Three Teachings Studies: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism (TTS) welcomes original scholarship examining the historical, regional, political, and sociocultural contexts in which Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism have encountered, influenced, differentiated themselves from, and interacted with one another. This research area investigates the relationships among intellectual exchange, religious institutions, local societies, political authority, cultural transmission, and historical change. Particular attention is given to the circumstances through which distinct religious and philosophical traditions developed relationships of cooperation, competition, coexistence, adaptation, and transformation across different periods and geographical settings.

The historical relationships among the Three Teachings cannot be understood through a single model of cultural integration or religious opposition. Their interactions have varied according to political structures, institutional interests, economic conditions, regional networks, intellectual debates, and the social positions of participating individuals and communities. At different times, Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions have participated in shared cultural environments while maintaining distinctive teachings, institutional identities, ritual practices, and forms of religious or intellectual authority.

Regional and historical contexts are essential to understanding these relationships. The circulation of texts, practitioners, institutions, ritual practices, material objects, and philosophical concepts may establish connections across religious boundaries, but such connections do not necessarily produce uniform interpretations or stable forms of coexistence. The reception of a teaching or practice may involve selective adaptation, reinterpretation, rejection, or the reinforcement of existing distinctions. Research should therefore examine the specific actors, mechanisms, sources, and historical conditions through which interaction occurred.

This research area encourages scholarship that situates intellectual and religious encounters within identifiable historical processes rather than treating the Three Teachings as fixed or timeless cultural categories. It welcomes research on individual traditions where their relationships with broader religious, political, or regional environments can be demonstrated, as well as comparative studies of multiple traditions supported by appropriate textual, historical, archaeological, institutional, or ethnographic evidence.

Areas of Interest

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Regional Religious Histories and Local Societies: Studies of Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions within particular regions, cities, communities, and historical landscapes. Research may examine local religious institutions, patterns of religious participation, regional intellectual networks, relationships among religious specialists, and the influence of local social, economic, and political conditions on religious and philosophical life.
• Interreligious Encounters and Intellectual Debates: Investigations of doctrinal exchange, philosophical criticism, religious controversy, ethical discussion, and intellectual negotiation among the Three Teachings. Studies may explore historical debates concerning metaphysics, cosmology, political legitimacy, ethical cultivation, ritual propriety, and religious practice, including the circumstances in which mutual interpretation, selective borrowing, or competing claims to authority emerged.
• Textual Circulation, Translation, and Cultural Exchange: Research on the movement, translation, interpretation, adaptation, and reception of religious and philosophical texts across linguistic, regional, and institutional boundaries. Relevant subjects include translation networks, commentarial encounters, intellectual borrowing, the circulation of manuscripts and printed works, and the transformation of concepts through different historical and cultural settings.
• Political Authority, Institutions, and Religious Governance: Studies of the relationships among political institutions, religious communities, scholarly organizations, and systems of governance. Research may address state patronage, official recognition, institutional regulation, religious policy, educational systems, temple administration, and the ways in which political power shaped the conditions for cooperation, competition, or differentiation among religious and philosophical traditions.
• Religious Boundaries, Identity, and Coexistence: Investigations of how religious and intellectual communities defined, maintained, crossed, or contested their boundaries. Studies may examine religious affiliation, multiple participation, shared institutions, patterns of coexistence, polemical representation, claims of orthodoxy, and the historical construction of distinctions among Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions.
• Material Culture, Sacred Landscapes, and Shared Spaces: Research on the material and spatial dimensions of religious interaction, including temples, monasteries, academies, shrines, pilgrimage routes, inscriptions, religious images, architectural complexes, and other cultural sites. Contributions may investigate how material objects and spatial arrangements reflect institutional relationships, religious exchange, local patronage, and historically specific forms of shared or contested sacred space.
• Migration, Mobility, and Transregional Networks: Studies of the movement of scholars, monastics, religious practitioners, texts, ideas, institutions, and material objects across China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and other historically interconnected regions. Research may examine the development of transmission routes, maritime and overland exchanges, intellectual communities, diplomatic encounters, migration networks, and regional adaptations of religious and philosophical traditions.
• Historical Change and Contemporary Reconfiguration: Investigations of religious reform, modernization, institutional reconstruction, cultural heritage practices, public representations of the Three Teachings, and changing relationships among religious communities in modern and contemporary societies. Research may consider how historical narratives of coexistence, conflict, integration, or cultural continuity are reconstructed in relation to nationalism, education, public discourse, migration, and changing social conditions.

