Textual Memorial Temples: Writing Hagiographies for Mothers in Late Imperial China

In Chinese culture, the honor of textual immortality was traditionally reserved for a select, extraordinary few. As Martin Huang points out, however, the Ming-Qing era witnessed a general “secularization” process in which eulogistic writings were increasingly dedicated to women who lived relatively “trivial” lives. Building on Huang’s insights, this paper examines another important evolution within this genre of secularized elegies dedicated to women: the simultaneous sacralizing of deceased mothers by filial sons writing their mothers’ lives as hagiography. As these authors energetically extolled their mothers’ religious piety and identified them with Bodhisattvas/deities, the hitherto lackluster biographies became saturated with supernatural occurrences and miraculous events. Transformed into cultural and emotional sites where ordinary women could be commemorated, immortalized, and apotheosized, these otherwise insignificant life stories evoked a kind of textual memorial temple. Such infusions of spirituality into the writing of Confucian mourning both signal and fuel the broader penetration of heterodox worship (Buddhism) into Confucian society. This practice also allows a glimpse into important gender dimensions in the religious syncretism and secularism of late imperial China.