7. Specific Deities & Cults
Andersen, Poul, The Demon Chained under the Mountain: The History and Mythology of the Chinese River Spirit Wuzhiqi. Berlin: G & H Verlag, 2001.
Anderson, E.N. “Meeting the Goddess: Religion, Morality, and Medicine in a Fishing Community in Hong Kong Forty Years ago.” In: Deepak Shimkhada & Phyllis K. Herman [eds.], The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. Pp. 122-134.
Ang, Isabelle, "Le culte de Lü Dongbin sous les Song du Sud." Journal Asiatique 285 (1997) 2: 473-507.
Arnold, Lauren. "Folk Goddess or Madonna? Early Missionary Encounters with the Image of Guanyin." In: Xiaoxin Wu [ed.], Encounters and Dialogues: Changing Perspectives on Chinese-Western Exchanges from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica & The Ricci Institute of Chinese-Western Cultural History, 2005. Pp. 227-238.
Baptandier, Brigitte, "Pratiques de la mémoire en Chine: le dieu des murs et des fossés de Puxi et Hanjiang." Genèses 23 (1996): 100-124.
Baptandier, Brigitte, "The Lady Linshui: How a Woman Became a Goddess." In: Shahar, Meir & Robert P. Weller [eds.], Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996. Pp.105-149.
Baptandier, Brigitte; translated by Kristin Ingrid Fryklund. The Lady of Linshui: A Chinese Female Cult. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.
Abstract: This anthropological study examines the cult of the Chinese goddess Chen Jinggu, divine protector of women and children. The cult of the "Lady of Linshui" began in the province of Fujian on the southeastern coast of China during the eleventh century and remains vital in present-day Taiwan. Skilled in Daoist practices, Chen Jinggu's rituals of exorcism and shamanism mobilize physiological alchemy in the service of human and natural fertility. Through her fieldwork at the Linshuima temple in Tainan (Taiwan) and her analysis of the narrative and symbolic aspects of legends surrounding the Lady of Linshui, Baptandier provides new insights into Chinese representations of the feminine and the role of women in popular religion. [Source: publisher's website]
Berg, Daria, "Reformer, Saint, and Savior: Visions of the Great Mother in the Novel 'Xingshi yinyuan zhuan'." Nan Nü. Men, Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China 1(1999)2: 237-267.
Bischoff, Friedrich A. "Sex Tricks of Chinese Fox-Fiends." In Hartmut Walravens [ed.], Der Fuchs in Kultur, Religion und Folklore Zentral- und Ostasiens (Teil II). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2002. Pp.1-6.
Boltz, Judith. "On the Legacy of Zigu and a Manual of Spirit-writing in Her Name." In: The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Prof. Daniel L. Overmyer, edited by Philip Clart & Paul Crowe. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. Pp. 349-388.
Boretz, Avron A., "Martial Gods and Magic Swords: Identity, Myth, and Violence in Chinese Popular Religion." Journal of Popular Culture 29(1995)1: 93-109.
Bosco, Joseph & Puay-Peng Ho, Temples of the Empress of Heaven. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Bujard, Marianne, " Le culte du Joyau de Chen: culte historique--culte vivant." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10(1998): 131-181.
Bujard, Marianne & Christian Lamouroux, "La fête du Roi de la Médicine à Yaoxian (Shaanxi)." Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 85(1998): 422-428.
Bujard, Marianne, "Le culte de Wangzi Qiao ou la longue carriere d'un immortel." Études chinoises 19(2000)1-2: 115-158.
Cahill, Suzanne, "The Goddess, the Emperor, and the Adept: The Queen Mother of the West as Bestower of Legitimacy and Immortality." In: Elisabeth Benard & Beverly Moon [eds.], Goddesses Who Rule. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp.197-214.
Cedzich, Ursula-Angelika (1995), "The Cult of the Wu-t'ung/Wu-hsien in History and Fiction. The Religious Roots of the Journey to the South." In: Johnson, David [ed.], Ritual and Scripture in Chinese Popular Religion. Five Studies. Berkeley, Calif.: Chinese Popular Culture Project, 1995. Pp.137-218.
Chan, Beverly, "Shuiyue Guanyin in China: The Way of Compassion." Ph.D. dissertation, California Institute of Integral Studies, 1996.
Chao, Shin-yi. "Zhenwu: The Cult of a Chinese Warrior God from the Song to the Ming Dynasties (960-1368)." Ph.D. dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2003.
Abstract: This study explores the interaction between Daoism and popular religion in China by focusing on the development and evolution of a cult that centered on a deity called the Perfected Warrior (Zhenwu). His cult has flourished across China since the eleventh century and is still alive in mainland China, Taiwan and overseas Chinese communities. To explore the diversity and complexity of this cult I employ a wide range of primary sources in my study including religious scriptures, stone inscriptions, official documents, private anecdotes, local gazetteers, and vernacular literature; many of them have never been introduced to the English-speaking world. In this study, I argue that the popularity of the Zhenwu cult is a result of a combined process of canonization and localization that transformed a deity of warrior origin into a multi-faceted and multi-functional god. This thesis is divided into two parts. Part I gives a general framework of the Zhenwu cult from ancient to late imperial times. In Chapter One, I trace the Zhenwu cult to his predecessor, Xuanwu (section 1), and outline the development of the Zhenwu cult among the people (section 2) as well as the imperial patronage bestowed on the deity from the Song to Ming dynasties (section 3). Chapter Two portrays Daoist images of Zhenwu presented in liturgical instruction manuals for Offering rituals (jiao), exorcism, inner alchemy, and military rituals. The chief mountain of the Zhenwu cult, Wudang shan, is discussed in section 2. Part II contains textual studies and case studies. In Chapter Three, I closely examine two "precious volumes" or baojuan (section 1) and one hagiographic fictional account of Zhenwu from the late sixteenth century, the Journey to the North (section 2). Chapter Four presents three case studies: the Zhenwu cult in Fujian, Foshan (in Guangdong), and Taiwan. These three case studies will demonstrate that the popularity of Zhenwu was not simply a result of a wide geographic spread of the cult but, more importantly of an enduring existence that resulted from successful localization.
Chao, Shin-yi. "The Precious Volume of Bodhisattva Zhenwu Attaining the Way: A Case Study of the Worship of Zhenwu (Perfected Warrior) in Ming-Qing Sectarian Groups." In: The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Prof. Daniel L. Overmyer, edited by Philip Clart & Paul Crowe. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. Pp. 63-81.
Chard, Robert L. (1995), "Rituals and Scriptures of the Stove God Cult." In: Johnson, David [ed.], Ritual and Scripture in Chinese Popular Religion. Five Studies. Berkeley, Calif.: Chinese Popular Culture Project, 1995. Pp.3-54.
Chen, Zhi, "A Study of the Bird Cult of the Shang People." Monumenta Serica 47(1999): 127-147.
Cheng, Christina Miu Bing, "Beyond a Cultural Register: The Charm of Tian Hou." China Perspectives 26(1999): 72-81.
Cheu Hock Tong, "The Festival of the Nine Emperor Gods in Malaysia. Myth, Ritual, and Symbol." Asian Folklore Studies 55(1996)1:49-72.
Cheu Hock Tong, "The Sinicization of Malay Keramats in Malaysia." Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 71(1998)2: 29-61. (Note: On the worship of Datuk Kong by Malaysian Chinese.)
Chi, Chang-Hui, "The Politics of Deification and Nationalist Ideology: A Case Study of Quemoy." Thesis (Ph.D.), Boston University, 2000, 236p.
