Popular Deities Research Articles

A Study of Women’s Religion, Life, and Agency through Guanyin Hairpins in Ming Dynasty China

Hairpins decorated with motifs related to Guanyin, the most popular bodhisattva in Chinese culture, emerged as a new type of head accessory during China’s Ming dynasty (1368–1644). These hairpins have been found in tombs as burial objects and in pagodas as religious offerings. Records of their use have been captured in novels, travel notes, confiscatory inventories, burial arrangements, and ancestral portraits. Guanyin hairpins were used flexibly between religious and everyday domains, being both women’s accessories and a popular deity. They allow for an exploration of how women’s agency dynamically defined the functions of Guanyin hairpins in terms of aesthetic taste, self-appreciation, and religious practices. This diversity of uses further reveals that women not only relied on Guanyin for religious comfort, as current scholarship has established, but also as an expression of taste and appreciation, as reflected in how Guanyin was linked to women’s life and identity in Ming China.

Patterns of Integration: A Network Perspective on Popular Religious Connections in China’s Lower Yangzi, 1150–1350

The spread of cults from their original homelands in the Song dynasty (960–1279) created crisscrossing ties between local communities and fostered social and cultural integration in Chinese society that transcended class and geographic boundaries. Scholars have produced numerous case studies on these translocal cults and their implications, but the pattern of connections across space created by these cults is yet to be explored. Using the data collected from local gazetteers that have survived from the Southern Song and Yuan dynasties, this article takes a bird’s-eye view of the spatial distribution of popular cults in China’s Lower Yangzi region between 1150 and 1350 and employs the method of network analysis to study the pattern of connections formed through these religious ties. It reveals seven statistically significant subregional clusters of popular cults and three complementary mechanisms that tied these clusters together. It argues that integration across space was achieved not only through the spread of a cult and the attendant formation of a unified religious culture, but also through a multitude of less prominent cults which were each confined in their geographical scope of influence but collectively created a crisscrossing web of ties linking one subregional cluster to another. Host to a diversity of popular deities that were each associated with a different subregional cluster, the prefectural seats and the Southern Song capital Lin’an played a critical role in the social and cultural integration by providing a welcoming meeting ground for divergent communities of devotees.

A History of Cultic Images in China: The Domestic Statuary of Hunan by Alain Arrault and Lina Verchery

Reviewed by: A History of Cultic Images in China: The Domestic Statuary of Hunan by Alain Arrault and Lina Verchery Simona Lazzerini Alain Arrault, Lina Verchery, trans., A History of Cultic Images in China: The Domestic Statuary of Hunan. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2020. x, 188 pp. 80 images, 1 map, 4 graphs, 16 tables. US$60 (hb). ISBN 978-988-237-105-7 A History of Cultic Images in China: The Domestic Statuary of Hunan, a work entirely dedicated to the study of Hunanese cultic statues, is an important contribution to our understanding of Chinese local religion, history, and culture. Alain Arrault has spent more than a dozen years in Hunan studying statues of gods, ancestors, and masters produced between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. These small wooden statuettes, most of which are about 20 cm tall, were originally enshrined in domestic altars and worshiped by Hunanese families for protection. The statues are filled with documents, materia medica, and other objects that are meant to endow them with life and power. Among the materials placed in the statues’ cache, the consecration certificates (yizhi 意旨) provide invaluable religious and sociological information concerning Hunan’s local religious history (p. 10). The introduction provides a general overview of the history of cultic images in China, a history that, due to the scarcity of its sources, is enigmatic and incomplete. While Buddhist images have been extensively studied, Daoist statues have received little scholarly attention. Likewise, because Confucians argued that ancestors could only be represented by votive tablets, visual representations of ancestors, popular since the end of the Ming, have been overlooked. This study fills these lacunae by showing how Hunanese statuary is a local living tradition in which gods, masters, and ancestors participate in a shared ideology, not reducible to any specific religious institution, that highlights multiplicity rather than unity (pp. 7–8). The Hunanese statuary is comprised of over 3000 items belonging to three collections, two of which are private, and one owned by the Museum of Hunan. All statues have been objects of trade and exchange and therefore, having lost their original function, are “forever out of context” (p. 9). Chapter 1, “General Presentation,” introduces the method of cataloguing used by Arrault and his team and the mechanisms of their quantitative analysis, situating the statues in time and space. Each statue has its own two-part data card: the first part records the image’s number, its place of origin and acquisition, its identity, the material aspects, and the objects found inside; the second part reports information regarding the consecration certificate, such as the name and address of the sponsors, the name of the sculptor, the date of consecration, the sponsor’s wishes, etc. The second part of the chapter focuses on quantitative analysis, describing the geographic and chronological distribution of the statuettes. While most items come from northeastern Hunan, statues have also been found along the region’s borders, indicating that a migrating population perhaps took this practice with them while relocating to different lands (p. 17). In terms of chronological development, the eighteenth century witnessed an increase in the appearance of the statuettes, whose production reached its peak after the second half [End Page 141] of the nineteenth century and continued into the beginning of the twentieth (p. 21). After 1949, production declined but it never completely stopped, not even during the Cultural Revolution, and it resumed in the 1980s. Chapter 2, “Divinities and Humans,” explores the different types of worship of the national and local deities, ancestors, and masters that feature in Hunanese domestic statuary. Even though the selection of divinities in the collections mirrors the impulses and predilections of their collectors, Arrault argues that it is still possible to sketch a portrait of the nature and production of the statuettes and, consequently, of the religious situation in the region (p. 32). National divinities comprise only 20% of all three collections (p. 26). The God of the Kitchen (Jiutian Dongchu Siming Fu Jun 九天東廚司命府君) and his wife appear to be the most popular deities in the statuary, followed by Guanyin 觀音, Lu Ban 魯班 (the god of carpenters), and the God of the Southern Peak...

