William Blake, “Death on a Pale Horse,” 1800.
My latest piece at The Wild Hunt, “The Fire Is Here,” is now up. It’s an homage to James Baldwin, Walter Benjamin and their ideas about progress, death and our fear of it, racism, ancestors and apocalypse. It would honor me if you read it.
I’m also now a moderator at The Pagan Study Group, a Tumblr blog that answers questions about Paganism, Polytheism and Witchcraft. Questions that I’ve answered specifically are under the heathenchinese tag.
Chu’s boundaries in 260 BCE. Credit: Philg88.
Last Saturday was Duanwu Festival, the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. The festival has ancient roots in early summer ceremonies to protect against plague, and also ceremonies to propitiate river spirits. It is most often associated now, however, with the poet Qu Yuan who lived in the state of Chu, and who committed suicide in 257 BCE when Chu was conquered by Qin. This conquest was a significant battle in the first unification of China, which led to rule by an Emperor rather than a feudal over-King. The name “China” actually comes from Qin. Here is one of Qu Yuan’s poems, the “Elegy for the National Martyrs” from the Songs of Chu, as quoted in Deng Ming-Dao’s The Lunar Tao:
They gripped the halberds of Wu, wore rhinoceros-hide armor.
Chariot hub crashed, short swords clashed.
Banners blotted out the sun, their foes charged like clouds.
Volleys of arrows answered each other, warriors vied to be first.The enemy broke their ranks, trampled their lines.
The horse on the left died, the one on the right was slashed.
Chariot wheels seized in the dust, teams of horses fell tangled.
Raising jade drumsticks, they shouted and beat their drums.Yet heaven’s season was against them, the powerful gods were angry!
Our staunchest men were slaughtered, left scattered on the field.
They went out, did not come back, will never return.
The plains lie empty, the roads stretch on.They buckled on their long swords, raised their Qin bows.
Although their heads were hacked from their bodies, their hearts held no regret.
They were truly brave, such great warriors.
Strong and powerful to the end, they were never cowed.Their bodies may be dead, but their spirits have become gods.
Their souls are transformed, they are our ghost heroes! (152)
Today is the thirteenth day of the fifth lunar month, Guan Di’s birthday as a mortal [EDIT: festival, one of several throughout the year. Attributed by some sources as (one of) his birthday(s), celebrated by others as his son Guan Ping’s birthday or the day that he sharpened his blade — see comments below].
I’m posting this poem on this blog in his honor as well, for the last two stanzas apply to his life and apotheosis perfectly.
I have a guest post at The Wild Hunt entitled “Drought and Religion” about the current ongoing drought in California, historical and contemporary polytheist perspectives on drought’s religious implications, and the history of drought-related to political and economic conflicts.
I also have an interview entitled “Ancestors, Ancient Culture, and Old Gods” in the Litha 2015 issue of ACTION, the newsletter of the Alternative Religions Education Network (AREN). Sadly, this is the last issue of ACTION, by mutual decision of Christopher Blackwell (Editor and Chief Reporter) and Bill Kilborn (Web Guy).
Artist: Johannes Koekkoek, 1900. Credit: Public Domain.
My latest Gods and Radicals article, “Uncontrolled: The Boxer Rebellion of 1898-1900,” is up. It expands on my previous posts about the Boxers with material from Paul Cohen’s excellent book History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience and Myth.
The article touches upon Boxer organizational structure, social dynamics surrounding mass spirit possession, Guan Di’s role in the movement, the use of magic and prayer to attempt to control fire, morally questionable actions such as edicts restricting the movements of women or the widespread summary execution of civilians, and the all-female Red Lantern auxiliary force.
Via the latest post at the website http://guan-di.tumblr.com:
My honourable Masters and Angels,
The basic energy of loyalty is service and it is not about service in return for favours. For these favours perpetuate one’s control over others to achieve one’s selfish requests. This is loyalty cloaked in ultimate treachery.
When one declares that he is loyal to a captain, state, an empire or a cause, it is not done in exchange for protection or the surrendering of one’s mandate but in spite of it. This means one needs to answer truthfully to the question of whether he can sincerely serve a peer not because he is a leader that can offer shelter and profits or for some temporal mutual benefits but because it is our basic nature to serve one’s fellow brothers and sisters?
