CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION
31
ing divided sects, in the nineteenth century) leaders were required to travel about the country recruiting members and raising money.
Leaders had to have some education, not only to pass examinations but also to write scriptures and sutras encouraging members to join and explaining the purpose of religious practices. Literacy was needed for reading and writing messages (sometimes sent even today in elaborate codes) to leaders in other areas. In some sects degrees could be purchased but a leader would have little power unless he were at least literate.
The sects however offered various attractions. Some offered to bestow degrees on ancestors of members bringing money or honour or power to the sect (T’ung-shan She, a non-vegetarian sect existing in Singapore today, still does this). And it was expected that leaders would take a percentage of the moneys they collected. Sectarian ideologies were sometimes likely to appeal to scholars. Although syncretic they could be quite sophisticated. Sometimes items of ideology were revealed by gods during seances using automatic writing, a type of seance popular as a past-time with elderly educated gentlemen in traditional China. A common Chinese notion was that social and natural disorders were the result of earth being out of phase with heaven. Sectarians often emphasised that this came about when leaders of the country lacked virtue and failed to teach the Truth stemming from Heaven. When the emperor lacked virtue there were national disasters; when local officials were corrupt, local catastrophes, floods and droughts were a result.
Ideology provided, then, an explanation and even suggested action when the conditions of life deteriorated, which might be attractive to both scholar and the ordinary man experiencing hardship. Vegetarian halls, like those of the Buddhists, provided a home for the unattached; there was one in Hankow which provided for destitute and unattached seamen in their old age.3
One might expect the leaders of sects to be, then, individuals with some education and time on their hands; perhaps those with frustrated ambitions, looking for ways for compensating for their lot in secular society who desired degrees and administrative power; those feeling they had better qualities and more virtue than local officials; persons sensitive to wrongs and injuries and not tied too closely to gentry codes of behaviour and not too re-
CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION
31
ing divided sects, in the nineteenth century) leaders were required to travel about the country recruiting members and raising money.
Leaders had to have some education, not only to pass examina- tions but also to write scriptures and sutras encouraging members to join and explaining the purpose of religious practices. Literacy was needed for reading and writing messages (sometimes sent even today in elaborate codes) to leaders in other areas. In some sects degrees could be purchased but a leader would have little power unless he were at least literate.
The sects however offered various attractions. Some offered to bestow degrees on ancestors of members bringing money or honour or power to the sect (T’ung-shan She, a non-vegetarian sect existing in Singapore today, still does this). And it was expected that leaders would take a percentage of moneys they collected. Sec- tarian ideologies were sometimes likely to appeal to scholars. Al- though syncretic they could be quite sophisticated. Sometimes items of ideology were revealed by gods during seances using au- tomatic writing a type of seance popular as a past-time with elderly educated gentlemen in traditional China. A common Chinese notion was that social and natural disorders were the result of earth being out of phase with heaven. Sectarians often emphasised that this came about when leaders of the country lacked virtue and failed to teach the Truth stemming from Heaven. When the emperor lacked virtue there were national disasters; when local officials were corrupt local catastrophes floods and droughts were a result.
Ideology provided, then, an explanation and even suggested action when the conditions of life deteriorated which might be attractive to both scholar and the ordinary man experiencing hardship. Vegetarian halls like those of the Buddhists provided a home for the unattached there was one in Hankow which provided for destitute and unattached seamen in their old age.3"
One might expect the leaders of sects to be, then, individuals with some education and time on their hands; perhaps those with frustrated ambitions, looking for ways for compensating for their lot in secular society who desired degrees and administrative power; those feeling they had better qualities and more virtue than local officials; persons sensitive to wrongs and injuries and not tied too closely to gentry codes of behaviour and not too re-
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