Research Approaches

This research area welcomes interdisciplinary scholarship drawing on religious studies, history, intellectual history, philosophy, philology, anthropology, sociology, historical geography, archaeology, political history, art history, and regional or area studies. Appropriate methods may include historical source criticism, comparative textual analysis, archival investigation, institutional history, prosopography, historical network analysis, spatial research, material culture studies, ethnography, and the examination of regional patterns of cultural transmission.

Authors are encouraged to identify the historical actors, geographical settings, chronological frameworks, and evidentiary foundations relevant to their analyses. Claims concerning religious influence, cultural borrowing, institutional cooperation, doctrinal convergence, or the transmission of particular practices should be supported by evidence demonstrating plausible historical connections. Formal similarities among texts, concepts, rituals, or institutions do not, by themselves, establish direct influence or transmission. Comparative research should also account for differences in source availability, historical chronology, local conditions, and the categories through which religious identities were understood in particular periods.

TTS particularly welcomes studies that illuminate the historical mechanisms through which Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions interacted while retaining, negotiating, or transforming their distinctive characteristics. Research may examine cooperation and exchange as well as exclusion, conflict, competition, and discontinuity. By bringing regional and historical specificity to questions of religious and philosophical interaction, this research area seeks to advance critical understanding of the changing relationships among the Three Teachings and the social worlds in which those relationships developed.

區域、歷史與三教互動

《三教研究：儒、道、釋》歡迎探討儒家、道教與佛教在不同歷史、區域、政治及社會文化環境中如何相遇、相互影響、形成差異並展開互動的原創性學術研究。本專欄著重考察思想交流、宗教制度、地方社會、政治權力、文化傳播與歷史變遷之間的關係，特別關注不同宗教與哲學傳統如何在特定歷史時期及地域條件下形成合作、競爭、共存、調適與轉化等不同形式的互動關係。

儒、道、佛三教之間的歷史關係，不能僅以文化融合或宗教對立的單一模式加以解釋。三教互動的形式，隨政治結構、制度利益、經濟條件、區域網絡、思想論爭，以及相關個人與社群的社會地位而有所不同。在不同歷史階段，儒家、道教與佛教可能共同參與特定的文化與社會環境，同時保有各自不同的思想教導、制度認同、儀式實踐及宗教或學術權威形式。

區域與歷史條件是理解這些關係的重要基礎。典籍、宗教實踐者、制度組織、儀式活動、物質器物及哲學概念的傳播，可能促成不同傳統之間的交流，但這些聯繫未必形成一致的思想解釋或穩定的共存方式。某種教導或實踐在新的社會環境中被接受時，也可能經歷選擇性調適、重新詮釋、拒斥，或進一步強化原有的宗教與文化界限。因此，相關研究應具體分析互動過程中的歷史行動者、傳播機制、文獻材料及社會條件。

本專欄鼓勵將宗教與思想交流置於可辨識的歷史進程之中加以考察，而非將三教視為固定不變、超越歷史的文化類別。研究可以聚焦單一傳統與其所處宗教、政治及區域環境之間的關係，也可以展開涉及多個傳統的比較研究，但相關論證應建立於適當的文本、歷史、考古、制度、田野或其他研究證據之上。

