Let Immortals Govern: the Power Structure in the Construction of Daoist Sacred Geography

The word Xian仙, by its graphic form recorded in Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字, the earliest Chinese Dictionary), is glossed as “man in mountain”. Another form of this word in Shuowen Jiezi is 僊, which is glossed as “long-lived and ascended”. It implicitly signifies a picture on which a recluse is meditating by a mountain cave. In the theory of religious Daoism, such transcendental recluses are often named as “True-man”(Zhenren真人) or “Immortal” (Xian Ren仙人), who are Daoist practitioners having attained the Dao. Mountains, as the places where immortals attain the Dao and achieve their transcendence, are one of the most significant natural beings for Daoists and are positioned in the core of Daoist practices. It is through the practices of Daoists in mountain caves that Daoists gradually constructed their sacred geography centering on mountains. As Daoist sacred mountains are the locus of transcendence and sanctity for Daoists, the Daoist sacred geography--- in other words, the narrative of the...Show moreThe word Xian仙, by its graphic form recorded in Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字, the earliest Chinese Dictionary), is glossed as “man in mountain”. Another form of this word in Shuowen Jiezi is 僊, which is glossed as “long-lived and ascended”. It implicitly signifies a picture on which a recluse is meditating by a mountain cave. In the theory of religious Daoism, such transcendental recluses are often named as “True-man”(Zhenren真人) or “Immortal” (Xian Ren仙人), who are Daoist practitioners having attained the Dao. Mountains, as the places where immortals attain the Dao and achieve their transcendence, are one of the most significant natural beings for Daoists and are positioned in the core of Daoist practices. It is through the practices of Daoists in mountain caves that Daoists gradually constructed their sacred geography centering on mountains. As Daoist sacred mountains are the locus of transcendence and sanctity for Daoists, the Daoist sacred geography--- in other words, the narrative of the way to perceive their sacred landscapes, can shed light on the contour of the Daoist history in early medieval China. In this regard, a theory explaining the historical process of the construction of the Daoist sacred geography has been put forward by Ge Zhaoguang葛兆光, to generalize the Daoist history as a history of Daoist surrendering to the imperial power. In his book A History of Surrender: A Study on the Thoughts of Religious Daoism in the Six Dynasties and Sui-Tang period (222-907 AD), he proposed that the Daoist thoughts, knowledge, and rituals were “purified” by a long-term self-reform to attain the orthodoxy approval from the state regimes; Daoist lineages were denigrated to be “the others” by the official ideology (mostly Confucianism); the legitimacy of Daoist narratives is constructed by the discourse of power. From the sense of Michel Foucault, the history of religious Daoism is a fabulous illustration of the theory of power structure. It is mainly from the three aspects that Ge Zhaoguang argues his theory. The first one is that the socio-militarized structure of twenty-four dioceses was transformed as imagined geography of cavern heavens and blessed lands, which means Daoists lost their socio-military power in the secular world. The second one is that many significant rites and ceremonies, such as “the rites of passage”(Guodu Yi過度儀) and “charcoal-painting ceremonies” (Tutan Zhai塗炭齋), were removed by Daoists themselves to get away from the moral criticism from Confucianists and Buddhists. In addition, the ritualistic knowledge and magics of Daoism were shadowed by the prevailed metaphysical teachings and mysterious philosophies in order to cater to the tastes of Confucian intellectuals and other imperial cultural elites. Ge Zhaoguang concludes that religious Daoism acknowledged its allegiance to the imperial power by castrating some of its most featured knowledge and skills. Although there have been commentary articles on his theory, no one has ever responded to it by a study on the construction of the Daoist sacred geography. In this thesis, I will examine his theory by responding to the three aspects.Show less

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Let Immortals Govern: the Power Structure in the Construction of Daoist Sacred Geography