Confucianism and Sacred Space, by Chin-shing Huang (introduction)

Confucianism A N D S A C R E D S PA C E The Confucius Temple from Imperial China to Today

Chin-shing Huang translated by jonathan chin with chin-shing huang

Introduction The Confucius Temple as a Ritual System: Manifestations of Power, Belief, and Legitimacy in Traditional China

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efore proceeding with our analysis, it is necessary to give a general account of Confucius temples, including the particular characteristics that defined them and the formative historical processes that produced them. Specifically, a Confucius temple was defined by three things: the involvement of the sage’s descendants in the conduct of its rites, being invested with political legitimacy, and being invested with cultural legitimacy in the form of Confucian enshrinement.

The spirit of the May Fourth Movement in 1919 is most clearly captured by the slogan “Down with the Confucian shop.” That year, Chen Duxiu 昛䌐䥨 (1879–1942) called for the abolition of all Confucius temples and their ritual practices.1 During the proletarian Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, his wish achieved its greatest fulfillment, as Red Guards desecrated and ransacked Confucius temples. Although the Confucius temple at Qufu 㚚旄 was restored in the 1980s and is sometimes used to stage Confucian rites before international audiences, the anti- Confucian spirit of the May Fourth Movement still largely prevails, almost a century after the original movement began, and it continues to cloud contemporary understanding of Confucian rituals and spirituality.

My research culminated in one Chinese-language book situating the Confucius temple in Chinese history and another Chinese book comparing the enshrinement of Confucian sages and Catholic saints. The

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Figure 0.1 Tomb of Confucius.

Photo by Chin- shing Huang

present English-language volume includes some chapters from those two books, along with other related articles; this introduction seeks only to provide a context for or overview of the significance in traditional China of worship in the Confucius temple. Whereas my Chinese publications give very detailed historical analysis and presentation of the institutional and ritual changes in the temple’s function at numerous points in history, this introduction will focus on structural issues instead.

The phrase “you ru shengyu” ⃒ℍ俾➇, which I render as “entering the master’s sanctuary,” has two meanings: to appreciate the spirituality of Confucius’s teaching and/or to physically to enter the sacred ground of the Confucius temple (Kongzi miao ⫼⫸⺇).2 Even though the temple was, by definition, dedicated to the worship of Confucius (Kongzi ⫼⫸, 551–479 BCE), the sacrifices performed there were, over the centuries, extended to his most prominent followers as well. While they were worshipped within the Confucius temple, some distinguished Confucians also had their own temples. Among these, temples to Yanzi 柷⫸ (c. 521–481 BCE), Mencius

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Figure 0.2 Confucian temple at Qufu, the ancestral temple in Confucius’s hometown and the “original” temple. Rebuilt in 1724.

Cultural Relics Publishing House, Beijing, 2010

⬇⫸ (c. 372– c. 289 BCE), and Zhu Xi 㛙䅡 (1130–1200 CE) stand out as

the most important, but these should be viewed as the derivative subsystem of the Confucius temple. Although the Confucius temple as an institution and ritual system spread beyond China proper to other East Asian countries, such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, I confine my exploration here to the Confucius temple in traditional China, and particularly to its ritual performances.

Institutionally speaking, there are at least three elements vital to the practice of the Confucius temple as a ritual system: Confucius’s descendants, the spread of Confucius temple worship beyond the place of its origin, and finally Confucian enshrinement (congsizhi ⽆䣨⇞ ). Each of these has made its own historical impact on the formation of the Confucius temple as the locus of a state cult, and I will discuss them in turn.

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Figure 0.3 Ritually equal in importance with the one in Qufu, the Confucian temple at Beijing was politically at the center of academic instruction for the whole empire.

Photo by Chin- shing Huang

Sage’s Descendants The term “sage’s descendants” (shengyi 俾塼 ) refers to the official branch of the Kong family that takes charge of making sacrifice to their ancestor, Confucius. The “official” branch is the so- called legitimate heir to Confucius in terms of both direct bloodline and approval from political rulers.

The Confucius temple in its initial form was a private ancestral shrine.

