Chapter Three

Qi and Jingshen: The Making of the Modern Chinese Spirits forSacrifice, 1895-1930

The Concepts of Spirit in Modern China

Among the words that translate spirit in modern Chinese, Jingshen (精精)is perhaps the best known and the least understood. In its modernusage, jingshen is most often associated with essential ideas andmental activities. Thus one can talk about the essence of theChinese culture (zhongguowenhua de jingshen), the central message of aParty Congress (dangdaihui jingshen), spiritual civilization (jingshenwenming), and the spirit for sacrifice (xisheng jingshen), spirituallevel (jingshen jingjie) or a spiritual appearance (jingshen mianmao). Itis also closely related to the idea of national essence (guocui) andpsychiatric disorders (jingshen bing). While most of these differentshades of meaning either denote abstract concepts or mental process,only the last one (jingshen mianmao) retains the original sense ofclassical word, which usually describes external, especially facialexpression of spiritedness. The latter still dominates the languageof everyday life, whereas other meanings of jingshen find theirfrequent uses in political propaganda, textbooks and history.

The polar opposite to jingshen is ling (精), a shamanistic term passeddown more or less unscathed from the oracle bones.1 In most cases,ling is best translated as exterior spirits, such as the Holy Spirit(shengling), divine revelation (xianling), ghost (youling) and evilspirit (xieling). But ling also refers to efficacy within or without areligious context, usually involving magical acts or formulae. Italso finds frequent use in everyday scenarios with reference topopular cults, sacrificial rituals, divinations, medicine and evenpractical skills. In contrast to jingshen, ling is seldom used by inofficial media, history and politics. When evoked officially, itoften has a negative connotation of zongjiao mixin (religion andsuperstition), namely, problematic spirits to be managed orcontrolled. The defining difference between jingshen and ling seems to1 According to Shuowen Jiezi, ling is constructed as the image of a shamanoffering jades in a sacrificial ritual to gods. Its original meaning isthus to serve God with jade. C.f. Xu Shen. Shuowen Jiezi, Beijing: ZhonghuaShuju. 1998., p.13.

lie in their different relations with the material world: whilejingshen is non-material in a transcendent sense, ling cannot separateitself from the material world by virtue of the requisite ritualsacrifices and magical formulas.

Meanwhile, the concept of qi ( 精 ), which encompasses jingshen andintermingle with ling, has lost all its political and much of itsintellectual appeal but is still very much alive in everydaylanguage. As a universal cosmic element, qi is neither spiritual normaterial: it only recognizes internal vertical division of differentqi in terms of its spiritual quality, rather than a division betweenspirits and matters. For over two millennia, qi has been the centralconcept for moral, spiritual and bodily cultivation shared byConfucianism, Taoism and a wide array of cosmological practices. Inlate imperial China, it was in an uneasy balance with theshamanistic ling. While qi was uphold by intellectual and politicalelites, it had never been able to subjugate ling within its owndominion. In modern China, as vertical integrity of qi gave way tothe vertical division of spirits and matters in official discourse,qi survives by closer association with either the modern spirit ofjingshen or bodily cultivation.

The history of early twentieth-century Chinese spiritual world is ahistory of tensions and adaptations between a rising jingshenspirituality of elites and state ideology, qi-centered cosmologicalpractices and shamanistic spiritual traditions. Some aspects oftensions and adaptations have been the focus of studies in recentdecade revolving around the religious problem. For example, RebeccaNedostup makes extensive study of the Nationalist government effortto staple out religion and superstition in the public domain, whichturned out to be a failure, since religion still remained criticalto the affective regime at Chinese society.2 A more ambitiousproject by Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer enlarges thereligious landscape to include redemptive societies, secularizedtraditions and political rituals under the umbrella term religion.While recognizing the tensions and accommodations between state andreligion, they also stress the importance of religious innovations

2 Rebecca Nedostup. Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity. MA, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2009., pp.272-277

which enabled the field to remain open and produce new formsthroughout the twentieth century. 3

A problem of the state-religion or secular-spiritual approach is theblind spots it leaves behind, namely, areas of conceptualintersection and exclusion. The former includes spiritual aspects ofthe jingshen-centered self-sacrifice and cultivation for certaingroups, such as revolutionary soldiers and martyrs. The latterincludes an array of qi-centered cosmological practices fromnumerology to martial arts, which has been in a process of internaltransformations and external interactions with other cosmologies,including Christian eschatology, modern science and capitalism. Inboth cases, important changes were under the way in early twentiethcentury. The state-religion or secular-spiritual framework, howeverenlarged and elaborated, tends to exclude these themes as non-religious or misidentify them simply as modern and secular. In orderto grasp the general spiritual trend in modern China, a re-conceptualization of modern Chinese spirituality is required.

Recently, Peter van der Veer provides a much neededconceptualization of the modern spirit of Indian and China. In hiscomparative study of the concepts of spirits in modern China andIndia, van der Veer highlights the importance of imperialinteractions in the production of religion, spirituality and thesecular, which he refers to as “atheism” in China. 4 Although van derVeer has been aware of cultural differences, the application ofsecular/spiritual to modern Chinese still smacks of unwarrantedeuro-centrism. Historically, Su (精) or secular is indeed the antonymto Buddhism monk, but in its the disyllabic modern form Shisu 精精精（） orthe modern Chinese term for the secular, it refers more often tovulgarity or lack of spiritual pursuit, rather than lack ofreligiosity. Likewise, jingshen, the modern Chinese term for spirit,can be associated with ideas and phenomena unrelated with, or eventhe opposite of religion. Hence it is problematic to assume such adichotomy of secular/religion or secular/spiritual and a parallelprocess of secularization in modern China even in linguistic terms.

3 Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer. The Religious Question in Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2011, pp.395-396.4 Peter van der Veer. The Spiritual and the secular in China and India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2013., pp.223-227.

A better case for the spiritual transformation in modern China canbe made without the framework of religion and the secular. As recentstudies have shown, the idea of religion as Enlightenment constructhas limited application in non-West traditions in their originalformulation.5 Instead, we may focus on the changing concepts andpractices of spirit as old Chinese ideas and practices encounteredmodern science, evangelical Protestantism and philosophy. By tracingthe evolution of the Chinese spirits before and after theirencounters with the West, it is possible to develop a betterunderstanding about origins and nature of modern Chinese spirits,especially the new spirit of jingshen. As I shall demonstrate in thischapter, jingshen cannot be identified with the secularization.Rather, it is the product of interiorization, a process centered oncosmology rather than religion. This process links back to my thesison sacrifice, since ling and jingshen corresponds closely to ritual andmoral sacrifice that I discuss in other parts of the thesis, whereasqi is likewise associated with the equally important practice ofbodily and moral self-cultivation. The new sacrifice as a moral actis critically dependent on the new spiritual medium of jingshen, thehegemonic position of which in the public domain ensures that thenew sacrifice dominates not only the old practice of sacrifice butalso spiritual cultivation.

The scale of a single chapter naturally forbids me to elaborate onreligiosity or spirits in modern China. Instead, I shall restrict mysketch to a short genealogy of jingshen and the process ofinteriorization that accompanies the emergence of this new spirit. Iargue that jingshen is a modern Chinese spiritual concept with deeproots in neo-Confucianism and Buddhism. With critical new elementsfrom modern science, the new spiritual concept was created with anabstractness and psychological depth absent in its predecessors. Itsinitial popularity owed much to the relocation of the sacred fromthe cosmos to history: jingshen serves as the spiritual medium forcollective formation and individual sacrifice in a historicalcontext, just like ling and qi used to serve for the shamanistic and5 C.f. Tomoko Mazuzawa. The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: Chicago University Press. 2012;Talal Asad. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2003.

cosmological rituals. On a broader historical horizon, jingshen is themost interior of all Chinese spiritual concepts and the finalproduct of interiorization, a process initiated by pre-Qin thinkersin the Axial Age. Through an examination on the evolution of jingshen,we can understand the transformation of sacrifice from a uniquevantage point.

Qi and Jingshen in Pre-modern China

For two thousand years, the most encompassing concept for spirit andmatter in Chinese has been qi, rendered variously as vital energy,cosmic element or life power. Considered as universal across humanand material world, qi serves the fundamental element of Confucianand Taoist cosmos. In late Shang shamanistic universe, qi wasinitially conceptualized as spiritual elements that constitutedwind, earthly spirit and perhaps human inspiration.6 But in pre-Qintimes, the idea underwent a major transformation and acquired acentral position in cosmology of pre-Qin thinkers. As a recent workby Yu Yingshih argues, the pre-Qin idea of qi was created at a timewhen the shamanistic universe was partially disenchanted andincorporated into a new cosmos constituted by qi. The transitionspanned a millennium between late Shang and early Han, during muchof the time the importance of shamanism gradually declined. Althoughthe new cosmos was dominated by a transcendent realm of tian (精) andthe universal cosmic element of qi, traces of the old shamanisticsystem were still well-observed in Axial philosophical and literarytexts.7 The rise of qi in pre-Qin China was thus symptomatic of thefirst stage in the interiorization of spirit in the Chinesecivilization, a process that Yu defines as interior transcendence, incontrast to the exterior transcendence of other axial civilizations,such as Platonic idealism or other concepts of the ideal order inancient Greek thoughts.8

6 Togawa Yoshio, “Kokotsumoji to kinbum ni mieru ki” (Qi in Oracle Bonesand Bronze Inscriptions). In Kozawa Seichi, ed: Chugoku niokeru sizenkan tonikenkan no tenkai (The Idea of Qi: Development of the Idea of Nature and Humanin China). Tokyo: Tokyo University Press. 1983, pp.27-28. 7 Yu Yingshih, Lun Tian Ren Zhi Ji (On the Relation between the Transcendence andthe Human Realm). Taipei: Linking Books. 2014, pp.135-142.8 Ibid. pp.219-228.

Jingshen was also part of the Chinese vocabulary created with the newcosmology of qi at the end of axial transformation. It was firstconceived as a special type of qi with high a spiritual quality.While the term was already in use in early Taoist texts like Zhuangziand Laotze, the most systematic definition of jingshen was provided byHuainanzi, an early Han collection of moral, philosophical andpolitical treatises with a strong Taoist motif. Throughout the book,the author defines it as a quintessential spirit. In the Treatise onJingshen, jingshen is described as a heavenly qi that animates humanbody, in contrast to the physical xingti (physical body) or guhai(skeletal system) that forms the material body. In Huainanzi system,jingshen plays a critical role in self-cultivation in the cosmology ofHuainanzi, since sagehood is conditioned on the proper preservationof jingshen within the body. 9

Although the axial transformation brought forth qi and jingshen, it wasmore an intellectual breakthrough since the new cosmic element of qinever supplanted and only existed alongside with shamanisticspirits.10 Even Han state Confucianism provided ling a recognizableplace in the state ideology and sacrifice, following the principleof shendao shejiao (精精精精), the idea that the state needs not rejectshamanistic spirits but only to use them as tools for moralinstruction through state control of sacrifice. Following thisprinciple, successive imperial states not only sanctioned spirits oflocal deities but also maintained a system of ritual sacrifice underits own state sacrifice, especially the sacrifice to naturaldeities, imperial ancestors and human worthies.

From late Han to Song dynasty, the Chinese spiritual systemsunderwent another major interiorization in its millennium-longencounter with Mahayana Buddhism, culminated in the neo-Confucian

9 John S. Mayor. The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early HanChina. New York: Columbia University Press. 2010, pp.238-243. 10 The classical example for this syncretic spirit was Dong Zhongshu’sconcept of qi in a telepathic cosmology, which maintains that human spiritscan interact with the cosmological qi. The results are auspicious and ominoussigns of the natural universe which correspond to moral and politicalconditions of the human realm. The thesis contained some clear remnantsfrom the shamanism, since the tian (heaven) was still conceived aspersonified supernatural being with its own sense and will and the qimerely served as a spiritual medium between human and this supernaturalbeing. Dong’s theory later became state ideology through the Late Hancodification and held sway until the rise of Neo-Confucianism.

formulation of qi and the new transcendence of tianli 精精精（） . During thesyncretization of post-axial Chinese thoughts and Buddhism, bothtraditions made significant compromise. For the Chinese Buddhists,one of the key concessions was to envision an imperishable soul oressence for every living being. This was largely achieved throughthe creation of a body of Chinese Buddhist canons which creativelyreinterpreted Indian ideas with Chinese borrowings, including jingshenfrom Taoism.11 For the neo-Confucians, the most important change fromtheir older doctrine included the idea of an underlying metaphysicalprinciple which governed all natural and social phenomena in itsmyriad manifestations ( 精 精精一 ) and an interior space ( 精 ) withmultilayered structures of consciousness.12

The neo-Confucius cosmos centered on qi represented a furtherinteriorization of the post-axial system in two important ways.First, the Buddhist pro-psychological analysis of humanconsciousness deepened the Chinese mind. The idea of the mind as aninterior domain with its own inner depth and potential for self-cultivation in turn provides a foundation for Confucian moralcultivation. This is especially true with regard to the alayaconsciousness, which according to the Chinese cannons contains thepotential for Buddhahood and by implication, Confucian sagehoodthrough the cultivation of mind. Moreover, the Buddhist cosmicconcepts of karma and dharma also provide a powerful platform forconceiving the cosmos in non-shamanistic and more rationalist ways.In popular religion, karmic causality was doubly important as thebasis for everyday moral practice in late imperial China.

But there were still unresolved contradictions in the neo-Confuciansynthetic spirit. While qi was mostly conceived as non-spiritualcosmic energy, it also had a spiritual or mystical function, sinceall moral and bodily cultivation required this function as a mediumto access the transcendence. Yet being spiritual and mystical, itcould not be conceptually distinguished from ling, the shamanistic

11 C.f. Jungnok Park. How Buddhism Acquired a Soul on the Way to China. Sheffield:Equipnox Publisher. 2012., pp.177-194. 12 The foundation of this inner depth was laid down in the axialtransformation, when the mind (精) replaced shamanist body as the new accesspoint to sacred. But the post-axial mind had no inherent source andpotential for cultivation until Buddhist proto-psychology invested it witha structured inner depth with the embedded alaya consciousness or BuddhaNature.

spirits that promised manipulation of supernatural powers. To makeit worse, the official line of shendao shejiao often enabled theshamanistic spirits of ling to access transcendent tian, withpowerfully subversive implications. Throughout the periods ofConfucian orthodox, it became an established model for sectarianrebels to manipulate this powerful shamanistic spirit in its varioussyncretic forms with Buddhism, Manicheanism and eventuallyChristianity in their bids for the mandate the Heaven and theirmobilizations of the grassroots for political revolutionary.13

Many late-imperial thinkers have sought a definitive solution to thedilemma, though most unsuccessfully. Most relevant to the discussionof jingshen was a formulation by the seventeenth-century Confucianthinker Wang Fuzhi, a Ming loyalist who spent most of its life inself-banishment in early Qing. Wang proposed a theory of qi as thesole constitutive element of both cosmic process and social life,making li second-order to qi as its patterns or regularities. InWang’s vision, both cosmic process and human history are essentiallytransformation and transfiguration of various qi. By making qimaterial and li as inherent in material process, Wang sought toeradicate the source of mysticism and launch a final attack on allshamanistic elements.