Abstract: This anthropological study explores the cults of two ghostly deities emerging after 1949 on the Quemoy Islands, Republic of China. These cults became the foci of a symbolic contest between local inhabitants and the Kuomintang (KMT) military authorities over the interpretation of their meaning. Based on 11 months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted in 1996-97, as well as archival research, this work employs a case study of religion to examine the limits of authoritarian rule.
Quemoy is a KMT frontline military zone located in close proximity to the People's Republic of China (PRC) and was a symbol of the threat posed by the PRC during the Cold War era. The KMT had given high priority to controlling the islands by means of a military government and a nationalist ideology. To this end, it particularly sponsored the cults of a slain general, Li Guangqian, and another of a chaste female martyr, Lienu, to serve as the foci for veneration. They then became icons in a KMT Orientalist nationalist ideology in which they were officially deified and their worship was elevated in the manner of a state cult: the two deified martyrs received regular homage from the military. By contrast, local villagers interpreted the cults as an excuse for hot and noisy carnival celebrations that provided a temporary liberation from the prevailing nationalist ideology and military gaze.
With the end of the Cold War and reduced tension in the Taiwan Strait in the late 1980s, KMT Orientalist nationalism began to lose its grip. In consequence, the meaning of the cults was replaced with themes that reflected a search for a new Taiwanese identity and nationhood. This dynamic politics of deification now stands for the contesting forces in a quest for nationhood.
This dissertation takes villagers' interpretations as a case of what Bakhtin called "dialogized heteroglossia," where events are loaded with possible meanings in specific contexts. It sheds light on the anthropological study of religion and state hegemony by showing the dynamics of discourse objectifying local consciousness under authoritarian rule. [Source: Dissertation Abstracts International]
Chi, Chang-hui. “The Death of a Virgin: the Cult of Wang Yulan and Nationalism in Jinmen, Taiwan.” Anthropological Quarterly 82.3 (2009): 669-690.
Abstract: This article explores the impact of the global Cold War on local politics through the study of a state deified female ghost Wang Yulan in Jinmen, Taiwan. The liminal status of ghosts in the Chinese celestial order makes room for possible multiple meanings of state-local contestation. Civilians’ interpretations of the cult engaged with the official discourse to generate what Bakhtin called “dialogized heteroglossia,” revealing the limits of state control over interpretation and ambiguous relations between the state and local society under martial law.
Chia, Jack Meng-Tat. “Sacred Ties across the Seas: The Cult of Guangze Zunwang and its Religious Network in the Chinese Diaspora, 19th Century—2009.” M.A. Dissertation, Department of History, National University of Singapore, 2009. Website: https://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/bitstream/handle/10635/16305/ChiaMT.pdf?sequence=1
Abstract: Large scale Chinese emigration began in the mid-nineteenth century and lasted through the first half of twentieth century. The migration of the Nan'an people contributed to the religious spread of Guangze Zunwang's cult from Southeast China to Southeast Asia in general, and Singapore and Malaysia in particular. The arrival and settlement of the Nan'an migrants prompted the establishment of Guangze Zunwang temples in the two host countries. This study examines the cult of Guangze Zunwang and its religious network connecting Southeast China and the Chinese communities in Singapore and Malaysia from the early nineteenth century to 2009. It argues that the diasporic religious network of the Guangze Zunwang's cult has a significant role in the trans-regional movement of resources between China and the Chinese overseas. As this research will illustrate, temples were important institutions for the Chinese diaspora, in which they served as important nodes in this diasporic network.
Chipman, Elana. "The De-territorialization of Ritual Spheres in Contemporary Taiwan." Asian Anthropology 8 (2009): 31-64.
Abstract: This article considers the transformations over time of ritual networks centered on the town of Beigang, Taiwan in dialogue with earlier treatments of ritual and social organization. The case of this pilgrimage center supports observations on contemporary Taiwanese ritual and belief spheres, but it also complicates the understanding that contemporary trans-local political and economic processes have strengthened pan-island belief spheres at the expense of local communal ritual organization. Ritual networks in contemporary Taiwan are increasingly de-territorialized, but in Beigang they remain linked to locality, even as worshippers and natives become de-territorialized as individuals in their relationship to Beigang Mazu. Thus, I argue, if a trans-local cult is strong enough, the deity’s perceived powers serves to bolster the local ritual community, as well as to bring outsiders into the fold and keep sojourners linked to it.
Chun, Allen, "The Changing Times of a Village Temple Alliance System in the New Territories of Hong Kong: An Analysis of a Tianhou Cult." In: Lin Meirong, Chang Hsun & Cai Xianghui [eds.], Mazu xinyang de fazhan yu bianqian: Mazu xinyang yu xiandai shehui guoji yantaohui lunwenji. Taipei: Taiwan zongjiao xuehui; Beigang: Chaotian Gong, 2003. Pp.57-78.
Chung Ho Kin, "Métamorphoses d'une figure mythologique: Erlang shen." In Jean-Pierre Diény [ed.], Hommage à Kwong Hing Foon: Études d'histoire culturelle de la Chine. Paris 1995. Pp.215-238.
Chuu, Ling-in Lilian. "The Cult of Guanyin Who Brings Sons in China." M.A. thesis, University of British Columbia, 2001.
Clart, Philip. “The Relationship of Myth and Cult in Chinese Popular Religion: Some Remarks on Han Xiangzi.” Xingda zhongwen xuebao 23 (2008): 479-513. (Supplementary issue, zengkan)
Clart, Philip. "The Eight Immortals between Daoism and Popular Religion: Evidence from a New Sprit-Written Scripture." In: Florian C. Reiter [ed.], Foundations of Daoist Ritual: A Berlin Symposium. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009. Pp.84-106.
Clart, Philip. “Anchoring Guanyin: Appropriative Strategies in a New Phoenix Hall Scripture.” Min-su ch’ü-i / Journal of Chinese Theatre, Ritual and Folklore 173 (2011): 101-128.
Abstract: The fact that scriptures play such a significant role in the supposedly mainly oral culture of Chinese popular religion raises a number of questions: Who writes them? How are they used? What religious ideas do they manifest? How do they appropriate and affect the cult of their protagonist deities? The present article seeks to address these questions using the case of Guanyin’s Lotus Sutra of the Marvellous Dao (Guanyin miaodao lianhua jing), a text revealed between 1998 and 2000 by means of spiritwriting at a Taichung city phoenix hall, the Xuyuan tang. The analysis of the scripture’s structure and rhetoric reveals that the Guanyin sutra represents a mode of popular and sectarian engagement with the Buddhist tradition that differs from and enriches the picture provided for us by Chün-fang Yü’s studies of Guanyin and by Prasenjit Duara’s notion of “superscription.” While we are definitely looking at a layering of meanings, as Duara did by regarding the Guandi myth as “a palimpsest of layered meanings,” the image of “superscription” does not accurately describe the way the Guanyin sutra does not so much overwrite but underlay Buddhist devotionalism with phoenix hall notions of Dao cultivation. In effect, the Guanyin sutra provides an inclusivist re-anchoring of Guanyin-related devotional practices in a core set of sectarian notions of personal cultivation, thus allowing us to differentiate a distinct mode of the syncretic construction of religious doctrine in a popular sectarian context. (Source: journal)
Csete, Anne, "The Li Mother Spirit and the Struggle for Hainan's Land and Legend." Late Imperial China 22(2001)2: 91-123.
