Wang Yongping 王永平, Xinyang yu xisu: shehui wenhuashi shiyexiade Tangdai daojiao 信仰與習俗—社會文化史視野下的唐代道教 [Beliefs and customs: Tang dynasty Daoism from the perspective of socio-cultural history] (2023; 725 pages).

Judging by a review by Franciscus Verellen (on which this post is based), this bulky recent tome looks as if it might revive my long-dormant interest in the culture of the Tang dynasty. That is where I came in, under the aegis of Denis Twitchett and Laurence Picken at Cambridge—at a time when we had no access to the PRC, and when scholarship there was in abeyance (see Ren Erbei).

From 1986, as I finally began visiting China, I soon defected from dry, silent ancient history, plunging into fieldwork on living rural traditions (see e.g. here). But I’m curious to dip my toes back in the stream, to see how I now feel about Tang scholarship—whether I can find early historical research meaningful, as scholars explore new perspectives.

Were I to retread this path, Wang’s ouevre alone would keep me busy—books such as Tangdai youyi 唐代游艺 (Tang entertainments, 1995) and Daojiao yu Tangdai shehui 道教与唐代社会 (Daoism and Tang society, 2002). Verellen summarises the main themes of this latest volume, which he calls “a monumental contribution to both Daoist and Tang studies”, exploring “the broad impact of Daoism on the everyday life of Tang society” under four main themes:

• Daoism and the Tang social order, with special reference to the place of women
• the trajectories of selected Daoist priests and their networks of social relationships
• Daoism in daily life under the Tang, notably the Daoist imprint on seasonal festivals, folk customs, and popular practices
• the interaction and different degrees of integration between the Three Teachings (Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism).

Chapter 1 demonstrates the vogue for the immortality cult. If Wang claims that the influence of Daoism was significantly greater on the upper than on the lower classes, and that its influence among women was exceptionally high, I’d like to see these points qualified in detail.

His emphasis on the role of women is welcome, although Verellen comments that Wang hardly takes the growing international scholarship on Tang Daoism into account—such as Jia Jinhua’s Gender, power, and talent: the journey of Daoist priestesses in Tang China (2018). And I wonder if Wang has absorbed the groundbreaking early work of Laurence Picken on Tang music—again including Daoist influences and the role of female performers.

Wang documents lives and legends of Tang female immortals in the writings of Du Guangting and the Taiping guangji. While he pays ample attention to courtly Daoism, later chapters turn to folk customs (spells and incantations, supplications, offerings, talismans, and so on—techniques to expel ghosts and banish evil, seek good fortune, and avoid calamity) and the “folklore” of Daoist methods of prayer, divination, and the Retreat-Offering ritual.

Wang notes the Daoist imprint on annual festivals and customs, arguing that through the Tang there was a particularly close relationship between Daoist worship of deities / immortals and folk beliefs, due to the fact that the pantheon venerated by Daoists was constantly replenished by deities derived from folk religion. Such research reveals constant change—in society, deities, festivals; the culture of imperial China was not timeless, as the confrontation with CCP secularization might tempt us to suppose. Fashions for deities such as the Jade Emperor, the City God, the Stove God, Wen Chang, and Erlang have long fluctuated.

Verellen makes an interesting point:

Without denying the fundamentally religious character of Daoism, Professor Wang’s approach coincidentally accords with the policy of the CCP, of which he is a member, to valorize Daoism as popular culture and national heritage.

This seems somewhat harsh: the current slogans of “popular culture” and “national heritage” may have a somewhat insidious influence, but they can also go towards protecting local ritual traditions; and Party membership is an entirely routine insurance for almost any career in the PRC. Still, Verellen goes on:

Skirting the pitfall of reductionism, the book presents a wealth of valuable materials, drawn from an impressive range of contemporary Tang sources.

Of course history and ethnography are different animals. But admirable as all this looks, until we discover ciné footage from the Tang I don’t think silent, immobile early textual sources can compete in my attention with observing the “heat and bustle” of folk religious life at close quarters, or seeking the guidance of ritual specialists in person.

Like most early expressive culture, Tang music—not just courtly genres, but all kinds of musicking in folk society—remains elusive. Kitsch modern “recreations” for the concert platform only exacerbate the problem (cf. Chinese clichés: music).

See also this roundup of posts on Tang culture.