Analysis of the Reasons of Manchu Emperor Hong Taiji’s Restriction of Shamanism

Ch’en Chieh-hsien
National Taiwan University

35^th Meeting of the PIAC, Taipei 1992

Shamanism was originally the primitive religion of all the nationalities in northern Asia. The Manchus and their ancestors also believed in Shamanism. By the last years of the Ming dynasty, due to the numerous contacts between the Manchus and the other nationalities, such as the Chinese, the Mongols, the Tibetans, their traditional culture began to change as well. Their religious belief was affected along with this change. The standing and the prestige of Shamanism in the Jurchen nationality thereafter gradually declined.

At the time of Hong Taiji, in order to increase the imperial authority and to centralize the state power, this emperor thought to take advantage of the Tibetan religion to get in touch with and to control the Tibetan religious world in Mongolia and Tibet. This obviously looked like suppressing Shamanism and encouraging the Tibetan religion. With the progress of the knowledge of the Manchu ruling stratum, a rational religious belief and the fact that Shamanism itself had not any particular advantage amongst others, the wane of Shamanism was inevitable.