[Dissertation] Bioarchaeology of Adaptation to Climate Change in Ancient Northwest China

Author:
Berger, Elizabeth S.

School: 
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Advisor: 
Dale Hutchinson

Defended:
2017

Abstract:

The 4000 BP climate event was a time of dramatic change, including a cooling and drying climate and the emergence of pastoral practices and a distinct cultural identity across northern Eurasia. However, the link between the climatic changes and the cultural changes has not yet been thoroughly explored. This dissertation therefore assesses human biological measures such as frailty, physiological stress, and nutritional status to ask whether late Holocene climate
change precipitated a crisis and collapse of subsistence practices, as has been claimed.

The dissertation employs the theoretical framework of the “adaptive cycle,” an understanding of complex systems that incorporates both change and continuity. The dissertation asks whether the Bronze Age transition, in which humans adapted to the arid climate of the second and first millennia BCE, constituted a “collapse” or “transformational adaptation,” in which the human-environment system changed categorically; or an “incremental adaptation,” in which defining system elements persisted with only peripheral changes. Skeletal samples from six populations (spanning 2600-221 BCE) were examined for bioarchaeological markers of oral health, nonspecific infectious lesions, trauma, stature, and fertility. There was broad continuity and some improvement in population health measures in the Bronze Age study populations, with a decline in health in the Iron Age groups. Bronze Age subsistence systems therefore seem to have been resilient enough to adapt to the new climate, while the sociopolitical conditions of the Iron Age led to poorer health outcomes.

The Bronze Age transition has often been described in terms of “collapse,” and by critically engaging with this narrative, the current project demonstrates that the transition in fact entailed an incremental adaptation, rather than a collapse. These findings also point to how sociocultural factors can serve as a buffer against environmental stressors in some groups, while themselves serving as stressors in others.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 Introduction and Background
Chapter 2 Theory and Method
Chapter 3 Qinghai Plateau: a mid-altitude temperate loess zone
Chapter 4 Hexi Corridor: a cold steppe and desert zone
Chapter 5 Loess plateau: a temperate loess zone
Chapter 6 Discussion and conclusions

Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Premodern Sources

Editor:
C. Pierce Salguero

Publisher:
Columbia University Press

Publication Date:
September 2017

Abstract:

From its earliest days, Buddhism has been closely intertwined with medicine. Buddhism and Medicine is a singular collection showcasing the generative relationship and mutual influence between these fields across premodern Asia. The anthology combines dozens of English-language translations of premodern Buddhist texts with contextualizing introductions by leading international scholars in Buddhist studies, the history of medicine, and a range of other fields.

These sources explore in detail medical topics ranging from the development of fetal anatomy in the womb to nursing, hospice, dietary regimen, magical powers, visualization, and other healing knowledge. Works translated here include meditation guides, popular narratives, ritual manuals, spells texts, monastic disciplinary codes, recipe inscriptions, philosophical treatises, poetry, works by physicians, and other genres. All together, these selections and their introductions provide a comprehensive overview of Buddhist healing throughout Asia. They also demonstrate the central place of healing in Buddhist practice and in the daily life of the premodern world.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction

Doctrinal Considerations

1. Illness, Cure, and Care: Selections from the Pāli Canon, by Dhivan Thomas Jones

2. The Healing Potential of the Awakening Factors in Early Buddhist Discourse, by Anālayo

3. Curing/Curating Illness: Selections from the Chapter on the “Sufferings of Illness” from A Grove of Pearls from the Garden of Dharma, by Alexander O. Hsu

4. Understanding the Dosa: A Summary of the Art of Medicine from the Sūtra of Golden Light, by C. Pierce Salguero

5. Fetal Suffering in the Descent Into the Womb Sūtra, by Amy Paris Langenberg

6. Health and Sickness of Body and Mind: Selections from the Yogācāra-bhūmi, by Dan Lusthaus

7. Overcoming Illness with Insight: Kokan Shiren’s Treatise on the Nature of Illness and Its Manifestations, by Edward Drott

8. Karma in the Bathhouse: The Sūtra on Bathing the Sangha in the Bathhouse, by C. Pierce Salguero

9. Liberating the Whole World: Sudhana’s Meeting with Samantanetra from the Sūtra of the Entry Into the Realm of Reality, by William J. Giddings

Healing and Monastic Discipline

10. Medical Practice as Wrong Livelihood: Selections from the Pāli Discourses, Vinaya, and Commentaries, by David Fiordalis

