Customer Reviews

Taoism: Growth of a Religion

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A highly recommendable scholarly discussion of the origin and development of Taoism up to the 14th century CE. I have long been frustrated by the popular distinction between 'philosophical' and 'religious' Taoism, since such a distinction could in principle be made of any religion. The danger is that what westerners like they call 'philosophical' and what they don't like they label 'religious'and then dispense with. The idea that some metaphysical 'essence' of Taoism deserves to be taken seriously, while the rituals and practice of Taoism do not is fundamentally bad scholarship. Fortunately then, Robinet challenges the popular view head on by claiming and showing that 'religious' Taoism is simply the practice of 'philosophical' Taoism. One without the other is senseless. This is an important work, but for a general introduction to Taoism for the interested beginner I would also recommend Martin Palmer's 'The Elements of Taoism'. Palmer sems to be aware of and in sympathy with Robinet's position.

This is simply an excellent volume, a solid overview of one thousand years of Daoism from THE expert on the Shangqing school of southern Daoism (4th-5th c.AD). The bibliography alone makes this book worth it, both extensive and broken down by period. I'm just finishing up a master's concerning Ge Hong's "Baopuzi" and I'm about to start a Ph.D. project on the "Huainanzi," and I must say that even though I've read many excellent texts on Daoism, Robinet's provides some excellent defining concepts as well as a good introduction to many of the strengths of French scholarship in my field.

The first thing to understand is that the book was originally written in French and most of Robinet's works are not available in English. I am not sure whether the translator caused problems in the layout of the text, or just Robinet's organization/thesis was poor to begin with, though I'd like to believe it was a poor translation.

This work lacks a cohesive purpose and never really gets into what Taoism is all about and certainly says nothing about its growth as a religion. If you knew nothing about Taoism going into this reading, you would be absolutely lost. The writing assumes you have substantial knowledge and explains very little along the lines of its references.

As it stands, it's useful to a person extremely well versed in this religion, Chinese tradition/medicine in general and also someone who knows the five-agent theory along with the I Ching. If you do not have this knowledge, steer clear of this rambling and sophomoric listing of other references (there are reference notes on almost half the pages).

Robinet's book here is touted on the back cover as investigating what the difference is between Philosophical and Religious Taoism, something it never truly does - that was the most glaring defect I found in this work. I purchased it to get into that division, which I have always been interested in. This work simply lists out most Taoist texts, the time they were written and by whom.

It also spends the majority of the text going into shamanistic ritual in useless detail. Meaning, it does not clearly explain what was practiced, but lists out a rough procedure that was followed by adherents of Taoist related beliefs. It's also obvious that Robinet holds some disdain for both the religious aspect and its past followers, as there is a general negative overtone to the book regarding most older Taoist practices.

If this book had contained timelines and charts to clarify the inordinate amount of dates and works, I may have given it two stars. It also references diagrams that were not included in the translation and makes the almost unforgivable mistake twice in the text of mixing Yin and Yang concepts up (probably bad translation issues, but still questionable). It does have a great explanation of Yin and Yang in the beginning and also of the concept of Hun and Po soul division.

Here's who would benefit from this book: a serious scholar who owns many works on Taoism and lacks a general knowledge of when texts were written and an overall high level understanding of older Taoist rituals. Others will find much more value in almost any other work on Taoism, for founding history and a good background of Taoism's early development go with Elements of Taoism (Martin Palmer).