In Barend ter Haar's first book, The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious History (Leiden: Brill, 1992), he established, in meticulous detail, the scope and consequences of unexamined assumptions made by historians about a broad spectrum of religious groups in late imperial China to whom the singular-seeming label “White Lotus Teachings” had been attached. While accepting the term as representative of a single, cohesive movement might simplify the intimidating complexity of studying sects labeled heterodox and persecuted on the suspicion of inciting religious disorder, this not only obscures the richly varied groups whose histories have yet to be examined on their own terms, but also leaves historians in the position of replicating the attitudes of orthodox Ming and Qing literati magistrates toward the targets of their state-sponsored persecution, those poorly equipped to leave counterarguments in the historical record.
Ter Haar's new book, Practicing Scripture: A Lay Buddhist Movement in Late Imperial China, is built on a similar foundation. It takes the Non-Action Teachings, “one of the most successful religious movements of late imperial Chinese history” (p. 1), as its focus, revealing the limitations in taking the commentary of its Ming and Qing critics as representative of its adherents' faith. With a set of Precious Scrolls (baojuan) of the late fifteenth century, Luo Qing's Five Books in Six Volumes, as their foundational texts, adherents of Non-Action Teachings further followed rituals established by two patriarchs, Ying and Yao, who derived their authority during the final years of the Ming from their zeal for Luo's work and their claiming to be his reincarnations. Deemphasizing the role of clergy, veneration of images, and traditional sacrifices to ancestors, these patriarchs instead advocated vegetarianism (consuming and sacrificing neither meat nor alcohol), ritual recitation of Luo's baojuan, and the oral transmission of “secret” sutras.
Like some of the groups tarred with the label “White Lotus,” often congregations of Non-Action Teaching adherents were accused of harboring a desire for messianic rebellion due to their use of another loaded term, “Dragon Flower Assembly,” which ter Haar also unpacks through close textual analysis of Non-Action Teachings' sources. This perceived link to millenarian uprisings served in part to justify their harassment throughout the Qing and was considered, without question, as the rationale behind any instances of violence involving the sects' followers. Unsurprisingly, ter Haar proves, with the same degree of careful detail as in his earlier work, that this reputation was unfairly deserved and what violence that can be attributed to a few Non-Action Teachings groups was not messianic in nature, rather often in response to official harassment. He pointedly calls for future scholarship on other sectarian religious groups from this era that does not “[set] out to prove that these groups really deserved to be persecuted” (p. 11), noting that the adherents probably would have termed themselves devout lay Buddhists if asked, rather than religiously motivated rebels against tradition.
Even if this were all that Practicing Scripture addressed, it would be enough to wholeheartedly endorse this book as a significant contribution to the study of lay religious practices in premodern China. However, the array of sources employed in the scope of this work not only results in a study that contributes to the field of Chinese religious history, but also makes this work of interest to those studying Chinese society, literature, and politics as well.
Chapter 1 acts as an overall introduction, laying out the background of Non-Action Teachings, assessing the field, and suggesting avenues for future work.
In chapter 2, an analysis of Luo Qing and his Five Books in Six Volumes, ter Haar refrains from taking the autobiographically constructed texts as wholly autobiographical, as many have done before him. Instead, he considers the works and their author both in terms of historically verifiable facts (of which there are frustratingly few) and the far richer body of myths that developed around them in following centuries. Moving from the realm of barest facts to flourishing myth does not impede our understanding of Non-Action Teachings; rather, mythmaking is taken as evidence of the later popularity of these works and the desires of those inspired by them to fill in gaps in their patriarch's biography. Furthermore, ter Haar considers how adherents would have interacted with this foundational text of their reformed and intensified lay Buddhist practice, as few would have been literate enough to grasp it in the ways that we, as readers habituated to close and critical stances to literature, consume the written word. This question—how does a religious movement that holds text at its core simultaneously attract and empower semi- and illiterate adherents?—is one that ter Haar continues to develop productively in the chapters to follow.
Chapter 3 likewise focuses on the interweaving of man and myth in the cases of Patriarchs Ying and Yao. Working with their biographies in a single source written by followers of the latter patriarch, ter Haar is careful again to consider how the contents of this text were influenced by the need to establish Patriarch Yao's relationship to Patriarch Ying and his credibility as a successor, amplifier, and improver of Ying's rituals and leadership.
While reading chapter 4, an analysis of Non-Action Teachings conversion tales collected in the seventeenth-century work Causes and Fruits of the Seven Branches, I was struck by the frequent parallels between these narratives of religious debate and awakening and narratives in popular baojuan of the late Ming and Qing. Though he acknowledges the constructed nature of these tales in chapter 1, even giving a nod to the “ghostwriter” possibly behind the voices of two women engaged in religious debate in one anecdote (p. 5), ter Haar still takes this collection of stories more as factual evidence of historically real (albeit mostly unverifiable due to their lower social strata) Non-Action Teachings adherents than I am inclined to. In addition to the narrative parallels between vocally religious protagonists in narrative baojuan, the Causes and Fruits examples also evoke collections of morality tales. Neither of these resemblances diminishes the significance of the source as evidence for the spread of Non-Action Teachings in the Qing. Rather, as crafted literature (perhaps inspired by exceptional converts) meant to inspire further conversion among more sophisticated readers, it seems all the more significant as an indication of the sect's appeal beyond the ignorant and deluded individuals that sources critical of the movement assumed were its prime converts.
Chapters 5 and 6 address the rituals that formed the heart of Non-Action Teachings practice, explaining the nature of the sect's iconophobia (not iconoclasm) as an internalization of religious practice as a means to securing salvation as opposed to externalized practices, including icon worship, and the evidence for their non-messianic use of the term “Dragon Flower Assembly.”
Chapter 7 considers how a period of incredible challenges from 1850 to 1950, encompassing the Taiping War, the increasing influence of Western powers (and their Christian missionaries), and the repression of religious expression after the founding of the People's Republic, first inspired revival before leading to the sect's decline in China.
Perhaps the only weak element of this book comes in the comparisons made between Non-Action Teachings and the Protestant Reformation in Europe, roughly contemporaneous with the early generations of the lay Buddhist movement and its patriarchs. Intriguing parallels between “the way the movement resisted the dominance of the ritual specialists, the central place given to reciting the scripture, and a critical attitude toward ritual and morality” (p. 7) are given closer consideration in the final chapter. Ter Haar explains that these comparisons are “intended to throw additional light on the Non-Action Teachings” (p. 228), but I am not convinced that the comparisons made in the pages that follow actually lead to greater illumination. My disappointment may also be a consequence of actually agreeing with ter Haar that a comparison like this could be good to think with. After the book points out four significant differences between the lay movements and a few similarities as well, I was left wanting an explanation of the significance of these comparisons and avenues for further exploration of dynamics of the shared priorities of these movements of the early modern world. Hopefully ter Haar or others will develop this in works that I eagerly anticipate reading.
Once again, Barend ter Haar has written an impressively detailed and careful study that calls into question the implicit and explicit biases of sources privileged by earlier scholarship on the history of religions in China. This excellent work goes further still, adding its voice to an increasing body of scholarship working to understand the lived experiences of Chinese below the ranks of the well-lettered and, for the most part, socially elite. The range of sources he incorporates and his attention to their literary conventions and rhetorical strategies is an inspiration to anyone working in the fuzzy boundaries between literature and religion. Also, on a stylistic note, though any work this detailed runs the risk of dryness, instead here ter Haar's prose is engaging (at times even wryly humorous) and a joy to read.
