The Writ of the Three Sovereigns: From Local Lore to Institutional Daoism

Author:

Dominic Steavu

Publication date:

October 2020

Publisher:

University of Hawaii Press

Abstract:

In 648 CE, Tang imperial authorities collected every copy of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen 三皇文) from the four corners of the empire and burned them. The formidable talismans at its core were said not only to extend their owners’ lifespan and protect against misfortune, but also propel them to stratospheric heights of power, elevating them to the rank of high minister or even emperor. Only two or three centuries earlier, this controversial text was unknown in most of China with the exception of Jiangnan in the south, where it was regarded as essential local lore. In the span of a few generations, the Writ of the Three Sovereigns would become the cornerstone of one of the three basic corpora of the Daoist Canon, a pillar of Daoism—and a perceived threat to the state.

This study, the only book-length treatment of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns in any language, traces the text’s transition from local tradition to empire-wide institutional religion. The volume begins by painting the social and historical backdrop against which the scripture emerged in early fourth-century Jiangnan before turning to its textual history. It reflects on the work’s centerpiece artifacts, the potent talismans in celestial script, as well as other elements of its heritage, namely alchemical elixirs and “true form” diagrams. During the fifth and sixth centuries, with Daoism coalescing into a formal organized religion, the Writ of the Three Sovereigns took on a symbolic role as a liturgical token of initiation while retaining its straightforward language of sovereignty and strong political overtones, which eventually led to its prohibition. The writ endured, however, and later experienced a revival as its influence spread as far as Japan.

Despite its central role in the development of institutional Daoism, the Writ of the Three Sovereigns has remained an understudied topic in Chinese history. Its fragmentary textual record combined with the esoteric nature of its content have shrouded it in speculation. This volume provides a lucid reconstruction of the text’s hidden history and enigmatic practices while shedding light on its contributions to the religious landscape of medieval China.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

The Writ in early medieval southern China

The religious life of objects: the talismans of the Writ and their surviving fragments

Beyond talismans: alchemy, charts, and meditation in relation to the Writ

From local lore to universal Dao: the cavern of divinity and the early Daoist canon

The Writ and its corpus: the rise and fall of the cavern of divinity in institutional Daoism

Conclusion

Appendix 1: List of variant titles for the Writ of the three sovereigns (Sanhuang wen) in early medieval sources

Appendix 2: Synopsis of the principal Six dynasties sources containing fragments of the Writ of the three sovereigns (Sanhuang wen) and its oral instructions

Appendix 3: Comparative list of talismans from the "essential instructions from the western citadel on the great characters in celestial script of the Three sovereigns" (Xicheng yaojue sanhuang tianwen dazi) and the "essential functions of the Three sovereigns" (Sanhuang yaoyong pin)

Appendix 4: Comparative inventory of transmission gages associated with the Writ of the three sovereigns (Sanhuang wen)

Dictionnaire biographique du haut Moyen Âge chinois：Culture, politique et religion de la fin des Han à la veille des Tang (IIIe-VIe siècles)

Co-editors:

Damien Chaussende, François Martin

Publisher : 

Les Belles Lettres

Publication date:

July 2020

Abstract:

Le haut Moyen Âge de la Chine, qui s’étend du IIIe au VIe siècle de notre ère, fut une période particulièrement troublée sur le plan politique. Elle vit en effet s’établir sur le sol chinois une vingtaine d’États plus ou moins éphémères, dont certains furent fondés par des populations étrangères venues des steppes nordiques. Ces quelques siècles n’en furent pas moins extrêmement riches et bouillonnants du point de vue culturel. Ils virent en particulier le bouddhisme s’acclimater au sol chinois et le taoïsme se constituer en véritable religion organisée. La littérature connut d’importants développements, notamment dans le domaine de la poésie et de la prosodie. L’art bouddhique connut un âge d’or et donna lieu à de splendides réalisations sous la dynastie des Wei du Nord. La culture de cour qui se constitua dans les États chinois du Sud exerça quant à elle une influence profonde sur les arts, qui devait se maintenir pendant des siècles, notamment sous les Tang.

Pourtant, cette période si importante est peu connue en dehors des milieux sinologiques, mis à part les célèbres Trois royaumes. Le présent dictionnaire comble ainsi un vide dans le monde éditorial. Joignant le plaisir de la lecture au sérieux de la documentation, il est indispensable à tous ceux qui, du simple curieux, sinisant ou non, au chercheur déjà confirmé, se proposent d’acquérir des connaissances ou d’approfondir celles qu’ils ont déjà sur une période foisonnante qui n’est pas sans rappeler, à de multiples points de vue, le bas empire romain et l’Europe des États barbares.

Table of Contents:

Remerciements

Avant propos

Note sur l’utilisation du dictionnaire

Contributeurs

Liste des notices par sujet

Dictionnaire de A à Z

Annexes

– Les dynasties chinoises

– Schéma dynastique du haut Moyen Âge

– Tableau des principaux États « barbares » de la période

– Diagramme des États de la période 300-440

– Chronologie fondamentale

– Glossaire des termes chinois

Bibliographie

Index des titres de textes, d’ouvrages et de peintures

Index général

Table des cartes

1. Les Trois royaumes (année 230)

2. Provinces de la dynastie des Jin de l’Ouest (année 280)

3. Les Jin de l’Est et les Qin antérieurs (année 382)

4. Les Song et les Wei du Nord (année 449)

5. Les Qi du Sud et les Wei du Nord (année 497)

6. Les Liang, les Wei de l’Est et les Wei de l’Ouest (année 546)

7. Les Chen, les Qi du Nord et les Zhou du Nord (année 572)

8. Les Sui (année 612)

9. La République populaire de Chine (de nos jours)

[Dissertation] Funerary Lists from Early Chinese Shaft Tombs

Author:
Hui, SUN

School:
Heidelberg University

Submitted:
2019

Abstract:
This dissertation presents a new approach to the whole corpus of funerary lists from early Chinese shaft tombs (dating from the late 5th century BCE to the 1st century CE). While existing research almost exclusively interprets them as “tomb inventory lists”, I provide an alternative interpretation. Combining codicological, philological and archaeological data with archaeological and ethno-sociological theories, I argue that the lists were created as tools for short-term administration of material components (sometimes also animals and personal resources) in certain actions before the entombment.

Chapter 1 introduces the Chinese funerary lists discovered to date and offers an overview of the scholarship on the creation and usage of the lists from the early shaft tombs. Chapter 2 guides the reader through the archaeological theory of “field of action”, which I adapt slightly for my analysis of the creation and usage of the early lists. The introduction of this theory is followed by the establishment of a hypothetical model of the early Chinese funerary cycle based on transmitted texts. Furthermore, a combination of this theory with the classic ethnological concept of rites de passage will clarify the motivation of the creation of those lists. Chapter 3 presents a detailed case study of the lists from tomb no. 1 at Leigudun 擂鼓墩, the tomb of the renowned Marquis Yi of Zeng (died ca. 433 BCE) 曾侯乙. Chapter 4 introduces the perspectives of the analytical device “field of action” for approaching the remaining lists. In addition, the two latter chapters indicate that the lists considerably complement the hypothetical model of the funerary cycle. Finally, as a conclusion, the lists were no “tomb inventory lists”. Instead, they were created and used in short-term administration of certain fields of action. None of them describes the final organisational pattern of the tomb goods and most of them do not even describe the final organisational pattern of the resources in the individual pre-entombment actions. Their creation and usage were motivated by the wishes to smoothly transform the status of the deceased and the bereaved through various rites de passage. 

