Thursday, December 25, 2014

Imitations of the Self: Jiang Yan and Chinese Poetics 江淹與中國詩學

Author:
Nicholas Morrow Williams

Publication Year:
2014

Publisher:
Brill

Abstract:
Imitations of the Self reevaluates the poetry of Jiang Yan (444–505), long underappreciated because of its pervasive reliance on allusion, by emphasizing the self-conscious artistry of imitation. In context of “imitation poetry,” the popular genre of the Six Dynasties era, Jiang’s work can be seen as the culmination of central trends in Six Dynasties poetry. His own life experiences are encoded in his poetry through an array of literary impersonations, reframed in traditional literary forms that imbue them with renewed significance. A close reading of Jiang Yan’s poetry demonstrates the need to apply models of interpretation to Chinese poetry that do justice to the multiplicity of authorial self-representation.

Table of Contents:

Preliminary Material  
Introduction—The Double Voice
  
1 A Brocade of Words: Theories of Poetic Imitation
  
2 The Reciprocal Origins of Pentasyllabic Verse and of Imitation Poetry

3 Impersonation and the Art of Authorship
  
4 Echoing through the Rafters: The Afterlife of Jian’an
  
5 Self-Portrait as Sea Anemone, and Other Impersonations of Jiang Yan
  
6 Jiang Yan’s Allusive and Illusive Journeys

7 Pathways in Obscurity: Jiang Yan and Ruan Ji
  
Appendix: Jiang Yan’s Poems in Diverse Forms
  
Works Cited
Index



Tuesday, December 23, 2014

日本古代の外交文書

Editor:
鈴木靖民・金子修一・石見清裕・浜田久美子

Publisher:
八木書店古書出版部

Publication Year:
2014




Abstract:
●大明6年(中国宋・462)から延長8年(930)まで、日本が発信・受信し、渤海を中心に宋・隋・唐・新羅等と交わされた50通の外交文書〔国書〕を収録。日本・中国・朝鮮史の対外関係専門家が集結し、徹底解明。
●訳註本文には、概要、本文、校異、訓読、語釈、現代語訳、考察を収録。難解な外交文書を理解する情報を網羅。
●本論の理解の前提として、中国や日本古代の外交文書の制度及び外交儀礼について説明した「総論」を収録。
●国書を理解するための多彩な附録
・各種一覧:参考史料、参考文献、渤海使一覧、遣渤海使・送渤海使一覧、新羅使一覧(文武朝以後)、遣新羅使一覧(文武朝以後)、遣唐使一覧
・地図、系図:古代日本駅路図/渤海使航路/新羅の九州・五京/吐号浦の位置比定/唐時期全図/新羅王系図/渤海王系図

Table of Contents:
『日本古代の外交文書』前書(金子修一)
総論(金子修一・石見清裕・浜田久美子)
凡例

【本  編】

1 宋→倭国 孝武帝の詔、大明六年(四六二)条
2 倭国→宋 倭王武の上表、昇明二年(四七八)条
3 倭国→隋 致書、大業三年(六〇七)条
4 隋→倭国 慰労詔書、推古十六年(六〇八)八月壬子(十二日)条
5 倭国→隋 慰労詔書、推古十六年(六〇八)九月辛巳(十一日)条
6 日本→新羅 慰労詔書、慶雲三年(七〇六)正月丁亥(十二日)条
7 日本→新羅 慰労詔書、慶雲三年(七〇六)十一月癸卯(三日)条
8 日本→新羅の金順貞 勅書、神亀三年(七二六)七月戊子(十三日)条
9 渤海→日本 王啓、神亀五年(七二八)正月甲寅(十七日)条
10 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、神亀五年(七二八)四月壬午(十六日)条
11 唐→日本 論事勅書、開元二十三年(七三五)
12 渤海→日本 王啓、天平十一年(七三九)十二月戊辰(十日)条
13 新羅→日本 奏/日本→新羅 詔、天平勝宝四年(七五二)六月己丑(十四日)条
14 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、天平勝宝五年(七五三)六月丁丑(八日)条
15 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、天平宝字三年(七五九)二月戊戌朔条
16 渤海→日本 中台省牒、天平宝字三年(七五九)十月辛亥(十八日)条
17 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、宝亀三年(七七二)二月己卯(二十八日)条
18 日本→渤海 慰労詔書・弔喪書、宝亀八年(七七七)五月癸酉(二十三日)条
19 日本→新羅 慰労詔書、宝亀十一年(七八〇)二月庚戌(十五日)条
20 渤海→日本 王啓・告喪啓、延暦十五年(七九六)四月戊子(二十七日)条
21 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、延暦十五年(七九六)五月丁未(十七日)条
22 渤海→日本 王啓、延暦十五年(七九六)十月己未(二日)条
23 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、延暦十七年(七九八)五月戊戌(十九日)条
24 渤海→日本 王啓、延暦十七年(七九八)十二月壬寅(二十七日)条
25 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、延暦十八年(七九九)四月己丑(十五日)条
26 渤海→日本 王啓、延暦十八年(七九九)九月辛酉(二十日)条
27 渤海→日本 王啓、弘仁元年(八一〇)九月丙寅(二十九日)条
28 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、弘仁二年(八一一)正月丁巳(二十二日)条
29 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、弘仁六年(八一五)正月甲午(二十二日)条
30 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、弘仁七年(八一六)五月丁卯(二日)条
31 渤海→日本 王啓、弘仁十年(八一九)十一月甲午(二十日)条
32 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、弘仁十一年(八二〇)正月甲午(二十一日)条
33 渤海→日本 王啓、弘仁十二年(八二一)十一月乙巳(十三日)条
34 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、弘仁十三年(八二二)正月癸丑(二十一日)条
35 日本→渤海 慰労詔書、天長三年(八二六)五月辛巳(十五日)条
36 新羅→日本 執事省牒、承和三年(八三六)十二月丁酉(三日)条
37 渤海→日本 王啓・別状・中台省牒、承和九年(八四二)三月辛丑(六日)条
38 日本→渤海 慰労詔書・太政官牒、承和九年(八四二)四月丙子(十二日)条
39 渤海→日本 王啓・中台省牒、嘉祥二年(八四九)三月戊辰(十四日)条
40 日本→渤海 慰労詔書・太政官牒、嘉祥二年(八四九)五月乙丑(十二日)条
41 渤海→日本 王啓・中台省牒、貞観元年(八五九)五月十日乙丑条
42 日本→渤海 慰労詔書・太政官牒、貞観元年(八五九)六月二十三日丁未条
43 渤海→日本 王啓・中台省牒、貞観十四年(八七二)五月十八日乙丑条
44 日本→渤海 慰労詔書・太政官牒、貞観十四年(八七二)五月二十五日甲午条
45 渤海→日本 王啓・中台省牒、元慶元年(八七七)四月十八日己丑条
46 日本→渤海 太政官牒、元慶元年(八七七)
47 日本→渤海 太政官牒、寛平四年(八九二)
48 日本→渤海 法皇賜渤海裴〓書、延喜八年(九〇八)
49 日本→渤海 賜渤海国大使裴〓位記、延喜二十年(九二〇)
50 東丹→日本 怠状、延長八年(九三〇)

