Explaining Perfection: Quanzhen and Thirteenth-century Chinese Literati

Abstract

The Quanzhen Daoist order stands as the most dynamic religious element in north China of the tumultuous thirteenth century. Drawing on funeral epitaphs and abbey commemorations, this article illustrates how famous and obscure Confucian scholar-officials interpreted the order’s remarkable success in various ways. Some credited Quanzhen with pruning Daoism of its post-Han dynasty excrescences and reviving the heritage’s basic teachings. For others, Quanzhen marked simply the latest chapter in Daoism’s undimmed heroic history. A third group pointed to the order’s ascetic discipline, which as a matter of course attracted elite and mass devotion. Significantly, epitaphs and commemorations composed by Quanzhen writers sounded similar themes, suggesting that the learned laity and clergy shared a common discourse casting the order as a force for Han culture during foreign occupation.