TO LIVE AS LONG AS HEAVEN AND EARTH: A TRANSLATION AND STUDY OF GE HONG'S TRADITIONS OF DIVINE TRANSCENDENTS. By Robert Ford Campany. Daoist Classics 2. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Pp. xxviii + 607; illustrations; index. Cloth, $95.00, ISBN 0-520-23034-5.
This book marks a major contribution and an important event in the history of Daoist Studies. Drawing upon his earlier work on the zhiguai ("accounts of anomalies") genre of Chinese literature, entitled Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (SUNY, 1996), here Campany provides a historical study and critical, annotated translation of the Shenxian zhuan (Biographies of Spirit Immortals; translated as Traditions of Divine Transcendents by Campany). A collection of some 100-odd hagiographical accounts, this work has traditionally been attributed to Ge Hong (283-343), famed author of the Baopuzi ([Book of] Master Embracing Simplicity), grandnephew of the fangshi (lit., "formula master") Ge Xuan (d. 244), and leading exponent of the Taiqing (Great Clarity; translated as Grand Purity by Campany) tradition of laboratory alchemy (waidan) during the fourth century.
With regards to the justification for such a translation endeavor, Campany explains, "Ge Hong's works afford us an unparalleled glimpse into certain aspects of Chinese religious life and practice at a critical time in the history of Chinese religions¡­.Ge Hong records elements of religious ideas and disciplines relating to the quest of transcendence that might otherwise remain unknown to us, and his writings constitute a valuable terminus ante quem for them¡­.With respect to Daoist religious history proper, furthermore, Ge Hong's writings, and the practices, ideas, and values represented in them, constituted an important voice in ongoing inter- or intrareligious rivalries and self-definitions" (9-10).
The book is, in turn, divided into three parts. Part one, "Traditions of Divine Transcendents and Its Context," covers Ge Hong and the writing of the Shenxian zhuan, the nature of religion reflected in Ge Hong's works, the Shenxian zhuan as hagiography, and text-critical matters. Part two is Campany's critical, annotated translation of the Shenxian zhuan, which contains the following sections: (1) Group A: Earliest-Attested Hagiographies; (2) Group A: Earliest-Attested Fragments; (3) Group B: Early-Attested Hagiographies; (4) Group B: Early-Attested Fragments; (5) Group C: Later-Attested Hagiographies. Finally part three is a highly detailed and specialized consideration containing Campany's text-critical notes, which include sources for extant Shenxian zhuan hagiographies. This section also discusses items attributed to the Shenxian zhuan excluded from the translation. Campany's attentiveness, care, and dedication are evident throughout the present study, especially in his detailed annotations and notes and his insights concerning theoretical and methodological issues (on possible translations of xian see 4-5; on the appropriateness of referring to Ge Hong as a Daoist see 6-9).
There are a number of noteworthy features that deserve further mention, not the least of which is the opportunity to read a complete, annotated translation of one of the most important Daoist hagiographies. According to Campany, "My work on Traditions, a hagiography of more than one hundred figures spanning many centuries, is premised on the contention that it is a case-by-case history of the successful quest for transcendence. I believe that it was made, intended, and read as a work of record, an evidential work, a set of transmissions or traditions¡­about persons, practices, and results claimed to be actual" (98-99). Individuals studying and researching Chinese religious traditions in general and Daoism in particular will find the section "The Nature of Religion Reflected in Ge Hong's Works" (18-97) especially fascinating. Here Campany provides information on the following topics: the pneumatic idiom, dietetics, sexual arts, alchemy and the scriptures of Grand Purity, the bureaucratic idiom of life and death, the adept's armament, preferences and persuasions (including levels of achievement and taxonomies of practice), and adepts and society. This section also contains the only readily available English-language discussion of the Taiqing tradition of laboratory alchemy, the alchemical tradition associated with the family lineage of Ge Hong.
In addition, the text-critical method developed, employed and advocated by Campany identifies distinct textual stratas within extant editions of the Shenxian zhuan (distinct Shenxian zhuans if you will), mostly datable to between the fourth and seventh centuries C.E. According to Campany, "This feature of my translation [the identification of temporal stratification] might be the single most useful one- as it is usually the case that each hagiography contains within itself relatively early- as well as late-attested elements" (124). However, Campany's methodology also raises a fundamental consideration: what does it mean for a contemporary Western scholar to dissect and reorganize a text considered sacred by a religious tradition? This reorganization also makes consultation of the original Chinese text(s) more difficult, a difficulty which Campany attempts to avoid by arranging the hagiographies alphabetically.