Electing a leader to set a common goal is supplementary to the fulfillment of the goal. And this goal goes to the heart of every man’s dreams. Loyalty is not offered to the man because of his power, might and status. It must never be demanded out of fear and trepidation. Under no circumstances can a brother be coerced through violence, threat and emotional blackmail to obey the commands of anyone including the source that is deemed as God.
Loyalty is not a special quality that is only of concern during conflicts, competition and when one is challenged. It is the under current that determines our being, values and perceptions. And this points to the fact that no living creature, man and beast is an island. We do not live in isolation but in service of each other and nature is such that we support her growth while she nurtures our lives. And all this is not done for the sake of ripping rewards but simply IS.
Thus dear masters and angels, it is natural then what we do and say affect not only ourselves but those that are immediately within our environment reaching further to the four corners of the world. So when we believe that we are loyal to a particular leader and creed, it is limiting our instinctive nature to be loyal to humanity and all of life force itself. In other words it is a false belief when certain organizations indoctrinate mankind that he is born free and only by maintaining loyalty to these organizations will his freedom be guaranteed. If man is born free, why would another man need to guarantee it? When a general takes a group of soldiers to battle, it is his duty to serve them and their duties to serve him out of SelfLESS motivations.
You are a free man by birth and not by choice and definitely not determined by circumstances.
Devotion without wisdom is a dangerous state.
Devotion with wisdom breaks barriers.
Wisdom without devotion strengthens the ego.
Wisdom with devotion removes all illusions.
And so it is.
In your service and of Light, Integrity and Brotherhood,
Guan Yu
I have an essay for Gods and Radicals entitled “Are The Gods On Our Side?” I use Guan Di as a case study to analyze the implications of both sides of a conflict (such as the class struggle) praying to the same god(s).
Pear tree. Credit: Chinancient.com.
Among the many fascinating anecdotes (both fictional and historically attested) in Romance of Three Kingdoms, one particular story caught my attention. This story supposedly has its roots in the Shiyu (世語) and Cao Man Zhuan (曹瞞傳) annotations to Chen Shou’s Records (though I haven’t tracked down either of those texts to verify). More importantly for the purposes of this blog, it highlights an aspect of ancient Chinese religion that I hadn’t heard of before: sacred trees, specifically dynastic sacred trees.
Cao Cao held the position of Chancellor during the reign of the last Han emperor, and was one of the primary enemies of Guan Yu’s liege lord, Liu Bei. After Cao Cao’s death, his son usurped the throne and established the Kingdom of Wei. In his translation, Moss Roberts provides a rare footnote to explain the context for this story: “In ancient China fallen dynasties had their sacred tree roofed over to cut off communication with the heavens” (250).
The following translation is by C.H. Brewitt-Taylor:
In Luoyang, although Cao Cao had given honorable burial to the remains of Guan Yu, yet he was continually haunted by the dead man’s spirit. Every night when he closed his eyes, he saw Guan Yu as he knew the warrior so well in the flesh. These visions made him nervous, and he sought the advice of his officers. Some suggested the building of new rooms for his own use.
“There is much witchcraft and malign influence in this old Palace at Luoyang. Build a new Palace for your own occupation,” said they. “I would, and it should be called ‘The New Foundation’,” said he. “But where is the good architect?”
Jia Xu said, “There is one Su Yue, a very cunning artificer in Luoyang.” Su Yue was called and set to work on the plans for a nine-hall pavilion for Cao Cao’s own use. […] His plans pleased Cao Cao greatly. [Cao Cao said] “You have planned just such a place as I wished, only where will you find the main beam for such a building?”
The architect suggests a pear tree growing next to a shrine:
“I know a certain tree that will serve,” said the architect. “About ten miles from the city there is the Pool of the Leaping Dragon. Near it is a shrine, and beside that grows a fine pear tree. It is over a hundred spans high, and that will serve for the roof tree.”
Cao Cao at once sent people to fell the tree. But after one whole day of labor they came back to say they could make no impression on it neither with saw nor ax. Cao Cao, doubting their word, went to see. When he had dismounted and stood by the tree, he could not but admire its size and proportions, as it rose above him tall, straight and branched till the wide-spreading and symmetrical top reached into the clouds. But he bade the men attack it again.
The local elders protest, triggering Cao Cao’s ire:
Then a few aged people of the village came and said, “The tree has stood here some centuries and is the haunt of a spirit. We think it should not be cut down.”
