Religion in the Song dynasty (960–1279) was primarily composed of three institutional religions: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, in addition to Chinese folk religion. The Song period saw the rise of Zhengyi Taoism as a state sponsored religion and a Confucian response to Taoism and Buddhism in the form of Neo-Confucianism. While Neo-Confucianism was initially treated as a heterodox teaching and proscribed, it later became the mainstream elite philosophy and the state orthodoxy in 1241.
State religion
Three Teachings The Song claimed authority over all religions in a manner that has been described as religious neutrality. The Song government sponsored works from all Three Teachings (Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism) such as the printing of texts. The Confucian canon had already been printed in 953, seven years prior to the Song's founding. The Buddhist canon was printed under Emperor Taizu of Song (r. 960–976) and the Taoist canon was printed in 1010. From 1106 to 1113, a revision of the Tang dynasty Ritual of the Kaiyuan Period was undertaken, the result of which included many Taoist additions such as offerings at state-sponsored Taoist temples and a variety of occasions when announcements were to be made not only at the altar of soil and grain, but also Taoist temples.
Taizu ordered state officials to visit Buddhist monasteries to burn incense on the days his father, grandparents, and great-grandparents had died. He also looked to Buddhist temples for the post-mortem welfare of his ancestors. His successor, Taizong, also converted the barracks in which he was born to a Buddhist monastery. In 971, Taizu ordered work begin on a complete print edition of the Tripiṭaka Buddhist Canon (Kaibao zangshu 開寶藏書) in Chengdu. It took 10 years to finish the 130,000 blocks needed to print the text. The finished product, the Sichuan edition of the Kaibao Canon, also known as the Kaibao Tripitaka, was printed in 983.
In a first for Chinese dynasties, the Song emperors began placing imperial portraits in large Taoist and Buddhist temples in the early 11th century. They were met with disapproval by Confucians who criticized the overlapping of functions with the imperial shrine. In 1082, Emperor Shenzong of Song (r. 1067–1085) solved the problem by creating a dedicated palace with 11 halls for imperial images.
In addition to the Three Teachings, the Song claimed authority over local religions such as the worship of and sacrifices to local shrines, which required. The Song kept registers of such activities. In 1050, Emperor Renzong of Song (r. 1022–1063) ordered magistrates and prefects to report local shrines to mountains and rivers that made prayers for rain so that they could be added to the registers of sacrifices. Gods were also registered. In 1111, those compiling a nation-wide gazetteer were instructed to include information on shrines and compare it to the information in the registers.
State Taoism While the Song claimed authority over all religious activity, like the Tang dynasty before them, the Song emperors leaned towards favoring Taoism. However unlike the Tang who favored the aristocratic Shangqing School of Taoism, the Song patronized the more popular exorcistic Zhengyi School (Orthodox Unity).
By the time of Emperor Taizong of Song's (r. 976–997) reign, the Song emperors began favoring Taoism. His succession was foretold by a Taoist in a revelation, for which he had a temple constructed at the Zhongnan Mountains. The Zhongnan Mountains was where Laozi revealed the Tao Te Ching and the temple contained a hall dedicated to Zhenwu, the "true warrior," an anthropomorphic version of Xuanwu. Worship of Zhenwu became widespread among Taoists and would eventually become their foremost deity as well as the later Ming dynasty's protector deity.
In 1012, Emperor Zhenzong of Song (r. 997–1022) had a dream that his family was descended from the gods of Taoism, the Jade Emperor and the Yellow Emperor. Zhenzong declared his ancestor the Holy Ancestor and his birthday and the day in which he manifested himself to be holidays. He ordered images of the Holy Ancestor to be placed in prefectural temples and for Taoist rituals to be performed there. A 2,610 room Palace of Jade Purity was built to house documents from heaven Zhenzong received in the year 1008. Gilded bronze statues of the Jade Emperor, the Holy Ancestor, and his two predecessors were placed on thrones in the Palace of Jade Purity, flanked by jade statues of himself. In 1009, Zhenzong ordered the construction of the Taoist temples of Heavenly Felicity.
From 1014 to 1016, a 726-room Taoist Palace of Spectacular Numina was built under the supervision of Zhenzong's widow. The central hall bore an image of the Holy Ancestor and its walls painted with portraits of Taoist transcendents with the imperial surname Zhao. A statue of Zhenzong was placed in this hall after his death. The Palace of Jade Purity burnt down soon afterward. The Palace of Spectacular Numina was rebuilt after the Jingkang Incident in Lin'an and ten Taoist priests were assigned to it.
Emperor Huizong of Song (r. 1100–1126) was heavily influenced by a Taoist named Lin Lingsu. Huizong came to consider himself the head of Taoism and the incarnation of the son of a high god. Huizong considered Taoism and Confucianism to share a common origin and sought to synthesize the two to accommodate both Confucian classics and Taoist revelations. He set up charity clinics at Taoist temples in 1119 and named them using a combination of Taoist and Confucian terminology: "Humane Aid Pavilions" - Humane from Confucianism; Aid from Taoism. At the same time Huizong renamed Buddhist monks to deshi to correspond with the Taoist daoshi, in effect subordinating Buddhism to Taoism. He considered Buddhist and Taoist gods to be of similar value and their only criterion was that they responded to people's prayers. He opposed heterodox practices such as shamanism and is credited with destroying 1,138 temples in 1111. Huizong's efforts to homogenize religious activity by synthesizing Buddhism and Confucianism with Taoism has been described as an attempt "to create a single religion that incorporated all state-approved religious practice under the (Daoist) religion of which he was the divine pope".