Though often labelled as progenitor of modern Chinese materialism,Wang was in fact keenly aware of the risk of naïve materialism,which usually has difficulty explaining human consciousness andproviding a foundation for morality. To this end, Wang reinventedthe concept of shen (god or spirits 精) as a regulatory property of qi.As he writes on the commentary on Zhang Zai, a Northern Songprogenitor of Neo-confucian doctrines:

“In the Great Harmony (Taihe), there are both qi and shen. Shen isnone other than the principle of clear communication between yang andyin. Shen, which is not imaginable, is inherent in the image of GreatHarmony. The Great Harmony is the coherence of yin and yang as wellas qi and shen. After man is born and communicates with the materialworld, qi goes after materials and the individual is driven by qiwhile leaving behind shen. It is far from the origin condition oflife when shen is driven by qi and misses its fluid and vitality.”14

13 Suzuki Chyōsei. Chūgokuni okeru shūkyō to gakumei (Religion and Revolution in Chinese History). Tokyo: Tokyo University Press. 1997., pp.297-303. 14 Wang Fuzhi, Zhangzi zhengmeng pian zhu.Beijing: Guji Chubanshe. 1956, p.2.

Thus shen, unlike li, is not transcendent but co-extensive with qi. AsWang argues, “Shen is the spirit (ling) of qi. If shen is inherent in qiand unifies with it, it is still shen. Visible when concentrated,invisible when dispersed, how could this form be incoherent andunreal! Thus the shen of Yao and Shun (Sage King) and the qi of Jieand Zhou (evil ruler) still exist and remain unchanged till today.”15

Wang is also not amiss to the supernatural spirit of gui (ghost), ancognate of the shamanistic spirit. Like many materialists, hisstrategy was to subsume the supernatural under the natural, as heargues: “The property that enables heavenly qi to be embodied in theperson and perform its transformations is called shen; when humanlife expires and the qi disperses and returns (to the Heaven andEarth), it is called gui.”16 Given all these strongly materialisticformulations, Wang’s pro-scientific cosmology of qi was nearlyrationalistic except for a fatal loophole: like Zhang Zai, he wasunable to explain the working of the shen other than by a mysticalspeculation derived from the Book of Change.

The critical contribution of Wang Fuzhi’s cosmology has been theidea of spirit as a form or pattern of qi, an interior spirit in amaterialistic universe and a striking parallel to the variousscientific laws in the Enlightenment cosmology. But his ideas werenever widespread in prints and exerted no influence on mainstreamQing scholarship until well into the second half of nineteenthcentury.17 Despite tensions in the neo-Confucian system, the urge tocreate a new spirit over and above qi and banish shamanistic ling tonon-existence was never strong enough during much of the Qing. Afterall, cosmological practice of qi was sufficiently sophisticated forvarious practical needs, whereas shamanism remained essential partnot only of popular religions but also the Manchu state cult.

But with the great transformation of the nineteenth century, thesituation changed fast. The crisis to the Chinese spirits came to ahead in the 1890s with the full-scale onslaught of Christianity andmodern science: Christianity presented an alternative transcendentto tian (Heaven), whereas the advance of science presented a newconception of the material world, thus threatening the cosmological15 Ibid.p.7.16 Ibid. p.16.17 C.f. Liu Zhisheng, Liu Ping. Wang Chuanshan zhuzuo congkao (CollectedStudies on the Work of Wang Fuzhi). Changsha: Hunan Renmin Chubanshe.1998., pp.55-71.

integrity of qi. At this juncture, Qing intellectuals began to seekalternative spiritual foundations for the empire outside orthodoxneo-Confucianism. This was the moment when Wang Fuzhi loomed largein the intellectual horizon of the Confucian elites like a propheticsage, as his scholarship became known to the mainstream and embracedby leading literati-officials like Zeng Guofan. 18 In the lastdecades of the nineteenth century, Wang’s theory of qi becameimmensely popular among the young generation, especially theintellectuals associated with Hunan Reform of 1898, who found in himan inspiration for ambitious reform plans modelled after the West.19

The Invention of Jingshen

At the turn of the century, theories of modern science andespecially the theory of evolution introduced by Yan Fu’s Tianyanlun(On the Evolution of the Heaven) provided the much neededtheoretical reinforcements to Wang Fuzhi’s cosmology and Buddhistelements in neo-Confucian thoughts. Both schools of thoughts hadsome inherent rationalistic element, such as the causality of karma,the deep alaya consciousness and the materialistic property of qi,but only at a metaphysical and mystical level. What modern scienceoffered was the critical causal links between the claims of Buddhistmetaphysics and the physical reality. This fateful couplingexplained why many young intellectuals born in the 1860s and 1870swell-versed in Wang’s rediscovered works were easily converted toelementary scientific laws and even Christian Science.20 Under thesway of Buddhism, Wang Fuzhi and modern science, they were easilymoved by their structural similarities to construct syncreticcosmologies. Among these young scholars was Liang Qichao, arguably

18 Hu Weiping, “Zen Guofan he quanshan ishu” (Zen Guofan and Works Left byWang Fuzhi), in Wang Jipin, Li Dajian. Zen Guofan yu jindaizhongguo (Zen Guofanand Modern China). Changsha: Yuelu shushe. 2007, p.11. 19 Stephen R. Platt. Provincial Patriots: The Hunanese and Modern China. MA, Cambridge:Harvard University Press. 2009, pp.88-92. 20 These works often associated cosmic qi in the work of Wang Fuzhi withquasi-scientific ideas. For instance, Tan Sitong famously equated with qiwith ether in his Renxue (Book of Benevolence) and made it a spiritualforce manipulable by the human will. Tan’s ether was thus a major departurefrom late imperial spiritual cultivation based on qi. The extent to whichscience and other modern institutions enabled this kind of spiritualcultivation and sacrifice will be discussed in chapter four.

the most influential of his generation. At the frontier ofintellectual encounters in late Meiji Tokyo, Liang elevated theconcept of jingshen to a new level of abstractness.

Liang Qichao first equated jingshen to yuanqi, the primordial qi in itsperfect form: “Here is a big thing: it can be captured neither byears nor by eyes; it can neither be borrowed nor appropriated; whenit blooms and grows, it can embrace the Earth; when it suffersrepression and destruction, it can dwindle at once and disappearwithout a trace. As a thing, it advances and retreats; expands andwithers; falls to disgrace and regains its glory. Is its change dueto Heaven or men? Despite its changeability, a man gains life whenpossessing it and dies when losing it. A nation survives whenpossessing it and falls when losing it. Furthermore, when a man or anation is in possession of it, they can recover their life even attheir deathbeds. But when they lose it, they are dead even whenphysically alive and die a true death with only their names subsist.For this thing I have no name. I call it yuanqi.”21

Liang goes on to relate jingshen to yuanqi: “What is jingshen? Jingshen isjust the yuanqi of a nation. Things like clothing, food, instrument,buildings to politics and laws are all visible and audible. They arethus material forms (xingzhi). Within these material forms, there is adifference between the virtual and the real. Although things likepolitics and laws are audible and visible, they are not touchable byhands and buyable by money and thus are more difficult to obtain.Therefore, clothing and instruments are material forms of materialforms, whereas politics and laws are the spirits (jingshen) ofmaterial forms. As for the yuanqi of the Nation, it cannot be createdinstantly, nor can it be the product of a person or a family. It isnot subject to the powers of the government, nor is it teachable bythe instruction of a religion...”22

