Model humanity:
38-580: Main philosophical traditions: Ritual traditions: Devotional traditions: Salvation churches and sects : Confucian churches and sects: Fuxi or Fu Hsi (伏羲) is a culture hero in Chinese mythology , credited along with his sister and wife Nüwa with creating humanity and the invention of music, hunting, fishing, domestication, and cooking, as well as the Cangjie system of writing Chinese characters around 2900 BC or 2000 BC. Fuxi
76-544: A Chinese religious tradition characterised by a concern for salvation (moral fulfillment) of the person and the society. They are distinguished by egalitarianism , a founding charismatic person often informed by a divine revelation , a specific theology written in holy texts , a millenarian eschatology and a voluntary path of salvation, an embodied experience of the numinous through healing and self-cultivation, and an expansive orientation through evangelism and philanthropy . Some scholars consider these religions
114-1112: A Hutchinsonian , identified Fuxi with the Biblical Noah ( A Treatise on the Deluge ). Fuxi and Nüwa were also thought to be gods of silk. Fuxi is said to have lived for 197 years altogether and died at a place called Chen (modern Huaiyang , Henan ), where a monument to him can still be found and visited as a tourist attraction. Three Exalted Ones: Suiren · Fuxi · Taihao · Nüwa · Zhurong · Shennong · Yandi · Gonggong · Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) Four Perils: Gonggong · Huandou · Gun · Sanmiao · Hundun · Qiongqi · Taowu · Taotie Five Primal Emperors: Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) · Shaohao · Zhuanxu · Ku · Zhi · Yao · Shun Chinese salvationist religions Model humanity: Main philosophical traditions: Ritual traditions: Devotional traditions: Salvation churches and sects : Confucian churches and sects: Chinese salvationist religions or Chinese folk religious sects are
152-646: A tortoise ) that emerged from the Luo River . This arrangement precedes the compilation of the I Ching during the Zhou dynasty . This discovery is said to have been the origin of calligraphy. Fuxi is also credited with the invention of the Guqin musical instrument, though credit for this is also given to Shennong and Yellow Emperor . The Figurists viewed Fuxi as Enoch , the Biblical patriarch. Alexander Catcott ,
190-563: A Confucian identity, with the foundation of the Holy Confucian Church of China which aims to unite in a single body all Confucian religious groups. Many of the movements of salvation of the 20th and 21st century aspire to become the repository of the entirety of the Chinese tradition in the face of Western modernism and materialism, advocating an "Eastern solution to the problems of the modern world", or even interacting with
228-477: A family member. Righteousness is when someone refuses to violate prohibitions that would be regarded as shameful or degrading such as bribery. Righteousness can be seen as the distribution of goods according to one's merit and position. Propriety or li is broader in scope than the English word would entail. It is when someone performs a ritual with reverence, covering social protocol in situations that require
266-541: A sense of respect, such as weddings, funerals, greetings, and serving food and drink. Wisdom is understanding the other virtues' characteristic motives and feelings, correctly assessing the quality of a person's character, and knowing the best means to achieve virtuous ends. Trustworthiness or faithfulness is understood as commitment to reality in a consistent and reliable way. Some Confucians did not consider xin to be its own domain of activity since it regulates and supports virtues. They all require one to be aware of what
304-507: A single group they are said to have the same number of followers of the five state-sanctioned religions of China taken together. Scholars and government officials have been discussing to systematise and unify this large base of religious organisations; in 2004 the State Administration of Religious Affairs created a department for the management of folk religions. In the late 2015 a step was made at least for those of them with
342-416: A single phenomenon, and others consider them the fourth great Chinese religious category alongside the well-established Confucianism , Buddhism and Taoism . Generally these religions focus on the worship of the universal God ( Shangdi ), represented as either male, female, or genderless, and regard their holy patriarchs as embodiments of God. "Chinese salvationist religions" ( 救度宗教 jiùdù zōngjiào )
380-572: A twin brother and sister, Fuxi and Nüwa. Fuxi and Nüwa are said to be creatures that have faces of human and bodies of snakes. However, in some myths, Fuxi was held to be the creator, not Pangu, who worked alone and not with Nüwa. Fuxi was known as the "original god", and he was said to have been born in the lower-middle reaches of the Yellow River in a place called Chengji (成紀) (possibly modern Lantian , Shaanxi province, or Tianshui , Gansu province). A possible historical interpretation of
418-507: Is a contemporary neologism coined as a sociological category and gives prominence to folk religious sects' central pursuit that is the salvation of the individual and the society, in other words the moral fulfillment of individuals in reconstructed communities of sense. Chinese scholars traditionally describe them as "folk religious sects" ( 民间宗教 mínjiān zōngjiào , 民间教门 mínjiān jiàomén or 民间教派 mínjiān jiàopài ) or "folk beliefs" ( 民间信仰 mínjiān xìnyǎng ). They are distinct from
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#1732783137950456-425: Is also known as Bao Xi (包牺) and Mi Xi (宓羲). Pangu was said to be the creation god in Chinese mythology . He was a giant sleeping within an egg of chaos . As he awoke, he stood up and divided the sky and the earth. Pangu then died after standing up, and his body turned into rivers, mountains, plants, animals, and everything else in the world, among which is a powerful being known as Huaxu (華胥). Huaxu gave birth to
