Zhuo Xinping's commemoration of the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up is a review and summary of the 40-year course of the development of contemporary Chinese religious studies for us scholars of religion. The formation of Chinese religious studies is an important breakthrough in the modern academic history of China in the 20th century, but the truly systematic, professional and comprehensive development of religious studies is the product and achievement of China's reform and opening up since 1978. Forty years ago, the field of religious studies in China was in the state of "early spring and February", and there was only one established and large-scale religious research institution, the Institute of World Religions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which was a strange landscape that was "unique in its own glory" at that time. In the past 40 years, Chinese religious studies have flourished. In today's fruitful and colorful scenery of Chinese religious studies, the Institute of World Religions is enjoying a kind of intoxication of "laughing in the bush". At the beginning of the 20th century, when religious studies were first introduced to China, the most concerned and hotly debated question in the academic community was "whether there is a religion in China?" As we enter the 21st century, our awareness of issues has sublimated to how to position "religion" in contemporary Chinese society and how to formulate laws and regulations for legal management on the basis of understanding "religion". The key to the concept and system construction of religious studies also lies in the interpretation and interpretation of "religion". It should be said that the development of contemporary Chinese religious studies also reflects the reflection and expansion of the definition of "religion" by Chinese scholars to a certain extent. The connection between the two centuries, coupled with the long Chinese ideological and cultural tradition and the long-term Chinese spiritual appeal, makes people first understand what the "religion" is when looking at the question of "whether there is a religion in China" objectively and scientifically. Some people have denied the existence of the term or construct of "religion" in ancient China, and thus do not recognize the fundamental existence of the things that "religion" is intended to describe and explain. In fact, in the rich spirit of Chinese ideology and culture and its language and written expression, the meaning and object of "religion" objectively exist. Ancient China used the words "sect" and "religion" to express this core concept with different emphasis. Among them, "Zong" zigzags the meaning of "reverence for ancestors" and expresses the significance of the "religious" institutional level, that is, to honor and worship gods and commemorate ancestors with relevant places, constructions, and rituals with external and object nature. This is embodied in the activities of the ancient "Zen in the Six Sects". "Teaching" uses its meaning of "education" to highlight the significance of its spiritual belief and spiritual pursuit, emphasizing the inner and subjective spiritual cultivation, so as to grasp the true meaning of "cultivation and teaching". Here, the "indoctrination" of the upper and lower levels and learning from the way is improved and sublimated, so that the "religion" of "Shinto religion" is created, and the true meaning of its "belief in Shinto" is manifested. This is the principle of "combining ghosts and gods, and teaching them to the fullest". Expressing the relationship and co-construction of the institutional level and the spiritual level in terms of technical terms is the natural use of the word "religion". However, the word "religion" was first used in Buddhist literature, and "religion" as a Buddhist term has undergone some transmutation or alienation. For example, as early as the 5th and 6th centuries, Buddhist scholars of the Liang Dynasty used the word "religion" together, and many of them were elaborated. Generally speaking, although the "religion" understood by Buddhism at that time had come into contact with or realized the connotation of "purpose of life and social education" in the abstract sense, it specifically referred to "worshiping the teachings of Buddha and his children", where "teaching" was the words of the Buddha and "sect" was the transmission of his disciples, so as to achieve the opening and co-construction of faith. Since then, in the course of Sino-Japanese Buddhist exchanges, the expression "religion" has been used by Japanese Buddhist circles due to the translation of Buddhist texts, but there has been a difference in its understanding, that is, the truth that is difficult to express in language is regarded as "sect", while the doctrine about this truth is "teaching". As a result, "religion" became a term commonly used in Japanese academia. When Japan and the West formed an exchange relationship in modern history, Japanese scholars began to use "religion" to translate and express the word "religion" that frequently appears in Western literature. Since 1868, the documents of the Meiji government in Japan have mostly translated the Spanish word "religion" as "religion", referring to the various religions popular in the West and their dominant Christian denominations. In this way, the word "religion" began to acquire connotations in the sense of "religious studies" in Japan. It is said that the Chinese scholar Huang Zunxian used "religion" to compare or correspond to Western religion in his "National