Cao Cao grew annoyed, saying, “I have gone to and fro in the world now some thirty years, and there is no one, from the Emperor to the commoner, who does not fear me. What spirit is there who dares oppose my wish?”
Drawing the sword he was wearing, Cao Cao went up to the tree and slashed at the trunk. The tree groaned as he struck, and blood stains spattered his dress. Terror-stricken, he threw down the sword, mounted his horse and galloped off.
Cao Cao then reaps the consequences of his impious act:
But that evening when he retired to rest, he could not sleep. He rose, went into the outer room, and sat there leaning on a low table. Suddenly a man appeared with his hair unbound, dressed in black and carrying a naked sword.
The visitor came straight toward Cao Cao, stopped in front of him and, pointing, cried out, “Behold the Spirit of the Pear Tree! You may desire to build your nine-hall pavilion, and you may contemplate rebellion. But when you began to attack my sacred tree, the number of your days was accomplished. I am come now to slay you.”
“Where are the guards?” shouted Cao Cao in terror. The figure struck at him with the sword. Cao Cao cried out and then awoke. His head was aching unbearably. They sought the best physicians for him, but they failed to relieve the terrible pain.
Moss Roberts translates the tree spirit’s second sentence as “Building the new mansion signals your intent to usurp the dynasty” (250).
Cao Cao, Qing Dynasty edition of the Romance.
Now, not only is Cao Cao being haunted by Guan Yu, he is also being attacked by the Spirit of the Pear Tree. The ghosts of his many victims then appear to Cao Cao as well. The ultimate irony is that Cao Cao had “always refused belief in the supernatural” (at least according to the novel). Some time after the first apparition of the Spirit of the Pear Tree:
That night Cao Cao became worse. As he lay on his couch he felt dizzy and could not see, so he rose and sat by a table, upon which he leaned. It seemed to him that someone shrieked, and, peering into the darkness, he perceived the forms of many of his victims—the Empress Fu, the Consort Dong, Fu Wan, Dong Cheng, and more than twenty other officials—, and all were bloodstained.
They stood in the obscurity and whispered, demanding his life. He rose, lifted his sword and threw it wildly into the air. Just then there was a loud crash, and the southwest corner of the new building came down. And Cao Cao fell with it. His attendants raised him and bore him to another palace, where he might lie at peace.
But he found no peace. The next night was disturbed by the ceaseless wailing of men and women’s voices. When day dawned, Cao Cao sent for his officers, and said to them, “Thirty years have I spent in the turmoil of war and have always refused belief in the supernatural. But what does all this mean?”
“O Prince, you should summon the Daoists to offer sacrifices and prayers,” said they.
Cao Cao sighed, saying, “The Wise Teacher said, ‘He who offends against heaven has no one to pray to.’ I feel that my fate is accomplished, my days have run, and there is no help.”
But he would not consent to call in the priests. Next day his symptoms were worse. He was panting and could no longer see distinctly. He sent hastily for Xiahou Dun, who came at once. But as Xiahou Dun drew near the doors, he too saw the shadowy forms of the slain Empress and her children and many other victims of Cao Cao’s cruelty. He was overcome with fear and fell to the ground. The servants raised him and led him away, very ill.
Cao Cao died shortly thereafter. The year was 220 CE.
Guan Yu Mural at Summer Palace, Beijing. Credit: Shizhao.
San Guo Yan Yi (三国演义, Romance of the Three Kingdoms) is one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels. It is a historical novel dealing with the Three Kingdoms period (220-280 CE) and is based upon Chen Shou’s Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi, 三国志), which was written in the late 3rd Century CE.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is traditionally said to have been authored by Luo Guanzhong. Brian May, Takako Tomoda and Michael Wang question this attribution in an essay on the physician Hua Tuo (who is featured as a character in the novel):
Little is known about Luo but he appears to have been a poet and recluse who lived during the last years of the Yuan [Mongol] dynasty. He was probably born between 1315 and 1318 and was still alive in 1364. One source suggests that he was involved in anti-Yuan rebellions in south China but retired to write an unofficial history (Roberts 1995).
Although Luo is given as the author, he could not have written the version of the Romance that we have today. The earliest extant version of the Romance is prefaced 1494 and the earliest edition is dated 1522. However, modern versions are based on the Mao edition that appeared in the mid 1660s (Roberts 1995).
