Author Archives: tp86kuta

Thursday
2:00 pm – 3:45 pm
Room F

• Organised by Richard Ellguth
• Richard Ellguth, Chair
• Eugenia Werzner, “Between Politics and Science: Paving the Way for ‘Religious Studies’ (zongjiaoxue) in Late Qing and Early Republican China”
• Lisa Lindkvist Zhang, “’Elevated Religion’: Narrations of Indian Philosophy in Republican China”
• Marius Oesterheld, “From Dieting to Savings Accounts–Asceticism in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Advice Literature”

During the late Qing dynasty, China experienced a gradual disintegration of the traditional taxonomy of the ‘‘three teachings‘‘ (sanjiao 三教) and a readjustment of previous categories such as heresy (xiejiao 邪教) and orthodoxy (zhengjiao 正教) became necessary. This period, marked by a growing influence of Christian missionary groups, new educational institutions and advancements in print technology gave rise to entirely differentiated discourses on ‘’religion(s)’’ (zongjiao 宗教). In the early 20th century, the actual multiplicity of voices in the Chinese spiritual landscape was starting to be reflected in the domestic print culture. Given the stipulation of freedom of religious belief and the official recognition of five religions (Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism and Daoism) in 1912, it became clear to many intellectuals and large parts of the public that foreign religious groups could no longer be ignored or simply classified as ‘‘heterodox‘‘. At the same time, popular sects and local cults increasingly came under attack from state-led anti-superstition campaigns.
In Republican China, this new environment played itself out in a spectrum of diverse discourses and the one that can be labelled as ‘‘religious literacy‘‘ turned out to be of vital significance. Writings concerned with promoting religious literacy cover on the one hand texts that introduced new knowledge on religion(s), religious groups and spiritual traditions, thus pursuing purely scholarly or educational ends. On the other hand, we find highly creative continuations of the tradition of writings concerned with the moral cultivation of individuals. These texts, which drew inspiration from a wide range of sources, including Japanese ethics textbooks, academic works on psychology and education, English-language self-help books and Christian devotional literature, developed various strategies of reconciling universalist categories like civilisation and progress with China’s philosophical and religious heritage.
The papers in this panel investigate particular genres of texts that engaged with these concerns while emphasising the development of concepts, neologisms, and discursive strategies.

Eugenia Werzner, “Between Politics and Science: Paving the Way for ‘Religious Studies’ (zongjiaoxue) in Late Qing and Early Republican China”

This paper will address writings from the late Qing and early Republican period (ca. 1900–1930) that dealt with “religious studies.” These writings show that the ideas on the object, methodology, and motivation of this new academic discipline underwent an evolution in the first three decades of the 20th century. At first sight, this evolution could be described as a change from a politically motivated talk on “religion” to the persuasion of purely scholarly ends. Indeed, while Liu Shipei 劉師培 and his contemporaries emphasised the superiority of the “original” religion of the Han (ancestor worship) over the “polytheism” of the “barbarians” and the foreign religions like Christianity and Islam, the scholars of the later decades seemed to approach “religion” in a purely scientific, disinterested way. Apart from introducing new knowledge and data on religion(s), they reframed the traditional ancestor worship, regarding it either as one of the numerous “primitive religions” or as a manifestation of “animism” or “fetishism.” A closer look at the Republican research shows that it was not as objective as it might appear since it also tried to meet the political demands of the day. Tracing the emergence and usage of some key concepts (“religion(s)”, “religious scholar”, “primitive religion”) in the period of 1900–1930, this presentation tries to discern different positions communicated in public and scientific texts. At the same time, it tries to reconstruct the deeper concerns of what at first sight seems to be the promotion of religious literacy and the introduction of “religious studies”.