Folk religion
During the Song dynasty, the three major religions and to an extent Neo-Confucianism, underwent a process of rationalizing Chinese folk religion by systematically incorporating and categorizing deities into a universal pantheon. This was encouraged by state policy, which also pruned religious conduct by sanctioning correct and incorrect religious practices. For example, the Neo-Confucian scholar-official Huang Zhen (1213–81) forbade rowing boats to welcome gods, destroyed 1,300 such boats, destroyed "perverse temples," and forbade the worship of epidemic gods. At the same time, nature deities such as earth gods were anthropomorphized, often into guardian deities. Not all were male. In one case, the guardian deity was a concubine, who according to legend fought off a group of bandits after having her head chopped off.
Family temples were common during the Song-Yuan period and they served as the primary kinship institution at the time. As of 1041, only officials of the top three ranks in the Song government were allowed to erect family temples. In 1111, this right was extended to all officials, however this still amounted to a minute fraction of the 100 million inhabitants of the Song dynasty. Neo-Confucians promoted the ancestor hall for the worship of "a Prime Ancestor and four other generations." Both Buddhists and Taoists engaged in local religious activities by looking after graves and ancestral sacrifices. As a result, it was not uncommon for people to patronize both Buddhist and Taoist temples. In one instance, the Lis of Wuyuan constructed nine Taoist shrines and thirteen Buddhist temples for worshiping their ancestors.
Exorcism was practiced by both Buddhists and Taoists. Taoists sold amulets and spells to ward off demons such as the Wutong Shen, believed to be shape shifters with large penises that granted wealth to a man for favors with their wife. Some people worshiped demons, animal gods, epidemic gods, or vengeful ghosts. The state actively fought against this type of religious activity. In 1011, a fox spirit temple was torn down and a temple dedicated to a Great Tortoise King was also destroyed. These institutions were headed by shamans who rivaled the government in power in their locale.
Taoism The Zhengyi Celestial Masters frequently received imperial appointments. In 1239, Emperor Lizong of Song (r. 1224–1264) commanded the 35th Celestial Master Zhang Keda to unite the Lingbao School, the Shangqing School and Zhengyi Dao. The new school retained the Zhengyi name and remain based at Mount Longhu. Shortly after the schools were united, the Mongols under Kublai Khan conquered the Southern Song dynasty and established the Yuan dynasty in China.Chen (2008), p. 1258-1259.
He accepted the claim that the Celestial Master of Mount Longhu was descended from Zhang Daoling and granted the school the right to control affairs relating to Taoism in the Jiangnan area. In 1304, as a result of Zhengyi Dao's increased importance under the Mongols, all of the Taoist schools, with the exception of the Quanzhen School, were united under the banner of the Zhengyi School, with the 38th Celestial Master, Zhang Yucai, as leader.Chen (2008), p. 1258-1259.
The aristocratic Shangqing School, also known as Maoshan Taoism, declined in influence after the Tang dynasty. It was still sponsored by the Song emperors, especially under the patriarch Liu Hunkang (1036-1108), but not to the same degree as the Zhengyi School.
The Lingbao School experienced a mild resurgence during the Song after practically dying out during the Tang. It originally focused on achieving physical immortality, but influence from Buddhism shifted the conception of immortality to a more abstract one in which the mind no longer desired physical continuation of the body.
From the Song dynasty to the Yuan dynasty, a local snake deity in Sichuan became the Taoist god of literature and examinations known as Wenchang Wang.
Buddhism
With the sole exception of the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song (1100-1126), Buddhism was not suppressed during the Song dynasty.
Buddhist monasteries were separated into public and private categories by the Song government. The abbots of public monasteries, which tended to be wealthy, were appointed as local officials. Public monasteries performed state services such as memorials for the war dead, maintaining religious spaces for imperial birthdays and deathdays, storing imperial calligraphy, and galleries of imperial portraits.
Buddhist establishments also operated a range of businesses, such as oil presses, water-powered mills, pawnshops, and hostels. Large Buddhist estates leased plots of land to tenants who could work them. Most of them belonged to the Chan and Pure Land (jingtu) sects. However, as early as the 10th century, practitioners were trying to bring the two sects closer together. Individuals such as Yanshou (904-975) taught both Chan and Pure Land Buddhism. In 1221, records counted the existence of 400,000 monks and 61,000 nuns in the dynasty.
In 1067, the government started selling Buddhist monk certificates which exempted them from tax and labor service. The first batch of certificates sold at 130 strings of cash each. Around 120,000 certificates were sold between 1161 and 1170. Owners of these certificates did not have to be real monks and were not required to shave their heads or wear clerical attire.
Chan