Therefore, my discoveries do not only contribute to the rational understanding of the funerary practices involving those lists, but also provide the basis for a fundamental and necessary reorientation in the philological and archaeological research of those lists.

[Dissertation] The Fallible Body in Early Medieval China

Author: 
Li, Xiaoxuan

Degree date: 
2020

School:
Harvard University

Abstract:
This dissertation examines one of the most important assumptions inherited by early medieval China: that the physical body functions as a valid and readable source of knowledge about individuals and the world they inhabit. It considers the continuity and evolution of this assumption during the period of the Six Dynasties (3rd - 6th centuries CE), and argues that it is contested across various genres of textual representation. I identify the emergence of a “fallible” body in three clusters of texts. First, I discuss how the late third century idea of “knowing others” (zhiren 知人) diverges from an earlier physiognomic tradition, and I interpret several rhapsodies (fu 賦) in the context of this zhiren paradigm. I explain their choice of rhetorical strategies, most centrally the conceit of a ventriloquized body part, as rooted in a challenge against the regime of interpreting one’s physical appearance for ability and status. Second, I examine the relationship between representations of the female body and knowledge of interior subjectivity in the rhapsody tradition from the Han (206 BCE-220 CE) through the Liang (502-557 CE), and locate in the shi (詩) poetry of the fifth and sixth centuries a new interest in the disjunction between the inherited literary discourse of this relationship and its basis in economic and social realities. Lastly, I discuss the motif of the anomalous body in zhiguai (志怪) collections, and through a comparison between Buddhist apologetic sources with more heterogenous compilations, show how certain tales question the status of bodily markings as evidence for both narrative and moral resolution.

China’s Northern Wei Dynasty, 386-535: The Struggle for Legitimacy

Author:
Puning Liu

Publisher:
Routledge

Publication date:
December 22, 2020

Abstract:
The Northern Wei was a dynasty which originated outside China and ruled northern China when the south of China was ruled by a series of dynasties which originated inside China.

Both during the time that the Northern Wei dynasty was in power and over many centuries subsequently, the legitimacy of the Northern Wei dynasty has been questioned. This book outlines the history of the Northern Wei dynasty, including its origins and the history of its southern rivals; considers the practices adopted by both the Northern Wei dynasty and its rivals to establish legitimacy; and examines the debates which preoccupied Chinese scholars subsequently.

The book casts light on traditional ideas about legitimate rule in China, ideas which have enduring relevance as tradition continues to be very significant in contemporary China.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1. History of the Northern Wei and the Southern Dynasties
Chapter 2. Establishing Legitimacy: The Northern Wei’s Practices
Chapter 3. Preserving Legitimacy: The Southern Dynasties’ Practices
Chapter 4. Tang Scholars’ Views on the Northern Wei’s Legitimacy
Chapter 5. Song Scholars’ Views on the Northern Wei’s Legitimacy
Chapter 6. Ming and Qing Scholars’ Views on the Northern Wei’s Legitimacy
Chapter 7. Traditional Chinese Views of Legitimacy and its Evolution
Epilogue

六朝隋唐文史哲論集Ⅰ : 人・家・学術

Author: 

吉川忠夫 (Tadao Yoshikawa)

Publisher: 

法藏館

Publication date:

November 2020

Abstract:
六朝隋唐期の学術史・宗教史研究にひときわ輝かしい成果を著わしてきた著者がみずから論考を厳選して編んだ待望の論文集。学術史を明らかにする二二篇を収録。

Table of Contents:

緒　言
序　章　六朝隋唐時代の社会と思想

第Ⅰ部　人 と 家
一　章　歴史のなかの伯夷叔斉
二　章　薄葬の思想
三　章　皇甫謐の「篤終論」
四　章　陶淵明の「戒子書」をめぐって
五　章　此れも亦た人の子なり
——六朝時代における「四海の内皆な兄弟」の思想——
六　章　読「庭誥」
七　章　梁の徐勉の「誡子書」
八　章　嶺南の欧陽氏
九　章　李泌と『鄴侯家伝』
十　章　中唐の韋渠牟
——道士として、僧として、また官人として——
十一章　劉 軻 伝││中唐時代史への一つの試み││

第Ⅱ部　学　　術
一　章　六朝時代における家学とその周辺
二　章　鄭玄の学塾
三　章　後漢末における荊州の学術
四　章　蜀における讖緯の学の伝統
五　章　汲冢書発見前後
六　章　裴駰の『史記集解』
七　章　北魏孝文帝借書攷
八　章　島夷と索虜のあいだ
——典籍の流伝を中心とした南北朝文化交流史——
九　章　元行沖とその「釈疑」をめぐって
十　章　韓愈と大顚

Honor and Shame in Early China

Author:

Mark Edward Lewis

Publication date:

December 2020

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press

Abstract:

In this major new study, Mark Edward Lewis traces how the changing language of honor and shame helped to articulate and justify transformations in Chinese society between the Warring States and the end of the Han dynasty. Through careful examination of a wide variety of texts, he demonstrates how honor-shame discourse justified the actions of diverse and potentially rival groups. Over centuries, the formally recognized political order came to be intertwined with groups articulating alternative models of honor. These groups both participated in the existing order and, through their own visions of what was truly honourable, paved the way for subsequent political structures. Filling a major lacuna in the study of early China, Lewis presents ways in which the early Chinese empires can be fruitfully considered in comparative context and develops a more systematic understanding of the fundamental role of honor/shame in shaping states and societies.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. Honor and shame of the king and the warrior

2. Acquired honor in the warring states

3. State-based honor in the warring states

4. Honor of the imperial officials

5. Honor in local society in the early empires

6. Honor and shame of writers and partisans

Conclusion

A Fourth-Century Daoist Family: The Zhen’gao, or Declarations of the Perfected, Volume 1

Author:

Stephen R. Bokenkamp

Publisher:
University of California Press

Publication date:
December 2020

Abstract:
This volume is the first in a series of full-length English translations from one of the foremost classics in Daoist religious literature, the Zhen gao 真誥 or Declarations of the Perfected. The Declarations is a collection of poems, accounts of the dead, instructions, and meditation methods received by the Daoist Yang Xi (330–ca. 386 BCE) from celestial beings and shared by him with his patrons and students. These fragments of revealed material were collected and annotated by the eminent scholar and Daoist Tao Hongjing (456–536), allowing us access to these distant worlds and unfamiliar strategies of self-perfection. Bokenkamp's full translation highlights the literary nature of Daoist revelation and the place of the Declarations in the development of Chinese letters. It further details interactions with the Chinese throne and the aristocracy and demonstrates ways that Buddhist borrowings helped shape Daoism much earlier than has been assumed. This first volume also contains heretofore unrecognized reconfigurations of Buddhist myth and practice that Yang Xi introduced to his Daoist audience.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Contents and Background of the Work

Women and Goddesses

Mediumism in the Declarations

Buddhism in the Declarations

Prior Translations

1) Tao Hongjing's Postface (DZ 1016, Chapters 19–20) 

Translation: Introducing the Declarations of the Perfected

Translation: Account of the Perfected Scriptures from Beginning to End

Translation: Genealogy of the Perfected Forebears

2) The Poems of Elu¨hua

Translation: The Poems of Elu¨hua (DZ 1016, 1.1a–2a)