【附録】
参考史料/参考文献/渤海使一覧、遣渤海使・送渤海使一覧、新羅使一覧(文武朝以後)、遣新羅使一覧(文武朝以後)、遣唐使一覧/古代日本駅路図(部分)、渤海使航路、新羅の九州・五京、吐号浦の位置比定、唐時期全図/新羅王系図、渤海王系図/索引
あとがき(浜田久美子)
編者・執筆者

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Reading Medieval Chinese Poetry : Text, Context, and Culture

Editor:
Paul W. Kroll

Publisher: 

Brill

Publication Year:

2014




Abstract:


Nine renowned sinologists present a range of studies that display the riches of medieval Chinese verse in varied guises. All major verse-forms, including shi, fu, and ci, are examined, with a special focus on poetry’s negotiation with tradition and historical context. Dozens of previously untranslated works are here rendered in English for the first time, and readers will enter a literary culture that was deeply infused with imperatives of wit, learning, and empathy. Among the diverse topics met with in this volume are metaphysical poetry as a medium of social exchange, the place of ruins in Chinese poetry, the reality and imaginary of frontier borderlands, the enigma of misattribution, and how a 19th-century Frenchwoman discovered Tang poetry for the Western world.

Table of Contents:


Paul W. Kroll
Introduction

Wendy Swartz 
Trading Literary Competence: Exchange Poetry in the Eastern Jin

Robert Joe Cutter
Shen Who Couldn't Write: Literary Relationships at the Court of Liu Jun

David R. Knechtges
Ruin and Remembrance in Classical Chinese Literature: The "Fu On The Ruined City" (蕪城賦) by Bao Zhao 鮑照

Ding Xiang Warner
An Offering to the Prince: Wang Bo's Apology for Poetry

Timothy Wai Keung Chan
Beyond Border and Boudoir: The Frontier in the Poetry of the Four Elites of Early Tang 

Paul W. Kroll
Heyue yingling ji 河嶽英靈集 and the Attributes of High Tang Poetry

Stephen Owen
Who Wrote That? Attribution in Northern Song Ci

Ronald Egan
When There Is a Parallel Text in Prose: Reading Lu You's 陸游 1170 Yangzi River Journey in Poetry and Prose

Pauline Yu
Judith Gautier and the Invention of Chinese Poetry

Thursday, December 11, 2014

A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese

Author:
Paul W. Kroll

Contributors:
William G. Boltz, David R. Knechtges, Y. Edmund Lien, Antje Richter, Matthias L. Richter, Ding Xiang Warner

Publication Year:
2014

Publisher:
Brill


Abstract:
A Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese is the long-desired Chinese – English reference work for all those reading texts dating from the Warring States period through the Tang dynasty. Comprising 8,000+ characters, arranged alphabetically by Pinyin.

As a lexicon meant for practical use, it immensely facilitates reading and translating historical, literary, and religious texts dating from approximately 500 BCE to 1000 CE. Being primarily a dictionary of individual characters (zidian 字典) and the words they represent, it also includes an abundance of alliterative and echoic binomes (lianmianci 連綿詞) as well as accurate identifications of hundreds of plants, animals, and assorted technical terms in various fields. It aims to become the English-language resource of choice for all those seeking assistance in reading texts dating from the Warring States period through the Tang dynasty.

