Handbook of the History of Religions in China I

This book is part of an initiative in cooperation with renowned Chinese publishers to make fundamental, formative, and influential Chinese thinkers available to a western readership, providing absorbing insights into Chinese reflections of late, and offering a chance to grasp today’s China. In their influential book Handbook of the History of Religions in China, Zhongjian Mou and Jian Zhang present a panorama of the religions existing in China through time. In their fascinating History, they delineate the emergence and development of Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity and explore the roles they played in Chinese society and the interrelations between them. In China, also due to the encompassing Confucian idea of “living together harmoniously while maintaining differences,” religions—including newly arrived ones—came closer together than anywhere else in the world and reached a unique level of peaceful societal coexistence. Despite many frictions and conflicts, communication and reconciliation were indisputably predominant in China throughout history. Buddhism was peacefully introduced into China and, later on, a harmonious, symbiotic syncretism of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism developed—an exemplary process of how a diverse set of different religions can complement each other and contribute to a better life.

Zhongjian Mou, an accomplished philosophical historian and religious scholar of China, has pioneered Chinese contemporary religious studies. He was born in Yantai city of Shandong province in May, 1939. From 1957 to 1965, he studied with Feng Youlan, Ren Jiyu, Zhu Bokun at the Philosophy Department of Peking University. From April 1966 to November 1987, he worked at the World Religion Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (the former Philosophy and Social Sciences Department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences). Starting from 1987, he has been serving as professor and doctoral tutor of the Philosophy and Religion Department of Minzu University of China, once serving as the director of the Research Center of the “985 Project” on Contemporary Major National Religious Issues. He also serves as consultant of the International Confucian Association, consultant of the Chinese Religious Society, academic consultant of the China Confucius Foundation, national condition expert of the Chinese National Library; he is professor of the Chinese National School of Administration, professor of the Training Center of the State Bureau of Religious Affairs, member of the expert committee of the World Confucian Conference, and dean of Nishan Shengyuan Academy. Jian Zhang, a graduate from the School of Philosophy of Renmin University of China (1982), is now Professor of the School of Continuing Education of Renmin University of China. He has been engaged in the study of the history of Chinese religion and philosophy for a long time. At present, he is also a researcher of the Buddhist and religious teaching research base of the Ministry of Education, a visiting professor of Minzu University of China, member of International Confucian Association, and Honorary Chairman of the Chinese Society of Shixue.