Download or read book Buddhist and Taoist Practice in Medieval Chinese Society written by David W. Chappell and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Religion and Chinese Society Ancient and medieval China written by John Lagerwey and published by Chinese University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These volumes contain a selection of twenty-one essays presented in a conference convened jointly by the Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient and the Centre for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, on "Religion and Chinese Society: The Transformation of a Field and Its Implications for the Study of Chinese Culture." The collection provides as wide a coverage as possible of recent research in the history of Chinese religion and seeks to draw some tentative conclusions about the implications for the study of Chinese religion and society in general.
Download or read book Laughing at the Tao written by Livia Kohn and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early centuries after the introduction of Buddhism to China, the new religion had to come to terms with the worldview of the Confucian elite, the inherent Chinese sense of ethnic superiority, and China's indigenous higher religion of Taoism. The Xiaodao lun (Laughing at the Tao) is an important document of the debates among Buddhists and Taoists, debates that contributed to the process of cultural adaptation. Written by the Taoist renegade Zhen Luan in the year 570, this text aims to expose the absurdity and inconsistency of Taoist doctrine, mythology, ritual, and religious practice. In a complete and fully annotated translation of the Xiaodao lun, Livia Kohn draws on rich Japanese scholarship to place the work within the context of the debates and expose the political schemes behind the apparently religious disputes. Kohn's work offers rare insight into an important and hitherto largely unexplored episode in Chinese intellectual history. She examines the complexities of medieval Buddhism's relationship to Chinese statecraft and society and shows how the shifting fortunes of varying factions and values figured in this polemical confrontation. Three appendices complete the work, summarizing materials of both earlier and later debates and analyzing the Taoist sources cited in the Xiaodao lun, which brings together many Taoist materials that would otherwise be lost. Richly informed and highly relevant to an understanding of medieval China, Kohn's work greatly enhances the study of medieval Buddhist and Taoist myth, rhetoric, and ideology.
Download or read book Religion and Chinese Society Vol 1 written by John Lagerwey and published by The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. This book was released on 2021-09-24 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty years ago, Hu Shih's views of Chinese society and history were representative of Sinology in general: China itself had no native religion, just local customs; its only real religion was an import, Buddhism. These views have now been completely overturned, with massive implications for our understanding not only of China but also of humanity as a whole: it is no longer possible to imagine that at least one major traditional society constructed and construed itself without reference to a non-mundane world that permeated every facet of society, and it therefore becomes indispensable for students of China to take the history of Chinese religion into account and for students of religion to take into account the Chinese experience of and Chinese categories for dealing with religious phenomena. The present volumes contain a selection of twenty-one essays presented in a conference convened jointly by the Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient and the Centre for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, on "Religion and Chinese Society: The Transformation of a Field and Its Implications for the Study of Chinese Culture" held on May 29-June 2, 2000. The collection aims at providing as wide a coverage as possible of recent research in the history of Chinese religion and seeks to draw some tentative conclusions about the implications for the study of Chinese religion and society in general.
Download or read book The Historical Development of Religion in China written by Walter James Clennell and published by . This book was released on 1917 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History written by John Lagerwey and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive English-language introduction to Taoist ritual both for the scholar and the general reader. In this splendid account, Taoism is presented as a system of religious symbol and action deeply rooted in centuries of Chinese social life. In vivid detail, Lagerwey describes the intricacies of Taoist rituals as performed by a single Taoist priest in present-day Taiwan. With the methodology of a literary critic, he explains what the Taoist priests have done, and continue to do, as intercessors acting to protect their communities, and what these beliefs and practices mean to the followers.
Download or read book Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face written by Christine Mollier and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2008-01-07 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christine Mollier reveals in this volume previously unexplored dimensions of the interaction between Buddhism and Taoism in medieval China. While scholars of Chinese religions have long recognized the mutual influences linking the two traditions, Mollier here brings to light their intense contest for hegemony in the domains of scripture and ritual. Drawing on a far-reaching investigation of canonical texts, together with manuscript sources from Dunhuang and the monastic libraries of Japan—many of them studied here for the first time—she demonstrates the competition and complementarity of the two great Chinese religions in their quest to address personal and collective fears of diverse ills, including sorcery, famine, and untimely death. In this context, Buddhist apocrypha and Taoist scriptures were composed through a process of mutual borrowing, yielding parallel texts, Mollier argues, that closely mirrored one another. Life-extending techniques, astrological observances, talismans, spells, and the use of effigies and icons to resolve the fundamental preoccupations of medieval society were similarly incorporated in both religions. In many cases, as a result, one and the same body of material can be found in both Buddhist and Taoist guises. Among the exorcistic, prophylactic, and therapeutic ritual methods explored here in detail are the "Heavenly Kitchens" that grant divine nutrition to their adepts, incantations that were promoted to counteract bewitchment, as well as talismans for attaining longevity and the protection of stellar deities. The destiny of the Jiuku Tianzun, the Taoist bodhisattva whose salvific mission and iconography were modeled on Guanyin (Avalokitesvara), is examined at length. Through the case-studies set forth here, the patterns whereby medieval Buddhists and Taoists each appropriated and transformed for their own use the rites and scriptures oftheir rivals are revealed with unprecedented precision. Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face is abundantly illustrated with drawings and diagrams from canonical and manuscript sources, together with art and artifacts photographed by the author in the course of her field research in China. Sophisticated in its analysis, broad in its synthesis of a variety of difficult material, and original in its interpretations, it will be required reading for those interested in East Asian religions and in the history of the medieval Chinese sciences, including astrology, medicine and divination.
