East AsiaGODS, GHOSTS, AND GANGSTERS: RITUAL VIO-LENCE, MARTIAL ARTS, AND MASCULINITY ONTHE MARGINS OF CHINESE SOCIETY. By AvronBoretz. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2010. Pp. 288.Cloth, $50.00; paper, $29.00.

Boretz boldly claims that Chinese martial arts (wushù,gongfu, a.k.a. “kung fu”) are so integral to Chinese religiousculture that most scholars’ ignorance of this traditionrenders “our knowledge of Chinese society and culture. . . incomplete.” His ethnographic study of “ritual violenceand violent rituals in Chinese and Taiwanese popular reli-gion,” grounded not only in a rich but unobtrusive theoreti-cal apparatus and historical evidence but also in first-personparticipant-observer experiences, seeks to explain howChinese men are “performing masculinity” through theirparticipation in rites of exorcism, popular religious festivals,the criminal underworld of “rivers and lakes” (jianghú) orthe “dark path” (heidào), and highly ritualized nights outspent drinking and carousing. The conceptual bridgebetween realms of male Chinese life as different as those ofmiddle managers and mafiosi is Boretz’s exploitation andelaboration of the yınyáng dyad, which is familiar to even themost casual observers of Chinese religious culture. Withinthis dyad, it is the nebbishy but influential scholars (yın)who immortalize the deeds and ritual techniques of heroicmartial exemplars (yáng), while loyalty to the group (yáng) ismaintained by individual expressions of “righteous angerand vengeance” (yın). The martial masculine ideal is at oddswith traditional, Confucian-inspired notions of the modelman as a peace-loving sage and virtuous clan patriarch,giving rise to the need for “ritual violence and violentrituals” that Boretz, quoting S. Zizek, sees as providing amedium through which Chinese men “creatively anddynamically produc[e] ‘the image representing what theywould like to be.’ ” This study will be provocative andenlightening for all who are interested in gender and religionin China and new religious movements such as Falún Gongthat incorporate elements of Chinese martial arts practiceand spirituality.

Jeffrey L. RicheyBerea College

INDIVIDUALISM IN EARLY CHINA: HUMANAGENCY AND THE SELF IN THOUGHT AND POLI-TICS. By Erica Fox Brindley. Honolulu: University ofHawai’i Press, 2010. Pp. xxx + 207. Cloth, $52.00.

Most are familiar with the image of China as “a culture ofobligation, rather than individual freedom” and the West as aculture of “individualism.” Rather than accept this familiardichotomy at face value, as many otherwise thoughtful treat-ments of Chinese philosophy have done, Brindley’s studyaims to overturn these stereotypes and to closely examinethe roots of what might be called “individualism withChinese characteristics” in early Chinese thought. Defining

“individualism” as an ideal that “value[s] certain inborn andinalienable prerogatives and powers of the individual,”Brindley notes that the variety of individualism found inearly China is “holistic” insofar as it “emphasizes the indi-vidual from within a complicated and ever-changing web ofrelationships.” She argues persuasively that most of thedevelopments that distinguish early Chinese thought are infact the result of philosophical, political, and spiritualengagement with this “holistic individualism.” According toBrindley, the collapse of Western Zhou society (c. eleventh toeight centuries BCE), with its partial and indirect control ofindividuals by kinship structures, gave rise to the emergenceof full-blown theories of individual agency. By the thirdcentury BCE, almost every Chinese thinker couched his argu-ments about human agency in terms of what by then wereregarded as the innate powers or “nature” (xìng) of humanbeings. As philosophical discourse increasingly was domi-nated by the concerns of the Qín (221-206 BCE) and Hàn(from 202 BCE to 220 CE) imperial courts, spiritual technolo-gies of the body’s innate agency were appropriated as tools ofcontrol by rulers. This rewritten story of early Chinesethought should impact all future treatments of the texts andthinkers that Brindley mentions as well as discussions ofchallenges related to rights, values, and people in the con-temporary world, whether in China, the West, or elsewhere.

Jeffrey L. RicheyBerea College

CONFUCIANISM IN CONTEXT: CLASSIC PHILOSO-PHY AND CONTEMPORARY ISSUES, EAST ASIAAND BEYOND. Edited by Wonsuk Chang and Leah Kal-manson. SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture.Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010.Pp. xi + 243. Cloth, $75.00; paper, $24.95; electronic,$24.95.

