ABSTRACT
The reverence in Chinese civilization for written characters and cosmic diagrams finds expression in Daoism in a variety of ritual documents and designs that are thought to be endowed with transformative and efficacious powers. Written memorials, confessions and sacred symbols known as ‘talismans’ ( fu) form the main media for communication with the unseen world. In the ritual propitiation of divine and demonic forces, the offering of such carefully calligraphed, formal compositions takes the place of the blood sacrifices in China’s common religion. Talismanic writings incorporate written characters, or designs suggestive of Chinese characters, side-by-side with other graphic elements. Illegible as mundane texts, they are destined to sway divine bureaucracies. For the liturgical specialist, they constitute dynamic ritual instruments. In addition, pictures in scriptures serve another fundamental religious purpose: the mental representation of the unseen world for contemplative or evidential purposes. Showing, for example, the landscapes of paradises and hells or the likenesses of gods and saints, or the effects that ritual or devotional acts produce in the beyond, illustrated scriptures inform us how believers were intended to imagine articles of faith and doctrine.