When Confucius passed away in 479 BCE, he was buried by his disciples, because his only son, Kong Li ⫼歱 (532–483 BCE), had predeceased him, and his grandson, Kong Ji ⫼ẳ (483–402 BCE), was simply too young. According to the rite to which a deceased nobleman of low rank (shi ⢓) was entitled, a shrine was set up to worship Confucius.3 He had enjoyed a positive reputation as a great scholar and educator in his lifetime; therefore, both tomb and shrine soon attracted large numbers of admirers, either to pay respect or to perform rituals there. To revere the memory of Confucius, some of his students and compatriots (people of the state of Lu) even moved and settled in the area around his tomb. [ 4 ] I N T RO D U C T I O N

Figure 0.4 Dismounting stele in front of the Confucius temple. Chinese inscription reads, “Officials and citizens, dismount from your horses here.”

Photo by Chin- shing Huang

These households, it was reported, numbered more than one hundred, and thus the place was named Kong village (Kongli ⫼慴).4 Because it was immovable and could not be duplicated, the tomb had limitations as a ritual center. In view of subsequent developments, Confucius’s shrine, rather than his tomb, has played the much more important role as the paradigm for worshipping Confucius. His personal belongings—including clothes, lute, chariot, and books—were stored in his shrine, and these cultural treasures undoubtedly enhanced the shrine’s fame as a cultural resource. It became a sacred place and attracted pilgrims, a fact that was afterward witnessed and recorded by the grand historian, Sima Qian ⎠楔怟 (c. 145–86 BCE), in the middle of the Western Han.5 In short, after the death of Confucius, his image became increasingly prominent through the dissemination of his doctrine by his disciples.

Together with those of Mozi ⡐⫸ (c. 480–389 BCE), his teachings stood out as the most “prominent learning” (xianxue 栗⬠) in China of the late classical period, and each continued to attract considerable numbers of followers long after their masters had passed away.6 The influence of the Confucian school was further attested to by Fu Su’s ㈞喯 (242–210 BCE) worries. The crown prince, Fu Su, advised Qin emperor Shihuang 䦎⥳䘯 (r. 221–210 BCE) not to provoke unrest in the state by persecuting students who admired and followed Confucius.7 Fu Su’s concern suggests the popularity of the Confucian school in the late third century BCE. Even though Liu Bang ∱恎 (256–195 BCE), the founding Han emperor Gaozu 㻊檀䣾 (r. 202–195 BCE), was notorious for his contempt for Confucian scholars and publicly humiliated them, he did not refrain, when passing through the state of Lu, from paying his respects at the temple and offering full sacrifice (tailao ⣒䈊) of an ox, a sheep, and a pig to Confucius. Soon thereafter, a convention became established in the early Han that local officials in that area paid respect to Confucius’s shrine before undertaking their other duties.8 Moreover, from the early Han onward, the nature of Confucius’s shrine gradually underwent a great transformation. It was the Han emperor Liu Bang who first bestowed an official title ( fengsi jun ⣱▋⏃) on a descendant of Confucius. However, the title was limited to Kong Teng ⫼様 (fl. 195 BCE), from the ninth generation of Confucius’s descendants, and was thenceforth discontinued.9 In the year 8 BCE, the court adopted Mei Fu’s 㠭䤷 petition that created a ritual category for worshipping Shang dynasty [ 6 ] I N T RO D U C T I O N

ancestors and designated Confucius as a descendant of the Shang clan to receive sacrifices. Thus, Han emperor Chengdi 㻊ㆸⷅ (r. 32– 7 BCE) conferred the noble title Marquis of Yinshaojia 㭟䳡▱ὗ on Kong Ji ⫼⎱, a descendant of the major lineage (dazong ⣏⬿) of Confucius, and put him in charge of the sacrificial offerings.10 Mei Fu’s justification for state sacrifices for Confucius deserves attention, for he complained: Until now [worship in] the Confucius temple has not gone beyond Queli 敽慴 [its original clan location]. His descendants are treated as commoners. It is not the will of heaven for a sage to receive sacrifice merely as a commoner does. If Your Majesty ennobles Confucius’s descendants on account of his great cultural achievements, the state will receive blessing and the honor of Your Majesty will endure as long as heaven!11 Moreover, by virtue of the fact that Mei Fu confessed that, in reality, Confucius was not a legitimate heir to the Shang house, it seems that Mei Fu and other scholars were concerned with enhancing the worship of Confucius rather than with preserving the Shang lineage. Their proposal should be regarded as only the first move to implement the glorification of Confucius.

