The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit

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The ledgers of merit and demerit, popular in sixteenth and seventeenth-century China, served as morality guides, assigning points for good and bad deeds. Cynthia Brokaw explores their evolution from tools for salvation in Taoism and Buddhism to instruments for social mobility among the literati during civil service exams. She highlights the Confucian response, which refined self-cultivation practices while exposing tensions between fate and human agency. By the late seventeenth century, these ledgers shifted focus from personal advancement to reinforcing social stability and hierarchy.