Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China

Kenneth Dean

Published by Princeton University Press 1993

Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China

Kenneth Dean

Volume 256 in the series Princeton Legacy Library

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400863402

Overview
Contents

About this book

Most commentators imagine contemporary China to be monolithic, atheistic, and materialist, and wholly divorced from its earlier customs, but Kenneth Dean combines evidence from historical texts and extensive fieldwork to reveal an entirely different picture. Since 1979, when the Chinese government relaxed some of its most stringent controls on religion, villagers in the isolated areas of Southeast China have maintained an "underground" effort to restore traditional rituals and local cults.

Originally published in 1993.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Reviews

This excellent . . . book breaks new ground in several interrelated areas: its combination of fieldwork with the collection and study of texts and inscriptions, the inclusive, community-wide base of local religious practices, the role of Daoist priests in a community religion, detailed case studies of the development of popular deities, and the revival of religious festivals in China in the mid-1980s.---Daniel L. Overmyer, Pacific Affairs

Dean has made a major contribution to our understanding of Chinese religion. . . . As an expert tour-guide, eyewitness reporter, archivist, historical interpreter, textual translator, and semiologist, he constructs a valuable multifaceted view of some old and continuously developing religious phenomena.---Scott Davis, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs

This excellent study, among its other virtues, makes one outstanding contribution to religious studies: it provides ethnographic reporting of local religious practices in the People's Republic of China (PRC). . . . Probably the most sophisticated study of contemporary popular Chinese religion that has yet appeared.---Alan Hunter, Sociology of Religion

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xiii
INTRODUCTION SOURCES AND METHODOLOGY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
ONE. TAOISM IN FUJIAN Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
TWO. THE GREAT EMPEROR WHO PROTECTS LIFE THE DIVISION OF INCENSE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
THREE. THE PATRIARCH OF THE CLEAR STREAM PROCESSIONS OF THE GODS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
FOUR. THE REVERENT LORD OF BROAD COMPASSION CONTRADICTORY INTERPRETATIONS OF A GOD IN RITUAL AND LEGEND Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
CONCLUSION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
APPENDIX I. FOUR SONG TITLES OF INVESTITURE FOR THE PATRIARCH OF THE CLEAR STREAM Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
APPENDIX II. THE DOSSIER OF THE REVERENT LORD OF BROAD COMPASSION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
APPENDIX III. CHINESE TEXT OF SCRIPTURES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
GLOSSARY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275

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