The ten essays in this collection were assembled as anintroduction to Confucianism for undergraduate students.The central pedagogical aim is to define basic elements ofConfucianism and to demonstrate the evolutionary transfor-mation of Confucian ideas in different historical, geographi-cal, and philosophical contexts. The authors, academicscholars in North America, Korea, and Singapore, all ablychallenge the perception of Confucianism as a tradition ofrigid boundaries, and each explores the potential for adap-tation and accommodation within the philosophy. The firstthree chapters summarize the historical development ofConfucian ideas in China, Korea, and Japan, while the fourthand fifth examine some of the fundamental philosophicalcontinuities. The rest of the book explores the formulation ofConfucianism in the modern world. The potential for Confu-cianism outside the East Asian context is examined in anessay on the Boston Confucians, while the other four writersconsider the ability of Confucian ideas to accommodate theconcerns of democracy, human rights, feminism, and envi-ronmentalism. The Confucianism in these essays has analmost limitless potential for evolution and adaptation,

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raising interesting questions as to whether the authors seeany ultimate boundaries beyond which the “productivelyvague” tradition of Confucianism will not go. While theessays skillfully explore many of the challenges of modernConfucianism, it would have been useful to include morediscussion of the most significant context of Confucianismtoday: the People’s Republic of China.

Peter DitmansonOriental Institute, Oxford University

DAOIST RITUAL, STATE RELIGION AND POPULARPRACTICES: ZHENWU WORSHIP FROM SONG TOMING (960-1644). By Shinyi Chao. London: Routledge,2011. Pp. xii + 158. $130.00.

In Ming dynasty times, Zhenwu was a popular deity.People of all social backgrounds and all over Chinaapproached him in regard to military matters, in case ofillness or to secure favorable weather conditions. Chao suc-ceeds well in explaining how this came about. He documentseach step in the deity’s career and each facet of his identitywith reliable, well-integrated, and impeccably presentedmaterial. Sociological and general historical observationsare thorough and to the point. Chao shows that Zhenwu’scompetence reaches from an astral function in the northernsky to supporting the Yongle Emperor in his fight for thethrone and that it also includes a powerful exorcist presence.As the deity’s figure gains complexity, some of the author’sambitious methodological parameters as outlined in theintroduction move into the background. However, Zhenwu’sstory has not previously been told, and it is here told welland is therefore of great interest. The book fits in well with afield of historical research that for Chinese history has onlyrecently come to the forefront. It is here shown that theanalysis of religious beliefs and practices provides impor-tant insights into the development of social forms and cul-tural values. Moreover, the book’s contribution to the historyof Taoism is considerable, for its concrete detail and as amodel for future research.

Barbara HendrischkeUniversity of New South Wales

THE HEAVENLY COURT: DAOIST TEMPLE PAINT-ING IN CHINA, 1200-1400. By Lennert Gesterkamp.Sinica Leidensia 96. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Pp. xxiii + 380;plates, figures. $199.00.

Gesterkamp’s dense and intensively researched book isa thoroughgoing study of paintings of the Heavenly Court(chaoyuan tu ) in thirteenth- and fourteenth-centuryChina. Four major mural programs of this type, whichdepicts a court audience ritual of Daoist deities, survive fromthe period, and these form the core of Gesterkamp’s analysis.The book begins with a careful account of the development ofthe theme of the Heavenly Court in Chinese art history,followed by a close iconographic study. The third chapterinvestigates the ritual underpinnings of Heavenly Courtpaintings, particularly with reference to the chao-audience

ritual. Following this, Gesterkamp investigates the processby which such mural paintings were produced, usually by aworkshop of painters in consultation with a patron. Finally,he presents individual studies of the four sets of HeavenlyCourt murals, accounting for their particularities in terms ofboth patrons’ interests and painters’ influences. He con-cludes that the development of Heavenly Court paintingreflects a contemporary synthesis of Lingbao and HeavenlyMaster ritual in the Song dynasty, as mediated by the iden-tities and interests of the patrons of such paintings (mainlyQuanzhen clergy). This book is a rich study of the complexrelationship between image making and Daoist ritual.