Lingodbhavamurti: The Aniconic and Iconic Form of Shiva (Special Reference to Few Icons from Andhra Pradesh)

Siva is one of the popular deities of the Hindu trinity. Several myths and legends pertaining to Siva can be found in the epics and the Puranas. Lingodbhavamurti is the Linga manifestation of Shiva, and it literally means "the image that arises from the Linga." The Lingodbhavamurti is very popular in south India, and the agamas recommend it to be placed in the recess in the western wall of the garbhagriha of the temple. The iconographic texts give us a detailed description of Lingodhbhavamurti. Lingodhbhava portrays philosophical thoughts and iconographical variations. The linga manifestation was to prove Siva’s mightiness and all-pervading equality. The Lingodhbhava form of Shiva is a unique combination of Shiva as human and columnar forms. This paper examines a few examples of the Lingodbhavamurti from the temples of Andhra Pradesh in terms of iconography and regional variations.

The Precious Scroll of Watermelons in the Modern Performance Tradition of ‘Telling Scriptures’ in Changshu County, China

The Precious Scroll of Watermelons (the earliest known manuscript is dated 1867) is a representative example of narrative texts used in the scroll recitation practices of southern Jiangsu since the nineteenth century. It uses a subject widespread in folklore to propagate belief in Bodhisattva Guanyin, a popular Buddhist deity, and thus it combines indoctrination with didacticism and entertainment. A comparison of several variants of the Precious Scroll of Watermelons (falling in between 1867 and 1989) demonstrates the evolution of its functions and cultural meaning in the modern practice of precious scrolls recitation, taking ‘telling scriptures’ of Changshu as an example.

Controlling the Boundaries of Morality: The History and Powers of Ayelala Deity

The worship of deities has always been a major religious preoccupation among the Yoruba. Among these deities is Ayelala, a water goddess, who is not only worshiped with pomp and pageantry but also highly revered and respected for its judicial powers. As a deity of retribution and justice, Ayelala is believed to possess great powers which she uses against varying forms of social vice, such as armed robbery, sexual offences, and witchcraft to mention a few. Ayelala is reputed for seeking vengeance when the offender has forgotten her or his crime, and strikes her victims by inflicting on them bodily swelling and in few cases, dryness. Such is Ayelala’s overwhelming power and potency that the deity seeks to control the boundaries of morality and at the same time forms amajor bulwark against societal impropriety.
 Our article examines the history of Ayelala, being one of the popular deities worshipped in coastal Yorubaland. It also interrogates how the deity’s power stems from the importance of boundaries and difference, insofar as these warrant the strict obedience of individuals, their families and the society as a whole to the prevailing set of moral demands. The article contends that beyond the narratives of power, potency and retribution, Ayelala’s role as an arbiter of justice underscores the importance of civic values held within communities where the deity is worshipped – which are also values that undergird intergroup relations. Though Ayelala worship is pervasive among the Ilaje, Ikale and Ijaw-Apoi communities of Ondo state, Nigeria, the deity is also linked with other neighboring and distant communities which highlight the unifying tendencies of a common religion and deity belief among different sub-ethnic groups.

