Early China 44 (2022) 《古代中國》第44輯

Table of Contents:

Letter from the Editor
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Sarah Allan 

Festschrift in Honor of Michael Loewe on his 100th Birthday
MICHAEL LOEWE, A MODEL FOR THE AGES
Michael Nylan, Trenton Wilson 

BAN GU'S VIEW ON THE “SECOND VICTORY” OF “CONFUCIANISM” AND THE FALL OF THE FORMER HAN
Hans van Ess 

WANG MANG 王莽 (c. 45 b.c.e.–23 c.e.) AND CLASSICAL LEARNING AS PATH TO SUPREME POWER
Béatrice L'Haridon 

OPPOSITION TO BUDDHISM AND THE HAN LEGACY
T. H. Barrett 

DU FU 杜甫 ON THE HAN DYNASTY: A MEDIEVAL VIEW OF THE CLASSICAL CHINESE EMPIRE
David McMullen 

NOTES ON THE “NOTE” (JI 記) IN EARLY ADMINISTRATIVE TEXTS
Luke Habberstad 

RETHINKING THE ANCESTRAL SHRINES IN THE EARLY EMPIRES
Tian Tian, Zhou Wen 

WESTERN HAN NOBLE BURIALS: A VIEW FROM ZHANG ANSHI'S 張安世 TOMB
He Ruyue, Song Yuanru, Michael Nylan 

CAI YONG'S 蔡邕 READING OF THE ODES, AS SEEN FROM HIS QINCAO 琴操 AND HIS “QINGYI FU” 青衣賦
Dorothee Schaab-Hanke 

HOW DO EXCAVATED MANUSCRIPTS AND TRANSMITTED CANONS AND COMMENTARIES SHED LIGHT ON EACH OTHER? AN OUTLOOK FROM MATHEMATICS
Karine Chemla 

THE WAY TO THE WHITE TIGER HALL CONFERENCE: EVIDENCE GLEANED FROM THE FORMATION PROCESS OF THE BAIHU TONG
Shi Jian 

THE HAIHUNHOU CAPSULE BIOGRAPHIES OF KONGZI AND HIS DISCIPLES
Mark Csikszentmihalyi 

Research article
DIDACTIC NARRATIVE AND THE ART OF SELF-STRENGTHENING: READING THE BAMBOO MANUSCRIPT YUE GONG QI SHI 越公其事
Yuri Pines 

RE-MAKING ANIMAL BODIES IN THE ARTS OF EARLY CHINA AND NORTH ASIA: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE STEPPE
Petya Andreeva 

WHO SAID THERE WAS A CLASSIC OF MUSIC?
Luke Waring 

THE SOUNDSCAPE OF THE HUAINANZI 淮南子: POETRY, PERFORMANCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND PRAXIS IN EARLY CHINA
Peter Tsung Kei Wong 

Dissertation Abstracts
DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS
Wen-Yi Huang 

Annual Bibliography
ANNUAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wen-Yi Huang 

目錄：

主編的信 艾蘭

魯惟一：世代之楷模
戴梅可、魏德偉 Michael Nylan and Trenton Wilson

班固關於儒教勝利的觀點與前漢的垮台
葉翰 Hans van Ess

王莽經學與奪權之道
羅逸東 Béatrice L’Haridon

反對佛教的史料與漢代的遺産
巴瑞特 T. H. BarreĴ

杜甫的漢代：一個關於中國古代帝國的中古觀點？
麥大維 David McMullen

戰國秦漢時期行政文獻中的「記」
何祿凱 Luke Habberstad

再思早期帝制中國的宗廟
田天

從張安世墓看西漢列侯喪葬制度及陪陵問題
何如月

蔡邕讀《詩經》：以《琴操》和《青衣賦》為視角的審讀
沙敦如 Dorothee Schaab-Hanke

從數學的角度試論出土文獻和經典與其一起流傳下來的注
和注釋如何相互闡明
林力娜 Karine Chemla

走近白虎觀會議：基於《白虎通》生成過程的考察
石瑊

海昏侯墓出土的孔子及其弟子傳記性文字
齊思敏 Mark Csikszentmihalyi

教訓類敘事和自强之術：清華簡《越公其事》思想特徵及其在中國古代史學史上的地位
尤銳 Yuri Pines

中國和北亞古代的動物現象改造：草原視角
安陪雅 Petya Andreeva

誰說先秦有《樂經》？
康路華 Luke Waring

《淮南子》的文本聲景：早期中國的詩歌、表演、哲學與實踐
王棕琦 Peter Tsung Kei Wong

年度論著目錄
黃文儀彙編 Wen-Yi Huang, comp.