11. Nuns, Laywomen, and Healing: Three Rules from a Sanskrit Nuns Disciplinary Code, by Amy Paris Langenberg

12. Stories of Healing from the Section on Medicines in the Pāli Vinaya, by David Fiordalis

13. Rules on Medicines from the Five-Part Vinaya of the Mahīśāsaka School, by C. Pierce Salguero

14. Food and Medicine in the Chinese Vinayas: Daoxuan’s Emended Commentary on Monastic Practices from the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, by J. E. E. Pettit

15. Toilet Care in Buddhist Monasteries: Health, Decency, and Ritual, by Ann Heirman and Mathieu Torck

16. Health Care in Indian Monasteries: Selections from Yijing's Record of the Inner Law Sent Home from the Southern Seas, by Christoph Kleine

Buddhist Healers

17. Two Sūtras on Healing and Healers from the Chinese Canon, by Marcus Bingenheimer

18. The Buddha Heals: Past and Present Lives, by Phyllis Granoff

19. The Buddha's Past Life as a Snakebite Doctor: The Visa-vanta Jātaka, by Michael Slouber

20. The Training and Treatments of an Indian Doctor in a Buddhist Text: A Sanskrit Biography of Jīvaka, by Gregory Schopen

21. A Selection of Buddhist Healing Narratives from East Asia, by C. Pierce Salguero

22. The Buddha and the Bath Water: How the Bodhisattva Gyōki Founded Koya Temple, by D. Max Moerman

23. Esoteric Ritual Remedies: Kūkai’s Cures for Emperor Kōnin, by Pamela Winfield

24. “The Grief of Kings Is the Suffering of Their Subjects”: A Cambodian King's Twelfth-Century Network of Hospitals, by Peter D. Sharrock and Claude Jacques
Healing Rites

25. Help for the Sick, Dying and Misbegotten: A Sanskrit Version of the Sūtra of Bhaisajyaguru, by Gregory Schopen

26. The Sūtra on the Dhāranī of the Vast, Complete, and Unobstructed Great Compassion of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara with a Thousand Hands and Thousand Eyes, by William J. Giddings

27. Tantric Medicine in a Buddhist Proto-Tantra, by Michael Slouber

28. Healing Dhāranīs: A Collection of Medieval Spells from the Taishō Tripitaka, by C. Pierce Salguero

29. Seals of the Bodhisattva: A Buddhist Talismanic Seal Manual from 
Dunhuang, by Paul Copp

30. “The Ritual Altar of Kundalī Vajra for Treating Illnesses” from the Collected Dhāranī Sūtras, by Josh Capitanio

31. Curing with Karma and Confession: Two Short Liturgies from Dunhuang, by Stephen F. Teiser

32. Childbirth in Early Medieval Japan: Ritual Economies and Medical Emergencies in Procedures During the Day of the Royal Consort’s Labor, by Anna Andreeva

33. The Ox-Bezoar Empowerment for Fertility and Safe Childbirth: Selected Readings from the Shingon Ritual Collections, by Benedetta Lomi

34. The Verses on the Victor’s Armor: A Pāli Text Used for Protection and Healing in Thailand, by Justin Thomas McDaniel

35. Selections from a Mongolian Manual of Buddhist Medicine, by Vesna A. Wallace

Meditation as Cure and Illness

36. Healing Sicknesses Caused by Meditation: “The Enveloping Butter Contemplation” from the Secret Essential Methods for Curing Meditation Sickness, by Eric Greene

37. Healing with Meditation: “Treating Illness” from Zhiyi’s Shorter Treatise on Śamatha and Vipaśyanā, by C. Pierce Salguero

38. Getting Sick Over Nothing: Hyesim and Hakuin on the Maladies of Meditation, by Juhn Ahn

39. Buddhist Method as Medicine: The Chan Materia Medica and its Ming Dynasty Elaboration, by Robban Toleno

40. Tantric Meditations to Increase the Forces of Life: Making Manifest the Three Deities of Longevity, by Matthew T. Kapstein

41. Rangjung Dorjé’s Key to the Essential Points of Wind and Mind, by Douglas Duckworth

42. Treating Disorders of the Subtle Winds in Tibetan Buddhism, by Todd P. Marek and Charles Jamyang Oliphant of Rossie

43. How to Deal with Wind Illnesses: Two Short Meditation Texts from Buddhist Southeast Asia, by Andrew Skilton and Phibul Choompolpaisal

