9. Temples & Mountains, Pilgrimage

Aijmer, Göran & Virgil K. Y. Ho. Cantonese Society in a Time of Change. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2000. [Note: See chapters 8 through 13 for information on ancestral cult, temples, and the revival of popular religion in Pearl River Delta villages.]

Andrews, Susan. "Gathering Medicines among the Cypress: The Relationship between Healing and Place in the Earliest Records of Mount Wutai." Studies in Chinese Religions 5, no. 1 (2019): 1-13.

Abstract: Early imaginings of Mount Wutai's (the Mountain of Five Plateaus) importance were more diverse than we might expect given the site's longstanding and intimate affiliation with Mañjuśrī (Wenshu). Alongside its importance as the Bodhisattva's territory, early accounts of this place preserved in Huixiang's (seventh-century) Ancient Chronicle of Mount Clear and Cool (Gu Qingliang zhuan) root Mount Wutai's specialness in the presence of curatives and substances promoting longevity there. These stories indicate that Wutai's connection with wellbeing played an important role in its seventh-century textual construction as a Buddhist sacred place. (Source: journal)

Ang, Isabelle. "The Revival of the Cult of Xu Xun in Jiangxi Province: The Pilgrimage to Xishan, and the Annual Rites in a Clanic Village." Daojiao xuekan 道教学刊/Journal of Taoist Studies 1 (2018): 111-132.

Baptandier, Brigitte, "Entrer en montagne pour y rêver. Le mont des Pierres et des Bambous." Terrain 26(1996): 99-122.

Berezkin, Rostislav. "Baojuan (Precious Scrolls) and Festivals in the Temples of Local Gods in Changshu, Jiangsu." Minsu quyi, no. 206 (2019): 115–175.

Bol, Peter K. "On the Spatio-temporal Analysis of Religious Institutions: A Study of the Jinhua Prefectural Gazetteer of 1480." In The Formation of Regional Religious Systems in Greater China, edited by Jiang Wu, 58–70. London: Routledge, 2022.

Bonk, James. “Loyal Souls Come Home: Manifest Loyalty Shrines and the Decentering of War Commemoration in the Qing Empire (1724-1803).” Late Imperial China 28, no. 2 (2017): 61-107.

Boretz, Avron A., "Righteous Brothers and Demon Slayers: Subjectivities and Collective Identities in Taiwanese Temple Processions." In: Paul R. Katz and Murray A. Rubinstein [eds.], Religion and the Formation of Taiwanese Identities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Pp.219-251.

Bosco, Joseph & Puay-Peng Ho, Temples of the Empress of Heaven. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Bruyn, Pierre-Henry de, "Wudang Shan: The Origins of a Major Center of Modern Taoism." In: John Lagerwey [ed.], Religion and Chinese Society. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press / Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient, 2004. Pp.553-590.

Bujard, Marianne, "Les temples des Anciens Souverains. Notes de recherche." Sanjiao wenxian 1 (1997): 67-77.

Bujard, Marianne; Xi Ju. "The Heritage of the Temples, a Heritage in Stone: An Overview of Beijing’s Religious Epigraphy." China Perspectives 2007/4: 22-30.

Abstract: Out of the thousands of temples that still existed in Beijing before the 1950s, less than a dozen are nowadays active, the remaining ones having been either abandoned or destroyed. However, the commemorative inscriptions that were carved on stelae for centuries and that still remain on rubbings enable us to understand whole sections of the history of temples and of the religious life of the capital. [Source: journal]

 

Cao, Meng. "The Flowing of the Sacred Space: How Reciprocal Exchanges with Deities Are Affected by Urbanization." Religions 14: 187. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/rel14020187

Abstract: Although there is a consensus on religious revival in China, it must be noted that popular religion and institutional religions such as Buddhism and Daoism adopt different strategies to survive the state’s regulations. Many temples that used to facilitate the worship of local deities have to establish some form of intangible cultural heritage or emphasize the deity’s history and folklore to de-religionize. During this process, a temple may earn its lawful place to survive, but risks its communality in the village. Based on studies of rural and urban temples in Henan and Shandong provinces, in this paper, I attempt to understand people’s religiosity and how they conduct the human–deity exchange under social transformation. Popular religion is characterized by the pursuit of efficacy and its embeddedness in rural life. The traditional binary exchange with deities could be used to maintain a relationship with deities as well as offer urgent solutions, while three‐party chains of exchange not only constitute a religious gift economy but also offer a religious agent to seek answers. I argue that temples are marginalized and excluded from village life, so people need to find new means by which to continue their religious practices beyond what the state sponsors, and this has led to the flowing of sacred places.

Camhi-Rayer, Bernadette. "Why Do They 'Walk the Walk'? A Comparative Analysis of Two Pilgrimages, Dajia Mazu in Taiwan and Lourdes in France: Political, Sociological and Spiritual Aspects." In Yanjiu xin shijie: “Mazu yu Huaren minjian xinyang” guoji yantaohui lunwenji, ed. Wang Chien-chuan, Li Shiwei, Hong Yingfa, 79-89. Taipei: Boyang, 2014.

Carlitz, Katherine, "Shrines, Governing-Class Identity, and the Cult of Widow Fidelity in Mid-Ming Jiangnan." Journal of Asian Studies 56 (1997) 3: 612-640.

Chan, Kwok-shin. “Temple Festivals, Social Networks, and Communal Relationships: The Development of a Local Cult in Macau.” In China Networks, edited by Jens Damm and Mechthild Leutner, 118–126. Berlin: Lit, 2009. (Berliner China-Hefte/ Chinese History and Society, vol. 35).

Chan, Selina Ching. “Temple-building and Heritage in China.” Ethnology 44.1 (2005): 65-79.

Abstract: Building Huang Da Xian temples in Jinhua, in the Lower Yangtze Delta, is a "heritage" process, an interpretation, manipulation, and invention of the past for present and future interests. Local memories of the saint Huang Da Xian were awakened by Hong Kong pilgrims, and the subsequent construction of temples enacted the politics of nationalism with a transnational connection. The process of remembering the saint and constructing temples creates, mediates, and invents relationships between the locals in Jinhua and Chinese living in mainland China and elsewhere. The multiple meanings of temple- building arc examined for mainland Chinese, Chinese in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the nation state. While the mainlanders treat new temples as places to perform religious activities, attract tourists, and develop the local economy, temple construction for the overseas Chinese is a nostalgic search for authenticity and roots. The state has utilized Huang Da Xian as a symbol of nationalism to reinforce a Chinese identity among mainlanders and all other Chinese. [Source: journal]

Chan, Selina Ching & Graeme S. Lang. “Temple Construction and the Revival of Popular Religion in Jinhua.” China Information 21.1 (2007): 43-69.

Abstract: This article examines a case of temple construction that was initiated by officials and cadres rather than by locals. The temple construction and religious revival are analyzed in the light of complex dynamics between the cadres at the United Front, provincial office, municipal government, township office, and religious bureau, as well as between these cadres and the locals—the intellectuals, village elders, religious specialists, and villagers. For the cadres and officials, the temple was intended as local heritage to attract tourists and ultimately to boost the local economy. However, the temple did not draw sufficient visitors as planned, whether foreign or local. On the other hand, the popularity of the deity associated with the temple took off. We suggest that whether the villagers identify culturally with the temple and lend it their support is crucial in determining its success. The fate of the temple will hence depend ultimately on the ability of the management committee to mobilize and involve local networks in the temple's activities. [Source: journal]

Chan, Selina Ching & Graeme Lang. “Temples as Enterprises.” In: Adam Yuet Chau [ed.], Religion in Contemporary China: Revitalization and Innovation. London: Routledge, 2011. Pp. 133-153.

Chan, Selina Ching & Graeme Lang. Building Temples in China: Memories, Tourism and Identities. London, New York: Routledge, 2014.

Abstract: Much has been written on how temples are constructed or reconstructed for reviving local religious and communal life or for recycling tradition after the market reforms in China. The dynamics between the state and society that lie behind the revival of temples and religious practices initiated by the locals have been well-analysed. However, there is a gap in the literature when it comes to understanding religious revivals that were instead led by local governments. This book examines the revival of worship of the Chinese Deity Huang Daxian and the building of many new temples to the god in mainland China over the last 20 years. It analyses the role of local governments in initiating temple construction projects in China, and how development-oriented temple-building activities in Mainland China reveal the forces of transnational ties, capital, markets and identities, as temples were built with the hope of developing tourism, boosting the local economy, and enhancing Chinese identities for Hong Kong worshippers and Taiwanese in response to the reunification of Hong Kong to China. Including chapters on local religious memory awakening, pilgrimage as a form of tourism, women temple managers, entrepreneurialism and the religious economy, and based on extensive fieldwork, Chan and Lang have produced a truly interdisciplinary follow up to The Rise of a Refugee God which will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese religion, Chinese culture, Asian anthropology, cultural heritage and Daoism alike. (Source: publisher's website)

Chang, Hsun. “Between Religion and State: the Dajia Pilgrimage in Taiwan.” Social Compass 59.3 (2012): 298-310.

Abstract: In this paper the author will utilize both anthropological and historical approaches to illustrate how religion and the State intersect in the Dajia Mazu pilgrimage. Moreover, she will critique the conventional binary model of sacred versus profane by demonstrating how these two concepts are intricately intertwined in the course of the Dajia pilgrimage. The article aims to: provide a brief introduction and background to the Dajia pilgrimage; explore how the pilgrimage route is determined; discuss the protagonists involved in the choice of the pilgrimage route – temple committee leaders and members, as well as local politicians; and examine how temple committee members exploit the pilgrimage to express dissent against the central government of Taiwan. (Source: journal)

Chang Hsun. “A Resurgent Temple and Community Development: Roles of the Temple Manager, Local Elite and Entrepreneurs.” In Religion in Taiwan and China : Locality and Transmission, edited by Hsun Chang & Benjamin Penny, 293-331. Taipei: Academia Sinica, Institute of Ethnology, 2017.

Chang, Kuei-min. "Between Spiritual Economy and Religious Commodification: Negotiating Temple Autonomy in Contemporary China." The China Quarterly, no. 242 (2020): 440–459.

Abstract: This research investigates the contentious use of temple assets amid wide- spread local state-led religious commodification in contemporary China. Based on a comparative analysis of 22 historic temples, this paper argues that given the choice, temple leaders strive for property-management autonomy, which they negotiate on two fronts. Externally, owing to the immobility of historic temple assets, temple leaders avoid antagonizing local state agents by demonstrating political conformity and the temple's economic contribution. Internally, they seek to build a donation-based merit economy to sustain the monastic institution. Since such autonomy must operate within the authoritarian state's regulatory framework, the restrained contestation of the religious leadership actually helps to strengthen state control over religion.

Chau, Adam Yuet, "The Dragon King Valley: Popular Religion, Socialist State, and Agrarian Society in Shaanbei, North-Central China." Thesis (Ph.D.), Stanford University, 2001, 281p.

Abstract: This dissertation is an ethnographic account of the revival and social organization of a popular religious temple in contemporary rural Shaanbei (northern Shaanxi Province), north-central China. Considered as "feudal superstition," the Black Dragon King Temple was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Soon after the reform era began in the early 1980s, however, villagers rebuilt the temple, expanded it, and made it into one of the most popular temples in Shaanbei. Based on a total of 18 months of fieldwork, this dissertation presents the story of the Black Dragon Temple as a case of popular religious revival. Three important conditions of possibilities lie behind popular religious revivals in Shaanbei. First, the social organization of popular religious activities replicates the principles and mechanisms of the organization of peasant secular life, which enabled quick revitalization of popular religion even after severe suppression. The temple association is examined as a key folk social institution staging much of Shaanbei folk culture. Second, village-level local activists seize upon temples and temple associations as valuable political, economic, and symbolic resource. The re-appearance of temples as sites of power generation and contestation is accompanied by the emergence of a new kind of local elite. The story of a temple boss and his legitimation strategies illustrates the shifting socio-political terrain in contemporary rural China. Third, shifting priorities compel the local state to regulate and even to profit from popular religion rather than suppress it, thus giving temples space to thrive. [Source: Dissertation Abstracts International]

Chau, Adam Yuet. "The Politics of Legitimation and the Revival of Popular Religion in Shaanbei, North-Central China." Modern China 31(2005)2: 236-278.

Abstract: From the early 1980s onward, popular religion has enjoyed a momentous revival in Shaanbei (northern Shaanxi province), as in many other parts of rural China. But despite its immense popularity, popular religion still carries with it an aura of illegality and illegitimacy. Not properly Daoism or Buddhism, which are among the officially recognized religions, popular religion in theory constitutes illegal, superstitious activities. This article addresses questions of the legality and legitimacy of popular religion by analyzing the case of the Black Dragon King Temple in Shaanbei and its temple boss. It examines how not just popular religiosity but the actions of local elites and local state agents have enabled the revival of popular religious activities, focusing particularly on the legitimation politics engaged in by temples and their leaders. [Source: journal]

Chau, Adam Yuet. Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006.