Lisa Lindkvist Zhang, “’Elevated Religion’: Narrations of Indian Philosophy in Republican China”

The limited scholarship that exists about Indian philosophy in Republican China has tended to focus on Buddhist philosophy, with most of the attention centred on the supposed ‘‘scientificity’’ of Yogacara philosophy. In this paper, I argue that while ‘’science’’ was an important constituent in descriptions of ‘’Indian philosophy’’, most Republican accounts of this late 19th century East Asian neologism, regarded it not as scientific but as the religious philosophy par excellence. Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 claimed that the foundation for Indian philosophy was “elevated religion” (gao zongjiao 高宗教)—religion which was philosophical and transmundane or chushi 出世, and Zhang Zhengfan 張正藩 maintained that “what is called Indian philosophy is completely derived from religion”. If the emergence of Yogacara philosophy as a scientific philosophy was in large part a home-grown East-Asian idea, operating as a discursive strategy to counter Western colonialism, then the depiction of Indian philosophy as ‘’religious’’ can be ascribed to the accelerated worldwide circulation of shared knowledge at the turn of the last century. The main concerns of scholars who researched Indian philosophy in Europe and India at the time were related to its “religiosity”’ and/or “spirituality,” due to its perceived indebtedness to Hinduism/Brahmanism, or the Astika/Orthodox schools. As these considerations were carried over the seas and transplanted in East Asia contexts, they equally became questions for scholars of Indian philosophy there, leading to novel articulations of this “superior religious” philosophy.

Marius Oesterheld, “From Dieting to Savings Accounts—Asceticism in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Advice Literature”

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Max Weber argued in his reflections on the Protestant ethic that the spirit of capitalism—in his eyes a Western invention—was rooted in inner-worldly asceticism. Of course, the causal relationship between religious value systems and economic development he postulated has since been discredited as overly simplistic. Nevertheless, Weber’s depiction of a Protestant entrepreneurial spirit based on self-denial as the motor of progress follows a master narrative of the time that informed discourses on moral education in Europe and the US and even exerted considerable influence in China. There, it encountered a system of moral thought built on Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian elements which were held together, among other things, by shared apprehensions about wantonness and excess. The results of this encounter are reflected for instance in debates on dietary and spending habits. During the early Republican era, Daoist and Buddhist views on nutrition were reframed as scientifically proven methods of improving hygiene and public health. Time-honoured exhortations not to drink, gamble, and womanise were combined with information on personal savings accounts to transform frugality into a civic virtue.
Drawing mainly on works by Liu Renhang 劉仁航 and Zhu Lin 朱麟, this paper will examine how, by adopting the vocabulary of self-restraint that permeated earlier prescriptive literature, blending it with corresponding aspects of Euro-American self-help literature, and linking it to overarching narratives of nation-building, imperialism, and civilisational progress, Chinese advice literature of the early twentieth century created a new syncretic ethos of self-mastery.

Contemporary
4:00 pm – 5:45 pm
Room F

• Chaired by Yee Yak Elliot Lee
• Lu Chen, “The Moving Temple一A Study on the Religious Associations of Fishermen in the Eastern Part of Tai Lake”
• Yeh-Ying Shen, “The Role of Women in Yiguan Dao 一貫道”
• Yuanjie Zhang, “Mass Communication of Religious Culture in E-Commerce: Taking Religious Products in ‘Taobao’ and ‘Weidian’ as Examples”
• Grete Schönebeck, “Contemporary Graves as a Space of Change and Continuity”

Lu Chen, “The Moving Temple一A Study on the Religious Associations of Fishermen in the Eastern Part of Tai Lake”

Fishermen from the east Tai Lake constituted a marginalized group that was at the bottom of local social stratification. From the oral history of fishermen, a large number of religious associations were founded around the 1930s. These associations played an important role not only for fishermen’s religious life but also in regard to their-self-governance as a marginalized community. After the Chinese Cultural Revolution, fishermen’s religious associations revived. Though the state control on Chinese popular religion and local society is increasing in recent years, fishermen’s religious associations have well-organized structure and still play a certain role on self-governance, and every year they organize several big temple festivals which have been legitimized by the state in the name of “Intangible culture heritage”.
This project will exam fishermen’s religious associations as a folk social institution in
contemporary Chinese society. I will look at how fishermen’s religious associations recreate a sense of fishermen’s religious community and identity which displays a certain amount of autonomy from the state authority in this huge transforming Chinese society, and fishermen’s personal understanding of their religious life in this changing society.
Through ethnographic research, this project provides a thick description of fishermen’s religious associations and their interaction of different actors in the local context; it also provides a lens to through which to understand how religious transformation connects with other spheres of social transformation, such as an economic change in modernizing China.

