Constructions of Shangqing, or How does Religion Do?

Eschewing theories of religion that configure religions as tightly integrated systems, this panel emphasizes practices of construction that do not create an epistemically bounded space but rather an open-ended assemblage of practices that find coherence in specific contexts using particular methods. This panel thus approaches the formation of religion(s) as multiple dimensions of doing, using the medieval Daoist Supreme Purity (Shangqing) movement as an example. Such an approach reads through textual canons to uncover implicit actions and performative dimensions inherent in text. By examining different moments in the *longue dureé* of the sect, the panelists examine not only its formation, but the sustained retrospective consolidation of the coherence and authority of the sect and its claims about the structure of human-divine relations. Taken together, the discussion members will open up a pout-pourri of methods and techniques by which the sect was formed, known, and asserted over time, the processes that made the religion what it was. Each roundtable member comes to the formation of Shangqing from a different vantage point. The first presenter (PhD candidate, female) will focus on initiation rites, promises and oaths of allegiance, which motivated practitioners to identify, agree with, and authoritatively transmit the norms of the community. Xu studies how the “celestial writings” were received and transmitted in the human world, and reveals a divergence between the old “Hidden Covenant” and the new Shangqing approach “Material Covenant.” The second speaker (Asst prof, male) will discuss how notions of transmission extend to the use of implicit textual forms within seemingly simple and straightforward practical exercises, such as therapeutic massage. By drawing on a definable set of genres of authoritative knowledge transmission such as incantations, explanations, biographies, as well as body gods and esoteric names, even simple massage practices participate in a textured weaving of divine authority that ripple throughout the Shangqing oeuvre, and mark the practices as esoteric, authoritative and efficacious Shangqing knowledge. The third presenter (PhD student, female) gives another vantage point on the way the Shangqing community treated common religio-medical concepts such as corpse and worms. By unraveling the textual and historical contexts of the three corpses and worms, this study unveils the sophisticated fabric of creating and transmitting self-cultivation medical knowledge systems among early Shangqing practitioners. The fourth presenter (Assoc prof, male) will compare two Daoist meditation chambers built at the same site, one in 365 CE and a reconstructed verison in 519 CE. Drawing on J. Z. Smith’s idea of “rebuilding” helps us to see differences in how the builders of these sites imagined and inhabited these oratories. One was built as a waystation; the other was revered as one of the most hallowed spots on Earth. Such differences help us uncover the role that later writers play in defining ideas about ritual institutions. The fifth presenter (Assoc prof, male) will introduce his research on historiography and record keeping within Supreme Purity texts, specifically the Zhen’gao and the hagiographies of Yang Xi. These historical anecdotes embed key figures from the Supreme Purity tradition within Han-period historical narratives, offer alternative interpretations of historical events, and contextualize the Xu family in the social and political landscape of the 4th century. By examining how historical memory and nostalgia and fantasy were woven into Supreme Purity scriptures and hagiographies, we can see how the authors appropriated and deployed historical evidence in the service of Yang’s vision for the genesis and continuity of the sect. These historical records offered alternative explanations for historical events or attributed motivations to historical figures that reinterpreted their roles within received historical narratives for a new audience. The final presenter (Full prof, male) will focus on Shangqing responses to the earliest extant Daoist hagiographic writings, *Liexian zhuan* and *Shenxian zhuan*. These texts were compilations of stories about certain individuals that had been circulating widely in society; the texts, that is, represent curated selections from a larger body of social memory. But revelations by the Shangqing Perfected often intervened in this human process, imposing divinely sourced correctives, tweaks, supplements, updates, or utter reversals. This presentation will sketch some of the varied ways in which, and rhetorical reasons for which, this was done. After each presenter gives a short, 8-minute introduction to their approach and method for analyzing Shangqing, there will be a 10–15-minute discussion in which presenters will ask each other questions about their research project. The roundtable will conclude with audience questions that may highlight ways the methods presented in this roundtable might be applied to other communities, Daoist, Chinese, or otherwise. Audience members who study other Daoist lineages such as Lingbao or Celestial Masters might relate their research to the modes in which Shangqing is expressed, defended, and contested. Furthermore, since many of the presenters’ examples feature the way that Shangqing identity is transmitted and transferred through textual practices, audience members will likely recognize similar patterns in Confucianism and Buddhism. The goal of these presentations is not to assert the *real* definition of Shangqing, but rather to foster dialogue about different vantage points that bring into relation a broad set of practices of making religion, which each generated authority and identity in ways specific to their historical moment. Taken together, these diverse perspectives were greater than the sum of their parts, forming the generalized, and indefinite, impression of a Shangqing which was recognizable but never fully defined. The panelists, in presenting and comparing the methods they study, will reflect not only on the kaleidoscope of Shangqing practice, but also on the formation of religions more generally. In dialogue together and with the audience, they will explore how each practice was effective in situating Shangqing knowers within their social, epistemic and institutional environs as well as how those practices were analogous to those which formed other sects and religions.