Erin J. Green
LIS 705
Dr. Asato
February 6, 2012
RTEA – Chinese
Taoism: Religious History
PART 1: SCENARIO
Chinese Studies Visiting Professor Huang Shen wants to know why Taoism developed
from a philosophy to a religion. You can supply materials in Chinese or English to help
with writing of a journal article.
PART 2: ABSTRACT OF THE TOPIC
Taoism has existed for centuries simultaneously in China with Confucianism and
Buddhism, and is one of the five religions recognized today by the People’s Republic of
China. This religion grew from ultimate and proximate questions about life and death,
and many forms of this religion can be traced back to the sixth century BCE. Taoist
beliefs that stem from early religious texts include spirituality, the flow of the universe,
and strong ties with nature, which is said to demonstrate the Tao, or “path.”
PART 3: REFERENCE TOOLS
(*=Source listed in LIS 705 textbook)
Category 3) Bibliographic Databases
When I searched “Taoism” in English in *CALIS OPAC CALIS 联合目录公共检索系统, I
got 6 hits for materials that were in Chinese.
道家文化与科学 / 祝亚平著 祝亚平 ( 哲学 ) 著 合肥 : 中国科学技术大学出版社, 1995
道家哲学 = Taoism philosophy / 公木, 邵汉明著 公木, 1910-1998 著 长春 : 长春出版社,
2007
道教 = Taoism / 刘笑敢著 ; 陈静译 刘笑敢, 1947-著 上海 : 上海古籍出版社, 2008
道教槪說 / 原著者 ( 日本 ) 小柳司氣太 ; 譯述者陳彬龢 小柳司气太著 上海 : 商務印書館, 中華
民國十五年 [1926]
道教文化十五講 = Taoism culture / 詹石窗著 詹石窗, 1954-著 台北 : 五南圖書出版股份有限
公司, 2005
宁夏道教史 = Taoism history in Ningxia hui autonomous region / 张宗奇著 张宗奇, 1964著 北京 : 宗教文化出版社, 2006
Amongst the Chinese characters I could see that there was at least one source on
Taoism history, culture, and philosophy. This seemed like a pretty reliable source to go
by, so I kept on going with the English resources. The list of items on Taoism in
Western languages was pretty lengthy, with 20, though they were not all in English.
Among these I found several books that I think could help this client along with his
search. Some were not originally written in English but had been translated, and the
English translations were also available.
Isabelle Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a Religion; translated by Phyllis Brooks.
Stanford, Calif : Stanford University Press, c1997.
Liu Feng, Taoism as an Indigenous Chinese Religion; Translated by Lao An et
al.; Version revised by An Zengcai. Jinan: Shandong Friendship, 1998.
Russell Kirkland, Taoism: An Enduring Tradition. New York: Routledge, 2004.
These books in particular seemed to fit the client’s request, because they focus on
Taoism from more of a historical rather than contemporary perspective; while I found
many sources that concentrated on recent developments in the religion, these discuss
its past rather than present and future. After such a successful search, I felt that I
should go on to another database and compare the results of what I could find there.
Next I thought I would try searching in a North American database, and since I did not
seem to have much trouble with finding books in these databases, I knew that I also
had to find a few articles that could be of help. For this, I went to another university
database, but this time it was much more specialized, the *Classical Historiography for
Chinese History provided by Princeton University. Because this database focused on
history, I figured it was worth a shot. Following the link called “Search Tips,” I typed
“Taoism” into my search box and found a long bibliography of both books and articles
on this topic. There was a very long list to choose from.
Jia, Jinhua. "Religious Origin of the Terms Dao and De and Their Signification in
the Laozi." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Volume 19 Issue 04 October 2009: 459488.
Tsai, Julius N. "Reading the ＆Inner Biography of the Perfected Person of Purple
Solarity＊: Religion and Society in an Early Daoist Hagiography." Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society Volume 18 Issue 02 April 2008: 193-220.
Welch, Holmes. The Parting of the Way: Lao Tsu and the Taoist Movement.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1957; paperback reprint entitled Taoism: The Parting of Way,
same publisher, 1966.
There was also a section for Daoist Writings, texts written in English by researchers as
guides to the religion. Some of these I had encountered in other databases (and in the
other Taoism list), but many also looked too general to really get into why Taoism
developed as it did; therefore, I did not use any of the materials listed here.
Before completing my online database search, I felt it was only appropriate to see just
what was available in the e-resources of UHM, so I ventured into WorldCat to see what
was available for me there. Just to see what it would give me, I searched for “Taoism
development” but was met with many results that were irrelevant. When playing
around with search terms, including just Taoism or Daoism or Taoism history, I was
able to come across a few good articles that the client could build upon.
Zhongjian Mou, “A Preliminary Discussion on Daoist Bionomy: On the Basis of Chen Yingning’s
Philosophy of Immortals.” Frontiers of Philosophy in China, no. 2 (2007): 206-218. WorldCat
Harold D. Roth, “Evidence for Stages of Meditation in Early Taoism.” Bulletin of
the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1997, vol. 60, no. 2,
p. 295-314.
