Month April 2021

Archive #24 – Chinese Gods: The Unseen World of Spirits and Demons (1997) by Keith Stevens

Jim R. McClanahan 1 Comment

The novels Journey to the West (1592) and Investiture of the Gods (1620) are good representations of the syncretic pantheon from Chinese Folk Religion. The number of Buddhas, sages, gods, immortals, spirits, guardians (etc.) revered by people of Chinese descent is enormous, and new figures are being added to the list even to this day. Needless to say, laymen and researchers who visit temples and wish to correctly identify a particular deity need a resource with images, names, and listed attributes. Luckily there is one such source. Keith Stevens (1926-2015), a veteran of the British Army and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, traveled East and Southeast Asia for 40 years collecting information on the folk pantheon. He produced an invaluable monograph titled Chinese Gods: The Unseen World of Spirits and Demons (1997). The book is unfortunately out of print and available copies are expensive to buy. So I am pleased to host a PDF of this wonderful work on my site.

The scan was produced with an overhead document camera. The glossy pages made scanning somewhat difficult. I had to use a soft, indirect light source. Therefore, not all pages are crisp due to the low light levels. The original file was quite large at 520 mb. I compressed it to a smaller file. I can provide the larger file upon request.

Dust Jacket Description

China is a land full of gods and goddesses, ranging from the Creators of the World to Worthies local to only one or two villages.

This book introduces the reader to the most important figures of Chinese folk history, and those of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.

Intensely pragmatic in their religion, Chinese people hold all gods in reverence, but it is only the ones who answer prayers with concrete results that are exceptionally praised. Many gods have particular specialities, for instance, there are different Wealth Gods for success in business and for gambling. There are also individual gods for each trade, from those for removal men in Hong Kong to students at Beijing University.

In addition, there are the City Gods and Kitchen Gods, the Earth Gods who protect a specific piece of land, and myriad spirits who protect wells, mountains or bridges, distribute rain or snow, control flooding or protect humanity from disease and epidemics.

Keith Stevens has spent a lifetime researching the subject, travelling extensively in China, Taiwan and throughout South-East Asia. He has gathered information from hundreds of temple keepers, god-carvers and religious specialists and collected details of images and their stories – providing glimpses into the sometimes little-known folk history of China. The author also provides pointers on how to identify images, together with invaluable background information including chronology of Chinese history, a map of the area covered, a glossary and detailed index with the names of deities in Chinese characters.

Book Link

Click to access chinese-gods-the-unseen-world-of-spirits-and-demons-compressed.pdf

Disclaimer

This has been posted for educational purposes. No malicious copyright infringement is intended. If you like the digital version, please support the official release.

Citation

Stevens, K. G. (1997). Chinese Gods: The Unseen World of Spirits and Demons. London: Collins & Brown.

Archive #23 – “Pagan Temples in San Francisco” (1892)

Jim R. McClanahan 2 Comments

I’ve previously written an article on the worship of Sun Wukong in 19th-century America. My source was Frederic J. Masters’ (1892) “Pagan Temples in San Francisco”, which appears in a collected edition of The Californian. He discusses the legends of Guan Gong (“Kwan Kung”), Hau Wong (a.k.a. “How Wong”), Mazu (“Queen of Heaven”, a.k.a. “Tin Hau”), Guanyin (“Kwan Yum”), our monkey god Qitian Dasheng (“Tsai Tin Tai Shing”), and Kum Fah, as well as mentions various other deities, such as Tudi Gong (“Earth God”), Kum Fah’s attendants, Chenghuangshen (“City God”), Heidi (“god of the North Pole”), Zhurong (“God of Fire”), and the “Holy Abbot” (Ksitigarbha?). Much of the information covered in the article isn’t new for anyone familiar with Chinese religion. But it’s easy to forget that Masters is talking about the religious practices and beliefs of immigrant Chinese workers living in 19th-century San Francisco, and this is where the article’s true value lies. Many of the temples (“Joss Houses”) are said to be the property of immigrant businesses.

Masters was a Methodist pastor who wrote extensively about Chinatown. While he comments at length about the beauty of temples and the respectability of keeping the stories of noble heroes alive for centuries, he shows a marked Western Christian condescension for many Chinese beliefs. For example, he calls the worship of the monkey god “the acme of absurdity and sinfulness” (Masters, 1892, p. 737). In the beginning of the article, he makes the mistake of equating the ancient god Shangdi with the Judeo-Christian god, believing that Chinese worship of the Almighty was perverted over the millennia by outside influences. He closes the piece by saying the Chinese will return to this ancient worship with proper guidance: “The nation [China] will one day return to the worship of the Highest and the faith in the True. In the dawn of a clearer light shall vanish all that is extravagant, foolish and false” (Masters, 1892, p. 741).

The attached PDF has been cut from the original collection, which has a whopping 853 pages.

Article link:

Click to access californian_illustrated_magazine-pages-8-15742-756.pdf

Citation

Masters. F. J. (1892). Pagan Temples in San Francisco. In C.F. Holder (Ed.). The Californian Illustrated Magazine: June to November, 1892, vol. 2 (pp. 727-741). San Francisco, Calif.: Californian Pub. Co.