Mt Emei is one of the Four Sacred Chinese Buddhist Mountains. In 1996 it was awarded UNESCO world heritage status, largely due to its cultural importance and its role in the preservation of Buddhist heritage. Since the 1980s there has been a large growth in tourism to religious sites throughout China, and this has also been the case at Mt Emei. Baoguo Monastery stands at the foot of the mountain, and acts as the main gateway to this sacred site. During the past decade there has been an immense growth in the number of visitors to the monastery to make traditional Buddhist offerings and ritual on special religious days such as the Spring Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival.
For my research I plan to travel to Mt Emei and Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan province), where I will study recent developments in public ritual at Mt Emei. My research focus is on pilgrimage and religious tourism and focussing on how monasteries have promoted public ritual on certain days of the traditional Chinese lunar calendar. During my 2 months in China, I will observe and document pilgrims and their religious ritual activities and conduct a series of interviews with monks and academics with knowledge of, or connections with, Baoguo Monastery and Mt Emei. The proposed informants will include members of the Sangha of Baoguo Monastery and other monasteries, research staff at Mt Emei Museum, and scholars at Sichuan University in Chengdu.
