Chinese Folk Religion Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- Chinese Folk Religion, Buddhist Music, Buddhist Ritual

This is the latest edition of a seminary course that I teach on a biblical response to animistic practices in Asia that fall under the guise of folk Islam, folk Buddhism, folk Hinduism and folk Christianity. The course is comprehensive, seeking to understand animism at both the behavior and worldview level and biblical truth to light on this critical subject. I take an interdisiciplinary approach, bringing together cultural anthropology, theology and practical theology.

- by Dave Johnson
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- Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Chinese Folk Religion

This master's thesis makes use of the place-based approach to pilgrimage to investigate the past and present role of the Taipei Tianhou-gong (a temple in the Ximen district of Taipei) as a crossroads of pilgrimage. Past approaches to pilgrimage have either been blind to the particularities of pilgrimage across cultures, or placed too much stress on the contested character of pilgrimage sites. My primary aim is to show how the two discourses that informed the Taipei Tianhou-gong in turn in the past, at present do not compete or exclude one another, but rather appear to run parallel. Before the Taipei Tianhou-gong as it stands today was built, the site was home to the Kobo-ji, a temple constructed during the Japanese period that functioned as the headquarters of Shingon Buddhism in colonial Taiwan. The Kobo-ji eventually served as the starting point of a copy of the Shikoku Henro (a 1,200-kilometer-long Japanese pilgrimage circuit) in Taipei. After the Japanese left Taiwan in 1945, the Kobo-ji was remodeled by the Taiwanese and dedicated to the Fujianese sea goddess Mazu. Today, and with the current popularity of the actual Shikoku Henro among the Taiwanese, we see how the Shingon Buddhist heritage of the Taipei Tianhou-gong is in the process of being reactivated. This reactivation presents us with a significant case of a pilgrimage site where meaning is not contested, but which is instead characterized by a parallelism of discourses.

- by Dennis Prooi
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Asian Studies, Pilgrimage, Japanese Buddhism

一貫道是在中國存在長達一千三百年的宗教，但是多年來，像變色龍一般，它曾以多個不同的名字出現在中國歷史上。本文不僅介紹其歷史、教義，以及發展現況，也談到其與基督教的千絲萬縷的關係。

This article interrogates the near complete absence of China as a source of materials and inspiration for constructing theoretical concepts and models in mainstream sociology and anthropology. I outline the story of the largely forgotten mutual engagements, influences and missed connections between the work of the French Sociologist and Sinologist Marcel Granet (1884-1940), whose work revolved around Chinese religion, and key figures in the history of sociological and anthropological theory, exemplified by Durkheim, Mauss, and Levi-Strauss. My purpose is to restore Granet-and, through Granet, China-into the genealogy of classical anthropological and social theory. This involves showing how Granet's work was informed by the theoretical debates that animated his mentors and colleagues in the French sociological school, and how he, in turn, directly or indirectly influenced subsequent theoretical developments. It also involves raising questions about the implications of connections that were missed, or only briefly evoked, by theoreticians in subsequent generations. These questions open bridges for advancing a mutually productive dialogue between the study of Chinese cosmology, religion and society, and theoretical construction in sociology and anthropology.

Questa tesina analizza la dimensione dei fantasmi nei testi letterari della Cina antica a partire dalle ossa oracolari di epoca Shang sino ai testi zhiguai 志怪 del periodo delle Sei Dinastie (ca. 220–589 d.C.). I testi di riferimento sono principalmente i Classici confuciani, i manoscritti della tomba numero 11 di Tianshui di epoca Qin (221 -206 a.C.), il Rishu 日書, i zhiguai dello Yiyuan 異苑 e lo Soushenji di Gan Bao 干寳. La ricerca si concentra prima sull'analisi del lessico scelto per la descrizione dei fantasmi, per poi soffermarsi sull'immagine del fantasma all’interno delle tradizioni confuciana, taoista e buddhista e la sua rielaborazione in ambito letterario, in particolar modo all'interno della letteratura zhiguai. Dall’analisi delle occorrenze lessicali emerge una trasformazione graduale del significato del termine fantasma sia attraverso il passaggio dall’utilizzo di termini monosillabici a termini bisillabici sia per mezzo di una diversificazione di accezioni nel tempo. Sul piano religioso, mentre il confucianesimo mantenne un atteggiamento di rispetto verso le credenze popolari sfruttandole per riaffermare i temi di umanità e moralità, il taoismo e il buddhismo intervennero in profondità nella definizione del rapporto tra i fedeli e il mondo dei fantasmi ponendosi come unici intermediari nelle pratiche di esorcismo e nei rituali di pacificazione. Si passò quindi da un concetto di fantasma semplice e privo di un profilo morale a un fantasma impregnato di significato sociale e intellettuale.