ODISHAN SCULPTURAL ARTS OF THIRTEEN GANESHA IMAGES OF THE PURI DISTRICT: A RECENT STUDY

The fascinating facet of the Saiva art of Odisha is the analysis of the Ganesha images found in the Puri district. Ganesha is considered to be among the first Hindu deities in India. Ganesha is a popular deity in the Hindu pantheon and is worshipped extensively throughout the entirety of India. In the eastern Indian state of Odisha, Saivism was a prevalent religion. It also affected Lord Jagannatha's kshetra. In Odisha, Saivism reached its height of prominence in the tenth and eleventh century C.E. The Ganesha figures seen in the Hindu temples of the Puri district typically have a kuthara (hatchet), a pot of sweet balls (ladus), a broken tusk, and a rosary in hands. The locations of thirteen Ganesha images of the Puri district are viz; the Lokanatha temple in Puri, the Yameshvara temple in Puri, the Markandeshvara temple in Puri, the Kapala Mochana temple in Puri, the Nilakantheshvara temple of Matiapara, the Baikuntheshvara temple of Puri town, the Bata-Lokanatha temple in Puri, the Nilakantheshvara temple at Gopinathpur, the Siddha Mahavir temple in Puri, the Ganesha temple at the Jagannatha temple complex, the Kanchi Ganesha temple in Puri, the Gatesvara temple in Algum, and the Ganesha image of Ganesvari temple of Bayalishbati. In the Puri district, there is a worship of a variety of Ganesha images of different periods. These statues/images are primarily kept in the parsvadevata niches of Saiva temples. A thorough examination is necessary due to the intricate iconographic details found in the Ganesha images found in the temples of Puri district. The objective of article is to focus on the iconographic elements of the thirteen Ganesha statues found in the Hindu temples of the Puri district in Odisha.

Egyptian Dwarf Deities Associated with Solar Cult in Ancient Egypt

This study examines the natural relationship between the Ancient Egyptian dwarf gods and the Solar Cult and the solar deities in ancient Egypt. There were two kinds of dwarfs known in ancient Egypt; The African pygmies and the Egyptian dwarfs. The dwarf deities were associated with many of the solar deities in different forms like khepri. From the New Kingdom onward, the dwarfs emerge as popular deities, best known in their forms of Bes and Path-Pataikoi, who are invoked in a host of magical practices to protect the living and the dead. This study aims to find the reason for this association between the dwarf gods and the solar deities by examining the ancient Egyptian religious text and the statuary of those dwarf deities. The result that the study reaches is that the dwarf deities associated with the solar deities as a symbol of regeneration and rejuvenation and rebirth.

Awakening the Serpent King: Ritual and Textual Ontologies in Garhwal, Uttarakhand

Abstract In the north Indian state of Uttarakhand, the god Nagaraja, associated with the pan--Indian god Krishna, is an extremely popular deity. However, there exist key disjunctures in how Nagaraja is known, experienced and worshiped in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand by jāgar performers—low--caste ritual specialists, storytellers, and musicians—on the one hand, and high--caste temple priests, on the other. Temple priests were generally dismissive of the practices of the jāgar performers, often re--directing my interest in regional narratives of Nagaraja to the Sanskrit--language Bhagavadgita and Bhagavata Purana (the Gita--Bhagavat), which they saw as authoritative and ‘original' sources of oral and vernacular traditions. This interpretation, however, was highly contested by jāgar performers who articulated a non--essentialist, ritually efficacious, rhetorical, oral and vernacular ‘textual ontology.' Jāgar performers not only critiqued Brahminical notions of textual purity and essentialism but also assumptions within the academic study of Hinduism about the relationship between vernacular religious practices and textual Hinduism, or the so--called Great and Little traditions of Hinduism. By ‘textual ontology,' I describe how different relations to textual authority and knowledge in turn reveal distinctive ways of creating, knowing, and interacting with deities and the world. In challenging priestly and western scholarly notions of text, this article offers a radically different view of textual production, transmission, and authority.