494-510: Is identified with Taihao, the latter being his courtesy or formal name. According to legend, the goddess of the Luo River , Mifei , was the daughter of Fuxi. Additionally, some versions of the legend state that she is Fuxi's consort. She drowned in the Luo River while crossing it and became the spirit of the Luo River. According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas , Fuxi and Nüwa were
532-489: Is real and avoid self-serving delusions. What are the Five Constant Virtues? They are benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness. Benevolence means not being able to endure (seeing others suffer), loving others, and aiding all living things. Righteousness means doing what is proper. In making judgments one hits the mark. Propriety means to enact. That is, to realize the way and perfect
570-591: The Book of Rites . Some scholars even find influences from Manichaeism , Mohism and shamanic traditions . In the Ming and Qing dynasties many folk religious movements were outlawed by the imperial authorities as "evil religions" ( 邪教 xiéjiào ). With the collapse of the Qing state in 1911 the sects enjoyed an unprecedented period of freedom and thrived, and many of them were officially recognised as religious groups by
608-402: The Chinese folk religion consisting in the worship of gods and ancestors, although in English language there is a terminological confusion between the two. The 20th-century expression for these salvationist religious movements has been "redemptive societies" ( 救世团体 jiùshì tuántǐ ), coined by scholar Prasenjit Duara . A collective name that has been in use possibly since the latter part of
646-671: The Sangang Wuchang ( Chinese : 三綱五常 ; pinyin : Sāngāng Wǔcháng ), sometimes translated as the Three Fundamental Bonds and Five Constant Virtues or the Three Guiding Principles and Five Constant Regulations , or more simply "bonds and virtues" ( gāngcháng 綱常 ), are the three most important human relationships and the five most important virtues. They are considered the moral and political requirements of Confucianism as well as
684-484: The early republican government . The founding of the People's Republic in 1949 saw them suppressed once again, although since the 1990s and 2000s the climate was relaxed and some of them have received some form of official recognition. In Taiwan all the still existing restrictions were rescinded in the 1980s. Folk religious movements began to rapidly revive in mainland China in the 1980s, and now if conceptualised as
722-533: The Qing dynasty is huìdàomén ( 会道门 "churches, ways and gates"), as their names interchangeably use the terms huì ( 会 "church, society, association, congregation"; when referring to their corporate form), dào ( 道 "way") or mén ( 门 "gate[way], door"). Their congregations and points of worship are usually called táng ( 堂 "church, hall") or tán ( 坛 "altar"). Western scholars often mistakenly identify them as " Protestant " churches. The Vietnamese religions of Minh Đạo and Caodaism emerged from
760-654: The Three Sovereigns in the early patriarchal society in China ( c. 2600 BC), based on the myth about Fuxi establishing marriage ritual in his tribe. The creation of human beings was a symbolic story of having a larger family structure that included the figure of a father. On one of the columns of the Fuxi Temple in Gansu Province, the following couplet describes Fuxi's importance: "Among
798-526: The ages before the I Ching . In other versions of the story, he is credited to the writing of some of the I Ching itself. His divination powers are attributed to his reading of the He Map (or the Yellow River Map ). According to this tradition, Fuxi had the arrangement of the trigrams of the I Ching revealed to him in the markings on the back of a mythical dragon horse (sometimes said to be
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#1732783137950836-616: The eternal unchanging "essence of life and bonds of society." The expression of Sāngāng Wǔcháng is no older than the Han dynasty , when it was first articulated by Dong Zhongshu (179–104 BCE), and was not commonly used until the 10th century CE. From the 11th century onward, Neo-Confucianism heavily emphasized the three bonds and five virtues, believing that humans could become sages through perfecting these relationships and virtues. The three bonds are between father and son, lord and retainer, and husband and wife and they constitute three of
874-532: The five relationships ( 五倫 ; wǔlún ) described in the Mencius . According to Hsu Dau-lin , the concept of the Three Bonds was originally a Legalist idea. The lord is yang 陽 , the retainer is yin 陰 ; the father is yang , the son is yin ; the husband is yang , the wife is yin . The way of yin cannot proceed any where on its own.... Therefore, the retainer depends on his lord to gain merit;
912-424: The following three sentences: 能覆前而不能覆後 They could only know/trace their offsprings but not their progenitors (promiscuous without family concept), 臥之言去言去 They slept whenever they wanted (non-circadian without concept of time), 起之吁吁 When awoke, they started yue-ing (repeating/using a single sound to express emotions or communicate without language).] When hungry, they searched for food; when satisfied, they threw away
950-605: The label "secret sects" ( 秘密教门 mìmì jiàomén ) to distinguish the peasant "secret societies" with a positive dimension of the Yuan, Ming and Qing periods, from the negatively viewed "secret societies" of the early republic that became instruments of anti-revolutionary forces (the Guomindang or Japan ). Many of these religions are traced to the White Lotus tradition ("Chinese Maternism", as mentioned by Philip Clart ) that
