"When the mind is tranquil and the qi 氣 well managed..." The inner cultivation in the 內業 Neiye and the 想爾注 Xiang'er zhu in the context of the debate on early Taoism

This thesis deals with the topic of early taoism. First it summarises current scholarly discourse about early forms of taoism. Most scholars in the field have already abandoned the dichotomy of earlier "philosophical taoism" (daojia) and later "religious taoism" (daojiao) and have begun to offer new models for understanding the continuities among the ideas and practices presented in the taoist texts of different periods. So far they have dealt with preHan and early Han taoist texts and their relations. The result of this research is suggestion that the continuity within the frame of taoist tradition is based on specific practice of inner cultivation and related cosmology. Further they suppose this practice is also common to later forms of taoism (later Han and postHan periods). Nevertheless it seems there are no detailed analyses of relevant texts with this concern so far. Therefore I compare the Neiye chapter from the Guanzi collection (4th/3rd century B. C.) and the Xiang'er commentary to the Laozi (2nd/ 3rd century C. E.) with the aim to find out whether we can prove (of refute) this assumption for the period of the first taoist organisations known by history. I came to the conclusion that in spite of the fact that there is a several centuries long gap between the recording of these texts and that their..