The Varieties of Confucian Experience

For use by the Author only | © 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV

LEIDEN | BOSTON

The Varieties of Confucian Experience

Documenting a Grassroots Revival of Tradition

Edited by

Sébastien Billioud


Contents

Acknowledgements viiList of Illustrations viiiNotes on Contributors xi

Introduction 1Sébastien Billioud

1 The Birth of a New Religion: The Development of the Confucian Congregation in Southeast China 17

Chen Na, Fan Lizhu and Chen Jinguo

2 Making a Virtue of Piety: Dizigui and the Discursive Practice of Jingkong’s Network 61

Ji Zhe

3 Popular Groups Promoting “The Religion of Confucius” in the Chinese Southwest and Their Activities since the Nineteenth Century (1840–2013): An Observation Centered on Yunnan’s Eryuan County and Environs 90

Wang Chien-Chuan

4 Belief and Faith: The Situation and Development of Confucianism in Yunnan Province 122

Chung Yun-ying

5 Civil Spirituality and Confucian Piety Today: The Activities of Confucian Temples in Qufu, Taipei, and Changchun 153

Nakajima Takahiro

6 The Revival of Traditional Culture and Religious Experience in Modern Urban Life: The Example of the Changchun Confucius Temple 176

Ishii Tsuyoshi

7 Contemporary Confucius Temples Life in Mainland China: Report from the Field 205

Anna Sun

vi Contents


8 Rites Bridging the Ancient and Modern: The Revival of Offerings at Urban Ancestral Temples 235

Chen Bisheng

9 An Adventure Called “Sishu”: The Tensions and Vagaries of a “Holistic” Educational Experience (zhengti jiaoyu) in Today’s Rural China 262

Guillaume Dutournier and Wang Yuchen

10 Confucian Revival and the Media: The CCTV “Lecture Room” Program 302

Fabrice Dulery

Bibliography 331Index 344

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004374966_009


chapter 7

Contemporary Confucius Temples Life in Mainland China: Report from the Field

Anna Sun

1 Introduction

Since 2000, I have conducted ethnographic research in 15 Confucius temples in Mainland China.1 Some Confucius temples have a vibrant ritual life, some do not. Why the difference?

When I speak of a vibrant ritual life, I am referring to the density of rit-ual activities in Confucius temples, which can be seen in Mainland China as well as Taiwan today (the focus of this study is Confucius temple life in Mainland China). Here I am not referring to the public performance of ritu-als in Confucius temples such as the celebration of Confucius’ birthday, which are in general organized by temple management and often in collaboration with local municipal government offices. My focus is on what I call the “pri-vate rites” in Confucius temples, namely rituals performed by individuals that are not part of any public performances. Some of these rituals are traditional, some newly modified or invented. 2

Here is a list of the most commonly observed ritual activities in contempo-rary Confucius temples:

1 My greatest thanks to Sébastien Billioud for inviting me to be part of this project on Confucian piety and for being an excellent editor of this volume. I also thank the two anony-mous reviewers for their thoughtful and helpful comments.

2 See Anna Sun, Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013).

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table 7.1 Most commonly observed ritual activities in contemporary Confucius temples

Ritual activities in Confucius temples

Traditional rituals New or modified rituals

1 Burning incense in courtyard of the temple

Placing packages of incense on the altar of the temple (due to fire regulations)

2 Praying to Confucius (kneeling or bowing)

Writing prayer cards and hanging them on shelves or trees inside the temple

3 Offering objects of sacrifice(such as dry food items, flowers, fruits)

Purchasing items of blessings (such as printed cards or silk pouches)

In this chapter, I try to answer the question of the differences in ritual life in these temples by examining the social conditions under which ritual activities may thrive or wither. The density of ritual activities in a given temple does not remain constant; in fact, it is constantly changing, reflecting the ecologi-cal relations the temple has with its physical surrounding as well as the larger social, institutional, political, cultural, religious, and ritual systems of which it is a part. I argue that the social factors that would cause differences include at least the following:a) Ritual availability within the temple;b) Economic structure of the temple;c) Location of the temple in local temple ecology;d) Ritual habitus of local religious systems;e) Relation to the local ritual calendar.I believe these are in fact elements that affect not only Confucius temple life, but also ritual life in China in general. Although the focus of this study is Confucius temples, I hope such analysis may be able to shed light on the general patterns and structures of religious practices in contemporary China.3

3 This is the direction of my current ethnographic research project on prayer life in contempo-rary urban China, which covers multiple religious traditions. However, this chapter focuses mostly on Confucius temples.

207Contemporary Confucius Temples Life in Mainland China


2 Overview of Fieldwork

According to the website of the Chinese National Association of Confucius Temples (CNACT), there are currently 124 member temples across 31 provinces in Mainland China, plus 4 in Taiwan. The CNACT holds annual meetings; the 17th annual meeting took place at Deyang Confucius Temple in October 2016, with more than 200 people attending the conference.

For this project on contemporary Confucius temple life, I have conducted ethnographic research in 15 Confucius temples in several different regions in Mainland China. The temples are the following:

Beijing Confucius Temple, Beijing 北京孔廟; Tianjin Confucius Temple, Tianjin 天津文廟; Shanghai Confucius Temple, Shanghai 上海文廟; Qufu Confucius Temple, Shandong Province 曲阜孔廟, 山東省; Jinan Confucius Temple, Shandong Province 濟南文廟, 山東省; Deyang Confucius Temple, Sichuan Province 德陽文廟, 四川省; Bishan Confucius Temple, Sichuan Province 璧山文廟, 四川省; Zizhong Confucius Temple, Sichuan Province 資中文廟, 四川省; Suzhou Confucius Temple, Jiangsu Province 蘇州文廟, 江蘇省; Nanjing Confucius Temple, Jiangsu Province 南京夫子廟, 江蘇省; Hangzhou Confucius Temple, Zhejiang Province 杭州文廟, 浙江省; Wujiang Confucius Temple, Jiangsu Province 吳江文廟, 江蘇省; Foshan Confucius Temple, Guangdong Province 佛山祖廟, 廣東省; Kunming Confucius Temple, Yunnan Province 昆明文廟, 雲南省;Jingzhou Confucius Temple, Hubei Province 荊州文廟, 湖北省.

The regional distributions are the following:

Northern provinces 北方省份: Hebei and Shandong provinces 河北, 山東; South of Yangtze River provinces 江南省份: Zhejiang and Jiangsu prov-

inces 浙江, 江蘇; Southern provinces 南方省份: Hubei, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guangdong

provinces 湖北, 四川, 雲南, 廣東.

The development of ritual life in Confucius temples certainly has a temporal dimension. This study focuses on ritual activities observed between 2000 and 2014, during the period of robust cultural and political revival of Confucianism

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in China.4 For the temples I have revisited since 2014, the end of my fieldwork for this project, such as the Confucius temples in Beijing, Shanghai, and Qufu, necessary updates are provided.