Nonetheless, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth is highly recommended for historians of Daoism and Chinese religion. Scholars of comparative religion will also find insights here concerning issues of death and post-mortem existence as well as hagiography as a type of religious writing. As the cost of the book will be prohibitive for many, it is to be hoped that the University of California Press will follow its previous policy of issuing a paperback edition a year or so after the publication of the clothbound version. Every scholar of Daoism and research library should have this book.

THE TAO OF THE WEST: WESTERN TRANSFORMATIONS OF TAOIST THOUGHT. By J. J. Clarke. London: Routledge Press, 2000. Pp. xi + 270; appendixes; indexes. Paper, $20.99, ISBN 0-415-20620-0.
This deservedly prize-winning book's stated aims are "to uncover the ways in which Daoism has entered Western consciousness, and to examine the methods by which ideas and texts from this ancient Chinese tradition have been selected, translated, interpreted, reconstituted and assimilated within the framework of modern Western thought" (5). The book consists of nine chapters: (1) 'The way that can be told': introduction; (2) 'The meaning is not the meaning': on the nature Daoism; (3) 'Cramped scholars': Western interpretations of Daoism; (4) 'The Great Clod': Daoist natural philosophy; (5) 'Going rambling without destination': moral explorations; (6) 'The transformation of things': the alchemy of life, sex and health; (7) 'The Way is incommunicable': transcendence; (8) 'The twitter of birds': philosophical themes; and (9) 'Journey to the West': by way of concluding.
Chapter one is a general introduction to the possible pitfalls and potentialities of Clarke's hermeneutic approach. Chapter two provides a very clear summary of the latest research in the field of Daoist Studies. Chapter three presents the history of the study of Daoism and is especially strong on the problems of translation as well as the history of the major "Daoist" texts in the West, namely the Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Yijing. Chapter four is mostly about how Daoism in the West intersects with the new physics and with environmentalism. Chapter five, on "moral explorations," deals with questions of ethics, anarchy, and gender. Chapter six on "the alchemy of life, health, and sex" describes the growing popularity of Daoist-influenced self-cultivation techniques, holistic healing, and popularized sexual practices. Chapter seven concerns mysticism and transcendence, including a digression on Daoist themes in Chinese landscape painting and in gardens and the possible impact of those art forms on Western aesthetics. Chapter eight deals with parallels between Daoism and Western philosophical systems, including skepticism and post-modernism. Finally, chapter nine concludes by considering the possibilities of Daoism taking root in the West and what changes it might effect.
The Tao of the West, it should be made clear, is not an ethnographic survey of contemporary Western Daoist teachers and groups. Clarke is a philosopher, and his book is a history of ideas. However, ideas can only be generated, transmitted and transformed by people. The set of attitudes known as Orientalism typically views Asian religions (and Daoism in particular) as comprised of ancient texts and not living and historical people. Clarke ably dissects and critiques this Orientalist position. And yet, as a historian of ideas, Clarke cannot help but fall into the same trap: very few people inhabit The Tao of the West. Indeed, too many sentences begin with phrases such as "the Daoists believe¡­", which might prompt a scholar of Daoist Studies to ask, "which Daoists and when?" Clarke's study might be less frustrating for specialists of the Daoist tradition if one were to consider that this book is "a study in the history of Western ideas" and that Clarke has few tools to access Daoist ideas and texts other than the most translated in the West. (Indeed, this book completes Clarke's trilogy on the East-West encounter. Reading the two previous volumes, Jung and Eastern Thought [Routledge, 1994] and Oriental Enlightenment [Routledge, 1997], makes it even clearer that Clarke's interests lie in the West.)
Nonetheless, The Tao of West admirably lays the hermeneutic groundwork for the ongoing encounter between the West and certain strands of Daoist thought and popular practice. Clarke possesses wide and deep knowledge of Western philosophers and popular thinkers. He ably assimilates a variety of sources and presents his argument in lucid prose. A comprehensive bibliography adds to the book's credentials. The Tao of West is an important book for all scholars of Daoism, enabling them to more fully appreciate the history of their discipline as well as to reflect upon the constructed nature and historical contingency of various interpretative stances. It is also highly recommended for the general reader and as a required text for an advanced class on Daoism. (For a collection of critical responses to The Tao of the West see the Religious Studies Review 28.4.)