Yeh-Ying Shen, “The Role of Women in Yiguan Dao 一貫道”

The role of women in Yiguan Dao is related to their significant teachings: The Rise of the Female Era (kundao yingyun 坤道應運). This notion emerged as China’s modernization began. Kundao 坤道, which originates from I-Ching, refers to the female gender; and yingyun 應運 indicates that women could have more opportunities to present themselves alongside having influences on all the domains of our societies.
Sun Huiming 孫慧明, who is one of Yiguan Dao’s 18th patriarchs, represents the symbol of kundao yingyun as she was the single female patriarch for the entirety of their duration. Sun’s characteristics, which appeared to be forbearing, self-sacrificing, yet with good leadership, also provide a model for women who convert to Yiguan Dao.
In contemporary Yiguan Dao, women do enrich the communities via their participation. They play a supportive role, as well as undertake the responsibility of being clergy. Some of them are also freed from the traditional patriarchalism in Chinese society through the religious missions they opt for. Modern feminism should not be the major reason for women’s progressive role in Yiguan Dao. However, it is the notion of kundao yingyun that promotes the trend. Thus, Sun Huiming’s image appears to be important and implies that women have gained the right to speech through cultivation.

Yuanjie Zhang, “Mass Communication of Religious Culture in E-Commerce: Taking Religious Products in ‘Taobao’ and ‘Weidian’ as Examples”

This paper will analyze the new features of the spread of religious culture in the new media by analyzing the phenomenon of religious products selling well in online shopping platforms represented by Weidian 微店 and Taobao 淘宝 in recent years. Some scholars have studied the monk’s using of the Internet and social media. However, this article observes that the innovation of religious communication is constantly improving on the Internet, and has expanded to the fields of e-commerce and cultural creativity industry. With the development of the self-media, many religious groups or monks have begun to attach importance to cultural communication and image building on the Internet. They attracted a large number of young, highly educated, non-local believers, and gradually formed new religious communication communities. Facing new media and audiences, the innovation of religious products makes it easier for religious culture to adapt to the development of the times and meet the actual needs of believers. Moreover, from the innovative expression methods and tools一expanding the influence of the network-spreading religious culture-selling creative religious products-building a new image, a more complete religious-cultural communication chain is being formed on the Internet

Grete Schönebeck, “Contemporary Graves as a Space of Change and Continuity”

Since the early 20th century, Chinese politicians repeatedly engaged in the question of how to deal with the dead. Different regulations and reform plans promoted the change of what is being named traditional funeral culture (chuantong binzang wenhua 传统殡葬文化) into a modern, sanitary, space, and resource-saving practice of dealing with the deceased. Regularly, Chinese media reported, how people did not oblige to those standards. This paper presents findings based on field research on some 30 graveyards all over mainland China in 2014/15 that show how graves reveal on the one hand the state’s commitment to overthrowing old wasteful practices and on the other hand, people’s search for the adequate burial of their ancestors. It is further argued that the interaction between administrative restrictions and the bereaved create new burial practices that undergo continuous modifications but at the same time this process of negotiating guarantees that the needs of the bereaved as individuals and in the more extensive context of their families are being met.

Thursday
2:00 pm – 5:45 pm
Room 4

• Organised and chaired by Christian Meyer
• Joachim Gentz, “How ling is ling? Ling 靈 as an Exanimate Classifier Relating to a Conceptual Religious Realm”
• Friederike Assandri, “Ling in Early Medieval Daoism”
• Vincent Goossaert, “Ling as Divine Presence in Daoist Narrative and Ritual”
• Esther-Maria Guggenmos, “The Plot-Engine—Ling 靈 as a Narrative Means in Early Buddhist Biograhies”
• Stefania Travagnin, “Meanings of ling in Modern Buddhist Discourses”
• Matthias Schumann, “The Powers of the Psyche: Hypnotism, Psychical Research, and the Secularisation of ling 靈 in Republican China”
• Nikolas Broy, “‘This Numinous Light’: The Notion of lingguang in Late Imperial and Contemporary Chinese Popular Sects”
• Adam Yuet Chau, “Storied Spirits: Constructing Efficacy (lingying 靈應) and the Strange (lingyi 靈異) Through Telling Tales”

