Surveilled, harmonized, purified: the body in Chinese religious culture
The human body has long occupied a central role in religious praxis across the globe. Recent decades have witnessed a change in academic studies aimed at theorizing the body and its relationship with society and the cosmos. This article adds to this discourse by demonstrating the pervasiveness of th...
| Published in: | Body and religion |
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| Subtitles: | "Special Issue: Religious body imagined, part II" |
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Equinox Publishing
2021
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| In: |
Body and religion
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
China
/ Religion
/ Body
/ Representation
/ World order
/ History 200 BC-600
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion BL Buddhism BM Chinese universism; Confucianism; Taoism KBM Asia NBE Anthropology TB Antiquity |
| Further subjects: | B
Buddhism
B Microcosmic Body B Daoism B Celestial Bureaucracy B Ritual B Confucianism |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The human body has long occupied a central role in religious praxis across the globe. Recent decades have witnessed a change in academic studies aimed at theorizing the body and its relationship with society and the cosmos. This article adds to this discourse by demonstrating the pervasiveness of the body as a root metaphor in medieval Chinese religious culture. The notion of the body as a microcosmic replica of the social, political, and metaphysical realms, and the need to synchronize it with the natural cycles of the universe, played a key role in the emerging doctrinal and liturgical schemes of Buddhism and Daoism, China's two main organized religious traditions. Using the apocryphal medieval Buddhist scripture The Sutra of Trapusa and Bhallika as a case study, and reading it against the backdrop of earlier religious, medical, and philosophical texts, this article argues that visions of the body as an object of surveillance by the celestial authorities, and its purification and harmonization through ethical practices and ritual means, were hailed as the most significant religious activities in Buddhist and Daoist communities alike in medieval China, a feature that continues to occupy a central place in contemporary Chinese religious life. |
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| ISSN: | 2057-5831 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Body and religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1558/bar.17840 |