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Stephen Bokenkamp (Institute for Advanced Study and Arizona State University): The Declarations of the Perfected and the Shishuo xinyu: The Case of Chi Yin (313-384)
Thursday, 6 December 2018,  4:30pm -  6:00pm

Location: Brower Commons A

 

Abstract: Studies of the Zhen’gao 真誥 [Declarations of the Perfected] have rightly focused on two focal points in its textual history. The first scholarly focus has been on the revelations themselves, and in particular on the earliest chapters of the work. These provide a sequence of important moments in the early interactions of the medium Yang Xi 楊羲 (330-386?) and his celestial visitants, the  Perfected 真人, with his patron Xu Mi 許謐 (303-73?). The second focus has been on Tao Hongjing’s 陶弘景 (456-536) collection and annotation of the visionary fragments into the work we have today. It might then seem as if there were little more information that the text might provide us. In this talk I want to demonstrate what might still be learned from the Zhen’gao by analyzing it in concert with a near contemporary work, the Shishuo xinyu   世說新語 [New Account of Tales of the World].  This approach will be demonstrated through attention to a seemingly minor figure in the history of Yang Xi’s revelations, Chi Yin 郗愔 (314-384).