Civil Buddhism and martial Daoism : an ethnographic and textual study on a Chinese local ritual tradition in northern Guangdong

Abstract

This thesis is a study of a local ritual tradition—Civil Buddhism and Martial Daoism—found in the region of Huanghua黃花, Yingde英德, northern Guangdong, based on a corpus of ethnographic and textual materials which are a rich repository of ritual manuscripts and performances that exhibit both Chinese Buddhist liturgy and Daoist Lüshan閭山tradition. The ethnographic findings and analysis of ritual texts in this thesis centre around the jiao ceremony—a cosmic renewal festival—that lasted for four days in the villages of Huanghua in December 2006. The same group of ritual specialists conduct two distinctive systems of liturgy for different purposes and by different means—on the one hand, the Buddhist priests, who act as solemn officials, establish relationship between the community and supernatural bureaucracy through civil means, such as submitting petitions and announcing decrees; on the other hand, the male Daoist Lüshan ritual specialists dress themselves up in female costumes and transform into the Three Madams of Fuzhou福州三奶夫人in order to perform exorcist rituals through martial means. The thesis presents a comprehensive analysis of the ritual texts and actions in this ritual tradition, where the duality of the civil and the martial play out a symphony of social performance that guarantees spiritual protection and divine blessings for the members of the jiao community. The research employs a “synchronic social approach” to examine how the ritual texts and performances weave the social fabric of a Chinese local society that is still present in nowadays’ Guangdong and in many parts of China. It is the duality of the civil and the martial that positions the local society in the cosmos and determines the meaning of life and death, auspices and misfortunes, as well as peace and disorder for its members—which, in other words, explains a certain form of “unity” in Chinese ritual traditions, local religions and societies. The social and structuralist exposition of such duality laid out in this research can contribute to studies on Chinese religions and societies.