Although the study of traditional Chinese medicine has attracted unprecedented attention in recent years, Western knowledge of it has been limited because, until now, not a single Chinese classical medical text has been available in a serious philological translation. The present book offers, for the first time in any Western language, a complete translation of an ancient Chinese medical classic, the Nan-ching. The translation adheres to rigid sinological standards and applies philological and historiographic methods. The original text of the Nan-ching was compiled during the first century A.D. by an unknown author. From that time forward, this ancient text provoked an ongoing stream of commentaries. Following the Sung era, it was misidentified as merely an explanatory sequel to the classic of the Yellow Emperor, the Huang-ti nei-ching. This volume, however, demonstrates that the Nan-ching should once again be regarded as a significant and innovative text in itself. It marked the apex and the conclusion of the initial development phase of a conceptual system of health care based on the doctrines of the Five Phases and yinyang. As the classic of the medicine of systematic correspondence, the Nan-ching covers all aspects of theoretical and practical health care within these doctrines in an unusually systematic fashion. Most important is its innovative discussion of pulse diagnosis and needle treatment. Unschuld combines the translation of the text of the Nan-ching with selected commentaries by twenty Chinese and Japanese authors from the past seventeen centuries. These commentaries provide insights into the processes of reception and transmission of ancient Chinese concepts from the Han era to the present time, and shed light on the issue of progress in Chinese medicine. Central to the book, and contributing to a completely new understanding of traditional Chinese medical thought, is the identification of a "patterned knowledge" that characterizes-in contrast to the monoparadigmatic tendencies in Western science and medicine-the literature and practice of traditional Chinese health care. Unschuld's translation of the Nan-ching is an accomplishment of monumental proportions. Anthropologists, historians, and sociologists as well as general readers interested in traditional Chinese medicine-but who lack Chinese language abilities-will at last have access to ancient Chinese concepts of health care and therapy. Filling an enormous gap in the literature, Nan-ching-The Classic of Difficult Issues is the kind of landmark work that will shape the study of Chinese medicine for years to come. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1986.

Providing an overview of current cutting-edge research in the field of Japanese religions, this Handbook is the most up-to-date guide to contemporary scholarship in the field. As well as charting innovative research taking place, this book also points to new directions for future research, covering both the modern and pre-modern periods. Edited by Erica Baffelli, Andrea Castiglioni, and Fabio Rambelli, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions includes essays by international scholars from the USA, Europe, Japan, and New Zealand. Topics and themes include gender, politics, the arts, economy, media, globalization, and colonialism. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions is an essential reference point for upper-level students and scholars of Japanese religions as well as Japanese Studies more broadly.

This book sheds new light on the relationship between religion and state in early modern Japan, and demonstrates the growing awareness of Shinto in both the political and the intellectual elite of Tokugawa Japan, even though Buddhism remained the privileged means of stately religious control. The first part analyses how the Tokugawa government aimed to control the populace via Buddhism and at the same time submitted Buddhism to the sacralization of the Tokugawa dynasty. The second part focuses on the religious protests throughout the entire period, with chapters on the suppression of Christians, heterodox Buddhist sects, and unwanted folk practitioners. The third part tackles the question of why early Tokugawa Confucianism was particularly interested in "Shinto" as an alternative to Buddhism and what "Shinto" actually meant from a Confucian stance. The final part of the book explores attempts to curtail the institutional power of Buddhism by reforming Shinto shrines, an important step in the so called "Shintoization of shrines" including the development of a self-contained Shinto clergy.

Translated, edited, and introduced by Edward Y. J. Chung, The Great Synthesis of Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea: The Chonon (Testament) by Chong Chedu (Hagok), is the first study in a Western language of Chong Chedu (Hagok, 1649-1736) and Korean Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism. Hagok was an eminent philosopher who established the unorthodox Yangming school (Yangmyonghak) in Korea. This book includes an annotated scholarly translation of the Chonon (Testament), Hagok's most important and interesting work on Confucian self-cultivation. Chung also provides a comprehensive introduction to Hagok's life, scholarship, and thought, especially his great synthesis of Wang's philosophy of mind cultivation and moral practice in relation to the classical teaching of Confucius and Mencius and his critical analysis of Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism and its Songnihak tradition. Chung concludes that Hagok was an original scholar in the Songnihak school, a great transmitter and interpreter of Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea, and a creative thinker whose integration of these two traditions inaugurated a distinctively Korean system of ethics and spirituality. This book sheds new light on the breadth and depth of Korean Neo-Confucianism and serves as a primary source for philosophy and East Asian studies in general and Confucian studies and Korean religion and philosophy in particular.

Throughout its history, Buddhism has developed alongside other traditions of religious belief and practice. Forms of Buddhism have in every era, region, and culture been confronted by rival systems that challenged its teachings about the world, how to behave in it, and liberation from it. This volume collects studies of Buddhist literature and art that represent the religious other to their audiences. Contributing authors examine how Buddhists in India, China, and elsewhere across Asia have understood their place in shared religious landscapes, and how they have responded to the presence and influence in the world of traditions other to their own. The studies in this volume consider a variety of 'others' that Buddhists of different times and situations have encountered, and the variety of mechanisms that Buddhists have employed to make sense of them. Chapters of this volume explore the range of attitudes that Buddhists have expressed with respect to other religions, how they have either accommodated the other within their worldview, or pronounced the redundancy of their ideas and activities. These chapters illuminate how over the centuries Buddhists have used and reused stories, symbols, and other strategies to explain religious others and their value, in which every representation of the other is always also a comment on the character and status of Buddhism itself.

- Reveals how the sexual practices of the White Tigress can preserve and restore a woman's physical youthfulness and mental energy.

- The first modern guide to White Tigress techniques, the only sexual teachings exclusively for women.

- Reveals for the first time in English the hidden teachings of immortaless Hsi Wang Mu, a White Tigress from 3,000 years ago.

- Provides Western medical correlations to substantiate White Tigress practices.

White Tigress women undertake disciplined sexual and spiritual practices to maintain their beauty and youthfulness, realize their full feminine potential, and achieve immortality. Revealed here for the first time in English are the secrets of the White Tigress that have all but disappeared from the world. Under the guidance of Madame Lin, the matriarch of a distinguished White Tigress lineage still in existence in Taiwan, Hsi Lai was given the privilege to study these practices and record them from a modern perspective so they will be forever preserved.

The vast majority of Taoist texts on alchemy, meditation, and sexuality are directed at male practitioners. "The Sexual Teachings of the White Tigress" presents traditions that focus on women, traditions that stem from a long line of courtesans and female Taoists. Translations of the ancient teachings from a rare White Tigress manual dating back 3,000 years explain the sexual and spiritual refinement of "ching" (sexual energy), "chi "(vital energy), and "shen" (consciousness)--the Three Treasures of Taoism--the secret to unlocking eternal youthfulness and immortality.