d u a l l y b e i n g relieved o f their distress. E v e r y b o d y is s a y i n g , " P e a c e a n d o r d e r h a v e a l r e a d y b e e n a c h i e v e d ! " Y e t those w h o e m p l o y v i o l e n c e p r e s u m e o n their h a r s h threats; those w h o a r e a c c u s t o m e d to c u n n i n g a b u s e o t h e r s w i t h o p p o r t u n i s t i c tricks; those w h o w o r k a t b e i n g u n c o n v e n t i o n a l detest c e r e m o n y a n d l a w ; those w h o insist u p o n o b s t i n a c y u n l e a s h their obtuseness. W h a t is t h e r e to b e h a p p y a b o u t ? W i t h 5 8 T h i s is based on Mencius, i .7. Cf. James Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. 2 (London: Trubner, 1861), p. 24: " I n such circumstances they only try to save themselves from death, and are afraid they will not succeed. What leisure have they to cultivate righteousness?"

VICTOR

346

H.

MAIR

words becoming confused and affairs disorderly, once again unfounded heretical pronouncements incite the people. T h e flames leap higher and higher, as though there were a blazing fire, until they become worrisome indeed. T h e printing of the Direct Explanation is for the very purpose of elaborating and spreading the fine civilizing influence of the Amplified. Instructions on the Sacred Edict so as to bring rectitude to the hearts of men. Accordingly, I have brought forth this book to be distributed in the various prefectures and counties. Each of our officials and outstanding citizens ought in all sincerity to do his best to realize this measure. M a y they daily have the young and the old come to them so that they can instruct them in the meaning of filial piety and subordination, disseminating the Virtues of the Ruler among his subjects. Thus, to a degree, the laws may be restored, the people renewed, and the evils of heresy not arise. Is this not the basis for assisting China to be greatly distinguished in the W a y for eons? Is this not the basis? —Autumn,

ninth month,

1865.

Respectfully inscribed by Ho Ching, Financial Commissioner of Hupei, retained as Acting

Financial

Commissioner of Anhwei.

T h e Sacred Edict a n d t w o s e p a r a t e Amplified Instructions are m e n t i o n e d in the i n t r o d u c t o r y essay o f H u a n g Y i i - p ' i e n ' s w e l l - k n o w n a n t i h e r e t i c a l w o r k , P'o hsieh hsiang-pien [A d e t a i l e d refutation o f heresies, p r e f a c e

1834].

The

d a t e g i v e n for the first Amplified Instructions is 1724, so this is o b v i o u s l y Y u n g c h e n g ' s original text. T h e d a t e g i v e n for the second is 1797. F r o m the description p r o v i d e d by H u a n g , it w o u l d a p p e a r t h a t the text in question is o n e or a n o t h e r edition of the Direct Explanation59:

" W r i t t e n c o m p l e t e l y in e v e r y d a y

c o l l o q u i a l l a n g u a g e o f the p e o p l e to set forth a n d c o m m e n t u p o n [the Amplified Instructions]. A l l local officials, o n the first a n d the

fifteenth

of e a c h m o n t h ,

respectfully use it for lectures so that the i g n o r a n t people t o o c a n u n d e r s t a n d t h o r o u g h l y a n d w i t h ease. T h e rectification o f the l a w s a n d the r e n e w a l of the p e o p l e lie in this." In the p r e f a c e , H u a n g writes o f his o w n w o r k : " B e c a u s e the i g n o r a n t p e o p l e in the villages w h o r e c o g n i z e c h a r a c t e r s are f e w , it is h o p e d t h a t the g e n t r y in e a c h v i l l a g e r e a d this b o o k [i.e., Disputation]

until they

are

t h o r o u g h l y f a m i l i a r w i t h it a n d then transmit it extensively to the b r o a d m a s s e s . " 6 0 P r e s u m a b l y , a similar process o f transmission w a s used for the Amplified Instructions. T h e p u r p o s e o f the Direct Explanation thus w o u l d h a v e been to p r o v i d e the g e n t r y or o t h e r responsible i n d i v i d u a l s w i t h a

59Ogaeri,

ready-made

Kago, p. 15 o f postface, mentions a o n e - v o l u m e edition o f the Direct Explanation that

w a s labled on the outside s i m p l y as Sheng-yii kuang-hsun [ A m p l i f i e d Instructions on the Sacred Edict], O n the title page, it c a r r i e d the a d d i t i o n a l a n n o t a t i o n , " w i t h a p p e n d e d citations f r o m the legal code." 60Sawada

Mizuho 3 B i g g ,

ed. a n d a n n o t . , Kochu Haja shoben

[A detailed

disputation against h e t e r o d o x y , w i t h c o l l o c a t i o n s a n d c o m m e n t a r i e s ] ( T o k y o : D o k y o k a n k o - k a i i l l A l i i

1972), p. 8 a n d p r e f a c e , p. 7. I a m i n d e b t e d to Professor C . K . W a n g of N a t i o n a l

T a i w a n U n i v e r s i t y for this reference a n d for the c i t a t i o n in note 88.

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lecture in the colloquial language that they could adapt to their own needs and tastes. Who the purchasers of these texts were might be partially deduced from the prices asked for them. In 1847, the Elaboration, on good paper, could be bought in Canton for the equivalent of two shillings and sixpence. 6 1 In Canton, this amount of money, in the same year, could have bought about 40 pounds of rice or a pair of trousers and a jacket. 6 2 This was surely within the realm of possible purchase by the literati but it would have been a luxury for the common man. Perhaps there were cheaper editions available, although I do not know what their price might have been. Even at half the price, buying this text would still have been a big investment for the average person. A most curious production is the small volume called Sheng-yu ch'u-yen [Plain talk on the Sacred Edict}, by Chien Ching-hsi. This work would appear to be the product of a local group of intellectuals who gave themselves quaint names (Chien, for example, styled himself " T h e Woodcutter of Cassia Village" [Kueits'un ch'iao-che]). T h e production also seems to have had a limited budget and, hence, limited circulation, perhaps because it did not receive any official backing. T h e printing on the pages of the text is close set, as though the intention was to save space and hence paper. T h e carving is clear but by no means distinguished. While not an expensive publication, it has manifestly been lovingly and carefully executed. I have used the 1893 recutting done at Yiishan, Chekiang. T h e two prefaces, dated 1887, are in the neat calligraphy (one regular script, one cursive) of two of the sponsors of the publication and are helpful in understanding the origins and purpose of the Plain Talk. T h e prefaces are full of amusingly self-congratulatory sentiments. Chien, it would seem, was a rather successful lecturer on the Sacred Edict. He was probably a member of the gentry who had been tapped by a county magistrate for this purpose. 6 3 Some of his friends who read his lectures in written form were so delighted with them that they decided to publish and distribute them. In his preface, one of Chien's friends, Huo Chen, makes rather grand claims about the extent of the influence they hope it will have ("everyone within and without the Four Seas will know how to establish the W a y " ) . The Plain Talk may be said to be " p l a i n " only in the sense that it provides straight exegesis of the Amplified Instructions. It is insipid and dull; without considerable embellishment, it could hardly have stirred its auditors to follow the teachings of the sages. After quoting each maxim, it mechanically begins 61

William Milne, "Bibliotheca Sinica," The Chinese Repository 1 6 : 5 0 2 (1847). Computed from figures available in The Chinese Repository 1 6 : 5 6 , 297, 3 1 8 (1847), and Osmond Tiffany, J r . , The Canton Chinese: or, The American's Sojourn in the Celestial Empire (Boston: J . Munroe, 1849), P- 2 2 2 63 In some localities, respected members of the gentry were called upon to help in expounding the Sacred Edict. See Chung-li Chang, The Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1955), pp. 15, 65. 62

V I C T O R H. M A I R

30

w i t h the w o r d s " T h e Sacred Edict o f t h e A u g u s t O n e A b o v e w o u l d h a v e us . . . " o r a s i m i l a r f o r m u l a t i o n . E a c h s e c t i o n e n d s w i t h a s e n t e n c e t o t h e efTect t h a t "The

th m a x i m o f t h e Sacred Edict m e a n s p r e c i s e l y t h i s . " T h e a u t h o r is

q u i t e c o n d e s c e n d i n g to t h e p e o p l e , c a l l i n g t h e m b y s u c h e n d e a r i n g e p i t h e t s as " i n f e r i o r i g n o r a m u s e s . " O n the o t h e r h a n d , h e s e r v i l e l y

flatters

the e m p e r o r .

H e is s t r o n g l y a g a i n s t secret societies a n d " r e l i g i o u s b a n d i t s " b u t w o u l d a p p e a r to h a v e n o o v e r t q u a r r e l w i t h B u d d h i s m a n d T a o i s m . H u o C h e n ' s p r e f a c e c l a i m s t h a t w h e n C h i e n u s e d his Plain

Words to l e c t u r e o n t h e Sacred Edict,

m a d e " t h e r e s p l e n d e n t , i m p e r i a l l a n g u a g e o f t h e Amplified Instructions

he

suitable

for w o m e n a n d c h i l d r e n . " B u t he c o u l d n o t h a v e d o n e so w i t h o u t u t i l i z i n g s o m e m e c h a n i s m o f o r a l i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , f o r , a l t h o u g h t h e Plain Words d o e s n o t e m p l o y a r c a n e a l l u s i o n s , o n l y a n a u d i e n c e w i t h s e v e r a l y e a r s o f t r a i n i n g i n the c l a s s i c a l l a n g u a g e c o u l d h a v e u n d e r s t o o d t h e t e x t w e r e it r e a d a l o u d . T h e Sheng-yii kuang-hsun

chi-cheng

[Collected verifications of the

Amplified

Instructions on the Sacred Edict], i n t w o fascicles, b e a r s a n i n s c r i p t i o n b y S h i h C h i h m o 6 4 of Y a n g - h u in K i a n g s u d a t e d the sixteenth d a y of the e l e v e n t h m o n t h of t h e y e a r 1 8 7 8 . T h e b l o c k s f o r t h e e d i t i o n I h a v e u s e d w e r e r e c u t in 1900 a n d kept at W u Y i n - s u n ' s place in K i a n g s u . W u w a s f r o m I - c h e n g C o u n t y , also in K i a n g s u , a n d b r o u g h t o u t t h e Tu-fu tu-shu-t'ang ts'ung-k'e

[Good fortune library

series] o f w h i c h t h e Collected Verifications is t h e first title. I n his p r e f a c e , W u s a y s t h a t his f a m i l y o w n e d m o r e t h a n s e v e n t h o u s a n d b o o k s . O f t h e s e , 5 0 60 p e r cent were trade publications a n d 4 0 - 5 0 percent were old or rare editions. T h e W u s w e r e o b v i o u s l y a v i d c o l l e c t o r s a n d t h e y f r e q u e n t l y h a d i n t e r e s t i n g titles, s o m e still in m a n u s c r i p t f o r m , sent to t h e m . T h e y w e r e a l s o p u b l i s h e r s a n d k e e n l y a w a r e o f t h e i n t e n s e c o m p e t i t i o n in t h e r e p r i n t - s e r i e s

field.

Wu

had

s e v e r a l t i m e s b e g u n to p u b l i s h a series b u t s o o n s t o p p e d in e a c h c a s e b e c a u s e h e w a s u n c e r t a i n o f its p o t e n t i a l success. H e e m p h a s i z e s t h a t h e h a d to t h i n k o f s o m e d i s t i n c t i v e t h e m e for t h e series. U l t i m a t e l y , h e d e c i d e d to c h o o s e easy-tounderstand w o r k s o f solid m o r a l c o n t e n t t h a t h a d b e e n o v e r l o o k e d b y o t h e r p u b l i s h e r s . W e t h u s h a v e t h e W u f a m i l y ' s e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l spirit to t h a n k for t h e p r e s e r v a t i o n o f t h e Collected Verifications. I t is also s i g n i f i c a n t t h a t a m a r k e t f o r this t y p e o f m a t e r i a l existed a n d t h a t it w a s s u f f i c i e n t l y l a r g e to a t t r a c t c o m p e t ing publishers. T h e n a t u r e o f the m a r k e t m a y , to a c e r t a i n e x t e n t , b e u n d e r s t o o d

by

e x a m i n i n g t h e Collected Verifications. T h i s b o o k consists o f stories i l l u s t r a t i n g t h e m a x i m s t h a t h a d b e e n u s e d b y l e c t u r e r s o n t h e Sacred Edict. T h e t r e a t m e n t o f e a c h m a x i m c o n f o r m s to t h e f o l l o w i n g p a t t e r n : a g e n e r a l i n t r o d u c t i o n , illustrative stories, a n d a r e c a p i t u l a t i o n . T h e l a t t e r s e c t i o n o f t e n e f f e c t i v e l y c o m p a r e s a n d c o n t r a s t s t h e m o r a l issues r a i s e d b y t h e i l l u s t r a t i v e e x a m p l e s . A n u m b e r o f 64

Shih Chih-mo must be the brother or cousin of Shih Chih-kao J t JS; §£ (d. 1854), also of Yang-

h u in K i a n g s u . For t h e latter, see C h ' e n N a i - c h ' i e n

c o m p . , Ch'ing-taipei-chuan wen fung-chien

[Finding-list for texts of stele biographies] (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chii 1959), P- 3 6 -

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the stories are from the Shanghai area but a few come from as far away as Shansi. Some of the stories are historical but most are contemporary. T o lend veracity to the accounts, the compiler supplies dates and places, with the result that the reader almost begins to feel that the Collected Verifications represents a species of reporting. On the one hand, as might be expected in such a situation, sensational tales of murder are vividly recounted but, on the other hand, there are also a couple of charming stories about animals (the filial calf and the filial kitten). Surprisingly, the compiler has been able to link up such disparate items into fairly coherent and persuasive arguments. Linguistically, the Collected Verifications is a hodgepodge of styles. The first sentence of each section is in the classical language but there is often a gradual shift into an impure colloquial (chih for te, ch'i for t'a, hu instead of ma, tz'u for chea, and so on). Some stories are entirely in simple classical and this leads me to suspect that the compiler may merely have been following his sources without making any serious effort toward stylistic unity. Buddhists are said to be "only preoccupied with purity and cleanliness, calmness and extinction," while Taoists "let things take their natural course so that no harm will come to the people." 6 5 Elsewhere, the compiler displays a certain sympathy for such Buddhist concepts as retribution and reincarnation. But the millenarian cults are an entirely different matter. Like all the other literati popularizers, he is completely opposed to the ideas and activities of such groups. LECTURES T o give some idea of the institutional setting in which the Ch'ing popularizations of the Sacred Edict appeared, it may be helpful to provide a brief chronology of related government actions. In 1652, the Six Maxims were promulgated throughout the land. 6 6 Following Ming precedent, an imperial directive was issued in 1659 establishing a system of village lectures (hsiang-yueh) to elucidate the Six Maxims in plain and simple language on the first and fifteenth of each month. 67 It was this system that was carried over subsequently for use by lecturers on the Sacred Edict and continued, with varying degrees of vitality, to the end of the Ch'ing dynasty. 68 Kung-chuan Hsiao refers to it as a method of popular indoctrination. 69 Pei Huang states that later, during the 65 66

Collected Verifications, 1 . 1 8 b . S u e r n a , Complete Book (cited n. 10), 7 4 . 1 a .

67

Ibid., 74. i a b .

68

T h e Six Maxims continued to play an important role in the village lectures alongside the Sacred

Edict during the first half of the Ch'ing. 69

Rural China, p. 1 8 5 . Hsiao devotes an entire chapter, which he entitles " I d e o l o g i c a l Control:

T h e Hsiang-yueh and Other Institutions" (pp. 1 8 4 - 2 5 8 ) , to this subject. T'ung-tsu Ch'ii also considers the lectures on the Sacred Edict to be a form of indoctrination. See his Local Government in China under the Ch'ing ( C a m b r i d g e , Mass.: H a r v a r d University Press, 1962), p. 162.

V I C T O R H. M A I R

350

Yung-cheng period, "all the variant forms of intellectual restriction . . . were channeled toward the same end—the enforcement of orthodox ideology." There was a determined attempt to make this orthodoxy the pattern for the political behavior of everyone within the empire, not just the ideological standard for the literati. 7 0 Numerous official measures relating to the propagation of the maxims of the Sacred Edict, including successive refinements of the village lecture system, were an integral part of this ideological enforcement. Chung-li Chang agrees that the purpose of the semimonthly lectures on what he calls the "politico-moral maxims" of the Sacred Edict was " t o indoctrinate the masses with the official ideology." 7 1 In 1729, it was decreed that, in all larger towns and villages where there were dense concentrations of people, places for lectures on the Yung-cheng emperor's Amplified Instructions were to be established. 72 T h e following year, Yung-cheng agreed to sanction special educational procedures for the children of aboriginal peoples in remote parts of Chien-ch'ang prefecture (Szechwan) who had submitted to Chinese rule but were unacquainted with Chinese notions of propriety. It was decided that village tutors (shu-shih) ought to be invited to instruct them. T h e problem was that these children did not understand Mandarin (kuan-yii) while the tutors were not at ease in the local language. 7 3 In order to overcome this difficulty, it was suggested that exemplary first-degree licentiates from Szechwan be hired to establish training centers on the model of the free schools in Han areas. The aboriginal children were to be sent to schools not far from their own homes together with Han children so that gradually the culture of the latter would rub off on them. T h e first text mentioned for study was the Amplified Instructions on the Sacred Edict. Only after this work was thoroughly mastered would they turn to the recitation and study of the classics. A similar procedure was suggested in 1732 for instructing the children of the Miao people in six villages of the Yung-sui area. 7 4 For the instruction of the Li and Y a o peoples in Kwangtung Province, the emphasis was on securing linguistically talented teachers and, as in the Miao case, the selection and advancement of the most capable aboriginal children for further 10

Autocracy at Work: A Study of the Yung-cheng Period,

1723-1735

(Bloomington:

Indiana

University Press, 1974), p. 188. Cf. J o h n R. Watt, " T h e Y a m e n and U r b a n Administration," in G. William Skinner, ed., The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), pp. 353-390. 71

es

P- PP- 3 6 1 - 3 6 2 .

The Chinese Gentry, p. 65. Perhaps the most extensive treatment of the Sacred Edict in English is

to be found in Leon E. Stover, The Cultural Ecology of Chinese Civilization: Peasants and Elites in the Last of the Agrarian States ( N e w York: Mentor, 1974). Stover has structured much of his discussion around the Sacred Edict in a w a y that is pertinent to m a n y of the papers in this book. 72 73

S u e r n a , Complete Book, 74.4a. See ibid., 7 4 . 1 0 b - 1 i a for the need to translate the Amplified Instructions and parts of the Ch'ing

legal code into aboriginal languages. It was r e c o m m e n d e d that interpreters a c c o m p a n y officials into the aboriginal settlements expressly for this purpose. 74

Ibid., 73.43b.

L A N G U A G E A N D I D E O L O G Y I N T H E SACRED

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35'

s t u d y . T h e r e w e r e also the o b l i g a t o r y s e m i m o n t h l y lectures on the Amplified Instructions a n d e x p l a n a t i o n s o f the l e g a l c o d e . 7 5 R e a d i n g t h r o u g h the g o v e r n m e n t regulations o n the s u b j e c t , o n e g a i n s the c l e a r impression that the p r o b l e m o f the e d u c a t i o n o f n o n - H a n subjects r e p r e s e n t e d b u t a n e x t r e m e f o r m o f the difficulties i n h e r e n t in t r a n s m i t t i n g the v a l u e s o f the elite to the rest o f the p o p u l a t i o n . It is n o t e w o r t h y t h a t , in b o t h c i r c u m s t a n c e s , the Sacred Edict w a s considered to be the best v e h i c l e for t h e transmission o f these ideals. B y 1736, measures w e r e t a k e n to e x t e n d the lecture system to all v i l l a g e s w i t h o u t restrictions on s i z e . 7 6 A d d i t i o n a l m e a s u r e s w e r e to be t a k e n in f o l l o w i n g years to ensure that copies o f the Amplified Instructions a n d a b r i d g e d l e g a l codes w o u l d be a v a i l a b l e to c h i e f a n d assistant lecturers t h r o u g h o u t the e m p i r e . F u r t h e r m o r e , these lecturers w e r e not t o look u p o n their task o f s p e a k i n g o n the Amplified Instructions a n d the legal c o d e as a m e r e f o r m a l i t y b u t w e r e to t a k e it w i t h the u t m o s t seriousness. In 1 7 3 7 , it w a s specifically s t i p u l a t e d t h a t the m a i n provisions o f the i m p e r i a l c o d e be e x p l a i n e d at the e n d o f e a c h lecture session o n the Sacred Edict.11

T h i s o r d e r h a d a direct i m p a c t o n a u t h o r s a n d editors o f

written p o p u l a r i z a t i o n s o f the Sacred Edict, w h o b e g a n i n c r e a s i n g l y to a p p e n d relevant passages f r o m the c o d e to their discussions o f the m a x i m s . In 1 7 5 3 , the e m p e r o r o r d e r e d th^t officials be s t r o n g l y e n c o u r a g e d , in a d d i t i o n to g i v i n g the r e g u l a r s e m i m o n t h l y lectures o n the Sacred Edict, to instruct the villagers in C o n f u c i a n m o r a l precepts w h e n e v e r t h e y c o u l d , e m p l o y i n g local dialects a n d c o l l o q u i a l speech so that those present m i g h t u n d e r s t a n d w h a t they w e r e h e a r i n g . 7 8 A directive o f 1 7 5 8 d e c l a r e d t h a t " i t w o u l d d o n o h a r m to e x p l a i n [the Amplified Instructions] c l e a r l y in local dialects a n d w i t h c o m m o n s a y i n g s . "

79

T h i s directive w a s especially c o n c e r n e d w i t h b r i n g i n g a h a l t to the s p r e a d of h e t e r o d o x sects. T h e l a w s f o r b i d d i n g such doctrines w e r e to b e p r i n t e d a n d posted w i d e l y . By the time o f the T a o - k u a n g e m p e r o r (r. 1 8 2 1 - 1 8 5 0 ) , t h e g o v e r n m e n t seems to h a v e b e c o m e a l m o s t p a r a n o i d a b o u t the activities o f secret a n d u n s a n c t i o n e d religious g r o u p s . C o n s i d e r i n g the events o f the second h a l f of the nineteenth c e n t u r y , h o w e v e r , p e r h a p s their fears w e r e j u s t i f i e d . A t a n y rate, from a b o u t 1750 on, there is a l w a y s a close c o n n e c t i o n b e t w e e n the v i l l a g e lecture system a n d the suppression o f heresies. T h e i n c r e a s i n g e m p h a s i s d u r i n g t h e C h ' i n g o n the p r e v e n t i o n o f socially d i s r u p t i v e b e h a v i o r a n d u n l a w f u l c o n d u c t c a n be seen clearly b y c o m p a r i n g the Six Maxims w i t h the Sacred Edict a n d the Sacred Edict w i t h the Amplified Instructions a n d its c o m m e n t a r i e s . 8 0 O n e a c c o u n t o f the prescribed ritual for l e c t u r i n g o n the Sacred Edict is as follows: 75

Ibid., 73.46-53.

76

Ibid., 74.53-63.

77

Hsiao, Rural China, p. 190.

78

Ibid., p. 186.

79

Suerna, Complete Book, 74.11 ab.

80

Hsiao, Rural China, p. 188.

V I C T O R H. M A I R E a r l y o n the first a n d

fifteenth

o f e v e r y m o o n , the civil a n d m i l i t a r y officers,

dressed in their u n i f o r m s , m e e t in a c l e a n , spacious, p u b l i c hall. T h e s u p e r i n t e n d e n t or M a s t e r o f C e r e m o n i e s (li-sheng) calls a l o u d , " S t a n d forth in files." T h e y d o so, a c c o r d i n g to their r a n k : h e then says, " K n e e l thrice, a n d b o w the h e a d n i n e t i m e s . " T h e y kneel, a n d b o w to the g r o u n d , w i t h their faces t o w a r d s a p l a t f o r m , o n w h i c h is p l a c e d a b o a r d w i t h the E m p e r o r ' s n a m e . H e n e x t calls a l o u d , " R i s e a n d r e t i r e . " T h e y rise, a n d all g o to a h a l l , or k i n d o f c h a p e l , w h e r e the l a w is usually r e a d ; a n d w h e r e the m i l i t a r y a n d p e o p l e a r e a s s e m b l e d , s t a n d i n g r o u n d in silence. T h e M a s t e r o f C e r e m o n i e s then says, " R e s p e c t f u l l y c o m m e n c e . " T h e o r a t o r (ssu-chiang-sheng), a d v a n c i n g t o w a r d s a n i n c e n s e - a l t a r , kneels; r e v e r e n t l y takes u p the b o a r d o n w h i c h the m a x i m a p p o i n t e d for the d a y is w r i t t e n , a n d ascends a stage w i t h it. A n o l d m a n receives the b o a r d , a n d p u t s it d o w n o n the stage, f r o n t i n g the people. T h e n , c o m m a n d i n g silence w i t h a w o o d e n rattle w h i c h h e carries i n his h a n d , he kneels, a n d reads it. W h e n h e has finished, the M a s t e r o f C e r e m o n i e s calls o u t , " E x p l a i n s u c h a section, or m a x i m , o f the Sacred Edict."

The

o r a t o r stands u p , a n d g i v e s the s e n s e . 8 1

T h e following extract from a letter, dated Shanghai, September 23, 1847, and written by a foreign resident gives a perhaps truer picture of the manner of proclamation of the Sacred Edict: I h a v e j u s t r e t u r n e d f r o m h e a r i n g Chinese preaching, o r w h a t a n s w e r s to p r e a c h i n g better t h a n a n y t h i n g else I h a v e y e t seen a m o n g the C h i n e s e . Y o u k n o w t h a t o n the 1 st a n d 1 5 t h o f e v e r y m o n t h , the l o c a l officers t h r o u g h o u t the e m p i r e are r e q u i r e d to r e p a i r to the m u n i c i p a l temples, a n d t h e n , a f t e r h a v i n g w o r s h i p e d the deity enshrined therein, a n d the e m p e r o r , a r e t h e r e to h a v e the S a c r e d E d i c t b r o u g h t o u t in state, a n d r e a d to the a s s e m b l y o f the p e o p l e a n d soldiers. T h i s c e r e m o n y I h a v e j u s t h a d a n o p p o r t u n i t y o f seeing. A t a q u a r t e r past 5 o ' c l o c k this m o r n i n g , in c o m p a n y w i t h s o m e friends, I started for the Ching-hwdng midu [i.e., ch'eng-hnang miao], the residence o f the t u t e l a r y g o d o f S h a n g h a i . E n t e r i n g the c i t y b y the L i t t l e S o u t h g a t e , a n d b y the w a y c a l l i n g for three o t h e r g e n t l e m e n , w e all r e a c h e d the t e m p l e s o m e time before six o ' c l o c k . A m u l t i t u d e o f d e v o u t idolaters h a d a l r e a d y c o l l e c t e d , a n d m o s t of t h e m w e r e busily e n g a g e d in p e r f o r m i n g their religious r i t e s — m a k i n g prostrations, o f f e r i n g incense, & c . , & c . T h e officials not h a v i n g a r r i v e d , w e strolled t h r o u g h the different a p a r t m e n t s o f the t e m p l e , upstairs a n d downstairs, a m o n g all sorts o f shrines a n d i m a g e s . T h i s t e m p l e is not o n l y the largest in S h a n g h a i , but has the r e p u t a t i o n o f b e i n g inferior to n o n e o f the k i n d in the w h o l e e m p i r e . I n a little w h i l e the c h i e f m a g i s t r a t e a r r i v e d w i t h his retinue, a n d w a s soon f o l l o w e d b y the colonel, a c c o m p a n i e d b y three s u b a l t e r n s , w h o all r e p a i r e d 8 1 Adapted from Milne, trans., The Sacred Edict, pp. i x - x i , who has based his account on a local gazetteer from Kwangtung province. Most other gazetteers include a similar description. For one such elaborate account, see Sun Hao , et al., Honan fung-chih /DJ ^ ^ [General gazetteer of Honan] (1882), 10.4a. Huang Liu-hung ^ A f i l has provided a wealth of detail on the prescribed method for reading and expounding the Sacred Edict in his 1699 Fu-hui ch'iian-shu ij!Jji;§i1Ir, tr. by Djang Chu as A Complete Book Concerning Happiness and Benevolence: A Manual for Local Magistrates in Seventeenth-Century China (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1984), pp. 530-35.

