Technical Arts in the Han Histories

Editors: 

Mark Csikszentmihalyi & Michael Nylan

Publisher:
SUNY Press

Publication date:
November 2021

Abstract:
While cultural literacy in early China was grounded in learning the Classics, basic competence in official life was generally predicated on acquiring several forms of technical knowledge. Recent archaeological finds have brought renewed attention to the use of technical manuals and mantic techniques within a huge range of discrete contexts, pushing historians to move beyond the generalities offered by past scholarship. To explore these uses, Technical Arts in the Han Histories delves deeply into the rarely studied “Treatises” and “Tables” compiled for the first two standard histories, the Shiji (Historical Records) and Hanshu (History of Han), important supplements to the better-known biographical chapters, and models for the inclusion of technical subjects in the twenty-three later “Standard Histories” of imperial China. Indeed, for a great many aspects of life in early imperial society, they constitute our best primary sources for understanding complex realities and perceptions. The essays in this volume seek to explain how different social groups thought of, disseminated, and withheld technical knowledge relating to the body, body politic, and cosmos, in the process of detailing the preoccupations of successive courts from Qin through Eastern Han in administering the localities, the frontier zones, and their numerous subjects (at the time, roughly one-quarter of the world’s population).

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Michael Nylan 戴梅可 and Mark Csikszentmihalyi 齊思敏

1. Land Tenure and the Decline of Imperial Government in Eastern Han
Michael Loewe 魯惟一

2. Water Control and Policy-Making in the Shiji and Hanshu
Luke Habberstad 何祿凱

3. The Hanshu Geographic Treatise on the Eastern Capital
Lee Chi-hsiang 李紀祥

4. Celestial Signs in Three Historical Treatises
Jesse J. Chapman 柴傑思

5. On Hanshu "Wuxing zhi" 五行志 and Ban Gu's Project
Michael Nylan 戴梅可

6. Western Han Sacrifices to Taiyi
Tian Tian 田天

7. Writing Abstractly in Mathematical Texts from Early Imperial China
Karine Chemla 林力娜

8. Commentarial Episodes in Early Chinese Medicine: An Experiment in Decentering the Standard Histories
Miranda Brown 董慕達

9. Narratives of Decline and Fragmentation, and the Hanshu Bibliographic Taxonomies of Technical Arts
Mark Csikszentmihalyi 齊思敏 and Zheng Yifan 鄭伊凡

ある地方官吏の生涯：木簡が語る中国古代人の日常生活

Editor:

宮宅潔 (MIYAKE, Kiyoshi)

Publication date:
July 2021

Publisher:

臨川書店

Table of Contents:
はじめに

第一章　人の誕生
第一節　出生の吉凶　／　第二節　いのちの始まり

第二章　出生届――中国古代の戸籍制度――
第一節　戸籍制度のあらまし　／　第二節　戸籍制度の整備

第三章　喜をとりまく人たち――家族制度・郷里制度――
第一節　家族の暮らし　／　第二節　郷里社会のすがた

第四章　書記官への道――教育制度――
第一節　書記官の養成とその地位　／　第二節　知識習得の場とテキスト

第五章　役人生活の始まり――地方行政制度・裁判制度――
第一節　官吏のキャリアと地方官府の構造　／　第二節　「治獄」の仕事

第六章　結婚と夫婦関係――婚姻制度――
第一節　喜の結婚　／　第二節　夫婦関係

第七章　従軍生活――秦の戦役史と軍事制度――
第一節　秦の軍事制度　／　第二節　兵士の日常

第八章　喜のそれから
第一節　喜の後半生――両親の死と相続――　／　第二節　始皇帝の臣民として

第九章　老いと死――人生の終わりに――
第一節　寿命とやまい　／　第二節　死と葬送

Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue: An Annotated Translation of Wu Yue Chunqiu

Author:

Jianjun He

Publication date:

April 2021

Publisher:

Cornell University Press

Abstract:

Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue is the first complete English translation of Wu Yue Chunqiu, a chronicle of two neighboring states during China's Spring and Autumn period. This collection of political history, philosophy, and fictional accounts depicts the rise and fall of Wu and Yue and the rivalry between them, the inspiration for centuries of poetry, vernacular fiction, and drama.

Wu Yue Chunqiu makes use of rich sources from the past, carefully adapting and developing them into complex stories. Historical figures are transformed into distinctive characters; simple records of events are fleshed out and made tangible. The result is a nuanced record that is both a compelling narrative and a valuable historical text. As one of the earliest examples of a regional history, Wu Yue Chunqiu is also an important source for the history of what is now Zhejiang and Jiangsu.

In Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue, Jianjun He's engaging translation and extensive annotations make this significant historical and literary work accessible to an English-speaking audience for the first time.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. The Tradition of the Great Earl of Wu

2. The Tradition of King Shoumeng of Wu

3. The Tradition of King Liao Commanded Gongzi Guang

4. The Inner Tradition of Helu

5. The Inner Tradition of Fuchai

6. The Outer Tradition of King Wuyu of Yue

7. The Outer Tradition of Goujian as a Servant

8. The Outer Tradition of Goujian's Return to His State

9. The Outer Tradition of Goujian's Secret Plots

10. The Outer Tradition of Goujian Attacking Wu

Adapting: A Chinese Philosophy of Action

Author:
Mercedes Valmisa

Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Publication date:
September 2021

Abstract:
If you are from the West, it is likely that you normally assume that you are a subject who relates to objects and other subjects through actions that spring purely from your own intentions and will. Chinese philosophers, however, show how mistaken this conception of action is. Philosophy of action in Classical China is radically different from its counterpart in the Western philosophical narrative. While the latter usually assumes we are discrete individual subjects with the ability to act or to effect change, Classical Chinese philosophers theorize that human life is embedded in endless networks of relationships with other entities, phenomena, and socio-material contexts. These relations are primary to the constitution of the person, and hence acting within an early Chinese context is interacting and co-acting along with others, human or nonhuman.

This book is the first monograph dedicated to the exploration and rigorous reconstruction of an extraordinary strategy for efficacious relational action devised by Classical Chinese philosophers, one which attempts to account for the interdependent and embedded character of human agency-what Mercedes Valmisa calls "adapting" or "adaptive agency" (yin) As opposed to more unilateral approaches to action conceptualized in the Classical Chinese corpus, such as forceful and prescriptive agency, adapting requires heightened self- and other-awareness, equanimity, flexibility, creativity, and response. These capacities allow the agent to “co-raise” courses of action ad hoc: unique and temporary solutions to specific, non-permanent, and non-generalizable life problems.

