Organizer and Chair: Kandice Hauf, Babson College
Discussants: Daniel L. Overmyer, University of British Columbia; Ellen Neskar,
Stanford University
This panel explores how shrines (ci) fit into the social, cultural, political, and religious landscapes of Song through Ming China, a period exhibiting considerable continuity in Confucian ideas and institutions. Yet this continuity was not static, and we will explore the way shrines to nominally unchanging values could in practice be used to meet changing self-perceptions and social needs.
The shrines considered here were usually dedicated to deceased, undeified men, and founded by the educated elite. Topics of the papers include the shrines' purposes, founders, audience, extent and geographical distribution, physical and ritual structure, and relations with the state. Did shrines become a focus for elite self-definition? Do they represent localism? Linda Walton considers these questions by focusing on shrines at Southern Song academies. She finds that ritual activities at such shrines were important for developing a sense of community and identity among scholars. Looking at shrines to Wang Yangming, Kandice Hauf also explores themes of community and identity, and asks whether shrine building was part of an elite religion.
Katherine Carlitz forms a bridge in the analysis by studying three Song shrines revamped in the Ming. These remind us that shrines to worthies existed in a larger matrix in which boundaries between shrines to worthies and those to deities could become blurred. The Ming transformation of these shrines shows how literati could draw on "Confucian" and other traditions in order to consolidate a variety of social positions.
Shrines at Southern Song Academies
Linda Walton, Portland State University
This paper will focus on how shrines at academies fit into the social, cultural, and religious landscapes of Southern Song China. Just as Confucian temples housed images of Confucius and his disciples and were closely associated with schools, academies were frequently built around shrines that venerated a wide range of figures, including military leaders and eremites, as well as neo-Confucian scholars. Ritual activities at these shrines, along with lectures and study at the academies, played an important part in generating a sense of community identity and coherence for the scholarly elite. Academy shrines could thus be seen as an expression of elite identity, sometimes in opposition to prevailing political trends. Through the commemoration of individuals who had been victims of political persecution, some shrines challenged state authority by constructing an alternative historical memory distinct from official accounts.
Shrines at academies were the site of "pilgrimages" by scholars who attended lectures and in other ways, such as the performance of rites at the shrines, exhorted people to follow Confucian values and participated in the transformative cultural process known as jiaohua. The veneration of individuals at academy shrines mirrored shrine halls at Buddhist temples, much as the lecture platforms at Buddhist temples replicated the lecture halls at academies. Academy shrines might also be seen as responses to shrines erected to popular deities, venerating figures that symbolized common values shared by the scholarly elite, including eremites and upright officials, as well as military heroes and neo-Confucian worthies. As not all shrines were transformed into academies, and not all academies had shrines, a central purpose of this paper will be to consider the relationship between shrines and academies.
The Range of Ru Thinking in the Ming Transformation of Three Song Dynasty Shrines
Katherine Carlitz, University of Pittsburgh
I will discuss three Jiangnan shrines originally established in the Song and then substantially reorganized or reinterpreted during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. First is the Wu xian (Five Worthies) shrine in Wuxi xian, established to venerate Yang Wenjing (recognized locally as a foremost exponent of the Neo-Confucian Cheng brothers' teachings), and four other worthies. Second is the Changshu xian shrine to Zhou Rong or "Filial Son Zhou," originally established during the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. Third is the Haizhou xian shrine to Xiao fu or "Filial Daughter-in-Law," one of many Xiao fu shrines established in Song Dynasty Jiangnan.
The original Song Dynasty shrines all derived their titles from canonical virtues in the ru tradition, but they display very different degrees of engagement with that tradition. The Five Worthies shrine is an orthodox ru example, while Filial Son Zhou, from the beginning, was famous not so much for filial service as for posthumous appearances to warn the xian of impending dangers. Xiao fu, wrongly accused of murdering her mother-in-law, was a vengeful drought-inflicting spirit who had to be appeased!
The Ming transformation of all three shrines narrows their ideological range, but still shows that the ru tradition could accommodate a range of stances. The Five Worthies became if anything more orthodox, moving into the newly erected Confucian school complex in the early sixteenth century. Xiao fu was tamed by mid-sixteenth century, as a gate went up at her rebuilt shrine honoring her devotion and her mother-in-law's compassion. Filial Son Zhou, on the other hand, became a bodhisattva-like figure who fed multitudes in times of famine. He remained, however, much chronicled by mainstream literati.
The dates of the Ming transformation of these shrines, backed up by a survey of shrines in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Jiangnan, will help us periodize the "'Confucianization" of Ming society. Accounts of the construction of the shrines suggest patterns in the interaction between local notables and sojourning officials (magistrates, censors, prefects), who had their own non-local reasons for stimulating local pride in the areas where they served.
Shrines to Wang Yangming
Kandice Hauf, Babson College
This paper studies shrine building in the Ming by examining shrines built to the teacher, official, and general Wang Yangming (1472-1529). Topics it addresses regarding these shrines include purpose, founders, extent and geographical distribution, physical and ritual structure, and political and religious significance.
Wang Yangming became more than a local worthy honored for exemplifying Confucian virtues. He was seen as the founder of an intellectual lineage. Therefore, in addition to honoring their teacher, his followers built shrines with missionary zeal in order to promote Wang's teachings as orthodox, his place in their own geneology of the Way (daotong), their identity as a community, and education through ritual. Was this activity part of an elite religion? Were there instances in practice where boundaries between these shrines to a worthy and shrines to deities blurred? Did Wang's more populist followers open these shrines to commoners?
Many of these shrines were local in their focus because they were founded where Wang had served and taught, or in his native area. But, as Wang's fame spread, shrines were erected to him throughout China by his followers who included local officials and literati. They appear to have been built on local initiative, but sometimes on the initiative of local officials. The complex relation of shrines to the state will be addressed. Wang became part of the state religion when he was enshrined in the Confucian temple in 1584. In addition to their religious import, a study of these shrines increases our knowledge of intellectual and political factionalism, and literati identity in the Ming.