博士論文提要
黃文儀彙編 Wen-Yi Huang, comp.

Preparing one’s act: performance supports and the question of human nature in early China

Author:

Maddalena Poli

School:

University of Pennsylvania

Year:

2022

Abstract:

Since the 20th century, Chinese institutions have been recovering a growing number of ancient objects, among which figure manuscripts produced during the Warring States (453–221 BCE) era. These are the protagonists of this dissertation. Chapter one articulates the overarching goal of my study: the importance of rigorous philological and intellectual engagement to promote the significance of these manuscripts in and beyond the study of early Chinese history. In Chapter two, I analyze manuscripts produced around 300 BCE as what I call “performance supports,” rather than self-contained philosophical and historical essays. My notion of “performance supports” incorporates observations about the composite nature of early Chinese manuscripts, but better accounts for other textual features, such as errors, abrupt endings, list-like passages, etc. Chapter three discusses the implications of my argument. I show how performance supports were used in practices of knowledge management that relied on, but went beyond, the written medium. I explore oratory, recitation, literary compositions, and writings used to organize and retrieve knowledge. I then compare performance supports to other Warring States texts, so as to highlight the peculiarities of both groups and confirm that the concept of performance support is not an ad-hoc solution. Chapter four focuses on the performance support *Natural Dispositions Come from Endowment 性自命出, and reconstructs ways in which this manuscript functioned as the basis for central philosophical debates on “human nature” (xing 性) during the Warring States period. The dissertation is completed by a new philological study of *Natural Dispositions.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE. Setting The Stage

CHAPTER TWO. Ancient Chinese Manuscripts As Performance Supports

CHAPTER THREE. The Performance. How performance supports were used, and by whom

CHAPTER FOUR. The Warring States debate on human nature

Concluding remarks

The Sōushén hòujì 搜神後記：Latter Notes On Collected Spirit Phenomena Attributed to Táo Yuānmíng (365-427)

Author:
Tao Qian

Translator:
Richard VanNess Simmons

Publisher:

American Oriental Society, New Haven

Publication Year:

2022

Abstract:
The Sōushén hòujì 搜神後記 (Latter Notes on Collected Spirit Phenomena), attributed to the celebrated poet Táo Qián 陶潛 (365-427), is a compilation of anecdotes and stories known as zhìguài 志怪 ('records of the anomalous') that document strange and unusual phenomena the author observed in his lifetime. Intended to serve as a sequel to Gān Bǎo's 干寳 (d. 336) Sōushénjì 搜神記 (Collected Spirit Phenomena), the original text was lost but was reconstructed in the late Míng dynasty. This volume presents an annotated translation of the entire Míng version of the Sōushén hòujì as well as of an additional set of surviving stories that were identified and restored to the text by the modern scholar Lǐ Jiànguó 李劍國. The book also includes a history of the Sōushén hòujì text, an examination of its linguistic style and characteristics, a discussion of the historical nature of its contents and how it fits into the zhìguài genre, providing a window onto medieval Chinese society and culture, and a brief overview of recent zhìguài scholarship to guide readers who hope to continue their exploration of the genre. 

A History of Civil Law in Early China: Cases, Statutes, Concepts and Beyond A History of Civil Law in Early China

Author: 

Zhaoyang Zhang

Publisher: 

Brill

Publication year: 

2022

Abstract:

How did people solve their disputes over debt, compensation, inheritance and other civil matters in early China? Did they go to court? How did the authorities view those problems? Using recently excavated early Chinese legal materials, Zhang Zhaoyang makes the compelling argument that civil law was not only developed, but also acquired a certain degree of sophistication during the Qin and Han dynasties. The state promulgated detailed regulations to deal with economic and personal relationships between individuals. The authorities formed an integral part of the formal justice system, and heard civil cases on a regular basis.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Early cases concerning "civil" matters
The differences between Yu and Song
Early civil statutes
A detailed study on three civil sases
Fundamental concepts : Zhi, Mingfen and Min-si
Beyond civil laws
Conclusion: the Civil Law of Early China.