In the year 1 CE, the Han imperial court adopted two additional measures. Confucius for the first time received an official posthumous title, Duke Baocheng Xuanni 墺ㆸ⭋⯤℔.12 A descendant of Confucius in the sixteenth generation of minor lineage (xiaozong ⮷⬿) also received a title, Marquis Baocheng 墺ㆸὗ, and thus was given sole and full responsibility for offering sacrifice to Confucius. This title and assigned task became fixed and inherited.13 Both of these measures were decreed by the Han emperor Ping 㻊⸛ⷅ (r. 1 BCE– 6 CE) but were actually initiated by the usurper, Wang Mang 䌳卥 (r. 9–23). Because the state had already extended sacrificial privileges to Confucius as a prominent descendant of the Shang house, the newly added status for his descendant— even if selected from one of his minor lineages— conveyed much more meaning than ancestral worship alone.

Implicitly, the descendants of Confucius henceforth performed sacrificial duty not only for their clan but also for the government. The Confucius temple had thus undergone a major transformation, from a mere private family temple ( jiamiao ⭞⺇) to an official ceremonial institution.

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During the reign of the Eastern Han emperor Huan 㜙㻊㟻ⷅ (r. 146– 167), the Confucius temple became so impersonal that the local official of the state of Lu discovered, in the year 153, that the Kong families did not take care of temple affairs on a daily basis but rather came only on prescribed sacrificial occasions of the four seasons. Hence, he requested that the court follow the precedent set at Biyong 彇晵 (the Royal Academy), where sacrifices to Confucius were completely sponsored by the government and certain Kong families were officially assigned the duty of making them.14 This reveals that previously the government had taken the worship of Confucius at the Royal Academy more seriously than the worship at the Confucius temple in Queli; moreover, such state action further politicized the rite of worshipping Confucius.

Even though the dynastic state transformed the Confucius temple into an official institution, it preserved a certain character of ancestral shrine.

This was particularly true for the Confucius temple in Queli. As evident in extant maps, even into the Song, Ming, and Qing periods, the Confucius temple there still contained a tiny shrine for the Kong family within its boundary (see figure 0.5).15 The situation at the original Confucius temple location was in sharp contrast to Confucius temples in other localities, where the Kong family shrine was not continued. Although the support and preservation of Confucius’s lineage were obviously required to legitimize the political rulers’ claims regarding the worship of Confucius, the example of the presence or absence of a Kong family shrine on the grounds of the temple suggests some of the complexity of the relations between the rulers and the sage’s descendants. The underlying or potential tension found concrete expression in Ming Taizu’s 㖶⣒䣾 (r. 1368–1398) personal letter to Kong Kejian ⫼⃳➭ (1316–1370). When the Kong descendant excused himself from an audience with the emperor, Ming Taizu responded angrily: I am told that you have been sick for a long time, but I wonder if this is true. Your Kong family is a distinguished house known for your ancestor’s teachings, which generation after generation of rulers have followed. Your family has served different dynasties over time and should surely make no exception to this rule when it comes to my regime. I have received the mandate of heaven to lead the Chinese people and drive away the barbarians in order to bring peace to China. [ 8 ] I N T RO D U C T I O N

Figure 0.5 The Confucius temple of Que-li in the Song period.

From Kong Yuan-cuo ⫼⃫㍒, Kongshi zuting guangji ⫼㮷䣾⹕⺋姀, in Congshu jicheng chubian ⎊㚠普ㆸ⇅䶐, vol. 3316–3317 (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1939), 8.

This despite the fact that I arose from among the common people, but so did the Han dynasty founder, Gaozong [sic; Gaozu] in antiquity. Hence, it is not permissible for you to neglect my state on the pretext of illness!16 Ming Taizu was aware that it was essential for Confucius’s descendants to recognize his newly established regime if it was to achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the people. He later even set a rule for all of his successors: when they ascended the throne, they should dispatch officials to make a sacrifice and report to Confucius in the temple of Queli.17 Regarding all the honors the Ming founder bestowed upon the Kong family, Ming emperor Wuzong 㖶㬎⬿ (r. 1505–1521) simply remarked, “It is the high glory of my state, but not your clan’s honor alone!”18 This concise statement explains the stance of Ming and other rulers toward the Kong family over the centuries. In fact, because of the wars at the end of the I N T RO D U C T I O N

