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Way and Byway - Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern China (Paperback)
Loot Price: R1,227
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Way and Byway - Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern China (Paperback)
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Using a combination of newly mined Sung sources and modern
ethnography, Robert Hymes addresses questions that have perplexed
China scholars in recent years. Were Chinese gods celestial
officials, governing the fate and fortunes of their worshippers as
China's own bureaucracy governed their worldly lives? Or were they
personal beings, patrons or parents or guardians, offering
protection in exchange for reverence and sacrifice?
To answer these questions Hymes examines the professional exorcist
sects and rising Immortals' cults of the Sung dynasty alongside
ritual practices in contemporary Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as
miracle tales, liturgies, spirit law codes, devotional poetry, and
sacred geographies of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries.
Drawing upon historical and anthropological evidence, he argues
that two contrasting and contending models informed how the Chinese
saw and see their gods. These models were used separately or in
creative combination to articulate widely varying religious
standpoints and competing ideas of both secular and divine power.
Whether gods were bureaucrats or personal protectors depended, and
still depends, says Hymes, on who worships them, in what setting,
and for what purposes.
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