Popular Beliefs Flashcards
Sacrifices and Rituals as Bridges Between Elite and Commoner Practices
Official sacrifices → great sacrifices (dasi)
Middle sacrifices →zhongsi
Common sacrifices →xiaosi
→city god (cheng huang)
Bureaucratic
(1) gods as officials, but also representation of (2) divine hierarchy as multileveled; (3) authority for all but the highest gods as originating from outside, in a delegation by higher figures (4) human interactions with divine authority as mediated, both by the lower levels of gods who mediate to higher levels and by religious professionals between even the lowest gods and humans: (5) gods’ relations to specific places and their particular inhabitants as temporary and the result of appointment rather than any inherent connection to the community.
Personal
(1) gods as extraordinary persons— “godlike” figures encountered by humans on earth; (2) hierarchy between gods and humans or between gods themselves as usually dyadic (one-to-one); (3) gods’ authority or special power as inherent in the person of the god, rather than delegated; (4) human interactions with divine authority as unmediated, direct; (5) gods’ relations to places and inhabitants either inherent or founded on god’s own choice and is permanent.
What was the story of the filial parrot about?
*Reading
Long version of the filial parrot urges listeners to filial piety and veneration of Guanyin
However, these various adaptations showed little interest in a full allegorization of their materials. They were rather delighted in the development of narrative detail for its own sake.
Cihua and the Quanxiang yingge xing xiaoyi zhuan (2 main texts)
Zheng Zhenduo characterized the Yingge baojuan as a text teaching filial piety. Filial piety certainly is one of the themes, but not the most prominent one. The departure of the little parrot for the Eastern World is presented as a filial act, but otherwise the text only stresses the longing of the little parrot for his mother (longing for his mother represents longing of the soul for its true home)
Biggest issue for the anonymous author = sinfulness of taking animal life and need to keep a vegetarian diet (which also implies the rejection of alcohol and strong spices)
the models that religion offers…
vary with time, with space, with social setting, and with the point of view, life strategy, or even momentary purpose of the modeler; and one must expect even single persons to draw, as they do in everyday social relations, upon a repertoire that includes more that one model.”
Hierarchy of Heaven
*Jade emperor;Royal Mother of the West; gods, deities & immortals
*Patterned after imperial bureaucracy on earth
Gods, dieties, immortals, and spirits
A network of national, regional and local deities; and hierarchical (the more bureaucratic the god, the more power he/she/it has)
*All gods are subordinate to (a personalised?) Heaven
*A struggle between yang spirits (神 shen) & yin spirits (鬼 gui)
*Focal point of religious life: the ancestral alter
–Ancestors (shen)
–Ancestor worship
*Qingming festival
Who were the city gods?
Traditionally, before assuming a new post, local officials used to pass the night in Cheng Huang’s temple seeking guidance. When difficult problems of law later presented themselves, officials returned to the temple, in hopes that Cheng Huang would reveal the answer in a dream. In practice, a Cheng Huang was often a deceased local official who had been deified because he served his community with distinction in bygone days. It was possible for a city to change the identity of its local Cheng Huang by simply forgetting the old god and welcoming a new protector to the existing temple with a joyous celebration.
The Transformation Text on Mulian Saving His Mother from the Dark Regions (Da muqianlian mingjian jiumu bianwen
*“The “transformation text” …concerning Mu-lien narrates a story that had wide circulation in T’ang China. The value of this prosimetric tale, which grew out of oral storytelling traditions, is that it demonstrates the particular kinds of appeal that the ghost festival and Mu-lien had for the popular imagination in medieval times. As a reflection of Chinese religion at the grass roots, The Transformation Text on Mu-lien Saving His Mother from the Dark Regions presents a view of the world in which gods, heroes, and concepts of foreign origin are fully synthesized with indigenous ones. The focus of the transformation text is different from that of the canonical sources. Its version of the Mu-lien myth is almost exclusively concerned with Mu-lien’s tour of hell, sparing no detail in narrating the punishment of hell-dwellers, the inexorable laws of karma, and the unbending magistrates who administer punishments. In the transformation text Mu-lien satisfies simultaneously the demands of filiality and world renunciation, wielding the powers of the shaman and those of the monk to deliver his mother from the tortures of hell.”
Popular gods and protective deities
Zhong Kui, the Demon Slayer
Zao Jun, the Kitchen God
Heterodox religious sects
White Lotus sect (白蓮教 bailianjiao)
–Christianity
–Rites controversy
–Righteous and Harmonious Fists Movement (義和團 Yihetuan aka The Boxers)
Women in Chinese religion
Guanyin & other female deities
*Eminent Nuns, e.g. Chan master Qiyuan Xinggang (1597-1654): abbess, dharma teacher and religious exemplar
*Inner chambers, the Privy Goddess etc.
–Domain: domestic space associated with pollution & human waste
–Granted favours & rites celebrated fecundity & plenty. In some places, also guardian of sericulture & forecaster of the harvest
Analyze the passage:
Wing-Tsit Chan: I have always urged that instead of dividing the religious life of the Chinese people into three compartments called Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, it is far more accurate to divide it into two levels, the level of the masses and the level of the enlightened. . . . The masses worship 1,000s of idols and natural objects of ancient, Buddhist, Taoist, and other origins, making special offerings to whatever deity is believed to have the power to influence their lives at the time. The enlightened, on the other hand, honor only Heaven, ancestors, and sometimes also Confucius, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and a few great historical beings, but not other spirits. The ignorant believe in the 33 Buddhist heavens, 81 Taoist heavens, and 18 Buddhist hells. . As is well known, belief in Heaven and Hell was unknown in Chinese history until Buddhism introduced it into China. The enlightened flatly reject such a belief. The masses believe in astrology, almanacs, dream interpretations, geomancy, witchcraft. . . The enlightened are seldom contaminated by such diseases.
- wing-tsit chan argues that the religious life of the Chinese people should be divided into two levels
-level of the masses and level of the enlightened
-the enlightened only believe in a few gods, while the masses believe in many different gods
-praying to many different gods does not make one more religious than people who believe in a few
-the enlightened aren’t contaminated by things like astrology, geomancy, witchcraft, dream interpretations, etc….