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immediately to the presence of the presiding divinity, in the centre of the great hall, and on their hassocks w e n t t h r o u g h with the three kneelings and nine knockings of head. A s soon as they h a d retired into a side a p a r t m e n t , a b r o a d yellow satin curtain was suspended in front of the g o d w h o m they h a d worshiped, a n d under it, projecting forward, a small altar was erected u p o n a table. Before this little altar, a small yellow satin screen was placed, designed, as I suppose, to hide from v u l g a r eyes something intended to represent imperial majesty. In front o f the small yellow screen were placed pots of b u r n i n g incense, and close behind them was a small box. T h e s e things being a r r a n g e d , the same was duly a n n o u n c e d to the officers, w h o returned and repeated the ceremonies w h i c h they h a d already performed. T h e n , while they w e r e still standing before the representatives of imperial power, an a g e d m a n , dressed in official robes, c a m e f o r w a r d , and with all b e c o m i n g gravity took u p the little box from the table, raised it as high as his chin in both hands, a n d then turned and carried it out of the temple, and laid it on an elevated table in front of the great hall. A n o t h e r m a n now c a m e f o r w a r d , m o u n t e d the platform, opened the box, a n d took out a small volume. T h i s was the Sacred Edict, a n d he the appointed orator for the morning. H e c o m m e n c e d and read on most unconcernedly, the officers h a v i n g retired a n d a rabble g a t h e r e d around, attracted evidently more by the presence of half a dozen foreigners than by the eloquence o f the orator, or the i m p o r t a n c e of his subject. . . . A n x i o u s to see and hear, and imitating the forwardness of the Chinese, I m o u n t e d the low platform and took m y position close behind the orator, a n d the m a n w h o bore the little b o x — b o t h of w h o m w e r e standing. In this position I h a d a g o o d opportunity of hearing a n d witnessing the effects of the eloquence. It was reading, and nothing more, in a rapid a n d distinct, but not very elevated tone of voice. T h e n u m b e r of listeners could not h a v e exceeded sixty, though the temple and court in front o f the hall were thronged. Neither the officers, nor their principal attendants were present to hear the reading, but were e n j o y i n g themselves with tea a n d t o b a c c o in one of the side apartments.

The

five classes—scholars,

soldiers,

farmers,

merchants,

and

m e c h a n i c s — w e r e all in turn addressed by the orator, for so it was written in the book; but few or none of them w e r e present. T h e audience consisted almost w h o l l y of vagrants, idle people w h o w e r e loitering a b o u t the place, beggars, and truant boys. T h e sentence selected for this m o r n i n g was the t e n t h , . . . M i n d y o u r - o w n business, to settle the people's will: or, in other words, " l e t each one attend to his o w n profession, so that the minds of the people m a y be fixed, a n d each one remain quiet and contented in his o w n sphere." R e a d i n g the paraphrase on it occupied the orator a b o u t ten minutes, w h e n the book w a s closed, put in the box, and that replaced again on the table before the little screen; the officers in attendance immediately took leave of each other, a n d returned to their chairs, w e at the same time m a k i n g our e x i t . 8 2

Another report, from the year 1832, corroborates the impression that the official reading of the Sacred Edict had already fallen into desuetude by that time: " A t present the public reading of the Sacred Edict is kept u p in the 'provincial cities,' but is neglected in the country towns, or keen \hsieri\ districts. T h e people 82

The Chinese Repository 17:586-588 (1848).

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354

rarely attend this political preaching of the ' m a n d a r i n s . ' " 8 3 Indeed, the consensus of all foreign observers is that, by 1 8 5 0 , the official lectures on the Sacred Edict were largely meaningless exercises. 84 This is partially borne out by the following notice from the Canton Court Circular for April 30, 1 8 3 6 , which was the fifteenth of the third lunar month: " T h e i r excellencies went early in the morning to the temple of the god of war, and offered incense; and then repaired to the 'hall of ten thousand years' (consecrated to the worship of the emperor), and there attended to the reading of the Sacred Edict. Seven criminals were brought in for the assizes."

85

T h e reading of the Sacred Edict here seems to have

become a rather routine part of government business. A p a r t from the officially sanctioned twice-monthly lectures, there were also Confucian-minded performers whose oral renditions of didactic tales illustrating the Sacred Edict must have been truly entertaining. In K u o Mo-jo's autobiography, we find the following extraordinary description: Lecturers on the Sacred Edict, who told stories about loyalty, filial piety, and fidelity from the morality books (shan-shu), often came to our village. These morality books were for the most part made up of folktales. T h e form of the narration was a combination of spoken and sung passages, making it seem a lot like that of "strum lyrics" (t'an-tz'u, i.e., ballads with string accompaniment), yet it was not exactly the same. If someone had been willing to collect these things and then put them in order and spruce them up, he could probably have produced some ready-made folk literature. At a street corner, they would set up a dais composed of three square tables, one placed atop the other two. On the dais, incense and candles were lit as offerings to the plaque of the Sacred Edict. On top of the right-hand table was placed a chair. If two people performed together, then a chair was placed on each of the side tables. When it came time for the lecturer on the Sacred Edict to preach, he, dressed as though going to have an audience with the emperor, would knock his head audibly on the ground four times as he faced the plaque of the Sacred Edict. Then he would stand up again and, drawing out his voice, would recite the ten [JIC] maxims of the Sacred Edict. After that, he would get back up on the platform and start telling stories. His method of delivery was to chant the text 8 6 in a very simple 83

R e v i e w of Milne, trans., The Sacred Edict, in The Chinese Repository 1 : 2 9 9 - 3 0 0 ( 1 8 3 2 ) .

84

S. Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the Geography, Government, Education, Social

Life, Arts, Religion, &c., of the Chinese Empire and Its Inhabitants (New Y o r k : J o h n Wiley, 1859, 4th ed.; 1 st ed., 1848), vol. 1, p. 554, and T h o m a s Francis W a d e , Hsin ching lu (Hong K o n g , 1859), p. 47. 85 86

The Chinese Repository 5 : 4 7 ( 1 8 3 7 ) . L i t e r a l l y , " t o intone according to a text" (chao pen hsuan-k'o

T h e phrase chao pen

implies that these lecturers ultimately based their oral renditions of stories on written texts. Whether or not they actually referred to a book during performance is problematic, though it would have been effective as a prop in any case and would have lent an air of authority to the proceedings. Gwoyeu tsyrdean H3!gftf!Bl [Dictionary of the national language] clearly defines the expression hsuan-k'o (q.v.) as the chanting or intoning of priests or scholars. This and other aspects of K u o ' s characterization suggests that the Sacred Edict storytellers he heard as a boy were wont to assume the persona of Confucian officiants.

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EDICT

m a n n e r . W h e n e v e r he c a m e to a part that w a s to be sung, he w o u l d d r a w out his voice as he s a n g a n d , especially w h e n there was something sad, it w o u l d be tinged with the sound of w e e p i n g . Some of the lecturers w o u l d a c c o m p a n y themselves w i t h bells, fish-shaped woodblocks, b a m b o o clappers, and the like to help their tunes along. T h i s type of simple storytelling was a form of entertainment that people in the villages liked to listen to very m u c h . T h e y w o u l d stand before the platform of the Sacred Edict a n d listen for two or three hours. T h e better storytellers could m a k e the listeners weep. It was easy to m a k e the villagers cry; all y o u h a d to do was d r a w out your voice a bit at the sad parts a n d a d d a few sad sobs. Before I h a d b e g u n m y schooling, I was a l r e a d y able to understand the morality books of these lecturers on the Sacred

Edict}1

T h i s a c c o u n t i n d i c a t e s t h a t p r e a c h i n g o n t h e Sacred Edict h a d g i v e n rise t o a form of p o p u l a r e n t e r t a i n m e n t that w a s p r o b a b l y d e t a c h e d from the semim o n t h l y s y s t e m o f l e c t u r e s d e s c r i b e d a b o v e . K u o ' s l e c t u r e r s o n t h e Sacred

Edict

a c t u a l l y w e r e m o r e a k i n t o s t o r y t e l l e r s . F u r t h e r m o r e , it s h o u l d b e n o t e d t h a t t h e y m a y v e r y w e l l h a v e b e e n i t i n e r a n t s , s i n c e t h e y a r e s a i d t o come to t h e v i l l a g e a n d n o t to l i v e t h e r e . I n f a c t , t h e r e is s t r o n g c o n f i r m a t i o n f o r K u o

Mo-jo's

d e s c r i p t i o n in t h e o b s e r v a t i o n o f F . R . E i c h l e r f o r C a n t o n i n t h e e a r l y 1880s: T h e Sacred Edict is p r e a c h e d nearly every d a y , yet at m a n y places the orthodox C o n f u c i a n preacher, u n d e r the pretext o f e x p o u n d i n g the Shing-yii to the people, tells them all kinds of stories that are likely to captivate their f a n c y , or at the best, betakes himself to the history of the empire in order to entertain the c r o w d . 8 8 T h a t t h e Sacred Edict w a s " p r e a c h e d n e a r l y e v e r y d a y " s h o w s c o n c l u s i v e l y t h a t this t y p e o f p e r f o r m a n c e w a s n o l o n g e r a p a r t o f t h e o f f i c i a l t w i c e - m o n t h l y ceremonies. In m y estimation, the individuals described b y K u o a n d Eichler were o p e r a t i n g at the level o f the c u l t u r a l facilitators a n d brokers w h o m J a m e s H a y e s discusses in c h a p t e r 3 o f this v o l u m e . T h e r e c a n b e n o d o u b t t h a t t h e diffusion o f C o n f u c i a n ideals w a s far m o r e efficiently a c c o m p l i s h e d t h r o u g h this type of grass-roots activity t h a n t h r o u g h the p o m p o u s , ritualistic, a n d often lifeless c e r e m o n i e s p r e s i d e d o v e r b y l o c a l o f f i c i a l s . 8 9 87

Shao-nien shih-tai ^ ^ B ^ f t [ T h e time of m y youth], in Mo-jo wen-chi i f c i r J f c i f S [Collected works

o f K u o M o - j o ] , vol. 6 ( S h a n g h a i : H s i n w e n - i c h ' u - p a n - s h e f f

j g y t i W i i t , ' 9 5 5 ! originally p u b -

lished in 1947 by H a i - y e n shu-tien jfJIsi; H / J ; o f S h a n g h a i ) , p p . 2 9 - 3 0 . I a m g r a t e f u l to M i l e n a D o l e z e l o v a - V e l i n g e r o v a for b r i n g i n g this p a s s a g e to m y a t t e n t i o n ; cf. her article, " K u o M o - j o ' s A u t o b i o g r a p h i c a l W o r k s , " in Studies in Modem

Chinese Literature, ed. J a r o s l a v Prusek

(Berlin:

A k a d e m i e V e r l a g , 1964), p p . 4 5 - 7 5 , esp. p p . 5 2 - 5 3 . D a v i d J o h n s o n w e n t o u t o f his w a y to send me a c o p y o f the o r i g i n a l C h i n e s e text a n d k i n d l y p o i n t e d o u t a n u m b e r o f i n t e r e s t i n g features a b o u t it. 88

" T h e K ' u e n Shi W a n

or, the P r a c t i c a l T h e o l o g y

o f the C h i n e s e , "

The

China

Review

1 1 . 2 : 9 4 - 9 5 (1882). 89

It c a n n o t be d e n i e d , h o w e v e r , that the g o v e r n m e n t a c t i v e l y a n d r e p e a t e d l y

encouraged

frequent e x p l a n a t i o n o f the Sacred Edict. T h i s is e v i d e n t f r o m n u m e r o u s edicts p r e s e r v e d in Precedents for the Combined Regulations of the Great Ch'ing Dynasty, fascicles 397 a n d 398. N o t e p a r t i c u l a r l y the exhortations to use local d i a l e c t s a n d h o m e l y p r o v e r b s (398.9a, in 1746; 398.9b, in 1758).

356

V I C T O R H. MAIR TABLE I.

Interpretations and Paraphrases of the Sacred Edict Attitude

Tone\Style

Method

Language

Sacred Edict 1670

Imperious

Sententious

Commands

Highest classical

Combination 1679

Benign

Straightforward

Instructs

Cultivated colloquial

Illustrated Explanations

Advisory

Expository

Describes

Mixed

Illustrated Elaboration 1704

Magisterial

Methodical

Stipulates

Mixed

Trimetrical Song 1706

Pedagogic

Terse verse, verbose prose

Teaches

Classical verse,

Amplified

Paternal

Laconic

Demands

Instructions 1724 Elaboration 1726 Direct Explanation c i 729 Glosses 1815

Avuncular Judicial

Diffuse Admonitory

Reasons Exhorts

Bureaucratic Raconteurial Seignorial

Peremptory

Declares

Colloquial

Rambling Patronizing

Explains Dictates

Jumbled Classical

1681

Verifications 1878 Plain Talk 1887

vernacular commentaries Classical

Colloquial Colloquial

CONCLUSIONS

W e h a v e e x a m i n e d a n u m b e r of interpretations of the Sacred Edict. T a b l e i brings them together for easy comparison. T h e o n e - w o r d characterizations are naturally i n a d e q u a t e a n d are intended only to call to m i n d other facets of these texts. Essentially, the message in all is the same: be g o o d a n d dutiful subjects. T h e individuals w h o wrote a n d published these interpretations had a real stake in the m a i n t e n a n c e of order a n d public security. Distasteful as it m a y h a v e been for them to address hoipolloi,

there were c o m p e l l i n g reasons for d o i n g so. T h e y

were both responsible for a n d stood most to benefit from the inculcation of C o n f u c i a n values in the p o p u l a c e . E v e r y written popularization of the Sacred Edict k n o w n to m e was the w o r k o f a m e m b e r of the literati. T h e people themselves were neither e q u i p p e d nor m o t i v a t e d to u n d e r t a k e such an endeavor. T h i s is a clear case of the bearers of high culture consciously a n d willfully trying to m o l d p o p u l a r culture. It is r e m a r k a b l e that, w i t h o u t a single exception, all prefaces a n d postfaces to every version of the Sacred Edict m e n t i o n e d in this study were written in the literary language. If these texts w e r e truly addressed to a p o p u l a r

reading

audience, w h a t w o u l d be the point o f p r o v i d i n g them with prefaces a n d

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postfaces that were impenetrable? T h e prefaces and postfaces, on the contrary, are always addressed to fellow scholars and officials or other educated individuals who were able to read the literary language, never to a presumed mass reading public. There were various motives for publishing these texts. The Collected Verifications was part of a commercial venture; there was a group of moderately literate persons who enjoyed reading the didactic stories it presented and who were willing to pay for the opportunity to do so. T h e Plain Talk was issued by and for local gentry who were peripherally involved in the lectures on the Sacred Edict. T h e Amplified Instructions was obviously directed only at the elite; it was up to them to convey its message to those who were not conversant with the classical language. Those popularizations of the Sacred Edict written entirely in the demotic language, ironically, were not meant to be read by the common man. A constant refrain in these texts and in their prefaces is that they are to be presented orally to the ignorant populace. They were essentially guidebooks for literate specialists that told them not only what to say to the people but, more importantly, how to say it. Their own ideological predispositions made the first function somewhat superfluous. T h e distancing effects of social and linguistic stratification made the second function a necessity if there was to be any meaningful communication between the rulers and the ruled. It is for this reason that the vernacular versions of the Sacred Edict were such a tremendous boon to local authorities. In spite of the fact that the Sacred Edict and its interpretations cannot be shown to have been read by the vast majority of the populace, their impact was nevertheless considerable. This was accomplished by making the written Sacred Edict or one of its amplifications available to virtually everyone who could read and, further, by strongly encouraging this literate segment of society to verbalize its teachings for the nonliterate or semiliterate. In one form or another (including examination essays, school texts, and lecture handbooks as well as boards, strips, and placards to be displayed in public places, etc.), the Sacred Edict must have been written down or printed hundreds of thousands of times during the Ch'ing dynasty. T h e remarkably prolonged stability of the eighteenth-century reigns may, in some measure, be attributed to the effectiveness of formal lectures and informal homilies on the Sacred Edict in propagating a uniform ideology. It is noteworthy, as I have pointed out, that this system had largely begun to collapse by around 1850. Yet, even as late as the 1870s, it was possible for anti-Christian forces in Canton to mobilize against the preaching of missionaries by founding a society to hold lectures on the Sacred Edict in various meeting halls. 9 0 Giles was of the opinion that the widespread dissemination 90 Legge, "Imperial Confucianism," p. 148a. The same spirit was exhibited by the famous general Tso Tsung-t'ang when he was sent in 1868 to control Islamic unrest in Chinese Turkestan. Tso firmly believed that distribution of a Uighur version of paraphrases on the Sacred Edict would help to restore order. See Chu Wen-djang, The Moslem Rebellion in Northeast China, 1862-1878: A

358

V I C T O R H. M A I R

throughout China of the Sacred Edict " p r o v e d a serious blow to the immediate spread of Christianity." 9 1 In The Gallant Maid, a novel in Peking dialect written during the T a o - k u a n g period by a M a n c h u r i a n bannerman, the Sacred Edict is referred to in a manner that indicates it had indeed become a household w o r d . It is used in an oath to convince another person of one's honesty: " B y the resplendent Sacred Edict, how could I tell you a lie?" 9 2 T h e local units of the C h ' i n g government at the end of the dynasty included 214 prefectures, 75 independent departments, 54 independent subprefectures, 139 departments, 57 subprefectures, and 1381 counties. 9 3 With 3000 books available from the 1902 printing of the Illustrated Explanations, each unit could theoretically have been issued at least one copy, though we cannot assume that this actually happened. If the 1903 printing also amounted to 3000 copies, each of the 1920 local units of government or schools within their jurisdictions could have received three. In its many editions, the Direct Explanation must surely have been issued in far greater numbers. A n d , as I have shown, numerous other popular versions of the Sacred Edict were published on a local or regional scale. T a k e n all together, there can be little doubt t h a t — f r o m about 1750 to the close of the d y n a s t y — t h e guardians of the people were saturated with handbooks for proclaiming the Sacred Edict to their charges in comprehensible language. Still, there is very grave doubt that the c o m m o n people themselves ever acquired these books in significant numbers. I have found no evidence indicating that the vernacular versions of the Sacred Edict and the Amplified Instructions were read by the common people on their own initiative (if at all, except in a few government-sponsored schools), whether out of duty, for pleasure, or for edification. These texts are popular or vernacular chiefly in their level of literacy. Study of Government Minority Policy, C e n t r a l Asiatic Studies, V ( T h e H a g u e : M o u t o n , 1966). Albert von le C o q o b t a i n e d several copies of this book d u r i n g his early t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y archeological expeditions in the area. O n e of these is edited a n d translated by him as " D a s LT-KitäbT," Körösi Csoma-Archivum, 1 : 4 3 9 - 4 8 0 (1921 - 1 9 2 5 ) . A Russian translation of Li Kitabi was m a d e by Nikolai Fedorovich K a t a n o v a n d published in Saint P e t e r s b u r g in 1902. W o l f r a m E b e r h a r d also saw a copy a t the T ü r k i y a t Enstitüsü in I s t a n b u l . His observations on the text m a y be f o u n d in " B e m e r k u n g e n z u m 'Li K i t a b i , ' " on p p . 1 2 3 - 1 2 7 of his China und seine westlichen Nachbarn: Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen und neueren Geschichte Zentralasiens ( D a r m s t a d t : Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1978). 91 H e r b e r t A. Giles, Confucianism and Its Rivals, T h e H i b b e r t Lectures, second series ( L o n d o n : Williams a n d N o r g a t e , 1915), p. 254. 92 W e n K ' a n g Ü j i , Erh-nüying-hsiung chuan J i Ä ß l [ T h e gallant m a i d ] (Shanghai: Y a - t u n g t ' u - s h u - k u a n ÜÜjfi @31BH, '93 2 > f ° u r t h ed.), c h a p . 18, p. 29. W i d e s p r e a d familiarity w i t h the Sacred Edict is also evidenced by the fact t h a t m a n y of t h e early a t t e m p t s to create an a l p h a b e t for Chinese used it as a sample text. For examples, see the r e p r o d u c t i o n s on t h e outside back covers of Shin Tamg, 2 ( J a n u a r y 1983), Shin Tarng, 3 (April 1983), a n d Xin Taing 4 ( N o v e m b e r 1984). 93 H . S. B r u n n e r t a n d V . V . H a g e l s t r o m , Present Day Political Organization of China, rev. by N . T h . Kolessoff, trans, from the Russian by A . Beltchenko a n d E. E. M o r a n ( S h a n g h a i : Kelly a n d W a l s h , 1912; reprint ed. T a i p e i : C h ' e n g W e n , 1971), p. 426. For earlier periods, w h e n the n u m b e r s were slightly smaller, see T ' u n g - t s u C h ' ü , Local Government in China under the Ch'ing, p. 2.

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EDICT

359

But they are actually pseudovernacular or p s e u d o p o p u l a r 9 4 in terms of their social standing, for their origin did not lie in a n y segment of the masses, b u t rather rested squarely with the ruling classes. Admittedly, large n u m b e r s of the p o p u l a c e were exposed to a n d , in some cases, thoroughly familiarized with the Sacred Edict t h r o u g h the village lecture system. Expositions of the Sacred Edict were, however, by no means limited to the officially sanctioned semimonthly lectures. In the h a n d s of talented storytellers who operated outside t h a t system, oral renditions of the Sacred Edict were a welcome form of e n t e r t a i n m e n t for certain segments of the populace. T h e r e is a n enormous gulf between t h e exalted, sententious m a x i m s of the K ' a n g - h s i emperor a n d the minds of the peasants a n d soldiers for w h o m t h e y were ultimately intended. T h e transfer of doctrine f r o m the one level to the other was an exceedingly complicated process a n d involved m a n y different types of people. Most of t h e individuals involved in this process of transmission were able to perceive, however dimly, the close interconnections a m o n g language, ideology, a n d politics. T h e i r perceptions of these matters d e t e r m i n e d , to a great extent, the n a t u r e of the written popularizations of the Sacred Edict. 94

Cf. Charles J. Wivell, "The Chinese Oral and Pseudo-oral Narrative Traditions," Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan 1 6 : 5 3 - 6 5 (1971).

TWELVE

•OEn The Beginnings of Mass Culture: Journalism and Fiction in the Late Ch'ing and Beyond Leo Ou-fan Lee and Andrew J . Nathan

T h e M i n g - C h ' i n g civilization portrayed in the preceding essays was marked by active local and long-distance trade, cosmopolitan cities, frequent travel, and extensive communication across regions and among social groups. It was a highly integrated society by traditional standards. We have been shown a complex, diverse, changing popular culture, one that served both to express the particular concerns of regional and class groups and to weave these groups into one Chinese culture with common myths and festivals, values and habits. In the twentieth century, the homogeneity of Chinese culture and the national culture's penetration among the people was greatly intensified. Through economic development, social dislocation, war, and political revolution, virtually the entire populace was eventually mobilized into a unified nationwide pattern of social and political organization. The instruments of communication were gathered into a few hands, the mass media thrust into the remotest corners of the countryside, and the duty of attending to them imposed on every citizen. Popular culture was overlaid with and to some extent displaced by mass culture—that is, culture that is nationwide, universal to all classes, and consciously engineered and controlled from above. Among many mass cultures in the world today, China's may rank highest in all these characteristics. As profound as the twentieth-century revolution was, in cultural terms it was as much a development as a break with the past. T h e media, genres, styles, L e o Lee wishes to thank the National E n d o w m e n t for the Humanities for a fellowship in the academic year 1 9 7 9 - 1 9 8 0 , which enabled him to do initial research on the topic of late C h ' i n g popular literature. A n d r e w J . N a t h a n gratefully acknowledges financial support from the J o h n Simon Guggenheim M e m o r i a l Foundation, the J o i n t Committee on Contemporary China of the Social Science Research Council and the A m e r i c a n Council of Learned Societies, and the East Asian Institute of Columbia University.

360

BEGINNINGS OF MASS C U L T U R E

361

tastes, and beliefs, and the cultural problems and dilemmas of the Ming and Ch'ing in many ways shaped what became the "cultural politics" and "cultural policy" of the twentieth century. O u r task in this essay is to describe the process of transition and to trace elements of continuity and change in that process. In the first few decades of the great awakening that began about 1895, political information and new ideas came to the people almost exclusively through the press. Until the 1950s, electronic media were rare and there were few newsreels to inform people about politics. There was little tradition of village or clan elders discussing national affairs in tea houses or in front of young people. Politicians did not come to local villages and wards to electioneer for votes, and the government did not push roads, electricity, and bus services into the countryside as a way of building popular support. Instead, the quickening of political and cultural life was achieved to an extraordinary degree by a single medium. 1 Hence the first section of our essay describes the rise of the modern periodical press, with special attention to the development of its characteristic role and voice in the formative period from 1895 to 1 9 1 1 . T h e second section traces the rise of the mass public, sketching the stages by which the modern media's audience grew eventually to encompass the whole nation. Even before a mass public or a concept of "the masses" was fully developed, late Ch'ing and early Republican critics and theorists were discussing what were in effect the problems of designing and imposing a mass culture. T h e third section of this essay discusses some of these theories and the dilemmas they reveal, focusing on the crucial medium of fiction. It explores in particular the perennial problem of all didactic, manipulative forms of culture, the tension between what the cultural leaders wish to convey to the people and what the people find attractive. The capacity of popular culture to resist efforts to replace it with an officially approved culture posed a sharp problem for cultural leaders throughout the century. T h e conclusion draws our themes together in a discussion of some of the reciprocal effects of mass culture and politics. T H E L A T E C H ' I N G P E R I O D I C A L PRESS: RISE, R O L E , AND V O I C E So striking was the growth of the periodical press after 1895 that we may be tempted to exaggerate the sharpness of the break with the past. 2 China has been a highly mobile, integrated society for at least three centuries. People wrote home and sent money through private letter-carrying companies and banks. Government officials communicated with the capital through an elaborate 1 In this respect China differed from countries that modernized during the postwar era of electronics and universal suffrage, as described in the classic work of Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (New York: Free Press, 1958). 2 The first two parts of this essay as well as the conclusion draw on Andrew J . Nathan, " T h e Late Ch'ing Press: Role, Audience and Impact," Proceedings of the International Conference on Sinology: Section on History and Archeology (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1981), vol. I l l , pp. 1 2 8 1 - 1 3 0 8 .

L E O L E E A N D A N D R E W J.

