Great clarity : Daoism and alchemy in early medieval China / Fabrizio Pregadio.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pregadio, Fabrizio.

Series:

Asian religions & cultures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Taoism--China--History.

Taoism.

Alchemy.

History.

China.

Alchemy--China--History.

China--Religion.

Religion.

Physical Description:

xvii, 367 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, [2006]

Summary:

This is the first book to examine extensively the religious aspects of Chinese alchemy. Its main focus is the relation of alchemy to the Daoist traditions of the early medieval period (third to sixth centuries). It shows how alchemy contributed to and was tightly integrated into the elaborate body of doctrines and practices that Daoists built at that time, from which Daoism as we know it today evolved. The book also darifies the origins of Chinese alchemy and the respective roles of alchemy and meditation in self-cultivation practices. It contains full translations of three important medieval texts, all of them accompanied by running commentaries, making available for the first time in English the gist of the early Chinese alchemical corpus.

Contents:

Part 1 The Heaven of Great Clarity and Its Revelations

1 The Early History of Chinese Alchemy and the Way of the Great Clarity 23

2 The Heaven of Great Clarity 35

3 The Great Clarity Corpus 52

Part 2 The Elixirs of the Great Clarity

4 The Crucible and the Elixir 67

5 The Ritual Sequence 79

6 The Medicines of Great Clarity 100

Part 3 A History of the Great Clarity

7 Gods, Demons, and Elixirs: Alchemy in Fourth-Century Jiangnan 123

8 The Way of the Great Clarity and Daoism in the Six Dynasties 140

Part 4 Texts of the Great Clarity

9 Scripture of the Nine Elixirs 159

10 Scripture of the Golden Liquor 188

11 Scripture of the Reverted Elixir in Nine Cycles 193

Part 5 The Legacy of the Great Clarity

12 The Later History of Chinese Alchemy and the Decline of the Great Clarity 203

A Dates of Texts in the Waidan Corpus 227

B Additional Notes on Great Clarity and Related Texts 231

C Additional Notes on the Commentary to the Scripture of the Nine Elixirs 241.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 319-336) and index.

ISBN:

0804751773

OCLC:

57669852