Abstract
MR. WALEY provides an English translation of the “Hsi Yu Chi” made directly from the Chinese text. In a valuable introduction of 40 pages he deals with Mongol history and philology, and illuminates the history of medieval Taoism with the light of the Taoist Canon, which has become freely available to European scholars since its re-publication in 1923–25. He points out that the new Taoism, created by Chang Tao-ling in the second century A.D., rendered a great service by preserving texts and doctrines of philosophy, astrology, alchemy, hygiene, etc., which Confucianism rejected as heterodox. He sums up the connexion between Taoism and alchemy in the following words:
The Travels of an Alchemist: the Journey of the Taoist Ch'ang-Ch'un from China to the Hindukush at the Summons of Chingiz Khan.
Recorded by his Disciple, Li Chih-Ch'ang. Translated with an Introduction by Arthur Waley. (The Broadway Travellers.) Pp. xi + 166. (London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1931.) 10s. 6d. net.
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READ, J. The Travels of an Alchemist: the Journey of the Taoist Ch'ang-Ch'un from China to the Hindukush at the Summons of Chingiz Khan . Nature 128, 509–511 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/128509a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/128509a0
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