Michael Saso苏海涵

Style & Daoist names

Michael R. Saso

Period

Modern to contemporary

Dates

1930 — ?

School

Zhengyi (Orthodox Unity) Daoism

Role

Daoist ScholarsRegister-Ordained Daoist PriestFormer Jesuit

Birthplace

United States

Life

Michael Saso, an American scholar and former Jesuit, is professor emeritus of religious studies at the University of Hawai'i. In the 1960s he studied ritual protocol under the Zhengyi Daoist master Zhuang Chen Dengyun in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and received ordination and registers, making him one of the first Western scholars to study Taiwanese Daoist ritual as a participant. He wrote Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal (1972) and The Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang (1978), and compiled and published the twenty-five-volume Zhuanglin xu daozang (Chuang-Lin Supplement to the Daoist Canon, 1975), which made manuscript ritual texts of Taiwanese Zhengyi altars publicly available, providing important material for scholarship while also provoking controversy within the Daoist community. The above is drawn from publicly available academic information.

Contributions & Influence

• Studied Taiwanese Zhengyi ritual as an ordained practitioner, writing Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal
• Compiled the Chuang-Lin Supplement to the Daoist Canon, making Zhengyi ritual manuscripts publicly available
• Trained scholars of Daoist studies at the University of Hawai'i

Works

• Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal
• The Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang
• Chuang-Lin Supplement to the Daoist Canon (editor)