一个活佛与神山的想象

A Living Buddha and His Imagination of Sacred Mountains

文章从一个活佛的角度考察顶果山寺关于所在地方的世界中心化想象及其三种方式直线(原点辐射)、方形和圆形想象之间的关系,以及这种中心化的想象在现实社会中得以赋型的过程,强调在这个过程中活佛的关键性的文化能动性角色。研究说明在藏文明中,活佛自身的修为和文化象征体系的实践密切相关;它的存在提供了一个从文化观念到社会现实呈现的路径。

With the same way Max Weber explored the relationship between the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, but with quite opposite purposes, the author made a study of a Living Buddha from Bon religion at Rong-Brag county in west Sichuan, who imagines the place he lives in as the center of the world, using three kinds of imagination of straight line, square and circle. He imagines the world as a square marked by four sacred mountains. Those three imaginations supplement each other as an ideal concept of ego-centric imagination of the world. How does this ideology being practiced by this religion and its believers？ The Living Buddha and the lamasery under his leadership as the local agency are responsible for this practice of local ideology. Actually he plays a key role between the cultural symbolic system and the community and acts as a channel between the ideal and the social practice. Those practices fall into three sides. The first is to emphasize strict discipline. The second is to diffuse its canons to surrounding areas, and in the last one, he connects two powers of the highest lamasery and the srate from above. And these depend heavily on his personal character and abilities.