Because scholars during the first half of the 20th century neglect the liturgical details of Qing practices, they often produced oversimplified characterizations of the kinds of power that offerings produced, overlooking the extent to which rituals could depict and enact visions of the cosmos. (See Terry Kleeman, "Licentious Cults," 1994; Thomas Wilson, "Sacrifice and the Imperial Cult of Confucius," History of Religions 41:3 (Feb, 2002), pp. 251-287; Joseph Lam, "Musical Confucianism, the Case of Jikong yuewu," pp. 134-172 in Thomas A. Wilson ed., On Saered Grounds: Culture, Society, PolWes and the Formation ofthe Imperial Cult ofConfueius (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002); Nicolas Standaert, "Ritual Dances and Their Visual Representations.)
Enter Qigong MasterYun Maoqi (1791-1848):
Yun Maoqi was from Wenchang County on the southeastern island of Hainan, then part of distant Guangdong province. He received a jinshi degree in 1826 and the following year he became magistrate of Pei County, Jiangsu. . Luhe was a prosperous county near Nanjing, while Pei was in the relatively impoverished north of Jiangsu, not far from Shandong.He-was transferred to Luhe in 1829, bringing to the office a strong sense of ritual propriety. (See Gazetteer ofLuhe County, 1880, pp. 4/10a-b and Wenchang xian zhi, Gazetteer of Wenchang County, 1858, pp. 10/13b-15b).Yun grew up on the island of Hainan, and the intellectual community he formed there shaped his approach to classical studies. His earliest mentor was Zhang Yuesong (1773-1842), a Hainan scholar who had passed the palace examinations of 1809. Zhang's family maintained a library, and in that library Yun Maoqi read the collected works of renowned Ming dynasty philosopher and statesman Wang Shouren (1472-1529). Wang's writings captivated Yun, instilling within him the conviction that it was possible to become a sage. They also conveyed Wang's effectiveness as an official. The details ofWang's life as an official, in particular his skilled handling of a rebellion in 1519, seemed to Yun to provide a model ofhow sagacious virtue might beget administrative acumen. (This rebellion was led by the Prince ofNing against the Zhengde emperor. James Geiss, "The Cheng-te Reign, 1506-1521," pp. 403-439 in Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett ed., The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7 The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644.)
Yun Maoqi became a prolific writer himself, and his various works reveal his approach to ritual as both a scholar and an official. Yun's own prayers and administrative documents, which appear in his collected works, describe for example how he dealt with the rain in 1831. He also wrote a brief handbook for new officials in which he inc1uded injunctions regarding proper performance of offerings His philosophical writings provide insight into his understanding ofthe cosmology ofritual performance. Yun's "Record of Probing the Roots" was a collection of brief essays and aphorisms regarding the cosmos. The "roots" were the unseen sources of visible phenomena; in "probing" them, Yun explored the connection between human conduct and other aspects of the universe. In addition, his brother compiled a collection of sayings that further elucidated Yun's ideas. I use these writings in conjunction with imperialliturgies to reconstruct what Y un did when making offerings and what he thought the ritual accomplished.
Yun Maoqi's cosmological interests linked him to wider nineteenth-century intelleetual trends. The early nineteenth century witnessed the revival of movements that eneouraged broad inquiry into the "meaning and coherenee" (yi li.) of ideas in the Classics. Yun and others were reaeting to the philological foeus of mueh eighteenth-eentury scholarship, whieh tended to eoneentrate on questions of phonology, epigraphy, paleography, geography, and glosses on the aneient meanings of charaeters. Like many of his eontemporaries, Yun critieized the narrowness of this evidential research (kao ju ) even as he made use of its teehniques. He ineorporated ideas from several philosophieal fields of study in an attempt to address the problems of the day by explaining the basie moral workings of the cosmos. Yun described his synthesis in terms of three types of learning: the Learning of Mind (xin xue), Song Learning (Song xue), and the Qing revival of Han Learning (Han xue ). For Yun, the most important differences between these schools involved the ways they sought to aecess the knowledge and virtue of ancient sages. Emulating these sages allowed one to cultivate virtues that eould bring order to the cosmos.
