Access Today Early Chinese Religion Part Two : The Period Of Division (220-589 AD), Volume 1 Designed And Illustrated By John Lagerwey Released As Kindle

was the best nonfiction book I've read so far this year, It was lovely to be able to find something so scholarly that got me thinking again about all sorts of PHD topics and inspired me to study more Chinese.
There was a lot in here about women in religion, particularly women shamans, and the role that they had in state religion throughout the period in different places,

James Lagerway's introductory essay is not just a good introduction to the book but an excellent summation of the transition in religion and it's influences during this period.
It is definitely one I'd recommend to students of Chinese religion,

Chen Shuguo's essay looks at the importance of the five phases in relation to the mandate of heaven during the period of disunion as well as the state sacrifices, including the feng and shan sacrifices.
He discusses the continutation or ritual from the Qin and preQin times, The sacrifices are given in quite a lot of ritual detail as are the variations between the different times and the different dynasties, p.mentions how in the Northern WeiShamanesses were involved in the ceremonies, beating drums, Women also led the sacrifices to earth p,He also mentions that the zhouli has a nuwu woman shaman chapter which I didn't realise before, Chen also covers offerings to ancestors and ghosts or as he calls them, other dead humans,

Keith Knapp looked at ancestral sacrifices and how they had changed over time to conform to more "Confucian" standards, He mentions that in the past these rites included blood sacrifices and shamans,

State religious policy was the focus of Li Gang's essay, How the new religions were incorporated into state policy, how this varied by area,

Shamans and politcs by FuShih Lin was one of the most interesting to me, It looked at the role male and female shamans played in state religion, How that even though during the Han they didn't have much of a role in state religon in the period of disunion there was a huge role, largely brought about by "barbarians" from the north and different religious beliefs from places like Chu.
It was a fascinating atricle, It was interesting to see women having a predominate role in state religion, indeed one of the things that stopped it later was the argument that it made these women immoral cause they weren't in their proper place.
One thing that I would like to know is how the Wu Shamans interacted with the populace, were they just for imperial sacrifices or were they part of the every day life as well If they had been part of the practices then they must have been.
There is mention of temples springing up and shamans curing people who were sick, This is an area I find most fascintating, I want to copy every page of this article, The only criticism of this I have was the repeated use of the phrase the Emperors "beliveing" in Shaman, There really wasn't anything to believe in or not, I think it would be better to have said their practices were allowed or encouraged,

Liu Shufen looked at Buddhist iconagraphy that was much more evident in the North than in the South, This was an area of study that has much less appeal to me so I skimmed the essay, Though he did mention a young girl agedwho wanted to become a nun who created scriptures, she would enter into a trance and speak out the scriptureswhich was very interesting.
She came from an aristocratic background and wasn't punished, her parents tried to marry her off but instead she became a nun,

Robert Ford Campany wrote about the community of transcednets, Transcendents are always pictured as the immortals living alone as hermits in the mountains and the essay was trying to look at how they actually interacted with the local community.
It seemed that some of them acted as healers, selling medical ingredients, others were their to prove their authenticity,

Terry Kleeman looked at life in the early Daoist church, Unlike the Taoism book I just read this one focused almost entirely on the Celestial Master tradition, It showed the great equality of early Taoism in that men and women were ordained together, though deliberately didn't go into detail about the yellow and red ceremonies, which were likely sexual.
But it reminded me why this phase of the religion appeals to me

so much and I took lots of notes all about the different titles for women and about their responsibilities, and the non gender specific language in the scriptures and books of instruction.


On the other side of Taoism Zhang Xunliang wrote about Daoist stele inscriptions, like the Buddhist ones these were also much more common in the north, These included references to both male and female taoists, but also showed how mixed Taoism and Buddhism were,

John Kieschnick's essay on Buddhist monasticism should be required reading for all students of Chinese religion, It very clearly lays out the history and changes of monasticism in China for the period of disunion, It focuses much more on monks and nuns, but then so did Buddhism at the time,

The last essay by li Yuqun was another that I skim read, It was very good and very detailed, just about a topic I'm not as interested in, Li examined the layout of caves and monasteries being used by Buddhist monks in great detail, the different types of rooms in each and the little variations by area and time.
Definitely of great interest to students of Buddhism,

All told this was a fantastic collecion of essays, I've already reserved the next volume at the SOAS library and will be taking many copies from this one, The book is onsale at amazon forso I am so grateful to have an alumni membership to the library and be able to read this for free, After the Warring States, treated in Part One of this set, there is no more fecund era in Chinese religious and cultural history than the period of divisionAD.
During it, Buddhism conquered China, Daoism grew into a mature religion with independent institutions, and, together with Confucianism, these three teachings, having each won its share of state recognition and support, formed a united front against shamanism.
While all four religions are covered, Buddhism and Daoism receive special attention in a series of parallel chapters on their pantheons, rituals, sacred geography, community organization, canon formation, impact on literature, and recent archaeological discoveries.
This multidisciplinary approach, without ignoring philosophical and theological issues, brings into sharp focus the social and historical matrices of Chinese religion, good encyclopedic knowledge good reference Currently at the Centre for East Asian Studies The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin , NT, Hong Kong, Education:Diploma of Habilitation for the direction of doctoral theses, University of Paris VII JussieuPost doctoral study of Taoism under professors Max Kaltenmark and Kristofer Schipper, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes Paris SorbonnePh.
D. Chinese Literature, Harvard University.