聖人與祭祀：前佛教時期中國政教關係的樞紐

The Sage and Sacrifice: Keys to Understanding State-Religion Relations in Pre-Buddhist China

中國政教關係史的研究，多集中在佛、道興盛以後的中古時期，以此為問題意識探究古代中國的作品相對較少。但政治與宗教互動的問題，在佛、道興盛前便已存在，深入理解前佛教時期的相關現象，當能為理解中國歷史上的政教關係帶來助益。本文利用學界成果和若干史料，強調「聖人」與「祭祀」兩個元素，是理解前佛教時期中國政教關係的關鍵，也影響後世對政教關係的思考。本文先辨析如何捕捉前佛教時期的宗教元素，再將重心置於學界對此時期「祭祀」和「聖人」兩個要素的認識，析論二者何以是理解政教關係的樞紐，最後則以甘懷真《天下的誕生：巫教、上帝與儒教國家》為中心，說明祭祀和聖人觀如何促成漢代儒教國家的成立，並為後世政教關係奠立基本格局。本文認為，從聖人、祭祀和儒教國家的視角看古代政教關係，得到的圖像是「政治」和「宗教」基本處於一個調和的狀態。一個可能解釋是，前佛教時期的政治與宗教元素，相當程度上是「同源」的，由近似的文化根基分化而成。上古秦漢政教關係的發展，則是這些分化出的範疇再次進行整合，故過程多見協調而非衝突。

Scholarship on the history of state-religion relations in China has largely concentrated on the medieval period, which witnessed the rise of Buddhism and Daoism. By contrast, studies that take this issue as a central problem to examine early China remain relatively few. Yet interactions between political authority and religious practice existed well before the flourishing of Buddhism and Daoism. A closer examination of the pre-Buddhist period can therefore contribute significantly to our understanding of state-religion relations in Chinese history.
Drawing on existing scholarship and selected sources, this article argues that two elements—the sage and sacrifice—were central to state-religion relations in pre-Buddhist China and continued to shape ways of thinking about the relationship between politics and religion in later periods. The article first addresses the methodological problem of identifying religious elements in pre-Buddhist China. It then focuses on scholarly interpretations of sacrifice and the sage in this era, analyzing why these two elements functioned as pivotal nodes in state-religion relations. Finally, with particular attention to Kan Huaichen’s The Birth of Tianxia, the article illustrates how sacrifice and the idea of sage contributed to the formation of the Confucian state in the Han and laid the foundations for later configurations of state-religion relations.
From the perspective of the sage, sacrifice, and the Confucian state, the article suggests that politics and religion in early China were fundamentally characterized by a condition of accommodation rather than opposition. One possible explanation is that, in the pre-Buddhist period, political and religious elements were to a significant extent of common origin, having differentiated from closely related cultural foundations. The development of state-religion relations in early China can thus be understood as a process in which these differentiated domains were reintegrated, resulting more often in coordination than in conflict.