Voices from the Underworld

Chinese hell deity worship in contemporary Singapore and Malaysia

Fabian Graham

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781526140593
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Voices from the Underworld focuses on Singapore and Malaysia's contemporary Chinese Underworld traditions where Hell deities are now amongst the most commonly venerated deities on altars and when channelled through spirit mediums. Intended for academics, lecturers, students, and those intrigued with Chinese culture, while highlighting the Taoist and Buddhist cosmologies upon which present-day beliefs and practices are based, the ethnography provides readers with unique insights into the lived tradition.Embracing ontological and dialogic approaches to religious phenomena, alterity is taken seriously, and practitioner's beliefs interpreted without bias. The emic voice is literally heard through first-person dialogues between the author and channelled Underworld deities throughout the ethnography. This alternative approach challenges wider present-day discourse concerning the interrelationships between sociocultural and spiritual worlds.

Part I
Setting the scene

1

The modern Underworld tradition

Multiple narratives

In Chinese vernacular religion the central factor around which all else revolves is identifiable deities, ‘identification’ being a defining factor of ‘deity’, as, in its absence, the specific ritual and material cultures built up around their worship would crumble. In the vernacular tradition, consulting deities in anthropomorphic form or embodied through their tang-ki is an ordinary practice, much in the same manner as attending liturgical religious services in world religions. Both the individual and congregational approaches are fundamental to the way in which humans interact with discarnate entities, as is the intentionality to change material or emotional circumstances through deific intervention. While the external trappings and cosmologies¹ on which rituals are based may be observed and analysed, in Chinese vernacular religion the key element for practitioners is the existence of deific efficacy, ostensively as manifested and directed through tang-ki in ritual. From the emic perspective, a tang-ki in trance possession is a deity incarnate and, through the tang-ki, devotees can freely communicate directly with their deities.

In both Singapore and Malaysia the majority of practitioners are descendants of Minnan speakers² from Fujian Province and coastal regions of southeast China. Therefore, while two political systems and different combinations of cultural influences have affected the development of religious trends in each location, practitioners would have originally shared similar cosmologies and traditions based around ancestral halls and the worship of Heaven deities. Until the early 1970s their primary religious cosmologies and associated material and ritual cultures were largely analogous with those of Taiwan and other locations in Southeast Asia’s Chinese diaspora. However, changes in the religious landscapes have become increasingly diverse, with a growing emphasis on Underworld deity worship, and modifications have been occurring with ever-increasing rapidity.

While the private worship of ancestors and deities at home or temple altars remains the most widespread religious practice in both locations, Underworld altars and their tang-ki have now become a major locus of group ritual activities in Singapore and Malaysia. The primary ethnographic narrative is therefore centred on the pivotal role of Underworld deities as channelled through their tang-ki and the rituals they perform, which support the invention, reinterpretation and inversion of religious antecedents which Hell deity worship has entailed.

The second narrative contextualises the contemporary Underworld tradition’s ritual and material cultures in a historic framework by outlining the long-term development of Chinese post-mortal cosmology. A summary beginning from the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BCE) ‘Yellow Springs’ era, encompassing the first-century CE import of Buddhism and its subsequent influence on early Taoist cosmology, and an introduction to significant medieval morality tracts are therefore provided in Chapter 3. This narrative continues in the ethnography, Chapter 6 charting the evolution of Ghost Month cosmology, and, returning to the influence of morality tracts, most notably the Qing dynasty ‘Jade record’³, analysing its recent reinterpretation in the Underworld tradition in the context of present-day criminality and ethics in Malaysia.

Prior to Tua Di Ya Pek’s popularisation, Underworld deities were depicted in statue form in City God temples, and in a small number of temples dedicated to the Underworld deity Dongyue Dadi,⁴ but were not channelled through tang-ki. I therefore use the term ‘modern Underworld tradition’ to distinguish the post-1950s tradition centred on the channelling of Underworld deities in front of altars dedicated to the Underworld pantheon, or in temples devoted entirely to the worship of Hell deities, from earlier forms of Chinese vernacular religious practice. As Hell’s two most illustrious enforcers are now most commonly identified as the posthumously promoted souls of two individuals, Xie Bian and Fan Wujiu, whose graves now lie above the present-day location of Anxi City God Temple (Anxi Chenghuangmiao) in Fujian, China, the third narrative revolves around Anxi Chenghuangmiao’s influence on and participation in the modern Underworld tradition.

