Journal of Chinese Religions ISSN: 0737-769X (Print) 2050-8999 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/yjch20 In the Shadows of the Dao: Laozi, the Sage, and the Daodejing David Chai To cite this article: David Chai (2017) In the Shadows of the Dao: Laozi, the Sage, and the Daodejing, Journal of Chinese Religions, 45:1, 106-108, DOI: 10.1080/0737769X.2017.1299407 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0737769X.2017.1299407 Published online: 25 Apr 2017. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=yjch20 106 BOOK REVIEWS THOMAS MICHAEL, In the Shadows of the Dao: Laozi, the Sage, and the Daodejing. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2015. xx, 312 pp. US$90 (hb). ISBN 978-1-4384-5897-7 Thomas Michael’s In the Shadows of the Dao seeks to boldly reread the Daodejing 道德經 by situating it “in a mountainous milieu where masters and disciples pursued a program of physical cultivation called yangsheng 養生” (p. xvi). As there is no historical mention of said tradition in classical Chinese sources, Michael has taken to calling it “early Daoism.” In order to support his claim that the yangsheng tradition predated and is distinct from the philosophical and religious lines of Daoism, Michael focuses on the role of the paradigmatic individual or sage. The book is divided into nine chapters, of which the first four are historically focused, the fifth addresses the relationship between early Daoism, its practice of yangsheng, and the Daodejing, and the remaining four chapters are devoted to particular characteristics of the sage. A translation of the Daodejing is given in the Appendix. In brief, the first chapter deals with matters of a textual nature such as reading and dating the Daodejing, and what the label of “early Daoism” entails. According to Michael, there are two strands of early Daoism: one pertains to Laozi, the other to Zhuangzi. The Laozi strand is based upon physical cultivation and contains the conceptual cluster of Dao, yangsheng, mountains, and wuwei 無爲 (p. 13). The practitioner of yangsheng thus resides in the mountains, nourishing his body via the qi 氣 of Dao, and having perfected his physical form, takes the spontaneity of Dao as his own in the form of wuwei or non-action. Chapter 2 examines modern scholarship on Daoism—English, French, and Chinese—and is an excellent, though abbreviated, look into their intellectual and cultural discourses. Chapter 3 turns to scholarship on the Daodejing itself. One of the first tasks Michael assumes is to dispute the perceived split between the philosophical and religious branches of Daoism. His solution is to apply the former (daojia 道家) to a Confucian reading of the text, while the latter (daojiao 道教) signifies a religious Daoist reading. Specifically, the Confucian reading points to the philosophical milieu in which the text was first read, traces of which, Michael says, can be found in late Warring States texts; conversely, the religious reading indicates the text can be associated with a clearly identifiable and institutionalized religious organization, such as the Celestial Masters of the third century CE (see pp. 49– 50). This clears the way for Michael’s third and original reading: an early Daoism that is neither exclusively philosophical nor religious. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to introducing the three major early commentaries to the Daodejing—Heshang Gong 河上公 (third century BCE), Xiang Er 想爾 (second century CE), and Wang Bi 王弼 (226–249 CE). Chapter 4 brings together the doctrines of Laozi and Confucius on Dao 道 and how from this common ground they would then diverge in their respective views of the body. For Confucius, the body embodies one’s duty to parents, ancestors, and the state. Laozi, on the other hand, saw the body as housing the primal elements of Dao (i.e., qi 氣, yin-yang 陰陽); thus, one must work to prevent their dispersal, otherwise longevity of life and unity with Dao will prove impossible. In chapter 5, Michael argues that early Daoism, as a hidden tradition of yangsheng (he translates yin 隱 as “hidden” instead of “reclusive,” because the latter has too much “baggage” BOOK REVIEWS 107 [p. 93]), was very much present in China prior to the Celestial Masters movement in the Six Dynasties period. What gives early Daoism its historical continuity since the Daodejing first circulated are indications in texts such as the Zhuangzi 莊子, Huainanzi 淮南子, Baopuzi 抱朴子, and Shenxian zhuan 神仙傳 of a mountain lifestyle, a program of physical cultivation, and the xian 仙 person (Michael leaves the term untranslated). It was because of the xian in the fangshi 方士 (masters of the esoteric) tradition, however, that “somewhere between the third and second centuries BCE, the Daodejing went public, and it was escorted into the public spotlight by the fangji 方技 [a sub-group of the fangshi] who were attracted to the yangsheng practices” (p. 129). Chapter 6 moves away from discussion of early Daoism and embarks on a historical-textual analysis of the sage and the benefits he brings to the world. Chapter 7 further analyzes the sage, describing his purpose as, first, restoring harmony to the world, and second, rectifying political and economic injustice (p. 178). The result is that the sage “saves people and things through the four benefits named in Daodejing ch. 57: transformation, alignment, flourishment, and simplicity” (p. 196). Benefitting the people in such a manner, Michael