Adapting is one of the world's oldest philosophies of action, and yet it is shockingly new for contemporary audiences, who will find in it an unlikely source of inspiration to cope with our current global problems. This book explores the core conception of adapting both on autochthonous terms and by cross-cultural comparison, drawing on the European and Analytic philosophical traditions as well as on scholarship from other disciplines. Valmisa exemplifies how to build meaningful philosophical theories without treating individual books or putative authors as locations of stable intellectual positions, opening brand-new topics in Chinese and comparative philosophy.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Chapter 1: What is Adaptive Agency?
Chapter 2: Locating Adaptive Agency
Chapter 3: Strategy and Control
Chapter 4: The Reifying Pattern
Chapter 5: Coping with Uncertainty
Chapter 6: The Unifying Pattern

東アジア古代の車社会史

Author:
岡村秀典 （Okamura Hidenori）

Publication date:
July 2021

Publisher:
臨川書店

Table of Contents:
はじめに
第1章　牧畜のはじまりと車の出現
　1．家畜からみたアジアの西と東
　2．国家形成と牧畜のはじまり
　3．牛車の出現
　4．オルドスに進出した殷王朝
第2章　殷周時代における車社会の形成
　1．車馬の東方伝播
　2．殷王室の祭祀と車馬
　3．馬と牛の飼養
　4．殷王朝の周辺に広がった車馬
　5．西周時代における戦車の改良
　6．西周王朝の攘夷戦争
　7．威儀を備えた車馬の出現
　8．双轅式牛車の出現
　9．騎馬のはじまり
第3章　秦漢時代における車社会の成立
　1．秦帝国における交通インフラの整備
　2．秦始皇帝陵の陪葬坑と車馬
　3．前漢王侯墓の車馬埋葬
　4．長江中流域における冥界への車馬行列
　5．民間における馬牛利用の拡大
　6．『続漢書』輿服志の車制
　7．後漢墓にあらわされた車騎行列
　8．秦漢時代における軺車の普及と車制
第4章　魏晋南北朝時代における車社会の残照
　1．牛車に乗る士大夫
　2．『晋書』輿服志の車制
　3．騎馬術の革新
　4．関中十六国墓における儀仗騎馬俑群の成立
　5．高句麗壁画墓の車騎行列図
　6．南北朝時代の車騎行列
　7．魏晋南北朝時代の牛車
　8．古代日本の牛車
第5章　車社会の成立と変容
　1．車の出現と初期王朝
　2．官僚制と自家用車の普及
　3．牛車と貴族制
おわりに

[Open Access] Family Instructions for the Yan Clan and Other Works by Yan Zhitui (531–590s)

Translator:
Xiaofei Tian

Publisher:
De Gruyter Mouton

Publication date:
March 2021

Abstract:

Yan Zhitui (531–590s) was a courtier and cultural luminary who lived a colorful life during one of the most chaotic periods, known as the Northern and Southern Dynasties, in Chinese history. Beginning his career in the southern Liang court, he was taken captive to the north after the Liang capital fell, and served several northern dynasties. Today he remains one of the best-known medieval writers for his book-length “family instructions” (jiaxun), the earliest surviving and the most influential of its kind. Completed in his last years, the work resembles a long letter addressed to his sons, in which he discusses a wide range of topics from family relations and remarriage to religious faith, philology, cultural arts, and codes of conduct in public and private life. It is filled with vivid details of contemporary social life, and with the author’s keen observations of the mores of north and south China. This is a new, complete translation into English, with critical notes and introduction, and based on recent scholarship, of Yan Zhitui’s Family Instructions, and of all of his extant literary works, including his self-annotated poetic autobiography and a never-before-translated fragmentary rhapsody, as well as of his biographies in dynastic histories.

Open Access: click here

The Dao of Madness: Mental Illness and Self-Cultivation in Early Chinese Philosophy and Medicine

Author: 
Alexus McLeod

Publication date:
September 2021

Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract:
Mental illness complicates views of agency and moral responsibility in ethics. Particularly for traditions and theories focused on self-cultivation, such as Aristotelian virtue ethics and many systems of ethics in early Chinese philosophy, mental illness offers powerful challenges. Can the mentally ill person cultivate herself and achieve a level of virtue, character, or thriving similar to the mentally healthy? Does mental illness result from failures in self-cultivation, failure in social institutions or rulership, or other features of human activity? Can a life complicated by struggles with mental illness be a good one?

The Dao of Madness investigates the role of mental illness, specifically "madness" (kuang 狂), in discussions of self-cultivation and ideal personhood in early Chinese philosophical and medical thought, and the ways in which early Chinese thinkers probed difficult questions surrounding mental health. Alexus McLeod explores three central accounts: the early "traditional" views of those, including Confucians, taking madness to be the result of character flaw; the challenge from Zhuangists celebrating madness as a freedom from standard norms connected to knowledge; and the "medicalization" of madness within the naturalistic shift of Han Dynasty thought. Understanding views on madness in the ancient world helps reveal key features of Chinese thinkers' conceptions of personhood and agency, as well as their accounts of ideal activity. Further, it exposes the motivations behind the origins of the medical tradition, and of the key links between philosophy and medicine in early Chinese thought. The early Chinese medical tradition has crucial and understudied connections to early philosophy, connections which this volume works to uncover.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: In the Shadows of the Chinese Tradition
Chapter 1. Self, Mind and Body, Agency
Chapter 2. What is Mental Illness? Contemporary and Ancient Views
Chapter 3. Madness of Last Resort: Feigned Madness, Ambivalence, and Doubt
Chapter 4. The Wilds, Untamed, and Spontaneity: Zhuangist Views of Madness
Chapter 5. Synthesis and Medicalization in Early Han Views of Mental Illness
Conclusion: Madness and Self-Cultivation: Ways Forward

TOC Journal of Chinese History, Special Issue on 'The State and Migration in Chinese History' -- Volume 5 - Issue 2 - July 2021

Journal of Chinese History, Special Issue on 'The State and Migration in Chinese History' -- Volume 5 - Issue 2 - July 2021

Link here

Special issue articles

Introduction

“THE STATE and MIGRATION IN CHINESE HISTORY”

Anthony J. Barbieri-Low

Early Imperial and Early Medieval China

Coerced Migration and Resettlement in the Qin Imperial Expansion

Anthony J. Barbieri-Low

State-Induced Migration and the Creation of State Spaces in Early Chinese Empires: Perspectives from History and Archaeology

Maxim Korolkov, Anke Hein

War Captives, Left-Behind Wives, and Buddhist Nuns: Female Migrants in Early Medieval China (4th–6th Century CE)

Wen-Yi Huang

Late Imperial China

Rethinking Qing Manchuria's Prohibition Policies

Jonathan Schlesinger

Where Diasporas Met: Hunanese, Cantonese, and the State in Late-Qing Guangxi

Steven B. Miles

Modern China

Together in the Same Boat: Exiled Nationalist State and Chinese Civil War Exiles in 1950s Taiwan

Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang

Transform the Land, Train the Youth: Water and Soil Conservation Teams and State-Induced Migration in mid-1960s China

Micah S. Muscolino

Reluctant and Illegal Migrants in Mao's China: Civil Defense Evacuation in the Tianjin Region, 1969–1980

Jeremy Brown

Healing with Poisons: Potent Medicines in Medieval China

Author:
Yan Liu

Publication date:

June 2021

Publisher:

University of Washington Press

Abstract:

At first glance, medicine and poison might seem to be opposites. But in China’s formative era of pharmacy (200–800 CE), poisons were strategically deployed as healing agents to cure everything from chills to pains to epidemics. Healing with Poisons explores the ways physicians, religious devotees, court officials, and laypeople used powerful substances to both treat intractable illnesses and enhance life. It illustrates how the Chinese concept of du 毒—a word carrying a core meaning of “potency”—led practitioners to devise a variety of techniques to transform dangerous poisons into efficacious medicines.

Recounting scandals and controversies involving poisons from the Era of Division to the early Tang period, Yan Liu considers how the concept of du was central to the ways people of medieval China perceived both their bodies and the body politic. Liu also examines a wide range of du-possessing minerals, plants, and animal products in classical Chinese pharmacy, including the highly poisonous herb aconite and the popular arsenic drug Five-Stone Powder. By recovering alternative modes of understanding wellness and the body’s interaction with potent medicines, this study cautions against arbitrary classifications and exemplifies the importance of paying attention to the technical, political, and cultural conditions in which substances become truly meaningful.

漢六朝時代の制度と文化・社会

Author:
佐藤 達郎

Publisher:
Kyoto University Press

Publication date:
February 2021

Table of Contents:

はじめに
第一部　官制叙述の形成と展開——官制と礼、歴史意識
第一章　二年律令に見える漢初の秩石制について

第二章　職官儀注書の源流

第三章　職官儀注書の出現と官制叙述のはじまり

第四章　漢代の古官箴

第五章　胡広『漢官解詁』の編纂——その経緯と構想

第六章　応劭『漢官儀』の編纂

第七章　摯虞『決疑要注』をめぐって

第八章　『続漢書』百官志と晋官品令

第九章　王珪之『斉職儀』の編纂

第二部　法と文化・社会

第十章　後漢末の弓矢乱射事件と応劭の刑罰議論

第十一章　『風俗通』にみえる漢代の名裁判

第十二章　魏晋南朝の司法における情理の語について

第十三章　漢六朝期の地方的教令について

第十四章　漢代の教について

第十五章　六朝時代の教について

第十六章　漢代の地方的教令と扁書・壁書・石刻

おわりに
補編　漢代の古官箴　訳注篇

Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi

Editors:

Lai, Karyn & Chiu, Wai Wai 

Publisher: 

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 

Publication date:

July 12, 2019

Abstract:

Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi presents an illuminating analysis of skill stories from the Zhuangzi, a 4th century BCE Daoist text. In this intriguing text that subverts conventional norms and pursuits, ordinary activities such as swimming, cicada-catching and wheelmaking are executed with such remarkable efficacy and spontaneity that they seem like magical feats. An international team of scholars explores these stories in their philosophical, historical and political contexts. Their analyses' highlight the stories’underlying conceptions of agency, character and cultivation; and relevance to contemporary debates on human action and experience. The result is a valuable collection, opening up new lines of inquiry in comparative East-West philosophical debates on skill, cultivation and mastery, as well as cross-disciplinary debates in psychology, cognitive science and philosophy. 

Table of Contents:

Introduction (Karyn Lai and Wai Wai Chiu)

Part I Reflections on Skill

1 Skilful Performances and the Zhuangzi’s Lessons on Orientation (Wai Wai Chiu)

2 Skill and Nourishing Life (Franklin Perkins)

3 Skill and Emotions in the Zhuangzi (David Machek)

4 Zhuangzi’s Politics from the Perspective of Skill (Timothy Connolly)

5 Elusive Masters, Powerless Teachers and Dumb Sages: Exploring Pedagogic Skills in the Zhuangzi (Romain Graziani)

6 Skill and Embodied Knowledge: Zhuangzi and Liezi (Steven Coutinho)

7 The Unskilled Zhuangzi: Big and Useless and Not So Good at Catching Rats (Eric Schwitzgebel)

Part II The Stories

8 Cook Ding: A Meditation in Flow (James Sellman)

9 Wheelwright Bian: A Difficult Dao (Lisa Raphals)

10 The Cicada-Catcher: Learning for Life (Karyn Lai)

11 The Ferryman: Forget the Deeps and Row! (Chris Fraser)

12 The Unresponsive Fighting Cocks: Mastery and Human Interaction in the Zhuangzi (Wim De Reu)

13 The Swimmer: (Albert Galvany)

14 Woodworker Qing: Matching Heaven with Heaven (Kim-chong Chong)

15 The Naked Scribe: The Skill of Dissociation in Society (Hans-Georg Moeller)

16 The Forger: The Use of Things (Wai Wai Chiu)

Ancient Egypt and Early China: State, Society, and Culture

Author:
Anthony J. Barbieri-Low

Publication date:
July 2021

Publisher:
University of Washington Press

Abstract:

Although they existed more than a millennium apart, the great civilizations of New Kingdom Egypt (ca. 1548–1086 BCE) and Han dynasty China (206 BCE–220 CE) shared intriguing similarities. Both were centered around major, flood-prone rivers—the Nile and the Yellow River—and established complex hydraulic systems to manage their power. Both spread their territories across vast empires that were controlled through warfare and diplomacy and underwent periods of radical reform led by charismatic rulers—the “heretic king” Akhenaten and the vilified reformer Wang Mang. Universal justice was dispensed through courts, and each empire was administered by bureaucracies staffed by highly trained scribes who held special status. Egypt and China each developed elaborate conceptions of an afterlife world and created games of fate that facilitated access to these realms.

This groundbreaking volume offers an innovative comparison of these two civilizations. Through a combination of textual, art historical, and archaeological analyses, Ancient Egypt and Early China reveals shared structural traits of each civilization as well as distinctive features.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. The Landscapes of the Nile and Yellow River

2. Empire and Diplomacy

3. Akhenaten, Wang Mang, and the Limits of Reform

4. Legal Principles and the Administration of Justice

5. Scribal Culture in Life and Death

6. Providing a Model Afterlife (coauthored with Marissa A. Stevens)

7. Gaming the Way to Paradise

Epilogue

The Empress in the Pepper Chamber: Zhao Feiyan in History and Fiction

Author:
Olivia Milburn

Publication Date:
May 2021

Publisher: 

University of Washington Press

Abstract:

Zhao Feiyan (45–1 BCE), the second empress appointed by Emperor Cheng of the Han dynasty (207 BCE–220 CE), was born in slavery and trained in the performing arts, a background that made her appointment as empress highly controversial. Subsequent persecution by her political enemies eventually led to her being forced to commit suicide. After her death, her reputation was marred by accusations of vicious scheming, murder of other consorts and their offspring, and relentless promiscuity, punctuated by bouts of extravagant shopping.