The structure of and developments in temple landscapes are inevitably influenced by the changing political and economic characteristics of the societies in which they are located. The analytical framework therefore looks to recent societal catalysts to account for the move away from the worship of Heaven deities and to explain the increasing popularity and channelling of Underworld deities. Therefore, and at the core of the analysis, the fourth narrative encompasses Singapore and Malaysia’s own post-independence development, where two contrasting approaches to social cohesion and the construction of strong nation-states have furnished the socio-political and ethnocultural catalysts for the inversion of religious antecedents required to render the veneration of Hell deities not only among the most popular forms of temple worship, but also as normative. The framework of analysis and an overview of recent socio-political developments influencing the two temple landscapes are detailed in Chapter 2.

Locating appropriate terminology to describe the ‘religion of the masses’

Academics have coined a variety of terms to describe the religion practised by the lay masses. These include ‘shenism’⁵ (Elliott, 1990); ‘popular religion’ (Bell, 1992; Chau, 2006; Teiser, 1995); the worship of ‘gods, ghosts and ancestors’ (Ahern, 1973; Jordan, 1972; Wolf, 1974); and perhaps most commonly, ‘folk religion’ (Cohen, 1977; Harrell, 1979). Primiano (1995) suggested that in relation to institutionalised orthodox traditions, by designating non-orthodox traditions with an ‘unofficial religious status’, such terminology “Residualizes the religious lives of believers and at the same time reifies the authenticity of religious institutions as the exemplar of human religiosity” (Primiano, 1995: 39). In regard to religiosity and the vernacular tradition, lay religious practitioners outnumber the orthodox Taoist and Buddhist clergies in Singapore and Malaysia by many thousands to one, and it is the lived rather than the textual traditions which dominate practitioners’ religious lives. In light of this, Primiano’s definition of ‘vernacular religion’ most closely matches my own approach to research, that is, “As it is lived: as human beings encounter, understand, interpret, and practice it […] with special attention to the process of religious belief […] the verbal, behavioural, and material expressions of religious belief […] and the ultimate object of religious belief” (Primiano, 1995: 44–45). I have therefore employed Primiano’s term to describe the broader religion of which the Underworld tradition is a part, namely, ‘Chinese vernacular religion’.⁶ This choice is in no way intended to devalue either previous scholarship or the orthodox traditions themselves. In practice, orthodox rituals are still performed at many vernacular religious temples’ events, and their metaphysical contributions which have filtered, albeit in a diluted and renegotiated form, into Chinese vernacular religion and its temple culture are still relevant today.

However, while the orthodox traditions have provided a scriptural foundation underlying the development of contemporary Chinese vernacular religion and Underworld cosmology, as the vernacular tradition is predominantly based on the transmission of oral traditions (Chan, 2006; Elliott, 1990; Tong, 1989), the ‘knowledge buffet’⁷ from which it draws is far broader. Present-day vernacular religion variously incorporates aspects of Animism; indigenous and local deities and imported ritual traditions; imperial deities and traditions dating back to the Shang dynasty (Adler, 2002); Confucian ethics; elements derived from the diverse schools of Mahayana Buddhism and orthodox Taoism (DeBernardi, 2002; Harrell & Perry, 1982; Pas, 1979); and reconceptualised and newly invented rituals, material objects and cosmologies. In total, these represent a veritable knowledge buffet where inconsistent and sometimes conflicting varieties of knowledge which are “Only partly consciously and rationally planned or reasoned” (Aspen, 2001: 17) may be selected by a diner where there is no definitive correct meal. In other words, unrestricted by institutional or scriptural directives, vernacular religion may diversify easily, establishing new cosmological and ritual precedents in the process.

