Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China
Fabrizio Pregadio
Abstract
This book examines 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). The book 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. It also clarifies the origins of Chinese alchemy and the respective roles of alchemy and meditation in self-cultivation practices. The book contains full translations of three important medieval texts, all of them a ... More
This book examines 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). The book 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. It also clarifies the origins of Chinese alchemy and the respective roles of alchemy and meditation in self-cultivation practices. The book contains full translations of three important medieval texts, all of them accompanied by running commentaries, making available in English the gist of the early Chinese alchemical corpus.
Keywords:
Chinese alchemy,
Daoist traditions,
early medieval period,
Daoist doctrines,
Daoist practices,
Daoism,
meditation,
self-cultivation practices,
medieval texts,
Chinese alchemical corpus
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2006 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780804751773 |
| Published to Stanford Scholarship Online: June 2013 |
DOI:10.11126/stanford/9780804751773.001.0001 |
