| Description |
1 online resource (vii, 290 pages) : illustrations |
| Contents |
Introduction : gods and society in China / Meir Shahar and Robert P. Weller -- Personal relations and bureaucratic hierarchy in Chinese religion : evidence from the Song dynasty / Robert Hymes -- Enlightened alchemist or immoral immortal? The growth of Lü Dongbin's cult in late imperial China / Paul R. Katz -- The Lady Linshui : how a woman became a goddess / Brigitte Baptandier -- Myths, gods, and family relations / P. Steven Sangren -- Vernacular fiction and the transmission of gods' cults in late Imperial China / Meir Shahar -- Transmission in popular religion : the Jiajiang festival troupe of Southern Taiwan / Donald S. Sutton -- Matricidal magistrates and gambling gods : weak states and strong spirits in China / Robert P. Weller |
| Summary |
The first study in English to offer a systematic introduction to the Chinese pantheon of divinities. It challenges received wisdom about Chinese popular religion, which, until now, presented all Chinese deities as mere functionaries and bureaucrats. The essays in this volume eloquently document the existence of other metaphors that allowed Chinese gods to challenge the traditional power structures and traditional mores of Chinese society. The authors draw on a variety of disciplines and methodologies to throw light on various aspects of the Chinese supernatural. The gallery of gods and goddesses surveyed demonstrates that these deities did not reflect China's socio-political order but rather expressed and negotiated tensions within it. In addition to reflecting the existing order, Chinese gods shaped it, transformed it, and compensated for it, and, as such, their work offers fresh perspectives on the relations between divinity and society in China |
| Analysis |
Humaniora Religionsvidenskab |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Gods, Chinese.
|
| SUBJECT |
China -- Religion.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85024177
|
|
China -- Religious life and customs.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008114715
|
| Author |
Shahar, Meir, 1959-
|
|
Weller, Robert P. (Robert Paul), 1953-
|
| LC no. |
96005144 |
| ISBN |
0585279934 electronic bk |
|
0824865421 electronic bk |
|
9780585279930 electronic bk |
|
9780824865429 electronic bk |
|
