Communicating with the Gods in China (GANYING)

This research project concerns divination and consultation practices in Chinese temples today, through a study of bamboo fortune sticks, chouquian 抽签, an ancient rite that is still practiced in China. The goal of this project is to show how this form of “written divination”, which fluctuates between poetry and prophecy, is a variable practice because fortune sticks may have different interpretations depending on whether they are read by a religious specialist or by applicants who decipher them alone, based on versions written on slips of paper. Available to all, these rites play a central role in helping overcome obstacles of all kinds, adapting to social change and predicting the future. In order to document this practice, the translation (from Chinese to French) and the study of a corpus of divinatory slips used in a small ordinary Taoist temple in Central China will be launched in order to understand then the way the local monks use them to answer to the visitors requests. This preliminary project also aims to support the establishment of a larger project associating ethnology, history, archaeology, and museology, coordinated by Corinne Debaine-Francfort, Claire Vidal and Adeline Herrou on communication with gods in China through the intermediary of divination practices and responses to supplications in different eras. The organisation of an exploratory study day will lay the foundations of this. 

Project Leader

Adeline HERROU , CNRS - LESC UMR 7186

Internal cluster partners

• Laboratoire d'Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative (LESC) - UMR 7186
• Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Mondes - USR 3225

Duration

Keywords

Chine, divination, écriture, objets cultuels, économie rituelle