Jing, The Temple Of Jing And The Folk Society In The Southeast Of Fujian

Jing is a grass-roots unit in urban and rural area with the characteristics of thecommon belief and worship. This paper takes Ningde, Fuzhou, Putian and Quanzhou asthe research objects. In this paper, using the historical method in combination with socialinvestigation, the development history of Jing, the characteristics of deities in the templeof Jing, the powers of the deities in Jing, worship activities in the temple of Jing,organization system and belief system with Jing as the unit are discussed. The origin ofJing could be traced back to Yuan dynasty. During the Ming and Qing dynasty, it had beenmore widely distributed. The function of Jing as a local district had disappeared since thelate of the Republic of China. But it remains as a unit of the worship activities. The deitiesin the temple of Jing characterized by their region,utility,multi-deity,clanism. In the mindsof ordinary people, deities in charge of daily life and production. Deities were frequentworshiped by the residents. These worship activities were the ideological supports of thetrailblazers fighting for their survivals. Worship activities were also crucial in thestabilization of the social order and the inheritance and development of the culturaltraditions,while playing an important role in enriching the social life. In the process ofhistorical development, many places had formed certain organization system and beliefsystem with Jing as the unit accompanied by the villages split. The systems had certaindifferences and similarities in different regions.