Self and Body in Early East Asian Thought

This Element depicts the evolution of East Asian ideas for self-cultivation and body healing from 400 BCE to 200 CE.

Mark Edward Lewis (Author)

9781009486897, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 January 2025

62 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 1.1 cm, 0.24 kg

This Element examines evolving methods of cultivating the embodied self, including healing diseases and creating a superior person, in late Warring States and early imperial East Asia. It analyses many topics, including the textualization of bodily regimens and therapies, their systematization, their dissemination among different (and sometimes rival) social groups, and the diversity of traditions – religious, pharmacological, nourishing of life – that contested and combined to form a hegemonic medical practice. These topics in turn feature several issues: models of the body, regimens of cultivating and extending vitality, models of disease, and therapies for these ailments. All these ideas will be refined and extended through comparison with early Western medical traditions.

1. Introduction
2. Nourishing the Embodied Self through Philosophy
3. Nourishing the Embodied Self through Hygienic Culture
4. Healing the Embodied Self in the Yellow Emperor Corpus
5. Conclusion: Therapies of the Self.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]