When searching for articles, I also came across a few reviews for books that I think
would be appropriate as well; I decided that the books themselves would be much
more useful than the reviews.
Jeaneane Fowler, An Introduction to the Philosophy and Religion of Taoism:
Pathways to Immortality. Portland, Ore. : Sussex Academic Press, 2005.
Isabelle Robinet; Phyllis Brooks, Taoism: Growth of a Religion. Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press, 1997.
Category 1) Dictionaries [general]
Just from looking through the resources in the textbook, there were several books in
the Philosophy section that looked appropriate just from the titles. I searched for each
of them in both English and Chinese to make sure that there was enough information
on the history of the philosophy of Taoism to answer this client’s question.
*Zhonghua Daojiao dacidian 中华道教大辞典 [Chinese Taoism dictionary]. Hu,
Fuchen 胡孚琛 ed. Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1995.
*Zhongguo zhexue dacidian 中国哲学大辞典 [Dictionary of Chinese philosophy].
Fang, Keli 方克立 ed. Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1994.
* Hanying Zhongguo zhexue cidian 汉英中国哲学辞典 = A Dictionary of Chinese
philosophy with English annotations. Guo, Shangxing 郭尚兴 ed. Kaifeng: Henan
Daxue Chubanshe, 2002.
* Zhexue dacidian, Zhongguo zhexueshijuan 哲学大辞典 中国哲学史卷 [Dictionary
of philosophy-History of Chinese philosophy]. Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe,
1985.
Each of the dictionaries above obviously had a great deal of information about Taoism
and its history, but as expected, the Chinese Taoism Dictionary went into the most
detail, so I would recommend that one to the client first.
Category 2) Encyclopedias [general]
Many good encyclopedias could also be found in the textbook, right there with the
dictionaries. Many of these definitely seemed to be worth a more in-depth look, with
their historical focus, particularly those that were in the philosophy section.
*Zhongguo zhexue xiaobaike quanshu 中国哲学小百科全书 [Mini encyclopedia of
Chinese philosophy]. Zheng, Wangeng 郑万耕 ed. Beijing: Zhongguo Dabaike Quanshu
Chubanshe, 2001.
*Encyclopedia of Chinese philosophy. Cua, Antonio S. New York : Routledge,
2003.
*Zhongguo yuanshi zongjiao baike quanshu 中国原始宗敎百科全书 [Encyclopedia
of Chinese primitive religions]. Yang, Xuezheng 杨学政 ed. Chengdu: Sichuan Cishu
Chubanshe, 2002.
*Zhongguo lishi da cidian 中国历史大辞典 [The great encyclopedia of Chinese
history]. “Zhongguo lishi dacidian” bianweihui 《中国历史大辞典》编委会 ed. Shanghai:
Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe, 1983 – 14 v.
When taking a look at each of these, however, I found them all to be much too general
for this client’s topic, and because they were also published fairly recently, there was
not a big emphasis on the origins of the religion as much as its development en route
to modern Taoism. While I did not discount these sources, I knew that they probably
were not the best to include in my bibliography.
Category 5) Specialized Reference Tools
As with several of the other categories, I looked in the textbook first to see what was
recommended here, and if it could offer any help. There were, in fact, a few in both
English and Chinese that did not seem to fit into any other category and looked like
good publications on this very specific topic.
*A source book in Chinese philosophy. Ch’en, Jung-Chieh. Princeton N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1963. 856 p.
*Chinese religions: publications in Western languages. Thompson, Laurence G.
comp. 1985*Zhongguo Daojiao 中國道教 = China Taoism. Zhongguo Daojiao Xiehui ed.
Beijing: Zhongguo Daojiao Xiehui, 1987- (Bimonthly)
Because the last resource, China Taoism, is bimonthly, I took a further look at this one
to see if there were any noteworthy articles in this publication. I looked in CAJ to see if
there were any links to it, and I was able to find it with both the Chinese and English
titles when searching under Journal Title. Issues dating back to 1980 were available,
and I looked to see if there were any articles that could help me. Unfortunately, as
with many other sources, there was minimal information about history, so I ended my
search there.
PART 4: SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY (10 books/articles)
Articles
1. Yu Qiang, Xin Yan, “The Theme and Logical Construction of the Taoist
Philosophy.” Frontiers of Philosophy in China, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan., 2006), pp.
133-143. Via * Harvard-Yenching Library.
2. Jia, Jinhua. "Religious Origin of the Terms Dao and De and Their Signification in
the Laozi." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Volume 19 Issue 04 October
2009: 459-488. * Classical Historiography for Chinese History = 中國經典文獻工
具書錄
3. Harold D. Roth, “Evidence for Stages of Meditation in Early Taoism.” Bulletin of
the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1997, vol. 60,
no. 2, p. 295-314. JSTOR via WorldCat
Books
4. Jeaneane Fowler, An Introduction to the Philosophy and Religion of Taoism:
Pathways to Immortality. Portland, Ore. : Sussex Academic Press, 2005.