研究主題

本專欄徵稿範圍包括但不限於以下研究方向：

• 區域宗教史與地方社會：研究儒家、道教與佛教在特定區域、城市、地方社群及歷史文化空間中的發展。相關研究可考察地方宗教機構、宗教參與方式、區域思想網絡、宗教專業者之間的關係，以及地方社會、經濟與政治條件對宗教和哲學生活的影響。
• 宗教間交涉與思想論爭：考察三教之間的教義交流、哲學批評、宗教爭論、倫理討論及思想協商。研究可涉及形上學、宇宙論、政治正當性、倫理修養、禮儀規範及宗教實踐等問題，分析不同傳統如何在特定歷史情境中形成相互詮釋、選擇性借用或競爭性的權威主張。
• 文本流通、翻譯與文化交流：研究宗教與哲學典籍在不同語言、區域及制度環境中的流通、翻譯、詮釋、調適與接受。相關主題包括翻譯網絡、註釋傳統之間的交涉、思想概念的借用、寫本文獻與印刷文本的傳播，以及思想觀念在不同歷史文化環境中的轉化。
• 政治權威、制度與宗教治理：探討政治制度、宗教社群、學術組織及治理體系之間的關係。研究可涉及國家贊助、官方認可、制度規制、宗教政策、教育體系、寺觀管理，以及政治權力如何影響不同宗教與哲學傳統之間的合作、競爭或分化。
• 宗教邊界、身分認同與共存：研究宗教與思想社群如何界定、維持、跨越或爭議自身的邊界。相關主題包括宗教歸屬、多重參與、共享制度、共存形式、論爭性表述、正統性主張，以及儒、道、佛傳統之間差異與界限的歷史建構。
• 物質文化、宗教地景與共享空間：考察宗教互動的物質與空間層面，包括寺院、宮觀、書院、祠廟、朝聖路線、碑刻、宗教圖像、建築群及其他文化場所。研究可分析物質器物與空間安排如何反映制度關係、宗教交流、地方贊助，以及具有特定歷史條件的共享或爭議性宗教空間。
• 人口流動、跨區域交流與傳播網絡：研究學者、僧侶、宗教實踐者、典籍、思想、制度及物質器物在中國、日本、韓國、越南及其他歷史文化聯繫地區之間的流動。相關研究可考察傳播路線、海陸交流、思想社群、外交接觸、人口遷移網絡，以及宗教與哲學傳統在不同地區的調適與發展。
• 歷史變遷與當代重構：考察宗教改革、現代化、制度重建、文化遺產實踐、三教的公共表述，以及現代與當代社會中宗教社群關係的變化。研究可分析有關三教共存、衝突、融合或文化延續的歷史敘事，如何在民族主義、教育、公共論述、人口遷移及社會變遷等條件下被重新建構。

研究方法與學術取向

本專欄歡迎宗教學、歷史學、思想史、哲學、文獻學、人類學、社會學、歷史地理學、考古學、政治史、藝術史，以及區域研究等領域的跨學科成果。研究方法可包括歷史史料批判、比較文本分析、檔案調查、制度史、人物群體研究、歷史網絡分析、空間研究、物質文化研究、民族誌，以及對區域文化傳播模式的考察。

研究者應清楚說明分析所涉及的歷史行動者、地域範圍、時間框架及證據基礎。對宗教影響、文化借用、制度合作、教義趨同或特定實踐傳播的主張，應提出足以支持相關歷史聯繫的證據。文本、觀念、儀式或制度之間存在形式上的相似性，並不足以單獨證明其具有直接影響或傳承關係。比較研究亦應考慮史料保存狀況、歷史年代、地方條件，以及不同時期人們理解宗教身分所使用的概念與分類。

本專欄尤其歡迎能夠揭示儒、道、佛三教在互動過程中如何保有、協商或轉化其不同特徵的研究。相關成果既可探討合作與交流，也可關注排斥、衝突、競爭及歷史斷裂。透過將區域與歷史的具體性引入宗教及哲學互動研究，本專欄期望深化學界對三教關係及其所處社會世界如何隨歷史條件而變化的批判性理解。