Relationships between religious narratives and spaces in Dali on the Southern Silk Road, China: Case study of Shaxi

This paper selects a typical village in the Dali area (Yunnan, China), and investigates how the coexistence of a local religion and imported beliefs have influenced the built environment and its uses, especially its spaces and specific buildings. The flourishing exchange rooted in the Southern Silk Road since ancient times has been continued in the ‘New Silk Road’ (the Belt-Road initiative) of contemporary governmental planning.

The study focuses on religious beliefs and related rituals, brought by commercial and cultural exchanges along the route, which have influenced the physical spatial arrangement such as location selection and the spatial structure of the village. The town in the case study, Shaxi, mainly involves one local belief, Benzhu worship, and two external religions, Buddhism1 and Taoism. The different religious characteristics and elements represented and embedded in the village are crucial narrative elements through which to interpret the thriving cultural and commercial exchanges along the ancient trade route. The case study focuses on Shaxi because it is not only a typical village on the Southern Silk Road, but also a village that has been affected by the local policies of the current One Belt and One Road initiative.