Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China

301 Pages·1996·8.784 MB·English

by  Meir Shahar, Robert P. Weller

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Unruly Gods
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Unruly Gods
Divinity and Society
in China
Edited by
Meir Shahar and Robert P. Weller
University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu
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© 1996 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
96 97 98 99 00 01 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Unruly gods : divinity and society in China / edited by Meir Shahar
and Robert P. Weller.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–8248–1724–9 (alk. paper)
1. China—Religion. 2. China—Religious life and customs.
3. Gods, Chinese. I. Shahar, Meir. II. Weller, Robert P. (Robert
Paul), 1953– .
BL1802.U67 1996
299’.51—dc20 96–5144
CIP
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-
free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and
durability of the Council on Library Resources
Book design by Kenneth Miyamoto
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1. Introduction: Gods and Society in China 1
Meir Shahar and Robert P. Weller
2. Personal Relations and Bureaucratic Hierarchy in Chinese
Religion: Evidence from the Song Dynasty 37
Robert Hymes
3. Enlightened Alchemist or Immoral Immortal? The Growth
of Lü Dongbin’s Cult in Late Imperial China 70
Paul R. Katz
4. The Lady Linshui: How a Woman Became a Goddess 105
Brigitte Baptandier
5. Myths, Gods, and Family Relations 150
P.Steven Sangren
6. Vernacular Fiction and the Transmission of
Gods’ Cults in Late Imperial China 184
Meir Shahar
7. Transmission in Popular Religion: The Jiajiang
Festival Troupe of Southern Taiwan 212
Donald S. Sutton
8. Matricidal Magistrates and Gambling Gods: Weak States
and Strong Spirits in China 250
Robert P. Weller
Glossary 269
Index 279
Contributors 289
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Acknowledgments
This book grew out of a double-session panel entitled “Chinese
Gods beyond the Bureaucracy” at the 1992 annual meeting of the
Association for Asian Studies. The original participants in this panel
were: Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, Robert Hymes, Paul Katz, P.Steven
Sangren, Meir Shahar, and Robert Weller. (Cedzich had by then
already committed her paper for publication elsewhere.) We are
grateful to the two discussants at the panel, David Johnson and
James L. Watson, for their useful comments and suggestions. The
manuscript benefited from the comments of anonymous readers for
University of Hawai‘i Press as well as suggestions made by Stephen F.
Teiser. We are grateful to them all. Finally, we would like to express
our thanks to our editor at the University of Hawai‘i Press, Patricia
Crosby.
Meir Shahar
Robert P. Weller
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Unruly Gods
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