![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
In fourth century China Ge Hong wrote a book about Daoist Immortals or divine transcendents. Similar in many ways to western medival books on the lives of saints. In his book To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth Robert Ford Campany gives a background and anaylsis of Ge Hong's book, a complete translation of the work, and an extensive look at the sources he used when reconstructing the work.
The first part of the book looks at religion in China at the time Ge Hong was writting. Campany also gives a much more indepth look at the different ways to immortality, or as he translates Xian, to transcendance. These include elixers, sexual practices, and abstaining from grain. Some people also use talismans to extend life and cure the sick. There are three different types of transcendances, the first is "those who escape by means of a simulated corpse". These were my favorite as they are immortals who apprear to die but when their graces are opened they do not contain a corpse. The book gives instructions on how to do this. The theology behind leaving what appears to be a corpse is not so much to trick those around you, frequently these people open the coffins and find it to be bare, but rather to trick the beaurcracy into believing that you have died, to give them a simluated corpse to take into the afterworld in your place. So you can go on living in another area, usually under another name. "Those who escape by means of the simulated corpse" are by far the most common types of transcendants in the book, the secound are those who become earthly transcedants, those who have achieved the way but don't have the destiny to ascend to heaven, so they stay on the earth helping people, or living in isolation. The third and most revered type of immortal are those "who ascend to heaven in broad daylight". These are often done through taking very potent immortality elixers.
Campany does a very good job of illustrating how these different types of immortality are acheived. Quoting many direct sources from the time and earlier, and releating them to other popular religious movements at the time. He uses lots of the original Chinese charcters in his explanations and always explains his interpretations of them, and often others interpretations as well.
Campany is very strong on the point that the book of the Transcendants was not intended to be viewed as fiction rather it was intended as a collection of events that had really happened used to inform the people. Section 2 of the book was a translation of the text itself. He had divided the text up into three sections depending on what he thought was a, most likely to have been originally in the book and had earlier sources to back it up, what he thought was likely to have been in the book but the sources only were from later copies, to what he thought was most likely to have been added later. The interesting thing about reading the texts were the great diversity shown in the lives of the transcendants. There were many women transcendants, perhaps a quarter to a third. Frequently the women adepts were much better practioners of the Dao than their male counterparts. The transendants also came from many different walks of life, frequently the best immortals who had the elixers were too poor to obtain their ingrediants and so would obtain sponsorship from a wealthy family or royalty in order to complete their works. There were also many transcendants who were concerned with charitable works, healing the sick, feeding the poor and casting out demons.
The texts made for a very interesting look at the life of people at the time. How the search for immortality or transcendance was often at odds with traditional ties to family and state. In the inverted Taoist world women were considered to be more valuable. Transcendants also used the correct methods of healing and exorcism to show the people the false ways of the common healers.
The third section of the book was a list of the documents that Campany had used in his translations, when and why he used them, and then he went through each text showing which parts came from which source, why he used certain translations, and what other sources had said about certain people. Definitly an amazingly detailed and well reasearched and documented work.
Campany remains one of my favorite scholars on early Chinese religious history. I wish he'd write more books but they seem to take a great deal of time to put together. I'm lucky I found this one, it was published at 90 dollars but the publishers, Califonia, were having a sale and it was down to 35. It's fun to own such a scholarly book, especialy one that's so well written, straight forward and just very interesting. Alas I can't get anywhere close to reading the source material myself so it's wonderful to have it translated for me.
This weekend when we were in the International District for Luna New Year, I was able to pick up a nice comic book on the 8 Daoist Immortals. I'm still going to need a good dictionary to help me through that one, but I suppose we all have to start somewhere.
The first part of the book looks at religion in China at the time Ge Hong was writting. Campany also gives a much more indepth look at the different ways to immortality, or as he translates Xian, to transcendance. These include elixers, sexual practices, and abstaining from grain. Some people also use talismans to extend life and cure the sick. There are three different types of transcendances, the first is "those who escape by means of a simulated corpse". These were my favorite as they are immortals who apprear to die but when their graces are opened they do not contain a corpse. The book gives instructions on how to do this. The theology behind leaving what appears to be a corpse is not so much to trick those around you, frequently these people open the coffins and find it to be bare, but rather to trick the beaurcracy into believing that you have died, to give them a simluated corpse to take into the afterworld in your place. So you can go on living in another area, usually under another name. "Those who escape by means of the simulated corpse" are by far the most common types of transcendants in the book, the secound are those who become earthly transcedants, those who have achieved the way but don't have the destiny to ascend to heaven, so they stay on the earth helping people, or living in isolation. The third and most revered type of immortal are those "who ascend to heaven in broad daylight". These are often done through taking very potent immortality elixers.
Campany does a very good job of illustrating how these different types of immortality are acheived. Quoting many direct sources from the time and earlier, and releating them to other popular religious movements at the time. He uses lots of the original Chinese charcters in his explanations and always explains his interpretations of them, and often others interpretations as well.
Campany is very strong on the point that the book of the Transcendants was not intended to be viewed as fiction rather it was intended as a collection of events that had really happened used to inform the people. Section 2 of the book was a translation of the text itself. He had divided the text up into three sections depending on what he thought was a, most likely to have been originally in the book and had earlier sources to back it up, what he thought was likely to have been in the book but the sources only were from later copies, to what he thought was most likely to have been added later. The interesting thing about reading the texts were the great diversity shown in the lives of the transcendants. There were many women transcendants, perhaps a quarter to a third. Frequently the women adepts were much better practioners of the Dao than their male counterparts. The transendants also came from many different walks of life, frequently the best immortals who had the elixers were too poor to obtain their ingrediants and so would obtain sponsorship from a wealthy family or royalty in order to complete their works. There were also many transcendants who were concerned with charitable works, healing the sick, feeding the poor and casting out demons.
The texts made for a very interesting look at the life of people at the time. How the search for immortality or transcendance was often at odds with traditional ties to family and state. In the inverted Taoist world women were considered to be more valuable. Transcendants also used the correct methods of healing and exorcism to show the people the false ways of the common healers.
The third section of the book was a list of the documents that Campany had used in his translations, when and why he used them, and then he went through each text showing which parts came from which source, why he used certain translations, and what other sources had said about certain people. Definitly an amazingly detailed and well reasearched and documented work.
Campany remains one of my favorite scholars on early Chinese religious history. I wish he'd write more books but they seem to take a great deal of time to put together. I'm lucky I found this one, it was published at 90 dollars but the publishers, Califonia, were having a sale and it was down to 35. It's fun to own such a scholarly book, especialy one that's so well written, straight forward and just very interesting. Alas I can't get anywhere close to reading the source material myself so it's wonderful to have it translated for me.
This weekend when we were in the International District for Luna New Year, I was able to pick up a nice comic book on the 8 Daoist Immortals. I'm still going to need a good dictionary to help me through that one, but I suppose we all have to start somewhere.