94
JULIAN F. PAS
the new fire and the Easter Candle performed in the Roman Catholic Church on the eve of Easter Sunday. After discussing these two rituals separately, I shall conclude with some comments of a comparative nature.
1. The Fen-Teng Ritual in Taoism
This ritual called fen-teng in Chinese, can be literally translated as “division of lamp(s)” or the “distribution of lamps". "Teng" by itself means "lamp", or "lantern", and designates not so much the light produced by the lamp or lantern, but the object which contains the light. The expression fen-teng is not often translated by Western authors: usually the term is just transliterated. But sometimes there are attempts to render the term in translation. E.g. M. Saso: "Lighting lamps to the Three Pure Ones", which is not strictly a translation but a meaningful although partial description of the significance of the rite. Another rendering, not of the literal sense but again of the meaning, is "Lighting of the New Fire"2: this translation is not based on the Chinese expression fen-teng but indicates one of the fundamental meanings of the ritual. It comes actually closer to another Chinese expression sometimes used for the same rite: chu-teng3, which literally means: 'blessing' or 'consecration of the lamp(s)'.
The fen-teng ceremony does not appear to be an independent ritual but seems always to be performed in the context of a larger celebration, called chiao or ta-chiao, which is variously translated as "ritual of cosmic renewal", "the great community festivals”, “great propitiatory rites", or "Taoist Mass"7. So far there is only one monograph on the fen-teng ritual in a Western language: K. M. Schipper's Le Fen-teng. Ritual Taoiste. Apart from this well presented critical text edition, there are only minor treatments of the fen-teng ceremony included in monographs on the chiao festival as a whole: M. Saso's Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal is so far the only monograph in English on the chiao, and he just briefly discusses the fen-teng ceremony. Chinese scholars have also started to pay attention to this great Taoist event: two monographs are now available in Chinese by Liu Chih-wan9. It is remarkable that for the two different occasions Mr. Liu describes the chiao festival, he does not use the terminology used by Schipper and Saso, but calls the rite chu-teng or 'blessing of the lamp(s)'. One wonders where and when this variant designation
94
JULIAN F. PAS
the new fire and the Easter Candle performed in the Roman Catholic Church on the eve of Easter Sunday. After discussing these two rituals separately, I shall to conclude with some comments of a comparative nature.
1. The Fen-Teng Ritual in Taoism
This ritual called fen-teng in Chinese, can be literally translated as “division of lamp(s)” or the “distribution of lamps". "Teng" by itself means "lamp", or "lantern", and designates not so much the light produced by the lamp or lantern, but the object which contains the light. The expression fen-teng is not often translated by Western authors: usually the term is just transliterated. But sometimes there are attempts to render the term in translation. E.g. M. Saso: "Lighting lamps to the Three Pure Ones", which is not strictly a translation but a meaningful although partial description of the significance of the rite. Another rendering, not of the literal sense but again of the meaning, is "Lighting of the New Fire"2: this translation is not based on the Chinese expression fen-teng but indicates one of the fundamental meanings of the ritual. It comes actually closer to another Chinese expression sometimes used for the same rite: chu-teng it, which literally means: 'blessing' or 'consecration of the lamp(s)".3
The ten-teng ceremony does not appear to be an independent ritual but seems always to be performed in the context of a larger celebration, called chiao or ta-chiao, which is variously translated as "ritual of cosmic renewal", "the great community festivals”, “great propitiatory rites", or "Taoist Mass"7. So far there is only one monograph on the fen-teng ritual in a Western language: K. M. Schipper's Le Fen-teng. Ritual Taoiste. Apart from this well presented critical text edition, there are only minor treatments of the fen-teng ceremony included in monographs on the chiao festival as a whole: M. Saso's Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal is so far the only monograph in English on the chiao, and he just briefly discusses the fen-teng ceremony. Chinese scholars have also started to pay attention to this great Taoist event: two monographs are now available in Chinese by Liu Chih-wan #✯
9. It is remarkable that for the two different occasions Mr. Liu describes the chiao festival, he does not use the terminology used by Schipper and Saso, but calls the rite chu-teng or 'blessing of the lamp(s)'. One wonders where and when this variant designation
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