Confucian Order and Religious Doctrines: Rhetorical Characterizations of Illustrations in the Fiction “Quanxiang Pinghua” in the Yuan Dynasty

The fiction “Quanxiang Pinghua”, published by Jianyang 建陽 Yushi 虞氏 in the Yuan Dynasty, depicts public religious concepts using a set of organized illustrations of etiquette. As a popular cultural reading material of the Yuan Dynasty, the fiction’s illustrations are a mixture of mainstream religious ideas, such as Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, reflecting the Jianyang people’s compromised identification of the three religions and their value of faith. The illustrations shape the religious view of “the impermanence of destiny”. With the help of the spatial narrative of the political and religious order of Confucianism and the public construction of the ritualistic landscapes of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, these images reflect the ethical enlightenment and religious beliefs of the three religions in social life. From the perspective of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, this article adopted interdisciplinary methods to analyze inherent religious ethics in the illustrations of the fiction and explore religious beliefs among the people in the Yuan Dynasty. This article suggested that, by depicting religious rituals, the illustrations in the fiction reflect the comprehensive acceptance of the benevolence and righteousness, filial piety, loyalty, and kindness of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism by the public of the Yuan Dynasty. The illustrations in the fiction manifest Confucian order and moral ethics, of which the extension is interconnected with the concepts of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and living ethics, manifesting the inner interpretation of Confucian ethics in Jianyang popular literature and art and the collective regulation of folk religious beliefs.