Dreaming and Self-Cultivation in China, 300 BCE–800 CE

Robert Ford Campany

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English

Harvard University Press
17 August 2023

Asian history; Oriental & Indian philosophy; Buddhism; Taoism

Series: Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series

Practitioners of any of the paths of self-cultivation available in ancient and medieval China engaged daily in practices meant to bring their bodies and minds under firm control. They took on regimens to discipline their comportment, speech, breathing, diet, senses, desires, sexuality, even their dreams. Yet, compared with waking life, dreams are incongruous, unpredictable-in a word, strange. How, then, did these regimes of self-fashioning grapple with dreaming, a lawless yet ubiquitous domain of individual experience?

In Dreaming and Self-Cultivation in China, 300 BCE–800 CE, Robert Ford Campany examines how dreaming was addressed in texts produced and circulated by practitioners of Daoist, Buddhist, Confucian, and other self-cultivational disciplines. Working through a wide range of scriptures, essays, treatises, biographies, commentaries, fictive dialogues, diary records, interpretive keys, and ritual instructions, Campany uncovers a set of discrete paradigms by which dreams were viewed and responded to by practitioners. He shows how these paradigms underlay texts of diverse religious and ideological persuasions that are usually treated in mutual isolation. The result is a provocative meditation on the relationship between individuals' nocturnal experiences and one culture's persistent attempts to discipline, interpret, and incorporate them into waking practice.

By: Robert Ford Campany
Imprint: Harvard University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 19mm
Weight: 431g
ISBN: 9780674293731
ISBN 10: 0674293738
Series: Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series
Pages: 326
Publication Date: 17 August 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Robert Ford Campany is Professor of Asian and Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. He is author of Signs from the Unseen Realm: Buddhist Miracle Tales from Early Medieval China and Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China.

Reviews for Dreaming and Self-Cultivation in China, 300 BCE–800 CE

Campany analyzes both well-known and little-studied materials primarily drawn from the Buddhist and Daoist canons, offers detailed explorations of important texts previously un-discussed or under-discussed in Western-language scholarship, and provides extensive translations done to a high philological standard...[this book] brings to completion one of the most compelling, productive, and likely seminal research agendas the field of medieval China has seen in recent years…The field is fortunate that a scholar as widely learned, philologically reliable, methodologically innovative, and honestly self-reflective as Campany has undertaken the work. -- Lucas Rambo Bender * Early Medieval China * A testament to Campany’s expertise and dedication to the study of ancient Chinese religious and philosophical traditions, the book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the relationship between dreams and self-cultivation in China. -- Yan Du and Ziqiang Zhao * Religious Studies Review *