3 Conceptual Framework: The Linked Ecology of Confucius Temple Life

In social theory, there have been many attempts to theorize social action in the larger context of society and culture. The most widely used concepts in recent years include theories of social systems;5 rational choice theory of the market;6 theories of toolkits, repertories, and habitus,7 and theories of fields, including theories of “strategic action fields.”8 Goossaert and Palmer have discussed the possibility of using the concept of ecology to study religion in modern China.9

I propose to examine Chinese religious life through the conceptual metaphor of “linked ecologies.” The concept of “linked ecologies” was first

4 Daniel Bell, China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010); Anna Sun, Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013); Sebastien Billioud and Joël Thoraval, The Sage and the People: The Confucian Revival in China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Kenneth Hammond and Jeffrey Richey, eds., The Sage Returns: The Confucian Revival in Contemporary China (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2015).

5 Talcott Parsons, The Social System (New York: The Free Press/Macmillan, 1964); Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995).

6 Gary Becker, The Economic Approach to Human Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976). Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Yang Fenggang, “The Red, Black, and Gray Markets of Religion in China,” The Sociological Quarterly 47 (2006): 93–122.

7 Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review 51(2) (1986): 273–86; Robert Campany, “On the Very Idea of Religions (in the Modern West and in Early Medieval China),” History of Religions 42 (4) (2003): 287–319. Gareth Fisher, From Comrades to Bodhisattvas: Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Practice in Contemporary China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014); Anna Sun, “Theorizing the Plurality of Chinese Religious Life: The Search for New Paradigms in the Study of Chinese Religions,” in Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies, ed. Kiri Paramore (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 51–72.

8 Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990). Neil Fligstein, and Doug McAdam, A Theory of Fields (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

9 Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer, The Religion Question in Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). David A. Palmer and Xun Liu, eds., Daoism in Twentieth Century China: Between Eternity and Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012).



articulated by the historical sociologist Andrew Abbott, who suggests that we need to understand the structure of social processes through “reconceptu-alizing the social world in terms of linked ecologies, each of which acts as a (flexible) surround for others.”10 Abbott suggests that the concept of ecology consists of three components: “actors, locations, and a relation associating the one with the other.” This relation is what he calls “ligation,” which “constitutes and delimits both actors and locations.”11 This conceptual framework allows us to analyze religious life not from the assumption of firm commitments to beliefs and membership, assumptions rooted in monotheistic understanding of religion, but from a perspective that focuses on the fluid interconnections amongst pluralistic practices. These are indeed the cultural toolkits and reper-tories of Chinese religious life.12

Following this analytical conceptualization, I argue that there exists not a single ecological system of Chinese religious life, but a set of linked ecologies, allowing different systems of ritual practice to coexist through competition as well as interdependence. More specifically, I propose two linked ecologies.

First, there is a linked ecology of temple life, which refers to the ways religious organizations and sites coexist through competition as well as interdependence. The actors in this system are the temple organizations, the locations are the actual physical sites, and the ligation refers to the constantly evolving relationship amongst them. This may lead to studies of ecologies of local temple life, which examine not only how temples coexist and thrive (or fail) together in a region, but also the linked ecologies of local social, political, and cultural life.

Second, there is a linked ecology of religious traditions, which refers to the ways religious belief, rituals, and equipment are often circulated in different religious traditions in a polytheistic society. The actors in this system are the different religious traditions. In the case of China, they are Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and the so-called popular or folk religions.13 They often share

10 Andrew Abbott, “Linked Ecologies: States and Universities as Environments for Professions,” Sociological Theory 23 (3) (2005): 245–274.

11 Ibid., 248.12 Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review

51 (2) (1986): 273–86; Gareth Fisher, From Comrades to Bodhisattvas: Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Practice in Contemporary China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014); Anna Sun, “Theorizing the Plurality of Chinese Religious Life: The Search for New Paradigms in the Study of Chinese Religions,” in Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies, ed. Kiri Paramore (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 51–72.

13 Although I speak of “Buddhist,” “Daoist,” and “popular or folk religion” temples here, in the context of contemporary Chinese religious life, it is often difficult to make a distinc-tion between a Daoist temple and a so-called poplar or folk religion temple. A good case

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the similar ritual activities, such as the burning of incense as part of prayer, the offering of fruit or other food items as sacrifice, and the burning of paper goods (such as spirit money) as sacrifice. The two monotheistic traditions in China, Christianity and Islam, have far stricter boundaries about ritual activities that can and cannot be performed by their adherents, hence are less likely to be part of this linked ecology, even though there are certain ritual connections—or slippage—between them and the other religious traditions as well.14 The locations of this second linked ecology are the sites where the rituals are per-formed, such as temples or home shrines, and the ligation refers to the ritual actions shared in this linked ecological system.

A study of the ecology of Chinese religious traditions will lead to a more nuanced understanding of the way different religions coexist in Chinese soci-ety; unlike the idea of the religious economy and market, in which different religions and groups compete for success and dominance on the religious mar-ket, the emphasis here is on the coexistence and interdependence of temples, shrines, ritual practices and ritual apparatus, since people don’t need to choose one or the other in their religious life, but many different things at once.15

4 Ritual Life and the Economic Structure of a Confucius Temple

The economic structure of a Confucius temple and the availability of ritual apparatus in the temple are intimately connected in contemporary China. The reason is quite straightforward: most of the ritual apparatus, such as packages of incense, prayer cards, and various objects of blessing, are items sold by the

in point is the City God temples 城隍廟, temples dedicated to the local deity of a city, town, or village who guards and protects the people living under his jurisprudence. In the current religious management system in China, City God temples are usually placed within the administrative boundaries of local Daoist Associations. In the City God Temple in Shanghai today, for example, the Daoist priests (of Zhengyi lineage) are the clergy in charge of all ritual activities in the temple. For accounts of the complex development of Daoism in contemporary China, see Palmer and Liu 2012.

14 Here I will only mention two examples from my fieldwork. The first is the well-documented case of the way many Chinese Christian converts—both Catholics and Protestants—still practice ancestral rituals such as incense burning and the burning of spirit money, which I have observed frequently. The second is from my fieldwork in a mosque in Beijing in 2015, where I observed the offering of incense in front of the historical tombstone of a legendary imam. This is a ritual practice mostly associated with Confucian grave rites, which—theoretically—was not supposed to take place in a mosque.

15 For discussions of Chinese religious life through the lens of religious economy, see Yang 2006.



temple management for the consumption of individual visitors. None of these items is for free, and one is discouraged from bringing in items such as incense purchased from outside of the temple.

It is up to the temple management to decide whether it is necessary to have these items for sale. In other words, in order to perform the rituals commonly seen in Confucius temples today, such as burning incense in the courtyard or writing prayers on paper cards, the items have to be available for purchase in the temples in the first place, usually in the temple gift shop or at a selling station by the entrance of the temple. And it is also up to the temple to set up what I call “ritual points” within the temple complex, such as incense burner in the courtyard or wooden shelves for people to hang their prayer cards. Without these ritual items and “ritual points,” the performance of rituals in a given tem-ple becomes merely an abstract idea.

