Chinese religion. Religion in China is not a single system of belief and practice. It is a complex interaction of different religious and philosophical traditions, of which four main strands (themselves by no means uniform) are particularly important: popular or folk religion (vivid with festivals, spirit-worlds, procedures in crises, and care of the dead), Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism (see BUDDHISM IN CHINA). In addition, Islam and Christianity have substantial followings in different parts of China, but they are distinguished from the others by appearing to the Chinese to require separation from the other religions/philosophies. In contrast, the Chinese in general have no problem in being entirely eclectic, being, for example, a Confucian in public life, a Taoist in the quest for immortality, a Buddhist in relation to ancestors, and dependent on folk wisdom in crisis or illness, or when buying a house. Thus religion is defined more by cultural geography than it is by bounded systems of beliefs and practices (though schools or traditions of teaching were formally organized). From c.1100 to 206, the Six Ways (yin-yang sched, Confucianism, Mo Tzu, Fa-chia, Logic, and Taoism) developed which constitute some of the main themes of Chinese religious history.

There is no exact equivalent in Chinese for the word ‘religion’. Men means ‘door’, i.e. door leading to enlightenment, immortality, etc.; tao means ‘way’, and both are used. But more usual now is chiao, ‘teaching’, ‘guiding doctrine’ (as in fo-chiao, the religion of the Buddha; ju-chiao, the way of Confucius; tao-chiao, religious Taoism), usually in combination with tsung, ‘ancestral, traditional’, ‘devotion, faith’: tsung-chiao, the nearest equivalent to ‘religion’.

Traditionally, religious history in China has been divided into four stages named after the seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.