www.quirinpress.com @QuirinPress Quirin Press Release “It is largely thanks to [Maspero’s] pioneer work in the fields of Chinese religion, anthropology, linguistics and history that China’s contribution to the achievement of man could first be reviewed on terms of parity with those of other civilizations. “To the question whether his discoveries, opinions and interpretations have been outdated by the subsequent thirty years’ research, it may be answered that leading scholars still rely with the utmost confidence on his writings as a framework whose validity has outdated their most recent findings, and whose detail has in many cases not been bettered.” — Michael Loewe, University of Cambridge (from the sleeve notes to the original 1981 edition.) Taoism and Chinese Religion Revised Edition by Henri Maspero Translated by Frank A. Kierman, Jr. Price for pb & E-book: $ 96.56 USD | €74.00 EUR | £ 58.40 GBP | $ 99.99 AUD Publication date: Sep. 2014 Paperback (Sep. 2015 E-book) Size: xli + 689 pages | 6 x 9 in. / 234 x 156 mm. | 2.339 lb / 1060 gm Formats available: Perfect Bound (pb) & E-book Series: Quirin Pinyin Updated Editions (QPUE) ISBN 13: 978-1-922169-04-4 Paper | 978-1-922169-05-1 E-book (Sep 2015)
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QuirinPressRelease_Maspero_TaoismQuirin Press Release
“It is largely thanks to [Maspero’s] pioneer work in the fields of Chinese religion, anthropology, linguistics and history that China’s contribution to the achievement of man could first be reviewed on terms of parity with those of other civilizations.
“To the question whether his discoveries, opinions and interpretations have been outdated by the subsequent thirty years’ research, it may be answered that leading scholars still rely with the utmost confidence on his writings as a framework whose validity has outdated their most recent findings, and whose detail has in many cases not been bettered.” —
Michael Loewe, University of Cambridge (from the sleeve notes to the original 1981 edition.)
Taoism and Chinese Religion
Translated by Frank A. Kierman, Jr.
Price for pb & E-book: $ 96.56 USD | €74.00 EUR | £ 58.40 GBP | $ 99.99 AUD
Publication date: Sep. 2014 Paperback (Sep. 2015 E-book)
Size: xli + 689 pages | 6 x 9 in. / 234 x 156 mm. | 2.339 lb / 1060 gm
Formats available: Perfect Bound (pb) & E-book
Series: Quirin Pinyin Updated Editions (QPUE)
ISBN 13: 978-1-922169-04-4 Paper | 978-1-922169-05-1 E-book (Sep 2015)
… one of the greatest attractions of Maspero’s writings in this volume (and one that will endure even when our own researches eventually make us better informed than he was on every topic upon which he touched), is the invaluable picture disclosed to us of a mature sinologist remarkable for his broad erudition and penetrating insight confronting a field of research completely untouched by earlier scholars.
From the introduction by T. H. Barrett
About this book
This book is a translation of Le Taoisme et les Religions Chinoises, which was posthumously published in France in 1971. It is the first English translation of most of the seminal works on Chinese religion of the great sinologist Henri Maspero. First released by The University of Massachusetts Press in 1981, this Quirin Press Revised Edition brings back into print this classic of Western sinology and offers the full original text with the following features:
Older Wade-Giles transliteration fully updated and revised to the
current Pinyin standard.
Expanded index including Chinese characters
Keywords: Daoism | China – China | Religion
Maspero (1883-1945) was the first Western scholar to study the vast and recondite compendium of Daoist writing, the Daozang, and explore its historic meaning. The first part of the book closely examines Chinese society, religion, and folk-myth; the second part specifically focuses on the practice and form of Daoism and includes an extensive investigation of yoga-like procedures of nutrition, breathing exercises, and sexual techniques—all designed to ensure personal immortality in ancient Daoism. The titles of the nine “books” comprising this study give an indication of its breadth and variety: Chinese Religion in Its Historical Development; The Mythology of Modern China; The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese and of the Modern Tai; How Was Buddhism Introduced into China?; Daoism in Chinese Religious Beliefs of the Six Dynasties Period; The Poet Xi Kang and the Club of Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove; An Essay on Daoism in the First Centuries CE; How to Communicate with the Daoist Gods; Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle” in the Ancient Daoist Religion. About the Author: The late Henri Maspero (1883–1945) was Professor of Chinese
at the Collège de France, Paris. He died in Buchenwald. Related titles by Henri Maspero: China in Antiquity, Revised Edition
Quirin Press (Forthcoming Mid 2015)
www.quirinpress.com QP @QuirinPress
Quirin Pinyin Updated Editions (QPUE)
New editions that update and revise classics of Western sinology in line with current scholarship and practices (e.g. the older Wade-Giles transliteration of Chinese words updated to the current Pinyin standard). All QPUE titles are published in both paperback and E-book formats.