Davis, Edward L., Society and the Supernatural in Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001. (See ch. 4, "The Cult of the Black Killer")
Abstract: Society and the Supernatural in Song China is at once a meticulous examination of spirit possession and exorcism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a social history of the full panoply of China's religious practices and practitioners at the moment when she was poised to dominate the world economy. Although the Song dynasty (960-1276) is often identified with the establishment of Confucian orthodoxy, Edward Davis demonstrates the renewed vitality of the dynasty's Taoist, Buddhist, and local religious traditions. (Source: publisher's webpage)
Davis, Edward L., "Arms and the Dao, 2: The Xu Brothers in Tea Country." In: Livia Kohn & Harold D. Roth [eds.], Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. Pp.149-164.
Dean, Kenneth, "Transformation of the She (Altars of the Soil) in Fujian." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10 (1998): 19-75.
Abstract: Par un examen des transformations du she (autel du sol) dans le district de Putian (Fujian), l'auteur se penche sur la création d'un espace sacré. Il examine d'abord les notions du she dans la région de Putian sous les Song, puis le développement d'une hiérarchie des temples en site propre dans la plaine irriguée. Il analyse ensuite les efforts de la cour au début des Ming pour standardiser les she et les rituels afférents. A ces efforts succédèrent les modifications locales quant à la théorie et la pratique du she. Un travail sur le terrain dans la région de Jiangkou lui permet de scruter les mutations du she à la fin des Ming et sous les Qing. Il étudie par ailleurs les attitudes vis-à-vis du she dans des ouvrages littéraires et dans des inscriptions sur pierre datant des Ming et des Qing dans la région de Putian, ainsi que les changements dans l'organisation du rituel au niveau des villages. Du milieu des Ming jusqu'aux Qing, une transition s'opère entre les formes d'organisation rituelle basée sur le lignage ou la parenté et des formes à bases territoriales. Les dernières pages contiennent une discussion sur le recouvrement de l'espace sacré au cours des quinze dernières années. Cette étude montre que les efforts, au début des Ming, pour institutionnaliser les structures et cérémonies rituelles au niveau inférieur du canton ont entraîné des conséquences imprévues. Le travail sur le terrain au Fujian durant ces derniers dix ans a fait apparaître des matériaux qui suggèrent que ces autels officiels se muèrent graduellement en une strate sous-jacente d'espace rituel de religion populaire. Les mesures prises périodiquement par l'État--jusqu'à l'époque contemporaine--pour affirmer sa suprématie par l'imposition d'un modèle standardisé et homologué d'espace rituel ont causé une tension insoluble entre l'État et les communautés rituelles locales en Asie orientale. [Source: article]
DeBernardi, Jean, "Tasting the Water." In: Dennis Tedlock & Bruce Mannheim [eds.], The Dialogic Emergence of Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995. Pp.234-254. (On the God of Wealth, Caishen)
Dell'Orto, Alessandro, Place and Spirit in Taiwan: Tudi Gong in the Stories, Strategies and Memories of Everyday Life. London, New York: Routledge/Curzon, 2002.
Dell'Orto, Alessandro, "Narrating Place and Tudi Gong in Taiwan." In: Lin Mei-rong [ed.], Xinyang, yishi yu shehui: Di san jie guoji Hanxue huiyi lunwenji (renleixue zu) = Belief, Ritual and Society: Papers from the Third International Conference on Sinology (Anthropology Section). Taipei: Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, 2003. Pp.37-86.
Diény, Jean-Pierre, "La légende, le conte et l'histoire: le cas du vénérable Zhang Guo (VIIIe siècle)." In: Jacques Gernet & Marc Kalinowski [eds.] (avec la collaboration de Jean-Pierre Diény), En suivant la voie royale: mélanges offerts en hommage à Léon Vandermeersch. Paris: École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 1997. Pp.315-328.
Abstract: The purpose of the present article is to show, by the use of a specific example, the vital role played in the writing of history by the strange and ambivalent collections characteristic of the literary production of China known as biji. The example chosen is the story of the Venerable Zhang Guo (8th century A.D.) about whom legendary, romantic or so-called historical biographies of different kinds have been produced based on a combination of elements taken from many biji. [Source: article.]
Dodgen, Randall, "Hydraulic Religion: 'Great King' Cults in the Ming and Qing." Modern Asian Studies 33(1999)4: 815-833.
Dudbridge, Glen, "The General of the Five Paths in Tang and pre-Tang China." Cahiers d'Extrème-Asie 9(1996/97): 85-98.
Fan Lizhu, "The Cult of the Silkworm Mother as a Core of Local Community Religion in a North China Village: Field Study in Zhiwuying, Boading, Hebei." The China Quarterly 174(2003): 373-394.
Feuchtwang, Stephan. "Hopes, Fears and Excitement: the Authority of a Local Festival." In: Lin, Tsong-yuan [ed.], Proceedings of the International Conference on Anthropology and the Museum = Renleixue yu bowuguan guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwen zhuanji. Taipei: Taiwan Museum, 1995. Pp. 101-118. [Note: on a Mazu festival in Guandu]
Fong, Shiaw-Chian, "The Politics of Narrative Identity in the Mazu Cult." Issues and Studies 32(1996)11: 103-125.
Formoso, Bernard. "Les adeptes de Ji Gong le 'bonze fou' en Malaise et a Singapour." Aseanie 12(2003): 73-104.
Frühauf, Manfred W., Die Königliche Mutter des Westens: Xiwangmu in alten Dokumenten Chinas. Bochum: Projekt Verlag, 1999. (Edition Cathay, Bd. 46)
Geiger-Ho, Martie. "Guardians of Fire and Clay: the Legacy of China's Kiln Gods." Studio Potter 28 (2000) 2: 49-54.
Geiger-Ho, Martie Jo. “Pathways of Transmission: Investigating the Influence of Chinese Kiln God Worship and Mythology on Kiln God Concepts and Rituals as Observed by American Ceramists.” Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Tech University, 2003.
Abstract: Designed to be an inquiry into both the past and living traditions and mythology of Chinese kiln god worship, this study investigates the manner by which these folk traditions and means of worship have been viewed and worked into discourse by Western historians and ceramists in the United States. Furthermore, by examining this research from the assumption that Western discourse on Chinese kiln gods has been recorded with a bias known as Orientalism that presents a biased view of the Far East, this study endeavors to present new insights into the possible motivations for why American potters would appropriate and engage in various aspects of Chinese kiln god worship. This study discusses issues concerning the control of Chinese cultural material by Western scholars, through research gathered from discourse, interviews, and my own ethnographic field observations of Chinese kiln god practices. Collectively the outcome of this research has yielded a study of Chinese kiln gods with a strong focus on the history of the kiln god deity Feng Huo Hsien, or Genius of the Fire-Blast who is still worshiped in Jingdezhen, China today. The legend of how Feng Huo Hsien lived his life as T'ung Bun, a Jingdezhen potter, and then earned his immortal namesake through the incredible act of sacrificing his body and soul in the fire of the kiln, is a tale that is central to the religious beliefs and practices of the ceramists of Jingdezhen. Additionally, I believe that the presence of Feng Huo Hsien's myth in American literature has also influenced the development of kiln god rituals among studio potters in the United States.
Gerritsen, Anne, "A Thirteenth-Century Cult in the Village of Ji'an (Jiangxi), or 'Fieldwork for Historians'." Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 33 (2003): 181-185. (Note: On the cult of Kang Wang.)
Gerritsen, Anne. "From Demon to Deity: Kang Wang in Thirteenth-Century Jizhou and Beyond." T'oung Pao 90 (2004)1-3: 1-31.
Gildow, Douglas. "Flesh Bodies, Stiff Corpses, and Gathered Gold: Mummy Worship, Corpse Processing, and Mortuary Ritual in Contemporary Taiwan." Journal of Chinese Religions 33(2005): 1-37.
