In late classical and early medieval China, ascetics strove to become transcendents--deathless beings with supernormal powers. Practitioners developed dietetic, alchemical, meditative, gymnastic, sexual, and medicinal disciplines (some of which are still practiced today) to perfect themselves and thus transcend death. Narratives of their achievements circulated widely. Ge Hong (283-343 c.e.) collected and preserved many of their stories in his Traditions of Divine Transcendents, affording us a window onto this extraordinary response to human mortality.
Robert Ford Campany's groundbreaking and carefully researched text offers the first complete, critical translation and commentary for this important Chinese religious work, at the same time establishing a method for reconstructing lost texts from medieval China. Clear, exacting, and annotated, the translation comprises over a hundred lively, engaging narratives of individuals deemed to have fought death and won. Additionally, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth systematically introduces the Chinese quest for transcendence, illuminating a poorly understood tradition that was an important source of Daoist religion and a major social, cultural, and religious phenomenon in its own right.
To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth A Translation and Study of Ge Hong's Traditions of Divine Transcendents
About the Book
Reviews
‘Campany’s analysis will likely prove definitive, and through such authoritative critical studies this century’s understanding of Taoism and Chinese religion will reach its maturity.”—Russell Kirkland, Univ. of Georgia Religious Studies Review"This book marks a new milestone in the study of Chinese religious history. Only a scholar as intelligent and dedicated as Campany would dare tackle and so eloquently translate one of the most important and difficult works of early Chinese religious history."—Paul Katz, author of Images of the Immortal: The Cult of Lu Dongbin at the Palace of Eternal Joy
"This is a pathbreaking work of lasting significance to the field of Chinese religious history. The scholarship is solid and current, drawing upon the best research from America, Europe, China, and Japan. The translation is accurate, clear, and elegant, based upon an innovative analysis of surviving sources."—Terry Kleeman, author of Great Perfection: Religion and Ethnicity in a Chinese Millennial Kingdom
"A competent translation of Ge Hong's hagiographies, with close attention paid to sources and editions, would already have constituted a major contribution to the field of Taoist studies. But Campany provides as well a survey of religious practices in Ge Hong's writings and a reading of the hagiographies which enables us to see the social practices that lie behind them. Together, these two works-in-one constitute the best available portrait of religion and society in early fourth-century China."—John Lagerwey, author of Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART ONE: TRADITIONS OF DIVINE TRANSCENDENTS AND ITS CONTEXT
Opening
Ge Hong and the Writing of Traditions of Divine Transcendents
The Nature of the Religion Reflected in Ge Hong's Works
Text-Critical Matters
PART TWO: A CRITICAL, ANNOTATED TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY
Group A: Earliest-Attested Hagiographies
Group A: Earliest-Attested Fragments
Group B: Early-Attested Hagiographies
Group B: Early-Attested Fragments
Group C: Later-Attested Hagiographies
PART THREE: TEXT-CRITICAL NOTES
On the Source Tests and the Temporal Differentiation of Passages
Group A: Sources of Earliest-Attested Hagiographies
Group A: Sources of Earliest-Attested Fragments
Group B: Sources of Early-Attested Hagiographies
Group B: Sources of Early-Attested Fragments
Group C: Sources of Later-Attested Hagiographies
Items Attributed to Shenxian zhuan Excluded from This Translation
Bibliography
Index