DEFINING CHU: IMAGE AND REALITY IN ANCIENT CHINA. Edited by Constance A. Cook and John S. Major. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999. Pp. ix + 254; maps; plates; illustrations; appendix; index. Cloth, $59.00, ISBN 0-8248-1885-7.
This edited volume is the first Western language book-length study to focus on a single ancient Chinese state. Tracing the evolution of Chu from a vassal state in the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 B.C.E.), through its rise and fall as a leading political power in the Warring States (475-221 B.C.E.), to its subsequent resurgence in the early Han (206 B.C.E.-8 C.E.), Defining Chu addresses the historical geography, archaeological history, artistic achievements, and socio-political characteristics of Chu.
In the process, the book's contributors focus on two related theoretical issues in particular: (1) the complexity and distinctiveness of "Chu culture," and (2) the competing "images" of Chu in the history and study of China. "Eventually, over the course of the book, we see the emergence of the constructed Chu image from historical reality-a reality argued according to each author's interpretation of archaeological or historical materials that they accept as defining Chu" (viii; emphasis in original; also 5, 167-69). Throughout the various articles, contributors argue for the need to revise the received view of Chu, which centers on the "Northern Bias" (1-2, 51-52) of traditional Chinese historiography and Western Sinology's indebtedness to that construction. The authors in turn attempt to separate the mythologized Chu, revolving principally around the image of Chu as an alternative, slightly barbarous (shamanic) culture, from a "historically real" Chu especially evident in recent archaeological discoveries.
In addition to a preface, introduction and conclusion, the book contains nine chapters in three parts. Part I: Perspectives in Defining Chu Culture has three chapters: (1) "The Geography of Chu" (9-20) by Barry B. Blakeley, (2) "Chu Culture: An Archaeological Overview" (21-32) by Xu Shaohua, and (3) "Chu Art: Link between the Old and New" (33-47) by Jenny F. So. Part II: State and Society consists of four chapters: (4) "Chu Society and State: Image versus Reality" (51-66) by Barry B. Blakeley, (5) "The Ideology of the Chu Ruling Class: Ritual Rhetoric and Bronze Inscriptions" (67-76) by Constance A. Cook, (6) "Chu Law in Action: Legal Documents from Tomb 2 at Baoshan" (77-97) by Susan Weld, and (7) "Towns and Trade: Cultural Diversity and Chu Daily Life" (99-117) by Heather A. Peters. The final section, Part III: The Spirit of Chu, contains (8) "Characteristics of Late Chu Religion" (121-43) by John S. Major and (9) "Monkeys, Shamans, Emperors, and Poets: The Chuci and Images of Chu during the Han Dynasty" (145-65) by Gopal Sukhu. The book concludes with an appendix, which is Li Ling and Constance A. Cook's translation of the so-called "Chu Silk Manuscript," an astronomical and calendrical treatise from Zidanku (Hunan) datable to circa 300 B.C.E.
These various articles attempt to "define Chu"-to delineate a picture of Chu history and culture that mirrors the long and complex history of the state of Chu itself (for a summary see 167-69). Those researching Chinese religion will find John S. Major's article on later Chu religion especially worthy of attention. Here Major discusses issues of regionalism, spatial orientation and religious cosmography, monsters and gods, snakes and animal motifs, hunting motifs, shamanism and spirit-possession, "farflight" or spirit journeys, Huang-Lao Daoism and Chu influence on Han culture, and four specific cases of Chu cultural influence (cosmographs, calendars, mirrors, and the mother goddess). With so much academic conjecture centering on the connection between the state of Chu (China's "shamanic substratum") and Warring States "Daoism," specifically the possible Chu origins of classical Daoism, one would have appreciated greater attention to this issue, either in some of the volume's contributions or as a separate article. The book also lacks a glossary of Chinese characters. Defining Chu is for scholars of early China, especially those focusing on the Warring States period, as well as for anyone thinking through issues of mythologization (essentialist definitions of culture based on a constructed past). Recommended for research libraries and historians of early China.

HIDING THE WORLD IN THE WORLD: UNEVEN DISCOURSES ON THE ZHUANGZI. Edited by Scott Cook. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. x + 317. Paper, $25.95, ISBN 0-7914-5866-0.
