Event

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, men and women in the Shanxi region of north China rebuilt local society under the leadership of Buddhist and Daoist clergy. Those men and women left thousands of inscriptional records on stone steles, some only recently discovered. This body of fresh sources demonstrates that after the Mongol conquest destroyed numerous families and lineages in the early thirteenth century, Daoist and Buddhist clergy formed extensive new networks. In these networks, ordinary women gained support from prefectural/provincial governors to build shelters for orphaned children; destitute scholars found alternate careers in editing, printing, and teaching the new Daoist canon. In addition, both Daoist and Buddhist clergy actively cooperated with villagers to rebuild local irrigated ditches and to organize irrigation associations.

While Neo-Confucian institutions—such as private schools, community compacts, and lineage organizations—were prominent in the south, religious organizations and village associations prevailed in the north, where Neo-Confucian teachings had little impact. This contrast is crucial. First, it shows that the Confucian-educated literati were by no means the social elite throughout traditional China at all times. Second, it runs counter to the conventional argument that religious institutions declined in China as crucial social institutions after the Song dynasty and Confucian schools and corporate lineage estates took their place. Last, it rebuts the assumptions that the southern model of social change was replicated in other regions of China.

* CEAS Humanities Colloquium