If it is the case that the availability of ritual apparatus is directly related to the density of ritual life in a Confucius temple, then the economics struc-ture of the temple is directly related to the creation and maintaining of this availability, as I have suggested elsewhere. Since Confucianism is not officially recognized as a religion by the Chinese state, Confucius temples are not under the purview of the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA). The tem-ples, as “cultural institutions,” are owned by the state and managed by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) under the Ministry of Culture, which has localized policies regarding the economic responsibilities of each “cultural institution” under its management.

As a result, Confucius temples often have different economic structures based on the different local municipal policies governing “cultural institutions.” For instance, the Suzhou Confucius Temple, at the time of my fieldwork, was given a budget as a temple museum, and it also houses the local steles collec-tion. This meant that the temple management received its operating budget as well as personnel salaries from the Suzhou municipal government. Since there was no incentive for the temple to generate additional income—the income would not be able to be shared by the temple personnel—the management had done very little to encourage ritual activities. For example, there was no one selling incense or prayer cards, nor any other ritual-related items. However, this did not mean there was no ritual life in this temple. During my fieldwork, I did observe an incense burner placed in front of the statue of Confucius in the temple courtyard, which had a few sticks of incense left by visitors.

A different example is the Nanjing Confucius Temple. It is entirely “自負盈

虧” (“the organization is responsible for its own profits and losses”), with the salary of the temple management coming based on the income that the tem-ple can generate. In order to generate income, it has been leased to a company

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specializing in tourism to manage its day-to-day operation. As a result, the temple has the most vibrant ritual life I have seen among the temples I have studied. There are at least 16 “ritual points” within the temple where ritual items can be placed and ritual activities performed, from hanging prayer cards to kneeing on prayer mats, from burning incense to donating money for bless-ings. In addition, there were a dozen or “tour guides” who offered free tours of the temple. All dressed in light blue dawn parkas in the wintery weather during the period of my fieldwork, they told visitors where one should offer incense, purchase prayer cards, and make donations for blessings.

The most surprising instruction involved how one should ask for blessings from one of the stone statues of Confucius’ disciples that lined the main path once one entered the temple. The young woman who guided me instructed on how to touch the carved stone fish held in the hands of one of the statues: “You should touch the fish from its head to tail, not the other way around, which will bring you complete fulfillment of your wishes.” There were several things unusual about this instruction, such as a) these statues are unique to this tem-ple, rather than a regular part of any Confucius temple; b) the stone fish in the hand of the disciple is unrelated to any existing Confucian ritual tradition; c) such rituals for blessings is not seen in any other Confucius temple. But the fact that such rituals exist testifies to the imaginative power of temple manage-ment (or the company it hires to run the temple economy), for the richness of rituals performed in temple space creates a field of enchantment that would more likely lead to increased monetary contribution.

In a sense the Nanjing Confucius Temple operates more like a Buddhist or Daoist temple in China today. Buddhist and Daoist temples are overseen by SARA, which seems to have a more uniform policy regarding temple economy in recent years. I learned from a monk in a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Shanghai in February 2015 that, every year, 5% of the temple income is given to the local SARA administrative office; the temples and the monks can keep whatever is left after expenses. Since such Buddhist temples are entirely responsible for their own profits and losses, there is great incentive for the tem-ples to find ways to create revenue, which in general takes the form of selling many different kinds of incenses and blessed objects, as well as formal services such as special prayers for deceased ancestors. This in the end creates a temple environment conducive to a vibrant ritual life.

Here is how these different economic structures may affect the way the tem-ple managements facilitate (or not) ritual activities in the temple:



table 7.2 The impact of different economic structures on the way the temple managements facilitate (or not) ritual activities

State funding situation Incentive for providing ritual apparatus

Density of ritual life

Full State Funding: Municipal Government Supported Institutions

Low incentive for temple management to sell ritual apparatus and to encourage ritual activities

Low density of ritual life in the temple

Low State Funding:Semi-state-funded Institutions

Intermediate incentive to sell ritual apparatus and to encourage ritual activities

Intermediate density of ritual life in the temple

Little or No State Funding: Mostly Self-Supported Institution’s

High incentive to sell ritual apparatus and to encourage ritual activities

High density of ritual life in the temple

5 The Ecological Location of the Temple

There are at least three sets of relationships a Confucius temple has with other temples:a) Relationship with other Confucius temples, both regionally and nationally;b) Relationship with other temples in the same region;c) Relationship with other temples in the same neighborhood.I suggest that the density of ritual life in a given Confucius temple often depends on its physical position in the local temple ecology; this ecologi-cal location of the temple, especially its relation to other sacred sites and/or attractions within walking distance, is crucial to the vitality of its ritual life.

The annual meetings of the Chinese Association of Confucius Temples are an institutional location where new ideas for Confucian rituals are often circulated. It was at the national conference in 2004 that the creator of the paper prayer cards, the temple manager of the Shanghai Confucius temple, shared her invention with managers from other temples, which allowed the new ritual to spread nationwide.16

16 For details see Anna Sun, Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013).

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Yet it is the actual physical relation that matters the most to the ongoing ritual life in a given temple. If we examine the temples with the most vibrant rit-ual life in my fieldwork, we see they share the proximity to other sacred sites and/or central local attractions. Please note that here I am only focusing on the dates important for individual private rituals, rather than the dates of official ceremonies, such as the celebration of Confucius’ birthday.

Here is a summary of the commonalities of these ritually rich temple sites:

table 7.3 Commonalities of ritually rich temple sites

Temples with dense ritual life

Centrally located

Proximity to other temples/main attractions

Full or semiself-supporting economic structure

Proximity to deities from other religious traditions

Significant annual dates for personal rituals

NanjingConfucius Temple 南京夫子廟

Yes Yes: Part of the Qinghuai River Tourism Zone 秦淮風光景區, and near theJiangnan Civil ExaminationMuseum 江南貢院

Yes No:Key site of Confucian education

College Entrance Exam; Chinese New Year

Shanghai Confucius Temple上海文廟

Yes Yes:Near Yu Garden Cultural Zone 豫園文化區

Yes Yes: Near theCity God Temple 城隍廟(adminis-tratively considered a Daoist temple)

Same

Foshan Confucius Temple佛山孔廟

Yes Yes:Inside the Ancestral Temple Complex 祖廟廟群

Yes Yes: In the same temple complex as theBei Di Temple 北帝廟 (Daoist temple)

Same

Qufu Confucius Temple曲阜孔廟

Yes Yes: The main attraction of the Confucian tourist city of Qufu

Yes No:It is the singularly most sacred temple of Confucius

Same



6 Confucius Temples in Fieldwork

The best way to get a sense of the differences between these temples is to see the contrast between a temple with high ritual density, such as the Nan-jing Confucius temple, and a temple with light ritual density, such as the Suzhou Confucius temple.

