Read more
Guan Yu was a minor general in the third century CE, but over time, he became known as one the most popular and influential deities of imperial China under the name Lord Guan or Emperor Guan. The book explores the cult of Guan Yu by examining the tremendous power of oral culture in creating the mythology of a deity.
List of contents
- 1: Historical figure and divine being
- 2: Demon and monastic protector
- 3: The exorcism of the salt ponds at Xie
- 4: A deity's conquest of China
- 5: The divine presence
- 6: Bringing rain and protection
- 7: The educated deity
- 8: Martial keeper of morals
- 9: Summing up and looking forward
- Bibliography
About the author
Barend J. ter Haar studied in Leiden, Shenyang, and Fukuoka. He obtained his doctoral degree in 1990 in Leiden, and worked in Leiden and Heidelberg before coming to Oxford in 2013. Ter Haar has published extensively on new religious groups, lay Buddhism, Triad ritual and mythology, the spread of rumours, religious culture and violence, local religious culture, and ethnicity. He is currently completing a book dealing with the social history of witchcraft fears and persecution in traditional China.
Summary
Guan Yu was a minor general in the third century CE, but over time, he became known as one the most popular and influential deities of imperial China under the name Lord Guan or Emperor Guan. The book explores the cult of Guan Yu by examining the tremendous power of oral culture in creating the mythology of a deity.
Additional text
It is clear that this work aims to experiment in vivo with a new method that restores oral culture by exhuming writings and objects. Barend ter Haar believes in the independence of religious life from written sources, the influence of the latter on the former to be demonstrated each time. In a civilization where the written word is as old as the world, the challenge is great. [Tranlated from French]
