The Lady of Linshui: A Chinese Female Cult - Hardcover

by Brigitte Baptandier (Author), Kristin Ingrid Fryklund (Translator)

This anthropological study examines the cult of the Chinese goddess Chen Jinggu, divine protector of women and children. The cult of the "Lady of Linshui" began in the province of Fujian on the southeastern coast of China during the eleventh century and remains vital in present-day Taiwan. Skilled in Daoist practices, Chen Jinggu's rituals of exorcism and shamanism mobilize physiological alchemy in the service of human and natural fertility. Through her fieldwork at the Linshuima temple in Tainan (Taiwan) and her analysis of the narrative and symbolic aspects of legends surrounding the Lady of Linshui, Baptandier provides new insights into Chinese representations of the feminine and the role of women in popular religion.

Author Biography

Brigitte Baptandier is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), in the Laboratoire d'ethnologie et de Sociologie comparative, at Université Paris X, Nanterre, where she teaches Chinese anthropology. She also teaches at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris.