11th century chinese history
12th century chinese history
13th century chinese history
A01=Robert Hymes
anthropology
asian history
Author_Robert Hymes
Category=GTM
Category=JHMC
Category=QRRL5
china
chinese culture
chinese gods
chinese history
chinese philosophy
chinese religions
chinese religiosity
clergy
devotional poetry
divine power
divinity
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnography
gods
history
hong kong
humility
immortals
liturgies
miracle tales
philosophical tradition
religion
religious piety
ritual practices
secular power
spirit law codes
sung dynasty
taiwan
tao
taoism
taoist philosophy
Product details
- ISBN 9780520207592
- Weight: 499g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 21 May 2002
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: 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.
Robert Hymes is Professor of Chinese History at Columbia University. He is coeditor of Ordering the World: Approaches to State and Society in Sung Dynasty China (California, 1993) and author of Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung (1987).