Consequently, the Romance must be considered a product of the Ming Dynasty that is based on earlier historical and popular works that may included one by Luo. Even though the Romance is the least reliable source for the Hua Tuo story, the popularity of this novel makes it the most influential. (2-3)
Though May, Tomoda and Wang are writing about Hua Tuo, the last sentence can be applied with equal accuracy to Guan Yu (the historical figure later deified as Guan Di).
Obviously, as a historical novel written over a millennium after the events it covers, the Romance cannot be considered a reliable historical source for the Three Kingdoms period: that would be Chen Shou’s work. On the other hand, it does provide some insight into the popular stories being told during the time period in which it was written.
As Sannion at The House of Vines wrote recently, there are many different types of “religious literature.” To use his examples, the Romance should be seen as closer in intent to the writings attributed to Homer than those attributed to Orpheus. The analogy doesn’t hold up under closer scrutiny, of course, since the Romance is actually a novel taking great liberties with the writings of a historian (Sannion’s first category, for which he provides Diodorus Sikeliotes as an example).
In “From History to Fiction: The Popular Image of Kuan¹ Yu,” Winston L.Y. Yang argues that with regards to the character of Guan Yu, the Romance actually “adhered fairly closely” to the source material:
Many episodes historically unfounded and obviously created by Luo Guanzhong or borrowed from popular legends have led scholars to believe that Guan has been portrayed in the novel essentially as a man of dignity, righteousness, extreme nobility, and superhuman bravery. […]
Roy Andrew Miller believes that the fictional Guan Yu has completely replaced the historical one in the Chinese imagination. But there are many other episodes in the novel which show that Luo has adhered fairly closely to the image of Guan projected by Chen Shou in his official history. (71)
After providing some examples of negative traits that Chen Shou attributes to Guan Yu that also find their way into the novel, Yang argues that the Romance was not intended as a hagiography (which it wasn’t, as far as I can tell); however, Yang goes on to say that any and all stories about Guan’s deification were merely a “concession to popular taste” (79).
It should be understood, however, that Luo, influenced by popular literature and writing at a time when Guan had already become an object of national veneration and worship, could not but take the national sentiment into consideration and accord the hero all the glorification which has been heaped upon him in popular legends and myths.
Thus, Luo has created numerous details pertaining to Guan’s extraordinary bravery, loyalty, and nobility of character, in line with the popular image of the hero. But only occasionally does he make Guan appear a saint or god, as demanded by the popular beliefs of his time. Yet, on the other hand, Luo follows closely the official history of the San Guo period, San Guo Zhi, his most important source. (78-9)
Yang’s argument here is highly debatable (he confuses “deification” with “portrayal as a perfect human being,” when the two are not the same thing), but that is not the point of this post, which is instead to present precisely those stories about Guan’s apotheosis. Without further caveat or disclaimer, then…
Guan Di Statue at Jinguashi, Taiwan. Credit: Fred Hsu.
The following quotations are from the highly abridged version of Moss Roberts’s translation. Guan Yu is executed by the ruler of Wu, Sun Quan. Later, at a banquet, Sun Quan presents his general Lü Meng with a cup of wine:
Sun Quan personally poured the ceremonial wine and presented it to Lü Meng. Receiving it, Lü was about to drink when he dashed the cup to the ground and seized Sun Quan with one hand. “Blue-eyed boy!² Red-whiskered rodent! Have you forgotten me? Or not?” The assemblage was aghast.
As someone moved to stop him, Meng knocked Sun Quan to the ground and with long strides came to the throne and seated himself upon it. His eyebrows arched vertically, his eyes grew round and prominent as he bellowed: “I have crisscrossed the empire for thirty-odd years since defeating the Yellow Scarves, only to have your treacherous trap sprung on me. But if I have failed to taste your flesh in life, I shall give your soul no peace in death—for I am Lord Guan Yü, master of the Han Shou district!”
Fear-stricken, Sun Quan led the assemblage in offering obeisance. Lü Meng collapsed on the ground, blood ran out of his seven orifices, and he died. There was general terror, and thereafter Sun Quan was tormented with fear over the execution of Lord Guan. (244)
Possession and death by bleeding from one’s orifices are also featured in the Guan Di World-Subduing, Eternally-Effective, Disaster-Relieving Prayer.
