A case study on the evolution of Chinese religious symbols from talismanic paraphernalia to Taoist liturgy

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2809938
AutoresGrégoire Espesset (Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale, autor de correspondencia)
Año2015
Volumen78
Número3
Páginas493-514
Fecha de publicación2015-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaBulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0041-977X • E-ISSN: 1474-0699
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0041977x15000439
OpenAlexW2209359373
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas26

The mid-fifteenth-century Taoist Canon (Zhengtong daozang正統道藏) contains five specimens of a religious artefact called "Great Peace Symbol" ("Taiping fu" 太平符), dispersed between five texts spanning about a millennium. The introduction to this paper discusses the meaning of the Chinese wordfu符 and its most widely used English rendition, "talisman". The article briefly presents the source of each specimen, attempts a deconstruction of its morphology, and analyses itsmodus operandi, thus providing a basic methodological model to outline the historical evolution of the category of "fu" artefacts from early medieval portable devices endowed with specific apotropaic functions - like charms and amulets - to multipurpose ritual implements designed for use within the framework of early modern Taoist liturgy. The epilogue introduces a sixth specimen, differently named but morphologically and functionally related to the latest three "Great Peace Symbols

Archaeology · Art · Deconstruction (building) · Epistemology · Fifteenth · Linguistics · Literature · Liturgy · Meaning (existential) · Symbol (formal) · Chinese history and philosophy · Classics · Engineering · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Japanese History and Culture · Philosophy