Zoroastrianism in Sichuan

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Zoroastrianism in Sichuan refers to the historical presence of Zoroastrianism in modern-day Sichuan province, that forms part of southwestern China. The Japanese professor Kiichirō Kanda [ja] was the first scholar to notice the Zoroastrian presence in medieval Sichuan, or Yizhou as it was officially known from late antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, but commonly referred to as Shu, after the realm's first polity, the ancient kingdom of Shu. He believed that Zoroastrianism was popular in the region during the Tang dynasty (618–907), after learning of the festival songs of the magi^[a] present in the yuefu folk music of Kuizhou, and reading an entry titled "The Princess [of Shu]" from the 16th-century encyclopedia Extended Investigations of the Mountain Hall [zh], in 1928. Fifty years later, the Hong Kong scholar Jao Tsung-I confirmed the existence of Zoroastrian temples in Sichuan during the Song dynasty (960–1279) in his article "Investigation of the Festival Songs of the Magi".^[b] Contemporary scholars such as Li Guotao and Hou Hui have researched the links between certain Zoroastrian deities and Erlang Shen, otherwise known as the Lord of Sichuan; as well as Yao Chongxin's more comprehensive research on the topic.

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