Editor:
Shirley Chan
Publisher:
Springer
Publication date:
May 2019
Abstract:
This volume covers the philosophical, historical, religious, and interpretative aspects of the ancient Guodian bamboo manuscripts (郭店楚簡) which were disentombed in the Guodian Village in Hubei Province, China, in 1993. Considered to be the Chinese equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls, these manuscripts are archaeological finds whose importance cannot be underestimated. Many of the texts are without counterparts in the transmitted tradition, and they provide unique insights into the developments of Chinese philosophy in the period between the death of Confucius (551-479 BCE) and the writings of Mencius (c.372-289 BCE), and beyond.
Divided into two parts, the book first provides inter-textual contexts and backgrounds of the Guodian manuscripts. The second part covers the main concepts and arguments in the Guodian texts, including cosmology and metaphysics, political philosophy, moral psychology, and theory of human nature. The thematic essays serve as an introduction to the philosophical significance and the key philosophical concepts/thought of each text contained in the Guodian corpus. Each chapter has a section on the implications of the texts for the received tradition, or for the purpose of comparing some of the text(s) with the received tradition in terms of the key philosophical concepts as well as the reading and interpretation of the texts. The volume covers most of the texts inscribed on the 800-odd slips of the Guodian corpus dated to the fourth century BCE.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1. Introduction: The Excavated Guodian Bamboo Manuscripts (Shirley Chan)
Part 1. A Philological Reading of the Guodian Manuscripts: The Texts and Textual Formation
Chapter 2. The Guodian Laozi Materials (Franklin Perkins)
Chapter 3. On Citation Practices in the Guodian Manuscripts (HE Ruyue and Michael Nylan)
Chapter 4. Shu 書 (Documents) Repertoire in Argument-Based Texts from Guodian: The Case of Cheng zhi 成之 (Things Brought to Completion) (Dirk Meyer)
Chapter 5. How to Achieve Good Governance-Arguments in the Tang Yu zhi dao 唐虞之道 (The Ways of Yao and Shun) and the Zhong xin zhi dao 忠信之道 (The Ways of Uprightness and Reliability) (Michael Schimmelpfennig)
Chapter 6. Which Comes First? Dao or De: Evidence from Guodian Manuscripts (Constance A. Cook)
Chapter 7. Reading heng cheng 恆稱 in the Guodian Bamboo Text Lu Mu Gong wen Zisi 魯穆公問子思 (Duke Mu of Lu Asked Zisi) (LIAO Mingchun 廖名春)
Part 2. Philosophical Concepts and Arguments in the Guodian Manuscripts
Chapter 8. The Taiyi shengshui 太一生水 Cosmogony and Its Role in Early Chinese Thought (Erica Brindley)
Chapter 9. Daoist Philosophy as Viewed from the Guodian Manuscripts (Barbara Hendrischke)
Chapter 10. "Sagacity" and the Heaven-Human Relationship in the Wuxing 五行(Erica Brindley)
Chapter 11. The Qiong da yi shi 窮達以時 (Poverty or Success Is a Matter of Timing) and the Concept of Heaven and Humans in Early Confucianism (LIANG Tao)
Chapter 12. Xing and Qing : Human Nature and Moral Cultivation in the Guodian Text Xing zi ming chu 性自命出 (Nature Derives from Endowment) (Shirley Chan)
Chapter 13. Body and Mind in the Guodian Manuscripts (Lisa Raphals).-
Chapter 14. Daoist Nature or Confucian Nurture: Moral Development in the Yucong 語叢 (Thicket of Sayings) (Shirley Chan)
Chapter 15. The Debate over Coercive Rulership and the "Human Way" in Light of Recently Excavated Warring States Texts (Updated) (Scott Cook)
Chapter 16. The Guodian Confucian Texts and the Xunzi (TANG Siufu)
Chapter 17. From the Liu wei (Six Positions) Discussed in the Liu de (Six Virtues) to the San gang (Three Principles of Social Order) (LI Rui)
Chapter 18. Guodian: A New Window for Understanding the Introduction of Buddhism into China (Kenneth W. Holloway).
Author:
Lee, Kwi Jeong
School:
Princeton University
Degree date:
2018
Advisor:
Teiser, Stephen F.
