Isabelle Robinet; Phyllis Brooks Taoism sku-38184820

Taoism: Growth of a Religion is a hardcover survey of Taoist history from approximately the third century B.C. to the fourteenth century A.D. Listed under Religion & Religious Studies Books with Isabelle Robinet; Phyllis Brooks, its SKU is sku-38184820.

The author argues that the familiar division between "philosophical Taoism" and "religious Taoism" is false: religious practice puts the philosophy into practice. She treats Taoism primarily as a religion and follows its doctrinal development toward a mature form that, she says, persists with modern innovations.

The book examines how Taoism absorbed outside contributions while continuing to develop older ideas across otherwise disconnected eras. It compares how sects and eras treated Ultimate Truth, immortality, the Sage, the world's beginning and end, retribution, heavens and hells, and the relationships among life, spirit, death, society, mystical experience and organized religion.

Its chronology is flexible: the Celestial Masters appear early because they were the first structured sect, though they survive today. The Shangqing tradition formed in the fourth century and flourished under the Tang (618-907).