Deification and pantheons: the centrality of the human soul

While philosophically it is possible to analyse the nature of deities in terms of their efficacy (ling / 灵) or spiritual nature (hun / 魂), the constituent elements are variable and separable and therefore as unquantifiable as the whole. Historically, the soul has been conceptualised as being divisible in nature, the earliest archaeological evidence of this hailing from approximately 100,000 Shang dynasty oracle bones. It was during this era that the distinction between the earthly po / 魄 (yin / 阴) and numinous hun (yang / 阳) elements of the soul were first postulated (Thompson, 1979). Following death, the spiritual hun essence of the soul was thought to ascend to Heaven as an ancestral spirit and, if provided with sufficient offerings, to dispense blessings and operate as an intermediary between Heaven’s elite and its own descendants. The deceased, in effect, acquired more efficacy in ancestral form than they had possessed when alive. With the power to positively affect the lives of their descendants, they were therefore attributed with capacities akin to, but weaker than, deities (Thompson, 1979). This aspect of Shang cosmology has endured into the present.

The hun or ‘soul’ of ancestors and of deities both consist of yang energy, thus allowing for the deification of humans and the promotion of ancestral spirits to the rank of deity. The distinction between the two is that deities possess greater efficacy, meaning that while ancestors can influence the lives of their descendants, deities can affect the lives of any individual and, with sufficient efficacy, potentially benefit entire communities, regions, professions and nations. Once deified, a stylised anthropomorphic image is created and worshipped in statue form on home and temple altars and two-way communication may then be initiated through divination whereby a deity may answer simple ‘yes’ ‘no’ questions by manipulating divination blocks (bue / 筊). Complex human–deity interactions occur when the latter are channelled through their tang-ki.

Spirit possession depends on the philosophical concept of the divisible nature of the soul, and on a spirit medium’s hun soul (the yang element) leaving their body, thus creating a vacuum to be occupied by the hun of a deity. Elliott (1990) noted that the tang-ki’s own hun are taken care of by other Heaven deities, and tang-ki that I interviewed variously reported that their soul remains in a receptacle in the temple, for instance, the deity’s censer or statue, or is guarded by the temple’s deities, most often by their own Underworld generals.

Ling is accumulative and diminishing in nature, thereby allowing a deity to increase in power relative to sacrifices and worship received. The process of transference is activated by the offering of incense (baibai / 拜拜) when a small portion of the worshipper’s own ling,⁸ carried by incense smoke, is transferred through highly focused concentration on the object of worship. Conversely, in the absence of worship, a deity’s efficacy diminishes. When its ling is virtually exhausted it may revert to a lower status as ancestor or ghost, reincarnate, or cease to exist. Deities may therefore emerge and later disappear from the religious landscape, a fact attested to by the absence of those mentioned in historical texts or represented on artefacts but no longer present on contemporary temple altars.

The expansion of and appropriation between Chinese religious pantheons is historically documented, and the pragmatic appearance of new deities to fulfil contemporary needs is ongoing. The latter is now most apparent in the Underworld tradition and, in comparison to historical precedents, is distinctive due to the cosmological inversion of emphasis involved. In an essentially pragmatic tradition, tang-ki spirit possession illustrates how discarnate forces have been moulded by human design in such a way as to allow for human control over them through ritual and symbolic means. In the Underworld tradition, the no-nonsense elevation in rank of Tua Di Ya Pek on temple altars, and when channelled through their tang-ki, adheres to this imperative. Spirit possession by Hell’s enforcers may therefore be seen as illustrative of the capacity of human ingenuity to incorporate eschatological convictions centred on post-mortal punishments into the religious life-worlds of practitioners as a means of positively influencing the occurrences and episodes that characterise everyday human existence. These deities and the rituals they p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of plates and figures
• Series editors’ foreword
• Preface and acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I: Setting the scene
• Part II: The Underworld tradition in Singapore
• Part III: The Underworld tradition in Malaysia
• Part IV: Tracing the origins of the modern Underworld tradition
• Appendix of Chinese names
• References
• Index
• Plates