This first definition of jingshen is a continuation of the neo-Confucian discourse of qi, similar to Wang Fuzhi’s shen. But Liang’syuanqi differs from Wang Fuzhi’s shen in an important way: whereasshen is a property of qi, jingshen is both a property and a form of qiwith its own independent and separate existence (thus Liang’sneologism “jingshen of jingshen”). But jingshen as both a form and the21 Liang Qichao, “guomin shida yuanqi lun”, in Yinbingshi wenji dianjiao. Kunming:Yunnan Jiaoyu chubanshe., 2006, p.658. 22 Ibid., p.659

essence of qi presents a contradiction. This contradiction isresolved in the second and more refined definition of jingshen thatLiang Qichao provides in My View of Life and Death in 1904. Unlike thefirst qi-based jingshen, the second definition of jingshen, backed byBuddhism and evolution, eventually makes the concept of qiirrelevant. During the intervening years, Liang read widely incontemporary Japanese books, especially apologetics of Buddhism andother works that reconciled religion with science. This uniqueexperience probably contributed to his strategy to combinescientific common sense with Buddhism in his subsequent definitionof jingshen.23

To illustrate this new spirit of jingshen, Liang presents a social-historical reading of karmas and heredity. In Buddhist cosmology,karma links individual beings, not social construct, to the largercosmic process. But Liang gave it a social-historical spin: “In theworld, there are humans and beasts and other forms of life. Withinthe human realm, there are different families, nations andsocieties. What is the reason for so many different social forms?These (social forms) are all organized on mutual interactions andhabituation of karmas. Therefore, our every single word, act andthought today will be carved into the total karmas and becomeseternal. I myself and my race will have to receive its retributionsin the future….”24

This reinterpreted karma corresponds closely to a social-historicalreading of heredity. “According to the heredity of evolutionists,all living beings, as long as they are alive, pass theircircumstances and the resulted habits to their descendants. Why arethere so many different races and genera among the living beings andso many internal variations, differences and particularities within

23 According to Mori Kiko, there were both intellectual and politicalmotives behind Liang’s view of life and death. Intellectually, Liang wasinspired by Japanese translations of Benjamin Kidd’s Social Evolution (1894)and made a critical reinterpretation in his essay. Politically, Liang wasmoved by the Japanese spirit of Bushidō, which was at its height in theyears after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1906) to discover a Chineseequivalent spirits for sacrifice. C.f. Mori Kiko, “lyō kichyō no bukaku tonihon” (Liang Qichao’s Buddhist Study and Japan), in Kyōdōkenkyū lyō kichyō; seiyōkindai shisō syūyou to meiji nihon (Coordinated Study of Liang Qichao: Reception ofWestern Thoughts and Meiji Japan). Tokyo: Muizuzu Books. 2000, pp.208-212.24 Liang Qichao, “Yu zhi shengsiguan”, in Yinbingshi wenji dianjiao. Kunming:Yunnan Jiaoyu chubanshe. 2006, p.2227.

one race or genus? This is due to continuous struggle for survivalfrom the beginning to date. In essence, different races and generaare created by the various circumstances and acts (of individualliving-beings) during unlimited years. The so-called inheritancethus includes not only the formless character but also all the body-form with its singularities, all passed down and transformed(through evolution).”25

By making a social-historical reading of karma and heredity, Liangdefines concept of jingshen as the common attribute in these twoconcepts. “Buddhism advocates liberation in order to exit this worldand enter nirvana, thus its doctrine is not to create karmas; thetheory of evolution advocates struggle in order to enrich anddignify this world, thus its doctrine is to create karmas. What apolar opposite between the two views! However, both Buddhism and thetheory of evolution indisputably agree that all men die but leavebehind something eternal. I want to name the (eternal) karma ofBuddhism and the heredity of evolution jingshen…. 26

Liang’s purpose of reinventing the spirit, however, has little to dowith religion. A far more important purpose is to justify andmobilize the sacrifice urgently needed to save China. He works outfor this purpose an elaborate correspondence between bigger self,smaller self, bigger other and smaller other. The bigger self andsmaller self are the everlasting group and the embodied individual,whereas the bigger other and smaller other are the individual bodyand its constituent parts. A sacrificial sequence is establishedamongst the four: part of the body must be destroyed for the whole,the body may be forsaken for the spirit and the individual may besacrificed for the group. 27 In a drastic reinterpretation of thestandard for a Confucian nobleman, Liang sets jingshen as thespiritual medium for individual moral sacrifice for the group:

“Where is my spirit (jingshen)? Part of it is in the form of the many(the individual selves). This part will undergo unlimited circles ofkarmic transformations and incarnations and eventually eclipse intocomplete emptiness of nirvana. The other part of it is in the realmof the total (the bigger self), such as the group, the nation andthe world. This is where my heredity and karma enters an unlimited25 Ibid, p.2228. 26 Ibid,p.2230.27 Ibid, p.2233.

process. If these two can be exchanged, I do not fear to see mysmall-self destroyed. To be sure, when both the body and the spiritscan survive, there is no need to destroy the body. If they are notsacrificed, both the spirits and the body may are cultivated buttheir relative importance must be clearly distinguished. When thebody and the spirit cannot both survive, let perish the perishableand never perish the unperishable. To perish the unperishable iscalled the death of the heart. The nobleman says: “no sorrow isgreater than death of the heart.”28

Although Liang still employs Buddhist and Confucian vocabulary, hisjingshen emerges as a new concept of spirits. Firstly, jingshen as karmaor heredity in the evolution of a people is no longer a cosmic but ahistorical spirit. Unlike Wang Fuzhi, Liang needs to identity thespirit with primordial coherence of qi, since coherence is no longernecessary for a sui generis evolution of spirits based on scientificlaws. Second, while both jingshen and shen are abstracted from thematerial world, jingshen is not as mystical as shen, since it has aknowable and even law-like relation to the material world of deedsand words as determined by karmic and evolutionary laws. As such,jingshen can be more clearly comprehended and expressed asconceptualization. As Liang Qichao argues, jingshen can be identifiedwith “character” when applied to a historical subject as nation.29 Inhis contemporary writings, jingshen is variously identified withvalues like harmony, unity, virtue, patriotism and evencosmopolitanism, which he associates with the Chinese nationalcharacter.30 In other words, jingshen is the conceptual formulation ofa historically constituted subject. Third, due to its abstractnature, jingshen is a spirit with its own existence and functionalrules independent of matters. Therefore, it is conceptuallydistinctive from the shamanistic ling, which works with and throughmatters. In this sense, the new concept signals a new stage in thetransformation begun millennia ago when the Chinese spirit firstmoved away from the dominion of late-Shang shamans.

At this point of time, jingshen has not yet been associated with afuture vision. On the contrary, it was associated with the abstract28 Ibid, p.2226.29 Ibid, p.2227. 30 Zheng Shiqu, “Liang Qichao he zhonghuaminzu jingshenlun” (Liang Qichao and the Thesis on the Spirits of Chinese People). Journal of Beijing Normal University. 2007. No.1. pp.131-133.

of Chinese historical culture in the name of guocui or nationalessence. In the face of challenges from western ideas ofcivilization and social evolution, a group of scholars devotedthemselves to the task of formulating a comparable spirit for theChinese civilization. In their search for such a spirit, theydevised an approach drastically different from Qing method ofcritical textual study. Instead of establishing textual traditionsthrough careful contextual philological study, these young scholarsattempted to construct diachronically a theoretical tradition bysieving out common ideas from texts and identifying their literalsimilarities with dominant Western ideas, often without reference tothe context. With a wide non-specialists audience and a politicalagenda in the mind, these scholars employed an approach very closein spirit with emergent popular styles found in newspapers,magazines and text books.31

Liu Shipei’s discovery of the Chinese tradition of social contractwas a case in point. Inspired by Rousseau’s social contract, Liu andhis coauthor Lin Xie determined to find the Chinese roots ofpeople’s rights. The criterion for root-finding appeared simple: anyideas and arguments similar to the Chinese translation of Rousseaucould establish a lineage to the Chinese roots. In a relativelyshort time, they worked through Chinese classics and found plentifulquotes that satisfied such criterion, from The Book of Change to theevidentiary scholars of mid-Qing era. Even legalist texts like TheBook of Lord Shang, Taoist texts like Lao-tzu and classical glossarieslike Erya were found to foreshadow the idea of popular sovereigntyand social contract.32 In some occasions, Chinese concepts like liwere simple equated with Western concept like natural law. Byamassing a considerable contexts and exegeses, they were able toconstruct a Chinese parallel to the essence or jingshen of Rousseau’sideas.