Sun Quan then sends Guan’s severed head to Cao Cao, ruler of Wei, in an attempt to shift blame for Guan’s execution to Cao Cao:
The wooden box was presented. Cao Cao opened it and saw Lord Guan’s face, just as it had been in life. Cao smiled. “You have been well, I trust, general, since we parted?”³ Before Cao could finish, the mouth opened, the eyes moved, and the hair and beard stood up like quills. Cao fell in a faint, reviving only after a long spell. He said to his officers: “General Guan is no mortal.”
The messenger from the South told him how Lord Guan’s powers had entered into Lü Meng and reviled Sun Quan. This increased Cao’s fear. He adopted Sima Yi’s advice and buried the head and a wooden corpse with full royal honors outside the south gate of Lo Yang. All the officers and officials were told to tend the body, while Cao personally made offerings. (246)
These particular stories might be nowhere to be found in Chen Shou’s Records of the Three Kingdoms, but they do give us an idea of Ming Dynasty-era stories being told about the power of the god Guan Di.
Endnotes:
¹All subsequent Chinese transliterations have been rendered in Pinyin rather than Wade-Giles.
²The word used is bi 碧, which means “emerald” and can signify either blue or green. Chen Shou’s Records of the Three Kingdoms reports that Sun Quan’s eyes were said to be jing guang 精光. 光 means “light.” 精 is a word that can mean “energy” or “spirit” (in the sense of energy, not of a ghost) or “semen,” but originally meant “crystal.” See this post for more on jing.
Chen Shou says nothing about Sun Quan’s hair. Another translation of this passage (Yang 74) translates “You green-eyed boy! You purple-bearded rat!” It is also worth noting that Guan Yu’s liege lord is described as having arms that reach past his knees and earlobes that reach his shoulders…
³A line Cao Cao had used before to convince Guan Yu to spare his life; Cao Cao had once taken Guan Yu prisoner and spared him, and this line was used to remind Guan Yu of that fact.
Prasenjit Duara’s 1988 article “Superscribing Symbols: The Myth of Guandi, Chinese God of War,” published in The Journal of Asian Studies, provides an overview of the different myths told about the Guan Di over the course of more than a thousand years, as well as a theory to explain how the differences in these myths co-exist:
Myths are simultaneously continuous and discontinuous. I explore this relationship by examining the myth of Guandi through a concept that I call the “superscription of symbols.” […]
Is Guandi the protector of the Buddhist faith or a Chinese god of war? Whether we speak of them as conceptions of the spirit world or as embodiment of this-wordly interests, the two visions seem to have very little in common. (778-9)
Guan Yu was a historical figure in the late Han dynasty:
Guan Yu’s biography appears in the Sanguozhi (History of the three kingdoms), written by Chen Shou about sixty years after Guan Yu’s death (Chen 1973, 36:939-42). Chen Shou […] writes of Guan Yu’s friendship and devotion to Liu Bei of the royal house of the later Han.
Together with the butcher Zhang Fei, the two friends took the famous “Oath of the Peach Orchard” binding them to protect one another until death. Still later Guan Yu became a general and a governor of a province. Even though he was tempted by the enemy of his lord, Cao Cao, with a marquisate, Guan Yu remained faithful to his oath. In 220 A.D. He was captured by the enemy and put to death. (780)
His spirit appeared as an apparition to a Buddhist monk in the 6th Century CE:
One of the earliest miracle stories about Guan Yu is derived from a temple stele of 820 A.D. Erected when the Yuquan temple in Dangyang County in modern Hubei was reconstructed. Here, in the vicinity of Yuquan mountain, Guan Yu was decapitated during the long battle he fought against the enemies of his lord, Liu Bei.
One still night, when the Buddhist monk Zhi Yi (A.D. 538-97) was deep in meditation under a great tree on the mountain, the silence was suddenly filled by a booming voice: “Return me my head.” When the monk looked up he saw the ghostly apparition of a figure whom he recognized as Guan Yu, the spirit of the mountain.
An exchange followed between the two in which the monk reminded Guan Yu of the severed heads of Guan Yu’s own victims. Deeply impressed by the logic of karmic retribution, the spirit of Guan Yu sought instruction in the Buddhist faith from the monk, built a monastery for him, and began to guard the mountain. Later the mountain people built a temple to Guan Yu where they offered sacrifices at the beginning of each new season. (779)
This temple was built in 713 CE, and was affiliated with the nearby Buddhist monastery:
The earliest temple dedicated to Guan Yu is the Yuquan temple in Dangyang County in Hubei, where he is said to have been killed. This temple was established in 713 A.D. And was attached to the Buddhist monastery on Yuquan mountain. Over the next two hundred years […] his role as the Chinese protector of Buddhist temples (in place of the Indian devas) spread rapidly throughout the empire (Inoue 1941, no. 1:48).
