A Perennial Digression

A Perennial Digression

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A Perennial Digression
A Perennial Digression
Daoism

Daoism

An Appreciation

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David Armstrong
Jan 04, 2024
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A Perennial Digression
A Perennial Digression
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Daoism and Daoist Art | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn  Timeline of Art History
Fang Congyi, “Cloudy Mountains” (ca. 1360-1370)

Whether Laozi (or Lao Tzu) was a real person or not is a point of some contention among scholars, but it does not interest me. Zhuangzi (ca. 396-286 BCE) was more probably real, and the book named for him, together with the Daodejing (sometimes rendered Tao Te Ching, pending the transliteration system that one elects to use; not having Classical Chinese, I do not have a strong opinion on these matters, but will opt simply for the system I’m most familiar with; I invite correction from a more knowledgeable source), provides the basis of what’s often called Philosophical Daoism. There is also a “Religious Daoism,” which is a Daoism focused much more on worship of deities (including the deified Laozi), ritual, and the performance of alchemical magic to achieve immortality. I cast no aspersions on this second kind of Daoism in focusing on the first; nor do I mean to suggest that the two do not intermingle or that there are not intermediary expressions of some importance. In point of fact, the distinction is a relatively recent and questionable one entirely, but I will refer to it for the reader perhaps educated enough to be looking for it. I am simply more familiar with the philosophical kind, even as I consider myself a novice in the interpretation of its texts and ideas.

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