| In Chinese mythology, Celestial Writings are conceived as originally celestial signs and texts that have descended to earth, either by direct transmission of their form or by translation into worldly language. In the dissertation I examine various traditions, intending to clarify the processes by which Daoists of the Six Dynasties constructed their scriptural tradition with the concept of Celestial Writing. I suggest the new interpretation of Celestial Writing in Daoist Shangqing texts provided for a synthesis of the traditional notion of wen, the idea of "heaven's mandate" and the Buddhist idea of Sanskrit as Celestial Writing. The Shangqing approach presents more than ever a cosmologically oriented perspective of Celestial Writing, and thus created a new vision of textual tradition. Later, in Shangqing and Lingbao traditions, scriptures are conceived as sacred because their celestial prototypes are powerful primordial emblems, crystallizations of the primordial pneuma that are accessible only to the high deities who transmit them down to lesser deities, until a feeble version intelligible to chosen saints can be revealed to humans. I examine the concept of Celestial Writing in both traditions in order to demonstrate its distinctive nature. |
