山上与山下:从清水祖师巡境仪式看社会的构成

Between a Mountain Temple and a Mountain Foot Community: Social Configuration through Qingshui Master Procession Rituals

本文基于在福建安溪清水岩的田野调查,围绕清水祖师迎春绕境仪式,考察清水岩所在的蓬莱山与山下平原社会的关系。居于半山的清水岩,一半和山下社会粘合,一半与山上非人世界相连。清水祖师巡境仪式使岩下社会组成特定的地域共同体,形成社会化程度强弱有序的生活节律并实现周期性的更新重生。清水岩又与山顶象征的非人世界相通,通过在山上和山下之间流通的物,为山下社会引入超越性灵力,赋予各种人、物及其代表的共同体以神圣性。清水岩的中间性或双重性,是安溪人对其生活世界的划分和认知。活跃于山岩的士、僧、道被奉为真人,穿行于山上和山下,跨越人间社会和非人世界,融通自然和社会。清水岩呈现的不仅是安溪人的社会观,也是其人观。

This article is a field study examining the relationship between a Penglai mountain temple and its mountain foot community in Penglai Town, Anxi County, Fujian Province. The analysis focuses on the ritual of Qingshui Master Procession (qingshui zushi xunjing). It is argued that the Qingshuiyan Temple connects with both the secular world on the plain and the spiritual world in the mountain. The lowland community cannot be selfsustained without mountain deities and trade of goods between the Temple and the community. As a focal point of communal activities, the Qingshui Master Procession ritual facilitates the formation of communities on the surrounding plain, generates an orderly rhythm of everyday life, as well as promotes community renewal in regular intervals. This ritual thus provides an indispensable means through which group differentiation and cohesion play out. The Qingshuiyan Temple itself serves as a channel for people to communicate with the spiritual world, bestowing a sense of sacredness to the people, objects, and communities on the plain. The Temple’s centrality in local life rests on, not so much its physical location in the middle way of the mountain, but its intermediary role between lowland (secular) and mountain (spiritual), not an uncommon feature in the region of Anxi county. Traditional mountain dwellers like scholars, monks and Taoist priests such as Qingshui Master, are regarded by people in Anxi as “sacred people”(zhenren). They move between the human and spiritual worlds freely, blending nature and society. The Qingshuiyan Temple mirrors the social fabrics of Anxi society and its people’s conceptualization of humankind.