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Han dynasty, the fief of the Kong family was eradicated and the direct line of Confucius’s descendants was terminated.19 Later rulers resorted to many means in their search for a suitable Kong family to serve as the sage’s official descendant. Whenever the lineage was interrupted, rulers did not hesitate to construct an artificial one out of expediency. Furthermore, as often happened during the period of division called the Northern and Southern dynasties, rulers of rival states set up contending lineages to support their competing claims for cultural legitimacy. When China was reunited, the newly established dynasty sometimes designated a minor lineage of the Kong clan as the legitimate line of the sage’s descendants— all at the expense of what had been the major lineage.20 This was seen in the case of the Yuan dynasty. Thus, politically designated succession within the Kong clan obviously overrode the standard Chinese rule of blood ties and further politicized the Kong family as the sage’s descendants.

In other words, although the Kong family was itself a cultural symbol, it was manipulated by rulers as a political tool in power struggles over the centuries. As a result, a number of inconsistencies between official history (zhengshi 㬋⎚) and family pedigree records ( jiapu ⭞嬄) were inevitably created in descriptions of Confucian genealogy.21 In spite of these inconsistencies, the Kong family was still given the privilege of claiming “one lineage through ten thousand generations” (wanshi yixi 叔ᶾᶨ䲣).

The Proliferation of the Confucius Temples Through Political Struggles for Legitimacy The worship of Confucius spread only gradually through the period from after the Han to the mid-Tang. As early as the year 59, the Eastern Han emperor Ming 㜙㻊㖶ⷅ (r. 57– 75) and the state required everyone attending schools in China to worship two sagely teachers: the Duke of Zhou ␐℔ (c. 1100–1032 BCE), and Confucius.22 The Duke of Zhou fell into oblivion shortly after the fall of the Han Empire and lost his status as a patron of scholars. In contrast, the cult of Confucius retained its importance as long as interest endured in the classics he edited. Rulers, after having received the teaching of classics, were also accustomed to making a ritual offering to Confucius. For example, King Qi of Wei 櫷滲䌳 (r. 239–253) finished reading the Analects 婾婆 in 241, the Book of Documents ⯂㚠 in 244, and the [ 10 ]

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“This is a valuable translation of Chin-shing Huang’s decades-long and learned study of Confucianism as a comprehensive historical tradition. Among his many insights, a most significant one is that, notwithstanding later denials, Confucianism cannot be understood unless seen in its religious dimension—albeit an elite and statist one.”

PRASENJIT DUARA, author of The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future “Cutting through centuries of misguided theological and political debate, one of the world’s most eminent historians of China charts the changing cultural, political, and institutional forces at work in Confucianism as a vibrant ritual system.”

STEPHEN F. TEISER, coeditor of Readings of the Platform Sutra ¯ “Huang is one of the most distinguished and discerning scholars in Confucian studies today.

His extensive account of Confucian temples as a ritual system in imperial and modern China is a magnificent contribution to the field. Its vast temporal range and its keen analysis of specific historical episodes illuminate the crucial elements that make Confucian temples essential to Chinese religious, cultural, and political life.”

ANNA SUN, author of Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities “Confucianism and Sacred Space brings to light the legacy of Chin-shing Huang, a leading scholar of Confucianism and Confucian temples, whose work has not received the attention it deserves in Western scholarship.”

JAMES FLATH, author of Traces of the Sage: Monument, Materiality, and the First Temple of Confucius “Huang knows the history and culture of Confucius temples best and makes a case for regarding Confucianism as a religion, instead of just a philosophy. Underscoring that Confucianism was a state religion for ruling male elites, he counters a rising trend to portray it as a popular religion among the masses.”

HOYT CLEVELAND TILLMAN, coauthor of Cultural Authority and Political Culture in China: Exploring Issues with the Zhongyong and the Daotong During the Song, Jin, and Yuan Dynasties CHIN-SHING HUANG is distinguished research fellow and vice president of Academia Sinica in Taiwan. His books in English include Philosophy, Philology, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century China: Li Fu and the Lu-Wang School Under the Ch’ing (1995) and Business as a Vocation:The Autobiography of Wu Ho-su (2002).

P R I N T E D I N T H E U. S . A .

Cover image: Confucian temple at Qufu, the ancestral temple in Confucius’s hometown and the “original” temple. Rebuilt in 1724. Courtesy of Cultural Relics Publishing House, Beijing, 2010 Cover design: Chang Jae Lee

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