… [T]he work accomplished through ritualization is very inadequately grasped by the notion of social control. Ritualization is not a matter of transmitting shared beliefs, instilling a dominant ideology as an internal subjectivity, or even providing participants with the concepts to think with. The particular construction and interplay of power relations effected by ritualization defines, empowers, and constrains. Ritualized practices, of necessity, require the external consent of participants while simultaneously tolerating a fair degree of internal resistance. As such they do not function as an instrument of heavy-handed social control. Ritual symbols and meanings are too indeterminate and their schemes too flexible to lend themselves to any simple process of instilling fixed ideas. Indeed, in terms of its scope, dependence, and legitimation, the type of authority formulated by ritualization tends to make ritual activities effective in grounding and displaying a sense of community without overriding the autonomy of individuals or subgroups. [….] Ritualization will not work as social control if it is perceived as not amenable to some degree of individual appropriation. — Catherine Bell
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… [F]rom the beginning, governing by the rites, as opposed to the ‘two handles’ of punishments and rewards, was identified as the distinctively Confucian Way [Dao] to rule. In the Analects, for example, Confucius asserts the self-evident superiority of rule by ritual: ‘If it is really possible to govern countries by ritual and yielding, no more need be said,’ since ‘love for other humans’ constitutes ‘the greatest part’ of good government. For several reasons, Confucius and his early followers believed ritual rule would not only assure subjects of a just and benevolent reign, but also prove a boon to the ruler, who would find it the most effective way to govern. Training in ritual, after all, habituated persons to strict order and hierarchy while providing periodic indulgences and spectacles that gave people welcome release from their daily drudgery. At the same time, it served to preclude or regulate unhealthy and unrealizable desires, making the expression of human feelings both refined and satisfying. Finally, the aesthetic coherence of individual rites made them deeply pleasurable to participants and audiences alike, which tended to reinforce the desire to behave well. By contrast, the penal code hardly guaranteed better conduct. Written laws, which did nothing to reform the person from within, would more likely spur men to look for legal loopholes or to turn litigious. Rites worked to instill morality, in other words, while penal law could only define the illegal, notify people that crimes are to be avoided and punish crimes after the fact. For Confucius, then, rule by ritual is manifestly better than rule by law, not only because it is inherently more humane, but also because it is more effective. Whereas rule by law at best can only deter crime, rule by ritual can preempt the impulse to crime by fostering in humans, through symbolic systems, the desire to create and enhance community, and so teach humans to satisfy their basic needs without hurting others.
Second, if ritual is a tool for perfecting the self and harmonizing society, the performance aspect of the rites rendered this tool particularly effective. Correct performance of the rites, after all, required the complex coordination of gesture, facial expression, and verbal formulae, an integration that in turn required thorough attunement to the ideas embodied in the rites. [….] But ritual accomplished more than the absolute integration of mental and physical activities designed to give visible form to the virtues. Always the assumption was that the sheer artistry of the ritual performance, displaying an imposing, yet graceful nobility of spirit than had become virtually second nature, made ritual a powerful educator of all who witnessed it.
Third, the rites confront, address, and appear to explain many troubling aspects of human existence. It is hardly coincidental that the most important rites mark crucial transitions—birth, puberty, marriage, and death—for rites are designed to help participants and onlookers embrace change rather than resist it. [….] Preparation for the rites (fasting, purification, lustration, meditation) begins the process … by interpreting the normal, numbing routines of daily life, the better to induce in participants a deep receptivity to change. — Michael Nylan
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Nylan here notes some of the apparent contradictions or paradoxes at the heart of Confucian learning and self-cultivation:
(1) that the full development of each person’s singular nature depends, at least initially, upon strict adherence to that seemingly most conformist of activities, ritual, which stresses relatedness rather than uniqueness; (2) that the realization of one’s human potential through the distinctively human institution of ritual results in the acquisition of a second nature that is godlike (shen) in its transformative powers; (3) that the Confucian emphasis on the ritual expression of integrity (cheng) pulls the person outward and inward, as the salutary union with Heaven-and-Earth corresponds to the same ability to unify one’s thoughts and deeds; and (4) that the true sage in ritual activity engages simultaneously in miraculous ‘creation’ (zuo) and faithful ‘transmission’ (shu) through ritual, the only tool or system capable of merging the aesthetic with the instrumental. — Michael Nylan
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The following is a brief introduction to the notion of li as found in the Analects of Confucius. To put this material into a wider and (one hopes) deeper Chinese historical and sociological (or anthropological) context with a corresponding requisite appreciation of philosophical, psychological, and moral (here intended to embrace the ‘ethical’ as well) dimensions of same, I recommend Michael Nylan’s book, The Five “Confucian” Classics (Yale University Press, 2001), in particular, the Introduction and the chapters on “The Odes” and “The Three Rites Canons.” I am, perhaps mistakenly, convinced that any philosophical and social scientific accounting and explanation of ritual should accord pride of place to the notion of li in Confucian traditions and the history of China. After a thorough examination of li, a study of Vedic ritual (and its ‘defense’ in Pūrva Mīmāmsā, Prior Exegesis [or Inquiry, or Investigation] School, also known as Dharma Mīmāmsā) is in order. A thorough exploration of these two civilizational traditions of ritual completed, as it were, one is ready to embark on cross-cultural studies of ritual from vantage points provided by the social sciences (with an anthropological bias). I have appended two reading lists: the first is on “Confucianism,” and the second is an all-too-brief guide “on ritual(s),” from which I recommend especially the work of Catherine Bell as well as the edited volume by Kevin Schilbrack.
