Gendered materialization: An investigation of women's artistic and literary reproductions of Guanyin in late imperial China.

摘要

My dissertation examines how lay Buddhist women during the Ming (1368--1644) and Qing (1644--1911) dynasties participated in the cult of Guanyin, the most popular Chinese female deity of the age, by reproducing her image as a way to salvation. The Bodhisattva Guanyin, or Avalokitesvara, originally a male deity in India, was completely indigenized as a female deity during the early Ming period. A key result of this gender transformation was a system in which the production of identity was interwoven with ideologies and material practices linked to the reproduction of gender hierarchy. Previous scholarship on the cult of Guanyin has not taken account of these changes, however, focusing instead either on textual transformations or on iconographic variations in the images of Guanyin over time. My dissertation investigates the relationships that obtained between worshipped and worshipper, and examines how this feminized deity influenced believers in terms of their gender identities. One way of investigating these gendered differences is through the things that worshippers produced and used to forge a connection with the deity. In particular, I focus on secular Buddhist women's unique ways of making the image of Guanyin through various woman's skills, things, and bodies to express a world-view that provided an alternative to the Confucian patriarchal system.;By looking at various ways women make the image of Guanyin, this dissertation demonstrates the complexity of women's religious practice which allows us to examine aspects that are not visible in the written accounts in and of late imperial China. The study of the material perspective of women making the image of Guanyin and other Buddhist images not only sheds light on women's creativity but also enables us to understand how women synthesized the xii conflicting symbolic frameworks of Buddhism and Confucianism within material culture and practice.