Hybridity in Buddhist Healing

44. Correlative Cosmology, Moral Rectitude, and Buddhist Notions of Health: Selections from the Sūtra of Trapusa and Bhallika, by Ori Tavor

45. Apotropaic Substances as Medicine in Buddhist Healing Methods: Nāgārjuna’s Treatise on the Five Sciences, by Dominic Steavu

46. Dung, Hair, and Mungbeans: Household Remedies in the Longmen Recipes, by Michael Stanley-Baker and Dolly Yang

47. “The Mysterious Names on the Hands and Fingers”: Healing Hand Mnemonics in Medieval Chinese Buddhism, by Marta Hanson

48. Selections on Illness Divination from Bodhidharma’s Treasure of the Palm, by Stephanie Homola

49. Buddhist Health, Diet, and Sex Advice in Ancient Korea, by Don Baker and Hyunsook Lee

50. Vessel Examination in the Medicine of the Moon King, by William A. McGrath

51. Moxibustion for Demons: Oral Transmission on Corpse-Vector Disease, by Andrew Macomber

Buddhism in the Medical Traditions

52. “Indian Massage” from Sun Simiao’s Prescriptions Worth a Thousand in Gold, by Michael Stanley-Baker

53. Sun Simiao on Medical Ethics: “The Perfect Integrity of the Great Physician” from Prescriptions Worth a Thousand in Gold, by Nathan Sivin

54. Using the Golden Needle: Nāgārjuna Bodhisattva’s Ophthalmological Treatise and Other Sources in the Essentials of Medical Treatment, by Katja Triplett

55. Buddhism in Chosōn Dynasty Medical Compilations, by Kang Yeonseok and Taehyung Lee

56. Determining Karmic Illness: Kajiwara Shōzen’s Treatment of Rai/Leprosy in His Book of the Simple Physician, by Andrew Goble

57. Selections from Miraculous Drugs of the South, by the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk-Physician Tue Tinh, by C. Michele Thompson

58. The Dong Nhân Pagoda and the Publication of Mister Lazy’s Medical Encyclopedia, by Leslie E. de Vries

59. An Abhidhamma Perspective: Causes of Illness in a Burmese Buddhist Medical System, by Pyi Phyo Kyaw

60. Jewels in Medicines: On the Processing and Efficacy of Precious Pills According to the Four Treatises, by Barbara Gerke and Florian Ploberger

61. The Final Doubt and the Entrustment of Tibetan Medical Knowledge, by Barbara Gerke and Florian Ploberger

62. Did the Buddha Really Author the Classic Tibetan Medical Text? A Critical Examination from The Lamp to Dispel Darkness, by Janet Gyatso

Appendix: Geographical Table of Contents

Glossary
References
List of Contributors
Index

中国古代史論叢 第9集

Publisher:
中国古代史論叢編集委員会 (立命館東洋史学会)

Publication Date:
March, 2017

Table of Contents:

佐藤信弥 歴史評価としての共伯和

秋山陽一郎 「国別者八篇」考 劉向新定本『戦国策』の藍本

永田拓治 魏晋期における校書事業と史書編纂

松島隆真 鉅鹿の戦いとその歴史的意義 「懐王の約」をめぐる項羽と劉邦

落合淳思 甲骨文字の占卜用語 甲骨文字礼記（二）

山田崇仁 大正新脩大蔵経テキストデータベースを利用した外典佚文収集に関する基礎的研究

吉本道雄 『左伝』『国語』の歳星記事

吉本道雄 睡虎地秦簡年代考 日本における中国古代史研究の現状に寄せて


Read more at: 
http://shuiren.sakura.ne.jp/ronsou/

[Dissertation] How a city speaks: urban space in Chang'an and the construction of Tang Dynasty narratives

Author:
WU, Chen

Defended:
2016

School:
The University of Wisconsin - Madison

Advisor:
Nienhauser, William H.

Abstract:

Tang Dynasty China witnessed an unprecedented flourishing of narrative writing. The Tang capital, Chang’an, as an international metropolis populated with talented writers and full of interesting subjects, was an ideal setting for the development of narrative texts. This dissertation argues that the urban space in Chang’an, with the memory, rhythm, and functions of the sub-spaces within it—the subjects of the three chapters to follow—had a significant impact on the formation and circulation of Tang narratives and on the construction of their plots. Besides the pool of cityscape material at the writer’s disposal, the historical depth of the capital and its representativeness as “the” Chinese city, gave narratives a special meaning from the very beginning.