31 The medium of such writing is what Benedict Andersen refers as the modernprinting medium meant for mass consumption. To this category we can addpropaganda. It must be differentiated from contemporary Utopian orfuturistic treaties, such as Kang Youwei’s Datongshu (The Great Harmony) andSun Yat-sen’s Sanminzhuyi which are primarily political treaties. On theother hand, it was continuous with scholarly works that seeks reinterpretChina on the same footing with the West, such as Hu Shih’s history ofChinese philosophy.32 Liu Shipei, “Zhongguo minyue jingyi”. Liu Shipei wenxuan. Shanghai: Far EastPress. 1995, pp.21-26.

The first systemic conceptualization of the Chinese spirits camefrom Chinese-Eurasia mixed-blood Gu Hongming. Born to a Chinesemerchant and his Eurasia wife, Gu was raised in Penang and receivededucation from European gymnasium and universities. A Qing loyalistconversant in Western culture, Gu was in an ideal position to offeran apology for Chinese culture. His first book, Papers from a ViceroyYamen, published in the critical year of 1901, was an impassioneddefense of the Emperor Dowager written in the abstract journalisticlanguage about the beloved and virtuous sovereign matriarch of thenation.33 The second book, The Spirit of the Chinese People, became the firstmajor exposition of Chinese civilization from the culturalconservatives. Gu’s was an unequivocal defense of Chinese culturaltradition and the spirit of the Chinese people, which he defined as“broad, deep, simple and delicate” with “a natural tendency forgentleness and civility”.34 These essential traits he associated withcivilizing power of Confucianism, a social or state religion ofChina. But for the Chinese rendering of spirit, he insisted therather archaic Confucian term chuanqiu dayi, or essence of the Springand Autumn Annals, instead of jingshen of the Chinese People.35 Themethodology of his book was similar to Liu Shipei’s search forChinese spirit of popular sovereignty: the Chinese character, likeall other national characters, was treated as a collection ofenduring ideas and images to be found in the body of ancient textsand journalistic anecdotes.

The new spirit invented and used by Chinese intellectuals in earlytwentieth-century is a collective concept. Unlike universalisticspirits of ling and qi, which knows no boundary between the materialworld and history subjects, jingshen is detached from the materialworld and exclusively associated with a historical subject,especially the nation. As such, it presents a different way for an33 Lydia Liu, “Desiring and Sovereign Thinking”, in Johnathan Culler andPheng Cheah ed, Ground of Comparison: Around the Work of Benedict Andersen. London:Routledge. 2003, pp.208-209. 34 Gu Hongming, The Spirit of the Chinese People. Beijing: Foreign Language Teachingand Research Press. 1998, pp.6-8. 35 Judged by the content of the book, this is somewhat a misnomer. Thechoice of such an archaic name is perhaps attributable to Gu’s idyllic viewof Confucianism as a state or civil religion of China with a civilizingspirit shared by all ordinary Chinese. But it is common knowledge thatBuddhism and Taoism have similar if not stronger claims. Later writers inthis genre, such as Lin Yutang and Liang Shumin, simply use jingshen forspirit.

individual to engage with the universe and the others. In the oldspiritual world of ling and qi, spiritual cultivation and sacrificeare two common ways that an individual communicates with thetranscendence, which needs not to encompass the whole individuallife. In the world of jingshen, however, spiritual cultivation andsacrifice becomes a mode of life: it starts with identifying oneselfwith a collective goal, proceeds with preparing oneself for and endswith devoting oneself to the collective goal.

However, this collective turn was only potential form in the firsttwo decades of the century as the definition of Jingshen was still farfrom settled. In scholarly works, the word can still relate directlyto its millennium old affiliation to qi. In fact, an intellectualavant-garde as Cai Yuanpei would still take jingshen as a type of qi ina textbook on moral cultivation he published in 1911.36 But in the1920s, jingshen underwent a drastic politicization and popularization,as Sun Yat-sen and other political figures employed it for hisrevolutionary enterprise.37

Sun first used jingshen in a speech to revolutionary soldiers in 1922.Sun first contrasts spirit with matters: “All phenomena in theuniverse are either spiritual (jingshen) or material (wuzhi).Although spirit is the opposite of matter, it in fact works withmatters to produce effect…… human organs and bones are bodily andthus material, but human words and actions are for use and thusspiritual….if one suddenly loses spirits, although there are organsand bones, one will not speak and act; as the use (of human body) islost, the body becomes dead body. From this perspective, those withphysical body but no use of spirits are non-human.” “With the use ofspirits, humans are not entirely dependent on physical bodies. As ahuman-being, I shall gear up my spirits for action…thus revolutionas action is dependent on spirits. The revolutionary enterpriseoriginates from revolutionary spirits.”38

36 Cai Yuanpei. Guomin xiuyang erzhong. Shanghai: Shanghai Wenyi chubanshe.1999 (1912). , p.6.37 The first person to use jingshen independently from qi was probably therevolutionary general Cai E (d. 1916), rather than Sun. But Sun wascertainly most influential political figure who gave it a definitivepolitical and psychological connotation. 38 Sun Yat-sen, Zai guilin dui dianganyuejun de yanshuo (Speech to ArmySoldiers of Yunan, Jiangxi and Guangdong at Guilin). Sun Zhongshanquanji.vol.6. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju., p.12.

For Sun, jingshen as a spiritual power had priority over materialforces. He reckons that ninety-percent of the power of therevolutionary army came from its spirit, since during the WuchangUprising of 1911, a few battalions of soldiers could triumph overthe powerful Qing garrison in one night.39 He then used the case of abuffalo boy and a buffalo to reinforce the point: despite his smallsize, the buffalo boy can direct the buffalo in any directions hewants. The reason is jingshen of the boy, which the buffalo has not.40

Thus in Sun’s implicit definition, jingshen is not simply any power ofthe mind, but the human psychological power centered on a self-conscious will. Unlike the cosmic spirit of qi which emanates in alldirections and permeates mind and body, jingshen as psychologicalpower strictly subjects the material world, including the body, tothe mind.

Sun goes on in the speech to identify the exact meanings ofrevolution spirits for modern soldiers. It turns out to be verynearly Confucian. “What is the revolutionary spirit for soldiers?The three principal elements are intelligence (精), benevolence (精)and courage ( 精).”41 Benevolence has four “knows”: right and wrong,benefit and harm, historical trend and ally and enemy. All the four“knows” are structured around the people and the nation. Benevolencefor soldiers is defined the awareness of the objective for theirsacrifice, namely the salvation of the nation. In Sun’s formulation,courage should be equated with the readiness and willingness tochoose death over life for a worthy goal, which translated to hisvision of national salvation. 42

Sun never had the time to refine his jingshen into a coherent concept.But even if he were to do so, there would be nothing innovativeabout his argument on the power of the mind for soldiers, which hadbeen discussed extensively by ancient strategists.43 His realinnovation was the association of the neologism of jingshen with

39 Ibid, p.13.40 Ibid, p. 14.41 Ibid, p.15.42 Ibid, p.16.43 For example, early Chinese texts on military strategies already mentionedthe psychological aspects of qi as a powerful force to be manipulated inwar. Ralph D. Sawyer, “Martial Prognostication” in Military Culture in ImperialChina, C.f. Di Cosmos ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2001,pp.48-60.

psychic powers such as self-consciousness and self-determination.The result is a psychologization of spirit, parallel to Liang’sconceptualization. While jingshen as national essence is not the sameas the will to sacrifice, they belong to the same cluster ofinterior spirits with the mind as the new crucible and history asthe new sacred. The revolutionary spirits for soldiers are notunlike the desirable characters of new citizens. The two jingshendefined psychologically and historically are thus two sides of thesame coin: the former is individual experience of the latter;whereas the latter is the collective representation of the former.