Inscribing death : burials, representations, and remembrance in Tang China

Author: Jessey J C Choo

Publisher: University of Hawaiʻi Press

Publication date: July 2022

Abstract:

This nuanced study traces how Chinese came to view death as an opportunity to fashion and convey social identities and memories during the medieval period (200–1000) and the Tang dynasty (618–907), specifically. As Chinese society became increasingly multicultural and multireligious, to achieve these aims people selectively adopted, portrayed, and interpreted various acts of remembrance. Included in these were new and evolving burial, mourning, and commemorative practices: joint-burials of spouses, extended family members, and coreligionists; relocation and reburial of bodies; posthumous marriage and divorce; interment of a summoned soul in the absence of a body; and many changes to the classical mourning and commemorative rites that became the norm during the period. Individuals independently constructed the socio-religious meanings of a particular death and the handling of corpses by engaging in and reviewing acts of remembrance.

Drawing on a variety of sources, including hundreds of newly excavated entombed epitaph inscriptions, Inscribing Death illuminates the process through which the living—and the dead—negotiated this multiplicity of meanings and how they shaped their memories and identities both as individuals and as part of collectives. In particular, it details the growing emphasis on remembrance as an expression of filial piety and the grave as a focal point of ancestral sacrifice. The work also identifies different modes of construction and representation of the self in life and death, deepening our understanding of ancestral worship and its changing modus operandi and continuous shaping influence on the most intimate human relationships—thus challenging the current monolithic representation of ancestral worship as an extension of families rather than individuals in medieval China.

Table of Contents:
The Rise and Normalization of Familial Joint-Burial
Spousal Joint- and Disjoint-Burials
Burial Divinations
The Hun-Summoning Burial
The Speakers for the Dead

Anecdote, Network, Gossip, Performance: Essays on the Shishuo xinyu

Author:
Jack W. Chen

Publication date:
March 2021

Publisher:

Harvard Asia Center

Abstract:

Anecdote, Network, Gossip, Performance is a study of the Shishuo xinyu, the most important anecdotal collection of medieval China—and arguably of the entire traditional era. In a set of interconnected essays, Jack W. Chen offers new readings of the Shishuo xinyu that draw upon social network analysis, performance studies, theories of ritual and mourning, and concepts of gossip and reputation to illuminate how the anecdotes of the collection imagine and represent a political and cultural elite. Whereas most accounts of the Shishuo have taken a historical approach, Chen argues that the work should be understood in literary terms.

At its center, Anecdote, Network, Gossip, Performance is an extended meditation on the very nature of the anecdote form, both what the anecdote affords in terms of representing a social community and how it provides a space for the rehearsal of certain longstanding philosophical and cultural arguments. Although each of the chapters may be read separately as an essay in its own right, when taken together, they present a comprehensive account of the Shishuo in all of its literary complexity.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

The Title of the Text

The Structure and Composition of the Text

Anecdote and History

Individualism and Typology

The Shishuo and “Pure Conversation”

Overview of Chapters

1. A Textual History of the Shishuo xinyu

The Shi Jingyin and Liu Xiaobiao Commentaries

Liu Yiqing’s Biography

The Shishuo in the Bibliographic Treatises of the Official Histories

The Shishuo in the Tang Dynasty

The Shishuo in Song Dynasty Encyclopedias and Bibliographic Writings

Wang Zao 汪藻 (1079–1154) on the Shishuo

The Dong Fen, Lu You, and Yuan Jiong Editions

Modern Editions of the Shishuo

Conclusion: On Medieval Textuality

2. On Social Networks

The Shishuo as Network

Six Degrees of Separation, or a Walk through the Network

First Degree: Xu Zhi and Chen Fan

Second Degree: Chen Fan and Li Ying

Third Degree: Cai Yong, Sun Chuo, and Wang Xizhi

Fourth Degree: Wang Xizhi and Xie An

Fifth Degree: Xie An, Wang Xianzhi, Liu Jin, and Huan Xuan

Sixth Degree: Huan Xuan, Huan Xiu, and Madame Yu

Conclusion: Network and Anecdote

3. On Gossip and Reputation

Defining Gossip and Reputation

Gossip and Anecdote: Four Stories about Hua Xin

Knowing Others and Being Known: Chu Pou’s Silence

The Mingshi or “Gentlemen of Repute”

