Where I can I find the heavenly equivalent of form 27B Stroke 6?

December 16, 2007 9:32 PM

How does the Chinese 'celestial bureaucracy' work?

I'm looking for mythology, theology, and philosophy describing or arguing about the roles, intrigues, and structure of the 'celestial bureaucracy.' Bonus if it's a scholarly work comparing these celestial shenanigans to the functioning of Confucian magistrates in the spirit of 'as above, so below.'

posted by anotherpanacea to Religion & Philosophy (8 answers total)

you can actually find some pretty good stuff if you have the time to check out various tv shows and movies (hk as well as taiwanese) or books even, about the monkey king (sun ng hung / 孫悟空) obviously this is not going to be super-scholarly (...or even somewhat scholarly) but still provides some nice contrast and illustration of hypocrisy regarding what interests you, namely the supposedly derived virtues of humanity vs. the behaviors of the celestial temple.

(obviously journey to the west / 西遊記 would be the more scholarly example of same, but will take a little more dedication to get into)
posted by dorian at 10:20 PM on December 16, 2007

I strongly recommend Journey to the West*, too. Not only does it involve a lot of byplay featuring the Celestial Court, it's also a lot of fun!

I'm hoping other people have suggestions I can read, because I love this kind of thing.

*It's an excerpt with pictures!
posted by winna at 10:34 PM on December 16, 2007

sadly my knowledge of the subject revolves much more around the strong (yet sporadic and unpredictable) basis of modern hk film (and naturally hk vernacular/colloquialisms) on classical literature, than the literature itself. as mentioned it can be quite illustrative (and yet too often proves very fluid and vexing!)

which is to say that it's much easier for me to recommend particular films or tv programs, than books. surprisingly enough, the stephen chow based treatments of journey to the west (I / II) have an unexpected amount of depth in addition to the expected hilarity and puerile behavior. also good is 小倩 (siu nin).

but one good example (thanks for reminding me of that graphic site, winna!) is strange tales / 聊齋誌異.

also much worth checking out is the wuxia milieu, sort of the modern literary extension of classical works. although it can be as much alternative as it is derivative, fair warning.

hm I may be veering sharply towards taoism rather than confucianism in many of these examples, sorry if that's the case.
posted by dorian at 11:33 PM on December 16, 2007

Holy shit, that old Chinese novel sounds awesome. Is there a recommended translation I can buy (Amazon?) without having to pay for with my future grandchildren's blood?
posted by Iosephus at 11:36 PM on December 16, 2007

There's a highly-regarded Penguin translation by Arthur Waley, but it's a substantial (about one-third) abridgement.
posted by holgate at 4:13 AM on December 17, 2007

I'm not anything like an expert on this, but I think you want to be scouring Google Scholar for 'Chinese folk religion'. The Wiki article on that and on the Jade Emperor might set you going. This personal site also showed up when I searched, but I only gave it a cursory glance.
I agree with the recommendation for Journey to the West and the Waley translation.
posted by Abiezer at 9:53 AM on December 17, 2007

Response by poster: Sorry, I seem to have asked my question incorrectly, because I don't understand how these answers are responsive. I'm looking for information about an apparently prevalent cosmology that involves divine clerks, magistrates, and offices, roughly analogous to mundane bureaucracies, with testing on Confucian principles, paperwork sinecures, and officious elder gods. Is there really no information other than picaresque stories and manga?
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:10 AM on December 17, 2007

it may be frustrating, but thousands-of-years-old chinese classical literature *is* more or less picaresque stories and often (non-visually) akin to such as the manga art form. this is why modern chinese art forms (and/or entertainment forms depending on your distinction) are such a great link+bridge to it, and this is why hk cinema and modern novels and comics are the seemingly strange/creative way they are, because they are much much more influenced by the past than western media forms -- the chinese still venerate their past (consciously and even subconsciously) and you can see this well ingrained in their present.

as a hyperbolic example, consider if the major balance of hollywood film was highly, highly derivative of and greatly expanded on old and new testament books. in terms of language, themes, ethos, etc.

now, if you want some kind of enumeration or cookbook or rogues' gallery or exhaustive quantitative listing, studies actually analyzing the literature; you'd likely find that sort of scholarly work in things like graduate theses. I've not seen such a thing but would be quite interested to do so...
posted by dorian at 12:30 PM on December 17, 2007