Thomas Wilson’s Confucian Gods presents a vivid intellectual history of cults to deities worshipped by the emperor and imperial officials at altars and temples during the Tang (618–907), Song (960–1279), and Ming (1368–1644) periods, focusing on two deities of the official pantheon: Vast Heaven High God (Hao tian shang di 昊天上帝) or Heaven-God (Tian Di 天帝), and Confucius. The author, a professor of history and religious studies at Hamilton College, has devoted over two decades of painstaking research to this topic. The data he presents convincingly demonstrate that ritual officers of the court composed and performed ceremonies to these deities based on their readings of and debates about rituals recorded in the Five Classics (Wujing 五經), the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiaojing 孝 經), and the Analects (Lunyu 論語). Wilson’s analysis transcends previous studies of imperial court ritual by assessing the worldviews such rites expressed, while also pointing out that their correct performance was vital to the exercise of state authority, referred to in the sources as “ritual governance” (lizheng 禮政).

Wilson largely steers away from fruitless debates over whether Confucianism constitutes a “religion,” choosing instead to provide detailed descriptions of three key facets of imperial rituals: conceptions of the soul and other spiritual forces; the growth of cults to Heaven-God and Confucius; and the construction of specific ritual spaces (altar terraces and temples) for their worship. His results clearly show that these deities were objects of a rigorously constructed liturgical discourse that encompassed complex views of the spirit world and material culture, including how and in what settings to perform imperial rites.

Confucian Gods consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 (Ritual Knowledge and Confucian Gods) elucidates the importance of ritual governance, which, as Wilson points out in his Preface, “required harnessing the power of the gods through proper ritual interactions as recorded in the Classics” (p. x). Chapter 2 (Confucian Discourse on Spirits and the Soul) features new understandings of sections of the Analects to trace the development of imperial cult conceptualizations of the numinous forces addressed in its rituals. Chapter 3 (Building Pantheons, Making Gods) treats the origins and development of the cult of Vast Heaven High God, including its roots in debates about Suburban Sacrifice (jiao si 郊祀), while Chapter 4 (Ancestral and Imperial Cults of Confucius) provides important new data about the processes whereby the cult of Confucius was incorporated into the imperial pantheon. Chapter 5 (Reproducing the Universe: The Construction and Uses of Ritual Spaces) consists of a painstaking discussion of the material and spatial features of imperial cult worship, featuring meticulously annotated illustrations. Finally, Chapter 6 (An Intellectual History of Confucian Gods and the Rites to Feast Them), the briefest of the book, represents the author’s attempt to challenge two supposedly widely held assumptions, namely that Confucianism was a secular philosophy and that the imperial court did not engage in religious worship, while also reminding readers that state cult rituals had to be properly performed so that numinous forces would benefit the cosmic order.

Wilson’s research merits the utmost credit for its elaborate accounts of imperial rituals and thoughtful analyses of their significance. His treatment of such practices as “canonical rites bequeathed by the ancients” that “mapped the correct procedures for ritual interventions,” as well as his conclusion that “correct knowledge of the gods was the product of ritual experience” (pp. 53 and 84), are of immense value to readers unfamiliar with these practices. So is his lucid explanation of similarities and differences between cults to Heaven-God and Confucius: both became standard features of imperial worship during the Tang period, yet only after centuries of disagreement over their legitimacy (p. 87). Wilson also proposes a key distinction between “canonical Confucius” and “historical Confucius” (p. 26; but it might have been moved to the Introduction and clarified in more detail). His research deserves special recognition for paying close attention to material culture and ritual space (e.g., pp. 93, 102–6, which call to mind recent research by Susan Naquin and Nikolas Broy).Footnote ¹ Moreover, the tables and illustrations in Confucian Gods are most helpful for understanding the nature and minutiae of such practices (pp. 61, 63–65, 78, 102–6, 122, 134, 135, 146).

