Chinese Religion in English Guise: The History of an Illusion

Abstract

The purpose of the following remarks is to trace the way in which, for over a century from the time of the first Opium War to that of the emergence of the study of Chinese religions as a separate specialization in the 1970s, the English-language world sustained a description of religion in China that was at very considerable variance with the facts. The narrative is not designed to be definitive—the choice of materials drawn upon is restricted, and somewhat arbitrary—but I trust that it ranges widely enough to explain just how this faulty analysis not only came into being but also managed to survive for so long. More detailed studies of aspects of the problem are already under way, and will doubtless appear in due course, but an overview at this point may even so be helpful. It may indeed even be helpful in the wake of the appearance of one such extremely detailed and valuable study, Norman Girardot's weighty volume on the towering figure of James Legge (1815–1897). For while it is now possible to read an excellent study of Legge's views in the context of his own times—and no one interested in the topic treated here should ignore Girardot's research—a glance at the even broader context of the overall history of sinology in relation to Chinese religion suggests that Legge's views by and large fall into the more extended pattern outlined here. For rather than explore the outlook of any particular individual, the aim here is to illustrate, and to some preliminary degree explain, the persistence of a particular paradigm in the understanding of Chinese religion.