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Title: Crazy Ji: Chinese Religion and Popular Literature (Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, 48) by Meir Shahar ISBN: 0-674-17563-8 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: November, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Crazy Ji is an original, scholarly, and fascinating book
Comment: Crazy Ji: Chinese Religion and Popular Literature is a must for anyone interested in Chinese religion, Chinese fiction, and Chinese popular culture.

Shahar's book is the first I know of to demonstrate the crucial role that fiction, drama, and nowadays television and cinema play in spreading deities' cults in China.

Crazy Ji is not only meticulously researched, it is also extremely well written, and it is a real pleasure to read.

In short: it is highly recommended.

Rating: 3
Summary: Scholarly analysis of literary sources for a Chinese cult.
Comment: Crazy Ji, usually known in modern Chinese as Jigong Huofo, is one of the most colorful figures in modern Chinese folklore. The tattered Song-dynasty monk wandered China and appeared to violate his monastic vows by drinking wine, eating meat, and even (in some accounts) sleeping with women, but (almost) inevitably this would turn out to be in the service of public good and the saving of souls. That, at any rate, is the modern picture of him.

In this interesting study, Meir Shahar carefully reviews Crazy Ji's representation in literature from the first written notice of him (in 1217) through the present, using his case to explore a broader claim that in China the cult of a god from a regional to a national scale could be spread by literature, particularly novels. Thus the study of the genre of Chinese "religious novels" of late imperial times is a necessary part of understanding how various gods came to have the followings they had and the characteristics that were eventually attributed to them.

If you are looking for a translation or retelling of the Jigong story in English, this is not the book for you. That book has still to be written. But as a case study in the development of a Chinese deity over several centuries, and the interactions of Chinese popular literature with Chinese popular religion, the book is of considerable interest.