Taoism: Growth of a Religion.

• Author: Kroll, Paul W.
• Position: Review

By ISABELLE ROBINET. Translated by PHYLLIS BROOKS. Stanford: STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1997. Pp. xx + 296. $39.50 (cloth); $13.95 (paper).

No one has done more than Isabelle Robinet, both in scholarly and popular venues, to illuminate the many and varied aspects of traditional, especially medieval, Taoism. Seemingly indefatigable in her writings, she is easily the most prolific Western specialist in this field. Her numerous books and articles have mostly been published in French (for a review of one of the most important books, see JAOS 106 [1986]: 847-50), but portions of her oeuvre are beginning to be translated into English. Thus, in 1993 Julian Pas and Norman Girardot presented an English rendering (Taoist Meditation: The Mao Shan Tradition of Great Purity [Albany: SUNY Press]) of her important Meditation taoiste (Paris: Dervy-Livres). Unfortunately, that translation is less than satisfactory, not only being wooden in style but, worse, riddled with errors of the "false-friends" variety that native English speakers are typically warned against when beginning to learn French. The inadequacies of Pas and Girardot make one appreciate all the more Robinet's new translator, Phyllis Brooks, who has produced in the book under review a fluent and accurate rendering of Robinet's Histoire du taoisme, des origines au XIVe siecle (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1991).

Part of Cerf's "Patrimoines" series of religious and philosophical studies, Robinet's history was the first serious attempt in a Western language to present a survey of premodern Taoism in all its complexity. It was written in a familiar style, with a minimum of scholarly apparatus but deriving from a profound knowledge of the subject. The French do this sort of vulgarisation academique better than anyone, and Robinet is a master of it. She passes with a light hand from an introductory chapter of definitions and basic concerns to consideration successively of the Warring States period, innovations during the Ham the Celestial Masters (Tianshi), Ge Hong and his tradition, the Shangqing and Lingbao revelations, the Tang period, and interior alchemy in the Song and Yuan eras.

The English version of the book, done with the author's collaboration, is both a translation and an adaptation of the original volume. Where necessary, sentences and paragraphs have been recast for clarity, and new material has been added. This is, consequently, a fuller and better book than its French prototype. It is...