Abstract: Based on a total of 18 months of fieldwork in Shaanbei (northern Shaanxi province), this is the first book-length ethnographic case study of the revival of a popular religious temple in contemporary rural China.

The book reveals that "doing popular religion" is much more complex than praying to gods and burning incense. It examines the organizational and cultural logics that inform the staging of popular religious activities such as temple festivals. It also shows the politics behind the religious revival: the village-level local activists who seize upon temples and temple associations as a valuable political, economic, and symbolic resource, and the different local state agents who interact with temple associations and temple bosses. The study sheds unique light on shifting state-society relationships in the reform era, and is of interest to scholars and students in Asian Studies, the social sciences, and religious and ritual studies. [Source: publisher's website]

Chau, Adam Yuet. "Temples and Festivals in Rural and Urban China." In Handbook on Religion in China, edited by Stephan Feuchtwang, 132-155. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020.

Chau, Adam Yuet. "Ritual Terroir: The Generation of Site-Specific Vitality." Archives des sciences sociales des religions, no. 193 (2021): 25–54.

Chen, Ningning; Jinwen Chen, and Kenneth Dean. "Religion in Times of Crisis: Innovative Lay Responses and Temporal-Spatial Reconfigurations of Temple Rituals in COVID-19 China." cultural geographies 29, no. 2 (2022): 301–308.

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about massive changes in religious landscapes across the world. Recent research has focused on whether religions create problems or are sources of solution or support in these extraordinary times. Although some studies document religious leaders’ and institutions’ innovative responses to preserve ritual practices and foster members’ sense of belonging, they fail to highlight lay practitioners’ bottom-up religious transformations. Noting this, this article draws on the case of Lufeng city in south China to examine how local residents inventively reconfigured the temporal-spatiality of their ritual practices during temple lock-downs. Through an ethnographic-style exploration, we reveal multi-faceted spatial changes in the ritual performance, including the reconfiguration of home spaces, the performance of worship practices outside temple doors and the mobilization of digital spaces of communication to accumulate good fortune. Apart from these spatial strategies, local ritual transformation also produces temporal adaptations. Through these temporal-spatial reconfigurations, local residents innovatively cope with new social circumstances and articulate religion’s continual significance. This study foregrounds an agentive and flexible understanding of religion in times of crisis.

Chen Shih-pei. “Remapping Locust Temples of Historical China and the Use of gis.” Review of Religion and Chinese Society 3, no. 2 (2016): 149-163.

Abstract: Building temples in order to obtain relief from natural plagues was a common religious practice in premodern societies. In historical China, citizens built locust temples in hope of avoiding locust infestations. There were no centrally collected records in historical China of such plagues or other natural disasters. In order to discern patterns in the distribution of locust plagues over time and geographical space throughout historical China, this paper replicates the work of Chinese geographer Chen Cheng-siang, who used local gazetteers as major sources for collecting such data. The results of this paper include a modern GIS map of locust temples based on digital editions of local gazetteers, a GIS dataset, and a procedural method for constructing GIS maps on other topics mentioned in local gazetteers. (Source: journal)

Cheng, Christina Miu Bing, "Beyond a Cultural Register: The Charm of Tian Hou." China Perspectives 26(1999): 72-81.

Cheng, Tien-Ming; Chen, Mei-Tsun. "Image Transformation for Mazu Pilgrimage and Festival Tourism." Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research 19, nos.4-6 (2014): 538-557.

Chenivesse, Sandrine, "Le mont Fengdu: lieu saint taoïste émergé de la géographie de l'au-delà." Sanjiao wenxian 1 (1997): 79-86.

Chenivesse, Sandrine, "Fengdu: cité de l'abondance, cité de la male mort." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10(1998): 287-339.

Chia, Jack Meng-Tat. "Managing The Tortoise Island: Tua Pek Kong Temple, Pilgrimage, and Social Change in Pulau Kusu, 1965-2007.” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 11, 2 (December 2009): 72-95.

Abstract: This article examines the Tua Pek Kong Temple and religious activities in Pulau Kusu as they intersect with the larger forces of social change, state management, and development of the Southern Islands since the independence of Singapore, from 1965 to the present. It argues that the state’s interest in the economic potential of the Tua Pek Kong Temple, and the attempt to seek profit from its religious activities, particularly over the last two decades, has very much affected the temple and contributed to the commercialization and “touristization” of the island. State authorities in mainland Singapore have tried to exert more control over the temple through the management of the island. Profit was made from the island’s religious activities through the authorities’ monopoly of goods and services, promotion of commercial activities, and their attempt to transform the island into a tourist site.

Chipman, Elana. "The De-territorialization of Ritual Spheres in Contemporary Taiwan." Asian Anthropology 8 (2009): ??.

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.

Chou, Hansen. “Politics of the Periphery: Religion and Its Place at a City’s Edge in Taiwan.” MA thesis, University of British Columbia, 2009.

Abstract: This thesis explores the recent revival of popular religion in Taiwan through broader anthropological concerns regarding place and space. Swift industrialization and rapid urbanization of past decades have not dissuaded religious practice; instead they have flourished on the island. This study pays specific attention to their proliferation at the urban margins. Drawing on historical and ethnographic data based on field research conducted in 2007, the present work examines the spatial politics of place at a community on the urban periphery, just outside of Taipei in northern Taiwan. More specifically, it analyzes two key sites within the community that locals often evoke as crucial locations in their cultural and social imaginings of place: a cultural heritage district and the local communal temple. It documents various “spatial practices” (de Certeau 1984) of place, and focuses particularly on the divination ritual at the temple. This work draws upon some of the ideas advanced by Henri Lefebvre (1991) in his theorization of urbanization, particularly his notion of “abstract space”: the expanding spaces of homogeneity created in the wake of global capitalism’s spread. By addressing the everyday experiences of space, this thesis addresses the dynamics between histories, affect and place. In all, it argues that, amidst the uncertainties of change brought on by their modern(izing) surroundings, people resort to rituals like divination in hopes to mitigate their maladies and misfortunes. By turning to the past in their attempts to make sense of the present, they further engage in a form of local production.

Clark, Hugh [translator]: Fang Lüe, "Inscription for the Temple of Auspicious Response." In: Mair, Victor H.; Steinhardt, Nancy S.; Goldin, Paul R., eds. Hawaii Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005. Pp. 392-398.

Cohen, Erik. “Kuan To: The Vegetarian Festival in a Peripheral Southern Thai Shrine.” In: Pattana Kitiarsa [ed.], Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Gods. London: Routledge, 2008. Pp.68-88.

Cooper, Gene. The Market and Temple Fairs of Rural China: Red Fire. London & New York: Routledge, 2012.

Abstract: During the early communist period of the 1950s, temple fairs in China were both suppressed and secularized. Temples were closed down by the secular regime and their activities classified as feudal superstition and this process only intensified during the Cultural Revolution when even the surviving secular fairs, devoted exclusively to trade with no religious content of any kind, were suppressed. However, once China embarked on its path of free market reform and openness, secular commodity exchange fairs were again authorized, and sometimes encouraged in the name of political economy as a means of stimulating rural commodity circulation and commerce. This book reveals how once these secular "temple-less temple fairs" were in place, they came to serve not only as venues for the proliferation of a great variety of popular cultural performance genres, but also as sites where a revival or recycling of popular religious symbols, already underway in many parts of China, found familiar and fertile ground in which to spread. Taking this shift in the Chinese state’s attitudes and policy towards temple fairs as its starting point, The Market and Temple Fairs of Rural China shows how state-led economic reforms in the early 1980s created a revival in secular commodity exchange fairs, which were granted both the geographic and metaphoric space to function. In turn, this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the temple fair phenomenon, examining its economic, popular cultural, popular religious and political dimensions and demonstrates the multifaceted significance of the fairs which have played a crucial role in expanding the boundaries of contemporary acceptable popular discourse and expression. (Source: publisher's website)

Cooper, Eugene. “Market, Popular Culture, and Popular Religion in Contemporary China: The Market / Temple Fairs of Jinhua.” In Asian Popular Culture in Transition, ed. Lorna Fitzsimmons & John A. Lent, 15-37. London; New York: Routledge, 2013.

Dean, Kenneth, "Multiplicity and Individuation: The Temple Network of the Three in One Religion in Putian and Xianyou." In: Proceedings of the Conference on Temples and Popular Culture. Taipei: Center for Chinese Studies, 1995.

Dean, Kenneth, "Transformation of the She (Altars of the Soil) in Fujian." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10 (1998): 19-75.

Dean, Kenneth & Zheng Zhenman [eds.], Epigraphical Materials on the History of Religion in Fujian: Xinghua Region/Fujian zongjiao beiming huibian (Xinghua fu fence). Fuzhou: Fujian Renmin Chubanshe, 1995.

Dean, Kenneth & Zheng Zhenman. Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain. Volume One: Historical Introduction to the Return of the Gods. Volume Two: A Survey of Village Temples and Ritual Activities. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2010.

Abstract: Making ingenious use of a wide variety of sources, and old as well as modern technical resources, Kenneth Dean and Zheng Zhenman here set a new standard for an histoire totale for a coherently well-defined cultural region in China. At the same time it deals in-depth with the ongoing negotiation of modernity in Chinese village rituals. Over the past thirty years, local popular religion has been revived and re-invented in the villages of the irrigated alluvial plain of Putian, Fujian, China. Volume 1 provides a historical introduction to the formation of 153 regional ritual alliances made up of 724 villages. Early popular cults, Ming lineages, Qing multi-village alliances, late Qing spirit-medium associations, 20th century state attacks on local religion, and the role of Overseas Chinese and local communities in rebuilding the temple networks are discussed. Volume 2 surveys the current population, lineages, temples, gods, and annual rituals of these villages. Maps of each ritual alliance, the distribution of major cults and lineages, are included. (Source: publisher's website)

Dean, Kenneth, and Zheng Zhenman. "The Rise of a 'Temple-Centric' Society in Putian in the Song and Later Transformations of the Ritual Sphere." Minsu quyi, no. 205 (2019): 103–159.

Dean, Kenneth. "Opium for the Gods: Cheang Hong Lim (1841–1893), Headman and Ritual Libationer of the Hokkien Community, Leader of the Singapore Great Opium Syndicate (1870-1882)." Archives des sciences sociales des religions, no. 193 (2021): 107–130.

DeBernardi, Jean. "'Ascend to Heaven and Stand on a Cloud:' Daoist Teaching and Practice at Penang's Taishang Laojun Temple." In: The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour in Prof. Daniel L. Overmyer, edited by Philip Clart & Paul Crowe. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. Pp. 143-186.

DeBernardi, Jean. " Wudang Mountain and Mount Zion in Taiwan: Syncretic Processes in Space, Ritual Performance, and Imagination." Asian Journal of Social Science 37.1 (2009): 138-162.

Abstract: In this paper, I develop a detailed consideration of ways in which Chinese religious practitioners, including Daoists, Christians, and spirit mediums, deploy syncretism in complex fields of practice. Rather than focusing on doctrinal blending, this study emphasises the ways in which these practitioners combine elements from diverse religious traditions through the media of ritual performance, visual representation, story, and landscape. After considering the diverse ways in which syncretic processes may be deployed in a field of practice, the paper investigates three ethnographic cases, exploring ritual co-celebration at Wudang Mountain in South-central China, charismatic Christian practices in Singapore, and the recent development of Holy Mount Zion as a Christian pilgrimage site in Taiwan.

DeBernardi, Jean. “Commodifying Blessings: Celebrating the Double-Yang Festival in Penang, Malaysia, and Wudang Mountain, China.” In: Pattana Kitiarsa [ed.], Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Gods. London: Routledge, 2008. Pp.49-67.

Dott, Brian Russell, "Ascending Mount Tai: Social and Cultural Interactions in Eighteenth Century China." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1998.

Dott, Brian R. Identity Reflections: Pilgrimages to Mount Tai in Late Imperial China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, distributed by Harvard University Press, 2004.

Abstract: Mount Tai in northeastern China has long been a sacred site. Indeed, it epitomizes China's religious and social diversity. Throughout history, it has been a magnet for both women and men from all classes--emperors, aristocrats, officials, literati, and villagers. For much of the past millennium, however, the vast majority of pilgrims were illiterate peasants who came to pray for their deceased ancestors, as well as for sons, good fortune, and health.

