Transcript Charitable activities and religious life

Charitable
activities and
religious life
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prefatory remarks
enable VPN to
Oxford
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definitions
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the voluntary giving of help to those in need
who are not related to the giver (Wikipedia)
Terminology
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types:
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gong 公, yi 義
related to livelihood
ritual services for others than family
to be distinguished from local mutual help?
“without expecting a direct return from the
recipient”
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charity in Europe
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connected to Christianity: late ME onwards in
Western Europe (esp. NW Europe)
need to deal with orphans, widows and the
poor in general in urban centres
innovation NW Europe: cheap urban labour
force
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regions which suffered from labour shortage
after the great plague epidemics of 14th century
region of religious reform > (unsuccessful)
reformation (Flanders, Low Countries)
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local mutual help
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hard to document historically in the absence
of sources & research
not impossible through anecdotal literature (
待考)
20th century fieldwork
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Japanese (Mantetsu 滿鐵 etc.)
Western/Chinese (Sidney Gamble, Li Jinghan
c.s.)
missionary accounts
“missionary cases” 教案 (Litzinger a.o.)
bias: northern China and coastal southwest
China
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an attempt at reconstruction
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19th early 20th century (not necessarily
same as before, but maybe indicative of
informal neighbourly help)
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crop watching
cooperation on harvest etc.
credit societies
self-defence
societies to maintain temples & festivals
irrigation networks (LY & Southern China)
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forms of help
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state charitable institutions
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lineage organizations
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mutual help for those within the same line of
descent
mutual help within a village
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expression of the paternalistic obligation of the
ruler to his people
restricted to those who were accepted as
members of the village community
charity per se:
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indiscriminately help of all
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social functions of charity
 alleviating
social stress
 symbolic expression of attitude of caring
for larger whole on part of elites
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Buddhist charity
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circulation of gifts
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In Theravada B. traditionally gifts primarily to
monastic community, in Mahayana B. also to
lay people
gifts managed together
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to maintain Buddhist institutions
recitation & rituals for the benefit of all (incl.
dead)
monasteries as shared investments/pooling
resources (?)
ultimate aim: gathering merit & public
standing (doing good is never invisible)
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Buddhist merit
 fundamental
Buddhist concept of
gathering merit 功德 by giving (to the
Buddha, Dharma and Sangha)
 different forms of giving:
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to adorn the teachings (grotto temples,
statues, wall paintings and so forth)
charity for the needy (identified recipients)
alms (entirely anonymous)
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“Fields of merit”福田
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principal concept is planting a field of merit
different lists of very practical activities:
佛告天帝：”復有七法廣施，名曰福田，行者得福，
即生梵天。何謂為七？”
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一者、興立佛圖、僧房、堂閣；
二者、園果、浴池、樹木清涼；
三者、常施醫藥，療救眾病；
四者、作牢堅船，濟度人民；
五者、安設橋梁，過度羸弱；
六者、近道作井，渴乏得飲；
七者、造作圊廁，施便利處。
maintaining the community
園果
興立佛圖、僧房、
堂閣
常施醫藥
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early charity
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problems of information
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quantitative estimate impossible, only
qualitative
normative (as above) rather than descriptive
known concrete examples (usually urban &
individual/incidental)
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distribution food to poor
monastic “hospitals”
inn-function of monasteries for travellers and
pilgrims
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Song-Yuan
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Buddhist monks building
bridges etc. (merit)
Buddhist lay believers (merit)
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bridges
roads
free tea
state (northern Song): local order
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medical aid
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hospitals
distributing medicine
old people’s homes
homes for foundlings (including wet nurses)
distributing food aid, coffins (incidental)
private/local (southern Song): local order
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(same contents)
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religious vs. secular
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religious charity clearly continued into Yuan
state and private charity Song period: were
people involved only secularly motivated?
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the very active lay Buddhist Su Shi founded a kind
of hospital , built the nearby Su Dike on West Lake!
problem of insufficient knowledge private
convictions
would be strange when (re)invention in late Ming
was Buddhist inspired and earlier Song efforts
would not have been religiously inspired
Water and Land Gatherings & rituals to feed the
hungry ghosts can be seen as forms of charity!
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towards secular charity?