362

NATHAN

s y s t e m o f posts. I n t h e v i l l a g e , g o v e r n m e n t p o l i c y w a s a n n o u n c e d b y posters a n d n o t i c e s r e a d a l o u d to t h e i l l i t e r a t e . T e c h n i c a l i n n o v a t i o n s i n a g r i c u l t u r e w e r e spread b y printed illustrated m a n u a l s a n d in conversations at

local

periodic markets. T o a l i m i t e d e x t e n t , t r a d i t i o n a l p e r i o d i c a l s c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e flow o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n . T h e s e v e r a l P e k i n g g a z e t t e s (all c a l l e d Ching pao), w h i c h c o p i e d central

government

memorials

and

edicts, h a d

an

aggregate

circulation

t h r o u g h t h e e m p i r e o f s e v e r a l tens o f t h o u s a n d s , p r e s u m a b l y m o s t l y g o v e r n m e n t o f f i c i a l s — w h o also s u b s c r i b e d to l o c a l g a z e t t e s e m a n a t i n g f r o m p r o v i n c i a l c a p i t a l s . P o p u l a r n e w s sheets a p p e a r e d i r r e g u l a r l y in t h e cities w h e n t h e r e w a s s e n s a t i o n a l n e w s to r e p o r t , a n d a p p a r e n t l y w e r e b o u g h t b y clerks a n d s m a l l b u s i n e s s m e n p r i m a r i l y for e n t e r t a i n m e n t . F o r v e r y l i m i t e d c i r c u l a t i o n , local guilds published price circulars. T o these t r a d i t i o n a l f o r m s o f p e r i o d i c a l s n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y

missionaries

and a few pioneer Chinese journalists a d d e d " m o d e r n " - s t y l e newspapers and m a g a z i n e s , p u b l i s h e d o n a r e g u l a r basis a n d c o n t a i n i n g n e w s a n d essays. B y t h e e a r l y 1890s, p e r h a p s a d o z e n C h i n e s e - l a n g u a g e n e w s p a p e r s w e r e b e i n g p u b lished in t h e m a j o r t r e a t y ports. O f these t h e l a r g e s t w a s S h a n g h a i ' s Hu pao, w i t h a c i r c u l a t i o n o f ten t h o u s a n d , a n d the Shert pao, w i t h a c i r c u l a t i o n o f

fifteen

t h o u s a n d ; t h e c i r c u l a t i o n o f t h e i r m a j o r l o c a l c o m p e t i t o r , t h e Hsin-wen pao, w a s w e l l u n d e r five t h o u s a n d . I n C a n t o n the Hsun-huan jih-pao t h e Chung-wai

hsin pao a n d Hua-tzu jih-pao

a n d in H o n g K o n g

were longer established but more

m o d e s t in sales. T h e s e d a i l i e s w e r e s u p p l e m e n t e d b y a h a n d f u l o f m o n t h l y missionary-sponsored magazines with circulation of a few h u n d r e d or a few t h o u s a n d ( n o t a b l y t h e Wan-kuo kung-pao a n d Ko-chih

hui-pien).3

T o b e a c o m m e r c i a l success, a C h i n e s e - l a n g u a g e n e w s p a p e r o f t h e l a t e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y h a d to stress c o m m e r c i a l n e w s , f o r its p o t e n t i a l r e a d e r s w e r e m a i n l y t r e a t y - p o r t C h i n e s e b u s i n e s s m e n . T h e S h a n g h a i Hsin pao s t a t e d in its f o u n d i n g issue in 1 8 6 1 , In general what is valuable for the conduct of commerce and trade is the circulation of reliable information. In printing this new paper (hsin pao), we will not fail to carry all national government or military intelligence, [news o f ] marketplace advantage or disadvantage, business prices, and the coming and going of ships and cargo. In a place like Shanghai people from all over are mixed together. This creates obstacles to doing business, such as the inability to manage one another's dialects and the failure to hear about news. By glancing at this new paper, you can learn that a certain cargo is to be sold on a certain day, and on the day you can personally inspect the cargo and negotiate the price. T h u s you can

3

R o s w e l l S. Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press, 1800-igi2

( S h a n g h a i : K e l l y a n d W a l s h , 1933;

reprint T a i p e i : C h ' e n g - w e n , 1966), pp. 1 - 8 5 ; T s e n g H s u - p a i

Chung-kuo hsin-wen shih

• ^ U l i M s S i [History o f Chinese j o u r n a l i s m ] ( T a i p e i : K u o - l i c h e n g - c h i h ta-hsueh hsin-wen yenchiu so 0 i £ j g t f ê ± P i r M f F f 3 u 0 T ) , pp- 9 4 " ' ° ° .

'25"'57-

BEGINNINGS OF MASS

CULTURE

363

avoid endless delay and procrastination by agents or making a bad purchase on speculation. 4 T h e treaty-port c o m m e r c i a l papers i n t r o d u c e d a series of innovations in content, format, a n d circulation methods to e x p a n d their sales a n d profitability. Hsin pao, for e x a m p l e , introduced headlines in 1870 in lieu of w h a t h a d previously been u n c h a n g i n g section titles. Shen pao a c c e p t e d contributions of poems a n d literary essays. It offered a lower price-per-copy for bulk orders a n d encouraged people outside S h a n g h a i to subscribe by post. In 1882, Shen pao m a d e use of the n e w T i e n t s i n - S h a n g h a i telegraph line to publish the first telegraphic dispatch in C h i n e s e j o u r n a l i s m , a n d in 1884 it raised its circulation with on-the-scene w a r correspondence reporting the F r e n c h n a v a l attack on N i n g p o . T h e Hu pao featured exclusive Chinese translations o f Reuters dispatches, published the same d a y they were printed in the parent newspaper, the North-China Daily News (other papers could pirate the dispatches only the next d a y ) . W i t h the rise of the telegraph, the m a j o r papers c o m p e t e d to c a r r y telegraphic dispatches f r o m a r o u n d the c o u n t r y , h e a d l i n i n g each w i t h h e a v y type a n d sidelining each w o r d of the dispatch with e m p h a t i c p u n c t u a t i o n . Newspapers also carried slower, mailed dispatches, a n d c o m p e t e d to h a v e the quickest, most c o m p l e t e service of excerpts from newspapers in other cities. A l l these papers took readability as a g o a l , although they a c h i e v e d it with differing degrees of success. W i t h o u t g o i n g so far as to publish in pai-hua (Shen pao set u p a separate pai-hua n e w s p a p e r in 1876), they wrote in a plain style k n o w n as " e a s y wen-li" a n d took the lead in i m p r o v i n g l a y o u t a n d p u n c t u a t i o n so that busy readers could scan m o r e easily. 5 A s a matter of policy, the late C h ' i n g c o m m e r c i a l papers a v o i d e d political a d v o c a c y or controversy. T h e y did not wish to offend readers o f v a r y i n g persuasions or to invite g o v e r n m e n t harassment such as the denial of post office a n d telegraphic privileges. 6 " W h e n you open o n e , " L i a n g C h ' i - c h ' a o noted, the page is clogged with words like "Bureaucratic Bustle in Shanghai," "Official's Spouse Coming South," . . . "Robbery Plan Fails," . . . "Willing to Die for Love." All the articles are a l i k e . . . . As for the editorials, if it isn't " A n Examination of How Western Learning Originated in China," then it's "China Should Urgently Plan for Wealth and Power." They plagiarize from one another over and over. When you read it you are only afraid of falling asleep. 7 T h e crisis of 1895 spurred d r a m a t i c g r o w t h in periodicals. C h i n a ' s defeat in the w a r with J a p a n a n d the signing of the T r e a t y of S h i m o n o s e k i — w h i c h granted J a p a n a 200 million tael indemnity, the right to o p e n new treaty ports 4Quoted

in Tseng, Hsin-wen, p. 142.

5Tseng,

Hsin-wen, pp. 1 4 2 - 1 5 5 ; Britton, Periodical, pp. 82-83.

6Tseng,

Hsin-wen, pp. 287-288; Britton, Periodical, pp. 8 1 - 8 2 .

7

Yin-ping skih wen-chi f f c & ^ i ^tiH [Collected essays from the Ice-Drinker's Studio] (Taipei:

Chung-hua shu-chu + ^ 3 H : , i960), vol. I l l , chuan 6, p. 52 (hereafter YPSWC

III : 6 : 5 2 ) .

364

L E O L E E A N D A N D R E W J. N A T H A N

and establish factories and businesses in C h i n a , and control over Formosa and the Liaotung Peninsula—persuaded many Chinese that their nation was in literal danger of extinction. Such fears greatly stimulated the appetite for news and political discussion. T h e experience of the young Pao T'ien-hsiao in Soochow was typical: Our country and Japan were warring over Korea, and the Shanghai newspapers carried news about it every day. Previously young Chinese readers paid no attention to current events, but now we were shaken. I often went out and got Shanghai newspapers to read, and I began to understand bits and pieces about current events. I began to discuss them, and I accounted myself as pro-reform. . . . [After the loss of the war and the establishment of a Japanese concession in Soochow], most educated people, who had never before discussed national affairs, wanted to discuss them: why are others stronger than we are, and why are we weaker?8 T h e standard commercial papers, however staid, carried sought-after news about the war and subsequent peace negotiations, and their circulations shot u p — t h a t of the Shanghai Hsin-wen pao, for example, went from five thousand in 1895 to twelve thousand, largest in the nation, in 1899. 9 Even more important, however, was the emergence and rapid growth of a kind of newspaper new in C h i n a — t h e political journal, devoted largely to essays of political dispute and advocacy. T h e new political press started inconspicuously. T h e harbinger, L i a n g Ch'ich'ao's Chung-wai chi-wen (1895), bore a close resemblance to traditional gazettes. A v o i d i n g editorial polemic, it limited itself to retailing proreform memorials and edicts and translating foreign materials conducive to reform thinking. Like gazettes, it was 6 inches high and 3 inches wide, bound in Chinese-book form in yellow covers. T h i s gazettelike appearance was explained partly by the fact that the magazine was printed in the shop of one of the gazette companies. Also, the intended audience was higher Peking officialdom: the journal was distributed free to some three thousand subscribers to the real Peking gazette. However small its beginnings, the new political press quickly surpassed the pre-1895 press in numbers, circulation, and political liveliness. T h e historian K o Kung-chen identified 216 newspapers and 122 magazines that were published in the few years after 1894. M a n y of them were short-lived, so that in 1901, for example, L i a n g Ch'i-ch'ao counted only 80 newspapers and 44 magazines being published—still a considerable increase over the dozen or so journals of the early 1890s. While many journals had circulations of only a few hundred, the more popular ones broke records. L i a n g Ch'i-ch'ao's Shih-wu pao 8 Pao T'ien-hsiao Ch'uan-ying lou hui-ilu [ a l t E ^ [Reminiscences of the Bracelet Shadow Chamber] (Hong Kong; Ta-Hua ch'u-pan she ^ ^ [ i j j | t , 1971), pp. 135, 145.

'Tseng, Hsin-wen, p. 153.

BEGINNINGS OF MASS

CULTURE

365

achieved an unprecedented circulation of twelve thousand in 1896, and his Hsin-min ts'ung-pao claimed a circulation of fourteen thousand in 1906. 1 0 T h e "reform propagandists," as D o n Price calls t h e m , 1 1 drew on a long, complicated tradition. It was o f course an ancient function of Chinese government to educate the people in their duty of obedience. Traditionally, such education had been achieved through the moral example of the emperor and his magistrates, conspicuous punishment of criminals, and promotion of Confucian ethics. Private citizens occasionally sponsored publication of moral tracts designed for the edification of the common people. 1 2 T h e early nineteenth-century Protestant missionaries, who were barred from direct proselytizing in China, introduced the use of the periodical press as a medium of public education. T h e earliest modern periodical in Chinese, the Ch'a-shih-su mei-yueh t'ung-chi-ch'uan ( 1 8 1 5 - 1 8 2 8 ) , was published by the English missionary William Milne in M a l a c c a for distribution in China. " T o promote Christianity was to be its primary object," Milne said. " O t h e r things, though they were to be treated in subordination to this, were not to be overlooked. K n o w l e d g e and science are the hand-maids of religion, and may become the auxiliaries of virtue "13 While none of the missionary periodicals appears to have been widely read in China, they laid seeds in the minds of some historically important Chinese. L i a n g Ch'i-ch'ao, the most influential figure in Chinese journalism and one of modern China's major political thinkers, was briefly associated with missionary publisher T i m o t h y Richard in Peking in 1 8 9 5 - 1 8 9 6 . 1 4 T h e pioneer journalist W a n g T ' a o , founder of the H o n g K o n g Hua-tzu jih-pao in 1864, worked with James Legge in H o n g K o n g during the 1860s. 1 5 So did H u n g j e n kan, later a T a i p i n g revolutionary l e a d e r . 1 6 In a proposal to the Heavenly K i n g in 1859, H u n g suggested the establishment of newspapers (hsin-uien kuan) 10

Figures variously taken from Britton, Periodical, pp. 7 4 , 9 0 - 9 1 ; Tseng, Hsin-wen, pp. 1 0 6 - 1 0 7 ,

192, 198, 205; K o K u n g - c h e n

Chung-kuo pao-hsueh shih +

journalism] (1927; reprint ed. Taipei: Hsueh-sheng shu-chii i p i H ] ,

Si [History of Chinese 1964), pp.

145-150.

Liang's list (reprinted by Tseng, pp. 2 3 3 - 2 3 7 ) seems to include some Chinese-language papers printed overseas. For additional lists of periodicals illustrating growth after 1895, see C h a n g C h i n g lu

Chung-kuo chin-tai ch'u-pan shih-liao

fcB)K

56.51=4 [Historical materials on modern

Chinese publishing] (Shanghai: Shanghai ch'u-pan she _h$5ill)i£St, I953~>954)>

I, pp.

77—97, 9 7 - 1 0 3 , 1 0 3 - 1 1 0 ; and vol. II, pp. 2 7 6 - 2 9 7 , 297-300. " D o n C . Price, Russia and the Roots of the Chinese Revolution, i8g6-igu

(Cambridge, Mass.:

H a r v a r d University Press, 1974), p. 27. 12

See the chapters in this volume by James Hayes and Daniel O v e r m y e r .

13

Q u o t e d in Britton, Periodical, pp. 1 8 - 1 9 .

14Chi-yun

C h e n , " L i a n g Ch'i-ch'ao's 'Missionary Education': A Case Study of Missionary

Influence on the Reformers," Papers on China 16:86 (December 1962). 15

Paul A . C o h e n , Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang T'ao and Reform in Late Ch'ing China

(Cambridge, Mass.: H a r v a r d University Press, 1974), pp. 5 7 - 6 1 and elsewhere. 1 6 Britton,

Periodical, p. 36; Cohen, Between Tradition, pp. 5 2 - 5 5 .

366

L E O LEE AND ANDREW J. N A T H A N

as a m e a n s f o r , a m o n g o t h e r t h i n g s , k e e p i n g t h e p e o p l e i n f o r m e d o f t h e i r l e g a l a n d m o r a l duties: Newspapers will be useful in carrying out education to obey the laws, distinguish between good and bad, encourage a moral sense, and teach loyalty to sovereign and parents. W h e n education is carried out the law is clear; when the law is clear then [people] know their duty to the sovereign—so much so that people will w a r n one another [to obey the law], talent and virtue will emerge daily, and popular customs will constantly i m p r o v e . 1 7 I n C h ' i n g g o v e r n m e n t circles t o o — a l t h o u g h l a t e r t h a n in T a i p i n g r e v o l u t i o n a r y c i r c l e s — t h e i d e a t o o k h o l d t h a t t h e g o v e r n m e n t c o u l d use p e r i o d i c a l s to p r o m o t e w i d e r e n t h u s i a s m for its p o l i c i e s . I n 1 8 5 1 t h e e m p e r o r h a d e m p h a t i c a l l y r e j e c t e d a p r o p o s a l for a n o f f i c i a l g o v e r n m e n t g a z e t t e w i t h t h e i m p l i c a t i o n t h a t to a l l o w a l l o f f i c i a l d o m to k n o w w h a t w a s g o i n g o n i n its v a r i o u s p a r t s w a s o n l y t o e n c o u r a g e p e o p l e t o m e d d l e in w h a t d i d n o t c o n c e r n t h e m . 1 8 I n 1896, h o w e v e r , in t h e a f t e r m a t h o f t h e d e f e a t b y J a p a n , t h e T s u n g l i y a m e n w a s a l l o w e d to p r i n t t w o g a z e t t e l i k e j o u r n a l s , w h i c h c a r r i e d s e l e c t e d m e m o r i a l s a n d e d i c t s as w e l l as t r a n s l a t i o n s o f f o r e i g n m a t e r i a l s b e a r i n g o n r e f o r m topics. A l t h o u g h l a c k i n g e d i t o r i a l s , these j o u r n a l s ' p u r p o s e w a s

to

p r o m o t e reformist ideas a m o n g officials.19 T h e T s u n g l i y a m e n ' s t w o j o u r n a l s w e r e s h o r t - l i v e d , b u t in t h e a f t e r m a t h o f the Boxer d e b a c l e official gazettes w e r e established in g r e a t n u m b e r s b y v a r i o u s r e g i o n a l a n d p r o v i n c i a l offices a n d c e n t r a l g o v e r n m e n t o r g a n s . I n 1 9 1 1 , t h e g o v e r n m e n t d e c i d e d to h a v e all n e w l a w s a n d r e g u l a t i o n s t a k e effect f r o m t h e d a t e o f p u b l i c a t i o n i n t h e o f f i c i a l g a z e t t e (at t h a t t i m e r e n a m e d t h e Nei-ko

kuan-

pao). I n t h e c o u r s e o f f i f t y y e a r s , t h e g o v e r n m e n t h a d m o v e d f r o m d i s d a i n o f g a z e t t e s to o f f i c i a l s p o n s o r s h i p a n d finally to r e l i a n c e u p o n t h e m to g i v e f o r c e to the law. T h e r e f o r m p r o p a g a n d i s t s ' i d e a o f the press g r e w o u t o f this b a c k g r o u n d . A t first, t h e y g a v e a n a c c o u n t o f t h e role o f t h e press s i m i l a r t o t h a t o f t h e o f f i c i a l sponsors o f g a z e t t e s . I n 1896, L i a n g C h ' i - c h ' a o a r g u e d t h a t " n e w s p a p e r s a r e b e n e f i c i a l to t h e s t a t e " b e c a u s e t h e y i n c r e a s e s o l i d a r i t y b e t w e e n a b o v e a n d below a n d enable people a n d g o v e r n m e n t alike to be better i n f o r m e d a b o u t commerce,

technology,

f o r e i g n affairs, a n d

all o t h e r

topics i m p o r t a n t

to

s t r e n g t h e n i n g t h e s t a t e . 2 0 B u t this v i e w b e l o n g e d t o t h e p e r i o d w h e n L i a n g still h o p e d to g a i n a h e a r i n g f o r his i d e a s i n P e k i n g . W i t h t h e f a i l u r e o f t h e H u n d r e d D a y s r e f o r m a n d his flight to J a p a n , h e b e g a n t o d e v e l o p a n o t i o n o f t h e press as m o b i l i z i n g t h e p e o p l e a g a i n s t o r i n spite o f t h e r e g i m e . H i s first essay w r i t t e n i n J a p a n , " P r e f a c e a n d R e g u l a t i o n s t o t h e Ch'ing-ipao," 17 Translated 18 19 20

from Tseng, Hsin-wen, pp. 101-102. Ibid., p. 104. Ibid., pp. 106-107. rPSWCl: 1:100-103.

set d o w n t h e a i m s o f a n e w

BEGINNINGS OF MASS C U L T U R E

3ß7

reform j o u r n a l that was to p r o p a g a n d i z e for reform from outside the country, since the g o v e r n m e n t had proscribed all reformist newspapers at h o m e . 2 1 O f course, this did not mean that L i a n g a b a n d o n e d the belief that newspapers could h e l p invigorate the public cooperation of citizens a n d g o v e r n m e n t w h e n a right-thinking government was in office. 2 2 But he h a d ceased to pretend that p r o p a g a n d a activities did not threaten the regime. T h e press as a p r o p a g a n d a instrument independent of the state could be used to promote m a n y different kinds of ideas. W h a t e v e r these were, the primary responsibility of a p r o p a g a n d a j o u r n a l w a s to persuade people to accept the argument it promoted. As L i a n g put it, u n k n o w i n g l y echoing M a r x , " O n e must intend to use one's words to change the world. Otherwise, w h y utter them?"

23

O n another occasion he argued,

O n c e a j o u r n a l i s t has fixed o n a g o a l , he s h o u l d press it w i t h the most e x t r e m e a r g u m e n t s possible. E v e n if h e is s o m e w h a t biased o r s o m e w h a t o v e r e x c i t e d , it is not a flaw. W h y ? . . . if w e c o n c e d e to o n e a n o t h e r a n d s p e a k a c c o m m o d a t i n g , a m b i g u o u s w o r d s , then all o v e r the c o u n t r y p e o p l e ' s n e r v e s will be c a l m a n d d e m o c r a c y will s t a g n a t e . F o r it is h u m a n n a t u r e to b e c o m f o r t a b l e w i t h the f a m i l i a r a n d startled w i t h the u n f a m i l i a r . W h a t w e m u s t d o is m a k e the s t a r t l i n g b e c o m e f a m i l i a r ; o n l y thus c a n p e o p l e ' s k n o w l e d g e a d v a n c e . . . , 2 4

T h e voice of the press, in short, must be polemical, even at the cost of extremism and polarization. It was a notion born of the high ambition that the press could serve as " t h e citizens' alarm clock, a w o o d e n clapper for civilization." 2 5 But it could easily degenerate to the level o f such captive organs as the " n e w s p a p e r set-ups" {t'ao-pan pao) of the 1 9 2 0 s — o r d i n a r y four-page newspapers w i t h most o f their contents lifted from Shen pao a n d Hsin-wen pao, but with three sections left b l a n k — t h e newspaper title, the editorial c o l u m n , and the column o f " i m p o r t a n t n e w s . " For a few h u n d r e d yuan a warlord's agent h a d these three sections typeset as he wished, a n d a few h u n d r e d copies of the j o u r n a l run off to give the b a c k i n g of " p u b l i c o p i n i o n " to the warlord's latest m a n e u v e r s . 2 6 W h e n p r o p a g a n d a for high purposes g a v e w a y to huckstering for petty a d v a n t a g e , audiences became w a r y , b e q u e a t h i n g a skepticism a b o u t political claims that is still a notable feature of Chinese public life today. Y e t L i a n g ' s e x a m p l e also showed that well-written p r o p a g a n d a with a compelling point to make could have a strong public i m p a c t . O n e reader 21 22 23 2i

YPSWC 1 1 : 3 : 2 9 - 3 1 . For such an argument see TPSWC TPSWCIV: 11 ¡47. YPSWC I V : 11:38.

111:6:47—57.

Cited in Lai Kuang-lin H ^ f c g , Liang Ch'i-ch'aoyu chin-taipao-yeh % f t ^ S S [Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and modern journalism] (Taipei: Shang-wu yin-shu kuan 1968), p. 46. 2 6 Chao Hsiao-i ig#tj!ff, Pao-t'an fu-ch'en ssu-shik-wu nien i g i S S i f t H + J l ^ [Forty-five years' ups and downs in the newspaper world] (Taipei: Chuan-chi wen-hsueh ch'u-pan she 25

ttiSSftt, 1972), P- 26.

368

L E O L E E A N D A N D R E W J.

NATHAN

recalled that the p u b l i c a t i o n o f L i a n g ' s Shih-wu pao in 1896 w a s " l i k e the explosion o f a l a r g e b o m b , w h i c h w o k e m a n y p e o p l e f r o m their d r e a m s . . . . I t w a s n ' t j u s t t h a t L i a n g C h ' i - c h ' a o ' s w r i t i n g w a s g o o d ; it w a s also that w h a t h e said seemed to be j u s t w h a t w e h a d stored in o u r hearts a n d w i s h e d to express ourselves."

27

A n d H u a n g T s u n - h s i e n w r o t e to L i a n g a b o u t his m a g a z i n e , Hsin-

min ts'ung-pao, in 1902, It alarms and moves people, each word like a thousand precious coins. In a style no one can match you say what everyone thinks, so that even men of stone or iron must be moved. Since ancient times, the power of the word has never been so great. 2 8

THE RISE OF THE MASS AUDIENCE T h e late C h ' i n g press w a s c o n c e n t r a t e d in a few treaty ports a n d overseas cities, as illustrated in the postal statistics r e p r o d u c e d in T a b l e 1. S h a n g h a i w a s t h e great newspaper-exporting city29; Peking and Tientsin exported newspapers a n d , as the h o m e s o f m a n y c o m m e r c i a l a n d political " s o j o u r n e r s , " also prov i d e d large markets for n e w s p a p e r s i m p o r t e d from other districts a n d overseas. A city such as C a n t o n a p p e a r s to h a v e d o n e most o f its n e w s p a p e r trade l o c a l l y , t h r o u g h v e n d o r s r a t h e r t h a n the post office. N i n g p o w a s t y p i c a l o f most cities, in t h a t it i m p o r t e d m a n y times m o r e n e w s p a p e r s t h a n it e x p o r t e d . T h e political, t e c h n i c a l , a n d c u l t u r a l reasons for the press's u r b a n c o n c e n tration are obvious. T o a v o i d g o v e r n m e n t repression, w h i c h o n Chinese territory w a s v i r t u a l l y u n c o n s t r a i n e d b y legal g u a r a n t e e s for the press, 3 0 political a n d also c o m m e r c i a l j o u r n a l s s o u g h t registration in t r e a t y - p o r t concessions, o f t e n in the n a m e of foreign agents. ( T h e f a m o u s Su pao case w a s an e x a m p l e of h o w this w o r k e d : the publishers w e r e b r o u g h t to trial, but only after t i m e - c o n s u m i n g legal p r o c e d u r e s b y

the C h i n e s e g o v e r n m e n t

to cause the

International

S e t t l e m e n t authorities to arrest a n d try t h e m . ) M o d e r n p r i n t i n g m a c h i n e s , w h i c h are essential to r a p i d p r o d u c t i o n o f a l a r g e n u m b e r o f copies o f a periodical, w e r e a v a i l a b l e o n l y in l a r g e treaty ports, as w a s the i m p o r t e d p a p e r that these m a c h i n e s r e q u i r e d . 3 1 C u l t u r a l l y , o f course, the cities thrived on the

27

P a o , Hui-i lu, p. 150.

28Ting

^Isf

VVen-chiang T J f c j l , Liang Jen-kung hsien-sheng nien-p'u ch'ang-pien ch'u-kao

ftSliUiS

[ D r a f t c h r o n o l o g i c a l b i o g r a p h y o f L i a n g C h ' i - c h ' a o , l o n g version], 2 vols. ( T a i p e i :

S h i h - c h i e h shu-chii tft^W-tl©, >962), vol. I, p. 150. 29

T h e tenfold surge in n e w s p a p e r s r e c e i v e d in 1908 is u n e x p l a i n e d ; it m a y h a v e b e e n d u e to

increased imports o f p u b l i c a t i o n s f r o m overseas. 30Lee-hsia

H s u T i n g , Government Control of the Press in Modern China, lgoo-ig^g

(Cambridge,

Mass.: East A s i a n R e s e a r c h C e n t e r , 1974), p p . 2 7 - 4 8 . 31

H o Sheng-ting

8? jfli, " S a n - s h i h - w u n i e n lai C h u n g - k u o chih y i n - s h u a s h u "

51^-5)5

4 1 iH i . EP JSI] ffi' [ C h i n e s e p r i n t i n g t e c h n i q u e s in the last thirty-five years] ( 1 9 3 1 ) , reprinted in C h a n g , Chin-tai ch'u-pan, v o l . I, pp. 2 5 7 - 2 8 5 .

BEGINNINGS OF MASS CULTURE TABLE

i.

Newspapers and Printed Matter Received and Despatched, Selected Districts, 1907 and 1908

District

Received

Despatched

•907

1908

Peking Kaifeng Manchuria Tientsin Tsinan Other North China

>398,55° 627,693 422,122 3,596,222 254,520 489,209

2,198,853 2,756,758 667,853 3,262,137 404,690

Hankow Kiukiang Other Central China

2,079,912 1,030,308 692,767

Nanking Chinkiang Shanghai Soochow Ningpo Other lower Yangtze

735,407 1,295,552 1,069,486

Foochow Canton Other South China Total SOURCES:

369

1

'9°7

1908

i, 159, '40 745,257 237,709 •,942,159 76,59' 71,080

3,647,555 829,014 239,272 2,155,840 107,508

3,656,659 195,804 1,256,024

152,257 11,712

904,110 17,976 87,389

149,760 28,139 10,961,464

1,190,509 397,I8O 555,229

1,650,505 2,068,812 10,595,024 2,052,244 1,016,444 902,697

384,4'4 i55, 0 70 708,547

864,298 321,074 1,055,116

38,361 159,84' 83,990

104,220 215,332 265,933

17,082,697

35,717,555

15,932,850

26,401,031

792,563

54,443

8,935 6,125 45,887

'09,559

794,871 43,577 16,656,127 12,631 15,657 194,460

C h i n a , I m p e r i a l M a r i t i m e C u s t o m s , Report on the Working of the Imperial Post Office, 1 9 0 7 a n d 1 9 0 8 editions ( S h a n g h a i : I n s p e c t o r a t e G e n e r a l of C u s t o m s , 1 9 0 8 a n d 1 9 0 9 ) .

