Religion, Place and Modernity Social Sciences in Asia Edited by Vineeta Sinha (National University of Singapore) Syed Farid Alatas (National University of Singapore) Kelvin Low (National University of Singapore) VOLUME 40 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ssa Religion, Place and Modernity Spatial Articulations in Southeast Asia and East Asia Edited by Michael Dickhardt Andrea Lauser LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: Đền Bà Chúa Kho (Temple of the Lady of the Treasury) Bắc Ninh, North Vietnam— a pilgrimage destination at the beginning of the (Vietnamese) new year. Photo: Andrea Lauser, 2007. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Dickhardt, Michael, editor. Title: Religion, place, and modernity : spatial articulations in Southeast  Asia and East Asia / edited by Michael Dickhardt, Andrea Lauser. Description: Boston : Brill, 2016. | Series: Social sciences in Asia, ISSN  1567-2794 ; VOLUME 40 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016014299 (print) | LCCN 2016016479 (ebook) | ISBN  9789004315440 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004320239 (E-book) Subjects: LCSH: Religion and geography. | Space—Religious aspects. |  Religion and sociology. | Civilization, Modern. | Asia—Religion. Classification: LCC BL65.G4 R4285 2016 (print) | LCC BL65.G4 (ebook) | DDC  203/.5095—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016014299 Want or need Open Access? Brill Open offers you the choice to make your research freely accessible online in exchange for a publication charge. Review your various options on brill.com/brill-open. Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1567-2794 isbn 978-90-04-31544-0 (paperback) isbn 978-90-04-32023-9 (e-book) Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. 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Contents Preface and Acknowledgements vii List of Figures and Tables ix About the Contributors xi 1 Religion, Place and Modernity in Southeast and East Asia: Reflections on the Spatial Articulation of Religion with Modernity 1 Michael Dickhardt Part 1 Spatialization of Concepts and Agendas of Modernization 2 Civilization, Progress, and the ‘Foul Stench of Religion’: The Concepts of ‘Religion’ and ‘Superstition’ in the Politics of Modern East Asia 37 Nikolas Broy 3 Religious Pluralism as a Modern Political Project: The Relevance of Space in Contemporary India, Indonesia, and Singapore 69 Clemens Six 4 Religious Place Making: Civilized Modernity and the Spread of Buddhism among the Cheng, a Mon-Khmer Minority in Southern Laos 95 Patrice Ladwig 5 Constructing Modern Zen Spaces in Vietnam 125 Alexander Soucy Part 2 Sacralization of Places and Spaces in Contexts of Modern Pluralism and Fragmentations 6 Pilgrimage between Religious Resurgence, Cultural Nationalism and Touristic Heritage in Contemporary Vietnam 149 Andrea Lauser vi CONTENTS 7 Religious Praxis, Modernity and Non-modernity in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 184 Yeoh Seng-Guan 8 In Search of Holy Water: Hindu Pilgrimage to Gunung Rinjani on Lombok, Indonesia, as a Multi-religious Site 205 Volker Gottowik Part 3 Giving Space to Religion within Spaces of Modernity 9 New Routes for the Venerable Ancestor: A Growth Triangle, the Border, and an Emergent Sacred Landscape in the Thai-Malay Borderland 247 Jovan Maud 10 Vision and Religious Space under Transformation in the Perception of the Nineteenth-century Siamese Elites 270 Sing Suwannakij 11 The ‘Ghost Room’: Space, Death and Ritual in Vietnam 290 Paul Sorrentino 12 Where to Die? Death Management and the Politics of Death Space in Hong Kong 312 Chan Yuk Wah Index 343 Preface and Acknowledgements In recent scholarly literature, the relationship between religion and moder- nity has proven essential in developing a better understanding of contempo- rary social and cultural developments in Southeast and East Asia. Empirical research in these regions has shown that conceptualizing religion and moder- nity as diametrically opposed is untenable. Rather, in many ways, religion appears to be a genuine part of Asian modernity, not only as an object shaped by modernity, but also as an important factor in shaping modernity itself. Against this background, and in our attempts to understand religion as mod- ern and modernity as religious, the dimension of place has emerged as a fruit- ful and inspiring perspective. For us, it was our field research that led us to understand ‘place’ as more than just the physical setting for rituals or as a pas- sive carrier of meanings, but rather as a form of spatially articulating religion with modernity. Thus, we started to explore the potential of place as a concept and an empirical perspective for a deeper understanding of how religion and modernity are entangled with one another in the contemporary lifeworlds of Southeast and East Asia. Fortunately, we found a number of excellent scholars who also shared our interest in this approach. These scholars came together at a workshop on religion, place and modernity that we organized in Goettingen in September 2012. Inspired by the empirical richness of the presentations and the fruitful discussions which followed them, as well as the enthusiasm we all felt in realizing how the common focus on place brought together our shared interests, we have decided to continue our exploration in the present volume. This collection of essays offers multifaceted insights and fresh inter- pretations that seek to contribute to the broader discussion about the rela- tionship between religion and modernity, and its spatial articulation in and through places. This volume grew out of many contributions and would not have been possible without the invaluable support of many more people than we can mention here. Nevertheless, there are contributions we simply must acknowl- edge. First of all, we would like to express our special thanks to the contribu- tors for their willingness to join our exploration and their excellent work. We are also especially grateful to Karin Klenke for accompanying our workshop and its outcomes with her organizational skills, and as a source of intellectual viii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS inspiration. In particular we are grateful to Brill and the editors of Social Science in Asia for critically accompanying, reviewing and editing our volume. Finally, we are grateful to Matt Fennessy and Karina Jäschke for their invaluable assis- tance in preparing the manuscript and the index. Michael Dickhardt Goettingen, Germany Andrea Lauser Goettingen, Germany January 2016 List of Figures and Tables Figures 5.1 Lễ Đức Chuông in Thiền viện Sùng Phúc: Lay Buddhists waiting for the procession of monastics on a festival day when they were casting a new temple bell 130 5.2 Altar in the Ancestor Hall of Thiền viện Sùng Phúc, showing Bodhidharma in the back and the three patriarchs of Trúc Lâm in the front 132 6.1 Fog shrouded way to the top, Yên Tử 156 6.2 Praying on the highest peak at Chùa Đồng, Yên Tử 156 6.3 One of many (less famous) relics on the way, Yên Tử 159 6.4 Site for worship of An Kỳ, Yên Tử 159 6.5 Donation desk 168 6.6 Donation box (left) for the statue of the Buddhist King Trần Nhân Tông still under construction (right) in 2011, Yên Tử 172 6.7 The completed statue of the Buddhist King Trần Nhân Tông, Yên Tử 172 7.1 Offering for the dead during Hungry Ghost Festival set up in an open field 190 7.2 A temporary stage set up to entertain the dead in a residential area 190 8.1 Gunung Rinjani 209 8.2 Prayer at a waterfall 220 8.3 Camp service at hot springs 221 8.4 Prayer at the crater lake 222 8.5 Pilgrims deliver their sacrifices to Dewi Anjani 228 11.1 Domestic ritual for the dead 298 11.2 ‘Offering to all the beings’ (cúng chúng sinh) 299 11.3 Áp vong séance 299 12.1 Modern death space in Hong Kong—the Tsuen Wan Columbarium 335 12.2 Urn niches in Hong Kong 335 12.3 Hongkongers paying tribute to ancestors  336 12.4 Paper offerings for the newly deceased 336 x LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Tables 12.1 Registered death statistics (1936–1967) 321 12.2 Early cremation figures in Hong Kong 325 12.3 Cremation rate in Hong Kong (1961–2009) 328