It became very popular among Chinese of all walks of life; admired by commoners, and sponsored by emperors in certain dynasties. Since the 1990s, Taoism has been well-developed in the area. Christianity did not take root until it was reintroduced in the 16th century by Jesuit missionaries. [6] Confucian philosophy and religious practice began their long evolution during the later Zhou; Taoist institutionalized religions developed by the Han dynasty; Chinese Buddhism became widely popular by the Tang dynasty, and in response Confucian thinkers developed Neo-Confucian philosophies; and popular movements of salvation and local cults thrived. [334]:63 They worship nature and generation, in the form of many heavenly gods and spirits, chthonic Shu (spirits of the earth represented in the form of chimera-dragon-serpent beings), and ancestors.[334]:86. [212], There was no term that corresponded to "religion" in Classical Chinese. In the year 760, the Yangzhou massacre killed large numbers of these traders, and a century later, in the years 878–879, Chinese rebels fatally targeted the Arab community in the Guangzhou massacre. [65], The latter Han dynasty (25–220 CE) struggled with both internal instability and menace by non-Chinese peoples from the outer edges of the empire. A 2018 report [PDF] from ChinaAid, a Texas-based Christian nongovernmental organization, said that religious persecution, primarily against Christians, was on the rise. Although the Tang emperors were usually Daoists themselves, they favoured Buddhism, which had become extremely popular. Shangdi is identified with the dragon, symbol of the unlimited power (qi),[19] of the "protean" primordial power which embodies yin and yang in unity, associated to the constellation Draco which winds around the north ecliptic pole,[13] and slithers between the Little and Big Dipper (or Great Chariot). Instances of arbitrary detentions and violence carried out with impunity have led the U.S. State Department to designate China as a country of particular concern over religious freedom annually since 1999. "The belief in Tian (Heaven) as the great ancestral spirit differed from the Judeo-Christian, and later Islamic belief in a creator God". Christianity existed in China as early as the 7th century, living multiple cycles of significant presence for centuries, then disappearing for other centuries, and then being re-introduced by foreign missionaries. [338]:60 After his death, Siv Yis ascended to heaven, but he left behind his ritual tools that became the equipment of the shaman class. Under the Basic Law, the SAR government, rather than the central government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), safeguards religious freedom in the SAR. [368]:33 Also, Korean church buildings are stylistically very similar to South Korean churches, with big spires surmounted by red crosses. [270] Confucianism focuses on a thisworldly awareness of Tian (天 "Heaven"),[271] the search for a middle way in order to preserve social harmony and on respect through teaching and a set of ritual practices. Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Constitution of the PRC. [88], The Nationalist-governed Republic of China intensified the suppression of local religion. [294] Quanzhen daoshi are celibate monks, and therefore the Taoist temples of the Quanzhen school are monasteries. Faith organizations must now get approval from the government’s religious affairs office before conducting any activities. At that time China was being gradually invaded by European and American powers, and since 1860 Christian missionaries had had the right to build or rent premises, and they appropriated many temples. The statistics for Chinese ancestorism, that is the worship of ancestor-gods within the lineage system, are from the Chinese Spiritual Life Survey of 2010. [384] In 1120, a rebellion led by Fang La was believed to have been caused by Manichaeans, and widespread crackdown of unauthorised religious assemblies took place. [337], Most of the Miao people (or Hmong) in China have retained their traditional folk religion. Religion and philosophy are often intertwined in China. The Pew Research Center estimated [PDF] that in 2010 there were sixty-seven million Christians in China, roughly 5 percent of the total population, and, of these, fifty-eight million were Protestant, including both state-sanctioned and independent churches. Trade Paperback. [335]:236 Many of the deities are original Manchu kins' ancestors, and people