Knotting the Banner

This book adds richly not only to understanding of the unique form of Daoism in Central Hunan today, but to the entire fashi tradition that rose to prominence in the Song–Yuan.

In the hills of China’s central Hunan province, young apprentice officiates over a Daoist ritual known as the Banner Rite to Summon Sire Yin. In this richly textured study, weaving together ethnography, textual analysis, photography, and film, David J. Mozina invites readers into the religious world of ritual masters in today’s south China. He shows how cosmological, theological, and anthropological assumptions ensconced in the ritual account for its own efficacy or inefficacy. He also reveals the ways in which such ritual claims are rooted in the liturgical movements of the Song and Yuan dynasties (960–1368), and how they are performed in the post-Mao era.

“His book’s fundamental insights will nurture scholarship for many years to come.”

––Vincent Goossaert

École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, PSL), Paris