Early Daoist Dietary Practices (eBook)

Examining Ways to Health and Longevity

Shawn Arthur (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013
416 Seiten
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-0-7391-7893-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Focusing on the early medieval herbal recipes found in the Lingbao Wufuxu (The Preface to the Five Lingbao Talismans of Numinous Treasure), this study analyses Daoist asceticism and ideas regarding the body, health, grain avoidance diets, the Three Worms, and immortality.

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Much as the modern Western world is concerned with diets, health, and anti-aging remedies, many early medieval Chinese Daoists also actively sought to improve their health and increase their longevity through specialized ascetic dietary practices. Focusing on a fifth-century manual of herbal-based, immortality-oriented recipes-the Lingbao Wufuxu (The Preface to the Five Lingbao Talismans of Numinous Treasure)-Shawn Arthur investigates the diets, their ingredients, and their expected range of natural and supernatural benefits. Analyzing the ways that early Daoists systematically synthesized religion, Chinese medicine, and cosmological correlative logic, this study offers new understandings of important Daoist ideas regarding the body's composition and mutability, health and disease, grain avoidance (bigu) diets, the parasitic Three Worms, interacting with the spirit realm, and immortality. This work also employs a range of cross-disciplinary scientific and medical research to analyze the healing properties of Daoist self-cultivation diets and to consider some natural explanations for better understanding Daoist asceticism and its underlying world view.

Autor

Shawn Arthur is associate professor of Religion at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. His teaching and research focus on early Daoism; Chinese religions; the intersection of religion, culture, medicine, and the body; and method and theory in the study of religion.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: IntroductionChapter 2: The Wufuxu’s Recipe Structure and ContentChapter 3: Dietary Regimens: From Herbs to QiChapter 4: Healing and Improving the Physical BodyChapter 5: Beyond Physical Health: The Wufuxu’s Extraordinary ClaimsChapter 6: Daoist Grain Avoidance TodayChapter 7: The Wufuxu’s Ingredients and FastingChapter 8: Analyzing Dietary Ideals and PracticesChapter 9: Conclusion

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 27.6.2013
• Reihe/Serie: Studies in Body and Religion
• Zusatzinfo: 3 Illustrations including: - 3 Black & White Illustrations.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Ernährung / Diät / Fasten
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Weitere Religionen
• Themenwelt: Medizin / Pharmazie ► Gesundheitsfachberufe ► Diätassistenz / Ernährungsberatung
• Schlagworte: Anthropology • Asian Religion • Daoism • Food Studies • Religion • Religion and Body • Religion and History • Religious History • Taoism
• ISBN-10: 0-7391-7893-8 / 0739178938
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-7893-5 / 9780739178935