Contact information
Name:
Xu Ma
Phone:
610-330-5888
Email:
maxu@lafayette.edu
Categories:
When:
Thursday, March 10, 2022 - 4:15pm - 5:30pm
Where:
Zoom meeting
Presenter:
Prof. Megan Bryson
Price:
Free
Avoiding the Bloody Pond: Women’s Bodies in Chinese Religion
The idea of a hell for women arose in Song-dynasty (960-1279) China with the advent of the Blood Pond Hell, a place where (mostly) women would be posthumously punished for offending the gods with the blood of menstruation and childbirth. Buddhists and Daoists performed rituals to save women from this fate, and such rites are still performed in parts of mainland China and Taiwan. One text used for these rites is the Precious Blood Bowl Repentance, which discusses women’s bodies in extremely negative terms. This talk examines how the image of the female body in the Precious Blood Bowl Repentance relates to understandings of female bodies in Chinese religion more broadly.
When: Mar 10, 2022 04:15 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Register in advance for this meeting:
Sponsored by:
Department of Religious Studies through the Lyman Coleman Guest Speakers Fund