Celestial Masters: History and Ritual in Early Daoist Communities天师道：早期道教社群的历史与仪式

Also known as

Celestial Masters

Author / transmission

Terry F. Kleeman

Period

Modern · By Terry F. Kleeman; published by the Harvard University Asia Center, 2016 (Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series).

Canon division

Reference Works

Collected in

A modern work.

Category

Reference Works

Fascicles

1 Volume

Synopsis

Celestial Masters: History and Ritual in Early Daoist Communities is the most comprehensive English-language monograph on the early Way of the Celestial Masters. Kleeman draws together the standard histories, texts from the Daoist Canon (the Scripture of Precepts Chanted by Lord Lao, Master Lu's Abridged Codes for the Daoist Community, the Zhengyi fawen series, and the Almanac of Petitions of Master Chisong, among others), stele inscriptions, and excavated materials, to reconstruct the actual workings of the Celestial Master community from the end of the Eastern Han through the Northern and Southern Dynasties: the organization of the Twenty-four Parishes, the libationer system, household-registration-style enrollment of believers, the communal ‘kitchen assembly’ meals, the Three Assembly Days, the submission of petitions and confession of faults, the grades of conferred registers, debates over marriage and the rite of merging pneumas, and the relationship between religion and local society. His central argument is that the Way of the Celestial Masters was not a loosely organized popular movement, but a religious community with well-defined membership, a clerical hierarchy, economic obligations, and a ritual calendar, forming the prototype for later Daoist institutions. Complementing Bokenkamp's textual research and Verellen's studies of ritual history, this book is the standard work in English-language scholarship on the social history of early Daoism. Kleeman also wrote A God's Own Tale (1994, a study of the cult of Wenchang) and Great Perfection (1998).

Key Ideas

• The most comprehensive English-language monograph on the early Way of the Celestial Masters
• The institutions of the Twenty-four Parishes, libationers, household registration, and kitchen assemblies
• The Three Assembly Days, submission of petitions and confession of faults, and grades of conferred registers
• The Way of the Celestial Masters as a religious community with a defined clerical hierarchy
• The prototype for later Daoist institutions

Structure

Organized into chapters on history, organization, membership, ritual, and social relations.

Editions

• Harvard University Asia Center, 2016

Full Text & Online Resources

• Harvard University Press
• Wikipedia: Way of the Celestial Masters

Related scriptures

Related figures