EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Religion 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 102 these materials profide evidence for the understanding of the Buddhist services of worship. These sculpted murals were carved in poses which were inspired by the records of Buddhist services of worship contained in Buddhist sutras, and Buddhist services of worship that date back to the earliest known Buddhist sutra, “Long Discourses.” In later dynasties, different musical descriptions can be found in many Buddhist sutras from the Han dynasty to the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern dynasties. However, the meaning of Buddhist services of worship scattered in these Buddhist sutras varies from one another. The paper aims to examine the numerous Buddhist texts related to celestial musical performers from the Han to the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern dynasties, and to interpret the various meanings of Buddhist services of worship by studying the celestial musical performers in the Sixth Grotto. The author aims to reveal the significance and practice of Buddhist musical services of worship during the Northern-Wei dynasty. Li Ji (The University of Hong Kong) Making Religion, Making Local Society: Social Formation and Identity Construction of a Catholic Village in Nineteenth-Century Manchuria Key words: Christianity, Manchuria, indigenous identity, social formation, immigrants This paper explores place-making and identity construction at the frontier of the Qing Empire by focusing on a Catholic village in southern Manchuria. It examines the formation of the village and the negotiation of its religious identity in the long nineteenth century. Developed from a few migrant Catholic families from other parts of China, the village came into being in the early nineteenth century, but official administrative order was not established in it until 1906. The growth of Christianity in the community thus coincided with the formation of the local society. The early settlers developed their identity through the performance of ritu- als, regulated by the local church founded by French missionaries from the Société de Missions Étrangères de Paris, who emphasized the strictness of Catholic ritual performance in order to differentiate it from other Chinese popular religions. Rigorous Catholic identity became critical for early immigrants in establishing their community and social status, and grew into an integral part of the local culture. As the state control intensified at fin de siècle, Christianity became a resource of governance over the local society. Relying on archival materials and fieldwork, this paper investigates how the mosaic of political and religious forces interacted with Chinese immigrants and foreign missionaries to create a Catholic community. It also illu- minates a microhistorical perspective into how local experience is shaped by and fits into changing political discourses on religion, state, and indigenous identity. Lin Yung-sheng (National Taiwan University) Changing Taoist Concepts of Heaven and Man in the Interaction between Buddhism and Taoism Key words: Buddhism, Taoism, Concepts of Heaven and Man, Chong Xuan, Three Realms In early China, the concept of Heaven had a correlative relationship with geographic orientations. For example, there were nine heavens as the Earth had nine continents (jiuzhou 九州 ). This was associated with the early thinking of mutual correspondence between Heaven and man. Under the same influence, early theories of three, six and nine heavens in Taoismwere related to classifications of space or time as well. With the introduction of Buddhism, the theory of “twenty-eight heavens in the Three Realms” (sanjie ershibatian 三界二十八天 ), determined according to the level of Buddhist cultivation, was also brought into China. Taoists then absorbed this conception of Heaven and man, based on which they had reconstructed Taoist deities and belief systems. On the other hand, some Taoists who thought highly of cultivation experiences believed that one could enter into a more esoteric experience, that is, “chong xuan” ( 重玄 ), once jing ( 境 , thirty-three heavens) and zhi ( 智 , the subject’s will in pursuit of liberation) were transcended. This aspect also represented the mature growth of Taoist ontology.