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background to charity
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differences charity
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from Buddhist perspective
from state perspective
from Neoconfucian perspective
presently standard view: Buddhist (religious)
charity evolved into largely secular charity
similar the in West: Christian (or Christian socialist,
do not forget Judeo-Christian origins Marxism/
socialism)
but: is there a “secular” world in premodern
China?
and: to what extent did this new charity really
become fully secular (same applies to Western
situation)
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Li Gong: secular or not
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1659-1733
famous for classicist lifestyle in which he tried to stay faithful
to the Analects and other classic works
Worship and religious beliefs
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burned incense (much later than Analects)
visited his parents and his natal mother on 1st and 15th days
maintained all kinship rituals and paid respect to graves of
acquaintances
gathered relatives at 清明 for sacrifice of animals and music
also set up paper spirit tablets 紙位 for relatives in female lines
without descendants (of at least two different family names) on
New Year's day
kept a Ledger of Merit and Demerit
supported ritual suicide by widows (rather than remarriage)
hardly just a secular classicist philosopher
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the charitable movement (1)
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one large movement of performing shan 善,
institutionalized in generic “charitable gatherings”
善會 and “charitable halls” 善堂
Setting Free Life Gatherings (fangsheng hui 放生會)
=> charitable movement, in terms of: support
group and audience (the local gentry elite)
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internal organization
combination of moral education with moral acts
change: from preserving animal life to saving
human life
conspired by growing Neoconfucian interest in
human life
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Shanghai
Guilin
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the charitable movement (2)
 Buddho-Daoist
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inspiration
祩宏1535–1615 introduces Daoist Ledgers or
Merit and Demerit 功過格
Morality Books 善書, e.g. 太上感應篇 (Daoist
inspiration), later Buddhist and cultic
versions of morality books (e.g. 陰騭文，關聖
帝君覺世真經)
 bureaucratic
procedures
 Community Compacts 鄉約
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activities
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taking care of orphans (Keeping
Infants Halls 留嬰堂 or
Nourish Infants Halls 育嬰堂)
taking care of widows to prevent remarriage
prevention of cremation and making available free burial
alleviating famine (esp. late Ming, taken over by state
during Qing)
In service of Confucian values, though often initiated first by
elites with primary lay Buddhist identity
But: to what extent had this become a Confucian
movement?
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again: secular or religious
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Zhang Cai 張才(fl. late Ming)
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Shi Chengjin 石成金(fl. 1660)
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Yangzhou Nourish Infants Hall
active lay Buddhist (influential commentary on Jin’gangjing) the
popularizer of Buddhist and Confucian values among nonliterate people (in baihua)
Liu Shanying 劉山英 (1733-1806)
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founder Restoration Academy
moral lecturer in “secular” hall
devout worshipper Lord Guan
official who became active lay Buddhist at circa 40 years of
age.
active in charitable works, including a large public cemetery in
Huzhou in the late eighteenth century and the publication of a
Buddhist inspired morality book. Efforts continued by his, who
was also a lay Buddhist ánd a conscious Confucian official
his own 信心應驗錄 reprinted by pp with Buddhist background as
well
In all 3 cases: religious context not clear from the sources
directly dealing with the charitable activity
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佛緣之印度為甚廣也
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傳家寶
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moral rearmament
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increase “Confucian” values does not mean
secularisation, but moral rearmament
reliance on specific deities a source moral
values: Wenchang, Lord/Emperor Guan, Lu
Dongbin, and so on
late 18th century onwards spirit writing
movement starting out in eastern Sichuan
during 19th century fusion with practice of
reciting the Saintly Edict 宣講聖諭 inYunnan
developed into the new religious movements
of early 20th century
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内鄉縣衙門宣講聖諭
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宣講聖諭 in Yunnan：洞經音樂
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other forms of religious
charity
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missionary charity
 Christian
charity in China as much part of
Chinese history as other forms
 foundling homes (source
misunderstanding)
 medical mission (beginning with eye
surgery, took off in 20th century)
 educational mission (to enable often
illiterate converts to read the Bible, took
off in early 20th century)
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Daoist charity
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True Man Wu (Fujian)
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popular cult since 11th -12th
century, strong Daoist links
Quanzhou elite developed it into venue for dispensing
free medicine from 1878 onwards
Liu Yuan 劉沅 (1768-1855) (Sichuan)
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founder influential Daoist-Confucian family tradition of
teachers
found inspiration in texts that we conventionally label
Confucian and Daoist
himself advocated Daoist ritual for the common good
sixth son added charitable activities (namely the free
distribution of grain, clothes and medicine; the provision
of coffins and burial land; setting free life, as well as not
eating bovine and dog meat)
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清
1878 Quanzhou gentry and merchants
founded an Office for Dispensing
Medicine in the local 花橋慈濟宮, on
basis of myth of True Man Wu (Tao 夲)
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20th century and after
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Taiwan & mainland
 with
you!