Editing Qing dynasty (section)

===Religion===
{{Further|Religion in China#Qing dynasty}}
Manchu rulers presided over a multi-ethnic empire and the emperor, who was held responsible for "[[all under heaven]]", patronised and took responsibility for all religions and belief systems. The empire's "spiritual centre of gravity" was the "religio-political state".{{sfnp|Goossaert|Palmer|2011|p=3}} Since the empire was part of the order of the cosmos, which conferred the [[Mandate of Heaven]], the emperor as "Son of Heaven" was both the head of the political system and the head priest of the [[Imperial cult#Imperial China|State Cult]]. The emperor and his officials, who were his personal representatives, took responsibility over all aspects of the empire, especially spiritual life and religious institutions and practices.<ref>{{Citation |title=Religion, the State, and Imperial Legitimacy |access-date=15 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412193226/http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/irc/emperor.htm |archive-date=12 April 2021 |url-status=live |chapter=Living in the Chinese Cosmos: Understanding Religion in Late Imperial China (1644–1911) |chapter-url=http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/irc/emperor.htm |publisher=Columbia University}}</ref> The [[county magistrate]], as the emperor's political and spiritual representative, made offerings at officially recognised temples. The magistrate lectured on the Emperor's [[Sacred Edict]] to promote civic morality; he kept close watch over religious organisations whose actions might threaten the sovereignty and religious prerogative of the state.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Teiser |first=Stephen F. |title=The Spirits of Chinese Religion |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1996 |editor-last=Lopez |editor-first=Donald S. Jr. |page=27 |chapter=Introduction |access-date=15 June 2021 |chapter-url=http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/main/spirits_of_chinese_religion.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150824055938/http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/main/spirits_of_chinese_religion.pdf |archive-date=24 August 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

====Manchu and imperial religion====
{{Further|Shamanism during the Qing dynasty}}
[[File:Yonghe Gong sign.jpg|thumb|Placard (right to left) in Manchu, Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian [[Yonghe Temple|Yonghe Lamasery]], Beijing]]
The Manchu imperial family were especially attracted by Yellow Sect or [[Gelug]] Buddhism that had spread from Tibet into Mongolia. The [[Fifth Dalai Lama]], who had gained power in 1642, just before the Manchus took Beijing, looked to the Qing court for support. The Kangxi and Qianlong emperors practiced this form of Tibetan Buddhism as one of their household religions and built temples that made Beijing one of its centres, and constructed a replica Lhasa's [[Potala Palace]] at their summer retreat in [[Rehe]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harrison |first=Henrietta |title=China |publisher=London: Arnold; New York: Oxford University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0340741333 |pages=36–42}}.</ref>
 
[[Shamanism]], the most common religion among Manchus, was a spiritual inheritance from their [[Tungusic peoples|Tungusic]] ancestors that set them off from Han Chinese.{{sfnp|Elliott|2001|pp=235, 241}} [[Shamanism during the Qing dynasty#State shamanism after 1644|State shamanism]] was important to the imperial family both to maintain their Manchu cultural identity and to promote their imperial legitimacy among tribes in the northeast.{{sfnp|Rawski|1998|pp=231–236, 242–243}} Imperial obligations included rituals on the first day of [[Chinese New Year]] at a shamanic shrine (tangse).{{sfnp|Rawski|1998|p=236}} [[Shamanism during the Qing dynasty#Shamanism and Manchu identity|Practices in Manchu families]] included sacrifices to the ancestors, and the use of shamans, often women, who went into a trance to seek healing or exorcism.{{sfnp|Elliott|2001|pp=237–238}}

====Popular religion====
[[Chinese folk religion]] was centred around the patriarchal family and [[Shen (Chinese religion)|shen]], or spirits. Common practices included [[Ancestor veneration in China|ancestor veneration]], [[filial piety]], [[Chinese communal deity religion|local gods and spirits]]. Rites included [[Ancestral veneration in China#Practices|mourning, funeral, burial, practices]].<ref>Richard J. Smith (2007). ''[http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/prb/journey.htm Settling the Dead: Funerals, Memorials and Beliefs Concerning the Afterlife] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927095758/http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/prb/journey.htm |date=27 September 2011}}''. ''Living in the Chinese Cosmos: Understanding Religion in Late-Imperial China''</ref> Since they did not require exclusive allegiance, forms and branches of [[Confucianism]], [[Buddhism]], and [[Daoism]] were intertwined, for instance in the syncretic [[Three teachings]].<ref>"Living in the Chinese Cosmos: Understanding Religion in Late Imperial China (1644–1911)" (Columbia University) [http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/ort/teachings.htm Institutional Religion: The Three Teachings] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170508234058/http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/ort/teachings.htm |date=8 May 2017}}</ref> Chinese folk religion combined elements of the three, with local variations.{{sfnp|Lagerwey|2010|pp=6–7}} County magistrates, who were graded and promoted on their ability to maintain local order, tolerated local sects and even patronised local temples as long as they were orderly, but were suspicious of [[Chinese salvationist religions|heterodox sects]] that defied state authority and rejected imperial doctrines. Some of these sects indeed had long histories of rebellion, such as the [[Way of Former Heaven]], which drew on Daoism, and the White Lotus Society, which drew on millennial Buddhism. The White Lotus Rebellion (1796–1804) confirmed official suspicions as did the Taiping Rebellion, which drew on millennial Christianity.

