A World of Their Own: Daoist Monks and Their Community in Contemporary China

BOOK NOTES HE JIANMING 何建明, ed., Zhongguo difangzhi fodaojiao wenxian huizuan 中國地 方誌佛道教文獻匯纂 [Compilation of Buddhist and Taoist materials in Chinese local gazetteers]. Beijing: Guojia tushuguan chubanshe, 2013. Price for all three collections: RMB 320,000. 1. Siguan juan 寺觀卷 [Collection of temples and monasteries], 408 vols. 154,809 pages. ISBN: 978-7-5013-4790-2; 2. Renwu juan 人物卷 [Collection of biographies of Buddhists and Taoists], 113 vols., 47,952 pages. ISBN: 978-7-5013-4791-9; 3. Shiwen beike juan 詩文碑刻卷 [Collections of poems, essays, and stelae inscriptions], 498 vols., 188,565 pages. ISBN: 978-7-5013-4789-6. Funded by NSSFC (National Social Science Fund of China), this major collection of historical materials was compiled by a team working under the supervision of He Jianming 何建明, professor at Renmin University of China 中國人民大學, Beijing. With a total of 1033 volumes, it is divided into three collections, as listed above. Organized along the present-day administrative system, this compilation collects 6813 local gazetteers dating from the Tang dynasty to the Republic of China. In each of the three collections, the material is ordered following geographical location: first macro-region (North China, Northeast, East China, Central China, South China, Southwest, Northwest, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan), then province, municipality, county, etc.; when there are different editions of gazetteers concerning the same location, they are arranged chronologically. Each local gazetteer is introduced with comprehensive editorial information. Selection and edition of the material was done under the guidance of over twenty editors and scholars from Peking University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, etc. All the local gazetteers are reproduced in facsimile without any deletion or alteration, while images were treated when necessary to enhance readability by removing spots or increasing contrast. QIN GUOSHUAI École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris ADELINE HERROU, A World of Their Own: Daoist Monks and Their Community in Contemporary China. Translated by LIVIA KOHN. St. Petersburg, FL: Three Pines Press, 2013. vi, 278 pp. US$34.95 (pb). ISBN 978-1-931483-25-4 This is a shortened and revised version of Adeline Herrou’s 2005 monograph, La vie entre soi: Les moines tao˙ı̇stes aujourd’hui en Chine (Nanterre: Société d’ethnologie). Livia Kohn’s translation is fluent, idiomatic, and eminently readable, in spite of the occasional misprint and elision apparently overlooked in the final proofreading; it makes this important ethnographic study of a Quanzhen temple in southern Shaanxi more easily accessible to a nonFrancophone readership. Herrou’s study focuses on the Wengongci daoguan 文 公祠道觀 in the city of Hanzhong 漢中. Named after its main object of worship, the deified Tang dynasty scholar Han Yu 韓愈, the Wengongci also includes BOOK REVIEWS 141 shrines to a number of other deities such Xuanwu 玄武, the Jade Emperor, and Guangong 關公, and is run by a shifting complement of Quanzhen monks and nuns. The latter rather than their gods are the principal objects of Herrou’s interest and this book is without doubt the best and most comprehensive introduction to Quanzhen monastic life in reform-era China. Monks’ and nuns’ motivations for ‘‘leaving the family’’ are explored, as well as their relationships with laity and, centrally, with masters and fellow monastics in the pseudo-kinship networks of Quanzhen monasticism. As an anthropologist, Herrou succeeds magnificently in tracing the social structures and cultural patterns of these religious practitioners in that ‘‘world of their own,’’ the Quanzhen community. PHILIP CLART Universität Leipzig BOOKS RECEIVED BAREAU, ANDRÉ. The Buddhist Schools of the Small Vehicle. Translated from the French by Sara Boin-Webb. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013. xxviii, 463 pp. ISBN 978-0-8248-3566-8. US$65.00 (hb). CHANG SEN FENG. Blue Dragon, White Tiger: Verses for Refining the Golden Elixir. Translated by Shifu Hwang and Cheney Crow. London and Philadelphia: Singing Dragon, 2013. 112 pp. ISBN 978-1-84819-115-0. £12.99 (pb). COUTINHO, STEVE. An Introduction to Daoist Philosophies. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. x, 231 pp. ISBN 978-0-231-14339-4. US$25.00, £17.50 (pb). LOPEZ, DONALD S., Jr. From Stone to Flesh: A Short History of the Buddha. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 2013. 289 pp. ISBN 9780 -226-49320-6. US$26.00, £17...