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The Mental Illness of Hung Hsiu-Ch'üan, Leader of the Taiping Rebellion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

P. M. Yap
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Extract

The evolution of China into a modern nation-state has seen few episodes more meaningful than the Taiping Rebellion occurring in the latter half of the last century. In the leader of this rebellion, Hung Hsiu-ch'üan, there is much that is of special interest to the sociologist and the psychiatrist. In the origin of this vast movement can be seen the great importance of individualpsychological factors which elevate a leader and help to precipitate a revolutionary social transformation—for Hung is known to have suffered an acute mental disturbance which undoubtedly moulded his destiny.

The rebellion has been interpreted variously as a peasant uprising against official corruption, a protest against intolerable economic distress, or simply a nationalistic revolt against the Manchu dynasty. Be that as it may, there is general agreement that it was a movement unique in Chinese history because it instituted a radical change in the political system which existed for more than two thousand years, and brought about economic, social, cultural, and religious reforms over the greater part of Central and South China between 1851 and 1864.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , May 1954 , pp. 287 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1954

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References

1 Shih, Vincent Yu-chung, “Interpretations of the Taiping T'ien-kuo by non-Communist Chinese writers,” FEQ, 10.3 (May 1951), 248–57Google Scholar.

2 This is emphasized in Hsün-tzu, Ch'en, “T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo chih tsungchiao cheng-chih,” (The religion and government of the T'aip'ing t'ien-kuo), Shib-hsüeh tsa-chib (Magazine of history), 1:6 (1929), 4Google Scholar. Also see Boardman, Eugene P., “Christian influence upon the ideology of the Taiping Rebellion,” Far Eastern Quarterly, 10:2 (Feb. 1951), 115–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar and, for fuller reference, Eugene Powers Boardman, Christian Influence upon the ideology of the Taiping Rebellion, 1851–1864 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1952)Google Scholar.

3 Fitzgerald, Charles Patrick, China a short cultural history (London: Cresset Press, 1950), 581Google Scholar.

4 Teng, Ssu-yü, New light on the history of the Taiping Rebellion (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1950), 53Google Scholar.

5 Hamberg, Theodore, The visions of Hung-Siu-Tsbuen and origin of the Kwang-si insurrection (Hongkong, 1854)Google Scholar. Reprinted Peiping: Yenching University Library, 1935 with Chinese translation by Chien Yu-wen under the title T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo ch'i-i chi.

6 Vide the English translation by W. T. Lay, Shanghai, 1865.

7 These and the following excerpts of Hung's speech and writing during his illness are reported in Hamberg: The Visions of Hung Siu-Tsuen and the Origin of the Kwangsi Insurrection (Peking, 1935) 10–12Google Scholar.

8 I. J. Roberts, untitled article in The Chinese and Missionary Gleaner, Oct. 1852.

9 Hamberg, 21

10 Ibid.

11 Vide Hamberg, 22f.

12 Vide Lay, op. cit., Chap. 7.

13 Mr. Chien Yu-wen's interpretation is possibly mistaken in this respect, but his treatment of the illness as a delirium shows great psychological insight. Yuwen, Chien, T'ai-p'ing chün kuang-hsi shou-i shih. (History of the uprising of the Taiping army in Kwangsi) (Chungking: Commercial Press, 1944), 7–9Google Scholar.

14 Bleuler, Eugen, Dementia Praecox, English transl. by Zinkin, Joseph (New York: International Universities Press, 1950), 218Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., 257.

16 Ibid., 68.

17 Ibid., 137f, 229, 246.

18 Vide Schou, H. I., Religion and morbid mental states, Engl. transl. (London, 1926)Google Scholar, passim.

19 Wallis, Wilson Dallam, Messiahs: their role in civilization (Washington: American Council on Public Affairs 1943)Google Scholar.

20 Such identification occurs even within the Christian tradition; cf. the case of James Naylor, a fervent supporter of Fox, who later thought he was the Messiah.

21 James, William, The varieties of religious experience (London, 1902) Modern Library ed. 1925 242, 371fGoogle Scholar.

22 Osterreich, Trangott Konstantin, Possession demoniacal and other among primitive races, Engl. transl. (London, 1922), 84Google Scholar.

23 Mitchell, Thomas Walker, Medical psychology and psychical research (London, 1930), 161Google Scholar.

24 Delacroix, Henri Joachim, Etudes d'histoire et de psychologie du mystidsme (Paris: F. Alcan, 1908)Google Scholar, passim.

25 Pfister, Oskar Robert, The psycho-analytic method, Engl. transl. (London: Kegan Paul, 1917), 462CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 This view has been expressed in Brend, W. A., Sacrifice to Attis, quoted by G. Godwin, The great mystics (London, 1945), 23Google Scholar.

27 E.g., Ssu-yu Teng, op. cit., 53–4; also Teng in his article on Hung in Hummel, Arthur W., ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing period (Washington: U. S. Govt. Printing Office, 1943–4)Google Scholar.

28 I have discussed inter-cultural norms in mental disease, but without reference to social change, in Yap, P. M., “Mental diseases peculiar to certain cultures, a survey of comparative psychiatry,” journal of Mental Science (1951), 97, 313–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.