Conclusion: The Anxiety of the Second-Rate

4. On Praise and Insult

On Praise and Appraisal

The Politics of Praise

Virtuosity, Aptness, and Inadequacy

Theories of Insult

Taking Liberties with Pronouns

Three Stories about Sun Chuo

Unintended Offense

Conclusion: The Economy of Reputation

5. On Competition and Composure

Three Stories about Zhong Hui

Conversation as Social Competition

The Aesthetics of Composure

Xie An: Calling Back the Recluse

Xie An Keeps His Cool

Conclusion: Wang Dun Goes to the Bathroom

6. On Ritual and Mourning

Mourning and Sincerity in the Li ji

The Sincerity of Mourning

Friendship and Mourning

A Coda

Conclusion: The View from across the River

[Dissertation] Cosmology, Fashion, and Good Fortune: Chinese Auspicious Ornament in the Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 220)

Author:
Wang, Shengyu

School:
University of Oxford

Year: 

2020

Abstract: 
This thesis studies 'auspicious ornament' in the tombs of Han dynasty China. It offers a new reading of highly decorated tombs found near the two imperial capital cities, Chang'an (Western Han) and Luoyang (Eastern Han), and the elite tombs in central and eastern China. The thesis argues that a system of varied decorations, motifs, and materials developed in the Han dynasty as a means to convey good wishes and engender favourable outcomes, such as protection and well-being in the afterlife, immortality, and blessings for offspring. It interprets the significance, functions, relevant historical perspectives, and symbolic associations of ornament in China through an account of ornamentation on murals, carvings, jade, and gold objects in tombs, which are contextualised within the cosmological and philosophical background of the Han period. The transition to using more auspicious ornament in the Han period was related to the formation of correlative cosmology around the third century BC and Confucian rationalisation in the Western Han court, as well as other factors, including increasing concerns about an ideal afterlife. This is demonstrated through a critical analysis of pre-Han and Han dynasty historical sources to highlight the ideological development, and a contextual archaeological approach to the development of burial forms, materials and structures. On this basis, the three main analytical chapters discuss ornament on murals, carvings, jade, and gold objects in Han tombs, all of which exhibit changes in their motifs and uses. The discussion compares relevant pre-Han discoveries to establish these changes and to reveal the potential origins of the auspicious ornament. The analysis also incorporates local and foreign traits in the material assemblage suggested to have been adapted by Han dynasty people as popular practices through communications both within the Empire and its border regions populated by outsiders. In addition, this thesis presents a theoretical interpretation of the material agency of objects to understand how ornament acted upon people, i.e. bringing auspiciousness. Overall, the thesis explores the Han repertoire of ornamental motifs which may have provided the basis for the development of the prominent concept of auspiciousness throughout Chinese art and culture.

[Dissertation] When the South Matters: Imagination of Chu and Canonization of Chuci (Verses of Chu)

Author:
Fu, Su 付蘇

Issue Date:
2019

School:
Princeton University

Abstract:

This dissertation investigates the construction of Chuci (a collection of poems purportedly written by the legendary figure Qu Yuan and his followers) as a southern anthology and literary tradition from Han (202 BCE- 220 CE) to Song (960-1279). It demonstrates that, rather than inherent in the text per se, the traits conventionally recognized as marks of the anthology’s southernness were cultural and political constructs with an agenda to articulate a southern identity for both state and literati. To that end, the dissertations examines the anthologizing practices, together with a close reading of commentaries, prefaces, letters, and imitations. The dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter One examines the Han compilation and valorization of Chuci in relation with Qu Yuan’s Chu identity. The trajectory of conception of Chuci through Six Dynasties (222-589) and Tang (618-907) are arranged thematically in three chapters. Each chapter probes one of the literary images of Chu—a symbol for displacement, a culture of lewd rites, and a fallen state—and its impact on the Chuci exegesis and assessment. The entire narrative ends in Chapter Five at the Song when previous proliferation of meaning and debates on the anthology’s value were transformed into a new country-wide recognition of its canonical status, with Southern Song literati identification of Chu as a tragic predecessor. In particular, by defining Chuci as a style exclusively bound to the southland, Southern Song literati claimed their exclusive ownership of the cultural heritage of the anthology and further implicitly claimed for the Song court’s cultural authority in the face of military threat from the northern nomads.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter One. Rise of Chu Anthology and Paragon in the Han Empire
Chapter Two. The Chu Sojourner and Chuci as a Voice of Plaint
Chapter Three. Elixir and Lust: Chuci as A Language of Desire
Chapter Four. A Perished State and A “Southern” Literary Style
Chapter Five. The Song Reappraisal and Regionalization: Chuci as a Heritage of the South

[Dissertation] The First Imperial Transition in China: A Microhistory of Jiangling (369 – 119 BCE)

Author:
Shen, Dewei

School:
Yale University 

Year:
2021. 