Abstract:
This dissertation explores how and why Buddhist cultic images fueled controversy among literati circles from the fourth through seventh centuries in China. This study draws on a wide range of sources in classical Chinese, including essays, letters, memorials, edicts, and court debates, as well as Buddhist texts translated from Indian languages and authored in Chinese, to uncover the points of debate and the debaters’ shifting presuppositions. These sources are used to show that both proponents and critics believed that Buddhist cultic objects were vital, complicated components of what they thought was notable about Buddhism. The dissertation also argues that while the ostensible subject of the debates may have been the role of cultic objects in Buddhist practice, nevertheless the discussion covered other important points of contention, including Buddhahood, the material and institutional foundations of Buddhism, the tenet of emptiness, and the dynamics of Buddhist practice. This dissertation analyzes this multivocality of cultic objects and discusses pre-Buddhist and Buddhist conceptions of images (xiang 象). Within this framework, the dissertation suggests that proponents of Buddhist positions were keenly aware of the distinction between cultic images and the formless referents of those images. This study notes the historical continuities between indigenous, pre-Buddhist discourses and the later Buddhist conceptualization of images, while also underlining understandings based on the newly imported religion. It argues that interreligious debates over Buddhist images prompted Buddhist apologists to formulate a fuller soteriological account about the meaning and function of cultic images, resulting in a more extensive, sophisticated theory than that supplied by earlier Chinese Buddhist canonical traditions.
Author:
Chris Jensen
Advisor:
James Benn
School:
McMaster University
Defended:
2018
Abstract:
This project explores the evolution of medieval Chinese Buddhist perspectives on dreams through a series of in-depth comparisons between the oneiric narratives preserved in Huijiao's (慧皎) "Biographies of Eminent Monks" (Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳 [GSZ]) and Daoxuan's (道宣) "Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks" (Xu gaoseng zhuan 續高僧傳 [XGSZ]), drawing inspiration from contemporary Sinological and Buddhist Studies scholarship, as well as anthropological and psychological perspectives on dreaming. In addition to using these comparisons to address questions related to the diachronic transformation of Chinese Buddhist thought and practice from the early sixth to mid-seventh centuries, I also posit (and provide evidence for) the hypothesis that dreams (and the stories told about them) represent a potent conceptual metaphor for the “betwixt and between” experience of liminality: a hypothesis that I hope inspires discussion and debate in the broader oneirological community.
I approach these topics through four interrelated case studies. Chapter One uses dream narratives to investigate the various modes of oneiric practice ascribed to Chinese monks (and laypeople) in GSZ and XGSZ, focusing on three specific subtopics (dream telling, dream interpretation, and dream incubation) to evaluate the differences between the episodes preserved in both collections. Chapter Two examines the differing ways that Huijiao and Daoxuan engaged with both Chinese and (Indian) Buddhist oneiric conception tropes when describing the birth and early lives of exemplary monks. Chapter Three posits that Huijiao and Daoxuan made distinctive (and historically-situated) use of oneiric narratives to help situate China within the imagined geographies of contemporary Chinese Buddhists. Finally, Chapter Four explores the distinctive ways that oneiric narratives were used in GSZ and XGSZ to negotiate the interactions between exemplary Buddhists and indigenous Chinese religious practices, practitioners and deities.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter One – Engaging with the Liminal: Oneiric Practice in the Eminent Monks
Chapter Two – Dreaming Betwixt and Between Conception and Birth
Chapter Three: Dreaming Betwixt and Between Regions
Chapter Four – Dreaming Betwixt and Between: Oneiric Experiences at the
Conclusion / For Future Research
Editor:
Paul W. Kroll
Publisher:
Brill
Publication Date:
May 2018
Abstract:
The Tang dynasty, lasting from 618 to 907, was the high point of medieval Chinese history, featuring unprecedented achievements in governmental organization, economic and territorial expansion, literature, the arts, and religion. Many Tang practices continued, with various developments, to influence Chinese society for the next thousand years. For these and other reasons the Tang has been a key focus of Western sinologists. This volume presents English-language reprints of fifty-seven critical studies of the Tang, in the three general categories of political history, literature and cultural history, and religion. The articles and book chapters included here are important scholarly benchmarks that will serve as the starting-point for anyone interested in the study of medieval China.