This double-panel presents and discusses results from a specialized workshop on the Chinese term ling 靈 that took place in 2019. The character is widely known in academia as a key term for understanding Chinese local or popular religion where it is often translated as ‚efficacy‘ denoting the miraculous power of a temple or deity. The character, however, has older roots in antiquity. Later meanings were added through its uses by Buddhism and Daoism creating a broader notion of ‘numinous’ or ‘superhuman’. Until today such usages are effective when it comes to traditional Chinese medicine, divination, medium practices, Qigong, or, Japanese reiki 霊気. The story took a new turn when monotheistic traditions (Islam, Christianity) entered the Chinese linguistic field and the term was also adopted by missionaries as translation of the “holy spirit” as shengling 聖靈 in the protestant Bible. From this base, the term broadened again in the early 20th century when it became used for ‚spiritual practice‘ (lingxiu 靈修) or ‚spirituality‘ (lingxing 靈性) in general.
The project related to this double-panel aims to reconstruct the complex processes by which the premodern term ling has developed into a widespread and still puzzling term. The selected papers concentrate on various premodern traditions (panel 1), but also look at the continuities and transformations in the modern period (panel 2). Based on short presentations the panel will offer space to discuss relevant questions of translation as well as methodological problems with a wider audience.

Joachim Gentz, “How ling is ling? Ling 靈 as an Exanimate Classifier Relating to a Conceptual Religious Realm”

In early Chinese texts, the term ling has manifold meanings. The HYDCD lists 20 meanings of the term. Yet, if the meanings of the term are reconstructed in their respective contexts then a particular function rather than a meaning of the term seem to dominate the usage of the graph in early Chinese texts. Ling in most cases takes on a classificatory function as a label that qualifies something as belonging to a spiritual realm that is not defined in more specific detail. While thus acknowledging some general kind of spiritual quality it avoids to commit itself to any specifity. In early Chinese texts ling, therefore, appears mainly as an alienated term, a term in quotation marks, a categoriser, an indicator of an exanimate conceptual space that assigns a quasi-religious quality to something without determining the exact mode of its usage. The usage of ling can be metaphorical, allegorical, ritual, aesthetic or, indeed, religious in some indistinct way. It can, in a loose associative sense, refer to aspects of spiritual qualities such as goodness, power, superiority or auspiciousness. It can also de-secularise something in a very general sense and for various reasons. The paper will provide an analysis of textual examples from early Chinese texts to further support the hypothesis that ling is best understood as a graph with a classificatory function rather than a term with a range of lexical meanings.

Friederike Assandri, “Ling in Early Medieval Daoism”

The paper will present an inquiry into the use of the term ling in early medieval Daoism. One major focus of the analysis is the question of cosmological realms where ling is imagined or comes from.
The most prominent usage of the term ling occurs as part of the compound lingbao, which marks “a new Daoist lineage, with a new ritual program and cosmological conceptions” (Raz 2004, 6). In this context, the meaning of the term ling has been interpreted as “heavenly, divine, numinous” (Kaltenmark 1960).
This paper will expand the discussion, presenting an analysis of the usage of the term in different Daoist texts. Beginning with the “classic” Daode jing, where the single occurrence seems to point rather to the underworld than to the heavens as a “location” for ling, the paper will analyse different occurrences of the term ling in several early medieval Daoist texts, including the Purple Texts and the Scripture of Salvation, in order to establish semantic fields of the usage of ling.
It emerges that in early medieval Daoist texts the term ling if divorced from the term lingbao, has a broad range of semantic meaning. Thus the established notion of ling as the heavenly divine numinous, as it has been discussed in Daoist studies in the context of the term lingbao and the associated scriptural corpus, is but one of several notions that are associated with the term ling.

Vincent Goossaert, “Ling as Divine Presence in Daoist Narrative and Ritual”

One of the things ritual does is to create divine presence that can be sensed (seen, heard, felt…). One of the key terms used to describe this presence is ling 靈; notably, a frequent technical phrase I want to explore is “to make ling present in this world,” jiangling 降靈. This paper will look at both narratives (primarily, Daoist hagiographies) and liturgies (primarily, daofa 道法 manuals from the Daoist canon) from the Song to the late imperial period in order to chart the different ritual methods used to create such presence, and thereby to define the array of ways ling can be apprehended. A non-exhaustive list includes spirit-possession, dreams, spirit-writing, visualisations, and consecrating powerful images. All of these involve a priest who knows how to make ling present.

