Hi everybody, this forum is very knowledgeable, could anyone help me? From 6 yeas, I didn’t writer in English. Now I must send an email to a professor to ask him some questions. I’m afraid that he couldn’t understand my poor English. Would you please read my lines and correct my sentences? " Dear professor,
I am doctoral student at Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris and I am process of writing my dissertation devoted to examining “Representations of emperors in monasteries and temples under T’ang and Song”. Professor XXX gave me your email address and advised me to writer to you for some intractable questions:
I) About the statues that Xuanzong (Li Longji)ordered in 743 to establish in Kaiyuan monasteries and Kaiyuan temples, some history sources reported those images represented probably the emperor in form of the Celestial Venerable of the Primordial Beginning (Yuanshi Tianzun), but we know the most of figures of Xuanzong in place of worship took his own look or the appearance of Immortals (Zhenren)(for example in Ziji Palace and Shangqing Palace), do you think, from the point of view of Taoist theory and in the background which the court imperial venerated Laozi as their ancestor, it was possible that an icon was made for representing Tang sovereign in form of Yuanshi Tianzun? If it was, is that judged incoherent with the figure in form of Zhenren?
II) Did Taoists have the same tendency as their Buddhist opponents to developer at level of theory the idée of“God-Emperor”by identifying the emperor with the divinity?
I am perplexed by these questions for a long time. Would you please give me some advises? I’d appreciate you sending me any information you have available.
Thanks for your time.
Yours faithfully,"
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