Cultivating Perfection: Mysticism and Self-Transformation in Early Quanzhen Daoism (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9789004160385)

This important work focuses on early Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism, a twelfth-century Daoist religious movement and subsequent monastic order. Emphasis in this first study to approach Quanzhen from a comparative religious studies perspective is placed on the complex interplay among views of self, specific training regimens, and the types of experiences that were expected to follow from dedicated praxis. On the basis of historical contextualization and textual analysis it is demonstrated that in its formative and incipient organized phases Quanzhen was a Daoist religious community consisting of a few renunciants dedicated to religious praxis. The study proper is followed by a complete annotated translation of a text attributed to the founder, which represents one of only two early Quanzhen texts translated to date. Subsequent appendices address issues of dating and contents of the early textual corpus as well as technical Quanzhen religious terminology.

Author: Louis Komjathy
ISBN-10: 9004160388
ISBN-13: 9789004160385
Publisher: Brill
Language: English
Published: 09/11/2007
Pages: 553
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.59lbs
Size: 9.68h x 6.87w x 1.51d

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2008 pg. 16