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Ritualizing Imperial Authority in the Ming and Qing
Organizer and Discussant: Thomas A. Wilson, Hamilton College
Chair: Richard J. Smith, Rice University
Ming and Qing courts sought to assert the emperor's claims of universal authority over the hearts, minds, and souls of all under Heaven through ritual. While dynastic longevity attests to the relative success of these assertions, imperial authority was perforce negotiated through such mitigating factors as local circumstances, individual interpretation of liturgical principles, and outright deviation from well-established statutes. This panel examines the vagaries of ritual performance to consider the complex ways that Ming and Qing courts sought to legitimate their authority over the empire and how rituals advanced their claims even while producing new ways of contesting imperial power. Specifically, Natasha Heller examines Ming Taizu's performance of Buddhist rites to save the souls of those who died during the violent Yuan-Ming transition. Thomas Wilson examines sacrifices performed in Qufu by imperial authorities and Confucius's descendants during the 17th and 18th centuries. Chuck Wooldridge investigates Qing officials' deployment of imperial rites in their war against the Taipings. Finally, Jeff Snyder explores how official rainmaking rituals were carried out and contested in the nineteenth century. Collectively, these papers move beyond conventional means of state control, such as tax collection and administering justice, to consider the central importance of ritual in the production and contestation of imperial authority.
Emperor as Ritualist: Early Ming Buddhist Ceremonies for the Dead
Natash Heller, University of California, Berkeley
This paper examines the imperially-sponsored shuilu (water and land) ceremonies held in the early Ming—and in particular, the records of these events composed by the Ming statesman Song Lian (1310-1381). Shuilu rites were held for the salvation of all creatures of water and land, but these performances were directed specifically towards those who had died during the Yuan-Ming transition. I will consider these rites within three contexts: earlier state uses of the shuilu ceremony, other rituals of imperial legitimation, and local practices concerning the anonymous dead. Ming Taizu's later efforts to regulate Buddhist institutions are well-known, especially his recategorization of Buddhist monks to include ritual specialists (jiao). I will argue that the early Ming shuilu ceremonies provided an important venue for the ritual representation of the emperor as translocal actor. By connecting the shuilu rites to local practices related the spirits of the dead, I will show how sovereign centralization extended into the sphere of death ritual.
Imperial and Ancestral Sacrifices to Confucius
Thomas A. Wilson, Hamilton College
This paper examines sacrifices performed in Qufu by imperial authorities and Confucius's descendants. I focus on the ritual disposition of the sacrificer - both imperial and lineage descendant - at the imperial Kong Temple and consider the role of ancestral veneration in the sacrificer's purification rites in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I pose two questions: To what extent did the ancestor-descendant relationship bear upon imperial sacrifices, even when the object of cult veneration was not ancestral? Given the central role of imperial cults in governing empire, what insights into the nature of the late imperial state can be gained by considering the abiding presence of ancestors at imperial sacrifices?
Official Rainmaking and the Vagaries of Ritual Power in Late Imperial China
Jeffrey Snyder, Albertson College
This paper examines official rainmaking activities in the Qing dynasty. The Qing state issued detailed ritual regulations specifying how local officials were to pray for rain in the event their jurisdictions suffered from drought. Yet these regulations seldom determined how official rainmaking activities were actually carried out. Many local officials either ignored the regulations entirely, or routinely supplemented them with rainmaking techniques they considered to be more appropriate or efficacious. In addition, it was not uncommon for those outside the government -- both elites and commoners -- to pressure officials into employing rainmaking techniques that conformed to local custom. In some cases, local people would even resort to violence if they were dissatisfied with the manner in which officials prayed for rain. As a result, state rainmaking performances in the late Qing rarely transpired in the way the central government envisioned. In fact, rainmaking outcomes could vary dramatically over time and space, as various actors attempted to assert control over the rainmaking process. This paper will argue that the unpredictability of official rainmaking challenges the way that we understand the relationship between state ritual and state power in the late imperial period.
Imperial Cults in the War Against the Taipings
Chuck Wooldridge, Princeton University
Qing dynasty (1644-1911) statutes obligated local officials to perform rituals venerating a prescribed list of spirits. Previous studies of this state cult have tended to emphasize its role in regulating local religious practices, but these rituals were seen at the time as ways of cultivating virtue in officials, of enacting proper governance, and of establishing powerful if invisible allies. This paper examines the myriad dimensions of state ritual power through case studies of two rural counties during the iconoclastic, Christianity-inspired Taiping War (1850-1864). Luhe and Lishui, both near the Taiping capital of Nanjing, were sites of fierce battles between Taiping armies and local militia forces. Drawing on archival documents, literary collections, and local gazetteers, I show the changing effects of state honors for local gods during and after the rebellion.