Abstract:

This dissertation challenges the dominant historical narrative about the rise of early Chinese empires, the Qin (221 – 206 BCE) and the Han (202 – 220 BCE), which tends to fixate on the grand strategy and military power of the conquerors while neglecting the agency of the conquered populations. To counteract this one-sided narrative, I investigate the area of Jiangling 江陵 in the middle Yangzi River region, where the capital of Chu 楚—then the most powerful state in South China—was located. Qin’s invasion of the Chu capital area in 278 BCE and Han’s takeover of it in 202 BCE make Jiangling an ideal case study for tracing how a former regional center responded to the rising imperial order from the mid-fourth through the second century BCE. Drawing on a wealth of new archaeological and manuscript evidence, this dissertation is among the first within early China studies to offer a locality-centered microhistory.

Chapter 1 analyzes the anatomy of this narrative, which I call the Great Unification—or dayitong 大一統—narrative. Chapter 2 examines settlement and architectural remains from Jinancheng 紀南城 and Yingcheng 郢城 to expose the reality of the Qin conquest. The available evidence suggests that the Qin invaders did not destroy indiscriminately but exercised violence strategically and relied on local know-how to fortify their colonial headquarters. Chapter 3 explores the changing mortuary landscape in Jiangling and the funeral workmen communities in particular. It argues that social change in postconquest Jiangling was the result of a series of negotiations between the native communities and the colonial governments, negotiations that were as constrained by local conditions as they were by imperial directives. Chapter 4 devises a funeral organizers-centered perspective to trace cultural shifts in Jiangling. Through a statistical analysis of the burial objects arranged by funeral organizers and their changing mortuary representations in tombs, the chapter reveals that cultural perceptions related to food and drink, personal property, and government service were deeply affected by the intrusion of Qin and Han modes of social organization. Chapter 5 scales up to a more macro level to analyze the institutional development of three rank systems, i.e., Qin, Neo-Chu, and Han. It discovers an important phenomenon called “rank inflation” and argues that the different ways of controlling rank inflation had a profound effect on Jiangling denizens. Chapter 6 utilizes a group of mortuary documents called gaodice 告地策 (“notifications to underworld authorities”) to focus on the lived experience of three widows of top rank-holders in Jianging, whose tombs were interred with such documents. The chapter reveals the tensions within newly emergent and liminal rank-related identities in the wake of the Han imperial incursion in Jiangling. In a brief conclusion, the dissertation offers some reflections on how to write the first imperial transition free from the Great Unification mantra.

The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road

Author:
Lewis R. Lancaster  

Publisher:

Foguang 佛光  

Publication date:
2022/06/03

Abstract:
The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road recounts the magnificent history of the world of Maritime Buddhism from a diverse range of aspects—the various Buddhist traditions, pilgrims and monks, causes and conditions, norms and rituals, cross-cultural relations between East and West, as well as the intricacies of navigation technology, and migrations of the Austronesian peoples—all remarkable and crucial elements of the transmission of Buddhism brought to new heights of importance.
 

In this book, Dr. Lewis R. Lancaster innovatively shifts the focus to documenting the dynamic networks and systems of interchange in Eurasia, instead of the common approach of historical, event-structured analysis. The fascinating history of the spread of Buddhism begins in the early years of the Common Era, when animal caravans began treading across the inland routes between India and China, evolving as sea routes flourished over centuries. It emerges that Buddhism flowed and thrived along with the beating pulse of the trading networks. The northern overland and southern maritime trading routes converged, conjuring forth an iconic cycle described by Lancaster as “The Great Circle of Buddhism.”

Table of Contents:
• Introduction
• Origin and Spread of Buddhism
• The Great Circle of Buddhism and Its Rim
• Buddhism along the Sea Routes
• Conclusion

The Buddha’s Footprint: An environmental history of Asia

Author:
Johan Elverskog

Publication year:
2020

Publisher:
University of Pennsylvania Press

Abstract:
In the current popular imagination, Buddhism is often understood to be a religion intrinsically concerned with the environment. The Dharma, the name given to Buddhist teachings by Buddhists, states that all things are interconnected. Therefore, Buddhists are perceived as extending compassion beyond people and animals to include plants and the earth itself out of a concern for the total living environment. In The Buddha's Footprint, Johan Elverskog contends that only by jettisoning this contemporary image of Buddhism as a purely ascetic and apolitical tradition of contemplation can we see the true nature of the Dharma. According to Elverskog, Buddhism is, in fact, an expansive religious and political system premised on generating wealth through the exploitation of natural resources.

