Anna Seidel索安

Style & Daoist names

Anna Katharina Seidel

Period

Modern

Dates

1938 — 1991

Role

SinologistDaoist Scholars

Birthplace

Berlin, Germany

Life

Anna Seidel, a German sinologist and student of Max Kaltenmark, wrote her doctoral dissertation, La divinisation de Lao tseu dans le taoïsme des Han (1969), on the deification of Laozi under the Eastern Han and on texts such as the Laozi bianhua jing (Scripture of the Transformations of Laozi); it became a classic of early Daoist studies. From 1969 she worked for many years at the Kyoto centre of the École française d'Extrême-Orient in Japan, and with Hubert Durt founded and edited the Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie (1985), linking Daoist scholarship in Japan, France and the United States. Her Chronicle of Taoist Studies in the West, 1950–1990 (1989–90) surveys Western Daoist scholarship systematically and, in Chinese translation, has been highly influential; she also wrote important papers on prophetic charts, the Mandate of Heaven, tomb-quelling texts and conceptions of the underworld, advancing significant arguments about the relation between Han Daoism and imperial ideology. She died of illness in Germany in 1991.

Contributions & Influence

• Studied the deification of Laozi under the Han, laying the foundations of early Daoist studies
• Wrote the Chronicle of Taoist Studies in the West, summing up the history of Daoist scholarship
• Linked French, Japanese and American Daoist scholarship, and directed research at the Kyoto centre of the École française d'Extrême-Orient

Works

• La divinisation de Lao tseu dans le taoïsme des Han
• Chronicle of Taoist Studies in the West 1950–1990
• Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments
• Taoism: The Unofficial High Religion of China