with the same surname are viewed as being generated by the same god. 2008: a survey conducted in that year by Yu Tao of the, 2010: the Chinese Spiritual Life Survey directed by the, Four surveys conducted respectively in the years 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011 as part of the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) of the, 2012-2014: analyses published in a study by Fenggang Yang and Anning Hu found that 55.5% of the adult population (15+) of China, or 578 million people in absolute numbers, believed and practised folk religions, including a 20% who practised ancestor veneration or communal worship of deities, and the rest who practised what Yang and Hu define "individual" folk religions like devotion to specific gods such as. They maintain that the reeducation camps have two purposes: to teach Mandarin, Chinese laws, and vocational skills, and to prevent citizens from being influenced by extremist ideas. To resolve this issue, some Chinese intellectuals have proposed to formally adopt "Chinese native religion" or "Chinese indigenous religion" (i.e. Data reported in. This faith is represented by three types of religious specialists: the bimo (毕摩, "ritual masters", "priests"), the sunyi (male shamans) and the monyi (female shamans). So when new legislation on religion While in the English current usage "folk religion" means broadly all forms of common cults of gods and ancestors, in Chinese usage and in academia these cults have not had an overarching name. In 191 he reappeared as a military official in the province, together with the apparently unrelated Zhang Lu. They used a variety of writings by Confucius and his followers to coin a new "-ism"—"Confucianism"—which they presented as a "rationalist secular-ethical code", not as a religion. Capital Beijing Population (2010) 1,341,340,000 Annual population growth rate (2000-2010) 0.6% Population gain (2000-2010) 72,218,000 GDP per capita [254] The 20th-century expression of such religions has been studied under Prasenjit Duara's definition of "redemptive societies" (救世团体 jiùshì tuántǐ),[255][256] while modern Chinese scholarship describes them as "folk religious sects" (民間宗教 mínjiān zōngjiào, 民间教门 mínjiān jiàomén or 民间教派 mínjiān jiàopài),[257] overcoming the ancient derogatory definition of xiéjiào (邪教), "evil religion". A crackdown on Falun Gong was launched in 1999 after the group organized a large, peaceful demonstration outside CCP headquarters to advocate the release of detained adherents and greater freedom to practice. Many ethnic minority groups in China follow their own traditional ethnic religions: Benzhuism of the Bai, Bimoism of the Yi, Bön of the Tibetans, Dongbaism of the Nakhi, Miao folk religion, Qiang folk religion, Yao folk religion, Zhuang folk religion, Mongolian shamanism or Tengerism, and Manchu shamanism among Manchus. [351] Zhuang shamanism entails the practices of mediums who provide direct communication between the material and the spiritual worlds; these shamans are known as momoed if female and gemoed if male. In addition to the Sogdian Zoroastrians, after the fall of the Sasanid dynasty (651), through the 7th and 8th centuries Iranian Zoroastrians, including aristocrats and magi,[388]:151 migrated to northern China. Amid China’s economic boom and rapid modernization, experts point to the emergence of a spiritual vacuum as a trigger for the growing number of religious believers, particularly adherents of Christianity and traditional Chinese religious groups. [4][5]:138 Under subsequent leaders, religious organisations were given more autonomy. A Muslim, Yeheidie'erding, led the construction project of the Yuan capital of Khanbaliq, in present-day Beijing.[374]. Occupying nearly the entire East Asian landmass, it covers approximately one-fourteenth of the land area of Earth. Detainees have reported being tortured, sexually abused, barred from practicing their religion, and forced to pledge loyalty to the CCP. Stockwell’s methodology involves interviews with Chinese religious leaders and both information and statistics from the state’s various Religious Affairs Bureaus a… [303] The mission of a shaman (巫 wu) is "to repair the disfunctionalities occurred in nature and generated after the sky had been separated from earth":[303], Since the 1980s the practice and study of shamanism has undergone a great revival in Chinese religion as a mean to repair the world to a harmonious whole after industrialisation. They originated as masters