Each of these social groups approached Mount Tai with different expectations. Each group's or individual's view of the world, interpersonal relationships, and ultimate goals or dreams--in a word, its identity--was reflected in its interactions with this sacred site. This book examines the behavior of those who made the pilgrimage to Mount Tai and their interpretations of its sacrality and history, as a means of better understanding their identities and mentalities. It is the first to trace the social landscape of Mount Tai, to examine the mindsets not just of prosperous, male literati but also of women and illiterate pilgrims, and to combine evidence from fiction, poetry, travel literature, and official records with the findings of studies of material culture and anthropology. [Source: publisher's website]

Dott, Brian R. “Spirit Money: Tourism and Pilgrimage on the Sacred Slopes of Mount Tai.” In: Tim Oakes & Donald S. Sutton [eds.], Faiths on Display: Religion, Tourism, and the Chinese State. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Pp.27-49.

Duan, Zeli. "The Architecture and Religion of Jinci." In Praxis, Folks' Beliefs, and Rituals: Explorations in the Anthropology of Religion, edited by Augustin F.C. Holl, 99–110. London, Tarakeswar: B P International (Classic), 2022.

Fang Ling. "Inscription pour la stèle de restauration de la salle principale du palais de repos et de la scène d'opéra couverte du temple du roi des Remèdes (Pékin, Yaowang miao, 1806)." Sanjiao wenxian: Matériaux pour l'étude de la religion chinoise 4(2005): 82-90.

Fang Ling & Vincent Goossaert, "L'inscription pour le temple du roi des Remèdes (Pékin, Yaowang miao, 1596)." Sanjiao wenxian: Matériaux pour l'étude de la religion chinoise 3(1999): 159-167.

Fava, Patrice. "Le pèlerinage au Miaofengshan et les théâtres de procession." In Lieux saints et pèlerinages: la tradition taoïste vivante, edited by Vincent Goossaert and Tsuchiya Masaaki, 409–458. Turnhout: Brepols, 2022.

Feuchtwang, Stephan, "Spiritual Recovery: A Spirit-writing Shrine in Shifting under Japanese Rule." Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 88(1999): 63-89.

Feuchtwang, Stephan. “Centres and Margins: The Organisation of Extravagance as Self-Government in China.” 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.87-126.

Fisher, Gareth. "Universal Rescue: Re-making Post-Mao China in a Beijing Temple." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 2006.

Abstract: Based on two years of ethnographic research at the Temple of Universal Rescue (Guangji Si) in Beijing, this dissertation examines both the content and process by which lay Buddhist practitioners create an alternative culture of meanings, relationships, and moralities to cope with a rapidly changing society. Specific focus is given to amateur lay preachers and their followers who convene in the temple's outer courtyard each week to combine Buddhist doctrine with other ideologies such as Mao Zedong thought. The goal of the preachers and their followers is to create a moral discourse which challenges the post-Mao Chinese state's narrative of progress through globalization and market reforms from which they have been both socially and economically marginalized.

Considering both historical and contemporary analogs to the practices of the lay practitioners and the amateur preachers around which they gather, the main body of the dissertation is organized around several cultural tropes through which the practitioners strive to inhabit their own universe of relationships and meanings. The last three chapters of the thesis examine how practitioners seek to apply this new framework to the moral reform of contemporary Chinese society which they understand as passing through a period of decline. The community of practitioners at the Temple of Universal Rescue is situated within a larger consideration of lay Buddhist revival in China as a whole. The dissertation concludes by considering how an imagined community of lay Buddhists provides a system of relationships, values, and exchange that takes its adherents beyond their immediate lives and concerns but that does not demand their adherence to an inflexible ideological system. This larger lay Buddhist community and the discourses it creates have the potential to challenge both popular and official understanding of self and personhood in globalizing post-Mao China, though this potential is limited by the difficulties faced by lay Buddhists in promoting their beliefs beyond the temple walls.

Flower, John & Pamela Leonard, "Defining Cultural Life in the Chinese Countryside: The Case of the Chuan Zhu Temple." In: Eduard B. Vermeer, Frank N. Pieke and Woei Lien Chong [eds.], Cooperative and Collective in China's Rural Development: Between State and Private Interests. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. Pp.273-290. (Note: On revival of the local Chuanzhu temple in a Sichuan village around 1992/93.)

Flower, John M., "A Road is Made: Roads, Temples, and Historical Memory in Ya'an County, Sichuan." Journal of Asian Studies 63(2004)3: 649-685.

Fong, Shiaw-Chian, "The Politics of Narrative Identity in the Mazu Cult." Issues and Studies 32(1996)11: 103-125.

Formoso, Bernard, "Chinese Temples and Philanthropic Associations in Thailand." Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 27(1996)2:245-260.

Gálik, Marián. "On the Problem of Sacred Space: Solomon´s Temple in Jerusalem and Temple-Palace in Fengchu (China) around 1000 B.C. (A Comparative Study)." Asian and African Studies 26, no.2 (2017): 319-349.

Abstract: The aim of this essay is to present a study about the problem of sacred space in comparing Solomon´s Temple in Jerusalem and the temple-palace in Fengchu (China) around 1000 B.C. and later, together with the situation in the Near Eastern countries, Sumer, Assyria, Canaan(Levant), their writings and concrete buildings. Sacred continua both in sacred space and partly also sacred time in Mesopotamia, Canaan, Judah, Israel,and China are studied here on the basis of available material between approximately 1000 B.C. up to about 450 B.C. The choice of the studied material was selected in order to see the differences between the understanding of the sacred space in the countries of Near East and in China in times when there were no relations between them. This essay points to the differences in the Chinese situation which was very different from that of Hebrew tradition. If in the first up to about the first half of the 1st cent. B.C. sacred space and also sacred time was with the exception at the end of the Shang Dynasty in high esteem, and then a more secular approach was acknowledged, among the Hebrews the theocracy of God became to be absolute. (Source: journal)

Gallin, Bernard & Rita S. Gallin, "Folk Religion as a Mobilizing Identity: The Ta Shih Kung Temple in Taipei." In: Wang Ch'iu-kui, Chuang Ying-chang & Chen Chung-min [eds.], Shehui, minzu yu wenhua zhanyan guoji yantaohui lunwenji. Taipei: Hanxue Yanjiu Zhongxin, 2001. Pp.183-203.

Gates, Hill, "Religious Real Estate as Indigenous Civil Space." Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 88(1999): 313-333.

Gerritsen, Anne, "Visions of Local Culture: Tales of the Strange and Temple Inscriptions from Song-Yuan Jizhou." Journal of Chinese Religions 28(2000): 69-92.

Gerritsen, Anne. Ji’an Literati and the Local in Song-Yuan-Ming China. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Abstract: Drawing on largely local sources, including local gazetteers and literati inscriptions for religious sites, this book offers a comprehensive examination of what it means to be 'local' during the Southern Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties in Ji'an prefecture (Jiangxi). It argues that 'belonging locally' was important to Ji'an literati throughout this period. How they achieved that, however, changed significantly. Southern Song and Yuan literati wrote about religious sites from within their local communities, but their early Ming counterparts wrote about local temples from their posts at the capital, seeking to transform local sites from a distance. By the late Ming, temples had been superseded by other sites of local activism, including community compacts, lineage prefaces, and community covenants. [Source: publisher's website]

Goh Ze Song, Shawn. 2020. "Making Space for the Gods: Ethnographic Observations of Chinese House Temples in Singapore." Religions 11, no. 7 (2020): 349. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11070349

Abstract: Space for religious use is highly regulated in Singapore. Specific plots of land are reserved for religious groups to bid for, and create, "official" spaces of worship. However, religious practices continue to exist within "unofficial" sacred spaces, such as house temples and wayside shrines, negotiating and resisting the overt management of religion by the Singapore state. Scholars, including Vineeta Sinha and Terence Heng, demonstrate how sacrality infused into everyday secular urban spaces defies neat binaries of "sacred/profane" and "legal/illegal", and how Chinese house temples or sintuas—temples located within public housing flats—sustain sacred spaces, despite being technically illegal under housing regulations. Drawing upon a series of ethnographic observations conducted over a year of four sintuas and their activities in Singapore, this paper explores the different ways through which sintuas produce sacred space as a response to spatial constraints imposed by the state. These include (1) re-enchanting everyday urban spaces during a yewkeng—a procession around the housing estate—with the help of a spirit medium; (2) using immaterial religious markers (e.g., ritual sounds and smells) to create an "atmosphere" of sacredness; (3) appropriating public spaces; and (4) leveraging the online space to digitally reproduce images of the sacred.

Goodrich, Anne S., "Miao Feng Shan." Asian Folklore Studies 57(1998)1: 87-97.

Goossaert, Vincent, "Les fêtes au temple du Pic de l'Est de Pékin sous les Mongols. Une source ancienne inédite." Sanjiao wenxian 1 (1997): 87-90.

Goossaert, Vincent; Fang Ling & Pierre Marsone, "Inscription de l'association pour célébrer les bureaux (Pékin, Dongyue Miao)." Sanjiao wenxian 1 (1997): 47-60.

Goossaert, Vincent, "Portrait épigraphique d'un culte. Inscription des dynasties Jin et Yuan de temples du Pic de l'Est." Sanjiao wenxian 2(1998): 41-83.

Goossaert, Vincent, Dans les temples de la Chine. Histoire des cultes, vie des communautés. Paris: Albin Michel, 2000.

Goossaert, Vincent. "La gestion des temples chinois au XIXe siècle : droit coutumier ou laisser-faire ?" Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident 23 (2001): 9-25.

Goossaert, Vincent. "Destruction et récupération d’un patrimoine religieux : les temples de Pékin."In Regards croisés sur le patrimoine dans le monde à l’aube du XXIe siècle, ed. Maria Gravari-Barbas & Sylvie Guichard-Anguis. Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2003. Pp. 667-682.

Goossaert, Vincent. "Resident Specialists and Temple Managers in Late Imperial China." Minsu quyi 153 (2006): 25-68.

Goossaert, Vincent; Nathalie Kouamé. "Un vandalisme d’État en Extrême-Orient ? Les destructions de lieux de culte dans l’histoire de la Chine et du Japon." Numen 53.2 (2006): 177-220.

Goossaert, Vincent. "Espace et temps sacrés: les temples." In Le sacré en Chine, ed. Michel Masson. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008). Pp. 23-33 (coll. « Homo Religiosus », II).

Goossaert, Vincent. "Irrepressible Female Piety: Late Imperial Bans on Women Visiting Temples." Nan Nü. Men, Women and Gender in China 10.2 (2008): 212-241 (Special issue on “Women, Gender and Religion in Premodern China”).

Goossaert, Vincent. "The Destruction of Immoral Temples in Qing China." ICS Visiting Professor Lectures Series, 2, Hong Kong, Chinese University Press, 2009 (Journal of Chinese Studies Special Issue), pp. 131- 153.

Goossaert, Vincent & Ling Fang. “Temples and Daoists in Urban China since 1980.” China Perspectives 2009/4: 32-41.

Abstract: Since 1980, the revival of Daoist temples in China’s urban environment has been developing in two different directions. On the one hand, “official” temples operated by the Daoist Association claim to embody a modern form of Daoism and offer a number of different religious services to the people. On the other hand, community temples refashion the religious life of neighbourhoods, often on the outskirt of cities. This article explores the complex relationships between these different kinds of temples, the lay groups who visit them, and the Daoist clergy who serve them.

Goossaert, Vincent & Fang Ling. “Tempel und Daoisten im urbanen China seit 1980.” China heute 29.2 (2010): 87-96.

Goossaert, Vincent. “Une repression endemique? La destruction des «temples immoraux» en Chine sous les Qing (1644-1898).” In: Arnaud Brotons, Yannick Bruneton & Nathalie Kouamé [eds.], État, religion et répression en Asie: Chine, Corée, Japon, Vietnam (XIIIe-XXIe siècles). Paris: Éditions Karthala, 2011. Pp. 183-221.

Goossaert, Vincent. “Managing Chinese Religious Pluralism in Nineteenth-century City God Temples.” In Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China: Transnational Religions, Local Agents, and the Study of Religion, 1800-Present, edited by Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein, and Christian Meyer, 29-51. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

Greene, Mark. "The Alchemical Lore of Wong Tai Sin and the Contemporary Pursuit of Transformational Wellbeing." Chinese Cross Currents 5, no.4 (2008): 90-102.

Greene, Mark. “Wong Tai Sin: The Divine and Healing in Hong Kong.” In Disease, Religion and Healing in Asia: Collaborations and Collisions, edited by Ivette Vargas-O’Bryan & Zhou Xun, 54-68. London & New York: Routledge, 2015.

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).

Gyss-Vermande, Caroline, "Petite chronique d'une première mission collective à Pékin, automne 1995." Sanjiao wenxian 1 (1997): 61-66.

Gyss-Vermande, Caroline, Alain Arrault, Vincent Goossaert, Fang Ling & Pierre Marsone, "Stèle commemorative pour la restauration des images saintes du temple du Pic de l'Est." Sanjiao wenxian 2(1998): 103-112.

