Chapter Four. Imagining Local Belonging In Southern Song And Yuan Jizhou

Abstract

Ritual practices shaped the communities in which they were performed. Such communities formed by shared religious practices were not isolated, mutually exclusive communities, but units that were ‘constantly defined and redefined by inclusion and exclusion’. This chapter focuses on the ways in which the literati imagined their roles within such communities, and their experience of the religious practices that shaped such communities. It argues that members of the local and national elites saw themselves as not only belonging to such local communities, but also as active participants in such local religious practices. In their writings, they represented themselves as playing significant roles within communities unified by religious practice. The role they envisaged for themselves was one of explanation and translation.Keywords: Liu Chenweng; religious practices; Southern Song; Yuan Jizhou