Abstract
This chapter examines ritual curing by Buddhists and Daoists. These two religions were based on the use of written texts. The curing of medical disorders was important to both as a means of spreading the faith. They freely adapted techniques from each other as well as from medicine and popular therapy. Certain techniques were peculiar to each. Buddhists in the eleventh century used mantras, rituals of repentance, and drugs energized by incantations or by invocations of divine beings. Buddhists established early hospitals, and often staffed those set up by the government. They originated the notion of karmic disease, the result of immoralities committed in earlier incarnations. Laymen often resorted to Buddhist meditation or prayer for the relief of disease. All the emperors of the Northern Song dynasty patronized Daoist movements and included their liturgy in that of the state; Huizong attempted to make China a theocracy based on the Divine Empyrean movement. The state’s policy of registering popular temples lessened the opposition of the Daoist movements to the worship of popular gods. Daoists’ initiations made them members of the bureaucracy of the gods. They were distinct from other clergy in their use of bureaucratic documents in curing and other rites. They also employed talismans (exorcistic graphs signed with the priest’s official seal). They used their powers to diagnose sickness due to the sins of a dead father or other relative and to take action against it in the courts of the otherworld. Their great rituals sometimes also had curative aims.
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Notes
- 1.
Not every Buddhist or Daoist priest or monk was a literatus. Some came from peasant families, and got what education they had in monasteries; but even those with no opportunity or aptitude for language had to memorize rites that came from books.
- 2.
I will not discuss other religions that affected Chinese health care only in minority communities, such as Manicheanism and Nestorian Christianity.
- 3.
Sivin 1978.
- 4.
See, among other sources, Yu 2006.
- 5.
Ebrey 1993, 229–230.
- 6.
Campany 2005, 177.
- 7.
- 8.
Tang Daijian 唐代劍 2003, 111–123.
- 9.
- 10.
Yijian zhi, zhi ding 夷堅志 -->, 支丁, 3: 989. For an overview of information about Daoist curing in Yijian zhi, see Zhuang Hongyi 莊宏誼 1999. The basic elements of this anecdote hold equally for the late Northern Song.
- 11.
His official title was Senior Grand Councilor (Shangshu zuo puye 尚書左僕射). For the dates, see Song shi 宋史 --> -->, 31: 585, 592.
- 12.
Boltz 2008.
- 13.
Yijian zhi, bu 補, --> 23: 1759–1761. Cf. the paraphrase in Davis 2001, 159–160.
- 14.
Lingbao da fa 靈寶大法 is an eclectic ritual collection assembled ca. 1200. The reference here is probably to an earlier partial compilation. Daoists of different movements widely used it for curing, exorcism, and salvation of the dead (Skar 2008). The Jiuhua mountains in Anhui are celebrated as a Buddhist center, but as usual Daoist monasteries were found there as well.
- 15.
- 16.
The Steps of Yu (Yubu 禹步 -->) is an ancient ritual dance by which the ritualist aligns himself with the cosmos.
- 17.
Qiwu 器物 -->, the material objects that made it possible to identify them.
- 18.
Huchuang 胡牀 -->, literally “barbarian bed,” was what people called chairs shortly after they were introduced into China. In the twelfth century they were still uncommon (Fitzgerald 1965).
- 19.
From here on “Guo” evidently refers to the child.
- 20.
Shangdi 上帝-->, the supreme god of the celestial hierarchy, and thus the celestial counterpart of the emperor.
- 21.
That is, the disinterred dog’s body.
- 22.
Reiter 2007b, 84, has suggested that the vogue of thunder rites was to some extent due to their highly influential propagators at the court of Huizong.
- 23.
- 24.
Yijian zhi, --> “Yijian ding zhi 夷堅丁志,” 4: 568.
- 25.
Song was in charge of the circuit’s military forces. This was normally the duty assignment of a civil official. He is not mentioned in the Song History, nor have I found a biographical notice elsewhere. In view of Song’s fairly high civil service rank, an invitation of this kind would have come only from a family of notable social standing. What attracted them would have been his skills learned in the Heart of Heaven movement.
- 26.
These are familiar characteristics of military gods.
- 27.
The rods used for computation on a counting board were sometimes flat on one side and rounded on the other.
- 28.
Andersen 2008.
- 29.
Bokenkamp 2004, 198.
- 30.
See the appendix (p. 163).
- 31.
Chao Shin-yi 2003.
- 32.
- 33.
- 34.
- 35.
The distinction between priestly and monastic Buddhism (or Daoism) is less sharp than in Christianity. I use “monk” or “nun” to refer to those mainly involved in spiritual self-cultivation, and “priest” (male and female) for those mainly serving communities of believers.