3) The Sons of Sima Yu 

Introduction

Translation: The Sons of Sima Yu

4) "Eight Pages of Lined Text"

a) Introduction to the "Eight Pages of Lined Text"

b) Introduction and Translation: Poems on Dependence and Independence

c) Introduction and Translation: Han Mingdi's Dream

d) Introduction and Translation of On Fangzhu 

e) Introduction and Translation of the Teachings and Admonitions of the Assembled Numinous Powers (= The Scripture in Forty-Two Sections)

f) Related Fragments

北魏史：洛陽遷都の前と後

Author:

窪添慶文 (KUBOZOE Yoshifumi)

Publisher：

東方書店

Publication date：

December 2020

Table of Contents:

まえがき
序章
　一　洛陽遷都
　二　五胡十六国時代――北魏史理解の前提

第一章　孝文帝親政期の諸改革
　一　孝文帝の即位と文明太后
　二　土徳の王朝から水徳の王朝へ
　三　儀礼の改革

第二章　遷都後の諸改革
　一　「代人」から「河南の人」へ
　二　墓誌
　三　胡服・胡語の禁止
　四　胡姓を漢姓に
　五　官制改革（1）――消えた内朝官
　六　官制改革（2）――九品官制の整備
　七　姓族分定
　八　官制改革（3）――門閥制の導入
　九　考課の改革
　一〇　国家意思決定のシステム
　一一　南朝斉への攻撃

第三章　建国から華北統一まで――濃厚な鮮卑色の時期
　一　代国時代
　二　代国の復活
　三　華北統一へ――道武帝～太武帝の時期
　　　◆帝国への脱皮
　　　◆皇帝位の継承
　　　◆帝国の拡大――華北の統一
　　　◆北魏包囲網とそれへの対処――北魏の対外関係
　四　北魏政権下の諸族
　　　◆征服された諸族と旧来の諸族
　　　◆部族解散
　　　◆部族解散された人々のあり方（1）
　◆部族解散された人々のあり方（2）
　五　北魏政権下の漢族
　六　可汗とも称した北魏皇帝

第四章　変化のきざし
　一　鎮にみられる変化
　二　鎮軍と州軍への「代人」の分出
　三　文成帝と献文帝
　四　文明太后称制期
　五　均田制と三長制
　六　仏教に現れた変化
　七　洛陽遷都のもつ意味

第五章　繁栄、そして暗転
　一　改革の継承
　二　洛陽の繁栄
　三　北魏の文化
　四　「代人」や鎮民の不満
　五　六鎮の乱から東西分裂まで
　六　東魏・北斉
　七　西魏・北周

終章
　一　制度
　二　支配階層
　三　女性の活躍・世界帝国
　四　北魏史の位置づけ
あとがき
北魏関係年表

Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China

Editors:

Hans Beck (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany)

Griet Vankeerberghen (McGill University, Canada)

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press

Publication date:

December 2020

Abstract:

Situated on opposite flanks of Eurasia, ancient Mediterranean and Han-Chinese societies had a hazy understanding of each other's existence. But they had no grounded knowledge about one another, nor was there any form of direct interaction. In other words, their historical trajectories were independent. In recent years, however, many similarities between both cultures have been detected, which has energized the field of comparative history. The present volume adds to the debate a creative method of juxtaposing historical societies. Each contribution covers both ancient China and the Mediterranean in an accessible manner. Embarking from the observation that Greek, Roman, and Han-Chinese societies were governed by comparable features, the contributors to this volume explain the dynamic interplay between political rulers and the ruled masses in their culture specific manifestation as demos (Greece), populus (Rome) and min (China).

Table of Contents:

Editors' preface: 

Introduction. The many faces of 'the people' in the ancient world: δήμος – populus – 民 min  

Hans Beck and Griet Vankeerberghen

Part I. Authority and Lifestyles of Distinction:

1. Of gold and purple: nobles in western Han China and republican Rome 

Griet Vankeerberghen

2. A tale of two stones: social memory in Roman Greece and Han China 

Miranda Brown with Zhang Zhongwei

3. Private associations and urban experience in the Han and Roman Empires 

Carlos Noreña

Part II. The People as Agents and Addressees:

4. Rhetoric, oratory and people in ancient Rome and early China Francisco 

Pina Polo

5. Female commoners and the law in early imperial China: evidence from recently recovered documents with some comparisons with classical Rome 

Robin Yates

6. Registers of 'the people' in Greece, Rome, and China 

Hans Beck

7. Food distribution for the People: welfare, food, and feasts in Rome and in Qin/Han China 

Moonsil Lee Kim

Part III. Inversions of the People: Emperors and Tyrants:

8. Augustus, the Roman plebs and the dictatorship:

22 BCE and beyond 

Alexander Yakobson

9. Liberation as burlesque: the death of the tyrant 

Garret Pagenstecher Olberding

10. Historical necessity or biographical singularity? Some aspects in the biographies of C. Iulius Caesar and Qin Shi Huangdi 

David Engels

11. Employing knowledge: a case study in calendar reforms in the early Han and Roman Empires 

Rebecca Robinson

Part IV. Identities and 'Others':

12. The invention of the 'barbarian' and ethnic identity in early Greece and China 

Yang Huang

13. Ethnic identity and the 'barbarian' in classical Greece and early China: its origins and distinctive features 

Hyun Jin Kim

Bronze Weapons of the Qin Terracotta Warriors: Standardisation, craft specialisation and labour organisation

Author:
Xiuzhen Li

Publication Year: 

July 2020

Publisher:

British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Limited

Abstract: 
Over 40,000 lethal bronze weapons were discovered with thousands of terracotta warriors in the tomb complex of the Qin First Emperor (259-210 BC). This book carries out the first systematic and comprehensive study on these weapons to investigate the mass production and labour organisation in early imperial China.  The research draws upon extensive measurements, typological analysis and related statistical treatment, as well as a study of the spatial distribution of the bronze weapons. A combination of metrical and spatial data is used to assess the degree of standardisation of the weapons’ production, and to evaluate the spatial patterns in the array of the Terracotta Army. This provides further information about the labour organisation behind the production, transportation and placement of weapons as they were moved from the workshop and/or arsenal to the funeral pits. Integrating these insights with inscriptions, tool marks, and chemical analysis, this book fills a gap in the study of mass production, the behaviour of craftspeople, and related imperial logistical organisation in the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), marking the most crucial early stage in Chinese political unification.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Approaches to Standardisation and Labour Organisation
3. Methodology
4. Inscriptions on the Weapons
5. Bronze Triggers
6. Bronze Arrows
7. Bronze Ferrules and Long Weapons
8. Discussion and Conclusions

Chinese Studies in History , Volume 53, Issue 3 (2020): Dunhuang on the Silk Road: A Hub of Eurasian Cultural Exchange

Table of Contents:

Article 研究論文

Dunhuang on the Silk Road: A hub of Eurasian cultural exchange—Introduction
Huaiyu Chen  &  Q. Edward Wang
陳懷宇、王晴佳：導論

Mani and the Messiah in the Record of the Dharma-Jewel through the Generations—The origins of Manichean and Nestorian elements in Tibetan texts
Rong Xinjiang

