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The State and Religion: Iran, India and China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Rushton Coulborn
Rushton Coulborn
Affiliation:
Atlanta, Georgia
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Extract

In the three societies considered in this essay, there are three quite different kinds of relation of religion to the state. In Iran, there came to be a church and, consequently, a church-state relationship. In India, there was the oddest of all embodiments of religion, one which was entirely sui generis. China had a dead minimum of religious organization distinct from the organization of state. It would not be true to say that there were never any ecclesiastical institutions in China, but they were non-existent during much of China's history and, during most of the time when they did exist, they were marginal to the society's main form. The outward observances of religion in China were always conducted chiefly by state personages as a part of their proper functions. China offers, in fact, an extreme case of possible relations between religion and government, a case at the opposite end of the spectrum from the end where Strayer finds those relations in Europe. Indian ecclesiastical institutions are, of course, to be found in the caste system. Through the caste system the Brahmans have exerted their immense authority. The origin of caste remains a matter of dispute and its relation with and effect upon the state remain obscure. The Iranian church came to be a solid and very formidable body, offering a most instructive comparison with the Christian church in Europe. But the Iranian church did not begin to emerge until the Parthian period, reaching its full development in the Sassanian era, from the third to the seventh centuries A.D.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , October 1958 , pp. 44 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1964

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References

1 Cf. Huart, C. and Delaporte, L., L'Iran antique: Elam et Perse et la civilisation iranienne, new ed., revised, of La Perse antique (Paris, 1943), p. 288.Google Scholar

2 Nyberg describes it as “… eine robuste und primitive … aber sicherlich sehr wirksame Religion” (Nyberg, H. S., Die Religionen des Alien Iran, trans, from the Swedish by Schaeder, H. H., Leipzig, 1938, p. 374Google Scholar).

3 Ibid. pp. 344–362. Nyberg here argues that the Achaemenids were not Zoroastrians; since the Magi were Zoroastrians by the time of the Achaemenian Empire (see n. 11 below) Achaemenid religion was not Magian. Cf. Benveniste, E., Les mages dans l'ancien Iran (Paris, 1938), pp. 22–23Google Scholar, where the divergence of terms between Achaemenid religion and that of the Magi at a later time is shown. Some opinions are contrary to these, but these are the ones I accept.

4 I, 101.

5 P. 19. Benveniste offers this statement as a tentative reconciliation of conflicting evidence.

6 P. 5.

7 Nyberg hints this (p. 333).

8 Ibid, p. 368.

9 For the west, see Tarn, W. W., Hellenistic Civilization (London, 1930), p. 119Google Scholar, and Christensen, A., L'lran sous les Sassanides (Copenhagen and Paris, 1946) pp. 157–158.Google Scholar For the east, see Unvala, J. M., Observations on the Religion of the Parthians (Bombay, 1925), pp. 3–6.Google Scholar

10 Nyberg, p. 366.

11 P. 374.

12 Nyberg, pp. 342, 380–387; Benveniste, p. 24.

13 Olmstead, A. T., History of the Persian Empire (Chicago, 1948), pp. 471–477.Google Scholar

14 Such is the marriage in A.D. 2 of King Phraataces to his mother, Musa (Debevoise, N. C., A Political History of the Parthians, Chicago, 1938, pp. 148–149Google Scholar- a type of marriage previously practiced only, so far as we know, by the priestly caste. Exposure of corpses to be eaten by beasts and birds is mentioned for the period by Roman authors Ibid, (p. 149), but burial of the dead continued also (Unvala, pp. 29–31). The extraordinary measures taken in A.D. 66 by Tindates, king of Armenia and brother of the Parthian monarch Vologases I, to avoid defiling the ocean, etc., on a visit to Rome are characteristic of the meticulousness of Magian Mazdaism. The possible formation of an Arsacid Version of the Avesta is further evidence of Arsacid favor of the Magi. This occurred in the reign of Vologases I, or it may belong rather to that of Vologases III (A.D. 148–192); Debevoise says Vologases I (p. 196).