NOTE:

P e r i o d i c a l s p r o b a b l y constituted a b o u t 69 percent of " n e w s p a p e r s a n d p r i n t e d m a t t e r . " R o u g h l y h a l f o r less of p e r i o d i c a l c i r c u l a t i o n w a s b y post; the rest w a s b y v e n d o r s a n d bookstores w i t h i n the c i t y of p u b l i c a t i o n . M o r e i t e m s w e r e " r e c e i v e d " than " d e s p a t c h e d , " p r e s u m a b l y b e c a u s e of p u b l i c a t i o n s f r o m overseas. C e r t a i n a n o m a l i e s in the table a r e u n e x p l a i n e d : e.g., the g r e a t rise in items r e c e i v e d in K a i f e n g f r o m 1 9 0 7 to 1 9 0 8 , a n d the decline in K i u k i a n g . T h e possibility that s o m e of t h e m a r e t y p o g r a p h i c a l errors seems r e d u c e d b y the f a c t that the totals of the c o l u m n s a d d to the sums g i v e n . T h e prose sections o f the postal reports often refer to l a r g e c h a n g e s in the v o l u m e of business in a single y e a r , r e s p o n d i n g to c h a n g e s in the n u m b e r of postal e s t a b l i s h m e n t s or of n e w s p a p e r s in a district, political d i s t u r b a n c e s , e c o n o m i c cycles, the transfer of business f r o m n a t i v e postal hongs to the I m p e r i a l Post O f f i c e , a n d like f a c t o r s . S e e A n d r e w J . N a t h a n , " T h e L a t e C h ' i n g Press; R o l e , A u d i e n c e , a n d I m p a c t , " in Proceedings of the International Conference on Sinology: Archaeology ( T a i p e i : A c a d e m i a S i n i c a , 1 9 8 1 ) , vol. I l l , p p .

Section on History

and

1301-1305.

self-reinforcement of their size and centrality: in this respect after Shanghai the biggest late Ch'ing Chinese publications center was probably T o k y o , with its several tens of thousands of students and exiled politicians publishing probably a score or more of journals. Thanks partly to new roads and railroads, the growing and increasingly

L E O L E E A N D A N D R E W J.

37°

NATHAN

efficient Chinese Post Office and a spreading network of bookstores, and partly to traditional letter-carrying hongs (min-hsin chii), riverine paddle-boats and the like, the urban-centered press achieved wide distribution throughout the nation. T s ' a o Chii-jen recalls, Hsin-min ts'ung-pao w a s p u b l i s h e d in T o k y o , J a p a n , b u t its distribution w a s so w i d e that it r e a c h e d i n t o p o v e r t y - s t r i c k e n v i l l a g e s a n d r e m o t e p l a c e s . . . . It took a m o n t h to r e a c h o u r f a m i l y v i l l a g e , 400 li f r o m H a n g c h o w , b y post, yet m y late father's t h o u g h t a n d w r i t i n g style w e r e i n f l u e n c e d b y L i a n g C h ' i - c h ' a o ; as far a w a y as C h u n g k i n g a n d C h e n g t u , the Hsin-min ts'ung-pao l e a p t o v e r the " t h r e e g o r g e s " [of the Y a n g t z e R i v e r ] a n d p e n e t r a t e d , c h a n g i n g the perceptions o f the gentry.32

Tsou Lu describes a bookstore in the

hsien

town of T a - p ' u , K u a n g t u n g , about

1902: A t a C o n f u c i a n t e m p l e n e a r o u r h o u s e a b o o k s t o r e w a s established. T h i s b o o k s t o r e not o n l y h a d m a t e r i a l o f the reformers a n d m o d e r n E u r o p e a n d A m e r i c a , b u t also bits a n d pieces o f the r a r e l y seen w r i t i n g s o f the r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s . I f r e q u e n t l y w e n t there to r e a d

33

H u Shih recalls students going home for vacation from school in Shanghai smuggling the banned Minpao into the interior sewn into their pillows. 3 4 T h e r e are many more anecdotes about newspapers from Shanghai or T o k y o reaching such distant places as M a n c h u r i a , K a n s u , and S z e c h w a n . 3 5 Cities had long been cultural centers, but now a smaller number of them became foci of influence over a nationwide audience whose cultural experience was increasingly similar from one region to another. H o w large was this nationwide audience in the late Ch'ing? T h e answer will give us a starting point from which to trace the growth of the mass audience through the century. T h e r e are several ways to arrive at this figure. T o begin with, fluctuating and unreliable figures exist for numbers of periodicals published and for claimed per-periodical circulations. O n this basis one can estimate that there were about a hundred substantial periodicals being published at any given time in the Ch'ing's last decade, and that on the average each

32Ts'ao

Chii-jen U g t t ,

Wen-t'an wu-shih men, cheng-pien

+

literary circles, vol. I] ( H o n g K o n g : Hsin w e n - h u a c h ' u - p a n she f f "Tsou

Lu

Hui-ku

ft

I E S I [Fifty years in i±J® ft, 1976), p. 32.

lu [ U f g i f t [Memoirs], reprint ed. ( T a i p e i : T u - l i c h ' u - p a n

she

® ft Hi IK fit, 1 9 5 O . V 0 I . I, p. I I . 34

H u Shih, " A n A u t o b i o g r a p h i c a l A c c o u n t at F o r t y , " c h a p . I V , W i l l i a m A . W y c o f f , trans.,

Chinese Studies in History 12. 2 : 2 7 ( W i n t e r 1 9 7 8 - 1 9 7 9 ) . 35Hsin-hai

Chung-hua

ko-ming hui-i lu shu-chii,

1961-1963),

[Reminiscences o f the 1911 revolution] (Peking: vol.

V,

pp.

442,

486;

Mabel

Lee,

"Liang

Ch'i-ch'ao

( 1 8 7 3 - 1 9 2 9 ) a n d the L i t e r a r y R e v o l u t i o n o f L a t e C h ' i n g , " in A . R . D a v i s , ed., Search for Identity: Modern Literature and the Creative Arts in Asia ( S y d n e y : A n g u s a n d R o b e r t s o n , 1974), p p . 2 0 5 - 2 0 6 .

BEGINNINGS OF MASS

CULTURE

37'

published about three thousand copies per issue, for a national circulation of three hundred thousand. 3 6 Analysis of postal figures produces a similar result. Table 1 shows that in 1908 upwards of 35 million items of "newspapers and printed matter" were "received" by the post office for delivery. Using a ratio of 69 percent (derived from later postal figures when newspapers were distinguished from other printed matter), we estimate that nearly 25 million of these printed items were periodicals. If half or fewer of all periodicals were delivered through the mail, this suggests a total annual circulation of somewhat more than 49 million. Since some Ch'ing periodicals were published daily, some weekly, some on ten-day schedules and some monthly or less frequently, we must divide this estimate in turn by an average periodicity, weighted for the relatively high average circulations of the daily press. Data are lacking for a reliable solution to this problem. But if we assume for the purposes of argument that daily publications contributed two-fifths of the annual flow of periodicals and weekly, ten-day, and monthly publications one-fifth each, then the weighted average periodicity would have been 166 issues per year. Divided into the estimated annual flow of 49-million-plus issues, that represents approximately 295,000 subscriptions. But each circulated issue had many readers. Some proscribed but popular periodicals, such as Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's Hsin-min ts'ung-pao and Hsin hsiao-skuo, were reprinted ten or more times after they were smuggled into China. 3 7 Each copy of a magazine was passed from person to person. Agnes Smedley tells the story of the young Chu Teh, a student at Chengtu's Higher Normal College in about 1906, finding a copy of the Min pao "which someone had slipped under his pillow in the dormitory. The paper had passed through so many hands that much of its print was obliterated. . . . Chu read and reread the little sheet, then slipped it in the bed of another student." 3 8 In 1904, when Pao T'ien-hsiao was serving as a school principal in Ch'ing-chou-fu, Shantung, the Shanghai Hsinwen pao was received in the prefecturalyamen, then after several days passed on to the school. 3 9 An American observer reported even more extensive multiple 36 See Nathan, " T h e Late Ch'ing Press," pp. 1 2 9 7 - 1 2 9 9 . T h e publication and circulation figures consulted are in the following sources: K a j i Ryuichi 5H Vp —•, Shina ni okeru shimbun hattatsu shoshi Sfi (3 tt — [An investigation of Shanghai mosquito newspapers], Mantetsu Shina gesshi 6 . 3 : 6 3 - 7 3 (December 15, 1929); Gaimusho seimukyoku Shina ni okeru shimbunshi ni kansuru chosa §(! — $$• 'T tft IS — Hi ^ ^ IS 36 [Investigation into newspapers in China], 1 9 1 3 and 1 9 1 4 editions; and Tseng, Hsin-wen. 37

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Intellectual Trends in the Ch'ing Period, trans. Immanuel C. Y . (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 102. 38

Hsu

Agnes Smedley, The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1956), pp. 7 2 - 7 3 . 39 Pao, Hui-i lu, pp. 2 9 9 - 3 0 0 .

LEO LEE AND ANDREW J . NATHAN

372

readership, although this was in the 1920s and in the highly developed Yangtze Valley region: The daily paper first goes to the city people, and after they have read it, the paper is given the various country boat lines for distribution in country towns from which it is passed on to the villages. On occasions there are gatherings at which a good reader reads, in a very dignified manner, to an audience. A further method used for spreading news is that of posting the paper on a wall or board where passers-by may read it. 40 It is not surprising that a specialist like Chang P'eng-yuan estimates the percopy readership of some late Ch'ing periodicals at ten to twenty persons. 41 If readership averaged fifteen persons per copy, then our circulation figure of three hundred thousand suggests an audience on the order of 4.5 million. But some people may have read many periodicals, and others may have seen only an occasional copy. If we assume for the sake of discussion that the average periodical reader regularly read two periodicals, 42 then we would have to divide our audience figure in half to reach an estimated audience of 2.25 million. No doubt it would be more precise to say that there was a core audience whose members read several periodicals regularly and a peripheral audience of those who could obtain only a few copies a year, but it would be hard to say how large each group was. In any case, the rough estimate for the total audience remains in the neighborhood of 2 to 4 million. This figure is not out of line with demographic information. G. William Skinner estimates China's population (excluding Taiwan and Manchuria) as 394 million in 1893 and suggests that the urban population was 6 percent, or 23.5 million. Roughly 63 percent of these were age 16 or over, and of these slightly over one-half were men. 4 3 Thus the urban adult male population was about 7.4 million. A n observer of the early 1890s states, " W h a t in 1881 was the exception is now the rule in all good families in Chinkiang as well as in the interior—that is, for every intelligent adult to take a glance at the Chinese daily

40

Charles Frederick Hancock, "Introduction and Influence of Modem Machinery in China," M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1926, p. 82. Citation courtesy ofThomas Rawski. 41 Chang P'eng-yuan «UiJJfjH, Liang Ch'i-ch'aoyii Ch'ing-chi ko-ming [Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and revolution in the Ching period] (Nankang: Chung-yang yen-chiu yuan chin-tai shih yen-chiu so ^ ^ W ^ S I S fi ft 1964), p. 320. For a similar estimate for the 1920s, see Kaji, Shina ni okeru, p. 43. 42 Although in 1896, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao observed that few readers could obtain copies of more than one periodical; YPSWC 1 1 : 2 : 5 5 . 43 G. William Skinner, "Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth-Century China," in The City in Late Imperial China, ed. Skinner (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), pp. 225-226. Urban is defined here as central places with populations of 2000 or more. Age and sex ratios from Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch'ing China (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1979), p. 183.

BEGINNINGS OF MASS C U L T U R E

373

paper brought here from S h a n g h a i . " 4 4 But how many "good families" and "intelligent adults" (presumably meaning literate males) were there in the cities? Evelyn Rawski has suggested that literacy was quite widespread in late imperial China, especially among urban males. 4 5 If one-quarter of them were occasional periodical readers, then the urban audience would have numbered about 1.85 million. If literates living in the countryside provided an audience of roughly equal size, the total readership would have numbered about 3.7 million. Another benchmark can be derived from Chung-li Chang's numerical analysis of the gentry. 4 6 He sets the post-Taiping gentry at 1,443,900. This includes only those ofsheng-yuan and chien-sheng rank or higher. There were also 2 million t'ung-sheng (registered students) who had studied for a decade or so and were more than sufficiently literate to read newspapers. There were unknown numbers of literate tradesmen, women, and ex-students formerly registered for the examinations. While some of the 3.5 million registered students and gentry may have been too absorbed in their classical studies to give any time to current events, they might have been roughly compensated for by readers in other social categories. Such figures are extremely rough, and the results are sensitive to the assumptions used in the calculations. But the fact that each kind of evidence (urban population, gentry size, circulation information, and postal statistics) points to the same rough audience size of 2 to 4 million tends to confirm the assumptions used and lend plausibility to the common result. T h e audience's order of magnitude, at least, seems fairly clear—it would be hard to support the view that it was less than 1 million or more than 10 million. It was, in short, 1 percent—more or less—of China's population in the last decade of the Ch'ing. In about a decade the modern press had created the largest, most far-flung audience in Chinese history. But the audience still consisted of the highly literate minority. In a country in which perhaps 30 to 45 percent of males and 2 to 10 percent of females had basic literacy and in which literacy had many important social and economic uses, 47 in which the press in large part sang the praises of democracy and popular mobilization, and in which as we shall show the problems of mass culture were already being widely discussed, the "masses'-' were not being reached by modern media. 44

R e p o r t of Commissioner F. Hirth, Decennial Reports, 1882-18gi (Shanghai: Inspectorate General of Customs, 1893), p. 3 1 5 , cited in Ying-wan Cheng, Postal Communication in China and Its Modernization, i86o-i8g6 (Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, 1970), p. 49; quotation corrected to conform to original source. 45 Rawski, Education, pp. 1 0 - 1 3 , 1 4 0 - 1 4 6 . 46 Chung-li Chang, The Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society, paperback ed. (Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1967), pp. 10, 92, 97, 1 1 1 , 165; cf. the discussion by David Johnson, pp. 5 8 - 5 9 above. 47 Rawski, Education, p. 23 and passim.

374

LEO LEE AND ANDREW J . NATHAN

In the next few decades, the audience was greatly enlarged, thanks in part to widening education, the growing mobility of laborers, and the enlargement of urban population. T h e figures in Table 2, although incomplete and unreliable, give some sense of this growth. Even if only one-third of those who entered elementary school each year went on to complete a substantial part of the seven-year course, then by 1940 the schools would have added roughly 13 million medium-literates to the population. 4 8 And thanks to the vernacular movement, a middle-school education was no longer necessary to read most periodicals, as it had been in the late Ch'ing. There were now many papers for the working class. T h e Shanghai Li pao, a popular tabloid of the 1930s, had three supplements aimed at different classes: the "Forest of Words" for "cultural circles," the "Fruit and Flower Mountain" for "upper and middle classes, the professions and commercial circles," and the "Little Teahouse" for "the ordinary working c l a s s . " 4 9 In Shanghai there were also a hundred or more "mosquito" tabloids sold for a few cash on street corners, which stung with gossip of politics and the entertainment world. 5 0 Thirty-two of fifty-eight working-class families studied by Olga L a n g in Peiping in the 1930s included men who read newspapers (there were women readers in only two). 5 1 There were now correspondingly larger circulations. The largest claimed in the last decade of the Ch'ing was twenty thousand (achieved by both the Hupei kuan-pao in 1903 and the revolutionary Min-li pao in 1910); in the 1930s, the biggest Shanghai papers claimed circulations of one hundred and fifty thousand and more. 5 2 Postal statistics suggest the curve of growth (Table 3): newspapers posted doubled every few years from 1908 to 1936, before declining during the war. We cannot conclude that the audience grew at exactly the same rate, however, since conditions such as percentage of papers posted, periodicity and multiple readership may have changed. Radio came to China in 1922. By 1937 there were ninety-three broadcasting stations, of which almost half were in Shanghai, which had an estimated one 48 We arrived at this figure in the following way. We took the enrollment figures given in Table 2 as well as those for other years contained in the same sources and interpolated arithmetically to estimate enrollment for the missing years. For each year we divided elementary enrollment by 7 to reach the estimated size of the entering class. We estimated that one-third of the class completed enough schooling to learn to read a vernacular newspaper. Finally, we added the numbers of such medium-literates produced each year from 1907 through 1940. This estimate is conservative for at least two reasons. First, because of a high dropout rate the entering class must have been larger than one-seventh of each year's student body. Second, despite the high dropout rate, it is plausible that more than one-third of elementary school students managed to attain enough literacy to read a vernacular paper before leaving school. 49 Pao, Hui-i lu, vol. II, p. 39. 50 Otsuka, "Shanhai no shoho . . . . " 51 01ga Lang, Chinese Family and Society (1946), reprint ed. (n.p.: Archon Books, 1968), p. 85. 52 Tseng, Hsin-wen, pp. 117, 215, 355.

B E G I N N I N G S OF M A S S C U L T U R E TABLE 2.

375

Elementary and Middle School Enrollments, Selected Years

Year

Elementary

Middle

'9°7

918,586

31,682

•9°9 1912

'.532.746

85,689

.916 1918-20 1922 1930 1944-45 1945 SOURCES:

2,795.475

103,045

3,843.454 5,031.687 6,601,802

i ii,078

'0.948.979 17,221,814

514,609

132,432 182,744 —

1,394,844

—

1907:

1909:

C h ' e n Ch'i-t'ien

Tsui-chin san-shih nien Chung-kuo chiao-yü shih

tie W [History of Chinese e d u c a t i o n in the last thirty years] (1930, r e p r i n t ed. T a i p e i : W e n - h s i n g shu-tien 3 t ü . l H j 2 j » 1962), p p . 97, 1 1 4 . T a g a A k i g o r ö £ H ^ i f i P , ed., Kindai Chügoku kyöikushi shiryö j ^ f f t 4 1 3^3(6|. [Historical m a t e r i a l s o n m o d e r n Chinese e d u c a t i o n ] (Tokyo: N i h o n g a k u j u t s u 1 9 7 3 - 1 9 7 7 ) , v o l . 1, p p .

shinkökai Q

1912, 1916, 1922, 1930: 1918-1920:

1944-1945:

NOTE:

103-106.

Ti-1-ti 'u Chung-kuo chiao-yü nien-chien —• Üfe 4 1 IIS ÜC W Sm [First Chinese e d u c a t i o n y e a r b o o k ] , C h i a o - y ü pu f f c ^ f ß , c o m p . ( S h a n g h a i : K ' a i - m i n g shu-tien ' 9 3 4 ) . P a " I V , pp. 1 3 3 , 172-173Shu H s i n - c h ' e n g ^ f e d . , Chung-kuo chin-tai chiao-yü shih tzu-liao r ^ Ü S a S f ^ ^ C W S f e J I i i [Materials o n the history o f m o d e r n Chinese e d u c a t i o n ] (Peking: J e n m i n chiao-yü c h ' u - p a n she A R K t W ( ü d g i f i t . ' 9 6 0 . vol. I, p. 377. T'ung-chiyueh-pao

S ,

113-114:39-40 (January-February,

1947).

E l e m e n t a r y includes girls' half-day, nursery, a n d lower, middle, a n d higher e l e m e n t a r y schools; m i d d l e includes n o r m a l schools, middle-level industrial schools, a n d m i d d l e schools. A sizable n u m b e r of students in t r a d i t i o n a l schools a r e not c o u n t e d (see Evelyn S a k a k i d a Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch'ing China [Ann A r b o r : University of M i c h i g a n Press, 1977], p. 163). Different sources often give slightly different figures for the s a m e year.

h u n d r e d thousand receiving sets. 5 3 T h e r e were a b o u t three h u n d r e d m o v i e theaters with an a g g r e g a t e seating c a p a c i t y of three h u n d r e d thousand, likewise concentrated in S h a n g h a i a n d a few other large c i t i e s . 5 4 B u t the c o m i n g of the w a r set back the radio a n d m o v i e industries as it did the print m e d i a . It w a s not until after 1 9 4 9 that a truly mass audience w a s created. T h e n e w regime concentrated first on print m e d i a — b y 1 9 5 6 , of course, entirely u n d e r p a r t y a n d g o v e r n m e n t control. T h r o u g h mobilization in small groups a n d mass movements, the p a r t y evidently a c h i e v e d w o n d e r f u l efficiency for its newspapers a n d m a g a z i n e s despite the continued existence of substantial functional 53

Chu Chia-hua, China's Postal and Other Communications Services (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1937), pp. 192-194; also see Rudolf Lowenthal, "Public Communications in China Before July, 1937," The Chinese Social and Political Science Review 1 2 . 1 : 5 6 - 5 7 (April—June, 1938); Tseng, Hsin-wen, pp. 601 - 6 2 1 . 54 Lowenthal, "Public Communications," pp. 47-48.

LEO L E E AND ANDREW J . NATHAN

376

TABLE

3.

Newspapers Posted, Selected Years

Five- Year Intervals

Other Years

Number of Items

—

1908

24,645." 2a

—

1919

47.437,i6ia

1920

'923

—

'925

b

—

•14,543,288

•927

—

1928

—

'930

124,410,600 '63,083,300 208,946,500

—

•935

—

235.'44,6oo

i936 •937 9'. '9 2 > ^ I 9 9 - 2 0 0 . 201; and merit, 211; and lay movements, 216, 222, 223; and pao-chiian, 219, 220, 221, 224-229, 241, 243-250, 409; C h ' a n , 224, 225, 231, 236; Pure L a n d , 224, 225, 226, 236, 238; and L o sect, 230-238, 263; and Confucianism, 242, 253; and White Lotus sects, 255, 260-262, 273, 274, 277, 290, 406; and government, 288, 406; and T ' i e n Hou, 298; and Sacred Edict, 328, 330, 331, 334> 344 n > 3 4 8 , 349- See also under Monks; Priests; Sutras Buildings, x, xvi, 103-104, 107-108, 414-415 Bureaucracy, 268, 299, 409. See also Examination system; Government Burial practices. See Funerals Burke, Peter, 39 Butterfly fiction. See " M a n d a r i n Duck and Butterfly" school o f fiction Canton: and Lingnan, 10; publishing in, 24» 25> 2 7 . 8 3 . 85, 89; d r a m a in, 146, 147, i 6 5 n , 175; T ' i e n H o u in, 302; education in, 314; Sacred Edict lectures i n > 355; newspapers in, 362, 368, 369 Canton Court Circular, 354 Cantonese, 97, 1 6 3 ^ 171, 180, 3 4 1 - 3 4 2 . See also Opera, Cantonese Cantonese O p e r a Artists Association, i65n Censorship, 48, 162, 277-228, 229, 288, 394 Central place hierarchy, 5, 9 Centuries of Childhood (Philippe Aries), 406 Ceremony. See R i t u a l chai-t'ang Hflg: [halls for purification], 262 ch'a-ma-ssu [tea and horse administrator], 327

ch'an f|j; [penance] texts, 264n, 267 Chang, Chung-li, 54, 59, 350, 373 Chang, H. C., 70 C h a n g Ai-ling

(Eileen C h a n g ) ,

39° C h a n g Chih-kung, 30 Chang Chii-cheng 3 1 1 1 IE, 3 2 7 Chang Fei I 4 8 n , 184 Chang I-p'ing # icjSp, 389 Chang Nu-kua 1 60 cheng ¡E [upright], I 9 8 n , 285 cheng-chiao ¡Etfc [orthodox way], 201 Cheng H o 303, 304 Cheng-hsin ch'u-i wu hsiu cheng tzu-tsai paochiian [The precious book concerning (the truth)

GLOSSARY-INDEX which is self-existent, needing neither cultivation nor realization, which rectifies belief and dispels doubt], 232, 236 ch'eng hu f i l " ? (correct forms of address), 101 ch'eng-huang miao M l S g f J , 352 C h ' e n g J u - p ' u g & J H , 329 C h e n g Lien-ch'ang Q f j ^ g , 322 cheng-mo IE [central male role], 118 ChengTe-hui

118

C h e n g Tien-fang, 89 C h ' e n g Yao-chin g ^ i f e , 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 129, 132, 134 ch'eng-yu g t f g [set phrases], 57, 417 Ch'en K e n g - p o K f t f t , 3 8 4 chen-k'ung [true emptiness], 240 chen-k'ung chia-hsiang wu-sheng fu-mu ¡(^I % % i S 4 3 C S [Eternal Progenitor in our real home in the realm of true emptiness], 238, 276, 277 C h ' e n M i a o - c h ' a n g ffit&lg, 148 C h ' e n Ping-chih g j ^ j l , 329, 330 Chen-tsung miao-i kuei-k'ung chi j B - t k ^ S I f ^ z c i S [ T h e returning to emptiness collection of the excellent purport of the true school], 223 Chen-wu 238 chi Jog [focal point of order], 239 ch'i jfg [raised], 311 ch'i % [breath], 233 ch'i ^ (pronoun), 349 chia Ep [stem], 276 chia-hsiang [native place], 237 chia-li ^ H [handbooks of family practices], 81, 86 chiang p [lecture], 340 chiang-ch'ang wen-hsueh M^bSCS^See

4*3

chiang yii ni-men fing-che MMifciflM.ii [lecturing for you to hear], 330 chiao [teaching, sect], 255n chiao |ft [ritual], I78n, 198. See also ta chiao rites chiao-chi [social intercourse], 81 chia-p'u ^ í g [lineage records], 79 Chia shan j l H (Chekiang), 193 chia-tzu ^ -J- [year], 241 chia yii hu hsiao ^Pf« p* H [so that the correct doctrine m a y be known to every family and household], 325 Chi-ch'ang f g ü , 343 C h ' i C h i - k u a n g g t ü f t , 196 chieh-i Sfifst [fidelity], 148, 149 Chieh-yii hui [Ashes after catastrophe] (Wu W o - y a o ) , 384-385, 387 Chien-an (Fukien), 154 Chien-ch'ang prefecture f f f (Szechwan), 350 Chien C h ' i fg-fc, 282n Ch'ien-chia shih ^-^t^f ["Thousand poets" anthology], 89 Ch'ien-chin chi, 14gn, 151 Chien Ching-hsi ffll;®, 3 4 7 - 3 4 8 chien-min [mean people], 12 chien-sheng degree, 54, 61, 373 Ch'ien tzu wen ^'^"-yC, 29, 30, 31, 85 Chien-yang county (Fukien), 22, 25 Ch'ien Yü-lien Ü g ,

151

chi-fu [court robes], 415 chih ^ [knowledge], 31, 277 chih (possessive), 349 Chih-chia ko-yen "fe íft Ü

[Maxims for

family management] ( C h u Pai-lu), 80, 83

Chantefable literature Chiang-chieh Sheng-yii kuang-hsun Mfffl-Wim

chih-chieh ¡MM [direct explanation], 32gn Chih-ch'iu [Seeker], 198

JUgll [Discussion and explanation of the Amplified Instructions on the "Sacred

Chih-shuo Ta-hsueh yao-lueh ¡E íp [Directly expounded essentials of the

Edict"], 338 Chiang Chien-yuan Chiang-hu ch'ih-tu fen-yun

229 ts'o-yao ho-chi

Chiang, Monlin, 93 Chiang Shih-lung ^ i f i r f t , 151

Great Learning], 326 ch'ih tu j^, ftp [sample compositions], 86 Children, 106, 181, 182, 212, 406, 414 ch'in j g [to immerse], 379 China, People's R e p u b l i c of, 162, 186, 258, 3 7 5 - 3 7 8 , 394-395

