Ritual and Scripture in Chinese Popular Religion
Author: David George Johnson
Publisher:
Published: 1995
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13:
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Author: David George Johnson
Publisher:
Published: 1995
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Joint Committee on Chinese Studies (U.S.)
Publisher:
Published: 1990
Total Pages:
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Conference on the Rituals and Scriptures of Chinese Popular Religion
Publisher:
Published: 1990
Total Pages: 646
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Vincent Goossaert
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2023-11-20
Total Pages: 368
ISBN-13: 1684176530
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFor two millennia, Chinese society has been producing divine revelations on an unparalleled scale, in multifarious genres and formats. This book is the first comprehensive attempt at accounting for the processes of such production. It builds a typology of the various ritual techniques used to make gods present and allow them to speak or write, and it follows the historical development of these types and the revealed teachings they made possible. Within the large array of visionary, mediumistic, and mystical techniques, Vincent Goossaert devotes the bulk of his analysis to spirit-writing, a family of rites that appeared around the eleventh century and gradually came to account for the largest numbers of books and tracts ascribed to the gods. In doing so, he shows that the practice of spirit-writing must be placed within the framework of techniques used by ritual specialists to control human communications with gods and spirits for healing, divining, and self-divinization, among other purposes. Making the Gods Speak thus offers a ritual-centered framework to study revelation in Chinese cultural history and comparatively with the revelatory practices of other religious traditions.
Author: Christine Mollier
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: 2008-01-01
Total Pages: 258
ISBN-13: 0824831691
DOWNLOAD EBOOKReveals dimensions of the interaction between Buddhism and Taoism in medieval China. This book demonstrates the competition and complementarity of the two great Chinese religions in their quest to address personal and collective fears of diverse ills, including sorcery, famine, and untimely death.
Author: Daniel L. Overmyer
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2020-08-25
Total Pages: 457
ISBN-13: 1684170311
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Precious volumes," or pao-chüan, were produced by popular sects in the Ming and early Qing dynasties. These scriptures were believed to have been divinely revealed to sect leaders and contain teachings and ritual instructions that provide valuable information about a lively and widespread religious tradition outside mainstream Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Largely neglected until now, they testify to the imagination and devotion of popular religious leaders. This book, the most detailed and comprehensive study of pao-chüan in any language, studies 34 early examples of this literature in order to understand the origins and development of this textual tradition. Although the work focuses on content and structure, it also treats the social context of these works as well as their transmission and ritual use.
Author: Shin-Yi Chao
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-03-01
Total Pages: 177
ISBN-13: 1136731938
DOWNLOAD EBOOKZhenwu, or the Perfected Warrior, is one of the few Chinese Deities that can rightfully claim a countrywide devotion. Religious specialists, lay devotees, the state machine, and the cultural industry all participated, both collaboratively and competitively, in the evolution of this devotional movement. This book centres on the development and transformation of the godhead of Zhenwu, as well as the devotional movement focused on him. Organised chronologically on the development of the Zhenwu worship in Daoist rituals, state religion, and popular practices, it looks at the changes in the way Zhenwu was perceived, and the historical context in which those changes took place. The author investigates the complicated means by which various social and political groups contested with each other in appropriating cultural-religious symbols. The question at the core of the book is how, in a given historical context, human agents and social institutions shape the religious world to which they profess devotion. The work offers a holistic approach to religion in a period of Chinese history when central, local, official, clerical and popular power are constantly negotiating and reshaping established values.
Author: Daniel Tong
Publisher: Armour Publishing Pte Ltd
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 212
ISBN-13: 9789814045926
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Terry Kleeman
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2020-10-26
Total Pages: 444
ISBN-13: 1684170869
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 142 CE, the divine Lord Lao descended to Mount Cranecall (Sichuan province) to establish a new covenant with humanity through a man named Zhang Ling, the first Celestial Master. Facing an impending apocalypse caused by centuries of sin, Zhang and his descendants forged a communal faith centering on a universal priesthood, strict codes of conduct, and healing through the confession of sins; this faith was based upon a new, bureaucratic relationship with incorruptible supernatural administrators. By the fourth century, Celestial Master Daoism had spread to all parts of China, and has since played a key role in China’s religious and intellectual history. Celestial Masters is the first book in any Western language devoted solely to the founding of the world religion Daoism. It traces the movement from the mid-second century CE through the sixth century, examining all surviving primary documents in both secular and canonical sources to offer a comprehensive account of the development of this poorly understood religion. It also provides a detailed analysis of ritual life within the movement, covering the roles of common believer or Daoist citizen, novice, and priest or libationer.
Author: Kenneth Dean
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2023-11-14
Total Pages: 430
ISBN-13: 0691261210
DOWNLOAD EBOOKLin Zhao'en (1517–1598) set out to popularize Confucianism by combining Confucian studies with Daoist inner alchemical techniques and Buddhist Chan philosophy into something he called the Three in One Teachings. Despite periods of clandestine activity since its inception, the Three in One cult has undergone a remarkable revival in post-Mao China: today Lin is worshipped throughout Southeast China and Southeast Asia as Lord of the Three in One in over a thousand temples by tens of thousands of cult initiates. Many of the temples have been restored since 1979, when China began to experience an explosive resurgence of popular culture and religion. In this book, based on ten years of field work, Kenneth Dean vividly documents the reemergence of this cult, which seeks to transmit a universal vision of truth yet retains a strong local appeal through its healing rituals and spirit mediumism. Although the Chinese government still tries to suppress these resurgences in the interest of modernization, the cult's locally based networks appear in this account as unstoppable social forces. Dean explores the organization and transmission of the Three in One's unique cultural vision, the reception of this vision, and the construction of subjectivity within a vibrant ritual tradition. Outlining such features as inner alchemical meditation, scripture and iconography, ritual practice, and spirit mediumism, he demonstrates the cult's transformative potential as well as its contemporaneity and dynamism. Rural Chinese popular culture as a whole emerges here as highly complex and always evolving--traditional and resilient.