Dry spells : state rainmaking and local governance in late imperial China
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Dry spells : state rainmaking and local governance in late imperial China
(Harvard East Asian monographs, 311)
Harvard University Asia Center , Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2009
- Other Title
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State rainmaking and local governance in late imperial China
Available at 9 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
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  Fukushima
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  Saitama
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  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
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  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
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  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
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Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto Universityグローバル専攻
GCOE||384.31||Sny200013592544
Note
Bibliography: p. 283-304
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Chinese officials put considerable effort into managing the fiscal and legal affairs of their jurisdictions, but they also devoted significant time and energy to performing religious rituals on behalf of the state. This groundbreaking study explores this underappreciated aspect of Chinese political life by investigating rainmaking activities organized or conducted by local officials in the Qing dynasty. Using a wide variety of primary sources, this study explains how and why state rainmaking became a prominent feature of the late imperial religious landscape. It also vividly describes the esoteric, spectacular, and occasionally grotesque techniques officials used to pray for rain. Charting the ways in which rainmaking performances were contested by local communities, this study argues that state rainmaking provided an important venue where the relationship between officials and their constituents was established and maintained. For this reason, the author concludes that official rainmaking was instrumental in constituting state power at the local level. This monograph addresses issues that are central to the study of late imperial Chinese society and culture, including the religious activities of Chinese officials, the nature of state orthodoxy, and the symbolic dimensions of local governance.
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