Giuffrida, Noelle. “Representing the Daoist God Zhenwu, the Perfected Warrior, in Late Imperial China.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas, 2008.
Abstract: Zhenwu, the Perfected Warrior, emerged as an anthropomorphic deity in the early Northern Song (960-1126) and reached the peak of his popularity in the Ming (1368-1644). Prior to this time he was known as Xuanwu, the Dark Warrior, and appeared as a tortoise entwined with a snake. Widely varying representations of this Daoist god, one of the most prominent in the Daoist pantheon, coexisted throughout the Song and later history of his cult. Different images fashioned to serve different audiences reveal the wide social range of Zhenwu believers and shifting beliefs about the god's powers. Literary evidence combines with the ubiquitous pictorial and three-dimensional images to demonstrate Zhenwu's pervasive presence in the religious and cultural landscape. A scripture, sets of ritual scrolls, pictorial stele, cave temple, and an album depicting a corps of thunder marshals affiliate Zhenwu with the Daoist Thunder Department and with certain of its members, notably the Four Saints ( si sheng ). Zhenwu also appears in Daoist and Buddhist assembly paintings, murals and scroll sets, linked to performances of the huanglu zhai [purgation rite of the yellow register] and the shuilu fahui [rite for deliverance of creatures of water and land]. Fervent Yuan and Ming imperial patronage of the god's home, Mt. Wudang, gives evidence of Zhenwu's emergence as an independent deity with a cadre of assistant martial divinities. Many Ming statues represent his role as a tutelary god and his participation in the pantheon of Chinese popular religion. Ming illustrations of his hagiography in a woodblock-printed collection of stories, a canonical Daoist scripture, a painted album, a complex piece of sculpture, and an edition of the vernacular novel Beiyou ji [Journey to the North] indicate the appeal of specific episodes of his life story and show how they were adapted for different audiences. Through interdisciplinary analysis of the literary, historical, social, and religious contexts of key Zhenwu images, this case study demonstrates the extent to which Daoist imagery permeated the visual culture of late imperial China.
Glahn, Richard von, The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious Culture. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2004.
Abstract: The most striking feature of Wutong, the preeminent God of Wealth in late imperial China, was the deity's diabolical character. Wutong was perceived not as a heroic figure or paragon of noble qualities but rather as an embodiment of humanity's basest vices, greed and lust, a maleficent demon who preyed on the weak and vulnerable. In The Sinister Way, Richard von Glahn examines the emergence and evolution of the Wutong cult within the larger framework of the historical development of Chinese popular or vernacular religion--as opposed to institutional religions such as Buddhism or Daoism. Von Glahn's study, spanning three millennia, gives due recognition to the morally ambivalent and demonic aspects of divine power within the common Chinese religious culture.
Grootaers, W.A., Li Shih-yü & Wang Fu-shih, The Sanctuaries in a North China City. A Complete Survey of the Cultic Buildings in the City of Hsüan-hua (Chahar). Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1995. (Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques, vol.XXVI). Contains information on many cults, with an in-depth study of the deity Zhenwu. See "Supplement": "The Hagiography of the Chinese God Chen-wu: The Transmission of Rural Traditions in Chahar." Pp.123-235.
Haar, Barend J. ter, "The Rise of the Guan Yu Cult: The Taoist Connection." In: Jan A.M. De Meyer & Peter M. Engelfriet [eds.], Linked Faiths: Essays on Chinese Religion and Traditional Culture in Honour of Kristofer Schipper. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000. Pp.184-204.
Hall, Christopher A. “Tudi Gong in Taiwan.” Southeast Review of Asian Studies 31 (2009): 97-112.
Abstract: Studies of Tudi Gong ??? in English are relatively rare. This article reports the his- tory, faces, roles, and duties of Tudi Gong, one of the lowest-ranked gods of the tradi- tional Taiwanese pantheon, whose name can be translated as “Earth Lord.” Tudi Gong is the most ubiquitous and one of the most commonly worshipped gods in Taiwan; he is the approachable genius loci with access to the higher gods. This article brings together various perspectives on Tudi Gong from previous studies of Chinese or Taiwanese reli- gion. To these portrayals it adds notes from the author’s observations of worshippers and informal interviews at temples, homes, and other places around Taiwan in 2008.
Han, Seunghyun. “Shrine, Images, and Power: The Worship of Former Worthies in Early Nineteenth Century Suzhou.” T’oung Pao 95 (2009): 167-195.
Abstract: In the 1820s, the literati of Suzhou embarked on a project to build a shrine devoted to the worship of local former worthies and engraved almost six hundred portraits of the latter on the shrine's inner walls. Since the locality already had a paired shrine of eminent officials and local worthies, as had become the case across the empire since the mid-Ming period, why did they need to create a shrine of a similar nature? What was the cultural significance of introducing visual representations of the worthies in the worship? By analyzing the multiple layers of meaning surrounding this shrine-building activity, the present study attempts to illuminate an aspect of the changing state-elite relations in the early nineteenth century.
Hinton, Carmelita, "In Search of Erlang." East Asian History 21(2001):1-32.
Hsieh, Daniel. "Fox as Trickster in Early Medieval China." In: Alan K.L. Chan & Yuet-keung Lo [eds.], Interpretation and Literature in Early Medieval China. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010. Pp. 223-249.
Hymes, Robert, Way and Byway: Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. [Note: On various local and mountain deities in the Jiangxi/Fujian area, incl. Wang Wenqing & the Three Immortals of Mt. Huagai.]
Abstract: Using a combination of newly mined Sung sources and modern ethnography, Robert Hymes addresses questions that have perplexed China scholars in recent years. Were Chinese gods celestial officials, governing the fate and fortunes of their worshippers as China's own bureaucracy governed their worldly lives? Or were they personal beings, patrons or parents or guardians, offering protection in exchange for reverence and sacrifice?
To answer these questions Hymes examines the professional exorcist sects and rising Immortals' cults of the Sung dynasty alongside ritual practices in contemporary Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as miracle tales, liturgies, spirit law codes, devotional poetry, and sacred geographies of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. Drawing upon historical and anthropological evidence, he argues that two contrasting and contending models informed how the Chinese saw and see their gods. These models were used separately or in creative combination to articulate widely varying religious standpoints and competing ideas of both secular and divine power. Whether gods were bureaucrats or personal protectors depended, and still depends, says Hymes, on who worships them, in what setting, and for what purposes. [Source of abstract: publisher's webpage]
Idema, Wilt L., "Guanyin's Acolytes." In: Jan A.M. De Meyer & Peter M. Engelfriet [eds.], Linked Faiths: Essays on Chinese Religion and Traditional Culture in Honour of Kristofer Schipper. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000. Pp.205-226.
Idema, Wilt L. Personal Salvation and Filial Piety: Two Precious Scroll Narratives of Guanyin and Her Acolytes. Honolulu: Kuroda Institute & University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008.
Abstract: The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was a handsome prince when he entered China. As Guanyin, the bodhisattva was venerated from the eleventh century onward in the shape of a beautiful woman who became a universal savior. Throughout the last millennium, the female Guanyin has enjoyed wide and fervid veneration throughout East Asia and has appeared as a major character in literature and legend. In one tale, Guanyin (as the princess Miaoshan) returns from the dead after being executed by the king, her father, for refusing to marry. The most popular version of this legend is The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain (Xiangshan baojuan), a long narrative in prose and verse and a work of considerable literary merit. It emphasizes the conflict between father and daughter, in the course of which all conventional arguments against a religious lifestyle are paraded and rebutted. A lengthy description of Guanyin’s visit to the underworld, which focuses on the conflict between grace and justice, is also included.
