新作坊

Baojuan (Precious Scrolls) and Festivals in the Temples of Local Gods in Changshu, Jiangsu

摘要：

Rural areas around Changshu city in Jiangsu preserve strong religious traditions of worship of numerous local tutelary deities which can be traced back to the imperial period. This worship takes the form of festivals at village temples, often coinciding with communal spring celebrations. Baojuan, prosimetric vernacular texts recited by the local professional performers for lay audiences, constitute a common practice of worship of local deities in Changshu. This storytelling is locally known as ＂telling scriptures＂ (jiangjing) and makes a specific cultural tradition of the Changshu area. Baojuan narrating stories of local tutelary deities are often performed at temple festivals, thus making a significant contribution to the variety of ritual and entertainment during these communal events. Though the worship of local deities in southern Jiangsu already has attracted the attention of scholars, there is still little specialized research on modern village temple festivals in Changshu and related narrative literature. This study, based on the author's fieldwork observations and local written sources (preserved in Chinese libraries), attempts to demonstrate the functions of baojuan performances during these temple festivals. They combine ritual function with didactics and entertainment. Though not easy to date, baojuan in Changshu narrate hagiographies of local deities the details of which can be traced to late imperial sources. Today baojuan texts about local tutelary deities constitute an important part of religious culture in Changshu and shed light on the transmission of popular beliefs in the modern period.