‘Breaking Blood-pond (Poxuehu)’ Ritual and Women in China

Abstract

Although studies on the social status of Chinese women in modern and contemporary times abound, little research has been done on the religious ceremony called Poxuehu that was performed to save the spirit of a deceased mother from the punishment of the blood-pond hell (xuehu diyu). Blood-pot sutras (xuepenjing) first appeared from the early tenth century to the twelfth century in the Buddhist community, and later appeared in Daoist and folk religious communities as well. So, I traced various historical texts to identify how the ritual has been performed in reality. I conducted fieldwork for this article during the summer of 2010 (between June and September) in Nantong, Suzhou, and Kunshan of Jiangsu Province. The ideas underlying the Poxuehu ritual emphasized the inferiority and uncleanness of women. The Chinese held the belief that the blood resulting from menstruation and childbirth was an obstacle to spiritual redemption. Therefore, it cannot be denied that the Poxuehu ritual had close links with the feminine status within the patriarchy.