RELIGION AND RITUAL AMONG THE CHINESE OF SINGAPORE : AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY

Abstract

The topic of this study is Chinese Religion, by which term I denote the religious system underlying the beliefs and practices of some one million Chinese in Singapore. It is my purpose to show that the various aspects of religion and ritual among the Singapore Chinese relate to one another to form a coherent whole. The basis of this coherence is the collectively shared symbolic system. I am therefore concerned primarily with Chinese Religion as a system of meaning; the socioeconomic dimension is given only secondary attention. In other words, it is culture, not society that is the focus of this study, the scope and orientation of which will be made clear in Chapter One. The cultural logic of Chinese Religion may be divided into two parts: cosmology and theology. The cosmology is simply the way in which the cosmos is perceived and ordered. The theology is the basis for religious action. The Chinese cosmos is a balanced, symmetrical one, needing no human intervention to maintain it. As such it does not generate the necessity £or religious action. Indeed Chinese Religion is basically anthropocentric and not cosmocentric. Its prime concern is with human suffering or, more specifically, with the suffering of individual human beings. Religious action is thus oriented towards solving human problems. The logic and process of religious action is the main theme of this study. For religious action to be effective, power is needed. Chapters Two, Three and Four discuss the sources of religious power and the ways in which it is extracted and used. However, power is important not for its own sake, but as a means for achieving specific goals. Chapter Five explains the nature of these goals and the ways of attaining them. The historical background of Chinese Religion and its wider social, political and psychological implications are discussed in the final chapter.