Editor's note: On February 18, 2021 (the seventh day of the first lunar month), professor Kristofer M. Schipper, a world-renowned sinologist and Taoist master, traveled to the Netherlands. According to Taoist tradition, the seventh day of the first lunar month is one of the three days of the "Lifting and Moving Reward Meeting", which also corresponds to the saying that the learners have fulfilled their merits and are entrusted with the truth. With the support of Mr. Patrice Fava, a disciple of Mr. Meng Shizhouren, we have translated a commemorative article written by him as Chinese and shared it here with a short film of Shi Zhouren's life he made in April 2012 as a memorial to the anniversary of Mr. Shi's death.
An Afternoon in Amsterdam with Shi Zhou, photo by Patrice Fava; Editing: Pu Minfeng; Producer: Tao Jin. (03:46)
I never thought that Shi Zhouren would leave this world, leave my life, or even leave the Taoist process. The Slovaks are gone, and we must re-learn how to live and work. Fortunately, however, for me and many colleagues in the sinology community, he was "dead and not dead." We will always miss his voice and relive the memories, conversations, walks, lectures and writings with him. Now, he has traveled far, but he has never been so close.
The last time I was with him was for dinner in a Parisian tavern in January 2020, which is frozen in my memory, like Da Vinci's The Last Supper painted on the walls of the Convent of Santa Maria della Grace. He had just finished a lecture at the Maison des sciences de l'homme, where six disciples were gathered around him: Vincent Goossaert, Marianne Bujard, Fang Ling, Isabelle Ang, Caroline Gyss, and me. Soon after this delightful dinner, the pandemic that swept the world apart separated everyone, and we had hoped to meet again in Beijing or elsewhere. Shi Zhouren took away his world-renowned erudition and outstanding ability to preach, teach, and solve puzzles. He is better at grasping the truth than anyone else, is more able to articulate difficult problems, and points the way to the undecided research process. The talent of this interpretation comes from his many years of deep cultivation in the field of Taoism, on the one hand, the practice of practicing what he practices, and on the other hand, his familiarity with the Tao jing. As we all know, he was granted the Immortal Position, but only the people around him could see the Daoist priest in his heart. He was revered as a scholar, but it was not discovered that it was his ritual practices and his frequent contacts with other Chinese communities in Tainan that enabled him to cross the gap between the West and the East and even with Taoism. Only a few close to him can recognize that his path of study is closer to the overview and analysis of Marcel Granet (1884-1940) in his Chinese Thought at the ontological level. He was the first Sinologist to think in a Taoist-oriented manner, but at the same time inherited the style of French scholarship and the academic legacy of previous Generations of Taoists, from douard Chavannes (1865-1918) to Max Kaltenmark (1910-2002). Thanks to this dual training, he succeeded in bringing true Taoist culture into contemporary Western society. In this introspective attitude, the text was interpreted in a new way, and the teaching method was adjusted to the perspective of a Taoist.
In the courses of the Cole Pratique des Hautes tudes (Institute of Advanced Practical Studies), Shi Zhouren gives the audience a breathless listening for two hours. At the end of the course, you will feel like you have experienced a sublimation, just like watching a movie by Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) or Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998), because he knows how to share the personal experience of the grand ceremony. It is this sense of authenticity that makes the Taoism of all eras he shows come alive. In the book, Glen Yan discusses a Chinese civilization that no longer exists, and Shi Zhouren tells us that it is still alive and well. In addition, he has a great talent for speaking, always able to argue and draw conclusions in a clear and logical manner. Even in his old age, he was invited to lecture abroad, both for his own pleasure and for Chinese audiences to learn about his history in another way. During the mourning period, those eulogies from all over the world show that Shi Zhouren is famous in China, at least in academia, and some even believe that he is the true spokesperson of Chinese culture. He once said to me, "Chinese [for the Word'] and I don't know it for daily use." In L'usage du Tao, I cite this expression to sum up the neglect of Taoism in China.
