Abstract:

In the second half of the nineteenth century, confronted with the dual crises of religious turmoil within traditional society and the impact of Christianity, the Chinese literati widely engaged in attempts to rebuild society and rectify public morality through religious means. This paper takes the late-Qing "Sun Religion" (Taiyang Jiao) in Wenzhou as a case study to examine the specific forms and historical significance of this intellectual and activist trend.Research reveals that, following the Tongzhi and Guangxu reigns, the local literati hierarchy in Wenzhou collapsed amid the decline of the examination system, the rise of minor lineages, and the spread of extravagant commercial customs. Lower-stratum literati such as Jin Hui and Liu Shaokuan, drawing upon Yan-Li teachings, Buddhist and Daoist ideas and modern theories of electricity, organized the "Sun Religion" as a literati religious group. Their aim was to re-examine the proper role of the literati and to offer a practical path for popular moral enlightenment. On the one hand, the group maintained an ascetic lifestyle by cultivating themselves through daily practices and returning to ancient rites, disciplining their body and mind while striving to preserve moral autonomy amidst everyday social interactions and the corrupting influence of prevailing customs. On the other hand, the doctrines of the "Sun Religion" expounded a "moral-physical law" that linked all sentient beings with the cosmos. This law regarded the mutual attraction and repulsion of yin and yang electricity as the origin of all phenomena, affirmed the power of individual perceptual consciousness and moral transcendence, and thereby established a spiritual bond of shared suffering and unity with all things.This religious yearning to elevate the inner will to infinite heights forged a universal personality that embodied both religious transcendence and modern gezhi (scientific) inquiry. Although it stood in tension with local social sentiments, it served as the spiritual wellspring for the "hequn lihui" (uniting groups and establishing associations) political organizations of the first half of the twentieth century, foreshadowing the radical ethos of lower-stratum intellectuals who sought to transform society through voluntarism. The paper further argues that this practice builds upon the tradition of the religionization of Confucianism in the late-Ming and the formation of the literati-religious societies in the mid-Qing period. Within the broader intellectual currents and regional social structures, this study reveals the intrinsic roots of modern Chinese intellectuals' personality and spiritual state: rejecting the "reality" of the material world before their eyes, they turned instead to an abstract spiritual community as their foundation, thereby embarking on a radical path from self-cultivation to the pursuit of sainthood of social transformation.

Key words: literati religious group, Yan-Li School, Sun Religion, Yin-Yang Electricity, moral-physical law