Volume 2, Issue 1

This article examines the shifting status of Daoism in late imperial China through evolving biographical portrayals of the Ming prince Zhu Quan. It identifies a conflict between "textualist" scholars, who redefined Daoism as a set of ancient philosophical texts, and a "ritualist" community that upheld its ritual and political potency. The analysis unfolds in three parts: analyzing Zhu Quan's own presentation of himself as a divine bureaucrat wielding Daoist-derived regal authority; exploring how late Ming scholars reappraised his life to redefine Daoism as political quietism; and finally, showing Zhu Quan's image as presented in official Qing historiography is the byproduct of this new theoretical synthesis, which did not envision Daoism as having a significant role in Qing politics or the Chinese sacrificial field. This article reveals that knowledge production was a contested field where competing "Daoisms" were weaponized in a fundamental struggle over the nature of kingship and political authority.