榮新江：《歷代法寶記》中的末曼尼和彌師訶：兼談吐蕃文獻中的摩尼教和景教因素的來歷

A reexamination of the reasons for the closure of the Dunhuang Library Cave
Sha Wutian

沙武田：敦煌藏經洞封閉原因再探

The cult of the Cintāmaṇi: The nature and context of the Dunhuang manuscript P. 4518 (10)
Huaiyu Chen

陳懷宇：摩尼寶珠崇拜：試論敦煌出土P. 4518 (10) 紙本畫頁之性質及其背景

On the development of Buddhist scripture illustration form and function from Dunhuang Buddhist texts and murals
Zheng Acai

鄭阿財：從敦煌佛教文獻、壁畫論佛經繪圖形式與功能之發展

On the origin and presentation of images of traveling Buddhist monks on pilgrimage for sutras with tame tigers in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes
Zhou Xiaoping

周曉萍：敦煌莫高窟行僧取經伏虎圖像之源起與表現研究

Infractions of moral precepts by monks and nuns in the Buddhist community of Dunhuang during the late-Tang and Five Dynasties period—The case of alcohol drinking
Zheng Binglin  &  Wei Yingchun

鄭炳林、魏迎春：晚唐五代敦煌佛教教團僧尼違戒：以飲酒為中心的探討

Early China 43 (2020) 《古代中國》第43期

 

Table of Contents:
Letter from the Editor
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Sarah Allan 

主編的信

艾蘭

Articles
QIAN 謙 IN EARLY CHINESE THOUGHT
Doil Kim 

中國古代思想中的“謙”

金渡鎰

A DREAM OF THE SELF: IDENTITY IN THE “INNER CHAPTERS” OF THE ZHUANGZI
Matthew James Hamm

自我之夢：《莊子·內篇》中的“身份”問題

安天皓

REVEALING CONTINGENCY THROUGH SHUN'S 舜 ASCENSION TO THE THRONE
Youngsun Back

對舜即位故事的各種解釋和其“命”有關的研究

白英宣

CAPTURING THE WORLD IN WORDS: LATER MOHIST HERMENEUTIC THEORIES ON LANGUAGE AND DISPUTATION
Erica F. Brindley

以語言把握世界：後期墨家的語言與辯論的詮釋學理論

錢德樑

 
INTRODUCING THE *WU ZE YOU XING TU MANUSCRIPT FROM MAWANGDUI
Luke Waring

馬王堆《物則有形圖》概述

康路華

WHAT THE ELITES ACTUALLY WORE IN 500–300 B.C.E. CHINA: EVIDENCE FROM TEXTILES, BAMBOO, AND BRONZES
Kin Sum (Sammy) Li

公元前500-300年中國的精英穿甚麼：紡織物、竹器、銅器的證據

李建深

BIRDS AND BEASTS WERE MANY: THE ECOLOGY AND CLIMATE OF THE GUANZHONG BASIN IN THE PRE-IMPERIAL PERIOD
Brian Lander

禽獸衆：先秦時期關中盆地的生態與氣候

蘭德

WOMEN'S ROLE IN THE PRODUCTION AND SALE OF ALCOHOL IN HAN CHINA AS REFLECTED IN TOMB ART FROM SICHUAN
Hajni Elias

四川漢墓藝術品裡所見漢代釀酒與販售中的女性角色

薛好佩

WANG CHONG'S FATALISM
Yunwoo Song

王充的宿命論

宋允宇

Bibliography
DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS
Compiled by Wen-Yi Huang

博士論文提要

黃文儀彙編

ANNUAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Compiled by Wen-Yi Huang

年度論著目錄

黃文儀彙編

Kingly Splendor: Court Art and Materiality in Han China

Author:

Allison R. Miller

Publication date:

November 6, 2020

Publisher:

Columbia University Press

Abstract:

The Western Han dynasty (202 BCE–9 CE) was a foundational period for the artistic culture of ancient China, a fact particularly visible in the era’s funerary art. Iconic forms of Chinese art such as dazzling suits of jade; cavernous, rock-cut mountain tombs; fancifully ornate wall paintings; and armies of miniature terracotta warriors were prepared for the tombs of the elite during this period. Many of the finest objects of the Western Han have been excavated from the tombs of kings, who administered local provinces on behalf of the emperors.

Allison R. Miller paints a new picture of elite art production by revealing the contributions of the kings to Western Han artistic culture. She demonstrates that the kings were not mere imitators of the imperial court but rather innovators, employing local materials and workshops and experimenting with new techniques to challenge the artistic hegemony of the imperial house. Tombs and funerary art, Miller contends, functioned as an important vehicle of political expression as kings strove to persuade the population and other elites of their legitimacy. Through case studies of five genres of royal art, Miller argues that the political structure of the early Western Han, with the emperor as one ruler among peers, benefited artistic production and innovation. Kingly Splendor brings together close readings of funerary art and architecture with nuanced analyses of political and institutional dynamics to provide an interdisciplinary revisionist history of the early Western Han.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. The Kings and the Court in the Early Western Han

2. From Imitation to Innovation: The Emperor’s Baling Tomb and the Mountain Tombs of the Western Han Kings

3. New Styles from Political Change: The Early Han Kings and the Reimagining of Terracotta Armies

4. The Many Meanings of Jade: Jade Suits and Local Identity in the Early Han

5. The Murals at Shiyuan and the King of Liang

6. The Purple Textiles of Qi: Tracing the Growth of a Provincial Industry

Conclusion

中国南北朝寒門寒人研究

Author:

榎本　あゆち (Enomoto Ayuchi)

Publication date:

October 22, 2020

Publisher:

汲古書院

Table of Contents:

序　文
第一編　南朝寒門寒人研究
第一章　梁末陳初の諸集団について
　――陳覇先軍団を中心として――
　一　陳覇先集団の形成過程　　　　
　二　広州の陳覇先グループ　　　
　三　嶺南地方と江南将帥層
　四　陳覇先グループと嶺南・南川の土豪
　五　梁末陳初の諸集団　　　　　　
　六　南朝後期の任侠的結合関係
第二章　東晉・南朝の民衆運動と水上交通
　――南康の営民鵃舟了船の越人――
　一　六朝期の南康郡について　　　
　二　東晉末期盧循北上期の南康と原住種族、及び水上交通者
　　　〔南康の木客／南康の営民〕
　三　梁末陳初の南康と水上交通者
　　　〔梁末南康における在地勢力と嶺南洗氏／南康周辺地域の水上交通者
　　　　――特に鵃舟了船の越人について――〕
　四　劉宋期から梁末にいたる南康について
第三章　劉孝標をめぐる人々――南朝政治史上の平原劉氏――
　一　劉孝標の出生と北魏における生活
　二　南朝への帰還と南斉時代
　　　〔孝標と崔慰祖／南斉武帝死後の政治史と孝標〕
　三　梁代の劉孝標と平原劉氏
　　　〔梁天監年間の孝標の活動とその記録をめぐる問題
　　　――所謂錦被事件　を中心として――／劉杏兄弟と孝標
　　　――類書編纂の系譜に関連して――〕
　おわりに――残された課題
第四章　南朝貴族と軍事
　――南斉の雍州刺史王奐を中心として――
　一　南朝貴族と中央・地方軍　　
　二　王奐の出自と劉宋期の経歴
　三　南斉期の王奐
　　　〔王奐と南蛮府・江州軍府の廃止／王奐の領軍将軍就官と護軍将軍人事
　　　／雍州刺史就任をめぐって／反乱〕
　おわりに――残された課題