Thus did Buddhism also become sinicized […] One may pause to consider the true direction of the acculturation process: did the Buddhists convert Guan Yu, or did he in fact make them a little more authentically Chinese? (781)
This question is an important one to consider, especially in light of subsequent “superscriptions” to the story of Guan Yu.
Buddhist Guan Di statue, City of 10,000 Buddhas.
For example, the Daoists quickly responded by claiming Guan Yu as one of their own:
It did not take long for Daoist temples also to adopt him as their protector god […] In Xiezhou in Shanxi, where Guan Yu was born, there is a famous lake called Salt Lake. In the Song a Daoist temple was established to Guan Yu at Salt Lake. According to the founding myth, a temple to the legendary Yellow Emperor had originally been built by the lake. However, soon afterward a demon who turned out to be Chi You, leader of the Miao tribes defeated by the Yellow Emperor, began to menace the area.
The Daoist Master Zhang was instructed by the imperial court to find a way to put an end to this desecration of imperial honor. The Master invoked the assistance of Guan Yu, who dispatched shadow (yin) soldiers to fight and vanquish Chi You. The temple was founded in order to thank Guan Yu and commemorate the event.
The founding myth of the Guan Yu temple at Salt Lake has all the ingredients of a Daoist legitimating myth: it draws on a potentially significant element of the story of Guan Yu—his birthplace—and combines it with the sacred geography and ancient history of China; with this as background, it identifies the imperial court as the patron of the Daoists who have successfully invoked the spirit of Guan Yu to restore the imperial honor. (781)
Later, Guan Yu gained both popular worship and imperial patronage (in 1615, he received the imperial title di). Duara devotes an entire section to “The Guandi Myth and the Imperial State,” but I’m going to skip that (for now) to focus on Guandi’s popularity among the populace:
It is well known that the spread of the worship of Guan Yu as a folk deity beyond the confines of sectarian religion was communicated in the vernacular novels and plays of the Song-Yuan transition. […]
Huang Huajie links Guan Yu’s growing popularity in the Ming (1368-1644) and the Qing (1644-1911) to the great socioeconomic changes of the era, which of course also enabled the popular media to spread. As the rural economy became increasingly commercialized, self-sufficient kin-based communities tended to disintegrate. In their place, settlements came to be composed of unrelated kin groups, merchants for whom sojourning had become a way of life, and marginal peoples without a community, such as vagrants and bandits.
None of these new groups was able to use bonds of kinship or community to hold the settlements together. As a symbol of loyalty and guardianship, the image of Guan Yu inspired an ethic of trust and camaraderie to hold together “a society of strangers.” (781-2)
Among both merchants and villagers, Guan Di was worshiped as a Wealth God. Like Zhao Gong Ming (whose worship seems to be linked to Guan Di’s), he was considered a military wealth god rather than a civilian one (789).
Among the bandits and secret societies, Guan Di’s association with oaths became paramount:
For the rootless bandits and rebels of secret societies, the oath of loyalty that Guan Yu upheld gained an unparalleled salience. All rites and ceremonies among the Triads, for instance, including those performed at the initiation of recruits and the punishment of traitors, took place before the altars of Guan Yu and the founders of the secret society. (782)
I discussed the complicated alliance and falling out between the Triads and the Christian-influenced Taiping Rebels in a previous post. Huang Huajie notes the Triads and other secret societies also fought against the Taipings on behalf of the hated Qing Dynasty, and theorizes on how this unlikely alliance came about:
Rural elites, led by the gentry, which mobilized the resistance and ultimately defeated the Taipings, were able to draw antistate secret society members into their local armies. Although monetary inducements were doubtless important in attracting the secret societies, Huang Huajie (1968:230) believes that the appeal to the image of Guandi was more significant. […]
For them, the oath symbolized loyalty to brotherhood, not to the state that had been their enemy. Yet under circumstances when it could be demonstrated that Chinese civilization itself was under attack by the foreign-inspired Taipings, the identification of Guandi with the nation and Chinese civilization, shaped to a great extent by the imperial state and the elites, could be mobilized in defense of the imperial order. After all, had Guandi not defended the house of Han from the rebellious Yellow Turbans? (789-90)
Speaking of Guan Di’s role in the suppression of the Daoist Yellow Turban revolt, I initially was hesitant about worshiping Guan Di for exactly that reason. However, I realized that the ability to be worshiped by diametrically opposed sectors of society and hold space for these contradictions–as long as his worshipers conduct themselves with honor and loyalty–is intrinsic to Guan Di’s widespread popularity.