of the Tibetan Bon religion ("Ba" in Nakhi language), many of whom, in times of persecution when Buddhism became the dominant religion in Tibet, were expelled and dispersed to the eastern marches settling among Nakhi and other eastern peoples. China also is an excellent example for The government and Chinese intellectuals tend to associate Christianity with subversive Western values, and many churches have been closed or destroyed. A practice developed in the Chinese folk religion of post-Maoist China, that started in the 1990s from the Confucian temples managed by the Kong kin (the lineage of the descendants of Confucius himself), is the representation of ancestors in ancestral shrines no longer just through tablets with their names, but through statues. The aobaoes for worship of ancestral gods may be private shrines of an extended family or kin (people sharing the same surname), otherwise they are common to villages (dedicated to the god of a village), banners or leagues. [378]:133–134 According to the Tamil text Śaivāgama of Pashupata Shaivism, two of the eighteen siddha of southern Shaktism, Bogar and Pulipani, were ethnically Chinese. According to the results of an official census provided in 1995 by the Information Office of the State Council of China, at that time the Chinese traditional religions were already popular among nearly 1 billion people. The Gateway of the Hidden Flower (华藏宗门 Huácáng Zōngmén) and the True Awakening Tradition (真佛宗 Zhēnfó Zōng) are two new Han Chinese movements within the Vajrayana, and are among the Buddhist sects which are officially proscribed as evil by the government. Moreover, according to one survey approximately 14% of the population claims different levels of affiliation with Taoist practices. In addition, China is home to one of the largest populations of religious prisoners, likely numbering in the tens of thousands; while in custody, some are tortured or killed, rights groups say. [202] Neo-Confucian thinkers such as Zhu Xi (1130–1200) developed the idea of Lǐ 理, the "reason", "order" of Heaven, which unfolds in the polarity of yin and yang. [368]:33 Yanbian Korean churches have been a matter of controversy for the Chinese government because of their links to South Korean churches. [41] As the Zhou reign collapsed, traditional values were abandoned resulting in a period of moral decline. Zoroastrianism (琐罗亚斯德教 Suǒluōyàsīdéjiào or 祆教 Xiānjiào, "Heaven worship teaching"; also named 波斯教 Bōsījiào, "Persian teaching"; also 拜火教 Bàihuǒjiào, "fire-worshippers' transmission"; also 白頭教 Báitóujiào, "old age teaching")[387][388]:149 was first introduced in northern China in the 4th century, or even earlier, by the Sogdians, and it developed through three stages. Even Chinese Buddhism adapted to common Chinese cosmology by paralleling its concept of a triune supreme with Shakyamuni, Amithaba and Maitreya representing respectively enlightenment, salvation and post-apocalyptic paradise,[204] while the Tathātā (真如 zhēnrú, "suchness") is generally identified as the supreme being itself. [81] It was organised by Christian movements which established a separate state in southeast China against the Qing dynasty. Officials in Xinjiang tightly control religious activity, while Muslims in the rest of the country have typically enjoyed greater religious freedom. [262], There are two types of Taoists, following the distinction between the Quanzhen and Zhengyi traditions. [281], In contemporary China, the Confucian revival has developed into various interwoven directions: the proliferation of Confucian schools or academies (shuyuan 书院 or 孔学堂 Kǒngxuétáng, "Confucian learning halls"),[280] the resurgence of Confucian rites (chuántǒng lǐyí 传统礼仪),[280] and the birth of new forms of Confucian activity on the popular level, such as the Confucian communities (shèqū rúxué 社区儒学). The populations surveyed were those of the provinces of. [317]:40 Cultural critiques point to the fact that Shin Buddhist clerics may marry and eat meat; modern Chinese Shin Buddhist groups, however, tend to follow the norms of celibacy and vegetarianism of Chinese Buddhism. [349] "Moism" refers to the dimension led by mógōng (摩公), who are vernacular ritual specialists able to transcribe and read texts written in Zhuang characters and lead the worship of Buluotuo and of the goddess Muliujia. State religion plays a central role in Adam Smith’s vision of the religion market [1791, Book V, Article III]. Aligning with Chinese anthropologists' emphasis on "religious culture",[86]:5–7 the government considers these religions as integral expressions of national "Chinese culture". [51][52] The emperors of Qin also concentrated the cults of the five forms of God, previously held at different locations, in unified temple complexes.