li: ritual, rites, etiquette, customs, conventions, social norms, propriety. An early instance of li is in reference to a bronze cauldron used in sacred ceremonies. Later it refers to holy rituals, such as sacrifices to the ancestors or divination practices. Confucius widens and deepens the meaning of li (reflecting knowledge of the ‘Five Classics’) to apply to social norms, conventions, etiquette, rituals, gestures, in short, to the myriad forms of scripted or patterned behavior performed on a routine basis in daily life that are ultimately sanctioned by tian (somewhat misleadingly translated as ‘heaven’) and reflect the proper ways (daos) of living exemplified by one’s cultural ancestors or ancient sage-kings. In the word of Ames and Rosemont, ‘Li are those meaning invested roles, relationships, and institutions which facilitate communication, and which foster a sense of community [and thus common good]. The compass is broad: all formal conduct, from table manners to patterns of greeting and leave-taking…from gestures of deference to ancestral sacrifices, all of these, and more, are li.’ An animating assumption here is that social behavior should be choreographed according to divine or sacred archetypes (e.g., tian) or models as practiced by the Sages of the past and exemplified by the junzi. Generally speaking, li is the proper or right way to do things, given a proper consideration of tradition, by the right kind of person. Everyday social interaction can be suffused with a holiness or sacredness that comes with the actualization of dao provided it is correctly—harmoniously and spontaneously—performed by individuals possessed of ren (‘humaneness,’ ‘goodness,’ ‘authoritative’—because virtuous—conduct’). This results in human behavior being in accord with the rhythms and patterns of tian, with its sacred cosmological and natural processes (or daos). Li performed by individuals lacking in the requisite amount of ren is akin to mindless habit, it is lifeless, mechanical, meaningless, awkward, self-conscious or egocentric and profane. Li bereft of ren and dao, accounts for the fetters or shackles of tradition, for the veneration of tradition for tradition’s sake, for the uncritical appropriation of and thus irrational deference to tradition. More specifically, processes of reification or ossification will infiltrate li performed by individuals not sincerely committed to self-cultivation, hindering the truly personal and creative appropriation of tradition. Li amounts to a social grammar learned through (1) socialization and acculturation (beginning with the family), (2) the emulation of the right kind of persons (e.g., the junzi and the Sage), and (3) and the informal and formal appropriation of the material found in the ‘Five Classics’ (Odes, Documents, Rites, Changes, and the Spring and Autumn Annals). The junzi critically and creatively appropriates the li of tradition assessed in the light of ren, a process that entails making the tradition one’s own. Because of the integral relation between li and ren, it seems one might speak here of the moralization of human behavior with Confucius, in other words, the scope of ‘the ethical’ is not confined to infrequent or special situations or acts but refers in some sense to the entirety of one’s conduct, insofar as all of one’s behavior is capable, in degree, of influencing, shaping, or contributing to an ethical disposition, to ethical character. Ames and Rosemont well appreciate the uniqueness of this view: ‘For Westerners, there is ostensibly a distinction to be made between being boorish and being immoral. For Confucius, however, there are simply varying degrees of inappropriate, demeaning, and hurtful behavior along a continuum on which a failure in personal responsiveness is not just bad manners, but fully a lapse in moral responsibility.’ The writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch perhaps comes closest to the Confucian perspective on the scope of ethics, one with a central affective and moral psychological orientation. Murdoch believed that all our states of consciousness and action presuppose cognitive and affective discrimination and that any such discrimination is subject to moral appraisal, as evidenced here in a passage from her book, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992):