This first book-length study of Zhao Feiyan and her literary legacy includes a complete translation of The Scandalous Tale of Zhao Feiyan (Zhao Feiyan waizhuan 趙飛燕外傳), a Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) erotic novella that describes in great detail the decadent lifestyle enjoyed by imperial favorites in the harem of Emperor Cheng. This landmark text was crucial for establishing writings about palace women as the accepted forum for discussing sexual matters, including fetishism, obsession, jealousy, incompatibility in marriage, and so on. Using historical documentation, Olivia Milburn reconstructs the evolution of Zhao Feiyan’s story and illuminates the broader context of palace life for women and the novella’s social influence.

Table of Contents:

The Empress in the Pepper Chamber
The Scandalous Tale of Zhao Feiyan
Zhao Feiyan's Biography in Historical Sources
Interpreting The Scandalous Tale
Gendering Empress Zhao
Concluding Remarks

ANNOUNCEMENT: About my Facebook Page and my blog

To my dear blog subscribers and Facebook Page followers,

I am sorry to inform you that after a  2-months of Facebook hiatus, I decided to deactivate my FB Page on June 7. One simple reason is that I am no longer interested in managing my FB Page and don't want to receive more FB ads about how to reach more potential "clients."

While my FB Page will go away soon, I would continue to update my blog that is considered by some kind people to be useful to the field. So if you would like to get information about new books related to pre-8th century China, you can go to my blog and follow it via email. Or, just visit my blog whenever you are available.

One more thing about how to subscribe to my blog via email. Since 2012, I've been loyal to Google's Blogger because its layout is very simple. All I want from my blog is that I can catalog and find information in a very effective way and Blogger can satisfy me with that. However, the new Blogger interface 2020 is not user-friendly anymore. Moreover,  Blogger notified me weeks ago that Google's Feedburner will shut down in July, which means that my subscriber will not receive any email from my blog then and this really bothers me. So far, I found an alternative called Mailchimp Signup Form for my blog subscribers. If you are already a subscriber, don't need to do anything (hope Mailchimp Signup Form will work). But if you are a new one, please go to my blog and fill up the form (down the right side of my blog).

If you don't want to follow my blog but are still interested in new releases on early China, I highly recommend checking out the annual bibliography I compile for the journal Early China every year since 2016.

Here is the link to my blog: http://earlychinasinology.blogspot.com/

Here is the link to Early China: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/early-china

Thank you very much for your support and encouragement over the years!

[Dissertation] Writing History Through the Biographical Genre in the Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE).

Author:
Yuanxin CHEN

School:
Princeton University

Year:
2020

Abstract:

My dissertation focuses on one of the most prominent genres of historical writing in imperial China (221 BCE -1912 CE): biography. The life stories of figures from different social strata were compiled into the largest section of many Chinese dynastic histories: the “Arrayed Traditions” (liezhuan) or the “Traditions” (zhuan). As self-contained accounts devoted to individual lives, these biographies played a significant role in constructing Chinese imperial ideologies. My study traces back to the beginning of this biographical tradition. By focusing on the most important works of early imperial Chinese historiography, the Records of the Historian (Shiji) and the Documents of the Han Dynasty (Hanshu), I address how and why the biographical genre emerged as a prevalent form of narrative history over the course of the Han dynasty. 

My research shows that Han historiographers adopted the biographical genre to transform the ways in which historical knowledge was used in philosophical and sociopolitical debates; to provide balanced evaluations of people based on their qualities and deeds; and to develop diverse causes to explain the successes and failures in individual lives. Moreover, these purposes overlapped with the historiographers’ ambition to construct ideological “landscapes” for the Han dynasty. In particular, by compiling biographies of hundreds of individuals from different walks of life, the historiographers covered an unprecedentedly broad scope of sociopolitical issues. To address these issues, the historiographers evaluated individuals, who were often categorized into archetypes, to establish models of different social roles. They also provided moral justifications for individual successes and failures, which were intertwined with the rise and fall of clans and states, to prescribe ethical principles.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Transforming the Discourse of the Past
Chapter 2: Mastering the Art of “Knowing People”
Chapter 3: Prescribing Sociopolitical Norms through Character Evaluation
Chapter 4: Explaining the Ups and Downs in Individual Lives
Chapter 5: Promoting Sociopolitical Principles through the Rhetoric of Moral Causality
Chapter 6: Individuals in the Rise and Fall of Clans and States: Interactions between Biography, Annals, and Genealogy
Conclusion

The Essentials of Governance 貞觀政要

Author:
Wu Jing 吳兢

Editors and Translators: 
Hilde De Weerdt, Glen Dudbridge, Gabe van Beijeren

Publisher: 

Cambridge University Press

Publication date:

January 2021

Abstract:
In the eighth century, Wu Jing selected exchanges between Emperor Taizong and his ministers that he deemed key to good governance. This collection of dialogues has been used for the education of emperors, political elites and general readers ever since, and is a standard reference work in East Asian political thought. Consisting of ten volumes, subdivided into forty topics, The Essentials of Governance addresses core themes of Chinese thinking about the politics of power, from the body politic, presenting and receiving criticism, recruitment, the education of the imperial clan, political virtues and vices, to cultural policy, agriculture, law, taxation, border policy, and how to avoid disaster and dynastic fall. Presented with introductory commentary that offers insights into its historical context and global reception, this accessible and reliable translation brings together ten scholars of Chinese intellectual history to offer a nuanced edition that preserves the organisation, tone and flow of the original.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Essentials of Governance from the Reign of Constancy Revealed in Context 

Hilde De Weerdt and David McMullen

Prefaces

Presentation of The Essentials of Governance from the Reign of Constancy Revealed Hilde De Weerdt

Preface to The Essentials of Governance from the Reign of Constancy Revealed Hilde De Weerdt

Volume I; 

1. The Way of the Sovereign Jack W. Chen; 

2. The Organization of Governance Jack W. Chen; 

Volume II; 

3. Employing the Wise Hilde De Weerdt; 

4. Seeking Criticism Hilde De Weerdt; 

5. Accepting Criticism Hilde De Weerdt

Volume III; 

6. Lessons from the Past for Sovereign and Officials Chu Mingkin; 

7. On Selecting Officials Oliver Moor; 

8. On Enfieffment David McMullen; 

Volume IV; 