As a part of the history of the city, urban memories played a big part. The transformations between the physical spaces of various works of architecture—such as residences, temples, tombs, and palaces—generated numerous urban legends and mysteries, which gave these spaces an enhanced spiritual dimensions. Tang Dynasty writers, therefore, preserved these spaces in literary texts and used the memories to enrich what were originally simple and formulaic stories.

The ongoing daily rhythm of the city was another distinct factor in constructing narratives of Chang’an. The Tang Dynasty curfew system caused the routinized opening and closing of ward and city gates and thus the alternately separated and connected spaces by these gates. For narrative writers, the daily rhythm of the urban space provided motivations for the delays, progressions, and twists in plots, all of which naturalized and authenticated the narrative.

Last but not least, many public spaces in Chang’an, such as the crowded markets, bustling streets, popular sightseeing spots, and secularized temples, stepped beyond their original roles and became a social stage for citizens to meet, learn, entertain and perform, creating new networks and patterns of behavior. The additional functions of these public spaces were emphasized, exaggerated, and skillfully used to create coincidences, intensify dramatic tensions and advance the plots.

Table of Contents:

INTRODUCTION

Chapter One. The City Remembered: Residences, Temples, Tombs, and Palaces 
One Space, a Continuing Story, and an Everlasting Memory 

Voice from the Other World 
Nostalgia and Trauma: The City’s Memory 

Chapter Two. Urban Spaces and Practices of Separation and Connection: On Uses of Walls and Gates in Cities and Wards

The Ward System and Plot Development in Tang Love Stories 
The Ward System and the Narrative Construction of Tang Supernatural Stories

Chapter Three. The Chang’an of Infinite Possibilities: Public Space and Its Narrative Representations 

East and West Markets: An Information Distribution Center

The Qujiang Area: An Ideal Place for Encounters 

Buddhist Temples and Taoist Temples: Beyond Religious Responsibilities 

The Mutual Gaze and the Shift towards Public Space: A Case Study of The
Hua’e/Qinzheng Towers 

TOWARDS A CONCLUSION

[Dissertation] The Mancheng Tombs: Shaping the Afterlife of the “Kingdom within Mountains” (Zhongshan 中山) in Western Han China (206 BCE- 8 CE)

Author:
SHI Jie

School:
University of Chicago

Defended:
2017

Advisor: 
Wu Hung

Abstract:

To extend the imperial authority to the newly conquered lands, early Western Han 漢 emperors in the second century BCE dispatched their sons and brothers to reign over some remote kingdoms in the restive border regions, whose people lived in vivid memories of their pre-imperial pasts. While ancient historians only left succinct and fragmentary documents about these kingdoms, modern archaeologists have excavated dozens of royal tombs, which allow us to probe into religious, social, and political agendas of early imperial Chinese rulers.

This dissertation scrutinizes one king’s complex identification with himself, his family, and his state in the formative period of the Chinese empire by analyzing his and his wife’s tombs, dubbed Mancheng 滿城 Tombs 1 and 2, located in Hebei 河北 province in the northern border region of the Han Empire. Widely acknowledged as the richest, most significant, highest-ranking, and best-preserved royal tombs so far excavated in early imperial China, both tombs were found miraculously intact. More than ten thousand objects, many of which have been declared national treasures of China, were distributed on the floors in meaningful patterns across a cluster of interconnected, house-like burial chambers. These parallel tombs were occupied by King Liu Sheng 劉勝 (d. 113 BCE) and Queen Dou Wan 竇綰 (d. ca. 109 BCE), who re-established the originally non-Chinese “barbaric” state called Zhongshan (literally, “People within Mountains”) in 154 BCE.

This dissertation argues that architectural plans, the patterns of furnishing, and the diversity of burial objects addressed the royal couple’s three significant concerns during their lives: harmonizing the body with the soul, the husband with the wife, and the Chinese with the “barbaric.” In doing so, this dissertation methodologically synthesizes interdisciplinary methodologies from art history, archaeology, and sinology by closely reading visual materials from the royal tombs in conjunction with textual sources about Zhongshan.

This dissertation consists of three main chapters. Chapter 1 examines the tombs’ pattern of furnishing as the material embodiment of the traditional Chinese philosophy of harmonizing body and soul, which were housed respectively in the rear coffin and the front chamber. Chapter 2 studies the parallel relationship between the twin tombs as a visual commentary on the discourse of ideal husband and wife, who is mirroring and subject to the husband. The last Chapter 3 shows how non-Chinese elements were intertwined with Chinese elements in the tomb to represent the king’s double identity both as the heir to the local “barbaric” cultural tradition and as a Chinese imperial representative.