Here is an overview of the density of ritual activities in the Mainland Confucius temples I have studied:

table 7.4 Density of ritual activities in Mainland Confucius temples

Dense ritual activities Moderate to light ritual activities

No ritual activities

Metropolitan Shanghai Confucius Temple 上海文廟a

Beijing 北京孔廟

City Nanjing 南京夫子廟

Foshan 佛山祖廟 Jinan 濟南文廟

Deyang 德陽文廟

Wujiangb 吳江文廟

Jingzhoub 荊州文廟

Suzhou 蘇州文廟

Hangzhou 杭州文廟

Kunming 昆明文廟

Rural Qufu 曲阜孔廟 Zizhong 資中文廟

Bishan 璧山文廟

a The density of ritual activities in a given temple is not static; in fact, changes are the norm in the social life of a temple. This overview is based primarily on fieldwork conducted between 2006 and 2014, which captures no more than snapshots in time of the temples studied.

b Both temples are now on the grounds of local high schools and are encircled by high school buildings. The public has no access to the temples.

In what follows, I summarize the three categories of Confucius temples I have studied according to their level of ritual activities at the time of my fieldwork. The density of ritual activities in a given temple is not static; in fact, changes are the norm in the social life of a temple. This overview is based primarily on fieldwork conducted between 2006 and 2014, which cap-tures no more than snapshots of the time during which the temples were studied.

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7 Temples with Dense Ritual Activities

7.1 Shanghai Confucius Temple 上海文廟Shanghai Confucius Temple was originally built in 1294, during the Yuan Dynasty. Its location was changed several times throughout history, with the last move taking place in 1855. During the Qing Dynasty, the full name of the temple was “Shanghai Confucius Temple and Academy” 上海縣學文廟, reflecting the historical convention that, wherever there was a Confucius tem-ple, there was a Confucian academy attached to it.

After the republican revolution ended the Qing Dynasty—and the impe-rial era—in 1911, the temple was used as an educational center until 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was established. Although the tem-ple was designated as a “cultural heritage site” of the Nanshi District 南市

區of Shanghai in 1959, it still did not escape damage during the Cultural Revolution, during which most religious rites in China suffered different degrees of destruction. It was used as a site for athletic training in those years, and many buildings in the temple complex were demolished to make room for athletic facilities.

In 1979, however, the temple became one of the first Confucius temples to be renovated after the Cultural Revolution. The Shanghai Bureau of Cultural Heritage 上海文物局 funded the restoration of the Dacheng Hall 大成殿, the main ceremonial hall, in 1979. In the years that followed, the temple became the site of a popular antiquarian book market (1986–1997). In 1997–1999, a more thorough restoration of the temple took place, including the rebuilding of side streets. In 2002, the temple was designated as a Shanghai “cultural heri-tage site” 文物保護單位.

Since then, the Shanghai Confucius Temple has become one of the most renowned Confucius temples in Mainland China, partly due to its proficient management. For instance, it is the birthplace of the prayer cards, which were invented by Ms. Ai-Zhen Wang, the director of the temple administration office, in 2002.17 It is also one of few Confucius temples with its own, profes-sionally designed website.

Shanghai Confucius Temple had a vibrant ritual life during my fieldwork from 2003 to 2014. Many people prayed to the tablet and altar of Confucius in the Dancheng Hall. A large quantity of prayer card were purchased by visitors from the gift shop, which were then filled with written prayers and

17 It was at the national conference of the Association of Confucius Temples in 2004 that the temple manager of the Shanghai Confucius temple shared her invention of prayer cards with managers from other temples, which allowed the new ritual to spread nationwide.



hung on the wooden shelves by the Dancheng Hall, as well as the dozens of trees in the courtyard. I have also observed many instances of incense being offered in the incense burner in front of the statue of Confucius in the courtyard.

However, the location of the Shanghai Confucius Temples in the local tem-ple ecology has gone through slow yet crucial changes in the past few years. It is within walking distance to Yu Yuan 豫園 and the temple complexes there (the Temple of City God 城隍廟 and the Buddhist temple 沉香閣), arguable the center of cultural tourism in Shanghai, with its historically important sites as well as tourist-friendly souvenir shops and restaurants offering local flavors. As a result, this is an area particularly attractive for religious and cultural tour-ists, and the Confucius Temple had steady visitors and ran a successful ritual object shop for most of the first decade of the 21st century.

Nevertheless, the ritual life of the temple has been gradually reduced in the past few years because of the general declining economic conditions of its immediate surrounding neighborhood, which consists mostly of older resi-dential buildings in dire need of renovation. It is no longer easy to reach the temple by car because most of the nearby streets have been turned into flea markets for inexpensive everyday wares, which effectively isolated the tem-ple from the larger ritual ecological field. This has been especially true for the religious and cultural tourists, who would find the inconvenience of locating and reaching the temple from the center of the Yu Yuan area amongst bustling venders of cheap goods on increasingly narrow and non-scenic streets a real impediment.

7.2 Nanjing Confucius Temple 南京夫子廟The Nanjing Confucius Temple had the highest density of ritual life among all the temples I visited during the time of my fieldwork. The temple was originally built in 1034, during the Song Dynasty. The Jiangnan Provincial Civil Examination Complex 江南貢院, the largest examination site ever built in imperial China, was erected right next to it in 1168, a great complex with more than 20,000 cells for exam takers. After being rebuilt in 1869, it was nearly destroyed by fire by Japanese army during the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. In 1984 it went through thorough restoration and opened to tourists shortly after. In 1991 it was certified as one of the “Top 40 Tourist Sites in China” by the government.

The Nanjing Confucius Temple was indeed one of the very first to open to the idea of tourism. Because of its superbly central location—next to the famous civil examination site and right by the fabled Qinhuai River—it was conceived as part of the “Qinhuai River Tourism Zone” from the start of its

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renovation. This was indeed a profound transformation: instead of treating the Confucius Temple as a somber museum, it became the centerpiece of the exuberant tourist district managed by the Nanjing Qinhuai River Tourism Bureau.

Unlike many other Confucius temples that are standalone sites, the Nanjing Confucius Temple is part of a large network of tourist attractions, which com-bines historical sites such as temples and gardens with endless shops and restaurants. It is in many ways like the structure of an amusement park, with masses of people flowing in and out of each site, all following the invisible course dictated by the general plan of the tourist zone. The Nanjing Confucius Temple is a must-see stop for this tourist schedule, which ensures tens of thou-sands of visitors to the temple every year.

Among the ritual activities I have observed in the temple are: prayers to the portrait Confucius in the Dancheng Hall; offers of incense to Confucius; offers of donation to the temple; purchase of objects of blessings; prayers to other sacred deities (such as Confucius’ disciples) in the temple.

7.3 Qufu Confucius Temple 曲阜孔廟The earliest and most important Confucius temple in the world, the Qufu Confucius Temple, is one of the most important tourist attractions in China today. First established in 478 BCE, the year following Confucius’ death, it was initially the site of Confucius’ residence. Starting in 195 BCE, the Han Dynasty emperor Han Gaozu 漢高祖 started the tradition of imperial veneration of Confucius in the temple. In the next millennium, the temple was expanded and rebuilt numerous times. By the 18th century, it was already one of the larg-est architecture complexes in all of China, second to the Forbidden City, the imperial palace.