Mobility, Adaptability, and Accessibility: “Cute” Hanumān Figures Among Surinamese Hindu Children in The Netherlands

This article asks how the popular deity Hanumān has become one of the central figures for mobilizing a Surinamese Dutch Hindu “devotional public” with a specific appeal to preteen children in The Netherlands. The authors address this research question by examining a particular form of Hanumān, that of the “cuddly” or “cute” Hanumān that has been popularized in animated films such as Return of Hanuman and in cuddly toys sold at specialty stores and market stalls in The Netherlands. Building on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork carried out mostly between 2012 and 2016, this article not only introduces and conceptualizes the appeal of a “cute Hanumān” to preteens, but also aspires to assess the ways in which preteen children with a double migration background create deep devotional bonds to a deity in whom newly emerging, mediatized visualizations converge with their ancestors’ migratory heritage and comforting devotional performances.

The Features of Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple - A Study

Madurai “Athens of South India” occupies a pride of place in the Indian subcontinent. Its age-old history, cultural resources, and strategic location are the responsible factors for its growth as a tourist center. In the domain of the Hindu religion, Madurai occupies a unique place. Its popular deity Goddess Meenakshi is very famous. Madurai is the second biggest city in Tamilnadu, and it is located on the banks of river Vaigai. It is situated between 7°57’ and 11° 10’ and north latitude and 77° 50’ and 79° 85’ east longitude. Madurai has many names like Kudal Manager, Nanmadakkudal, and Tiruvalavai. Madurai is a well-planned city, just like Mohenjadaro. Meenakshi Amman Temple is located at the heart of the city. The temple is surrounded by streets named after Tamil months Adi, Avani, and Masi. Most of Sri Meenakshi Temple was built between the 13th and 19th centuries. This paper “the features of Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple” deals with the features andcontribution of Thirumalai Nayak to the temple.

Between the Sacred and Secular: The Role of Chinese Popular Deities in Creating Thirdspaces in Chinese Restaurants of Santiago de Chile

Material manifestations of the Chinese popular deities, Guanyin and Guan Gong, are ubiquitous in Cantonese-Chinese restaurants globally. Yet studies of Chinese popular religion among overseas Chinese have seldom focused on the diverse significance of these deities to Chinese migrants, nor the use of restaurant-spaces to house these deities. This article examines the presence and powers of such deities in Chinese restaurants of Santiago de Chile. We seek to understand how the presence or absence of Guanyin and Guan Gong figures specifically shapes migrant Chinese restauranteurs and workers’ experience of the restaurants as particular kinds of protected, sacred/secular spaces, and how these deities might also affectively shape the restauranteurs’ ways of being and inhabiting the restaurants. Based on semi-structured interviews with Chinese shopkeepers and workers, observation and photography of the spatial organization of 26 restaurants and the aesthetics of their deities, we argue that these restaurants are more than just their primary sources of livelihood. We argue that they approximate Soja’s “thirdspaces” (1996), which on the one hand mediate their interactions with the city and its other residents, and on the other hand mediate relationships between humans in the earthly world and deities in the “other” parallel world.

In the Shadow of the Santo Niño: San Vidal's Sojourn in Cebu City, 1565–2018

This article traces the history of the Catholic martyr, San Vidal, during his long association with Cebu City (1565–2018), in particular as the city's patron saint. Although San Vidal never gained a popular devotion in Cebu, his promotion was sustained unevenly for over 450 years, frequently in the shadow of Cebu's most popular deity, the Santo Niño, who was discovered in Cebu by Legazpi on the day assigned to San Vidal: 28 April. San Vidal's fluctuating promotion is analyzed in close relation to the civil and ecclesiastical institutions that have transformed Cebu since the late sixteenth century.

Who is Tua Pek Kong?

