Kubo Noritada洼德忠

Style & Daoist names

Kubo Noritada

Period

Modern

Dates

1913 — 2010

Role

Daoist ScholarsProfessor, University of Tokyo

Birthplace

Japan

Life

Kubo Noritada was a Japanese scholar of Daoism, professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo, and president of the Japanese Society of Taoist Studies. He is known for his research on the cult of Gengshen; his Study of the Gengshen Cult (1961) traces the transmission of beliefs about the Three Corpses and the practice of Keeping Vigil on Gengshen Nights from Chinese Daoism to Japan and Okinawa. He also conducted long-term fieldwork on Daoism and folk customs among Okinawan and Southeast Asian Chinese communities, and wrote Religious Reform in China: The Formation of the Quanzhen Teaching (1967), A History of Daoism (1977, whose Chinese translation is widely read), A Hundred Talks on Daoism, and The Deities of Daoism, among others. He was a pioneer in studying Daoism as a shared East Asian religious phenomenon, and his popular works have had great influence in both Japan and China.

Contributions & Influence

• Studied the cult of Gengshen and its eastward transmission
• Wrote A History of Daoism, popularizing Daoist history
• Studied the formation of the Quanzhen teaching and the spread of Daoism across East Asia

Works

• Kōshin Shinkō no Kenkyū (Studies on the Cult of Gengshen)
• History of Daoism
• Chūgoku no Shūkyō Kaikaku: Zenshinkyō no Seiritsu (China's Religious Reformation: The Formation of Quanzhen Daoism)
• Dōkyō Hyakuwa (A Hundred Talks on Daoism)