1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9911143023703321

Autore

Bokenkamp Stephen R. <1949->

Titolo

Ancestors and anxiety : Daoism and the birth of rebirth in China / / Stephen R. Bokenkamp

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley ; ; London, : University of California Press, c2007

ISBN

9786612445736

9781282445734

1282445731

9780520933347

0520933346

9781435601970

1435601971

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (233 p.)

Collana

A Philip E. Lilienthal book in Asian studies

Disciplina

299.514237

Soggetti

Taoism

Reincarnation - Buddhism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

"A Philip E. Lilienthal book"--P. [ii].

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-213) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Translation -- Introduction: The Problem of Rebirth -- 1. Envisioning the Dead -- 2. The Unquiet Dead and Their Families, Political and Agnate -- 3. Questionable Shapes: How the Living Interrogated Their Dead -- 4. Doomed for a Certain Term: The Intimate Dead -- 5. Rebirth Reborn -- Postscript -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

This innovative work on Chinese concepts of the afterlife is the result of Stephen Bokenkamp's groundbreaking study of Chinese scripture and the incorporation of Indic concepts into the Chinese worldview. Here, he explores how Chinese authors, including Daoists and non-Buddhists, received and deployed ideas about rebirth from the third to the sixth centuries C.E. In tracing the antecedents of these scriptures, Bokenkamp uncovers a stunning array of non-Buddhist accounts that provide detail on the realms of the dead, their denizens, and human interactions with them. Bokenkamp demonstrates that the motive for the Daoist acceptance of Buddhist notions of rebirth lay not so much in



the power of these ideas as in the work they could be made to do.