The arrival and settlement of Chinese migrants contributed to the spread of Chinese religious beliefs and practices from China to Southeast Asia. However, the arrival of Chinese beliefs and practices was more complex than being just a single-direction dissemination process. Chinese migrants not only transferred popular deities and native-place gods from China to Southeast Asia, but also invented their own gods in the migrant society. This article builds on Robert Hymes’s concept of the “personal model of divinity” to examine the multifaceted nature of the Tua Pek Kong cult in Malaysia and Singapore. It argues that in the absence of an imperial bureaucracy in Southeast Asia, the “personal model” aptly explains the proliferation of Tua Pek Kong’s cult among the Overseas Chinese communities. Tua Pek Kong was far from being a standardized god in a bureaucratic pantheon of Chinese deities; the deity was considered as a “personal being,” offering protection to those who relied on him. This article presents the multifaceted cult of Tua Pek Kong in three forms: a symbol of sworn brotherhood, a Sino-Malay deity, and a Sinicized god.

Material feminism and ecocriticism: Nu Wa, White Snake, and Mazu

In this paper, I discuss two popular Eastern deities, Nu Wa and Mazu, and the mythical White Snake, critically reading them as age old “material feminist” and “material ecocritical” models of living and being in the world. The terms in quotations refer to contemporary Western-based theory and criticism—namely, Stacy Alaimo and Susan Hekman’s edited entitled Material feminisms (2008) and Serenella Iovino and Serpil Oppermann’s edited Material ecocriticism (2014). As I will argue, the claims in those studies are useful for understanding the marginalized material and feminist bases of deity worship in the East. As part of that argument, I also refer to a key concept for poststructuralist scholars, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s “body without organs,” for it complements the work of material feminists and ecocritics. Reading Mazu and Nu Wa through the interstices of that work, I argue that Mazu and Nu Wa embody a radical Deleuzian subjectivity that lies outside of “the body” as it (“the body”) speaks for obsolete policings and constructions of subjectivity and individuality, yet inside “the body” as it points to material feminist and ecocritical arguments that express that humans are always and already a composition of embodied nonhuman and human matter inclusive of inorganic and organic matter, human-made and nonhuman-made material, and natural and cultural “matter.”

The Coexistence of Violence and Nonviolence in Hinduism

The Coexistence of Violence and Nonviolence in Hinduism Anantanand Rambachan (bio) violence and nonviolence in Hinduism, Gandhi, V. D. Sarvarkar, Hindutva and Hinduism, Maha Sabha, RSS, BJP, VHP, Jana Sangh, dharma yuddha The most famous Hindu of all times, Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) is widely perceived, especially in the West, as embodying the Hindu worldview and ethos. Gandhi made ahimsa (nonviolence) the cornerstone of his philosophy and practice and spoke of it as constituting the essence of Hinduism. In light of Gandhi’s significance, many were surprised and bewildered when, on December 6, 1992, thousands of Hindu volunteers broke through police cordons and demolished the Babri mosque in the holy city of Ayodhya in North India. Many were armed with tridents, the traditional iconographic weapon of Shiva and were led by Hindu holy men chanting “Jai Shri Ram” (Victory to Ram). The mosque, it is argued, was constructed on the spot where Rama, one of the Hindu incarnations of God, was born. According to these militant Hindus, the Moghul Emperor, Babar, destroyed a Hindu temple and built the mosque on its ruins. Thousands lost their lives in the struggle over this site, and there is clamoring for the reclamation of other sacred sites, including one in the city of Mathura. Ten years later in 2002, we saw the outbreak of violence between Hindus and Muslims in the state of Gujarat, precipitated by the tragedy at the Godhra railway station when train carriages were set ablaze. Hindus reacted violently. Religious chanting and the invocation of the name of God accompanied many of the acts of violence perpetrated by Hindus upon their Muslim neighbors. In recent years, several Hindu organizations have become aggressive and militant in rhetoric and method, reminding us that, while Gandhi championed the ethic of ahimsa, there are ancient traditions within Hinduism [End Page 96] that sanction violence under certain circumstances and that ahimsa and himsa (violence) have coexisted uneasily in Hinduism for centuries. The relationship between violence and nonviolence is a complex one, and Gandhi’s representation of Hinduism must be properly contextualized. The Purusa Sukta hymn in the Rgveda, Hinduism’s most ancient scripture, describes metaphorically the origin of humankind from the primordial sacrifice of the cosmic Person (purusa). From his mouth came the brahmins (priest-teachers); from his arms, the ksatriyas (warrior-kings); from his thighs, the vaisyas (trader-craftspersons); and from his feet, the sudras (manual laborers). The respective duties of each group are defined and are presented later on in the Bhagavadgita (18:45–47) as conducive to the attainment of liberation. The ksatriyas, the group from which the kings and rulers are supposedly drawn, are the physical protectors of the community. They are the custodians of justice and the defenders of social and ritual order (dharma), by the force of arms, if necessary. Society could not survive without the might of the ksatriyas and the Hindu tradition commends the ideal of the warrior who is prepared to fight in the defense of dharma. The ancient ideal of the ksatriya is one that is being invoked and reinterpreted by militant Hindus today. Vedic society in ancient India did not scrupulously adhere to ahimsa as its highest value. Sacrificial rites involved the slaying of animals, and Indra, one of the most popular deities of the Vedic period, has many warrior-like attributes. While Manu (ca. 200 b.c.e.–100 c.e.), ancient India’s influential lawgiver, lists ahimsa among the general human virtues, the ksatriyas are exempt. He permits killing in self-defense and for implementing the injunctions of the Vedas. Two of the most popular epics in the Hindu tradition, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, culminate in lengthy and violent battles. The Bhagavadgita, modern Hinduism’s most popular scripture, is revealed on a battlefield and advocates the position that participating in war may be viewed, for a ksatriya, as personal duty. We see quite clearly from the Bhagavadgita that while the tradition upholds the ultimacy of nonviolence, exceptions are made for the use of violence. The Mahabharata war is referred to, in the Bhagavadgita, as a “dharma yuddha,” a war fought in defense of justice and righteousness and for the security and well...