GLOSSARY-INDEX China Popular Literature. See Min-chien uienhsueh China Reconstructs, I o6n Chin-chiang |§ ¿ 1 (Fukien), 15 ching . See Scriptures ch'ing Eg [100 mou], 203 Ching-chai chi 150, 1 5 1 Ching-chou (Hopei), 193 ching-chiian [sectarian scriptures], 25711 Ch'ing dynasty. See Government; Manchu rulers ch'ing foo. See ch'eng hu ching hei 2 S ^ [steam or essence], 3 1 1 Ch'ing History. See Ch'ing-shih ching-hsi See Opera, Peking Ch'ing-ipao 3 6 6 ~ 3 6 7 > 379 Ch'ing-pang [Green gang], 286n Chingpao m I S [Peking gazette], 362, 364 Ch'ing shih ftf [Ch'ing history], 337 ching-fang [scripture halls], 262 Ch'ing-yang f f f ^ j sect, 280 Ching-yen chin-chiang Hfg=>it|?i [Lectures presented by the interpreter of the classics], 327 Chin-hsi county (Kiangsi), 25 I I Ch'in Hsueh-mei 5 Chin-hua, Lady I z T E ^ A , 92n Chin I-ch'u ^ — Wi> 2 0 8 - 2 1 0 Chin-kang ching ^ r S f J f f [Diamond sutra], 223, 225, 232, 266 Chin-kang ching k'o-i pao-chiian i t ST [The precious volume amplifying the Diamond Sutra], 223, 2 2 5 227, 230, 2 3 1 , 233 Chin-ling (Kiangsu), 193 Chin P'ing Mei ^ f f i ^ g [Golden lotus], 183, 189 Chin Pu-huan pao-chiian 244 chin-shih iii j r degree, 28, 53, 190, 2 1 2 Ch'in Shou-ou , 390 Ch'in Shu-pao lif/fijlf, 1 1 8 - 1 2 0 , 124, 1 2 7 - 1 2 8 , 132, 134, 1 3 5 , 137 Chin-tiao chi ¿fefpfE, 148 Ch'in-ting ku-chin fu-shu chi-ch'eng it ® (lifcjic [Imperial encyclopedia]. See under Encyclopedias Chin-wan chi ^ ^ l I B , 152

chi-suu [worship], 278 chi-te f ^ f f , [accumulated merit], 209. See also Merit Chi Tso l i r f e , 203 Ch'iu Ch'iung-shan gflift lJL|, 91 Ch'iu Chun g|$jt, 91 Ch'iu-hai-t'ang [Begonia], 390 Chiu-lien pao-chiian A j ® J ? • See Huangchi chin-tan chiu-lien cheng-hsin kuei-chen huan-hsiang pao-chiian Chiu-ming ch'i-yuan f l ^p isf- 3U [The strange case of nine lives] (Wu Wo-yao), 384 Ch'iung Y a o i l 3 § , 3 9 i ch'iu-pao ^ ^ ' [ a u t u m n festival], 145 Chiu Tang shu §S fy I f . See T ' a n g histories Chou, D u k e o f J i ] £ , 1 1 9 , 120, 123, i24n, 134 Ch'ou-shih chin-nang 87-88 Chou Tso-jen ® f F A , 245 chou-yii See Chants Christianity, 290, 323, 339, 3 5 7 - 3 5 8 , 365 Chronicles of Two Courts, Sui and T'ang. See Sui T'ang liang-ch'ao chih-chuan chiian '-{P, 223. See also pao-chiian ch'uan-ch'i fij -¿J-, I26n, 160 Ch'iian-chou prefecture /ji ff-f (Fukien), 15 ch'iian-shih wen f f i j t i t i [closing summary and exhortation], 244 ch'u-chia liig [clergy], 233 chu-chieh t i f f t [annotated explanation], 329n Ch'u Ch'ing 381 Chueh Wo 3 8 1 , 382 Chu Hsi iggn, 332 Chu Hsun 343n Chu-hung 1 4 - 1 5 , 1 6 , ' 2 1 1 , 216 chii-jen %jk A degree, 28, 53, 81 Ch'u Jen-huo A ® , 127, 128, 137 Chu-ko Liang j f i s S J f t , i24n, 184 chu-kung-tiao i^l^M ballads, 39 chun S [ruler], 336 ch'un-ch'i ^jjj/f [spring festival], 145 Ch'ung-cheng li [Orthodox T o w n ] , 193, 197, 198, 201 chung hsiao 147. 149

[loyalty and filial piety],

GLOSSARY-INDEX Chung hsiao t'u / ¡ ¡ J ^ : ® [Pictures of loyalty and filial piety] (Li Hsi-yü), 332 Chung Hua-min fiHtJs!;, 327, 328 Ch'ung-te (Chekiang), 193 chung-t'ien cf3 Ji [Middle Heaven], 280 Chung-wai chi-wen ffc^t-Sllifl, 364 Chung-wai hsinpao ff 3 P'rWi fU, 362 Chung-yung chih-chieh ^Jitf ®LÄ¥ [Direct explanation of the Doctrine of the Mean], 326 chiin-tzu H i [perfect man], 3 1 , 2 1 4 Chu Pai-lu 80, 83 Ch'ii p'in ffi pp [Classification of drama] (Lü T'ien-ch'eng), 147 chii-shih J § ± [lay Buddhist], 231 ch'u-shih ( j § ± [gentlemen], 64, 194 Chu Teh i f c i g , 371 Ch'ii, T'ung-tsu, 54, 19411, 34gn Chu Wan-chen 384 Chu Ying-t'ai jjft^t JE, 36, 150 Ch'ii Y u a n 46 Chu Yung-ch'un. See Chu Pai-lu Cities: social structure of, 53; culture of, 57. ' 9 3 - 1 9 4 . 3 6 ° ; literacy in, 63-64; sects in, 7 1 , 257, 258, 260, 269, 274; written materials in, 1 0 3 - 1 0 6 ; and drama, 146; gods of, 3 0 1 , 409; lecture system in, 335, 352, 353, 355; newspapers in, 362, 3 6 8 - 3 7 0 , 373; population of, 372; popular fiction in, 3 8 3 384, 389; Westernized, 404. See also Urbanization; Urban-rural dichotomy Class. See Social stratification Classes, the four, 344n Classical fiction. See ku-tien hsiao-shuo Classic of Female Sages. See Nii-sheng ching Classics, the, 79, 8 4 - 8 5 , 192, 198, 2 1 7 , 259, 350. See also names of individual works Classification of Drama. See Ch'ii p'in "Clerk's Lady, T h e " (H. C. Chang), 70 Collected Explanations of the Hortatory Edict of Six Maxims. See Liu-yil chi chieh Collected Verifications of the Amplified Instructions on the Sacred Edict. See Sheng-yii kuang-hsun chi-cheng Commercialization: of agriculture, 4, 5, 7,

425

9, 10; and literacy, 28; and values, 3 1 , 32, 402; of fiction, 3 8 2 - 3 9 2 . See also Trade Communication, 3 4 - 7 2 ; of values, x, xi, 3 1 - 3 2 ; systems of, xiii, 3 6 1 - 3 6 2 ; urban-rural, 7, 174, 405; and culture, 76, 4 0 0 - 4 0 1 ; and religion, 2 5 8 - 2 5 9 , 260, 279, 294; and Sacred Edict, 357, 359; control of, 360, 3 7 7 - 3 7 8 , 395, and media, 362, 392; and popular fiction, 382; and mobility, 4 1 5 - 4 1 6 Communism, 291, 389 Complete Book of the Village Lectures on the Imperial Edict in Combination with the Laws. See Shang-yü ho lü hsiang-yueh ch'iian-shu Complete Enlightenment, Sutra of. See Yuanchueh ching Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governing. See Tzu-chih t'ung-chien Confucianism: in literature, 13, 1 4 1 , 142, 1 9 1 ; and Buddhism, 14, 236, 242, 253; and publishing, 22, 23; values of, 29, 3 1 , 60, 2i4n, 365, 4 1 3 ; and Sacred Edict, 32, 325, 326, 330, 3 4 4 ^ 3 5 1 , 3 5 4 - 3 5 5 ; and popular culture, 46, 109; and the Three Teachings, 196, 199, 200; in sectarian texts, 219, 220, 2 2 1 , 230, 235, 2 4 1 , 409; and White Lotus sects, 274, 277, 28on, 289; and popular religion, 298; and literati, 407. See also NeoConfucianism Consciousness. See Mentality Contracts: and economic growth, 6, 8, 193; and literacy, 12; forms for, 23, 79, 86-87; within family, 2 1 5 ; spiritual, 268, 270; as sources, 4 1 7 Corvée. See under Labor Count of Monte Cristo, The, 392 Couplets, 79, 8 3 - 8 4 , 1 0 1 ; and poetry, 89; on temples, 103; at New Year's, 105, 106, 400; and drama, 149; for chants, 279, 280. See also Poetry Cultural Revolution, 3 9 1 , 392, 395 Dance, 159, 172, 173 Da Silva, Armando M . , 322 Davis, J o h n Francis, 107

426

GLOSSARY-INDEX

D a y , Clarence, 23 Death, 97, 297, 4 1 3 . See also Funerals de Groot, J . J . M . , 236, 400 de Roover, Florence E., 19 Detailed Disputation against Heterodoxy, A. See P'o hsieh hsiang-pien Dialects: and communication, 3 5 - 3 6 , 45» 3 6 2 > 3 9 9 - 4 ° ° ; a n d culture, 44, 5 6 - 5 7 , 67, 292; and vernacular literature, i i 2 , 1 1 3 ; and drama, 130, 155; in popularizations, 334, 340, 3 4 1 , 342; and village lectures, 350, 3 5 1 ; in People's Republic, 378n; in France, 403. See also names of individual dialects Diamond, Norma, 3 1 6 Diamond sutra. See Chin-kang thing Direct Explanation of the Amplified Instructions on the Sacred Edict. See Sheng-yii kuanghsün chih-chieh Direct Explanation of the Doctrine of the Mean. See Chung-yung chih-chieh Direct Explanation of the Sacred Edict in Combination with the Laws. See Sheng-yii ho Iii chih-chieh Discussion and Explanation of the Amplified Instructions on the Sacred Edict. See Chiang-chieh Sheng-yii kuang-hsun Diversity, cultural, xi, 3 3 , 1 1 1 , 259, 399-400, 404-408. See also Integration, cultural Divination: practitioners of, 60, 92, 9 8 - 1 0 0 , 109; books of, gon; in fiction, 123, 124; and popular religion, 2 1 9 , 2 2 1 , 223; and drama, 4 1 1 Dolby, William, 168, 169, 1 7 1 , 1 7 2 , 186 Dominance, structure of, xiii, 4 1 , 4 5 - 7 2 , 3 1 3 - 3 1 5 . See also Social stratification Doolittle, Reverend Justus, 106, 303 Drake, F. S., 1 1 1 Drama, 399; in written form, ix, 22, 25n; regional, xiv, 57, 130, 1 4 3 - 1 6 0 ; and religion, xvi, 1 6 2 - 1 6 3 , 1 6 5 - 1 6 6 , 1 7 2 , 1 7 4 - 1 7 6 , 185, 4 0 8 - 4 1 2 ; and elites, 13, 194; and values, 33, 107; and literature, 65, 129, 1 3 1 , 1 3 3 - 1 4 2 , 379n; popularity of, gon; advertisements for, 104; audiences for, 1 1 3 , 1 1 4 , 1 1 7 - 1 1 8 ,

401; modern, 390; origins of, 417. See also Opera; names of individual forns and plays Dream of the Red Chamber. See Hung lot meng Dudbridge, Glen, 224, 245 Dürkheim, Emile, 294, 3 1 6 , 404 Duyvendak, J . J . L . , 297 Eastern Mountain Temple. See Tung Shan M i a o Eberhard, Wolfram, 88, 298, 4 1 1 Economy: growth of, x, 3— 1 1 ; and publishing, 2 1 ; and values, 2 8 , 3 1 , 403 and social change, 33, 378, 4 0 4 - 4 0 5 and literacy, 70; of Tsuen Wan, ~fi\ of Lower Yangtze region, 193; of 3sinan, 3 0 4 - 3 0 6 , 309 Education: expansion of, x, xiii, 3, 1 - 1 6 , 28, 29, 207; and publishing, 2 1 , 2>, 23; and social status, 3 1 , 5 7 - 5 8 , 3 1 4 . 4 0 3 , 406, 4 1 2 ; and morality, 3 1 , 32, 48 2 1 7 , 365, 408, 4 1 2 ; and definition of iocial groups, 5 6 - 6 7 ; regional differencs in, 70; and drama, 152, 182; and relgion, 1 9 8 - 2 0 1 , 402; management of, 2 1 2 2 1 3 ; and cultural integration, 292, 400; and Sacred Edict, 326, 332; of minorities, 3 3 3 , 3 5 0 - 3 5 1 ; and lewspapers, 365, 366, 374, 375; poliical, 379; and popular fiction, 387, 38t. See also Examination system; Lite-acy; Primers Eichler, F. R . , 355 Eisenstein, Elizabeth, 20 Elaboration of the Amplified Instructions m the Sacred Edict. See Sheng-yii kuang-hsmyen Elaboration of the Hortatory Edict c[ Six Maxims. See Liu-yiiyen-i Elites: overemphasis on, ix; cultuc of, x > xi > 5 7 - 5 8 . 6 7 - 6 8 , 72, 292-293, 294; and economic change, 3, 9 10, 28; stratification among, 7 - 8 , 5"—61, '94 n > 403; values of, 1 2 - 1 3 , 35-36, 4 7 - 4 8 , 6 0 - 6 1 , 2 1 4 , 3 5 1 , 407; popular literature by, 15, 4 2 - 4 4 , 1 1 4 , 1 2 6 . 1 9 2 , 3 2 7 - 3 4 9 , 3 5 6 - 3 5 7 ; a n d publisiing, 20, 2 1 , 22, 24, 27; and popular cuture,

GLOSSARY-INDEX 6 3 - 6 4 . 7 I _ 7 2 > 97. 9 8 n » 9 9 - 1 0 0 » I0 9> 404, 406; literature for, 113, 114, 116,

125-129,

131-132,

137-142;

and

d r a m a , 143, 1 4 4 - 1 4 7 , 150, 152, 159, 160, 4 1 1 ; and opera, 164, 168, 1 6 9 170, 171, 176, 178, 1 8 6 - 1 8 7 ; i n fiction,

188, 192, 194-195, 216, 217, 243, 244; a n d the military, 190-191; a n d religion, 227, 229, 230, 2 3 6 - 2 3 7 , 2 8 8 289; a n d T ' i e n H o u , 294-295, 297,

300, 304, 308-309, 313-315,

317-

318; a n d local cults, 4 6 - 4 7 , 295, 296, 3 2 2 - 3 2 4 ; a n d Sacred Edict, 336, 346, 347) 349> 3 5 6 - 3 5 7 ; a n d mass culture, 3 7 8 - 3 9 5 . See also Gentry; Literati; Officials E m p e r o r , the, 293, 294, 295, 299, 408. See also names of individual emperors Encyclopedias: for daily use, 39, 60, 79, 86, 8 7 - 8 8 , 108, 149; Imperial, 100 E n g l a n d . See Britain En-shou 330, 331, 332 erh ¡Jn [adversative], 328 erh.-h.uang style, iÖ3n Erh-nii ying-hsiung chuan [ T h e gallant m a i d ] , 358 Erh-shih nien mu-tu chih kuai hsien-chuang --t-iFSBtiSfltf* [Bizarre phen o m e n a witnessed in the last twenty years] ( W u Wo-yao), 383, 384 Esherick, J o s e p h , 5 1 , 5 2 E x a m i n a t i o n system: and social change, 9, 10, 13, 29, 213, 403; a n d ideology, 11-12, 48, 406; and status, 5 3 - 5 4 , 5 8 - 5 9 . 61, 202, 314; in plays, 150, 151, 154, 155; in fiction, 208, 247, 250. 1See also E d u c a t i o n Family: a n d law, 32; in fiction, 205-207, 213, 2 1 5 - 2 1 6 , 218; and sects, 221, 290; and architecture, 415. See also Lineage organizations Family Instructions for the Yen Clan. See Yenshih chia-hsun fa-ming [religious n a m e ] , 261 F a n - c h ' a n g county (Anhwei), 330 F a n g I-chih

427

F a n g j u n g - s h e n g J j ^ f j - , 265 F a n H u n g fiUfe, 328, 336n fan-li [general principles], 191, 330 fan-t'e [spy] tales, 391, 392 fa p'aau ooi. See hua p'ao hui Fate, 93, 131, 141, 209. See also H e a v e n ; Karma F a u r e , David, 64, 66 Febvre, Lucien, 18, 19, 20 fei [Imperial Concubine], 299

Fei M u f f , 390 Fei Y u n g [Spendthrift], 195 fen-chia [divide the family], 206 feng-ch'ing JSLW [love], 148, 150 Feng K ' a n g ¡if {ft, 331 Feng M e n g - l u n g 25 Feng-shen yen-i i - f j j j j [Investiture of the gods], 90, 127 feng-shui g, 7K • See G e o m a n c y feng-shui hsien-sheng JS, % . 94n Festivals: a n d d r a m a , 145, 147, 149; and opera, 1 6 2 - 1 6 8 , 172, 174, 175, 1 7 6 182, 1 8 4 - 1 8 5 , 409; and elites, 194; for T ' i e n H o u , 300, 312, 3 1 3 , 3 1 5 , 320; a n d values, 3 1 6 - 3 2 2 . See also names of individual festivals Fiction: audiences for, 27, 401; and values, 29, 33, 412; historical, 1 1 9 - 1 4 2 , i 8 g n , 380, 394, 410; a n d opera, 172, 182; and ideology, 3 7 8 - 3 9 2 . See also Literature; Novels; pao-chiian; names of individual types and works Filial piety: in primers, 29; in Sacred Edict, 32, 325. 327. 349; " T w e n t y - f o u r Examples of," 83, i49n; in d r a m a , 152, 167; in opera, 179, 184; in fiction, 206; in Buddhism, 224, 253; in sectarian literature, 242, 244, 249, 250, 251, 252, 276, 277; and Christianity, 290; classic of, 3 2 6 - 3 2 7 . See also chung hsiao Folk tales, 57, 183, 291, 354. See also Legends; O r a l tradition; Storytellers Foochow ig:J!|, 303, 369 Forgotten Tales of the Sui. See Sui shih i-wen Formosa. See T a i w a n Fortune, R o b e r t , 175 F o r t u n e telling. See Divination

428

GLOSSARY-INDEX

Fo-shan ( K w a n g t u n g ) , 18, 25, 27, 83, 108, 146, 16511 Foster, Mrs. Arnold, 96 Four Books, The. See Ssu shu Fox spirit. Seeyao France, 292, 403. See also West, the Frye, N o r t h r o p , 47 fu-chi ^ ¿ L [spirit writing] texts, 14, 2 2 1 , 230, 253, 258, 265 Fu-erh-mo-ssu flgBi0®T (Sherlock Holmes), 386 Fu-hsi. See Li Fu-hsi F u j a o { g j ^ , 203 Fukien: economy of, 4, 6; and C h ' i n g conquest, 10, 306; culture of, 15, 24, 26, 27, 44, 193, 304; opera of, I03n; a n d T ' i e n H o u , 293, 295, 299, 3 0 1 , 303, 323. See also names of individual places Funerals: rituals at, 8 1 , ioi, 145, 264, 267-268; and geomancy, 93, 94; a n d sects, 270, 272, 273, 274, 280, 4 1 0 - 4 1 1 . See also D e a t h Fu-t'ien a n i g 53 J^, 246 Gallant Maid, The. See Erh-nü ying-hsiung chuan G a m b l e , Sydney, 41 Games, gon, 107 G a n g of Four, 394 Gazetteers, 6, 26, 309, 3 1 7 , 337, 352n, 4 1 7 Geertz, Clifford, 401 Genealogies, 24, 76n, 78, 7 9 - 8 1 , 283 Gentry, 5 3 - 5 4 , 95, ig4n, 370, 373. See also Elites; Literati Geographical San tzu ching. See Ti-li san tzu ching G e o m a n c y (feng-shui), 319, 402, 407; specialists in, 14, 39, 60, 92, 93-96, 109 Giles, H e r b e r t A., 357 Glosses for the Amplified Instructions on the Sacred Edict. See Sheng-yii kuang-hsunyenshuo Gods: local, 36, 4Ön, g6n, 3 1 0 - 3 1 1 , 3 1 5 , 409; festivals for, 1 4 3 - 1 4 4 , 149, 1 6 5 - 1 6 6 , 176, i77n, 1 8 4 - 1 8 5 , 401; H a k k a , 179; relations with, 2 1 1 , 2 1 2 , 281, 284, 408; in sectarian texts, 2 2 1 ,

228, 2 3 7 - 2 4 1 passim, 243; W h i t e Lotus, 233, 258, 261, 262, 275, 289, 290; Buddhist, 234; state-approved, 293. 301, 309. 323> 3 5 2 - 3 5 3 . 4>°; choice of, 307-308. See also Religion; Spirits; names of individual gods Golas, Peter, 53 " G o l d e n C a n g u e , T h e , " 390 Golden Lotus, The. See Chin p'ing mei G o u b e r t , Pierre, 51, 52 G o v e r n m e n t : a n d T ' i e n H o u , xv, 295, 2 9 9 - 3 0 4 . 3 0 8 - 3 0 9 . 3 1 7 . 323; and economy, 5 - 6 ; and literati, 13, 407; a n d publishing, 20, 22, 2 4 - 2 5 , 26, 83; a n d morality, 3 1 - 3 2 , 80, 365; cults approved by, 46, 293-294, 3 2 2 - 3 2 4 , 410; a n d c o m m u n i c a t i o n with people, 75, 105, 3 6 1 , 362; and magic, 97-98; in fiction, 1 4 0 - 1 4 2 , 194, 195, 205, 210, 2 1 1 , 2 1 5 , 216; and d r a m a , 146, 147, 1 4 8 - 1 4 9 , 4 1 1 ; and opera, 162, 165, 186; and sectarian texts, 227, 264, 265, 280; and W h i t e Lotus sects, 255, 257, 259, 260, 262, 270, 2 7 m , 290; investigation of sects by, 258n, 269, 286-287; and martial arts, 284; and p o p u l a r religion, 288, 409; and Sacred Edict, 3 3 1 , 3 3 2 . 3 4 9 - 3 5 4 . 355 n > 358; a n d newspapers, 363, 366, 367, 368, 3 7 5 - 3 7 6 ; and media, 3 7 7 - 3 7 8 , 394, 395; and M a y F o u r t h M o v e m e n t , 388; and cultural integration, 403, 404, 406; archives of, 4 1 7 . See also Indoctrination; Officials; P r o p a g a n d a G r a m m a t o c r a c y , 48. See also Bureaucracy; Elites Gramsci, Antonio, 45n, 47, 4 8 - 4 9 Great Learning, The. See Ta Hsueh Guilds, 53, 1 4 6 - 1 4 7 , 195, 2 1 6 - 2 1 7 , 303, 362, 409 G u n n , E d w a r d , 390 H a i - n i n g county f g S p l ^ , 32gn Hai-yin 224 H a k k a ^ ^ : people, 77,97, 180, 415; language, g2, 178n H a n d b o o k s , 78, 8 1 - 8 2 , 1 0 1 - 1 0 2 , ic8

GLOSSARY-INDEX Handicrafts, 4, 7, 9, 78, 109, 193 Han Feng 3 4 1 , 342 Hangchow fàjH'|, 25, 26, 329n Han P'iao-kao ^ H i f t ) 256n, 263, 264, 266 Han tan chi 160 Han-tan county S P I ^ (Chihli), 32gn Han-yang gg|y| (Hupei), 330 h a o h s i a ^ t y . [knights errant], 148, 150 Hardy, Reverend E. J . , 85, 105 H a Tsuen H t t (New Territories), 3 0 4 3 1 2 passim, 3 1 4 , 3 1 8 , 3 1 9 , 32on, 321 Hayden, George, 4 1 2 Healing. See Medicine Heart Sutra. See Hsin ching Heaven: Mandate of, 1 2 1 , 1 4 1 ; aid of, 128, 1 3 9 - 1 4 0 , 150, 152, 244; in the Three Teachings, 216; in the L o sect, 235, 237; in White Lotus sects, 239, 266-267, 2 7 5 - 2 7 8 passim, 280, 290; and T'ien Hou, 297; cult of, 406 Heaven and Earth Society. See T'ien ti hui Hegemony, 47, 49, 50, 3 1 3 - 3 1 5 hei-mu S ["black curtain"] novels, 383, 387 hei t'oi koon wa fé 'g' i f , [stage Mandarin], i67n Hélias, Pierre-Jakez, 403 Heng-ch'an so-yen {5 pt iff B" [Remarks on real estate], 8 Hen hai ti|$5 [Sea of sorrow] (Wu Woyao), 384 Heterodoxy: and government, 232, 3 5 1 , 409; White Lotus, 237, 2 4 1 , 259, 266n, 278, 288-290; Sacred Edict on, 328, 330, 3 3 3 3 2 , 334. 3 4 3 - 3 4 4 . 346, 348. See also Censorship; Orthodoxy; Sects heung yao ts'in U jfi] IS [incense and oil money], 176 Hill, David, 97n Hiniker, Paul, 376 History: publication of, 26; audience for, 27; standard, 120, 1 3 3 - 1 3 6 , 1 3 8 - 1 4 1 ; informal, 127, 138, 139; and opera, 172, 182, 183; and education, 2 1 7 . See also Fiction; names of individual works ho f5J [what], 328

Ho Ching H I I , 346 Ho Hsien-kupao-chiian f n j f l l j i i ® 243 hoi kwong shan tsi. See k'ai-kuang shen-tzu Hokkien ijigg| dialect, i63n, i78n, 179, 180, 1 8 1 , 303n Hoklo f g ^ i dialect, 97. See also Opera, Hoklo Hong Kong: and traditional society, x - x i , 416; printing in, 27; specialists in, 7 5 - 1 1 1 ; opera in, 161 - 1 8 7 ; T'ien Hou in, 302, 304-306; education in, 314; newspapers in, 362, 365; fiction in, 391 Ho, Ping-ti, 9, 12, 59, i94n ho-t'ung -p |Wj [contracts], 268 hou-fien f^ ^ [Latter Heaven], 280 Hsia, C. T . , 125, 126, 129, i3on Hsia Hsing J'J;/f, 338n hsiang % [district], 294 Hsiang-ch'eng (Honan), 332 hsiang-iyung-lieh shih m i H H , 84 Hsiang-shan pao-chiian H |±| J f ^ [The fragrant mountain pao-chiian], 220, 223, 224, 227, 238 Hsiang "Pu%±_, io6n Hsiang Yii I g ^ , 1 2 1 , 1 3 3 hsiang-yueh [village lectures]: and education, 3 1 , 326n; and Six Maxims, 328; and Sacred Edict, 329, 333, 3 4 0 - 3 4 7 . 3 4 9 - 3 5 5 . 357. 359. 407; a n d religion, 33 m ; ritual of, 335 Hsiao, Empress, 129, 134 Hsiao-ching chih-chieh [Direct explanation of the Classic of Filial Piety], 326 hsiao fu-mu, mu hsiang-li H^M [be filial to parents, amicable toward neighbors], 276 Hsiao Hsien iff [Sighing Leisure], 195 Hsiao-hsien pao jf} Rfl f g [News for leisurely entertainment], 386 Hsiao-hsueh [Minor learning] (Chu Hsi), 332 Hsiao, Kung-chuan, 32, 322, 349, 407 Hsiao-pao [News for laughter], 386 hsiao-pao ' h f g [small tabloids], 386 hsiao-shuo /J^Sft [fiction], 379. See also Novels

430

GLOSSARY-INDEX

Hsiao-shuo lin 'hgft^f;, 382 Hsia Tseng-yu I f f t , 379, 380, 381 hsieh 3f|3 [heterodox], 290 hsieh-chiao Jffiiic [heretical religion], 232 hsieh-fa 315 ¿É [heretical teachings], 232 hsieh-tou M H [communal feuds], 405 hsien fo f[]j [immortals and Buddhas], 148, 150 hsien-t'ien Ji [Former Heaven], 280 Hsi family J^Ji; (publishers), 26 Hsi-hsiang chi ¡SlfËÎE, I48n, 149, 152 Hsi-hsueh san tzu ching ffiÇH^ii [Western studies san tzu ching], 30 hsin ig" [good faith], 31 hsin [stem], 276 Hsin-an county (New Territories), 306, 307, 308, 309, 3 1 2 , 3 1 4 Hsin-ch'eng (Hopei), 193 hsin-chi ^ c f , [year], 241 Hsin ching < [ j g [Heart sutra], 199, 223, 266 Hsin Chung-kuo wei-lai chi Iff 4 1 S 12 [The future of China] (Liang Ch'ich'ao), 385 Hsin Fang ^ ft [Mind Amok], 198 hsing JBJ [to revive], 287 hsing t t [nature], 275 Hsing-an hui-lan fflJ|gj|IJJ [Conspectus of penal cases], 4 1 3 hsing-hao f f i i f (hsing hao-shih f f ffJfhi hsing-shan f f [doing good], 277 hsing hsiang ffîÊf or $$ [walking the incense or hsiang] , 3 1 2 Hsin hsiao-shuo i f r ' h l f t , 3 7 1 Hsin-hui I f f ^ (Kwangtung), 341 Hsin-k'an shuo-ch'ang Pao Lung-t'u tuan Ts'ao Kuo-chiu kung-an chuan f f f IJ f£PJl 1 3 I I IM mwmm^mm,^ Hsin-min ts'ung-pao 365. 3 6 8 , 3 7 ° , 371 Hsin-ning ®f5f£, 341 Hsin Pao 362-363 Hsin Tang shu i f f ® ® 1 . See T ' a n g histories Hsin T e ^ ^ [Goodhearted], 195 Hsin-lseng ch'ih-tu ch'eng-hu ho-chieh hsin-wen kuan Iff M â t [newspapers], 365

