The Spirits of Chinese Religion

The essay begins with the familiar model of the “three teachings” and examines its usefulness and limitations. Teiser first discusses Confucianism as a tradition associated with classical texts, ritual hierarchy, state ideology, moral cultivation, and the later construction of a Confucian lineage. He then turns to Daoism, presenting it as both a philosophical orientation associated with the Dao and a religious tradition involving revelation, priesthood, ritual, immortality, divine bureaucracy, and canonical texts. The third section explains Buddhism as a foreign teaching introduced into China, centered on the Buddha, dharma, saṅgha, karma, rebirth, impermanence, no-self, monastic life, translation, and salvation. After reviewing these three traditions, the essay shifts to the problem of “popular religion,” emphasizing religious practices shared across social groups, including ancestor rites, funerals, New Year rituals, spirit consultation, gods, ghosts, and local cults. Overall, the essay presents Chinese religion not as three isolated systems, but as an integrated and overlapping field of ritual, cosmology, social order, and spiritual exchange.