第二編　南北朝中書舎人研究
第五章　梁の中書舎人と南朝賢才主義
　一　梁代中書舎人と賢才主義
　　　〔初期（天監年間）の中書舎人／中期（普通年間）以降の中書舎人／
　　　　礼学と政治世界〕
　二　梁代中書舎人の変容とその諸要因
　　　〔舎人の兼官について／賢才主義と門閥貴族／貨幣経済と舎人〕
　おわりに――南朝賢才主義の行方――
第六章　北魏後期・東魏の中書舎人について
　一　南北朝の中書舎人と賢才主義および兼官制　　
　二　北魏孝文・宣武帝期の中書舎人
　三　孝明帝期の中書舎人　　　　　　　　　　　　
　四　孝荘帝期・東魏の中書舎人
　おわりに――北魏後期・東魏の舎人と兼官制
第七章　北斉の中書舎人について
　――顔之推、そのタクチクスの周辺――
　一　文宣帝期の中書舎人
　　　〔軍務官としての舎人／二重国都・尚書制と舎人〕
　二　北斉後期の中書舎人
　　　〔軍務官と北斉後期政治史／後期舎人達〕
第八章　西魏末・北周の御正について
　一　西魏末から北周明帝期まで
　二　武帝即位から字文護の死まで
　三　武帝親政期
　四　宣帝期

第三編　南朝帰降北人研究
第九章　帰降北人と南朝社会
　――梁の将軍蘭欽の出自を手がかりに――
　一　北族蘭氏
　　　〔蘭欽の事蹟とその伝について／五胡十六国期の蘭氏
　　　／北魏期の蘭氏／北魏末以降の蘭氏〕
　二　北魏南辺城民
　　　〔南辺城民の構成要素とその境遇
　　　／南北両王朝国境地帯における貨幣流通経済の影響〕
第十章　南斉の柔然遣使　王洪範について
　――南朝政治史における三斉豪族と帰降北人――
　一　王洪範の遣使をめぐる国際情勢　　　　　　　
　二　王洪範の出身と遣使までの経歴
　三　帰朝後の王洪範と南斉軍事史　
　　　〔永明期――梁州と三斉豪族――／武帝の死から明帝即位まで
　　――明帝と三斉豪族――／建武年間――北魏との戦いと王洪範の死――〕
第十一章　侯景の乱前史
　――寿春・帰降北人・蛮・在地豪族をめぐって――
　一　東晉から南斉にかけての寿春　　　
　二　北魏の寿春占領とその影響――在地豪族と南北境界線上の蛮――
　三　北魏の寿春支配　　　　
　四　梁軍の寿春攻撃――北魏南辺軍鎮の動揺と帰降北人・蛮の南叛――
　五　梁の寿春奪還――淮水堰建設と帰降北人王足――
　六　侯景と寿春――梁王朝と在地社会――
　おわりに――武帝と帰降北人、および中原の夢――

第四編　南朝関連史料研究
第十二章　姚察・姚思廉の「梁書」編纂について
　――臨川王宏伝を中心として――
　一　『梁書』をめぐる趙翼と朱希祖の見解　　　　
　二　『梁書』と『南史』の臨川王宏伝
　三　臨川王宏の官歴についての『梁書』の記載　　
　四　呉興武康の姚氏と臨川王家
第十三章　『南史』の説話的要素について
　――梁諸王伝を手がかりとして――
　一　『南史』と『梁書』の梁諸王伝
　　　〔両書の比較／『南史』梁諸王伝中の小説的要素〕
　二　北朝後期士大夫社会における談論の風潮
　　　〔『冤魂志』中の説話「蕭続」について／『談藪』と旧北斉系士人社会〕
第十四章　再び『南史』の説話的要素について
　――蕭順之の死に関する記事を手がかりとして――
　一　蕭鸞擁立をめぐる『南史』の記述について　　　
　二　南斉王室における同族対立について
　三　『南史』中の蕭衍像　　　　　　　　　　　　　
　四　旧北斉系士人と李延寿

あとがき――「越境者の肖像」によせて――

奈良文化財研究所学報第98冊「東アジア考古学論叢Ⅱ－遼西地域の東晋十六国期都城文化の研究－」

Table of Contents:

辽宁北票市大板营子墓地的勘探与发掘（续）
魅力与收获：三燕文化研究新进展略议─以北票境内的相关考古发现为例
浅谈辽西地区前燕、后燕政权中的外族居民
龙城新考
三燕龙城宫城南门遗址及其建筑特点
朝阳北塔在东亚佛寺布局演变序列中的地位
初期慕容鮮卑の墓制と親族構造に関する予察─北票大板営子墓地の検討から─
北票大板营子墓地出土陶器研究
三燕文化界格图案瓦当源流考
三燕、高句丽莲花纹瓦当的出现及其关系
金嶺寺遺跡出土瓦の研究
三燕の金工品と倭の金工品
漢～唐代の遺跡で出土した指輪とその出現背景
喇嘛洞墓地出土铜人面饰的再考察
辽宁北票市喇嘛洞墓地IM17铁甲堆积的室内清理
喇嘛洞铁器整理随笔四则
彫金技術を資料化するMacro撮影

Download here:
https://repository.nabunken.go.jp/dspace/handle/11177/7813

The Chinese Dreamscape, 300 BCE–800 CE

Author:

Robert Ford Campany

Publication Date: 

10/13/2020

Publisher:

Harvard Asia Center

Abstract:

Dreaming is a near-universal human experience, but there is no consensus on why we dream or what dreams should be taken to mean. In this book, Robert Ford Campany investigates what people in late classical and early medieval China thought of dreams. He maps a common dreamscape—an array of ideas about what dreams are and what responses they should provoke—that underlies texts of diverse persuasions and genres over several centuries. These writings include manuals of dream interpretation, scriptural instructions, essays, treatises, poems, recovered manuscripts, histories, and anecdotes of successful dream-based predictions.

In these many sources, we find culturally distinctive answers to questions peoples the world over have asked for millennia: What happens when we dream? Do dreams foretell future events? If so, how might their imagistic code be unlocked to yield predictions? Could dreams enable direct communication between the living and the dead, or between humans and nonhuman animals? The Chinese Dreamscape, 300 BCE–800 CE sheds light on how people in a distant age negotiated these mysteries and brings Chinese notions of dreaming into conversation with studies of dreams in other cultures, ancient and contemporary. Taking stock of how Chinese people wrestled with—and celebrated—the strangeness of dreams, Campany asks us to reflect on how we might reconsider our own notions of dreaming.

Believing in Ghosts and Spirits: The Concept of Gui in Ancient China

Author:

Hu Baozhu 胡寳柱

Publication date:

September 22

Publisher: 

Routledge

Abstract:

The present book by Hu Baozhu explores the subject of ghosts and spirits, thus mapping the religious landscape of ancient China. The main focus is on the character gui 鬼, an essential key to the understanding of spiritual beings there. The author analyses the character gui in various materials – lexicons and dictionaries, excavated manuscripts and inscriptions, and received classical texts. Gui is examined from the perspective of its linguistic root, literary interpretation, ritual practices, sociopolitical implication, and cosmological thinking.

