Statistical analysis of digitalized “Dao Fa Hui Yuan”

科学研究費助成事業(科学研究費補助金)研究成果報告書：基盤研究(C)2009-2011課題番号：2150024

Development of a Digital Archive for Dao-Fa Hui-Yuan and its Application to Daoism Research

筑波大学 (University of Tsukuba)201

Development of a Digital Archive for Dao-Fa Hui-Yuan and its Application to Daoism Research

筑波大学 (University of Tsukuba)201

Employing A Chinese Ghost Story to Teach the Syncretism of Chinese Religions

Upon its release in 1987, the Hong Kong blockbuster A Chinese Ghost Story resulted in sequels, adaptations, and two remakes in 2011 and 2020. Despite its popularity, only a few critics have noticed its eclectic representations of Chinese religions, nor has there been any evaluation of its pedagogical potential. This article details how the author employs this 1987 work to teach the syncretism of Chinese religions in an undergraduate course “Asian Religions in Film.” By decoding the embedded concepts, the meanings and history behind “the Jade Garland talisman,” the inclusion of the Diamond Sutra for exorcistic efficacy, and the portrayal of paper offerings, this article argues that while A Chinese Ghost Story initially seems like a simple horror romance comedy, it nonetheless provides instructors with valuable sources to educate students about the complex and longstanding Chinese culture. Broadly, this article contributes to pedagogy of Asian religions in film by leading students to recognize how this media presents Chinese religious elements to heighten students’ intercultural understanding and awareness of the relationship between humans and spirits in Asian religions. This paper was part of a panel on “Teaching Asian Religions Through Film” presented at the Association for Asian Studies conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, March 24­–27, 2022. The panel offered concrete examples on how to adopt cinema and TV to discuss Asian religions, culture, and modernity in the classroom and contributed to the developing analysis concerning the use of visual media in Asian studies pedagogy

A Comprehensive Study for building Resource Information Infrastructure oriented to Digital Archives

科学研究費助成事業(科学研究費補助金)研究成果報告書：基盤研究(A)2010-2012研究課題番号：2224002

Digital Dao-Fa Hui-Yuan: Developing a Digital Archive of Daoism Documents

<p>This study aims to build a digital archive for the Dao-Fa Hui-Yuan, which is composed of 268 volumes and an important compilation of <em>Fu</em>s inherited by Daoism schools over time. We build the digital archive named Digital Dao-Fa Hui-Yuan for Daoism researchers, not only to browse and search the <em>Fu</em>s, but also to analyze the structures and meanings of the contents. A <em>Fu </em>is an important expression of prayer and mystical messages used in Daoist ceremonies. It is represented as a complex graphical symbol composed of one or more parts. Despite <em>Fu </em>long being an important research topic, the study of <em>Fu</em>s is not well developed because of the secrecy of Daoism and difficulties with understanding the meanings. A major research issue in this study was how to organize <em>Fu</em>s and their constituent parts. We analyzed the <em>Fu</em>s and their relationships using the digitalized contents of Dao-Fa Hui-Yuan. We built a graph of the volumes of Dao-Fa Hui-Yuan, <em>Fu</em>s and their constituent parts. We found some relationships in the graph, which were not well recognized before by Daoism researchers. This paper shows the digital archive of Dao-Fa Hui-Yuan and discusses the results obtained from the archive. pp. 24-38</p><p> </p