Jinhua Jia
Publisher:
Columbia University Press
Publication Date:
March 2018
Abstract:
During the Tang dynasty (618–907), the adoption of Daoism as the de facto state religion opened the possibility for Chinese women to play an unprecedented role in religious and public life. Women from imperial princesses to the daughters of commoner families could be ordained as Daoist priestesses and become religious leaders, teachers, and practitioners in their own right. Some achieved remarkable accomplishments: one wrote and transmitted influential texts on meditation and inner cultivation; another, a physician, authored a treatise on therapeutic methods, medical theory, and longevity techniques. Priestess-poets composed major works, and talented priestess-artists produced stunning calligraphy.
In Gender, Power, and Talent, Jinhua Jia draws on a wealth of previously untapped sources to explain how Daoist priestesses distinguished themselves as a distinct gendered religious and social group. She describes the life journey of priestesses from palace women to abbesses and ordinary practitioners, touching on their varied reasons for entering the Daoist orders, the role of social and religious institutions, forms of spiritual experience, and the relationships between gendered identities and cultural representations. Jia takes the reader inside convents and cloisters, demonstrating how they functioned both as a female space for self-determination and as a public platform for both religious and social spheres. The first comprehensive study of the lives and roles of Daoist priestesses in Tang China, Gender, Power, and Talent restores women to the landscape of Chinese religion and literature and proposes new methodologies for the growing field of gender and religion.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1. The Rise of Daoist Priestesses as a Gendered Religio-Social Group
2. Destiny and Power of the Ordained Royal Women
3. Religious Leadership, Practice, and Ritual Function
4. Liu Moran 柳默然 and the Daoist Theory of Inner Cultivation
5. Longevity Techniques and Medical Theory: The Legacy of Hu Yin 胡愔
6. The Yaochi ji 瑤池集 and Three Daoist Priestess-Poets
7. Unsold Peony: The Life and Poetry of the Priestess-Poet Yu Xuanji 魚玄機
Conclusion
Appendix: Du Guangting and the Hagiographies of Tang Daoist Women
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