Chinese folk religion

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Statue of a Taizu deity (deified important ancestor) inside a temple in Maoming, Guangdong.

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Altar to the Five Officials worshipped inside the Temple of the Five Lords in Haikou, Hainan.

Chinese folk religion (simplified Chinese: 中国 民间 信仰; traditional Chinese: 中國 民間 信仰; pinyin: zhōng-guó mín-jiān xìn-yǎng) is a polytheistic religion. Since Chinese civilization emerged in the Iron Age, folk religions have been practiced in China and among the Chinese diaspora.

Chinese folk religion is "a religious integration of Buddhism, Daoism and many other traditional religious beliefs”, according to a 2021 article in the Chinese Journal of Sociology.

Since the 1950s, Chinese folk religion has sometimes been called Shenism or Shénism (Chinese: 神教; pinyin: Shén-jiào). In this context, shen refers to a spirit or a deity. The term Shenism was first used by A. J. A Elliot in 1955. The term "Chinese folk religion" is not used inside China.

Overview

There is no standardized mythology or clergy: rites are often performed by the father of a family.

It is difficult to make a clear distinction between Chinese folk religion and other beliefs, because Chinese folk religion is a blend of many beliefs. These include:

• Veneration of the dead
• Local spirits
• Clan spirits
• Traditional Eastern religions, like Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism
• Superstition
• Seeking fortune-telling
• Feng shui (geomancy)
• Using amulets

Relationship with other religions

According to the Pew Research Center:

Confucianism, Taoism, folk religions and Buddhism are often deeply intertwined, and the differences among them can be indistinguishable to Chinese people. [...]

Folk beliefs and practices ... incorporate Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist concepts and also turn them into distinctly folk religious elements.

For instance, the popular folk deity, the goddess of mercy (Guanyin 观音), was originally the Buddhist figure Avalokiteśvara, a bodhisattva of compassion often depicted as genderless or male.

In Chinese folk religion, Guanyin is understood as a goddess who answers all prayers, including requests for wealth, health, good fortune and giving birth to a son.

Chinese folk religion pre-dated Taoism. Over the centuries, Taoism became institutionalised. It blended with local customs and became similar to local religions and beliefs. Taoism also developed from Chinese philosophy.

Suppression

Over the last 200 years, religion has been heavily suppressed in China, with rebellions such as the Taiping Movement or Cultural Revolution. Today, Chinese folk religion is experiencing a major revival in both Mainland China and Taiwan.

The current government of China has officially supported some forms of Shenism, such as Mazuism in Southern China (officially about 160 million Chinese are Mazuists), Huangdi worship, Black Dragon worship in Shaanxi, and Caishen worship.

21st century followers

A 2007 Chinese Spiritual Life Survey found that 55.5% of people who responded to the survey were followers of folk religions. In 2012, Yang and Hu estimated the same, writing:

"55.5% of the adult population (15+) of China, or 578 million people in absolute numbers, believe and practise folk religions, including a 20% who practice ancestor religion or [group] worship of deities, and the rest who practise ... "individual" folk religions like devotion to specific gods such as Caishen.

An article in the Chinese Journal of Sociology argues that former studies have failed to identify Chinese folk religion adherents because of the way survey questions were asked. The article says:

[Using] a new [survey] measurement of religiosity, we verify the [most common] viewpoint of anthropologists, that folk religion is really the mainstream of the Chinese religious market. Around 70% of the Chinese population are folk religion believers, only 5% are members of institutional religions, and 25% are non-believers. The diffuseness of folk religion is also remarkable. Nearly 50% claim to believe in two or more religions. By using latent class analysis, we find that these folk religion believers can be classified into three categories: believers of geomancy, believers of diffused Buddhism and Daoism, and believers embracing all beliefs. [...] We find that the higher the degree of mixed beliefs, the stronger the religiosity.

Chinese Folk Religion Media

• Xuanyuan Temple, dedicated to the worship of the Yellow Emperor, located in Huangling County, Shaanxi

• 文澳 城隍廟.jpg

  The Temple of the City God in Wen'ao, Magong, Taiwan

• Dongmen City God Temple, 2014-10-07 17.JPG

  Temple of the City God of Dongmen, in Xiangshan County, Zhejiang

• 浞景寺 01.jpg

  A sign in a temple in Weifang, Shandong, that reads "This is a place of folk belief. No religious donation or religious activities are allowed."

• Buddhist, Daoist, and Folk Deities from the Water-Land Ritual.jpg

  Qing-era Shuilu ritual painting depicting Buddhist, Daoist, and folk deities

• Ming-era painting of deities, housed in Hunan Museum

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  Zitong altar in a temple of Quanzhou, Fujian. To his left there is a statue of Kuixing.

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  Statue of Mazu at a temple in Chiayi, Taiwan

Related pages

• Laozi
• Analects
• Chuang Tzu
• Tao Te Ching
• Confucianism
• History of China