Playing God: Participant Frameworks in theRas Lilasof Krishna

As one of the most popular deities in contemporary Hindu worship, representations of Krishna are ubiquitous throughout South Asia. However, characterizations of Krishna also commonly appear in popular media, including television shows, movies, and comic books. But the division between traditional religious representations of Krishna and his more modern media images is not as stark as it might first appear. Using an analysis of linguistic frameworks in popular dramatic stage performances centred on the re-enactment of Krishna stories, this article demonstrates the continuum of religious practice that links the actor playing Krishna with ritual practices that presume the manifestation of the deity himself. In this way, the lines between tradition and modernity become blurred as particular methods of entertainment become themselves a vehicle for the realization of the divine.

An Ethics for the Erotic Avant-Garde: Feminism, Buddhism, and the Idea of Compassion in Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s Lyric Poetry

This paper examines Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s feminist lyric poetry and poetics, focusing on how her writing explores the middle ground between French feminism and the Mahayana lineage of Chinese Buddhism. While scholars have discussed Berssenbrugge’s feminist consciousness and its impacts on her innovative lyric practice, little attention has been given to her life-long involvement in the Chinese Buddhist tradition. In this respect, this essay traces the development of her feminist-Buddhist (or Buddhist-feminist) writing from the 1980s through 1990s, suggesting that the Chinese Buddhist bodhisattva Guanyin, a popular female deity known as the “Goddess of Compassion,” plays a significant role when Berssenbrugge yields an antiessential form of feminist ethics. Berssenbrugge’s transnational feminist imaginary seeks to promote Guanyin’s ethics of compassion, an ethics that fleshes out the bodhisattva’s maternity and her openness to the suffering other.

Schools, Temples, and Tombs across the Sea: The Re-Civilization of Post-Zheng Taiwan, 1683–1722

This article examines the strategies employed by the Qing empire to induce the Han population in Taiwan to accept its rule following the island’s conquest in 1683. Late-seventeenth-century Taiwan had a sparse population and a huge hinterland, and this made it difficult for the Qing government to enforce its rule by military means alone. I will argue that the Qing officials in Taiwan also used a number of cultural tactics to legitimize their government in the eyes of the Han Taiwanese. First, they built culture temples and schools in the hopes of both demonstrating their moral authority and convincing the Taiwanese to participate in the dynasty’s examination system. Second, they involved themselves in local religion by founding or refurbishing temples to popular deities, demonstrating sympathy for local concerns and solidarity between religious groups on the mainland and in Taiwan. Finally, rather than denigrate the memory of the island’s former rulers, the Ming-loyalist Zheng family who had resisted the Qing government’s conquest of southern China, they portrayed them as honorable servants of the former dynasty whose legacy could be proudly remembered, but whose time had ultimately passed.

