Until now, China has been scarcely represented in the burgeoning comparative literature on pilgrimage. This volume remedies that omission, discussing the interaction between pilgrims and sacred sites from the tenth century to the present. From the perspectives of literature, art, history, religion, politics, and anthropology, the essays focus on China's most famous pilgrimage mountains as well as lesser known sites.

Until now, China has been scarcely represented in the burgeoning comparative literature on pilgrimage. This volume remedies that omission, discussing the interaction between pilgrims and sacred sites from the tenth century to the present. From the perspectives of literature, art, history, religion, politics, and anthropology, the essays focus on China's most famous pilgrimage mountains as well as lesser known sites.

This engaging book on Chinese religion and culture by Judith Berling has been welcomed by longtime scholars of the same as a vital and fresh perspective. 'A Pilgrim in Chinese Culture' is a story of faith meeting faith that will enrich wisdom-seekers as well as provide a tool to introduce students to cross-cultural and interfaith issues. Berling tells how she became immersed in the issues of religious diversity, of her experiences living with religious neighbors, and of discovering how different from her own Midwestern Protestant milieu is the world of Chinese religion and culture. In China, one can be Buddhist, Confucianist, Taoist, and animist at a single moment. Exploring how this inclusivity can be achieved infuses 'A Pilgrim in Chinese Culture'. The multiplicity of deities, the notion of Truth as having many embodiments, even patterns of hospitality - Berling examines how these key aspects of Chinese culture shape and inform religion in China. Through the tales it tells, 'A Pilgrim in Chinese Culture' offers readers insights that no textbook can match, bringing home what religious diversity means in surprising and illuminating ways.

"The social structure of contemporary Korea contains strong echoes of the hierarchical principles and patterns governing stratification in the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910): namely, birth and one’s position in the bureaucracy. At the beginning of Korea’s modern era, the bureaucracy continued to exert great influence, but developments undermined, instead of reinforced, aristocratic dominance. Furthermore, these changes elevated the secondary status groups of the Chosŏn dynasty, those who had belonged to hereditary, endogamous tiers of government and society between the aristocracy and the commoners: specialists in foreign languages, law, medicine, and accounting; the clerks who ran local administrative districts; the children and descendants of concubines; the local elites of the northern provinces; and military officials. These groups had languished in subordinate positions in both the bureaucratic and social hierarchies for hundreds of years under an ethos and organization that, based predominantly on family lineage, consigned them to a permanent place below the Chosŏn aristocracy. As the author shows, the political disruptions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, rewarded talent instead of birth. In turn, these groups’ newfound standing as part of the governing elite allowed them to break into, and often dominate, the cultural, literary, and artistic spheres as well as politics, education, and business." "Mount Tai in northeastern China has long been a sacred site. Indeed, it epitomizes China’s religious and social diversity. Throughout history, it has been a magnet for both women and men from all classes—emperors, aristocrats, officials, literati, and villagers. For much of the past millennium, however, the vast majority of pilgrims were illiterate peasants who came to pray for their deceased ancestors, as well as for sons, good fortune, and health. Each of these social groups approached Mount Tai with different expectations. Each group’s or individual’s view of the world, interpersonal relationships, and ultimate goals or dreams—in a word, its identity—was reflected in its interactions with this sacred site. This book examines the behavior of those who made the pilgrimage to Mount Tai and their interpretations of its sacrality and history, as a means of better understanding their identities and mentalities. It is the first to trace the social landscape of Mount Tai, to examine the mindsets not just of prosperous, male literati but also of women and illiterate pilgrims, and to combine evidence from fiction, poetry, travel literature, and official records with the findings of studies of material culture and anthropology."

The conceptual territory of religious tourism is fluid. While recreation and leisure-based motivation and behaviors are evident in religious tourism, this volume reiterates its rootedness in tenets from religious traditions and pilgrimages. Using fresh perspectives on place-stories, rituals, performances, that are central to pilgrimage and sacred sites, essays in this volume explain contemporary expressions of religious tourism and illustrate the dynamic nature of religious tourism as an ecosystem embedded in religious practices, rituals and performances. The explanations will benefit researchers and practioners alike and they can find numerous examples that show the significance of religious tourism for sustainable development of destinations.

From the PREFACE. The chief reason for producing this little volume is to give to the thoughtful reader of China and the Chinese a clearer conception of the readiness of the people to accept, with full credence, such whimsical and mythological stories as are here related, of their susceptibility of spiritual influences, and of the decay of intellectual vigor among the Buddhist and Taoist priests, as the inevitable result of monasticism. The intellectual vigor of the Chinese is found among the Confucianists, who hold the controlling power in the government, while Buddhism and Taoism seem past any hope of resurrection to real life. They have had their age of faith. But no one need to doubt the spiritual susceptibility, nor despair of the intellectual progress of all classes. Christianity fosters mental growth and science stimulates thought and is eminently fitted to drive out all fear and superstition. Christian education is not failing in accomplishing this. The response is abundantly gratifying. However, the struggle with Buddhism and Taoism is not yet ended, it has scarcely begun. The reader finds himself here in the midst of the Asiatic world of nearly two thousand years ago, when Buddhist priests had entered actively upon their pilgrim life. To this day all foot-worn mountain paths lead to some monastery or sacred shrine. The information recorded in this little volume is the fruit of hard labor. The writer traveled to distant mountains in the Mid-China hot summer months, visiting monasteries, and living with monks in the hope of gaining some knowledge of their inner life and hope of the future. Most of this information was obtained verbally, some through Chinese reading.