Table of Contents:
Tang Emperors’ Accession Dates and Reign Titles (nianhao 年號)
General Introduction
Paul W. Kroll
History—Political, Intellectual, and Military
1 Wen Ta-ya 溫大雅: The First Recorder of T’ang History
Woodbridge Bingham
2 The Rise to Power of the T’ang Dynasty: A Reassessment
Howard J. Wechsler
3 The T’ang Imperial Family
Denis Twitchett
4 Canonical Scholarship
David McMullen
5 Neo-Confucianism and Neo-Legalism in T’ang Intellectual Life, 755–805
Edwin G. Pulleyblank
6 The Structure of T’ang Selection
P. A. Herbert
7 Decree Examinations in T’ang China
P. A. Herbert
8 The Bureaucratic Apparatus [of T’ang Historians]
Denis Twitchett
9 Bureaucracy and Cosmology: The Ritual Code of T’ang China
David McMullen
10 Wei Cheng’s Thought [esp. Regarding Government]
Howard J. Wechsler
11 Imperial Power and the Ruling Class [under Empress Wu]
Richard W. L. Guisso
12 The Chou Dynasty [of Empress Wu]
Richard W. L. Guisso
13 The Career of Yang Kuei-fei
Howard S. Levy
14 The Flight from the Capital and the Death of Precious Consort Yang
Paul W. Kroll
15 Foreign Policy
P. A. Herbert
16 The An Lu-shan Rebellion and the Origins of Chronic Militarism in Late T’ang China
Edwin G. Pulleyblank
Literature and Cultural History
17 T’ang Literati: A Composite Biography
Hans H. Frankel
18 Transparencies: Reading the T’ang Lyric
Stephen Owen
19 The Significance of the fu in the History of T’ang Poetry
Paul W. Kroll
20 An Offering to the Prince: Wang Bo’s Apology for Poetry
Ding Xiang Warner
21 Tamed Kite and Stranded Fish: Interference and Apology in Lu Chao-lin’s fu
Paul W. Kroll
22 A Re-evaluation of Chen Ziang’s 陳子昂 ‘Manifesto of a Poetic Reform’
Timothy Wai Keung Chan
23 On Li Po 李白
Elling O. Eide
24 Li Po’s Letters in Pursuit of Political Patronage
Victor H. Mair
25 Li Bai’s ‘Rhapsody on the Hall of Light’: A Singular Vision of Cosmic Order
Nicholas Morrow Williams
26 Tu Fu 杜甫
Stephen Owen
27 Tu Fu’s Social Conscience: Compassion and Topicality in his Poetry
Eva Shan Chou
28 Poems in Their Place: Collections and Canons in Early Chinese Literature
Pauline Yu
29 Heyue yingling ji 河嶽英靈集 and the Attributes of Tang Verse
Paul W. Kroll
30 The Formation of the T’ang Estate Poem
Stephen Owen
31 Lexical Landscapes and Textual Mountains in the High T’ang
Paul W. Kroll
32 Historical and Literary Theory in the Mid-Eighth Century
David McMullen
33 The Manuscript Legacy of the Tang: The Case of Literature
Stephen Owen
34 Literary Collections in Tang Dynasty China
Christopher M. B. Nugent
35 A Study of the Jinglong wenguan ji 景龍文館記
Jia Jinhua
36 The Old-Style fu of Han Yu 韓愈
David R. Knechtges
37 Another Go at the Mao Ying chuan 毛穎傳
Elling O. Eide
38 The Old Men [of the Early Ninth Century]
Stephen Owen
39 The Inscription of Emotion in Mid-Tang Collegial Letters
Anna M. Shields
40 Yüan Chen 元稹 and ‘The Story of Ying-ying’ 鶯鶯傳
James Robert Hightower
41 Nostalgia and History in Mid-Ninth-Century Verse: Cheng Yü’s Poem on ‘The Chin-yang Gate’
Paul W. Kroll
42 Remembering Kaiyuan and Tianbao: The Construction of Mosaic Memory in Medieval Historical Miscellanies
Manling Luo
43 The Dancing Horses of T’ang
Paul W. Kroll
44 Falconry in T’ang Times
Edward H. Schafer
45 Public Values in Calligraphy and Orthography in the Tang Dynasty
Amy McNair
Religion
46 The Role of Buddhist Monasteries in T’ang Society
Kenneth K. S. Ch’en
47 Buddhism and Education in T’ang Times
Erik Zürcher
48 Imperial Patronage in the Formation of T’ang Buddhism
Stanley Weinstein
49 Stūpa, Sūtra, Śarīra in China, c. 656–706 CE
T. H. Barrett
50 The Birth of a Patriarch: The Biography of Hui-neng
Philip B. Yampolsky
51 Metropolitan Chan
John R. McRae
52 Time after Time: Taoist Apocalyptic History and the Founding of the T’ang Dynasty
Stephen R. Bokenkamp
53 Taoist Ordination Ranks in the Tunhuang Manuscripts
Kristofer M. Schipper
54 Taoism in the T’ien-pao Era, 742–56
T. H. Barrett
55 Li Po’s Transcendent Diction
Paul W. Kroll
56 Immortality Can be Studied
Jan De Meyer
57 The Worshippers of Mount Hua
Glen Dudbridge
Author:
Paul U. Unschuld
Translator:
Bridie Andrews
Publisher:
Columbia University Press
Publication Date:
January 2018
Abstract:
A leading authority explains the ideas and practice of Chinese medicine from its beginnings in antiquity to today. Paul U. Unschuld describes medicine's close connection with culture and politics throughout Chinese history. He brings together texts, techniques, and worldviews to understand changing Chinese attitudes toward healing and the significance of traditional Chinese medicine in both China and the Western world.