Esther-Maria Guggenmos, “The Plot-Engine—Ling 靈 as a Narrative Means in Early Buddhist Biograhies”

This paper traces the terminological field of so-called “spiritual efficacy”—ling 靈—in early medieval Buddhist biographical writing. The respective narrations in the Biographies of Eminent Monks (Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳) partly borrow material from zhiguai literature. It is in these miracle tales that ling-related terminology is playing a crucial role as a narrative device. Ling is not only used in the context of designating certain supernormal abilities (shentong li 神通力). It is also applied in accordance with early medieval miracle tales as a means to denote efficacy—e.g. of a temple, a certain god, or by stating the power of a Buddhist relic. This also makes it a negotiated term in early Buddhism as it can mark the simple demand for proofs of efficacy and consistently the craving for such proofs can be seen as evidence of missing spiritual progress. The paper will delineate these various usages of ling-related terminology by focusing on how it is embedded in the narrations. While the concept of resonance, ganying, is by far the most prevalent organising concept of these early miracle tales (Campany), the deeper look at how the concept of “spiritual efficacy” is applied in the narrations reveals its central role as a “plot-engine” in some of the early Buddhist biographical literature.

Stefania Travagnin, “Meanings of ling in Modern Buddhist Discourses”

During the late Qing and the Republican period, Chinese Buddhism was characterised by a ‘narrative of reform’, which included a more conservative recovery of a lost tradition from the past as well as drastic innovations and significant changes to that tradition. Often, the study of the narrative of reform has intersected with the argument of a possible ‘revival’ of Buddhism at the dawn of the twentieth century. This paper will discuss definitions and uses of ling within the framework of the intellectual and practical spheres of modern Buddhism, especially in relation to the contemporary ‘narrative of reform’ and framework of ‘revival’. The first part of the presentation will address semantic patterns of ling that were shared by both premodern China and the Republican era, so to show the level of diachronic continuity; the paper will continue highlighting different nuances and new messages regarding ling that Chinese sources from the Republican period offer. The third section will look at intellectual debates from Taiwan in the first half of the twentieth century, hence during the Japanese occupation of the island. The last two parts of the presentation will demonstrate to what extent Christianity and Western cultural systems might have reshaped Chinese and Taiwanese Buddhist usages and understanding of ling and its compounds; moreover, especially for what concerns Taiwanese arguments, I will question degree and modalities of impact from Japanese intellectual and Buddhist discourses.

Matthias Schumann, “The Powers of the Psyche: Hypnotism, Psychical Research, and the Secularisation of ling 靈 in Republican China”

During the Republican period (1911–1949), the meaning of the term ling 靈 became increasingly complex as it picked up new scientific connotations stemming from psychology, physics, and psychical research (xinling yanjiu 心靈研究). In its scientific guise, it proved especially appealing to an urban constituency that sought novel ways of coming to terms with the spiritual dimension of human life but wanted to avoid the contested category of “religion.” In particular, a number of newly-founded psychical organisations used ling or xinling 心靈 to translate the novel term “psyche.” Most of these organisations devoted themselves to the study and application of hypnotism (cuimianshu 催眠術), which served as a self-cultivation method able to confer “psychic powers” on the practitioner and improve his or her physical and mental health. The functions of hypnotism were explained by reference to a universal psyche (ling/xinling) to which the individual human mind was connected. This psyche, practitioners argued, accounted for specific psychic phenomena but also offered the hope of providing a comprehensive understanding of the relation between matter and spirit. Borrowings from religious discourses notwithstanding, psychical researchers generally stressed the secular nature of their theories and criticised a belief in spirits and deities as “superstitious.” The changing meaning of ling thereby also illustrates some of the larger debates about science, religion, and spirituality during the Republican period.

Nikolas Broy, “‘This Numinous Light’: The Notion of lingguang in Late Imperial and Contemporary Chinese Popular Sects”

This paper explores the use of the compounds “numinous light” (lingguang 靈光), “numinous brightness” (lingming 靈明 or mingling 明靈), and “numinous nature” (lingxing 靈性) in Chinese popular religious sects from the Song period (960–1279) onward. In particular, it looks at discourses about the nature of human selves and the teachings that aim to restore them through spiritual cultivation and moral progression. Moreover, some sectarian tracts argue that humans’ primordial souls existed already before the creation of the cosmos, but they had been corrupted by mundane desires. In the first part, the paper investigates how Song period Buddhist and Daoist texts introduce lingguang and related terms as referring to humans’ innate capabilities of spiritual enlightenment. Part two looks at various sectarian writings from the Ming and Qing (1368–1911) periods and how they develop narratives of lingguang as referring to eternal selves. In particular, it analyses texts related to the Patriarch Luo 羅祖 (ca. 16th century) and “Former Heaven” (Xiantiandao 先天道) traditions. Finally, part three explores how the modern “redemptive society” Yiguandao一貫道 (“Way of Pervading Unity”) synthesises previous accounts and Neo-Confucian the concept of the “open, numinous, and unobscured” (xu ling bumei 虛靈不昧) nature of humans’ natures into a coherent spiritual system.