After 1949, the temple became the best-preserved Confucius temple in Mainland China. It became a “cultural heritage site” of Shandong Province in 1957, and a “national cultural heritage site” in 1961 (the first national list of heritage sites). Alas, even this official designation could not protect the tem-ple from the destructions of religious sites during the Cultural Revolution. The most serious damages were done during the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, in 1966.



figure 7.1 Nanjing

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In 1984, the temple began to be restored. In 1994, the entire temple com-plex was designated as a “world cultural heritage site,” giving it international visibility and prestige. Today, at 130,000m, the temple complex is still the sec-ond largest classical architecture compound in China, after the Forbidden City. It receives tens of thousands of visitors a year, both domestic and inter-national. Numerous tour groups include the Qufu Confucius Temple as one of its key sites, and this assures the endless stream of visitors passing through the temple at all times of the year. Since 1984, the temple has been host-ing the annual ceremony to mark the birthday of Confucius on September 28th every year. It has been a thoroughly choreographed event, a great public performance.18

However, religious activities are carried out outside of the realm of public events as well. Many visitors—mostly domestic tourists—burned incense and offered prayers in the courtyard of the Dacheng Hall during all hours of the day. There were vendors selling incenses and candles inside the temple, mak-ing it easy to obtain ritual apparatus. Prayer cards were also on offer, especially near the tomb of Confucius, one of the main ritual centers in the temple. The prayers performed at the tomb tend to be more elaborate than those at the Dacheng Hall, with prayers offered with solemn bowing and kneeling. During my two fieldwork trips there, the stream of people burning incense and mak-ing prayers never ceased.

7.4 Foshan Confucius Temple 佛山孔廟Foshan Confucius Temple is the only temple I studied that does not belong to the National Association of Confucius temples. The reason is simple: it was built right after the end of the imperial ear, in 1911, by the local Association of Confucianists 尊孔會 who were part of the failed national effort to make Confucianism into China’s “national religion” 國教. In other words, it techni-cally does not belong to the traditional system of Confucius temples, with its intimate connection to Confucian academies and the imperial civil examina-tion system.

18 For analyses of such ceremonies, see Sebastien Billioud and Joël Thoraval, The Sage and the People: The Confucian Revival in China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). For a nuanced history of the Qufu Confucius Temple, see James A. Flath, Traces of the Sage: Monument, Materiality, and the First Temple of Confucius (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2016).



However, what makes the Foshan Confucius Temple unique is not its origin, but its very location. It is part of the Foshan Zumiao 佛山祖廟 complex, an architectural compound that consists of the following five parts:a) The Temple of Bei Di 佛山北帝廟, also called 佛山祖廟, a Daoist temple

originally built in the 11th century for the worship of 真武大帝, or 北帝, who is known as the most important local god; the temple was rebuilt and expanded in 1451;

b) The Confucius Temple 佛山孔廟, originally built in 1911, for the worship of Confucius;

c) The “Ten Thousand Blessed Fortune” Stage 萬福臺, originally built in 1658 as part of the Bei Di Temple, an open-air theatre for the performance of Yue Opera 粵劇, a local opera form originated in this region, during tem-ple festivals;

d) The Memorial Hall of Huang Fei Hong 黃飛鴻紀念館, a museum built in 2000, dedicated to the famous martial arts master Huang Fei Hong, who was born in Foshan;

e) The Foshan City Museum 佛山市博物館, established in 1959, which is in charge of all the different institutions that are part of the Foshan Zumiao complex.

In addition to the pluralistic nature of the temple compound, one of the many things that make the Foshan Confucius Temple unusual is the name of the Dancheng Hall, which is not Dacheng Hall 大成殿 but the Sacred Hall of Confucius 孔聖殿. This goes back to its origin as a relatively new temple built by the local Association of Confucianists 尊孔會 in the beginning of the 20th century.

The Confucius temple management has been taking excellent advantage of its ideal religious ecological location. The temple sells not only incenses and prayer cards, which are popular with visitors, but also red silk ribbons, with words of blessings printed on them, to be thrown over the branches of dozens of trees on temple ground. Indeed, the trees of the temples were so adorned with these red ribbons that they looked as if they had permanent dense red blossoms. The temple management also hosts annual Confucian social ritual events such as the “Opening of Brushes” 開筆禮 ceremony for elementary school children, and the “Threshold to Adulthood” 成人禮 ceremony for high school students.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that the vitality of the Foshan Confucius Temple has a great deal to do with the vitality of the Foshan Zumiao 佛山祖廟 complex as whole. The temple complex holds a central position in the ritual life of the city of Foshan, especially on important ritual dates such as the first

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day of the Spring Festival, when it is part of the tradition of the city for people to offer incense in all the temples that are part of the Zumiao complex. Being part of this ritual center allows the Confucius Temple to stay in the heart of Foshan ritual life.

8 Temples with Moderate to Light Ritual Activities

8.1 Beijing Confucius Temple 北京孔廟Beijing Confucius Temple is the one of the most important Confucius tem-ples in Mainland China, arguably right behind the Qufu Confucius Temple in its religious, cultural, and political significance. It was built in 1302, during the Yuan Dynasty (1260–1368). It had been the official site for the imperial veneration of Confucius for about seven centuries, until a new republic replaced the imperial rule in 1911. An enormous classical architectural com-plex, the temple has been rebuilt many times throughout history, including major renovations during the Ming Dynasty (1411) and at the end of the Qing Dynasty (1906). It was first opening to public in 1928, during the Republic of China. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, it was the second Confucius temple, after Qufu, to be on the “National Heritage” list, in 1988.

A major tourist attraction, it is on the must-see route of many visitors—especially foreign tourists—in Beijing. Additionally, the Tibetan Buddhist temple Yonghe Gong 雍和宮 is only a few blocks away, with a street full of shops specializing in ritual objects between them, creating a religious ecologi-cal environment that has great potentials for ritual density.

The Beijing Confucius Temple formally has two parts: the Confucius Temple 孔廟 and the Imperial Academy 國子監. Architecturally they form two halves of the temple complex, and institutionally they belong to the same manage-ment system, which has various offices overseeing educational, touristic, ceremonial, and other aspects of temple life.

The ritual apparatus for visitors in the Confucius Temple side of the com-plex is not abundant. In the Dacheng Hall, although there are several altars with objects of sacrifice—packages of unlighted incense, flowers, and fruits—on display ceremonially, visitors cannot make any offerings of their own, since the altars are roped off, far from the visitors’ reach. In the early 2000s there were two prayer mats before the main altar, which have since been taken away, leaving ritual activities mostly to peripheral sites in the temple. Among the rituals I observed were people offering prayers to Confucius in the Dancheng Hall through bowing and verbal utterances of prayer (although they could



not kneel which would have been the preferred bodily practice). There were also the offerings of incenses—still wrapped in their plastic package rather than lighted—to Confucius in the gift shop in front of a make-shift small altar before a long hanging portrait of Confucius, something people could not do in Dacheng Hall. There were also many objects of blessings to be purchased in the gift shop.

