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organized pilgrimages to other places: distant towns or even provinces. These were watched anxiously by the State because they were believed to give rise to "heretical sects in the future.”25 Let me now see what can be said about more directly religious organizations, including secret sects, and other bodies which potentially cut across village communities, and their implications for village and inter-village organization.
4. Religious Systems, Sects, and Societies, and Rural Organization
Unlike State cults and popular temple cults, some religious systems — the heretical ones particularly — and some societies using religious elements, might extend over wide areas tying people in allegiance to those living far beyond their village boundaries. Ancestral hall organizations, connected with a widely ramifying and spreading lineage, might do this too, and we have noted the State's anxiety about such developments; but they were at least based on the most approved form of human association: kinship. Religious systems also offered elements in their ideologies and associated values which competed with ideas and values underlying some of the principles of ordinary secular life, particularly those of kinship. Religious sects also often used the cosmological notions widely accepted in China at that time and relating to man's position as a "cosmic entity" in that society, to turn against the State — itself using such notions to justify its own existence.
Since some religious systems cut across village, even district and province boundaries, their promotion locally would not necessarily depend on support of the wealthy of the area. Much of the kind of organization discussed so far provided either a method for further integrating existing social institutions or for drawing on man's needs for mutual aid in rural life to create some form of allegiance among those with similar interests. Religious systems offered an alternative and sometimes comprehensive form of organization. However, the situation on the ground was probably quite complex. In certain instances they might themselves be modified or limited in operation by forces working at the village level, and by the interests and ambitions of rural personalities which sometimes made use of them. It is the so-called “sectarian" religions which were most likely to be made
CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION
21
organized pilgrimages to other places: distant towns or even provinces. These were watched anxiously by the State because they were believed to give rise to "heretical sects in the future.”25 Let me now see what can be said about more directly religious organizations, including secret sects, and other bodies which potentially cut across village communities, and their implications for village and inter-village organization.
4. Religious Systems, Sects, and Societies, and Rural Organization Unlike State cults and popular temple cults, some religious systems the heretical ones particularly and some societies using religious elements, might extend over wide areas tying people in allegiance to those living far beyond their village boun- daries. Ancestral hall organizations, connected with a widely ramifying and spreading lineage, might do this too, and we have noted the State's anxiety about such developments; but they were at least based on the most approved form of human association : kinship. Religious systems also offered elements in their ideo- logies and associated values which competed with ideas and values underlying some of the principles of ordinary secular life, particu- larly those of kinship. Religious sects also often used the cosmo- logical notions widely accepted in China at that time and relating to man's position as a "cosmic entity" in that society, to turn against the State - itself using such notions to justify its own existence.
Since some religious systems cut across village, even district and province boundaries, their promotion locally would not necessarily depend on support of the wealthy of the area. Much of the kind of organization discussed so far provided either a method for further integrating existing social institutions or for drawing on man's needs for mutual aid in rural life to create some form of allegiance among those with similar interests. Re- ligious systems offered an alternative and sometimes comprehen- sive form of organization. However, the situation on the ground was probably quite complex. In certain instances they might themselves be modified or limited in operation by forces working at the village level, and by the interests and ambitions of rural personalities which sometimes made use of them. It is the so- called “sectarian" religions which were most likely to be made
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