A Reluctant Transcendent: Sun Bu’er (1119–11832) and the Question of Women’s Accessibility to the Daoist Path

Hagiographic accounts extoling Daoist female adepts circulated in China from the early medieval period, becoming more systemized in the Tang and Song periods. These hagiographies frequently highlighted their subjects’ religious devotion by underscoring their unattachment to commonplace feminine worldly affairs such as wifehood and motherhood. In contrast to the such depictions, Sun Bu’er (1119–1182), the only woman among the early founders of School of Complete Perfection (Quanzhen), is portrayed as a reluctant and doubting adept. Her hagiography in Orthodox of the Lineage of the Golden Lotus (Jinlian zhengzong ji) underscores her initial distrust of Master Wang Chongyang, the Quanzhen foremost patriarch. It also links her hesitance about becoming an adept to her familial attachments. Maintaining that Sun Bu’er’s hagiography deviated from antecedent depictions of female adepts, this paper suggests that her representation as ultimately devoted, albeit initially reluctant practitioner, offered a more accessible model for Daoist female practitioners.