Download or read book Religion in Chinese society written by Chʻing-kʻun Yang and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1967 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Taoists of the High T ang written by Russell Kirkland and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Philosophy and Religion in Early Medieval China written by Alan K. L. Chan and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2010-08-04 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring a time of profound change, this book details the intellectual ferment after the fall of the Han dynasty. Questions about "heaven" and the affairs of the world that had seemed resolved by Han Confucianism resurfaced and demanded reconsideration. New currents in philosophy, religion, and intellectual life emerged to leave an indelible mark on the subsequent development of Chinese thought and culture. This period saw the rise of xuanxue ("dark learning" or "learning of the mysterious Dao"), the establishment of religious Daoism, and the rise of Buddhism. In examining the key ideas of xuanxue and focusing on its main proponents, the contributors to this volume call into question the often-presumed monolithic identity of this broad philosophical front. The volume also highlights the richness and complexity of religion in China during this period, examining the relationship between the Way of the Celestial Master and local, popular religious beliefs and practices, and discussing the relationship between religious Daoism and Buddhism.
Download or read book Imperiled Destinies written by Franciscus Verellen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Imperiled Destinies" examines the evolution of Daoist beliefs about human liability and redemption over eight centuries and outlines ritual procedures for rescuing an ill‐starred destiny. From the second through the tenth century CE, Daoism emerged as a liturgical organization that engaged vigorously with Buddhism and transformed Chinese thinking about suffering, the nature of evil, and the aims of liberation. In the fifth century, elements of classical Daoism combined with Indian yogic practices to interiorize the quest for deliverance. The medieval record portrays a world engulfed by evil, where human existence was mortgaged from birth and burdened by increasing debts and obligations in this world and the next. Against this gloomy outlook, Daoism offered ritual and sacramental instruments capable of acting on the unseen world, providing therapeutic relief and ecstatic release from apprehensions of death, disease, war, spoilt harvests, and loss. Drawing on prayer texts, liturgical sermons, and experiential narratives, Franciscus Verellen focuses on the Daoist vocabulary of bondage and redemption, the changing meanings of sacrifice, and metaphoric conceptualizations bridging the visible and invisible realms. The language of medieval supplicants envisaged the redemption of an imperiled destiny as debt forgiveness, and deliverance as healing, purification, release, or emergence from darkness into light.
Download or read book Religion and Chinese Society Taoism and local religion in modern China written by John Lagerwey and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Religion and Society in T ang and Sung China written by Patricia Buckley Ebrey and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1993-08-01 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The T'ang (618-907) and Sung (960-1279) dynasties were times of great change in China. The economy flourished, the population doubled, printing led to a great increase in the availability of books, Buddhism became a fully sinicized religion penetrating deeply into ordinary life. This volume represents a collaborative effort of nine scholars of Chinese religion, history, and thought to begin addressing the question of how changes in the religions of the Chinese people were implicated in the momentous social and cultural changes of this period.
Download or read book Changing Gods in Medieval China 1127 1276 written by Valerie Hansen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her study of medieval Chinese lay practices and beliefs, Valerie Hansen argues that social and economic developments underlay religious changes in the Southern Song. Unfamiliar with the contents of Buddhist and Daoist texts, the common people hired the practitioner or prayed to the god they thought could cure the ill or bring rain. As the economy rapidly developed, the gods, like the people who worshiped them, diversified: their realm of influence expanded as some gods began to deal on the national grain market and others advised their followers on business transactions. In order to trace this evolution, the author draws information from temple inscriptions, literary notes, the administrative law code, and local histories. By contrasting differing rates of religious change in the lowland and highland regions of the lower Yangzi valley, Hansen suggests that the commercial and social developments were far less uniform than previously thought. In 1100, nearly all people in South China worshiped gods who had been local residents prior to their deaths. The increasing mobility of cultivators in the lowland, rice-growing regions resulted in the adoption of gods from other places. Cults in the isolated mountain areas showed considerably less change. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Taoism written by Russell Kirkland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-05-07 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This clear and reliable introduction to Taoism (also known as Daoism) brings a fresh dimension to a tradition that has found a natural place in Western society. Examining Taoist sacred texts together with current scholarship, it surveys Taoism's ancient roots, contemporary heritage and role in daily life. From Taoism's spiritual philosophy to its practical perspectives on life and death, self-cultivation, morality, society, leadership and gender, Russell Kirkland's essential guide reveals the real contexts behind concepts such as Feng Shui and Tai Chi.
Download or read book Chinese Religious Life written by David A. Palmer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-25 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by a team of internationally renowned scholars, this volume provides an in-depth introduction to religion in contemporary China. Instead of adopting the traditional focus on pre-modern religious history and doctrinal traditions, Chinese Religious Life examines the social dimensions of religious life, with essays devoted to religion in urban, rural, and ethnic minority settings; to the religious dimensions of body, gender, environment, and civil society; and to the historical, sociological, economic, and political aspects of religion in contemporary Chinese society.
Download or read book The Buddhist Conquest of China written by Erik Zürcher and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-03-30 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the repeated request of many scholars and students here is a new edition of E. Zürcher's groundbreaking The Buddhist Conquest of China. In his extensive introduction Stephen F. Teiser (D.T. Suzuki Professor in Buddhist Studies, Princeton University) explains why the book is still the standard in the field of early Chinese Buddhism.
