宗教聖像作為文學符號的詮釋與意義──以老子、媽祖、哪吒為例

The Interpretation and Connotation of Religious Icons as Literary Symbols - Taking Laozi, Matzu and Nezha as Examples

宗教或文學，基本上都是作為展示人類生活與生存意識的一種修辭形態，援此，當文學作品以宗教聖像作為文本符號的書寫策略時，也將是一種意義的建構，意味著藉由擇選不同聖像符號或表現聖像多樣位格與性格表徵，昭示聖像形態轉化或變遷時，實已浮露作者展現社會實踐的賦形意義，並已陳明宗教聖像符號背後的一種文化或意識形態。本文主要關懷乃在於經由作家的想像與修辭，宗教聖像如何在文學文本先是被還以俗世之姿，而後在文學創作的衍繹中，展現參悟生命往復循環的人神變貌，本文的命題並兼及宗教聖像如何在現代文學作品展開符號轉義的路徑。道教中的三種聖像，如老子、媽祖與哪吒，原都與中國文化以及臺灣在地民俗有其重要的聯結性，因此作為本文觀測宗教聖像與文學符號交涉辨證之間的論述實踐。

Both religion and literature are rhetoric symbols to represent human life and existential consciousness. When a religious symbol was chosen as a sign in writing, it could be a meaningful structure, as such selection of religious icons or the demonstration of multi-positions and characters of these religious icons have surfaced the exterior meaning that changes with the trend of the times and presented the culture or ideology of that society. This paper discusses how the religious icons regained their sacredness from secularity in literary texts through a writer's imagination and rhetoric writing technique, and thereafter presented the recreating phenomena of life and death via the interpretation of previous literary works. The title of this paper has also included the paths that religious icons took to develop their symbol transformation in modern literature. Since Laozi, Matzu and Nezha, three important Taoism Gods, are all closely linked with Chinese culture and Taiwanese folklore, this paper employed them to observe and scrutinize the dialectics and discourse of religious icons and literary symbols.