Abstract: This article examines issues of concealing and revealing by looking at writing about Tanyangzi (1557-1580), a young women religious teacher who was the daughter of Wang Xijue. The article examines the production of the chief source about her life, the Tanyang dashi zhuan, which appears in Wang Shizhen's Yanzhou shanren xugao, and concludes that the biography was the result of a collaboration between Wang Shizhen and Wang Xijue. The biography recounts Tanyangzi's religious development, including her visions of visits to the Queen Mother of the West, and culminating in her ascending heavenward and attaining immortality on the ninth day of the ninth month in 1580. The article looks at works written to promote the teachings of Tanyangzi as well as works written to discredit her. It concludes that her disciples (including her father) who wrote about her wrote to claim control of the story from her detractors. Silence would, in this case, not have served the interests of her privacy. The article further argues that the religious work of Tanyangzi meant that ordinary rules of privacy did not apply-her work as a religious teacher demanded that she make herself visible and available to a community of believers.
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-09-01
Language: en
Type: article
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