Haar, Barend J. ter, "Local Society and the Organization of Cults in Early Modern China. A Preliminary Study." Studies in Central & East Asian Religions 8(1995):1-43.

Haar, Barend J. ter. “The Rise of the Northern Chinese Regional Temple Cults: A Case Study of the Worship of King Tang.” Minsu quyi, no. 205 (2019): 161–213.

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.

Hargett, James M. Stairway to Heaven: A Journey to the Summit of Mount Emei. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006.

Abstract: A consideration of China's Mount Emei, long important in Chinese culture and history and of particular significance to Buddhists.

Located in a remote area of modern Sichuan province, Mount Emei is one of China's most famous mountains and has long been important to Buddhists. Stairway to Heaven looks at Emei's significance in Chinese history and literature while also addressing the issue of "sense of place" in Chinese culture.

Mount Emei's exquisite scenery and unique geographical features have inspired countless poets, writers, and artists. Since the early years of the Song dynasty (960&endash;1279), Emei has been best known as a site of Buddhist pilgrimage and worship. Today, several Buddhist temples still function on Emei, but the mountain also has become a scenic tourist destination, attracting more than a million visitors annually.

Author James M. Hargett takes readers on a journey to the mountain through the travel writings of the twelfth-century writer and official Fan Chengda (1126&endash;1193). Fan's diary and verse accounts of his climb to the summit of Mount Emei in 1177 are still among the most informative accounts of the mountain ever written. Through Fan's eyes, words, and footsteps&emdash;and with background information and commentary from Hargett&emdash;the reader will experience some of the ways Emei has been "constructed" by diverse human experience over the centuries. [Source: publisher's website]

Hatfield, D.J. “Remediation and Innovation in Taiwanese Religious Sites: Lukang’s Glass Temple.” Asian Ethnology 78, no. 2 (2019): 263–288.

Abstract: Drawing from the case of Taiwan Hu-sheng Temple, a temple to the God- dess Mazu in Lukang constructed nearly entirely from glass, I argue that multiplicity and remediation have become dominant tropes in Taiwanese ritual life. While both of these tropes rely upon the overall logic of Taiwanese ritual practices, they also foster innovative and entrepreneurial projects to market "local culture" in a variety of new media. Hu-sheng Temple is exceptional: it was constructed to showcase the ingenuity of Taiwanese glass manufacturers, makes connections to environmentalist movements, and represents Taiwanese landscapes as a sacred geography. However, mainstream temples share these features—reflexivity, entrepreneurship, and cosmic projection—in often less obvious forms. Lukang's glass temple provides a lens through which we can better understand the role of remediation in ritual practices, particularly in their entanglements with variously situated attempts to reimagine (and market) Taiwan.

Hatfield, DJ W. Taiwanese Pilgrimage to China: Ritual, Complicity, Community. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Abstract: This book examines the pilgrimages to China from Taiwan in the late 1980s and early 1990s and offers a wide-ranging account of urban planning statements, arguments about ritual propriety, and the material culture of pilgrimage. Taiwanese Pilgrimage to China argues that as Taiwanese pilgrims and their Chinese hosts translated values produced in ritual contexts into the terms of economic and political reform, they became complicit in a shared project of composing historical truth. With its attention to pilgrimages at a possible center of geopolitical conflict, Taiwanese Pilgrimage to China provides an account of how shared frameworks for action grow and advances anthropological understandings of conflict resolution.

Hertzman, Emily Zoe. "An International Turn: Rebuilding Chinese Temple Networks in Indonesia 20 Years after the Suharto Era." Global Networks, 2022. DOI: 10.1111/glob.12398

Abstract: The transnationalization of Chinese temples is producing new spatial imaginaries and adding cosmopolitan dimensions to Chinese Indonesian identities in the post-Suharto era. In 1999, the Indonesian state legally-sanctioned Chinese Popular Religion after decades of prohibition, ushering in a period of Chinese religious revival nationally backed by constitutional legitimacy. The recent emergence of transnational temple networks is providing a further form of cultural legitimacy based on symbols and statuses that circulate in a broader cosmopolitan transnational social sphere. Using case studies of three temples in Singkawang, Indonesia, each with a different form of international network, this paper shows how the transnational circulation of religious teachings, people, ideas, donations and deities can provide the raw materials for expressions of cultural identity which are locally rooted and embedded in specific ethnic politics of belonging. Forging transnational religious connections has the potential to develop into long lasting and formal institutional platforms of exchange, however, it often begins with informal, spontaneous and idiosyncratic encounters.

Holroyd, Ryan. “Schools, Temples, and Tombs across the Sea: The Re-Civilization of Post-Zheng Taiwan, 1683–1722.” Frontiers of History in China 10, no. 4 (2015): 571–593.

Abstract: This article examines the strategies employed by the Qing empire to induce the Han population in Taiwan to accept its rule following the island’s conquest in 1683. Late-seventeenth-century Taiwan had a sparse population and a huge hinterland, and this made it difficult for the Qing government to enforce its rule by military means alone. I will argue that the Qing officials in Taiwan also used a number of cultural tactics to legitimize their government in the eyes of the Han Taiwanese. First, they built culture temples and schools in the hopes of both demonstrating their moral authority and convincing the Taiwanese to participate in the dynasty’s examination system. Second, they involved themselves in local religion by founding or refurbishing temples to popular deities, demonstrating sympathy for local concerns and solidarity between religious groups on the mainland and in Taiwan. Finally, rather than denigrate the memory of the island’s former rulers, the Ming-loyalist Zheng family who had resisted the Qing government’s conquest of southern China, they portrayed them as honorable servants of the former dynasty whose legacy could be proudly remembered, but whose time had ultimately passed. (Source: journal)

Hou Song, Wu Zongjie, and Liu Huimei. "Multi-Discursive Ethnography and the Re-Narration of Chinese Heritage: Stories about the Yueju Opera Performance at the Heavenly Queen Palace of Quzhou." Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies 16, no.2 (2016): 197-222.

Huo Jianying, "Ming Dynasty Eunuchs and Their Temples." China Today 51(2002)7: 46-50.

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 Mt. Huagai in Jiangxi province.]

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]

Ibáñez Gómez, Daniel, "El sentido de la montaña sagrada en China." Boletin de la Asociacion Española de Orientalistas 35(1999): 185-199.

Idema, Wilt L., "The Pilgrimage to Taishan in the Dramatic Literature of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries." Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, Reviews 19 (1997): 23-57.

Iiyama, Tomoyasu. „Maintaining Gods in Medieval China: Temple Worship and Local Governance in North China under the Jin and Yuan.“ Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 40 (2010): 71-102.

Jackson, Paul Allen. “Logographic Elements of Daoist Religious Language: A Case Study of Two Temples in Southern Taiwan.” Huaren zongjiao yanjiu/Studies in Chinese Religions 1(2013): 135-173.

Janousch, Andreas. “The Censor’s Stele: Religion, Salt-Production and Labour in the Temple of the God of the Salt Lake in Southern Shanxi Province.” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 39 (2014): 7-53.

Abstract: This case study analyses religious and technological changes that occurred during the last seventy years of the Ming dynasty (1574-1644) around the Hedong Salt Lake, situated south of Yuncheng City in southern Shanxi province. Based on a close reading of inscriptions found on stone steles at the Temple of the God of the Salt Lake and of different kinds of gazetteers, the article documents the processes and analyses the factors that shaped the expanding pantheon of local salt-production-related deities during this period. I argue that these religious changes need to be understood in the context of a wider sociotechnical system around the Salt Lake, especially the emergence of new salt production methods that were introduced at this time under the increasingly affirmative leadership of local salt merchants, as well as the changing conditions of local labour management. The larger methodological point the article makes is about the necessity to take stone steles themselves in their spatial and material dimensions as evidence of historical processes: this will allow us to see that by means of these steles and their inscriptions the temple became an architectural discursive space that facilitated new forms of social participation and of administrative intervention, while offering simultaneously a nexus be- tween the sphere of human intervention and the relevant ‘natural’ factors of the salt production at the Salt Lake. Accordingly, the article proposes novel ways to understand the role of religious institutions such as temples in their relation to ‘natural’ and ‘technological’ processes. (Source: journal)

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)

Jing, Jun, "Knowledge, Organization, and Symbolic Capital: Two Temples to Confucius in Gansu." In: Wilson, Thomas A. [ed.], On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, distributed by Harvard University Press, 2002. Harvard East Asian Monographs, 217. Pp.335-375.

Johnson, David. Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2010.

Abstract: This book is about the ritual world of a group of rural settlements in Shanxi province in pre-1949 North China. Temple festivals, with their giant processions, elaborate rituals, and operas, were the most important influence on the symbolic universe of ordinary villagers and demonstrate their remarkable capacity for religious and artistic creation. The great festivals described in this book were their supreme collective achievements and were carried out virtually without assistance from local officials or educated elites, clerical or lay. Chinese culture was a performance culture, and ritual was the highest form of performance. Village ritual life everywhere in pre-revolutionary China was complex, conservative, and extraordinarily diverse. Festivals and their associated rituals and operas provided the emotional and intellectual materials out of which ordinary people constructed their ideas about the world of men and the realm of the gods. It is, David Johnson argues, impossible to form an adequate idea of traditional Chinese society without a thorough understanding of village ritual. Newly discovered liturgical manuscripts allow him to reconstruct North Chinese temple festivals in unprecedented detail and prove that they are sharply different from the Daoist- and Buddhist-based communal rituals of South China. [Source: publisher's website]

Joo Fumiko. „Ancestress Worship: Huxin Temple and the Literati Community in Late Ming Ningbo.“ Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in China 16, no.1 (2014): 29-58.

Ju Xi. "Legend of Nine Dragons and Two Tigers: an Example of City Temples and Blocks in Beijing." Cambridge Journal of China Studies 11, no. 1 (2016): 48-67.

Abstract: Peking Temple Survey Schedule in Capital Library of China recorded the saying of “nine dragons, two tigers and one stele”, this legend still spread in the old residents in Xizhimen Street. Through the history research and fieldwork, this essay finds out the exact meaning of nine dragons and two tigers and the relationship with the temples, wells in Xizhimen Street. We find three characteristics of the temples in Beijing inner city through the legend: First, the temples have complicated responsibilities, clear objects and class attributes, which is the important reason for the great number of temples in Beijing. Second, the people have their own view and imagination towards the city landscape, this kind of special sense has some difference with the upper class. Finally, temples are not only served for the diverse religious and social needs of the residents, but also the basement of constructing their urban spatial aesthetics, the temples communicates the secular and gods, they are also the junction of city and universe. Based on the understanding and arrangement of the real temples, citizens construct their unique cosmic order. (Source: journal)

Kang Xiaofei. "Two Temples, Three Religions, and a Tourist Attraction: Contesting Sacred Space on China's Ethnic Frontier." Modern China 35 (2009): 227-255.

Kang Xiaofei. "Rural Women, Old Age, and Temple Work: A Case from Northwestern Sichuan." China Perspectives 2009/4: 42-52.

Abstract: This article examines the interface of religion, gender, and old age in contemporary China through the case of a group of rural Han elder women and their community temple in northwestern Sichuan. Without access to monastic resources and charismatic leadership, the women have made the temple a gendered ritual space of their own to obtain social company, spiritual comfort, and moral capital for themselves and their families. Neither victims of feudal superstition nor obstacles to modernisation, they are a dynamic transformative force in contemporary rural China.

Kataoka Tatsuki. "Religion as Non-Religion: The Place of Chinese Temples in Phuket, Southern Thailand." Southeast Asian Studies 1, no. 3 (2012): 461-485.

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., "Temple Cults and the Creation of Hsin-chuang Local Society." In: T'ang Hsi-yung [ed.], Papers from the Seventh Conference on Chinese Maritime History. Nankang: Sun Yat-sen Institute of Social Sciences, 1999. Pp.735-798.

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., "Local Elites and Sacred Sites in Hsin-chuang: The Growth of the Ti-tsang An during the Japanese Occupation." 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.179-227.

Katz, Paul R. „Spirit-writing Halls and the Development of Local Communities: A Case Study of Puli (Nantou County).“ Min-su ch’ü-i / Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 174 (2011): 103-184.

Kennedy, Brian L. & Elizabeth Nai-Jia Guo. "Taiwanese Daoist Temple Parades and Their Martial Motifs." Journal of Daoist Studies 2 (2009): 197-209.

Kleeman, Terry F., "Sources for Religious Practice in Zitong: The Local Side of a National Cult." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10(1998): 341-355.

Knepper, Timothy, and You Bin, eds. Religions of Beijing. London: Bloomsbury, 2020.

