Early Daoist Dietary Practices

Examining Ways to Health and Longevity

Shawn Arthur (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

288 Seiten

2015
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-1-4985-2104-8 (ISBN)

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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.

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.

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.

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Wufuxu’s Recipe Structure and Content
Chapter 3: Dietary Regimens: From Herbs to Qi
Chapter 4: Healing and Improving the Physical Body
Chapter 5: Beyond Physical Health: The Wufuxu’s Extraordinary Claims
Chapter 6: Daoist Grain Avoidance Today
Chapter 7: The Wufuxu’s Ingredients and Fasting
Chapter 8: Analyzing Dietary Ideals and Practices
Chapter 9: Conclusion

Reihe/Serie	Studies in Body and Religion
Verlagsort	Lanham, MD
Sprache	englisch
Maße	155 x 229 mm
Gewicht	463 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Ernährung / Diät / Fasten
	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Esoterik / Spiritualität
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Weitere Religionen
	Medizin / Pharmazie ► Gesundheitsfachberufe ► Diätassistenz / Ernährungsberatung
ISBN-10	1-4985-2104-5 / 1498521045
ISBN-13	978-1-4985-2104-8 / 9781498521048
Zustand	Neuware