Wang Chongyang (1113-1170) et la foundation du Quanzhen. Ascètes taoïstes et alchimie intérieure by Pierre Marsone (review)

Pierre Marsone's Wang Chongyang (1113-1170) et la foundation du Quanzhen. Ascètes taoïstes et alchimie intérieure is a revised version of the doctoral dissertation that he submitted to the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris) in 2001. Although nine years thus elapsed between the thesis submission and the ultimate publication, it was worth the wait. This is a substantial, meticulous piece of work that nicely enhances our knowledge and understanding of the history of Taoism in the twelfth century.

Marsone's study of the early Quanzhen 全真 Taoist movement was, by largely unintended coincidence, carried out more or less simultaneously with studies on roughly the same topic by several other western scholars (Vincent Goossaert,¹ Louis Komjathy, and myself). Previously, there had existed the very fine dissertation by Yao Tao-chung 姚道中 on the Quanzhen movement² but no published, book-length Western-language monograph on the topic. There are now three such published monographs,³ and students need no longer complain of a scarcity of Western-language secondary source materials on the topic of early Quanzhen Taoism.

That being the case, one does need to question whether Marsone's monograph offers anything significant that is not to be already found in the other recently published monographs. In my view, it does; most importantly, it surpasses the other studies in the degree of care and detail by which it sorts out, discusses and analyzes the primary sources (religious and secular) pertinent to the discussion of the lives and activities of Wang Chongyang 王重陽 and his main disciples and the historical background and circumstances thereof. As result, he provides us with an account of the movement's early history that is unsurpassed in its thoroughness and accuracy.

The book's first chapter (among a total of four) discusses the life and written works of Quanzhen founder Wang Chongyang, as well as the posthumous development of his cult and of temples located at sites intimately connected to his life events. The chapter starts out most appropriately with an overview—in sequence of date of authorship—of ten different Taoist hagiographical sources that speak at length about Wang Chongyang's life and/or legacy. Marsone then proceeds to carefully and methodically discuss Wang Chongyang's life events by examining side-by-side the testimonies of each of the hagiographies and analyzing them in light of evidence available in secular historical sources and re-evaluating the merits of observations that have been previously made by Chinese and Japaneses scholars (such as Chen Minggui 陳銘珪, Chen Yuan 陳銘珪, Yao Congwu 姚從吾, Sun Kekuan 孫克寬, Kubo Noritada 窪德忠, and Hachiya Kunio 蜂屋邦夫). In over-viewing the various works (extant and non-extant) that have been attributed to Wang Chongyang, Marsone distinguishes between "authentic" and "apocryphal" texts. The texts that he accepts without reservation as authentic are the three poetry collections Chongyang quanzhen ji 重陽全真集, Chongyang jiaohua ji 重陽教化集, and Chongyang fenli shihua ji 重陽分梨十化集. For each text—particularly those in the "authentic" categoryhe provides a helpful overview of the contents and subject matter; for each of the "apocryphal" works he provides reasonable explanations for his reservations on their authenticity.

The book's second chapter discusses the lives and written works of Wang Chongyang's main disciples (the so-called "Seven Authentics" [七真]: Ma Danyang 馬丹陽, Tan Changzhen 譚長真, Liu Changsheng 劉長生, Qiu Changchun 丘長春,, Wang Yuyang 王玉陽, Hao Guangning 郝廣寧, and Sun Qingjing 孫清靜), particularly in terms of how and to what extent each of them contributed to the formation and emergence of Quanzhen Taoism. Employing the same meticulous approach to the primary sources that he does in the case of Wang Chongyang, Marsone sheds light on some the more distinct features of the personalities and doctrinal emphases of each of the "Seven Authentics." On the whole he paints an illuminating picture of how the major disciples in different ways and in different regions laid...