RFIG Deity Lens Blog

About

I am examining how a deity statue is arranged in different temple altars, and how this reflects different perceptions of the same deity in temple communities.

This is the documentation and reflective space for my academic project DeityLens RFIG. Prototype here: DeityLens RFIG App (work in progress)

For the convenience of my research, I am compiling the corpus for deities worshipped by Singapore Chinese diaspora. First, I use LLM-assisted searches and preliminary categorization to extract publicly available information on the internet and in open access databases. Then I do manual verification and refinement of the information using a variety of methods. Basically, I just take my time to go to temples asking deities whether I can photograph them and then asking their people about the deities. Hopefully one day I can document most of the deities here in detail, especially the ones that exist here for at least a few generations but are not commonly heard of. Like Pokémon GO database.

(Internal murmur: And then I can probably use this as a database to do AI training on Bayesian probabilities and see whether I can create a humanities homework assistance app that identifies the deity and their information just by scanning photos, and we all can quickly churn out that information and finish our university assignments and go to sleep early.)

[Disclaimer: I am in the super long process of updating this corpus. The contents may not 100% accurately reflect the current status in Singapore Chinese temples, and details may change from time to time depending on what I find in related literature or from fieldwork. Thank you for bearing with me and my imperfections.]

I also post my reflections, musings, and observations during my fieldwork while I am testing out my methodology on Singapore Chinese temples, or simply some nice things I find along the way.

Theme of DeityLens RFIG

To summarize my work in one sentence: One decides the meaning of their existence.

History and circumstances may be beyond one’s control, but what one does with the cards they are dealt with decides their place in this world.

Labels are categorical terms coined in modern scholarship for analytical conveniences, but in lived reality, everything is intertwined because whatever we do is the result of our beliefs. Instead of boxing lived reality that is so fluid and diverse into pre-given categories, perhaps we can look at them from their processes and how practices came to be known as being of a certain category. (Paraphrased from 徐源教授’s article Daoing Medicine)

We live in a shared space. Here there are many different groups experiencing different realities. Individuals are often defined by how they relate to the groups, and whether they share their lived realities. (Paraphrased from Bordieu’s field theory) The factors affecting this process can include conditions at birth, or consequences from decisions made later in life.

Like deities, or even anything else, we have layers of meanings accumulated from past events that add together to what we do, and how we are seen right now. People see us from perspectives that suit them or how they need us in their lives. (Adapted from Duara’s superscription theory)

However, I believe while this knowledge does not set us free, it informs us to act deliberately. We can choose to be defined by others, or to decide what we want to do for ourselves. We can mindfully write our own meanings – what we want or don’t want for ourselves, while not denying the past or discounting perspectives that guide us in doing so. We can choose to relate to groups that help us grow and stop relating to those that stifle us, and that free will is what makes reality fluid. And that is to live.

DeityLens RFIG is to observe and show how this process happens in deities across communities defining their right to exist. I hope that whoever that encounters this project can draw some ideas from it and go back with peace and clarity.