Mark R. E. Meulenbeld
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824838447
- eISBN:
- 9780824869458
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824838447.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Revealing the fundamental continuities that exist between vernacular fiction and exorcist, martial rituals in the vernacular language, this book argues that a specific type of Daoist exorcism helped ...
More
Revealing the fundamental continuities that exist between vernacular fiction and exorcist, martial rituals in the vernacular language, this book argues that a specific type of Daoist exorcism helped shape vernacular novels in the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Focusing on the once famous novel Fengshen yanyi (Canonization of the Gods), the book maps out the general ritual structure and divine protagonists that it borrows from much older systems of Daoist exorcism. By exploring how the novel reflects the specific concerns of communities associated with Canonization of the Gods and its ideology, the book is able to reconstruct the cultural sphere in which Daoist exorcist rituals informed late imperial “novels.” It first looks at temple networks and their religious festivals. Much attention is given to local militias who embodied “demon soldiers” as part of their defensive strategies. The book establishes the importance of understanding the idealized realities of literary texts within a larger context of cultural practice and socio-political history. Of particular importance is the ongoing dialog with religious ideology that informs these different discourses. The book makes a convincing case for the need to debunk the retrospective reading of China through the modern, secular Western categories of “literature,” “society,” and “politics.” It shows that this disregard of religious dynamics has distorted our understanding of China and that “religion” cannot be conveniently isolated from scholarly analysis.Less
Revealing the fundamental continuities that exist between vernacular fiction and exorcist, martial rituals in the vernacular language, this book argues that a specific type of Daoist exorcism helped shape vernacular novels in the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Focusing on the once famous novel Fengshen yanyi (Canonization of the Gods), the book maps out the general ritual structure and divine protagonists that it borrows from much older systems of Daoist exorcism. By exploring how the novel reflects the specific concerns of communities associated with Canonization of the Gods and its ideology, the book is able to reconstruct the cultural sphere in which Daoist exorcist rituals informed late imperial “novels.” It first looks at temple networks and their religious festivals. Much attention is given to local militias who embodied “demon soldiers” as part of their defensive strategies. The book establishes the importance of understanding the idealized realities of literary texts within a larger context of cultural practice and socio-political history. Of particular importance is the ongoing dialog with religious ideology that informs these different discourses. The book makes a convincing case for the need to debunk the retrospective reading of China through the modern, secular Western categories of “literature,” “society,” and “politics.” It shows that this disregard of religious dynamics has distorted our understanding of China and that “religion” cannot be conveniently isolated from scholarly analysis.
Mark R. E. Meulenbeld
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824838447
- eISBN:
- 9780824869458
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824838447.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This book examines how the categories “literature,” “religion,” and “community” intersect in the seventeenth-century vernacular novel, Fengshen yanyi (Canonization of the Gods). It situates ...
More
This book examines how the categories “literature,” “religion,” and “community” intersect in the seventeenth-century vernacular novel, Fengshen yanyi (Canonization of the Gods). It situates Canonization of the Gods within the specific history of Daoist martial ritual and explains how it is built upon Daoist ritual and religious theater from various locales in late imperial China. It also considers what it calls “demonic warfare”—martial methods that ritually construct the actual battles of mortal warriors as events that are paralleled by simultaneous battles of demon warriors. This introduction discusses broader issues of ritual and of the sacred in relation to literature and martial theater; juxtaposes Canonization (and similar novels that are also based on ritual models) with other late imperial novels that are self-consciously written as literary fiction (xiaoshuo); and looks at mainstream theories of Chinese local religion suggesting that the clerical traditions of Buddhism and Daoism (and sometimes Confucianism) are not relevant for understanding local “popular religion.”Less
This book examines how the categories “literature,” “religion,” and “community” intersect in the seventeenth-century vernacular novel, Fengshen yanyi (Canonization of the Gods). It situates Canonization of the Gods within the specific history of Daoist martial ritual and explains how it is built upon Daoist ritual and religious theater from various locales in late imperial China. It also considers what it calls “demonic warfare”—martial methods that ritually construct the actual battles of mortal warriors as events that are paralleled by simultaneous battles of demon warriors. This introduction discusses broader issues of ritual and of the sacred in relation to literature and martial theater; juxtaposes Canonization (and similar novels that are also based on ritual models) with other late imperial novels that are self-consciously written as literary fiction (xiaoshuo); and looks at mainstream theories of Chinese local religion suggesting that the clerical traditions of Buddhism and Daoism (and sometimes Confucianism) are not relevant for understanding local “popular religion.”