[53]. Mongolian folk religion, that is Mongolian shamanism (蒙古族萨满教 Ménggǔzú sàmǎnjiào), alternatively named Tengerism (腾格里教 Ténggélǐjiào),[339] is the native and major religion among the Mongols of China, mostly residing in the region of Inner Mongolia. This line of thought would have influenced all Chinese individual and collective-political mystical theories and practices thereafter. 民間宗教 mínjiān zōngjiào) or "folk faith" (i.e. The Zhuang religion is intertwined with Taoism. At the end of the Ming dynasty in the 16th century, Jesuits arrived in Beijing via Guangzhou. [388]:150 During the great purge of foreign religions under Emperor Wuzong of Tang also Zoroastrianism was target of suppression. What Westerners referred to as Nestorianism flourished for centuries, until Emperor Wuzong of the Tang in 845 ordained that all foreign religions (Buddhism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism) had to be eradicated from the Chinese nation. [262], Another category that has been sometimes confused with that of the folk salvationist movements by scholars is that of the secret societies (會道門 huìdàomén, 祕密社會 mìmì shèhuì, or 秘密結社 mìmì jiéshè). Parsi cemeteries and fire temples were built in these coastal cities, in east China. Brand New. Publisher. [336] Deities (enduri) enliven every aspect of nature, and the worship of these gods is believed to bring favour, health and prosperity. The "dongba" ("eastern ba") are masters of the culture, literature and the script of the Nakhi. Fundamental elements of a theology and spiritual explanation for the nature of the universe harken back to this period and were further elaborated in the Axial Age. The shared sense of Yao identity is further based on tracing back Yao origins to a mythical ancestor, Panhu.[346]:48–49. The historian Arthur Waldron explains that "communism was, in effect, a religion for its early Chinese converts: more than a sociological analysis, it was a revelation and a prophecy that engaged their entire beings and was expounded in sacred texts, many imported from Moscow and often printed in English". In each city, the respective City God is embodied by one or more historical personages, native of the city itself, who distinguished themselves by extraordinary attainments. Xi has expressed hope that China’s “traditional cultures” of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism could help curb the country’s “moral decline.”. [59], In the myth, the Yellow Emperor was conceived by a virgin mother, Fubao, who was impregnated by Taiyi's radiance (yuanqi, "primordial pneuma") from the Big Dipper after she gazed at it. [66], By the end of the dynasty (206 BCE–8 CE) the earliest record of a mass religious movement attests the excitement provoked by the belief in the imminent advent of the Queen Mother of the West (西王母 Xīwángmǔ) in the northeastern provinces (then Henan, Hebei and Shandong) in the first half of the year 3 BCE. Rituals may be performed by government officials, family elders, popular ritual masters and Taoists, the latter cultivating local gods to centre the forces of the universe upon a particular locality. Low response rates, non-random samples, and adverse political and cultural climates are persistent problems. Counting the number of religious people anywhere is hard; counting them in China is even harder. [359], Christianity, especially in its Protestant form, gained momentum in China between the 1980s and the 1990s, but, in the following years, folk religion recovered more rapidly and in greater numbers than Christianity (or Buddhism). [353] The Orthodox Church, which has believers among the Russian minority and some Chinese in the far northeast and far northwest, is officially recognised in Heilongjiang. [375], After the 1980s Islam experienced a renewal in China, with an upsurge in Islamic expression and the establishment Islamic associations aimed to coordinate inter-ethnic activities among Muslims. The goal for followers of this popular form of Buddhism is to be reborn in the Pure Land, which is a place rather than a state of mind. Dissent, the Chinese state officially recognizes five official religions – Buddhism, Taoism has practiced... 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