JOURNAL OF CHINESE RELIGIONS

Society for the Study of Chinese Religions, Indiana U.

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No. 32 (2004)

pp. 29-45 Terry Kleeman : "Reconstructing China’s Religious Past".

p. 33, fn. 9

according to Z^en-gao 5:1b

Lao-jun "is the disciple of" Tai-s^an

according to the commentary by Tao Hon-jin on Z^en-gao 5:1b

Lao-jun = Tai-ji Zuo Z^en-ren Huan Lao Jun (‘Supreme-Ultimate Central Perfected-Left Yellow Old Lord’)

Tai-s^an = Tai-s^an Gao-s^en Yu-c^en Da Dao Jun (‘Most-High Exalted-Sage Jade-Dawn Great Way Lord’)

p. 35 dating of the Caelestial Masters texts

p.

the texts

35

"the text associated with the Xiang’er commentary is early, with a unique relationship with the Mawangdui texts."

36

"The Dadao jialing jie is explicitly dated to the third century. The last date contained therein is 255 and the text speaks with some immediacy about the fall of the theocratic state in 215 and the travails of the church in the ensuing transitional period. ... The Dadao jialing jie mentions both the Xiang’er commentary and the Huangting jing ..., so those texts must also date from the second or early third century.

It mentions the Three Heavens ...

The doctrine of an impending apocalypse, prominent already in Han apocrypha, ... was also a part of early church teachings".

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pp. 101-173 Chen Jinhua : "The Tang Buddhist Palace Chapels".

p. 133 gifts from king of Korea to the Tan court

[map :-] "five-colored carpet decorated with the images of ... mountains and rivers of various countries, and

a one-chang-high "Mountain of Ten-thousand Buddhas" [wan-fo-s^an ...], which was made of sandalwood and pearls." {10,000 named Buddha-s are S^in-gon}

p. 134 imperial displays on the full moon of the 7th month

"Ullambana bowls ... decorated with golden kingfisher feathers"

"ancestral tablets for the seven generations ... They were completely clothed in ... dragon parasols, with their venerable names written on the pennants"

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No. 33 (2005)

pp. 1-38 Douglas Gildow : "Flesh Bodies, Stiff Corpses, and Gathered Gold".

pp. 4-8 mummies of Buddhist female saints in & nigh Tai-wan

p.

mummy

4

"In 1878 [at] Tamsui (Danshui ...) ... the wasted skeleton of the girl ... was given the name Sien-lu-niu ("Virgin Goddess"), and a small temple was erected for her worship. The body was put

5

into salt and water for some time, and then placed in a sitting position in an armchair, with a red cloth around the shoulders and a wedding-cap upon the head". (FFF, p. 127)

 

"Cai Yuanyang ... After ... 1888, ... spent the remainder of her life in sealed confinement [biguan ...] ... in ... a meditation chamber [jingshi ... or changfang ...]. ...

6

For the next two decades, she ... performed many miracles involving prognosis, chairvoyance, and projection of emanation bodies [huashen ...]. ... When she died, ... she wielded a divination instrument [fu ji ...] and thereby gave instructions ... .

7

After she was buried, the god Shengdi ... [i.e., Guangong ...] possessed a spirit-medium and ordered that a statue be sculpted of Cai Yuanyang ... and that this statue be consecrated ... and enshrined in Nantian Temple."

 

[Fukien province] "the Linshui pingyao ... [Pacification of the demons at Linshui] describes the mummification and deification of Lady Linshui ..., concerning whom, after she died, a Daoist master told people she had spiritual attainments and directed them to

8

preserve her flesh ... so that her presence could remain to expel demons".

"The Mindu bieji ... [Unofficial records from the Min capital] tells the story of the sixteen-year-old girl Cai Hongxiang ..., whose soul could fly away from her body and would go to save sailors from accidents at sea. She died in a seated posture while seeking spiritual training from Lady Linshui .... ... A temple was constructed for her and she became the efficacious Grandauntie Cai".