- by Ekaterina Teryukova and +1
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Chinese Studies, Chinese Religions, Chinese Art

This paper surveys five introductory textbooks on Chinese religion(s)
published over the past 25 years. For instructors choosing a textbook,
we provide a comparison of each work’s format and content, remark
on their suitability for meeting various pedagogical objectives, and
reconsider the purpose of university textbooks in the context of new
developments in knowledge production and accessibility. Moreover,
we argue that these surveyed works reflect a change in scholarly
consensus within the field. The trend has shifted from describing
Chinese religion(s) as a unified whole to that of a conglomerate:
discrete traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and popular-
folk religion. Although specialists complicate hard distinctions
between these traditions through highlighting shared influences
and developments, the general presentation of Chinese religion(s)
has shifted from a synthetic whole to analytic parts.

- by Kin Cheung and +3
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Daoism, Chinese Religions, Chinese Buddhism

University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. File also available on press website.

Despite having been sharply criticized and
ridiculed on ecological and/or theological grounds by
people both in and outside the Buddhist community for
decades, fangsheng (animal release) is still one of the
most popular devotional acts among Chinese Buddhists,
especially urban Buddhists. In fact, to the dismay of
those enlightened critics, this controversial practice may
well be one of the key factors that have made Buddhism
the fastest-growing religion in China in recent decades.
This paper thus attempts to explain why Chinese urban
Buddhists persistently favor fangsheng. It begins with
a brief review of the process by which famous Buddhist
monks and pious emperors constructed the classical form
of animal release in China from the late fifth through
the eleventh century. Then it describes several styles of
animal release that are currently practiced in Nanjing,
especially those being reformed and enthusiastically
organized by numerous jushi (Buddhist laity) groups.
After that, it discusses why fangsheng has become one of
the most popular devotional practices in Nanjing. Based
on participant observation and in-depth interviews,
the author argues that the most remarkable advantage
of fangsheng is the dramatic, sensational effects it can
produce easily and reliably, which may explain why it is
an invincible method of Buddhist spiritual cultivation.
More precisely, fangsheng in practice is the enactment of a
sensational ritual drama that represents the pilgrimage of
all mortals from hell (the marketplace) to heaven (a park).
Many practitioners and attendants appear to be deeply
moved by witnessing the creatures chosen for fangsheng,
onto which those practitioners often project themselves,
saved from torture and tragic death.
Keywords: method of religious cultivation, urban
religion, Buddhism, fangsheng (animal release)

- by DER-RUEY YANG
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- Mythology And Folklore, Chinese Folk Religion, Daoism, Anthropology of Religion

Although James Carey's idea of journalism history has been neglected for a long time in Chinese scholarship, this paper attempts to contextualize Carey's proposals in journalism history with his crucial texts and the historical and social backgrounds. In order to resolve the problem that journalism history is alienated from journalism education, Carey first constructed a new idea of cultural journalism history, not only influenced by the scholarship of new social history and new cultural history, but also absorbing the research methods of anthropology. Moreover,when facing the doubt and challenge, he then replaced cultural journalism history with practice journalism history, emphasizing human’s subjectivity in journalism practice and cultural essence in journalism history. However, Carey’s ideas in journalism history have two internal contradictions: on the one hand, his viewpoint is macro yet his research method is micro; on the other hand, his task focuses on resolving the problem in traditional journalism history, but his criticism could not be developed as an ideological critique, trapped in the dilemma between ideology and utopian.
Keywords
James Carey,the Idea of Journalism History,Cultural History in Journalism,Practice History in Journalism

- by fang chen and +2
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Chinese Popular Religion, Anthropolgy of Religion, Sociology of Journalism

Rural areas around Changshu city in Jiangsu preserve strong religious traditions of worship of numerous local tutelary deities which can be traced back to the imperial period. This worship takes the form of festivals at village temples, often coinciding with communal spring celebrations. Baojuan, prosimetric vernacular texts recited by the local professional performers for lay audiences, constitute a common practice of worship of local deities in Changshu. This storytelling is locally known as "telling scriptures" (jiangjing) and makes a specific cultural tradition of the Changshu area. Baojuan narrating stories of local tutelary deities are often performed at temple festivals, thus making a significant contribution to the variety of ritual and entertainment during these communal events.