This dissertation contributes to the field of Chinese art history and culture by providing the first comprehensive analysis of one of the most important archaeological discoveries of ancient China and by offering a theoretical and methodological reflection of what early Chinese tombs were and how to study them as a source for historical inquiries.

Between History and Philosophy: Anecdotes in Early China

Editors:
Paul van Els
Sarah A. Queen

Publication Date:
September 2017

Publisher:
State University of New York Press

Abstract:
Between History and Philosophy is the first book-length study in English to focus on the rhetorical functions and forms of anecdotal narratives in early China. Edited by Paul van Els and Sarah A. Queen, this volume advances the thesis that anecdotes—brief, freestanding accounts of single events involving historical figures, and occasionally also unnamed persons, animals, objects, or abstractions—served as an essential tool of persuasion and meaning-making within larger texts. Contributors to the volume analyze the use of anecdotes from the Warring States Period to the Han Dynasty, including their relations to other types of narrative, their circulation and reception, and their central position as a mode of argumentation in a variety of historical and philosophical literary genres.

Table of Contents:

Anecdotes in Early China
Paul van Els and Sarah A. Queen

Part I. Anecdotes, Argumentation, and Debate

1. Non-deductive Argumentation in Early Chinese Philosophy
Paul R. Goldin

2. The Frontier between Chen and Cai: Anecdote, Narrative, and Philosophical Argumentation in Early China
Andrew Seth Meyer

3. Mozi as a Daoist Sage? An Intertextual Analysis of the “Gongshu” Anecdote in the Mozi
Ting-mien Lee

4. Anecdotal Barbarians in Early China
Wai-yee Li

Part II. Anecdotes and Textual Formation

5. Anecdote Collections as Argumentative Texts: The Composition of the Shuoyuan 說苑
Christian Schwermann

6. From Villains Outwitted to Pedants Out-Wrangled: The Function of Anecdotes in the Shifting Rhetoric of the Han Feizi
Heng Du

7. The Limits of Praise and Blame: The Rhetorical Uses of Anecdotes in the Gongyangzhuan 公羊傳
Sarah A. Queen

Part III. Anecdotes and History

8. History without Anecdotes: Between the Zuozhuan and the Xinian 繫年Manuscript
Yuri Pines

9. Cultural Memory and Excavated Anecdotes in “Documentary” Narrative: Mediating Generic Tensions in the Baoxun 保訓 Manuscript
Rens Krijgsman

10. Old Stories No Longer Told: The End of the Anecdotes Tradition of Early China
Paul van Els

[Dissertation] Dealing with Childbirth in Medieval Chinese Buddhism: Discourses and Practices

Author:
LIN, Hsin-Yi

School:
Columbia University

Advisor: 
Bernard Faure

Defended:
2017

Abstract:

In Buddhism birth is regarded as the origin of suffering and impurity, whereas it also forms the physical basis indispensible for seeking and attaining awakening. Birth is both the starting points of incuring defilement and achieving sanctity. Pointing out this paradox on birth in Buddhism and situating the issue within the context of Chinese religion and history, this dissertation extensively investigates Buddhist discourses and practices of reproduction in medieval China. It anwsers how Buddhist discourses and practices of childbirth were transmitted, transformed, and applied in medieval China, and how they interacted with indigenous healing resources and practices in both Chinese religious and medical realms. Through examining the primary sources such as the excavated Day Books (Chapter One), Buddhist hagiographies (Chapter Two), Buddhist obstetric and embryological discourses (Chapter Three and Four) and healing resources preserved in Tripitaka and Dunhuang manuscripts, Dunhuang transformation texts and tableaux, and miracle tales and anecdote literature (Chapter Four and Five), I argue that not only was there a paradoxical dualism at the heart of Buddhism's relationship with reproduction, but also Buddhism provides abundant healing resources for dealing with childbirth on the practical level. Overall I contend that Buddhist healing resources for childbirth served as an effective channel through which Buddhist teaching, worldview and concepts of gender and body were conveyed to its supplicants. Through this investigation, this dissertation contributes to the understanding of the association of Buddhism with medicine, the influence of Buddhist discourses and practices of reproduction on China, and the transmission of Buddhist views of gender, the body, and life to China through its healing activities related to childbirth.