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The Concept of Soul in Chinese Folk Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Stevan Harrell
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Abstract

While all variants of Chinese religion assume the existence of one or more “souls” (ling-hun), very little has been said about what these “souls” are or how the concept varies from one religious tradition to another. This article explores the “soul” in the folk variant of Chinese religion, arguing that while the “soul” may be conceived as multiple in abstract, theoretical discussions, people actually behave as if the “soul” were a single entity. To show what this entity is, the contexts in which the “soul” can be described clearly, i.e., those contexts in which it is separated from the body, are enumerated. The image that emerges of the “soul” indicates that the Chinese concept ling-hun has a dual nature that incorporates the cultural aspect of being human and the individual personality.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , May 1979 , pp. 519 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1979

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References

1 Because “soul” is merely a convenient and approximate conventional gloss for ling-hun, rather than an exact translation, I use quotation marks when speaking of the Chinese concept of “soul.”

2 By “folk religion” I mean the religious beliefs and practices of the peasantry and other non-elite classes in late traditional China and in modern Chinese society outside the People's Republic. This term specifically excludes the textual religions (the State Cult, Buddhism, and Taoism) and also the beliefs and practices of religious specialists.

3 Wolf, Arthur P., “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors,” in Wolf, Arthur P., ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press), 1974, pp. 131–82;Google ScholarJordan, David K., Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1972), pp. 31–41;Google ScholarHsiao-t'ung, Fei, Peasant Life in China (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1939), p. 168;Google ScholarJohnston, R. F., Lion and Dragon in Northern China (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1910), p. 362;Google ScholarShyrock, John, The Temples of Anking and Their Cults (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Guethner, 1931), pp. 45–6Google Scholar.

4 “Gods” is a bad translation for most shen, who are usually limited in power and of human origin. “Saints” would be better, but I retain “gods” because it is conventional.

5 Ahern, Emily M., “Sacred and Secular Medicine in a Taiwan Village,” in Kleinman, Arthur, et al., eds., Medicine in Chinese Cultures (Washington, D.C.: Fogarty International Center, 1975), pp. 91–113;Google Scholar Katherine Gould-Martin, “Medical Systems in a Taiwan Village,” in Kleinman, Medicine in Chinese Cultures, pp.115–41.

6 Gould-Martin, Katherine, “Women Asking Women,” Diss. Rutgers University 1976, pp. 100–101Google Scholar.

7 Elliott, Alan, Chinese Spirit Medium Cults in Singapore (London: Athlone Press, 1955); Jordan, pp. 67–84Google Scholar.

8 Ahern, Emily M., “The Power and Pollution of Chinese Women,” in Wolf, Margery and Witke, Roxane, eds., Women in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1975), pp. 196–97;Google Scholar Gould-Martin, Women Asking Women, pp. 120–27.

9 Gould-Martin, Women Asking Women, pp. 100–101; Jack Potter, “Cantonese Shamanism,” in Wolf, Religion and Ritual, p. 212.

10 Ahern, Emily M., The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1973), pp. 229–35;Google ScholarFielde, Adele M., A Corner of Cathay (New York: Macmillan, 1894), pp. 152–58Google Scholar.

11 Elliott, Chinese Spirit Medium Cults; Jordan, pp. 67–84; Potter, “Cantonese Shamanism.”

12 Fukutaro, Masuda, Taiwan Hontojin no Shukyo (Tokyo: Meiji Seitoku Kinen Gakkai, 1935), p. 61Google Scholar; Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors.”

13 For a good general account, see Maurice Freedman, “On the Sociological Study of Chinese Religion,” in Wolf, Religion and Ritual, pp. 19–42.

14 The beliefs of Chu Hsi, for example, are described in DeGroot, J. J. M., The Religious System of China (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1901), IV, 75Google Scholar.

15 This is not to deny the importance of ritual and even, in some cases, direct experience amongelite believers in both these traditions. But the experience itself is necessarily made part of ananalysis. Geomancy and ancestor worship are Confucian practices illustrating this point, and the use of the five-Element cosmology (though not apurely Taoist concept) in chiao rituals (Saso, Michael, Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal [Pullman, Wash.: Washington State Univ. Press, 1974Google Scholar] provides a Taoist example).

16 Wolf, Eric, Peasants (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966), p. 99Google Scholar; Stevan Harrell, “Belief and Unbelief in a Taiwan Village,” Diss. Stanford Univ. 1974.

17 DeGroot, p. 75.

18 DeGroot, pp. 70–76.

19 DeGroot, p. 57.

20 Jordan, pp. 31–36.

21 Jordan, pp. 33–36; Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors,” pp. 169–75.

22 DeGroot, pp. 70–82.

23 Saso, pp. 12–13.

24 Gould-Martin, Women Asking Women, p. 300 n.

25 Rev. Doolittle, Justus, The Social Life of the Chinese (New York: Harper, 1865), II, 401–2Google Scholar.

26 Ahern, The Cult of the Dead, pp. 229–35.

27 Jordan, p. 31.

28 See Gould-Martin, Women Asking Women, pp. 120–27; Ahern, “Power and Pollution,” pp. 196–97; and Marjorie Topley, “Cosmic Antagonisms: A Mother-Child Syndrome,” in Wolf, Religion and Ritual, p. 237, for somewhat contradictory opinions. Topley refers to the T'ai-shen unambiguously as the “fetal soul.”

29 Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors,” p147.

30 Potter, p. 212.

31 Gould-Martin, Women Asking Women, pp. 92–93.

32 Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors,” pp.169–75.

33 Fielde, A Corner of Cathay, pp. 152–57; Potter, “Cantonese Shamanism.”

34 Ahern, The Cult of the Dead, pp. 228–35.

35 Ahern, The Cult of the Dead, pp. 228–35.

36 Jordan, p. 32.

37 In the part of Taiwan where I worked, mediums are rarely female. But Arthur Kleinman reports (personal communication) that about 20–25 percent of Taipei city mediums are female. See also Potter, “Cantonese Shamanism.”

38 Jordan, pp. 78–84.

39 Freedman, Maurice, Lineage Organization in Southeastern China (London: Achlone Press, 1958), p. 82Google Scholar.

40 Ahern, The Cult of the Dead, p. 200.