Taoism
Subtitle: Growth of a Religion
Contributors: Phyllis Brooks (Translator)
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: May 1, 1997
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780804728393
Subjects: History of religion; Taoism; Prehistory; c 1000 CE to c 1500; c 500 CE to c 1000 CE; Religion - World Religions; Religion; Religion / Taoism; History
First sentence: The period of the fourth to third centuries B.C., a time of great intellectual vigor, saw the emergence of all the fundamental features of Chinese culture.
Description: This is a survey of the history of Taoism from approximately the third century B.C., to the fourteenth century A.D.

The main aim of this history of Taoism is to trace the major lines of its doctrinal evolution, showing the coherence of its development, the wide varieties of factors that came into play over a long period of disconnected eras, the constant absorptions of outside contributions, and the progress that integrates them. The author shows how certain recurrent themes are treated in different ways in different eras and different sects.

Among these themes are the Ultimate Truth, immortality, the Sage, the genesis and the end of the world, retribution for good and evil acts, representations of heavens and hells, and the connections between life and the spirit, between life and death, between man and society, and between mystical experience and the social form of religion.