Cited by 119Chinese history and philosophyStudy and Philosophy of ReligionIndian and Buddhist Studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1 of the 1 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 13 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Rethinking Syncretism: The Unity of the Three Teachings and their Joint Worship in Late-Imperial China

Open access
Brook, Timothy·1993·Journal of Chinese Religions

Abstract

(1993). Rethinking Syncretism: The Unity of the Three Teachings and their Joint Worship in Late-Imperial China. Journal of Chinese Religions: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 13-44.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1179/073776993805307448

Cites

0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

99 Own interpretation · 58 No basis given · 21 Own result · 13 Sources not found · 8 Not checked yet

Show all 71 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 75
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 81
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 6
128 of 128
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Logical contradictions inevitably arise between distinct religious systems.

    “Given the inevitability of logical contradictions arising between one system and another, this disso' nance naturally resists its disappearance.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The audience of the Compendium was largely illiterate.

    “His largely illiterate audience, whose eclectic religious consciousness led them to regard all the figures in the portraits-from Confucius to the Jade Emperor-as deities, shen, working for goodness and justice and equally available for supplication in time of need, would have agreed with this view.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Ordinary people were chiefly concerned with gaining assistance from deities rather than with doctrinal unity.

    “Among ordinary people, the chief concern was, more simply, how to gain assistance from the deities populating heaven and earth.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The Mongol emperors regarded all three teachings as equally foreign and were less willing to exclude one in favor of another.

    “The Mongols regarded all three as equally foreign teachings.”
    “the Mongol emperors were less willing to exclude one in favor of any other.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    If contemporary texts do not mention that non-Buddhist worship halls in Buddhist monasteries were inappropriate, then such halls were not considered inappropriate.

    “Once again, there is absolutely no indication in contemporary texts that these halls of worship for non~ Buddhist figures were inappropriately sited in a Buddhist monastery.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Fictional sources such as Xu jinpingmei and The Romance of the Three Teachings reliably convey actual social practice and community involvement in joint worship.

    “The same impression is conveyed in a fictional source from the early seventeenth century, The Romance of the Three Teachings, which betrays the influence of Lin Zhaoen.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The state's recognition of Buddhism as non-heterodox was sufficient to prevent a local magistrate from removing a Buddha statue.

    “Given the state's recognition of Buddhism as a non,heterodox religion, however, the magistrate could not have his way.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The fragments Huang Yupian preserved are representative of the precious scroll's overall treatment of the Three Teachings.

    “From the fragments Huang preserves, it seems that the precious scroll does not respect Huang's distinctions among the sanjiao and treats the three as inherently the same.”
8 of 8

Citations

Cites

The publisher hasn’t deposited this paper’s reference list.

