Water sprites and ancestor spirits: reading the architecture of Jinci

(82.) A full discussion of the additions to the shrine complex from the end of the 17th through the 20th century is beyond the scope of this paper. However, a Qianlong period painting of the site shows the major courtyard complexes on the north end of the site and the Sage Mother Hall and Dressing Tower at the west end in the same positions that they hold today, along with several smaller pavilions and a mill that are no longer extant. Similarly, the rubbing of a stela with an image of the site dated the equivalent of 1877 carved into it shows the buildings in the same condition. See Peng Hai et al., 3 and 1, respectively. Thus, the configuration of the major temple complexes discussed in this article remained essentially as they were from the 18th century.

(83.) See Bernard Faure, Chan: Insights and Oversights: An Epistemological Critique of the Chan Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 156. Here Faure contrasts the unlocalized, or "utopian" conceptions of Buddhism with the "locative" beliefs of local religion. At Jinci, this corresponds with the constructed space used by devotees to practice those beliefs or concepts.

(84.) This nationalized vocabulary was employed in particular in temples to spirits of the so-called three teachings, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism; the state cult of nature-spirit and ancestor worship; and imperial palaces. In fact, this tradition was so powerful that even some mosques have used this configuration of buildings (with a modification in orientation to accommodate the need to face Mecca for prayer), the Great Mosque in Xi'an from the Ming (1368-1644) dynasty being the best-known example.

(85.) The connection between water, fertility/fecundity, and female divinities has been well studied. See Rolf Stein, The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings in Far Eastern Religious Thought, trans. Phyllis Brooks (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 79. Here I have translated thanh-mau (in Chinese, shengmu) as "sage mother," rather than Stein's "holy mother," for consistency. I would like to thank Jenny Liu for directing me to this source. For a further discussion of femininity and fertility and their relation to Jinci, see Peng et al., 46-48.

(86.) In his 1934 survey of the Guangsheng Monastery Water God's Temple, Liang Sicheng and Lin (as in n. 3), 333, noticed that "places with water all must have a dragon king (water spirit), and hence there are dragon king temples [in those places]." Anning Jing, The Water God's Temple of the Guangsheng Monastery: Cosmic Function of Art, Ritual, and Theater (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002), 1, translates this passage more liberally.

(87.) Typically, as in the case of the main hall of the Temple to the King of Broad Benevolence (831 C.E.), measuring 46 ft. by 17 ft. 4 in., local water-spirit temples were small. Liang and Lin (as in n. 3), 333, were surprised by the grandeur of the King of Brilliant Response Hall (Mingyingwang dian), the main hall of the Guangsheng Monastery Water God's Temple, with its approximately 65 ft.-by-65 ft. footprint, open veranda, and double-eaved, hip-and-gable roof. Jing (as in n. 86), 38, argues that the designers of the Water God's Temple were building on a scale grander than that for a normal water spirit because of a link in identity between this deity and the imperially recognized God of Huo Mountain, who was worshiped in a temple hall of similar make. The Sage Mother Hall is similar in style (open veranda and double-eaved, hip-and-gable roof) to the King of Brilliant Response Hall, but even larger in size. It thus bespeaks a higher status than was common for local water spirits in late imperial China.