Previous Chinese-English dictionaries have persistently mixed together without clarification all eras and styles of Chinese. But written Chinese in its 3,000 year history has changed and evolved even more than English has in its mere millennium, with classical and medieval Chinese differing more from modern standard Chinese than the language ofBeowulf or even that of Chaucer differs from modern English. This dictionary takes the user straight into the language of early and medieval texts, without the confusion of including meanings that developed only after 1000 CE. An added feature of the dictionary is its identification of meanings that were not developed and attached to individual graphs until the medieval period (approximately 250-1000 CE), setting these off where possible from earlier usages of the same graphs.

Those who have, or are acquiring, a basic understanding of classical grammar, whether approaching the language from a background either in modern Chinese or Japanese, will find it eases their labors appreciably and helps to solve countless problems of interpretation. Advanced students will find it to be the one reference work they want always close at hand.

The dictionary has an index by “radical” and stroke-number, and contains various appendices, including one with reign-eras and exact accession dates of emperors given according to both Chinese and Western calendars.


Monday, December 8, 2014

Dao Companion to the Analects

Editor: 
Olberding, Amy

Publication Year:
2014

Publisher:
Springer

Abstract:
This volume surveys the major philosophical concepts, arguments, and commitments of the Confucian classic, the Analects. In thematically organized chapters, leading scholars provide a detailed, scholarly introduction to the text and the signal ideas ascribed to its protagonist, Confucius.

The volume opens with chapters that reflect the latest scholarship on the disputed origins of the text and an overview of the broad commentarial tradition it generated. These are followed by chapters that individually explore key areas of the text’s philosophical landscape, articulating both the sense of concepts such as ren, li, and xiao as well as their place in the wider space of the text. A final section addresses prominent interpretive challenges and scholarly disputes in reading the Analects, evaluating, for example, the alignment between the Analects and contemporary moral theory and the contested nature of its religious sensibility.

Dao Companion to the Analects offers a comprehensive and complete survey of the text's philosophical idiom and themes, as well as its history and some of the liveliest current debates surrounding it. This book is an ideal resource for both researchers and advanced students interested in gaining greater insight into one of the earliest and most influential Confucian classics.


Table of Contents:
1. Introduction, Amy Olberding.

- Part I Text and Context.-
2. History and Formation of the Analects, Tae Hyun Kim and Mark Csikszentmihalyi.- 
3. The Commentarial Tradition, John B. Henderson and On-Cho Ng.- 
4. Confucius and His Communit, Yuet Keung Lo.

- Part II The Conceptual Landscape.- 
5. Ren 仁: An Exemplary Life, Karyn Lai.- 
6. Ritual and Rightness in the Analect, Hagop Sarkissian.- 
7. Family Reverence (xiao 孝) in the Analects:
Confucian Role Ethics and the Dynamics of Intergenerational Transmission, Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont Jr..- 
8. Language and Ethics in the Analects, Hui Chieh Loy.- 
9. Uprightness, Indirection, Transparency, Lisa Raphals.- 
10. Cultivating the Self in Concert with Others, David B. Wong.- 
11. Perspectives on Moral Failure in the Analects, Amy Olberding.

- Part III Mapping the Landscape: Issues in Interpretation.- 
12. The Analects and Moral Theory, Stephen C. Angle.- 
13. Religious Thought and Practice in the Analects, Erin M. Cline.- 
14. The Analects and Forms of Governance, Tongdong Bai.- 
15. Why Care? A Feminist Re-appropriation of Confucian Xiao 孝, Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee.- 
16. Balancing Conservatism and Innovation: The Pragmatic Analects, Sor-hoon Tan.

Indexm.
Index Locorum.


Thursday, December 4, 2014

Chinese Architecture in an Age of Turmoil, 200-600

Author:
Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt

Publisher:
University of Hawaii Press

Publication Year:
2014




Abstract:
Between the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 CE and the year 600, more than thirty dynasties, kingdoms, and states rose and fell on the eastern side of the Asian continent. The founders and rulers of those polities represented the spectrum of peoples in North, East, and Central Asia. Nearly all of them built palaces, altars, temples, tombs, and cities, and almost without exception, the architecture was grounded in the building tradition of China. Illustrated with more than 475 color and black-and-white photographs, maps, and drawings, Chinese Architecture in an Age of Turmoil uses all available evidence—Chinese texts, secondary literature in six languages, excavation reports, and most important, physical remains—to present the architectural history of this tumultuous period in China’s history. Its author, Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, arguably North America’s leading scholar of premodern Chinese architecture, has done field research at nearly every site mentioned, many of which were unknown twenty years ago and have never been described in a Western language.

The physical remains are a handful of pagodas, dozens of cave-temples, thousands of tombs, small-scale evidence of architecture such as sarcophaguses, and countless representations of buildings in paint and relief sculpture. Together they narrate an expansive architectural history that offers the first in-depth study of the development, century-by-century, of Chinese architecture of third through the sixth centuries, plus a view of important buildings from the two hundred years before the third century and the resolution of architecture of this period in later construction. The subtext of this history is an examination of Chinese architecture that answers fundamental questions such as: What was achieved by a building system of standardized components? Why has this building tradition of perishable materials endured so long in China? Why did it have so much appeal to non-Chinese empire builders? Does contemporary architecture of Korea and Japan enhance our understanding of Chinese construction? How much of a role did Buddhism play in construction during the period under study? In answering these questions, the book focuses on the relation between cities and monuments and their heroic or powerful patrons, among them Cao Cao, Shi Hu, Empress Dowager Hu, Gao Huan, and lesser-known individuals. Specific and uniquely Chinese aspects of architecture are explained. The relevance of sweeping—and sometimes uncomfortable—concepts relevant to the Chinese architectural tradition such as colonialism, diffusionism, and the role of historical memory also resonate though the book.

