Demonic Warfare provides an innovative analysis of the links between China's religious and literary traditions, with Mark Meulenbeld drawing on a wealth of historical and ethnographic data to convincingly demonstrate that the general structure and divine protagonists of the Ming novel Canonization of the gods (Fengshen yanyi 封神演義) derive from diverse facets of Chinese religious culture, including Daoist and local ritual traditions, temple networks and their festivals, martial troupes that performed during processions, and armed groups that relied on ritual as a source of strength in battle.
Meulenbeld's study is divided into three main sections. Chapters 1 and 2 transcend conventional wisdom by delineating how the development of Canonization of the gods was marked by narratives centering on cults to fierce martial deities being grafted onto ancient stories of King Wu's triumph over the Shang dynasty. Chapters 3 and 4 explore how rituals to martial deities advanced to the...
