The Local Version of Global Entanglements
About Yang Shen
Yang Shen (1699-1794) 楊屾 was well known as an agronomist in Shanxi 陝西, whose innovation in sericulture and mulberry planting made great contribution to the agricultural development in north China. His three monographs were reprinted after death and even influenced the Self-Strengthening Movement in the late nineteenth century. To commemorate his contribution, Qing government built several Yang’s temples and even set a day to worship him. Despite of his fame in agriculture, few people were aware of his complicated belief system, which compounded Catholicism or Islam (which is not sure) with Confucian tradition. It’s not surprising that Yang had such a synthetic belief since Shanxi, his homeland, was one of the most important center of Christianity and Islam.
Islam has entered the area of Shanxi since the beginning of Tang dynasty (618- 907) and kept developing to Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). Although Muslim in Shanxi once fight against Ming authority, the Ming government bore tolerance to Islam in general. There were some Islamic Chinese scholars in Shanxi in the late Ming and early Qing period, who translate and wrote Islamic books. Shanxi was also a stronghold of Christianity in Ming and Qing. Jesuits, such as Nicolas Trigault (1577-1629), Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1591-1666), Alvaro de Semedo (1585-1658), etc., came to Shanxi and spread their belief. However, it seems that Yang was neither a Muslim nor a Christian in spite of the Islamic and Christian elements in his belief. [1]
Yang's Thoughts
Yang Shen believed Shangdi was the creator and the real dominant power of the world. In Yang’s belief, people were not directly created by Sangdi, but by ghosts and gods who were create by Shangdi with Qi 氣. Ghosts and gods transform Yin Qi and Yang Qi into the Four Existence—the heaven, the land, the water, and the fire—which later created all the other matters in the world, including human. All the process was carefully planned by Sahngdi.
Emperor, families, and teachers are the three pillars at the secondary level under Shangdi’s ultimate rule. Emperors were Shangdi’s representative in the mundane world. Family and teacher was also endowed with authority from the emperor to assist emperor’s rule in this world. Under the guidance of emperor, families, and teachers, people would start to know three things: human was created by Shangdi; the sole purpose of life was to subordinate to Shangdi; people will receive judge after death and be sent either to the Heaven or the Hell depending on their goodness or evil. The mechanism of the whole system were explained into details. First, the world was divided into two: the realm of Shangdi, and the realm of people. Shangdi performs his four duties— Daben 大本, Zhuxiu 助修, Qidu 啟牖, and Shishu 時數—to regulate the world. Emperor, families, and teachers each performs four different duties in the realm of people. For emperor, the four duties are teaching 教, raising 養, military 兵, and punishing 刑. For families, they are teaching 教, raising 養, disciplining 戒, and punishing 懲. For teachers, they are manner teaching 範形, spirit guiding 導神, guidance of learning 訓約, and supervision of learning 課督. Yang further explained the relationships between these duties, the content of them, different types of teachers, which would be too complicated to discuss here. But we can see his belief system is highly complete, comprised of elements from monotheistic religions and Chinese traditional thoughts.
Yang saw the realm of Shangdi and the realm of people as equally important, which implies his enlightening purpose. Like many Chinese scholars who tried to combine traditional thoughts with foreign religions, Yang had a practical purpose to educate the populace, especially the uneducated people like women and children, and guide them to a moral and purposeful life.[2]
Shangdi
Emperor
Family
Teacher