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A Library of Clouds : The Scripture of the Immaculate Numen and the Rewriting of Daoist Texts / Chao-jan Chang, J. E. E. Pettit; ed. by Stephen Bokenkamp, Chi Tim Lai.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: New Daoist StudiesPublisher: Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, [2020]Copyright date: ©2020Description: 1 online resource (376 p.) : 6 b&w illustrationsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780824884376
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 299.5/1482 23
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Series Editors’ Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Titles from the Daoist Canon -- Abbreviations -- Part I. Translators’ Introduction -- Background -- Chapter One. Thirty-One Fascicles: 11 Cataloguing Scriptures of the Heavens -- Chapter Two. Three Ones: 29 A Stereoscopic View of a Daoist Hagiography -- Chapter Three. Five Stars: 55 Remaking Daoist Ritual -- Chapter Four. Nine Palaces: 77 Later Reconstructions of Upper Clarity -- Chapter Five. Three Hundred Fascicles: 99 Rethinking the Authorship of Daoist Scriptures -- Conclusion -- Part II. Translation: The Most High Wondrous Scripture of the Immaculate Numen [Celestial Palace] and Penetrating Mystery of the Great Existence [Heaven] (Taishang suling dongxuan dayou miaojing 太上素靈洞玄大有妙經, DZ 1314) -- 1. The Three Grottoes -- 2. The Nine Palaces -- 3. The Three Ones -- 4. Three [Palaces] and Nine [Openings] -- 5. Illustrious Code of the Nine Perfected -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: From early times, Daoist writers claimed to receive scriptures via revelation from heavenly beings. In numerous cases, these writings were composed over the course of many nights and by different mediums. New revelations were often hastily appended, and the resulting unevenness gave rise to the impression that Daoist texts often appear slapdash and contain contradictions. A Library of Clouds focuses on the re-writing of Daoist scriptures in the Upper Clarity (Shangqing) lineage in fourth- and fifth-century China. Scholarship on Upper Clarity Daoism has been dominated by attempts to uncover “original” or “authentic” texts, which has resulted in the neglect of later scriptures—including the work fully translated and annotated here, the Scripture of the Immaculate Numen, one of the Three Wonders (sanqi) and among the most prized Daoist texts in medieval China. The scripture’s lack of a coherent structure and its different authorial voices have led many to see it not as a unified work but the creation of different editors who shaped and reshaped it over time.A Library of Clouds constructs new ways of understanding the complex authorship of texts like the Scripture of the Immaculate Numen and their place in early medieval Daoism. It stresses their significance in understanding the ways in which manuscripts were written, received, and distributed in early medieval China. By situating the scripture within its immediate hagiographic and ritual contexts, it suggests that this kind of revelatory literature is best understood as a pastiche of ideas, a process of weaving together previously circulating notions and beliefs into a new scriptural fabric.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Series Editors’ Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Titles from the Daoist Canon -- Abbreviations -- Part I. Translators’ Introduction -- Background -- Chapter One. Thirty-One Fascicles: 11 Cataloguing Scriptures of the Heavens -- Chapter Two. Three Ones: 29 A Stereoscopic View of a Daoist Hagiography -- Chapter Three. Five Stars: 55 Remaking Daoist Ritual -- Chapter Four. Nine Palaces: 77 Later Reconstructions of Upper Clarity -- Chapter Five. Three Hundred Fascicles: 99 Rethinking the Authorship of Daoist Scriptures -- Conclusion -- Part II. Translation: The Most High Wondrous Scripture of the Immaculate Numen [Celestial Palace] and Penetrating Mystery of the Great Existence [Heaven] (Taishang suling dongxuan dayou miaojing 太上素靈洞玄大有妙經, DZ 1314) -- 1. The Three Grottoes -- 2. The Nine Palaces -- 3. The Three Ones -- 4. Three [Palaces] and Nine [Openings] -- 5. Illustrious Code of the Nine Perfected -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

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From early times, Daoist writers claimed to receive scriptures via revelation from heavenly beings. In numerous cases, these writings were composed over the course of many nights and by different mediums. New revelations were often hastily appended, and the resulting unevenness gave rise to the impression that Daoist texts often appear slapdash and contain contradictions. A Library of Clouds focuses on the re-writing of Daoist scriptures in the Upper Clarity (Shangqing) lineage in fourth- and fifth-century China. Scholarship on Upper Clarity Daoism has been dominated by attempts to uncover “original” or “authentic” texts, which has resulted in the neglect of later scriptures—including the work fully translated and annotated here, the Scripture of the Immaculate Numen, one of the Three Wonders (sanqi) and among the most prized Daoist texts in medieval China. The scripture’s lack of a coherent structure and its different authorial voices have led many to see it not as a unified work but the creation of different editors who shaped and reshaped it over time.A Library of Clouds constructs new ways of understanding the complex authorship of texts like the Scripture of the Immaculate Numen and their place in early medieval Daoism. It stresses their significance in understanding the ways in which manuscripts were written, received, and distributed in early medieval China. By situating the scripture within its immediate hagiographic and ritual contexts, it suggests that this kind of revelatory literature is best understood as a pastiche of ideas, a process of weaving together previously circulating notions and beliefs into a new scriptural fabric.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 27. Jan 2023)