Yun admired Wang's notion ofthe ''unity ofknowledge and action". For Wang, all people possessed an innate capacity to know what is moral. Selfish desires could blur this moral knowledge, but in its original state moral knowledge meant that a person was good and that a person did good. Although Yun drew inspiration from Wang's eall to moral purity, the details of Yun's eosmology relied not on Wang, but on the work of Song philosophers. Yun's biographers described him as a student ofthe "Five Masters ofthe Song." As synthesized by the Song dynasty scholar Zhu Xi (1130-1200), the Learning of the Way described all things and phenomena in the cosmos as consisting of qi, the basic stuff ofthe universe. Furthermore Yun's ecumenical sentiments helped him maintain personal connections to a group of people whose scholarly interests were eclectic, but who shared the sense that vigorous measures were necessary to confront the problems ofthe times. (Daniel K. Gardner described Zhu Xi's understanding ofthe path to order in Chu Hsi and the Ta-hsüeh: Neo-Confucian Reflection on the Confucian Canon (Cambridge: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 1986), p. 8.)
Yun Maoqi's cosmology is significant in part because ofthe historical moment that allowed his scholarly endeavor to win acceptance. Faced with a growing sense of crisis, intellectuals in the early nineteenth century responded in several ways. Some criticized Han Learning for being too narrow and called for a renewed interest in moral philosophy. Some turned their attention to administrative reform in areas such as grain transport, tax collection, and foreign relations.Yun also affords one official's view of state-mandated liturgies. His attempts to bring an end to the rain demonstrate ways a particular understanding ofthe cosmos could shape the process of making offerings. Yun's perspective on central govemment liturgies furthermore is a valuable supplement to central govemment legal texts, for his offering demonstrates that the mandates of Board of Rites regulations could be viewed through a particular cosmological filter.
In fact a recuning theme in many nineteenth-century works on ritual as it is today in the case of modern Qigong practices described in P.1, was the goal of cosmic equilibrium. Although Yun Maoqi's take on metaphysical questions was his own, he shared with bis contemporaries the sense that the cosmos underwent a constant process of regeneration and cyclical change explicable in terms of yin and yang. Like the Song pbilosophers who inspired him, he thought this cosmos exhibited a fundamental coherence evident in its every aspect, so that the whole could be understood from any given part.The role of humans was to comprehend this process of natural change and act in accord with it. Yun viewed this coherence in moral terms, and thought (in contrast to Han Learning scholars ) that the person who could spontaneously proceed in perfect concord with the universe was a sage. Failure to do so created deviations and blockages to the natural processes ofthe cosmos, but morally proper action led to cosmic harmony. For example the Zuo (Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals) says "Good and bad fortune arise from people." By being filial, brotherly, loyal, and trustworthy, [people] create good fortune and virtue. Doing bad things creates bad people. These are all etemal, unchanging standards that [are found by] probing the roots and seeking out the origins.
Yun made this comment also in a discussion of different techniques of prognostication. His point was that those who consider good fortune and bad fortune to be a matter of fate (and thus only altered through magie) were wrong, that astrologers and geomancers could not conjure solutions to one's problems. Instead, Yun argued that one must examine one's own moral qualities and follow the appropriate standards of conduct. Disasters resulted from failures of virtue.Yun subscribed to the common view that the entire universe consisted of qi.And thus followed Song thinkers in regarding coherence and qi as conceptually separate. All things and actions consisted of a combination of the two; there was no qi without coherence. Because all things took part in the same coherence, and all things were made of qi, there was a fundamental similarity between everything in the universe. For people, the center ofthought and emotion was the mind (physically located in the heart rather than the head). Yun emphasized that the properties of the mind were similar to the properties of the universe: The universe has qi that comes forth and spreads without coming to an end. The human mind also has qi that comes forth and spreads without coming to an end.