This edited volume contains ten articles on the Zhuangzi (Book of Master Zhuang). The articles are as follows: ¡°Bimodal Mystical Experience in the ¡®Qiwulun¡¯ Chapter of the Zhuangzi¡± by Harold D. Roth; ¡°How Many Are the Ten Thousand Things and I? Relativism, Mysticism, and the Privileging of Oneness in the ¡®Inner Chapters¡¯¡± by Brook Ziporyn; ¡°Harmony and Cacophony in the Panpipes of Heaven¡± by Scott Cook; ¡°From ¡®Merging the Body with the Mind¡¯ to ¡®Wandering in Unitary Qi¡¯: A Discussion of Zhuangzi¡¯s Realm of the True Man and Its Corporal Basis¡± by Rur-bin Yang; ¡°Guru or Skeptic? Relativistic Skepticism in the Zhuangzi¡± by Chad Hansen; ¡°Aporetic Ethics in the Zhuangzi¡± by Dan Lusthaus; ¡°Reflex and Reflectivity: Wuwei in the Zhuangzi¡± by Alan Fox; ¡°A Mind-Body Problem in the Zhuangzi?¡± by Paul Rakita Goldin; ¡°Nothing Can Overcome Heaven: The Notion of Spirit in the Zhuangzi¡± by Michael J. Puett; and ¡°Transforming the Dao: A Critique of A. C. Graham¡¯s Translation of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi¡± by Shuen-Fu Lin.
Most of the essays in this volume continue the ongoing debate in American sinology over the question if Zhuangzi is a total skeptic and relativist, or if he has a normative, ethical point of view and perhaps even some mystical intuition. Chad Hansen defends his view of Zhuangzi as a ¡°relativist skeptic¡± against those who show ¡°chronic nostalgia for the lost ¡®guru¡¯¡± (129), that is to say, those who challenge Hansen¡¯s view of Zhuangzi. Brook Ziporyn says that his whole argument is ¡°just elaborating on Hansen¡¯s immortal early insight that Zhuangzi¡¯s central insight is simply that uncompromising skepticism and absolute mysticism are one and the same thing¡± (55). Dan Lusthaus argues that the skeptical moments in Zhuangzi are superceded by ¡°prescriptive exhortations¡± that are ¡°invariably ethical¡± (163). Scott Cook says that ¡°Zhuangzi¡¯s philosophy offers us the chance to learn how to live our lives aesthetically, to appreciate that all we encounter are simply themes and variations upon the ever-changing melody of the Great Transformation¡± (76). Alan Fox concludes that Zhuangzi¡¯s ideal of wuwei is the ¡°perfectly well-adjusted person¡± who is able ¡°to blend or ¡®fit¡¯ (shi) into any given situation¡± and ¡°¡®respond¡¯ (ying) effortlessly and spontaneously¡± (220-222).
These essays clearly show that this kind of ¡°philosophical¡± treatment of Zhuangzi has exhausted itself. Instead of expanding our understanding of Zhuangzi, the ¡°philosophical¡± interpreters regurgitate the same well-known arguments in almost obsessive detail. Ritual repetition of a limited number of themes (skepticism, relativism, rationality, etc.) is indeed characteristic of modern professional philosophy, but this very narrow notion of philosophy cannot do justice to the depth and scope of Zhuangzi¡¯s thought.
In contrast to these ¡°philosophical¡± essays that are reluctant to enter into a substantial discussion of mysticism in Zhuangzi, Rur-bin Yang braves the deep waters of comparative mysticism. His discussion of how the body of the perfected person in the Zhuangzi is transformed and merges with a universal, unitary ¡°energy¡± (qi) is enlightening. Similarly, Harold D. Roth describes Zhuangzi¡¯s ¡°bimodal mystical experience,¡± that is to say, an experience of unity that in turn leads to a transformed view of the multiplicity of the world. This mystical experience is a result of the ¡°inner cultivation practice¡± that Roth has made the focal point in his reading of Zhuangzi. Roth has argued that the mystical praxis of Zhuangzi is similar to that found in contemporary manuals of inner training. Michael Puett, however, shows that ¡°Zhuangzi¡¯s vision of spiritual power¡± as it is implicit in his notion of ¡°spirit¡± (shen) is ¡°radically different¡± from the notion of self-cultivation found in the Neiye chapter of the Guanzi. What strikes one in reading these discussions of Zhuangzi¡¯s ¡°mystical¡± thought is that they are much more clear, textually grounded, and informative than the ¡°philosophical¡± discussions mentioned above.
