Abstract:This article deals with the modern performance context of the Dizang baojuan in Changshu, Jiangsu province. The local tradition of ritualized storytelling, called “telling scriptures,” makes use of the Bodhisattva Dizang’s narratives presumably derived from the late Qing-dynasty printed edition of the Dizang baojuan. However, in the modern performance context, the stories of Dizang’s reincarnations have been separated according to performance occasions. There are several such occasions, including funerary ritual and memorial days of the “fifth week” (programs of male and female funerary services vary) and village temple festivals, at which Dizang is also worshipped. Still, all variants of the Dizang baojuan preserve the central message of the universal deliverance of the souls of the deceased. The author researches the origins, modification, and current functions of the centuries-old Dizang narratives in the modern storytelling of Changshu. Materials of telling scriptures in Changshu and adjacent areas demonstrate the transformation of the canonical Buddhist subjects in the local vernacular literature and folk ritual, their sinicization and domestication in local cultural milieus. Materials used in this article have been collected by the author in Changshu through interviews with performers and observation of real-life telling scriptures in 2011–2017.
{"title":"The Dizang Baojuan in the Performance Context of “Telling Scriptures” in Changshu, Jiangsu","authors":"Rostislav Berezkin","doi":"10.1353/jcr.2020.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jcr.2020.0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article deals with the modern performance context of the Dizang baojuan in Changshu, Jiangsu province. The local tradition of ritualized storytelling, called “telling scriptures,” makes use of the Bodhisattva Dizang’s narratives presumably derived from the late Qing-dynasty printed edition of the Dizang baojuan. However, in the modern performance context, the stories of Dizang’s reincarnations have been separated according to performance occasions. There are several such occasions, including funerary ritual and memorial days of the “fifth week” (programs of male and female funerary services vary) and village temple festivals, at which Dizang is also worshipped. Still, all variants of the Dizang baojuan preserve the central message of the universal deliverance of the souls of the deceased. The author researches the origins, modification, and current functions of the centuries-old Dizang narratives in the modern storytelling of Changshu. Materials of telling scriptures in Changshu and adjacent areas demonstrate the transformation of the canonical Buddhist subjects in the local vernacular literature and folk ritual, their sinicization and domestication in local cultural milieus. Materials used in this article have been collected by the author in Changshu through interviews with performers and observation of real-life telling scriptures in 2011–2017.","PeriodicalId":53120,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Religions","volume":"48 1","pages":"205 - 232"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48152013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Southeast Asian vegetarian halls (zhaitang 齋堂) serve as crucial agents in the circulation and reinterpretation of Chinese indigenous scriptures associated with a popular Chinese religion, the Qinglianjiao 青蓮教 (Teaching of the Azure Lotus). This religious group was largely influenced by Buddhism, hence its vegetarian halls are widely regarded by the public and by practitioners as Buddhist. Vegetarian halls and their scriptures are, however, objects of contestation in the studies of Chinese Buddhist history in China and in Southeast Asia, due to their syncretic religious content. Nevertheless, such halls and their religious networks have generated a multidirectional flow of cultural, economic, and religious resources that remains largely unexplored; their vernacular texts (such as precious scrolls 寶卷) show how Buddhist ideas were localized, adapted, and circulated. This paper shows how: 1) scriptures of the Three Teachings (sanjiao 三教) were integrated, conceptualized, and reconciled in the local Buddhist scene; 2) the scriptures address issues pertaining to gender and religion; and 3) indigenous Buddhist scriptures were significant.
{"title":"The Blooming of the Azure Lotus in the South Seas: A Preliminary Investigation of Chinese Indigenous Scriptures in Buddhist Vegetarian Halls of Southeast Asia","authors":"Show Ying Ruo","doi":"10.1353/jcr.2020.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jcr.2020.0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Southeast Asian vegetarian halls (zhaitang 齋堂) serve as crucial agents in the circulation and reinterpretation of Chinese indigenous scriptures associated with a popular Chinese religion, the Qinglianjiao 青蓮教 (Teaching of the Azure Lotus). This religious group was largely influenced by Buddhism, hence its vegetarian halls are widely regarded by the public and by practitioners as Buddhist. Vegetarian halls and their scriptures are, however, objects of contestation in the studies of Chinese Buddhist history in China and in Southeast Asia, due to their syncretic religious content. Nevertheless, such halls and their religious networks have generated a multidirectional flow of cultural, economic, and religious resources that remains largely unexplored; their vernacular texts (such as precious scrolls 寶卷) show how Buddhist ideas were localized, adapted, and circulated. This paper shows how: 1) scriptures of the Three Teachings (sanjiao 三教) were integrated, conceptualized, and reconciled in the local Buddhist scene; 2) the scriptures address issues pertaining to gender and religion; and 3) indigenous Buddhist scriptures were significant.","PeriodicalId":53120,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Religions","volume":"48 1","pages":"233 - 284"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49330561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Religious and Ethnic Revival in a Chinese Minority: The Bai People of Southwest China by Liang Yongjia (review)","authors":"Megan Bryson","doi":"10.1353/jcr.2020.0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jcr.2020.0021","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53120,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Religions","volume":"48 1","pages":"300 - 303"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41512332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:One important innovation in twentieth-century sinology was the borrowing of the term “shamanism” to apply to early Chinese religion. While many scholars have employed this cross-cultural framework, others have rejected this use of the term “shamanism” for Chinese wu 巫 as excessively broad and ideologically biased. These debates too often are framed in broadly nationalistic terms as questions about whether “China” could have had something so exotic in a particular era. In fact, it is very often the case that a particular practice or belief is confined to a certain region at a particular time, or even to a specific substratum of a culture therein. This becomes clear when the “shamanism” problem of ancient Chu is reexamined in light of concomitant issues of personal identity, as represented by various terms for “souls,” or material culture, as represented by “soma” and other plants employed in religious ritual. I argue for the efficacy of cross-cultural analogies in understanding even phenomena which are singular to China. The limited but real utility of these analogies lies in their potential to help us construe the multiplicity within early Chinese religion that is obscured by a Sinocentric perspective.
