Religions of Ancient China

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CHRONOLOGICAL SYLLABUS


Legendary Period (Twenty-ninth Century to Tenth Century B.C.)--P'an
Ku and Creation--First Worship of Spirits--Worship of God, with
incense--Sacrifices to Mountains and Rivers--Worship of Sun, Moon, and
Stars--Institution of Ancestral Worship--God enjoys music, dancing,
and burnt offerings--God resents bad government--Revelation in a
Dream--Anthropomorphism--Fetishism--No Devil--No Hell--Terms for
God--The Character for "God" is a picture of a Man--God and Jehovah--God
in the _Odes_--Hou Chi and Parthenogenesis--Superstitions and
Supernatural Manifestations--Sacrifice--Ancestral Worship--Filial Piety.

Feudal Age (Tenth Century to Third Century B.C.)--The Influence
of Confucianism--His Agnosticism--Weakening of Supernatural
Beliefs--Consolidation of Confucianism--Human Sacrifices--Prayers for
Rain--The Philosophy of Taoism--A Rival to Confucianism--But uniting to
weaken the old Monotheistic Faith--Its Theory of Spirits--Modifications
of Taoism--The Elixir of Life--Evidences of a Spiritual
World--Mysticism.

The Empire (Third Century B.C. to modern times)--Arguments against
a Spiritual World--Attributes of God--Good and Evil--Buddhism
appears--Conflict of Faiths--Struggle between Buddhism and
Taoism--Taoism borrows from Buddhism and becomes a Religion--Mazdeism
appears--Followed closely by Mahometanism, Nestorian Christianity, and
Manichaeism--Mahometanism alone survived--Jews arrived about Eleventh
Century A.D.--Chu Hsi materialised the Confucian Canon--Henceforward
Agnosticism the rule for _literati_--Buddhism and Taoism (both debased)
for the Masses--The Jesuits arrive in the Sixteenth Century--Protestant
Missionaries date from 1799.




SELECTED WORKS BEARING ON THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA

Religion in China. Joseph Edkins, D.D.

The Religions of China. James Legge, D.D.

The Dragon, Image and Demon, or the three Religions of China. Rev. H. C.
du Bose.

Les Religions de la Chine. C. de Harbez.

The Religious System of China: Its ancient forms, evolution, history,
etc. J. J. de Groot, Ph.D.

The Sacred Books of China. James Legge, D.D.

Chinese Buddhism. Joseph Edkins, D.D.

Le Shinntoisme. Michel Revon.