In fact, it is the ¡°philosophers¡± that now seem to be the most prejudiced readers of Zhuangzi. Paul Rakita Goldin points out that in the study of early Chinese thought ¡°the very suggestion of a mind-body dichotomy has attained the status of a taboo¡± (232). Goldin¡¯s point is exemplified by Chad Hansen¡¯s remark earlier in the volume: ¡°Notoriously, Chinese metaphysics lacks much evidence of the Indo-European mind-body dualism¡± (139). Goldin provides evidence that Zhuangzi and other early Chinese thinkers do in fact have a notion of mind and body as ¡°metaphysically distinct entities.¡± Finally, Shuen-fu Lin takes a critical look at A. C. Graham¡¯s translation of the Zhuangzi. Lin acknowledges Graham¡¯s great achievement but argues that the Inner Chapters are not just, as Graham thought, a series of ¡°disjointed pieces¡± but contain an ¡°inner logic¡± in their unfolding, similar to a piece of music. Lin also argues that several of Graham¡¯s attempts to ¡°restore¡± the text of the Zhuangzi by moving passages around within the text are not well founded.
Four of the essays in this collection have been published elsewhere. As mentioned in the ¡°Acknowledgments¡±, Roth¡¯s essay was first published in Journal of Chinese Religions (2000), Shuen-fu Lin¡¯s essay in Translation Quarterly (1999), and Alan Fox¡¯s essay in Asian Philosophy (1996). In addition, Puett¡¯s article is a slightly revised version of pages 122-133 of his book To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China (2002).
The volume is, as its subtitle says, ¡°uneven.¡± Apart from one or two essays, this third collection of essays on Zhuangzi from State University of New York Press brings us little new and even less exciting scholarship on the Zhuangzi. Nonetheless, comparative philosophers and scholars of Chinese intellectual history may find some aspects of the book relevant.

RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF THE LAOZI. Edited by Mark Csikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Pp. xi + 276; table and indices. Cloth, $72.50, ISBN 0-7914-4111-3; paper, $24.95, ISBN 0-7914-4112-1.
This is a valuable anthology of recent Chinese, Japanese, and Western scholarship on the text variously known as the Laozi (after its alleged author), the Daode jing (after the traditional arrangement of the text), and the Dedao jing (after the arrangement of the text in some recently discovered manuscripts). Csikszentmihalyi and Ivanhoe provide three reasons for compiling such work into one volume: the diffuse, multilingual, and often obscure venues for monographs on the text, the scarcity of "serious studies concerning the religious and philosophical thought of the text" (1), and the almost complete lack of scholarship that incorporates recent archaeological discoveries and/or emerging approaches to the study of early Chinese culture. Accordingly, they have gathered together the work of a diverse group of scholars, ranging from old hands to young faces in the field of early Chinese philosophy and religion, and representing a wide variety of disciplinary and methodological approaches to the text.
The book consists of nine essays: (1) Mark Csikszentmihalyi's "Mysticism and Apophatic Discourse in the Laozi," (2) Harold D. Roth's "The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis," (3) Zhang Longxi's "Qian Zhongshu on Philosophical and Mystical Paradoxes," (4) the late Isabelle Robinet's "The Diverse Interpretations of the Laozi," (5) Robert G. Henrick's "Re-exploring the Analogy of the Dao and the Field," (6) Tateno Masami's "A Philosophical Analysis of the Laozi from an Ontological Perspective," (7) Bryan W. Van Norden's "Method in the Madness of the Laozi," (8) Liu Xiaogan's "An Inquiry into the Core Value of Laozi's Philosophy," and (9) Philip J. Ivanhoe's "The Concept of de ('Virtue') in the Laozi." These essays can be arranged by their guiding assumptions and agendas. Csikszentmihalyi, Roth, and Robinet adopt what might be termed "religious studies" approaches to the text, focusing on historical and textual dimensions of its supposed "mystical" character and applying sophisticated theoretical perspectives from the comparative study of mysticism and hermeneutics to the problem of understanding the Laozi as an historical and social artifact. Zhang and Tateno bring the analytical tools typical of "philosophy" to bear upon the text, while Van Norden, Liu, and Ivanhoe apply a combination of methods-somewhere between "philosophy" and "religious studies" as discrete disciplines-to the Laozi, focusing on the elucidation and interrelationship of key concepts. Henricks' highly personal essay, which he presents as a kind of pr¨¦cis of his classroom lecture on the meaning of Dao in the Laozi, stands alone as the closest thing to Daoist apologetics or preaching in the volume.
