Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History

Deities

Not all actors in this history were human, or even mortal, many were deities or ancestral spirits. Indeed, these were the figures who were able to cross the divide between sacred and physical geography. Humans could invite a deity to inhabit a particular temple, but only the deity could make the journey from one realm into the other. Humans could, at appointed times of the year, open the Hell Door to allow ghosts into the world, but only ghosts could cross through that portal. For both Taiwanese and Japanese, the deities manifested in the physical world in active ways, able to influence and guide the course of individual lives or collective processes. This presence was seen most clearly in the bureaucratic model of the pantheon of deities inherited from Chinese societies and embraced by the Taiwanese. The realm of the gods was envisioned as a hierarchy, with low-ranking deities, mapped to magistrates and lower-ranked bureaucrats, reporting up a chain of command, ultimately to the Yellow Emperor, who was a heavenly counterpart to the imperial rulers of China’s dynasties. Although Japanese traditions did not have such a highly schematic vision, in popular Shinto, the spirits (kami 神) were everywhere.
 

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