In the Shadows of the Dao : Laozi, the Sage, and the Daodejing.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (334 pages)
- SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture Series .
- SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture Series .
Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- 1. Reading the Daodejing Synthetically -- Orientations -- Conventions -- Shadows -- On the early daoism label -- 2. Modern Scholarship on the Daodejing -- Religious and philosophical approaches to the daodejing -- Modern western approaches to the daodejing -- Modern chinese approaches to the daodejing -- 3. Traditions of Reading the Daodejing -- Daojia, daojiao, and early daoism -- The role of commentary in the daodejing -- The heshang gong commentary -- The xiang'er commentary -- The wang bi commentary -- Three commentaries in comparison -- 4. The Daos of Laozi and Confucius -- Records of the interview -- Glimpses into the dao of antiquity -- The fault line -- Two disciplines of the body -- Laozi and confucius revisited -- 5. Early Daoism, Yangsheng, and the Daodejing -- The hiddenness of early daoism -- A separate history -- Orality and the daodejing -- Early daoism and yangsheng -- Two master traditions and a third -- Yangsheng and the daodejing -- 6. The Sage and the World -- Early chinese archetypes: the sage, the king, and the general -- The benefits of the sage -- Qi: the stuff of life -- De: circulation is not always virtuous -- De in action -- 7. The Sage and the Project -- The death-world -- Projects -- The great project of the world -- Salvation -- 8. The Sage and Bad Knowledge -- A confucian study break -- Knowledge and yangsheng sequences -- Brightness and yangsheng sequences -- Knowledge is a sickness -- The question of early daoism revisited -- 9. The Sage and Good Knowledge -- The second-order harmony -- Yangsheng and the knowledge of the sage -- Appendix: The Daodejing -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Primary Sources and Critical Texts: Daodejing -- Secondary Sources -- Index.
Challenges standard views of the origins of the Daodejing, revealing the work's roots in a tradition of physical cultivation.