The Way of Highest Clarity: Nature, Vision and Revelation in Medieval China by James Miller (review)

Abstract

122 Journal of Chinese Religions the entire empire. Given its exposure to the wider world and its tendency to harbor heterodox groupings, it becomes clear why the provincial elites reacted with such nervousness when foreign clerics engendered a cult with a permanent and multiplying membership. However, the province’s importance is implicitly expressed throughout Ancestors, Virgins, and Friars, illustrated with well selected and analyzed sources. As to inculturation, Menegon demonstrates in a powerful conclusion the strength of the localizing discourse, leading to the creation of an indigenous religious identity, even when outside clergy was available. And special praise is due for his annex on sources, their historicity, and those intriguing “ethnographic cracks.” Eugenio Menegon’s monograph can rightly be regarded as representing the state of the art in the study of Christianity in China and should not be absent from the shelves of any institution teaching world Christianity and/or the history of China. LARS PETER LAAMANN, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London The Way of Highest Clarity: Nature, Vision and Revelation in Medieval China JAMES MILLER. Magdalena, NM: Three Pines Press, 2008. 244 pages. ISBN 978-1-931483-09-4. US$29.95 paper. This book includes two very different parts. The first chapter presents the tradition of the Way of Highest Clarity (Shangqing 上清) from a historical, anthropological, theological, and religious point of view, and is followed by three chapters that focus on the author’s reflection on the possible use of the concepts of Nature, Vision, and Revelation in the understanding of this tradition. The final three chapters, which take on a very different tone from the first four, contain original translations of three texts associated with Highest Clarity Daoism: the Esoteric Biography of Perfected Purple Yang (Ziyang Zhenren nei zhuan 紫陽真人內傳, following Porkert’s reconstruction of the text based on three sources in the Daoist Canon), The Central Scripture of the Nine Perfected (Jiu zhen zhong jing 九真中經), and the Preface to the Perfect Scripture of the Great Grotto (Dadong zhenjing xu 大洞真經序) written by Zhu Ziying 朱自 英 (976-1029). These texts were chosen from the Daoist Canon because, Miller claims, they are the basis for the first part of the book (p. 4). However, after studying the whole book, it is unlikely that Book Reviews 123 the reader would easily make the link between the two parts. A great tension remains between them: the first seems to address specialists of religious studies or theologians while the second is more aimed at Sinologists. Both parts of the book are interesting and well annotated. Many statements in the first part attempt to clearly stress the specificity of the Shangqing tradition (even while the author sometimes fails to avoid exhibiting a tendency toward caricature): “Whereas Western theologians debate the existence of gods, Highest Clarity Daoists debate their appearance: where, when, how and to whom they became visible” (p. 66). Furthermore, the English translation of the second part is eloquent and the reader may check it with the help of the original Chinese version presented on the left. Although the intrinsic qualities of both parts are indisputable, the tension between the two still remains at the end. In fact, the most original contribution of this work probably owes itself to this very tension. It is important to concentrate not so much on the socio-historical aspect of this type of Daoist text, but rather on the theology and spirituality of this tradition (p. 5). As James Miller stressed many times: “The overall goal of this study is theological, rather than historical” (p. 212). We could therefore ask if the departure point should be the Daoist scripture itself (as translated in the second part of the book) and the spiritual experiences of those who tried to put it in practice (which the book does not refer to), rather than the basic concepts of our Western tradition (as discussed in the first part). James Miller must have felt this possible contradiction of his work when writing about the last of the translated texts: “The preface, written some six hundred years after the initial revelation of the Highest Clarity scriptures attempts to connect the visualization practices detailed in the text with the revelation and...