Unschuld reveals the emergence of a Chinese medical tradition built around a new understanding of the human being, considering beliefs in the influence of cosmology, numerology, and the supernatural on the health of the living. He describes the variety of therapeutic approaches in Chinese culture, the history of pharmacology and techniques such as acupuncture, and the global exchange of medical knowledge. Insights are offered into the twentieth-century decline of traditional medicine, as military defeats caused reformers and revolutionaries to import medical knowledge as part of the construction of a new China. Unschuld also recounts the reception of traditional Chinese medicine in the West since the 1970s, where it is often considered an alternative to Western medicine at the same time as China seeks to incorporate elements of its medical traditions into a scientific framework. This concise and compelling introduction to medical thought and history suggests that Chinese medicine is also a guide to Chinese civilization.
Table of Contents:
Preface to the English Edition
Introduction
Part I: The Historical Foundations
1. Origins and Characteristics of Chinese Medicine
2. The Lack of Existential Autonomy
3. The Longing for Existential Autonomy
4. Quotations from the Medical Classics
5. The Banality of Violence
6. The Mawangdui Texts
7. Anatomy, Physiology, and Pathology in the New Medicine
8. Deficiencies in the Credibility of the New Medicine
9. The Alternative Model: The View from Illness
10. Radical Healing: Life as a Form of Disease
11. Between Antiquity and the Modern Age
12. Two Medical Authors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties
Part II: Modern and Contemporary Times
13. The Confrontation with the Western Way of Life
14. The Persuasiveness of Western Medicine
15. The Opinions of Intellectuals and Politicians
16. The Selection
17. The Surprise
18. The Creative Reception of Chinese Medicine in the West
19. The Objectification of the Discussion: Opportunity and Challenge
Epilogue
Notes
Index
Editor:
Michael Lackner
Publication Date:
December 2017
Publisher:
Brill
Abstract:
Coping with the Future: Theories and Practices of Divination in East Asia offers insights into various techniques of divination, their evolution, and their assessment. The contributions cover the period from the earliest documents on East Asian mantic arts to their appearance in the present time. The volume reflects the pervasive manifestations of divination in literature, religious and political life, and their relevance for society and individuals. Special emphasis is placed on cross-cultural influences and attempts to find theoretical foundations for divinatory practices. This edited volume is an initiative to study the phenomena of divination across East Asian cultures and beyond. It is also one of the first attempts to theorize divinatory practices through East Asian traditions.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Michael Lackner
Part 1: Divination and Literature: Excavated and Extant
1 A Recently Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination
Marco Caboara
2 Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu 緯書 Literature: The Thirty-Two-Year Cycle of the Qian zuo du 乾鑿度
Bent Nielsen
3 The Representation of Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China
Paul W. Kroll
4 Divination, Fate Manipulation, and Protective Knowledge in and around The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl, a Popular Myth of Late Imperial China
Vincent Durand-Dastès
Part 2: Divination and Religions
5 A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon
Esther-Maria Guggenmos
6 The Allegorical Cosmos: The Shi 式 Board in Medieval Taoist and Buddhist Sources
Dominic Steavu
7 Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau
Anne C. Klein
Part 3: Divination and Politics
8 Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric
Martin Kern
9 Choosing Auspicious Dates and Sites for Royal Ceremonies in Eighteenth-century Korea
Park Kwon Soo
Part 4: Divination and Individual
10 Exploring the Mandates of Heaven: Wen Tianxiang’s Concepts of Fate and Mantic Knowledge
Liao Hsien-huei
11 Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination
Kim Yung Sik
12 From Jianghu to Liumang: Working Conditions and Cultural Identity of Wandering Fortune-Tellers in Contemporary China
Stéphanie Homola
13 Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea
Jennifer Jung-Kim
Part 5: Mantic Arts: When East Meets West
14 Translation and Adaption: The Continuous Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture
Che-chia Chang 張哲嘉
15 Against Prognostication: Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts
Chu Pingyi 祝平一
16 Contradictory Forms of Knowledge? Divination and Western Knowledge in Late Qing and Early Republican China
Li Fan and Michael Lackner
17 Western Horoscopic Astrology in Korea
Jun Yong Hoon
Part 6: Reflections on Mantic Arts
18 How to quantify the Value of Domino Combinations? Divination and Shifting Rationalities in Late Imperial China
Andrea Bréard
19 Correlating Time Within One’s Hand: The Use of Temporal Variables in Early Modern Japanese “Chronomancy” Techniques
Matthias Hayek
20 The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea
Oh Sanghak
Editors:
Deborah A. Bekken, Lisa C. Niziolek, Gary M. Feinman
Publisher:
University Of Chicago Press
Publication Date:
November 7, 2017
Abstract:
At the entrance of The Field Museum’s Cyrus Tang Hall of China, two Chinese stone guardian lions stand tall, gazing down intently at approaching visitors. One lion’s paw rests upon a decorated ball symbolizing power, while the other lion cradles a cub. Traditionally believed to possess attributes of strength and protection, statues such as these once stood guard outside imperial buildings, temples, and wealthy homes in China. Now, centuries later, they guard this incredible permanent exhibition.