This realization of mine fits in well with Duara’s thesis of the “superscription of symbols.” Duara recognizes that across all of these differing conceptions of Guan Di, two things remain constant:
[…] If a myth represents radically discontinuous meanings, if its symbols are pursued by particular groups only for their own particular purposes, how can it continue to impart legitimacy so widely across the culture?
On closer examination the two visions of the same figure have at least two common features: the apotheosization of a hero and his role as guardian.
This commonality is hardly accidental or insignificant. It is what gives the myth its legitimating power and gives historical groups a sense of identity as they undergo changes. (779)
Dr. Nick Gier of the University of Idaho’s Philosophy Department is working on a book entitled The Origins of Religious Violence. The rough draft of one of the chapters, “By God’s Word and Direct Command: Religious Nationalism, Violence, and Taiping Christianity,” is available on his website. Though the entire chapter (and book) are interesting, the quotes I’ve selected are mostly unrelated to Gier’s main topic of the Taiping Rebellion, instead focusing on the information he provides about the Heaven and Earth societies (more commonly known as Triads).
As my last post alluded to, the Triads are now organized crime syndicates, but their origins were political, and they’ve always had a religious aspect as well. First, though, a quick mention of the impacts of the Taiping Rebellion and why Gier found it noteworthy to include on his book about religious violence:
It is estimated that between 10 and 20 million Chinese lost their lives in a conflict initiated by group of militant Christians led by Hong Xiuquan, a convert to Christianity who came to believe that, after visiting God’s extended family in Heaven in a 1837 vision, he was Christ’s younger brother with a sacred sword to kill all evil doers.
Gier includes information on the Triads for two reasons. First, they preceded the Taiping Christians in combining religion and political violence, but never quite mobilized on the same scale. Secondly, the Triads were initially allies of the Taiping, though that alliance later fell apart. Who were the Triads?
[They served as] a mutual aid society and helped many members during hard times. They were especially popular with the impoverished people of Southeast China with their Robin Hood policy of robbing the rich to feed the poor. Their political slogan of “destroy the Qing to restore Ming” (fan qing fu ming) also resonated well with people who had never accepted Manchu rule. According to Jonathan Spence, the Triads were responsible for 55 uprisings in Guangdong and other southeastern provinces between 1800 and 1840.
Here is Gier’s initial comparison of the Triads and the Taiping Christians:
This paper is a part of chapter of a book investigating the origins of religious violence. The book’s thesis is that there has been far less religiously motivated violence in the Asian religions than in the Abrahamic faiths. As the religious violence in the latter has been well documented, the task of my study is to analyze those conflicts in Asia that appear to have religious motivation. […] I’ve already presented three papers dealing with Muslim conquests in India, contemporary Hindu fundamentalism, and Buddhist militants in Sri Lanka. In the last two cases, I discovered that most of the violence has been committed by Hindus and Buddhists operating in a postcolonial environment in which an exclusive religious identity has been fused with militant nationalism. The same factors appear to come together in Taiping Christian ideology.
Religiously motivated violence had occurred in China, prime examples were the White Lotus School and the Triad Society. The Triads, only quasi-religious [and] usually worshipping the war god Guan Di, were one of China’s most famous secret societies. In contrast, the White Lotus devotees openly preached the imminent coming of Maitreya, the Buddhist Messiah. What is significant here is the presence of an apocalyptic vision radicalized by a Manichean division of the forces of light and righteousness and the forces of darkness and evil. In the first and second sections I will discuss these Chinese precursors in order to determine differences that might have made the Taipings more successful, at least initially, in their religious goals. As Thomas H. Reilly states: “Neither of these movements [the White Lotus and Eight Trigram] demonstrated the kind of creative impulse and constructive energy that the Taiping displayed.”
