The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang道藏通考

Also known as

The Taoist Canon

Author / transmission

Kristofer Schipper, Franciscus Verellen

Period

Modern · Co-edited by Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2004, in three volumes; the product of more than twenty years of collective research under the European 'Daozang Project' (Projet Tao-tsang, launched in 1979).

Canon division

Reference Works

Collected in

Modern scholarly work

Category

Reference Works

Fascicles

3 volumes (about 1,600 pages)

Synopsis

The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang is a landmark reference work of Western Daoist studies, co-edited by Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen with contributions from nearly thirty scholars across Europe, America, and Japan over more than twenty years, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2004 in three volumes. Rather than following the original numbering of the Daozang, the work reorganizes the entire canon by historical period (Han through the Six Dynasties, Tang, Song-Liao-Jin, and Yuan-Ming) and by genre, providing English-language descriptive notes for all of the more than 1,400 texts in the Zhengtong Daozang and the Wanli Supplementary Daoist Canon, establishing their dates of composition, authorship, lineages of transmission, and textual relationships, together with detailed introductions, bibliographies, and indexes. Its greatest contribution lies in reorganizing the Daozang along historical, chronological lines, allowing readers to perceive the successive strata and lines of development within Daoist scripture, and it fundamentally changed the way Western scholarship uses the Daozang. Together with Ren Jiyu's Descriptive Notes on the Daoist Canon, it is regarded as one of the two great descriptive catalogues of the Daozang, Chinese and Western, and is the standard reference for international Daoist studies.

Key Ideas

• A landmark reference work of Western Daoist studies
• The product of more than twenty years of collective research under the European Daozang project
• Reorganizes the Daozang by historical period and genre
• Provides English-language descriptive notes for the entire canon
• Regarded, alongside Descriptive Notes on the Daoist Canon, as one of the two great Daozang catalogues

Structure

Three volumes, arranged by period — Han and the Six Dynasties, Tang, Song-Liao-Jin, and Yuan-Ming — each with descriptive notes, together with an introduction, bibliography, and indexes.

Editions

• University of Chicago Press, 2004 (3 vols.)

Full Text & Online Resources

• University of Chicago Press
• Wikipedia: Kristofer Schipper

Related scriptures

Related figures