History of Japan" finalized in 1887 and published in 1895, so there is a modern meaning of "religion" "false path to Japan and into China". However, this application of "religion" did not attract attention or consensus at that time, and the Chinese terms for translating religion also included "teaching", "witch", "the study of weiwei", and even transliteration of "Erli Lijing". As a result, the ambiguity and cognitive confusion over the term "religion" have persisted to this day, and the controversy over it is often triggered. However, it should be admitted that the discussion of the term "religion" in contemporary Chinese religious studies is no longer general, but more reflects its rational, scientific and logical nature, reflecting the objective, serious and rational pursuit of Chinese scholars. Another major issue debated in Chinese academia in the 20th century was whether "Confucianism" was a "religion", which also involved the "religiousness" of traditional Chinese subject culture. Since the Jesuit Matteo Ricci proposed that "Confucianism is not a religion" in China at the end of the Ming Dynasty, this debate has gone through three rounds, and reached an unprecedented climax in the third round, the discussion since 1978. In the dispute between "Confucianism is religion" and "Confucianism is not religion", its differences touch many levels, but the key point is still the basic understanding of "religion". For example, the difference or relationship between "the religion of education" and the "religion of religion", the difference or similarity between "humanism" and "religion", the separation or echo of "interpersonal relationship" and "relationship between heaven and man", and the flow or combination of "Shinto religion" and "literature and religion" cannot avoid the answer and interpretation of people's "spirituality" and "religion". Similarly, whether Confucianism is the product of exclusive Confucianism and the original suzerainty in Chinese history, or the result of "courtesy and loss of the wilderness", not only concerns the status of Confucianism in mainstream political culture or folk popular culture, but also whether these two cultures are "religious". Here, from the perspective of religious studies, the relationship between "religion" and "religion" arises, and the status and role of "religion" in defining "religion". Since Sima Qian wrote the Shiji in the Han Dynasty, from the idea of "studying the heavens and men" to the discussion that "the Lu people all use Confucianism" (Shiji, volume 124, ranger 64), questions about the meaning and status of "Confucianism" began to emerge. "Since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism have been called the three religions." As a result, a situation has been formed in which "the three teachings are indispensable", and the expression "three teachings" has not been questioned for a long time. However, the Yuan Dynasty's "Taoist Book Aid to God" proposed that "Confucianism cannot be called a religion, and the world is also a common way", thus laying an important foreshadowing for the "non-religion" theory of Confucianism. The Xinhai Revolution of 1911 basically destroyed the institutional "Confucianism", while the "May Fourth" Movement in 1919 liquidated the spiritual "Confucianism", the "orthodox" and "guided" status of "Confucianism" in the past no longer existed, and traditional Chinese culture also fell into a deep crisis. In the reconstruction of Chinese culture and the construction of "harmonious" culture today, we have felt the excavation and application of Confucian culture. However, in the current revival of traditional Chinese religious culture, Buddhism and Taoism, which lack "Confucianism", are somewhat inadequate, and it is difficult to support, revive and promote local religious culture alone. This history and current situation have prompted us to think deeply about the meaning of "religion" and examine the role of "religion" in the development of Chinese culture. The clarification of the intrinsic meaning of "religion" and the inclusion of its constituent factors also provide a reference for the research scope, guiding ideology and application methods of Chinese religious studies. In the exploration of "religion" in contemporary China, it is obvious that it has undergone the transfer and sublimation from broad, functional and applied "religious studies" to distinctive, systematic and methodological "religious studies". Of course, broad or emergency religious studies are still common today, and it is in this context that a team of academics dedicated to the study of "religious studies" has been quietly born. In the early stage of reform and opening up, Chinese religious studies focused on the research of religious history and religious philosophy, and the main research results were reflected in the excavation of religious historical materials and the theoretical explanation and philosophical analysis of religious phenomena. As a result, Chinese religious studies has entered the field of Chinese scholarship in an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary manner. In this way, the scope of religious studies in China's academic community today is wide-ranging, there are many researchers, and the academic achievements also reflect the advantages of interdisciplinary integration of religious studies. On the whole, the 40-year history of Chinese religious studies covers research areas such as religious theory, contemporary religion, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Chinese folk