Kate A. LingleyUniversity of Hawai’i at Manoa

NEO-CONFUCIAN SELF-CULTIVATION. By Barry C.Keenan. Edited by Henry Rosemont, Jr. Dimensions of AsianSpirituality. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011.Pp. xxxii + 132. Cloth, $48.00; paper, $17.00.

Keenan, a professor of history at Denison Universitywith a solid sinological background, provides a sound dis-cussion of Neo-Confucian self-cultivation in a neat volume.The study primarily addresses a general audience, elucidat-ing various key issues and briefly introducing a number ofmajor exponents of Chinese Confucianism. The narrative iscondensed and stresses a tour d’horizon of educational dis-courses from the early Sòng to the late Qıng dynasty, imbed-ding an intriguing delineation of the “eight steps ofcultivation” of the Dàxué (“Great Learning”). The latter partof the study is particularly interesting, serving as a well-structured manual of how to implement these eight tenets( ), which encapsulate the essence of Confucian educa-tion. Keenan’s account largely draws upon distinct passagesof Zhu Xı’s and Lu Zuqian’s seminal anthology Jìnsılù (“ARecord for Reflection”), which became, for centuries, stan-dard reading for legions of literati scholars in East Asia.Some readers might miss in Keenan’s account both a morecomprehensive investigation of the onto-cosmologicalaspects of Neo-Confucian self-cultivation and a reference toKorean and Japanese thinkers, many of whom, in fact, fur-thered the Chinese discourse. If so, it is recommended thatthese readers consult the impressive two-volume study onConfucian spirituality edited by Tu and Tucker (2003 and2004). Overall, specialists and the general reader will findthis an instructive, highly readable, and useful overview ofNeo-Confucian education patterns.

Lukas PokornyUniversity of Aberdeen

THE WAY OF HIGHEST CLARITY: NATURE,VISION AND REVELATION IN MEDIEVAL CHINA.By James Miller. Magdalena, NM: Three Pines Press, 2008.Pp. 252. $34.95.

James Miller’s book is a study of the medieval Daoistmovement known as Highest Clarity (Ch: Shangqing).Whereas prior studies of this tradition have focused largely

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on its historical and social aspects, Miller aims instead toelucidate the thought, or “theology,” of Highest ClarityDaoism. He accomplishes this through an examination ofthree Highest Clarity texts, which are translated in the secondhalf of the book. Following an introductory chapter on meth-odology and a brief historical and conceptual introduction tothe Highest Clarity tradition, the remainder of Miller’s analy-sis deals with three specific aspects of Highest Claritythought: nature, vision, and revelation. For the first, Milleroutlines the cosmological worldview of Highest ClarityDaoism, focusing on the perceived formality and regularity ofnatural processes as a key concept that not only provides alogical basis for Daoist practices but also bridges the gapbetween the “religious Daoism” of Highest Clarity and the“philosophical Daoism” of earlier texts such as the Laozi andZhuangzi. The next chapter focuses on the importance ofvisionary experiences and visualization techniques withinHighest Clarity hagiography and religious practice. The finalchapter, “Revelation,” deals with the paradigm of revealedscriptures and its importance in establishing the mysteriousand sacred origins of Highest Clarity texts and practices.Miller’s work is a cogent presentation of the salient featuresof Highest Clarity thought and practice. In addition, the trans-lations included in the second half of the book are a welcomeaddition to the small but growing number of medieval Daoistliterary works in English translation.

Joshua CapitanioUniversity of the West

ENVISIONING ETERNAL EMPIRE: CHINESEPOLITICAL THOUGHT OF THE WARRING STATESERA. By Yuri Pines. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press,2009. Pp. 311. $57.00.

In this book, Pines continues the analytical reassess-ment of ancient Chinese thought during the “Spring andAutumn” period in his Foundations of Chinese Thought(2002). Envisioning Eternal Empire seeks the underpinningsof the “indestructibility” of the empire that was born at theend of the “Warring States Period” and endured to 1911. Incontrast to the “merely symbolic” restorations “of thevarious self-proclaimed heirs of the Roman Empire, forinstance,” the Chinese empire was solidly restored followingall “foreign invasions, internal rebellions,” etc. Pines dili-gently sorts through the multifarious textual traditions ofclassical times and finds a common political idea amongtexts heretofore conceived as representatives of warring“schools of thought” (“Confucian,” “Taoist,” “Mohist” “Legal-ist,” etc.): an “intellectual construct” of “the nominallyomnipotent monarch, who . . . presided over an ostensiblymeritocratic officialdom, . . . and pronounced his care for‘the people’ while denying them a role in decision-making.”Pines allows that “my study may be open to criticism” thatthe texts’ common thrust might have been a retrospectivecreation of the Han-dynasty librarian Liu Xiang, who “wasresponsible for editing and ‘republishing’ many importantpre-imperial texts.” But he finds supportive evidence in

