Zuotang Zhang’s Yin-yang research paper
excerpt
Yin-yangs are not the elite scholars in the academic community; they nevertheless, only a few decades ago, used to be respected as elites in the countryside, since they were able to read and explain (能識文斷字).[1] In a society where almost 100% of the people were illiterate, whoever could read and write would be automatically put in a lofty position. In addition to their being literate, they are entrusted to conduct liturgical rites which, to the Chinese people, have much to do with their basic duties such as filial piety and their ultimate goals such as fortune and future. Being able to use proper ceremonial rites to help mitigate disasters and bring fortune to a family or an entire village gives a yin-yang more or less a special, although not necessarily privileged, position in the countryside, in which a yin-yang himself is also and otherwise an ordinary farmer or peasant.
Who or what are the yin-yangs? – A
working definition
A yin-yang is first of all a male farmer who works in
the fields like the rest of his fellow villagers when there is no request for
religious practice. However, this person is also literate and therefore knows
how to check things in the books (such as an almanac) for other villagers. This
used to be a unique merit with powerful access to knowledge when very few
villagers were literate. A yin-yang is a healer who, by using shamanic
approaches, can deal with diseases that a doctor is not able to heal, or when a
doctor is not available. A yin-yang can speak and write to the spiritual beings
that, when accidentally encountered, might become a threat to human health or
life. A yin-yang is a geomancer who, equipped with a sophisticated
needle compass (針盤), finds the ideal locations for
building a house that will bring good luck for the family, or for digging a
tomb that will ensure prosperity for the offspring of the dead. [2] A yin-yang is a trained
liturgist who knows how to properly lead a burial ritual and how to set up and
conduct memorial rituals. A yin-yang is also a liturgical leader for grand
community rituals. What makes a yin-yang unique from a member of institutionalized religions, such as a Buddhist monk or a Daoist priest, is that he is a mixture of many diverse traditional influences. In a burial or memorial rite, one will see that a yin-yang wears a Daoist robe, and a hat that has such Buddhist images of Four Heavenly Kings (Caturmaharajakayikas) and, accompanied by Daoist and Buddhist musical instruments, he humbly and peacefully chants Daoist and/or Buddhist scriptures or repentances to please gods, including ancestral gods of the family, to satisfy a family’s filial duty that is prescribed by Confucian teaching. However, in a house purging rite, one will see a markedly different yin-yang who acts like an angry, bold and powerful fighter, whose eyes shoot out fearful beams, whose mouth shouts incantations, and whose hands brandish a sword and a shaman’s mirror, and all the performance is accompanied by his fellow yin-yangs or the helping villagers who beat drums, gongs and other percussion instruments and wave torches and brooms. In a healing rite, one will see a yin-yang that has polarized nature: at the first half of the rite he humbly and peacefully chants the Buddhist or Daoist scriptures and says prayers to the gods he has invited, with particular requests addressed to the Medicine God; then in the second half of the rite, he suddenly changes into the same fighting role that he plays in the house purging rite.
Thus a yin-yang appears to be everything but actually nothing in particular; we nevertheless can come up with a tentative definition of a yin-yang: A yin-yang is a male farmer who is trained for folk religious activities that call for a synthesis of Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian and shamanic traditions. A yin-yang serves as a medium between the yin and the yang world, but only does it on behalf of those in the yang world. A yin-yang is also a geomancer who helps the villagers to select ideal building spot – a house for the living (陽) and a tomb for the dead (陰).
Etymology research gives us explanations of the two Chinese characters陰and陽but the explanations are predominantly related to philosophical concepts or knowledge that involves two opposing elements. “Baidu Encyclopedia,”[3] an influential Internet resource in China, presents 25 definitions of “yin-yang,” but only two are relevant to the yin-yang practitioners in my study:
“Yin-yang”
refers to
·
those that are responsible for the operational
or functioning law of the sun, the moon, and other celestial bodies
·
those who are good at art and knowledge of
astrology, divination, judging of the location of houses and tombs
As the yin-yang practitioners
follow the dichotomist interpretation of the world, they embody an ancient yin-yang
concept that traces back to the oldest Chinese writings such as the Dao-De Jing or (Tao Te Ching) by Laozi (老子, or
Lao Tzu). In Chapter 42 of the book Laozi wrote, “The myriad creatures
bear yin on their backs and embrace yang in their bosoms. They neutralize these
vapors and thereby achieve harmony.” (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, translated by Victor H. Mair, p. 9) If we take a closer look at the structural composition of the Chinese characters隂 (yin) and陽 (yang), we notice that their radicals are the same: “阝” (pronounced “fǔ”) which is a variation of “阜” (a place). That is to say, both 隂and 陽refer to “places” and thereby have been extended to mean “worlds”– apposing or antithetic worlds, to be more specific. By using the two characters as the name of their profession, albeit amateur, people probably refer to the ability of a yin-yang, since he is able to deal with matters in both the yin and the yang worlds. When the term “yin-yang” or “Yin-yang Master” was first used as a title for the folk religious practitioners rather than the scholars or the necromancers remains a question unanswered, since no literature has been so far found. One early reference to “yin-yang[s]” as people who study the operational law of the celestial bodies is found in Han Yu’s (韓愈768-824) Shunzong Shilu (順宗實錄, actual records of Emperor Shunzong), but studying the operational law of the celestial bodies is not the task of the yin-yangs in this study, since they are only the users, or beneficiaries, of the fruits of such studies. Nevertheless one thing is clear: that by calling the practitioners “yin-yangs,” people have already distinguished the practitioners from the Daoists (道人), the Buddhist monks (和尚), the lamas (喇嘛) and the geomancers (風鑒客). In all our interviews the yin-yangs, without exception, claimed that they are Daoist disciples (道家弟子), but they instantly distinguish themselves from the ascetic Daoists (出家道士) and lay Daoists (火居道士). They also openly declare that they are not related to the monks or the lamas. They only acknowledge that they are amateur geomancers.
If you are interested in taking a glimpse of what a yin-yang initial ritual is like, please click the following links for some clips:
[1]“識文断字”also means being able
to separate words into sentences, because in ancient China, there were no
punctuations in the written language.
[2] In Fanmagou there
are no public cemeteries. A dead villager is buried in the family tomb yard if
he or she dies a natural death (old age) or in a separate tomb, if he or she
dies young or from an accident or has committed suicide.
[3] http://baike.baidu.com/ (Some scholars doubt
the reliability and validity of encyclopedias like Wikipedia while others tend
to accept them.)
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ReplyDeletePlease don't get me wrong. I deleted my own comment, which was actually the links to the Youtube clips, not other people's comments. Haha.
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