====Christianity, Judaism, and Islam====
{{Further|Jesuit China missions|Chinese Rites controversy|Christianity in China|Protestant missions in China|Islam in China|Judaism in China|Catholic Church in China#Qing dynasty (1644–1912)|Medical missions in China}}
The [[Abrahamic religions]] had arrived from Western Asia as early as the Tang dynasty but their insistence that they should be practised to the exclusion of other religions made them less adaptable than Buddhism, which had quickly been accepted as native. [[Islam]] predominated in Central Asian areas of the empire, while [[Judaism in China|Judaism]] and [[Christianity in China|Christianity]] were practiced in well-established but self-contained communities.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mote |first=Frederick W. |author-link=Frederick W. Mote |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SQWW7QgUH4gC |title=Imperial China, 900–1800 |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1999 |isbn=0674445155 |location=Cambridge, MA}}, pp. 958–961.</ref>

Several hundred Catholic missionaries arrived between the late Ming period and the proscription of Christianity in 1724. The [[Jesuits]] adapted to Chinese expectations, evangelised among the educated, adopted the robes and lifestyles of literati, became proficient in the Confucian classics, and did not challenge Chinese moral values. They proved their value to the early Manchu emperors with their work in gunnery, cartography, and astronomy, but fell out of favor for a time until the Kangxi Emperor's 1692 edict of toleration.{{sfnp|Bays|2012|pp=21–23}} In the countryside, the newly arrived [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] and [[Franciscan]] clerics established rural communities that adapted to local folk religious practices by emphasising healing, festivals, and holy days rather than sacraments and doctrine.{{sfnp|Bays|2012|pp=25–26}} In 1724, the Yongzheng Emperor proscribed Christianity as a "heterodox teaching".{{Sfnp|Reilly|2004|p=43}} Since the European Catholic missionaries had kept control in their own hands and had not allowed the creation of a native clergy, however, the number of Catholics would grow more rapidly after 1724 because local communities could now set their own rules and standards. In 1811, Christian religious activities were further criminalised by the Jiaqing Emperor.{{sfnp|Reilly|2004|p=44}} The imperial ban was lifted by Treaty in 1846.{{sfnp|Elliott|2001|p=241}}

The first Protestant missionary to China, [[Robert Morrison (missionary)|Robert Morrison]] (1782–1834) of the [[London Missionary Society]] (LMS), arrived at Canton on 6 September&nbsp;1807.{{Sfnp|Daily|2013|p=1}} He completed a translation of the entire Bible in 1819.{{sfnp|Daily|2013|p=145}} [[Liang Afa]] (1789–1855), a Morrison-trained Chinese convert, extended evangelisation into inner China.{{sfnp|Daily|2013|pp=188–189}}{{sfnp|Reilly|2004|pp=61, 64}} The two Opium Wars (1839–1860) marked the watershed of Protestant Christian missions. The series of treaties signed between the 1842 [[Treaty of Nanjing]] and the 1858 Treaty of Tianjin distinguished Christianity from local religions and granted it protected status.{{sfnp|Reilly|2004|p=43–50}}

In the late 1840s [[Hong Xiuquan]] read Morrison's Chinese Bible, as well as Liang Afa's evangelistic pamphlet, and announced to his followers that Christianity in fact had been the religion of ancient China before Confucius and his followers drove it out.{{sfnp|Reilly|2004|pp=57, 62}} He formed the [[Taiping Rebellion|Taiping Movement]], which emerged in South China as a "collusion of the Chinese tradition of millenarian rebellion and Christian messianism", "apocalyptic revolution, Christianity, and 'communist utopianism{{'"}}.{{sfnp|Goossaert|Palmer|2011|pp=38–39}}

After 1860, enforcement of the treaties allowed missionaries to spread their evangelisation efforts outside Treaty Ports. Their presence created cultural and political opposition. Historian [[John K. Fairbank]] observed that "[t]o the scholar-gentry, Christian missionaries were foreign subversives, whose immoral conduct and teaching were backed by gunboats".<ref>{{Citation |last=Fairbank |first=John King |title=China: A New History |pages=221–222 |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nBDC2cqb6I0C&q=Protestant%20missionaries |edition=2nd |place=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0674018280}}.</ref> In the next decades, there were some 800 conflicts between village Christians and non-Christians mostly about non-religious issues, such as land rights or local taxes, but religious conflict often lay behind such cases.{{sfnp|Goossaert|Palmer|2011|pp=38–40}} In the summer of 1900, as foreign powers contemplated the division of China, village youths, known as Boxers, who practiced Chinese martial arts and spiritual practices, attacked and murdered Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries in the [[Boxer Rebellion|Boxer Uprising]]. The imperialist powers once again invaded and imposed a substantial [[Boxer Indemnity|indemnity]]. This defeat convinced many among the educated elites that popular religion was an obstacle to China's development as a modern nation, and some turned to Christianity as a spiritual tool to build one.{{sfnp|Goossaert|Palmer|2011|pp=40–41}}

By 1900, there were about 1,400 Catholic priests and nuns in China serving nearly 1&nbsp;million Catholics. Over 3,000 Protestant missionaries were active among the 250,000 Protestant Christians in China.{{sfnp|Mühlhahn|2019|p=170}} Western medical missionaries established clinics and hospitals, and led medical training in China.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Gerald H. |last=Choa |title='Heal the Sick' was Their Motto: The Protestant Medical Missionaries in China |publisher=Chinese University Press |year=1990}}</ref> Missionaries began establishing nurse training schools in the late 1880s, but nursing of sick men by women was rejected by local tradition, so the number of students was small until the 1930s.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Kaiyi |last=Chen |year=1996 |title=Missionaries and the early development of nursing in China |journal=Nursing History Review |volume=4 |pages=129–149 |doi=10.1891/1062-8061.4.1.129 |pmid=7581277 |s2cid=34206810}}</ref>