China’s long history is one of the richest and most complex in the known world, and the Cyrus Tang Hall of China offers visitors a wonderful, comprehensive survey of it through some 350 artifacts on display, spanning from the Paleolithic period to present day. Now, with China: Visions through the Ages, anyone can experience the marvels of this exhibition through the book’s beautifully designed and detailed pages. Readers will gain deeper insight into The Field Museum’s important East Asian collections, the exhibition development process, and research on key aspects of China’s fascinating history. This companion book, edited by the exhibition’s own curatorial team, takes readers even deeper into the wonders of the Cyrus Tang Hall of China and enables them to study more closely the objects and themes featured in the show. Mirroring the exhibition’s layout of five galleries, the volume is divided into five sections. The first section focuses on the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods; the second, the Bronze Age, the first dynasties, and early writing; the third, the imperial system and power; the fourth, religion and performance; and the fifth, interregional trade and the Silk Routes. Each section also includes highlights containing brief stories on objects or themes in the hall, such as the famous Lanting Xu rubbing.
With chapters from a diverse set of international authors providing greater context and historical background, China: Visions through the Ages is a richly illustrated volume that allows visitors, curious readers, and China scholars alike a chance to have an enduring exchange with the objects featured in the exhibition and with their multifaceted histories.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Lisa C. Niziolek, Deborah A. Bekken, and Gary M. Feinman
Timeline
1 Building the China Collections at The Field Museum
Deborah A. Bekken
Section 1 Diverse Landscapes, Diverse Ways of Life
2 Domestication and the Origins of Agriculture in China
Gary W. Crawford
Highlight 1: Zhoukoudian: Peking Man and Evidence for Human Evolution in East Asia
Chen Shen
3 China during the Neolithic Period
Gary M. Feinman, Hui Fang, and Linda M. Nicholas
Section 2 Ritual and Power, War and Unification
4 The Bronze Age in China: What and When
Yungti Li 李永迪
Highlight 2: Sanyangzhuang 三楊莊: Life and Death in the Yellow River Floodplain
Tristram R. Kidder and Haiwang Liu
5 Written on Bamboo and Silk, Inscribed in Metal and Stone: Varieties of Early Chinese Writing
Edward L. Shaughnessy
Highlight 3: Consort Hao’s Inauspicious Delivery
Edward L. Shaughnessy
Section 3 Shifting Power, Enduring Traditions
6 Along the River during the Qingming Festival: A Living Painting with a Long History
Lu Zhang
Highlight 4: Conserving a Treasure: Preparing Along the River during the Qingming Festival for Display
Rachel Freeman and Shelley R. Paine
7 Men of Culture: Scholar-Officials and Scholar-Emperors in Late Imperial China
Fan Jeremy Zhang
Highlight 5: Commemorating a Gathering of Friends: The Lanting Xu Rubbing
Yuan Zhou
Section 4 Beliefs and Practices, Symbols and Stories
8 Daoism and Buddhism in Traditional China
Paul Copp
Highlight 6: Sealed in Time: A Manuscript from Dunhuang
Yuan Zhou
9 Shadows between Worlds: Chinese Shadow Theater
Mia Yinxing Liu
Section 5 Crossing Boundaries, Building Networks
10 The Silk Road: Intercontinental Trade and the Tang Empire
Lin Meciun 林梅村 and Ran Zhang
11 The Java Sea Shipwreck and China’s Maritime Trade
Lisa C. Niziolek
Highlight 7: Herbs and Artifacts: Trade in Traditional Chinese Medicine
Amanda Respess
Conclusion: Legacies of Qin Unification: A Hinge Point of Chinese History
Gary M. Feinman
Publisher:
中国古代史論叢編集委員会 (立命館東洋史学会)
Publication Date:
March, 2017
Table of Contents:
佐藤信弥 歴史評価としての共伯和
秋山陽一郎 「国別者八篇」考 劉向新定本『戦国策』の藍本
永田拓治 魏晋期における校書事業と史書編纂
松島隆真 鉅鹿の戦いとその歴史的意義 「懐王の約」をめぐる項羽と劉邦
落合淳思 甲骨文字の占卜用語 甲骨文字礼記（二）
山田崇仁 大正新脩大蔵経テキストデータベースを利用した外典佚文収集に関する基礎的研究
吉本道雄 『左伝』『国語』の歳星記事
吉本道雄 睡虎地秦簡年代考 日本における中国古代史研究の現状に寄せて
Read more at:
http://shuiren.sakura.ne.jp/ronsou/
Editors:
N. Harry Rothschild and Leslie V. Wallace
Publisher:
University of Hawaii Press
Publication Date:
August 31, 2017
Abstract:
Behaving Badly in Early and Medieval China presents a rogues’ gallery of treacherous regicides, impious monks, cutthroat underlings, ill-bred offspring, and disloyal officials. It plumbs the dark matter of the human condition, placing front and center transgressive individuals and groups traditionally demonized by Confucian annalists and largely shunned by modern scholars. The work endeavors to apprehend the actions and motivations of these men and women, whose conduct deviated from normative social, cultural, and religious expectations.