A most recently development has to do with the ritual activities in the part of the complex that is technically not part of the Confucius Temple. A side hall towards the back of the Imperial Academy 國子監 has been rented to a company selling ritual objects and tourist souvenirs in recent years. Not hav-ing officially made their rented space a temple, the company has nevertheless erected a statue of Confucius half concealed by crimson curtains towards the back of the ritual object shop, where people could offer prayer cards as well as other objects of sacrifice.

8.2 Jinan Confucius Temple 濟南文廟Jinan Confucius Temple is located in the center of Jinan City, the capital of Shandong Province. It was first built in 1068, during the Song Dynasty, and rebuilt in 1369, during the Ming Dynasty. Like many other Confucius temples, it has gone through many restorations throughout history, although unlike the major temples such as the Qufu and Beijing temples, which escaped the dev-astations of the Cultural Revolution, it was in terrible shape after decades of destruction and neglect. After becoming a provincial cultural heritage site in 1992, it was finally restored to its formal glories in 2005.

Although it is not yet a popular tourist attraction, the Jinan temple had a steady stream of visitors during my fieldwork. There were people praying in the Dacheng Hall, and there was a vendor selling incense and prayer cards in the courtyard in front of the Dacheng Hall. He did not have too many customers, and it was clear that the temple did not need to rely on the sales of these ritual apparatus for its financial health. However, the presence of the vender meant that there was always some degree of ritual life taking place. Whenever there is an incense burner in a temple, there are prayers for blessings.

8.3 Deyang Confucius Temple 德陽文廟Deyang Confucius Temple is one of the most celebrated Confucius tem-ples in Mainland China. Occupying 28,000m, it is the largest Confucius temple complex in Sichuan Province. The temple was first built in 1368, dur-ing the Ming Dynasty, and thoroughly renovated between 1848 and 1855, during the Qing Dynasty. It was included on the list of “Important National Cultural Heritage Sites” in 2001.

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Located in the center of the city of Deyang, with a large public park leading to the temple complex, Deyang Confucius Temple went through a thorough renovation in the first decade of the 21st century. A large, imposing, and beau-tifully restored temple, it has a visible ritual life inside the courtyard, with an incense burner filled with incenses, and people offering prayers and ask for blessings, particularly during the season of the national college entrance examination.

The temple is also a pioneer in arranging new forms of rituals. In April 2015, for instance, the temple organized the ceremony of “Confucius and Ancestral Rites” 祭祀孔子與祖先 on the Day of Qingming 清明, in collabo-ration with a Buddhist association as well as local cultural and commercial entities.

8.4 Suzhou Confucius Temple 蘇州文廟Suzhou Confucius Temple was founded by the famed literati scholar official Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹. In 1035, Fan, as the magistrate of Suzhou, decided to combine the Confucius temple and the local Confucian academy as a single institution, hence starting the tradition of 廟學合一. In its heyday, the Suzhou Confucius Temple—and the Academy next to it—was one of the most impor-tant in Southern China. However, it fell into neglect by the end of the civil examination era, at the turn of the 20th century.

In 1961, the Song Dynasty steles in the temple were designated as objects with the status of “national cultural heritage,” although the temple itself was not on the list. (At the time, the only Confucius temple recognized as a “national cultural heritage” site was the Qufu Confucius Temple.) The famous stele collection has been the main identity of the Suzhou temple ever since 1961, and the temple officially became the Suzhou Stele Museum in 1985, with a collection of more than 1,000 steles.

Suzhou Confucius Temple is a good example of the temple operating entirely as a museum. It charges a museum entrance fee, and its management treats the temple as essentially a site for the well-known stele collection. But a stele collection, no matter how famous, is not a great tourist draw; it is very much for specialized connoisseurs. As a result, there were very little activities in the museum, let along temple activities. During my fieldwork, I saw no prayer mats inside the Dacheng Hall, nor an altar for offerings. There was no incense to be sold, no prayer cards from the gift shop, nor any other ritual apparatus.

However, there was an incense burner in the main courtyard, right in front of the stone statue of Confucius. Although I did not have a chance to observe someone making offerings in the incense burner, there were a dozen



or so candles left, also incense ashes. People have been praying to the spirit of Confucius here, even though he is guarded by hundreds of engraved stone steles.

8.5 Hangzhou Confucius Temple 杭州文廟Hangzhou Confucius Temple is one of the most recently renovated temples. It is located in a refined neighborhood in a beautiful city, surrounded by greenery and not far from the famed West Lake. It was the site of the Linan Provincial Academy in the Song Dynasty. Originally build in 1131, it was rebuilt and expended several times throughout history. For many years it was used as the official school site of the Hangzhou city government. Renovated in 1986, it is now one of the popular tourist sites in Hangzhou. It is also the site of a legendary collection of steles dating back to the Tang Dynasty, with more than 500 pieces housed in the temple.

There was little ritual activity in the temple during my fieldwork, although there were prayer cards to be purchased, and there was an incenses burner in the temple. The focus of the development of the Hangzhou Confucius Temple seemed not to be on ritual apparatus, but on social rituals. Like the Foshan Confucius Temple, it has a calendar filled with newly invented social ceremonies such as “Opening of Brushes” 開筆禮 ceremony and the “Threshold to Adulthood” 成人禮, in addition to the obligatory annual ceremony honor-ing Confucius’ birthday. At the time of my fieldwork, most of the ceremonies had been programmed by a local cultural production firm, which worked with various temples as well as local television stations. In my interview with the entrepreneur who ran the firm, he expressed his general enthusiasm for tradi-tional Chinese culture and stated that, as a committed Buddhist, he found the work with the Confucius Temple most congenial with his personal cultural and religious outlooks.

8.6 Kunming Confucius Temple 昆明文廟Kunming Confucius Temple has an excellent location in the provincial capital city of Kunming. It was originally built in 1276, during the Yuan Dynasty. The temple school used to be the largest Confucian academy in Yunnan Province. The current structure dates back to 1690.

Although in recent years the local municipal government has been using the temple as a community cultural and entertainment center, in 2011 a grant plan was drafted to return the temple to its formal glory. Currently under renova-tion, part of the temple was closed during my fieldwork, including the Dacheng hall. However, most of temple complex was still accessible; for instance, one of

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figure 7.2 Suzhou

the buildings was used as a teahouse, and its central location made it a popular stop for tourists and retirees alike.

Even though there was little ritual life to be detected in the temple com-plex during its renovation, for people seeking opportunities of venerating Confucius, they can walk to the street right next to the temple and find a



bookstore called, simply, “Confucius Bookshop” 孔子書店. The bookstore sells only books related to Confucianism, from scholarly monographs to text-books for elementary and high school students. Inside the bookstore, which has bookshelves lined against the walls, was a black wooden altar dedicated to Confucius, with a large portrait of Confucius hanging on the wall facing the entrance. During my fieldwork visits, there were always fresh flowers, fruits, and candles as offerings on the altar.

