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Confucianism and the New China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Edward T. Williams
Edward T. Williams
Affiliation:
Washington, D.C.
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Extract

Confucianism, with its elaborate ritual, its bloody sacrifices, its antiquated symbolism, and its fine ethical teaching, has again been made the State religion of China. Several recent mandates by the President, Yüan Shih-k'ai, have restored to it in the school, in the civil service, and in the army, the authority which previous to the revolution it had held almost uninterruptedly for two thousand years.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , July 1916 , pp. 258 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1916

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References

1 Chüfu is a small town in the heart of Shantung Province, and is to be distinguished from the treaty port, Chefoo, in the same province.

2 In Japan known as the Shin Jodo or New Jodo, an offshoot of the Jodo, in Chinese pronounced Ching T'u, the Pure Land Sect established in China in the second century of our era and introduced into Japan in the thirteenth century. The New Jodo dates from 1262 A.D. The Pure Land Sect is the most popular of Buddhist sects in China. The reformed branch in Japan, that is to say, the New Jodo, permits the marriage of the clergy and the eating of meat, and otherwise adapts itself to modern conditions. Travellers in Japan often attend its services at the Nishi Hongwanji in Kyoto.

3 Kuan Yu was a distinguished military leader in the period known as that of the Three Kingdoms, near the close of the second century of our era. He was canonized in the twelfth century, and near the close of the Ming Dynasty in the sixteenth century was raised to the rank of the gods as Kuan Ti, the title by which he is commonly known to-day.

4 Yo Fei was a general during the closing years of the Sung Dynasty, and distinguished himself in service against the Kin Tartars. He was finally put to death by his Emperor at the instigation of a Minister of State who desired to make peace with the Tartars. Yo Fei has ever since been regarded as a martyr by the Chinese. He was canonized in the thirteenth century.

5 The recent revision of the ritual by the Republic appears to have ignored this numerical symbolism, since the three kneelings and nine kotows have been replaced by four bows.

6 The Ching T'u Sect referred to above.