Elverskog surveys the expansion of Buddhism across Asia in the period between 500 BCE and 1500 CE, when Buddhist institutions were built from Iran and Azerbaijan in the west, to Kazakhstan and Siberia in the north, Japan in the east, and Sri Lanka and Indonesia in the south. He examines the prosperity theology at the heart of the Dharma that declared riches to be a sign of good karma and the means by which spritiual status could be elevated through donations bequeathed to Buddhist institutions. He demonstrates how this scriptural tradition propelled Buddhists to seek wealth and power across Asia and to exploit both the people and the environment.

Elverskog shows the ways in which Buddhist expansion not only entailed the displacement of local gods and myths with those of the Dharma—as was the case with Christianity and Islam—but also involved fundamentally transforming earlier social and political structures and networks of economic exchange. The Buddha's Footprint argues that the institutionalization of the Dharma was intimately connected to agricultural expansion, resource extraction, deforestation, urbanization, and the monumentalization of Buddhism itself.

Table of Contents:
Preface
Introduction
Part I. What the Buddha Taught
1. The Buddha
2. Buddhism(s)
3. Buddhists
4. Wealth
5. Consumption
Part II. What Buddhists Did
6. The Spread of Buddhism
7. The Commodity Frontier
8. Agricultural Expansion
9. Urbanization
10. The Buddhist Landscape
Conclusion

[Dissertation] Tang Taizong's Playbook: Jin Shu and How to Use Standard Histories

Author:
Kobzeva, Maria. 

School:
The University of Wisconsin - Madison 

Year:

2019

Abstract:

The dissertation explores what the content and structure of the Jin shu 晉書 (History of Western and Eastern Jin Dynasties, 265–420) compilation revealed about political choices and self-representation of Tang Taizong (r. 626–649), the second emperor of the Tang dynasty (618–907). Emperor Taizong, himself of non-Chinese origins, was concerned with the question of legitimacy and future of his rule. By scrutinizing and closely interacting with the textual tradition, Taizong had sought to justify his right to rule and project an idealized image of himself as a righteous ruler. He standardized the methodical history writing and initiated a massive compilation project of the earlier dynastic histories. For one of them, the Jin shu, he personally wrote critical evaluations in the end of several chapters. Imperial participation in a scholarly compilation implied the importance and specific purpose attached to the work and the role of historiography in the political establishment.

The newly-established regimes, Jin and Tang, shared a number of similarities: a violent power takeover, unification of the empire, difficulties with the neighboring non-Han population, and problematic choice of an heir. The Jin shu provided the emperor with an advantageous, comparative framework between the two regimes in dealing with identical sensitive issues; where the mistakes of the Jin government led to its fall, Taizong’s decisions, albeit problematic, resulted in a peaceful reign. The Jin shu narrative of imperial failure corroborated the Tang emperor’s self-attribution as a perfect ruler who chose the right course of action for the sake of the country’s stability. The dissertation discusses how the similarities reflected main issues of concern of a newly founded Tang dynasty and revealed inconsistencies in Tang’s rhetoric of rationalization that challenged the uniformity of a purported portrait of Taizong and his reign. I argue that Tang Taizong’s continuous efforts to represent the idealized picture of his own rule and defend his choices essentially reflected his insecurities about his political legitimacy and self-identity.

Garden of Eloquence / Shuoyuan 說苑

Author:

Liu Xiang

Translator:

Eric Henry

Publication date:

January 2022

Publisher:

University of Washington Press

Abstract:

In 17 BCE the Han dynasty archivist Liu Xiang presented to the throne a collection of some seven hundred items of varying length, mostly quasi-historical anecdotes and narratives, that he deemed essential reading for wise leadership. Garden of Eloquence (Shuoyuan), divided into twenty books grouped by theme, follows a tradition of narrative writing on historical and philosophical themes that began seven centuries earlier. Long popular in China as a source of allusions and quotations, it preserves late Western Han views concerning history, politics, and ethics. Many of its anecdotes are attributed to Confucius’s speeches and teachings that do not appear in earlier texts, demonstrating that long after Confucius’s death in 479 BCE it was still possible for new “historical” narratives to be created.
Garden of Eloquence is valuable as a repository of items that originally appeared in other early collections that are no longer extant, and it provides detail on topics as various as astronomy and astrology, yin-yang theory, and quasi-geographical and mystical categories. Eric Henry’s unabridged translation with facing Chinese text and extensive annotation will make this important primary source available for the first time to Anglophone world historians.