Hsin-wen pao f f M l g , 362, 364, 367, 3 7 1 hsi-p'i [style], iÖ3n hsi-shih j f ? f f [marriage rites], 81 Hsiu-chou (Anhwei), 193 Hsiu-kai feng-shui chi [A record of correcting feng-shui], 94 hsiu lai-shih IHijfctÜ [prepare for the life to come], 279 hsiu shan yuan wu kung-te tso e i wu tsui-kuo ^ » T C t e l i f g f t j g & f c p s a [Thereis basically no merit in doing good and no demerit in doing evil], 234 hsiu-ts'ai % 54n, 55, 64, 194. See also sheng-yuan degree Hsi W a n g M u ¡ 5 3E S [Queen Mother of the West], 1 2 3 , i24n Hsi-yu chi S j g a S [ J o u r n e y to the west], 90, 127, i48n, 183, 189 hsuan-ch'uan sii$ [propaganda], 343 hsuan-ch'uan kung-chii j E f l l l ^ l [instruments of propaganda], 395 hsuan-chiian nf % [preaching and distribution ofpao-chiian], 228, 230 hsuan-men [dark gate], 276 Hsuan-tsang 232 HsuehJen-kuei ¡ f t f t , i48n, 149 Hsu Heng jftSr, 326 Hsu Hsia-k'o j & l t ^ , 4 1 6 hsun i|J [to incense], 379 Hsun huan chien {Sülm, 91 Hsun-huanjih-pao flÜU 0 362 hsun ting jSfCT [self defense corps], 3 1 5 Hsu San-li I f H ü , 32gn Hsu Shih-chi (Hsu Mao-kung " 8 , 1 1 9 , 120, 130, 135, 1 3 6 Hsu-wan f f jS| (Kiangsi), 18, 25 hu (interrogative), 349 Huai-t'ai pao-chiian [Pregnancy pao-chiian], 252 Huan-chu Lou-chu, 390 Huang-chi chin-tan chiu-lien cheng-hsin kueichen huan-hsiang pao-chiian MSikfl' [Precious book of the golden elixir and nine lotuses of the imperial ultimate (which leads to) rectifying belief, taking refuge in the real and returning to the native

GLOSSARY-INDEX

43'

place], 238, 25611, 266-267, 2 7 I > 272,

Hupei Kuan-pao ä S ^ t f H I , 374

275. 283

H u S h i h $ i g , 370, 3 8 1 , 3 8 3

H u a n g family (publishers), 22 H u a n g Mo-hsi Huang pao chi ft

382, 387 12, 151

H u a n g P'ei-lieh

22, 25

i I t [righteousness], 31, 208, 277 i Z j [stem], 276 Ibsen, Henrik, 44

Huang-t'ien-tao , 256n

I-cheng county M M f f i (Kiangsu), 348

H u a n g Tso-lin j f f e K I , 390

i-chiao | 4 f j ; [discrepant doctrines], 331

H u a n g Tsun-hsien ]Sijli|f, 368

I Ching JJgg [Book of changes], 98, 274,

H u a n g Yii-p'ien ^

239, 2 6 3 ^ 266n,

346 Huan-tai chi j g ^ l B , 152 hua p'ao hui TE'IÈÊ! [flower cannon societies], i j j n , 312, 313, 318 hua-pen short stories See under Stories Hua-tzujih-pao îjl'-^ 0 î ë , 362, 365 Hua-yen sutra [Avatâmsaka sutra], 223 Hue, the A b b é , 85 hu Fo fa d h a r m a ] , 232

[protect the Buddhist

hui ^ [assembly], 261 hui-hsin [ËD'ù [restoring the mind], 233 hui-kuan [regional clubs], 9, 402, 410 Hui-iu Liu Hsiang pao-chiian f t f g fIj Ç f f g . See Liu Hsiang pao-chiian H u - k u o pi-min chih T ' i e n Fei HHtÉHttR, ¿ J z i i [T'ien Fei w h o protects the nation and defends the people], 299 hun [soul], 249 Hundred Days reform, 366 Hundred Names. See Pai chia hsing H u n g j e n - k a n - ¡ K C f f , 365 Hung-lou meng H H I l ? [Dream of the red chamber], 183 H u n g Sheng 307, 308 H u n g - w u Emperor (Ming T'ai-tsu), 32, 327, 406 Hung-yang H H i sect, 260, 271, 28gn; scriptures of, 39, 229, 230, 256n, 263-264, 265-266 "Hun-tun ch'u fen" WfâM'iï [Creative chaos first divided], 239 hun-yuan ®7C, 2Ô3n H u n - y u a n miao '|f x É

[Temple of the

337 I-chu hsiang — [ s i n g l e

stick of in-

cense] sects, 273n Idema, Wilt L., 20, 65, 123, 125, 129 Ideology, 48-49. See also Indoctrination Ideology and Popular Protest (George R u d e ) , 47 Illiterates, 38-39, 5 6 - 5 7 , 65, 6 6 - 6 7 , > l 8 , 314, 322, 403. See also Literacy; U n educated audiences Illustrated Elaboration of the Sacred Edict. See Sheng-yü t'u-hsiangyen-i Illustrated Explanation of the Sacred Edict. See Sheng-yü t'u-chieh Illustrated Explanations of the Sacred Edict. See Sheng-yü hsiang-chieh Incense: 273n, 275, 279, 302n, 312 Indoctrination: by elites, 3 5 - 3 6 , 46-48, 60, 378; through entertainers, 107; through fiction, 1 4 1 - 1 4 2 , 382; through drama, 160; through Sacred Edict, 3 4 9 3 5 3 5 6 , 357, 359; through media, 392-395; and behavior, 407-408. See also O r t h o d o x y ; Values Integration, cultural, 3 2 - 3 3 , 404-408; and language, 35, 399-400; imposed, 48; Contibutors to, 58-60, 6 2 - 6 3 , 1 1 0 - 1 1 1 ; and literature, 139, 140-142; and sects, 291, 292-293, 3 1 6 - 3 2 4 ; in France, 292, 403; and mass culture, 360-361, 378. See also Diversity, cultural Intermediaries, 35, 36, 37, 44, 6 2 - 6 3 , 6 4 - 6 5 , 107

Undifferentiated Origin], 197 Huo Chen 347, 348

J a p a n , 4, 15, 196, 379; war with, 76,

Hupao j g f g , 362, 363

jen iZ [human-heartedness], 31, 208, 209,

363-364, 366, 389, 390

432

GLOSSARY-INDEX

235» 277 jen 5 [stem], 276 Jen-minjik-pao A J s ; 0 ffi [People's daily], 376 jen-wu 3r^p [year], 241 jih-yung lei-shu U MM1Ì [Encyclopedias for daily use], jmi/ir Encyclopedias J i n g Su, 52 J o h n s t o n , R . F., 33gn J o r d a n , David, 3 1 6 J o u r n a l i s m , xvi, 3 6 1 - 3 7 8 , 3 8 5 - 3 8 6 , 392, 393. 394. 395 Journey to the West. See Hsi-yu chi Ju-lin wai-shih [ T h e scholars], 5 4 " , 189 J u - t ' u n g Fo ffilii^ [learned youth B u d d h a ] , 242 kaaù ch'im [divining slips], 98 kaaùpoot g t ^ P [divining blocks], 98 k'ai chai g§ [breaking of the vegetarian fast], 260 k'ai-kuang shen-tzu Ufi jfc i f f - f [type of ritual], 96n K a m Fa, L a d y . See C h i n - h u a , L a d y K'ang-hsi emperor, xvi, 100, 306, 325, 336, 344 kang p'o. See keng-p'u K a o g|5 family, 284 K a o Wen-chii ¡153fcH, 151 K a r m a , 16, 131, 2 1 1 ; in sects, 221, 241, 243, 245, 247, 249, 250, 263 keng £tj [stem], 276 keng-p'u i ^ l f [genealogies], 81 keng-tu [farmer-scholar], 60, 63 K i a n g n a n , 5, 10, 27 Kiangsu, 6, 24 Ko-chih hui-pien l&Sift'lg, 362 K o K u n g - c h e n , 364 ko-lz'u ifcfs] [songs], 272 k'ou ch'uan hsin-shou p f l f ' l l , ^ [passed along by word of m o u t h a n d retained in the m i n d ] , 280 kua Hf [divining blocks], g8n kua-chang jH-jl [ T r i g r a m Chief], 287 Kuan-ch'ang hsien-hsing chi 'g'^riE^lB [Exposé of officialdom] (Li Pao-chia),

383 K u a n g - p ' i n g prefecture jfUzpJf? (Chihli), 329n K u a n H a n - c h ' i n g , 23 m kuan-hua H"!®. See M a n d a r i n Chinese K u a n K u n g § $ £ : , 179, 410 K u a n T i I f ^ , 300, 410 K u a n Yin H f S 98n, 224, 229, 289, 298, 300 Kuan-yin ching H l f I f [ K u a n Yin sutra], 266 Kuan-yin ling-kan chen-yen H H a f i ^ f B l f [ M a n t r a of the spiritual influence of K u a n - y i n ] , 229 KuanYu 147, 1 5 1 , 4 1 0 kuan-yii tTIp- See M a n d a r i n Chinese K u a n Yun-shih f g g , 326 K u b l a i K h a n , 299 Ku-ch'eng chi 148 K u Chung-i fil-f+fli, 390 kuei k [honorable], 204 kuei ^ [stem], 276 kuei-hai [year], i o i n Kuei-ts'un ch'iao-che l i i P ^ ^ I [ T h e woodcutter of Cassia village], 347 kuei-wei [year], 241 Ku Fo Tien-chen k'ao-cheng Lung-hua paochmg mmm [The D r a g o n Flower precious scripture, verified by the O l d B u d d h a T ' i e n chen], 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 253 Ku Fo T'ien-chen shou-yuan chieh-kuo Lunghua pao-ch'an Hitk [ T h e D r a g o n Flower precious penance, the results of restoring wholeness by the O l d B u d d h a T ' i e n - c h e n ] , 239 K u h n , Philip, 54, I94n K'u-kung wu-tao chiian fij '(ft j|J @ [Scroll on enlightenment t h r o u g h religious austerity], 264n K u l p , Daniel H . I I , 82, 83, 89, 105 K u m a r a j i v a , 225 k'un-ch'ii M ffi opera. See O p e r a , k'un-ch'ii kung-an [crime-case tales], 1 ¡ 4 n Kung Ch'ang 238-239, 241, 242 K u n g Chia-yu i t ^ W , 331

GLOSSARY-INDEX kung-fu [meditational exercise], 275 kung-kuo ko Jfi'juiffi [ledgers of merit and demerit], 21 i kung ming [renown], 148, 149 kung-sheng degree, 53 K'ung Yu-hsien J L I I , 287 Kuo-ch'ii hsien-tsai mi-le wei-lai 'Mii^i-ft MWj^i^i [Past, present, Maitreya-tocome], 276 Kuo Mo-jo W f c ^ , 354. 355 Kuo-wen pao H M f g , 379 kuo-yin 3/31 [Sg [go over to the nether world],

286 Ku-tien hsiao-shuo "¿T Jflì 'JN gft [classical fiction], 125 ku-tz'u UIh] [drumsong text], 122 Kwangtung: and printing, 25, 27; written materials in, 78-111 passim; drama in, 164, 165ns cults in, 302, 304, 306, 309, 323 Labor: corvée, 5; wage, 6, 7, 51, 53; for printing, 18, 25; division of, 1 0 8 - 1 0 9 ; value of, 214, 217, 218 lai-shih tHr [the "coming age"], 279 Lamley, Harry, 300, 301 Landlord and Labor in Late Imperial China (Jing Su and Luo Lun), 52 Landlords: absentee, 7, 2 8 - 2 9 , 53, mentality of, 45; power of, 5 1 , 52, 55; and drama, 145, 146, 159, 160; lineages as,

3°4> 3°7> 308, 309-310; and temples,

3I4~3I5 Lang, Olga, 374 Language, style of: and audience, 4 2 - 4 3 , 113; in novels, 125; in popularizations, 3 2 8 - 3 2 9 , 3 3 3 - 3 3 4 , 336, 3 3 9 - 3 4 0 . 343, 3 4 8 - 3 4 9 , 3 5 6 - 3 5 7 ; i n village lectures, 345; in newspapers, 363; and meaning, 399—402. See also Vernacular language Lan-ying pao-chuan 244-245 Lao-chiin fang [The temple of Laotzu], 118 Lao-li ^ M Assembly, 283 lao-sheng [upright older male] role,

130 Lao Ts'anyu-chi ^ S S j S I B [Travels of Lao

433

Ts'an], 54n, 383 Lao-tzu i48n, 242, 289, 344 Lattimore, Owen, 4 Law: and family, 32, 8on, 2 1 5 ; and the gentry, 53; and magic, 97-98; and Sacred Edict, 329, 330, 333, 343, 3 5 1 ; and newspapers, 366,368; and women, 413. See also Punishment Lecture system. See hsiang-yueh Ledger of Merits and Demerits According to the Immortal Tai-wei. See Tai-wei Hsienchiin kung-kuo-ko Lee, Thomas, 64 Legends: in drama, 167, 172, 182, 183;

sectarian, 219, 237, 239-240, 241, 243, 253; of T'ien Hou, 295-298, 3 1 1 , 317,

3 1 9 - 3 2 0 , 322; local, 3 1 0 . See also Folk tales; Stories Legge, James, 365 Letter writing, 35, 75, 76, 79, 85-86, 9on, 101 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 296 li M [unit of distance], 307 li ^IJ [profit], 208 li ¡g [rites], 3 1 , 9211, 277. See also Ritual Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and news-

papers, 363, 364, 365, 366-367, 368, 37'. 37 2 n ; influence of, 370, 379-380,

381, 393; a n d fiction, 383, 385, 386, 387, 388; and mass culture, 395 liang-chih J | [ g o o d knowing], 2 1 7 Liang-mien Tao [S 7J [Two-edged Sword], 2 1 0 Liang Shan-po g? |ll{è, 3 6 , 15° Liang Yen-nien M f è ^ , 37, 33°, 33 1 Li-ch'eng ftM, 328 li-chia II ^ [tax collection] system, 12 Li Chih $ W, 15, 2 1 7 li-chih i i S [personal ambitions and commitment], 381

Li Ching

123, I24n

Li-ch'uan g l ^ (poet), 121 Lien-shan county (Kwangtung), 332, 333, 334, 335 lien-yii fgfifg [couplets], 83 Li Fu-hsi 237, 240 Li Hsi-yii 332

434

GLOSSARY-INDEX

li-i U f i [rituals], 81 Li Kuang-ming chuang ^ j f c f ^ E t (publisher), 26 Li Lai-chang 332~333> 334, 335 Li Mi Duke of Wei xiv, 114-121, 122-124, 127-132, 133-142 Lin Aunt (T'ien Hou), xv, 295-296 Lin Chao-en 14, 15, 37, 60, 196, 197, 216, 274 Lin-chi % 231 Lin Ch'ing # , 287-288 Lineage halls, 77,94, 103, 104,314; drama in, xiv, 145, 147 Lineage organizations: and economic growth, 9 - 1 0 , 405; and literacy, 12; and publishing, 24; records of, 79, 80; and drama, 145-146, 150, 152, 159, 160; and elite status, 194; and property, 215-216, 309-31 o, 314; and T'ien Hou, 304, 307, 308, 311-313, 317, 318, 3 r 9, 4°7; power of, 3 1 3 - 3 1 5 , 316; and religion, 409; origins of, 417 Ling-hui Fei M M i E , 299 Ling-hui fu-jen M i B ^ c À [Divine Kindly Lady], 299 Ling Meng-ch'u 25 Lingnan macroregion, 5, 10, 25, 26, 27, 4°5, 413 ling-shan !||JL| [magical mountain], 284 Ling-shan li ts'ai-ch'a ko UUliUÌS^-ip; [Magical mountain ritual tea-picking song], 28on Lin Han 121 Link, Perry, 388, 389, 392 Lin Se M ra [Stingy], 195, 199, 200, 203 Lin Shu ¡ftjjf, 386 Lin-shui fu-jen Eg zK jfc A [Near Water Lady], 298-299 Lin Ta-ku 295 Lin Tse-hsu # glj 402 Lin Yutang, 89, 183, 184, 186 Lipao 374 Li Pao-chia J | , 383 Li Pin ^ Tj;, 256n Li San-niang 151 li-sheng ¡¡jfliii [master of ceremonies], 352 Li Shih-chen 329

Li S h i h - m i n ^ t & K , Prince of Ch'in M 114, 1 1 8 - 1 2 1 , 123, 124, 128, 131, 134-137 Li Shih-teng 269 Li Shih-yii, 230, 245 Literacy: rates of, 11, 108, n o ; use of, 12, 102-103, 2 1 1 , 213, 283; and printing, 18, 21, 24; in Europe, 20, 403; expansion of, 28, 29, 207-208; hierarchy of, 36-38, 42, 43, 5 5 - 5 7 , 66, 132, 399; of women, 63, 70, 320; specialized, 63-64, i i 3 n , 230; by region, 70; aids to, 79, 84-85; and opera, 130, 182; and sectarian texts, 227, 228, 259, 269, 270, 280; in sects, 260, 263, 273, 274, 285, 400-401; and status, 314, 317, 318, 319, and popularizations, 328, 330, 34 6 . 357. 35 8 ; a n d newspapers, 373, 374; in People's Republic, 375-376. See also Education; Illiterates; Uneducated audiences Literati, 3 1 , 3 2 , 3 7 - 4 0 , 183, 191, 193,221. See aslo Elites; Gentry Literature: and oral tradition, ix, x, 38-39, 65; as education, xiv, xv; and mentalities, 40, 44, 69-70; audiences for, 4 1 - 4 3 , 112-142; and letter writing, 86; themes from, 183; and values, 188-218; sectarian, 219-254; and mass culture, 378-395. See also Fiction; Novels; Poetry Li Tung §}; [Shaker], 213 Li Tzu-ching ^^f-ijic, 269 Liu, James, 5, 33 Liu Chao-k'uei glJBS^, 280 Liu E g l j f l , 383 Liu Erh-hung g l j r . t r , 287 Liu family (publishers), 22 Liu family of Shan county, 274, 280, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287 Liu Hsiang mi f l J S ^ r , 2 4 5 - 2 5 1 , 253 Liu Hsiang pao-chiian glj J? iS;, xv > 62, 69, 220, 245-253, 410 Liu Kuang f l j f t , 246 Liu-li-ch'ang (Peking) ifE^J®, 27 Liu P'ei i l J i l , 269 Liu Sheng-kuo f l j ^ i i , 287

GLOSSARY-INDEX Liu T s ' u n - y a n , 26, 27 Liu Yao-ch'i glJlÇc^, 148 Liu-yû A l i i [Six maxims], 2 7 6 - 2 7 7 , 327, 349. 35!» 406 Liu-yii chi chieh 7*\ If« ft [Collected explanations of the Hortatory Edict of Six Maxims], 32gn Liu-yiiyen-i A i i i f r i i [Elaboration of the Hortatory Edict of Six Maxims] 328, 336n Li Wei-i [ O n l y one principle], 207 Li Y u 25, 147, 149, 150, 160 Li Y u a n 116, 1 1 7 , 120, 123, I24n, 128, 136 Li Y u a n - p a 129, 134 Li Y u n g 58 Lo C h ' e n g ¡ ¡ g ^ , 135 Lo chiao J S f i [Lo sect], 39, 60, 223, 2 2 7 - 2 2 9 , 2 3 1 - 2 3 8 , 260; and W h i t e Lotus religion, 256n, 263, 268, 269, 2 7 1 , 273; and T r i g r a m sects, 284 Lo C h ' i n g H/pi, 60, 72, and pao-chiian, 220, 222, 223, 225, 228; a n d Buddhism, 226, 227, 230, 2 3 3 - 2 3 7 ; career of, 2 3 1 - 2 3 2 ; and W h i t e Lotus religion, 256n, 263, 264 Lo-ching H i ® [Lo scripture], 265, 270 Lo Hsiang-lin, 322 Lo K u a n - c h u n g g j c f i 1 2 1 Lotus Sutra, 237, 405 Lo Wen-chii 232 Lu-chou prefecture jjgiH'lJff, 337 Lu-hsi-ya chih lien [From Russia with love] (Wu-ming-shih), 3 9 0 39 1 Lu H s u n 383, 394 L u k a n g H S Ë ( T a i w a n ) , 3 0 1 , 302 Lu K ' u n 30, 327n Lii M e n g - c h e n g @ JSiE, 148, i4gn Lung-hua ching f t i s See Ku Fo Tien-chen k'ao-cheng Lung-hua pao-ching L u n g - h u a f | l g sects, 2 6 m , 4 0 0 - 4 0 1 , 406 Luo Lun, 52 Lupin, Arsène, 386 Lii Shou-tseng 338n Luther, M a r t i n , 20 Lu T ' i e n - c h ' e n g 147, 148, 149 lu-yin [passports], 268, 271

435

Lyall, L. A., 106 ma PJ§ (interrogative), 349 ma-chang [paper gods], 23, 28 Mackerras, Colin, 186 Magic, 9 6 - 9 8 , 106, 129, 238. See also Charms; Divination; Spirits; Supern a t u r a l themes M a Hsin ÄlJf> 2 4 7 Maitreya: in pao-chiian, 221, 2 3 7 - 2 3 8 , 240, 241, in W h i t e Lotus sects, 262, 264, 276, 279, 280, 285, 287 M a - k a n g JgfS] ( K w a n g t u n g ) , 18, 25, 27 M a n c h u language, 30, 337 M a n c h u rulers, 10, 186, 406, 4 1 5 M a n d a r i n Chinese (kuan-hua; kuan-yii), i67n, 191, 339, 350, 400 " M a n d a r i n Duck a n d Butterfly" school of fiction, 388, 389, 390, 392 M a n d a t e of H e a v e n . See under H e a v e n Manichaeism, 222, 228 M a n yC lineage, 3 0 4 - 3 1 2 , 314, 3 1 5 , 318, S 1 ^ 32i M a n M o (Wen-wu) Ü K temples, 98n M a n t r a s . See C h a n t s M a o C h i n ^ § , 22, 25 Mao I 25 Mao-shan shih-fu ^PlilSfiiU [boxing master], 96 M a o Tse-tung ^

jfr, 385, 388, 389, 391,

392, 395 Markets, 4, 5, 7, 9, 194, 362; a n d d r a m a , 143, 144, 146, 174. See also T r a d e M a r k e t towns, xiv, 173-175 M a r r i a g e : forms of, 7 - 8 , 405, 4 1 3 - 4 1 4 ; horoscopes for, 81, 99; regulations for, 8 1 ; rituals for, 101, 145; in fiction, 206, 247, 249, 2 5 1 ; resistance to, 2 5 2 - 2 5 3 , 297, 4 1 0 M a r t i a l arts: a n d rebellion, 2 5 7 - 2 5 8 ; in meditational sects, 259, 274, 282, 286, 288, 291; purposes of, 2 7 8 - 2 7 9 , 284 M a r t i n , H e n r i - J e a n , 18, 19, 20 Marxism, 4 8 - 4 9 , 367 Marxism and Literature ( R a y m o n d Williams), 49 M a - s h a chen iff fii (Fukien), 25

436

GLOSSARY-INDEX

Ma-tsu SÜffl, 72, 177, 2 9 2 - 3 2 4 . See also T'ien Hou Maü-shaan sz-foo. See Mao-shan shih-fu Maxims for Family Management. See Chihchia ko-yen M a y Fourth Movement, 3 8 8 - 3 8 9 , 390, 3 9 1 , 392 M a Y ü H 3 E , 247, 248 M a Y ü - n u n g g i g , 345 Medicine, 75n, gon, 97, 99, 104; and popular religion, 2 1 9 , 2 2 1 , 223; and sects, 270, 2 7 2 - 2 7 4 , 277, 2 8 1 - 2 8 2 , 285, 286, 289, 291 " M e d i c i n e " (Lu Hsun), 394 Meditation, 246, 248, 257, 259, 266, 274-288 Mei-chou ilg;H'| (Fukien), 295, 30 m Mei Lan-fang ftsSJ;^, ' 7 ° Mencius, 29, ig8n, 2o8n, 2 i 4 n , 242, 345n, 393 meng tsz p'o. See ming-tzu p'u Meng-tzu. See Mencius Mentality: non-elite, ix, 70; elite, x, 6 1 , 69; and behavior, xi; and cultural integration, xi-xiii, 3, 7 1 - 7 2 ; economic factors in, 7, 28,66, 70, 2 1 8 ; of authors, 40, 4 1 , 45; and social stratification, 4 1 - 4 4 , 45» 4 8 - 5 0 , 5 6 > 6 7 - 6 9 ; of women, 55, 6 1 - 6 3 , 66; urban vs. rural, 7 1 ; and fiction, 189, 2 1 6 , 3 8 7 - 3 8 8 , 392; after Sino-Japanese war, 364, 366; and material culture, 4 1 4 . See also Values Merchants, 344n; activities of, 9, 146, 194; literacy of, 63, 1 1 3 , 373; in fiction, 2 0 1 , 383; morality of, 244; gods of, 303, 307, 314, 410 Merit: ledgers of, 28, 2 1 1 - 2 1 2 , 335; accumulation of, 2 0 8 - 2 1 2 , 2 1 4 , 2 1 8 ; in sectarian texts, 227, 229, 230, 245; in sects, 234, 263, 267, 273, 277 mi [delusion], ig7n miao chu [Cantonese: mia chuk] Jf|l!5i [temple keepers], 3 1 3 Miao-shan 224, 238, 246, 250, 4 i o n Middle Kingdom, The, (S. Wells Williams), 82 Migration, 405, 4 1 6 Mi-lan chi KM IB, 1 5 1

Military organizations, 190, 2 2 1 , 2 3 1 , 309, 3 1 5 . See also Martial arts Military romances, 1 1 4 , 12 in, I 3 0 n See also urn hsi Millenarianism, x, 66, 402; in White Lotus sects, 2 2 1 , 2 5 7 - 2 5 8 , 274, 278-280, 285, 287, 288, 290 Milne, William, 365 min g ; [people], 336 M i n gg [language], 44, 57, 1 1 2 n , 179 1 8 1 Min-chien wen-hsueh K fifi^yC^ [China popular literature], 378 ming Bß [bright], 4 1 4 ming ^p [life store], 275 Ming-Ch'ing transition, 306 M i n g loyalism; 13, 305, 307, 309 M i n g T'ai-tsu. See Hung-wu empero; ming-tao l ^ j g [making known the Way], 279 ming-tzu p'u i g ^ l e [name registers] 8 1 , 99 ming-yun ^ p i ® . See Fate min-hsin chil K ffl Ml [letter-carr/ing hongs], 370 min-jen g A [poor man], 203 Min-lipao K; l i f f i , 374 Minorities, 3 3 2 - 3 3 3 , 3 5 0 - 3 5 1 , 357^^.05, 406, 4 1 5 Minpao g f g , 370, 371 Missionaries, 362, 365, 400 Miyazaki, Ichisada, 30 Mo-chieh chung-sheng >]}_ [The pople of the last age], 241 Modernization, 88, 1 6 8 - 1 7 0 , 379, (88, 392. 393. 404 Mo-ling county fäH&M, ' 9 3 Money, 3, 23, See also Silver Mongolian language, 30, 3 3 7 Mongols, 406 Monkey. See Hsi-yu chi Monks, 344n; Buddhist, 227, 230, >37, 406; Ch'an, 2 3 1 ; and White Litus sects, 257, 2 6 1 - 2 6 2 , 267, 268, 269, ¡79, 289; and meditation, 274n. See also Priests Morality books (shan-shu): and serial change, 1 5 - 1 6 , 28, 29, 402; authos of, 60; distribution of, 65, 79, 9 1 - 9 2 , ¡54;