FFF = George Leslie MacKay : From Far Formosa. NY, 1896.

pp. 9-15 mummies of Daoist female saints in Tai-wan

p.

mummy

9

"the fact that the female corpse that washed up on the shore of Lie Island ... (in Taiwanese territory) in 1949 "miraculously" failed to decay helped establish its owner as the new goddess Wang Yulan".

11

[Yu-nu: Temple in Tai-pei] "Yunu: ... Jade Lady ... was born in 1820 ... . Her soul sometimes departed from her body to learn from the goddess Mazu ... . One day in 1837, ... an image of herself emerged from her body along with a burst of rainbow-colored light and then flew up into the sky, leaving behind her lifeless material body, which local people then ... enshrined as if it were an image."

12

"The mummified body of spirit-medium Dexiu ... (lay name Huang Tangzhen ...) was enshrined in September 1999 ... . ... During her life, Dexiu served as a spirit-medium for the gods Santaizi ..., Gin2a2kong1 ..., and Qitian dashen ... (the title of the monkey god [Sun Wukong ...] from the Xiyouji ... [Records of a Journey to the West]). ... In 1993 she predicted her own death, which ... is called a "feather metamorphosis" [yuhua ...], but ... is also called "... rising to heaven" [...

13

shengtian ...] ... . ... Today Dexiu’s daughter acts as a spirit-medium ... . ... Dexiu, whose seated, gilded body ... is enshrined in the main hall next to where the daughter performs her services, helps her daughter with this divine work."

14

"The most recent mummy is that of Mingjie (lay name Deng Yuzhi ...), ... former abbess of the syncretistic Yuantian Temple in Tainan City. ... she died in late 2003 at age 88 and was ... gilded and lacquered ... several months later. It was not until after a devotee received a message from Mingjie, which temple authorities verified by means of casting divination blocks [puah8pue1 ...], that it was decided to lacquer and guild her body ... . [The mummifier] kept Mingjie’s body in a confined room in which large quantities of aloeswood incense were continuously burned for ... five months and fifteen days ... [the mummifier] compared the process to smoking meat." "Mingjie’s devotees sought and still seek her assistance, especially for healing various illnesses which doctors have been unable to heal. ... a middle-aged woman giving reports to Mingjie’s mummy and tossing two coins (in place of using divination blocks [pue1 ...]) in order to divine Mingjie’s instructions."

pp. 16-17 reburial of exhumed bones

p.

bones

16

"Native Taiwanese Han (as well as Han in the Chinese provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi) practice secondary burial, which involves exhuming bodily remains after a number of years ..., and placing the bones into ceramic jars that are eventually reburied ... – although some jars are just left above ground, abandoned." ["historical origin of the custom" : "it was indigenous to the non-Han ... Viet or Yue ... peoples" (fn. 49).]

17

The "collected bones are referred to as "gold" in Hoklo : gathering bones is "gathering gold" [khioh4kim1 ...] and the ceramic jar to hold them is a "gold bushel" [kim1tau2 ...]. ... After exhumation, the bones are washed, dyed red, dried in the sun, reassembled into a skeleton and tied together with red silk thread and with a thin willow branch fitted through the empty spinal canal of the assembled vertebrae. If the skull still has teeth they are extracted (so that the ancestor does not "eat the descendants"), and if the skull has been smashed, ... a substitute "skull" of paper and silk must be made with eyes, ears, nose, and mouth painted onto the "skull."

p. 16, fn. 48 "Hoklo tend to have more elaborate funerals and better coffins, wait longer to perform secondary burial, and belong to the Sanyuan ... school of geomancy, whereas Hakkas tend to belong to the Sanhe ... school of geomancy."

pp. 20-22 "shaded" (pickled) corpses

p.

corpses

20

"upon exhumation it is not uncommon to find that the corpse has not decayed, in which case it is categorized as a "shaded corpse [Hoklo : im3si1 ... or im3sin1 ...]."

