146
NOTES AND QUERIES
The halls are all substantial buildings, somewhat simpler in style than the usual run of Chinese temples and they do not declare themselves obviously as religious institutions. Once inside, however, their religious nature is obvious from the images one sees immediately in the main downstairs shrine room where one enters.
A few words are in order here on the deities worshipped by members of the sect and particularly in the vegetarian halls, for one of these deities effects the lay-out of the hall itself.
Women inmates may worship any god or goddess popular with them in a private capacity, and some have pictures and small images of such deities in their own sleeping quarters. Hsien-t'ien religion has itself incorporated, however, a number of gods and goddesses and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas into its worship. Kuan-yin is commonly found in halls of the sect and was in fact found in the halls in Ngau Chi Wan. Popular Chinese triads such as: Sakyamuni, Lao Tzu and Confucius (Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism) are also common and appeared in the lower shrine room of the WING LOK TUNG. The sects relate various gods and Buddhas to each other by the theory of reincarnation: one god is the reincarnation of another, or of a Buddha in a different age. They are also related to each other by their cooperation in the work for Truth in a particular "Truth" epoch.
A goddess peculiar to the sects of the religion exists, however. In this sect she is known as "Golden Mother of the Yao Pool" (Yao-ch'ih Chin-mu). In other sects she is known by different names: several simply call her "Venerable Mother" (Lao-mu), while Kuei-ken Men "The Sect of Reverting to the Root [of Things]" calls her "Unbegotten Venerable Mother" (Wu-shêng Lao-mu). Some sectarian leaders have told Marjorie Topley that they can tell when a particular sect split off from others in the religion by the term of address they use for "Mother". Mother is supposed to change her name every few years or so in order to prevent the unorthodox off-shoots from obtaining access to her. Any message sent to her under the incorrect name will fail to arrive. More sophisticated members say, however, that this goddess is in fact a symbolic representation of the Void: out of which the cosmos, and with it, Absolute Truth, emerged. But to most ordinary members, particularly female members, she is a goddess of great compassion and power and they sometimes identify her with Kuan-yin.
146
NOTES AND QUERIES
The halls are all substantial buildings, somewhat simpler in style than the usual run of Chinese temples and they do not declare themselves obviously as religious institutions. Once inside, how- ever, their religious nature is obvious from the images one sees immediately in the main downstairs shrine room where one enters.
A few words are in order here on the deities worshipped by members of the sect and particularly in the vegetarian halls, for one of these deities effects the lay-out of the hall itself.
Women inmates may worship any god or goddess popular with them in a private capacity, and some have pictures and small images of such deities in their own sleeping quarters. Hsien-t'ien religion has itself incorporated, however, a number of gods and goddesses and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas into its worship. Kuan- yin is commonly found in halls of the sect and was in fact found in the halls in Ngau Chi Wan. Popular Chinese triads such as: Sakyamuni, Lao Tzu and Confucius (Buddhism, Taoism and Con- fucianism) are also common and appeared in the lower shrine room of the WING LOK TUNG. The sects relate various gods and Buddhas to each other by the theory of reincarnation: one god is the reincarnation of another, or of a Buddha in a different age. They are also related to each other by their cooperation in the work for Truth in a particular "Truth" epoch.
A goddess peculiar to the sects of the religion exists, however. In this sect she is known as "Golden Mother of the Yao Pool" (Yao-ch'th Chin-mu). In other sects she is known by different names: several simply call her "Venerable Mother" (Lao-mu), while Kuei-ken Men "The Sect of Reverting to the Root [of Things]" calls her "Unbegotten Venerable Mother" (Wu-shêng Lao-mu). Some sectarian leaders have told Marjorie Topley that they can tell when a particular sect split off from others in the re- ligion by the term of address they use for "Mother". Mother is supposed to change her name every few years or so in order to prevent the unorthodox off-shoots from obtaining access to her. Any message sent to her under the incorrect name will fail to arrive. More sophisticated members say, however, that this god- dess is in fact a symbolic representation of the Void: out of which the cosmos, and with it, Absolute Truth, emerged. But to most ordinary members, particularly female members, she is a goddess of great compassion and power and they sometimes identify her with Kuan-yin.
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