“archeologically unearthed manuscripts” that feature thesame shared elements, as well as in the dissonance of manyother ideas within the texts themselves—evidence to him thatLiu did not homogenize their ideological contents. Allscholars of Chinese thought and religion will appreciate thelucidity of Pines’s thought and the detailed analysis of bothwell-known texts (Laozi, Xunzi, etc.) and more recently dis-covered materials. Future studies concerning imperial timesmay also find here foundations of the “heavenly hierarchy”so prominent in Chinese religion, from early-medieval Taoisttexts to “popular religion” still alive today in Chinese com-munities worldwide.

Russell KirklandUniversity of Georgia, Athens

CHINA’S CREATION AND ORIGIN MYTHS: CROSS-CULTURAL EXPLORATIONS IN ORAL ANDWRITTEN TRADITIONS. Edited by Mineke Schipper,Shuxian Ye, and Hubin Yin. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Pp. xxv +354. Hardcover, $151.00.

This publication (largely drawn from the proceedings of a2008 conference) reflects the post-1980s growth and changesin Chinese mythological studies, which have come toacknowledge the theoretical poverty of Marxist analysis, theimportance of contemporary sources (especially religiousritual and folk performance), and the crucial role played bycosmological thought (as opposed to social ethics alone) in thefoundations of Hàn (ethnic majority) Chinese religiosity. Tothese welcome trends, this volume adds a strongly compara-tive focus on China’s fifty-five so-called “ethnic minorities”(shaoshù mínzú), which constitute less than ten percent of thenation’s population but include a dizzying array of cultures,from Manchus and Mongols to Tibetans and Uyghurs. Long on“thick description,” including many comparisons of Hàn withshaoshù mínzú myths as well as with myths of classical andcontemporary cultures found outside of China, it is short ontheory, and rather old-fashioned at that. Eliade, Malinowski,and Thompson are the most frequently cited authorities.Consequently, it sometimes paints with a very broad brushcharacteristic of early twentieth-century Western scholar-ship, replete with the usual diffusionist and essentialistclaims. Like many conference volumes, it suffers fromuneven focus and quality. However, it also includes a numberof photos and illustrations that link myths with recent andcontemporary images, performances, and sites, which help toadvance the book’s two main points: 1) that Hàn mythologycannot be understood without reference to shaoshù mínzúmythologies; and 2) that mythic texts exist not as staticdocuments but as elements of living cultural contexts.Although its expense may be prohibitive for smaller librariesand poorer scholars, it is a pioneering and worthwhile contri-bution that effectively recasts our view of Chinese mytholo-gies, Hàn and non-Hàn alike.

Jeffrey L. RicheyBerea College

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ESTABLISHING THE REVOLUTIONARY: ANINTRODUCTION TO NEW RELIGIONS IN JAPAN.Edited by Birgit Staemmler and Ulrich Dehn.Bunka—Wenhua: Tuebingen East Asian Studies Volume 20.Berlin: LIT, 2011. Pp. x + 397. €29.90.

