The Religions of Chan-la, Part I

by Jeff Crook
January 30, 2001

This is the first in a two-part series on the religions of Chan-la. Like the other articles in The Book of the East Wind, this one explains things as they existed immediately before the return of the dark sun Zhi. Qigung:The Ring of Fire begins just a few days after the cataclysm and the wars that destroy everything that was once Chan-la. The first characters will begin the game from this base. As the ame progresses and changes are revealed, some of this information may fall by the wayside, or be altered.

So, in other words, this two-part article on religion is a description of the way things used to be. Many characters may take it as their life's purpose to rebuild this world. Others may choose to not look back. This first part deals with religious aspects least likely to change in the short run.

How important is religion in the lives of the people in Chan-la and in the lives of the characters in the game? As important as you want to make it. The game isn't going to destroy your character if she isn't inclined to visit the temple on a daily basis, and chances are the spirit of the bridge isn't powerful enough to cast you into the stream if you don't stop and pray at his shrine before crossing his bridge.

The most important aspect of religion in the lives of characters and their players is how religion influences the stories and how they are role-played. Religion drives the most important conflict in the game – the battle between Zhi and the other gods, the battle of light against darkness and darkness against light. Other religious aspects occur at a more personal level. These are detailed below.

Ancestor Worship

Description : The primary religious activity for nearly every Chan, Fong, and Xao is ancestor worship. Reverence of ancestors is the most immediate, most important spiritual need of the average person, for ancestors act as the intermediaries between the people and heaven. Ancestors who are loved and revered and who receive proper offerings at the proper times bring prosperity, health, and luck to their descendants. Ancestors who are neglected become angry, and they often exact revenge. When their tombs and graves are defiled, their spirits punish intruders, and then punish those who failed in their vigilance. When their tombs are neglected and forgotten, they rise as undead to feed upon those they hate - the descendants who forgot them. So while the heavenly deities are remote upon their mountains, ancestors play an important role in the daily life of nearly everyone.

Ancestors are usually revered up to the great-great-grandparent generation. Sometimes, reverence lasts many more generations, but rarely is the time period shortened. When a person dies, he spends a period of time in the hells atoning for his past life. The more wicked he is, the longer this period lasts. However, at some point his punishment ends and he is reincarnated to this world. Most sages agree that the soul is usually reincarnated by the great-great-grandparent generation, after which time it is unnecessary to revere the ancestor because he has already been reborn.

Symbol : Ancestral symbols are the same as any heraldry the family might own. When an ancestor has earned a special name or title, a symbolic representation is also used. For example, if Huan Wo were to earn title Most Splendid Elephant, an elephant would appear prominently on his shrines and ancestral tablets.

Cosmology : Ancestors are not represented in the heavens.

Temples and Shrines : Every home usually has an ancestral shrine or a prominent place for its Ancestral Tablets. In wealthier homes, an entire building might be dedicated to an ancestral shrine, and this is where the yearly rituals take place. Poorer families usually reserve a small place near the entry door of the house, a shelf or perhaps a bench, where the ancestral tablets are placed. The gravesite of an ancestor is sometimes used as a shrine, and here family members bring offerings of flowers, incense, rice wine and bowls of rice.

Priests : The head of the household is the priest of that family's ancestors. He or she reads the rituals and offers the rites demanded by tradition. He need not have any formal religious training to act as priest of his own family shrine.

Holy Days : Part of the New Years Day celebration involves the displaying of ancestral tablets. The tablets are brought out on this day and paraded through the streets by the eldest and youngest members of each household.
In addition, the birthday of an ancestor is celebrated with offerings and prayers, as is the anniversary of the ancestor's death. And lastly, there is a special day set aside by the government for proper and formal reverence of ancestors. This day is the earth equivalent of the fifth day of May. On this day, the names of the ancestors are read and their lives recounted. A great feast is prepared for them, while the living observe the day by fasting.

Lesser Gods and Spirits

At the community level, there are all sorts of spirits and gods of both natural and man-made features. There are gods of roads, bridges, rivers, grottoes, caves, mountains, forests, and hills. Small shrines dot the countryside and can be found hidden away in the oddest places in the cities, from parks to sewers. Most of these shrines belong to a family, a group of families, a community, a guild, or any other social group, much in the way the Lions Club will adopt a length of highway and keep it clean. Some are forgotten and fall into disrepair, but the spirits that inhabit them never go away. Repairing and adopting a forgotten shrine often brings some minor benefit, but desecrating a shrine, even a forgotten one, can have serious consequences. As a character, you can stop and pray at every shrine, or you can ignore them completely; it isn't going to have a major impact on your success in the game. It all depends on how you want to role-play it, and how much risk you are willing to accept.

The Tao

The tao is the name people use for the earth. Although Indramahatra (a greater god of the Xao, detailed in Part II) is often depicted as an earth goddess, she is more accurately a being who sleeps in the center of the earth, wrapped in the cocoon of the tao. However, the tao is more than just an earthy covering for Indramahatra. It is a living force or energy, most often depicted as Nature, which brings life and produces the abundance upon which all living creatures exist. There exists in Chan-la a loose confederation of Nature priests who live lives not unlike druids. They serve many roles, from performing shamanistic rites to ensure a good harvest to directing the building of houses, walls, and bridges to take best advantage of the Qi of the tao. Feng Shui practitioners study the Qi of the tao and learn to harness its powers and avoid its vortices. Places where the tao's energy is positive are lucky and fertile, while its vortices of negative energy are cursed, often becoming the abodes of ghosts and vampire.

Priests of the tao also serve as protectors of Nature and keepers of ancient knowledge, healers, herbalists, midwives and veterinarians. Others become hermits, leaving behind all human society and retreating to caves on holy mountains to meditate upon the tao.

However, priests of the tao have no formal religion, shrines, or temples. They sometimes employ the Jen Pang symbol in their incantations, as do practitioners of Feng Shui.

The Greater Gods

Of greater impact to characters are the formal religions dedicated to the major gods. We'll talk about those next week.