22, fn. 63

"the term im3 ... [shaded] in the compound im3si1, "shaded corpse." In Hoklo, ... im3 can also mean "to salt" or "to pickle" .. . ... Hence ... im3si1 might be ... "pickled corpse.""

20, fn. 59

"one bone collector ... had once exhumed a shaded corpse that was in such a good state that it would have been able to perform sexually with a prostitute. {cf. the corpse of Osiris performing sexually with the goddess HQ3-t} See Huang Wenbo, Taiwanren de shengsixue, 210-213. ...

Shaded corpses can also be distinguished depending on whether they are desiccated "dry corpses" [ganshi ...], waterlogged

21, fn. 59

"water shades" [shuiyin ...], or soft and swollen {cf. swollen "vampires"} ... "bean curd shades" [doufuyin ...] (resembling bean curd)."

21

According to geomantic ideas that guide the bone collectors and geomancers that often carry out or can be consulted for secondary burials, shaded corpses ... bring misfortune ... to descendants. ... Taiwanese believe that the intact corpse "shades (i.e., protects or provides shelter for) its deceased soul" [ziyin wanghun ...] but harms descendants.

... informants speak of "covered corpse lands" [gaishidi ... : i.e., lands which cover or shelter the corpses buried within ...

22

] ... "corpse nourishing grounds" [... yangshidi ...]."

21, fn. 60

"in certain "shaded corpses grounds" [yinshi di ...], most of the corpses became shaded".

p. 22 "the souls of those who are cremated will be locked inside an underground prison".

pp. 23-24 corpses which become zombies

p.

zombie

23

"a corpse could turn into a powerful monster [iau1kuai3 ...]" : "His (i.e., the deceased’s) relatives had built a shed next to the house to cover the coffin but had left chinks in the roof so that the sun and moon were able to shine on it. Because of this the corpse was able to turn into a iau1kuai3 with long white hair, huge fangs, and a long tongue. The dead man’s soul was able to leave the corpse and cause sickness ...

24

for people in the area." (CD, pp. 172-3)

"A cat must actually jump over the corpse to animate it, and ... the cat will cause the deceased to become a violent or evil ghost [ligui ..., or egui ...]. ... the cat had to be black, but with white, oily feet".

"jiangshi ... ["stiff (and animated) corpse"], which does not decay and is prone to kill passers-by with its great strength" : "if dogs enter a cemetery and bump into the tombstones, then the corpses below are in the process of developing into jiangshi."

CD = Emily M. Ahern : Cult of the Dead. Stanford U Pr, 1973.

pp. 27-28 ghosts of the dead ["guhun yegui ... lonely spirits and wild ghosts" (p. 26)]

p.

ghosts

27

"in the case of the ghost of an unwed daughter disturbing her natal family, the family may find a man to "marry" the ghost in a "netherworld marriage" [minghun ...]. {marriage of the dead is also Tatar http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1897Natur..55..224M }... In the case of a man who died without male progeny, the family may have the ghost "adopt" a young male child (such as the son of the ghost’s brother), who will then be obligated to worship the ghost/ancestor."

28

"ghosts dwelling in abandoned images or images that did not undergo consecration"

p. 34 reference to :- http://weber.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/scriptorium/gga/ggamain.html David K. Jordan : Gods, Ghosts, & Ancestors.

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pp. 61-76 Julius N. Tsai : "Ritual, Lineage and Redaction in the Jinsuo liuzhu yin". [HY 1009]

p. 64 caelestial recensions of the Scripture

__ rec.

produced by the __ Sage

its content

written in __ ink

ref.