9. On Determining the Roles of the Crown Prince and the Princes David McMullen; 

10. On Respecting Tutors David McMullen; 

11. Instructing and Warning the Crown Prince and the Princes David McMullen; 

12. Reproving the Crown Prince David McMullen; 

Volume V; 

13. On Humaneness and Righteousness Anthony DeBlasi; 

14. On Loyalty and Righteousness Anthony DeBlasi; 

15. On Filial Piety and Friendship Anthony DeBlasi; 

16. On Impartiality Anthony DeBlasi; 

17. On Sincerity and Trustworthiness Anthony DeBlasi; 

Volume VI; 

18. On Frugality and Moderation Gabe van Beijeren; 

19. On Modesty and Deference Gabe van Beijeren; 

20. On Being Humane and Compassionate Gabe van Beijeren; 

21. Caution in One's Preferences Anna M. Shields; 

22. Caution in Speech Anna M. Shields; 

23. Obstructing Slander and Sycophancy Anna M. Shields; 

24. On Regretting One's Faults Anna M. Shields; 

25. On Profligacy and Recklessness Jack W. Chen; 

26. On Greed and Baseness Jack W. Chen; 

Volume VII; 

27. Honoring Classicist Scholarship Chu Mingkin; 

28. On Literature and History Chu Mingkin; 

29. On Rites and Music Chu Mingkin; 

Volume VIII; 

30. Dedication to Agriculture Tineke D'Haeseleer; 

31. On Punishment and Law Tineke D'Haeseleer; 

32. On Amnesties Tineke D'Haeseleer; 

33. On Tribute Presentations Oliver Moor; 

34. Recognizing the Rise and Fall of Dynasties Hilde De Weerdt; 

Volume IX; 

35. Debates about Punitive Expeditions Tineke D'Haeseleer; 

36. Debates about Pacifying the Borders Tineke D'Haeseleer; 

Volume X; 

37. On Tours Oliver Moor; 

38. On Hunting Oliver Moor; 

39. On Auspicious and Inauspicious Signs Gabe van Beijeren; 

40. On Remaining Vigilant until the End Gabe van Beijeren

Dramatis Personae

(via Hilde De Weerdt)

ReOrienting Histories of Medicine: Encounters along the Silk Roads

Author:
Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim 

Publisher: 
Bloomsbury Academic

Publication date:
January 28, 2021

Abstract:
It is rarely appreciated how much of the history of Eurasian medicine in the premodern period hinges on cross-cultural interactions and knowledge transmissions. Using manuscripts found in key Eurasian nodes of the medieval world – Dunhuang, Kucha, the Cairo Genizah and Tabriz – the book analyses a number of case-studies of Eurasian medical encounters, giving a voice to places, languages, people and narratives which were once prominent but have gone silent.

This is an important book for those interested in the history of medicine and the transmissions of knowledge that have taken place over the course of global history.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Medical Encounters along the Silk Roads
1. Narrating Eurasian Origins of Medical Knowledge
2. Of Dice and Medicine: Interactions in Central Asian 'Contact Zones'
3. Myrobalans: The Making of a Eurasian Panacea
4. Tibetan Moxa-Cautery from Dunhuang: Practices and Images on the Move
5. Medicine of the Bakhshis: Cross-Pollinations in Buddhist Iran
Afterword

Bibliography of Chinese Dynastic History Translations (3rd to 7th centuries CE)

Last updated: 2021.02.05

Note:
Here is a working bibliography of translations of Chinese dynastic history (3rd to 7th centuries CE). If you have any questions or recommendations, please let me know.

Recommended Readings:

Frankel, Hans H.C. Catalogue of translations from the Chinese dynastic histories for the period 220-960. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957.

Bielenstein, Hans. "The Six Dynasties," Vol. I,  BMFEA 68 (1996):5-324; Vol. II, BMFEA 69 (1997):5-246. 

Chennault, Cynthia Louise, Keith Nathaniel Knapp, Alan J. Berkowitz, and Albert E. Dien, eds. 2015. Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies.

Swartz, Wendy, Campany Robert Ford, Lu Yang, and Choo Jessey Jiun-Chyi, eds. Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.

Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual. 2017. (check the chapter "Wei Jin Nanbeichao")

Dien, Albert E., and Keith N. Knapp, eds. 2020. The Cambridge History of China: Volume 2, The Six Dynasties, 220-589. Cambridge Eng. ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Translations:

三國志

魏書

v.1 武帝紀 (曹操)
*cf de Crespigny, Rafe, trans. Imperial Warlord: A Biography of Cao Cao 155-220 AD.  Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2010.

v.5 后妃傳
Cutter, Robert Joe and William Crowell, trans. Empresses and consorts: selections from Chen Shou's Records of the Three States with Pei Songzhi's commentary. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999.

v.29 方伎傳
管輅、朱建平、周宣、華佗
DeWoskin, Kenneth J., trans. Doctors, Diviners, and Magicians of Ancient China: Biographies of Fang-shih. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

蜀書 

v.2 先主傳

by William Crowell

https://www.academia.edu/5318625/Sanguo_zhi_32_Shu_2_Biography_of_Liu_Bei?email_work_card=thumbnail

v.9 董和、劉巴、馬良、陳震、董允、呂乂
by William Crowell
https://www.academia.edu/5318635/Sanguo_zhi_39_Shu_9_Biographies_of_Dong_He_Liu_Ba_Ma_Liang_Chen_Zhen_Dong_Yun_and_L%C3%BC_Yi

v.34 二主妃子傳 
Cutter, Robert Joe and William Crowell, trans. Empresses and consorts: selections from Chen Shou's Records of the Three States with Pei Songzhi's commentary. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999.

v.42 譙周
Farmer, J. Michael. "Sanguo Zhi Fascicle 42: The Biography of Qiao Zhou." Early Medieval China, no. 23 (2017): 22-41.

吳書
v.46 孫堅
de Crespigny, Rafe, trans. The Biography of Sun Chien.  Canberra: Centre of Oriental Studies, Australian National University, 1966.

v.50 妃嬪傳

Cutter, Robert Joe and William Crowell, trans. Empresses and consorts: selections from Chen Shou's Records of the Three States with Pei Songzhi's commentary. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999.

* also cf Fang, Achilles, trans. The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms  (220–265): Chapters 69–78 from the Tzu chih t’ung chien of Ssu-ma Kuang  (1019–1086). 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952–1965.

晉書

晉書 v.1 司馬懿
Fairbank, Anthony Bruce. "Ssu-Ma I (179-251): Wei Statesman and Chin Founder: An Historiographical Inquiry." PhD diss., University of Washington, 1994. (Chapter 6)

晉書 v.11-13 天文志
Ho, Peng Yoke. The Astronomical Chapters of the Chin Shu, with Amendments, Full Translation, and Annotations.  Paris: Mouton, 1966.