says, is to be knowledgeable of yangsheng. Chapter 8 digresses into an analysis of the Confucian theory of knowledge and how this differs from Laozi’s own doctrine as it pertains to selfcultivation. This chapter, like the previous two, falls victim to Michael’s desire to elucidate nearly every textual example extant, leaving the reader to wonder how it all speaks to the supposedly hidden, early tradition of Daoism. The ninth chapter is a scant nine pages and looks at the knowledge of the sage, of which there are three types: the esoteric, the practice of yangsheng, and that which follows mastery of yangsheng. Given that there is so much more that could have been said here but was not, one cannot but question the purpose of this chapter. The Appendix contains Michael’s translation of the Daodejing and adopts the format used by Rudolf Wagner in his A Chinese Reading of the Daodejing (SUNY Press, 2003). Stylistically, there are a number of typographical mistakes the reader should be aware of. The first is on page 1 where Wang Bi’s 王弼 name is given as bizhu 弼注; on page 9, “interplay of being 無 (wu) and non-being 有 (you)” should read “interplay of non-being 無 (wu) and being 有 (you);” page 13 uses the wrong character of 亡 (wang) in the phrase 坐忘 (zuo wang); the pinyin for “mysteries” 妙 (miao) and “manifestations” 徼 (jiao) on page 20 is inverted; on page 24, the pinyin for “institutionalized Daoism” and “philosophical Daoism” is inverted; Xu Dishan’s 許地山 book Daojiao shi 道教史 is erroneously cited as Daojia shi 道家 史 on page 26; the Baopuzi neipian 抱朴子內篇 on page 96 uses the incorrect character of ba 把 instead of bao (this mistake is repeated on page 293); and in the bibliography, the Chinese characters are missing from the following works: page 293 lacks 究 (jiu) at the end of Guodian Chujian Laozi yanjiu 郭店楚簡老子研究; on the same page, 句 (ju) is missing at the end of Laozi Daodejing Heshang Gong zhangju 老子道德經河上公章句; again on page 293, 注 (zhu) is missing at the end of Laozi Xiang’er zhu 老子想爾注; still on page 293, 本 (ben) is absent from the end of Xinshi Laozi duben 新釋老子讀本; and lastly, page 295 is missing the character 符 (fu) at the end of Chen Guofu’s 陳國符 name. Despite the aforementioned criticism, In the Shadows of the Dao is a work of sound scholarship. The first five chapters of the book are a valiant attempt at establishing credibility for the idea that the Daodejing can be taken as the representative 108 BOOK REVIEWS text of a yangsheng ethos in ancient China. In doing so, Michael makes a strong case for a branch of Daoism that differs from the religious line favored by Henri Maspero, Michel Strickmann, and others, and the philosophical line favored by Herrlee Creel, Feng Youlan, and others. In doing so, however, Michael has unwittingly painted himself into a corner, and nowhere are his historical-textual limitations more apparent than in the last four chapters of the book; they are so far removed from the previous ones in terms of focus and writing style, that one wonders if Michael forgot he was writing about men whose primary concern was with life-nourishment. Michael’s complacency towards the commentarial tradition to the Daodejing is also surprising; only three commentators are discussed in chapter 3, but, strangely, their actual commentaries are nowhere to be seen. Given the innumerable commentaries in existence, surely some of them touch upon yangsheng practices and texts long since lost to the ashes of history. To conclude, In the Shadows of the Dao makes for an illuminating if slightly confined study of the Daodejing. Yet what it does cover is done extremely well, making it a worthy addition to anyone’s library. DAVID CHAI Chinese University of Hong Kong © 2017 David Chai DOI 10.1080/0737769X.2017.1299407 ANN A. PANG-WHITE, ed., The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy and Gender. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. xvi, 413 pp. £100 (hb). ISBN 978-14-72569-85-1 The nexus between Asian religious and philosophical traditions and gender has attracted increasing scholarly attention in recent years.1 So, too, has the study of women and gender in China.2 The newest contribution to these bodies of literature, 1 See, for instance, Diana Y. Paul, Women in Buddhism: Images of the Feminine in the Mahāyāna Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Rita M. Gross, Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993); Chenyang Li, ed., The Sage and the Second Sex: Confucianism, Ethics, and Gender (La Salle, IL: Open Court Press, 2000); Susan Mann and Yu-ying Cheng, eds., Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee, Confucianism and Women: A Philosophical Interpretation (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2006); Hsiao-Lan Hu, This-Worldy Nibbāna: A Buddhist-Feminist Social Ethic for Peacemaking in the Global Community (Albany: SUNY Press, 2011); Jennifer McWeeny and Ashby Butnor, eds., Asian and Feminist Philosophies in Dialogue: Liberating Traditions (Columbia University Press, 2014). 2 See, for instance, Yu-ning Li, ed., Chinese Women through Chinese Eyes (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1992); Patricia Buckley Ebrey, The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Dorothy Y. Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994); Susan Mann, Precious Records: Women in China’s Long Eighteenth Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997); Lisa A. Raphals, Sharing the Light: