英文摘要
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The worship of sages can be discussed in terms of symbolic representation. Sages are related to sorcerers/sorceresses, who are capable of communicating between Heaven and Earth and are the media among Heaven, Earth and humans. A symbol itself is the representation of the society and the belief, and this makes the abstract become concrete, the spiritual become material, and the individual become communal. The spiritual and ethical essence of the community is further carried into the ideals or patterns of being humans, such as managing to be sages, being an inner sage so as to rule the outer world, pursuit of morals in the inner mind, the unity of Heaven and Humans. In myths and in reality, any binary opposition is a mere symbol. However, once being worshipped and mythologicalized, sages and canons turn sacred.With the notions of ideology and cultural modals, this paper discusses such issues as disconnection between Heaven and Earth, axial breakthrough, continuity/discontinuity of the notion of existence and also looks into the distinguishing, sacred and ritual aspects of these issues, with the purpose of redefining the modem Confucian-Taoist cultures and thoughts.The cultural models play important roles ion the molding of personality. In the cultural models, culture and mentality are key elements. Culture provides the form of mentality, and mentality facilitates the development of culture. Cultural mental structure is thus formed and becomes the basis of the analysis of sage-worship receptive modals.
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