- 期刊
“从人到神”的转变：马来西亚华人的祖先与神灵崇拜
The Deity-bound Transition of a Mortal: Ancestor and Deity Veneration by Ethnic Chinese Malaysian
摘要
本文从社会成员所理解的死亡出发，通过马来西亚华人的祖先之灵与神灵信仰来看宗教与社会的互动过程。马来西亚华人社会的宗教观念产生于社会最基础的家庭单位，人们所遵循的实践都来自传统习俗。社会群体出于宗教理论体系的解释，将死亡理解为一种转换生命形式的途径，亡灵成为一个家庭的祖先并且通过葬礼的净化完成神圣化的身份转变。早期华人移民时期，人们为对社会有贡献的亡者建庙供香火，并将其视为社区的守护神。从人到神的信仰脱离不了社会组织的因素，甚至会对人们在生命过程中的作为产生影响。当人成神是一种新的叙事方式时，我们将神灵当成人类生活世界的延续，神灵介入到人类社会生活，同时我们也以自身的方式來安排神灵的事情。人们围绕守护神崇拜来组织社区生活和凝聚群体，人与祖先和神的关系通过宗教的纽带始终保持紧密的联系，并寄托着一种先验性的理想。
並列摘要
By looking at how society understand death, this paper discusses the interaction between religion and society by examining how Chinese Malaysians (Malaysian citizens of Chinese descent) exercise their venerations toward their ancestors and deities. Religious views held by the Chinese Malaysian community originate from its fundamental constituent, i.e., the family, and the practices that they follow were all derived from traditional customs. Predicated upon their religious doctrine, the community regard death as an avenue leading to the transformation of life, one in which spirits of the deceased gained the status of family ancestors, not to mention sanctity, having been purified via funerals. When the Chinese migrants first settled in Malaysia several generations back, they built temples and offered incense sticks for the deceased who had contributed to society and deify them as patron deities for the communities. This belief of immortality attainment is closely related to the social framework, so much so that it influences how people behave in their lives. Moreover, religious concepts also evolve with the continually adapting social consciousness. As a result, when the attainment of immortality became a new narrative within the community, people became inclined to treat immortality as a continuation of the mortal human life. This view opens the possibilities for the deities to traverse into the mortal realm, which people responded by subjectively devising various arrangements in consideration of the spirits and deity. People revolve around the concept of venerating patron deities to carry out life in the community and to unite different groups, tightening and maintaining the relationship between mortals, their ancestors, and the deities via the religion, simultaneously establishing a kind of transcendental ideal.