Adam Yuet Chau, “Storied Spirits: Constructing Efficacy (lingying 靈應) and the Strange (lingyi 靈異) Through Telling Tales”

The telling of tales (orally, in print or via modern audiovisual and electronic media) involving supernatural occurrences is one of the most prevalent and important activities in Chinese popular religion. These tales recount divine interventions as miraculous responses to pleas from worshippers, divine retribution for improper behaviour, divine reward for exceptional piety, ghost hauntings, and exorcisms or simply strange occurrences that defy rational explanation. But the contexts for telling these tales are as important as the tales themselves. This paper will examine some of these contexts (amongst festival-goers at temple festivals, during orientation camps for university freshers as well as in TV programmes dedicated to ‘strange tales’). The continuous reproduction of a culture of magical efficacy and the strange depends on the active participation of audience members and the construction of an ‘atmospheric’ suitable for telling such tales. For every actual experience of divine intervention or uncanny occurrence, there are ten-thousand fold tellings and retellings of the experience, through many mouths and on many different occasions.

New Dimensions and Directions
Thursday
11:00 am – 12:45 pm
Room 4

• Organised and chaired by Wu Amiao
• Wu Amiao, “A Study of Chinese Chan (Zen) Discourse from the Perspective of Postclassical Narratology”
• Ke Xu, “Heterogeneous Isomorphism: Re-Interpretation of Xu Dishan’s Fate-Sharing Bird and The Web-Mending Toiling Spider”
• Xueting Wang, “Chinese Buddhism and Images of Tang Poetry”

In a massive body of scholarly study of religious discourse, Chinese Buddhism in particular, has been embellished with a broad and comprehensive investigation from various modern perspectives, spanning a historical survey to a cognitive analysis. However, specific research work needs to be done to address recurring research questions in terms of new perspectives and directions. This panel aims to present detailed research projects of Chinese Buddhist discourse from different lenses. We may hopefully direct our attention to areas that have been neglected and to spark more resourceful approaches to religious discourse. The first presenter Wu Amiao Wu will approach a widespread contention about Chinese Chan (Zen) discourse for its “special transmission”—no dependence on the written words, pointing directly to the mind. She believes that theories from post-classical narratology will help address the question “how to speak the unspeakable” for Chan discourse. Ke Xu will reinterpret two stories written by an esteemed Chinese writer Xu Dishan and make a comparative analysis of his works in terms of their different religious representations, in order to find out a common thread running through his works. Xueting Wang will focus on how Buddhist discourse connects and influence the poetry of the Tang Dynasty of China, and provide concrete case studies concerning the influence of monasteries on Tang literature.

Wu Amiao Wu, “A Study of Chinese Chan (Zen) Discourse from the Perspective of Postclassical Narratology”

Through the lens of postclassical narratology, the study will present an exploratory study of how Chinese Chan (Zen) Buddhism stands on non-dualistic enlightenment by transcending words and pointing directly to the mind. The objectives of this study are 1) to explore how Chan masters go beyond conventional linguistic framework by employing Kōan system as a means to achieve their religious goal; 2) to try out if a postclassical narratological approach complements the interpretive study of Chan discourse. The study posits that the semantic significances of the dialogic exchanges in Chan do not reside in the isolated elements such as masters’ shouting, hitting, body language, and enigmatic language, but in the way, these strange acts and articulation are combined to defy the basic parameters of conventional narrative. Hence their unusual teaching could be well expounded and explored by postclassical narratology which is much directed toward an investigation of improbable and antiemetic discourse like Chan Kōans that violate standard narrative form and produce logically impossible and defamiliarising scenes or events. By taking a close look at unnatural elements in classic texts of Chan Buddhism Blue Cliff Record, we seek to find the rationale for Chan masters’ preoccupation with unnatural narrative strategies. Hence the study may reveal the role of postclassical narratology in analysing Chan discourse and demonstrate another way of probing and understanding the wisdom of Chinese Chan Buddhism.

