Since Egami Namio first proposed what came to be called the “horse-rider theory” of early Japanese history in 1948, according to which horse-riding warriors from the Korean peninsula invaded the Japanese islands in the fourth century ce and founded the unified Yamato state, scholars have debated the role that people, technologies and ideas arriving from outside the Japanese islands played in the history of Japan. Although the field has largely moved on from Egami's theory, these questions continue to inform the latest research in the study of Japan, leading scholars to look beyond Japan for clues about Japanese history and culture. This wide-ranging edited volume offers an excellent introduction to one of the most recent developments in this field: the study of Chinese religious traditions in Japan. Arranged roughly chronologically across three sections, these essays draw upon a large variety of sources and extend from early Japan to the present day.

Section 1 covers the seventh to tenth centuries, with chapters 1, 3 and 4 focusing on the early Japanese court. Jonathan Smith uses historical phonology to argue against a Babylonian and for an ancient Chinese origin for the Japanese astrological term sumaru (modern subaru, referring to the Pleiades), which is used in astromantic contexts in the early-eighth-century Japanese mythologies Kojiki and Nihon shoki. Herman Ooms also explores the Kojiki and Nihon shoki to discover how Daoist ideas were appropriated during the reigns of Tenmu and Jitō (673–702) for the purposes of statecraft. N. Harry Rothschild and Kristen Knapp discuss the diplomatic visit of a Japanese official whose title included the Daoist term “perfected one” (C. zhenren, J. mahito) to Tang China in the early eighth century.

In chapter 2, Michael Como turns our attention to the cultic role of minor Daoist deities called “Jade Women” (gyokunyo) in Japan, seeking to break from the predominantly elite Buddhist sources through which these deities have been studied before. Instead he turns to a tenth-century courtier manual and a recently discovered ninth-century wooden tablet (mokkan) from Kyushu, which suggest that Jade Women were invoked by common people and non-Buddhist elites in seasonal and disease-expelling rituals.

Section 2 begins in the Nara period (710–794), moves into the Heian (794–1185) and Kamakura (1185–1333) periods and, in Livia Kohn's chapter, reaches the present day. An essay by Miura Kunio translated from Japanese presents a detailed examination of the structure and activities of the Bureau of Yin and Yang (Onmyōryō) in its earliest development at the Nara court. Mark Teeuwen asks why thirteenth-century shrine theologians at Ise made reference to the Daoist classic Daodejing, arguing against the idea that these citations were intended to distance Shinto from Buddhism, and suggesting instead that they emulated references to the Daodejing in newly popular Zen Buddhist texts. Michael Conway explores the eminent Pure Land Buddhist Shinran's (1173–1263) criticisms of Daoist ideas of immortality, which he argues suggest that these ideas held sway in Japan at the time. Finally, Livia Kohn surveys the practice of holding all-night vigils to prevent the three “worms” or “corpses” (or, as she calls them, “deathbringers”), believed to reside in the body, from ascending to heaven and reporting the transgressions of their hosts to celestial officials on the calendrical kōshin (C. gengshen) day. She follows these practices from their origins in ancient and medieval China, through their transmission to Japan during the Heian period, and up to the present day.

Section 3 extends from the Edo (1603–1868) period to the present day. Peipei Qiu explores the place of the Daoist classic Zhuangzi in the poetry of Bashō, situating her analysis in the history of Edo-period comic linked verse (haikai) poetics. Matthias Hayek explores hemerological divination practices based on the eight trigrams (hakke uranai) in Edo Japan, using divination book manuscripts and literary sources depicting diviners. Carolyn Pang engages with Jeanne Favret-Saada's study of witchcraft in rural France to examine how Buddhist, Daoist and Shinto elements come together in one ritual text from Izanagi-ryū (a blanket term for a heterogenous collection of ritual traditions in present-day Shikoku).

Taken together, these essays conclusively establish that formal Daoist religious institutions never took root in Japan the way they did in China, and that the study of “Daoism in Japan” must therefore involve what Herman Ooms calls the search for “fragments” of Daoism scattered across various Japanese social, political and religious contexts. Nevertheless, despite the necessarily fragmented nature of this topic, the coherence of the volume might have been aided by establishing a clearer definition of Daoism at the outset. While in his introduction Jeffrey L. Richey acknowledges the difficulty of defining Daoism, and cites a 1956 article by H.G. Creel entitled “What is Taoism?”, his discussion and the volume as a whole would have benefited from engaging the important later contributions of Nathan Sivin, Michel Strickmann, Stephen Bokenkamp and Terry Kleeman regarding precisely this question, which continue to be essential reference points for the field of Daoist studies.

This point does not undermine the fact that, as the first edited volume on the subject in English, this book successfully brings a complex body of scholarship into conversation across disciplinary boundaries of religion, history and literature. But it does highlight fundamental challenges inherent in the trans-regional goals to which the volume aspires, especially considering that the majority of contributors are Japan specialists. These scholars have demonstrated admirable interest in undertaking research across regional lines. Perhaps for a truly trans-regional conversation about religion in East Asia to take place, however, specialists in continental religious traditions will have to respond in kind, turning their attention across the sea to Japan. With this in mind, we may hope that this volume will be read not only by scholars of Japan, but also by specialists in Chinese and Korean religion, inspiring future collaborations that will further advance the study of East Asian religion in all its interwoven complexity.