When Sun was making his point about cultivation of jingshen, he wasfully aware of his audience: representatives from new soldierseducated in modern schools and military academies. These soldierswere among the social groups most receptive to the jingshenspirituality. Modern students of early Republican China had mostexposure to an education in jingshen, not only due to abstractconcepts and ways of thinking taught in classes, but also thanks toa wide selection of magazines and journals that flooded the campus,which amounted to a dozen in such cultural centers like BeijingUniversity.44 Nothing was more important to the spiritual cultivationof jingshen than reading and writing, especially readings and writingof history and biography, which directly evoked the modern spirit.Among these modern spirits, the revolutionary spirit as formulatedby Sun Yat-sen came to dominate spiritual landscape of modernChinese politics.

Jingshen and Interiorization of Spirits in Early Republican China

In a changing spiritual world where jingshen rapidly rose toprominence, there bound to be vertical conflicts and accommodations.But while conflicts were inevitable, accommodations were in fact afar more salient feature of early Republican spirituality. Conflictswere mainly caused by the urge of jingshen for interiorization,whereas accommodation reflected interiorization in the realms of lingand qi. In the realm of ling, accommodations were best exemplified by

44 Guan Chenghua, Beijing Daxue Xiaoyuanwenhua (Campus Culture at Peking University). Beijing: Beijing University Press., pp.42-43.

the ideas and practices in redemptive societies; in the realm of qi,they were eminently observable in the theorization andspiritualization a là jingshen of various cosmological practices suchas numerology and martial arts.

In its form as a concept and an idea, jingshen was in fact detachedfrom the worldly traditional spirits and unlikely to cause sectarianconflicts with older spirits. For example, nationalist leaders likeSun Yat-sen and Chiang Kaishek seemed to have no problem with thefree use of jingshen and Holy Spirits of their Christian faith. Butstill, the potential for conflicts arose when the interests of themodern state employed conceptualizing as means of centralizingcontrol. As Prasenjit Duara argues, the first phase of statecampaign against popular religion was in fact launched by theculturally conservative Yuan Shikai administration for the sake ofhis commitment to secular and modernizing goals, which resultedfirst in economic conflicts with local religious establishment.45 Butwhen the conflict developed to the second stage in the 1920s,ideological factors loomed large. As interests and ideology cametogether, conflicts between the spirit of the state and myriadspirits of ling and qi came to a head in late 1920s.

In 1928 and 1929, radical intellectuals from the left wing ofNationalist Party launched a propaganda campaign against religionsand superstitions. They declared from the dominant evolutionary viewof history that religion and superstitions were relics of an olderhistorical stage of development that now adamantly resisted theprogress of society. There were two major platforms for attack:psychological and historical. According to Huang Shaodan, religionand superstition represented an obstacle in human evolution in twoways: the evolution of human consciousness from obscurantism toenlightenment or science and the evolution of human society fromsubjection to self-government or democracy. In either way, religionsand superstitions were hurdles to be overcome. Jingshen was evoked inboth arguments: first, it served as the basis for a new form ofspiritual life (jingshen shenghuo) centered on self-consciousness andrational thinking, which by definition was independent from andaversive to any external resources like deities or supernaturalspirits; second, the desirable spirit of independence and self-

45 Prasenjit Duara. Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of ModernChina. Chicago: Chicago University Press. 1995, pp.96-98.

government, which provided the psychological basis for the moderndemocratic state, were incompatible with traditional religion, whichwas usually allied with traditional political regimes. 46

When most authors under the banner of cultural reform attacks thespirits of religion and superstitions based on jingshen, a writerknown by the penname Fang Cao demonstrates the defensive use ofjingshen. Speaking against the radical view that all religions beabolished, Fang Cao bases his defense strictly on Sun Yat-sen’swritings. Echoing Sun Yat-sen’s view on the need to develop thenational spirits (minzu jingshen) for struggle and survival, he findsthat such elements are in already existent in historical Buddhism,which did champion a spirit of stoic struggle and self-reliance inits earlier days. Moreover, the state-led attack on Buddhism andother religions violates the freedom of faith and thus the modernspirits of law (fazhi jingshen) that China badly needs to construct amodern society and government. Indeed, the enemy of the partyideology should be theological power, rather than religion itself.47

As Fang Cao shows, jingshen can be accommodated with old spiritualtraditions due to its incommensurability with them: when it comes tospiritual traditions, jingshen only deals with abstract meanings andfunctions of existing spirits, rather their divinity orspiritedness. But jingshen spiritually is not completely neutral tothe old spirits. As Huang’s article shows, the power of jingshen as aninterior spirit came from the hegemony science of evolution,dominant ideology of nationalism, and most importantly, theascendant power of the modern state. These powerful factorscompelled all traditional spiritual traditions to undergo self-transformation.

This interiorization of spirit was observable across the domains ofling and qi. In the case of the old shamanistic practices, the trendwas most evident in the emergent syncretic redemptive societies.46 Huang Shaodan. “cong renlei jinhua de qushi zhong taolun zongjiao wenti”(A Discussion of Religious Questions from the Trend of Human Evolution), inFengsu Gaige Congkan, Guangdong: Fengsu Gaige Weiyuanhui, 1929, pp.85-89.Reprinted in Zhang Yan and Sun Yanjin ed. Minguo shiliao congkan, vol.777.Zhengzhou: Daxiang Chubanshe, pp.467-471.47 Fang Cao, “Sanminzhuyi yu zongjiao wenti” (The Principle of ThreePeople’s and Religious Questions), in Fengsu Gaige Congkan, Guangdong: FengsuGaige Weiyuanhui, 1929, pp.160-169. Reprinted in Zhang Yan and Sun Yanjined. Minguo shiliao congkan, vol.777. Zhengzhou: Daxiang Chubanshe, pp.467-471.pp.542-549

From 1910s onwards, a large number of such redemptive societies cameto the fore and effervesced into a spiritual movement, culminatingwith the founding of Yiguandao in 1930. One earlier example ofredemptive societies was the Jiushijiao (The World Saving Religion),which founded the monthly journal lingxue yuekan (SpiritualityMonthly). While the new religion still recognized a variety ofshamanistic practices, including spiritual writing, its emphasis wasnow on everyday moral practices based on a more interiorinterpretation of spirit. As a contributor to lingxue yuekan argues:

“One living in this world is constantly crisscrossing the ways ofgods and devils. Once the mind entertains the good in accordancewith li, one becomes god ( 精 ). Once the mind reflects the evil oncontrary to li, one becomes devil (精). Therefore, when man deals withthings and others during a day, the mind holds the key to good andevil. When the spirits involve in a fight, the mind instantaneouslyfluctuates between god and devil. Only when one sees and believesdeeply in the Way that one finds li in everything one does and seesgod everywhere one goes. Thus there is nothing but clarity when onemanages affairs and nothing but godliness when one manages the mind.This clarity and godliness is said to be in accordance with theHeavenly Principles. In this way, man is god, god is man. There isneither so-called god nor so-called man. In the opposite case, manbecomes slave to devil. Viewed in this light, how could one lead thelife conscientiously? Moreover, how could one not be conscientiousin cultivating the Way?” 48

Although shen and gui, which used to be the manifestation ofshamanistic spirits were still recognized as pervasive in themundane world, they were now almost identical to a moral status of aperson, or more exactly, the moral consciousness of mind. The magicrituals that attract and dispel spirits were no long central to thepractice. Even the Buddhist-syncretic act of spirits that punishedthe evil and rewarded the good receded into the background. To besure, not all redemptive societies shared this view, but this viewwas quite consistent with most important of such syncretic ling-spirituality, such as Yiguandao. The process of interiorization wasexactly like what happened to Confucian intellectuals: the essential

48 “Hexian shuogui” (Immortal He Talks on Ghost). Lingxue Yuekan (SpiritualityMonthly). Nov. 1913.

element was no longer the spiritual connection with thetranscendence but the knowledge and will for moral action.

