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Taoist Ritual and the Development of Chinese MagicThe Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang. By Michael R. Saso. Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 1978. Pp. xiii, 317. $17.50.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

T. H. Barrett
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge

Abstract

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 Saso, M., Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal (Washington State U.P., 1972).Google Scholar

2 On p. 329 of his ‘Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy in Taoist Ritual’, in Wolf, A. P. (ed.), Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford U.P., 1974), pp. 325–36.Google Scholar

3 The only such case known to me in this volume is in the Sung Kao-seng chuan 17, pp. 816c–817a, dated in the late eighth century, but on p. 107 of the work by Akizuki Kan'ei cited below, n. 23, there is mention of the climbing of a sword-ladder in a purely Taoist context, datable to the Sui dynasty.Google Scholar

4 See Ts'un-yan, Liu, Buddhist and Taoist Influences on Chinese Novels (Wiesbaden, 1962), p. 65,Google Scholar for a Six Chia battle-array, and cf. p. 152 for the Six Chia in another Taoist source. See also p. 40, n. 4 of the work by K. Schipper cited in n. 9 below.Google Scholar

5 See Hanan, Patrick, ‘The Composition of the P'ing-yao chuan’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 31 (1971), pp. 201–19, n. 52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Saso translates this ‘marvellous method for hiding the Six Chia spirits’ (p. 129), but ch'i-men at least would seem to signify ‘Odd Gates’, in the divinatory sense (and cf. p. 135 for this type of usage).Google Scholar

7 The reference should be to Tao-tsang (Shanghai, 19241926 reprint), vols 576 and 580,Google Scholar and to the Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, No. 25 (Taipei, 1966 reprint), texts numbers 857 and 873. In fact, only one of the texts listed deals with violent magic of the sort described in this chapter, and even this does not mention the divinities invoked by Master Chuang. These do, however, appear in the Shang-ch'ing liu-chia ch'i-tao mi-fa, Tao-tsang Vol. 323, No. 584.Google Scholar

8 See n. 3 of Tamaki, Ogawa, ‘Sangoku engi ni okeru Bukkyō to Dōkyō’, Tōhōgaku, 2 (08 1951), pp. 74–7. The hero in question, both here and in Chuang's discourse, is Chu-ko Liang.Google Scholar

9 Schipper, K., L'Empereur Wou des Han dans la Légende Taoiste (Paris, 1965), pp. 34–8;Google ScholarVan Xuyet, Ngo, Divination, Magie et Politique dans la Chine Ancienne (Paris, 1976), pp. 190–5.Google ScholarThe fullest account in Chinese of the system available in a major sinological series is the Tun-chia yen-i of Cheng Tao-sheng (Ming) in Ssu-ku ch'üan-shu chen-pen, series one, Shanghai, 1934.Google Scholar

10 See Ngo, , loc.cit., for these texts, and cf. the editorial introduction to the Tunchia yen-i, p. 3a, which speaks of an increased fusion of Taoist religious practices and tun-chia divination after the fall of the Northern Sung.Google Scholar

11 See e.g. the Hsien-chuan shih-i of Tu Kuang-t'ing, as quoted in the T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi (Peking, 1959), 24, pp. 161–2,Google Scholar for a story set in the late eighth century, and the Ch'uan-ch'i of Hsing, P'ei, reprinted in T'ang Kuo-shih-pu teng pa-chung (Taipei, 1968), pp. 2930, for an early ninth-century tale. Both compilers lived in the late ninth century.Google Scholar

12 See , Han, Han Ch'ang-li chi (Shanghai, 1938), 5, p. 2.50.Google Scholar

13 Cf. Yüan-i, Mao, Wu-pei chih (1621),Google Scholar in ed. of Sekisai, Ugai (Kyoto, 1664), pp. 279.9a–10aGoogle Scholar and Chi, Hsiao, Wu-hsing ta-i (Ts'ung-shu chi-ch'eng), 5, p. 92.Google Scholar

14 For Li Ch'un-feng see Waley, Arthur, The Real Tripitaka (London, 1952), pp. 110, 274. Saso's references to this name and date are a little inconsistent: see e.g. p. 280, nn. 133, 134 and p. 294, n. 17.Google Scholar

15 Cf. p. 379Google Scholar of Tsu-lung, Chen, ‘On the “Hot-spring Inscription” preserved by a rubbing in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris’, T'oung Pao 46 (1958), pp. 376–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 See e.g. Hsin-ch'eng, Chang, Wei-shu t'ung-k'ao (Shanghai, 1957), pp. 1091–2. Saso in fact refers (p. 280, n. 132) to two texts attributed to Li in the canon as ‘authenticated T'ang dynasty texts’, but to my knowledge neither is authenticated by any early bibliographical listing, quotation or manuscript, and the second text describes Li as an immortal, a rank he only achieved in the realms of much later hagiography.Google Scholar

17 These dates seem better attested than those given by Saso.Google Scholar

18 Tu, , Shen-hsien kan-yü chuan (Tao-tsang Vol. 329, No. 592), 1.3b4b,Google Scholar biography of Yeh Ch'ien-shao: this tale has been translated from a later version by Doré, H.Recherches sur les Superstitions en Chine (Shanghai, 1915), Pt 2, Vol. 10, pp. 693–4.Google Scholar Shen Fen, a contemporary of Tu, connects Yeh Ch'ien-shao with the Ch'ing-ming sect, discussed below, in his Hsü Hsien Chuan (Tao-tsang Vol. 138, No. 295), 2.17a.Google Scholar The other author to mention Thunder Magic is Kuang-hsien, Sun, Pei-men so-yen (Peking, 1960,Google ScholarChung-kuo wen-hsüeh ts'an-k'ao tzu-liao ts'ung-shu), pp. 179–80, who sets his tale in the early eighth century, but probably was writing himself c. 940–60 (see preface of ed. cited).Google Scholar

19 See his Lokalkulturen im Alten China (Peking, 1942), Vol. 2, pp. 252, 255, where he dates Chinese knowledge of these cults to T'ang times.Google Scholar

20 See e.g. Maspero, H., Mélanges Posthumes sur les Religions et l'Histoire de la Chine (Paris, 1950), Vol. I, pp. 157, 176–7.Google Scholar

21 Hsing, P'ei, Ch'uan-ch'i, p. 19.Google Scholar

22 Tao-fa Hui-yüan (Tao-tsang Vols 884–941, No. 1210), 81.1a–b, 82.1b, 125.19b–20b, 126.10a, etc., and 250.14a.Google ScholarCf. Ching-lai, Tseng, Taiwan Sh¯kyō to meishin rōsh ī (Taipei, 1938), p. 224, for the continued use of the term ‘Southern Aboriginal Thunder’ in modern times.Google Scholar

23 Kan'ei, Akizuki, Chūgoku kinsei Dōkyō no keisei (Tokyo, 1978), pp. 10, 20.Google Scholar

24 For Thunder Magic, see n. 18 above (Yeh Ch'ien-shao), and for a general description of the sect by Tu, , his Yung-ch'eng chi-hsien lu (Tao-tsang vols 560–1, No. 782), 5.14a–16b.Google Scholar