Abstract: Religions of Beijing offers an intimate portrayal of lived religion in 17 different religious communities in greater Beijing. Students at Minzu University of China spent one year immersed in the routine and practices daily, "writing with" the experiences and perspectives of their practitioners. Each chapter has been translated into English, with students at Drake University (Des Moines, Iowa) facilitating this process. The result is a bi-lingual book (Mandarin, English) that reveals to Chinese- and English-speaking readers the vibrant diversity of lived religion in contemporary Beijing. Each chapter focuses on the histories, practices, spaces, and members of its community, telling the overall story of the renewed flourishing of religion in Beijing. The book is also enriched with over 100 photos that portray this flourishing renewal, capturing the lived experience of ordinary practitioners. Together, the words and photographs of Religions of Beijing draw the reader into the stories and lives of these communities and their members, providing a first-hand look at the contemporary practice of religion in greater Beijing. The religions covered are Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam and folk religion.

 Koh, Keng We. "The Deity Proposes, the State Disposes: The Vicissitudes of a Chinese Temple in Post-1965 Singapore." In Singapore: Negotiating State and Society, 1965-2015, edited by Jason Lim & Terence Lee, 126-142. London; New York: Routledge, 2016.

Ku, Hok Bun, Moral Politics in a South Chinese Village: Responsibility, Reciprocity, and Resistance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. (Note: Deals with a Hakka village near Meizhou, Guangdong province. See chapter 8 on the revival of local temple cults and the rebuilding of an ancestral hall.)

Lagerwey, John, "A Year in the Life of a Mingqi Saint." Minsu quyi no.117 (1999): 329-370.

Lang, Graeme, "Sacred Power in the Metropolis: Shrines and Temples in Hong Kong." In: Grant Evans & Maria Tam [eds.], Hong Kong: The Anthropology of a Chinese Metropolis. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997. Pp.242-265

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.

Lang, Graeme; Selina Chan & Lars Ragvald. "Temples and the Religious Economy." In: Fenggang Yang & Joseph B. Tamney [eds.], State, Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Pp.149-180. [Note: Case-examples are Wong Tai Sin/Huang Daxian temples in Zhejiang and Guangdong.]

Law Pui-lam. "The Revival of Folk Religion and Gender Relationships in Rural China: A Preliminary Observation." Asian Folklore Studies 64(2005)1: 89-109. [Note: On revival of religious practices in the Pearl River Delta. Includes study of temple rebuilding activities.]

Liang, Yongjia. "Morality, Gift and Market: Communal Temple Restoration in Southwest China." Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15, no.5 (Nov 2014): 414-432 .

Luo Weiwei. “Locality and Temple Fundraising in Northern Qing China.” In Religion in Taiwan and China : Locality and Transmission, edited by Hsun Chang & Benjamin Penny, 37-58. Taipei: Academia Sinica, Institute of Ethnology, 2017.

Ly, Tuan Phong, and Xiuchang Tan. "Temple Keepers in Religious Tourism Development: A Case in Macao." Journal of Heritage Tourism 18, no. 1 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1080/1743873X.2022.2134019

Abstract: Temples are important religious sites within Chinese societies. While there is a considerable body of work on the development of religious tourism and the monastic community, little research has been conducted on the temple keeper community in Chinese folk-religion temples. Temple keepers are those who take care of daily temple operations and offer related secular services and cultural events to pilgrims and visitors. Meanwhile, they also have direct contact, communication, and interaction with visitors. It is argued that the temple keeper community plays important roles in religious tourism development. Macao, with a large number of folk temples of rich heritage value, has been chosen as the case context. Adopting qualitative research methods, this paper explores temple keepers’ services and roles in Macao’s temple site management and visitor experience. The study identified that temple keepers have four roles, which are temple attendant, temple representative, cultural knowledge broker, and destination ambassador. Suggestions are given for temple management and local government for adaptive strategies in cultural site management and to enrich the visitor experience in the destination.

Ma, Xu. "Temple and Text: Re-imagining Women's Social Spaces in Late Imperial China." PhD diss., University of California, Irvine, 2020.

Ma, Zhujun. "Intimacy in Pilgrimage: Reconsidering the Gendered Implications of the Cult of the Goddess of Mount Tai in Late Imperial China (1368–1912)." PhD diss., University of Colorado at Boulder, 2022. 

Abstract: The Goddess of Mount Tai has been one of the most popular deities in the north China plain in the late imperial period (1368–1912). Women were strongly associated with her worship in popular depictions, which attributed this to her often mentioned efficacy in female reproduction and childrearing. By investigating literati writings, official documents, Daoist scriptures, and precious scrolls, this thesis queries the gendered implications of her cult. Chapter 1 unpacks how the Goddess’s maternal compassion and renowned efficacy in female reproduction factored into the construction of a gendered pilgrimage in historical texts and previous scholarship. Chapter 2 contextualizes the Goddess’s rapid rise in influence through comparison with other female deities who rose to prominence in Late Imperial China. In Chapter 3, I argue how precious scrolls create a parallel between pilgrimage and the Goddess’s origin story to reinforce an intimate deity-human relationship through hands-on bodily practices.

Madsen, Richard. Democracy’s Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan. Berkeley: University of California, Press, 2007.

Abstract: This book explores the remarkable religious renaissance that has reformed, revitalized, and renewed the practices of Buddhism and Daoism in Taiwan. Democracy's Dharma connects these noteworthy developments to Taiwan's transition to democracy and the burgeoning needs of its new middle classes. Richard Madsen offers fresh thinking on Asian religions and shows that the public religious revival was not only encouraged by the early phases of the democratic transition but has helped to make that transition successful and sustainable. Madsen makes his argument through vivid case studies of four groups--Tzu Chi (the Buddhist Compassion Relief Association), Buddha's Light Mountain, Dharma Drum Mountain, and the Enacting Heaven Temple--and his analysis demonstrates that the Taiwan religious renaissance embraces a democratic modernity. [Source: publisher's website.]

Marsone, Pierre, Alain Arrault, Alix Feng & Vincent Goossaert, "Inscription de la bonne association du sanctuaire stationnal du Pic de l'Est (Pékin, Dongyue Miao, 1560)." Sanjiao wenxian 1 (1997): 25-32.

Marsone, Pierre, "L'épigraphie religieuse de Xi'an. Situation actuelle et documents inédits." Sanjiao wenxian 2(1998): 113-144.

Masters, Frederick J., "Pagan Temples in San Francisco (1892)." In: Thomas A. Tweed & Stephen Prothero [eds.], Asian Religions in America: A Documentary History. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp.75-78. (Note:First published 1892 in The Californian.)

Miles, Steven B. "Celebrating the Yu Fan Shrine: Literati Networks and Local Identity in Early Nineteenth-Century Guangzhou." Late Imperial China 25 (2004)2: 33-73.

Miller, Tracy Gay, "Constructing Religion: Song Dynasty Architecture and the Jinci Temple Complex." Thesis (Ph.D.), University of Pennsylvania., 2000, 502p.

Abstract: This dissertation addresses the buildings within the Jinci temple complex both as a case study in early building style and as evidence for local religious practice. In Part I, I assess the date of the primary temple building at Jinci, the Sage Mother Hall. I do this first by comparing the building to the Northern Song building manual the Yingzao fashi in order to review the current methodology of dating traditional buildings. Then I compare the bracketing style and structural features of the Sage Mother Hall to buildings of similar date in southern Shanxi province. By establishing a stylistic chronology within the southern Shanxi region, I show that the Sage Mother Hall is not a tenth century building, rather it is stylistically from the end of the eleventh century and should be given a date range of 1038-1102.

In Part II, I examine the architecture of the temple complex in relation to local religion. The distribution of temple buildings at Jinci reveals both how local people conceived of their divinities, and how over time the temple buildings themselves affected later generations' interpretation of the site. The architectural language of traditional Chinese ritual sites used by elite and common patrons alike reveals aspects of local religious belief systems which were obfuscated by the elite authors of textual sources. [Source: Dissertation Abstracts International]

Miller, Tracy G. "Water Sprites and Ancestor Spirits: Reading the Architecture of Jinci." Art Bulletin 86(2004)1: 6-30. [Note: The Jinci temple complex is located about eleven miles southwest of Taiyuan, Shanxi province.]

Miller, Tracy. The Divine Nature of Power: Chinese Ritual Architecture at the Sacred Site of Jinci. Cambridge, MA: published by the Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute; distributed by Harvard University Press, 2007.

Abstract: Built around three sacred springs, the Jin Shrines complex (Jinci), near Taiyuan in Shanxi province, contains a wealth of ancient art and architecture dating back to the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127). The complex's 1,500-year-long textual record allows us to compare physical and written evidence to understand how the built environment was manipulated to communicate ideas about divinity, identity, and status. Jinci's significance varied over time according to both its patrons' needs and changes in the political and physical landscape. The impact of these changes can be read in the physical development of the site.

Using an interdisciplinary approach drawing on the research of archaeologists, anthropologists, and religious, social, and art historians, this book seeks to recover the motivations behind the creation of religious art, including temple buildings, sculpture, and wall paintings. Through an examination of building style and site organization, the author illuminates the multiplicity of meanings projected by buildings within a sacred landscape and the ability of competing patronage groups to modify those meanings with text and context, thereby affecting the identity of the deities housed within them. This study of the art and architecture of Jinci is thus about divine creations and their power to create divinity. [Source: publisher's website.]

Miu, Christina Bing Cheng, "Religious Syncretism: The Harmonization of Buddhism and Daoism in Macao's Lian Feng Miao (The Lotus Peak Temple)." Review of Culture, no.5 (2003): 27-43.

Morris, E.B., "Historical Background of Taiwanese Folk Temples." Chinese Culture Quarterly 38 (1997) 2: 13-31.

Morris Wu, Eleanor, "The Historical Background of Three Taiwanese Folk Temples." In: Eleanor Morris Wu, From China to Taiwan: Historical, Anthropological, and Religious Perspectives. Sankt Augustin: Monumenta Serica Institute, 2004. Pp. 107-131.

Morris Wu, Eleanor, "The Symbolic Structure of Three Taiwanese Chinese Folk Temples." In: Eleanor Morris Wu, From China to Taiwan: Historical, Anthropological, and Religious Perspectives. Sankt Augustin: Monumenta Serica Institute, 2004. Pp. 133-177.

Murray, Daniel M. “The City God Returns: Organised and Contagious Networks at the Xiamen City God Temple.” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 19, no. 4 (2018): 281-297.

Abstract: This paper explores the revival and current networks of the Xiamen City God temple in Southeast China. I divide the networks into two forms: the first is organised and composed of systematically and consciously structured networks; the second is contagious, made up of networks that are more unwieldy and impossible to fully map as they are formed through the affective intensity of ritual events. The two forms of networks are mutually dependent: without the donations and participation generated through organised networks, the ritual events would never take place; without the ritual events that generate networks of contagion, there would be no interest or reason to support the temple and the god’s efficacy would be seen in decline. (Source: journal)

Naquin, Susan, "Sites, Saints, and Sights at the Tanzhe Monastery." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10(1998): 183-211.

Naquin, Susan, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400-1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

Naquin, Susan. Gods of Mount Tai: Familiarity and the Material Culture of North China, 1000–2000. Leiden: Brill, 2022.

Abstract: At the intersection of art and religious history, this work suggests a fresh method for studying Chinese gods and sacred places. Susan Naquin tells the full story of the transformations of the Lady of Mount Tai, North China's most important female deity, and her mountain home. This generously illustrated visual history presents a rich array of overlooked statues, prints, murals, and paintings of gods that were discovered in museums, auctions, and extensive travel. By focusing on ordinary images, temples, and region-based materiality Naquin demonstrates how this flexibly gendered new god flourished while her male predecessor was neglected. Both suffered greatly during the last century, but Mount Tai continues to be a culturally significant monument and China's most popular tourist mountain.

Neskar, Ellen, "Shrines to Local Former Worthies." In: Lopez, Donald S., Jr. [ed.], Religions of China in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Pp.293-305.

Olles, Volker. Der Berg des Lao Zi in der Provinz Sichuan und die 24 Diözesen der daoistischen Religion.Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. Asien- und Afrika-Studien 24.