One implication ofthese similarities was to underscore Yun's point that the universe was knowable: If one is able to understand and become enlightened about the coherence in one person, then one can know the coherence of all under heaven. If one is able to follow in a tranquil manner what is appropriate for one [human being' s] person, then one can find out what is appropriate for the myriad things.
Another implication was that the shared properties of the mind and the cosmos allowed the activities of the mind to affect the cosmos:The mind is the host and things are the guests. The mind is the lord and manners are the ministers.The coherence of the mind both reflected and affected the affairs of the world. If one was able to maintain unmediated access to one's mind, then things would be harmonious. Yun implied that such a person would also be a ruler; such perfect understanding ofheaven, earth, and man would translate into political power, and trom that position one could enact this ideal society. Desire for political power would, however, disrupt one's innate moral judgment. In this context for example the condition of human qi was also seen as appearing in the face (still a common study among traditional Chinese today), and the condition of heavenly qi appears in the sun, moon, stars, and clouds; an aspect more popular with Western practitioners of Qigong today.
Like most Qing intellectuals, Yun also regarded the natural state ofheaven as reflecting the seasonal, daily, and spatial fluctuations ofyin and yang, viz: In spring yang flourishes and in summer it flourishes even more. In fall yin flourishes and in winter it flourishes even more. This is to differ according to season. At dawn yang flourishes and in daytime it flourishes even more. At dusk yin flourishes and at night it flourishes even more. This is to differ according to time of day. In the south yang flourishes and in the far south it flourishes even more. In the north yin flourishes and in the far north it flourishes even more. This is to differ according to place.Yun noted that at no point in these cycles was either yin or yang absent. What I have been calling "harmony" meant the appropriate apportionment of yin and yang according to the time and situation. When that happened, one could expect proper levels of rainfall, sun, and so forth, so that harvests would be plentiful. Social concord in the form ofhonest officials and a self-sufficient populace would follow.In its natural state, one's mind simply conformed to the balanced transformations of yin and yang. One could then view all the things of the world in a manner unencumbered by selfish desires. Yun called this state ofmind "emptiness" (xu). To have an empty mind was to have the mind of a sage. According to Yun, problems arose when a person (and particularly an official or monarch) deviated ftom this pristine state of mind. When selfish desires clouded the mind, the result was disruptions in the natural patterns of the universe. The results would be grim. For Yun, thus desires could literally cause flooding, famine, and drought.And since such reverberations were particularly significant for rulers; Yun's ideas were tacitly critical ofQing emperors and officials, who evidently did not have the proper frame of mind.
Yun's ideas about coherence however offered a ready solution to natural disasters. One could restore the balance of yin and yang in the cosmos by harmonizing them within oneself. The mind would then be at an ideal mean, centered, i.e. not partial in the direction of excessive yin or yang, and upright (zheng), i.e. not subject. Beeause the idea of shared eoherenee is obscure, it might be tempting to think that Yun is saying that desires lead to a chain of events that ultimately culminates in disasters. For example, one might say that ifI was greedy, and I expressed this greed in a yang manner by robbing a bank, then the bank would not have money for farming loans, thus leading to poor harvests, and thus to famine. Yun did not make this kind of argument. Instead, Yun argued that greed and famine (and, as will become elear below, some spirits) were separate manifestations of the same underlying cause: an exeess ofyang. He required no further chain of events linking the two. If the mind is not centered and upright, then the mind will have flooding, ferocious anirnals, and rebellious bandits making trouble inside it. One can remove [these difficulties], order, empty, and clear [the mind]. Ifwithin this [mind] there is no chaos, then it can suppress the great chaos under heaven. If within this [mind] there is great balance, then it can cut away the imbalance