8.7 Zizhong Confucius Temple 資中文廟The first Confucius Temple in the town of Zizhong was built in 984–987, dur-ing the Song Dynasty. It was moved to the current location and rebuilt in 1829. The town of Zizhong is quite rural, about three hours by car from Chongqing, the nearest city. One imagined a small, obscure temple in such a remote setting. It was located at the end of a newly developed commercial street. There were almost no tourists at the temple during my fieldwork—I counted only a handful.

Yet the temple took my breath away with its magnificence. Although it had not been renovated in recent years, the temple had the grandeur of the Deyang Confucius Temple, even as the buildings were clearly falling into disrepair. In my interview with the sole temple management person, a young woman working for the local cultural bureau, I learned that renovation might be soon underway.

The Dacheng Hall was essential empty, except for a large stone statue of Confucius. It was apparently the largest statue of Confucius in China, at 5m tall and weighing 12 tones. Its placement was also quite unusual, since most statues of Confucius would be erected in a courtyard rather than inside the Dacheng Hall. However, even with only a very small stream of visitors in this temple, there were signs of ritual life. In the mostly empty Dacheng Hall, there were two thick yellow prayer mats, much used, in front of the great stone statue of Confucius. No matter how the statue was seemingly out of place, here was the presence of Confucius, to whom people could still offer prayers and ask for blessings.

8.8 Bishan Confucius Temple 璧山文廟Bishan Confucius Temple is another temple in Sichuan Province. Bishan, a district not far from the great metropolis of Chongqing (an hour away by car), has had a Confucius temple as early as the 13th century, during the Yuan Dynasty. The temple, like most Confucius temples in China, has gone through the process of deterioration and restoration several times throughout history. In fact, its very location has been moved at least three times, the last one in 1733. During the 19th century, several major renovations were conducted, and the temple one sees today is largely the temple restored in 1887, a splendid

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complex of halls and courtyards. Historically it has been an important temple site; all local magistrates had to go to the temple to venerate Confucius before taking office, and the temple school, important regionally, was probably in use until the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1950, shortly after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the temple was used by the Bishan Police Department as its base. The Bishan city hall was right next to the temple, making the temple site a convenient choice for governmental agencies. It was one of the reasons why the temple was saved from destruction during the years of the Cultural Revolution. In 2000 the Bishan Confucius Temple was declared a “Cultural Heritage Site” of Chongqing. This led to the latest round of renovation, which lasted from 2011 to 2014. When the renovation completed, Tang Enjia, the head of the Hong Kong Confucian Academy 香港孔教學院, donated a bronze statue of Confucius to the temple.19

The location of temple is quite unusual. It is at the foot of Mount of Bi 璧山, a small hill in the center of the city. Right behind the temple are stone steps along a slope leading up to the top of the hill. Named “The Phoenix Slope” 鳳凰坡, there were dozens of large Buddhist statues made of stone on the slope, as well as statues of Daoist deities. These sacred objects were collected over the years by the Bishan Bureau of Cultural Relics and relocated to this site. During my fieldwork, I observed many people offering incenses in front of the statues. There were also many lighted candles and red ribbon offerings to the statues.

Surprisingly, there was little ritual activity in the temple. I believe the main reason was the lack of ritual apparatus. For instance, there were no prayer mats in the Dancheng Hall, no incense being sold on temple ground, and no incense burner in the courtyard. There were even no donation boxes anywhere to be found during my fieldwork. The only place where people could do something inside the temple was in one of the pavilions, which had been turned into a popular teahouse, with retirees being its main customers.

However, I did observe people offering prayers in the main courtyard. With a vibrant ritual site right behind the temple—with Buddhist as well as Daoist statues attracting worshippers—I think it will not take long for the temple to be included as part of this de facto ritual center of Bishan.

19 Although the official translation of the name of the academy in English is “Hong Kong Confucian Academy,” the Chinese original 孔教學院 explicitly denotes “Confucianity” as a religion rather than only a religious or cultural tradition.



9 Temples with No Ritual Activities

9.1 Wujiang Confucius Temple 吳江文廟Among the temples I have studied, only two temples have no ritual activities: Wujiang 吳江文廟 and Jingzhou 荊州文廟. Wujiang Confucius Temple is in the city of Wujiang, not far from Hangzhou, in Jiangsu Province. It was built between 1131 CE and 1162 CE, during the Song Dynasty. It has been destroyed several times over the past 800 years due to warfare or fire damage, like most of the temples I have visited. The temple was rebuilt more than once in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, including an extensive renovation in 1873.

However, today one can barely find the temple, even though the Dancheng Hall, 大成殿, has been well-preserved. The reason is that, although the temple is in a central location in the city of Wujiang, it is no longer visible from the street, for the entire temple has been encircled by the main high school of the city, the Wujiang High School. The school was built around the temple after the temple had fallen from use in the begin-ning of the 20th century.

The temple was completely neglected until 1998, when the Bureau of Cultural Affairs of the city built a new gate (櫺星門) leading to the Dancheng Hall. The latest restoration took place in 2001, funded by the municipal gov-ernment of the City of Wujiang. A few years later, in 2006, the temple was officially recognized as a “Cultural Heritage Site of Jiangsu Province.” However, the school remained on temple ground, and the public had no access to the temple. In fact, I had to ask for permission to enter the high school first, which was always closed to non-school personnel.

As a result, the restored temple remained an awkward part of the school. During my fieldwork in 2010, the Dancheng Hall of the temple was used as a reading room, with the large library sign of “Quiet” posted in the hall. There were dozens of tables and chairs in the space, making it look nothing like a temple, but a typical school classroom. With no pictures, statues, or scripts that referred to Confucius anywhere in the hall, and with no ritual apparatus such as prayer mats to be found, the space was entirely secular, with no signs of ritual life.

9.2 Jingzhou Confucius Temple 荊州文廟I was to discover, however, that I would see one more Confucius temple with no ritual activity. This was another temple on the grounds of a local high school, encircled by high school buildings, with no access for the public. It was the Confucius Temple in the city of Jingzhou, an ancient river town in Hubei Province. Not far from the major metropolitan city of Wuhan, situated right

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on the Yangzi River, Jingzhou has historically been an important port, with its name appearing in well-known classical poems and essays.

Rebuilt several times in history, its most recent major renovation was in the 18th century, during the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty. It became a grand complex, with a large stone pond in from of the Dancheng Hall, connected by three stone bridges. The bridge in the middle had the images of dragon and phoenix, the symbols of imperial power, carved on its footpath. Tradition dictated that only the ones who had won the highest honor in civil examina-tion (狀元) may step on this step when they returned to Jingzhou to venerate Confucius.

Although Hubei Province had about 78 Confucius temples at the end of the imperial period, today only 20 have survived, according to the National Association of Confucius Temples. And most of them are not fully intact. In the Jingzhou Confucius Temple, the bridges, along with the pond, had long disap-peared. Today only the Dancheng Hall has survived, a great structure through which one could imagine the original grandeur of the temple complex.

