The Study Of "ShiJiao" In The East Of Fujian Province

"Shi Jiao" sectarian, one of folk religions, is prevalent in rural society in Southeast China for hundreds of years, which takes the funeral affairs and the ceremony of release souls from purgatory as its main function, and do some concurrent post as invocation or make efforts to avert calamity by offering sacrifices. This article explicates the definition of ShiJiao and reveals its main religious characteristics, history background, remains and status quo by using methods of anthropological fieldwork survey, history comparison research and philology textual research. Though be different from the traditional Buddhism, ShiJiao absorbs buddhistq culture as its main beliefs and performs as Taoism, which has Taoist altar and priests. ShiJiao, mixing the elements of Buddhism and Taoism, exists for a long time in the name of ShiJiao or JinShan Taoism to release souls from purgatory in folk soceity. This thesis investigates the special religious form, which was abscure in the definition and ingored by the government, society and scholars for a long time. By analyzing the individual cases of main scatter points in the east part of Fujian Province, concerning to the related folk culture, and searching the complicated history and cultural implications, which would be benefit to instruct it to the circles of religion, culture and society, as well as to prepares for the further researches in the future.