Table of Contents:
Division and reorganization into visions of empire
Han beginnings
The third century: emergence of Buddhist architecture
The fourth century: permanent materials for worship, death, and 

  defense
The fifth century: architecture for barbarian dynasties
The sixth century: wooden halls revealed
Patterns and achievements of third-through-sixth-century 

  architecture
Seeing China through Korea and Japan



Sunday, November 30, 2014

Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes) 《易經》

Author:
Geoffrey Redmond and Tze-ki Hon

Publisher:

American Academy of Religion and Oxford University Press

Publication Year:

2014

Abstract:

Chinese traditional culture cannot be understood without some familiarity with the I Ching, yet it is one of the most difficult of the worlds ancient classics. Assembled from fragments with many obscure allusions, it was the subject of ingenious, but often conflicting, interpretations over nearly three thousand years. Teaching the II Ching (Book of Changes) offers a comprehensive study at a time when interest in Asian philosophy and the culture of China is on the rise. Still widely read in China, it has become a countercultural classic in the West. 

Recent scholarship has radically altered our understanding of this foundational work. Geoffrey Redmond and Tze-Ki Hon present an up-to-date survey of recent studies including reconstruction of the early meanings, excavated manuscripts, the New Culture Movement, and the Cultural Revolution. To facilitate introducing the classic to students, the necessary background is provided for university teachers and students, even non-China specialists. The teaching approaches described will foreground the otherness of the classic, yet engage the interests of twenty-first-century students. Rather than dismissing the texts popular association with divination, they explain why this mode of human thought has persisted for millennia. Thus, Redmond and Hon mediate between the two extreme views of the classic: a source of timeless ancient wisdom on the one hand, and a historical curiosity on the other. 



Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes) makes this important classic accessible to a broad readership, thus providing a crucial service for those interested in China, early civilization, and world religion. Now anyone with a serious interest can understand a text that continues to have a decisive influence on Chinese and world culture three thousand years after its original composition.


Table of Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chronology of Chinese Dynasties
Structure of the Yijing
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Studying an Ancient Classic
Chapter 1 Divination: Fortune-Telling and Philosophy
Chapter 2 Bronze Age Origins
Chapter 3 Women in the Book of Changes
Chapter 4 Excavated Manuscripts
Chapter 5 Ancient Meanings Reconstructed
Chapter 6 The Ten Wings
Chapter 7 Cosmology
Chapter 8 Moral Cultivation
Chapter 9 The Yijing in Modern China
Chapter 10 The Yijing's Journey to the West
Chapter 11 Reading the Book of Changes
Chapter 12 The Future of the Yijing 
Bibliography

Index

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Early China 37 (2014) 《古代中國》第37期

Table of Contents:


Letter from the Editor..........SARAH ALLAN


ARTICLES

Did Babylonian Astrology Influence Early Chinese  Astral Prognostication Xing zhan shu 星占書..........DAVID  W. PANKENIER

The Total Lunar  Eclipse on June 16, 2011: A Key to Dating  the Yin Lunar Eclipse in Yingcang 885/886..........LIU  XUESHUN

Marital  Alliances and Affinal Relatives  (sheng 甥 and hungou 婚購) in the Society and Politics of Zhou  China  in the Light of Bronze  Inscriptions.......... MARIA KHAYUTINA

Scribal Variation and  the Meaning of the Houma and  Wenxian Covenant Texts' Imprecation Ma yi fei shi 麻夷非是.......... CRISPIN  WILLIAMS

Texts, Performance, and  Spectacle:  The Funeral Procession of Marquis Yi of Zeng, 443 B.C.E........... LUKE  HABBERSTAD

Delinquent Fathers  and  Philology:  Lunyu 論語 13.18 and  Related  Texts.......... OLIVER WEINGARTEN

Promoting Action in Warring States Political  Philosophy: A First Look at the Chu Manuscript, Cao Mie's Battle Arrays.......... ERNEST CALDWELL

Xunzi's  Criticism of Zisi-New Perspectives.......... KUAN-YUN HUANG

New  Information on Qin Religious  Practice:  Evidence  from Liye and Zhoujiatai 周家台.......... CHARLES  SANFT

All Merged in One: The First Emperor's Tumulus.......... JIE SHI

Epiphanies of Sovereignty and  the Rite of Jade Disc Immersion in Weft Narratives.......... GRÉGOIRE  ESPESSET

ARTICLES FROM THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EXCAVATED MANUSCRIPTS, MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE, 2004

Collaterality in Early Chinese Cosmology: An Argument for Confucian Harmony (he 和) as Creatio In Situ.......... ROGER  T. AMES

"Only the Human Way May Be Followed": Reading the Guodian Manuscripts against the Mozi.......... ANDREW MEYER

