Book Review: Zhongguo zhonggu shiqi de zongjiao yu yiliao

It has long been noted that religious practitioners in China specialized in varied forms of healing. However, only a handful of book-length studies give exclusive, extended attention to this aspect of Chinese therapeutic culture (Maspero 1981; Gai 2001; Strickmann 2002; Sakade 2007),¹ making Lin Fushi's recent collection of essays a welcome addition. Developing from his previous work on Han Dynasty and Six Dynasties shamans (Lin 1994, 2004), the collection provides a systematic overview of the medical activities of religious figures and sects in the late Han Dynasty and Six Dynasties.² Covering a broad variety of indigenous religious practitioners and sects, the essays are both insightful and entertaining, filled with anecdotal narratives from hagiographic, historical, and zhiguai 志怪 (tales of the strange) literature. The contribution is the application of the medical gaze to religion;...