GLOSSARY-INDEX

mentality of, 211-212, 218, 244; publishers of, 230, 365 Mother, the Heavenly. See Wu-sheng Iaomu Mo-tzu H i , 344 Moule, Archdeacon, 105 Movie industry, 375, 377, 391 Mt. Tung-ting. See Tung-t'ing shan Munro, Donald, 408 Music: and drama, 130, 168, 169; in opera, i63n, 167, 170, 172-173, 179, 180, 183; in White Lotus sects, 262, 272; and popularizations, 32gn, 330, 335. 354. 355; a n d m a s s culture, 381, 395 Mustard Seed Garden bookstore (Li Yü), 25 Mu-yangchi ft ^ |g, 149 mu-yiishu f | [wooden fish books], 65, 88n Myths. See Legends "My Views on Fiction" (Chueh Wo), 381-382

naäm-möh-16 P^jPttfg [geomancer], 95n, 96 Nagasawa Kikuya, 25 Nan-ch'ang H (Kiangsi), 25 Nan ho chi 160 Nan ho t'ai-shou chuan FWfaii f c fil, nan-hsi IS [southern drama], 160 Nanking 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 154, 369 Nan-p'ing j^fzp (Fukien), 44 Native-place associations. See hui-kuan Nei-ching ch'ang ft fSJ® [government office for printing Taoist and Buddhist texts], 227, 229 Nei-ko kuan-pao ft (StTÌE, 366 Neo-Confucianism, 16, 69, 72, 259, 274, 407. See also Chu Hsi; Wang Yangming Newspapers. 5«« Journalism New Year, lunar, 82, 84, 101, 105, 107 Ng, Alice, 64 Nieh-hai hua [Flower in a sea of retribution], 387 nien-hua ^ jr [New Year pictures], 105 Ningpo 4, 303, 363, 368, 369 Nirvana sutra, 223

437

North-China Daily News, 363 North China macroregion, 4-7, 10, 26, 27, 369, 405

Northwest China macroregion, 26, 405, 415 Novels: as protest, 13; themes of, i6n; p o p u l a r , 65, 125, 129, 188-218, 3 8 3 - 3 8 6 ; moralistic, 79, 9 0 - 9 1 , 217;

audiences for, 125, 126, 127, i3on, i S 1 " ^ , 133-142, 400; term for, 37gn. See also Fiction; Literature; names of individual works nuenfod H^f [renewing the charms], 97 Nii-kua. See Chang Nii-kua Nii-sheng ching ix H ® [Classic of female sages], 244 Officials: and status, 53-54, 314; role of, 244. 37 8 ; a n d T ' i e n H o u > 2 95, 3°3. 317; and state cults, 300, 323; and Sacred Edict, 328, 329, 332, 335~33 6 . 3 4 0 - 3 4 3 , 352; a n d periodicals,

361-

362, 364, 366; fictional, 383, 400. See also Examination system; Government O-mei, Mount j j f c J m , 197 "On the Relationship between Fiction and Popular Sovereignty" (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao), 379, 380 O p e r a , xi, xiv, 1 6 1 - 1 8 7 , 190, 228, 23 m ,

311,312. See also Drama; names of individual types Opera, Cantonese (Yueh chit): origins of, 147; popularity of, 161, 163, i64n, i65n, 178, 181-182; language of, i67n; styles of, 170, 180; performances of, 177, 178, 184, 185; suppression of, 186

Opera, Ch'ao Chou, 161, 163, i64n, i67n, 170, 177, 178, 1 8 0 - 1 8 1

Opera, Hoklo, i63n, i64n, 179 Opera, k'un-ch'ii, i7gn, 183 Opera, Peking (ching-hsi or p'i-huang hsi), 114, i65n, 170, 186; origins of, 130, 160; popularity of, 163, 173 Opera, Shao-hsing, i63n Opera, Waichow, 161, 163, i67n, 177, 1 7 8 - 1 7 9 , 180

Oral tradition: and literate tradition,

GLOSSARY-INDEX

438

3 5 " 4 ° . 399J a n d elites, 46, 66, 1 2 0 ; variations within, 5 7 , 67, 68; and w o m e n , 6 2 - 6 3 , 67; and written texts, 1 2 1 , I 2 2 n , 124x1, 1 2 5 , 1 3 8 , 4 0 0 - 4 0 1 ; in religious sects, 259, 2 7 1 - 2 7 2 , 274, 280, 2 8 1 , 285; and T ' i e n H o u cult, 296, 297, 3 1 0 ; and education, 326n; and Sacred Edict, 3 2 9 - 3 3 0 , 3 4 0 - 3 4 1 , 359. See also P o p u l a r culture; Storytellers; U n educated audiences O r t h o d o x y : and Sacred Edict, xvi, 3 4 9 350; in popular literature, 1 9 1 , 2 0 1 , 2 1 5 ; in sectarian texts, 2 2 1 , 230, 2 4 1 , 409; Buddhist, 2 2 3 , 2 2 7 , 2 3 3 , 2 3 4 , 250, 2 5 3 ; and White Lotus sects, 2 5 7 , 259, 276, 2 7 7 , 2 8 8 - 2 9 0 ; and T ' i e n H o u , 3 0 9 , 3 1 5 ; and cultural integration, 405; and d r a m a , 4 1 2 . See also Censorship; Indoctrination Outlaws of the Marsh. See Shui-hu chuan Overseas Chinese, gon, 1 8 5 , 258, 3 0 3 pai chia hsiang f f i ffr. [bowing to false images], 2 3 4 Pai chia hsing Zli^H [ H u n d r e d names], 2 9 - 3 0 , 83, 85 pai chia-men ^ H [ p a y i n g respects to the membership], 281 pai-hua ^ [vernacular], 3 6 3 , 3 8 1 . See also V e r n a c u l a r l a n g u a g e pai-lien chiao (tsung 5k). See White Lotus sects Pai-p'ao chi i48n, 1 4 9 Pair Shift Allegiance to the Tang, A. See Shuang fou Tang Pai-t'uchi 148, i49n, 1 5 1 Pai-yang ¡¡M sect, 280 Pai-yueh t'ing f f ft 4 s , 1 5 ° n , 1 5 1 Pa K a o E r ® [Reaching High], 2 1 3 pa-kua li-t'iao A i U H g Principles], 280 Pan Chao i49 n > P ' a n Ching-jo P'an-t'aochi J f

[Eight T r i g r a m

188, 1 8 9 - 1 9 2 , 2 1 7 148

Pao C h e n g t J g ; or P a o K u n g ic [ J u d g e Pao], 65, 1 1 4 , 4 1 2 pao-chia [police security] system, 1 2 ,

205, 3 2 8 pao-chiian J f i f g [precious scrolls], x v , 65, I48n, 192, 2 1 9 - 2 5 4 , 399, 409; and White Lotus sects, 255n, 250n, 257. See also Scriptures; names of individual works Pao-kuang ^ jfc [Precious R a y ] , 197 pao-kuan wen-chiian [written guarantee], 2 1 5 Pao T'ien-hsiao, 364, 3 7 1 22 Pao T ' i n g - p o pao-t'oujen iHsMA [promoters], 143 pao-tzu -f-, 204, 205 Paper, 1 8 - 1 9 , 204, 205, 368 Parker, E . H . , 79 Partible inheritance, 9, 2 1 5 Pasternak, Burton, 3 1 6 Patriarchs (tsu), 239, 256, 257, 2 5 9 - 2 6 4 , 266, 274, 280. See also Teachers Peasants: dependency of, 5 0 - 5 2 ; and elites, 7 i n , 72, 394, 404; and d r a m a , 1 4 5 , 1 5 9 , 160, 168; culture of, 2 9 1 - 2 9 3 , 294, 296, 400; and T ' i e n Hou, 295, 298; and fiction, 389. See also P o p u l a r culture; U n e d u c a t e d audiences; Villages Pei-chi feng-ch'ing hua j t l i S t n I t [A romantic portrait from the North Pole] (Wu-ming-shih), 390 Pei H u a n g , 349 P d T i f t ® , 307, 308 Peking, 1 1 2 n , 168, 1 9 3 , 269, 368, 369; printing in, 24, 25n, 26, 27. See also O p e r a , Peking Peking gazette. See Ching pao P'eng P'ai, 7 m Pen-hsu M [Originally V o i d ] , 195 pen-tijen ^ A [original settlers], 306. See also Punti pen-tipan ^ J i j j i E [local troupes], 146 People's Daily. See Jen-minjih-pao Perry, Elizabeth, 5 1 Peterson, W i l l a r d , 1 3 pi-chi l|E =2 [essays], 4 1 7 pien-wen i j i j t stories, 39 Pi-fu [Niggardly], 195 p'i-huang hsi j i f l f t See O p e r a , Peking ping ping

[soldiers], 3 3 6 [stem], 276

GLOSSARY-INDEX

439

p'ing ¡¡f [commentary], 121 p'ing-h.ua zpgg [historical narratives], 121

P'o-yao chi ® f g g 2 , 148, I4gn "Preface to the Published Series of Trans-

P'i-p'a chi § ! H f B , i s o n , 151, 1 5 3 - 1 5 9 Pirates, 298, 303, 308, 318, 322, 402

lations of Political Fiction" (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao), 379 Pregnancy Pao-chiian. See Huai-t'aipao-chiian

Plain Talk on the Sacred Edict. See Sheng-yii ch'u-yen Planchette. See fu-chi texts Poetry: collections of, 26, 79, 89; decorative, 103-104; in prose texts, 121, 1 2 2 - 1 2 3 , 126, 142, 192, 381; exchange of, 151; inpao-chiian, 219, 225, 232, 233, 239, 243; and White Lotus sects, 272, 280; in popularizations, 327, 328, 334; in periodicals, 363, 386. See also C o u plets; names of individual types P'o-hsieh hsiang-pien [A detailed refutation of heresies], 2 3 9 , 2 6 3 ^ 266n, 346 P'o-hsieh hsien-chengyao-shih chiian © 3JR1IH Hi f t % [The key to refuting heresy and making truth manifest], 231, 232, 233, 235 Politics: and newspapers, 364, 366, 367; and

fiction,

378-392;

and

culture,

392-395 Popular culture, 67, 68, 72; and written materials, 7 5 - 1 1 1 ; and elites, 62, 6 4 65* !43> 159. 35 6 ; a n d religion, 1 8 8 218, 2 1 9 - 2 5 4 ; and mass culture, 360361; and fiction, 383-385, 388, 392; comparative models of, 403-404. See also Fiction; O r a l tradition; Peasants; Uneducated audiences Popular Explanation of the Imperial Edict. See Shang-yii t'ung-su chieh Popularization: of elite culture, xiii, 3 8 39; of Buddhism, 227, 228, 2 1 9 - 2 5 4 ; of Sacred Edict, 2yjn, 3 2 5 - 3 5 9 ; and fiction, 385, 387, 389. See also Indoctrination Popular reading materials. See t'ung-su tu-wu Population, xi, 5, 21, 7 7 - 7 8 , 3 7 2 - 3 7 3 Portugal, 4, 5, 15 Postal service, 3 6 1 - 3 6 2 , 363, 368, 369, 37°> 3 7 i , 374» 3 7 6 Potter, J a c k , 408

Price, Don, 365 Priests, 60, 96, 175, 2 1 1 , 267, 271, 289, 344n. See also M o n k s Primers, 2 9 - 3 1 , 79, 85, 277n, 400, 412. See also Education; Literacy; names of individual works Prince of Ch'in of the Great Tang, a tz'u-hua. See Ta Tang Ch'in-wang tz'u-hua Printing: spread of, x, xiii, 3, n o , 417; techniques of, 1 7 - 2 1 , 127; in H o n g K o n g , 85n; of sectarian scriptures, 228, 229, 263, 264-267, 270; of Sacred Edict texts, 328, 332, 338n, 347; of newspapers, 368. See also Publishing Propaganda, 367-368, 378, 393, 394, 395. See also Indoctrination Property: equalization of, 69; management of, 208, 210, 218; of sects, 262, 2 7 0 - 2 7 1 , 283, 285, 286, 287; of lineages, 2 1 5 - 2 1 6 , 309-310, 314 Prostitution, 12, 203, 206, 213, 230 pu i f j [registers], 283 P'u I t [genealogy], 283 Publishing: development of, 16, 1 7 - 2 8 ; costs of, 20, 21, 41, 125; by government, 22, 31, 227; and indoctrination, 47; oïpao-chiian, 220, 230, 250; of Sacred Edict texts, 348, 357, 358. See also Printing p'u-chi |f-Hi [popularization], 385 Pu-ching H [Reckless], 195 P'u-ming I f 224 Punishment, 105, 145, 235. See also L a w Punti, 77, 415. See also pen-tijen Puppeteers, 182, 4 1 1 . See also Storytellers Pure L a n d Buddhism. See under Buddhism P'u-t'ien county (Fukien), 15, 193» '9 6 > 295 Q u e e n M o t h e r of the West. See Hsi W a n g Mu R a d i o , 3 7 4 - 3 7 5 , 377, 378

440

GLOSSARY-INDEX

Rebellion, 159, 160, 258,287, 288, 290. See also names of individual rebellions Record of Correcting Feng-Shui, A. See Hsiukaifeng-shui chi Record of Self-Knowledge. See Tzu-chih-lu R e d Boats, 16511, 185 Redfield model, 404 R e d Spear society, 258 Reform, 364-367, 370, 3 7 9 - 3 8 4 , 387, 389 Regional systems, 70, 7 1 , ioon, 175, 403-404. See also Skinner, G. William; names of individual macroregions Regulations/ Usages for Lectures on the Sacred Edict (by village elders). See Sheng-yii hsuan-chiang (hsiang-pao) i-chuft'iao-yueh Religion: and written materials, ix, 24, 32, 79, 91, 106; and government, xv, 64, 162, 292-294, 406; a n d d r a m a , xvi, 1 6 2 - 1 6 3 , 1 6 5 - 1 6 6 , 172, 1 7 4 - 1 7 6 , 185, 401, 4 0 8 - 4 1 2 ; and elites, 1 3 - 1 5 , 46; and social mobility, 16; a n d women, 62, 3 2 0 - 3 2 1 ; popular, 109, 260, 2 6 1 , 284, 288, 289; and p o p u l a r culture, 1 8 8 - 2 1 8 ; in T a i w a n , 3 0 1 , 302; a n d social stratification, 3 1 5 - 3 1 6 , 3 2 2 , 4 0 1 , 405. See also Gods; Ritual; Sects; names of individual religions Religion and the Decline of Magic (Keith T h o m a s ) , 46 Rey, Charles, 92 Ricci, M a t t e o , 17, 28 R i c h a r d , T i m o t h y , 365 Ritual: i m p o r t a n c e of, xvi, 58, 109, 211, 3 4 5 , 4 1 0 - 4 1 1 ; experts in, 60,64, 76, 92, 1 0 0 - 1 0 3 ; h a n d b o o k s on, 8 1 - 8 2 ; divination for, 99; and d r a m a , 144, 149, 165, 1 6 7 - 1 6 8 , 1 7 4 - 1 7 7 , 185; for lineage organizations, 145; sectarian, 219, 259, 279, 2 8 1 , 282, 284, 285; and cultural integration, 2g4n, 3 1 6 , 323; for T ' i e n H o u , 312; a n d Sacred Edict, 3 3 5 » 3 5 2 - 3 5 3 * 407- See also Funerals; li [rites]; Religion; names of individual rituals Roles: d r a m a t i c , 1 1 8 , 130, 147, 172, 173, 182, 2 3 m Romance of the Sui and the "Pang. See Sui

Tangyen-i Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The (San kuo chih), 27, 90, 394, 410; stories from, 105, 179. 183, 189. 378 Romance of the Three Teachings, The (Sanchiao k'ai-mi kuei-cheng yen-i), 37, 40, 1 8 8 - 2 1 8 , 407; authors of, xv, 60, 69; characters in, 54n, 64 R u d e , George, 45n, 47, 49, 50 R u r a l - u r b a n relations, 5. See also U r b a n rural dichotomy; Villages Sacred Edict, The (Sheng-yii), 3 2 5 - 3 5 9 ; popularizations of, ix, xvi, 37, 39; a n d morality, 16, 408; transmission of, 32, 64, 7 m , 200, 399, 401, 407; l a n g u a g e of, 400 Sai K u n g M a r k e t , 77n, 99, 177 Sakai T a d a o , 41 Sa K o n g W a i f y f L M [Sand River Villa ge], 3'9. 3 2 0 S a k y a m u n i , 242. See also Buddhism samsara, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 240 "San, Pai, Ch'ien" (primer), 3 0 - 3 1 San-chiao k'ai-mi kuei-cheng yen-i Hi&Hflj^ ^ l E S S I S . See Romance of the Three Teachings, The Sand River M o t h e r . See Sha C h i a n g M a Sand River T e m p l e . See Sha C h i a n g M i a o sang-shih jtj 'ji [funeral rites], 81 San-ho Sheng-yii kuang-hsun H n l fiiSfDII, 337 _ san-kang u . ® [the T h r e e Bonds], 3 1 , 289 san-kuei H ® [the T h r e e Refuges], 261, 266 San kuo chih EiSfc, (San kuo chih t'ung-su yen-i H SI 51 fS ifl ft; San kuo chih yen-i [ 3 iH i i ) • See Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The san-lao [the three elders], 326n Sanskrit, 96, 199. See also individual terms San T i n fir 03 (New Territories), 304-311 passim, 3 1 4 , 318, 321 San tzu ching EE^H [Trimetrical Classic],

29, 30, 3 ' , 8 5 , 334 San-yen H m collection, 385 San-yuan chi H 7c IB, 151

GLOSSARY-INDEX Sao-yeh shan f a n g 26 S a w a d a Mizuho, 188, 222, 2 2 7 - 2 3 0 passim, 237, 238, 248 Scholars, The. See Ju-lin wai-shih Schools: c o m m u n i t y , 11, 30, 3 1 , 32, 77. See also Academies; E d u c a t i o n Scott, J a m e s , 104 Scriptures, 24, 26, 255n, 259,279, 286. See also pao-chüan-, Sutras Secret societies, 143, 144, 146, 149, 162, 348, 4 1 0 Sects: millenarian, x, 66, 257, 349; and orthodox values, 14, 32, 33, 406, 409; scriptures of, 24, 39, 40. See also Gods; Heterodoxy; pao-chiian; Religion; Sutras; names of individual sects Seidel, A n n a , 222 seiji shosetsu Bc/n 'JN ift [political

fiction],

379 Selby, T . D., 108 Sexuality, 2 1 3 , 223, 226, 249, 250, 260, 261. See also M a r r i a g e ; Prostitution Sha C h i a n g M a fp'lLWi, [Sand River M o t h e r ] , 310, 3 1 1 , 3 1 8 Sha C h i a n g M i a o ¡^21JÜ [Sand River T e m p l e ] , 304, 306, 307, 308, 3 1 0 , 319, 321 shai-ching H H [airing the scriptures], 261 S h a n ch'eng t ' a n g HFS^S, 26 Shanghai, 352, 404; media in, 362, 364, 3 6 8 - 3 7 0 passim, 373, 374, 375, 386 Shang-ti ± ^ , 2 3 8 Shang-yii ho Iii hsiang-yueh ch'üan-shu ± I t £ W M fä £ m [Complete book of the village lectures on the Imperial Edict in combination with the laws], 329n Shang-yii t'ung-su chieh [Popular explanation of the Imperial Edict], 34 1 S h a n Hsiung-hsin W-M-iS, ' 2 4 , 135 shankunghei j p f ^ S U ["god revere plays"], 166 shanp'aang jpf [temporary shrine], 166 shan-shu U H f . See Morality books Shao-hsing O p e r a . See O p e r a , Shaohsing Sha T ' o u C h e n j ^ H H ( K w a n g t u n g ) ,

44'

84n She county (Anhwei), 22 she-hsueh jjtfclp [ c o m m u n i t y schools], 11 Sheng hsien chi ^ {[I| 151 sheng-ti lao-yeh Sg-fr f f (sheng-chün lao-yeh l&Ü!"^; Jfi) [Venerable Sagely Ruler], 278 Sheng-yü iE Iii. Set Sacred Edict, The sheng-yuan 4 M degree, 37, 54, 58, 59, 61, 373 Sheng-yii ch'u-yen [Plain talk on the Sacred Edict], 347, 356, 357 Sheng-yü ho lü chih-chieh [Direct explanation of the Sacred Edict in combination with the laws], 329, 33°, 356 Sheng-yü hsiang-chieh | g I i fgi f$ [Illustrated explanations of the Sacred Edict], 37, 33°, 3 3 1 . 332. 356. 358 Sheng-yü hsuan-chiang (hsiang-pao) i-chu/ fiao-yueh ( » « )«ffi/ttft [Regulations/usages for lectures on the Sacred Edict (by village elders)], 333, 335 Sheng-yü kuang-hsun [Amplified instructions on the Sacred Edict], 3 3 6 338' 342, 3 4 4 - 3 4 6 passim, 350, 3 5 1 , 356-358 Sheng-yü kuang-hsun chi-cheng SgHJglJII IjJig [Collected verifications of the Amplified Instructions on the "Sacred Edict"], 3 4 8 - 3 4 9 , 356, 357 Sheng-yü kuang-hsun chih-chieh ü Iii He s)l| ¡ E M [Direct explanation of the Amplified Instructions on the "Sacred Edict"], 3 3 8 - 3 4 0 . 343. 344. 345. 346. 356, 358 Sheng-yü kuang-hsun yen IE If« IS PI fix [Elaboration of the Amplified Instructions on the "SacredEdict"], 3 3 8 - 3 4 0 , 341, 342, 343, 347, 356 Sheng-yü kuang-hsun yen-shm fg ¡t< Jg |ll|tfjf f t [Glosses for the Amplified Instructions on the "SacredEdict"], 343, 356 Sheng-yü t'u-chieh Ü l t i B ] ^ ? [Illustrated explanation of the Sacred Edict], 327, 328 Sheng-yü t'u-hsiang yen-i ^ Iii iff ft [Illustrated elaboration of the Sacred

GLOSSARY-INDEX

442 Edict], 3 3 3 - 3 3 4 , 3 3 5 , 3 5 6 Sheng-yii yen-i san-tzu-ko su-chieh

shu-shih 551|«i'fiii

[ V e r n a c u l a r explanation of the Trimetrical Song from the elaboration of the Sacred Edict], 3 3 3 , 3 3 4 , 3 3 5 n , 356 shen-me jüjHj [what], 3 2 8 Shenpao 362, 363, 367, 386 Shih C h i h - m o S&Ifcjyi, 348 Shih ching g [Book of poetry], 1 5 9 Shih-tsung huang-ti tít^rcH"? [Epochal Progenitor], 3 3 8 n Sh.ih.-wu.pao 364, 368 shik [ate], 3 1 0 shingpool ffljiff [divining blocks], 98 shiu-paai 'j^ffi [brief forecasts], 95n shoupen-fen [ " m i n d y o u r own business"], 343 shou-yuan chih tsu ft 7C ¿ ffl. [Patriarchs in C h a r g e of the R e t u r n to the Origin], 280 Shuang t'ou T'ang f f j S / . l f [ A p a i r shift allegiance to the T ' a n g ] , 1 3 0 , 1 3 4 - 1 3 6 , 138, 141 Shu ching j¡f

[Book of documents], 98,

327 Shu-ching chih-chieh f j \(i ffl [Direct explanation of the Book of Documents], 3 2 7 Shu-ch'ipien-meng ¡ t í ? M S ? , 8 6 - 8 7 S h u - f a n g chen ( } fjf |fi (Fukien), 25 Shui-hu chuan ^Kjff [Water m a r g i n ] , 90, 1 0 5 , U 5 n , 150, 1 8 3 , 189, 3 7 8 , 394 shui shangjen tK.H A [boat people], 297, 3°5> 3 2 1 Shun-te (Shun T a k ) county ( K w a n g t u n g ) , 25, 94, 1 8 5 shuo jfg [say], 328 shuo-ch'ang tz'u-h.ua |S¿ 9|§ ¡51 I S , 41 shuo-ch'ang wen-hsueh gftPJl^iPSee Chantefable literature Shuo-pu ts'ung-shu i S f f t j l l i r [Collection of fiction],

386

Shuo T'ang yen-i iSJÉíijiílí (Shuo T'ang ch'ien-chuan i S ^ l í j f l l ) [Tales of the T ' a n g ] , 129, i 3 o n , 1 3 1 , 1 3 2 , 1 3 4 - 1 3 8 passim, 1 4 1 Shu-shan chien-hsia chuan KJlllxllJ'ÉfeíS [Swordsmen of the hills of S h u ] , 390

[village tutors], 3 5 0

shu-yuan See Academies Silver, 3, 4, 1 9 3 . See also M o n e y siu-fa f f j i t [digested], 3 1 0 Six Maxims. See Liu-yii Skinner, G . William: on markets, 4, 5, 1 7 3 , 1 7 4 , 1 7 5 ; on specialists, ioon; on population, 3 7 2 ; on regional systems, 70, 7 1 , 4 0 3 - 4 0 4 Slaves, 1 2 Smedley, Agnes, 3 7 1 Social mobility: a n d economic growth, x, 6, 8> 3 3 , ' 9 3 , 4 ° 4 ; a n d morality, 1 5 , 16, 28, 3 1 ; and examinations, 58, 2 1 3 , 402, 403; and sects, 409 Social stratification: and economic growth, 7, 3 3 , 405; and education, 3 7 , 44, 5 6 - 6 7 , 406; and mentality, 4 1 - 4 5 , 4 8 - 5 0 , 55, 5 6 - 5 7 , 6 9 - 7 1 , 4 0 1 ; and degrees, 5 3 - 5 4 , i 9 4 n ; of specialists, 97, 98n, 1 0 2 - 1 0 3 ; and literature, 1 1 2 , 1 1 3 , 1 3 8 - 1 4 2 ; and d r a m a , 1 4 3 - 1 6 0 , 4 1 1 ; and opera, 1 6 5 , 1 6 9 - 1 7 0 , 1 7 1 - 1 7 2 , 1 7 8 - 1 7 9 , 180, 1 8 1 , 1 8 2 , i g o ; and re2 2 2 ligion, 21 in, 288-289, 9 ~ 94> 2 9 6 - 2 9 7 , 3 1 6 - 3 2 4 , 402, 405; and behavior, 2 1 4 ; and sectarian literature, 2 2 1 , 226, 2 2 7 , 228, 230, 2 3 6 - 2 3 7 , 2 5 3 - 2 5 4 ; and White Lotus sects, 257, 259, 269, 2 7 3 - 2 7 4 ; and Sacred Edict, 3 4 1 , 3 5 7 , 3 5 8 ; a n d newspapers, 374; and language, 400; and marriage, 4 1 4 . See also D o m i n a n c e , structure of; Elites Soochow, 25, 26, 27, 1 5 3 , 369 Southeast Asia, 4, 104, 258, 3 0 3 Southeast coast macroregion: economy of, 4, 5, 1 9 3 ; and C h ' i n g conquest, 10; society of, 1 5 , 405, 4 1 3 , 4 1 5 ; printing in, 26, 27; p o p u l a r culture of, 189, 2 1 8 S o w e r b y , A r t h u r D e Carle, 1 1 1 Spain, 4, 1 5 Specialists, xiii, 7 5 , 9 2 - 1 1 1 , 399, 4 0 1 - 4 0 2 , 412 Spence, J o n a t h a n , 1 0 Spirit mediums, 286, 288, 289, 297, 3 1 8 Spirits, 9 3 , 9 6 , 9 8 , 297; in d r a m a , 1 1 9 , 120; in fiction, 209, 2 2 1 , 2 4 1 . See also Gods Spirit writing. See fu-chi texts

