The Dragon King, also known as the Dragon God, is a Chinese water and weather god. He is regarded as the dispenser of rain, commanding over all bodies of water. He is the collective personification of the ancient concept of the lóng in Chinese culture.
The Chenghuangshen, is a tutelary deity or deities in Chinese folk religion who is believed to protect the people and the affairs of the particular village, town or city of great dimension, and the corresponding afterlife location.
Joss paper, also known as incense papers, are papercrafts or sheets of paper made into burnt offerings common in Chinese ancestral worship. Worship of deities in Chinese folk religion also uses a similar type of joss paper. Joss paper, as well as other papier-mâché items, are also burned or buried in various Asian funerals, "to ensure that the spirit of the deceased has sufficient means in the afterlife." In Taiwan alone, the annual revenue that temples received from burning joss paper was US$400 million as of 2014.
Fuchien Province, also romanized as Fujian and rendered as Fukien, is a nominal province of the Republic of China without formal administrative function. It includes three small archipelagos off the coast of the Fujian Province of the People's Republic of China, namely the Matsu Islands, which make up Lienchiang County, and the Wuqiu Islands and Kinmen Islands, which make up Kinmen County. The seat of the administrative centre is Jincheng Township of Kinmen County which serves as its de facto capital. The province is also known as the Golden Horse, after the literal reading of the Chinese character abbreviation for "Kinmen-Matsu".
A spirit house is a shrine to the protective spirit of a place that is found in the Southeast Asian countries of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. They are normally in the form of small roofed structure mounted on a pillar or a dais, and can range in size from small platforms to houses large enough for people to enter. Spirit houses are intended to provide a shelter for spirits that could cause problems for the people if not appeased. They often include images or carved statues of people and animals. Votive offerings are left at them to propitiate the spirits; more elaborate installations include an altar for this purpose.
A Tudigong is a kind of Chinese tutelary deity of a specific location. There are several Tudigongs corresponding to different geographical locations, sometimes multiple ones will be venerated together in certain regions.
A Butsudan, sometimes spelled Butudan, is a shrine commonly found in temples and homes in Japanese Buddhist cultures. A butsudan is either a defined, often ornate platform or simply a wooden cabinet sometimes crafted with doors that enclose and protect a Gohonzon or religious icon, typically a statue or painting of a Buddha or Bodhisattva, or a calligraphic mandala scroll.
Na Tuk Gong are local guardian spirits worshipped by overseas Chinese communities in Malaysia, Singapore and parts of Indonesia, especially Sumatra. An alternate more generic name for the cult is Datuk Gong, uniting Dato or Datuk from the local Malay word for 'grandfather', which is also used as an honorific title, and Kong or Gong from Chinese, also an honorific title. According to Taoist tradition, a Na Tuk Kong's could hold the official title 拿督尊王. It is important to note that Datuk Keramat, Datuk Gong and Na Tuk Kong all refer to the same deity. For the sake of clarity, the term Datuk, which is universally used to describe the spirit in Malaysia, will be used.
A religious goods store, also known as a religious bookstore, religious gifts store or religious supplies shop, is a store specializing in supplying materials used in the practice of a particular religious tradition, such as Buddhism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion, Christianity and Islam among other religions.
Chinese spiritual world concepts are cultural practices or methods found in Chinese culture. Some fit in the realms of a particular religion, others do not. In general these concepts were uniquely evolved from the Chinese values of filial piety, tacit acknowledgment of the co-existence of the living and the deceased, and the belief in causality and reincarnation, with or without religious overtones.
Jìngxiāng, shàngxiāng, bàishén, is a ritual of offering incense accompanied by tea and or fruits in Chinese traditional religion. In ancestral religious worship it's jìngzǔ or bàizǔ 拜祖. It is observed by a devotee holding joss incense with both hands in front of an altar during the worship. For greater reverence or devotion, the devotee will kneel and bow before the altar during and after placing the incense inside the urn at the altar.
Jesa is a ceremony commonly practiced in Korea. Jesa functions as a memorial to the ancestors of the participants. Jesa are usually held on the anniversary of the ancestor's death. The majority of Catholics, Buddhists and nonbelievers practice ancestral rites, although Protestants do not. The Catholic ban on ancestral rituals was lifted in 1939, when Pope Pius XII formally recognized ancestral rites as a civil practice. Many Korean Christians, particularly Protestants, no longer practice this rite. Christians generally, and Muslims avoid the rites, and many emigrants avoiding the rites.
Landlord deities (地主神) are a type of tutelary deity worshipped in the East Asian cultural sphere. Di is the first character.
Hòutǔ or Hòutǔshén, also Hòutǔ Niángniáng, otherwise called Dimǔ or Dimǔ Niángniáng, is the deity of all land and earth in Chinese religion and mythology. Houtu is the overlord of all the Tudigongs, Sheji, Shan Shen, City Gods, and landlord gods world wide.
This is the glossary of Shinto, including major terms on the subject. Words followed by an asterisk (*) are illustrated by an image in one of the photo galleries.
Chinese folk religion plays a dynamic role in the lives of the overseas Chinese who have settled in the countries of this geographic region, particularly Burmese Chinese, Singaporean Chinese, Malaysian Chinese, Thai Chinese and Hoa. The Indonesian Chinese, by contrast, were forced to adopt en masse either Buddhism or Christianity in the 1950s and 1960s, abandoning traditional worship, due to Indonesia's religious policies which at the time forbade Chinese traditional religion or did not recognize it as a "religion" thus making it vulnerable to discrimination. Some Chinese Filipinos also still practice some Chinese traditional religions, besides Christianity of either Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, of which some have also varyingly syncretized traditional Chinese religious practices with. Chinese folk religion, the ethnic religion of Han Chinese, "Shenism" was especially coined referring to its Southeast Asian expression; another Southeast Asian name for the religion is the Sanskrit expression Satya Dharma.
Chinese gods and immortals are beings in various Chinese religions seen in a variety of ways and mythological contexts.
The Wǔdàxiān, also known as Wǔdàjiā (五大家) and Wǔdàmén (五大门), meaning the "Five Great Genii", are a group of five zoomorphic deities of northeastern Chinese religion, and important to local shamanic practices. They are the localised adaptation of the Five Forms of the Highest Deity of common Chinese theology.
Shilong Temple is a temple in Yonghe Village, Zhongliao Township, Nantou County, Taiwan. Dedicated to the tutelary deity Tudigong, the small temple is known for its worship with instant noodles.
Miao (廟/庙) are buildings in traditional East Asian religions enshrining gods, myths or legends, sages of past dynasties, and famous historical figures. They are a kind of Chinese temple architecture and contrast with Ci Shrines which enshrine ancestors and people instead of deities.