晉書 v.26 食貨志
Yang, Liansheng. "Notes on the Economic History of the Chin Dynasty." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 9, no. 2 (1946): 107-85.

晉書 v.36 張華
Straughair, Anna. Chang Hua: A Statesman-Poet of the Western Chin Dynasty.  Canberra: Australian National University, Faculty of Asian Studies, 1973.

晉書 v.47 傅玄
Paper, Jordan D. The Fu-Tzu: A Post-Han Confucian Text.  Leiden; New York: E.J. Brill, 1987.

晉書 v.54 陸雲
Wu, Sujane. "The Biography of Lu Yun (262-303) in Jin Shu 54." Early Medieval China, no. 1 (2001): 1-38.

晉書 v.65 王導
cf Wells, Matthew V. "From Spirited Youth to Loyal Official: Life Writing and Didacticism in the Jin Shu Biography of Wang Dao." Early Medieval China 21 (2015): 3-20.

晉書 v.82
習鑿齒
Chittick, Andrew. "Pride of Place: The Advent of Local History in Early Medieval China.” PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1997. (pp.220-230)

晉書 v.92 
顧愷之
Chen, Shih-hsiang. Biography of Ku K'ai-Chih. (Chin Shu 92.21a-22a).  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961.

王沉
Declercq, Dominik. Writing against the State: Political Rhetorics in Third and Fourth Century China.  Leiden; Boston: Brill, 1998. (pp.152-158)

晉書 v.95 藝術
戴洋
DeWoskin, Kenneth J. Doctors, Diviners, and Magicians of Ancient China: Biographies of Fang-Shih.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

晉書 v.97 吐谷渾
Carroll, Thomas D. Account of the T'ù-Yü-Hún in the History of the Chïn Dynasty.  Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1953.

晉書 v.101 劉淵
Honey, David B. The Rise of the Medieval Hsiung-Nu: The Biography of Liu Yüan. Bloomington, Ind.: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1990.

晉書 v.113-114 苻堅
Rogers, Michael C. The rise of the Former Ch'in state and its spread under Fu Chien, through 370 A.D. based on Chin shu 113. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953.

Rogers, Michael C. The chronicle of Fu Chien: a case of exemplar history. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.

晉書 v.116 載記第十六　姚弋仲 姚襄 姚萇

Rachel Meakin, "The Founding of the Qiang state of Later Qin: an annotated translation of Jin Shu Chapter 116"

https://www.academia.edu/37725365/The_Founding_of_the_Qiang_state_of_Later_Qin_an_annotated_translation_of_Jin_Shu_Chapter_116

晉書 v.120-121 李特 李流 李雄 李班 李期 李壽 李勢
Kleeman, Terry F. Great Perfection: Religion and Ethnicity in a Chinese Millennial Kingdom.  Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 1998.

晉書 v.122 呂光
Mather, Richard B. Biography of Lü Kuang.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959.

宋書

宋書 v.51 宗室
劉義慶
Zhang, Zhenjun. "Observations on the Life and Works of Liu Yiqing". Early Medieval China. 2014 (20): 83-104.

宋書 v.59 張暢
Dien, Albert. "The Disputation at Pengcheng: Accounts from the Wei Shu and the Song Shu." In Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook, edited by Wendy Swartz, Campany Robert Ford, Lu Yang and Choo Jessey Jiun-Chyi, 32-59. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.

宋書 v.69 范曄
cf Eicher, Sebastian. "Fan Ye's Biography in the Song Shu: Form, Content, and Impact." Early Medieval China 22 (2016): 45-64.

宋書 v.91 孝義
郭世道; 郭原平
Knapp, Keith N. "Exemplary Everymen: Guo Shidao and Guo Yuanping as Confucian Commoners." Asia Major 23, no. 1 (2010): 87-125.

魏書

魏書 v.1 序記
Holmgren, Jennifer. Annals of Tai: Early T'o-pa History; an Annotated Translation of Chapter 1 of Wei Shu. Canberra: The Australian National University, 1982.

魏書 v.13 皇后列傳
 序 Preface
 Balkwill, Stephanie Lynn. "Empresses, Bhikṣuṇīs, and Women of Pure Faith: Buddhism and the Politics of Patronage in the Northern Wei." PhD diss., McMaster University, 2015. (pp.347-350)

 神元皇后竇氏-高宗乳母常氏
 Holmgren, Jennifer. 1979. "Women's biographies in the Wei-shu." Ph. D., Australian National Univeristy.

 文明太后
 Balkwill, Stephanie Lynn. "Empresses, Bhikṣuṇīs, and Women of Pure Faith: Buddhism and the Politics of Patronage in the Northern Wei." PhD diss., McMaster University, 2015. (pp.351-360)

 Holmgren, Jennifer. 1979. "Women's biographies in the Wei-shu." Ph. D., Australian National Univeristy. (304-311)

 文成元皇后李氏-宣武皇后高氏
 Holmgren, Jennifer. 1979. "Women's biographies in the Wei-shu." Ph. D., Australian National Univeristy. (311-329)

 靈太后
 Holmgren, Jennifer. "Empress Dowager Ling of the Northern Wei and the T'o-Pa Sinicization Question." Papers in Far Eastern History 18 (1978): 160–70.
 Holmgren, Jennifer. 1979. "Women's biographies in the Wei-shu." Ph. D., Australian National Univeristy. (329-339)

魏書 v.37 司馬楚之
Lim, Lucy. "The Northern Wei Tomb of Ssu-Ma Chin-Lung and Early Chinese Figure Painting." PhD diss., New York University, 1990. (pp.178-188)

魏書 v.53 李孝伯
Dien, Albert. "The Disputation at Pengcheng: Accounts from the Wei Shu and the Song Shu." In Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook, edited by Wendy Swartz, Campany Robert Ford, Lu Yang and Choo Jessey Jiun-Chyi, 32-59. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.

魏書 v.92 列女傳
cf Holmgren, Jennifer. 1979. "Women's Biographies in the Wei-shu: A Study of the Moral Attitudes and Social Background Found in Women's Biographies in the Dynastic History of the Northern Wei." Ph.D., DePaul University.

cf Holmgren, Jennifer. 1981. "Widow Chastity in the Northern Dynasties: The Lieh-nü Biographies in the Wei-shu." Papers on Far Eastern History 23:165–186.

魏書 v.105 天象志
cf Xu, Zhentao, David W. Pankenier, Yaotiao Jiang, and Institute Earth Space. East Asian Archaeoastronomy: Historical Records of Astronomical Observations of China, Japan and Korea.

