A Study on the Iconography of “Guan-yin-ma-lian “in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Lai, Wen-Ying, 賴文英
• Other Authors: YAN, SHANG-WEN
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/20842388917368680348

碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 民俗藝術研究所 === 96 === “Guan-yin-ma-lian” is the common image of God in the hall of Taiwanese Hans’ traditional residences, which mainly worships “Guan-yin” and usually accompanies with other familiar Gods such as “Mazu”、“Guan gong”、“God of the Kitchen” and “Village god” to guard our home. It doesn’t only represent the images of Gods but also the categories of faith. The research purpose is to explore its source、development and further meaning by “Guan-yin-ma-lian”, and manifest the content and the thought of faith and then understand the external structure of folk religion, finally we could inspect its contribution to Chinese culture and offer it an important position in the history. “Guan-yin-ma-lian” had different development with the different period in Taiwan, thus in order to understand the change of development, we collected the related documents and materials from Taiwanese museums and the relative collectors, also including local literatures and publishing illustrations; we also visited the valuable painters who still elaborately portrays “Guan-yin-ma-lian” at present, including in Tainan、Zhang hua、Yilan to show the regional characteristic. The main method is based on literature collection and field study, we also established its relation through science of History to inspect literature and illustration and the science of Iconography to analyze the structure、feature and content of the image, and furthermore incorporated science of Religion to study the content of folk religion. We could know “Guan-yin-ma-lian” has the connection with Hans’ tradition of lunar new year's painting, whose prime function is guarding our home and blessing our safety, which is our guardian god. The basic structure of “Guan-yin-ma-lian” is “Guan-yin”、“God of the Kitchen” and “Village god”, which also the basic structure of faith -- “Three saint of home”. Sometimes it also combines “Matzu” and ”Guan gong” to become “Five gods of home”, which is common in folk religion. The system of the aforesaid has three characteristic: firstly, “Guan-yin” is the prime position; secondly, “Three saint of home” consist of “Guan-yin”、“God of the Kitchen” and “Village god”; thirdly, combined with “Guan-yin” and civil various Gods to compose the God system , and finally become a special folk faith.