Series titles include the following Revised Editions:
The Poetry of the Early Tang, by Stephen Owen
The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High Tang, by Stephen Owen
Taoism and Chinese Religion, by Henri Maspero
China in Antiquity, by Henri Maspero
Zen Dust: The History of the Koan and Koan Study in Rinzai (Linji) Zen, by Isshu Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki
Lunheng: The Complete Essays of Wang Chong, Translated & annotated by Alfred Forke
For further details visit: www.quirinpress.com Twitter: @quirinpress
blank page
Quirin Press Melbourne & Basel
2014
Published by Quirin Press P.O. Box 4226, Melbourne University, Vic. 3052, Australia E-mail: [email protected] http://www.quirinpress.com
This work is a translation of Henri Maspero: Le Taoïsme et les religions chinoises © 1971 by Gallimard. Copyright © 1981 by The University of Massachusetts Press. Copyright © 2014 by Quirin Press for this second revised edition.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
The National Library of Australia Cataloging-in-Publication entry: Maspero, Henri, 1883-1945, author. Taoism and Chinese religion / Henri Maspero; Frank A. Kierman, Jr. (translator). Revised edition. ISBN: 9781922169044 (paperback) Quirin Pinyin Updated Editions (QPUE) Includes bibliographical references and index. Taoism—China. | China—Religion. Kierman, Frank A. (Frank Algerton), 1914- translator. 299.5140951
ISBN: 978-1-922169-04-4(pbk.) ISBN: 978-1-922169-05-1(E-book)
Printed on acid-free paper
The notes by Yoshio Kawakatsu, from Dky, the 1966 translation of Maspero’s work into Japanese, published by Tkai Daigaku Shuppankai (Tkai University Press), Tokyo, appear in English translation by kind permission of Yoshio Kawakatsu.
Publisher’s Note To The Quirin Press Revised Edition
The present publication in the Quirin Pinyin Updated Editions (QPUE) series updates and revises Taoism and Chinese Religion by Henri Maspero, which was originally published by The University of Massachusetts Press in 1981.
The revisions bring this title in line with current scholarship and practices. Apart from updating the older Wade-Giles transliteration of Chinese words to the current pinyin standard, the text has been fully re-set and any inconsistencies and typographical errors corrected.
Given that the term taoism is generally accepted and recognized as a word in the English language, the older Wade-Giles transliteration is retained for the title of the book; within the text, however, the pinyin daoism is used.
For the sake of consistency Chinese names in bibliographic entries have been updated to pinyin, even though any Wade-Giles translitera- tions in English language titles have been retained. The index has been fully revised and expanded to include Chinese characters where ap- propriate. Chinese characters have also been added to the text where appropriate, save for any characters that could not be established from original sources with absolute certainty.
For the parts they have played in the production and publication of this revised edition of Henri Maspero's unique work, we are indebted to a number of people and organizations. Our thanks go to Yvonne Crevier of The University of Massachusetts Press for permission to re-issue this title; to Professor Barrett for the update to his introduction; and to Cheryl Hutty for proofing the work and implementing the extensive pinyin updating and checking of all the Chinese characters.