However, for the lucky listeners of Shi Zhouren, even if they only look through online videos or interviews, they will rediscover the genes of their culture and be surprised by their former ignorance. I once forwarded a video clip of a lecture by Shi Zhouren to a friend, who replied to me with a long comment, ashamed of not knowing her own culture, and asked why people think Catholicism is a religion and Taoism is a superstition. She didn't understand why Chinese had ignored the fundamental place of Taoism in her own culture.
Shi Zhouren's research spans a variety of fields, including philology, science, and academic history, and the answers to these questions are at the heart of his writings, including revelations of sabotage by Western missionaries, the late Qing emperors, and Kang Youwei, all of whom were heavily influenced by the Protestant priest Timothy Richards (1845-1919). Surprisingly, after centuries of continuous suppression of Taoism, The Taoists have reappeared in many holy places and villages. With this in mind, Shi Wagren wrote his last essay: "The Return of Taoism" (Le retour du tao sme).
No sinologist can claim to have made the same comprehensive and "unprecedented" contribution as Shi Zhouren. He single-handedly changed the course of sinology and our understanding of China, but he could only shake the indestructible fortress of Confucianism a little: Confucianism has taken center stage ever since missionaries dominated early sinology research, both in China and in the West. Despite his great work, he only partially dispelled the term "superstition," which still appears unconsciously in contemporary discourse. Shi Zhouren has been sowing seeds in the barren soil all his life, and eventually has broken through the soil. In our own way, we all become buds that bloom again in the ashes of the bushes, as Simon Leys (1935-2014) put it in La forêt en feu .com.
Shi Zhouren and his brother Chen Rongsheng were the chiefs
Shi Zhouren took with him the memoirs of his Career as a Taoist priest in Tainan, which we desperately need to understand how he was able to enter the cosmology of China and Taoism without abandoning his Western cultural background. His experience did not come from the generalities of the New Age movement, nor from the missionary evangelical curiosity, but from his passion for art history, theater, music, opera, and later on religious anthropology. At the Ve section des Sciences religieuses ( Ve section des Sciences religieuses " , where he taught , the French Institute of École Des Practifics ) , religion and science were linked. He also took with him the article he was preparing about the Qin'an Temple. A few years ago, he visited the most revered shrine in the Forbidden City. Not many people know that this is an important historical witness to the Ming Dynasty's capital in Beijing. Shi Zhouren has many other projects to be completed, but he has left behind a large number of works that are enough to prove that he is "dead and not dead". For those who swim with him, he has indeed "feathered dengzhen", just like Lao Tzu, Zhuangzi, and all the high paths that accompany him. He promised us that he would live to be 120 years old. It's sometimes hard for me to believe that on February 18, 2021, the day I finished my new book, The Deification of Taoists and Mages in Hunan, he left this world, and in my mind, he was already listed as a immortal. I know that for ordinary people who grew up in the West, placing a statue of their Master next to the gods at the altar table can only be regarded as a foolish, laughable and strange thought, as Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) put it, an "abomination." Taoism is so far removed from what Westerners perceive that it is almost impossible for us to grasp it unless we change the ontological system we already have.
A photograph of Shi Zhouren (with Chen Rongsheng) enshrined on the altar of Fan Hua's home
The Shi Zhou people have reason to think of themselves as the inheritors and guardians of the Taoist tradition. Soon after being accepted by the Taoist community in Tainan, he discovered that the Keyi ben used in the ritual was very similar to some of the contents of the Ming Dynasty Daozang. This was in 1962, when everyone thought that Taoism had disappeared Chinese mainland. Over time, the living tradition of Tainan Taoism became an important starting point for re-exploring the history of Taoism, which was originally preserved in the "Daozang" that has been handed down from generation to generation. A foreigner who has accomplished such a difficult task has made him praised and recognized in China. The seeds sown by this master, whose dharma name was "Dingqing" under the Three Days Gate, were constantly breaking through the ground.
My last phone call with Shi Zhouren was three days before he was rushed to the hospital, and unexpectedly this story turned out to be eternal. I had emailed him New Year's greetings for the Year of the Ox, and he called to thank him. Because I had attached a photograph of my family altar offering table with various offerings on it, the topic quickly shifted to the new year's celebration ceremony for my mother-in-law, Zhang Aiyun, who was in Beijing with us. Under the leadership of our mother-in-law, we served incense three times a day for the first three days of the New Year, and the first cup of tea was dedicated to the gods and taigongs, and before each meal, the meals were served first, and the candles on the table must always be kept burning. After the small New Year's stove, every day's life revolves around the New Year's celebrations. In Beijing, there are probably not many families who still worship Si Ming Zaojun in the kitchen.
The changes of modern times have forced everyone to abandon anything related to the world of the gods, and few people have resumed the ritual of sending and receiving the gods in recent years, but it is the epitome of these collective memories that define the identity and culture of contemporary Chinese, and only the older generation still retains such knowledge. To this day, some scholars continue to repeat Max Weber's (1864-1920) view that Chinese ignore transcendence. This proves that the self-imposed self-imposed vision of scholarship leads to a blindness to obvious facts. In fact, more than half of the Chinese still maintain the tradition of the New Year's Festival, which gives rhythm to the year and maintains a close connection with nature. Another group of people, even if they keep their distance from traditional customs, will eagerly celebrate the New Year at the key juncture of the Spring Festival every year. This does not contradict the idea that there is still an "eternal China."
As a Taoist monk, Shi Zhouren attached great importance to the festivals in the traditional calendar, because the Taoist priests were the guardians of the ancient Chinese law of the operation of the relationship between heaven and man. He had conveyed to several of his disciples a sense of superiority that was common to all the high paths of the ages who had mastered the knowledge of rituals and had been able to understand the mysterious principles of the Dao. Sharing this kind of Taoist inner spiritual world often gives people a sense of dust.
China already has a wide range of quests in the field of religion, so much so that devotees can find elements corresponding to them in this extremely rich belief system. Chinese often compare and compete with the technological hegemony of the West with their thousands of years of history and culture.
Anne Cheng, chair chair in the history of Chinese thought at the Institut de France, named her seminar "Is China (Still) a Civilization( La Chine est-elle [encore] une civilisation?", a question that does not bother devotees, as they consider themselves the last representatives of the Chinese Empire, and the Taoist order emerged when the emperor of the late Han Dynasty lost his Mandate of Heaven.
The universe in which the Taoists lived was clearly very different from that of the Westerners, who had entered the age of disenchantment as Marcel Gauchet (1947-). Shi Zhouren lived in the sacred world, and he lamented that people often ignored the laws in it. This uncompromising attitude makes its academic achievements unique. In The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang, he draws a line that distinguishes between the inner and outer texts of Taoism. As a result, the huge and complex "Daozang" that once deterred the academic community began to become clear: it was the crystallization of a long historical tradition and was closely related to the scientific instruments inherited by the Chen family in Tainan. The Daozang consists of fifteen hundred texts, most of which are chronological, authorless, and difficult to understand, from which Shi Zhouren succeeded in constructing a clearly discernible doctrine and an interlocking system. His achievements in this field are comparable to the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) in the field of mythological classification and interpretation.
All of Shi Zhouren's research work can be subsumed into his proposed "Taoist framework", and he knows how to use this concept of framework in the most diverse field. He never violated the statutes governing the dissemination of texts and was firmly opposed to the dissemination of internal manuscripts. The Japanese scholar Obuchi Shinobu once published the entire ritual text of Chen Rongsheng, which was a kind of blasphemy for Shi Zhouren, because he disclosed the texts that had been passed down in the form of manuscripts within the family. Under his guidance, I regarded the Statue of Hunan, which I had studied for more than two decades, as a sacred art, rather than what is commonly called "folk art." The shift from one term to another has revolutionized the relationship between man and the gods, whether it reproduces gods from existing lineages or deified ancestors. It was also from him that I learned the daily rituals that no one had ever taught, such as not to finger, touch, or move idols, because they live on earth but come from another world and should be respected.
