Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China

Until now, China has been scarcely represented in the burgeoning comparative literature on pilgrimage. This volume remedies that omission, discussing the interaction between pilgrims and sacred sites from the tenth century to the present. From the perspectives of literature, art, history, religion, politics, and anthropology, the essays focus on China's most famous pilgrimage mountains as well as lesser known sites.


Until now, China has been scarcely represented in the burgeoning comparative literature on pilgrimage. This volume remedies that omission, discussing the interaction between pilgrims and sacred sites from the tenth century to the present. From the perspec

Susan Naquin is Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. Chün-fang Yü is Associate Professor of Religion at Rutgers University.

Introduction: Pilgrimage in China
Women Pilgrims to T'ai Shan: Some Pages from a Seventeenth-Century Novel
An Ambivalent Pilgrim to T'ai Shan in the Seventeenth Century
Chang Shang-ying on Wu-t'ai Shan
Relics and Flesh Bodies: The Creation of Ch'an Pilgrimage Sites
P'u-t'o Shan: Pilgrimage and the Creation of the Chinese Potalaka
Huang Shan Paintings as Pilgrimage Pictures
The Pilgrimage to Wu-tang Shan
The Peking Pilgrimage to Miao-feng Shan: Religious Organizations and Sacred Sites
Reading the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall in Peking: The Tribulations of the Implied Pilgrim