Elena Valussi

Chunyang Guan, a religious site in Xinjin 新津, Sichuan, presents a variety of religious elements, Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist, existing side by side. The historical analysis in this talk reveals how these different elements accrued at different times, and how contemporary events changed the affiliation of this site on multiple occasions, leaving us with a site that is difficult to interpret. Chunyang guan is no longer a functioning religious site, but is currently a war museum and tea-house. However, it maintains the vestiges of its previous religious nature, clearly indicated by the statues dotting it, and inscribed on the dozen steles permanently pasted on its walls. Studying its complex history allows us a glimpse of the religious accommodation strategies, and of the tensions between religion and secularization.