Entre terre et ciel : le culte des 'bateaux-cercueils' du Mont Wuyi

摘要

The Wuyi Mountains, situated in northwestern Fujian, were revered as the site of the Sixteenth Grotto-Heaven; their cult received imperial patronage and flourished in the Song. The classical image of a Taoist landscape of grottoes and streams, home of the immortals, tended to predominate in this cult, but it was challenged by the puzzling presence of ancient remnants — coffins in the shape of boats — tucked in the cliffs. The Taoists had settled in a place that had actually been used as a cemetery from as early as the late Shang period. The relationship which evolved between such a landscape of death and the various cultures — both non-Chinese and Chinese — that made use of it, each importing their own ideologies and soteriological views, is the focal point of this study. Although the Taoist discourse was ultimately successful in absorbing the wealth of beliefs and practices that pervaded in these mountains, it never completely silenced them. Rather, the way it was transformed by them reveals the powerful impact that the local archaeological past could have on a so-called mainstream religious tradition.