Women In Daoism

Women in Daoism' outlines the status and roles of women in the Daoist tradition from its inception to the present day. It describes the historical development and role of Daoist women in Chinese society, focusing on the different ideals women stood for as much as on the religious practices they cultivated.--Cover.

During the Tang dynasty (618–907), changes in political policies, the religious landscape, and gender relations opened the possibility for Daoist women to play an unprecedented role in religious and public life. Women, from imperial princesses to the daughters of commoner families, could be ordained as Daoist priestesses and become religious leaders, teachers, and practitioners in their own right. Some achieved remarkable accomplishments: one wrote and transmitted texts on meditation and inner cultivation; another, a physician, authored a treatise on therapeutic methods, medical theory, and longevity techniques. Priestess-poets composed major works, and talented priestess-artists produced stunning calligraphy. In Gender, Power, and Talent, Jinhua Jia draws on a wealth of previously untapped sources to explain how Daoist priestesses distinguished themselves as a distinct gendered religious and social group. She describes the life journey of priestesses from palace women to abbesses and ordinary practitioners, touching on their varied reasons for entering the Daoist orders, the role of social and religious institutions, forms of spiritual experience, and the relationships between gendered identities and cultural representations. Jia takes the reader inside convents and cloisters, demonstrating how they functioned both as a female space for self-determination and as a public platform for both religious and social spheres. The first comprehensive study of the lives and roles of Daoist priestesses in Tang China, Gender, Power, and Talent restores women to the landscape of Chinese religion and literature and proposes new methodologies for the growing field of gender and religion.

For centuries women have remained quiet, suppressed by society. Yet in their silence a singing can be heard, celebrating their truths. In The Tao of Women, female voices speak out. Finally, the wisdom of Taoist philosophy is linked with the deep and mysterious wisdom of women. The Tao of Women captures and presents the power and wisdom generated by centuries of women's lives with the hope that this wisdom will not be lost. These brief and poignant meditations amplify the voices of our grandmothers and their mothers before them, they illuminate the connections over time and space and culture, allowing us to understand the women who came before and the daughters who will follow. In 1950, a secret language was discovered near Hunan Province, China. It was not until 1982 that anyone collected and translated this secret "women's script." Known as Nu Shu, this ancient language was developed and used by women to communicate with each other when their society would not allow them to learn to read and write. For the first time in America, 81 original Nu Shu illustrations and their translations can be seen in The Tao of Women.

Thirty major scholars in the field wrote this new, authoritative guide to the main features and development of Daoism. The chapters are devoted to either specific periods, or topics such as Women in Daoism, Daoism in Korea and Daoist Ritual Music. Each chapter rigidly deals with a fixed set of aspects, such as history, texts, worldview and practices. Clear markings in the chapters themselves and a detailed index make this volume the most accessible key resource on Daoism past and present.

Immortal Sisters presents life stories and teachings of distinguished female Taoist adepts who lived from the third to twelfth centuries. Among them is the poet and mystic Sun Bu-er, who passed into folklore as one of the famous Seven Immortals and appears as a character in countless popular novels of China. These accomplished women, renowned in their own day and in history, represent a uniquely female heritage of spiritual mastery. Through poems, stories, teachings, and commentaries, Immortal Sisters sheds light on the spiritual methods taught and practiced by these women and illustrates the importance of the feminine in Taoism.

The center of this prodigious work of scholarship is a fresh examination of the range of Chinese culture thought during the formative period of Chinese culture. Benjamin Schwartz looks at the surviving texts of this period with a particular focus on the range of diversity to be found in them. While emphasizing the problematic and complex nature of this thought he also considers views which stress the unity of Chinese culture. Attention is accorded to pre-Confucian texts, to the evolution of early Confucianism, to Mo-Tzu, to the Taoists the legalists, the Ying-Yang school, the five classics as well as to intellectual issues which cut across the conventional classification of schools. The main focus is on the high cultural texts, but Mr. Schwartz also explores the question of the relationship of these texts to the vast realm of popular culture.

Presents volume thirteen of a fourteen-volume series on World Religions exploring the origins of Taoism in China, its central beliefs and restoration under China's religious freedom clause, rituals, sacred sites, and more.