Abstract: Der Berg des Lao Zi (Laojun Shan) in der Provinz Sichuan ist eine heilige Stätte des Daoismus, die auf eine lange Geschichte zurückblicken kann und auch in der heutigen Zeit als florierender Tempelstandort und regionales Zentrum der einheimischen Religion Chinas bekannt ist. Die Bedeutung und das Erscheinungsbild des Laojun Shan in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, die Grundlagen seiner spirituellen Legitimation in kanonischen Schriften und Überlieferungen, der traditionelle Tempelkomplex und das religiöse Leben auf dem Berg werden in diesem Buch umfassend dargestellt. Die Studie ist das Ergebnis von Forschungen an mehreren Lokalitäten in Sichuan, die zu den Stützpunkten des Himmelsmeister-Daoismus (Tianshi Dao) in der Östlichen Han-Zeit (25-220) gehörten. Diese Orte, die sich auf oder in unmittelbarer Nähe von Bergen bzw. Hügeln befanden, sind als ã24 Diözesen" (ershisi zhi) in den daoistischen Schriften aufgelistet. In vielen Fällen können diese Stätten auch heute noch identifiziert werden. Der Laojun Shan, das ehemalige Zentrum der Diözese Chougeng (Chougeng Zhi), wurde im Verlauf der Geschichte zum Standort eines Tempels zu Ehren von Lao Zi, der in dieser Religion als kosmische Gottheit und Verkörperung des Dao verehrt wird. Als heiliger Raum überdauerte der Berg die Jahrhunderte, und heute beherbergt der Tempelkomplex auf dem Laojun Shan eine Klostergemeinschaft von Daoisten, die zur Schule der Vollkommenen Verwirklichung (Quanzhen) gehören. Als erste Monographie zu diesem Berg bietet die Studie einen Einblick in Erscheinungsformen und Bedeutungen des heiligen Raumes innerhalb der chinesischen Religiosität und zeichnet zugleich ein lebendiges Bild der daoistischen Kultur von Sichuan.

The twenty-four dioceses (ershisi zhi) of early Celestial Master Daoism (Tianshi Dao) appear as a system of religious geography in various texts of the Daoist canon (Daozang). They were religious administrative spheres of an early Daoist movement and as such played an important role in the founding process of China's native religion. These administrative spheres were centered around mountains or hills surrounded by fertile farmland. From the beginning, their function was of a spiritual nature, and after the vanishing of the early Daoist movement these mountains became locations for temples and monasteries. Mt. Laojun (Laojun Shan), the Mountain of Lord Lao, is located in Xinjin County, south of the Sichuanese capital of Chengdu. This mountain has been identified as the center of the former diocese Chougeng (Chougeng Zhi) and, furthermore, has a long history as sanctuary for the worship of Laozi. The temple on Mt. Laojun is today a very active and flourishing institution that belongs to the Dragon Gate (Longmen) order of Complete Realization (Quanzhen) Daoism. This study is the first comprehensive monograph that illustrates Mt. Laojun's past and present in order to provide an insight into the nature and meaning of Daoist sacred space. [Source: publisher's website.]

Olles, Volker. "The Gazetteer of Mt. Tianshe: How the Liumen Community Reshaped a Daoist Sacred Mountain." In Chinese and European Perspectives on the Study of Chinese Popular Religions, edited by Philip Clart. Taipei: Boyang Publishing, 2012. Pp.229-289.

Abstract: The Mountain of Lord Lao (Laojun shan), a sacred site in Sichuan Province, belongs to the earliest sanctuaries of the Daoist religion. In late Qing and Republican times, the temple on Mt. Laojun was closely connected with the Liumen (Liu School) community, a quasi-religious movement based on the doctrine of the Confucian scholar Liu Yuan (1768-1856). Under the influence of the Liumen community, an ancient legend of Laozi’s sojourn on this mountain has become the main source of Mt. Laojun’s spiritual authority. Tang Jicang, an adherent of the Liumen tradition who functioned as the caretaker of the sanctuary from the early 1960s through the 1980s, wrote the only monograph on this sacred site: the Tianshe shan zhi (Gazetteer of Mt. Tianshe). “Tianshe shan” is an alternative appellation for Mt. Laojun, which is favoured by members of the Liumen community. The focus of my contribution is on this valuable document that allows fascinating insights into the modern history of the temple on Mt. Laojun. (Source: book)

Olles, Volker. “Der Wahre Mensch von der Smaragdgrotte. Teil I einer Reihe kommentierter Übersetzungen von fünf Inschriften aus der Liumen-Tradition in der daoistischen Anthologie Chongkan Daozang jiyao.” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 163.2 (2013): 485-504.

Olles, Volker. "Der Palast der Grauen Ziege. Teil II einer Reihe kommentierter Übersetzungen von fünf Inschriften aus der Liumen-Tradition in daoistischen Anthologie Chongkan Daozang jiyao." Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 166, no.2 (2016): 443-466.

Abstract: This contribution is the second in a series of articles presenting the texts and annotated translations of five stele inscriptions, which were included in the collection Chongkan Daozang jiyao (Reedited Essentials of the Daoist Canon), a Daoist anthology published in 1906 at the monastery Erxian An (Hermitage of the Two Immortals) in Chengdu (Sichuan). The inscriptions in question were, with one exception, composed to commemorate the renovation or rebuilding of temple halls and other structures belonging to either the Erxian An or the adjacent Qingyang Gong (Palace of the Grey Goat), and were included in the relevant sections of the Chongkan Daozang jiyao. All texts share a common derivation from the Liumen (Liu School) tradition. The term Liumen refers to the teachings of the Confucian scholar Liu Yuan (1768–1856) as well as a quasi-religious movement, which was based on Liu’s thought and flourished in late imperial and Republican times. Liu Yuan and the following Liumen patriarchs were patrons of the Qingyang Gong and the Erxian An, and the two Daoist sanctuaries, among other temples in Chengdu and its environs, were supported by the Liumen community. The present article contains a full translation of Liu Yuan’s Chongxiu Qingyang Gong beiji (Stele Inscription on the Restoration of the Qingyang Gong) and outlines the historical development of Chengdu’s most important Daoist temple. Special emphasis is placed on the Qingyang Gong’s modern history and its relation to the Liumen community. From the early 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, the Qingyang Gong received substantial support from the Liu family and Liumen adherents, and it is obvious that the Liumen community was significantly involved in the management of this ancient sanctuary. (Source: journal)

Olles, Volker. "Die Halle der Drei Urspünge. Teil III einer Reihe kommentierter Übersetzungen von fünf Inschriften aus der Liumen-Tradition in daoistischen Anthologie Chongkan Daozang jiyao." Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 168, no.2 (2018): 465-480.

Abstract: This contribution is the third in a series of articles presenting the texts and annotated translations of five stele inscriptions, which were included in the collection Chongkan Daozang jiyao 重刊道藏輯要 (Reedited Essentials of the Daoist Canon), a Daoist anthology published in 1906 at the monastery Erxian An 二仙菴 (Hermitage of the Two Immortals) in Chengdu (Sichuan). The inscriptions in question were, with one exception, composed to commemorate the renovation or rebuilding of temple halls and other structures belonging to either the Erxian An or the adjacent Qingyang Gong 青羊宮 (Palace of the Grey Goat), and were included in the relevant sections of the Chongkan Daozang jiyao. All texts share a common derivation from the Liumen 劉門 (Liu School) tradition. The term Liumen refers to the teachings of the Confucian scholar Liu Yuan 劉沅 (1768–1856) as well as a quasi-religious movement, which was based on Liu's thought and flourished in late imperial and Republican times. Liu Yuan and the following Liumen patriarchs were patrons of the Qingyang Gong and the Erxian An, and the two Daoist sanctuaries, among other temples in Chengdu and its environs, were supported by the Liumen community. The present article contains a full translation of Liu Yuan's Chongxiu Qingyang Gong Sanyuan Dian beiji 重 修青羊宮三元殿碑記 (Stele Inscription on Rebuilding the Three Primes Hall at Qingyang Gong). From the early 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, the Qingyang Gong received substantial support from the Liu family and Liumen adherents, and it is obvious that the Liumen community was significantly involved in the management of this ancient sanctuary. The Three Primes Hall inside the Qingyang Gong was rebuilt by Liumen adherents in the early 19th century. In addition to the annotated translation of the inscription, the present contribution introduces the deities worshiped in the temple hall and briefly discusses how Liu Yuan perceived the Daoist notion of the Three Primes (sanyuan). (Source: journal)

Qu, Ray X. L. “Popular Religion Temples in Fujian, Southeast China: The Politics of State Intervention, 1990s–2010s.” Modern China 2020 (Online prepublication), https://doi.org/10.1177/0097700419899038

Abstract: This article presents an ethnographic examination of state intervention in popular religion temples in Fujian, southeast China. Specifically, it surveys the state presence in four temples, explores how and why the local state adopted a varied approach to religious organizations in the same religious tradition, and examines the mutually legitimating relations of state and religion. State-religion relations are constantly changing, highly variable, and context-bound. The state-religion interactions in Fujian demonstrate that to a certain extent the uneven revitalization of temple-based popular religion shaped, and was shaped by, the degree of state presence. I argue that the performance-based legitimacy of the nation-state has been fortified through local-state projects devoted to religious tourism, intra- religious competition, and the Taiwan issue, and that the Chinese state has the potential to influence a reemerging traditional form of authority at the local level through varying degrees of state presence in religious organizations.

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]

Porter, Jonathan, Macau: The Imaginary City: Culture and Society, 1557 to the Present. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. (See chapter 6 "Spiritual Topography" on Macau temples.)

Ptak, Roderich & Cai Jiehua: "The Mazu Inscription of Chiwan (1464) and the Early Ming Voyages." Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 167, no. 1 (2017): 191-214.

Abstract: There are several inscriptions in the famous Chiwan Temple near Shekou in Shenzhen. One item dates from 1464. This text is important for a number of reasons: It is an early document for the Mazu cult in Central Guangdong; it refers to several Ming envoys and thereby indirectly to the voyages of Zheng He; and it also tells us something about China's maritime connections after the end of these expeditions, in the Guangdong context. The present article provides an annotated translation of the text and discusses these and other issues, mainly by relating them to historical sources and religious works. (Source: journal)

Pye, Michael. "Die 'Drei Lehren' und das Tauziehen der Religionen in chinesischen Tempeln Südostasiens." In: Edith Franke & Michael Pye [eds.], Religionen Nebeneinander: Modelle religiöser Vielfalt in Ost- und Südostasien. Berlin: LIT-Verlag, 2006. Pp. 41-60.

Qing, Mei, "A Historic Research on the Architecture of Fujianese in the Malacca Straits: Temple and Huiguan." Thesis (M.Phil.), University of Hong Kong, 2000, 137p.

Abstract: This study will challenge the long accepted traditional idea of Chinese architecture and scope of Chinese architectural research. Does Chinese architecture only involve that which is inside China, and is Chinese architectural history research confined to the territory within China?

Temples and huiguans created by Chinese immigrants in the Malacca Straits provide the focus for the research. Specifically, this study aims to reestablish the architectural connection between China's southern Fujian province and the Malacca Straits. Through studying Chinese temples and huiguans, the research's scope about Chinese architecture has been extended in order to present a multi-level expression of Chinese architecture based on Chinese cultural entity. Key questions clarified in this study are whether these temples and huiguans are just the transplantation of their prototypes in southern China, or whether they are changed in the new settlement, and what made these changes. Why can they still be called Chinese architecture? [Source: Dissertation Abstracts International]

Remoiville, Julie. "Le renouveau religieux en Chine contemporaine: Le rôle social des lieux de culte en contexte urbain." Études chinoises 33, no.1 (2014): 133-146.

Robson, James George, "Imagining Nanyue: A Religious History of the Southern Marchmount through the Tang Dynasty." Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University. 2002. 608p.

Abstract: This dissertation concerns the religious history of the Southern Marchmount [Nanyue] (or Hengshan) through the end of the Tang dynasty (618907). The aim of the study is twofold: to situate Nanyue within the context of other mountain cultic sites; and to provide a detailed history of its role within the imperial cult, Daoism, and Buddhism. The main text that is used is the Collected Highlights of the Southern Marchmount [Nanyue zongsheng ji], a mountain monograph included in both the Buddhist and Daoist canons.

The first chapter provides a methodological introduction to the dissertation by situating the study of sacred geography (or "place studies") and local history within the field of religious studies. The prospects and limitations of those approaches are discussed in relation to the study of Chinese sacred space.

Chapter Two discusses the formation and transformations of the two main Chinese mountain classification systems: the five marchmounts and the "four famous mountains" [sida mingshan].

Chapter Three address the history of the movements of the Southern Marchmount. The title "Nanyue" was applied to at least three different locations between the Han and Sui dynasties. That chapter also explores the implications of those moves for the maintenance of imperial rituals and the mobility of myths.

Chapter Four provides an introduction to the physical layout of the site and the types of myths that were mapped onto the terrain. The last five chapters are all concerned with aspects of Nanyue's Daoist and Buddhist religious histories. Chapters Five and Six are concerned with the pre-Tang and Tang Daoist history of the site, which is approached through the lens of the Short Record of Nanyue [Nanyue xiaolu] and the Biographies of the Nine Perfected of Nanyue [Nanyue jiu zhenren zhuan]. A history of Lady Wei and the female Daoist cults at Nanyue are the subjects of Chapter Seven. Finally, Chapters Eight and Nine detail the Buddhist history of the site from early pre-Tang figures such as Huisi (515577) up through its role within Chan, Pure Land and Vinaya developments in the Tang dynasty. [Source: Dissertation Abstracts International]

Robson, James, "Buddhism and the Chinese Marchmount System: A Case Study of the Southern Marchmount." In: John Lagerwey [ed.], Religion and Chinese Society. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press / Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient, 2004. Pp.341-383.