In spite of the many incisive arguments and insightful observations offered throughout these essays, a few shortcomings stand out. Neither the editors nor the authors ever make clear what is meant by the terms "religious" or "philosophical," either in relation to the Laozi or as general terms of art. Nor-apart from a brief comment by Van Norden-is there any discussion of whether and how different disciplinary approaches to the text influence its interpretation. Finally, with the exceptions of Roth, Van Norden, and Ivanhoe, none of the contributors takes into account archaeological and philological evidence that suggests both a relatively late date (c. 3rd-2nd c. B.C.E.) and a composite nature for the text. The reader is left to wonder whether silence on these issues signifies the assumption (with the majority of traditional Asian and Western commentators on the text) of an earlier date and an holistic integrity for the text. Nonetheless, this anthology is an excellent overview of recent international work on a perennially engaging and important text, and as such, is highly recommended for scholars in history, literature, philosophy, and religious studies who work on the Laozi, as well as for readers willing to deepen their understanding of the text.

SOCIETY AND THE SUPERNATURAL IN SONG CHINA. By Edward L. Davis. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. Pp. xi + 355; appendix; glossary; index. Cloth, $60.00, ISBN 0-8248-2310-9; Paper, $24.95, ISBN 0-8248-2398-2.
Based on the author's Ph.D. dissertation (University of California at Berkeley, 1994), this well-researched study focuses on the relation of Chinese society with the supernatural and on experiences of the supernatural as an aspect of social relations. In particular, this work examines "spirit-possession"¡ª the descent of gods, ghosts, or ancestors, and their habitation within a human body (1)¡ªduring the Song dynasty (Northern: 960-1126; Southern: 1127-1279). In some sense, then, Society and the Supernatural in Song China is a social history of spirit-possession and exorcism in twelfth-century China. According to Davis, spirit-possession is a social experience: "Spirit-possession was both a role assumed in public and a shared and universally recognized idiom that allowed an individual person to convert emotion into culture, and symptoms into symbols" (1). Davis in turn draws attention to the relations among various religious specialists during the Song, specifically among Daoist priests (daoshi), so-called Ritual Masters (fashi; a newly-emerging group during the Song) and Tantric exorcists, as well as spirit-mediums. "[M]y aim is to examine the religious interactions and social functions of the Daoist priest, Buddhist monk, Ritual Master, and spirit-medium in local society during the twelfth century, and to present a description of Song religious life richer than any available to date" (4). (For a partial justification of Davis' categorization of Song fashi traditions as "Daoist" see 4-13.)
The book consists of nine chapters: (1) Introduction; (2) Therapeutic Movements in the Song: Texts; (3) New Therapeutic Movements in the Song: Practitioners; (4) The Cult of the Black Killer; (5) The Daoist Ritual Master and Child-Mediums; (6) Tantric Exorcists and Child-Mediums; (7) Daoist Priests, Confucian Literati, and Child-Mediums; (8) Spirit-Possession and the Grateful Dead: Daoist and Buddhist Mortuary Ritual in the Song; and (9) The Syncretic Field of Chinese Religion. There is also an appendix that discusses the Yellow Register Retreat (huanglu zhai), a Daoist ritual for the dead, in comparison to the Purificatory Fast of Water and Land (shuilu zhai), a Buddhist rite for universal salvation (pudu).
This book is especially helpful for gaining a more nuanced appreciation of the religious landscape during the Song period, specifically the complex interaction occurring among practitioners and communities usually assumed to participate in distinct traditions (passim). Davis provides important insights concerning the "profound shift" and "sea change" in Daoist history occurring in the Song; this was the emergence and flourishing of "popularized" forms of Daoism associated with the above-mentioned Ritual Masters (especially chs. 2, 3, and 5). According to Davis, the overwhelming concern of these lineages was therapeutic and exorcistic (21). In addition, Society and the Supernatural in Song China covers poorly understood Song traditions of Daoism such as Tianxin (Celestial Heart) and thunder magic (leifa) (especially ch. 2). Although some may find the concluding chapter to be overly theoretical and, at times, an "insider" discussion of critical historiography, it deserves careful reflection by anyone employing a historical approach to the study of Chinese religion. A book this important to the fields of Chinese history, Chinese religion, and Daoist Studies also would have benefited from a more comprehensive and detailed index. Nonetheless, Davis' study is strongly recommended for those researching Song and post-Song religious traditions, for those seeking a fuller understanding of Chinese history, and for anyone engaged in Daoist Studies. In addition, this book clarifies the historical developments that led to some of the defining characteristics of modern Chinese religion, both in mainland China and Taiwan. Research libraries and scholars in Chinese area studies should have this book.