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Title:
From Dispelling Diseases to Blessing Pharmaceutical Merchant Groups: Temples of Medicine King and Their Social Functions in Hubei Region During the Ming-Qing China
Abstract:
This paper argues that the prosperity of temples of Medicine King reflected the dual construction of folk beliefs and social space by local social groups in Ming-Qing China. The emergence of temples of Medicine King is closely related to the reform of national ideology in the Ming dynasty. In the situation of the decline of the Three Emperors' worship, the folk reshaped the temple of Medicine King, which enshrines famous ancient doctors and embodies the desire of health. In the regional social environment, temples of Medicine King in Hubei during the Ming and Qing dynasties expanded its diverse social functions. Such as being as a barn, a charity school, a military fortress, and the image of the medicine king worship is also more diverse. Since the 17 century, the pharmaceutical industry in Hankou, the central city of Hubei, has been increasingly prosperous. The Henan merchants, Jiangxi merchants, and other pharmaceutical merchant groups who came to Hankou build up the enshrinement of the Medicine King as a space to maintain their own pharmaceutical trade. At this time, the meaning of the temple of Medicine King has expanded from dispelling diseases to blessing pharmaceutical merchant groups, and its social function has also changed from a common temple to a business hall. The emergence of the “Guild type Temple” in Hankou not only reflects the emerging pharmaceutical merchant group's ability to shape social space, but also showcases the specialized and large-scale landscape of the medicinal herb trading market in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River in Qing China.