- by Rostislav Berezkin
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Folklore, Historical Anthropology, Daoism

Belief in Tua Pek Kong (大伯公), Tu Di Kong (土地公) and Datuk Kong (拿督公) is among the distinctive features of Chinese folk beliefs in Sarawak. In almost every town in Sarawak is a temple dedicated to Tua Pek Kong, also known as Fu De Zheng Shen (福德正神). There are Tu Di Kong in temples and also cemeteries, while Datuk Kong guards temples, oil palm plantations, timber camps and similar places. These deities share a commonality: they maintain a tutelary relationship with the local worshippers. Fieldwork was conducted in a Hakka village from 2008 to 2009 and visits were made to all Tua Pek Kong temples in Sarawak in 2013. This paper presents partial findings on the relationship between Tua Pek Kong, Tu Di Kong and Datuk Kong. The deities’ functions in specific localities are described. It is hoped that the ethnographic data presented here shall help in the understanding of these three tutelary deities in Sarawak and West Malaysia. Folk beliefs are local constructs to accommodate communities’ needs. Differences in worship or differences in the functions of the deities are some unique characteristics of folk beliefs.

- by Elena Chai
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Sarawak, Tua Pek Kong, Chinese Temples
- by Quince Pan
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Cultural Heritage, Chinese Religions, Singapore

This article studies an example of a local cult that might not be labeled as “Daoist” if taken at face value, but that, by specifying those elements that can be attributed to Daoist ritual operations, can nonetheless be classified on the... more

- by Mark Meulenbeld
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Daoism, Chinese Religions, Ritual

This work of mine aims to bring back into the field the historical notions already widely documented and subjected to critical analysis especially by Chinese and American scholars. In Italian I found, at the height of these, only the Thesis of Dr. Smolari Fabio, but surely there will be other writings not to my knowledge. My work is much more modest and wants to be an incentive to others, more titled than me, to deepen, but above all to spread knowledge to all. In particular, I wanted to systematize the historical accounts of the links between Yihequan, Liguajiao, Hongquan and Meihuaquan that sometimes seem more than a simple case, but leaving the possibility open to the contradictory. In doing this I start from my belonging to the Meihuaquan School and from the research carried out on the spot on this style. The Meihuaquan is presented with remarkable variants both technical and cultural, indicating the influence of external experiences be they Doctrinal or Martial. It becomes therefore difficult to make a univocal speech and finally totally clarifying.

This is the Introduction to the Special Issue.

- by Ian Skoggard
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Globalization, Rural Development, Taiwan Studies
- by Liang Luo 羅靚
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Japanese Studies, Folklore, Animation
- by Anna Madill
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- Mythology And Folklore, Chinese Folk Religion, Comparative Literature, Mythology

Chinese folklore about dinosaur footprints is preserved in ancient oral traditions, persisting today in at least five regions with conspicuous dinosaur tracksites. Although expressed in mythological terms, the folk explanations are based on careful observations over many generations. Ichnological mths contain details about size, morphology, and sedimentology of the tracks. Popular identifications of the fossil footprints include fantastic birds, legendary large mammals, sacred plants, and deities or heroes. Popular myth-based descriptions of mysterious footprints in stone could serve as a guide for paleontologists in China, leading them to identify new trackways previously unknown to science.

- by Adrienne Mayor
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- Mythology And Folklore, Chinese Folk Religion, Paleontology, Folklore

Based on the hypothesis that the inclusion of visual media provides insights into non-verbal communication not provided by the written word alone, this paper represents an experimental approach to test the usefulness of reproducing fieldwork photography in directing reader’s attentions to probe the emic understandings of deific efficacy, and the researcher’s selective bias which the images implicitly or explicitly
portray. This paper therefore explores the use of the visual image to illustrate that a reader’s own analysis of proxemics and kinesics allows for a deeper understanding of emic perspectives by drawing insights from the manipulation of material objects and from non-verbal communication – insights that the written word may struggle
to accurately portray. Framed around a photo-rich ethnographic account of trance possession cults in Singapore, the intent of the paper is to contribute towards the broader discourse of the future of the visual image in anthropology in the digital age.