In the Forest of the Blind： The Eurasian Journey of Faxian's Record of Buddhist Kingdoms

Author:

Matthew W. King

Publisher:

Columbia University Press

Publication date:

March 2022

Abstract:

The Record of Buddhist Kingdoms is a classic travelogue that records the Chinese monk Faxian’s journey in the early fifth century CE to Buddhist sites in Central and South Asia in search of sacred texts. In the nineteenth century, it traveled west to France, becoming in translation the first scholarly book about “Buddhist Asia,” a recent invention of Europe. This text fascinated European academic Orientalists and was avidly studied by Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. The book went on to make a return journey east: it was reintroduced to Inner Asia in an 1850s translation into Mongolian, after which it was rendered into Tibetan in 1917. Amid decades of upheaval, the text was read and reinterpreted by Siberian, Mongolian, and Tibetan scholars and Buddhist monks.

Matthew W. King offers a groundbreaking account of the transnational literary, social, and political history of the circulation, translation, and interpretation of Faxian’s Record. He reads its many journeys at multiple levels, contrasting the textual and interpretative traditions of the European academy and the Inner Asian monastery. King shows how the text provided Inner Asian readers with new historical resources to make sense of their histories as well as their own times, in the process developing an Asian historiography independently of Western influence. Reconstructing this circulatory history and featuring annotated translations, In the Forest of the Blind models decolonizing methods and approaches for Buddhist studies and Asian humanities.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. Chang’an to India

2. Beijing to Paris

3. Buddhist Asia to Jambudvīpa

4. Jambudvīpa to Science

5. Science to History of the Dharma

Conclusion

Appendix. The Inner Asian Record

Designing Boundaries in Early China: The Composition of Sovereign Space

Author:

Garret Pagenstecher Olberding

Publisher: 

Cambridge University Press

Publication date: 

November 2021

Abstract:

Ancient Chinese walls, such as the Great Wall of China, were not sovereign border lines. Instead, sovereign space was zonally exerted with monarchical powers expressed gradually over an area, based on possibilities for administrative action. The dynamically shifting, ritualized articulation of early Chinese sovereignty affects the interpretation of the spatial application of state force, including its cartographic representations. In Designing Boundaries in Early China, Garret Pagenstecher Olberding draws on a wide array of source materials concerning the territorialization of space to make a compelling case for how sovereign spaces were defined and regulated in this part of the ancient world. By considering the ways sovereignty extended itself across vast expanses in early China, Olberding informs our understanding of the ancient world and the nature of modern nation-states.

Table of Contents:

I. Preamble
II. The basis of ancient borders
III. The visual modeling of space in text and map
IV. Movement and geography
V. The perception of the "state": the internal definition of sovereign space
VI. The perception of the "enemy": the external definition of sovereign space
VII. Transgressions: rupturing the boundaries between sovereignties
VIII. Conclusion

[Open Access] Documentation and Argument in Early China：The Shàngshū 尚書 (Venerated Documents) and the Shū Traditions

Author:

Dirk Meyer

Publisher:

De Gruyter Mouton

Publication date:

July 5, 2021

Abstract:

This study uncovers the traditions behind the formative Classic Shàngshū (Venerated Documents). It is the first to establish these traditions—“Shū” (Documents)—as a historically evolving practice of thought-production. By focusing on the literary form of the argument, it interprets the “Shū” as fluid text material that embodies the ever-changing cultural capital of projected conceptual communities. By showing how these communities actualised the “Shū” according to their changing visions of history and evolving group interests, the study establishes that by the Warring States period (ca. 453–221 BC) the “Shū” had become a literary genre employed by diverse groups to legitimize their own arguments. Through forms of textual performance, the “Shū” gave even peripheral communities the means to participate in political discourse by conferring their ideas with ancient authority. Analysing this dynamic environment of socio-political and philosophical change, this study speaks to the Early China field, as well as to those interested in meaning production and foundational text formation more widely.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1 Shū traditions and philosophical discourse