Robson, James. Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue) in Medieval China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, distributed by Harvard University Press, 2009.

Abstract: Throughout Chinese history mountains have been integral components of the religious landscape. They have been considered divine or numinous sites, the abodes of deities, the preferred locations for temples and monasteries, and destinations for pilgrims. Early in Chinese history a set of five mountains were co-opted into the imperial cult and declared sacred peaks, yue, demarcating and protecting the boundaries of the Chinese imperium. The Southern Sacred Peak, or Nanyue, is of interest to scholars not the least because the title has been awarded to several different mountains over the years. The dynamic nature of Nanyue raises a significant theoretical issue of the mobility of sacred space and the nature of the struggles involved in such moves. Another facet of Nanyue is the multiple meanings assigned to this place: political, religious, and cultural. Of particular interest is the negotiation of this space by Daoists and Buddhists. The history of their interaction leads to questions about the nature of the divisions between these two religious traditions. James Robson’s analysis of these topics demonstrates the value of local studies and the emerging field of Buddho-Daoist studies in research on Chinese religion. [Source: publisher's website]

Roper, Geoffrey. "The History and Design of the Lin Fa Kung Temple, Tai Hang." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 47 (2007): 81-90.

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.

Schipper, Kristofer, "Note sur l'histoire du Dongyue miao à Pékin." In Jean-Pierre Diény [ed.], Hommage à Kwong Hing Foon: Études d'histoire culturelle de la Chine. Paris 1995. Pp.255-269.

Schipper, Kristofer, "Liturgical Structures of Ancient Beijing." In: Dai Kangsheng, Zhang Xinying and Michael Pye [eds], Religion and Modernization in China: Proceedings of the Regional Conference of the International Association for the History of Religions held in Beijing, China, April 1992. Cambridge: Roots and Branches, 1995. Pp. 19-33.

Schipper, Kristofer, Alain Arrault, Fang Ling & Vincent Goossaert, "Stèle de l'association pour divers objets utilisés dans le monde des ténèbres (Pékin, Dongyue Miao, 1591)." Sanjiao wenxian 1 (1997): 33-45.

Schipper, Kristofer, "Stèle du temple du Pic de l'Est (Dongyue Miao) de la Grande Capitale, par Wu Cheng (1249-1333)." Sanjiao wenxian 2(1998): 85-93.

Schipper, Kristofer & Pierre Marsone, "Inscription pour la reconstruction du temple du Pic de l'Est à Pékin par l'Empereur Zhengtong (1447)." Sanjiao wenxian 2(1998): 95-102.

Schipper, Kristofer, "La grande stèle de l'association de nettoyage (Pékin, Dongyue miao, 1774)." Sanjiao wenxian: Matériaux pour l'étude de la religion chinoise 3(1999): 169-179.

Schlehe, Judith. "Translating Traditions and Transcendence: Popularised Religiosity and the Paranormal Practitioners' Position in Indonesia." In Religion, Tradition and the Popular: Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe, edited by Judith Schlehe and Evamaria Sandkühler, 185-201. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript, 2014.

Schneewind, Sarah, "Competing Institutions: Community Schools and 'Improper Shrines' in Sixteenth Century China." Late Imperial China 20(1999)1: 85-106.

Schneewind, Sarah. "Beyond Flattery: Legitimating Political Participation in a Ming Living Shrine." Journal of Asian Studies 72, no.2 (May 2013): 345-366.

Shih, Fang-Long. "Generation of a New Space: a Maiden Temple in the Chinese Religious Culture of Taiwan." Culture and Religion 8.1 (2007): 89-104.

Shinno, Reiko. “Medical Schools and the Temples of the Three Progenitors in Yuan China: A Case of Cross-Cultural Interactions.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 67.1(2007): 89-133.

Siu, Anthony Kwok Kin, "Distribution of Temples on Hong Kong Island as Recorded in 1981." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 36(1996): 241-245.

Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman, "The Temple to the Northern Peak in Quyang." Artibus Asiae 58(1998)1/2: 69-90.

Stevens, Keith, "Impermanence of Images in Chinese Popular Religion Temples." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 36 (1996): 235-237.

Stevens, Keith. "Temple Dedicated to Emperor Yao in Yaocheng, Shanxi." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch 53 (2013): 135-151.

Stevens, K.G. "Images on Taiwanese Temple Altars of Koxinga and His Generals." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong 55 (2015): 157-182.

Sutton, Donald S. & Xiaofei Kang. “Making Tourists, Remaking Locals: Religion, Ethnicity, and Patriotism on Display in Northern Sichuan.” In: Tim Oakes & Donald S. Sutton [eds.], Faiths on Display: Religion, Tourism, and the Chinese State. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Pp.103-126.

Sutton, Donald S. & Xiaofei Kang “Recasting Religion and Ethnicity: Tourism and Socialism in Northern Sichuan, 1992-2005.” In: Thomas David DuBois [ed.], Casting Faiths: Imperialism and the Transformation of Religion in East and Southeast Asia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Pp. 190-214.

Svensson, Marina. “Tourist Itineraries, Spatial Mangement, and Hidden Temples: The Revival of Religious Sites in a Water Town.” In: Tim Oakes & Donald S. Sutton [eds.], Faiths on Display: Religion, Tourism, and the Chinese State. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Pp.211-233.

Tan, Chee-Beng. “Shantangs.” Asian Ethnology 71.1 (2012): 75-107.

Abstract: This article is based on ethnographic and documentary research that concerns shantangs, Chinese charitable temples, in Southeast Asia and in the Chao-Shan region of Guangdong in China. Unlike the shantangs as benevolent societies in late Ming and Qing China, the shantangs described in this article not only emphasize charitable activities, they are also temples that honor Song Dafeng as a deity. I show that the religious nature of these shantangs account for their resilience, while the tradition of charity helps to promote their secular and benevolent image, especially when there is a need to emphasize their existence as non-superstitious organizations. I also describe the agency of the local elite--and especially merchants--in the development of shantangs in Southeast Asia and China. (Source: journal)

Taylor, Romeyn, "Official Altars, Temples, and Shrines for All Counties in Ming and Qing." T'oung Pao 83 (1997) 1-3: 93-125.

Tischer, Jacob Friedemann. "The Invisible Hand of the Temple (Manager): Gangsters, Political Power, and Transfers of Spiritual Capital in Taiwan's Mazu Pilgrimages." Review of Religion and Chinese Society 8, no. 1 (2021): 61–91.

Abstract: Religious institutions continue to provide important stages on which politicians participate in public rituals in secular democratic Taiwan. In particular, the annual Mazu pilgrimages bring together tens of thousands of people from all over the island, including candidates in presidential elections. I interpret temple ritual as a public arena in which the community of worshipers creates a reservoir of symbolic capital. Political and economic elites seek to gain access to this resource and appeal to the mass of worshipers by conducting what has essentially become a nation-defining ritual. At the same time, relying on temples as institutions of cultural authority raises the profile of their managing elites, who may themselves become influential powerbrokers. I explore these dynamics by referring to the case of Zhenlangong, the temple organizing Taiwan's largest Mazu pilgrimage, and its longtime manager, a former Mafia boss who uses the temple to legitimate and expand his political activities.

Tsai, Wen-ting, "Han Yu, Hakka, and Examination Hopefuls Come Together at Changli Temple." Sinorama 27(12): 80-88.

Tsuda, Koji. “The Legal and Cultural Status of Chinese Temples in Contemporary Java.” Asian Ethnicity 13.4 (2012): 389-398.

Abstract: Since the collapse of Soeharto’s New Order in 1998, Indonesia has been experiencing broad political and social changes. While the Soeharto regime was generally cautionary and oppressive toward anything related to China or the ethnic Chinese, the subsequent administrations faced the pressure to make sweeping changes to existing discriminatory policies and laws, and have put these changes into action, though gradually. With this major change in the social environment, an atmosphere is being engendered across the nation, producing a feeling that anyone is free to enjoy ‘Chinese culture’ which for a long time was banned from being expressed in public. This spirit is palpable for example during Chinese New Year, when red lanterns and other ornate decorations, and characters such as Gong Xi Fa Cai are seen dancing about everywhere. Along with upscale malls and hotels, it is Chinese temples (klenteng) that have become the centers of these festivities. Having been the anchorage of traditional worship for the ethnic Chinese, during the Soeharto era these facilities were the target of unfavorable treatment. In the last few years, their activities have gradually been revitalized. This article scrutinizes the changed legal and cultural status of the Chinese temples engendering changes within the Chinese community at large, by focusing on developments in post-’New Order‘ Java. (Source: journal)

Wang Chien-ch'uan. "The White Dragon Hermitage and the Spread of the Eight Generals Procession Troupe in Taiwan." In: The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour in Prof. Daniel L. Overmyer, edited by Philip Clart & Paul Crowe. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. Pp. 283-302.

Wang, Mingming, "Place, Administration, and Territorial Cults in Late Imperial China. A Case Study from South Fujian." Late Imperial China 16(1995)1: 33-78.

Wang Yaofeng, Yue Yongyi. "Belief or Leisure: The Evolution of Miaofeng Mountain Temple Festival in the Last Century." Cambridge Journal of China Studies 11, no.1 (2016): 27-47.

Abstract: The Miaofeng Mountain temple festival is based on Bixia Yuanjun, known as Laoniangniang, belief in Beijing-Tianjin area. The paper discusses its historical changes and transformation through methods of text analysis and fieldwork. The historical changes of Miaofeng Mountain temple festival are organized as follow: 1) its origin, 2) the space-time distribution, 3) the ritualized behavior and interactive mode of incense organizations (Xianghui) and unorganized discrete pilgrims when offering incense and sacrifices, and 4) the impact brought by the participation of special forces represented by the Bannermen and the royal family of Qing dynasty. The driving force behind the contemporary transformation of Miaofeng Mountain temple festival is mainly tourism economy, leisure culture and the decline of the sanctity of the goddess beliefs. Changes were found in temples, managers, the time of the temple festival, the roads to the mountain, the composition and mind set of the Xianghui, etc. (Source: journal)

Waters, D.D. "One of Hong Kong's Many Hillside Temples: the Temple Overlooking the Sea'." Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 39(1999-2000): 275-281.

Wilkerson, James, "Rural Village Temples in the P'eng-hu Islands." In: Proceedings of the Conference on Temples and Popular Culture. Taipei: Center for Chinese Studies, 1995.

Wilson, Rex. "Chinese Folk Religion in Macao: Ritualism or Relief?" Revista de Cultura, no. 48 (2014): 68-85.

Abstract: Although Chinese religion is characterised by Stephan Feuchtwang as ritualistic, meaning that the emphasis is on precise performances of ritual to achieve desired results, as opposed to religions such as Christianity and Islam that stress personal belief, the practices and beliefs described by worshippers in Macao of the popular Daoist god Nezha are not ritualistic. Chinese folk religion and Western Judeo-Christian religions have many differences but also many similarities. For example, the Nezha temples in Macao have no creeds, commandments, clergy, doctrines, scriptures, or sacraments such as in the Roman Catholic Church, nor do they have regular educational activities such as Sunday schools, sermons, or prayer groups. Nevertheless, from interviews with members of the two Nezha temple associations in Macao, we learn that their religion benefits members with ‘spiritual relief’ and the sense of belonging to a community. Their expressed beliefs are consistent with the four functions of myth identified by Joseph Campbell: metaphysical, cosmological, sociological, and pedagogical. (Source: journal)

Wilson, Thomas A. [ed.], On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, distributed by Harvard University Press, 2002. Harvard East Asian Monographs, 217.

Yan, Yingwei, Kenneth Dean, Chen-Chieh Feng, Guan T. Hue, Khee-heong Koh, Lily Kong, Chang W. Ong, Arthur Tay, Yi-chen Wang und Yiran Xue. „Chinese Temple Networks in Southeast Asia: A WebGIS Digital Humanities Platform for the Collaborative Study of the Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia.“ Religions 11, no. 7 (2020): 334. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11070334

Abstract: This article introduces a digital platform for collaborative research on the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia, focusing on networks of Chinese temples and associations extending from Southeast China to the various port cities of Southeast Asia. The Singapore Historical Geographic Information System (SHGIS) and the Singapore Biographical Database (SBDB) are expandable WebGIS platforms gathering and linking data on cultural and religious networks across Southeast Asia. This inter-connected platform can be expanded to cover not only Singapore but all of Southeast Asia. We have added layers of data that go beyond Chinese Taoist, Buddhist, and popular god temples to also display the distributions of a wide range of other religious networks, including Christian churches, Islamic mosques, Hindu temples, and Theravadin, which are the Taiwanese, Japanese and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries found across the region. This digital platform covers a larger area than the Taiwan History and Culture in Time and Space (THCTS) historical GIS platform but is more regionally focused than the ECAI (Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative) By incorporating Chinese inscriptions, extensive surveys of Chinese temples and associations, as well as archival and historical sources, this platform provides new materials and new perspectives on the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. This paper: (1) outlines key research questions underlying these digital humanities platforms; (2) describes the overall architecture and the kinds of data included in the SHGIS and the SBDB; (3) reviews past research on historical GIS; and provides (4) a discussion of how incorporating Chinese epigraphy of Southeast Asia into these websites can help scholars trace networks across the entire region, potentially enabling comparative work on a wide range of religious networks in the region. Part 5 of the paper outlines technical aspects of the WebGIS platform.

