The Competition Of Feng Shui - A Historical Anthropological Study

The thesis probes the competition of fengshui with the two Chinese-lineages’ authentic practice in daily life and the fengshui stories of theirs in history and the local people’s current explanations of the stories and fengshui. To achieve the target,it is fully used various documentation, such as the lineage genealogies of the Zeng’s and the Liao’s, the notices, the former field research reports and so forth, chiefly acquired and collected during the field study at Sanliao Village.Sanliao Village is famous for its reputation, "the NO.1 village of fengshui culture in China”. The offspring of both the Zeng and the Liao Chinese-lineages inherit the fengshui techniques by generations, because their ancestors(Wenchan Zeng and Yu Liao) were the disciples of Junsong Yang’s, the founder of the School of Forms of fengshui. The villagers from the two Chinese-lineages respectively practice varied rituals and entertainment in the Yanggong Temple of the Zeng’s and the Yanggong Temple of the Liao’s which both play the two roles, the ancestral hall and the god temple, because of the activities regarding fengshui in the temples, the descendants firm their belief in it, and they also strengthen the Sanliao fengshui masters’ faith in competing the legitimacy of fengshui in real life. The thesis displays the stories of fengshui competition in Sanliao history and there are three types of competition participant, the competition between Chinese-lineages, the competition between sub-Chinese-lineages and the competition between brothers. In these cases, the present practitioners pay more attentions to the effects of the fengshui masters and the fengshui techniques, which widens the perspective of fengshui study in anthropology.Owning to the intended avoidance of the two Chinese-lineages, few fengshui competition stories about the Zeng and the Liao have been mentioned. It demonstrates their endeavor to build the harmonious fengshui culture at present, and also reveals the contemporary fengshui competition, at the method level, is weakening,thus the physical destruction and large-scale conflicts have been less nowadays.However, if Sanliao fengshui masters still enrich and develop the fengshui techniques they believe in, the fengshui culture which directly affects their livelihood and fits their thinking patterns, will be succeeded, and the competitions of fengshui will continue doubtlessly.