Ancestors and Anxiety

Ancestors and Anxiety

Daoism and the Birth of Rebirth in China

$34.95

Publication Date: 4th February 2009

This innovative work on Chinese concepts of the afterlife is the result of Stephen Bokenkamp's groundbreaking study of Chinese scripture and the incorporation of Indic concepts into the Chinese worldview.... Read More
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This innovative work on Chinese concepts of the afterlife is the result of Stephen Bokenkamp's groundbreaking study of Chinese scripture and the incorporation of Indic concepts into the Chinese worldview.... Read More
Description
This innovative work on Chinese concepts of the afterlife is the result of Stephen Bokenkamp's groundbreaking study of Chinese scripture and the incorporation of Indic concepts into the Chinese worldview. Here, he explores how Chinese authors, including Daoists and non-Buddhists, received and deployed ideas about rebirth from the third to the sixth centuries C.E. In tracing the antecedents of these scriptures, Bokenkamp uncovers a stunning array of non-Buddhist accounts that provide detail on the realms of the dead, their denizens, and human interactions with them. Bokenkamp demonstrates that the motive for the Daoist acceptance of Buddhist notions of rebirth lay not so much in the power of these ideas as in the work they could be made to do.
Details
  • Price: $34.95
  • Pages: 232
  • Carton Quantity: 30
  • Publisher: University of California Press
  • Imprint: University of California Press
  • Publication Date: 4th February 2009
  • Trim Size: 6 x 9 in
  • Illustration Note: A Lillienthal title
  • ISBN: 9780520259881
  • Format: Paperback
  • BISACs:
    RELIGION / Taoism (see also PHILOSOPHY / Taoist)
Author Bio
Stephen R. Bokenkamp is Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University. He is the author of Early Daoist Scriptures (UC Press).
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation
Introduction: The Problem of Rebirth

1. Envisioning the Dead
2. The Unquiet Dead and Their Families, Political and Agnate
3. Questionable Shapes: How the Living Interrogated Their Dead
4. Doomed for a Certain Term: The Intimate Dead
5. Rebirth Reborn

Postscript
List of Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index
This innovative work on Chinese concepts of the afterlife is the result of Stephen Bokenkamp's groundbreaking study of Chinese scripture and the incorporation of Indic concepts into the Chinese worldview. Here, he explores how Chinese authors, including Daoists and non-Buddhists, received and deployed ideas about rebirth from the third to the sixth centuries C.E. In tracing the antecedents of these scriptures, Bokenkamp uncovers a stunning array of non-Buddhist accounts that provide detail on the realms of the dead, their denizens, and human interactions with them. Bokenkamp demonstrates that the motive for the Daoist acceptance of Buddhist notions of rebirth lay not so much in the power of these ideas as in the work they could be made to do.
  • Price: $34.95
  • Pages: 232
  • Carton Quantity: 30
  • Publisher: University of California Press
  • Imprint: University of California Press
  • Publication Date: 4th February 2009
  • Trim Size: 6 x 9 in
  • Illustrations Note: A Lillienthal title
  • ISBN: 9780520259881
  • Format: Paperback
  • BISACs:
    RELIGION / Taoism (see also PHILOSOPHY / Taoist)
Stephen R. Bokenkamp is Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University. He is the author of Early Daoist Scriptures (UC Press).
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation
Introduction: The Problem of Rebirth

1. Envisioning the Dead
2. The Unquiet Dead and Their Families, Political and Agnate
3. Questionable Shapes: How the Living Interrogated Their Dead
4. Doomed for a Certain Term: The Intimate Dead
5. Rebirth Reborn

Postscript
List of Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index