Yu, Zhejun. "Volksreligion im Spiegel der Zivilgesellschaftstheorie: Gottbegrüßungsprozession in Shanghai während der Republikzeit." Doctoral dissertation, University of Leipzig, Germany, 2010. Download here.

Abstract: Gottbegrüßungsprozession (????, oder Gottempfangsprozession) ist die eines der wichtigsten volksreligiösen Rituale, die zu den bedeutendsten Zeremonien des Religionslebens des chinesischen Volks zählen dürften. Der Ausgangspunkt meiner Forschung ist die 1995 veröffentlichte Studie Demon Hordes and Burning Boats: The Cult of Marshall Wen in Late Imperial Chekiang von Paul Katz, in der „Zivilgesellschaft und Volksreligion“ zum ersten Mal in der Forschung über die chinesische Kultur thematisiert. Um Katz’ Schwächen in der Studie zum Marschall Wen - sowohl an Quellen als auch in Theorie - auszugleichen, folgen ich in meiner Arbeit vertiefend zwei Grundlinien und damit sie grob in zwei Teile teilen, nämlich einen theoretischen und einen empirischen Teil. Im theoretischen Teil müssen zwei Fragen beantwortet: Was ist Zivilgesellschaft? Wie könnte die Zivilgesellschaftstheorie für diese religionswissenschaftliche Forschung nützlich sein? Um eine präzise Arbeitsdefinition geben und eine operationalisierbare Fragestellung aufstellen zu können, verfolge ich zunächst im ersten Teil die Begriffsgeschichte von „Zivilgesellschaft“ und „Öffentlichkeit“ im abendländischen Kontext zurück. Ein dreieckiges Problemfeld zwischen Staat, Privatsphäre und Ökonomie, zwei Ansätze der Zivilgesellschaftstheorie (der analytisch-deskriptive und der Idealistisch-präskriptive) werden zusammengefasst. Sieben Merkmale (öffentliche Assoziationen, Autonomie, Pluralität, Legalität, zivilisiertes Verhalten und utopisches Potenzial) und sechs Modelle (Das Trennungs-, Oppositions-, Öffentlichkeits-, Unterstützungs-, Partnerschaftsmodell und die globale Zivilgesellschaft) werden in der Forschung angeführt. Anschließend setze ich mich mit der Zivilgesellschaftsdiskussion im chinesischen Kontext auseinander. Aus der „Modern China Debate“ in den U. S. A. und der daran angeschlossenen chinesischen Diskussion wird eine Bilanz gezogen. Die „teleologische Annahme“ und der „China-Hat(te)-Auch-Komplex“ werden herausgefunden, die in einer historischen Forschung nicht legitimierbar sind. Danach wird die bisherige Erörterung über die Beziehung zwischen Zivilgesellschaft und Religion kurz zusammengefasst. Zum Ende des theoretischen Teils beschließe ich auf den idealistisch-präskriptiven Ansatzes zu verzichten. Die Zivilgesellschaftstheorie als Idealtypus im Weberschen Sinn benutzt, um die Kulturbedeutung der volksreligiösen Feste in China zu erkennen. Besonders die Organisation und die politische Auseinandersetzung der Prozession sollen in Betrachtung der Zivilgesellschaftstheorie gezogen werden, um die chinesische Gesellschaft besser zu verstehen. Im empirischen Teil der Arbeit werden Regionalbeschreibungen, Archivakten und Zeitungsartikel als Hauptquelle benutzt. Weil bisher keine systematische Forschung im Bereich der Religionswissenschaft zur Gottbegrüßungsprozession vorliegt, wird zuerst eine ausführliche Einführung in die Prozessionen in China gegeben, um ein zuverlässiges Bild von den Prozessionen innerhalb der chinesischen Religionslandschaft entwerfen zu können. Die Etymologie, die Arbeitsdefinition und die kosmologische Ordnung hinter der Prozession werden anschließend vorgestellt. Ich schlage vor, die Prozession als das Kennzeichen der kommunalen Religion Chinas anzusehen. Durch einige Sammelbände zur Folklore in China wird dann deutlich belegt, dass zahlreiche Gottbegrüßungsprozessionen ab Anfang der Qing-Zeit bis in die Republikzeit hinein kontinuierlich in fast allen Provinzen Chinas stattfanden. Danach werden die gesetzlichen Verbote in der Kaiserzeit dargestellt. Die Forschungsgeschichte zur Prozession und deren Problematik werden daraufhin zusammengefasst. Nachdem die Grundform bzw. die alternativen Formen, der Aufbau des Umzugs, Gottheiten, Dauer und Häufigkeit der Prozessionen in einem weiter begrenzten geographischen Raum, nämlich dem heutigen Shanghai, und zeitlich Raum, nämlich der Republikzeit (1912-49), dargestellt werden, werden die Haltung der Regierung und die mediale Präsentation solcher Prozessionen während der Republikzeit rekonstruiert, um die potenzielle Spannung zwischen dem Staat und den religiösen Gemeinschaften als eine der wichtigsten kollektiven Einstellungen zur Prozession zu zeigen. Die Zwischenfälle in der Nachbarregion werden wiedergegeben. Sodann werden drei detailreiche historische Fallbeispiele stichprobenartig angeführt und analysiert, um die weitere Behandlung der Fragestellung empirisch zu untermauern. Das erste historische Fallbeispiel ist der Stadtgott-Inspektionsrundgang. In diesem Fallbeispiel werden besonders die Finanzierung, die Aktivisten und Organisationen berücksichtigt, um ein Licht auf die Durchführung und Verwaltung der Prozessionen zu werfen. Darüber hinaus werden die Streite, Auseinandersetzungen und Konflikte zwischen den lokalen Behörden und dem Aufsichtsrat des Stadtgotttempels beleuchtet, um deren Verläufe, Hintergründe und Ursachen zu erforschen. Das zweite Fallbeispiel handelt sich um die Prozessionen und die Konflikte in Pudong von 1919 bis 1935. Die Verbote, die Gegenmaßnahmen der Regierung und die Verstöße gegen das Prozessionsverbot werden ausführlich geschildert, um die tatsächliche Ursachen der Konflikte zu finden. Zum Schluss des Kapitels wird die Polizei als Beispiel der damaligen Staatsmacht analysiert. Das dritte Fallbeispiel ist die Prozession im Dorf Jiangwan. Im Jahr 1935 wurde die dortige Prozession von der lokalen Feuerwehr schikaniert. Die Nachwirkung und die direkte Einmischung der Parteidirektion werden auch detailreich dargelegt. In der Schlussfolgerung der Arbeit werden die Beteiligten der Prozession in drei Gruppen, nämlich den Schaulustigen, den Aktivisten, den Unterstützer und die Förderer, eingeteilt. Ihre unterschiedlichen Funktionen und Motivationen getrennt zusammengefasst. Die andere Partei, die Kontrolleure der Prozession, wird anschließend behandelt. Alle historischen Beschreibungen werden im Spiegel der Zivilgesellschaftstheorie, v. a. der sieben Merkmale und sechs Modelle, evaluiert. Außerdem bringe ich zwei Einwände gegen die Dichotomie von C. K. Yang vor.

Yuan Bingling, "Les inscriptions du temple du Pic de l'Est à Pékin/Beijing Dongyue miao beiwen kaoshu." Sanjiao wenxian: Matériaux pour l'étude de la religion chinoise 3(1999): 137-158. (Note: article in Chinese; French abstract provided on pp.6-7.)

Yue Yongyi. "The Alienation of Spiritual Existence: Temple Festivals and Temple Fairs in Old Beijing." Cambridge Journal of China Studies 11, no.1 (2016): 1-26.

Abstract: The wall-confined Old Beijing was a rural city in an agricultural civilization. Its ruralism is reflected by the sacredness of revering earth and also by isomorphic space aesthetics of houses, streets and the city. All kinds of temples, such as Gong, Guan, Miao, An, Ci, Tan, and Si, were distributed in Old Beijing according to their own ranks and attributes. In addition, the Three Mountains and Five Summits (Sanshan Wuding) which enshrined the Lady of Taishan (Bixia Yuanjun) were regarded to be surrounding and protecting the capital city. There were even numerous small temples in ordinary streets and lanes, such as the Nine Dragons and Two Tigers (Jiulong Erhu) in Xizhimennei Street. The once prevalent cult of Four Sacred Animals (Sidamen) has enabled the space of many households in Old Beijing to bear more or less the properties of a temple. Accordingly, temple festivals in Old Beijing were spiritual existence connected with the leisure and graceful life of the Bannermen and intensively revealed their daily life and individual values. The Western civilization has been set as the model in China by most of native elites in different periods since 1840. There has inevitably been a process of secularizing and stigmatizing the worship-centred temple festivals in Old Beijing. Temple festivals have generally deteriorated to displays of manpower and lust for material goods. With the intangible cultural heritage movement since the 21st century, temple fairs have returned to temple festivals to a limited extend. (Source: journal)

Zhang, Xinli. "Tales of the Water God in the Water God Temple of Guangsheng Monastery: Folk Religion and Social Justice in the Premodern Chinese Political Tradition." PhD diss., University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2020.

Zhao Shiyu. “Town and Country Representation as Seen in Temple Fairs.” In: David Faure & Tao Tao Liu [eds.], Town and Country in China: Identity and Perception. Houndmills & New York: Palgrave, 2002. Pp.41-57.

Zhao, Xiaohuan. “Form Follows Function in Community Rituals in North China: Temples and Temple Festivals in Jiacun Village.” Religions 12 (2021).

Zhao, Xudong and Duran Bell. “Miaohui, the Temples Meeting Festival in North China.” China Information 21.3 (2007): 457-479.

Abstract: We examine the multiple purposes and modalities that converge during a circuit of festivals, miaohui, which temples organize in recognition of local gods and which are attended reciprocally by temple representatives from the surrounding area in North China. The festivals involve intense expressions of devotion to one or more deities, while offering an opportunity for representatives of other villages to seek recognition through rather boisterous drumming and prolonged choreographed dancing. We note also the emergence of Mao as a great god whose legacy as Chairman of the CCP is projected in order to legitimate current Party leadership and their policy of reform while concurrently acting as a powerful denial of those same policies from the perspective of villagers. [Source: journal]

Zhu, Bo-Wei, Zheng Huang, and Lei Xiong. “Application of the Kano Model and DEMATEL Technique to Explore Sustainable Promotion Strategies for Thai-Chinese Temples as Tourist Attractions.” Religions 11, no. 4 (2020): 199; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11040199

Abstract: With the development of the modern social economy, temple tourism has become a lucrative industry. Because of their distinct architecture, rituals, and history, temples have become an important part of the sustainable development of temple economies. Thailand, a tourism-rich country in Southeast Asia, has many Chinese temples, most of which have developed into well-known tourist attractions. However, little research has explored attraction factor categories of Thai-Chinese temples as cultural tourist attractions, and also the relationships among these factor categories. This knowledge is important for assessing and developing improvement strategies of Thai-Chinese temples for achieving a sustainable temple economy. Thus, this study aims to identify appropriate ways to identify the constituent attraction factor categories of Thai-Chinese temples as cultural tourist attractions and how they are prioritized, considering the complex interaction relationships among them. The research findings show that 12 main factor categories under the three dimensions, three attributive classifications with different priorities to which the 12 categories belong, and the complex interaction relationships among factor categories are identified. Combining the priorities on attributive classifications and the priorities on interaction relationships, the sustainable improvement strategies of Thai-Chinese temples are established. This paper extends previous research on Chinese temples, offers insights into the theoretical investigation of Thai-Chinese temples as tourist attractions, and provides decision makers with an integrated and practical way to establish priorities of multiple attraction factor categories, in order to make sustainable improvement strategies of Thai-Chinese temples under the consideration of rational allocation of resources.

Ziegler, Delphine, "Entre ciel et terre: Le culte des 'bateaux-cercueils' du Mont Wuyi." Cahiers d'Extrème-Asie 9(1996/97): 201-231.

Ziegler, Delphine, "The Cult of the Wuyi Mountains and Its Cultivation of the Past: A Topo-Cultural Perspective." Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 10 (1998): 255-286.