This dissertation is a survey and analysis of the ideal of severe asceticism conveyed in
early religious Daoist texts. “Severe asceticism” in this study refers to religious practices
that entail hardship, suffering and the rejection of basic human needs, along with the beliefs
and attitudes that serve as justification and motivation for such practices. The period dealt
with in the study is roughly the first six centuries of the common era.
The study addresses three basic questions: 1) What specific severe ascetic training
methods and ways of behavior were being carried out by Daoists? 2) What attitudes and
beliefs served as motivation for such practices? 3) How and to what degree did the severe
ascetic practices and the beliefs and attitudes dictating them evolve during the period in
question?
The study finds that throughout the period discussed, severe asceticism was always
an important ideal for Daoists, especially for advanced adepts. The prominent severe
ascetic practices included fasting, celibacy, sleep-avoidance, wilderness seclusion and selfimposed
poverty. Highly uncommon and generally disapproved of were austeries which
harmed and weakened the body with no purpose of ultimately strengthening it. In general,
the motives for severe asceticism were (1) the strengthening and transformation of the
body, (2) contact and participation in what is sacred and transcendent and (3) disdain and
fear of the world and society. However, it is also discussed how during the latter part of
the period examined, the emergence of new, partly Buddhist-influenced, soteriological and
cosmological beliefs intensified the inherent tension between the two primary sotenological
objectives, longevity and transcendence, and may have given justification to austenties
which harmed the body and contradicted the archaic ideal of bodily immortality.
In order to be able to analyze the phenomenon of severe asceticism in its full integrity,
an approach has been taken that emphasizes comprehensiveness. This is because the
phenomenon was much too widespread and diverse to be accurately assessed on the basis of one authoritative text. Thus a wide variety of sources have been utilized so that severe
asceticism in early Daoist religion can be viewed to its fullest and understood properly
based on a broad base of information.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/7090 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Eskildsen, Stephen Edward |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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