The same line of development was even more salient among the oldcosmological practices of geomancy, astrology, numerology, martialarts and Chinese medicine in early decades of the twentieth century.Reform-minded practitioners of these arts worked hard to make cosmicqi compatible with modern science. For this most part, this meant toinvent a standard theory of their old trades, establish an epistemiclineage and integrate the theory and practice of qi with thenational spirit of jingshen. Among the most significant of theseefforts was the development of the Taoist inner alchemy centered onthe Taoist priest Chen Yingning, who exerted utmost efforts to bringscientific ideas into the Taoist cosmology and practice to make itpowerful tactic of bodily cultivation.49

Meanwhile, a generation of theoretical cosmologists came of age inthe 1910s and 1920s. Among the most prominent theoreticalcosmologists was Yuan Shushan, a leading numerologist and apractitioner of Chinese medicine based in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu. Bornto a family of traditional medical practitioners in 1881, Yuanfollowed the path of leading young scholars of his time, firststudying humanity in Peking University and then sociology in TokyoUniversity. But when he came back, he declined job offers in theofficialdom and settled in the vicinity of Shanghai, devoting hislife to Chinese medicine, astrology and local education. Amongst thevarious trades Yuan was most concerned with Chinese numerology. Inthe introduction to his Historical Investigations of The Theory of Numerology, headvances two tenets in defense of this traditional trade: first, theancient “science” still has a role in evolutionary struggles;second, the ancient knowledge of numerology could be reinterpretedin a modern light.

Yuan recognized the overall validity of evolution, but referred to agap between the general law of evolution and the particular fate forindividuals. As he reasons, “while the law of evolution (that is, tohis generation, Social Darwinism) holds universally, there are thesuperior who do not win and the inferior who do not lose and theweak who do not fall prey to the strong. It is observed that erudite

49 C.f. Xun Liu. Daoist Modern: Innovation, Lay Practice, and the Community of Inner Alchemy in Republican Shanghai. MA, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2009.

scholars often fail the Civil Service Examinations and unskilledmerchants often reap huge profits. There are also cases when thestrong follow command of the weak. The principle and the tendencyall fall to ineffectiveness in these cases. Can anything other thanfate cause all these? If (all) people recklessly fight their fateswithout knowing about its rules, they will be condemned toshamelessness and ruin. As a result, there will never be any goodperson.” 50

While it is easy to argue for the need for cosmological divinationeven in the age of science, numerology in its current shape couldnot fill the gap. As Yuan argues, “Of the ancient books ofnumerology, there are those with arguments but no case studies,those with cases but no arguments, those that are too wild andcomplex to be precise and those that are too simplistic and laconicto be meaningful. Not only the starters feel it difficult to beginwith, even the experienced fail to understand its nuances. My worktries to follow a gradual approach with clear classifications,gathering the strengths of various schools and shunning theweaknesses. In case the ancient works are unclear in their theoryand inadequate in their cases, I risk presumptuousness bysupplementing them with my own biased views…”51 Despite his modesty,Yuan’s theoretical reformulation marked a major development inChinese numerology: he introduced an element of scientific approachby making it an empirically well-founded and theoretically coherentbody of knowledge. His book was instance success: it sold tenthousand copies in first edition and was quickly out of print.52

Yuan’s reform of numerology demonstrated the ways by which the oldcosmology survived and even thrived in early Republican China andbeyond. First, traditional cosmic practices like numerology filledthe gap between the popular understanding of scientific laws andeveryday needs of the people who continue to believe in cosmologicaldivinations. Moreover, during a time of uncertainty, the demand fordivination tends to strong. Second, like organized religion, thesecosmological practices underwent a theorization and interiorizationto become a form of practical knowledge readily available to all

50 Yuan Shushan. Mingli Tanyuan (Historical Investigations of the Theory of Numerology). Taipei: Wenguo Books. 2011 (1916), p.1.51 Ibid. p.552 Ibid. ii.

interested readers. This reformulation of numerology in accordancewith scientific laws was a general trend shared by leadingnumerologists of the time.53

If the survival of numerology was a tale of timely rescue, the riseof qi-based traditional Chinese martial arts was a story ofresounding triumph. In the 1920s and 30s, qi-based martial artsascended in popularity and prestige almost in tandem with jingshen.Theoretically, it was supported by a wealth of theoretical books,including Wan Laisheng’s voluminous critical contributions tomartial arts, which provide this ancient bodily practice atheoretical and historical framework. In his Compendium of Martial Arts,Wan did not only offer a description of various elements of martialart, but also a summary account of all its related fields, includingthe use of traditional weapons, acupuncture skills, Taoistincantations, ethics of swordsman, meditative tactics, lives ofcontemporary masters, among others.54 Above all, it is a theoretical,moral and historical overview of martial arts centered on its ethicdoctrines.

More critical to the thriving of qi-based industry of martial artwas its close association with the modern concept of body,especially the military body needed for national sacrifice in the1920s and 1930s. This marriage between martial art and thenationalistic spirit was evident in A Sketch of the Theory of Nation Skill byWu Zhiqing, a general of the Nationalist army. His exposition on thecultivation of body and mind revealed the critical role of martialart training in the vocabulary of sacrifice:

“If one wants to cultivate the perfect spirit (jingshen), one mustfirst have a perfect body. For a feeble sick man feels frightened atany time but a strong and powerful sportsman certainly could keep acalm and peaceful mind in the face of sudden dangers and unsuspectedaffronts. Without fear, he can accomplish many things that othersdare not to do. If we examine our people, we find that the majorityare fearful of death and danger. This is a symptom of nationalperdition and an expression of national backwardness! All believers

53 Chen Junzhi, “Qingmo minchu Zhongguo minglijie dui xihua de paichi he jiena”. Ehu Yuekan. Dec. 2013, p.15-18.54 Wang Laisheng, Wushu huizong (Compendium of Martial Arts). Shanghai: Commerce Books. 1929, pp.1-10.

in the sanminzhuyi and our great nationals! I hope to use martial artto promote in you a spirit of fearlessness (dawuwei jingshen)!”55

If the military virtue and bodily cultivation inherent in martialarts helped the ancient practice to claim political relevance,modern media groomed it for mass cultural consumption as a symbolsof jingshen. Modern mass media enabled transmigration of ancientmystic qi into consumer cultural product for the modern Chinesespirits through a nationalist historical plot. The best examples inRepublican China were modern swordsman novels (wuxia xiaoshuo) basedon legendary as well as contemporary masters of martial art. One ofthe most acclaimed works in this genre was Xiang Kairan’s Biographiesof Modern Heroes and Swordsman serialized in 1923. In his effort topresent masters of Chinese martial art, Xiang portrayed severalfamous contemporary masters of the art, in particular, Wang Zhengyi(nicknamed the Broadsword Wang Wu, d.1901) and Huo Yuanjia (d. 1909).

