The Way of Complete Perfection: A Quanzhen Daoist Anthology

Chapter Six. Hagiographical Ideals

217 Chapter Six Hagiographical Ideals Hagiographies, or “accounts of saints,” are religious texts aimed at documenting the lives of major personages and at inspiring other adherents or potential members of the tradition. The genre is perhaps most often associated with the lives of medieval Catholic saints.1 Hagiographies frequently include tales of extraordinary qualities, uncommon feats, and miraculous occurrences. In this way, hagiography differs from a modern notion of “biography,” or third-person accounts of an individual that aim at “accuracy” and “objectivity.” At the same time, hagiography is not “fiction.” The study and reading of hagiography requires that one reflect on the compiler’s potential motivations and concerns, those of his or her religious community, the intended audience, as well as audience expectations and generic conventions (see Campany 2002, 98–100). Moreover, as Robert Campany has pointed out, To hagiography as a type of writing we can apply the tired but serviceable notion that it, like other religious representations, serves as both “model of” and “model for”; that is to say, it is both descriptive of and prescriptive for religious life. The hagiographies of any religious tradition are where its airy speculations, its abstract pronouncements, and its systematic prescriptions for life touch ground in particularity and assume the scale of the human. Precisely because hagiography intends to inspire belief, veneration, and perhaps emulation, its depictions of the contexts of religious life must be, for the most part, realistic, which is to say, recognizable and familiar to readers. We too easily forget to ponder the expectations of the readers for whom premodern hagiographies were written, whose mental and social landscape was part of what was portrayed in them. Because it announces itself as an account of the lives of real persons, hagiography must meet readers on that familiar landscape before attempting to move them to the horizon where it meets transcendence; it must give a recognizable model for life as readers know it, and cannot content itself only with giving models for the ideal religious life. (2002, 100–1) On a general level, hagiography may be read as providing insights into not only the lived religiosity of a given person but also the social framework and religious concerns of his or her community. This, of course, requires some degree of historical contextualization in order to understand the specific religio-cultural moment. The relevant biographical details, imagined undertakings, and required characteristics may be modified to address new contexts and concerns. Hagiography may 1. Cf. Martyrology and Buddhist Jātaka (“Birth”) stories. 218 / The Way of Complete Perfection also have a variety of functions: descriptive, commemorative, reverential, inspirational, prescriptive, and so forth. In the Quanzhen hagiographies translated here, we find a mixture of reliable biographical and historical information combined with more “literary” and purely “hagiographical” dimensions, including recurring conventions and anticipated content. For example, after identifying the person by name and birthplace, most of the entries begin with general poetic descriptions of the given adept’s personal qualities. These are clearly expressions of veneration, as the hagiography compilers never met most if any of the first-generation Quanzhen adherents. Similarly, different readers will greet the accounts of ascetic feats, miraculous deeds, and mystical experiences with varying degrees of acceptance and skepticism. Taken as a whole, the Quanzhen hagiographies related to the early community, which is the focus of the present selection, attempt to solidify lineage and establish parameters of religious affiliation. They are part of what Vincent Goossaert has referred to as “identitybuilding mechanisms” (Goossaert 2001, 112). Interestingly, a close reading of the early Quanzhen textual corpus (see Komjathy 2007a, 382–422) reveals stages of social integration as well as competing constructions of authority (see Marsone 2001). In its formative and incipient organized phases (ca. 1167–ca. 1184), the early Quanzhen religious movement consisted of semiautonomous ascetic and eremitic communities characterized by local and sometimes regional religious leaders. It seems that a sense of collective identity focused on a single national leader did not emerge until Qiu Changchun succeeded Ma Danyang as the third patriarch and initiated a transition toward monasticism. In some sense then, the early hagiographies are intended to communicate the following: “As Quanzhen Daoists, these are the individuals whom we identify as the source of our tradition. Their lives are important to us because we are their spiritual descendants; we endeavor to remember them through our own practice and commitments.” From my perspective, the early hagiographies aim to establish and maintain tradition and to inspire members of the Quanzhen...