Handbook of the History of Religions in China I

Download or read book Handbook of the History of Religions in China I written by Zhongjian Zhan, Jian Mu and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is part of an initiative in cooperation with renowned Chinese publishers to make fundamental, formative, and influential Chinese thinkers available to a western readership, providing absorbing insights into Chinese reflections of late, and offering a chance to grasp today’s China. In their influential book Handbook of the History of Religions in China, Zhongjian Mou and Jian Zhang present a panorama of the religions existing in China through time. In their fascinating History, they delineate the emergence and development of Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity and explore the roles they played in Chinese society and the interrelations between them. In China, also due to the encompassing Confucian idea of “living together harmoniously while maintaining differences,” religions—including newly arrived ones—came closer together than anywhere else in the world and reached a unique level of peaceful societal coexistence. Despite many frictions and conflicts, communication and reconciliation were indisputably predominant in China throughout history. Buddhism was peacefully introduced into China and, later on, a harmonious, symbiotic syncretism of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism developed—an exemplary process of how a diverse set of different religions can complement each other and contribute to a better life.