“The moral life is not intermittent or specialised, it is not a peculiar separate area of our existence. [….] Life is made up of details. We compartmentalise it for reasons of convenience, dividing the aesthetic from the moral, the public from the private, work from pleasure. [….] Yet we are all always deploying and directing our energy, refining or blunting it, purifying or corrupting it, and it is always easier to do a thing a second time. ‘Sensibility’ is a word which may be in place here. Aesthetic insight connects with moral insight, respect for things connects with respect for persons. (Education.) Happenings in the consciousness so vague as to be almost non-existent can have moral ‘colour.’ All sorts of momentary sensibilities to other people, too shadowy to come under the heading of manners of communication, are still parts of moral activity. (‘But are you saying that every single second has a moral tag?’ Yes, roughly.) [….] [M]uch of our self-awareness is other-awareness, and in this area we exercise ourselves as moral beings in our use of many various skills as we direct our modes of attention.”
Li thus has everything to do with what Murdoch refers to here as the proper directing of our modes of attention. Finally, Michael Nylan has nicely explained the egalitarian quality in the Confucian conception of li as enshrined in the three Rites canons:
“they promote a kind of egalitarianism in three senses: they assume that everyone can be perfected [perhaps a better was of stating this is that, in principle, all of us are ‘perfectible,’ which by definition rules out arriving at a state of ‘perfection’]; they stipulate that a code of manners, aristocratic in origin, be learned by and applied to all humans; they advocate the assignment of social rank according to virtue and merit, defining both in terms of relative contributions to the larger society; and they aim to school each person, through theory and praxis, in the very social skills that facilitate effective interaction. Accordingly, it should come as no surprise that non-elites in early, medieval, and late imperial China were at times more eager than social and political elites to embrace the precepts set forth in the Rites canons.”
- Ames, Roger T. and Henry Rosemont, Jr., trans. (1998) The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Books.
- Angle, Stephen C. (2009) Sagehood: The Contemporary Significance of Neo-Confucian Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Angle, Stephen C. (2012) Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
- Bell, Daniel A. and Hahm Chaibong, eds. (2003) Confucianism for the Modern World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Berthrong, John H. (1998) Transformations of the Confucian Way. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
- Berthrong, John H. and Evelyn Nagai Berthrong (2000) Confucianism: A Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oneworld.
- Bol, Peter K. (2008) Neo-Confucianism in History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Brooks, E. Bruce and A. Taeko (1998) The Original Analects: Sayings of Confucius and His Successors. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Chan, Alan K.L., ed. (2002) Mencius: Contexts and Interpretations. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
- Chan, Joseph (2014) Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chong, Kim-chong (2007) Early Confucian Ethics. Chicago, IL: Open Court.
- Chong, Kim-chong, Sor-hoon Tan, and C.L. Ten, eds. (2003) The Moral Circle and the Self: Chinese and Western Approaches. Chicago, IL: Open Court.
- Chow, Kai-wing (1994) The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Lineage Discourse. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- Creel, H.G. (1960) Confucius and the Chinese Way. New York: Harper & Row.
- Cua, A.S. “Reason and Principle in Chinese Philosophy: An Interpretation of li,” in Eliot Deutsch and Ron Bontekoe, eds. (1997) A Companion to World Philosophies. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
- Cua, A.S. (2005) Human Nature, Ritual, and History: Studies in Xunzi and Chinese Philosophy. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America.
- Dawson, Raymond, trans. (2000) Confucius: The Analects. New York: Oxford University Press.
- de Bary, William Theodore (1989) The Message of the Mind in Neo-Confucianism. New York: Columbia University Press.
- de, Bary, William Theodore (1991) Learning for Oneself: Essays on the Individual in Neo-Confucian Thought. New York: Columbia University Press.
- de Bary, William Theodore (1998) Asian Values and Human Rights: A Confucian Communitarian Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Eno, Robert (1990) The Confucian Creation of Heaven: Philosophy and the Defense of Ritual Mastery. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Fingarette, Herbert (1972) Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. New York: Harper Torchbooks.