New Light on the Li ji 禮記: The Li ji and the Related Warring States Period Guodian Bamboo Manuscripts.......... XING WEN


REVIEW ARTICLES

Newly Excavated Texts in the Digital Age: Reflections  on New Resources.......... LEE-MOI PHAM AND KUAN-YUN  HUANG

Hail to the King: A Review of Two Books by David  N. Keightley.......... MAGNUS FISKESJÖ


REVIEW FORUM

Wai-yee Li. The Readability of the Past in Early Chinese Historiography.......... ERIC HENRY

The Shape of History: On Reading Li Wai-yee.......... KAI VOGELSANG


BOOK REVIEW

Elisabeth  Hsu.  Pulse Diagnosis in Early Chinese Medicine: The Telling Touch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010........... MIRANDA  BROWN

Dissertation Abstracts......... CLAIRE  V. BESKIN, Comp.

Annual Bibliography.......... XIUCAI  ZHENG,  Comp.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

『中論』・『人物志』訳註他

Author:
多田狷介

Publisher:
汲古書院

Publication Year:
2014

Abstract:
三世紀、後漢末から三国魏代にかけての人、魏の明帝(曹叡、在位二二六~二三九)代の立法家でもあった劉邵の著わした『人物志』に関連して、京都府向日市の長岡京宮跡から一九七八年に「人物志三巻」と墨書された木製の籤牌が出土した。これにより、八世紀末の長岡京には巻子本の『人物志』が架蔵されていたものと推測される(本文二一七頁参照)。また九世紀末の藤原佐世撰『日本国見在書目録』の名家の項には「人物志三巻劉劭撰」と見える。これらは千年以上も前の日本における『人物志』の痕跡であるが、それが日本においてどう読まれたのかは不明である。手筆本の伝承はなく、降って長澤規矩也著『和刻本漢籍分類目録』(汲古書院 一九七六年一〇月)にもその書名を見ない。

「『人物志』訳註」は、旧稿を推敲のうえ、九分九厘はそのままを収録した。「『中論』訳註」は、本書に収録するに際し、旧「『中論』訳稿」を推敲したが、推敲に際しては、徐湘霖校注『中論校注』(巴蜀出版社 二○○○年七月)を参照しえた。

第二部は、三十六年間勤務した日本女子大学を定年退職した二○○六年三月前後以降に発表したモノグラフを、第三部は職場や学会の月報類の小冊子に掲載した文字通りの小文・雑文を発表時間順に配列し、それぞれに一から七と番号を冠した。いずれも著者個人に対して忘れがたい印象を留めた事柄や人や書物である。

Table of Contents:

第一部
第一章 『中論』訳註  第二章 『人物志』訳註

第二部
第一章 中国古尸箚記  第二章 両晋交替期、乱世の人びと―顧栄と炙肉、郗鍳と塢主のことなど―  
第三章 西安考古訪問記 
第四章 西安を訪れた日本人
第五章 〈書評〉劉文海著/李正宇点校『西行見聞記』

第三部
一  私の好きなことば  
二  很糟漢語日記里的両、三天   
三  私のすすめる本
四  切ない食談義    
五  敗戦前後の一小学生      
六  歴研と私―事務局員斎藤政子さんのことなど―  
七  多田狷介訳『滄桑――中国共産党外伝――』刊行後の幾つかのこと
   あとがき


Saturday, November 22, 2014

The Body Incantatory: Spells and the Ritual Imagination in Medieval Chinese Buddhism

Author:
Paul Copp

Publisher:
Columbia University Press

Publication Year:
2014




Abstract:
Whether chanted as devotional prayers, intoned against the dangers of the wilds, or invoked to heal the sick and bring ease to the dead, incantations were pervasive features of Buddhist practice in late medieval China (600--1000 C.E.). Material incantations, in forms such as spell-inscribed amulets and stone pillars, were also central to the spiritual lives of both monks and laypeople. In centering its analysis on the Chinese material culture of these deeply embodied forms of Buddhist ritual, The Body Incantatory reveals histories of practice -- and logics of practice -- that have until now remained hidden.

Paul Copp examines inscribed stones, urns, and other objects unearthed from anonymous tombs; spells carved into pillars near mountain temples; and manuscripts and prints from both tombs and the Dunhuang cache. Focusing on two major Buddhist spells, or dharani, and their embodiment of the incantatory logics of adornment and unction, he makes breakthrough claims about the significance of Buddhist incantation practice not only in medieval China but also in Central Asia and India. Copp's work vividly captures the diversity of Buddhist practice among medieval monks, ritual healers, and other individuals lost to history, offering a corrective to accounts that have overemphasized elite, canonical materials.