Since ancient times, Taoist theology has enshrined feathered Daoist priests as immortal officials and provided them with special ascension ceremonies, called "paying hoops" or "sending degrees". In this ritual, the "yang" worn by the Taoist priest must be merged with the "yin" incinerated in the ceremony of being cremated. Shi Zhouren allowed me to use a photograph of his diploma in my book Aux portes du ciel, which was reverently enshrined in his own "TongXuanjing" at the top of Fuzhou's Tianyuan Mountain.
The Diploma of Conferring is a certificate of authorship of great documentary value and high symbolism. He gives the disciple a sacred status through the birthday of the recipient, the corresponding stars, the rank, the legal office, the Celestial Academy to which he belongs, his altar, the name of Daojing, the magic instrument obtained at the time of receiving the ordination, and the subordinate ordained general. In 1966, Shi Zhouren was in Tainan under the auspices of the 63rd Heavenly Master Zhang Enpu. In the chapter Les Ma tres des dieux (Le corps tao ste), he describes the process of giving the hoop and translates a copy of the nineteenth-century Quanzhou manuscript ,certificat d'immortel (translated by the translator as the proof of the hoop, see p.95-96). This topic had never become so realistic, when would Ding Qing Dao Enter the Immortal Realm?
In today's context, it has to be noted that this rite de passage does not conform to the materialist view and to the mainstream atheism of the West. Shi Zhouren took a different path, which enabled some readers to re-evaluate Taoism and even reshape the once ridiculed and tarnished Taoist culture with new concepts. Subverting such a deep-seated trend of thought was a triumph of anthropology and a contribution to the work of George Duby (1919-1996), Jacques Le Goff (1924-2014), and other historians who rewrote the history of the Middle Ages in the West. Jan Jakob Maria de Groot (1854-1921) pioneered fieldwork in Fujian, but he was far from associating the living traditions passed down from generation to generation with the religious heritage in the literature that shi zhouren did. Confucian scholars established a clear distinction between Taoist philosophy and the Taoism of the Celestial Masters that arose in the second century, which remains a controversial topic today, despite many arguments by Shi Zhouren, especially the re-reading of Zhuangzi's works. The scope of The history of Taoism is so vast and infinite that there will certainly be a new publication of What is Taoism in the coming generations. Books such as ", but for now, the only works that really answer this question are Shi Zhouren's "Daozang Tongkao" cooperated with Fu Feilan.
Shi Zhouren gave Fan Hua a self-photographed fieldwork in Tainan, with his inscription in pencil on the back.
I often say that a feathered Taoist monk is like a burning library. The lineage of many Daoists has indeed been interrupted in the course of history, and Shi Zhouren himself has not trained any disciples in the Quanzhou Keyi tradition he has inherited. However, he left his descendants not only a large number of scholarly works, but also a very valuable collection of photographs, manuscripts, idols, paintings, and ritual instruments, which needed to be carefully counted and recorded like the collections of André Breton (1896-1966). Although these two people are very different, they actually have many similarities. They all have a natural sense of authority and are constantly attracting newcomers to share their ideals. More than anyone else, Andrei Breton represents the modernity of our society, and Shi Zhouren changed the way Chinese history is written. We should follow the model of the "Friends of Andre Bredon" Association and establish a "Friends of the Boatman" association, where all those who regard him as an important part of life can meet and continue his scholarship. The unique heritage of the Shi Zhou people should be shared with the academic community as a way to promote Taoist culture. In addition, his lectures around the world need to be preserved and organized. The sustainable development of Taoism also depends to some extent on this. With the exception of Joseph Needham (1900-1995), no sinologist's international status can be compared to that of Shi Zhouren.
One day, he said, Taoism is an illusion (phantasme). This statement is amazing, and it can be applied to all religions, all ideologies, and all utopias. But what's really surprising is that Shi Zhouren replaced "croyance," a word he carefully avoided. The word "religion" was also problematic for him. As for the word "populaire", it is inevitably associated with faith, Taoism, religion, temples, incense, etc. in academic works, and it has also been eliminated by shi zhouren. For him, Taoism is an elite culture. His life's work was a challenge to clichés from the colonial era. Although the paths are very different, Shi Zhouren's approach is very close to marcel Gauchet (1947-), who wrote a new philosophy of history based not on economic bases and modes of production, but on the religious heritage of the West.