The Shuowen jiezi’s interpretation of gui as a sort of negative force tending to harm people’s properties or even their lives greatly influenced later understandings of the concept. In addition to early lexicons, the present study also traces the understanding of gui in oracle bone script (jiaguwen) and bronze script (jinwen) where gui chiefly referred to concrete persons, groups or places, seen as remote, foreign, vigorous or malevolent, and then to ghosts/spirits of the dead. Linguistically the compound phrase guishen came later to denote all spiritual beings. The book further investigates essential layers of meaning of gui and its literary functions as a part of speech in some Chinese classics, the Zuozhuan, Liji, Lunyu, Zhuangzi and Mozi as well as in popular traditions, namely the Rishu (Day Book) unearthed in 1975.
In the gradual process of coming to know the otherworld in terms of ghosts and spirits, Chinese people in ancient times attempted to identify and classify these spiritual entities. In their philosophical thinking, they uniquely connected the subject of gui with the movement of the universe. Thus the belief in ghosts and spirits in ancient China appeared to be a moral standard for all, not only providing a room for individual religiosity but also implementing the purpose of family-oriented social order, the legitimization of political operations, and the under-standing of the way of Heaven and Earth.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Preliminary Understanding of Gui
Chapter 2: The Original Meaning of the Character Gui: An Examination of Jiaguwen and Jinwen
Chapter 3: What’s in a Character? Definition and Variegated Characteristics of Gui in the Zuozhuan and Liji
Chapter 4: Confucian, Daoist, and Mohist Perspectives on the Concept of Gui
Chapter 5: Folk-oriented Usages of Gui in the Rishu Manuscript
Conclusion
   Appendix I: Table of the Radical Gui and Its Related Characters
   Appendix II: Gui-related Oracle Bone Inscriptions
   Appendix III: Investigations: Annotated Translation of the “Jie” 詰 Section

Archery Metaphor and Ritual in Early Confucian Texts

Author:
Rina Marie Camus

Publication date:
October 2020

Publisher: 

Lexington Books

Abstract:
Archery Metaphor and Ritual in Early Confucian Texts explores the significance of archery as ritual practice and image source in classical Confucian texts. Archery was one of the six traditional arts of China, the foremost military skill, a tool for education, and above all, an important custom of the rulers and aristocrats of the early dynasties. Rina Marie Camus analyzes passages inspired by archery in the texts of the Analects, Mencius, and Xunzi in relation to the shifting social and historical conditions of the late Zhou dynasty, the troubled times of early followers of the ruist master Confucius. Camus posits that archery imagery is recurrent and touches on fundamental themes of literature; ritual archers in the Analects, sharp shooters in Mencius, and the fashioning of exquisite bows and arrows in Xunzi represent the gentleman, pursuit of ren, and self-cultivation. Furthermore, Camus argues that not only is archery an important Confucian metaphor, it also proves the cognitive value of literary metaphors—more than linguistic ornamentation, metaphoric utterances have features and resonances that disclose their speakers’ saliencies of thought.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Literary Metaphor, A Package Deal

Chapter 1: Bow-wielding Aristocrats of Zhou
The Bow in Warfare and Sports
The Bow in Zhou Ritual Tradition
Bow Narratives & Poetry

Chapter 2: Ritual Archers in the Analects
Confucius and the Bow
The Competition of Gentlemen (An 3.7)
Hitting the Target is not the Main Thing (An 3.16)
Straight as an Arrow (An 15.16)

Chapter 3: Sharp Shooters in Mencius
Mencius and Archery in Early Warring States
The Gentleman as Sharp Shooter (M 2A.7 & 5B.1)
Teaching the Way as Archery Training (M 6A.20 & 7A.41)
Moral Failure as Faulty Aiming (M 6A.9)

Chapter 4: Fine Bows and Distant Targets in Xunzi
Xunzi and Archery in Late Warring States
Transforming Nature: Fashioning Bows from Twisted Wood
Paragons of Learning: Undividedness and Not Missing a Shot
Visions of Government: The State Needs Scholars as Much as Archers

Concluding Remarks

A Library of Clouds: The Scripture of the Immaculate Numen and the Rewriting of Daoist Texts

Authors:
J. E. E. Pettit & Chao-jan Chang 張超然

Publisher:
University of Hawaii Press

Publication date:
September 2020




Abstract:
From early times, Daoist writers claimed to receive scriptures via revelation from heavenly beings. In numerous cases, these writings were composed over the course of many nights and by different mediums. New revelations were often hastily appended, and the resulting unevenness gave rise to the impression that Daoist texts often appear slapdash and contain contradictions. A Library of Clouds focuses on the re-writing of Daoist scriptures in the Upper Clarity (Shangqing) lineage in fourth- and fifth-century China. Scholarship on Upper Clarity Daoism has been dominated by attempts to uncover “original” or “authentic” texts, which has resulted in the neglect of later scriptures―including the work fully translated and annotated here, the Scripture of the Immaculate Numen, one of the Three Wonders (sanqi) and among the most prized Daoist texts in medieval China. The scripture’s lack of a coherent structure and its different authorial voices have led many to see it not as a unified work but the creation of different editors who shaped and reshaped it over time.

A Library of Clouds constructs new ways of understanding the complex authorship of texts like the Scripture of the Immaculate Numen and their place in early medieval Daoism. It stresses their significance in understanding the ways in which manuscripts were written, received, and distributed in early medieval China. By situating the scripture within its immediate hagiographic and ritual contexts, it suggests that this kind of revelatory literature is best understood as a pastiche of ideas, a process of weaving together previously circulating notions and beliefs into a new scriptural fabric.

Table of Contents:

Part I. Translators’ Introduction

Background 

Chapter One Thirty-One Fascicles: Cataloguing Scriptures of the Heavens

Chapter Two Thrree Ones: A Stereoscopic View of a Daoist Hagiography

Chapter Three Five Stars: Remaking Daoist Ritual

Chapter Four Nine Palaces: Later Reconstructions of Upper Clarity

Chapter Five Three Hundred Fascicles: Rethinking the Authorship of Daoist Scriptures

Conclusion

Part II. Translation: The Most High Wondrous Scripture of the Immaculate Numen [Celestial Palace] and

Penetrating Mystery of the Great Existence [Heaven] (Taishang suling dongxuan dayou miaojing

太上素靈洞玄大有妙經, DZ 1314)

1 The Three Grottoes

2 The Nine Palaces

3 The Three Ones

4 Three [Palaces] and Nine [Openings] 

5 Illustrious Code of the Nine Perfected

An Outline History of East Asia to 1200

Author: 
Sarah Schneewind

Publication Year:
2020

Abstract:
This open access textbook arose out of a course at the University of California, San Diego, called HILD 10: East Asia: The Great Tradition.  The course covers what have become two Chinas, Japan, and two Koreas from roughly 1200 BC to about AD 1200.  As we say every Fall in HILD 10: “2400 years, three countries, ten weeks, no problem.”  The book does not stand alone: the teacher should assign primary and secondary sources, study questions, dates to be memorized, etc.  The maps mostly use the same template to enable students to compare them one to the next.

