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Heavenly Masters: Two Thousand Years of the Daoist State

Name: Heavenly Masters: Two Thousand Years of the Daoist State
Brand: University of Hawaii Press
SKU: 9780824889029
Price: 71.99 USD
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Contributors:

Vincent Goossaert, Stephen Bokenkamp (Editor), Chi Tim Lai (Editor)

Publisher:

University of Hawaii Press

Binding:

Hardcover

Book Category:

Religion, Philosophy, History

Book Subcategory:

Taoism, Taoist, Asia

Book Topic:

China

Series:

New Daoist Studies

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The product is eligible for a complimentary return within 30 days from the date of purchase. Furthermore, individual items are shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order.

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Release Date:

2021-11-30

ISBN 13:

9780824889029

Weight:

1.65 lbs

Size:

9.10 x 6.20 x 1.30 inches

Pages:

432

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product description

Description

The origins of modern Daoism can be traced to the Church of the Heavenly Master (Tianshidao), reputedly established by the formidable Zhang Daoling. In 142 CE, according to Daoist tradition, Zhang was visited by the Lord on High, who named him his vicar on Earth with the title Heavenly Master. The dispensation articulated an eschatological vision of saving initiates--the pure, those destined to become immortals--by enforcing a strict moral code. Under evolving forms, Tianshidao has remained central to Chinese society, and Daoist priests have upheld their spiritual allegiance to Zhang, their now divinized founder. This book tells the story of the longue dur e evolution of the Heavenly Master leadership and institution.

Later hagiography credits Zhang Daoling's great-grandson, putatively the fourth Heavenly Master, with settling the family at Longhushan (Dragon and Tiger Mountain); in time his descendants--down to the present contested sixty-fifth Heavenly Master living in Taiwan--made the extraordinary claim of being able to transmit hereditarily the function of the Heavenly Master and the power to grant salvation. Over the next twelve centuries, the Zhangs turned Longhushan into a major holy site and a household name in the Chinese world, and constructed a large administrative center for the bureaucratic management of Chinese society. They gradually built the Heavenly Master institution, which included a sacred site; a patriarchal line of successive Heavenly Masters wielding vast monopolistic powers to ordain humans and gods; a Zhang lineage that nurtured talent and accumulated wealth; and a bureaucratic apparatus comprised of temples, training centers, and a clerical hierarchy. So well-designed was this institution that it remained stable for more than a millennium, far outlasting the longest dynasties, and had ramifications for every city and village in imperial China.

In this ambitious work, Vincent Goossaert traces the Heavenly Master bureaucracy from medieval times to the modern Chinese nation-state as well as its expansion. His in-depth portraits of influential Heavenly Masters are skillfully embedded in a large-scale analysis of the institution and its rules, ideology, and vision of society.

About the Author
Vincent Goossaert is professor of Daoism and Chinese religions at École Pratique des Hautes Études-PSL.

Heavenly Masters: Two Thousand Years of the Daoist State

Description

A Library of Clouds: The Scripture of the Immaculate Numen and the Rewriting of Daoist Texts

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