Now that the Scythians are gone, those who have studied from him, and those who have discovered their shortcomings, will evaluate their academic achievements, even if they admit that their achievements are unique and irreplaceable. Some argue that Shi Zhouren's work lacks theoretical discussion, mainly due to the fact that Taoism has no theological interpretation. But the Taoists never felt the need to explain their rituals, and they placed their theories in ritual practice. A few days after Shi Zhouren's death, Gao Wansang published a commemorative article in which he wrote: "For many years, I have become accustomed to comparing him to a visionary mathematician who can perceive deep patterns when many people see only the facts. I have quoted the work of the famous anthropologist Philippe Descola (1949-) to illustrate that Taoism is fundamentally the true guardian of the ontology of the "five elements of yin and yang" and "animism." This is the "deep patterns" of Taoism, in contemporary Chinese society, in which things are analyzed in the yin-yang cosmology and produced according to the guidance of the lunar calendar, there are still many people living, and there are many incense clubs and Taoists who obey the commandments that ensure the unity of heaven and man.
Whether facing the public or a limited audience, Shi Zhouren always allows people to see the greatness of Chinese civilization through the prism of Taoism. He has a general vision of Chinese history and religious history, but he always reveals the characteristics of Taoism in many aspects and its significance to the history of Chinese thought. From Shi Zhouren's point of view, the deviations and differences in Chinese history are due to the disregard for Taoist ideas and concepts, which are often interpreted as some kind of misreading. There are two opposing historical currents of thought in French intellectual circles. The views of Jacques Gernet (1921-2018) continue the view of eighteenth-century thinkers such as Wang Fuzhi that the Qing seized power because of the nation's widespread obsession with Buddhist and Taoist studies. Shi Zhouren, on the other hand, tended to understand the marginalization of Taoism as a result of the cultural and political decline of the Qing regime. Shi Zhouren's writings, which have long called for a change in the official narrative of Chinese history dominated by Confucianism over the past two millennia, include three important books: translations of the Tao Te Ching, the Analects, and Zhuangzi, though these three books are currently only available in Dutch.
Although Shi Zhouren has received many praises from China, it must be emphasized that his works have only touched a small number of relatively marginal Chinese intellectual elites, and their influence is still very limited. His views have garnered little agreement. Most people only admire this scholar, but do not understand the essence of his ideas. In fact, we should first try to reduce the filtering and screening at the ideological level, and then we can feel the spirit that brings Taoism back to life from within. This is rare in China, where Taoism is not only not considered to represent Chinese culture, but is also considered a folk religion. The word "folk" refers to the unofficial, meaning that it is far inferior to the national religion associated with Confucianism. But who knows what role the Ming Dynasty Taoist Temple, located on beijing's central axis, played? Shi Zhouren believes that the ritual activities held in it are no different from ordinary village temples. It is hard for visitors today to visit the Forbidden City to imagine that over the past four centuries, it has been an important religious center of the empire and a place of contention between the three schools of Confucianism and Taoism. But in the history of official cultivation, it has always been inappropriate to talk about the religious life of the emperor. The Forbidden City is a magical place that welcomes thousands of visitors every day, yet dozens of temples remain closed.
Although Shi Zhouren always stood on the side of the Taoists to refute their opponents, he did not isolate them from the course of history, on the contrary, he showed that Taoism was part of history at any time. Unfortunately, only a few scholars, when they leave the campus and enter the fields, realize that this truth also applies to the present, where Taoist priests hold various ceremonies every day.