Ke Xu, “Heterogeneous Isomorphism: Re-Interpretation of Xu Dishan’s Fate-Sharing Bird and The Web-Mending Toiling Spider”

Xu Dishan was born in a family with a strong atmosphere of Buddhism but converted to Christianity in his youth. This special background enabled him to use different religious recourses to compose his early writings. Fate-sharing Bird, Xu Dishan’s first short story, was published by Novel Monthly in 1921, which borrows Buddhist allusions to tell a love story of a pair of young lovers. One year later, The Web-mending Toiling Spider, another short story written by Xu Dishan was also published by Novel Monthly, which tells about the love entanglements between a female Christian Shangjie and her husband Zhangsun Kewang. Normally speaking, Fate-sharing Bird is regarded as a Buddhism novel. At the same time, The Web-mending Toiling Spider is usually considered as Christian fiction. However, the similarities between these two fictions have never been discussed before. In terms of character portrayal, the dilemma of love is a common trouble faced by heroes. They both need to face impervious heroines who filled with a religious spirit. In terms of the structure of fictions, the exterior frameworks and the internal sensibility of both fictions are polyphonic. Specifically, the relationship between human nature and religion is the topic Xu Dishan focuses on, and the conflict and fusion between human nature and religion constitute the mainline structure of the two fictions.

Xueting Wang, “Chinese Buddhism and Images of Tang Poetry”

As a peak time for Chinese Buddhism and the golden age of literature, the Tang Dynasty of ancient China has been the object of much scholarly research. This research focuses on how Buddhism, especially its religious doctrine, has influenced Tang Dynasty poems. To be specific, since when and in what forms, this religion affects Tang poetry. Little has been explored on another important aspect of Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty, that is, the monasteries and religious life in its literature. By paying attention to the “High Tang”(Sheng Tang) period, the paper attempts to analyse these phenomena and discuss how they influenced the poets and the poetry of the Tang Dynasty. After the Tang Dynasty, Buddhist culture and poetry showed a new fusion in image expression. Most of the poems involve Zen language and Zen scriptures. The excavation of images concerned with temples and monks in the poems have enriched the expression of Tang poetry, such as “Vatican,” “Clock,” “To pass on the light of Buddha,” “Curly curtain,” and “Green Lotus.” Words with strong temple culture frequently appeared, and eventually became a specific image. This project will further investigate specific works to capture representative images, explain their meaning and significance, discuss the formation of Tang Zen poetic interest, and analyses its influence on the construction of artistic conception in Tang poetry.

Reflections on the Manifold Relations of Human Beings and Animals
Thursday
9:00 am – 10:45 am
Room 4

• Organised by Markus Samuel Haselbeck
• Chaired by Roderich Ptak
• Markus Samuel Haselbeck, “Collecting the Inexistent—Mythical Creatures and Marvelous Birds in Early Qing Scientific Encyclopediae”
• Phillip Grimberg, “Bestiarium Illustratum or Paintings as Documents—Animal Paintings at the Court of Emperor Song Huizong”
• Marco Pouget, “Portents or Equals: Animals in Relation to Human Beings and Heaven in Wang Chong’s Lunheng”
• Raffaela Rettinger, “Birds of a Feather—The Changing Image of the Owl and Its Moral Instrumentalisation in Ancient and Imperial China”

Throughout the last few years, society’s view on our environment has strongly shifted; it is no more us humans alone, who are situated at the core of our world view, but our horizon has broadened, now also encompassing animals, plants and other forms of life as integral parts of our world. Animal ethics and environmental protection have made it necessary to review the complex relationship between us and other creatures. This shift alone clearly shows the need for further investigation of the relationship between us humans and our environment, both in the past and the present. The goal of this panel is to present conceptions of this relationship from three vastly differing epochs in Chinese history. Through their analyses of man-made media, i.e. literature, art, and philosophy, the three papers shall try to elucidate how humanity perceived of animals and reflected on them, during those times.