under heaven. Even for those who can restrain themselves, it is still difficult to [or for that action to] have effective results. If that [state of mind] is applied, then good administration will spread and transform [the people], there will be resources 10 rely on without end, and hundreds of people can be changed as one wishes.Cosmic harmony and internal harmony thus ultimatly were the same thing. By cultivating one' s own mind to follow the natural transformations of yin and yang and not deviate from them, one could realize social order. For Yun, the key to cultivating this natural, empty state ofmind lay in establishing the will (zhi) to become a sage. I have already mentioned this idea in connection with Y un' s fIrst encounter with the work of Wang Shouren; he also emphasized the idea in his lectures to students at Liufeng Academy and in the Record 0f Probing the Roofs. Yun thought the will to become a sage would lead his students to study the Classics and to examine themselves. By studying the Classics, students would leam about the actions of sages. By examining themselves, students would seek out and e1iminate their selfish desires. Thus the important point when engaging in study according to Yun, was definitively establishing the will to become a sage or worthy. This is the fundamental root. As for preserving and nourishing [the mind], this is planting [the roots], covering them with soil, watering and irrigating them. As for examining and observing [the mind], this is setting up a barrier for protection. As for overcoming and ordering [the mind], this is weeding out the bugs that eat the leaves ofthe mind. Ans so because none ofthese practices was easy, Yun argued that only the will to become a sage endowed one with the capacities necessary to implement methods of selfcultivation.Yun's utopia - the idea that all under heaven could operate in an orderly manner not surprising, contrasted sharply with his sense of the actual world around him. Thus he sought to galvanize his students around the idea of sagehood precisely because he felt a pressing need to order the world. In this sense, he viewed his cosmological theorizing as the"practical study" (shi xue) aimed at moral renewal. His view of the practical followed from his cosmology- studies were shi to the extent that they allowed one to bring about a cosmic equilibrium.
Such was the cosmos that Yun envisioned when he proceeded to the Altar of Celestial and Terrestrial Spirits in March 1831. Yun thought that by having properly cultivated the moral goodness of his own mind, he would be ready to enlist the help of the spirits in getting the rain to stop. By giving offerings in the appropriate format at the correct altar, Yun brought himself into proper contact with these spirits. The ceremony allowed him to display his own sincerity, to invite the presence of invisible spirits, and to bring the cosmos back towards harmony. Like other officials, when Yun appealed to the gods, he was expected to perform the liturgy included in Board of Rites regulations. Periods of excessive flooding or famine appear to have been the times and officials during the 19th Century were most likely to also use other forms of ritual, including Daoist purification ceremonies, rituals involving the eight trigrams of the Book of Changes, and prayers to local deities. (Third edition of Jiangsu provincial regulations, 1883, pp. 16a-26a. Furthermore Snyder-Reinke, in "Dry SpeIls," 2006, has ample evidenee ofvariations from the eode in rainmaking ceremonies. Many of these examples are post-Taiping, when, as we will see , local groups played a substantially greater role in state ritual practices.
By 1831, the of Yun virtue and benevolence of the spirits however may indeed have appeared exhausted. Yun's prayer did not bring an end to the rain, but he continued to take measures designed to bring a measure of relief. He arranged for boatmen to retrieve those trapped in the floods. He both contributed to and solicited contributions for a soup kitchen that could provide food to the displaced, and he sought ways to house the refugees. Yun probably viewed his cosmology, his prayer, and his relief efforts as a coherent whole, but modem scholars have seldom followed suit. Although there is a burgeoning literature on the statecraft reforms of the early nineteenth century, seldom does this work examine appeals to gods. In fact, such appeals were not only extremely common, but absolutely central, and des erve to be treated alongside such issues as famine relief, river control, and efforts to educate the populace. (See again, Snyder-Reinke, "Dry Speils," 1996.)
