Water sprites and ancestor spirits: reading the architecture of Jinci

(56.) Miller, 160-67.

(57.) Yun Shan, "Jinci," Shanxi wenwu 2 (1982), reprinted in Sun Jinyi et al. (as in n. 49), 1125.

(58.) See Miller, 180.

(59.) Hansen, 84. It should be emphasized that noble titles were given to nature spirits prior to the Song dynasty. One example of this is the astral deity Wenchang, who was given titles beginning in the Tang dynasty (and who was eventually given temples across the empire, including one at Jinci in the 18th century). See Terry F. Kleeman, "The Expansion of the Wenchang Cult," in Religion and Society in Tang and Song China, ed. Patricia B. Ebrey and Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1993), 45-73. However, Hansen's research indicates a proliferation in government granting of titles to local divinities at the end of the Northern Song dynasty. In the case of the Sage Mother at Jinci, the most active period of title granting was also the end of the Northern Song.

(60.) Ibid., 81.

(61.) Ibid.; and Xu Song, Li juan 20, 2b. The New Policies were gradually put into effect from 1069 to 1073. See Mote (as in n. 32), 138-44.

(62.) Valerie Hansen does not discuss this specifically, but her work tracking the trends of promotion shows that fewer deities were given titles when the Yuanyou party, which stood in opposition to Wang Anshi and his New Policies, regained power with the support of the Supreme Empress Dowager Gao, who was regent for the nine-year-old emperor Zhezong after the death of Emperor Shenzong in 1086. Title granting increases again with the fall of the Yuanyou party in 1094 and the revival of the New Policies under ruling Emperor Zhezong. See Mote (as in n. 32), 142; Priscilla Ching Chung, Palace Women in the Northern Sung, 960-1125 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), 73-74; and Hansen, 80, fig. 1. This strongly supports Hansen's idea that it was the New Policies that facilitated promotion of deities at the local level.

(63.) Hansen, 83, speculates that the lists of deities in the Song huiyao, where the Sage Mother at Jinci is named, were likely reconstructed from the national sacrificial statutes created under the New Policies. If this is the case, it might provide an explanation for why the earlier elevation from Gentlewoman to Sage Mother is not mentioned in this text.

(64.) McNair, 240.

(65.) Yue (as in n. 42), juan 40, 9a.

(66.) Huang Yizhou (Qing dynasty) et al., Xu Zizhi tongjian changbian shibu (Long draft of the continuation of the Zizhi tongjian, with additions) (Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1983), juan 46, 25a-27a.

(67.) Here I have translated sanmen, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], as front gate.