Yoshioka Yoshitoyo吉冈义丰

Style & Daoist names

Yoshioka Yoshitoyo

Period

Modern

Dates

1916 — 1979

Role

Daoist ScholarsField researcher

Birthplace

Japan

Places of activity

White Cloud Temple (Baiyun Guan), Beijing

Life

Yoshioka Yoshitoyo, a Japanese scholar of Daoism, was a professor at Taishō University. In the 1940s he resided at the White Cloud Temple, Beijing, to conduct fieldwork there, and his records of the daily life, monastic rules, and ordination system of its priests (included in Studies on Daoism and Daoism and Buddhism) are among the most valuable field materials on Quanzhen monasteries at the end of the Republican era. After the war he specialized in Daoist scriptures and the relationship between Daoism and Buddhism, writing A Historical Study of Daoist Scriptures (1955), the three-volume Daoism and Buddhism (1959–1976), and Studies on Daoism, examining the Duren jing (Scripture of Salvation) and the Taishang ganying pian (Treatise on Action and Response) and the mutual influence of Daoist and Buddhist precepts. He also edited the journal Studies on Daoism and worked with Anna Seidel of France and others to promote international Daoist studies; he died in 1979.

Contributions & Influence

• Recorded the daily life and ordination practices of priests at the White Cloud Temple, leaving valuable field materials
• Wrote A Historical Study of Daoist Scriptures and Daoism and Buddhism, studying Buddhist–Daoist relations
• Promoted collaboration between Japanese and European Daoist studies

Works

• Dōkyō Keiten Shiron (A Historical Study of Daoist Scriptures)
• Dōkyō to Bukkyō (Daoism and Buddhism, three volumes)
• Dōkyō no Kenkyū (Studies on Daoism)
• Eisei e no Negai (The Wish for Eternal Life)