Through lectures, seminars and research centers in Fuzhou, Shi Zhouren is widely known in China. He captivated his audience, including the official figures who supported him at the individual and institutional levels. The Shi Zhou people share with them a little-known history, which in China's reform era meant a cultural heritage that could be developed, including for tourism. Shi Zhouren always avoids superficial judgments. He demonstrated an original way of thinking from the Taoist view of history in all fields, but never tried to introduce any Taoist techniques to the West, although this practice was not uncommon. Shi Zhouren was never a born hermit, and when he first arrived in Fuzhou, he intended to become a "local celebrity". He revisited the Thirty-Six Cave Heavens and Seventy-Two Blessed Lands as a Taoist sacred site system, a topic that has recently attracted a large number of researchers. In an unprecedented way, he proved to the world that the Taoist community was one of the earliest environmentalists, dating back about two thousand years. They have established an excellent system of natural and animal protection based on religious precepts.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) was instrumental in support of this ambitious exploration of Taoist history. To expand his interest in ecology, Shi is working on a grand research project in China on a number of famous mountains. The project's literature resources are in the hands of Chinese, but they have not attracted the attention of researchers. Ever since entering the prestigious French Far Eastern Academy (cole fran aise d'Extrême-Orient) and traveling to Tainan to begin an eight-year life with a Taoist family, Shi Zhouren has used the Orthodox Daozang to learn about the important functions of Dongtianfudi. "You've been to ancient Rome!" Levi Strauss said after listening to Shi Zhouren's lecture based on Tainan Taoist fieldwork. This was because he discovered that Shi Zhouren was not inferior to Sinology and had a pioneering work in anthropology.
I often say that my Taoist mission inadvertently began with a lecture by Shi Zhou in Paris. At the time, he was invited to Jacques Pimpaneau (1934-2021), while I was in the second year of Chinese at the French OrientalIsto. That was in 1967. In the slides he screened, the mage who presided over the ceremony simulated his ascension to heaven under a blue paper umbrella, and this scene was immediately engraved in my memory. By sharing his experiences in Tainan, Shi Zhouren reveals to us that the ancient Chinese occult rituals still exist, while those that have been fully studied by generations of Greek experts are only distant memories. But the resumption of sacred sites, incense fairs, temples, and Taoist activities across China will be more than a decade away.
It wasn't until the 1980s that fieldwork in Chinese mainland began to be carefully conducted, but over time, a large number of results emerged. Surprisingly, shi Zhouren's study of Taoist culture in Tainan, and what he presents in many studies, is very useful for understanding the characteristics of traditions Chinese mainland other places. His research provides a reference model for describing new regions and different Taoist lineages.
My first expedition to Hunan Taoism was with Shi Zhouren and Yuan Bingling. I described this in detail in my book The Way to Heaven, published ten years later. It was Shi Zhouren, based on the several idols I had brought back from China, that first realized that it was absolutely necessary to continue to explore this new thread in the history of Chinese religion. My exploration of Taoism in Hunan also followed his path and continued my study in Tainan following Master Chen Rongsheng. I recorded all the rituals of his founding and supernatural rituals, which were carefully preserved like treasures by Shi Zhouren.
The sudden death of Shi Zhouren caused a strong impact and will continue to spread. These few short pages soon filled my computer screen, and I only hoped to use this article to introduce Shi Zhouren to readers who did not have the opportunity to know him as a person and the only scales of his life achievements.
Patrice Fava, a French anthropologist, a co-researcher at the Beijing Center of the French Far East Institute (EFEO), and a co-researcher at the Center for Taoist Studies at Chinese Min University, has lived in China for more than 30 years and has devoted himself to Taoist research and documentary filming. Based on more than ten years of research in Hunan and with the financial support of Chiang Ching-kuo's International Academic Exchange Foundation, he set up a research program on "Taoism and Local Society". He has published several papers in Chinese, English and French, including "The Tao to Heaven: A Study of Hunan Taoist Deities, Art and Anthropology" (Aux portes du ciel). La statuaire tao ste du Hunan: Art et anthropologie de la Chine, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, EFEO, 2013) and The Deification of Taoists and Mages in Hunan: A Microhistory of Taoist Deities in Xinhua County (Part 1 and Part 2, Xinwenfeng Publishing Company, 2022).