Converting to Daoism in the Seventeenth Century: Investigating the Lived Religious Experience of Qing Bannermen from the Bilingual Temple Inscription “Stele of The Palace of Great Peace” (Taipinggong bei 太平宮碑) (1662)

Abstract

After the Qing conquest of 1644, and the garrisoning of the Manchus in Beijing, bannermen gradually became familiar with the capital's network of temples and their Buddhist and Daoist pantheons. They used Manchu, their mother tongue, to compose stele inscriptions. The "Stele of The Palace of Great Peace" (Taipinggong bei 太平宮碑), composed for the Beijing Daoist temple Pantaogong 蟠桃宮 (Peach Blossom Palace) by the Manchu bannerman Udari in 1662 (Kangxi 1), offers unique insight into the Daoist beliefs of bannermen less than twenty years after the conquest. This article transcribes and translates the Manchu and Chinese texts of this stele, investigates the status and identity of its author Udari, and reflects on the process by which, in the early Qing period, bannermen moved from unfamiliarity with Daoism to belief in it.