Early Chinese Religion: Part Two: The Period of Division (220–589AD) ed. by John Lagerwey, Lü Pengzhi (review)

114 Journal of Chinese Religions Early Chinese Religion: Part Two: The Period of Division (220589AD ) Edited by JOHN LAGERWEY and LÜ PENGZHI. Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section Four: China, Volume 21-2. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2010. 2 volumes. xx, 1552 pages. ISBN 978-90-04-17585-3. €249.00, US$369.00, hardcover. At over 1,500 pages the two volumes of Early Chinese Religion: Part Two: The Period of Division (220-589 AD) are weighty—literally. But they are also weighty with ideas, meticulous research, and scope of argument. Over the last two decades the study of Chinese religion has taken some unexpected but welcome turns. What was once a field with a heavy textual and philosophical bias has evolved into one that seeks to redress past orientalist presumptuousness by exploring the materiality of religion as grounded in daily life. We have seen a methodological shift from strict area studies to more realistic interdisciplinary approaches, some of which we encounter in this magnificent two-volume set. The editors, John Lagerwey and Lü Pengzhi, expertly provide a rich array of essays impressive in breadth and depth of historical coverage, and made all the more so by its geographically diverse group of authors, all specialists in their respective fields. The twenty-two authors come from the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Most are historians of religion, with a few in literature and archaeology. Eight of the twenty-two scholars come from mainland China. This is significant as mainland scholars continue in growing numbers to reclaim intellectual terrain denied to them for decades. The essays in these two volumes demonstrate historically what Robert Campany elsewhere has called the “repertoire of resources” available to the early period Chinese as they went about making the world a meaningful space within which to live while interpreting and withstanding the cosmos. The essays in these volumes are not introductory but rather are in-depth research with extensive use of primary sources that will be most useful for students and scholars of Chinese history in general, and historians of Chinese religious culture in particular. I will not describe in any real detail each of the twenty-two essays other than to mention their basic content. Instead I defer to Lagerwey’s excellent introductory essay in which he summarizes each piece in the two volumes with verve and insightfulness. John Lagerwey’s contribution to the study of Chinese religion is undeniable and profound. Together with another of Lagerwey’s edited volumes, Religion in Chinese Society, this set on early Chinese religion provides students and scholars alike with a remarkably deep view of Chinese religiosities over the centuries. The two volumes of Early Chinese Religion: Part Two follow an earlier publication of Early Chinese Religion: Part One, both resulting from a conference held in Paris in December 2006. Volume 1 has two sections. Section 1, “Religion and the State,” includes five essays with topics such as state religious ceremonies, state religious policies, shamanic politics, ancestral worship, and Buddhist influences. Section 2, “Religious Communities and Book Reviews 115 Concepts,” comprises five essays with topics such as Daoist stelae, daily life in Daoist temples, Buddhist monasticism, seekers of transcendence, and the layout and classification of Buddhist cave temples and monasteries. Volume 2 includes the remaining twelve essays with the following sub-sections: scriptures, literature, spirits, rituals, and geography. The end of volume 2 includes a list of authors, a substantive bibliography, and an index. Maps, illustrations, and tables all complement the research presented; they are a welcome addition as so many previous volumes on China have not included such important visual aids. In most of the essays, material culture abounds: tombs (Bai Bin), stelae (Liu Shufen), the production of sacred space, especially on mountains and in caves (Robson and Raz), canons and pantheons (Hureau, Hou Xudong, and Bokenkamp), sacrifice and the ritual placement of an emperor’s body (Chen Shuguo), ancestral rituals (Keith N. Knapp), and shamanic influence and social action (Chen Shuguo and Fu-Shih Lin). Following Lagerwey’s introduction, Chen Shuguo demonstrates continuity with early Han practices by exploring sacrifices to Heaven undertaken in the Northern Wei period. Li Gang then sets...