Anna Andreeva, Ph.D. (2007), is a Research Fellow in Japanese Religions and Cultural History at the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context,” at University of Heidelberg. She has published articles on Japanese esoteric Buddhism and Shinto and women’s health. Her monograph on medieval Shinto is forthcoming from Harvard University Asia Center Publications Program.Dominic Steavu, Ph.D. (2010), is Assistant Professor of Chinese Religions and Chinese Buddhism at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has published articles on Taoism and Esoteric Buddhism and is the editor of a special issue of the Medieval History Journal on “The Literary Subversive: Writings of Resistance in East Asia” (2015).

• Acknowledgements ixList of Figures and Tables xiConventions and Abbreviations xivList of Contributors xviiiIntroduction: Backdrops and Parallels to Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions 1Anna Andreeva and Dominic SteavuPart 1: China1 Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on Procreation and Life Cycles 53Grégoire Espesset2 Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: “Seed-People” and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism 87Christine Mollier3 Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation 111Dominic Steavu4 Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts 147Catherine Despeux5 Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the Cantong Qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three) 186Fabrizio Pregadio6 On the Efffectiveness of Symbols: Women’s Bodies as Mandalas 212Brigitte BaptandierPart 2: Japan7 The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources 253Lucia Dolce8 Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism 311Bernard Faure9 “Human Yellow” and Magical Power in Japanese Medieval Tantrism and Culture 344Nobumi Iyanaga10 “Lost in the Womb”: Conception, Reproductive Imagery, and Gender in the Writings and Rituals of Japan’s Medieval Holy Men 420Anna Andreeva11 Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism 479Kigensan Licha12 Foetal Buddhahood: From Theory to Practice – Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo 522Gaynor SekimoriIndex 559