The Space of Ritual: a Case Study of the Shen-nung Templesin Tungshin, Yunlin

• Main Authors: Wen-lin Hsu, 許徽林
• Other Authors: Kuan-chu Wei
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/11574083919543224997

碩士 === 南華大學 === 環境管理研究所 === 96 === 　　This study focuses on the interaction between traditional folk religion of Shen-Nung, the God of Harvest, and the communal life in Dong-shi of Yunlin County. First it helps to construct the religious space of Shen-Nung through intensive interviews and fieldworks. And, then, it helps us to reach a deeper understanding of the local communal life in this light, as well as to uncover the underlying relationships between the local communities and the God of Harvest, by revealing the different developmental processes of the religious space of Shen-Nung. 　　 　　Dong-shi of Yunlin County has 12 villages, but only 4 temples which host Shen-Nung, the God of Harvest. They are the Bao-an Temple in Tong-an Village, the Sih-an Temple of Dong-shi Village, the Nan-tian Temple in Chang-nan Village, and the Zhen-xuan Temple in An-nan Village. Each temple as mentioned here provides a different spatial significance to the God of Harvest, according to historical reasons and the varied trajectories of development in each village. 　　 　　Except in Chang-nan Village, which has only one religious space for Shen-Nung, Nan-tian Temple, other villages which house Sheng-Nung have more than one temple that do so: in the Tong-an Village, includes Bao-an Temple and Yuan shuai Temple; Dong-shi Village includes Sih-an Temple and Chuan-yuan Temple and Wan-Shan Court; and An-nan Village includes Zhen-xuan Temple and Feng-xuan Temple. They have formulated four different types of religious space for Shen-Nung. 　　 　　Basically, this study explores three topics concerning those four different types of religious space of Shen-Nung in Dong-shi of Yunlin County: 1. Understanding the local religious space of Shen-Nung, as coming from the public’s management of living and integration of the development of religious space. 2. Showing each of the local religious space of Shen-Nung, specifically as they represent the order and the established process of existential space of local life. 3. From the perspective of the religious worship of Shen-Nung, the public’s religious space indicates different self-directions of the people. In the end, this study is somehow an effort to reveal the relationship between the public and the higher order of the universe as they perceived.