CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED
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take place at the home or in ancestral temples, less frequently in "bone temples". But secondly, community temples are not intended to offer funeral rites: their whole significance lies elsewhere. Funeral rites from very early times on used to be a family or clan affair and had no direct relationship with the community as a whole. With the coming of Buddhism and the growing success of their eschatology, monks started to take over or at least participate in funeral services. The author has overlooked a very simple alternate explanation: the proverb may have been coined at a point in history where the Ullambana ritual (or hungry ghost festival) was purely Buddhist, whereas the li-tou from its inception was a Taoist creation and in earlier times only performed by Taoist priests. Later changes occurred, but the saying continues.
On p. 175 author states that (Buddhist) "bone temples” “cannot be used as a site for the popular chiao festivals": the gods are not willing to descend in a death-polluted location (p. 176). This may not be the true reason. Those "bone temples" are not real temples (they are pagodas) and certainly not community temples: therefore they obviously will not do as sites for the chiao festival which is the community celebration par excellence. It seems to me, however, that Buddhist temples are organizing great rituals parallel to or equivalent to the chiao, which they call ta fa hui (great dharma meeting). This is a substitute ritual for their own Buddhist devotees, and a ritual for the living at that.
On p. 180 the author distinguishes two groups of worshippers in Buddhist temples, so-called the “living” and the “dead”. (As long as quotation marks are used, these expressions although not ideal, can be accepted, but on p. 182 the author speaks of dead worshippers, without the marks). The two groups do not meet at the same times and participate in different rituals. This whole passage is informative but does not clarify or further substantiate the author's thesis. The so-called “dead worshippers” do not belong to the real congregation of the temple: they place the urn or tablet once and for all, often to rid themselves of an awkward responsibility. The monks have received their lump sum payment and do not expect them back therefore they are almost forgotten on purpose. The "living worshippers" are cultivated because they provide the regular temple income.
On p. 185, the author speaks of the "Taoist" Matsu deity. This is a wrong identification as author should be aware of. Further