Personal Salvation and Filial Piety offers a complete and fully annotated translation of The Precious Scroll, based on a nineteenth-century edition. The translation is preceded by a substantial introduction that discusses the origin of the text and the genre to which it belongs and highlights the similarities and differences between the scroll and female saints’ lives from medieval Europe. There follows a translation of the much-shorter Precious Scroll of Good-in-Talent and Dragon Daughter, which provides a humorous account of how Guanyin acquired the three acolytes—Sudhana, Nagakanya, and a white parrot—who are often shown surrounding her in popular prints. [Source: publisher's website]
James, Jean M., "An Iconographic Study of Xiwangmu During the Han Dynasty." Artibus Asiae 55(1995)1-2: 17-41.
Jing, Anning. “The Eight Immortals: The Transformation of T’ang and Sung Taoist Eccentrics During the Yüan Dynasty.” In: Maxwell K. Hearn & Judith G. Smith [eds.], Arts of the Sung and Yüan. New York: The Metropoloitan Museum of Art, 1996. Pp.213-229.
Jing, Anning, The Water God's Temple of the Guangsheng Monastery: Cosmic Function of Art, Ritual, and Theater. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001.
Abstract: The 14th century dragon king temple in Southern Shanxi is the only known intact survivor of this ancient Water God institution once existing in every Chinese agricultural community. After describing the history, lay-out and mural paintings of the building, its original Yuan time mural paintings enable the author to depict the ritual of praying for rain, and the actual rain-making of the god. The meaning of the unique painting of a theatrical company is interpreted as to subject and its connections with the ritual of praying for rain. Rainmaking magic is compared with similar practices in other parts of the world (India), and thus suggests a common cosmological basis of Chinese and Indian cultures, and a common pattern of human behaviour and mode of thinking concerning human procreation and food production. (Source: publisher's catalogue)
Johnson, David (1995), "Mu-lien in Pao-chüan. The Performance Context and Religious Meaning of the Yu-ming Pao-ch'uan." In: Johnson, David [ed.], Ritual and Scripture in Chinese Popular Religion. Five Studies. Berkeley, Calif.: Chinese Popular Culture Project, 1995. Pp.55-103.
Kang, Xiaofei, "Power on the Margins: The Cult of the Fox in Late Imperial China." Thesis (Ph.D.), Columbia University, 2000, 414p.
Abstract: The dissertation combines the disciplines of Chinese religious, literary and cultural history to examine the relationship between local cult practices and power in late imperial society. It studies the fox cult, which was regarded as an "illicit" cult by official standards but flourished in north China among a wide range of social classes from the late sixteenth to early twentieth century.
Chapter One studies the marginality of fox spirits in early Chinese tradition. Chapter Two discusses how during the Ming and Qing periods (1368-1911) fox cult practices subverted dominant cultural norms yet remained indispensable for practical needs in everyday life. Chapter Three examines the ways in which Ming-Qing people interpreted the fox in relation to ghosts, ancestors, celestial bureaucrats and female deities. Chapter Four charts the interaction among fox spirits, local people and officials. Chapter Five examines the multiple meanings of huxian, a popular term with which people addressed fox deities.
The case of the fox cult suggests that in the face of consistent official proscription and suppression, popular cults survived and often thrived precisely because their "illicit" content accommodated socially suppressed voices and culturally repressed desires. The development of the cult was characterized by a dialectical movement of promoting the cult with official and public standards on the one hand and keeping it in line with personal, local and practical demands on the other. Cultural diversity and congruity were simultaneously produced in the practices of worshipping, exorcising, narrating and recording fox spirits at local, regional and national level and by the combined efforts of elite men, officials, and commoners. Shifting between official and unofficial boundaries, the people of late imperial China manipulated the marginal power of the fox to negotiate order out of cultural conflicts and compromises and to come to grips with larger social and political changes. The history of the fox cult illuminates the importance of religious beliefs and practices in today's China and relates the Chinese ways of life and thinking to cultures outside China. [Source: Dissertation Abstracts International]
Kang Xiaofei, "In the Name of the Buddha: the Cult of the Fox at a Sacred Site in Contemporary Northern Shaanxi." Minsu quyi, no.138 (2002): 67-110.
Kang, Xiaofei. The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Abstract: For more than five centuries the shamanistic fox cult has attracted large portions of the Chinese population and appealed to a wide range of social classes. Deemed illicit by imperial rulers and clerics and officially banned by republican and communist leaders, the fox cult has managed to survive and flourish in individual homes and community shrines throughout northern China. In this new work, the first to examine the fox cult as a vibrant popular religion, Xiaofei Kang explores the manifold meanings of the fox spirit in Chinese society. Kang describes various cult practices, activities of worship, and the exorcising of fox spirits to reveal how the Chinese people constructed their cultural and social values outside the gaze of official power and morality.
Kang's book uncovers and reinterprets a wealth of anecdotal historical texts and works of popular literature and draws on her own ethnographic research. She considers how the fox cult operated on the margins of Chinese society as well as the fox's place in the popular imagination. As a symbol, fox spirits have long been marginal and variable creatures with the ability to freely change their gender and age, appearing as both evil and benign. The Chinese people, as Kang demonstrates, have drawn on and manipulated the various meanings of the fox spirit to cope with and give order to the changes in their personal lives and in society.
Kang also pays close attention to the ways in which gender was used to construct religious power in Chinese society. Gendered interpretations of the fox were used to define the official and unofficial, private and public, and moral and immoral in religious practices. Kang's analysis of the history of the fox cult addresses central questions in the study of Chinese religion and society, including the dynamic between cultural unity and variation and the relationships of various social groups to popular religion. [Source: publisher's website.]
Katz, Paul R., "Plague God Cults in Late Imperial Chekiang: A Case Study of Marshal Wen." In: Proceedings of the Conference on Temples and Popular Culture. Taipei: Center for Chinese Studies, 1995.
Katz, Paul R., Demon Hordes and Burning Boats. The Cult of Marshal Wen in Late Imperial Chekiang. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Katz, Paul R., "Enlightened Alchemist or Immoral Immortal? The Growth of Lü Dongbin's Cult in Late Imperial China." In: Shahar, Meir & Robert P. Weller [eds.], Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996. Pp.70-104.
Katz, Paul R., "The Cult of the Lord of the Hordes at the Abbey of Ksitigarbha in Hsin-chuang." Journal of Humanities East/West 16(1998): 123-159.
Katz, Paul R., Images of the Immortal: The Cult of Lü Dongbin at the Palace of Eternal Joy. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999.
Katz, Paul R., "The Cult of the Royal Lords in Postwar Taiwan." In: Philip Clart & Charles B. Jones [eds.], Religion in Modern Taiwan: Tradition and Innovation in a Changing Society. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003. Pp.98-124.
Katz, Paul R., "Daoism and Local Cults: a Case Study of the Cult of Marshal Wen." In: Kwang-Ching Liu and Richard Shek [eds.], Heterodoxy in late Imperial China. Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, 2004. Pp.172-208.
Kehren, Dorothée. "The Fox in the Early Period of China. Texts and Representations." In Hartmut Walravens [ed.], Der Fuchs in Kultur, Religion und Folklore Zentral- und Ostasiens (Teil II). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2002. Pp.7-23.
Kuah Khun Eng, Rebuilding the Ancestral Village: Singaporeans in China. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000. (Note: chapter 7 "Religious Revivalism" deals with the revival of the Qingshui Zushi Gong cult in Anxi county, Fujian province.)