Livres de morale révélés par les dieux par Vincent Goossaert (review)

Livres de morale révélés par les dieux. Textes présentés, traduits et annotés par VINCENT GOOSSAERT. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2012. xliii, 200 pp. €29 (pb). ISBN 978-2-251-10011-1 This volume includes Vincent Goossaert’s French translations of eight “morality books” and a concise, but quite substantial, introduction. Morality books since early times have attracted the attention of sinologists, but they still remain understudied in China and abroad, despite their importance for the social, ethical, and religious life of this country from the twelfth century onwards. Livres de morale révélés par les dieux was published by the prestigious French publisher Les Belles Lettres in the series “Chinese Library” that consists of translations of Chinese classics. This book makes an important contribution to this corpus of translated sources, as morality books belong to the sphere of popular religiosity rather than elite literature and philosophy, mostly featured in this series. On the other hand, as morality books combine ethical values and concepts of all three major teachings of China, they contain rich material for the study of religious syncretism . Besides, they constituted an important part of popular religiosity in traditional China, as many these texts were distributed by educated philanthropists in the printed form among the broader public. As stated in the inscription of an illustration of Precious Manuscript of the Jade Registers (Yuli baochao 玉歷寶鈔), printed by Jinzhang Publishers in Shanghai (1920), reproduced in this volume (but not translated), dissemination of morality books was considered to be the supreme act of charity in China, as “distribution of food and clothes will save people only for a short time, while dissemination of morality books can give them salvation in this reincarnation” (p. 182, fig. 24). As noted by Goossaert, “morality books” denote a quite broad category of texts that are considerably different in terms of their form, language, and contents, their common feature being a special emphasis on the law of retribution and divine response to human behavior. This law is defined in the very first sentence of Treatise of the Exalted One on Response and Retribution (Taishang ganying pian 太上感應 篇, ca. eleventh–twelfth centuries), considered to be the earliest and the most often printed morality book: “Disaster and fortune do not appear on their own; they are provoked by men themselves. Retribution for good and bad deeds will follow just as shadows follow the figure” (p. 5). The texts selected by Goossaert for translation are quite varied in period of composition , volume, form, and contents; his goal was obviously to make this selection as representative as possible. These texts are the Treatise of the Exalted One on Response and Retribution; Text on Lord Wenchang’s Invisible Reward (Wenchang dijun yinzhiwen 文昌帝君陰騭文, ca. early seventeenth century); True Scripture of Sage Lord Guan that Awakens the World (Guan sheng dijun jueshi zhenjing 關聖 帝君覺世真經, ca. end of the seventeenth century); Ledger of Merits and Demerits of the Immortal Lord of Great Subtlety (Taiwei xianjun gongguoge 太微仙君功過 格, 1171); Exhortations Bequeathed by the Great Lord of Dark Heaven from Wudang Mountain (Wudangshan xuantian shangdi chui xunwen 武當山玄天上帝 垂訓文, dated to 1302); Text Exhorting the World by the Empress of the Bushel of Perfect Light (Yuanming doudi quanshiwen 圓明斗帝勸世文, ca. end of the seventeenth–early eighteenth century); True Scripture of the Patriarch Lü that Awakens the Heart (Lüzu xingxin zhenjing 呂祖醒心真經, preface dated to 1707); 204 REVIEWS and Precious Manuscript of the Jade Registers. The last text is claimed to be a revelation of the Song dynasty, but was dated to ca. sixteenth–seventeenth century by Japanese scholars; its earliest extant editions date back to the beginning of the nineteenth century (p. 102). The volume includes the original Chinese texts on facing pages, numerous comments, and introductions to each text that summarize the history of their creation, transmission, and social background. In spite of the numerous differences between these texts, there are certain common features that bring all of them together. Firstly, they are claimed to be revealed by popular deities of the Chinese pantheon and represent a common form of communication between deities and humans in Chinese popular religion. These texts contain many details of the cults of these deities. Secondly, there are...