A Study Of The Rites Of Mulian Drama Of Sichuan Opera From The Anthropological Horizon

Mulian Drama is one of China’s oldest Chinese operas flourishing,has the reputation of “living fossil opera”.It not only has deep thoughts and rich connotation, but also involves Many subjects such as the opera, religion, folk customs, history.Mulian Drama of Sichuan Opera is a kind of the most unique around Mulian Drama in various regions,as the result of its vast repertory system, profound thought background, full-bodied local characteristics, it is deeply loved by the masses.Study of Mulian Drama, not only has important reference value to the study of the origin of Chinese opera and related art, but also has the certain enlightenment function to the reform and development of sichuan opera art in the new century.This paper is based on anthropological theory construction, using literature research, interdisciplinary study and case study, and analysis the content and function of religious rituals and folk ceremony in Mulian Drama of Sichuan Opera,by combining macroscopic investigation with case study.This paper is divided into five main parts:The first part is the introduction,including the research significance, the research status at home and abroad of this topic, and the research method,and detailedly discribe the research history of Mulian Drama and of Mulian Drama of Sichuan Opera.The second part is mainly about anthropology theory, especially the anthropology theory "ceremony",Meanwhile, it analyzed the concrete application of several kinds of "ceremony" theory :Durkheim’s theory of "sacred/secular",Van Gennep’s Rites of passage and Rites of Strengthen,Victor Turner’s theory of "threshold- blend",and introduced the origin and development of these theories development, as well as the relationship between the "ceremony" research and drama research.The third part introduced,and analysed the origin and development of the Mulian Drama of Sichuan Opera, as well as emphatically into the unique plays of the Mulian Drama of Sichuan Opera and its reasons and the unique form of performance.The fourth part is the focus of this paper,analysing religious rituals and folk rituals of the Mulian Drama of Sichuan Opera With anthropology "ceremony" theoretical.on the basis of Van Gennep’s classical classificationabout "ceremony" in this chapter, divided the rites of Mulian Drama of Sichuan Opera into two categories: Rites of passage and Rites of Strengthen,And has a detailed analysing through the classic of Mulian Drama of Sichuan Opera,such as " Married miss Liu", "lingguan shock the stage" for specific analysis.The fifth part analysed the function of the culture of the rites of the Mulian Drama of Sichuan Opera,and summed up the four functions:Inheritance of folk culture, to meet basic demand, turn undead, disaster blessing, publicity doctrine, strengthen cohesion,And analyzed these features from the perspective of anthropology.in this paper,I deeply discussed to the rites of Mulian Drama of Sichuan Opera from the above five parts.