As we have seen, Yun proposed that the moral mind was the link between the cosmos, the political order, specific measures to govem, and ritual. The same appears in the case of other literati in the city of Nanjing, and although few endorsed Yun's specific vision of the mind, the idea that ritual both depicted and connected cosmos and state was extremely widespread. A given view of the universal whole would call for a particular form of govemance, allowing certain groups authority over others. Their claims to power des the more appear natural, becouse Nanjing's status as former capital provided city residents with potent symbols they could deploy alongside the numerous markers of Qing rule.Throughout the Qing dynasty, Nanjing's governmental, educational, and economic institutions fostered the creation ofnetworks ofhighly educated literati with an interest in addressing the problems of the day. Thus Nanjing's literati considered themselves custodians of legacies of the past. Merchants used their wealth to encourage interest in this cultural heritage of the city, bringing together literati activism and scholarly endeavor. Efforts to catalogue the city's history in exacting and verifiable detail reflected the application of evidential scholarship to areas outside the c1assics. Nanjing residents attempted to promote the city's reputation as a place whose scholarly culture was devoted to matters of ritual.
For example Shang Wei has identified a circle of literati in eighteenth-century Nanjing who had written extensive commentaries on ritual practice and who had staged private offerings at local academies and temples. Such rituals included music, dance, and offerings of meat and wine, and in the nineteenth century, such ritual activities tended to be more closely tied to government offerings. Famous in this context was the Zhongshan Academy, located in the southem part of the city near the Shangyuan County yamen. Yao Nai, a key figure in the Qing revival ofthe "ancient pro se" (gu wen ti)() literary movement, had served as director ofthe academy between 1790 and 1799. According to Theodore Huters: The most important advantage of Yao Nai's approach to moral and political correctness] was probably the sense of morality combined with rigorous discipline persistent within the gu wen [ancient prose] tradition. This provided a way not only to recuperate from the frigid objectivity that many saw as the main drawback of Classical studies, but also to avoid excesses of abstract specu1ation. (Huters, "From Writing to Literature: The Development ofLate Qing Theories of Prose," Harvard Journal 0f Asiatic Studies 47: 1 (June 1987), p. 74.) And those who studied in Nanjing under Yao became politically active in Nanjing in the eighteen-twenties and thirties in what James Polachek has termed the "Inner Opium War," a series of attempts to press officials in the capital to adapt a more hard-line policy toward the British. (See Polachek, Inner Opium War, 1992, pp. 66-83, on the rise ofthe Spring Purification Circle, which included some ancient prose activists).
Thus when Nanjing elites wrote about the problems afflicting the empire in the fIrst half ofthe nineteenth century, they frequently referred to its "deterioration". They underscored the tendency ofthe selfIsh (si ) to cheat (qi), deceive (zha), engage in corrupt (fan) acts, or otherwise undermine attempts to solve administrative problems. One version oft his phenomenon was the use of government funds for personal gain. Another was the perceived inability of Qing provincial government officials to address new challenges like the opium trade. This concern went beyond the bureaucracy; Nanjing's elites were equally worried about themselves. They feared that the process of gaining status and position corrupted those who took part. One of the central problems of Qing governance involved the proper activities and responsibilities of elite men trained in the Classics. As Philip Kuhn has observed, the "cIassical curriculum had taught [the elite] that educated men of a political vocation would realize this goal through strict examination quotas affording this opportunity to only a very select few that viewed themselves as inheritors and transmitters of the classical tradition.( Kulm. Origins ofthe Modern Chinese State,Stanford University Press, 2002). By sharing their ideas about government policy from a moral standpoint, literati could claim prerogatives of official positions that were not otherwise available to them. Through essays, poetry, and letters criticizing imperial decisions, literati could express (tacitly or directly) an ideal of government: that considered scholarly opinion that changed over time. As a result, between 1800 and 1850, population growth, economic dislocation, and popular rebellion destabilized the dynasty, and forced a realignment of the relationship between Qing emperors and literati. Emperors grew more willing to acknowledge, even solicit, wide input on policy issues, and literati feIt that the growing social upheaval necessitated a more activist approach to both local and imperial politics. (See David S. Nivison, "Heshen and His Accusers: Ideology and Political Behavior in the Eighteenth Century," pp. 209-244 in Confucianism in Action, ed. by David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959), pp. 240-241.)