WorldCat
5. Isabelle Robinet; Phyllis Brooks, Taoism: Growth of a Religion. Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press, 1997. WorldCat
6. Fabrizio Pregadio, ed. The Encyclopedia of Taoism, 2 vols. Routledge, 2008.
UHM China Collection, Online Resources
7. Isabelle Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a Religion; translated by Phyllis Brooks.
Stanford, Calif : Stanford University Press, c1997. * CALIS OPAC CALIS 联合目录
公共检索系统
8. *Zhonghua Daojiao dacidian 中华道教大辞典 [Chinese Taoism dictionary]. Hu,
Fuchen 胡孚琛 ed. Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1995.
9. Welch, Holmes. The Parting of the Way: Lao Tsu and the Taoist Movement.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1957; paperback reprint entitled Taoism: The Parting of
Way, same publisher, 1966. * Classical Historiography for Chinese History = 中
國經典文獻工具書錄
10. * Zhexue dacidian, Zhongguo zhexueshijuan 哲学大辞典 中国哲学史卷 [Dictionary
of philosophy-History of Chinese philosophy]. Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu
Chubanshe, 1985.
PART 5: COMMENTS ON THE SELECTED REFERENCE SOURCES
One of the main problems that I encountered when selecting places to search
for this type of information was that most of the sources I found were too current,
especially in the online resources. Most were concerned with current and up-to-date
affairs concerning China rather than the history. Anything historical that was a focus
of any of these databases was still relatively recent, mostly since the end of World War
II and since the creation of the People’s Republic of China; the content of the journals
was mostly a collection of articles from recent newspapers and other periodicals,
which did not aid me in my search either.
Furthermore, many of the online databases were accessible through
subscription only, regardless of whether or not the content would be useful to me. Just
this made my selection on where to look for information a bit limited; many of the
more historical sources that would seem more useful to me were still in print form,
which may or may not prove to be to my advantage. The other thing that made me
able to weed out sources rather quickly was the topic and time period of the various
databases and sources that I encountered. There were many that focused on a
completely unrelated subject, such as art or science, so I was able to skip over those.
Others kept their content restricted to only one time period, usually only one dynasty;
I knew that this would probably not be enough to provide for what the patron was
looking for, because his question was about the progression of Taoism over time,
which was probably not just restricted to one dynasty.
My sources, therefore, came from more general works, or from the
Philosophy/Intellectual History section of the textbook, which made my search much
easier. Within this category of sources, however, there were still several limitations,
because there were several resources devoted only to Confucianism, an unrelated
topic, or to current trends in Chinese philosophy, which also does not necessarily
apply here. Another part of my search that I had to be careful about was that the
name of the religion was not always spelled the same way. In some cases they spelled
it “Taoism,” and in others it was spelled “Daoism.” I had to remember this for when I
was searching, because if I got no hits for Taoism, it did not necessarily mean that
there was nothing about that religion, because it could have been listed as Daoism.
However, I did check to make sure that there was not a significant difference between
the two; from what I could find, it did seem to be just a difference in spelling.
The fact that I could search for either English or Chinese materials helped me
very much, on the other hand; if I got no results in English, I was able to try Chinese.
PART 6: REFLECTIONS ON THE SEARCH PROCESS
When conducting this search, my previous thoughts about searching on a topic
such as religion were challenged at just about every level. What surprised me most
was that so many of the religious texts even about a classical religion such as Taoism
were so focused on contemporary China and new advancements in Taoism rather than
the history; this made me definitely think a bit more about what I was searching for
and how. In each database, I made sure to try searching for Taoism history, as well as
just Taoism itself, because this definitely made a difference in the search results that I
received. The slight difference in search results for Taoism vs. Daoism was also
something that I had not thought of before, but it definitely drove me to develop new
search methods as I went along.
Another thing that I noticed in my search is that when searching for Taoism,
particularly the historical aspect that I was concerned with, there were very few
articles that were pertinent, mostly books. At first I did not understand why it was so
difficult to come across articles on the history of Taoism, but then I realized that this
does make sense, because Taoism has such a long and rich history that it can probably
not be covered very thoroughly in only 20-30 pages. My only concern is whether the
client would want to have mostly books to search in, or if he preferred a shorter
resource.
Overall, I would say that this search definitely made me think twice before I
solidify my search, especially when numerous spellings and search terms are possible.
I have become accustomed to playing around with search terms and changing the
word order to see how the search results would be different, and this was a way to
exercise that skill and take it one step further. One thing I did not do in this search,
however, was use Boolean terms (AND, OR, NOT) in advanced search when looking for
resources; this was mostly because I thought that this would give me too many
irrelevant search results. In my next search, I may want to still try this to make sure
that I narrow my results as much as possible. The only problem with this is that
Boolean search may not be an option, particularly in the foreign databases. Lastly, this
search also tested my perseverance, because many times I reached a dead end and
had to either go back or start all over because there were too many irrelevant
resources. Weeding through everything that I did not end up using did at the same
time make all of the relevant materials seem all the more appealing once I found
them, and I hope that in my next search I will also have more patience with going
through the search process, because if you do not find the correct materials the first
time around, there is always somewhere else to look.