Even though it is also on the list of provincial level cultural heritage sites, the temple is not yet a tourist site. The Dancheng Hall, 大成殿, is right in the cen-ter of the enclosed compound of the High School Affiliated with Changjiang University (長江大學附屬中學), facing a large athletic field for students. On

figure 7.3 Wujiang



the day of my visit, there was a soccer game going on right in front of the tem-ple, as well as other athletic activities. No one seems to pay any attention to the majestic, well-preserved Qing Dynasty structure right in the center of the campus. The great doors of the Dancheng Hall were firmly closed, with no light coming through the windows.

10 Conclusion: The Importance of the Local Ritual Ecology

If we examine the most frequently seen rituals performed by individuals in Confucius temples today, it would not surprise us to find that many are com-monly shared practices in other sacred sites, such as Buddhist and Daoist temples. What affects the density of ritual life in a given Confucius temple is not how many unique rituals there are, but how many common rituals are available to the people who visit the temple.

Indeed, I believe that the density of ritual life in a given Confucius temple is more about the temple’s physical position in the local temple ecology. This ecological location of the temple, especially its relation to other sacred sites within walking distance, is crucial to the vitality of its ritual life. In other words, the general level of saturation of rituals in a region or city has a crucial impact on the level of ritual density in a given temple. Compared to people in Northern cities such as Beijing and Tianjin, people in Southern cities such as Shanghai, Nanjing, and Foshan tend to follow seasonal ancestral rites more regularly and to practice rituals in Buddhist, Daoist, or other local temples more frequently. This could be due to many factors, including the political climate (for instance, Beijing as a capital city has a higher degree of regulation of ritual activities in temples than provincial cities such as Nanjing or Foshan); the historical richness of temple life in a region; and the support of different groups in the rebuilding of Buddhist, Daoist, and ancestral temples in the past 30 years (for example, certain regions receive more donations from lineage groups for the rebuilding of ancestral temples than others).

It is not an overstatement to say that the rituals performed in Confucius temples can be seen as expressions of the shared repertoire of ritual habitus of the people from the same region. In Figure 4, we can easily draw connections between most of the rituals performed in Confucius temples today with rituals performed in other ritual sites, mostly Buddhist or Daoist temples.

What differs from region to region is not necessarily the lack of a specific ritual, since most of the rituals in this chart are shared across regions and reli-gious traditions. What differs is the intensity or frequency of ritual activities and the configurations or combinations of ritual acts. For example, we see more

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ritual habitus from this chart being practiced in the Nanjing Confucius Temple, in terms of higher frequency and richer and more diverse configuration, com-pared with what we see in the Beijing Confucius Temple. In other words, the general level of saturation of rituals in a region, a city, and a neighborhood has a crucial impact on the level of ritual density in a given temple.

One question that might be raised about the linked ecological understand-ing of ritual life is the issue of agency. Are we allowing room for agency in our depiction of the ecological structure of both temple ecology and ritual ecol-ogy? The answer is an unequivocal “Yes.” What we are outlining here are the systems of conditions of practice in religious life. Human agency is central to any form of ritual, and an analytical account of the systems of conditions of practice does not take away the centrality of freedom and creativity in religious activities.20 In fact, to acknowledge the complexity of such systems helps us see better the broad range of possibilities of human actions. To draw a meta-phor from nature, if we were to study a lake as an ecological system, we would have a good understanding of how the vegetation, the fish, and the birds are, in their complex interactions, at once interdependent on one another and in

20 Another question that might be raised is whether we need to separate “sincere” ritual practice from lesser forms, such as religious tourism. I have addressed these issues in-depth elsewhere; see Anna Sun, “A Sociological Consideration of Prayer and Agency,” Special Issue on Social Performance Studies in The Drama Review 60 (4) (2016): 118–129.

other ritualsrituals in

Confuciustemples

donatingmoney

returning tooffer thanks

bringingobjects assacrificekneeling in

prayer

writingprayercards

burningincense

figure 7.4 Confucius temples share a ritual habitus with rituals performed in other ritual sites.



competition with one another. But such an approach would not take away nei-ther the beauty of individual bird songs, nor the enchantment of the sight of a golden spruce tree.

Another question naturally arises: If the ritual life in Confucius temples is so porous, varied, and fluid as if it were coral reefs in the ocean that is the Chinese ritual ecosystem, then in what ways can we still speak of these rituals as “Confucian”?

In “Spirits and the Soul in Confucian Ritual Discourse,” Thomas Wilson sets out to answer a similarly difficult question: “In spite of their reputation for reticence on matters of spirits, Confucian officials nonetheless performed sac-rifices to spirits throughout imperial times until the early twentieth century. The emperor, court ministers, and civil officials followed a strict calendar of rites devoted to scores of gods and spirits at altars and temples in the capital and throughout the empire”.21 How did the Confucians resolve the problem of reconciling the long-standing practice of “the imperial cults and ancestor veneration” with classical Confucian sources?

Wilson argues that the classical Confucian sources indeed provide a solid foundation for guiding later ritual practices. He shows through extensive historical analysis that, although “Confucians held no monopoly on rites to spirits and ancestors,” “their insistence upon adherence to particular canoni-cal authority as promulgated by the court in their ritual practices distinguishes their ritual procedures from Daoist and popular forms of veneration, even though they arguably shared the ideas about the nature about spirits and the soul” (186). In other words, it is not necessarily the ideas about spirits and souls that are uniquely Confucian, but rather the emphasis on “adherence to par-ticular canonical authority.”

It remains to be seen whether the revival of ritual practice in Confucius tem-ples today may eventually follow “canonical authorities” again, in the present case, by those Confucian scholars who promote the revival of Confucianism as a religion, and whom I have called “Confucianist activists.”

There is some evidence of interactions between scholars of classical Confucianism and the revival of rituals in Confucius temples in recent years. But as we have seen, Confucius temples are sites beholden to and affected by many other forces as well, from political to economic, from cultural to ritual. The continuity of the transmission of what is seen by some as “authentically Confucian” rites in this context may seem tenuous at times, but it should be emphasized that, as long as there are rituals taking place in sacred sites

21 Thomas Wilson, “Spirits and the Soul in Confucian Ritual Discourse,” Journal of Chinese Religions 42 (2) (2014): 185–212.

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dedicated to Confucius, we should recognize the rituals as fully Confucian, no matter how different they may seem to be from the distant past. It also remains to be seen whether, in the long term, ancestral rites, or “rites to spirits and ancestors,” might again become the most important and prevalent Confucian practice for ordinary people in Chinese society. In my recent fieldwork on prayer life in urban China, I have observed a great recovery as well as an opu-lent reinvention of rituals related to the spirits of deceased family members, at graveside and in homes or shrines. The return to ancestral rites since the 1980s is another great continuity of traditional Confucian practice, a further deepen-ing of the revival to which this volume bears witness.

The Varieties of Confucian Experience

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