- Description
Description
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.
Author: Stephen R. Bokenkamp
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 02/04/2009
Pages: 232
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.80h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9780520259881
ISBN10: 0520259882
BISAC Categories:
- Religion | Taoism (see also PHILOSOPHY | Taoist)
- History | Asia | China
About the Author
Stephen R. Bokenkamp is Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University. He is the author of Early Daoist Scriptures (UC Press).
