Signs from the Unseen Realm: Buddhist Miracle Tales from Early Medieval China 《冥祥記》: 中古早期中國的佛教靈異故事

作者 Author:
Robert Campany

出版社 Publisher:
University of Hawaii

出版年代 Publication Year:
2012

摘要 Abstract:

In early medieval China hundreds of Buddhist miracle texts were circulated, inaugurating a trend that would continue for centuries. Each tale recounted extraordinary events involving Chinese persons and places—events seen as verifying claims made in Buddhist scriptures, demonstrating the reality of karmic retribution, or confirming the efficacy of Buddhist devotional practices. Robert Ford Campany, one of North America’s preeminent scholars of Chinese religion, presents in this volume the first complete, annotated translation, with in-depth commentary, of the largest extant collection of miracle tales from the early medieval period, Wang Yan’s Records of Signs from the Unseen Realm, compiled around 490 C.E.

In addition to the translation, Campany provides a substantial study of the text and its author in their historical and religious settings. He shows how these lively tales helped integrate Buddhism into Chinese society at the same time that they served as platforms for religious contestation and persuasion. Campany offers a nuanced, clear methodological discussion of how such narratives, being products of social memory, may be read as valuable evidence for the history of religion and culture.


內容 Table of Contents:

Preface 
Acknowledgments 
Conventions 

Part I. Signs from the Unseen Realm and Buddhist Miracle Tales in Early Medieval China  
Introduction  
Wang yan and the Making of Mingxiang ji  
Miracle Tales and the communities That Exchanged Them 
The idiom of Buddhism Represented in the Tales 
Miracle Tales and the sinicization of Buddhism 
The narrative shape of the Miraculous 
Religious Themes in the Text 

Part II. Translation: Signs from the Unseen Realm 

Appendix 1. Fragments and Questionable Items 
Appendix 2. List of Major Motifs 
Bibliography 
Index

The Huainanzi and Textual Production in Early China 《淮南子》與早期中國的文本生產

Editors: 
Sarah A. Queen & Michael Puett

Publication Year: 
2014

Publisher: 
Brill

Abstract: 

The Han dynasty Huainanzi is a compendium of knowledge covering every subject from self-cultivation, astronomy, and calendrics, to the arts of government. This edited volume follows a multi-disciplinary approach to explore how and why the Huainanzi was produced and how we should interpret the work.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements
Foreword
About the Contributors
Introduction - Sarah A. Queen and Michael Puett

PART ONE AUTHORSHIP AND TEXTUAL FORMATION:

1. Root-Branches Structuralism in the Huainanzi - Andrew Meyer
2. Daoist Inner Cultivation Thought and the Textual Structure of the Huainanzi - Harold D. Roth
3. Representations of Confucius in the Huainanzi - Sarah A. Queen
4. Creating a Book and Performing it: The “Yao Lüe” Chapter of the Huainanzi as a Western Han Fu - Martin Kern

PART TWO KNOWLEDGE AND RHETORIC:

5. Tool Metaphors in the Huainanzi and Other Early Texts - John S. Major
6. The Huainanzi’s “Heavenly Patterns” and the Shiji’s “Treatise on the Celestial Offices”: What’s the Difference? - David W. Pankenier
7. A Note on Logical Connectives in the Huainanzi - Michael Nylan

PART THREE AUDIENCE AND RECEPTION:

8. Sages, Creation, and the End of History in the Huainanzi
       《淮南子》中聖人，創造與歷史的終結 - Michael Puett
9. The Liu Clan’s ‘Flesh and Bone’: The Foundation of Liu An’s Vision of Empire 
     劉氏骨肉: 劉安帝國觀的基礎- Judson B. Murray
10. The Discourse about Lords (Zhuhou) in the Huainanzi 《淮南子》諸侯論
       - Griet Vankeerberghen 
11. Breaking through Heaven’s Glass Ceiling: The Significance of the Commoner Woman of Qi in the “Lan Ming” Chapter of the Huananzi - Anne Behnke Kinney

References
Index of Terms

Buddhism Across Asia: Networks of Material, Intellectual and Cultural Exchange, volume 1

Editor: 
Tansen Sen

Publisher:  
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies / Manohar Publishers & Distributors

Publication Year: 
2014

Abstract:

"Buddhism Across Asia presents new research on Buddhism in comprehensive spatial and temporal terms. From studies on transmission networks to exegesis on doctrinal matters, linguistics, rituals and practices, institutions, Buddhist libraries, and the religion's interactions with political and cultural spheres as well as the society at large, the volume presents an assemblage of essays of breathtaking breadth and depth. The goal is to demonstrate how the transmission of Buddhist ideas serves as a cultural force, a lynchpin that had connected the societies of Asia from past to present. The volume manifests the vitality and maturity of the field of Buddhist studies, and for that we thank the editor and the erudite authors. "    -- Dorothy C. Wong, University of Virginia


* The first part of this volume is related to early medieval China:

PART I: TRANSMISSION OF BUDDHISM BEFORE THE SEVENTH CENTURY
七世紀以前佛教的傳布

1. Networks for Long-distance Transmission of Buddhism in South Asian Transit Zones , by Jason Neelis

2. Truth and Scripture in Early Buddhism: Categorial Reduction as Exegetical Method in Ancient Gandhāra and Beyond , by Stefan Baums

3. Now You Hear it, Now You Don't: The Phrase "Thus Have I Heard" in Early Chinese Buddhist Translations , by Jan Nattier