Xiang set his hero in a time of extreme national crisis, when theBoxers allied with some Manchu elite and employed a type of martialart replete with shamanism against the foreign powers and ChineseChristians. Sectarian violence of the Boxers was especially virulentagainst defenseless Chinese Christians, who were regarded as devil-possessed and massacred en mass. When a Boxer called upon him tovisit his master and the Qing Prince of Duan, a royal protégé of theBoxers, Huo refused outright: “Thank you for travelling afar tobring me this goodwill. But I was born a dull man and never believedin the (shamanistic) spirits. I learn martial arts, especially thosetaught by men, but never the magic fists. If there are any boxerscapable of magic fists who want to challenge my disciples, we willbe ready for a fight anywhere and anytime….it is not up to commonfolk like us to defend the Qing dynasty, nor are we capable ofannihilating the foreigners. ”56 While it might not be so easy for alayman to distinguish the cosmological and shamanistic martial artin practice, the fictional presentation made it clear. Later, Huoeven fought the Boxers to protect innocent Chinese Christians whosought asylum in his academy.

55 Wu Zhiping, Guoshu lilun gaiyao (A Sketch of the Theory of National Tactic). Shanghai: Dadong shuju. 1935, pp.28-29. 56 Xiang Kairan (Buxiaosheng), Jindai xiayi yingxiongzhun (Biography of ModernHeroes and Swordsman). Taipei: Linking Books. 1984 (1929), p.172.

An intertwined storyline is Huo Yuanjia’s victorious duels withforeigner fighters. If Huo was defending the authenticity of hisarts and universalistic principles of humanitarianism in his fightswith Boxers, then in these duels he was defending the efficacy ofthe national art and a particularistic pride in the Chinese nation.Seeing that China was in need of well-trained bodies, he establisheda martial art academy to train the young and arranged contests withhalf a dozen famous foreign fighters to spread the name of hisschool. All these efforts were to demonstrate a Chinese “militaryspirit” against the contemporary characterization of the Chinese as“The Sick Man of Asia”.57 During the last decade of his life, Huodefeated a row of elite foreign challengers, including a Russianwrestler, a British boxer and a Japanese samurai, until he died ofboth internal exhaustion and Japanese poison. By presenting thefamous master of martial arts in such a legendary and tragic light,the novelist distinguished the martial spirit from its materialityand firmly embedded it within modern spirit of nationalist jingshen.The popularity of Huo’s image as the emblem of Chinese nationalismin modern Chinese popular culture across the entire Sino-spheretestified to the enduring success of such an approach. Indeed, inthe medium world of Communist China, even the shamanistic fightersamong the Boxers were represented in textbooks and arts as modernchampions of Chinese nationalist spirits against foreign invadersand their missionary conspirators.58

In sum, the introduction of jingshen into the spiritual world seems tohave brought about an interiorization of both shamanistic andcosmological practices, with the latter being more successful andwidespread. For the old spirits, interiorization could take avariety of ways, such as psychologization, theorization,politicization and most successfully, media representation. Asjingshen gained supremacy in the official discourse, ling and qi intheir transmigrated forms remained very much alive as an organizingelement in everyday spiritual life in early Republican China.

57 Ibid. p.93.58 In the words of Paul Cohen, the representations of Boxers, which differedamong themselves, all represented a mythologizing of the event fordifferent sets of political and ideological purposes. C.f. Paul Cohen,History in Three Keys: The Boxers as History, Experience and Myth. New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press., pp.211-222.

Conclusion: The Disengaged Spirit of Jingshen

As jingshen became the new hegemonic spirit, Chinese spiritualityentered a new face of radical interiorization. It is hard toconclude for now whether we are through the transformation, since itis still difficult to decide between Buddhism and modern science asthe conceptual framework for jingshen. Further, given the relativerecent existence of jingshen, it is still too early to place it on thesame terms as qi and ling in the long dureé. But on a broadercomparative framework, the development of jingshen from qi as a moreabstract and psychic form of spirits parallels the development ofthe modern spirits in other parts of the world, where one of themost exemplary formulations came from Friedrich Hegel.

The Hegelian Geist of world history and the karmic jingshen are bothdynamic spirits of historical movement. The former has deep roots inChristian eschatology; the latter, Mahayana Buddhism and neo-Confucianism cosmology. Unlike the universalistic self-conscious andself-realizing Hegelian Geist, the karmic and psychic jingshen containsno implicit goals, no universalistic claims and no worldlyrevelations. Far from unified as inner logic and externalmanifestation of a single spirit, the karmic jingshen and the psychicjingshen tend to diverge widely. This divergence is demonstrated byfate of the modern spirits of Chinese people, so central to earlytwentieth-century nationalism, which now boil down to a few goodmoral ideals by no means shared by all Chinese or exclusive to theChinese.59 For its innate weakness, the karmic jingshen necessarilyattaches itself to actual historical heroes such as politicalleaders and ideological laws of history such as saminzhuyi. It was

59 Gu Hongming’s characterization of Chinese spirit as broad, delicate, deephas devolved to the Communist characterization of Chinese people asindustrious and courageous. But none of these have anything to do with thereal life, since the so-called authentic Chinese is a chimerical creatureonly available in symbolic forms. As Prasenjit Duara rightly argues,national regimes of authenticity, which is cognate of jingshen,systematically misrecognizes or devalues global circulatory elements. Itmay be further argued that national characters or spirits are symboliccreations of cosmopolitan elite, such as Gu Hongming, Liang Qichao and LiuShipei, based on a global repertoire of values. Thus a spirit of a nationis essentially global-circulatory rather than national-linear. C.f.Prasenjit Duara, “The Historical Logics of Global Modernity”, manuscript,pp.13-14.

only in this way that jingshen became the building block ofnationalist narrative and the state ideology.

But the intellectual and political function of jingshen is notrestricted to construction of political ideologies. As a modernspirit, the form of jingshen is as important as its substance: itsinterior form suggests a method to translate experience of everydaylife into abstract theories and cultural representations. As such,jingshen as a method allows the state to assess, classify and civilizeworldly spirits according to criteria of abstractness and coherence.The result is a state-centered hierarchy of sanctioned spirits withzhuyi or orthodox ideology at the top, followed by science and arts,national and world cultural essence and the organized religions. Atthe bottom are those traditions with no extractable jingshen as partof “spiritual civilization”. These spiritual leftovers areclassified as cult (xiejiao) or superstition (mixin). The Republicanstate campaign against popular region was only the beginning of theprocess of control and suppression, which would culminate in thespiritual campaigns of the Cultural Revolution.60

Despites all its power and promise, jingshen has an inherent weakness.Without any cosmic and religious elements, the modern Chinesespirits inadvertently alienated itself from the country’s millennia-old spiritual traditions. As such, this new spirituality couldscarcely appeal to the common people, since few understood and stillless sincerely believed in its underlying historical logic. This wascase with the spirit of the Sun Yat-sen discussed in theintroduction and the first chapter of the thesis: when people wereconvinced that the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum emanated no harmful spiritsand disobeyed the principle of qi flows, they paradoxically becamealienated from its intended symbolism, since a mausoleum without lingwas not even a traditional tomb but only a harmless tourist resort.The new spirit of jingshen, either in historical or psychologicalterms, requires a minimum understanding about a future vision andabstract symbols. Such vision and symbols simply escaped mostordinary Chinese, who still saw the world through a more shisu(secular) and spiritual (ling) lens than the elites. For the common60 Jingshen spirituality is not naturally prone to sectarian violence as longas it is not subjected to a singular historical vision or identified with apersonality cult. But if it becomes as such, it can become the platform forpolitical religion or personality cult, such as Chinese Communism andMaoism.

folk, the most acceptable symbolic representation of jingshen isperhaps somebody like Huo Yuanjia and his martial arts and thereformed art of numerology. Measured by its influence, qi must beconsidered in the same rank as jingshen as the key components in thespiritual world of early Republican China. 61

61 The transformation of ling had a more tortuous story related to modernscience and Christianization. But while Christianity is certainly a shapingforce in the transformation of sacrifice in China today, its role in thetransformation of sacrifice in early twentieth-century China is lessimportant than the transformation of qi. This chapter privileges qi andjingshen since the two concepts are more closely associated with thetransformation of sacrifice and interiorization of spirits within the timeframe under discussion.