988-506: The modern discourse of an Asian -centered universal civilisation. The Chinese folk religious movements of salvation are mostly concentrated in northern and northeastern China, although with a significant influence reaching the Yangtze River Delta since the 16th century. The northern provinces have been a fertile ground for the movements of salvation for a number of reasons: firstly, popular religious movements were active in
1026-438: The myth is that Huaxu (Fuxi's mother) was a leader during the matriarchal society ( c. 2600 BC) as early Chinese developed language skill while Fuxi and Nüwa were leaders in the early patriarchal society ( c. 2600 BC) while Chinese began the marriage rituals. A divinity Taihao ( 太皞 , "The Great Bright One") appears, vaguely, in sources before the Han dynasty , independent from Fuxi. Later, Fuxi
1064-448: The original humans who lived on the mythological Kunlun Mountain (today's Huashan). One day they set up two separated piles of fire, and the fire eventually became one. Under the fire, they decided to become husband and wife. Fuxi and Nüwa used clay to create offspring, and with the divine power they made the clay figures come alive. These clay figures were the earliest human beings. Fuxi and Nüwa were usually recognized by Chinese as two of
1102-471: The population of China, which is around 30 million people, claim to be members of folk religious sects. The actual number of followers may be higher, about the same as the number of members of the five state-sanctioned religions of China if counted together. In Taiwan, recognised folk religious movements of salvation gather approximately 10% of the population as of the mid-2000s. Three Fundamental Bonds and Five Constant Virtues In Confucianism ,
1140-504: The region already in the Han dynasty , and they deeply penetrated local society; secondly, northern provinces are characterised by social mobility around the capital and weak traditional social structure, thus folk religious movements of salvation fulfill the demand of individual searching for new forms of community and social network. According to the Chinese General Social Survey of 2012, approximately 2.2% of
1178-416: The remnants. They devoured their food hide and hair, drank the blood, and clad themselves in skins and rushes. Then came Fu Xi and looked upward and contemplated the images in the heavens, and looked downward and contemplated the occurrences on earth. He united man and wife, regulated the five stages of change, and laid down the laws of humanity. He devised the eight trigrams , in order to gain mastery over
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1216-494: The same tradition of Chinese folk religious movements. A category overlapping with that of the salvationist movements is that of the "secret societies" ( 秘密社会 mìmì shèhuì , or 秘密结社 mìmì jiéshè ), religious communities of initiatory and secretive character, including rural militias and fraternal organisations which became very popular in the early republican period, and often labeled as " heretical doctrines" ( 宗教异端 zōngjiào yìduān ). Recent scholarship has begun to use
1254-595: The son depends on his father; the wife on her husband, yin on yang , and the Earth on Heaven.... The Three [Fundamental Bonds] of the kingly way can be sought in Heaven. The five most important virtues are benevolence ( ren 仁 ), righteousness ( yi 義 ), propriety ( li 禮 ), wisdom ( zhi 智 ), and trustworthiness ( xin 信 ). The first four virtues were grouped together in the Mengzi . The fifth virtue, xin ,
1292-479: The three primogenitors of Huaxia civilization, Fu Xi in Huaiyang Country ranks first." During the time of his predecessor Nüwa , society was matriarchal. 古之時未有三綱、六紀，民人但知其母，不知其父，能覆前而不能覆後，臥之言去言去，起之吁吁，饑即求食，飽即棄余，茹毛飲血而衣皮葦。於是伏羲仰觀象於天，俯察法於地，因夫婦正五行，始定人道，畫八卦以治下。 In the beginning there was as yet no moral ( Sangang ) or social order. Men knew their mothers only, not their fathers. [Missing translation of
1330-451: The world. Fuxi taught his subjects to cook and various methods of hunting and fishing, including fishing with nets and hunting with weapons made of bone, wood, or bamboo. He instituted the basic family structure, as well as marriage, and offered the first open-air sacrifices to heaven. A stone tablet, dated AD 160, shows Fuxi with Nüwa. Traditionally, Fuxi is considered the originator of the methods of divination that were passed down through
1368-638: Was added by Dong Zhongshu. Trustworthiness, or sincerity, is considered the most important of the five virtues, and the foundation for the other virtues. The remaining virtues derive from the Four Sprouts described by Mencius in the Confucian classic of the same name. Benevolence is described as "forming one body" in relation to others, which requires seeing ourselves as extensions of others and vice versa. Paradigm cases of ren include acts of love or acting in others' interests, such as taking care of
1406-459: Was already active in the Song dynasty ; others claim a Taoist legacy and are based on the recovery of ancient scriptures attributed to important immortals such as Lü Dongbin and Zhang Sanfeng , and have contributed to the popularisation of neidan ; other ones are distinctively Confucian and advocate the realisation of a "great commonwealth" ( datong 大同 ) on a world scale, as dreamt of in
1444-468: Was counted as the first mythical emperor of China, "a divine being with a serpent's body" who was miraculously born, a Taoist deity, and/or a member of the Three Sovereigns at the beginning of the Chinese dynastic period . Some representations show him as a human with snake-like characteristics, "a leaf-wreathed head growing out of a mountain", "or as a man clothed with animal skins." He
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