15 Nyberg says that there was an ecclesiastical state centering in Stakhr (Persepolis) which reproduced the one in Rhagae (pp. 406–407).

16 For the description of the Sassanian church which follows, see Christensen, pp. 116–123.

17 Senart, E., Caste in India: The Facts and the System, trans. Sir Ross, E. Denison (London, 1930), p. 198.Google Scholar

18 Thus, in most of the better general works about India the assumption that its political institutions were weakly developed is not made; e.g., Rawlinson, H. G., India: A Short Cultural History, rev. ed. (London, 1952).Google Scholar

19 It is not useful to argue against Senart that there is no clear evidence of Brahmans blocking the growth of the power of the state, for, according to Senart, the “early state” which was “ousted” was something very elementary, and later the state did not need to develop as much as other states since the Brahmans already exercised so large a social discipline. This may yet prove to be the fact, but it is not proved yet.

20 Pargiter, F. E., The Ancient Indian Historical Tradition (London, 1922), pp. 304–307.Google Scholar

21 Pp. 174 ff.

22 See Majumdar, R. C., Raychaudhuri, H. C., and Datta, K., An Advanced History of India, 2nd ed. rev. (London, 1950), p. 33.Google Scholar

23 Pp. 129–130.

24 Cf. Risley, in Risley, H. H. and Gait, E. A., Census of India, 1901.1. India, Part I - Report (Calcutta, 1903), 554–555.Google Scholar

25 von Schroeder, L., Indians Literatur und Cultur in historischen Entwicklung (Leipzig, 1887), pp. 152–159.Google Scholar

26 Weber, A., Indische Studien. Beitrage fur die Kunde des Indischen Alterthums, X (Leipzig, 1868), pp. 1–160.Google Scholar

27 von Glasenapp, H., trans, from the German by Toutzevitch, O., Brahma et Bouddha (Paris, 1937), p. 174.Google Scholar

28 Dates according to von Glasenapp, p. 69.

29 Census of India, p. 547, 859.

30 A good recent account of the phenomenon is Maspero, H., Mélanges posthumes sur les religions et I'histoire de la Chine, I. Les religions chinoises (Paris, 1950), pp. 1947.Google Scholar

31 Cf. Lattimore, Owen, Inner Asian Frontiers of China (London and New York, 1940), pp. 392–393.Google Scholar

32 Shen-yu, Yao, “The Cosmological and Anthropological Philosophy of Tung Chung-shu”, Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, LXXIII (1948), 40–68Google Scholar; Hu Shih, “The Establishment of Confucianism as a State Religion during the Han Dynasty”, Ibid, LX (1929), 20–41; Shryock, W. K., The Origin and Development of the State Cult of Confucius (New York, 1932).Google Scholar

33 des Rotours, R., “Les grands fonctionnaires des provinces en Chine sous la dynastie des T'ang”, T'oung Poo, XXV (1927), 219–332CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rotours, des, Le traité des examens traduit de la nouvelle histoire des T'ang (Paris, 1932)Google Scholar; Rotours, des, Traité des fonctionnaires et traité de l'armée traduits de la nouvelle histoire des T'ang, 2 vols. (Leyden, 1947–1948.Google Scholar)

34 In Feudalism in History (ed. Coulborn, R., Princeton, 1956)Google Scholar, we found rather a different sort of comparison: out of a dozen or so important cases studied, we found two which were undoubtedly and largely feudal; two more which probably were, but could not be finally substantiated for lack of evidences had not deflected the course of history in the societies in question; three cases of another regular development alternative to feudalism (and we were able to see to a fair extent the causes which determined which alternative was followed); and three aberrant cases. Probably the first six of these were analogous to the six cases of administration of religion through great pyramidal institutions in the present study. (Occurrence of the same number in the two instances is a coincidence). The aberrant cases are present also. But the three cases of a consistent, repetitive alternative to feudalism have no counterpart in the present study.