- by Fabian Graham
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Visual Studies, Visual Anthropology, Chinese Studies

This article introduces a communal ritual, known as Bog, as practiced among the Mongghul, a linguistically and culturally distinct group of people of the northeast Tibetan Plateau. The main activity of the Bog ritual involves deities and ancestral souls being invited to a sumptuous "banquet" where religious practitioners, called fashi, chant scriptures, sing, dance, joke, and burn incense to delight the "guests." This essay provides a thick description of the ritual. To provide context for this description, we introduce the community on which our description focuses, and also discuss the role of fashi. A chronological account of the ritual follows that includes not only descriptions of the ritual activities, but also interpretations of the meaning of these events from the perspective of the ritual practitioners. We also provide an analysis of the performances given during the ritual and how they contribute to creating a spectacle that delights both human and non-human participants.

- by Asian Highlands Perspectives JOURNAL and +1
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Anthropology, Ethnography, Social and Cultural Anthropology

A Study of Religion in China and North Vietnam in the Eighteenth Century

- by Olga Dror
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Chinese Philosophy, Chinese Religions, Vietnamese History

Located on the Leizhou peninsular in Guangdong Province, Leizhou is at the very southern end of the continent in China, which is very far away from the culture center in central China. Benefited from the special geographic location and historical background, nuo 傩survived in the area. Leizhou city used to be the core area of the peninsular, and also the main region of the nuo activity. A tradition of a thunder god leading five generals as the nuo deities was developed here. Leizhou has a long history of worshiping the thunder god from prehistory time. Therefore scholars in the past believed that this is the reason why the thunder god became the nuo deity in this area. However, nowadays, the nuo performance in Leizhou is led by the Daoist priests according to the proper ritual. The nuo deities who actually drives away the evil spirits are the generals in the thunder department in the standard Daoist pantheon. Then, what is the relationship between the thunder god in natural worship and the thunder god in Daoist ritual? In addition, the study on nuo in the past only focused on deities represented by the nuo masks. At Leishou, it is common to carry out statues of the deities worshipped in the village when the villagers perform the nuo. These statues of the deities cover a wide range of local deities. Then, who are the deities actually drive away the evil spirits? This study reveals that all gods participate in the nuo in Leizhou. And this paper further discusses the function and nature of the various deities in the nuo.

Questo articolo vuole offrire una breve panoramica sulla varietà di amuleti in Cina attraverso gli esemplari custoditi presso l'Ashmolean Museum di Oxford. Lo studio degli amuleti viene considerato parte integrante della numismatica cinese sin dal 12o secolo e forse anche prima. I numismatici li colleziono insieme alle monete imperiali storiche; a differenza delle monete, però, gli amuleti recano sulle facce alcune raffigurazioni. Discuteremo, quindi, di alcuni simboli e anche del significato nascosto di alcune di esse.

- by Lyce Jankowski and +1
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Amulets, Taoism, Coins

An anthropological theorization of the unity and diversity of Christianity, this book focuses on Christian communities in Nanping, a small city in China. It applies methodological insights from Actor-Network Theory to investigate how the Christian God is made part of local social networks. The study examines how Christians interact with and re-define material objects, such as buildings, pews, offerings, and blood, in order to identify the kind of networks and non-human actors that they collectively design. By comparing local Christian traditions with other practices informing the Nanping religious landscape, the study points out potential cohesion via the centralizing presence of the Christian God, the governing nature of the pastoral clergy, and the semi-transcendent being of the Church.

- by Michel Chambon
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- Religion, Christianity, Chinese Folk Religion, Chinese Studies

