A Daoist's encounter with modernity : subsuming western science under a Daoist epistemology in The Story of Eight Immortals Who Attained the Dao

• Main Author: An, Michelle Yingzhi
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2015
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/55123

This study of a mid-nineteenth century novel, The Story of Eight Immortals Who Attained the Dao (Baxian dedao zhuan 八仙得道传, 1868), focuses on how the author Wugou daoren 无垢道人 (Immaculate Daoist, fl. 1868) employs the novel form to propagate his religious beliefs and confront Western ideas that were spreading through China during his lifetime. Examining the historical background of the novel and textual evidence within the narrative, this study argues that Wugou daoren, as a Daoist practitioner, tries to validate Daoism by subsuming Western science under a Daoist epistemology. The author is very skilful in setting up an epistemological structure that claims that Western scientific discoveries and inventions—specifically knowledge about electricity and the moon—are derived from Daoist knowledge. To this end, Wugou daoren employs several rhetorical strategies, including commentaries and characters’ discursive speeches, to make his case. The author’s reaction to Western science provides valuable textual evidences of a religious crisis in mid-nineteenth century China in its encounter with the West. This novel, in which history and religion play equally important roles in its literary formation, provides modern readers with textual traces of how religion negotiated its co-existence with modernity during this period of China’s history. === Arts, Faculty of === Asian Studies, Department of === Graduate