Download here:
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9d699767

シルクロード世界史

Author:
森安孝夫 (Moriyasu Takao)

Publication:
講談社

Publication date:
September 2020

Abstract:
かつて、「歴史」を必要としたのは権力者だった。権力者は自らの支配を正当化するために歴史を書かせた。歴史家は往々にして、権力者に奉仕する者だったのである。しかし、近代歴史学の使命は、権力を監視し、批判することにこそある。近代世界の覇権を握った西洋文明を相対化し、西洋中心史観と中華主義からの脱却を訴える、白熱の世界史講座。近代以前の世界では、中央ユーラシア諸民族の動向が、歴史を動かしていた。騎馬遊牧民はどのように登場し、その機動力と経済力は、いかに周辺諸国家に浸透していったのか。シルクロードのネットワークを媒介とした「前近代世界システム論」とは。ソグド人やウイグル人のキャラバン交易や、キリスト教の最大のライバルだったマニ教の動向などを、ユーラシア各地に残る古文書、石碑の読解から得たオリジナルな研究成果をもとに解明していく。そこから見えてくるのは、あらゆるモノは歴史的所産であり、文化・言語・思想から、政治・経済活動まで、すべては変化し混ざり合って生み出され、純粋な民族文化や普遍的な国家など存在しない、という真実である。さらに、近年日本で発見されて世界的な注目を浴びるマニ教絵画から、日本伝来の史料で明らかになるシルクロードの実像まで。「興亡の世界史」シリーズ最大の話題作『シルクロードと唐帝国』の著者による、待望の書下ろし。

Table of Contents:

序章　世界史を学ぶ理由
　1　歴史を必要とするのは誰か
　2　歴史と権力・権威・宗教
　3　現代歴史学の使命
第一章　ユーラシア世界史の基本構造
　1　人類史の潮流
　2　歴史時代の始まり──農業革命から鉄器革命へ
　3　戦争・交流・グローバル化の時代──騎馬遊牧民の登場から現代まで
第二章　騎馬遊牧民の機動力
　1　馬の家畜化
　2　ユーラシアの民族大移動
第三章　シルクロードの世界システム論
　1　前近代の世界システム
　2　遊牧国家とシルクロード
第四章　ソグドからウイグルへ
　1　宗教の道
　2　ソグドとウイグルの接点
　3　マニ教から仏教へ
第五章　ウイグル=ネットワークの活況
　1　古ウイグル語文書を解読する
　2　キャラヴァンの往来と社会生活
第六章　シルクロードと日本
　1　シルクロードの終着点
　2　マニ教絵画の日本伝来
あとがき

Early Medieval China 26 《中國中古研究》第 26 期 (2020)

Table of Contents:

Editors’ Note
J. Michael Farmer 1

Thinking Regionally in Early Medieval Studies: A Manifesto
Andrew Chittick 3

Fashion and Historical Imagination: The Case of Sun Shou’s “Bewitching and Strange Appearances”
Rebecca Doran 19

A Taste of Honey: Early Medieval Chinese Writings about Sweeteners
Olivia Milburn 43

Literary Responses to Religious Debates at the Northern Zhou Court
Yiyi Luo 67

A Selective Bibliography of Mainland Chinese Books (2011–2019) on Early Medieval Chinese Literature
Yue Zhang 88

Book Reviews

Joy Lidu Yi, Yungang: Art, History, Archaeology, Liturgy
Scott Pearce 110

Andrew Chittick, The Jiankang Empire in Chinese and World History
Scott Pearce 114

(via Mike Farmer)

Zhou History Unearthed: The Bamboo Manuscript Xinian and Early Chinese Historiography

Author:
Yuri Pines

Publication date:
October 2020

Publisher:
Columbia University Press

Abstract:
There is a stark contrast between the overarching importance of history writing in imperial China and the meagerness of historical texts from the centuries preceding the imperial unification of 221 BCE. However, recently discovered bamboo manuscripts from the Warring States period (453–221 BCE) have changed this picture, leading to reappraisals of early Chinese historiography. These manuscripts shed new light on questions related to the production, circulation, and audience of historical texts in early China; their different political, ritual, and ideological usages; and their roles in the cultural and intellectual dynamics of China’s vibrant pre-imperial age.

Zhou History Unearthed offers both a novel understanding of early Chinese historiography and a fully annotated translation of Xinian 繫年 (String of Years), the most notable historical manuscript from the state of Chu. Yuri Pines elucidates the importance of Xinian and other recently discovered texts for our understanding of history writing in Zhou China (1046–255 BCE), as well as major historical events and topics such as Chu’s cultural identity. Pines explores how Xinian challenges existing interpretations of the nature and reliability of canonical historical texts on the Zhou era, such as Zuo zhuan 左傳 (Zuo Tradition/Commentary) and Records of the Historian (Shiji 史記). A major work of scholarship and translation, Zhou History Unearthed sheds new light on early Chinese history and historiography, demonstrating how new archaeological findings are changing our knowledge of China’s pre-imperial days.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: The Riddle of Zhou Historiography
Part I. Rethinking Early Chinese History Writing
1. Zhou Historiography as Seen from the Transmitted Texts
2. Xinian and Zhou Historiography
3. Zhou Historiography in Other Newly Discovered Sources
4. Beyond Sima Qian: Zhou History Revisited
5. Chu Historiography and Chu Cultural Identity
Part II. Xinian Translation and Commentary
Xinian 1
Xinian 2
Xinian 3
Xinian 4
Xinian 5
Xinian 6
Xinian 7
Xinian 8
Xinian 9
Xinian 10
Xinian 11
Xinian 12
Xinian 13
Xinian 14
Xinian 15
Xinian 16
Xinian 17
Xinian 18
Xinian 19
Xinian 20
Xinian 21
Xinian 22
Xinian 23
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Buddhist Healing in Medieval China and Japan

Editors:
C. Pierce Salguero and Andrew Macomber

Publication date:
August 2020

Publisher:
University of Hawaii Press

Abstract:
From its inception in northeastern India in the first millennium BCE, the Buddhist tradition has advocated a range of ideas and practices that were said to ensure health and well-being. As the religion developed and spread to other parts of Asia, healing deities were added to its pantheon, monastic institutions became centers of medical learning, and healer-monks gained renown for their mastery of ritual and medicinal therapeutics. In China, imported Buddhist knowledge contended with a sophisticated, state-supported system of medicine that was able to retain its influence among the elite. Further afield in Japan, where Chinese Buddhism and Chinese medicine were introduced simultaneously as part of the country’s adoption of civilization from the “Middle Kingdom,” the two were reconciled by individuals who deemed them compatible. In East Asia, Buddhist healing would remain a site of intercultural tension and negotiation. While participating in transregional networks of circulation and exchange, Buddhist clerics practiced locally specific blends of Indian and indigenous therapies and occupied locally defined social positions as religious and medical specialists.

In this diverse and compelling collection, an international group of scholars analyzes the historical connections between Buddhism and healing in medieval China and Japan. Contributors focus on the transnationally conveyed aspects of Buddhist healing traditions as they moved across geographic, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. Simultaneously, the chapters also investigate the local instantiations of these ideas and practices as they were reinvented, altered, and re-embedded in specific social and institutional contexts. Investigating the interplay between the macro and micro, the global and the local, this book demonstrates the richness of Buddhist healing as a way to explore the history of cross-cultural exchange.