As with any work representing path-breaking research, there are a few issues that require thoughtful consideration. To begin with, the book’s title does not do full justice to its analytical framework. For example, since this study is essentially about imperial rites, with Wilson observing on page 2 that “imperial courts, especially from the Tang dynasty onward, aimed to reconstruct ancient rites devised by the sage-kings and to conduct those rites at imperial altars and temples,” to what extent are we justified in labeling the spirits being worshipped as “Confucian”? Inasmuch as most of these rituals were said to have originated during the age of the sage kings, who lived well before Confucius, even if the Master was a revered authority on their performance, can the rites themselves be called “Confucian”? A related issue is that of autonyms and exonyms: Sources about state cult practices use autonyms for such practices that do not include the term “Confucian”, including “register of sacrifice” (sidian 祀典; p. 52 uses “official cult sacrifices”) and “ritual governance” (lizheng 禮政).Footnote ²

Turning to the Archaeology of Devotional Practice, this study firmly focuses on the practices of the emperor and the officialdom, as is apparent in statements like “the Master received sacrifices at about fifteen hundred temple sites in administrative precincts spread across the vast expanse of empire wherever the imperial bureaucracy established its governmental presence” (p. 85). That being said, the Master also received sacrifices in schools and local temples, even if, in many cases, he was not the main deity worshipped at the latter sites. Such assertions also overlook worship of Confucius by groups with autonyms like Kongjiao 孔教 (p. 19) and Ruzong shenjiao 儒宗神教, which often invoked him during spirit-writing rituals.Footnote ³ Turning to devotional beliefs that Wilson defines as Confucian, such as the “Confucian conception of spirits and the soul” (p. 26), or the claim that “Confucians assumed that spirits lingered after death and were sustained by ritual feasting” (p. 49), such ideas about the spiritual world have been common knowledge among Han Chinese for millennia without having been transmitted by Confucian texts, as appears in classic studies by scholars like David Jordan, Arthur Wolf, and others.Footnote ⁴ Wilson also neglects the question of how gender may have shaped devotion, apart from a brief mention of “men and women steeped in Confucian culture” (p. 26).Footnote ⁵ While such phenomena admittedly lie outside the stated scope of Wilson’s research, a brief consideration of their importance in the book’s Introduction might have enhanced its conceptual impact.

Another striking feature of Confucian Gods is the author’s tendency to engage with straw men, starting in its Preface (“what we were taught about Confucianism in textbooks—that it was an ethical philosophy and certainly not a religion—” (p. vii)) and running through to the Conclusion’s challenge to the putative assumptions that Confucianism and the court were secular. Wilson mentions a “standard textbook narrative that Buddhism (or Daoism) eclipsed a purportedly moribund or stagnant Confucianism in the Tang” (p. 9), but cites no such works.Footnote ⁶ Now that specialists, if not the general public, no longer really deny the religious facets of Confucianism—thanks in part to Wilson’s own earlier work—it should be possible to advance the arguments of this book without challenging discredited misconceptions.

Finally, a few lesser points: Despite Wilson’s recognition of the importance of the Classic of Filial Piety, he cites only Lu Miawfen’s 2006 Late Imperial China article on the subject and not her 2011 book, which offers a more authoritative treatment.Footnote ⁷ On page 6, the translation of yinsi 淫祀 as “abominable sacrifice” seems extreme; “illicit sacrifice” or “excessive sacrifice” might be more appropriate. In note 54 for Chapter 1, “Li Yonghua” should be Liu Yonghua. One also wonders about the occasional standalone usages of “God,” such as “Are Heaven and God one or are they two?” (p. 52) or “knowledge of God is ritual knowledge” (p. 84), as well as its use as a translation for di 帝 (p. 70).

Despite these minor flaws, however, Confucian Gods successfully attains its goal of presenting a compelling history of imperial rituals staged from the Tang to Ming periods, while elucidating how such rites sprang from considered debates about their performance. In addition, Wilson’s research sheds new light on how the correct staging of such rites proved integral to the legitimation of imperial authority as a form of ritual governance. These and the other important findings discussed above will guide future generations of scholars.