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Early Daoist dietary practices : examining ways to health and longevity / Shawn Arthur.

Van Pelt Library RA784 .A78 2013
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Arthur, Shawn, author.
Series:
Studies in body and religion
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Nutrition--Religious aspects--Taoism.
Nutrition.
Diet.
China.
Diet Therapy.
Health Behavior.
Longevity.
Religion and Medicine.
Religious Philosophies.
Medical Subjects:
Diet.
China.
Diet Therapy.
Health Behavior.
Longevity.
Religion and Medicine.
Religious Philosophies.
Physical Description:
ix, 276 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Place of Publication:
Lanham, Maryland : Lexington Books, [2013]
Summary:
Much as the modern Western world is concerned with diets, health, and anti-aging remedies, many early medieval Chinese Daoists also actively sought to improve their health and increase their longevity through specialized ascetic dietary practices. Focusing on a fifth-century manual of herbal-based, immortality-oriented recipes-the Lingbao Wufuxu (The Preface to the Five Lingbao Talismans of Numinous Treasure) - Shawn Arthur investigates the diets, their ingredients, and their expected range of natural and supernatural benefits. Analyzing the ways in which early Daoists systematically synthesized religion, Chinese medicine, and cosmological correlative logic, this book offers new understandings of important Daoist ideas regarding the body's composition and mutability, health and disease, grain avoidance (bigu) diets, the parasitic Three Worms, interacting with the spirit realm, and immortality. Arthur also employs a range of cross-disciplinary scientific and medical research to analyze the healing properties of Daoist self-cultivation diets and to consider some natural explanations for better understanding Daoist asceticism and its underlying world view. Book jacket.
Contents:
The Wufuxus recipe structure and content
Dietary regimens : from herbs to Qi
Healing and improving the physical body
Beyond physical health : the Wufuxus
Extraordinary claims
Daoist grain avoidance today
The Wufuxus ingredients and fasting
Analyzing dietary ideals and practices.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:
9780739178928
073917892X
OCLC:
829988736

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