Sanctity and self-inflicted violence in Chinese religions, 1500-1700
By: Jimmy Yu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780199844883; 9780199844906; 9780199844890
Subjects: Religious life and customs; China; Self-mutilation; Violence; Rites and ceremonies; History
Description: "In this illuminating study of a vital but long overlooked aspect of Chinese religious life, Jimmy Yu reveals that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, self-inflicted violence was an essential and sanctioned part of Chinese culture. He examines a wide range of practices, including blood writing, filial body-slicing, chastity mutilations and suicides, ritual exposure, and self-immolation, arguing that each practice was public, scripted, and a signal of cultural expectations. Individuals engaged in acts of self-inflicted violence to exercise power and to affect society, by articulating moral values, reinstituting order, forging new social relations, and protecting against the threat of moral ambiguity. Self-inflicted violence was intelligible both to the person doing the act and to those who viewed and interpreted it, regardless of the various religions of the period: Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and other religions. This book is a groundbreaking contribution to scholarship on bodily practices in late imperial China, challenging preconceived ideas about analytic categories of religion, culture, and ritual in the study of Chinese religions."--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p.         ) and index.