172
JULIAN F. PAS
"If gods did have actual descendants, then it is clear that they could not serve the function which they do as foci of worship which goes beyond the Family.” (p. 240)
To clarify my a priori statement, let us examine the major gods of the author's research area (mentioned in Chapter I).
✪ Matsu
(ii) Shen-nung
(iii) Kuan-yin
(iv) K'ai-chang sheng-wang
(v) Ch'ing-shui tsu-shih
(vi) Ting-kuang Fo
(vii) Cheng Ch'eng-kung (Koxinga)
(viii) Kuang-tse tsun-wang
(ix) Pao-sheng Ta-ti
(x) Kuan-Ti
(xi) The Wang-yeh gods
(xii) The city gods
None of those can be proven to have developed from a “withered corpse"; on the contrary, several of them were historical personages of much fame, who had been great leaders in their life-time and almost certainly led a normal life within a family. If a deceased person of great merit to the community cannot become a cult object because he has posterity, then by the same token, a great official cannot serve the community at large during his lifetime either. Family ties are not necessarily an obstacle either for government service or for cult formation. When people start worshipping a great person after his death, they do not worship him as an ancestor but as a great person who transcends the limitations of his family.
An example to show how the author confuses two ideas and uses them as the need arises is the case of the Buddha: as I already quoted from p. 252 above: many small gods but also major deities can be shown to have been spirits without descendants. Now, the author also draws the Buddhas and bodhisattvas into the series "as exemplars of the same tradition of breaking the family tie" (my underlining). Now, it is well-known that Buddha Sakyamuni had a son (not without descendants) but that he later on broke the family tie.
172
JULIAN F. PAS
"If gods did have actual descendants, then it is clear that they could not serve the function which they do as foci of worship which goes beyond the Family.” (p. 240)
To clarify my -¦a priori?
statement, let us examine the major
gods of the author's research area (mentioned in Chapter I).
✪ Matsu
(ii) Shen-nung
(iii) Kuan-yin
(iv) K'ai-chang sheng-wang
(v) Ch'ing-shui tsu-shih
(vi) Ting-kuang Fo
(vii) Cheng Ch'eng-kung (Koxinga)
(viii) Kuang-tse tsun-wang
(ix) Pao-sheng Ta-ti
(x) Kuan-Ti
I
(xi) The Wang-yeh gods
(xii) The city gods
None of those can be proven to have developed from a “withered corpse"; on the contrary, several of them were historical personages of much fame, who had been great leaders in their life-time and almost certainly led a normal life within a family. If a deceased person of great merit to the community cannot become a cult object because he has posterity, then by the same token, a great official cannot serve the community at large during his lifetime either. Family ties are not necessarily an obstacle either for government service or for cult formation. When people start worshipping a great person after his death, they do not worship him as an ancestor but as a great person who transcends the limitations of his family.
An example to show how the author confuses two ideas and uses them as the need arises is the case of the Buddha: as I already quoted from p. 252 above: many small gods but also major deities can be shown to have been spirits without descendants. Now, the author also draws the Buddhas and bodhisattvas into the series "as exemplars of the same tradition of breaking the family tie" (my underlining). Now, it is well-known that Buddha Sakyamuni had a son (not without descendants) but that he later on broke the family
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