Engelse titel: Biographies of Those Who Studied the Dao

This text, which was compiled between 569 (the last date mentioned in the text) and 581 (the year of the author's death), has not come down to us in its
original form but survives only in a series of 200-odd fragments scattered throughout a range
of textsfromTang to Yuan times.8 Daoxue zhuan is a collection of biographies of persons, the
majority of whom lived between the early fourth and late sixth centuries CE. Although
belonging to the genre of "collections of Daoist biographies," it is remarkably different from
earlier examples such as Liexian zhuan, Shenxian zhuan and Dongxian zhuan.

Whereas these texts bear the character "immortal" or "transcendent" [xian] in their titles and are to a large extent concerned with different aspects of immortality, this is not the case with Daoxue zhuan. Daoxue zhuan is already distinct by its more "modest" title: "students of the dad" [daoxue] is less pretentious than "xϊαη" It is true that few people existed who would fall into the category of immortals, like Yan Ji who "flew and paced clouds and mist, [wherefore of ordinary] persons nobody [was able to] come near to him." In addition, three apotheoses and one instance of rebirth are described, but usually the adepts eventually die and are buried. This represents an interesting shift from the description of adepts of high aspirations towards an interest in the lives of adherents of more modest religious intentions. (Bumbacher 2000 p145-146)

Benjamin Penny geeft de volgende typering:
The Daoxue zhuan is a collection of Taoist biographies compiled by Ma Shu 馬樞 (522–81) during the Chen dynasty: it forms part of the tradition that originates with the Liexian zhuan (Biographies of Exemplary Immortals) and the Shenxian zhuan (Biographies of Divine Immortals). However, it is notable that the characters in the Daoxue zhuan are said to gain immortality much less frequently than in these earlier collections, often simply dying and being buried.

Originally in twenty juan, the complete text is now lost and survives only in fragments from a few more than one hundred biographies. Chen Guofu located and collected these fragments and published them as Appendix 7 of his Daozang yuanliu kao (Chen Guofu 1963).

It is in the nature of fragments to be partial and while most of the chapters of the original are represented in Chen Guofu’s compilation, some are not, and we have no way of ascertaining what the original table of contents looked like. In addition many of the fragments are notices of just a few sentences. While some of the biographies concern ancient figures, most of the subjects lived in the few centuries immediately prior to Ma Shu’s own time. Easily the longest fragment concerns Lu Xiujing, an entry that has proved important in piecing together his biography. Benjamin Penny in Pregadio2008 p333-334 (online

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Bumbacher, Stephan Peter (2001). The Fragments of the 'Daoxue zhuan': Critical Edition, Translation and Analysis of a Medieval Collection of Daoist Biographies. Peter Lang.
ISBN13: 978-3631365397

Meer informatie...

--- (2000). On Pre-Tang Daoist Monastic Establishments at Mao Shan, According to Daoxue zhuan. Journal of Chinese Religions, Vol. 28, pag. 145-160. *.

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