ASIA 131: Exploration Project
Instructions for Assignment 2
Due by Wednesday, August 5 at 11:59 pm
In assignment one, you located and read scholarly sources, and answered questions about a specific religious tradition. Now you will continue your research by looking at the material culture of that same religious tradition. As we are learning in class, religions are not only limited to texts and stories, but also to things, places, and rituals.
PART 1: Physical Object or Place
First, you will research a physical object associated with the religious tradition you are studying. You may use the article you have already read, other articles available in JSTOR, or a religion’s own website (if they have one). If you are having trouble finding a specific object, you may also select a building or place. (You only have to do one or the other — a small object, or a sacred place.) Please answer the following questions in complete sentences, paying special attention to capitalization, citation (both in-text and bibliographic), and grammar.
1. What is the physical object (or place) called? If possible, provide the name of the object in the original language associated with it. Remember to italicize non-English words.
2. Describe the object or place in your own words in at least 100 words. Just look at and describe what you see. Do not quote or paraphrase a description of the object you find online.
3. Describe in at least 100 words how the object (or place) is used, and its significance, in the tradition you are studying. Here, consult the article or book that you find to explain things like the object’s purpose, significance, its use, who uses it, etc.
4. Include a photograph of the object/place (including a citation for where you find the image).
PART 2: Ritual
Next, you will focus on something that people do (i.e., a ritual) in the religion you are studying.
Please make a distinction between rituals and festivals—DO NOT select a holiday or festival. Rites of passage, lifecycle rituals, acts of worship, or practical rituals (intended to accomplish something for the person performing it) are all acceptable. I would like you to find a ritual that is performed regularly (daily, weekly, or monthly), and answer the following questions:
1. Does the ritual have a specific name? If so, what is this ritual called? Try to use the name of the ritual in the original language (remember to italicize non-English words).
2. How does the ritual work (its “mechanics” and “logic”)? What is it intended to accomplish? Describe the parts of the ritual in at least three sentences.
3. How often is it performed?
4. Who performs the ritual, and where?
5. Include a photo of the ritual and a link to that photo.
Remember that you need to use a word processor on a laptop or desktop to complete these assignments properly. Please number your answers and be sure to cite any sources your use to answer these questions, such as where you find information or a photograph of the object.
Include MLA-style citations wherever necessary. If you quote, paraphrase, or even use a similar sentence structure to that of your source, you must include an in-text citation. Remember to put your name, student ID, and date on your assignment. Please use a standard 12-point font and 1.5 line spacing.
Here is a link to the li
ary’s MLA guide: http:
columbiacollege-ca.libguides.com/mla
***Please note that spaces, punctuation marks, and italicizations are very important in citations. Please pay special attention to all the little details.
Placing Faith in Daoism, 1100–1110
Chapter Title: Placing Faith in Daoism, 1100–1110
Book Title: Emperor Huizong
Book Author(s): Patricia Buckley E
ey
Published by: Harvard University Press
Stable URL: http:
www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctt6wpncz.13
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Emperor Huizong
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� II
Striving for
Magnificence,
1102–1112
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131
� 5
Placing Faith in Daoism,
1100–1110
To Liu Hunkang:
I have received several of your memorial- letters, full of
earnest and reverent thoughts. It was just as though I was
listening to your gentle voice. In accord with the seasons one
eats and rests. Wouldn’t it be good if this coming spring you
were to fl y west by boat? We could plan for marvelous
discussions. The talismans required by the Precious Consort
need to be managed and we haven’t been able to handle it
expeditiously. The picture of the Three Mao Lords is
fi nished. We just wait for you to come to the capital to hand it
to you in person. Let me request several dozen of the “curing
illness, ca
y at the belt” talismans.
—letter from Huizong to Liu Hunkang, dated 1107/11/6
Within the world of Song culture, a great many ideas
circulated concerning what we might consider cosmology, natural sci-
ence, and religion. Some people were highly eclectic in their thinking,
accepting most of what they heard. They had confi dence in the powers
of many gods they knew by name, whether of Buddhist, Daoist, or lo-
cal origin. They knew that natural disasters could be warnings from
heaven. They took for granted ideas about yin and yang, qi (vital en-
ergy, vapor, pneuma), and the Five Phases (wood, fi re, earth, metal,
and water) that were used to discuss biology, music, geomancy, and
weather. They did not doubt that rare individuals had exceptional
powers to foretell the future, communicate with the dead, or summon
gods or demons. Besides such eclectic believers, there were skeptics who
eserved judgment, thinking it likely that some ideas were mistaken and
some claims of extraordinary powers were fraudulent. Those learned
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132 Striving for Magnificence, 1102–1112
in the texts of a single tradition, whether Buddhism, Daoism, or Con-
fucianism, often thought that the ideas associated with their tradition
were true but that the others were defi cient in one way or another. But
such experts were only a small proportion of the population, probably
even a small portion of the
oad educated class.1
In the history of Daoism, the Song period was an especially active
and creative period, with many new deity cults and revelatory tradi-
tions emerging.2 Daoism was in transition from the more hierarchal
and aristocratic traditions of the early Tang court to a more diverse
and encompassing form that was widely diffused through society. At
the local level, people turned regularly to Daoist masters to help them
deal with a wide range of problems that could be attributed to ghosts,
gods, and demons. Therapeutic and exorcistic teachings proliferated.
Revelations continuously provided new elements— new heavens, dei-
ties, talismans, and scriptures. Daoist masters armed with talismans
and Thunder Rites helped provide a sense of divine justice by keeping
demons and other unruly spirits in line.3 Offi cials and others with
comparable Confucian educations were among those who found use
for Daoist rituals.4
Beginning well before Song times, the throne had been a major pa-
tron of both Buddhism and Daoism, with the balance shifting from
time to time when an emperor strongly prefe
ed one religion to the
other. Daoism had much that would appeal to an emperor, ranging
from the early Daoist notions of the ruler who achieves everything by
doing nothing, to grand Daoist rituals of cosmic renewal. The state
cult over which the emperor presided drew from the same body of
cosmological ideas as Daoism, not only yin and yang and the Five
Phases, but also star lore and concerns with auspiciousness.5 Many of
the high gods of Daoism were conceived of as emperors; they had titles
edolent of imperial majesty, sat on thrones wearing imperial garments,
in temples called palaces. Those who wished to communicate with
them used the ritual forms (prostrations, written petitions) employed
y those addressing emperors. The Tang royal house claimed a special
elationship to Daoism on the grounds that the imperial Li family was
descended from the early Daoist phi los o pher Laozi (also surnamed Li).
The Tang emperors supported the Daoist religion by building temples,
adding Daoist texts to the civil ser vice examination cu
iculum, setting
up Daoist schools, inviting leading Daoist masters and holy men to court,
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Placing Faith in Daoism, 1100– XXXXXXXXXX
and making copies of the Daoist canon. The Tang emperor Xuanzong
(r. 712– 755) even wrote commentaries on Daoist texts. Some of his suc-
cessors pursued immortality through Daoist alchemy and were ordained
as Daoist priests.6
During the Northern Song period, Daoism continued to receive
imperial favor. Yet, of Huizong’s seven pre de ces sors, only one, Zhen-
zong (r. 997– 1022), was as active in his patronage of Daoism as several
Tang emperors had been. In 1008 Zhenzong ordered every prefecture
to establish a Heavenly Felicity Daoist Temple to cele
ate his receipt
of a document from heaven, an important step in extending the local
each of Daoism. In 1012 Zhenzong had two dreams from which he
learned that an ancestor of the Song imperial family was an incarna-
tion of a descendant of the high gods