Kohn, Livia, "The Taoist Adoption of the City God." Ming Qing yanjiu 5(1996):69-108.
Kohn, Livia, God of the Dao: Lord Lao in History and Myth. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1998. See esp. ch. 6: "Art, Literature, and Talismans: Lord Lao as Popular Protector."
Kominami, Ichirô. “Rituals for the Earth.” In: John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski [eds.], Early Chinese Religion: Part One: Shang through Han (1250 BC-220 AD). Leiden: Brill, 2009. Pp.201-234.
Kleeman, Terry F., "The Lives and Teachings of the Divine Lord of Zitong." In: Lopez, Donald S., Jr. [ed.], Religions of China in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Pp.64-71.
Kleeman, Terry F., "Sources for Religious Practice in Zitong: The Local Side of a National Cult." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10(1998): 341-355.
Kuah-Pearce Khun Eng. "The Worship of Qingshui Zushi and Religious Revivalism in South China." In: Tan Chee-Beng [ed.], Southern Fujian: Reproduction of Traditions in Post-Mao China. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2006. Pp.121-144.
Lagerwey, John, "Dingguang Gufo: Oral and Written Sources in the Study of a Saint." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10(1998): 77-129.
Abstract: Saint bouddhique du dixième siècle presque inconnu en dehors de la région hakka dans le sud-est de la Chine, Dingguang gufo fait l'objet, dans toute cette région, de cycles de légendes liés aux sites sacrés ainsi qu'aux pèlerinages. Les sources historiques du onzième au treizième siècles en font à la fois un héros civilisateur et la réincarnation du Bouddha du passé (Dipamkara). Les monographies locales permettent aussi bien de suivre le développement géographique du culte que d'en comprendre le lien intime entre les gestes du saint et le paysage. Cependant, seuls l'enquête de terrain et la collecte de traditions orales donnent accès à la sociologie du culte et au phénomène de sa localisation. Cet essai se veut donc démonstration de l'indispensable alliance entre l'histoire et l'anthropologie pour l'étude de la société chinoise et de ses dieux. [Source: article]
Lagerwey, John, "A Year in the Life of a Mingqi Saint." Minsu quyi no.117 (1999): 329-370.
Lagerwey, John, "Of Gods and Ancestors: the Ten-Village Rotation of Pingyuan Shan." Minsu quyi, no.137 (2002): 61-139. (Note: Pingyuan Shan is located in Changting County, Fujian. The article includes a study of the deity Fuhu.)
Lai, Chi-Tim, "Hong Kong Daoism: A Study of Daoist Altars and Lü Dongbin Cults." Social Compass 50(2003)4: 459-470.
Lai, Whalen W. "The Earth Mother Scripture: Unmasking the Neo-Archaic." In: Jacob K. Olupona [ed.], Beyond Primitivism: Indigenous Religious Traditions and Modernity. New York, London: Routledge, 2004. Pp. 200-213.
Laing, Ellen Johnston, "From Thief to Deity: The Pictorial Record of the Chinese Moon Goddess, Chang E." In: Dieter Kuhn & Helga Stahl [eds.], Die Gegenwart des Altertums: Formen und Funktionen des Altertumsbezugs in den Hochkulturen der Alten Welt. Heidelberg: edition forum, 2001. Pp.437-454.
Landsberger, Stefan R., "Mao as the Kitchen God. Religious Aspects of the Mao Cult During the Cultural Revolution." China Information 11(1996)2/3:196-214.
Lang, Graeme; Selina Ching Chan, Lars Ragvald. The Return of the Refugee God: Wong Tai Sin in China. CSRCS Occasional Paper No.8. Hong Kong: Centre for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society (Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2002.
Lévy, André, "Brève note sur un long bâton. À propos de l'arme magique de Sun Wukong dans le Xiyou ji." In: Jacques Gernet & Marc Kalinowski [eds.] (avec la collaboration de Jean-Pierre Diény), En suivant la voie royale: mélanges offerts en hommage à Léon Vandermeersch. Paris: École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 1997. Pp.329-331.
Abstract: This short note points to some possible Indian sources other than the Ramayana for the Monkey's cudgel peculiar feature of changing size at will. [Source: article.]
Li, Fong-mao. "It took a Millennium to be Mazu and Mazu Deserves to be Worshipped for a Millennium." Translated by Sue Wiles. Taiwan Literature: English Translation Series 14 (2004): 17-19.
Lin Fu-shih, "The Cult of Jiang Ziwen in Medieval China." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10(1998): 357-375.
Abstract: Jiang Ziwen était un fonctionnaire actif durant les années de déclin de la dynastie des Han Orientaux. Il fut tué par des bandits qu'il poursuivait du côté de Jianye, le Nankin d'aujourd'hui. Le culte de Jiang prit son essor aussitôt après sa mort. Son premier sanctuaire fut érigé sur le versant nord-ouest du mont Zhong à douze li de la capitale. Sun Quan, le souverain de Wu, conféra à Jiang un titre posthume. Graduellement, il fut promu dans le monde des esprits de marquis à roi, puis empereur, par les empereurs successifs des Six Dynasties. Il semble que Jiang était la divinité dominante de la religion populaire dans la région du Jiangnan et spécialement dans la capitale et ses environs. Bizarrement, ce culte médiéval important n'a suscité que peu d'attention chez les chercheurs. Quoique le développement de ce culte ait été tracé chronologiquement et examiné d'un point de vue d'histoire sociale, son aspect rituel resta complètement ignoré. Par un heureux hasard, plusieurs récits miraculeux recueillis dans le Soushen ji et le Youming lu suggèrent que le culte de Jiang Ziwen avait une relation étroite avec le chamanisme. En outre, ces récits littéraires sont spécialement utiles pour nous aider à cerner certains traits caractéristiques du chamanisme, tels que le culte aux victimes de mort violente, le culte à l'icône du dieu, la construction des sanctuaires, les sacrifices sanglants avec offrandes d'animaux, les performances musicales exécutées au cours du rite. Enfin, une analyse sociologique de ceux qui furent les patrons ou les rivaux de ce culte peut se faire en recourant à des ouvrages littéraires commes les zhiguai. [Source of abstract: article]
Liu, Yi, "A Discussion of the Worship of the God of the Kiln among Potters." China Archaeology and Art Digest 2(1998)3-4: 47-57.
Liu, Zhiwei, "Beyond the Imperial Metaphor: a Local History of the Beidi (Northern Emperor) Cult in the Pearl River Delta." Chinese Studies in History 35(2001)1: 12-30.
Mio Yuko. "Deified Ghosts: Popular and Authorised Interpretations of Religious Symbols." In: Suenari Michio, J.S. Eades & Christian Daniels [eds.], Perspectives on Chinese Society: Anthropological Views from Japan. Canterbury: Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing, University of Kent, 1995. Pp.136-155. (Note: On wangye cults in Taiwan.)
Moore, Oliver, "Violence Un-scrolled: Cultic and Ritual Emphases in Painting Guan Yu." Arts Asiatiques 58(2003): 86-97.
Morgan, Carole, "Traces of Houtu's Cult in Hong Kong." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 36(1996): 223-230.
Mori Yuria, "Identity and Lineage: The Taiyi jinhua zongzhi and the Spirit-Writing Cult of Patriarch Lü in Qing China." In: Livia Kohn & Harold D. Roth [eds.], Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. Pp.165-184.
Ng, Zhiru, "The Formation and Development of the Dizang Cult in Medieval China." Thesis (Ph.D.), University of Arizona, 2000.
