Negotiating Sanctity and Heritage: The Heritagization of Buddhist Ritual Music at North Wudang Temple, China
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48048/ajac.2026.133Keywords:
Heritagization, Intangible cultural heritage, Chinese Buddhist ritual music, Authenticity, EthnographyAbstract
This study critically examines the heritagization of Buddhist ritual music at North Wudang Temple, China. It serves as a lens to explore the complex interplay between religious tradition, state cultural governance, and local agency. Framed within critical heritage studies, we conceptualize heritagization as an active, contested, and political process of meaning-making and social negotiation. Through ethnography conducted between 2024 and 2025, the paper traces the transformation of living liturgy into state-managed intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Our analysis reveals a multi-layered process, including three core dimensions: the strategic construction of historical lineage, the tangible reconfiguration of musical texts and practices, and the polyphonic negotiations among monastics, officials, inheritors, and scholars. A key dynamic within this process is the tension between sacred authenticity (rooted in ritual efficacy) and secular heritage value (oriented toward display and management). The study introduces the concept of asymmetric innovation—wherein the capacity to initiate and legitimize changes to the tradition is unevenly distributed among actors, correlating with their institutional power and symbolic capital. We argue that the sustainability of religious ICH hinges not on fossilizing an authentic original, but on consciously negotiating its ongoing adaptation within a structured field of power, where the state holds significant definitional authority. This case contributes to theoretical debates on authenticity and cultural governance by theorizing asymmetric innovation as a key lens for understanding the negotiated co-production of religious heritage in state-led contexts.
Highlights
• Proposes asymmetric innovation as a new lens for analysing heritage governance.
• Reveals how heritagization reconfigures religious music into cultural heritage practice.
• Unpacks tensions between sacred authenticity and secular heritage value.
• Demonstrates transformation of texts, performances, and cultural actors.
• Reframes sustainability as ongoing negotiation rather than preservation of authenticity.
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