Markus Samuel Haselbeck, “Collecting the Inexistent—Mythical Creatures and Marvelous Birds in Early Qing Scientific Encyclopediae”

Animals have, since the beginning of time, occupied an important space in classical Chinese literature and sciences. People’s interest in the vast variety of creatures roaming all over our planet has sparked marvellous tales and collections of stories on fairytale-like animals in books like the Shanhai jing 山海經, the Bowu zhi 博物志 and many other examples from the zhiguai-genre. Early Qing Encyclopediae like Qu Dajun’s 屈大均 (1630–1696) Guangdong xinyu 廣東新語 or Song Guangye‘s 宋廣業 (Qing?) Luofu shan zhi huibian 羅浮山志會編, on the other hand, were trying to collect real information on topics such as natural phenomena, scientific explorations, geographical features as well as human, animal and plant life. Yet, taking a closer look at these Encyclopediae will quickly reveal several kinds of mythical creatures amid the real animals otherwise featured in those books. In this paper, I will set out to show how these creatures ended up in scientific literature and encyclopediae, and what implications this has not just on the understanding of animal life during Qing dynasty but furthermore on the relationship of humankind with other life forms.

Phillip Grimberg, “Bestiarium Illustratum or Paintings as Documents—Animal Paintings at the Court of Emperor Song Huizong”

Early on, animals like birds, insects, and fish, but also tigers, horses, and monkeys as well as a wide range of domestic animals have played an important role in Chinese painting, manifesting both symbolic and narrative qualities. Ever since the late Tang, nature, i.e. landscapes, became more and more popular as a subject among court painters and developed from a mere background motif to a fully-fledged genre during the early Northern Song period. Following this development, the painting of animals—and plants for that matter—became one of the most important subjects for the artists at the Imperial Academy of Painting (founded in 1104) under Emperor Huizong (1101–1125). In this paper, I shall try and show how and to what extend the naturalistic depiction of animals by Emperor Huizong himself as well as his court painters not only served an aesthetic purpose that was related to Daoist notions of naturalness and unsophistication but also demonstrates an almost documentary approach to the subject, echoing the Emperor´s proto-scientific interests in collecting, cataloguing, and antiquarianism.

Marco Pouget, “Portents or Equals: Animals in Relation to Human Beings and Heaven in Wang Chong’s Lunheng”

How animals are treated is a crucial indicator of a society’s set of values. In modern times, animal ethics have coined terms such as “speciesism” or “anthropocentrism” to denote a society that places the human species in a supreme position. Ancient China seems equally as anthropocentric, relying on animals for ritual slaughter, food, medicine, transportation and agriculture. Animals were additionally viewed as signifiers of celestial will. Be they auspicious dragons or calamitous plagues of insects, in Han dynasty China, these animals were mostly reduced to their functions as portents. Their appearance and behaviour were made use of to illustrate philosophical and political arguments. In his monumental work, the Lunheng 論衡, Eastern Han thinker Wang Chong 王充 (27–97?) criticised the excessive superstitions and practices that had come to be associated with this omenology. Animals in Lunheng came to be assigned a different position in relation to humans and heaven. While they are still seen as useful for sage rulers to observe nature’s workings and determine political action therefrom, animals in Wang Chong’s view appear to exist out of themselves and without a predetermined role as portents. This, I argue, elevates them from their purpose-driven state. Wang Chong even seems to concede to animals the same position humans occupy between heaven and earth, with only the boundaries of their category (lei 類) separating them.

Raffaela Rettinger, “Birds of a Feather—The Changing Image of the Owl and Its Moral Instrumentalisation in Ancient and Imperial China”

Chinese tradition has ever since made use of animals as metaphors for human behaviour and gives them different moral understandings. While some are perceived positive, such as the phoenix or the swallow, others are interpreted negatively. A good example for such an understanding is the owl. While often associated as the bird of wisdom in the West, it came to symbolise being non-filial (bu xiao 不孝) starting with an entry in the Shuo wen jiezi 說文解字. From its first appearances in texts such as the Shan hai jing 山海經 and Shi jing 詩經, this paper explores how the image of the owl came to be, changed over time, and what might have led to these developments. A special focus lies on the utilisation of the owl for moral and political representation in works such as the Xunzi 荀子, or the Da dai li ji 大戴禮記 and their influence on later depictions in collectanea such as the Taiping guang ji 太平廣記 and the Ling biao lu yi 嶺表錄異. Here, problems such as the choice of characters and the utilisation of the owl’s image in philosophical and historical writings prove that the owl has a controversial stance in the Chinese tradition of using animals as a reflection of human behaviour.