Where does the name “Triad” come from? Gier explains the origins of the name, and goes on to compare Chinese cosmology to that of both Christianity and the Indian religions:
The Heaven and Earth Society (tiandihui) was an important early ally of the Taipings. They were also called the Triads because of the cosmic triad of heaven, earth, and human beings. The Chinese phrase for the heaven-earth-human alliance is san cai, which means “three powers, three forces, three origins.” Theoretically, each partner in the Cosmic Triad is able to maintain its integrity because each is equiprimordial. While all three are essentially interdependent, none is created by the other. The contrast with other worldviews is striking. In orthodox Christianity the universe is created out of nothing, and after being used as an instrument for God’s redemptive purposes, it returns to nothing. Nature has no intrinsic value in most Indian religious traditions either. The earth, other worlds, and the body are also mere instruments for spiritual liberation.
As discussed in a previous post about feng shui and environmentalism, the Chinese worldview does not necessarily predicate a practice of ecological preservation. However, Gier argues, it does have other effects:
One would have assumed that the concept of the Cosmic Triad would have motivated the Chinese to protect their environment, but for many centuries it was ruined, primarily because of massive deforestation. With regard to religion, however, I have argued that the Cosmic Triad may have limited instances of what I call “spiritual Titanism” in China to a minimum. One of the tendencies in the Abrahamic religion is a radical transcendentalism that ignores the earth and body and as result distorts the relationship between God and humans.
As we have seen above, the idea that God would lead a heavenly army or any human could arrogate the Mandate of Heaven as Hong did is alien to the Chinese mind. With his grandiose claims, one could say that the Christian Hong was just as much a spiritual Titan as he claims the Qing emperor was. It is significant to point out that while orthodox Christian philosophers had no problem deifying Jesus, no Chinese philosopher ever deified Confucius [Gier’s thesis in a previous essay, which I’m fairly certain is incorrect since Confucius was deified].
Why did the alliance between the Triads and the Taipings fall apart? Their initial collaboration, based on mutual opposition to the Qing Emperor, led to significant successes:
Unlike the Taipings, the Triads were only quasi-religious and they lacked the discipline and moral force that was key to the early Taiping success. Nevertheless, Taiping leaders generally found the Triads an important ally until 1852, although there were alliances of convenience as late as 1855-56. While many Triad members refused to formally join the Taipings, others did happily and some became trusted commanders. Triad forces in cities in the Taiping march north were key to the surrender of those urban centers, including the conquest of Nanjing [which became the Taiping capital] in 1853.
Of course, any alliance with militant Christians (even weirdly heretical ones like the Taiping) is bound to have some areas of disagreement:
Taiping leaders were not completely happy with the alliance even from the beginning. As we have already noted, Hong was not interested in restoring the Ming dynasty; rather, his goal was worldwide empire under his rule. The Triads were also closely connected with organized crime, especially gambling in Canton. In his revision of the Ten Commandments Hong added gambling, wine drinking, and opium smoking to the other prohibitions. Always the strict moralist, Hong eliminated Old Testament stories that told of wine drinking and sexual improprieties by presumably godly people.
In 1852, the Taiping leaders decided that they no longer needed the Triads as allies:
In a close examination of Taiping documents, Vincent Shih notices that positive references to the Triads were deleted in later editions starting in 1852. As Shih states: “The Taipings wanted to get clear of any relation to the Triad Society . . . However, this omission also shows that they must have a great deal to do with that society before this date.” Shih also explains that, in addition to deleting references to the Triads, Hong wanted to “eliminate all traces of traditionalism and intensify the influence of the Bible.”
As it turns out, they were not entirely wrong in doubting the value of the Triads as a military ally:
In the end the Triads proved to be disappointing ally. Commentators note that the later degeneration of discipline in the Taiping army, while generally due to indiscriminate recruiting along the way, was more specifically due to the demoralizing effect of associating with Triad forces. (Alliances with the Nian rebels in the north also had the same effect on Taiping troop morale.) The Triads and the Nians also had a reputation for inconsistency, sometimes negotiating and surrendering to imperial troops.
Be that as it may, the relationship and juxtaposition between the Triads and the Taiping Christians is a very interesting topic, and I’m glad that Dr. Gier is writing about it. For more information on the White Lotus Buddhists and the Nian rebels tangentially mentioned (and the relationship between those two groups), read Elizabeth J. Perry’s Worshipers and Warriors: White Lotus Influence on the Nian Rebellion. That essay will possibly be the topic of a future blog post here.
Heathen Chinese 