Co-author with Julia Huang and Elena Valussi, in David A. Palmer, Glenn Shive and Philip Wickeri eds., Chinese Religious Life. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 107-123., 2011
The most popular deity in the Chinese world is probably Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, o... more The most popular deity in the Chinese world is probably Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, or “Goddess of Mercy,” whose porcelain statues can be seen everywhere. Even where other gods or ancestors are the main objects of worship, shrines to Guanyin can typically be found as well: in temples, in small domestic shrines in homes, even in open-air altars or at the foot of sacred rocks and trees.
Guanyin means “perceiver of sounds” and refers to the deity’s ability to hear the cries of the suffering beings in this world. Guanyin is the Chinese name for Avalokitesvara, who has been worshipped throughout the Buddhist world and has even been described as “the cult of half of Asia.” However, Avalokitesvara has never been worshipped as a goddess in India, Sri Lanka, or Southeast Asia. In Tibet, the Dalai Lama (always a man) is considered to be the reincarnation of Avalokitesvara. Many tenth-century paintings from Dunhuang, on the Silk Road in west China, show him with a moustache. The sexual transformation from a masculine figure to a goddess seems to be a Chinese phenomenon, and has to do with the story of Princess Miaoshan (Wonderful Goodness).
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-The widespread diffusion of spirit writing and of local printing presses in the eighteenth and nineteenth century
-The massive human migration to Sichuan from coastal areas, which allowed local merchants and their religious cults and temples to expand across China
-The popularity of the Lüzu and Wenchang cults, and of charitable activities, among Confucian literati starting in Jiangnan and spreading throughout China.
Guanyin means “perceiver of sounds” and refers to the deity’s ability to hear the cries of the suffering beings in this world. Guanyin is the Chinese name for Avalokitesvara, who has been worshipped throughout the Buddhist world and has even been described as “the cult of half of Asia.” However, Avalokitesvara has never been worshipped as a goddess in India, Sri Lanka, or Southeast Asia. In Tibet, the Dalai Lama (always a man) is considered to be the reincarnation of Avalokitesvara. Many tenth-century paintings from Dunhuang, on the Silk Road in west China, show him with a moustache. The sexual transformation from a masculine figure to a goddess seems to be a Chinese phenomenon, and has to do with the story of Princess Miaoshan (Wonderful Goodness).
-The widespread diffusion of spirit writing and of local printing presses in the eighteenth and nineteenth century
-The massive human migration to Sichuan from coastal areas, which allowed local merchants and their religious cults and temples to expand across China
-The popularity of the Lüzu and Wenchang cults, and of charitable activities, among Confucian literati starting in Jiangnan and spreading throughout China.
Guanyin means “perceiver of sounds” and refers to the deity’s ability to hear the cries of the suffering beings in this world. Guanyin is the Chinese name for Avalokitesvara, who has been worshipped throughout the Buddhist world and has even been described as “the cult of half of Asia.” However, Avalokitesvara has never been worshipped as a goddess in India, Sri Lanka, or Southeast Asia. In Tibet, the Dalai Lama (always a man) is considered to be the reincarnation of Avalokitesvara. Many tenth-century paintings from Dunhuang, on the Silk Road in west China, show him with a moustache. The sexual transformation from a masculine figure to a goddess seems to be a Chinese phenomenon, and has to do with the story of Princess Miaoshan (Wonderful Goodness).
Although Asian practices for health, healing and spiritual cultivation have survived today, they circulate in new forms, whether within a burgeoning global marketplace, in the imaginaries of national health bureaus, as the focus of major scholarly grant initiatives, or as subjects of neurological study. These modern understandings are contoured by the European history of science and do not represent how they were mobilised in their originary times and places. Categories like ‘alternative’, ‘complementary’, and ‘wellness’ privilege medical authority and a distance from religion writ large, implying a distance between ‘medicine’ and ‘religion’ not reflected in the originary contexts of these practices.
Situating Medicine and Religion in Asia makes a critical intervention in the scholarship on East, South and Southeast Asia and the Himalayas. Case studies show how practices from divination and demonography, to anatomy, massage, plant medicine and homeopathy were situated within the contours of medicine and religion of their time, in contrast to modern formations of ‘medicine’ and' ‘religion’. The chapters follow a common structure that allows for easy comparison across a broad geographic, temporal and conceptual range, presenting a set of methodological tools for the study of medicine and religion. Taken together, they assemble empirical data about the construction of medicine and religion as social categories of practice, from which more general claims can be made. The volume thus makes a critical intervention in the histories of medicine, religion and science in the region, while providing readers with a set of methodological approaches for future study.
From a divinatory technique it evolved into a complex ritual practice used to transmit messages and revelations from the Gods. This resulted in the production of countless religious scriptures that now form an essential corpus, widely venerated and recited to this day, that is still largely untapped by research.
Using historical and ethnographic approaches, this volume for the first time offers a comprehensive overview of the history of spirit-writing, examining its evolution over a millennium, the practices and technologies used, and the communities involved.
From a divinatory technique it evolved into a complex ritual practice used to transmit messages and revelations from the Gods. This resulted in the production of countless religious scriptures that now form an essential corpus, widely venerated and recited to this day, that is still largely untapped by research.
Using historical and ethnographic approaches, this volume for the first time offers a comprehensive overview of the history of spirit-writing, examining its evolution over a millennium, the practices and technologies used, and the communities involved.
From a divinatory technique it evolved into a complex ritual practice used to transmit messages and revelations from the Gods. This resulted in the production of countless religious scriptures that now form an essential corpus, widely venerated and recited to this day, that is still largely untapped by research.
Using historical and ethnographic approaches, this volume for the first time offers a comprehensive overview of the history of spirit-writing, examining its evolution over a millennium, the practices and technologies used, and the communities involved.