Revolutionizing received opinion of Taoism's origins in light of historic new discoveries, Harold D. Roth has uncovered China's oldest mystical text -- the original expression of Taoist philosophy -- and presents it here with a complete translation and commentary.
Over the past twenty-five years, documents recovered from the tombs of China's ancient elite have sparked a revolution in scholarship about early Chinese thought, in particular the origins of Taoist philosophy and religion.
In Original Tao, Harold D. Roth exhumes the seminal text of Taoism -- Inward Training (Nei-yeh) -- not from a tomb but from the pages of the Kuan Tzu, a voluminous text on politics and economics in which this mystical tract had been "buried" for centuries.
Inward Training is composed of short poetic verses devoted to the practice of breath meditation, and to the insights about the nature of human beings and the form of the cosmos derived from this practice.
In its poetic form and tone, the work closely resembles the Tao-te Ching; moreover, it clearly evokes Taoism's affinities to other mystical traditions, notably aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism.Roth argues that Inward Training is the foundational text of early Taoism and traces the book to the mid-fourth century B.C.
(the late Warring States period in China). These verses contain the oldest surviving expressions of a method for mystical "inner cultivation," which Roth identifies as the basis for all early Taoist texts, including the Chuang Tzu and the world-renowned Tao-te Ching.
With these historic discoveries, he reveals the possibility of a much deeper continuity between early "philosophical" Taoism and the later Taoist religion than scholars had previously suspected.
Original Tao contains an elegant and luminous complete translation of the original text. Roth's comprehensive analysis explains what Inward Training meant to the people who wrote it, how this work came to be "entombed" within the Kuan Tzu, and why the text was largely overlooked after the early Han period.
104,93 zł
Focuses on the Dutch East India Company's clashes with Tokugawa Japan over diplomacy, violence, and sovereignty.147,83 zł
373,80 zł
Stretching from ancient times to the late medieval period, Traditional Japanese Literature spans both high and popular styles and contains key...198,56 zł
Fossil Mammals of Asia, edited by and with contributions from world-renowned scholars, is the first major work devoted to the late Cenozoic (Neogene)...648,62 zł
Originally published in 1976, Leon Hurvitz's monumental translation of the Lotus Sutra is the work scholars have preferred for decades. Hailed...180,49 zł
Formalized by the tenth century, the Bhagavata Purana has witnessed centuries of performance, interpretation, worship, and debate. This annotated...201,94 zł
Instead of compartmentalizing American experience, the technologies of mass culture make it possible for anyone, regardless of race, ethnicity,...550,23 zł
For more than four thousand years, Chinese scholars and medical practitioners have documented ways of maintaining health and treating illness,...228,35 zł
François Hartog explores crucial moments of change in society's "regimes of historicity," or its ways of relating to the past, present, and future....116,55 zł
Opinie i recenzje użytkowników
Dodaj opinie lub recenzję dla Original tao. Twój komentarz zostanie wyświetlony po moderacji.