- 36.
Demiéville 1985, 19, translated from T616, 2: 249b.
- 37.
Demiéville 1985, 81–82, 85.
- 38.
Salguero 2009, 207.
- 39.
- 40.
- 41.
- 42.
See, for instance, the listings in Anonymous 1986.
- 43.
Fox & Swazey 1984 have pointed to differences between U.S. medical ethics and its counterpart in China, which they call “medical morality.”
- 44.
Qian jin fang 千金方, 1: 1b. For the opening of this section, see above, p. 59. On Sun’s Buddhist connections, see Fan Jiawei 2007, 226–229.
Historians sometimes mention “A Plea to Doctors (Quan yi lun 勸醫論)” of the Liang emperor Jianwen 梁簡文帝 as a precursor. But its plea is simply for learning by assiduous practice, and its model is the poet. The emperor quotes a predecessor: “if you read a thousand pieces of rhymeprose, you will be able to write rhymeprose.” See Quan Liang wen 全梁文, 11: 8a–9a. See also Zhou Yimou’s 周一谋 anthology of medical morality (1983).
- 45.
- 46.
- 47.
See Zhu Kewen 朱克文 et al. 1996, 57–61. The historical record is very sparse on this topic.
- 48.
- 49.
The earliest known Chinese book of Indian derivation on this topic is Longshu yan lun 龍樹眼論 --> ( Nagarjuna’s Discussion of the Eyes),--> of the Sui or Tang period. It is lost, but is quoted in later writings, on which see Deshpande 2000, 371–372, with translation in Deshpande & Fan 2012. Deshpande 2000, 383–387, discusses Indian influence on cataract surgery. The well-known Yin hai jing wei 銀海精微 -->, --> attributed to Sun Simiao, was almost certainly written in the sixteenth century. Eyeglasses entered China in the early 15th century; see Chiu 1936.
- 50.
Si fen lü 四分律, 22: 861.
- 51.
Juzu ren具足人 is corrupt, and its meaning uncertain. “Cripples” is a guess, based on a taboo common in other sources. See chapter 5, p. 109 for another list.
- 52.
From a roll of miscellaneous formulas excavated from Dunhuang. Its title is lost; its modern editors arbitrarily and misleadingly call it “Daoist formulas,” but it is more probably Buddhist. It is published in Ma Jixing et al. 1998, p. 761, citing ll. 14–15. These taboos are in addition to monks’ dietary prohibitions of alcohol, meat, and aromatic vegetables such as onions and garlic.
- 53.
- 54.
Desjarlais 1992, 82.
- 55.
Fa yuan zhu lin 法苑珠林 -->, --> 79: 875. Ming xiang ji 冥祥記 (lost), cited in Taiping guang ji 太平廣記 -->, --> 116: 806. Several places are named Pengcheng.
- 56.
The fragmentary Mawangdui manuscript that its editors have named “Buddhist Formulas, type 1” prescribes both incantations and rituals of repentance; see Ma Jixing et al. 1998, 751–752.
- 57.
Many of these are listed in the treatises on bibliography of the Standard Histories from the Sui on -->( Sui shu 隋書, --> 34: 1040–1051). The Song bibliography includes formularies and monographs on disorders and on drugs (Song shi 宋史, --> 207: 5303–5320). The earliest surviving medical book by a Buddhist cleric, --> Lingnan weisheng fang 嶺南衛生方 -->, was not written until 1283, after the end of the Song dynasty.
- 58.
Unlike Europeans, Chinese reproduced stone carvings not by literally rubbing, but by dabbing ink on the back of paper that had been moistened, pressed into the image, and allowed to dry almost completely.
- 59.
- 60.
Translation in Chün-fang Yü 2001, 126–127, slightly abridged and revised. “Ritual gesture” is mudrā, a powerful hand gesture; see Ren Zongquan 任宗权 2002, Saunders 1960 and Mitamura 2002 (which takes up differences between Buddhist and Daoist forms). Guanyin 觀音, also called Guanshiyin 觀世音 -->, is the most widely revered of the bodhisattvas.
-->The usual Buddhist terms for “incantation” are dhāraņī (tuoluoní 陀羅尼) and mantra (zhenyan 真言). Both are rare in therapeutic writing, where zhou or zhu 祝 is usual. Buddhist incantations are usually Chinese transliterations of Indian chants, or imitations of them. Incantations also appear in Daoist and popular ritual, sometimes in the same forms as Buddhists use. See, for instance, the method for familial harmony in Qianjin yi fang 千金翼方, 30: 360a, from a Daoist master’s handbook -->.
In this text, “Tathāgata,” “Śākyamuni,” and “Amitabha” are ways of referring to the Buddha-->, and samādhi is a state of enlightenment. Bolujiedi and the syllables at the end of the Dhāraņī are words imitative of Indian languages, common in Chinese Buddhist spells.
- 61.
Cited in Bencao gangmu 本草綱目, 9: 68, s.v. realgar, repeated with the differences noted in square brackets in 11: 73, s.v. alum. Realgar is As2S2, and alum is more or less pure KAl(SO4)2.12H2O. The book ascribes the formula to Su dongpo liang fang 蘇東坡良方 (Superior formulas of Su Shi), which must be a scribal error for Su Shen liang fang 蘇沈良方 (Superior formulas of Su [Shi] and Shen [Kuo], which Bencao gangmu’s list of sources does include. On this source see Sivin 1995d, 47 (more recent evidence supports a date of 1141/1151). The formula does not occur in the extant version of Su Shen liang fang.
- 62.
- 63.
I.e., twice the size of a soybean and a tenth the size of an average egg yolk. See Sivin 1968, 254, on standards for pill sizes. The tree is Firmiana simplex.
- 64.
On the paramount role of such rituals in Chinese Buddhism until the early fifth century, see Greene 2012.
- 65.
Tong zhi 通志, 178: 59a; Liu Shufen 2008a, 161–162; Jiu Tang shu 舊唐書, 100: 3131. Devoted Buddhists in Taiwan still carry out rituals of repentance.
- 66.
Toutuo 頭陀 is a transliteration of Sanskrit dhūta, “shaking off,” used by Buddhists for the meditation disciplines that overcome obstacles to enlightenment (and sometimes used for monks dedicated to those disciplines). For the text of the poem, see Bai’s poetry collection, Chang qing ji 長慶集, 14: 16a.
- 67.
- 68.
Lai 1998, 16–17.
- 69.
- 70.
Davis 2001, 31, and Kleeman 1993, 62. What Kleeman and I call popular ritual masters (fashi 法師) Davis defines as “an unorganized class of lay Daoist practitioners, some living within the communities or among the families they served, others traveling throughout the villages and towns of South China, performing exorcisms.”
- 71.
Russell Kirkland --> has argued that from the early fourth to the eleventh century, the Heavenly Masters movement “lost its social base in most regions, and endured only in vestigial forms” (2002, 181). Kleeman (in Pregadio 2008, 986) agrees with Kirkland that the hereditary leadership disappeared and that surviving sources are few, but points out that the movement’s scriptural corpus had become foundational, and its ordinations basic, for all Daoist masters.
- 72.
- 73.
Tang Daijian 2003, 142. An edict of 1018 even ordered maintenance of unregistered Buddhist and Daoist temples. I doubt that it had significant results.
- 74.
See the appendix, p. 163.
- 75.
Tang 2003, 35–39, Tang’s estimate. I suspect that this number is based on existing temples (some Buddhist) that had been converted by edict to the worship of the movement.
- 76.
- 77.
Goossaert 2001, 114–115.
- 78.
See Barend ter Haar in Pregadio 2008, 1015.
- 79.
Song Zhenzong yuzhi yujing ji 宋真宗御制玉京集 --> --> is a collection of such documents.
- 80.
- 81.
For details see Sivin 1995c.
- 82.
See among other sources Ahern 1981, 16–22.
- 83.
Seidel 1983.
- 84.
See the detailed comparison of cognate Buddhist and Daoist rituals in Orzech 2002, 218–230.
- 85.
Lu Xiansheng dao men ke lue 陸先生道門科略 --> -->, 1b–2a. Written in the second half of the fifth century, this tractate claims to describe the situation in the earliest Daoist communities. There is a complete translation in Nickerson 1996.
- 86.
- 87.
See Nickerson in Kohn 2000, 256–282, for Daoist movements in the south, and Kohn in the same volume, pp. 283–308, for a narrower range of northern phenomena.
- 88.
- 89.
Shen zhou zhi bing kou zhang 神咒治病口章 -->, --> p. 31b; Shen zhou jing 神咒經 -->, 9: 6b, discussed in Mollier 1990, 138; Tao’s Bencao jing ji zhu 本草經集注. -->
- 90.
Song da zhaoling ji 宋大詔令集 -->, -->219: 843; see also Chao Shin-yi 2006.
- 91.
It was in the Song period that Daoists positioned themselves as organizers and protectors of the popular pantheon, and incorporated popular gods in their own rituals (Kleeman 1993, 62).
- 92.
There were several types of registers through history. For an overview, see Amy Lynn Miller in Pregadio 2008, I, 39–42.
- 93.
Dao fa hui yuan 道法會元 -->, --> 56: 2a–2b, 3b, 4b–5a. The book was compiled in the fifteenth century, but Schipper & Verellen 2004, 1107, relate the section in which juan 56 occurs to the Shenxiao movement of Huizong’s time. For an extended translation, see Reiter 2007a, especially pp. 71–72, 75–76. Nickerson 1997, 232–233, discusses bureaucratization and enumerates other new elements that Daoists added to death ritual. See also Nickerson 2006.
- 94.
The Thunderclap Fire Master (Leiting huo shi 雷霆火師) is the divinity who, in this treatise, reveals the institutional mysteries.
- 95.
- 96.
“Jin jing 禁經,” j. 29–30 in Qianjin yi fang 千金翼方. Sun’s two formularies are conflated in Daozang under the title Sun Zhenren bei ji qianjin fang 孫真人備急千金方. Interdiction procedures similar to Sun’s appear in the manuscript “Essential Explanations to the Hidden Regulations” (“Xuanke yao jue 玄科要訣”) in Archive Schipper.
- 97.
Qianjin yi fang, 29: 16a (p. 348). “Libationer” was an early name for a Daoist initiate who had achieved a rank high enough to function as a priest. Qian is the hard, or pure yang, principle of the Book of Changes. The Most High Old Lord (Taishang Laojun 太上老君) is Laozi as a divine emanation of the Way.
- 98.
The usual translation of the second title, “Queen Mother of the West,” is misleading. She is not a queen mother.
- 99.
“Jin jing,” 29: 19b; 29: 19a, 21a; 29: 16b, 17b, 18b; 29: 21a, 30: 5b; 29: 20b; 29: 15a; 30: 16a.
- 100.
- 101.
Directions go through cycles of dominance correlated with the passage of cyclical time.
- 102.
The seal, carved in stone or cast in metal, embodies an official’s authority; compare p. 133. On the Steps of Yu, also see p. 134.
- 103.
- 104.
- 105.
Strickmann 2002, 13–23.
- 106.
- 107.
The xue 穴 is a place in the ground crucial to the local circulation of qi, analogous to an acupuncture locus in a human; Bennett 1978.
- 108.
Here the form offers the priest an assortment of appropriate complaints to choose from.
- 109.
The overall meaning of this sentence is unclear. Fengdu is the seat of the otherworld’s judiciary.
- 110.
The divinities to whom these flowery appellations belong are Zhang Daoling 張道陵 -->, the putative founder of the Heavenly Masters movement, and Wei Huacun 魏華存 -->, the goddess who revealed many of the Highest Purity teachings. This petition evidently originated in the latter corpus.
- 111.
“Pure” in this list implies suitable for use in ritual. The form actually lists twenty-three lords, not twenty-four, but discrepancies like this are not unusual. “Fate rice (mingmi 命米 -->)” may be analogous to mingzeng 命繒 -->, “fate silk,” silk offered to the gods when praying for increased length of life.
- 112.
Or jin 巾 may refer to any finished length of cloth from a napkin to a turban.
- 113.
See the full translation by Nickerson in Bokenkamp 1997, 261–271, from “Da zhong song zhang 大塚訟章,” in Chisongzi zhang li 赤松子章暦 --> -->, 5: 19a–23b. “Etc. (deng 等)” indicates standard features of petitions.
- 114.
See chapter 5, note 228.
- 115.
Nickerson 1997, 247.
- 116.
For an important study of the origins of the jiao in imperial ritual, see Raz 2007.
- 117.
See Poul Andersen in Pregadio 2008, 538–544, on the transition in the tenth and eleventh centuries from the grand purification ritual (zhai 齋) to the offering ritual as the main liturgical program. There are no general studies of Song jiao, but see the detailed analysis of modern ones, with some discussion of historical change, in Lagerwey 1987, and the documentation in Liu Zhiwan 劉枝萬 1967 and 1974.
- 118.
- 119.
Malignant spirits are classified here by the office in the celestial bureaucracy responsible for them. Wen 溫, 瘟, “Warm Factor Disorders -->,” is a group of epidemic febrile diseases documented in Shanghan zabing lun. See Hanson 2011.
- 120.
Nue 瘧 -->is a group of disorders that result in autumn, if in summer the body and mind were unable to adjust to the seasonal rhythms.
- 121.
Gods responsible in turn for each year of the 12-year Grand Year (or Counter-Jupiter) cycle. See Sivin 2010, 95–96.
- 122.
Gan’gaifa (贛<with 匚 radical>蓋法) is evidently a technical term. I have no idea what it means.
