Xuanyuanism
Xuanyuanism (simplified Chinese: 轩辕教; traditional Chinese: 軒轅教; pinyin: Xuānyuán jiào; literally: "teaching of Xuanyuan [the Yellow Emperor]"), less commonly Huangdism (simplified Chinese: 黄帝教; traditional Chinese: 黃帝教; pinyin: Huángdì jiào; literally: "teaching of the Yellow God"), is a Confucian religion founded in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1957.[1] The founder is Wang Hansheng (1899-1989), a legislator.[2]
The project of the faith is to subsume all the ways of worship to local deities under one national god, Huangdi (the "Yellow Emperor" or "Yellow God"; the color yellow [huáng 軒] represents earth, the dragon, and the centre of the universe [Taidi] in Chinese cosmologies,[3] and is used as a revelative character for the homophone huáng 皇 "august, generative"), whose name as a man was Xuanyuan.[4] The network of temples to folk deities represents the native culture of China sublimated under the worship of Huangdi, that is traditionally considered the thearch (progenitor god) of the Han Chinese race.[5]
Xuanyuanism has 200.000 adherents in Taiwan and is active in China, where it has temples, statues (黄帝像 Huángdì xiàng) and members who participate to the sacrifices celebrated at the Xuanyuan Temple, the largest temple dedicated to Huangdi in the world. Xuanyuanism is based on Confucian rationalism, and therefore rejects practices it considers superstitious that are found in other sects of Chinese folk religion, such as scripture writing through god mediumship.[6] Huangdi is also worshipped in Chinese folk religion by millions of people who do not necessarily adhere to the Xuanyuanist faith.
See also
Sources
- Sarah Allan. The Shape of the Turtle. Albany, New York: Suny Press, 1991. ISBN 0791404609
- Philip Clart, Charles Brewer Jones. Religion in Modern Taiwan: Tradition and Innovation in a Changing Society. University of Hawaii Press, 2003. ISBN 0824825640
- Patricia Eichenbaum Karetzky. Journal of Chinese Religions. Fall 1997, No. 25.