2 Archiving cultural capital

3 The materiality of meaning networks

4 Moulds of discourse

5 Shū traditions in narrative

6 Shū genre in manuscript cultures

7 Conclusion: the Shū and political argument in early China

*Link: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110708530/html

The King's Harvest: A Political Ecology of China from the First Farmers to the First Empire

Author:

Brian Lander

Publisher:

Yale University Press

Publication date:

November 30, 2021

Abstract:

This book is a multidisciplinary study of the ecology of China’s early political systems up to the fall of the first empire in 207 BCE. Brian Lander traces the formation of lowland North China’s agricultural systems and the transformation of its plains from diverse forestland and steppes to farmland. He argues that the growth of states in ancient China, and elsewhere, was based on their ability to exploit the labor and resources of those who harnessed photosynthetic energy from domesticated plants and animals. Focusing on the state of Qin, Lander amalgamates abundant new scientific, archaeological, and excavated documentary sources to argue that the human domination of the central Yellow River region, and the rest of the planet, was made possible by the development of complex political structures that managed and expanded agroecosystems.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. The Nature of Political Power

2. Seeds of Life: How People Came to Build Their Own Ecosystems

3. Herding People: The Rise of Political Organizations in China

4. The Power in the West: A History of the State of Qin

5. Watching Over the Granaries: The Ecology of the Qin Empire

6. A Hundred Generations: How China's Empires Shaped Their Environments

Epilogue: States of the Anthropocene

Violence and the Rise of Centralized States in East Asia

Author: 

Mark Edward Lewis

Date Published: 

March 2022

Publisher: 

Cambridge University Press

Abstract:
Violence, both physical and nonphysical, is central to any society, but it is a version of the problem that it claims to solve. This Element examines how states in ancient East Asia, from the late Shang through the end of the Han dynasty, wielded violence to create and display authority, and also how their licit violence was entangled in the 'savage' or 'criminal' violence whose suppression justified their power. The East Asian cases are supplemented through citing comparable Western ones. The themes examined include the emergence of the warrior as a human type, the overlap of hunts and combat (and the overlap between treatments of alien species and alien peoples), sacrifice of both alien captives and 'death attendants' from one's own groups, the impact of military specialization and the increased scale of armies, the emergent ideal of self-sacrifice, and the diverse aspects of violence in the regime of law.

Table of Contents:
1. Definitions
2. Violence in the Shang world and other 'bronze age theocracies'
3. Violence in the eastern Zhou: spring and autumn through the warring states
4. Violence under the early empires
5. Conclusion

Between Command and Market: Economic Thought and Practice in Early China

Editors: 

Elisa Levi Sabattini & Christian Schwermann

Publisher:
Brill

Publication date:
2021

Abstract:
Ancient Chinese economic thought has never been related to the evidence of economic practice. We know how state economies were supposed to be run in theory, but not the degree to which economic thought reflected everyday economic activity. Moreover, it is still not clear to what extent economic thought constituted a separate field of inquiry and was independent of fundamental cultural notions or political considerations. Finally, why was there so much more sustained interest in political economy in China than anywhere else? This book sets out to consider such questions through contextualized analyses of both received and newly excavated sources on economic thought and practice.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Authors: Elisa Levi Sabattini and Christian Schwermann

Chapter 1 Economic Cycles and Price Theory in Early Chinese Texts
Paul R. Goldin

Chapter 2 Agriculturalism and Beyond: Economic Thought of The Book of Lord Shang
Yuri Pines

Chapter 3 Situating the “Qingzhong” 輕重 Chapters of the Guanzi管子
Hans van Ess

Chapter 4 Feng Xuan Buys Rightness, Gongyi Xiu Expels His Wife: Economic Exemplars in the Warring States and Early Han
Andrew Meyer

Chapter 5 Between Command and Market: Credit, Labour, and Accounting in the Qin Empire (221–207 BCE)
Maxim Korolkov

Chapter 6 The Economic Activities of a Qin Local Administration: Qianling County, Modern Liye, Hunan Province, 222–209 BCE
Robin D.S. Yates

Chapter 7 To Ban or Not to Ban: Jia Yi on Copper Distribution and Minting Coins
Elisa Levi Sabattini

Chapter 8 The First Chinese Economic Impact on Asia: Distribution and Usage of Monies in Early China in Synchronic and Diachronic Perspective
Yohei Kakinuma