魏書 v.111 食貨志
Blue, Rhea C. "The Argumentation of the Shih-Huo Chih: Chapters of the Han, Wei, and Sui Dynastic Histories." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 11, no. 1-2 (1948): 70-75.

魏書 v.114 釋老志
Hurvitz, Leon, trans. Treatise on Buddhism and Taoism, an English Translation of the Original Chinese Text of Wei-Shu Cxiv and the Japanese Annotation of Tsukamoto Zenryu. Kyoto: Jimbunkagaku kenkyujo, Kyoto University.

Ware, James R. "The Wei Shu and the Sui Shu on Taoism." Journal of the American Oriental Society 53, no. 3 (1933): 215-50.

北齊書

北齊書 v.37 魏收
Jamieson, John Charles. "The Biography of Wei Shou.” Mater’s thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1964.

北齊書 v.45 顏之推
Dien, Albert E. Pei Ch'ishu 45: Biography of Yen Chih-T'ui.  Bern: Herbert Lang, 1976.

周書

周書 v.11 宇文護
Dien, Albert E. Biography of Yu-wen Hu. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962.

周書 v.23 蘇綽
Goodrich, Chauncey Shafter. Biography of Su Ch'o.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961.

周書 v. 50 異域下
Miller, Roy Andrew. Accounts of Western Nations in the History of the Northern Chou Dynasty [Zhou Shu 50. 10b-17b] Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959.

突厥
Parker E.H. "The Early Turks (From the CHOU SHU)." The China Review. 1899. Vol. 24. No.3.

北史

北史 v.13 文明太后
Gibson, Wenley Archibald. "The Grand Empress Dowager Wen Ming and the Northern Wei Necropolis at Fang Shan." Freer Gallery of Art Occasional Papers 1, no. 1 (1947).

北史 v.99 
突厥
Parker E.H. "The Early Turks (From the PEI SHI and the SUI SHU).” The China Review. 1900. Vol. 24. No. 4.

Parker E.H. "The Early Turks - Part II (From the PEI SHI).” The China Review. 1900. Vol. 25. No. 1.

隋書

隋書 v.24 食貨志
Blue, Rhea C. "The Argumentation of the Shih-Huo Chih: Chapters of the Han, Wei, and Sui Dynastic Histories." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 11, no. 1-2 (1948): 76-89.

隋書 v.35 經籍志
道經
Ware, James R. "The Wei Shu and the Sui Shu on Taoism." Journal of the American Oriental Society 53, no. 3 (1933): 243-50.

隋書 v.58 魏澹
Dien, Albert E. "Wei Tan and the Historiography of the Wei Shu." In Studies in Early Medieval Chinese Literature and Cultural History: In Honor of Richard B. Mather and Donald Holzman. Provo, Utah: Tʻang Studies Society, 2003.

隋書 v.84 北狄
突厥
Parker E.H. "The Early Turks (From the PEI SHI and the SUI SHU).” The China Review. 1900. Vol. 24. No. 4.

Structures of the Earth: Metageographies of Early Medieval China

Author:
D. Jonathan Felt

Publication date:
January 2021

Publisher: 

Harvard University Asia Center

Abstract:

The traditional Chinese notion of itself as the “middle kingdom”—literally the cultural and political center of the world—remains vital to its own self-perceptions and became foundational to Western understandings of China. This worldview was primarily constructed during the earliest imperial unification of China during the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BCE–220 CE). But the fragmentation of empire and subsequent “Age of Disunion” (220–589 CE) that followed undermined imperial orthodoxies of unity, centrality, and universality. In response, geographical writing proliferated, exploring greater spatial complexities and alternative worldviews.

This book is the first study of the emergent genre of geographical writing and the metageographies that structured its spatial thought during that period. Early medieval geographies highlighted spatial units and structures that the Qin–Han empire had intentionally sought to obscure—including those of regional, natural, and foreign spaces. Instead, these postimperial metageographies reveal a polycentric China in a polycentric world. Sui–Tang (581–906 CE) officials reasserted the imperial model as spatial orthodoxy. But since that time these alternative frameworks have persisted in geographical thought, continuing to illuminate spatial complexities that have been incompatible with the imperial and nationalist ideal of a monolithic China at the center of the world.

Table of Contents:
Chronology of Sinitic Cores in the Early Medieval Period
Introduction
1 Geographical Writing
2 Region and Ecumene
3 North and South
4 Mountains and Rivers
5 East and West
Conclusion

(via Jon Felt)

Chan Before Chan: Meditation, Repentance, and Visionary Experience in Chinese Buddhism

Author:
Eric M. Greene

Publication date:
January 2021

Publisher: 

University of Hawaii Press

Abstract:
What is Buddhist meditation? What is going on—and what should be going on—behind the closed or lowered eyelids of the Buddha or Buddhist adept seated in meditation? And in what ways and to what ends have the answers to these questions mattered for Buddhists themselves? Focusing on early medieval China, this book takes up these questions through a cultural history of the earliest traditions of Buddhist meditation (chan), before the rise of the Chan (Zen) School in the eighth century. In sharp contrast to what would become typical in the later Chan School, early Chinese Buddhists approached the ancient Buddhist practice of meditation primarily as a way of gaining access to a world of enigmatic but potentially meaningful visionary experiences. In Chan Before Chan, Eric Greene brings this approach to meditation to life with a focus on how medieval Chinese Buddhists interpreted their own and others’ visionary experiences and the nature of the authority they ascribed to them.

Drawing from hagiography, ritual manuals, material culture, and the many hitherto rarely studied meditation manuals translated from Indic sources into Chinese or composed in China in the 400s, Greene argues that during this era meditation and the mastery of meditation came for the first time to occupy a real place in the Chinese Buddhist social world. Heirs to wider traditions that had been shared across India and Central Asia, early medieval Chinese Buddhists conceived of “chan” as something that would produce a special state of visionary sensitivity. The concrete visionary experiences that resulted from meditation were understood as things that could then be interpreted, by a qualified master, as indicative of the mediator’s purity or impurity. Buddhist meditation, though an elite discipline that only a small number of Chinese Buddhists themselves undertook, was thus in practice and in theory constitutively integrated into the cultic worlds of divination and “repentance” (chanhui 懺悔) that were so important within the medieval Chinese religious world as a whole.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1 Meditation Practice, Meditation Masters, and Meditation Texts

Chapter 2 Confirmatory Visions and the Semiotics of Meditative Experience 

Chapter 3 Visions of Karma

Chapter 4 Repentance

Chapter 5 From chan to Chan

Epilogue

(Thanks to Dr. Greene for this information)

Declarations of the Perfected Part Two: Instructions on Shaping Destiny

Author: 
Thomas E. Smith

Publisher: 

