840 religion and cosmology: Asia and the Pacific deceased ancestors who were not properly worshipped might become potentially harmful ghosts rather than benevolent and loyal ancestors Religion and Secular Order The ideas of Indian religion and Chinese Confucianism were critical to the founding of Asian states, which emerged out of tribal societies The medieval-era Indian ideal was the mandala state, a conceptual “heaven on earth” in which regional political authority centered on a sacred royal court, a court’s sacred temple complex, or a network of strategic temples sponsored by a monarch and his court elite The monarch, as the focal center of the realm or as the chief patron of the realm’s temples, held power through his role as the gods’ delegated authority on earth; he might even be regarded as himself a divine being who had temporarily taken human form A major debate in medieval Indian religious texts was whether the ruler should lead by moral example, with his subjects modeling their lives after his as a means of achieving their own salvation, or should rule by threat of force and direct physical action when necessary to maintain societal order The greatest threat in the Indian and Chinese systems was the potential autonomy of the state’s temples and temple networks, and the popular empowerment of priests as the moral alternative to a ruler’s secular government Chinese Confucian tradition resolved this dilemma by clearly distinguishing the state as a secular institution The Confucian state centered on its urban capital, which was primarily an administrative rather than a ritual center Professional bureaucrats who had passed civil service examinations filled the state’s offices, and priests could not hold bureaucratic appointments The Chinese emperor was the topmost administrator of his secular realm This tradition of secular government was somewhat confused by the notion that the emperor served under the Mandate of Heaven This concept in some ways resembles the European theory of the divine right of kings In theory, an emperor received the mandate from the divinity as an assurance of divine favor and as divine acknowledgment of his capacity to rule successfully If, however, the emperor became corrupt or ineffective, the mandate could be withdrawn and granted to another The emperor was thus empowered by the divine but was also a human being ruling over a civil society in which the actions and decisions of humans determined the course of their existence on earth A failed ruler who no longer held the mandate could be overthrown by public rebellion—which was regarded as a sure sign that the mandate had been withdrawn In contrast, the Indian notion of kingship held that the monarch could be replaced only by direct divine intervention Like Indian philosophers of government, how- ever, Confucians disagreed whether the emperor should lead by moral example or by aggressively direct action The Chinese Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist religious synthesis was adopted in neighboring Korea, Japan, and Vietnam with modifications reflecting local cultural values The Indian Hindu-Buddhist tradition influenced Sri Lankan and Southeast Asian notions of social behavior and ritual hierarchy, but without inspiring local acceptance of the Indian caste system In maritime Southeast Asia and in central Asia, initial acceptance of Indian Hindu-Buddhism was often superseded by conversions to Islam from the 11th century onward, but again with a mixture of local traditions with the newly adopted faith Pacific Basin Religion Pacific island populations shared with Asians a foundational animistic religious outlook, which they appear still to have held at the time of European arrival Sea creatures, birds, and the heavens were vital spiritual forces Islanders highlighted the role that ocean creatures played in protecting and guiding the voyagers who settled the far-flung Pacific islands in epic sea crossings that began in ancient times but were still occurring well into the medieval era Polynesian religious tradition celebrated a divine brother and sister, Ru and Hina, who navigated the world’s seas to locate new islands appropriate for settlement Hina remained as the moon, to guide voyagers across the ocean The Maori acknowledged the legendary adventurer Kupe, who led a 10th-century Polynesian expedition to uninhabited New Zealand in double outrigger canoes from the Maori homeland, believed to be the Society Islands of the south-central Pacific A subsequent 12th-century Maori migration led by the legendary chief Whatonga and his grandfather Tai, were said to be the New Zealanders’ forefathers Polynesians believed that humans and every other aspect of nature were descended from a Sky Father and an Earth Mother In the beginning there was only darkness, Te Ponui, Te Poroa—the Great Night, the Long Night Then the moon and the sun appeared and the heavens made light, and the Sky Father and Earth Mother began to live together, but their children still lived in darkness because their father dominated their mother Their fierce son Tumatauenga (the god of war) urged his siblings to kill their parents, but their wise son Tane Mahuta (god of the forest) persuaded them to separate their father and mother instead They eventually succeeded in doing so, thanks especially to the assistance of Rongo (god of cultivated foods) and Tangaroa (god of the sea), and thus night was distinguished from day Tane Mahuta then fashioned a female divine from clay and through her created more gods