ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the embodied transmission and production of religious knowledge through long-term apprenticeship. Reflecting on my personal, especially bodily, experience in the field as a disciple, I contend that apprenticeship centers on bodily learning and sense sharpening of esoteric religious knowledge as part of training physical skills in practitioners’ bodies. Examining the local concept of nishi (拟师literally, “imitating masters,” but with the deeper meaning of imitating nuanced bodily habits), I underline the significance of masters and their bodies in the production and transmission of local knowledge through traditional apprenticeship. Nishi highlights masters’ bodies, within which knowledge is not only literally embodied but manifested as bodily images. What is amplified in apprenticeship and specialists is that religious knowledge is intended for complete embodiment rather than simple memorization, and it is embodied knowledge rather than a body of context-free knowledge available for transmission. Tim Ingold suggests “dwelling perspective” to approach enskilment and enculturation. This chapter argues that religious dispositions in China are the result of embodied habitus regrown in every individual through daily and yearly practices, interactions, and dwelling in the two worlds of the yin and the yang.
