A01=Mark Meulenbeld
Anthropology
Author_Mark Meulenbeld
Category=DS
Category=JBSL
Category=NHF
Category=QRRL5
Chinese religion
Consecration
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
forthcoming
Hunan
Local cults
Meishan
Plum Mountain
Tao Qian
Tao Yuanming
Vernacular narrative
Vernacular ritual
Villages
Yuanhuang
Product details
- ISBN 9780674304833
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 14 Jul 2026
- Publisher: Harvard University, Asia Center
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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The Presence of Peach Spring radically breaks with conventional interpretations of medieval luminary Tao Qian’s famous “Record of Peach Blossom Spring” by connecting the tale to its stated geographical location in northern Hunan Province (PRC) and focusing on the Daoist lore that surrounds it. Drawing on more than two decades of fieldwork, Mark Meulenbeld uncovers the presence of Peach Spring as a site with a history of more than fifteen hundred years, locally embedded within a complex network of ritual referents that define the landscape as inherently sacred. Rather than a primarily textual analysis, Meulenbeld offers a more historically grounded and environmentally situated interpretation that engages with the religious manifestations of Peach Spring: on domestic altars, through spirit-mediums, at Daoist institutions, and, ultimately, as a source of transcendence. Meulenbeld shows that the category of the sacred offers a crucial framework for understanding traditional texts, even if they do not immediately seem to belong to any religious sphere. When read in the context of its native region, the tale of Peach Spring affords readers access to a sacred site, sacred objects, and the enduring traditions of Daoist ritual that continue to maintain its presence within a sacred ecology.
Mark Meulenbeld is Associate Professor in the School of Chinese at The University of Hong Kong.