- Gardner, Daniel K. (2003) Zhu Xi’s Reading of the Analects: Canon, Commentary, and the Classical Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Goldin, Paul Rakita (1999) Rituals of the Way: The Philosophy of Xunzi. Chicago, IL: Open Court.
- Goldin, Paul Rakita (2005) After Confucius: Studies in Early Chinese Philosophy. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press.
- Goldin, Paul Rakita (2011) Confucianism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
- Graham, A.C. (1989) Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
- Hall, David L. and Roger T. Ames (1987) Thinking Through Confucius. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Hansen, Chad (1992) A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Ivanhoe, Philip J. (2nd, 2002) Ethics in the Confucian Tradition: The Thought of Mengzi and Wang Yangming. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
- Ivanhoe, Philip J. (2nd, 2006) Confucian Moral Self-Cultivation. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
- Ivanhoe, Philip J. (2009) Readings from the Lu-Wang School of Neo-Confucianism. Indianapolis: Hackett.
- Jensen, Lionel M. (1997) Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Jones, David, ed. (2008) Confucius Now: Contemporary Encounters with the La Salle, IL: Open Court.
- Keenan, Barry C. (2011) Neo-Confucian Self-Cultivation. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press.
- Kim Sungmoon (2014) Confucian Democracy in East Asia: Theory and Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Kline, T.C. and Justin Tiwald, eds. (2014) Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Knoblock, John, trans. (1988-1994) Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, 3 Vols. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- Kupperman, Joel J. (1999) Learning from Asian Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Lai, Karyn. “Confucian Moral Cultivation: Some Parallels with Musical Training,” in Chong, et al., eds. (2003) above.
- Lai, Karyn L. (2008) An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Lau, D.C., trans. (1979) Confucius: The Analects. New York: Penguin.
- Lau, D.C., trans. (1970) New York: Penguin.
- Lee, Janghee (2005) Xunzi and Early Chinese Naturalism. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Lewis, Mark Edward (1990) Sanctioned Violence in Early China. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Lewis, Mark Edward (1999) Writing and Authority in Early China. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Li, Chenyang, ed. (2000) The Sage and the Second Sex: Confucianism, Ethics, and Gender. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
- Littlejohn, Ronnie L. (2016) Chinese Philosophy: An Introduction. London: I.B. Tauris.
- Liu, JeeLoo. (2006) An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy: From Ancient Philosophy to Chinese Buddhism. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
- Louden, Robert B. “‘What Does Heaven Say?’ Christian Wolff and Western Interpretations of Confucian Ethics,” in Van Norden, ed. (2002) below.
- Lupke, Christopher, ed. (2005) The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai`i Press.
- Makeham, John (2003) Transmitters and Creators: Chinese Commentators and Commentaries on the Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.
- Makeham, John (2008) Lost Soul: “Confucianism” in Contemporary Chinese Academic Discourse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.
- Makeham, John, ed. (2003) New Confucianism: A Critical Examination. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Makeham, John, ed. (2010) Dao Companion to Neo-Confucian Philosophy. Dordrecht: Springer.
- Mou, Bo, ed. (2003) Comparative Approaches to Chinese Philosophy. Aldershot, England: Ashgate.
- Mou, Bo, ed. (2001) Two Roads to Wisdom? Chinese and Analytic Philosophical Traditions. Chicago, IL: Open Court.
- Mou, Bo, ed. (2009) History of Chinese Philosophy. New York: Routledge.
- Neville, Robert Cummings (2000) Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late Modern World. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Nivison, David. “Golden Rule Arguments in Chinese Moral Philosophy,” in Van Norden, Ed. (1996) below.
- Nylan, Michael (2001) The Five “Confucian” Classics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Olberding, Amy (2012) Moral Exemplars in the Analects: The Good Person is New York: Routledge.
- Puett, Micahel (2002) To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard- Yenching Institute.
- Puett, Michael (2005) “Following the Commands of Heaven: The Notion of Ming in Early China,” In Christopher Lupke, ed. The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005: 49-69.
- Richey, Jeffrey (2003) “Confucius,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Richey, Jeffrey (2005) “Mencius,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Riegel, Jeffrey, “Confucius,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2002 Edition), Edward N. Zalta, ed.
