Three Teachings Studies: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism (TTS) welcomes original scholarship examining the ritual systems, practices, and modes of transmission associated with Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. This research area investigates how religious and philosophical teachings are enacted through ceremonies, liturgical procedures, embodied disciplines, institutional activities, and communal participation. Particular attention is given to the historical formation, performance, interpretation, and transformation of ritual practices, as well as the ways in which ritual knowledge and practical competence are acquired, transmitted, and maintained across generations.

Rituals constitute important settings in which religious ideas, ethical commitments, social relationships, and institutional authority become visible through organized forms of action. Confucian ceremonial traditions, Daoist liturgical systems, and Buddhist ritual practices exhibit distinct historical genealogies, textual foundations, institutional arrangements, and conceptions of ritual significance. Their interpretation therefore requires careful attention to the particular circumstances in which rituals are prescribed, performed, experienced, and transmitted.

This research area approaches ritual as a historically situated and socially embedded field of practice. Written prescriptions do not necessarily describe what ritual participants actually do, and the continuity of a ritual tradition does not imply that its performance remains unchanged. Ritual knowledge may be transmitted through liturgical manuals, oral instruction, apprenticeship, observation, bodily training, institutional education, and participation in communal activities. Each mode of transmission may contribute differently to the preservation, adaptation, or transformation of ritual practice.

TTS encourages studies that connect close examination of ritual texts, historical sources, material objects, and performed activities with broader questions concerning religious knowledge, institutional organization, ethical cultivation, cultural memory, and social change. Contributions may investigate a single tradition or explore relationships among multiple traditions, provided that their arguments are supported by appropriate historical, textual, ethnographic, or other relevant evidence.

Areas of Interest

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

• Ritual Structures and Symbolic Systems: Studies of ceremonial sequences, ritual classifications, symbolic actions, offerings, spatial arrangements, and the conceptual frameworks through which ritual activities acquire meaning within Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions.
• Ritual Texts and Liturgical Traditions: Investigations of ritual manuals, ceremonial prescriptions, liturgical compilations, scriptural materials, textual commentaries, and the relationships between written instructions and historical or contemporary ritual performance.
• Transmission of Ritual Knowledge and Skills: Research on ritual apprenticeship, instructional practices, oral teaching, memorization, observation, bodily training, and the institutional or informal processes through which ritual competence is developed and transmitted.
• Embodied Performance and Ritual Experience: Analyses of gesture, posture, movement, dress, bodily discipline, sensory experience, and the relationships among ritual participation, emotional expression, ethical cultivation, and religious experience.
• Ritual Institutions, Material Culture, and Social Organization: Studies of temples, monasteries, academies, ancestral halls, ritual specialists, religious associations, ceremonial objects, institutional resources, and the social arrangements supporting ritual performance.
• Local and Vernacular Ritual Practices: Investigations of regional ceremonies, communal observances, family rituals, funerary practices, seasonal festivals, and the adaptation of ritual traditions to local social and cultural environments.
• Interreligious Encounters and Comparative Ritual Studies: Research on encounters, exchanges, distinctions, and negotiations among Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist ritual traditions, including shared ceremonial environments, selective borrowing, and historically specific processes of ritual adaptation.
• Ritual Continuity and Contemporary Transformation: Studies of ritual reform, institutional change, heritage preservation, urbanization, migration, digital mediation, changing participation patterns, and the reinterpretation of ritual practices in modern and contemporary societies.

Research Approaches

This research area welcomes interdisciplinary scholarship drawing on religious studies, history, anthropology, philosophy, philology, sociology, ritual studies, performance studies, art history, and related fields. Appropriate approaches may include historical source criticism, close textual analysis, archival research, ethnography, participant observation, interviews, material culture studies, comparative analysis, and the examination of ritual performance and spatial organization.

Authors are encouraged to distinguish between normative ritual prescriptions, institutional representations, and documented practices. Claims concerning ritual origins, continuity, transmission, efficacy, or historical influence should be evaluated in relation to the available evidence and the perspectives of the individuals and communities involved. Where research addresses living religious communities, investigators should observe applicable ethical requirements concerning consent, confidentiality, culturally restricted knowledge, and the representation of religious practice.

TTS particularly welcomes studies that explain how rituals operate as systems of knowledge, coordinated action, cultural transmission, and social organization. By examining the relationship between ritual prescriptions and lived performance, this research area seeks to advance historically grounded and critically informed understandings of how Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist practices are maintained, negotiated, and transformed.

