The Taoist Body道体论

Also known as

Le corps taoïste

Author / transmission

Kristofer Schipper

Period

Modern · By Kristofer Schipper; French original, Le corps taoïste: corps physique, corps social (Fayard, 1982); English translation by Karen C. Duval, The Taoist Body, University of California Press, 1993.

Canon division

Reference Works

Collected in

A modern work.

Category

Reference Works

Fascicles

1 Volume

Synopsis

The Taoist Body (French original title Le corps taoïste) is a classic work of Western Daoist studies. Kristofer Schipper conducted long-term fieldwork in southern Taiwan during the 1960s and was formally ordained with registers as a Zhengyi priest; this book was written by combining his own participatory experience of ritual practice with textual research. Taking the ‘body’ as its central thread throughout, the book connects the personal body (body gods, the cinnabar field, inner visualization), the social body (villages, temples, and the relationship between priests and community), and the cosmic body (heaven and earth, the pantheon, and ritual space), showing how Daoism uses the body as a medium to link personal cultivation, communal ritual, and cosmic order into a single whole. Its philosophical readings of the Laozi and Zhuangzi, its exposition of the internal-alchemical conception of the body gods, and its account of the ‘jiao’ offering rituals of the Daoist altars of Tainan are all highly illuminating. This book broke down the old dichotomy of ‘philosophical Daoism versus religious Daoism,’ establishing an approach to understanding Daoism through living ritual tradition; complementing Robinet's textual-historical research, it is one of the most frequently cited introductory works on Daoism in the English-speaking world.

Key Ideas

• Uses the ‘body’ as a thread connecting the personal, the communal and the cosmic
• Combines fieldwork with textual research
• Participant observation by an author formally ordained with Zhengyi registers
• Breaks down the dichotomy between philosophical and religious Daoism
• Establishes an approach to Daoism through living ritual tradition

Structure

Organized into chapters on the body, scriptures, body gods, priests, ritual, and community.

Editions

• Fayard, 1982 (French original)
• University of California Press, 1993 (English translation)
• Chinese translation, Daoti lun (related renderings)

Translations

• English translation by Karen C. Duval (1993)

Full Text & Online Resources

• University of California Press
• Wikipedia: Kristofer Schipper

Related scriptures

Related figures