1st

Former

Jin-lu Yu-lu (‘Gold Registers [&] Jade Registers’)

black

3.5b-6a

2nd

Latter

Lu:-dou Bu-gan Z^i Yao ("essentials of treading the Dipper and walking the guideline")

red

1.1a-2a

"the new text of the Latter Sage given most prominently to Zhang Daoling ... in 142 CE to inaugurate the Way of the Celestial Masters."

p. 65 fascicles of the Jin-suo Liu-z^u Yin (‘Golden Lock [&] Flowing Gems Guide’) ["attributed to Li Chunfeng ... (602-670)" Chr.E. (p. 61)]

fasc.

content

1-4

forms of bu-gan

5-11

san-yuan (‘3 Primes’)

12-15

wu-xin (‘5 Phases’)

16-20

liu-jia (‘6 Jia’)

21-22

er-s^i-ba xiu (‘28 Stellar Lodges’)

p. 65 "In the fourth fascicle are mentioned a number of patriarchs connected to an expansive repertoire of ritual practices." [(p. 66) including "exorcistic proscription"]

p. 66, fn. 31 "The term jin [‘proscription’] also denotes a sealing off of an area from ... demonic access, creating demonifuge zones by means of talismans, incantations and ritual steps such as the pace of Yu. ... Yu the Great’s observation of the magical methods of birds that are able to move large boulders through "proscriptive incantations" [jinzhou ...]. See Dongshen badi yuanbian jing (HY 1193), 11a."

p. 61, fn. 1 explication of the title of the Guide (1.7a-7b)

term

literal meaning

explanation

jin-suo

golden lock

"in terms of keeping one’s souls from dissipating, "locking up the hun-souls and enchaining the po-souls [suohun lianpo ...].""

liu-z^u

flowing gems

"stars of the Dipper that are paced in the cosmic pace, bugang ... [treading the guideline]"

pp. 67-68 masters of exorcistic proscription (according to the Jin-suo Liu-z^u Yin 4.9b, citing Lord Hu : "Arrayed Records on Proscribing qi", Hu-gon Xian-s^en Jin-qi Lu-s^u)

p.

Master for Proscribing __

is __

description

67

Heaven

Li Bo-yan

 
 

Earth

Luo Wen-qian

(p. 67) "nobleman of the Shang ... period ... and master of apotropaic spells [jinzhou ...] used to heal disease" (29.3a)

67-8

Stellar Guideline

Hu Xuan-zan

(p. 68, fn. 46) "Lord Hu, or Shi Cun ..., ... a contemporary of Confucius who ... could contain the world in a gourd." (17.9a-11a)

p. 68 "Those who practice methods of proscriptions must first visualize these three figures descending from the sky; they come cloud-bedecked, with bejeweled illumination from the circular emanations from their napes. They appear clothed in purple robes among the Nine Clouds, wielding hand signs of proscription."

p. 68 patriarchs for S^i (‘Masters’) of San-yuan (‘3 Primes’)

for __ Masters

is __

description

Fa (‘Ritual’)

Z^en-yi

"with purple garb fluttering, coming with cap and sword on purple clouds swirling, arriving from the northwest and circling the altar thrice, sealing off the altar for you." (4.5b)

Zun (‘Venerable’)

Z^ou

"leads Yin armies down to the altar, ridding gravesites of evil spirits and protecting bones from demons". (4.5b-6a)

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pp. 77-124 Lawrence C. H. Yim : "A Lingnan Monk in Manchuria during the Ming-Qing Transition".

p. 99 Yellow Heaven sect [criticized by Han-ke]

"The Yellow Heaven was immensely popular in the late Ming. (The Teaching of the Complete and instantaneous was originally a branch of the Teaching of Yellow Heaven.) The Yellow Heaven members worshipped the "three lights" [sanguang ...] : the sun, the moon, and the stars. For the purpose of cultivating yin ... and yang ... forces to form the interior elixir, the sect practiced "dual cultivation" [shuangxiu ...], which was in reality ritual sexual intercourse by male and female."

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