Table of Contents:
List of IllustrationsPreface: The Body IncantatoryThanksAbbreviations
Introduction: Dharanis and the Study of Buddhist Spells
1. Scripture, Relic, Talisman, Spell
2. Amulets of the Incantation of Wish Fulfillment
3. Dust, Shadow, and the Incantation of Glory
4. Mystic Store and Wizard's Basket
Coda: Material Incantations and the Study of Medieval Chinese Buddhism
Appendix 
1. Suiqiu Amulets Discovered in ChinaAppendix
2. Stein no. 4690: Four SpellsNotesGlossarySourcesIndex



Sunday, November 16, 2014

張家山漢簡『二年律令』の研究

Editor:
東洋文庫中国古代地域史研究

Publisher:
東洋文庫

Publication Year:
2014

Table of Contents:

部分タイトル 雲夢睡虎地・荊州張家山調査報告記 / 飯尾秀幸 著
部分タイトル 中国古代土地所有問題に寄せて / 飯尾秀幸 著
部分タイトル 秦漢時代の戸籍について / 池田雄一 著
部分タイトル 「五任」と「無任」 / 石黒ひさ子 著
部分タイトル 収の原理と淵源 / 石原遼平 著
部分タイトル 秦漢出土法律文書にみる「田」・「宅」に関する諸問題
                        / 太田幸男 著
部分タイトル 国家による労働力編成と在地社会 / 小嶋茂稔 著
部分タイトル 漢代婚姻形態に関する一考察 / 佐々木満実 著
部分タイトル 二年律令にみる民の生活形態について / 椎名一雄 著
部分タイトル 「家罪」および「公室告」「非公室告」に関する一考察
                         / 多田麻希子 著
部分タイトル 秦・前漢初期における国家と亡人 / 福島大我 著
部分タイトル 『秦律』・『漢律』 (二年律令) に見える「三環」・
                         「免老」について /藤田忠 著
部分タイトル 列侯と関内侯 / 邉見統 著
部分タイトル 呂氏政権における領域統治 / 山元貴尚 著


Thursday, November 13, 2014

Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China 早期與早期中古中國的食物與環境

Author:
E. N. Anderson


Publisher:
University of Pennsylvania Press

Publication Year:
2014


Abstract:

Chinese food is one of the most recognizable and widely consumed cuisines in the world. Almost no town on earth is without a Chinese restaurant of some kind, and Chinese canned, frozen, and preserved foods are available in shops from Nairobi to Quito. But the particulars of Chinese cuisine vary widely from place to place as its major ingredients and techniques have been adapted to local agriculture and taste profiles. To trace the roots of Chinese foodways, one must look back to traditional food systems before the early days of globalization.

Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China provides an account of the development of the food systems that coincided with China's emergence as an empire. Before extensive trade and cultural exchange with Europe was established, Chinese farmers and agriculturalists developed systems that used resources in sustainable and efficient ways, permitting intensive and productive techniques to survive over millennia. Fields, gardens, semiwild lands, managed forests, and specialized agricultural landscapes all became part of an integrated network that produced maximum nutrients with minimal input—though not without some environmental cost. E. N. Anderson examines premodern China's vast, active network of trade and contact, such as the routes from Central Asia to Eurasia and the slow introduction of Western foods and medicines under the Mongol Empire. Bringing together a number of new findings from archaeology, history, and field studies of environmental management, Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China provides an updated picture of language relationships, cultural innovations, and intercultural exchanges.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Prehistoric origins across Eurasia
China's early agriculture
The origins of Chinese civilization
The development of China's sustainability during Zhou and Han
Dynastic consolidation under Han
Foods from the west: medieval China
The Mongols and the Yuan dynasty
Shifting grounds in Ming
Overview: Imperial China managing landscapes

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Xunzi: The Complete Text 《荀子》全譯本

Author: 
Eric Hutton

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

Publication Year:
2014



Abstract:

This is the first complete, one-volume English translation of the ancient Chinese text Xunzi, one of the most extensive, sophisticated, and elegant works in the tradition of Confucian thought. Through essays, poetry, dialogues, and anecdotes, the Xunzi articulates a Confucian perspective on ethics, politics, warfare, language, psychology, human nature, ritual, and music, among other topics. Aimed at general readers and students of Chinese thought, Eric Hutton's translation makes the full text of this important work more accessible in English than ever before.

Named for its purported author, the Xunzi (literally, "Master Xun") has long been neglected compared to works such as the Analects of Confucius and the Mencius. Yet interest in the Xunzi has grown in recent decades, and the text presents a much more systematic vision of the Confucian ideal than the fragmented sayings of Confucius and Mencius. In one famous, explicit contrast to them, the Xunzi argues that human nature is bad. However, it also allows that people can become good through rituals and institutions established by earlier sages. Indeed, the main purpose of the Xunzi is to urge people to become as good as possible, both for their own sakes and for the sake of peace and order in the world.

In this edition, key terms are consistently translated to aid understanding and line numbers are provided for easy reference. Other features include a concise introduction, a timeline of early Chinese history, a list of important names and terms, cross-references, brief explanatory notes, a bibliography, and an index.


TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
A Traditional Timeline of Early Chinese History xxxi
Chapter 1: An Exhortation to Learning 1
Chapter 2: Cultivating Oneself 9
Chapter 3: Nothing Improper 16
Chapter 4: On Honor and Disgrace 23
Chapter 5: Against Physiognomy 32
Chapter 6: Against the Twelve Masters 40
Chapter 7: On Confucius 47
Chapter 8: The Achievements of the Ru 52
Chapter 9: The Rule of a True King 68
Chapter 10: Enriching the State 83
Chapter 11: The True King and the Hegemon 99
Chapter 12: The Way to Be a Lord 117
Chapter 13: The Way to Be a Minister 133
Chapter 14: On Attracting Men of Worth 141
Chapter 15: A Debate on Military Affairs 145
Chapter 16: The Strong State 163
Chapter 17: Discourse on Heaven 175
Chapter 18: Correct Judgments 183
Chapter 19: Discourse on Ritual 201
Chapter 20: Discourse on Music 218
Chapter 21: Undoing Fixation 224
Chapter 22: Correct Naming 236
Chapter 23: Human Nature Is Bad 248
Chapter 24: The Gentleman 258
Chapter 25: Working Songs 262
Chapter 26: Fu 277
Chapter 27: The Grand Digest 288
Chapter 28: The Right-Hand Vessel 318
Chapter 29: The Way to Be a Son 325
Chapter 30: The Proper Model and Proper Conduct 330
Chapter 31: Duke Ai 333
Chapter 32: Yao Asked 339
Appendix 1: Important Terms and Names 344
Appendix 2: Cross-Reference List 347
Textual Notes 359
Bibliography 385
Index 387

Monday, November 3, 2014

Public Memory in Early China 早期中國的公眾記憶

Author:
Kenneth E. Brashier

Publisher:
Harvard University Press

Publication Year:
2014




Abstract:

In early imperial China, the dead were remembered by stereotyping them, by relating them to the existing public memory and not by vaunting what made each person individually distinct and extraordinary in his or her lifetime. Their posthumous names were chosen from a limited predetermined pool; their descriptors were derived from set phrases in the classical tradition; and their identities were explicitly categorized as being like this cultural hero or that sage official in antiquity. In other words, postmortem remembrance was a process of pouring new ancestors into prefabricated molds or stamping them with rigid cookie cutters. Public Memory in Early China is an examination of this pouring and stamping process. After surveying ways in which learning in the early imperial period relied upon memorization and recitation, K. E. Brashier treats three definitive parameters of identity—name, age, and kinship—as ways of negotiating a person’s relative position within the collective consciousness. He then examines both the tangible and intangible media responsible for keeping that defined identity welded into the infrastructure of Han public memory.

Table of Contents:

List of Tables and Figures*
Conventions
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Han memorial culture
1. “Repeated Inking” and the backdrop of a manuscript culture
2. “Continuous Chanting” and the backdrop of an oral culture
3. Inking and Chanting share their secret of longevity

I. Names as positioning the self
4. The ancestor’s given names as locative markers
5. The ancestor’s surname as a spatial marker
6. Following the named lineage back through time

II. Age as positioning the self
7. The age of childhood
8. The age of adulthood
9. The age of advanced years
10. The age of afterlife

III. Kinship as positioning the self
12. Weakening personal agency
13. Strengthening interpersonal bonds
14. A dynamic relationship net

IV. The tangible tools of positioning the self
15. Calling cards and the trafficking of names
16. The ancestral shrine and its tools of remembrance
17. The cemetary and its tools of remembrance
18. Commemorative portraiture as a tool of remembrance

V. The intangible tools of positioning the self
19. Reduction
20. Conversion
21. Association

Conclusion: “Here is where the Earl of Shao rested”

Notes
Bibliography

* Tables and Figures
  • Tables
    • 1. A sample of male and female personal names from the Zoumalou records
    • 2. The bounties of seniority, by age and administrative grade
    • 3. The decreasing frequency of sacrifices
  • Figures
    • 1. The stele of Jing Yun, magistrate of Quren, erected 173 CE, from Yunyang County, Sichuan
    • 2. Eastern Han relief of students bearing books, from Ducheng, Shandong
    • 3. Eastern Han inscription urging descendants of a thrice venerable to continue observing his name taboo, from Zhejiang Province
    • 4. Jörg Breu’s “Steps of life”
    • 5. A woman’s version of “The different stages of life”
    • 6. Simple summary of the lifeline, as envisioned in the postmedieval West
    • 7. The stele of Xianyu Huang, erected 165 CE, from Tianjin Municipal Region
    • 8. Simple summary of the life line, as envisioned in early imperial China
    • 9. The First Emperor of Qin fails to dredge up the royal tripods, in a late Eastern Han stone relief from Tengzhou, Shandong
    • 10. An Eastern Han cemetary at Yanshi, Henan
    • 11. The Kong Zhou stele, erected 164 CE, from Qufu, Shandong
    • 12. A common mid-Han labeling tag, dated 12 BCE, from Eji-na, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
    • 13. The birchleaf pear beside an homage-receiving lord, from an Eastern Han tomb at Jiaxiang, Shandong

Thursday, October 30, 2014

[Dissertation] Divining Bureaucracy: Divination Manuals as Technology and the Standardization of Efficacy in Early China

Author :
Fodde-Reguer, Anna-Alexandra

Defended:
2014

School:
University of Michigan

Abstract:

The authors of divination manuals dating to early China (c. 220 B.C.E.-c. 400 C.E.) treated divination as a technology to gain access to hidden empirical knowledge. By transcribing this knowledge in cosmological language and through the use of diagrams, the authors of these manuals attempted to standardize knowledge for capable readers. The manuals thereby mark a crucial departure from ancient China (c. 1600-c. 300 B.C.E.), when divination authority was invested in privileged individuals, whose skills were monopolized by the wealthy and powerful. The standardization of divinatory techniques and hidden knowledge in these manuals fits the context of bureaucratic expertise and the expanding scope of influence of written culture in the early imperial period. 

