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Preliminary Material -- Introduction: Backdrops and Parallels to Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions /Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu -- 1 Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on Procreation and Life Cycles /Grégoire Espesset -- 2 Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: “Seed-People” and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism /Christine Mollier -- 3 Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation /Dominic Steavu -- 4 Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts /Catherine Despeux -- 5 Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the Cantong Qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three) /Fabrizio Pregadio -- 6 On the Effectiveness of Symbols: Women’s Bodies as Mandalas /Brigitte Baptandier -- 7 The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources /Lucia Dolce -- 8 Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism /Bernard Faure -- 9 “Human Yellow” and Magical Power in Japanese Medieval Tantrism and Culture /Nobumi Iyanaga -- 10 “Lost in the Womb”: Conception, Reproductive Imagery, and Gender in the Writings and Rituals of Japan’s Medieval Holy Men /Anna Andreeva -- 11 Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism /Kigensan Licha -- 12 Foetal Buddhahood: From Theory to Practice – Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo /Gaynor Sekimori -- Index /Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu. Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions considers paths to self-cultivation and salvation that are patterned on human embryological development or procreative imagery in the religions of China and Japan. Focusing on Taoism, Esoteric Buddhism, Shinto, Shugendō, and local religious traditions, the contributors to the volume provide new insight into how the body’s generative processes are harnessed as powerful metaphors for spiritual attainment. This volume offers an in-depth examination of the religious dimensions of embryology and reproductive imagery, topics that have been hitherto solely approached through the lens of the history of medicine. Contributors include: Brigitte Baptandier, Catherine Despeux, Grégoire Espesset, Christine Mollier, Fabrizio Pregadio, Dominic Steavu, Lucia Dolce, Bernard Faure, Iyanaga Nobumi, Anna Andreeva, Kigensan Licha, Gaynor Sekimori
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