Carving the Sacred and the Secular: Religious Imagery in the Theatre Spaces of Qing-Dynasty Sichuan

In Qing-dynasty Sichuan, the decoration of guildhall and temple stages included Buddhist and Daoist imagery, local worship, and moral narratives. The selection of themes and the spatial arrangement were closely tied to the ritual traditions, commercial activities, and social interactions of the commissioning communities. Using Qing-dynasty Sichuan as the historical–geographical framework, we focus on the Xiqin Guildhall in Zigong, Yuwang Palace, and the Qi’an Assembly Hall in Chongqing, with supplementary reference to Jinhua Temple in Chengdu and other surviving sites. Drawing on fieldwork, iconographic analysis, and historical sources, we examine religious carvings and their relationships with moral narratives in spaces of performance and spectatorship. The findings demonstrate that the deities enshrined in a building do not directly determine the religious character of its stage imagery; theatrical use, narrative combinations, and architectural placement jointly shape its meanings. Through narratives of birthday celebrations, sea crossings, and supernatural feats, depictions of the Eight Immortals and arhats connect festive entertainment with prayers for blessings and protection. Placing individual deities around the stage perimeter further suggests a protective function. Within guildhalls, local deity worship, representations of ritual objects, and landscape narratives articulate merchant communities’ commitments to native-place religious traditions and their hopes for safe commercial travel. Carvings of filial exemplars, positioned near spectators, present familial affection and obligation as shared ethical ideals. Local worship and filial narratives thus offer complementary ways to affirm communal bonds through identification with a shared place of origin and the public expression of familial values. We argue that the selection and arrangement of shared iconographic resources place varying emphasis on divine protection, regional belonging, and moral instruction, revealing how stage decoration helped shape these communities’ public life.