Research works printed but not linked: 27

  1. Judith Berling, The S,ncretic Religion of Un Chao~en (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), p. 9.
  2. Gavin O'Costa, Theology and Religious Pluralism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), especially chap~ ter 3 on exclusivism and chapter 4 on inclusivism.
  3. For an interpretation of compartmentalism as a type of syncretism, see Edward Ch'ien, Chiao HlD\g and the RestrUCturing of Neo..confucianism in the Uue Ming (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986),pp. 117ff.
  4. Thomas Selover. "San..chiao: Religious Dimensions of Pacific Culture," in Religion in the Pacific Era, ed. Frank Ainn and Typer Hendricks (Paragon, 1985), pp. 102, 106, translates the phrase as "harmonization of the Three Teachings." While this rendering captures the intent of many intel~ lectuals who sought to demonstrate the mutuality of the Three Teachings, it falls shon of the full implication of he)i, which I read literally as combining or joining together to become one thing.
  5. Yalen Sargent, "Tchou Hi contre Ie Boudhisme," M~langes publ;is par "Instirue ~s Hauces Etudes Chinoises, vol. 1, pp. 1#156.
  6. Wm. Theodore de Bary, Neo--Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind#and~Heart (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 130#31.
  7. The struggles at court are summarized in Liu Ts'un~yen and Judith Berling, "The • Three Teachings' in the Mongol#Yuan Period," in Yuan Thought, ed. W.T. de Bary and Hok~lam Chan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), pp. 4~90. They too maintain that the Mongol conquest encouraged an unprecedented Minterflow of the ideas of the Three Teachings," though they regard the outcome of that flow as syncretism; see p. 479.
  8. Rao Zongyi, "Sanjiao lun yu Song Jin xueshuo" (The theory of the Three Teachings and Song# Jin scholarship), Don,xi wenhua, no. 11 (May 1968), p. 27; Liu Mi. SDnjioo pinpin lam (Viewing the Three Teachings with a balanced mind), LinI.ang mishi congslw (1888 edition), lIb;
  9. The tripod formula is an old one going back to at least the Tang. See Shigematsu ShunshQ "Shina sank-yoshi jo no jakan no mandai," Shien, no. 21 (July 1939), p. 135. For its use in the scrip- tures of the Luo sect in the late Ming, see Daniel Ovennyer, Folk Buddhist ReUgion: Dissenting Sects in Lace Imperial China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 134.
  10. The passage in which Wang uses this metaphor is translated in Liu Ts'un-yen, "Taoist Self- Cultivation in Ming Thought," in Self and Society in Ming Thought, ed. W.T. de Bary (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), pp. 317•18.
  11. Confucianism, ed. W. T. de Bary (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), pp. 43-48.
  12. Jiao Hong, Zhiran (Extraneous talk), thong, 6a, in Baoyan rang riliji (Private files from Baoyan Hall), ed. Chen Jiru (Wanli era), vol. 83.
  13. Li Zhi, Xu feruhu (A continuation of A Book co be Burned) (l618; repro Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1975), pp. 75-76; see also p.
  14. For a brief commentary on this essay, see W.T. de Bary, "Individualism and Humanitarianism in Late Ming Thought," in his Self and Societ, in Ming Thought, pp. 210-11.
  15. Jiao Hong, Zhiran, shang, la-b, 4a-5a; translated in pan in Ch'i~n, Chiao Hung, p. 88. 30. Ch'ien, Chiao Hung, pp. 120, 180.
  16. Yu Shenxing, Gushan bichen (Notes on everyday maners from Gushan) (repr. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), pp. 200-201.
  17. Huang Zongxi, "Zhang Ren'an xiansheng mu zhiming" (Epitaph for the tomb of Master Zhang Ren'an), Nanlei wending (repr. Taibei: Shijie Shuju, 1964), houji, p. 53. This passage is examined more closely in my Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Soder, in Late .. Ming China (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies. Harvard University, 1993), ch. 2.
  18. Appended to liu Mi, Sanjiao pingxin fun in the LinJang mishi congshu edition.
  19. Methods for controlling illness are reserved for the subsequent chapter (juan 41), entitled Fabingmen.
  20. Ye Dehui, ed., Sanjiao,..anliu soushm ddquan (1909). A Yuan edition of Sowhm guangji is men- tioned in the catalogue of the library of Mao Jin (J igu Ge). Sakai, Chuaolw tmslao, pp. 299-300, dis- cusses this book in relation to syncretism without specifying the nature of the syncretism or social base it might represent.
  21. Evelyn Rawski and James Watson (Berkeley: Univenity of California Press, 1985), pp. 219-54.
  22. Concerning Huang Yupian, see Overmyer, Folic Buddhist Religion, pp. 29 ..32.
  23. Huang Yupian, Pam xian&bian. reprinted in Qingshi tiJiao, no. 3 (1982), pp. 2()..21, 122.
  24. Regarding sectarian constructions of alternative Ilfictions" of hegemony, see Kobayashi Kazumi, "Ideology and the Road to Rebellion: The Other Side of Rent' and Tax,Resistance Struggles," in Suue and Society in Late Imperial China, ed. Linda Grove and Christian Daniels (Tokyo: University of Tole yo Press, 1984), pp. 215,43.
  25. Shang tianthu jiangsi thi (Gazetteer of Upper Tianzhu Monastery) (1646), 8.2b,3b. Regarding the "three officials" of the second shrine, it bears noting that the Sanguan jing (Three officials' c1as, sic) was one of the two most commonly recited Taoist texts in the late' imperial period; see Richard Smith, China's Cultural Heritage: The Ch'ing Dynasty (Boulder: Westview Press, 1983), p. 142.
  26. Berling, Syncretic Religion, pp. 225,26, mentions two shrines built in 1590 and 1602.
  27. Wang Ji, "Sanjiao tang W'; see also his Wang Lcmgxi xiansheng quanji, 20.76a,b. The county gazetteer notes a Three,in,One Chapel (Sanyi An), which mayor may nor refer ro Lu's hall; see Pinghu xianvu (1790), 10.54b, citing rhe 1689 edition.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Metadata

Authors
Brook, T.
Corresponding author
Brook, Timothy
Venue
Journal of Chinese Religions
Published
1993-01
Volume
21
Issue
1
Pages
13-44
ISSN
  • 0737-769X (ISSN-L)
  • 2050-8999
OpenAlex
W2052983465
Cited by
118
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 1
FWCI
0.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
Journal of Chinese Religions (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Chinese history and philosophy
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Study and Philosophy of Religion
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Indian and Buddhist Studies
Keywords
syncretism, Three Teachings, Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, late imperial China, religious integration, Chinese religious history

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-10-05, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).

A second model labelled each claim on 2026-10-05 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review