Religious Experience and Lay Society in T'Ang China

The remains of Tai Fu''s lost collection Kuang-i chi (The Great Book of Marvels) preserve three hundred short tales of encounters with the other world. Through the eyes of an official the picture emerges of a complex lay society served by a mixed priesthood of ritual practitioners. This study develops a style of close reading through which the tales give access to the lives of individuals in eighth-century China a society embarking on fundamental change.