Abstract: This study investigates the medieval Chinese formation of the cult of Dizang (Skt. Ksitigarbha; Jpn. Jizô), a Buddhist divinity especially popular in connection with East Asian beliefs about the afterlife. It explores why and how Dizang, an obscure figure from the pre-Chinese Buddhist pantheon, became in medieval China an important object of cult worship. A tendency to focus on the popularized characterization of Dizang as "the savior of the damned" has distorted scholarly understanding of this Bodhisattva, obscuring other developments of his personality, including afterlife trends other than the underworld function. To arrive at a more accurate re-construction of the medieval Chinese Dizang cult, this study examines a diverse range of evidences (canonical and non-canonical, textual and visual, as well as Buddhist and non-Buddhist) so as to ferret out threads of Dizang belief not documented in standard sources. Non-canonical sources are particularly highlighted since they frequently capture largely neglected aspects of religious development which must be studied in order to uncover the full complexity of medieval Chinese Buddhism.
In particular the formation of the Dizang cult supplies a crucial key to unlocking the larger cross-cultural patterns of religious assimilation operating in medieval Chinese society, which have wider implications for the study of Chinese religion. Previous studies on sinification in Chinese Buddhist history have focused on a particular thinker, a specific text, a single doctrinal concept, or one ritual practice, thus demonstrating the development of only one pattern of assimilation and reducing the complexity of the cross-cultural dynamic in which assimilation really took place. The Dizang cult instead allows one to better contextualize the patterns of cross-cultural assimilation in medieval Chinese religion. What distinguishes the Dizang cult from other examples of sinification is the manner in which the figure of Dizang functions as a religious symbol that integrates diverse religious planes, doctrine, mythology, ritual, and soteriology. The Dizang cult, in short, offers a single but kaleidoscopic lens that encompasses a multivalent religio-cultural assimilation, thus resisting usual bifurcations between doctrine and ritual, as well as between so-called "elite" and "popular" religion. (Source of abstract: Dissertation Abstracts International)
Nyitray, Vivian-Lee, "The Sea Goddess and the Goddess of Democracy." Annual Review of Women in World Religions 4(1996):164-177.
Nyitray, Vivian-Lee, "Becoming the Empress of Heaven: the Life and Bureaucratic Career of Mazu." In: Elisabeth Benard & Beverly Moon [eds.], Goddesses Who Rule. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp.165-180.
Nyitray, Vivian-Lee. “Questions of Gender in Tianhou/Mazu Scholarship.” In: Chang Hsun & Yeh Chuen-rong [eds.], Contemporary Religions in Taiwan: Unities and Diversities /Taiwan bentu zongjiao yanjiu: jiegou yu bianyi. Taipei: SMC Publishing, 2006. Pp.127-167.
Pomeranz, Kenneth, "Power, Gender, and Pluralism in the Cult of the Goddess of Taishan." In: Theodore Huters, R. Bin Wong, and Pauline Yu [eds.], Culture & State in Chinese History: Conventions, Accommodations, and Critiques. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997. Pp. 182-204.
Pomeranz, Kenneth. "Orthopraxy, Orthodoxy, and the Goddess(es) of Taishan." Modern China 33(2007)1: 22-46.
Poon, Shuk-wah. “Religion, Modernity, and Urban Space: The City God Temple in Republican Guangzhou.” Modern China 34.2 (2008): 247-275.
Abstract: This article examines the impact of the Nationalist regime's modernizing project on the religious landscape and people's public behavior in Republican Guangzhou. In the transformation of the Guangzhou City God Temple, urban space became a place of contest between the government's modernizing project and urban people's religious traditions. In 1931, the municipal government converted the City God Temple into the Native Goods Exhibition Hall, a political space that attempted to foster patriotic consumption among the populace. Yet, beneath the surface, the people of Guangzhou continued to treat the "exhibition hall" as a religious space for expressing their faith in their patron god. While the government was doubtless an important force in modernizing the urban landscape, the city's people managed to inscribe their values onto the urban public space. [Source: journal]
Rack, Mary, "The Mu Yi Festival: Contesting Interpretations of a Territorial Temple Cult." In: Anders Hansson, Bonnie S. McDougall, and Frances Weightman [eds.], The Chinese at Play: Festivals, Games, and Leisure. London: Kegan Paul, 2002. Pp. 55-68. (Note: On a local cult in Yaxi village, near Jishou, western Hunan province.)
Reed, Barbara, "Guanyin Narratives--War and Postwar." In: Philip Clart & Charles B. Jones [eds.], Religion in Modern Taiwan: Tradition and Innovation in a Changing Society. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003. Pp.186-203.
Reiter, Florian C., "Some Notices on the 'Magic Agent Wang' (Wang ling-kuan) at Mt. Ch'i-ch'ü in Tzu-t'ung District, Szechwan Province." Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 148(1998)2: 323-342.
Rubinstein, Murray, "The Revival of the Mazu Cult and of Taiwanese Pilgrimage to Fujian." Harvard Studies on Taiwan: Papers of the Taiwan Studies Workshop, vol.1, pp.89-125 (Cambridge, MA: Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University, 1995).
Rubinstein, Murray A., "Statement Formation and Institutional Conflict in the Mazu Cult: Temples, Temple-Created Media, and Temple Rivalry in Contemporary Taiwan." In: Zhou Zongxian [ed.], Taiwanshi guoji xueshu yantaohui (shehui, jingji yu kentuo) lunwenji. Danshui: Guoshi Guan, 1995. Pp. 189-229.
Rubinstein, Murray A., "'Medium/Message' in Taiwan's Mazu-Cult Centers: Using 'Time, Space, and Word' to Foster Island-Wide Spiritual Consciousness and Local, Regional, and National Forms of Institutional Identity." In: Paul R. Katz and Murray A. Rubinstein [eds.], Religion and the Formation of Taiwanese Identities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Pp.181-218.
Ruitenbeek, Klaas, "Mazu, the Patroness of Sailors, in Chinese Pictorial Art." Artibus Asiae 58(1999)3/4: 281-329.
Sangren, P. Steven, "Myths, Gods, and Family Relations." In: Meir Shahar & Robert P. Weller [eds.], Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996. Pp.150-183. [Note: On Nezha, Mulian and Miaoshan.]
Sangren, P. Steven, Myth, Gender, and Subjectivity. Hsin-chu: Program for Research of Intellectual-Cultural History, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, 1997. (Hsin Chu Bank Endowed Lecture Series on Thought and Culture) [Note: On the "Third Prince Nezha" from the epic novel Fengshen yanyi.]
Sangren, Steven, "American Anthropology and the Study of Mazu Worship." In: Lin Meirong, Chang Hsun & Cai Xianghui [eds.], Mazu xinyang de fazhan yu bianqian: Mazu xinyang yu xiandai shehui guoji yantaohui lunwenji. Taipei: Taiwan zongjiao xuehui; Beigang: Chaotian Gong, 2003. Pp.7-23.
Sangren, P. Steven, "Separations, Autonomy and Recognition in the Production of Gender Differences: Reflections from Considerations of Myths and Laments." In: Charles Stafford [ed.], Living with Separation in China: Anthropological Accounts. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Pp.53-84. [Note: Deals with popular stories about gods who must leave their families in order to achieve recognition. Nezha and Miaoshan are the case-examples.]
Shahar, Meir, Crazy Ji: Chinese Religion and Popular Literature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 1998.
Shiga Ichiko, "The Manifestations of Lüzu in Modern Guangdong and Hong Kong: The Rise and Growth of Spirit-Writing Cults." In: Livia Kohn & Harold D. Roth [eds.], Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. Pp.185-209.
