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would not explain why many genealogies put duming, lungming, or faming before such names.'
I have already pointed out the connection between ordination names and the practice of “Davist” ordination still practiced by the Yao. As we shall see later, the style of those names as well as the tradition of ritual experts who performed rites in connection with these names, can be traced to the tradition of Lu Shan Jiu Lang, mention of which can be found in a document from Southern Song.
There remains the question of the nature of the ordination in the Hakka case. Do those names indicate families of ritual specialist, or a more general popularity of such ordinations among the Hakka? Is it posthumous ordination as part of funeral service, or ordination before adulthood to afford extra protection?""
The Hakka sang ritual specialist mentions langming (Ordination Names) and gongmung (Imperial Degrees) in the same breath. This suggests that it was generally considered desirable to have ordination names. They certainly differ from childhood “ordination", which, like the establishment of fictive tie with a protective god, last only until adulthood and would not become a ritual name to be recorded in genealogies. "We also see in a Chen genealogy, which will be mentioned again later, an ancestor who became the founding monk of a Buddhist establishment, which seems to preclude the possibility of posthumous ordination. Moreover, the Hakka ritual specialists who perform rites related to ordination names and are likely to have been the ones who conducted the ordination itself, do not perform funeral services at all.
21
A Qing work on the Guangdong province, the Guangdong Xinyu, written before 1696, does provide unequivocal evidence of the practice of ordination in the mountainous county of Yongan (present Zijin). Under an entry about the county, it describes, without identifying it, the Hakka sang specialists' practice and some of its distinctive features still found today in the Hakka priestly tradition, including the Chicken Song and transvestite. The entry mentions something that refers to the ordination we are looking for: nanzi petan dushui, shou baidie huanggao, “Man organized an altar to perform ordination in which white [ordination] certificates and yellow [celestial] mandates were
97
would not explain why many genealogies put duming, lungming, or faming before such names.'
I have already pointed out the connection between ordination names and the practice of “Davist” ordination still practiced by the Yao. As we shall see later, the style of those names as well as the tradition of ritual experts who performed rites in connection with these names, can be traced to the tradition of Lu Shan Jiu Lang, mention of which can be found in a document from Southern Song.
There remains the question of the nature of the ordination in the Hakka case Do those names indicate families of ritual specialist, or a more general popularity of such ordinations among the Hakka? Is it posthumous ordination as part of funeral service, or ordination before adulthood to afford extra protection?""
The Hakka sang ritual specialist mentions langming (Ordination Names) and gongmung (Imperial Degrees) in the same breath. This suggests that it was generally considered desirable to have ordination names. They certainly differ from childhood “ordination", which, like the establishment of fictive tie with a protective god, last only until adulthood and would not became a ritual name to be recorded in genealogies "We also see in a Chen genealogy, which will be mentioned again later, an ancestor who become the founding monk of a Buddhist establishment, which seem to preclude the possibility of posthumous ordination Moreover, the Hakka ritual specialists who perform rites related to ordination names and are likely to have been the ones who conducted the ordination itself, do not perform funeral services at all
21
A Qing work on the Guangdong province, the Guangdong Xinyu, written before 1696, does provide unequivocal evidence of the practice of ordination in the mountainous county of Yongan (present Zijin) Under an entry about the county, it describes, without identifying it, the Hakka sang specialists" practice and some of its distinctive features still found today in the Hakka priestly tradition, including the Chicken Song and transvestite. The entry mentions something that refer to the ordination we are looking for: nanzi petan dushui, shou baidie huanggao, “ Man organized an altai to perform ordination in which white [ordination] certificates and yellow [celestial] mandates were
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