Confucian Pilgrimage in Late Imperial and Republican China

Abstract

Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies Vol.17 No.2 © 2017 Academy of East Asian Studies. 163-190 DOI: 10.21866/esjeas.2017.17.2.003 email of the author: sloanej@yonsei.ac.kr 163 Introduction Pilgrimage practices can provide new perspectives on a society through their combination of inclusiveness and division, and the occasion they offer for both departure from everyday routines and confirmation of long-held values and beliefs. Theoretical studies have focused on societies where pilgrimage is most conspicuous, particularly Muslim societies, where the hajj to Mecca is complemented by ziyara to holy shrines (Eickelman and Piscatori 1990, 5–6), and medieval Europe, where pilgrimages drew participants from all levels of society (Webb 2002, ix–xi). Even deliberately secularized forms can be instructive, as when the colonial bureaucratic career is schematized as a series of pilgrimage circuits culminating at the metropole (Anderson 2006, 53–58). In the 21st century the global scale of religious pilgrimage has only increased, even as some lament participants’ limited understanding of the sites they visit (Pazos 2014, 1–3). The most influential theoretical framework aimed at capturing the capacity of pilgrimages to unite diverse social groups has been that of Victor Turner, who argues that through the shared act of pilgrimage, participants create an egalitarian “communitas” that replaces the social distinctions that normally divide them (Naquin and Yü 1992, 4–6). Recent studies of even paradigmatic cases, however, have critiqued the naïve idealism of this characterization, pointing to the economic, Known as the home of Confucius, Qufu represented a sacred space eliciting profound affective, intellectual, and performative responses from travelers. In contrast to the broad appeal of sacred mountains, Qufu specifically attracted educated elites. These pilgrims were familiar with and committed to the Confucian textual canon, yet their experience of Qufu’s sacred character was primarily through its physical locations, structures, and relics. Through travelogues and gazetteers, the continuing role of the Kong family as guides, and the influence of the space itself, norms of practicing and recounting the pilgrimage formed in the late Ming prefigured and shaped accounts through the Republican period by an expanding body of pilgrims including elite women, Western missionaries, and modern tourists. The late imperial status of Qufu as a sacred site laid the foundation for the tourism, commercialization, and environmental protection observed there during the Republican period.