Cultivation: Practice and Social Memory in Ancient China

Seeking the gods and asking the immortals were important forms of religious expression in medieval China, and they also laid the foundation for the emergence of Daoism. For a long time, immortals and cultivators in medieval China have been portrayed as a mysterious, hidden-away group. Kang Rupo takes a very different view in this groundbreaking study. Kang argues that immortals did not withdraw from society. Being an immortal was simply one of many social roles, and it existed in relation to those other roles. Cultivators were not otherworldly beings. They sought, within their social environment, the abilities to heal the sick and save lives, predict the future, and recount strange and supernatural events. Drawing on a range of theoretical approaches and a solid foundation of ancient Chinese sources, this book offers a meticulous analysis of cultivators' social roles and interactions. Its portrayal of cultivation as a social milieu is strikingly original, and the research framework it proposes also offers a creative way to understand the role of holy figures in other societies.