- 123.
Taishang zhu guo jiu min zong zhen mi yao 太上助國救民緫真祕要 -->, -->1: 5a. This source is the earliest comprehensive summary of large-scale rituals used by the Heart of Heaven movement (tianxin zheng fa 天心正法). As the book’s title implies (“for assisting the country and saving the people”), it was written to attract imperial patronage. See Andersen in Pregadio 2008, 951–952.
- 124.
Taishang shuo niuhuang miao jing 太上說牛癀妙經 -->, -->in classical sutra form. The biomedical counterpart of the disease is uncertain. For a talisman used against animal epidemics, see Ch’en 1942, 50–51.
- 125.
Katz 1995, 108, 175–176.
- 126.
- 127.
Song hui yao ji gao. Dao shi 宋會要輯稿.道釋, “Daoshi 1, appendix”: 618–619. This document also gives regional numbers. The figure for 960, the first year of the N. Song, is a combined count of Buddhist priests and nuns. At this time many areas of what later became Northern Song lands were not yet under government control.
- 128.
This figure is given separately on p. 621.
- 129.
This figure is confirmed by a report on p. 621, but the latter is not necessarily independent.
- 130.
Pp. 636–637. There were 9108 in 1075, 8364 in 1076, and 9393 in 1077. At the same time, the government was periodically returning clergy, largely Buddhist, to secular life (pp. 621–648).
References
Abbreviations
DZ = Volume number in Daozang
ES = Ersishi shi 二十四史 of Zhonghua Shuju, 1959–1977.
HY = text in Harvard-Yenching Concordance series
j. = juan 卷 (chapter)
RW = published by Renmin Weisheng Chubanshe 人民衛生出版社, Beijing
S = Title number in Schipper 1975
SQ = Siku quanshu 四庫全書
SV = Schipper & Verellen 2004
T = Taishō shinshū Daizōkyō 大正新修大藏經
UP = University Press
YZ = Yi tong zheng mai quan shu 醫統正脈全書
ZD = Volume, item, juan, and page numbers in Zhonghua daozang 中华道藏
ZS = published by Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, Beijing
ZZ = Zhongyi zhenben congshu 中醫珍本叢書 ed.
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Chisongzi zhang li 赤松子章曆 (Petition almanac of the Red Pine Master). Anonymous. Early fourth/sixth century. S615, DZ335–336. A manual of petitions for use by Heavenly Masters clerics.
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Taishang shuo niuhuang miao jing 太上說牛黃妙經 (Wondrous sutra of the Most High on niuhuang). Anonymous. Date unknown. S366, DZ 180. See SV 960. Not cited in Despeux 2010.
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Appendix. Ratio of Buddhist and Daoist Clergy
Appendix. Ratio of Buddhist and Daoist Clergy
Essential Documents and Regulations of the Song Period contains several censuses by province of government-registered clergy.Footnote 127 This table aggregates the figures:
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
960 | Taizu | [67403] | |||||
1021 | Zhenzong | 19606 | 731 | 397615 | 61239 | 479191 | 23:1 |
1034 | Renzong | 19538 | 588 | 385520 | 48742 | 454389 | 22:1 |
1042 | Renzong | 19680 | 582 | 348108 | 48417 | 416787 | 20:1 |
1068 | Shenzong | 18746 | 638 | 227061 | 34037 | 280482 | 13:1 |
Footnote 1281075 | Shenzong | 203512 | |||||
Footnote 1291077 | Shenzong | 18513 | 708 | 202872 | 29692 | 251785 | 12:1 |
These figures include only clergy recognized by the government and included in required periodic reports from the localities. They provide no information at all about unordained clergy or popular priests.
The table reveals two facts that have not played a role in previous scholarship on the Northern Song dynasty: first, registered Buddhist clergy greatly outnumbered Daoists; second, the ratio shrank from 23 : 1 in 1021 to 12 : 1 in 1077. It is disappointing that we do not have comparable figures for the reign of Huizong, whose involvement in Daoism was even deeper than that of his forbears. Since he established government schools to train Daoists on a large scale for the new temples he established, converted some Buddhist priests and returned others to the laity, the proportion no doubt changed even more—but this happened too late in his reign to last. Another intriguing datum has survived for the years 1075–1077. In those three years, the bureau in charge of registering clergy distributed (in some cases, sold) an empire-wide total of 26,865 ordination certificates for Daoist and Buddhist priests and nuns. This figure is not comparable to those in the table, which come from local censuses.Footnote 130
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Sivin, N. (2015). Therapy in Elite Religions. In: Health Care in Eleventh-Century China. Archimedes, vol 43. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20427-7_6
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