儀式、傳承與實踐

《三教研究：儒、道、釋》歡迎探討儒家、道教與佛教之儀式體系、宗教實踐及傳承方式的原創性學術研究。本專欄著重考察宗教與哲學思想如何透過禮儀、科儀程序、身體實踐、制度活動及社群參與而獲得具體呈現，並關注儀式傳統的歷史形成、實際運作、詮釋及轉化過程。研究尤其重視儀式知識與實踐能力如何在不同世代之間被學習、傳授、保存及重新建構。

儀式是宗教觀念、倫理規範、社會關係與制度權威透過有組織的行動獲得具體表現的重要場域。儒家的禮儀傳統、道教的科儀體系及佛教的儀軌實踐，各自具有不同的歷史譜系、文獻基礎、制度安排及儀式意義。對這些傳統的研究，應重視儀式規範形成、實際執行、參與者經驗及傳承過程所處的具體歷史與社會條件。

本專欄將儀式理解為具有歷史脈絡與社會基礎的實踐活動。文獻所記載的儀式規範，未必能完整反映歷史行動者的實際行為；儀式傳統的延續，也不意味著其執行方式始終保持不變。儀式知識可以透過科儀文書、口傳教學、師徒學習、觀察模仿、身體訓練、制度化教育及社群參與等方式延續，而不同的傳授機制，可能分別促成儀式實踐的保存、調整與轉化。

本專欄鼓勵研究者將儀式文本、歷史史料、物質器物及實際儀式活動的細緻考察，與宗教知識、制度組織、倫理修養、文化記憶及社會變遷等問題相結合。研究可以聚焦儒、道、佛其中一個傳統，也可以分析不同傳統之間的關係，但相關論證應建立於適當的歷史、文獻、田野或其他實證材料之上。

研究主題

本專欄徵稿範圍包括但不限於以下研究方向：

• 儀式結構與象徵體系：研究禮儀程序、儀式分類、象徵行動、供獻方式、空間安排及其觀念基礎，探討儒、道、佛傳統中的儀式活動如何形成特定的思想意義與宗教秩序。
• 儀式文本與科儀傳統：考察禮書、儀軌、科儀文書、儀式彙編、經典材料及相關註釋，分析書面儀式規範與歷史或當代實際儀式活動之間的關係。
• 儀式知識與技術的傳承：研究儀式師徒制度、教學方式、口傳傳授、記憶訓練、觀察模仿、身體學習及制度內外的知識傳遞機制，探討儀式能力如何形成並延續。
• 具身表演與儀式經驗：分析姿勢、手勢、動作、服飾、身體規訓、感官經驗及其與儀式參與、情感表達、倫理修養和宗教經驗之間的關係。
• 儀式制度、物質文化與社會組織：研究寺院、宮觀、書院、祠堂、儀式專業者、宗教團體、禮儀器物及制度資源，考察支持儀式執行的組織結構與社會條件。
• 地方社會與民間儀式實踐：探討區域性禮俗、社群祭儀、家庭儀式、喪葬實踐、歲時節慶及儀式傳統在不同地方社會與文化環境中的調整和轉化。
• 宗教間交涉與比較儀式研究：考察儒、道、佛儀式傳統之間的相遇、交流、差異與協商，包括共享儀式空間、選擇性借用，以及具有具體歷史條件的儀式調適過程。
• 儀式延續與當代轉型：研究儀式改革、制度變遷、文化遺產保存、都市化、人口遷移、數位媒介、參與形式改變，以及宗教儀式在現代與當代社會中的重新詮釋。

研究方法與學術取向

本專欄歡迎運用宗教學、歷史學、人類學、哲學、文獻學、社會學、儀式研究、表演研究、藝術史及相關領域方法的跨學科成果。研究方法可包括歷史史料批判、文本細讀、檔案調查、民族誌、參與式觀察、訪談、物質文化分析、比較研究，以及對儀式表演與空間組織的考察。

研究者應注意區分規範性儀式文本、制度性表述與具有文獻或田野依據的實際儀式活動。涉及儀式起源、延續、傳授、效力或歷史影響的主張，應根據可取得的證據及相關參與者的觀點加以分析。對於當代宗教社群的研究，亦須遵守適用的研究倫理規範，妥善處理知情同意、保密義務、文化限制性知識及宗教實踐的呈現方式。

本專欄尤其歡迎能夠說明儀式如何作為知識體系、協同行動、文化傳承及社會組織機制而運作的研究。透過對儀式規範與實際實踐之間關係的考察，本專欄期望深化學界對儒、道、佛儀式傳統如何在歷史延續、制度協商與社會變遷中獲得保存、調整及重新建構的理解。