Table of Contents:

"A Flock of Ghosts Bursting Forth and Scattering": Healing Narratives in a Sixth-Century Chinese Buddhist Hagiography / C. Pierce Salguero

Teaching from the Sickbed: Ideas of Illness and Healing in the Vimalakīrti Sūtra and Their Reception in Medieval Chinese Literature / Antje Richter

Lighting Lamps to Prolong Life: Ritual Healing and the Bhaiṣajyaguru Cult in Fifth- and Sixth-Century China / Shi Zhiru 釋智如

Buddhist Healing Practices at Dunhuang in the Medieval Period / Catherine Despeux

Empowering the Pregnancy Sash in Medieval Japan / Anna Andreeva

Ritualizing Moxibustion in the Early Medieval Tendai-Jimon Lineage / Andrew Macomber

Liangzhu Culture Society, Belief and Art in Neolithic China

Editor:
Bin Liu, Ling Qin & Zhuang Yijie

Publisher:
Routledge

Abstract:

The Liangzhu Culture (5,300-4,300 BP) represented the peak of prehistoric cultural and social development in the Yangtze Delta. With a wide sphere of influence centred near present day Hangzhou City, Liangzhu City is considered one of the earliest urban centres in prehistoric China. Although it remains a mystery for many in the West, Liangzhu is well known in China for its fine jade-crafting industry; its enormous, well-structured earthen compound and recently discovered hydraulic system; and its far-flung impact on contemporary and succeeding cultures. The archaeological ruins of Liangzhu City was successfully enlisted for the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage in July 2019.

Liangzhu Culture contextualises Liangzhu in broad socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds and provides new, first-hand data to help explain the development and structure of this early urban centre. Among its many insights, the volume reveals how elites used jade as a means of acquiring social power, and how Liangzhu and its centre stand in comparison to other prehistoric urban centres in the world.

This book, the first of its kind published in the English language, will be a useful guide to students at all levels interested in the material culture and social structures of prehistoric China and beyond.

Table of Contents:

Preface

Chapter One: Situating the Liangzhu Culture in Late Neolithic China: An Introduction

Chapter Two: The Liangzhu City: New Discoveries and Research

Chapter Three: Power and Belief: Reading the Liangzhu Jade and Society

Chapter Four: A Controlled Fine Craft: Jade Production Techniques in the Liangzhu Culture

Chapter Five: From the ‘Songze Style’ to the ‘Liangzhu Mode’

Chapter Six: Shamanistic, Historic and Virtuous Jade: Continuity and Change in Early Chinese Jade Traditions

ACTA ASIATICA: Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern Culture No. 119

Publication date:
August 2020

Sogdians in Sogdiana, China, and Turfan during the Sixth Century

Table of Contents:

YOSHIDA Yutaka吉田豊: Introduction

Alisher BEGMATOV, Amtriddin BERDIMURODOV, Gennadiy BOGOMOLOV, MURAKAMI Tomomi村上智見, TERA-MURA Hirofumi寺村裕史, UNO Takao宇野隆夫, and USAMI Tomoyuki宇佐美智之: New Discoveries from Kafir-kala: Coins, Sealings, and Wooden Cravings

Frantz GRENET: The Wooden Panels from Kafir-kala: A Group Portrait of the Samarkand nāf (Civic Body)

ARAKAWA Masaharu 荒川正晴: The Kao-ch‘ang Kingdom’s Rule of Turfan and Its Sogdian Colonies in the Sixth Century

BI Bo 畢波: The New Bilingual Sogdian and Chinese Epitaph from Yeh 鄴 and the Sogdians in the Northern Ch‘i Dynasty

YAMASHITA Shōji 山下将司: Sogdians during the Period of Division in North China in the Sixth Century as Depicted in Chinese-Language Epitaphs

Link:
http://www.tohogakkai.com/actaback101-new.html

Silk Roads: From Local Realities to Global Narratives

Editors:
Jeffrey D. Lerner & Yaohua Shi

Publication date:
August 2020

Publisher:
Oxbow Books

Abstract:
In recent decades, there has been a new surge of interest in the history and legacies of the Silk Roads both within academic and public discourses. A field of Silk Roads Studies has come into its own. Consciously mirroring the temperament of its subject, the field has moved out of the narrow niches of particular disciplines to become a truly interdisciplinary endeavor. New research findings about the historical operations of the Silk Roads and interpretations of their legacies for the modern and contemporary world have broken down geographical and temporal divides that once demarcated the Silk Roads as primarily pre-modern and Old World-centered conduits of globalization. In light of these developments, the time is ripe to begin formulating a new definition of the contour of Silk Roads Studies and laying a new foundation for further work in this field.

Silk Roads: From Local Realities to Global Narratives brings together leading scholars in multiple disciplines related to Silk Roads studies. It highlights the multiplicity of networks that constituted the Silk Roads, including land and maritime routes, and approaches the Silk Roads from Antiquity to China’s One Belt One Road Initiative from Afro-Eurasia to the Americas. This holistic approach to understanding ancient globalization, exchanges, transformations, and movements - and their continued relevance to the present - is in line with contemporary academic trends toward interdisciplinarity. Indeed, the Silk Roads is such an expansive topic that many approaches to its study must be included to represent accurately its many facets.

The volume emphasizes exchange and transformation along the Silk Roads - moments of acculturation or hybridization that contributed to novel syncretic forms. It highlights the multiplicity of networks that constituted the Silk Roads, including land and maritime routes, and approaches to the Silk Roads from Antiquity to China’s One Belt One Road Initiative from Afro-Eurasia to the Americas.

Table of Contents:
Introduction

Section One: Acculturation and Hybridization
1. The “Birth” of the Silk Road Between Ecological Frontiers and Military Innovation
Nicola Di Cosmo

2. Sogdians in Shanxi (386 CE-618 CE): Literary and Archeological Evidence
Xiaoyan Qi

3. From Exotic Toys to Objects of Scientific Inquiry: A Special Way of Transmitting European Optical Knowledge in the Qing Dynasty
Yunli Shi

4. The Karakorum Highway: Gateway of Empires, Religions, and Commerce
Saba Samee

Section Two: Understanding Spice Through Interdisciplinarity
 5. A TRP Along the Silk Roads: How and Why We Detect and Use Spices
Wayne Silver and Cecil J. Saunders

6. Silk Road Pharmacy: Debating Theriac and Defining the Natural World
Monique O’Connell

7. Spice and Taste in the Culinary World of the Early Modern Mediterranean
Eric Dursteler

Section Three: Tradition as Continuity and Change
8. Devotional Prints and Practice: Woodcuts from the Library Cave at Dunhuang
Bernadine Barnes

9. Dome of Heaven: From the Lantern Ceiling to the Chinese Wooden Dome
Di Luo

10. “Malacca” – From Fabled Port to Muddy Lagoon: A Cautionary Tale of Ecological Disaster
Margaret Sarkissian

11. Twenty-first Century Trading Routes in Mongolia: Changing Pastoral Soundscapes and Lifeways
Jennifer Post

12. Erasing the Local, Celebrating the Local: Tracing the Contradictions of the Silk Road in Pakistan
Chad Haines

Section Four: Cultural Transactions
13. Arsacid Economic Activity on the Silk Road
Touraj Daryaee

14. Pearls and Power: Chōla's Tribute Mission to the Northern Song Court within the Maritime Silk Road Trade Network
James A. Anderson

15. “Flying Cash”: Credit Instruments on the Silk Roads
Dan Du

Section Five: Long-Distance Commodity Trade
16. The Case for Shipwrecked Indians in Germany
Jeffrey D. Lerner

17. Samuel Shaw’s ‘Maritime Silk Road’ from American Independence towards Monopoly, 1784–1794
John A. Ruddiman