The Sacred Village : : Social Change and Religious Life in Rural North China / / Thomas DuBois.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Hawaii Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2015
• VerfasserIn: DuBois, Thomas,
• Place / Publishing House: Honolulu : : University of Hawaii Press, , [2023]; ©2005
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (288 p.) :; illus., maps

Until recently, few villagers of rural North China ventured far from their homes. Their intensely local view of the world included knowledge of the immanent sacred realm, which derived from stories of divine revelations, cures, and miracles that circulated among neighboring villages. These stories gave direction to private devotion and served as a source of expert information on who the powerful deities were and what role they played in the human world. The structure of local society also shaped public devotion, as different groups expressed their economic and social concerns in organized worship. While some of these groups remained structurally intact in the face of historical change, others have changed dramatically, resulting in new patterns of religious organization and practice. The Sacred Village introduces local religious life in Cang County, Hebei Province, as a lens through which to view the larger issue of how rural Chinese perspectives and behaviors were shaped by the sweeping social, political, and demographic changes of the last two centuries. Thomas DuBois combines new archival sources in Chinese and Japanese with his own fieldwork to produce a work that is compelling and intimate in detail. This dual approach also allows him to address the integration of external networks into local society and religious mentality and posit local society as a particular sphere in which the two are negotiated and transformed.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Conventions and Usage -- Introduction -- 1. Background: Rural Cang County -- 2. Religious Life and. the Village Community -- 3. Spirits, Sectarians, and Xiangtou: Religious Knowledge in Local Culture -- 4. Monastic Buddhism: The Limits of Institutional Religion -- 5. Pseudomonastic Sectarians: The Li Sect in Town and Country -- 6. Apocalyptic Sectarians: The Way of Penetrating Unity and the End of Days -- 7. Village Sectarians: The Most Supreme and Heaven and Earth Teachings -- Conclusion: Cang County and Chinese Religion -- Appendices -- Appendix A -- Appendix B Votive Prayer from the Precious Scripture of the Five Sages (Wusheng Baojuan) -- Appendix C -- Appendix D Scriptures of the Heaven and Earth Teaching -- Notes -- Character glossary -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author