隱形的無生老母：新加坡先天道宗教網絡與變遷

戚常卉。〈隱形的無生老母：新加坡先天道宗教網絡與變遷〉。《民俗曲藝》205 (2019.9): 215-64。

Chi Chang-hui. “The Invisible Eternal Mother: Xiantiandao’s Changing Religious Networks in Singapore.” Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 205 (2019.9): 215-64.

Abstract

先天道是三教合一的教派，茹素禁慾，以無生老母為先天最高神明，齋堂正殿則奉祀觀音為後天主神。清帝國視為邪教的叛亂團體，遭到官方迫害。同治年間往海外傳教。跨域傳教的成果十分驚人，在新加坡的先天道東初派的齋堂網絡與馬來西亞、印尼、泰國、香港等地也建構跨地域（殖民地獨立之後跨國）宗教網絡。選擇在新加坡開荒傳教的先天道東初派經歷文化與地理空間斷裂的去地域化歷程，在被打破的空間場域重構宗教組織，進行再地域化的進程。然而進入二十一世紀後，今日新加坡先天道各分堂呈現的不是宗教性質的同一，而是差異。各齋堂的日常宗教實踐雖還是在先天道的宗教帷幕之下，有象徵性質的類似，卻在實踐的內涵上有極大的差異。筆者將此宗教現象視為宗教世俗化的一種模式。本文以皮爾斯符號學的符號形構（semiosis）過程分析到海外傳教，建立宗教網絡連結，進入再地域化的過程中，先天道東初派宗教網絡共享的宗教符號無生老母退場，宗教網絡連結點的齋堂經營者不再藉助既定的教義去看待他們所面對的世界與個人的宗教修行，重新詮釋先天道。

Xiantiandao (The Great Way of Former Heaven ) is a syncretic religious sect that emerged during the Qing dynasty. Members of this sectarian religion lived lives of abstinence and vegetarianism. During the Tongzhi reign (1856–1875), after facing persecution in China, Xiantiandao pursued proselytization abroad, rendering a fruitful harvest of converts in Southeast Asia. From Singapore, the Dongchu branch of Xiantiandao established transregional religious networks in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Hong Kong. The Dongchu branch experienced deterritorialization, the disconnection between a culture and its traditional geographical boundaries, when the branch first arrived in Singapore in the late nineteenth century. Dongchu gradually reconstructed new religious networks and orders in these new areas, initiating prolonged reterritorialization, especially through the establishment of Xiantiandao vegetarian halls for proselytization or for converts’ spiritual cultivation.

However, since the 1990s, the vegetarian halls of the Dongchu branch has revealed a more confused picture. Some of the relationships within the religious networks were strained and began to break down due to the lack of successors. A few vegetarian halls even converted to Buddhism in the past two decades. Vegetarian halls remaining in the sect’s networks maintained a certain religious homogeneity under the Xiantiandao canopy, yet there has been increasing differentiation and difference among them. Despite the fact that these vegetarian halls tried to practice routine religious rituals consistent with much of the Xiantiandao doctrine, their religious practice demonstrated different symbolical meanings. Such religious phenomena can be commonly seen in the emergence of a new dimension of religious secularization. This article deploys the Peircean notion of semiosis, in which signs give rise to new signs, to explain the symbolic processes of religious change within Xiantiandao over the past one hundred years. Over such a long stretch of time, the Eternal Mother, the core religious icon of Xiantiandao, retreated to the background. Abbots, abbesses, or non-Xiantiandao converts who were in charge of vegetarian halls strayed from strict Xiantiandao’s doctrine in their preaching. Instead, especially after the 1990s, each of the halls developed its own unique interpretation of Xiantiandao as a way to survive in the rich religious market in Singapore.