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Taoist tradition, gentry culture, and local societies:
The cult of Zougong at Sibao in western Fujian Province since the
Song and Ming dynasties
LIU Yonghua
Front. Hist. China. 2008, 3 (2): 195-229.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-008-0012-5
Zougong, the most important local deity at Sibao, Tingzhou Prefecture, was worshipped by local villagers at least from the Yuan and the Ming dynasties on. The Zou lineages in the area regarded Zougong as their common ancestor. Existing literature usually identifies Zougong as Zou Yinglong, a zhuangyuan in the Southern Song Dynasty. However, such identification appeared only in the late Ming period when local elites of several Zou lineages consciously tried to unite and consolidate their lineages. Before that, Zougong was a mighty ritual master in a series of magic contest stories popular at Tingzhou, rather than a zhuangyuan. The change of his identity from ritual master to zhuangyuan was a result of convergence of Taoist tradition, gentry culture and local culture, which may be called “cultural hybridization,” rather than a simple process by which local culture gave way to gentry culture.
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Center and periphery: The expansion and metamorphosis
of Han culture—A case study of stone carvings in No. 1 Mahao
cave tomb, Leshan, Sichuan Province, China
HUO Wei
Front. Hist. China. 2008, 3 (2): 293-322.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11462-008-0015-2
The cave reliefs of Mahao in Leshan City, Sichuan Province, have been world-famous for containing an early Buddhist statue. Yet, little attention has been paid to the co-existent stone reliefs sharing the tomb cave and the cultural significance thereof. Through the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BC–220 AD), the ancient Ba and Shu civilizations in what is Sichuan today gradually merged into the Chinese civilization, of which the Han civilization is the main body, on the one hand, the Han civilization exerted a strong influence on its south-western counterparts, as is revealed by the stone reliefs in the tomb cave; on the other hand, the south-western region was apparently assimilated into the Chinese civilization while concurrently absorbing elements of even farther civilizations (e.g., those in Central and South Asia). The early image of Buddha appeared against a wide cultural background.
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