The Ghost Festival in Medieval China / / Stephen F. Teiser.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Archive 1927-1999
• VerfasserIn: Teiser, Stephen F.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2022]; ©1988
• Έτος έκδοσης: 2022
• Γλώσσα: English
• Φυσική περιγραφή: 1 online resource (296 p.) :; 1 halftone

Largely unstudied until now, the religious festivals that attracted Chinese people from all walks of life provide the most instructive examples of the interaction between Chinese forms of social life and the Indian tradition of Buddhism. Stephen Teiser examines one of the most important of such annual celebrations. He provides a comprehensive interpretation of the festivities of the seventh lunar month, in which laypeople presented offerings to Buddhist monks to gain salvation for their ancestors. Teiser uncovers a wide range of sources, many translated or analyzed for the first time in any language, to demonstrate how the symbolism, rituals, and mythology of the ghost festival pervaded the social landscape of medieval China.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- ONE Introduction -- TWO The Prehistory of the Ghost Festival -- THREE An Episodic History of the Ghost Festival in Medieval China -- FOUR The Mythological Background -- FIVE Mu-lien as Shaman -- SIX The Cosmology of the Ghost Festival -- SEVEN Buddhism and the Family -- EIGHT Concluding Perspectives -- Character Glossary of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Words -- Bibliography -- Index