Living in the Chinese Cosmos | Asia for Educators

Topic Index

Religion in China: An Overview

Introduction to Living in the Chinese Cosmos

The Chinese Cosmos: Basic Concepts

... What Is the Chinese Conception of the Cosmos?

... The “Basic Stuff”: Qi

... Understanding Yin and Yang
- • The Yinyang Symbol
- • Yinyang and Qi in Human Beings
- • Yinyang and Fengshui

... “God” in the Context of Chinese Religion

... Understanding Shen: Human Spirit, Gods and Spirits, and the Spiritual

Understanding “Religion” in Context

19th Century: Intrusion of “the West” and Assault on Traditional Chinese Thought

... Prelude to the 19th Century: Jesuit Missionaries in China and the “Rites Controversy”

20th Century: Communism and Internal Challenges to Tradition

Religion in China Today: Reemergence of Traditional Practices and the Question of National Identity

... 1970s to the Present

... Contemporary Reemergence of Popular Religion and the Question of Chinese Identity

... Ethnicity, Religious Activity, and State Control: Falun Gong; Catholicism, House Churches, and Tibetan Buddhism; Religion and Ethnicity

Popular Religion & Beliefs

What Is Popular Religion?

Settling the Dead: Funerals, Memorials, and Beliefs Concerning the Afterlife

The Jade Emperor and Other Gods of the Heavenly Domain

The Kitchen God and Other Gods of the Earthly Domain

... The Kitchen God and His Wife
- • RELATED LINKS: CHINESE PAPER GODS
... The Earth God
- • Gods of the Earthly Domain in the Chinese Home
... The City God

The Ten Magistrates of the Underworld Realm

The State & Imperial Legitimacy

The Confucian Classics and the Civil Service Examinations

Temples of the State Cult

The Emperor in the Cosmic Order

Institutional Religion: The Three Teachings

Sanjiao: The Three Teachings

Defining “Daoism”: A Complex History

Buddhism: The “Imported” Tradition

... The Place of Buddhism in Chinese Society
- • Fojiao: “The Teaching of the Buddha”
... The Origin of Buddhism and the Early Indian Worldview
- • RELATED LINKS: THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM
- • Reincarnation and the Forms of Life
- • Gods of Buddhism
- • Karma
- • The Cycle of Existence
- • The Path to Salvation
... Understanding the “Buddha”
- • The Buddha
- • buddhas
- • bodhisattvas
... The Three Jewels: Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha
... The History of Buddhism in China

Confucius and the “Confucian Tradition”

... Who Was Confucius?
... What Did Confucius Teach?
- • The Ideal Ruler
- • Ritual (Li)
... The Emergence of “Confucianism” during the Han Dynasty
- • The Classical Texts
- • State Sponsorship
- • Dong Zhongshu’s Cosmological Framework
... Genealogy of the “Confucian Tradition” and What It Reveals

Religion, the State, & Imperial Legitimacy

The Confucian Classics and the Civil Service Examinations

Temples of the State Cult

The Emperor in the Cosmic Order

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