Early chapters examine how core Confucian bonds such as those between parents and children, and ruler and minister, were compromised, even severed. The living did not always reverently pay homage to the dead, children did not honor their parents with due filiality, a decorous distance was not necessarily observed between sons and stepmothers, and subjects often pursued their own interests before those of the ruler or the state. The elasticity of ritual and social norms is explored: Chapters on brazen Eastern Han (25–220) mourners and deviant calligraphers, audacious falconers, volatile Tang (618–907) Buddhist monks, and drunken Song (960–1279) literati reveal social norms treated not as universal truths but as debated questions of taste wherein political and social expedience both determined and highlighted individual roles within larger social structures and defined what was and was not aberrant.
A Confucian predilection to “valorize [the] civil and disparage the martial” and Buddhist proscriptions on killing led literati and monks alike to condemn the cruelty and chaos of war. The book scrutinizes cultural attitudes toward military action and warfare, including those surrounding the bloody and capricious world of the Zuozhuan (Chronicle of Zuo), the relentless violence of the Five Dynasties and Ten States periods (907–979), and the exploits of Tang warrior priests―a series of studies that complicates the rhetoric by situating it within the turbulent realities of the times. By the end of this volume, readers will come away with the understanding that behaving badly in early and medieval China was not about morality but perspective, politics, and power.
Table of Contents:
There are maggots in my soup! : medieval accounts of unfilial children / Keith N. Knapp
Negative role models: unfilial stories in Song miscellaneous writing / Cong Ellen Zhang
Copulating with one's stepmother—or birth mother? / Paul R. Goldin
Intransigent and corrupt officials during the early Han / Anthony Barbieri-Low
Ritual without rules: Han-Dynasty mourning practice revisited / Miranda Brown and Anna-Alexandra Fodde-Regue
Bad writing: cursive calligraphy and the ethics of orthography in the Eastern Han Dynasty / Vincent S. Leung
Wild youths and fallen officials: falconry and moral opprobrium in early medieval China / Leslie V. Wallace
Stopping drinking: alcohol, alcoholism, and Song literati / Edward van-Bibber Orr
Flouting, flashing and favoritism: an insouciant Buddhist monk bares his midriff before the Confucian court / N. Harry Rothschild
Running amok in early Chinese narrative / Eric Henry
"Wolves shepherding the people": cruelty and violence in the Five dynasties / Wang Hongjie
A "villain-monk" brought down by a villein-general: a forgotten page in Tang monastic warfare and state-samgha relations / Chen Jinhua
Martial monks without borders: was Sinseong a traitor or did he open the gate to a pan-Asian Buddhist realm? / Kelly Carlton
Author:
Thomas J. Mazanec
School:
Princeton University
Defended:
2017
Abstract:
This dissertation presents an alternative history of late medieval literature, one which traces the development of Chinese Buddhist poetry into a fully autonomous tradition. It does so through a careful study of the works of poet-monks in the late medieval period (760–960), especially Guanxiu (832–913) and Qiji (864–937?). Weaving together the frayed threads of the literary traditions they inherited, these poet-monks established a tradition of elite Buddhist poetry in classical Chinese that continued in East Asia until the twentieth century. This dissertation also breaks new methodological ground by using digital tools to analyze and display information culled from medieval sources, and by using poetry composition manuals to understand medieval Chinese poetry on its own terms.