As of December 2009, the Japanese Agency for CulturalAffairs registered 182,521 religious corporations (shukyohojin), primarily comprising religious sites (e.g., shrines,temples, and churches) administered by various Shinto andBuddhist traditions. This number also incorporates indi-vidual religions, many of which are commonly being labeledas “new religious movements” (NRMs; shinshukyo). Eventhough scholars of Japan are well aware that NRMs play avital role in modern society, research conducted in Westernlanguages is still urgently needed. The editors go some waytoward addressing this desideratum, offering a solidhandbook-like introduction to NRMs in Japan. Staemmler, aJapanologist specializing in NRMs (University of Tübingen),and Dehn, a theologian with sound Japanological expertise(University of Hamburg), have gathered a number ofrenowned Western and Japanese experts in the field withinthis edited collection. The introductory section is based onfour essays expounding historical (Staemmler), soteriologi-cal (S. Shimazono), sociological (M. Watanabe), and eco-nomic (Y. Sakurai) aspects of NRMs in Japan. The ten casesstudies largely deal with the “usual suspects”—Kofuku noKagaku, Mahikari, Omoto, Aum Shinrikyo, Rissho Koseikai,Seicho no Ie, Sekai Kyuseikyo, Shinnyoen, Soka Gakkai—butalso include an engrossing account of the lesser knowngroups like Chino Shoho (Jimenez-Murguia). An unfortunateomission, for example, is Tenrikyo. All the papers in thiscollection are generally well crafted and similarly structuredto provide a basic understanding of historical, doctrinal,social, and ritual facets. In addition, readers will find briefencyclopedic entries of roughly fifty NRMs in the supple-ments. A considerable bibliography at the end of the volumecontains helpful further references in Japanese and severalWestern languages. This long-awaited volume will serve as auseful textbook and should be welcomed by those interestedin NRMs in East Asia and Japan.

Lukas PokornyUniversity of Aberdeen

HERMES UND BUDDHA: DIE NEURELIGIÖSEBEWEGUNG KOFUKU NO KAGAKU IN JAPAN. ByFranz Winter. Edited by Michael Pye and Monika Schrimpf.Religiöse Gegenwart Asiens/Studies in Modern Asian Reli-gions Volume 6. Wien: LIT Verlag, 2012. Pp. 383. Paper,€34.90.

Kofuku no Kagaku (“Science of Happiness”) ranksamong the most remarkable new religious movements(NRMs) in contemporary Japan. Established by OkawaRyuho (b. 1956) in 1986, the group has aroused wide publicinterest since its inception—be it involving the long-lastingdispute with Kodansha, the severe opposition to AumShinrikyo, vast multimedia campaigns, or most recently, the

foundation of a political spin-off (Kofuku Jitsugento). Winter,a docent of religious studies at the University of Vienna,presents an elaborate critical account of this multifacetedreligious organization, based on extensive field research andan in-depth investigation of a variety of source material(movies, manga, and texts). He draws on a wide array ofJapanese and Western scholarship (including the valuablePhD dissertations of Baffelli, Huhtinen, and Fukui), prima-rily employing a historical and doctrinal approach, the latterbeing most refreshing given the majority of mainly sociologi-cal research in the field. Winter is largely interested inexposing the traditio-historical localization of key doctrinesin Okawa’s thought, and thus—taking into consideration bothWestern and Japanese formation histories—provides animpressive contextualization of various central elementsincluding the lost continents, the ancient astronauts, the Jesusin Japan narrative, or the image of Hermes. Skillfullyweaving together a comprehensive background in the studyof esotericism, and detailed knowledge of modern Japanesereligious history, Winter sagaciously traces the doctrinalevolution and history of one of Japan’s most prominent reli-gious traditions. This work is, therefore, a must-read for allthose interested in Japanese and East Asian NRMs ingeneral.

Lukas PokornyUniversity of Aberdeen

BuddhismAS LONG AS SPACE ENDURES: ESSAYS ON THEKALACAKRA TANTRA IN HONOR OF H.H. THEDALAI LAMA. Edited by Edward A. Arnold. Ithaca, NY:Snow Lion Publications, 2009. Pp. xvi + 479; plates. Paper,$29.95.

This volume contains twenty-five papers by a diversegroup of academic scholars, Western Buddhists, and tradi-tional Tibetan scholars. Most of the papers deal directly withsome aspect of the Vajrayana Buddhist Kalacakra Tantra(“wheel of time system of mysticism”), but—despite thesubtitle—several treat unrelated miscellaneous topics inTibetan Buddhist doctrine and history. As is usually the casewith Festschrift volumes, the contributions vary in theapproach, scope, and philological and historical acumen oftheir authors. For example, one paper provides a meticulouscritical first edition, translation, and analysis of an excerptfrom an important Sanskrit Tantric commentary; anotherpaper consists of a bare translation with no introduction ornotes, no information on the text upon which the translationis based, and no mention of previous translations of the sametext. Most of the contributors follow the methods and stan-dards of Western-style academic scholarship; severaloperate more in the traditional Tibetan mode, and a fewseem to mix the two approaches. Nevertheless, in general,the quality of the papers is strong, and the volume containsa wealth of information on the Kalacakra Tantra in India and

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