Quirin Press Melbourne, 2014
Contents
Publisher’s Note to the Quirin Press Revised Edition vii Contents ix Introduction by T. H. Barrett xiii Translator’s Preface xxxiii Original Preface by Max Kaltenmark xxxvii
BOOK I Chinese Religion in Its Historical Development
1. Ancient Religion 3 2. The Religious Crisis of the Warring States Period 19 3. Daoism 28 4. Buddhism 42 5. Confucianism 59
BOOK II The Mythology of Modern China
1. Popular Religion and the Three Religions 87 2. The Supreme Gods 99 A. The Jade Emperor, Yuhuang 99 B. The Family and Court of the Jade Emperor 102 C. Celestial Administration and Ministries 103 D. Heaven and the Supreme Emperor in Imperial Worship 105 3. The Gods of Nature 108 A. The Sun and the Moon 108 B. The Old Woman Who Sweeps Heaven Clear 109 C. Sire Thunder and the Mother of Lightning 110 D. The Rain and the Wind 111 E. The Dragon-Kings, Longwang 112
x Contentsx Contents
4. The Gods in Charge of Administrative Bodies 115 A. The Grand Emperor of the Eastern Peak 115 B. The Gods of Administrative Districts 119 C. Family Gods 126 5. Gods of Professions, Trades, and Guilds 147 A. Civil Mandarins 147 B. Military Mandarins 157 C. The Peasants 158 D. Sailors: The Empress of Heaven (Tianhou ) 165 E. Tradesmen and Artisans 168 6. Gods Charged with Looking After Men Individually 171 A. Guandi 171 B. The Supreme Lord of Dark Heaven
(Xuantian Shangdi ) 178 C. The Mother of the Bushel (Doumu ) 179 D. The Three Agents (Sanguan ) 180 E. The Three Stars (Gods of Happiness) 182 F. The Eighteen Arhats and the Eight Immortals 184 G. Daoist and Buddhist Gods Who Protect Women 187 H. Immortal Zhang Who Gives Male Children 196 I. Gods of Illnesses and Healing Gods 198 7. Gods of the Other World 201 A. The Ten Hells and Their Kings 201 B. The Life of Souls in the Hells 208 C. The Bodhisattva Dizang (Kshitigarbha) 214 D. The Paradise of Amitbha 218 E. The Immortals and the Queen Mother of the West,
Xiwangmu 222
Ancient Chinese and of the Modern Tai
1. Peasant Life 227 2. Spring Festivals 236 3. Official Religion 248 4. Mythology 258 5. Funeral Customs Among the Black Tai of
Upper Tonkin 273
of the Six Dynasties Period
1. Daoist Adepts and the Search for Immortality: Bodily Techniques 301
2. Spiritual Techniques: Inner Vision, Meditation, and Mystical Union 309
3. The Daoist Church and the Salvation of the Faithful: Institutions and Ceremonies 324
BOOK VI
The Poet Xi Kang and the Club of Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove 341
BOOK VII An Essay on Daoism in the First Centuries CE
Preface by Paul Demiéville 353 Bibliographical Introduction 354 1. Individual Religious Life and the Search for Immortality 360 A. Outer Religious Life: Practises and Exercises 362 B. Inner Religious Life: Gods and the Adept’s
Relations to Them 387 2. Daoist Communities and Public Worship 414 A. Organization of Communities in the Yellow Turbans
Period 415 B. Collective Festivals and Ceremonies 420 C. Ceremonies for the Dead 430 D. Collective Daoism and Individual Daoism:
The Evolution of the Conception of the Gods 431 E. Additional Note on the Celestial Masters
of the Zhang Family 438 3. Daoism and the Beginnings of Buddhism in China 442
xii Contents
4. Appendix: Historical Notes on the Origins and Development of the Daoist Religion up to the Han Period 455
A. Techniques of Immortality and Mystical Life in the Daoist School of Zhuangzi’s Time 455
B. Daoism Under the Qin and the Han 469
BOOK VIII
BOOK IX Methods of “Nourishing the Vital
Principle” in the Ancient Daoist Religion
Introduction 487 1. First Part: Breathing Techniques 498 A. Embryonic Respiration 499 B. Breathing Procedures Other than Embryonic Respiration 536 2. Second Part: Methods of Uniting Yin and Yang
to Nourish the Vital Principle 545 3. Third Part: Gymnastics, Daoyin 561
Reference Matter:
Notes to the Text 575 Key to Sources Maspero Used 657 Index 665
Introduction
The translation into English of Henri Maspero’s writings on Daoism and Chinese religion underlines the enduring value of a most remarkable achievement in the history of the study of religion, a classic of sino- logical scholarship that in its own day constituted an unprecedented advance, and, in many ways, remains unsurpassed even now. By the time the Gestapo took Maspero to his eventual death in Buchenwald in 1945, he had spent a quarter of a century investigating Daoism and, based upon study of the texts from its most creative period, had arrived at an understanding of that religion’s beliefs and practices such as no non-Chinese or even Chinese had attained before him and few have attained since. His perception of the problems involved in under- standing the nature of Daoism has influenced a whole generation of scholarship both in East and West, and his presentation of Daoism as a religious system remains a synthesis unique to this day, incorporat- ing research on topics untouched as yet by any successor.
This book, in fact, represents the most remarkable work of a very remarkable man.1 Henri Maspero was the son of an Egyptologist, Gaston Maspero (1846–1916),2 reputedly the last and certainly the greatest in his day of those who maintained a complete mastery of all the various disciplines relevant to the subject. Henri Maspero was himself part of a like era of giants in the study of China. This was the first era to pro- duce completely professional scholars capable of holding their own in terms of erudition with their Chinese and Japanese contemporaries,
xiv Introduction
yet the last era in which a scholar was expected to display the breadth of learning of Maspero’s father’s generation. In East Asia too a new age was dawning during Maspero’s lifetime, which was to bring to academic life another unique transitional generation, armed with a complete traditional education yet eager to take advantage of the modern Western approach to history. Small wonder that we are now beginning to look back to this period with renewed interest.
Maspero was not the first grand master of French sinology: his teacher Édouard Chavannes by the time of his death already had done much to assure the high standards maintained by his pupils through his insistence on accuracy in translation and his broad treatment not only of political history but also of religion and of China’s foreign con- tacts. Maspero’s slightly older fellow pupil Paul Pelliot extended his erudition to these areas and others besides, laying particular stress on a sound knowledge of bibliographical problems and displaying an almost superhuman breadth of reading in primary and second- ary sources. But Chavannes died before he could complete many of the major tasks in which he was engaged, while Pelliot, whatever the boldness of his deeds in China under the declining Qing dynasty, appears always to have quailed in the face of his own erudition and rarely succeeded in marshaling his knowledge into any major inter- pretative study.
However disparate Maspero’s own publications may seem, his urge towards a synthesis of his findings was always much stronger. He saw linguistic history, textual criticism, art, mythology, epigraphy, and the history of science as contributing to the total picture of Chi- nese history. Even his extensive studies in the history of Annam and particularly his many years of ethnographic research in Indo-China provided comparative materials suggesting to him new ways of view- ing the ancient society of China. While still in his forties he wrote a comprehensive history of the pre-imperial age and thereafter was engaged upon research towards a subsequent volume on the period up until the Sui dynasty. This involved him in groundbreaking work in such areas as economic history and led directly to the studies of the Daoist religion translated here.
Yet a full appreciation of the place of Maspero’s work in the histo- ry of Daoist studies requires some understanding of the way in which Daoist literature was disseminated in traditional China and the direc- tion that research into this literature has taken up until the present.
xvIntroduction
For the Daoism that managed to perpetuate itself throughout Chinese history was not a great evangelizing movement proclaiming a new message to all mankind but rather a graded hierarchy of initiates dis- pensing occult knowledge to disciples persistent enough to learn and wealthy enough to pay initiation fees. The tendency to preserve eso- teric secrecy in Daoism was and is strong and, had not countervailing forces also been present, it is doubtful whether modern scholarship would have been left with much in the way of materials to study.
It is fortunate that almost from its inception Daoism had to com- pete with Buddhism, a universal religion organized along very differ- ent lines. Not the least of the results of this was that various Daoist groups which had originally maintained separate scriptural traditions came to conceive of themselves as belonging to a single hierarchy of teachings opposed to Buddhism, just as the diverse Mahayana and Hinayana doctrines were all seen as the teaching of the Buddha. This conception further led to the practice of ranging the various Daoist scriptures together in a single canon after the Buddhist model, prob- ably by the middle of the fifth century CE.3 It was an act of religious merit to copy out Buddhist scriptures, especially the whole canon, so perhaps it is not surprising that we find the Daoist canon also copied out under imperial auspices during the seventh century.4 Under the Northern Song dynasty in 1116 or 1117 such an imperially spon- sored compilation was printed for the first time: the title of the col- lection included the word Daozang , now the normal term for the Daoist canon.5
Though this edition and two others that were produced under the Qin and Yuan dynasties have completely disappeared, a further, final edition in 5,305 fascicles, compiled and published by the Ming dynasty in 1445 has survived, together with a supplement in 180 fasci- cles produced in 1607. Maspero used a photolithographic reproduction of both the main canon and supplement based on a copy formerly kept in the Baiyun guan , Beijing ; this reproduction was made in Shanghai in 1926.
There is a faint chance that Maspero’s one or two apparent mis- readings indicate occasional use of another source. As noted by M. Kaltenmark, Maspero erred in believing that 1445 marked the last time that the Daozang was actually printed. The date 1598 may be found on one of the two fragmentary copies of the Daozang in Paris, and this date, and even 1524, is found on such a copy in Tokyo; we hear of the
xvi Introduction
imperial donation of copies of the canon (presumably printed ad hoc) to Daoist establishments at several other dates during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Since one copy in Tokyo—more complete than most and apparently deriving for the most part from the 1445 printing— manifests a small number of minor textual variants when compared with the photolithographic edition, it may be that the printing blocks, which were eventually destroyed during the Boxer uprising, were par- tially or totally recut on one or more occasions. The Baiyun guan copy itself is usually taken as deriving from the 1445 printing, apart from a few portions repaired in 1845, so whether Beijing, Tokyo, or Paris possesses the oldest copy would in any case seem to be open to ques- tion.6
At all events the Daoist canon remained a rare work prior to 1926, which must in part explain why Maspero found himself confronting a vast body of literature almost totally untouched by traditional Chinese scholarship. The contrast with Buddhism is marked: not only do we have surviving editions of the Buddhist canon produced in China dat- ing back to the Song, Qin, and Yuan dynasties, but Korean and Japanese editions besides. The earliest collated edition with movable type had already been produced in Japan by 1885. What is more, many of these editions were financed solely by private subscription and specifically destined for wide circulation, quite unlike the Daoist canon, which seems to have been mainly used as a symbol of imperial munificence. Perhaps it is because of the occult nature of its contents, as much as because of its value as a rarity, that access to the Baiyun guan copy— in recent times at least—was often restricted; only a sister institution in Shanghai possessed a copy equally complete and it was apparently even less accessible.7 It is true that a Qing dynasty anthology of the canon, the Daozang jiyao , did enjoy a wider circulation, par- ticularly…
“It is largely thanks to [Maspero’s] pioneer work in the fields of Chinese religion, anthropology, linguistics and history that China’s contribution to the achievement of man could first be reviewed on terms of parity with those of other civilizations.
“To the question whether his discoveries, opinions and interpretations have been outdated by the subsequent thirty years’ research, it may be answered that leading scholars still rely with the utmost confidence on his writings as a framework whose validity has outdated their most recent findings, and whose detail has in many cases not been bettered.” —
Michael Loewe, University of Cambridge (from the sleeve notes to the original 1981 edition.)
Taoism and Chinese Religion
Translated by Frank A. Kierman, Jr.
Price for pb & E-book: $ 96.56 USD | €74.00 EUR | £ 58.40 GBP | $ 99.99 AUD
Publication date: Sep. 2014 Paperback (Sep. 2015 E-book)
Size: xli + 689 pages | 6 x 9 in. / 234 x 156 mm. | 2.339 lb / 1060 gm
Formats available: Perfect Bound (pb) & E-book
Series: Quirin Pinyin Updated Editions (QPUE)
ISBN 13: 978-1-922169-04-4 Paper | 978-1-922169-05-1 E-book (Sep 2015)
… one of the greatest attractions of Maspero’s writings in this volume (and one that will endure even when our own researches eventually make us better informed than he was on every topic upon which he touched), is the invaluable picture disclosed to us of a mature sinologist remarkable for his broad erudition and penetrating insight confronting a field of research completely untouched by earlier scholars.
From the introduction by T. H. Barrett
About this book
This book is a translation of Le Taoisme et les Religions Chinoises, which was posthumously published in France in 1971. It is the first English translation of most of the seminal works on Chinese religion of the great sinologist Henri Maspero. First released by The University of Massachusetts Press in 1981, this Quirin Press Revised Edition brings back into print this classic of Western sinology and offers the full original text with the following features:
Older Wade-Giles transliteration fully updated and revised to the
current Pinyin standard.
Expanded index including Chinese characters
Keywords: Daoism | China – China | Religion
Maspero (1883-1945) was the first Western scholar to study the vast and recondite compendium of Daoist writing, the Daozang, and explore its historic meaning. The first part of the book closely examines Chinese society, religion, and folk-myth; the second part specifically focuses on the practice and form of Daoism and includes an extensive investigation of yoga-like procedures of nutrition, breathing exercises, and sexual techniques—all designed to ensure personal immortality in ancient Daoism. The titles of the nine “books” comprising this study give an indication of its breadth and variety: Chinese Religion in Its Historical Development; The Mythology of Modern China; The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese and of the Modern Tai; How Was Buddhism Introduced into China?; Daoism in Chinese Religious Beliefs of the Six Dynasties Period; The Poet Xi Kang and the Club of Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove; An Essay on Daoism in the First Centuries CE; How to Communicate with the Daoist Gods; Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle” in the Ancient Daoist Religion. About the Author: The late Henri Maspero (1883–1945) was Professor of Chinese
at the Collège de France, Paris. He died in Buchenwald. Related titles by Henri Maspero: China in Antiquity, Revised Edition
Quirin Press (Forthcoming Mid 2015)
www.quirinpress.com QP @QuirinPress
Quirin Pinyin Updated Editions (QPUE)
New editions that update and revise classics of Western sinology in line with current scholarship and practices (e.g. the older Wade-Giles transliteration of Chinese words updated to the current Pinyin standard). All QPUE titles are published in both paperback and E-book formats.
Series titles include the following Revised Editions:
The Poetry of the Early Tang, by Stephen Owen
The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High Tang, by Stephen Owen
Taoism and Chinese Religion, by Henri Maspero
China in Antiquity, by Henri Maspero
Zen Dust: The History of the Koan and Koan Study in Rinzai (Linji) Zen, by Isshu Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki
Lunheng: The Complete Essays of Wang Chong, Translated & annotated by Alfred Forke
For further details visit: www.quirinpress.com Twitter: @quirinpress
blank page
Quirin Press Melbourne & Basel
2014
Published by Quirin Press P.O. Box 4226, Melbourne University, Vic. 3052, Australia E-mail: [email protected] http://www.quirinpress.com
This work is a translation of Henri Maspero: Le Taoïsme et les religions chinoises © 1971 by Gallimard. Copyright © 1981 by The University of Massachusetts Press. Copyright © 2014 by Quirin Press for this second revised edition.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
The National Library of Australia Cataloging-in-Publication entry: Maspero, Henri, 1883-1945, author. Taoism and Chinese religion / Henri Maspero; Frank A. Kierman, Jr. (translator). Revised edition. ISBN: 9781922169044 (paperback) Quirin Pinyin Updated Editions (QPUE) Includes bibliographical references and index. Taoism—China. | China—Religion. Kierman, Frank A. (Frank Algerton), 1914- translator. 299.5140951
ISBN: 978-1-922169-04-4(pbk.) ISBN: 978-1-922169-05-1(E-book)
Printed on acid-free paper
The notes by Yoshio Kawakatsu, from Dky, the 1966 translation of Maspero’s work into Japanese, published by Tkai Daigaku Shuppankai (Tkai University Press), Tokyo, appear in English translation by kind permission of Yoshio Kawakatsu.
Publisher’s Note To The Quirin Press Revised Edition
The present publication in the Quirin Pinyin Updated Editions (QPUE) series updates and revises Taoism and Chinese Religion by Henri Maspero, which was originally published by The University of Massachusetts Press in 1981.
The revisions bring this title in line with current scholarship and practices. Apart from updating the older Wade-Giles transliteration of Chinese words to the current pinyin standard, the text has been fully re-set and any inconsistencies and typographical errors corrected.
Given that the term taoism is generally accepted and recognized as a word in the English language, the older Wade-Giles transliteration is retained for the title of the book; within the text, however, the pinyin daoism is used.
For the sake of consistency Chinese names in bibliographic entries have been updated to pinyin, even though any Wade-Giles translitera- tions in English language titles have been retained. The index has been fully revised and expanded to include Chinese characters where ap- propriate. Chinese characters have also been added to the text where appropriate, save for any characters that could not be established from original sources with absolute certainty.
For the parts they have played in the production and publication of this revised edition of Henri Maspero's unique work, we are indebted to a number of people and organizations. Our thanks go to Yvonne Crevier of The University of Massachusetts Press for permission to re-issue this title; to Professor Barrett for the update to his introduction; and to Cheryl Hutty for proofing the work and implementing the extensive pinyin updating and checking of all the Chinese characters.
Quirin Press Melbourne, 2014
Contents
Publisher’s Note to the Quirin Press Revised Edition vii Contents ix Introduction by T. H. Barrett xiii Translator’s Preface xxxiii Original Preface by Max Kaltenmark xxxvii
BOOK I Chinese Religion in Its Historical Development
1. Ancient Religion 3 2. The Religious Crisis of the Warring States Period 19 3. Daoism 28 4. Buddhism 42 5. Confucianism 59
BOOK II The Mythology of Modern China
1. Popular Religion and the Three Religions 87 2. The Supreme Gods 99 A. The Jade Emperor, Yuhuang 99 B. The Family and Court of the Jade Emperor 102 C. Celestial Administration and Ministries 103 D. Heaven and the Supreme Emperor in Imperial Worship 105 3. The Gods of Nature 108 A. The Sun and the Moon 108 B. The Old Woman Who Sweeps Heaven Clear 109 C. Sire Thunder and the Mother of Lightning 110 D. The Rain and the Wind 111 E. The Dragon-Kings, Longwang 112
x Contentsx Contents
4. The Gods in Charge of Administrative Bodies 115 A. The Grand Emperor of the Eastern Peak 115 B. The Gods of Administrative Districts 119 C. Family Gods 126 5. Gods of Professions, Trades, and Guilds 147 A. Civil Mandarins 147 B. Military Mandarins 157 C. The Peasants 158 D. Sailors: The Empress of Heaven (Tianhou ) 165 E. Tradesmen and Artisans 168 6. Gods Charged with Looking After Men Individually 171 A. Guandi 171 B. The Supreme Lord of Dark Heaven
(Xuantian Shangdi ) 178 C. The Mother of the Bushel (Doumu ) 179 D. The Three Agents (Sanguan ) 180 E. The Three Stars (Gods of Happiness) 182 F. The Eighteen Arhats and the Eight Immortals 184 G. Daoist and Buddhist Gods Who Protect Women 187 H. Immortal Zhang Who Gives Male Children 196 I. Gods of Illnesses and Healing Gods 198 7. Gods of the Other World 201 A. The Ten Hells and Their Kings 201 B. The Life of Souls in the Hells 208 C. The Bodhisattva Dizang (Kshitigarbha) 214 D. The Paradise of Amitbha 218 E. The Immortals and the Queen Mother of the West,
Xiwangmu 222
Ancient Chinese and of the Modern Tai
1. Peasant Life 227 2. Spring Festivals 236 3. Official Religion 248 4. Mythology 258 5. Funeral Customs Among the Black Tai of
Upper Tonkin 273
of the Six Dynasties Period
1. Daoist Adepts and the Search for Immortality: Bodily Techniques 301
2. Spiritual Techniques: Inner Vision, Meditation, and Mystical Union 309
3. The Daoist Church and the Salvation of the Faithful: Institutions and Ceremonies 324
BOOK VI
The Poet Xi Kang and the Club of Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove 341
BOOK VII An Essay on Daoism in the First Centuries CE
Preface by Paul Demiéville 353 Bibliographical Introduction 354 1. Individual Religious Life and the Search for Immortality 360 A. Outer Religious Life: Practises and Exercises 362 B. Inner Religious Life: Gods and the Adept’s
Relations to Them 387 2. Daoist Communities and Public Worship 414 A. Organization of Communities in the Yellow Turbans
Period 415 B. Collective Festivals and Ceremonies 420 C. Ceremonies for the Dead 430 D. Collective Daoism and Individual Daoism:
The Evolution of the Conception of the Gods 431 E. Additional Note on the Celestial Masters
of the Zhang Family 438 3. Daoism and the Beginnings of Buddhism in China 442
xii Contents
4. Appendix: Historical Notes on the Origins and Development of the Daoist Religion up to the Han Period 455
A. Techniques of Immortality and Mystical Life in the Daoist School of Zhuangzi’s Time 455
B. Daoism Under the Qin and the Han 469
BOOK VIII
BOOK IX Methods of “Nourishing the Vital
Principle” in the Ancient Daoist Religion
Introduction 487 1. First Part: Breathing Techniques 498 A. Embryonic Respiration 499 B. Breathing Procedures Other than Embryonic Respiration 536 2. Second Part: Methods of Uniting Yin and Yang
to Nourish the Vital Principle 545 3. Third Part: Gymnastics, Daoyin 561
Reference Matter:
Notes to the Text 575 Key to Sources Maspero Used 657 Index 665
Introduction
The translation into English of Henri Maspero’s writings on Daoism and Chinese religion underlines the enduring value of a most remarkable achievement in the history of the study of religion, a classic of sino- logical scholarship that in its own day constituted an unprecedented advance, and, in many ways, remains unsurpassed even now. By the time the Gestapo took Maspero to his eventual death in Buchenwald in 1945, he had spent a quarter of a century investigating Daoism and, based upon study of the texts from its most creative period, had arrived at an understanding of that religion’s beliefs and practices such as no non-Chinese or even Chinese had attained before him and few have attained since. His perception of the problems involved in under- standing the nature of Daoism has influenced a whole generation of scholarship both in East and West, and his presentation of Daoism as a religious system remains a synthesis unique to this day, incorporat- ing research on topics untouched as yet by any successor.
This book, in fact, represents the most remarkable work of a very remarkable man.1 Henri Maspero was the son of an Egyptologist, Gaston Maspero (1846–1916),2 reputedly the last and certainly the greatest in his day of those who maintained a complete mastery of all the various disciplines relevant to the subject. Henri Maspero was himself part of a like era of giants in the study of China. This was the first era to pro- duce completely professional scholars capable of holding their own in terms of erudition with their Chinese and Japanese contemporaries,
xiv Introduction
yet the last era in which a scholar was expected to display the breadth of learning of Maspero’s father’s generation. In East Asia too a new age was dawning during Maspero’s lifetime, which was to bring to academic life another unique transitional generation, armed with a complete traditional education yet eager to take advantage of the modern Western approach to history. Small wonder that we are now beginning to look back to this period with renewed interest.
Maspero was not the first grand master of French sinology: his teacher Édouard Chavannes by the time of his death already had done much to assure the high standards maintained by his pupils through his insistence on accuracy in translation and his broad treatment not only of political history but also of religion and of China’s foreign con- tacts. Maspero’s slightly older fellow pupil Paul Pelliot extended his erudition to these areas and others besides, laying particular stress on a sound knowledge of bibliographical problems and displaying an almost superhuman breadth of reading in primary and second- ary sources. But Chavannes died before he could complete many of the major tasks in which he was engaged, while Pelliot, whatever the boldness of his deeds in China under the declining Qing dynasty, appears always to have quailed in the face of his own erudition and rarely succeeded in marshaling his knowledge into any major inter- pretative study.