- Schaberg, David (2005) “Command and the Content of Tradition,” in Christopher Lupke, ed. The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005: 23-48.
- Schilbrack, Kent, ed. (2004) Thinking Through Rituals: Philosophical Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
- Schiller, David R. (2011) Confucius: Discussions/Conversations, or The Analects [Lun-yu], Volume I: Books 1-11. Charlton, MA: Saga Virtual Publishers.
- Schiller, David R. (2011) Confucius: Discussions/Conversations, or The Analects [Lun-yu], Volume II: Books 12-20. Charlton, MA: Saga Virtual Publishers.
- Shankman, Steven and Stephen W. Durrant, eds. (2002) Early China/Ancient Greece: Thinking through Comparisons. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Shun, Kwong-loi. “Mencius,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2004 Edition), Edward N. Zalta, ed.
- Shun, Kwong-loi. “Self and Self-Cultivation in Early Confucian Thought,” in Mou, ed. (2001) above.
- Shun, Kwong-loi and David B. Wong, eds. (2004) Confucian Ethics: A Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy, and Community. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Sim, May (2007) Remastering Morals with Aristotle and Confucius. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Slingerland, Edward (1996) “The Conception of Ming in Early Confucian Thought,” Philosophy East & West, 46. 4: 567-581.
- Slingerland, Edward (2003) Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Slingerland, Edward, trans. (2003) Confucius: Analects (with selections from traditional commentaries) Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
- Tan, Sor-hoon (2004) Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Berthrong, eds. (1998) Confucianism and Ecology: The Interrelation of Heaven, Earth, and Humans. Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School (with Harvard University Press).
- Tu Wei-ming (1985) Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Tu Wei-ming (1989) Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Tu Wei-ming (1993) Way, Learning, and Politics: Essays on the Confucian Intellectual. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Van Norden, Bryan W., ed. (1996) The Ways of Confucianism: Investigations in Chinese Philosophy. Chicago, IL: Open Court.
- Van Norden, Bryan W., ed. (2002) Confucius and the Analects: New Essays. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Van Norden, Bryan W. (2007) Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Van Norden, Bryan W., trans. (2008) Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publ.
- Waley, Arthur (no date, reprint of 1938 ed.) The Analects of Confucius. New York: Vintage Books.
- Wilson, Thomas A., ed. (2002) On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.
- Wong, David, “Comparative Philosophy: Chinese and Western,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta, ed.
- Wong, David, “Chinese Ethics,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta, ed.
- Xunzi (Eric L. Hutton, tr.) (2014) Xunzi: The Complete Text. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Yao, Xinzhong (2000) An Introduction to Confucianism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Yu, Jiyuan (2007) The Ethics of Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrors of Virtue. New York: Routledge.
- Yu, Kam-por, Julia Tao and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds. (2010) Taking Confucian Ethics Seriously: Contemporary Theories and Applications. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Zhang Dainian (Edmund Rydun, trans.) (2002) Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Zufferey, Nicolas (2003) To the Origins of Confucianism: The Ru in Pre-Qin Times and During the Early Han Dynasty. Bern: Peter Lang.
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Ritual(s): A Short Reading Guide
- Bell, Catherine. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
- Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008 (1992).
- Eck, Diana L. Darśan: Seeing the Divine Image in India. New York: Columbia University Press, 3rded., 1998.
- Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1959.
- Eliade, Mircea. Myth and Reality. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.
- Fingarette, Herbert. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1972.
- Goldin, Paul Rakita. Rituals of the Way: The Philosophy of Xunzi. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1999.
- Hall, David L. and Roger T. Ames. Thinking Through Confucius. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1987.
- Kakar, Sudhir. Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern World. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
- Kline III, T.C. and Justin Tiwald, eds. Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi. Albany, NY: State University Press of New York, 2014.
- Lonsdale, Steven H. Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
- Maus, Marcel (Ian Cunnison, trans.) The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1967 (first published in a French sociology journal in 1925).
- Nylan, Michael. The Five “Confucian” Classics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.
- Schilbrack, Kevin, ed. Thinking Through Rituals: Philosophical Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2004.
- Tambiah, Stanley J. Buddhism and the Spirit-Cults in North-East Thailand. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
See too the compilation on Classical Chinese Worldviews and the study guides for Daoism and Confucianism on my Academia page. Finally, one might want to search for material or browse through the Chinese and Comparative Philosophy blog: Warp, Weft, and Way.
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