Shih, Shu-ch'ing. "The Procession of Lord Guan Di." Translated by Hwang Yingtsih. Taiwan Literature: English Translation Series 14 (2004): 73-78.
Stevens, Keith, "The Han Lin Academy and a Chinese Deity." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 36(1996): 231-233.
Stevens, Keith; Welch, Jennifer. "The Celestial Ministry of Time." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 40(2000): 113-154.
Stevens, Keith. "Images on Chinese Popular Religion Altars of the Heroes Involved in the Suppression of the An Lushan Rebellion." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 40(2000): 155-184.
Stevens, Keith. "Patron Deity of Prostitutes: Zhu Bajie." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 40(2000): 195.
Sutton, Donald S., "Myth Making on an Ethnic Frontier: The Cult of the Heavenly Kings of West Hunan, 1715-1996." Modern China 26(2000)4: 448-500.
Szonyi, Michael, "The Illusion of Standardizing the Gods. The Cult of the Five Emperors in Late Imperial China." Journal of Asian Studies 56 (1997) 1: 113-135.
Szonyi, Michael, "The Cult of Hu Tianbao and the Eighteenth-Century Discourse of Homosexuality." Late Imperial China 19(1998)1: 1-25.
Szonyi, Michael. "The Virgin and the Chinese State: The Cult of Wang Yulan and the Politics of Local Identity on Jinmen (Quemoy)." Journal of Ritual Studies 19(2005)1: 87-98.
Szonyi, Michael. "The Virgin and the Chinese State: The Cult of Wang Yulan and the Politics of Local Identity on Jinmen (Quemoy)." In Asian Ritual Systems: Syncretisms and Ruptures, edited by Pamela J. Stewart & Andrew Strathern. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2007. Pp.183-208.
Thompson, Lydia, "Confucian Paragon or Popular Deity: Legendary Heroes in a Late-Eastern Han Tomb." Asia Major, 3rd series, 12(1999)2: 1-38.
Tsai, Wen-ting, "Han Yu, Hakka, and Examination Hopefuls Come Together at Changli Temple." Sinorama 27(12): 80-88.
Verellen, Franciscus, "Zhang Ling and the Lingjing Salt Well." In: Jacques Gernet & Marc Kalinowski [eds.] (avec la collaboration de Jean-Pierre Diény), En suivant la voie royale: mélanges offerts en hommage à Léon Vandermeersch. Paris: École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 1997. Pp.249-265.
Abstract: Zhang Ling, fondateur du mouvement taoïste des Maîtres célestes au IIe siècle de notre ère, fut également vénéré comme héros civilisateur de la région du Sichuan. Le présent article propose une nouvelle lecture de la légende de Zhang à partir de cette perspective régionale. L'image du héros au sein de la mythologie de Sichuan ancien est illustrée en particulier par les légendes ayant trait à sa création du Lingjing, puits de sel important et source majeure de richesse de la région au Moyen Age. [Source: article.]
Wang Chien-ch'uan & Li Shih-wei. "The Introduction of the Mazu Faith and Its Dissemination during the Qing Dynasty." Translated by Jonathan H.X. Lee. Taiwan Literature: English Translation Series 14 (2004): 129-140.
Wang Mingming, "The Fa Zhu Gong Festival: The Birth of a God or the Reproduction of Locality in a Chinese Village." In: Anders Hansson, Bonnie S. McDougall, and Frances Weightman [eds.], The Chinese at Play: Festivals, Games, and Leisure. London: Kegan Paul, 2002. Pp. 12-33. (Note: On a temple cult in Meifa village, Anxi county, Fujian.)
Watson, James L. "Standardizing the Gods: the Promotion of Tian Hou ('Empress of Heaven') along the South China Coast, 960-1960." In: James L. Watson & Rubie S. Watson, eds. Village Life in Hong Kong: Politics, Gender, and Ritual in the New Territories. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2004. Pp. 269-310
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Wong Hee Kam. Guan Yu - Guan Di, héros régional, culte impérial et populaire. Sainte-Marie (Réunion): Azalées, 2008.
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Abstract: Sengqie was a monk of the Tang period from Heguo in Central Asia. After Sengqie died in AD 710, in a posture of meditation, his remains were buried in the Puguang wang si monastery in Sizhou. Following a series of evidential miracles, including the appearance of an image of the Eleven-faced Guanyin and repeated supernatural manifestations, Sengqie was canonized as the Grand Master of Universal Awakening Great Saint of Sizhou. By Song and Yuan times he had become the object of a popular cult. On the gilded wood-carved statue that was excavated in the cript of the stûpa of Xianyan si monastery in Ruian (Zhejiang) is engraved the inscription "Grand Master of Universal Awakening Great Saint of Sizhou." In Song and Yuan times many monasteries contained a Sengqie hall in which Sengqie heshang, Monk Sengqie, was worshipped. In recent years, statues of Sengqie have been discovered in stûpa-foundations in many places. For example, the stûpa of Ruiguang si monastery in Suzhou; the stûpa of Wanfo si monastery in Jinhua, the Baixiang ta pagoda in Wenzhou, the Tianfeng ta pagoda in Ningbo (Zhejiang), and the stûpa of Xingjiao si monastery in Shanghai all have statues of the Great Saint of Sizhou Sengqie sitting upright with his eyes closed, in an attitude of meditation. These images constitute material evidence of the popular cult of Sengqie in Tang and Song times. [Source of abstract: article]
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Zhiru. The Making of a Savior Bodhisattva: Dizang in Medieval China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007.
Abstract: In modern Chinese Buddhism, Dizang is especially popular as the sovereign of the underworld. Often represented as a monk wearing a royal crown, Dizang helps the deceased faithful navigate the complex underworld bureaucracy, avert the punitive terrors of hell, and arrive at the happy realm of rebirth. The author is concerned with the formative period of this important Buddhist deity, before his underworldly aspect eclipses his connections to other religious expressions and at a time when the art, mythology, practices, and texts of his cult were still replete with possibilities. She begins by problematizing the reigning model of Dizang, one that proposes an evolution of gradual sinicization and increasing vulgarization of a relatively unknown Indian bodhisattva, Ksitigarbha, into a Chinese deity of the underworld. Such a model, the author argues, obscures the many-faceted personality and iconography of Dizang. Rejecting it, she deploys a broad array of materials (art, epigraphy, ritual texts, scripture, and narrative literature) to recomplexify Dizang and restore (as much as possible from the fragmented historical sources) what this figure meant to Chinese Buddhists from the sixth to tenth centuries.
Rather than privilege any one genre of evidence, the author treats both material artifacts and literary works, canonical and noncanonical sources. Adopting an archaeological approach, she excavates motifs from and finds resonances across disparate genres to paint a vibrant, detailed picture of the medieval Dizang cult. Through her analysis, the cult, far from being an isolated phenomenon, is revealed as integrally woven into the entire fabric of Chinese Buddhism, functioning as a kaleidoscopic lens encompassing a multivalent religio-cultural assimilation that resists the usual bifurcation of doctrine and practice or “elite” and “popular” religion.
The Making of a Savior Bodhisattva presents a fascinating wealth of material on the personality, iconography, and lore associated with the medieval Dizang. It elucidates the complex cultural, religious, and social forces shaping the florescence of this savior cult in Tang China while simultaneously addressing several broader theoretical issues that have preoccupied the field. Zhiru not only questions the use of sinicization as a lens through which to view Chinese Buddhist history, she also brings both canonical and noncanonical literature into dialogue with a body of archaeological remains that has been ignored in the study of East Asian Buddhism. [Source: Publisher's website]