religion, Christianity, Islam and other religions (mainly Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and new religions such as Baha'i). This is basically a kind of religious studies in a broad sense, while the study of religion in a narrow sense, defined within the scope of traditional "religious studies", is mainly reflected in the theoretical research of religion itself, which involves not only the study of Marxist religious outlook that is prominent in China, but also the discussion of religious history, comparative religion, religious culture, philosophy of religion, sociology of religion, psychology of religion, and anthropology of religion in the traditional disciplinary sense. Obviously, these studies and their disciplinary branches are not exactly the same as the traditional framework and research perspective of Western religious studies, highlighting Chinese characteristics and the problem awareness of Chinese scholarship. The 40 years since China's reform and opening up have been an era in which Chinese religion has moved from scattered individual research by scholars to systematic religious disciplines. It should be said that the creation and development of Chinese religious studies into a far-reaching humanities and social science is the pioneering and innovative work in the past 40 years. Over the past 40 years, the Chinese religious studies system has grown from scratch and from small to large, and its research has changed from arbitrariness and self-personality to standardization and discipline, and has laid an important foundation for future development and accumulated valuable experience. In order to summarize the development of Chinese religious studies in the past 40 years and sort out its academic achievements and materials, we have supplemented and improved the book "30 Years of Chinese Religious Studies" compiled in 2008 to form the current work, which is mainly undertaken by young and middle-aged scholars from the Institute of World Religions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The book is divided into nine chapters, of which the first chapter of the above manuscript "Studies in Religious Theory" was written by Kanazawa, the second chapter "Studies on Contemporary Religions" was written by Huang Kui, the third chapter "Studies on Buddhism" was written by Hua Fangtian, the fourth chapter "Studies on Taoism" was written by Wang Ka, Mr. Wang Ka has unfortunately passed away, we express our deep condolences, the fifth chapter "Studies on Confucianism" was written by Liang Xi, the sixth chapter "Studies on Chinese Folk Religions" was written by Li Zhihong, the seventh chapter "Studies on Christianity" was written by Zhuo Xinping, and the eighth chapter "Studies on Islam" was written by Zhou Xiefan and Zhou Xiefan Written by Li Lin, Chapter 9 "Studies on Other Religions" by Zhuo Xinping; The editing and overall manuscript of the book is the responsibility of Zhuo Xinping. However, due to the consideration of the academic personality and research style of the scholars concerned, no major adjustments will be made in terms of text and style, so the writing and expression of each chapter may not be completely consistent, and there is no uniform provision in format. The first chapter was supplemented by Zhao Guangming, Liang Henghao, Li Huawei, Li Jinhua, and Feng Zilian to form the ninth section "Overview of the Development of Religious Theory from 2008 to 2018", including "General History of Religion" (Feng Zilian), "Philosophy of Religion" (Zhao Guangming), "Psychology of Religion" (Liang Henghao), "Sociology of Religion" (Li Huawei Huawei), "Anthropology of Religion" (Li Jinhua), etc.; Chapter II, Section IV is supplemented by Xiang Ning; Chapter 3 is supplemented by Ji Huachuan; Chapter 4 is supplemented by Li Zhihong; Chapter 5 is supplemented by Liang Xi; Chapter 6 is supplemented by Li Zhihong; Chapter 7 is supplemented by Tang Xiaofeng; Chapter 8 is supplemented by Li Lin. The content of this work is mainly the research of Chinese mainland scholars since 1978, and may only a small number of the works of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan scholars published in the mainland, so the field of contemporary Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan religious studies should be left as another major topic for systematic discussion in the future. In the research areas covered in this book, macro descriptions and exploration of key issues are generally highlighted, and the evaluation of related topics mainly reflects the author's own views and opinions. In view of the vast number of relevant academic papers and the difficulty of citing them in the limited space of this book, we can only list relevant research monographs and translated works, and only mention or cite some papers in some specific discussions. The presentation and narration in the book is a brief review and summary of the 40-year history of Chinese mainland academic study of religion in the form of an academic sketch. Therefore, there may be omissions in the research content, and there may be inappropriate views in academic evaluation, and I hope that all experts in the academic community will criticize and correct them. We will continue to work hard to develop Chinese religious studies, such as Fang Xingmi. The planning, conception, editing and publication of the book are organized by China Social Sciences Press. Here, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to China Social Sciences Press and Huang Yansheng and Feng Chunfeng! Supplemented on November 28, 2018（AI翻译）