4. The First Āgama Transmission to China , by Elsa Legittimo

5. What is a "Hīnayāna Zealot" Doing in Fifth-Century China? , by Daniel Boucher

6. Meditation Traditions in Fifth-Century Northern China: With a Special Note on a Forgotten "Kaśmīri Meditation Tradition Brought to China by Buddhabhadra (359-429) , by Chen Jinhua

7. Transmission of the Dharma and Reception of the Text: Oral and Aural Features in the Fifth Chapter of the Book of Zambasta , by Giuliana Martini

[Dissertation] Patronage, Politics, and the Emergence of Rock-Cut Tombs in Early Han China

Author: 
Allison Ruth Miller

School:
Harvard University

Publication Year: 
2011

Advisor:
Puett, Michael


Abstract: 

For the past thirty years, scholars have largely assumed that the ancient Chinese primarily built tombs for reasons related to the afterlife. Nearly all early Chinese tombs, whether belonging to emperors or petty local officials, are interpreted in this light--as spaces to be inhabited by the deceased after death. This focus on the afterlife, however, is a relatively recent direction in scholarship. Prior to the last few decades, Chinese scholars generally agreed that the ancient Chinese did not have a clear notion of the afterlife until the rise of Buddhism, basing their interpretation on the notorious silence of ancient texts on this issue.

This dissertation explores reasons other than the afterlife that so much wealth and labor were expended on monumental tombs in early China. It does so by analyzing the social and political tensions underlying a major shift in tomb architecture that occurred in the Western Han dynasty--the emergence of rock-cut tombs. Rock-cut tombs were meticulously-carved, grotto palaces that bore little resemblance to the mounded, earthen pit tombs that had preceded them. These tombs changed the orientation of elite Chinese burials for the rest of Chinese history.

By examining this shift in tomb architecture, my work suggests that by the mid-Western Han, tomb architecture had become a principal means by which rulers marketed new political agendas and elites expressed their social and political identities. Relying on evidence from texts and archaeology, my research traces the history of tomb construction back to the Eastern Zhou to understand why tombs may have assumed this function by the Western Han. It also demonstrates the way that the study of shifts in material culture can lead to significant revisions of Han political history. This study, for example, challenges the typical conflation of the reigns of Emperors Wen (r. 180-157 BC) and Jing (r. 157-141 BC), and argues that Emperor Wen, rather than the founding emperor, ought to be considered as the chief architect of Han political ideology.

Dao Companion to Classical Confucian Philosophy

Editor: 
Vincent Shen

Publication Year: 
2014

Publisher: 
Springer

Abstract: 

The Philosophy of Classical Confucianism offers an unparalleled
examination to the philosophers, basic texts and philosophical
concepts and ideas of Classical Confucianism as well as the recently
unearthed bamboo slips related to Classical Confucianism. It will
prove itself a valuable reference to undergraduate and postgraduate
university students and teachers in philosophy, Chinese history,
History, Chinese language and Culture. This volume presents both a
historical and a systematic examination of the philosophy of classical
Confucianism. Taking into account newly unearthed materials and the
most recent scholarship, it features contributions by experts in the
field, ranging from senior scholars to outstanding early career
scholars.

The book first presents the historical development of classical
Confucianism, detailing its development amidst a fading ancient
political theology and a rising wave of creative humanism. It examines
the development of the philosophical ideas of Confucius as well as his
disciples and his grandson Zisi, the Zisi-Mencius School, Mencius, and
Xunzi. Together with this historical development, the book analyzes
and critically assesses the philosophy in the Confucian Classics and
other major works of these philosophers.

The second part systematically examines such philosophical issues as
feeling and emotion, the aesthetic appreciation of music, wisdom in
poetry, moral psychology, virtue ethics, political thoughts, the
relation with the Ultimate Reality, and the concept of harmony in
Confucianism.

Table of Contents: 

Introduction: Classical Confucianism in Historical and Comparative
Context, Vincent Shen.

PART I. Historical Development.-
2. The Fading of Political Theology and the Rise of Creative Humanism, Vincent Shen.-
3. The Philosophy of Confucius, NI Peimin.-
4. The Philosophy of Confucius' Disciples, LO Yuet Keung.-
5. Zisi and the Thought of Zisi and Mencius School, TSAI Zheng-Feng.-
6. The Daxue (Great Learning) and the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean).  Andrew H. Plaks.-
7. Philosophical Thought of Mencius, CHAN Wing-cheuk.-
8. Xunzi as a Systematic Philosopher: Toward Organic Unity of Nature, Mind, and Reason, CHENG Chung-ying.

PART II. Philosophical Issues.-
9. Early Confucian Perspectives on Emotions, Curie Virac.-
10. Art and Aesthetics of Music in Classical Confucianism, Johanna Liu.-
11. Wisdom and Hermeneutics of Poetry in Classical Confucianism, Vincent Shen.-
12. Early Confucian Moral Psychology, SHUN Kwong-loi.-
13. Early Confucian Virtue Ethics: The Virtues of Junzi , Antonio Cua?.-
14. Early Confucian Political Philosophy and Its Contemporary Relevance, BAI Tongdong.-
15. Ultimate Reality and Self-cultivation in Early Confucianism: A Conceptual/Existential Approach , YAN Zhong-hu.-
16. Confucian Harmony: A Philosophical Analysis, LI Chengyang.

List of contributors.- Index.