The accession of the Jiaqing emperor to the throne in 1799 proved to be a turning point. Jiaqing forced his father' s chief minister, Heshen, to cOlnmit suicide following revelations of a string of administrative abuses. Heshen, a Manchu, had amassed an enormous personal fortune, and many Han Chinese officials and literati blamed the length and severity of the White Lotus Rebellion (1796-1804) on Heshen's corrupt minions. The episode galvanized lowranking and expectant officials into believing that collective action was necessary for good government in general and for their own career advancement. At the same time, the Jiaqing emperor issued a general call for suggestions on how to correct the problems that remained as the legacy ofHeshen.18 Although he largely ignored the advice received, Jiaqing' s move signaled a change in the willingness of Qing emperors to accept forms of political participation outside of regular bureaucratic channels.Understanding that most bureauerats were themselves products ofthe examination system (and thus drawn from the pool of educated elites) literati feit they could not solve the issue of corruption in government without examining their own class. Although scholarship and virtue were the defming attributes elites ascribed to themselves, it was clear that money could be very helpful in gaining both. Literati worried about the corrupting power of money, and the use of wealth for maintaining social position was acknowledged, but also condemned. (Polachek, Inner Opium War, 1992, pp. 55-59; 63.)
Nanjing's elite residents aspired to create a more inclusive political form, one that would grant them wealth, status, and political power, yet counter the accusation that they acted merely out of selfish interests. Literati endeavors produced a discourse about Nanjing that had ramifications for the governing ofthe entire empire. In fact events in the early nineteenth century galvanized Nanjing's elites, convincing them that the strength of the polity depended on their active involvement in administration of both city and empire. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, these events were mostly distant: the White Lotus- Qigong, Rebellion in Sichuan and Henan and the Eight Trigram- Qigong, uprising in the North China Plain. Nevertheless, beginning in 1814 the experiences of literati in Nanjing confirmed their sense of the need to reinvigorate govemment. That year, severe floods struck the city, prompting the city's elite residents to organize relief efforts. The silting ofthe Grand Canal in 1824 seemed to confirm that Nanjing's ecological problems were related to problems of govemance, as did the frequency of subsequent flooding (1830-33, 1840, and 1848-49). The Opium War of 1839-1842 spurred the formation of militias to combat the British, and the terms of the 1842 treaty was signed in Nanjing granting new privileges to the British strengthened the impression that imperial government was not up to addressing the challenges facing the city. (For details see Philip Kuhn and Susan Mann Jones, "Dynastie Decline and the Roots ofRebellion," pp. 107-162 in John K. Fairbank, ed., The Cambridge History ofChina, Vol. 10, The Late Ch 'ing, 18001911, Cambridge University Press, 1978).
These events gave urgency to the desire of Nanjing's elite residents to reform government. Throughout the fIrst half of the century, the emotional pitch of their expressions of concern intensifIed. When literati diagnosed the root causes of flooding, foreign incursion, and rebellion, they (like Yun Maoqi) discerned the tendency of selfIsh interests to undermine social cohesion, the inability of elites to address the problem collectively, and the resulting imbalance of qi. These perceptions of political problems in turn shaped their sense of the importance of ritual for effecting change.Imperial statutes defined the spirits worshipped at the Altar of Celestial and Terrestrial Spirits as august and exalted. Taking part in offerings was a privilege reserved for officials and deserving degreeholders. In a major administrative center like Nanjing, the presiding official would have been the governor general or governor, but because Yun Maoqi was the highest representative ofthe emperor in the rural county ofLuhe, he was supposed to perform the offering.