GLOSSARY-INDEX ssu-chiang-sheng U] [orator], 352 Ssu-ma t'ou Tang F i ^ S / S [Four riders s u b m i t to the T ' a n g ] , 119 Ssu-shu EH U [ T h e Four Books], 41,84, 327 Ssu-shu chi-chu chih-chieh EIU^IÌ [Direct explanation of the Four Books a n d collected commentaries], 327 ssu tien /¡fEjBt [Register of sacrifices], 300 S t a u n t o n , Sir George, 80 Stewart, J . L., 96, 98 Stories: short, 91, 126; in pao-chiian, 220, 2 4 3 - 2 5 3 ; a n d Sacred Edict, 3 4 8 - 3 4 9 , 354-355 Storytellers, 35,44, 68, 71, 107; a n d literature, 126, 137; repertoire of, 182, 183; a n d Sacred Edict, 3 5 4 - 3 5 5 , 359; m o d ern, 378, 391 Stove G o d , 36, 409 Strozzi, G i r o l a m o di C a r l o di M a r c o , 19 Struve, L y n n , 13 su f g [vulgar], 191, 288 su-chiang fSfH [lectures for laymen], 326n Su C h ' i n H g , i4gn, 152 Su-hua ch'ing-t'an fglSffiDc, 91 Sui shih i-wen RI [Forgotten tales of the Sui], 127, 128, 130, 133-136 passim, 138-141 passim Sui T'ang liang-ch'ao chih-chuan f f f f J^-if j^j /È Al [Chronicles of two courts, Sui and T ' a n g ] , 119-121, 122, 123, I27n, 132, 134-136 passim, 138, 140, 141 Sui T'angyen-i fftM Wilfk [ R o m a n c e of the Sui a n d the T ' a n g ] , u 3 n , 12in, 1 2 7 128, 130, 134-137 passim, 138, 141 Sui Yang-ti [SS^ijf, 116, i 2 7 n sung-ching f i l l [recitation of scriptures], 262 Sung T'ai-tsu ®L, 151 Sun K'ai-ti, 27 Sun Wen-chih ffi^Cjp, 270, 273 Sun Yat-sen W M i i h , 394, 395 Su pao case, 368 S u p e r n a t u r a l themes: in fiction, 132, I 34~ I 37> 189, 191, 197; in d r a m a , 148, >49> ' 5 2 . 160 Sutra of Complete Enlightenment. See Yuanchueh ching. Sutras: sects for recitation of, 220, 239,

443

257. 2 5 9 - 2 7 4 . 277» 280, 282, 2 8 7 - 2 8 9 passim; a n d Lo sect, 223, 228, 235; in Buddhism, 249, 259. See also Chants; Scriptures Sutton, D o n a l d , 71 Su W u g g S , 149 Swann, N a n c y Lee, 25 Swatow, 10, i 6 3 n Swordsman novels. See wu-hsia hsiao-shuo Symbolism: 294, 302, 303, 3 1 1 - 3 1 2 , 322, 3 2 3 - 3 2 4 . 405 la [answer], 225 t'a ffi [he, it], 349 taaipaai j ^ f f i [detailed forecasts], 95n ta-ch'eng J^IjH, 81 T a - c h ' e n g chiao ^ i f e i h ; ( M a h a y a n a sect), 229, 239 ta chiao f J H (ta-chiu) rites, 166, 311, 312, 314, 315, 318, 319 Ta-chung tien-ying Jc'Ml'(E [Popular cinema], 377 [ T h e great learning], 199, Ta hsueh jr 326 Ta-hsueh chih-chieh A" ff 1 ifr M [Direct explanation of the Great Learning], 326 T ' a i - c h o u ^¡Ifl school, 217 T ' a i - h u j k f f l [ L a k e T ' a i ] , 193 Ta'i-hua shan Tzu-chin chen liang-shih hsiuhsing Liu Hsiang pao-chiian ch'iian chi See Liu Hsiang pao-chiian T ' a i - k u n g is^-Z;, 190 T'ai-p'ing ching j f e z p ® [Scripture of great peace], 222 T a i p i n g rebellion, 105, 146-147, 186, 1 55"366 T'ai-shang tsu-shih san-shih yin-yu pao-chiian [Precious scroll explaining the highest p a t r i a r c h teacher's three incarnations], 264 T a i w a n , 10, 110, 364, 391, 416; opera in, 162, 181; religion in, 221, 258, 293, 297, 3 0 0 - 3 0 3 , 3 1 3 , 3 i 6 Tai-wei Hsien-chiin Kung-kuo-ko i ^ i U S [Ledger of merits a n d demerits according to the I m m o r t a l T'ai-wei], 16

444

GLOSSARY-INDEX

t'ai-yang [the sun], 278 Ta-ju A Hi [Great Scholar], 197 ta-ku AliA [aunt], 295 Tales of the Tang. See Shuo T'angyen-i Ta-liang A i t [Big Light], 195 T'a-litenu-jen it A [Woman from the tower] (Wu-ming-shih), 390, 392 "Talks at the Yenan F o r u m " (Mao Tsetung), 388 Ta-mo hsueh-mai chin-sha lun j|e BplfillTk^ am [The golden sand discourse of the blood tradition of Bodhidharma], 223 tan fi£ [birthdays of gods], 300, 3 1 2 , 3 1 3 , 315 tan foo H f ^ [placing of charms], 97 T ' a n g histories (T'ang shu JlFllr), 1 1 5 , n 6 n , 133 T'ang shih san-pai shou Jj? f^f H l i H [Three hundred poems of the T'ang], 89 T'an-shih wu-wei chiian [Scroll on nonaction and lamenting for the world], 263n t'an-lz'u ijlpfiO [ballads with string accompaniment], 354, 379n, 381 Taoism: and elites, 14, 60, 69, 402; and Thousand Character Classic, 30; in morality books, 91; and magic, 96, 189; and drama, 166, 183; at festivals, 175; in the Three Teachings, 1 9 1 , 196, 200, 201; and sectarian texts, 219, 222, 238, 242, 243, 253; and government, 227, 288; and White Lotus sects, 255, 258, 260, 267, 2 7 1 , 274, 275; and T'ien Hou, 298; and Sacred Edict, 328, 330, 3 3 1 , 334. 344", 348, 349 t'ao-pan [color printing], 17 t'ao-pan pao j g l K l g [newspaper set-ups], 367 Tao-shih [the Taoist], 197 T'ao-yuan chi ftgfg, 151 Ta T'ang Ch'in-wang tz'u-hua A Mi -H H Ih|BS [Prince of Ch'in of the Great T'ang], 122, 123, 125, 132, 1 3 4 - 1 4 1 passim Taxes, 3, 53, 309, 339 te ffj (nominalizer), 328, 349 te f g [virtue], 275

Teachers, 1 0 2 - 1 0 3 ; in sects, 2 74, 2 78, 281, 282, 283-284, 285, 286. See also Patriarchs Te-chou (Shantung), 193 Telegraph, 363 Television, 377 Temples: and government, 64, 293, 3 0 0 - 3 0 3 , 406; local, 77, 91, 92, g6n, 100, 101; couplets in, 84, 103, 104; charms from, 96; activities at, 98.195, 2 1 7 , 294, 3 1 6 , 352, 370; work on.ggn, 244; drama in, 143, 144, 147, 149 152, 160, 174; and festivals, 166, 175. 176, 177, 178, 184, 185; Three Teaclings, ig6n; White Lotus, 262, 269, 278; T'ien Hou, 304-306, 307, 308, 309, 3 I 0 > S ^ - S ' S , 3 1 7 , 3 J 9 , 3 2 ° , 3 2 t - See also Gods Tenants, x, 6, 7, 5 1 , 3 0 9 - 3 1 0 , 3 1 4 and T'ien Hou cult, 3 1 2 , 3 1 5 , 3 1 7 , 319 Teng lineage, 3 0 4 - 3 1 2 passim, 314. 3 1 5 , 3 1 8 , 319, 321 Teng Pao-sheng 3i4n Teng, Ssu-yii, 80 Texts, written: and drama, ix, 65, 4 1; as sources, 34, 6 7 - 7 2 ; audiences fo-, 37; and oral tradition, 39, 296, 297, 298; and mentality, 40-44; and SacredEdict, 326, 354n. See also pao-chiian; Scriptures; names of individual texts Theaters, 163, i64n, 166, 170. Set also Drama; Opera Thomas, Keith, 46, 228, 408 Thompson, E. P., 50 Thousand Character Classic. See Ch'in tzu wen "Thousand Poets" Anthology. See Ch'iei-chia shih Three Hundred Poems of the T'ang. See Pang shih san pai shou Three Kingdoms, Tale of the. See Romaice of the Three Kingdoms, The Three Teachings, The, xiv, 242. Sei also Romance of the Three Teachings, Tk t'i j | [to uplift], 379 t'ien A [heaven], 336. See also Heavin T'ien-ch'ang A jl: (Anhwei), 193

GLOSSARY-INDEX T'ien-chen. See Ku Fo T'ien-chen k'ao-cheng Lung-hua pao-ching T i e n Chin-t'ai 272, 273 T'ien Fei ^ [Celestial Concubine], 299 T'ien Hou ^ fp [Empress of Heaven], xi, 33» 9 2 n > 177» 2 9 2 - 3 2 4 , 399; and government, xv, 46; believers in, 402, 407, 4 1 0 T'ien Hou Niang Niang ^ /gj , 320 T'ien-shang sheng-mu [Heavenly, saintly mother], 299 Tien-shih chou-pao U i E S i g , 377 T'ien-ti hui J^itfli» [Heaven and Earth Society], 66 Ti-erh tz'u wo-shou ^^.'¿kM^ [The second handshake], 392 l'i-kao filr'Sj [elevation], 385 ti ku ttj2# [subsoil], 309 Ti-lisan tzu ching ^ S H ^ M [Geographical san tzu ching], 30 t'ing I t [hear], 340 t'ing-hsi H®S( [to hear the play], 130 Ting hsien (Hopei), 41 T'in-hau. See T'ien Hou tip'i ttfe,E£ [land surface], 309 t'i-t'ieh | g | £ [thoughtfulness], 277 Topley, Marjorie, 252 t'ou-tien chen-jen g l U t i i A [Realized man of the first hall], 284 Tou-pi chi I4gn, 1 5 1 Trade: foreign, 3 - 4 , 5, 15, 193; growth of, 7> 9> 360; long-distance, 2 7 - 2 8 ; local, 90, 91, 174, 3 0 5 - 3 0 6 ; news about, 362-363; in France, 403 Translations, 3 8 1 , 386 Treaty ports, 3 6 2 - 3 6 3 , 368 Trigram sects, 228, 274-288, 406 Trimetrical Classic. See San tzu ching Trimetrical Song. See Sheng-yu yen-i san-tzuko su-chieh Trusts, landholding, 77, I02n tsa-chu $|)glj plays, 1 1 7 tsai-chia [laity], 233 Ts'ai Po-chieh ^ { ^ P g , 1500, 153 ["scholarts'ai-tzu chia-jen ^ - f - f f e A meets-beauty"], 383, 384, 389, 390 tsan i t [remarks], 121

445

Tsang Kwong-yuk 1i|§c3E, I02n Ts'ao Chii-jen, 370, 393 Ts'ao Ts'ao f f j f , 179, 184 tsa-tzu [glossaries], 23, 64, 85 ts'e m, 88, 265 Ts'e-hsueh pei-tsuan, 88n Tseng Ch'u-ch'ing U S : ® , 149 Tseng Kuo-fan iQ2n Tseng Ts'an Tseng-tzu if'

i02n , 242

Tsing Y i Island pfjfelb (HongKong), 77. 94. 3 1 3 « tso-tao i E j § [unrecognized sects], 330 Tso Tsung-t'ang 357n tsu ¡¡¡E. See Patriarchs tsu-chang ¡¡fcjk, 76n Tsuen Wan (New Territories), 7 5 1 1 1 passim, 3 1 8 Ts'ui Huan U'fik, 286 Ts'ui Ying-ying &MM, 152 tsuk-cheung. See tsu-chang tsuk-pd. See tsu-p'u tsung-heng f i i ^ [in all directions], 233, 234 Tsung K ' u n g tk^JL [Honors Confucius], 197 [ts'ung-lai] mei [-yu] [have/ has not/never], 328 Tsungli Yamen f ® M f r H , 366 tsu-p'u MM, 76n tui-hao f f [ c o m p a r e d and checked], 268 tui-lien ^jiffi [couplets], 83, 149. See also Couplets Tu-ku Princess, 120, 1 2 1 , 1 3 1 Tung-ch'uang chi |W) f g f B, 150 Tung-fang Shuo ^ ^ $ ] , 148 T u n g Min U g f , 272, 273 T u n g Shan Miao |1| )fi§ [Eastern Mountain Temple], 304, 306, 307, 3 1 1 , 3 1 4 , 317 t'ung-sheng J r [examination candidates], 58, 59, 6 i n , 373 T'ung shlng (T'ung shue iIH) [almanacs], 82n fung-su tu-wu [popular reading materials], 125 Tung-t'ing shan (Kiangsu), 193

GLOSSARY-INDEX

446

l'u-ti zt±tiJ [earth gods], 7 1 , ggn, 302n, 409 tu wei tsun

[honor independence],

233 tz'u $lj [to goad], 379 tz'u itt [this], 328, 349 Tzu-chih lu g£n H [record of selfknowledge] (Chu H u n g ) , 16, 24 Tzu-chih t'ung-chien U ' i o j l l ä m [ C o m p r e hensive mirror for aid in governing], " 5 . 1 3 3 . >38 T z ' u Hsi HjiH, 3 3 2 tz'u-hua f f l g , 62, 1 2 2 , 1 2 5 Tzu-lo-lan [Violet], 390 Tzu-lu 242 tz'u |h| poetry, 39, 1 2 3 tzu-tsai g 4 [spiritual independence], 2 3 3 , 234 T z u - w e i i ^ ® Constellation, 280 tzu wei lui g g j ü : [self-defense corps] , 3 1 5 U n e d u c a t e d audiences, 67, 68; and elites, 3 7 " 3 9 > 3 2 2 - 3 2 5 , 356; fiction for, 1 2 1 , 1 2 2 , 1 2 5 , 126, 1 3 2 , 1 3 8 - 1 4 2 , 3 7 8 - 3 8 1 ; and opera, 1 3 0 , 1 8 3 - 1 8 7 ; and d r a m a , 1 4 5 , 146, 147, 149, 4 1 1 , 4 1 2 ; and the T h r e e Teachings, 199—200; for sectarian literature, 228; and sects, 2 3 7 , 259, 272, 273, 274, 2 8 1 , 285; and T ' i e n H o u , 295, 296, 3 1 8 , 3 1 9 ; for Sacred Edict, 328, 3 3 0 , 3 3 2 - 3 3 3 , 3 3 6 , 3 4 1 - 3 4 6 passim, 348, 3 5 7 , 359. See also Illiterates; O r a l tradition; Peasants Unions, peasant, 52n, 7 m Urbanization: spread of, 5 , 9, 10, 1 9 3 , 3 7 4 , 4 1 7 ; of elites, 8, 2 8 - 2 9 ; and values, 205, 2 1 5 , 2 1 6 , 2 1 8 . See also Cities U r b a n - r u r a l dichotomy, 5 3 , 5 7 n , 7 1 , • 7 3 - ' 7 5 . 2 9 2 - 2 9 3 ; modern, 394, 404; in the West, 4 0 3 - 4 0 4 Values: communication of, x, xi, 3 4 - 7 2 , 107; and social change, 29, 3 1 ; and education, 3 1 - 3 2 ; and cultural integration, 3 3 , 405; family, 80, 8 1 ; and social stratification, 4 6 - 5 0 , 1 1 2 , 1 1 5 ,

in fiction, 1 2 3 , 1 2 8 , 129, 1 3 1 , 1 3 3 - 1 4 2 , 379; in opera, 1 7 2 , 1 7 3 , 1 8 3 - 1 8 7 ; in The Romance of the Three Teachings, 191, 192, 196, 2 0 0 - 2 0 4 , 2 0 8 - 2 1 8 ; sectarian, 2 i 9 ~ 2 5 4 . 2 5 8 - 2 5 9 , 260, 276, 279, 289, 406, 409; and popular religion, 294, 3 1 6 - 3 2 2 . See also Indoctrination; M e n tality; M o r a l i t y books Vernacular Explanation of the Trimetrical Song from the Elaboration of the Sacred Edict. See Sheng-yii yen-i san-tzu-ko su-chieh V e r n a c u l a r language: in literature, 112— 142; in sectarian texts, 2 1 9 - 2 5 4 ; explications in, 3 2 6 - 3 5 9 ; in newspapers, 3 6 3 . 374; a n d popular fiction, 380, 3 8 1 ; in textbooks, 389; in People's R e p u b lic, 395; and diversity, 400. See also L a n g u a g e , style of Villages: d r a m a in, xiv, 1 4 3 - 1 6 0 , 164, i 6 5 n , 1 7 8 , 184; and markets, 5, 7; social structure of, 5 1 - 5 3 ; culture of, 5 6 - 5 7 , 2 9 2 - 2 9 3 ; literacy in, 63; written materials in, 1 0 2 - 1 0 8 , 3 7 2 , 389; sects in, 274, 285; satellite, 3 0 9 - 3 1 0 , 3 ! 2 , 3!3> 3 r 4> 3 ' 5 > 3'9> 320; layout of, 4 1 4 . See also G o d s ; hsiang-yueh; Peasants; U r b a n - r u r a l dichotomy wai ^f [secondary role], 1 1 8 wai chiang pan ^ f j l i f E [troupes from beyond the river], 146, 147 Waichow See O p e r a , Waichow Wai-p'ien ^f [Outer chapters] (Chu Hsi), 3 3 2 W a k e m a n , Frederic, J r . , 1 0 5 W a n g , Shih-ch'ing, 1 1 0 W a n g Chih EE fit, 3 4 1 W a n g Chun-sung i f f ¡ft, 3 4 1 Wang Fu

269-270

W a n g Hsun-ch'en i E f t S E , 3 4 1 , 342 Wangjui 283 W a n g K e n 3Z S , 39 Wang Lun

258, 278, 286, 2 8 7 , 2 8 8 n

1 1 7 , 2 8 8 - 2 8 9 , 295, 401 - 4 0 2 ; in d r a m a ,

W a n g Po-tang ZE'fe'iii, 1 1 6 - 1 2 1 passim, 124, 128, 130, 1 3 1 , 1 3 2 , 1 3 4 - 1 3 7 passim

1 1 8 , 142, 1 4 8 - 1 5 0 , 1 5 2 , 1 5 5 , 1 5 9 , 4 1 2 ;

W a n g Sen ZE

239, 256n, 2 7 1 , 2 7 3 , 2 8 g n

GLOSSARY-INDEX W a n g S h a n g ^ jgj, 1 5 1 W a n g S h i h - c h ' u n g S t S r j E , 1 1 6 , 119, 120, 124. ' 3 4 . 135 W a n g Shih-p'eng S + flJJ, 149 Wang T'ao 365 W a n g Tseng-yuan , 32gn W a n g Yang-ming 16, 39, 217, 408 W a n g Y u - p ' u i X H , 3 3 5 n , 337. 33 8 . 339. 34°. 34'» 342 Wan-kuo kung-pao ¡li 11:2; Hz, 362 wan-sui-yeh jjj [His Majesty], 338n W a r s h o w , Robert, 385 Water-control, 6, 12, 143, 144 Water Margin. See Shui-hu chuan W e b e r , Eugen, 46, 292, 403 wei [-ts'eng] ^ [ - g - ] [have/has not/never], 328 Wei C h e n g

118, 119, 120, 128, 130,

134. 1 3 5 Wei Cheng kai-chao f l i f E & I g [Wei C h e n g alters the p r o c l a m a t i o n ] , 119 Wei Hsiang-shu H t f e f H , 32gn wei-hsin f{l$r [reform], 384 wei-hsin Ching-t'u t i l ' L ' f P i [Pure L a n d of m i n d only], 226 Wei-yang I t j f (Kiangsu), 193 wen [civil (arts)], 2 7 8 - 2 7 9 W e n Chiin Xj^g, 15on, 184 wen hsi [civil plays], 179, 180, 183 wen-i lu-hsien [line on literature a n d art], 395 wen-jen Si A [ m a n of culture], 13, 15 wen-li [classical language], 363 W e n W a n g i t EE, ' 9 0 wen-yen ¡a U [classical language], 381, 400 West, the: diversity in, xi, 33,400; printing in, 1 7 - 2 1 ; values in, 28n, 218; religion in, 31, 4 6 - 4 7 , 205n, 228; peasants of, 5 i n , 52n; d r a m a in, 171, 172, 174, 186; migration to, 173, 185; influence of, 379. 381, 386, 388, 392,404; childhood in, 406. See also names of individual countries Western Studies San tzu ching. See Hsi-hsueh san tzu ching W h i t e Lotus sects (Pai-lien tsung; Pai-lien

447

chiao),-x.\, 14, 2 5 5 - 2 9 1 , 399; and orthodox values, 32, 406, 409; and texts, 66, 71, 95; and sutra recitation, 2 6 0 - 2 7 4 , 277, 2 8 7 - 2 8 8 , 289; meditational, 2 7 4 288, 289. See also pao-chiian Williams, R a y m o n d , 45n, 4 9 - 5 0 Williams, S. Wells, 8 2 - 8 3 , 9°> I 0 5 Wills, J o h n , 10 Wolf, A r t h u r , 317, 401, 409 Wolf, M a r g e r y , 4 1 4 W o m e n : as audiences, xv, 6 1 - 6 3 , 65, 86, 1 r 3> 177» 374. 381; culture of, xvi, 410, 4 1 3 - 4 1 4 ; a n d sects, 14, 281, 282, 290, 409; as c h e a p labor, 18, 25; position of, 54—55, 60; education of, 60, 6 1 - 6 3 , 66, 70, 314, 373; and ballads, 89, i07n; a n d d r a m a , 1 5 1 , 152, 4 1 1 ; a n d opera, 177, 179, 180, 1 8 1 , 182; a n d marriage, 206, 410; a n d chastity, 2 i 4 n , 245, 410; in sectarian texts, 220, 2 2 1 , 2 2 8 - 2 3 0 , 23 l n > 243, 244, 2 5 0 - 2 5 3 ; a n d Buddhism, 224, 225; sects for, 2 4 5 - 2 4 6 , 2 5 2 - 2 5 3 , 261; and T ' i e n H o u cult, 295. 296. 297. 3*2, 318, 3 1 9 - 3 2 0 , 3 2 1 ; and Sacred Edict, 332. See also Hsi W a n g M u ; Prostitution; T ' i e n Hou; W u sheng lao-mu wo nii tzu ic [we women], 251 Writing, 44, 1 0 3 - 1 0 6 , 281. See also Literacy wu i t [military arts], 2 7 8 - 2 7 9 W u C h ' e n g J g j g , 327 W u - c h ' e n g T s e n g lineage ¿KiMli'®;, I02n wu-chieh iijR [Five Vows], 260, 266, 269 Wuhsi [military plays], 179, 183 wu-hsia hsiao-shuo i R , ' J x ift [swordsman novels], 125 Wu-hsien tien tefgvg [Radio], 377 wu-hsing £L'{] [five phases], 2ogn, 276 W u H u n g - e n i ^ i s g j g , 338n W u ¡g dialect, 44, 57, 1 i2n, 155 Wu-liang shou Fo [Buddha of Measureless Life], 238 Wu-lin (Chekiang), 193 Wu Ming [Dim], 195 Wu-ming-shih fetigft [Nameless], 3 9 0 39392

448

GLOSSARY-INDEX

Wu-nu ch'uan-tao shu £ (H iH f t [Book of Yang-tzu S i 1 , 344 the five w o m e n w h o transmit the way], yang-wu ffi [foreign affairs], 384 28on yao fâ. [fox spirit], 197, 2 1 3 Wu-pu liu-ts'e 2 p(j / \ M [Five books in six Y a - s e n L o - p ' i n S ^ S i Î S ( A r s è n e L u p i n ) , 386 volumes] (Lo Ch'ing), 232 wu-shengfu-mu [Eternal Progen- Yenan period, 388, 389, 392 itor], 278 Yen F u g ^ , 3 7 9 , 380, 3 8 1 , 3 8 6 W u - s h e n g lao-mu fttÎË^fi} [Eternal Yen-hui J Hf, 242 Venerable M o t h e r ] : inpao-chilan, 220, yen-i ¿jptti [historical novel], 189, 394 2 2 1 , 228, 2 3 7 - 2 3 8 , 240, 241; in spirit Yen-shih chia-hsun I B f t ^ f l l [Family inwriting texts, 253; in W h i t e Lotus restructions for the Yen clan], 80 ligion, 2 5 5 - 2 5 6 , 257, 288, 289; in yen-shuo iff gft [glosses], 329 sutra-recitation sects, 262, 263, 264, Yin Patriarch, 256n, 264 266, 268, 272; in meditational sects, yin 240, 278, 4 1 3 275, 276, 278, 279, 280, 286, 287; a n d yin IS [hereditary privilege], 1 1 - 1 2 social change, 402 yirt-chai feng-shui [geomancy of Wu-shih [Easygoing], 195 graves], 94 W u S u n g j^IR, 1 1 4 ying-chieh [responding to the kalpa], W u Tzu-hsiang, 264n 279 W u T z u - h s u f E i i f , 46, 296 Ying-chou Hfj'H (Anhwei), 338n Wu-wei chiao ^ f l t i [nonactivist reYing-ch'ou pien-lan ffiSHIfÊM, 88 ligion], 223, 233, 236. See also Lo chiao Ting-huan so-chi ¿H ift IB [Tidbits of the wu-wei fa [nonactivist a p p r o a c h ] , world], 386 233 ying wu so chu MMFftH- [should not reside W u W o - y a o j H ' f t g l , 383, 384. 385, 387 anywhere], 233 W u Yin-sun £ 3 1 $ , 348 yin-yang hsien-sheng 94n yii 'sk [desires], 208 Y a m a , 72, 235 Yuan-chueh ching (Siitra of Complete yang Hi, 240, 278, 4 1 3 Enlightenment), 232, 235 Y a n g , C. K., 23, 103, 173, 300, 316, 3 1 7 yuan examination I m ( f i ) . See sheng-yuan yang-chai Feng-shui [geomancy of degree buildings], 94 Yuan H u a n g J ^ i i i , 14> ' 5 . ' 6 , 28, 2 1 2 Yang, M a r t i n C., 1 7 3 Y u a n Ling-ming [Originally E n Yang Chiang 390 lightened], 197 Yang-hu (Kiangsu), 348 Y u a n Mei 20, 402 Yang, Lien-sheng, 83 Y u a n - t u n chiao H i d tic [Religion of comY a n g Su 116 plete and instantaneous enlightenY a n g t z e macroregion, Lower: economy ment], 239 of, 4, 5, 6; u r b a n culture of, 8, 9, 13, Y u a n Yii-ling 127, 128 2 8 - 2 9 ; and C h ' i n g conquest, 10; reYii-ch'ih K u n g t t a « , 148 ligion in, 15, 269; a n d publishing, 22, Yii-ch'ueh chi 151 24, 25, 26, 27; literature from, 112n; in Yu Chiin-fang, 14, 28 novels, 193, 212, 216; newspapers in, Yueh chit jjlj. See O p e r a , Cantonese 369» 372 Yueh chu Jjlj. See O p e r a , Shao-hsing Yueh dialect, 44, 112n Y a n g t z e macroregion, Middle, 25, 26, Yueh Fei g f R , 412 269, 405 Yueh-fuhung-shan ^ J j f & i f f l , 150. 152 Y a n g t z e macroregion, U p p e r , 26

GLOSSARY-INDEX Yueh-yueh hsiao-shuo M M'¡"•M

[Monthly

fiction], 382 Y u e n L o n g 7cIB, (market center, N e w Territories), 78, 305, 3 0 7 ^ 314x1 Yu-Ju tu-shu t'ang ts'ung-k'e ^ f g l f i * ^ [Good fortune library series], 348 Yu-hsipao i g i ^ f f j [Playful news], 386 Yii-lu chin-p'an i f ^ g [Golden basin of the j a d e dew], 221 yil-mei, wu-chih

[stupidity], 343

Y u Meng-hsin fttlU-O [ V e r y Stupid], 207 Yii meng shu fg; Jg J | [A book of parables for beginning learners], 331 yun 5 [say], 328 yun-ch'i ¿¿g [circulate the breath], 275

449

Y u n g - c h e n g emperor, 336, 338, 344, 350 yung-shih shih

[poems on history],

i 2 i , i23n Yung-sui ä c g , 350 Yung t'uanyuan (Li Y ü ) , 147, 160 Y u n - K w e i macroregion, 24, 26, 405 Y u n - y e n g | J g , 331 Yü-shan fg, |±| (Chekiang), 347 Y u - t ' a n P'u-tu 223 Yü-tsan chi 3 i ® IB, 148, 149 yu-weifa [activism], 233 Y ü - w e n Hua-chi ^ X ' f f c S . , 116, 117 yuyuan MW [the elect], 268 zrukpoo. See tsu-p'u