The introduction systematically analyzes the meanings of the concept of “religious literature” and situates this study of poet-monks therein. Part I, comprised of chapters 2, 3, and 4, presents a social history of poet-monks first by examining the invention of the term “poet-monk” in the late eighth century and its development until the tenth, then by mapping literary relations in the late medieval period using social network analysis. It demonstrates the existence and importance of poet-monks to the literary culture of this time. Part II, comprised of chapters 5 and 6, turns to the monks’ poetics at their most extreme: first the wild excess of repetition in song, madness, and incantation; then the austere devotion of “bitter intoning” (kuyin) and the identification of poetry with meditation. Both extremes are the fruit of the poet-monks’ deliberate mixing of literary and religious practices. The conclusion brings the various threads together to show how the poet-monks identified their religious and literary practices, hints at why their work had been neglected in both Buddhist and classical literary circles, and reflects on the implications of this dissertation for the study of religious poetry.
Thus, this dissertation provides one way of answering the question of how to define religious poetry and, in the process, sheds light on an overlooked corner of Chinese literary history, reconstructing an entire subtradition to demonstrate their fusion of religious and literary practices.
Editors:
Mu-chou Poo, H. A. Drake, and Lisa Raphals
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Publication Date:
June 2017
Abstract:
In the first century of the Common Era, two new belief systems entered long-established cultures with radically different outlooks and values: missionaries started to spread the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in Rome and the Buddha in China. Rome and China were not only ancient cultures, but also cultures whose elites felt no need to receive the new beliefs. Yet a few centuries later the two new faiths had become so well-established that their names were virtually synonymous with the polities they had entered as strangers. Although there have been numerous studies addressing this phenomenon in each field, the difficulty of mastering the languages and literature of these two great cultures has prevented any sustained effort to compare the two influential religious traditions at their initial period of development.
This book brings together specialists in the history and religion of Rome and China with a twofold aim. First, it aims to show in some detail the similarities and differences each religion encountered in the process of merging into a new cultural environment. Second, by juxtaposing the familiar with the foreign, it also aims to capture aspects of this process that could otherwise be overlooked. This approach is based on the general proposition that, when a new religious belief begins to make contact with a society that has already had long honored beliefs, certain areas of contention will inevitably ensue and changes on both sides have to take place. There will be a dynamic interchange between the old and the new, not only on the narrowly defined level of "belief," but also on the entire cultural body that nurtures these beliefs. Thus, this book aims to reassess the nature of each of these religions, not as unique cultural phenomena but as part of the whole cultural dynamics of human societies.
Author:
氣賀澤保規 (Kegasawa, Yasunori)
Publisher:
講談社
Publication Date:
2016. 11.10
Abstract:
秦の始皇帝に始まる二千年余にわたる中華帝国の歴史にその名を刻む唯一の女帝・則天武后（武則天）。男性中心秩序の古代社会に己の才覚と知力で挑み、至尊の座にまで登りつめた女性は、何を目指し、また何が彼女を生み出したのか－－。大唐帝国繁栄の礎を築いた冷徹にして情熱的な生涯とその時代を、学術的知見に基づいて鮮やかに描き出す。
Table of Contents:
はじめに
第一章 則天武后の生卒年
第二章 隋末の動乱と唐の決起
第三章 玄武門の変
第四章 唐太宗と貞観の治
第五章 太宗の後継問題
第六章 武照の出生と武士かく
第七章 武照、太宗の後宮へ
第八章 高宗朝の女の争い
第九章 武昭儀、皇后の座に
第十章 二聖と垂簾の政
第十一章 武后政治の新展開
第十二章 武后とその一族
第十三章 高宗の崩御
第十四章 李敬業の反乱
第十五章 酷吏と告密の恐怖政治
第十六章 怪僧薛懐義
第十七章 武周政権への最終コーナー
第十八章 武周革命
第十九章 武周朝の朝士──狄仁傑
第二十章 武周朝の終焉
第二十一章 武后残影
おわりに
則天武后関係年表
則天武后評伝・文学書一覧
講談社学術文庫によせて
解 説 上野 誠
Author:
Ha, Jungmin
School:
Duke University
Year:
2016
Advisor:
Abe, Stanley K.
Abstract:
This dissertation explores how the Buddhist texts carved on the cliffs of mountains served their patrons’ religious and cultural goals. During the Northern Qi period (550-577 CE), these carved Buddhist sutra texts and Buddha names were prevalent, and were carved directly onto the surfaces of numerous mountains in southwestern Shandong Province.