{"title":"Shamans, Souls, and Soma: Comparative Religion and Early China","authors":"N. Williams","doi":"10.1353/jcr.2020.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jcr.2020.0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:One important innovation in twentieth-century sinology was the borrowing of the term “shamanism” to apply to early Chinese religion. While many scholars have employed this cross-cultural framework, others have rejected this use of the term “shamanism” for Chinese wu 巫 as excessively broad and ideologically biased. These debates too often are framed in broadly nationalistic terms as questions about whether “China” could have had something so exotic in a particular era. In fact, it is very often the case that a particular practice or belief is confined to a certain region at a particular time, or even to a specific substratum of a culture therein. This becomes clear when the “shamanism” problem of ancient Chu is reexamined in light of concomitant issues of personal identity, as represented by various terms for “souls,” or material culture, as represented by “soma” and other plants employed in religious ritual. I argue for the efficacy of cross-cultural analogies in understanding even phenomena which are singular to China. The limited but real utility of these analogies lies in their potential to help us construe the multiplicity within early Chinese religion that is obscured by a Sinocentric perspective.","PeriodicalId":53120,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Religions","volume":"48 1","pages":"147 - 173"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48027305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Handbook on Religion in China ed. by Stephan Feuchtwang (review)","authors":"S. Chao","doi":"10.1353/jcr.2020.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jcr.2020.0016","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53120,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Religions","volume":"48 1","pages":"290 - 293"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42287909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The First Islamic Classic in Chinese: Wang Daiyu’s by Sachiko Murata (review)","authors":"Cumali Ozkan","doi":"10.1353/jcr.2020.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jcr.2020.0020","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53120,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Religions","volume":"48 1","pages":"307 - 311"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43072808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ancestors, Kings, and the Dao by Constance A. Cook (review)","authors":"Ori Tavor","doi":"10.1353/jcr.2020.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jcr.2020.0014","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53120,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Religions","volume":"48 1","pages":"285 - 287"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43803872","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions ed. by Ji Zhe, Gareth Fisher, and André Laliberté (review)","authors":"Carsten Krause","doi":"10.1353/jcr.2020.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jcr.2020.0017","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53120,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Religions","volume":"48 1","pages":"293 - 297"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43417899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Buddhist Roots of Zhu Xi’s Philosophical Thought ed. by John Makeham (review)","authors":"Jiang Wu","doi":"10.1353/jcr.2020.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jcr.2020.0019","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53120,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Religions","volume":"48 1","pages":"303 - 306"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46024108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This paper is based on an examination of Ming-dynasty stela inscriptions from Yunnan and focuses mainly on Daoist temple patronage by general Mu Ying 沐英 (1345–1392), adopted son of the first Ming emperor, and his descendants. The Mus, guardians of Yunnan right up until the destruction of the Southern Ming, were the region’s most powerful clan. They sponsored a wide variety of Daoist establishments, almost all of them in the Kunming region. No cult received more attention than that of Zhenwu 真武 (Perfected Warrior), the dynasty’s official protective deity since the early fifteenth century. Besides inquiring into the religious beliefs informing Mu clan patronage of Daoism, this paper also touches upon the activities of the major Daoist cleric Liu Yuanran 劉淵然 (1351–1432) and some of his leading disciples.
{"title":"Mu Clan Patronage of Daoism in Ming-Dynasty Yunnan: An Examination of the Epigraphic Record","authors":"Jan De Meyer","doi":"10.1353/jcr.2020.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jcr.2020.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper is based on an examination of Ming-dynasty stela inscriptions from Yunnan and focuses mainly on Daoist temple patronage by general Mu Ying 沐英 (1345–1392), adopted son of the first Ming emperor, and his descendants. The Mus, guardians of Yunnan right up until the destruction of the Southern Ming, were the region’s most powerful clan. They sponsored a wide variety of Daoist establishments, almost all of them in the Kunming region. No cult received more attention than that of Zhenwu 真武 (Perfected Warrior), the dynasty’s official protective deity since the early fifteenth century. Besides inquiring into the religious beliefs informing Mu clan patronage of Daoism, this paper also touches upon the activities of the major Daoist cleric Liu Yuanran 劉淵然 (1351–1432) and some of his leading disciples.","PeriodicalId":53120,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Religions","volume":"48 1","pages":"175 - 204"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46995412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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