However disparate Maspero’s own publications may seem, his urge towards a synthesis of his findings was always much stronger. He saw linguistic history, textual criticism, art, mythology, epigraphy, and the history of science as contributing to the total picture of Chi- nese history. Even his extensive studies in the history of Annam and particularly his many years of ethnographic research in Indo-China provided comparative materials suggesting to him new ways of view- ing the ancient society of China. While still in his forties he wrote a comprehensive history of the pre-imperial age and thereafter was engaged upon research towards a subsequent volume on the period up until the Sui dynasty. This involved him in groundbreaking work in such areas as economic history and led directly to the studies of the Daoist religion translated here.
Yet a full appreciation of the place of Maspero’s work in the histo- ry of Daoist studies requires some understanding of the way in which Daoist literature was disseminated in traditional China and the direc- tion that research into this literature has taken up until the present.
xvIntroduction
For the Daoism that managed to perpetuate itself throughout Chinese history was not a great evangelizing movement proclaiming a new message to all mankind but rather a graded hierarchy of initiates dis- pensing occult knowledge to disciples persistent enough to learn and wealthy enough to pay initiation fees. The tendency to preserve eso- teric secrecy in Daoism was and is strong and, had not countervailing forces also been present, it is doubtful whether modern scholarship would have been left with much in the way of materials to study.
It is fortunate that almost from its inception Daoism had to com- pete with Buddhism, a universal religion organized along very differ- ent lines. Not the least of the results of this was that various Daoist groups which had originally maintained separate scriptural traditions came to conceive of themselves as belonging to a single hierarchy of teachings opposed to Buddhism, just as the diverse Mahayana and Hinayana doctrines were all seen as the teaching of the Buddha. This conception further led to the practice of ranging the various Daoist scriptures together in a single canon after the Buddhist model, prob- ably by the middle of the fifth century CE.3 It was an act of religious merit to copy out Buddhist scriptures, especially the whole canon, so perhaps it is not surprising that we find the Daoist canon also copied out under imperial auspices during the seventh century.4 Under the Northern Song dynasty in 1116 or 1117 such an imperially spon- sored compilation was printed for the first time: the title of the col- lection included the word Daozang , now the normal term for the Daoist canon.5
Though this edition and two others that were produced under the Qin and Yuan dynasties have completely disappeared, a further, final edition in 5,305 fascicles, compiled and published by the Ming dynasty in 1445 has survived, together with a supplement in 180 fasci- cles produced in 1607. Maspero used a photolithographic reproduction of both the main canon and supplement based on a copy formerly kept in the Baiyun guan , Beijing ; this reproduction was made in Shanghai in 1926.
There is a faint chance that Maspero’s one or two apparent mis- readings indicate occasional use of another source. As noted by M. Kaltenmark, Maspero erred in believing that 1445 marked the last time that the Daozang was actually printed. The date 1598 may be found on one of the two fragmentary copies of the Daozang in Paris, and this date, and even 1524, is found on such a copy in Tokyo; we hear of the
xvi Introduction
imperial donation of copies of the canon (presumably printed ad hoc) to Daoist establishments at several other dates during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Since one copy in Tokyo—more complete than most and apparently deriving for the most part from the 1445 printing— manifests a small number of minor textual variants when compared with the photolithographic edition, it may be that the printing blocks, which were eventually destroyed during the Boxer uprising, were par- tially or totally recut on one or more occasions. The Baiyun guan copy itself is usually taken as deriving from the 1445 printing, apart from a few portions repaired in 1845, so whether Beijing, Tokyo, or Paris possesses the oldest copy would in any case seem to be open to ques- tion.6
At all events the Daoist canon remained a rare work prior to 1926, which must in part explain why Maspero found himself confronting a vast body of literature almost totally untouched by traditional Chinese scholarship. The contrast with Buddhism is marked: not only do we have surviving editions of the Buddhist canon produced in China dat- ing back to the Song, Qin, and Yuan dynasties, but Korean and Japanese editions besides. The earliest collated edition with movable type had already been produced in Japan by 1885. What is more, many of these editions were financed solely by private subscription and specifically destined for wide circulation, quite unlike the Daoist canon, which seems to have been mainly used as a symbol of imperial munificence. Perhaps it is because of the occult nature of its contents, as much as because of its value as a rarity, that access to the Baiyun guan copy— in recent times at least—was often restricted; only a sister institution in Shanghai possessed a copy equally complete and it was apparently even less accessible.7 It is true that a Qing dynasty anthology of the canon, the Daozang jiyao , did enjoy a wider circulation, par- ticularly…
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