Chinese Poetry and Prophecy - (Asian Religions and Cultures) by Michel Strickmann (Paperback)

About the Book

This book argues that the most profound and far-reaching effects of Buddhism on Chinese culture occurred at the level of practice, specifically in religious rituals designed to cure people of disease, demonic possession, and bad luck. This practice would leave its most lasting imprint on the liturgical tradition of Taoism. In focusing on religious practice, the book provides a corrective to traditional studies of Chinese religion, which overemphasize metaphysics and spirituality.

Book Synopsis

Focusing on oracular texts, Chinese Poetry and Prophecy examines the role of divination in Chinese culture, particularly in religious practice. Drawing on a dazzling array of ancient and modern sources, the author establishes the oracular sequence of important but obscure works in his celebrated engaging style.

This is the second posthumous work of Michel Strickmann to be to be edited by Bernard Faure for publication by Stanford University Press.

From the Back Cover

"...this fascinating book provides the reader with a new and vivid description of a number of prototypes of temple oracles in China and beyond."--Journal of Chinese Religions
"This work will undoubtedly achieve for the Chinese temple oracle the recognition it deserves in histories of divination. More importantly, as Strickmann demonstrates, the study of such divination sequences has a great deal to tell us of the history of the book, the study of morality books, and the history of cultural contact." --Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Indiana University

Review Quotes

"...this fascinating book provides the reader with a new and vivid description of a number of prototypes of temple oracles in China and beyond."--Journal of Chinese Religions

"Strickmann calls us to study these poems as both prosodic masterpieces and vehicles of religious praxis, ... The reader gains a new appreciation for the role of writing in Chinese ritual and the role of divination in the lives of Chinese people. The author also conveys the puissance of Chinese religion that has moved in all directions throughout the centuries."--China Review International

About the Author

The late Michel Strickmann was Professor of Chinese Religions at the University of California, Berkeley, and a world-renowned expert on Taoism and on Asian popular religion. Stanford University Press has also published his Chinese Magical Medicine (2002).