The special focus of this study is on the Buddhist engravings at Mt. Hongding 洪頂 in Dongping 東平, and at Mt. Tie 鐵 in Zoucheng 鄒城. Created in approximately 553-564 CE, the carvings at Mt. Hongding stand as the terminus a quo of the history of Buddhist sutras carved into the rocks of the Shandong mountains. The Buddhist carvings at Mt. Hongding served monastic goals. The monk patrons, Seng’an Daoyi 僧安道壹, Fahong 法洪, and others created the carvings as an integral part of their Buddhist meditation practices.
The carvings at Mt. Tie paint a very different picture. At Mt. Tie, a colossal Buddhist sculpture-style carving was created in 579 CE. Sponsored by several Han Chinese patrons, the carving was designed in the form of a gigantic Chinese traditional stele. This study suggests that several Han Chinese local elites proudly displayed their Han Chinese linage by using the gigantic stele form of Buddhist text carving as a means to proclaim Han Chinese cultural and artistic magnificence. To achieve these non-religious goals, they appropriated rhetorical devices often used by the Han elite, such as the stele form, written statements about the excellence of the calligraphy used, and discourse on calligraphy connoisseurship.
Author:
Koehle, Natalie Caroline
School:
Harvard University
Year:
2016
Advisory Committee:
Kuijp, Leonard W. van der; Kuriyama, Shigehisa; Gyatso, Janet
Abstract:
This dissertation examines the Chinese conception of phlegm and related body fluids phlegm from the first occurrence of phlegm in Zhang Zhongjing’s 張仲景 (fl. 150-219) Jingui yaolue 金匱要略 through the first extended discussion Wang Gui’s 王桂 (1264-1354) Taiding yangsheng zhulun 泰定養生主論 (1338). Following the conceptual development of phlegm and fluids, the study illustrates one of the most important shifts in postclassical Chinese medicine. That is the transformation of the experience of phlegm from an insignificant water pathology that causes indigestion, to a major pathogen in Chinese medicine that is associated with an astonishing range of symptoms, and external and internal etiologies. The history of phlegm also intersects with another major shift in the history of Chinese medicine that is rise of fire, and the link of fire and emotions that was forged during the early Song dynasty.
In contrast to the current over-emphasis on pneumatic or energetic aspects of the Chinese imagination of the body, this dissertation focuses on the humoral aspects of Chinese medicine. This focus brings into view distinct parallels in the conception, experience, and treatment of fluids in the Chinese, Greek and Indian medical traditions, such as the concern with maintaining flow, and the fear of blockage, stagnation, and misguided flows. For instance, all of these traditions view phlegm as the result of a disturbance in the flow. These parallels in the Chinese, Greek, and Indian conception of humors, therefore, help us to better understand the history of phlegm not only in the history of Chinese medicine, but also in the Indo-European traditions.
The dissertation further sheds light on the history of Sino-Indian and Sino-Persian knowledge transfer, and the influence of Indic and Greek conceptions into Chinese medicine, as it puts forward evidence, which suggests that the similarities between Chinese and Indo-European conceptions of phlegm were due, in part, to historical influences from the Indic and Islamic medical traditions. Āyurvedic conceptions of phlegm reached China through the intermediary of Buddhist translations, where phlegm played an important role in physiology. Islamic medicine was present in the Yuan dynasty, and its concepts show clearly in Wang Gui’s Yuan period treatise.
The dissertation’s focus on fluids also brings into view differences in the conception of matter and the experience of fluid in the Chinese and the Greco-Roman medical traditions. In early Chinese medicine, phlegm and stagnant fluids were associated with lumps and tumorous growth, but not with decay. In the Greco-Roman tradition phlegm and stagnations were feared because of their immediate connection with putrefaction and decay. In early Chinese medicine, phlegm and fluids were diagnosed by signs from within the body, such as the sounds of water, but also the subjective feeling of fullness reported by the patients. In the Greco-Roman tradition, as in Wang Gui’s Yuan period treatise, phlegm was diagnosed through the examination of the patients’ outflows.
A new approach to Chinese intellectual history: with a focus on modes of scholarship and their transmission from the pre-Ch‘in to T‘ang periods. Acta Asiatica : Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern Culture, 109, August 2015, 106 p.
Publisher:
Tokyo : Tōhō Gakkai
Table of Contents:
KOMINAMI Ichirō (小南一郎)： Introduction
KOMINAMI Ichirō (小南一郎)： The school system in ancient China
SHIN Hyeon (辛賢)： Aspects of study of the Confucian Classics during the Han: The formation of cosmological “knowledge”
YOSHIKAWA Tadao (吉川忠夫)：. “Family scholarship” during the Six dynasties and its milieu
FUNAYAMA Tōru (船山徹)：Buddhism during the Liang dynasty: Some of its characteristics as a form of scholarship