Using an historical approach, I argue that the knowledge recorded in divination manuals points to a view of divination as a perfectible technique for the discovery of practical knowledge. I carefully differentiate such information from the imagined perspective of the manual authors and the manual users. Each chapter focuses on selections from texts containing divination manuals. 

The texts I will draw on originate from three caches: the "Dream Divination Book" from the Yuelu cache of bamboo slips dating to the Qin dynasty (221 B.C.E.-206 B.C.E.); five divination sections from tomb 6 at Yinwan, Jiangsu Province and dating to 11 B.C.E. (the Han Dynasty 206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.); and a section from the manuscript Pélliot-Chinoise 2856 (Recto) discovered in the Mogao caves at Dunhuang, Gansu Province, dating to c. 400 C.E. 

Using specific examples from each cache, I discuss how the texts disclose specific methods for using divination as a technique for readers to interpret their dreams, choose auspicious dates for various activities, and heal their bodies from illness. 

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

The History of Chinese Buddhist Bibliography: Censorship and Transformation of the Tripitaka 中國佛教目錄學史

Author:
Tanya Storch

Publication Year:
2014

Publisher:
Cambria Press




Abstract:
This study is a thorough examination of the entire historical scope of the Chinese Buddhist bibliography, including its historical foundations, textual classifications, criteria of authenticity, and collections made by individual catalogers. The need for such a study is urgent, for although references to and even in-depth studies of individual Buddhist catalogs and the data they contain have been written, there has not been until now an investigation into the entire historical scope of Buddhist bibliography in China. Understanding just what those who organized the canon over the centuries have left out, or preserved, is key to recovering a fuller appreciation for the development of Buddhism in East Asia in all its complexity. The study of individual bibliographers’ positions is equally crucial for the understanding of standards of authenticity and assignment of value to one group of scriptures over others. History of books, libraries, and learning in China would be incomplete without studying the history of Buddhist bibliography. Ultimately, it is necessary to study Buddhist bibliography because it represents the Tripitaka, the largest and most influential collection of sacred scriptures in the world, and because this collection needs to be incorporated into comparative discussions of Scripture and Canon in world history.

This is the first study that covers the entire historical scope of Buddhist bibliography in China in any European language, as well as the only study that provides detailed descriptions of all influential catalogs of the Buddhist canon written in the second through the end of the tenth centuries. It is the first attempt, in both European and Asian languages, to provide a comparative analysis between ideas, and these theological and historiographical principles used in creation of an authoritative canon by Christian and Buddhist scholars.

Table of Contents:

List of Tables

Transliterated Sanskrit Names, Titles, and Terms

Foreword by Victor H. Mair

Introduction

Chapter 1: Chinese Catalogs of Traditional (Non-Buddhist) Literature

Chapter 2: The Earliest Chinese Catalogs of Buddhist Literature

Chapter 3: Chinese Ideas about the Authenticity of the Buddhist Canon

Chapter 4: The New Position of Buddhism in China

Chapter 5: The Golden Age of Chinese Buddhism and the Catalogs of the Tang Dynasty

Chapter 6: Buddhist Catalogs and “Translators”

Chapter 7: Notes on the Use of Book Catalogs in Religious And Secular Contexts

Conclusion:

Appendix A: A Table of Chinese Buddhist Scriptural Catalogues

Bibliography

Index


Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Savage Exchange: Han Imperialism, Chinese Literary Style, and the Economic Imagination

Author:
Tamara T. Chin

Publisher:
Harvard University Press

Publication Year:
2014




Abstract:

Savage Exchange explores the politics of representation during the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) at a pivotal moment when China was asserting imperialist power on the Eurasian continent and expanding its local and long-distance (“Silk Road”) markets. Tamara T. Chin explains why rival political groups introduced new literary forms with which to represent these expanded markets. To promote a radically quantitative approach to the market, some thinkers developed innovative forms of fiction and genre. In opposition, traditionalists reasserted the authority of classical texts and advocated a return to the historical, ethics-centered, marriage-based, agricultural economy that these texts described. The discussion of frontiers and markets thus became part of a larger debate over the relationship between the world and the written word. These Han debates helped to shape the ways in which we now define and appreciate early Chinese literature and produced the foundational texts of Chinese economic thought. Each chapter in the book examines a key genre or symbolic practice (philosophy, fu-rhapsody, historiography, money, kinship) through which different groups sought to reshape the political economy. By juxtaposing well-known texts with recently excavated literary and visual materials, Chin elaborates a new literary and cultural approach to Chinese economic thought.


Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Conventions

Introduction: Savage Exchange

Genres
1. Abstraction: Qingzhong Economics, Literary Fiction, and Masters Dialogue
2. Quantification: Poetic Expenditure in the Epideictic Fu
3. Competition: Historiography, Ethnography, and Narrative Regulation

Practices
4. Alienation: Kinship in the World Economy
5. Commensuration: Counter-Practices of Money

Coda: Counterhistory, Connected Histories, and Comparative Literature

Appendix: Numismatic Research on the Han Dynasty Lead Ingots with Blundered Greek (or Foreign) Inscription

Bibliography

Index