This is the first book to examine extensively the religious aspects of
Chinese alchemy. Its main focus is the relation of alchemy to the
Daoist traditions of the early medieval period (third to sixth
centuries). It shows how alchemy contributed to and was tightly
integrated into the elaborate body of doctrines and practices that
Daoists built at that time, from which Daoism as we know it today
evolved. The book also clarifies the origins of Chinese alchemy and the
respective roles of alchemy and meditation in self-cultivation
practices. It contains full translations of three important medieval
texts, all of them accompanied by running commentaries, making available
for the first time in English the gist of the early Chinese alchemical
corpus. (blurb on Stanford University Press)
Stanford University Press
2005, ISBN 9780804767736