Three Pines Press

Publication date:
November 2020

Abstract:

Declarations of the Perfected is the first complete, annotated translation of Zhen’gao 真誥, Tao Hongjing’s (456-536) masterful compilation of the Shangqing or Higher Clarity revelations, setting the stage for the heyday of medieval Daoism. The present volume presents the Declarations’ second part (fasc. 5-8), which focuses on the various difficulties that Daoist practitioners are likely to encounter in a dangerous world, and how to overcome them. It begins with instructions of a more general nature, before moving on to problems faced specifically by Xu Mi 許謐 (303-376) and his family and fellow officials. This volume also sheds much light on the history of its time—the kinds of moral and philosophical issues that were being debated, as well political intrigues in the Eastern Jin court.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Translation
Preface by Tu Long
Fascicle Five

Fascicle Six
Fascicle Seven
Fascicle Eight
Past translations consulted 

The Secrets of Buddhist Meditation: Visionary Meditation Texts from Early Medieval China

Author:
Eric M. Greene

Publication date: 
January 2021

Publisher: 

Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press

Abstract:
In the early 400s, numerous Indian and Central Asian Buddhist “meditation masters” (chanshi) traveled to China, where they established the first enduring traditions of Buddhist meditation practice in East Asia. The forms of contemplative practice that these missionaries brought with them, and which their Chinese students further developed, remained for several centuries the basic understanding of “meditation” (chan) in China. Although modern scholars and readers have long been familiar with the approaches to meditation of the Chan (Zen) School that later became so popular throughout East Asia, these earlier and in some ways more pervasive forms of practice have long been overlooked or ignored. This volume presents a comprehensive study of the content and historical formation, as well as complete English translations, of two of the most influential manuals in which these approaches to Buddhist meditation are discussed: the Scripture on the Secret Essential Methods of Chan 禪祕要法經 (Chan Essentials) and the Secret Methods for Curing Chan Sickness 治禪病秘要法 (Methods for Curing).

Translated here into English for the first time, these documents reveal a distinctly visionary form of Buddhist meditation whose goal is the acquisition of concrete, symbolic visions attesting to the practitioner’s purity and progress toward liberation. Both texts are “apocryphal” scriptures: Taking the form of Indian Buddhist sutras translated into Chinese, they were in fact new compositions, written or at least assembled in China in the first half of the fifth century. Though written in China, their historical significance extends beyond the East Asian context as they are among the earliest written sources anywhere to record certain kinds of information about Buddhist meditation that hitherto had been the preserve of oral tradition and personal initiation. To this extent they indeed divulge, as their titles claim, the “secrets” of Buddhist meditation. Through them, we witness a culture of Buddhist meditation that has remained largely unknown but which for many centuries was widely shared across North India, Central Asia, and China.

Table of Contents:

Meditation and Meditation Literature in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism

Visionary Meditation

Buddhist Meditation according to the Chan Essentials and Methods for Curing

Ritual Repentance, Buddha Bodies, and Somatic Soteriology

Dao Companion to Xuanxue 玄學 (Neo-Daoism)

Editor: 

Chai, David 

Publisher: 

Springer

Publication date:

September 30, 2020

Abstract:

This comprehensive volume surveys an important but neglected period of Chinese intellectual history: Xuanxue (Neo-Daoism). It provides a holistic approach to the philosophical and religious traits of this movement via the concepts of non-being, being, and oneness. Thinkers and texts on the periphery of Xuanxue are also examined to show readers that Xuanxue did not arise in a vacuum but is the result of a long and continuous evolution of ideas from pre-Qin Daoism.

The 25 chapters of this work survey the major philosophical figures and arguments of Xuanxue, a movement from the Wei-Jin dynastic period (220-420 CE) of early-medieval China. It also examines texts and figures from the late-Han dynasty whose influence on Xuanxue has yet to be made explicitly clear. In order to fully capture the multifaceted nature of this movement, the contributors brilliantly highlight its more socially-oriented characteristics. 

Overall, this volume presents an unrivaled picture of this exciting period. It details a portrait of intellectual and cultural vitality that rivals, if not surpasses, what was achieved during the Warring States period. Readers of the Yijing, Daodejing, and Zhuangzi will feel right at home with the themes and arguments presented herein, while students and those coming to Xuanxue for the first time will acquire a wealth of knowledge.     

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Chai, David

Xuanxue’s Contributions to Chinese Philosophy
Sellmann, James D.

The Metaphysical Style and Structural Coherence of Names in Xuanxue
Rošker, Jana S.

Oneness in the Taipingjing
Hendrischke, Barbara

Yin and Yang in the Taipingjing
Hendrischke, Barbara

Dao and Ziran in Heshanggong’s Commentary on the Daodejing
Tadd, Misha

The Walking Dead: Morality, Health, and Longevity in the Xuanxue Method of the Xiang’er Commentary on the Laozi
Littlejohn, Ronnie

Wang Chong’s View of Ziran and its Influence on Wang Bi and Guo Xiang
McLeod, Alexus

He Yan’s “Essay on Dao” and “Essay on the Nameless”
D’Ambrosio, Paul

He Yan’s Collected Explanations on the Analects
Lo, Yuet Keung

Ruan Ji’s “On Comprehending the Zhuangzi”
Chai, David

Ji Kang’s “On Dispelling Self-Interest”
Chai, David

The Aesthetics of Musical Emotion in Ji Kang’s “Music has in It Neither Grief nor Joy”
Park, So Jeong

The Ontology of Change: Wang Bi’s Interpretation of the Yijing
Hon, Tze Ki

Language and Nothingness in Wang Bi
Nelson, Eric S.

Metaphysics without Ontology: Wang Bi and the Daodejing
Fox, Alan

Re-envisioning the Profound Order of Dao: Pei Wei’s “Critical Discussion on the Pride of Place of Being”
Chan, Alan K. L.

Metaphysics and Agency in Guo Xiang’s Commentary on the Zhuangzi
Fraser, Chris

Lone-Transformation and Intergrowth: Philosophy and Self-Justification in Guo Xiang’s Commentary on the Zhuangzi
Lo, Yuet Keung

Guo Xiang’s Theory of Sagely Knowledge as Seen in his “Essentials of the Analects”
Lynn, Richard J.

Ge Hong and the Darkness
Raz, Gil

Seeking Immortality in Ge Hong’s Baopuzi Neipian
Pregadio, Fabrizio

Ge Hong’s Evolving Discourse on You and Wu and its Roots in the Daodejing
Michael, Thomas

The Xuanxue Lifestyle: Self-Cultivation and Qi Practices
Kohn, Livia

Zhi Dun on Freedom: Synthesizing Daoism and Buddhism
Zhang, Ellen Y.