The tale of the wedding of Zhougong and the Peach blossom girl may be characterized as a popular myth of late imperial China. First appearing in a Yuan dynasty zaju play, it was retold in many vernacular novels, popular operas and folktales. This paper, after recalling the way diviners and divination are depicted in late imperial Chinese literature, focuses on a vernacular Qing Dynasty novel that recounts how Zhougong, leaving his post as a minister within the corrupt Shang dynasty, establishes himself as a professional diviner. All of his readings of fate prove accurate until the Peach blossom girl begins to help those whom he has doomed to die to escape their fate. Enraged by this unexpected opposition, Zhougong tries to turn his divinatory skills into a mortal device. He asks his young opponent to wed his own son, while carefully selecting the most baleful days and hours for the moment of the wedding in order to have her perish. Thanks to her own divinatory and magical skills, Peach Blossom girl survives the ordeal and ridicules Zhougong. This rather brilliant comedy, poking fun at the prestigious name of the Duke of Zhou, sheds interesting light on the Chinese conception of divination and fate seen from the point of view of popular culture. Zhougong is portrayed as a skilled, well-wishing diviner. Peach Blossom Girl is a diviner too, but she is also a mistress of the white magic arts that permit people who are doomed to die to escape their fate and thus disprove the very decrees of Heaven. She uses some specifically feminine magic to disturb the yin-yang 陰陽 order of fate, and is thus able to “break the trigrams” (pogua 破卦) of her opponent. This narrative is a late imperial comic illustration of a very old Chinese conception: that, though we all have a ming命, an allocated lifespan, this “fate” can be manipulated in various ways, and that it may always be possible to “extend longevity”, yanshou 延壽,

- by Sergey Filonov
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Daoist Philosophy, Daoism, Taoist Philosophy

In Chinese culture the concept of the household is deeply linked with concepts such as ancestors’ worship, kinship, inheritance, division of the home, etc. Inside the complex Chinese cosmology, all these concepts continually influence each other. The domestic architecture in particular reflects beliefs about the supernatural as well as the need for shelter against both the cold, damp winters and hot, humid summers. On the other hand, the domestic architecture could be considered as a way to
show and maintain the identity of the inhabitants of the house.

- by Jesús Camejo Yanéz
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- Chinese Folk Religion
- by Nikolas Broy
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Material Culture Studies, Chinese Religions, Magic

Two dimensions of Civil Sphere Theory tend to be overlooked in the literature on civil society in China: moral codes and spheres of solidarity. Although there is no institutionally autonomous civil sphere in China, there are "virtual" and "micro" civil spheres in which moral codes shape spheres of solidarity. However, the picture is complicated by the coexistence of three distinct moral codes derived from Chinese traditional values, Western liberal values, and China's revolutionary tradition. While the three codes appear to be contradictory, there are overlaps and circulations between them, through which popular discourses hold state and social actors to account. This forms the basis of a virtual civil sphere that comes into being when state and popular actors engage with each other, creatively deploying the ambiguities and overlaps between the three codes. But these spaces are unstable and subject to imminent collapse, when the state and popular groups each assert the purity of a single moral code, polluting and stigmatizing the other. The chapter draws on cases from Chinese popular religion to illustrate the formation and breakdown of micro-civil spheres.

In the Tang dynasty Dunhuang transformation text (bianwen) about Mulian rescuing his mother from the underworld, Madame Liu Qingti, mother of the filial monk Mulian, is allowed to ascend to the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven once her sins have been purged. A similar happy ending is found in the most widespread versions of the legend. However, in many baojuan (precious scrolls) from the late imperial period and the modern era, Qingti is depicted as an inveterate sinner who continues to misbehave when reborn as a dog. For example, in the baojuan about Mulian used nowadays in Changshu, southern Jiangsu province, in a ritual to expel evil spirits and ensure a successful pregnancy, Qingti appears as the Heavenly Dog—a malign, infant-eating star spirit capable of causing miscarriage or neonatal death. This paper combines fieldwork on a ritual to expel the Heavenly Dog in Changshu and textual analysis to explore the ways in which Liu Qingti has been recast in baojuan literature. I consider, in particular, the motif of Qingti's unenlightened soul, and its relation to her ritual career as the Heavenly Dog in baojuan recitation. Special attention is paid to the different ritual contexts of such rituals.

- by Xiaosu Sun
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Gender Studies, Folklore, Performing Arts
- by Kin Cheung
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Daoism, Chinese Religions, Chinese Buddhism

The continent of Asia comprises only 23.5% of the world’s surface, yet its population constitutes nearly 61% of the world. This region is important not only because it gave birth to all the world’s major religions, but also because Asia is where one finds “significant groups of all the world’s major religions” such as, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Judaism . These cultural-religious groups make Asia a very diverse region consisting “not just one world but many worlds—sometimes intersecting, sometimes colliding, sometimes merging into each other.” This paper looks at both the challenges and opportunities in Christian mission in Asia.

- by Abner Dizon
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- Chinese Folk Religion, Islamic Studies, Philippine Studies, Folk Religion