“The Honor of Officials Depends upon the People”: Shrines to Living Officials in Imperial China

China scholars are familiar with the rhetoric of the Mandate of Heaven, partially expressed in the title by Han scholar-statesman Jia Yi, which links the legitimacy of the state with the approval of subjects and of Heaven.  But rarely do we study the institutional manifestations of the doctrine, especially at the local level.  One surprising example is sheng ci, “living shrines.”   These are known mainly as a shocking example of a eunuch dictator’s power: in 1626 flatterers set up hundreds of shrines in which Wei Zhongxian was honored – in fact, worshipped.  But Wei desired the shrines precisely because they were a normal institution: legal and orthodox (though unattested in the classics), when set up by grateful local subjects to a departing official.  Beginning in Han, every official history through the Qing reports them.  Their commonplace nature is borne out by many commemorative records written by and for both well-known and obscure men from Song through Qing; by comments in random jottings; by lists of shrines in local gazetteers (many clearly initially for living men once that possibility is recognized); by the basic law codes of the Ming and Qing polities; by the Veritable Records of state activity; and by Ming and Qing complaints that undeserving officials maneuvered for them.  Examples show that living shrines, where sacrifices and prayers were offered to images, permitted locals to approve of an official (and disapprove: one Tang-era shrine was destroyed to criticize the man’s son and successor); to criticize policies that overturned an official’s good work; and to support officials who protested imperial policies.  They exemplify how religious institutions could give subjects a political voice in the complex interactions of the central state, resident administrators, and local interests.