Traditions of Exemplary Transcendents by Liu Xiang (79–8 BCE)

Author: Robert Ford Campany

Publication year: 2026

Publisher: De Gruyter

Abstract: 

By the middle of the third century BCE, some people in China had begun to imagine it possible to employ esoteric methods to refashion themselves into posthuman beings with spirit-like capabilities, enhanced bodies, and greatly extended lifespans. Such beings were termed transcendents (xian 仙).

Traditions of Exemplary Transcendents (Liexian zhuan 列仙傳), attributed to the imperial bibliographer Liu Xiang 劉向 (79-8 BCE), is the earliest extant collection of colorful stories about such figures. This volume makes available a critical edition and the first complete, annotated English translation of a text preserving some of the earliest mentions of alchemical, dietary, and medicinal methods of self-cultivation that later became standard in transcendence-seekers’ repertoire of practices.

Through this work we can already glimpse the sorts of engagements with local communities that made the quest for transcendence a matter of keen interest not just to practitioners themselves but to many in Chinese society for centuries thereafter.

Animals and Plants in Chinese Religions and Science

Author:
Huaiyu Chen

Year:
2023

Publisher:
Anthem Press

Abstract:
In ancient China, the tradition of observing nature is combined with Yin-Yang and the Five-Phase theories, which were later incorporated into the ancient arts of divination, including the technique of predicting weather changes by observing the behavior and health of animals. The observation of the close connection between animals and weather developed into the worship of animals, that is, what can be called the cult of animals. Plant science and technology in medieval China cannot be separated from the developments in agriculture, economics, and medicine, as well as cultural practice. The Chinese empire ruled most of East Asia in the medieval period. Numerous species of plants were observed, cultivated, harvested, and used in the vast land of China that spanned a wide range of biomes from boreal through to temperate and tropical, with most regions classed as subtropical. Besides indigenous plants, many plants from West, Central, South, and Southeast Asia were introduced into China and East Asia in general. Numerous zoomantic practices appeared in two sets of textual documents in the premodern Chinese bibliographical system, namely official documents and popular documents. Official documents were often compiled by government officials and served political governance objectives. These documents included official histories, annals, and institutional documents, as well as Confucian classics. The authorship or editorship of these documents was often explicit. Popular documents included strange writings, tales, legends, and religious documents from Buddhism and Daoism, which were often not compiled under the sponsorship and support of the court or government. They might be compiled by literati but lost original authorship. They did not serve political motivations and objectives, reflecting how people understood and interpreted correlative cosmology by observing animal behaviors at the local or non-bureaucratic level.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; 
Plant Science and Technology in Medieval China; 
Ordering Plants in the Buddhist World: A Medieval Botanical Taxonomy; 
Animal Divination and Climate: An Environmental Perspective on the Cult of the Pig; 
Zoomancy in Medieval China; 
The Changing Images of Zodiac Animals in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Literature; 
The Were-Tigers in Medieval China and Its Asian Context; 
The Animal Turn in Asian Studies and the Asian Turn in the Animal Studies

In the Land of Tigers and Snakes: Living with Animals in Medieval Chinese Religions

Author:
Huaiyu Chen

Publisher:
Columbia University Press

Year:
2023

Abstract: 
Animals play crucial roles in Buddhist thought and practice. However, many symbolically or culturally significant animals found in India, where Buddhism originated, do not inhabit China, to which Buddhism spread in the medieval period. In order to adapt Buddhist ideas and imagery to the Chinese context, writers reinterpreted and modified the meanings different creatures possessed. Medieval sources tell stories of monks taming wild tigers, detail rituals for killing snakes, and even address the question of whether a parrot could achieve enlightenment.

Huaiyu Chen examines how Buddhist ideas about animals changed and were changed by medieval Chinese culture. He explores the entangled relations among animals, religions, the state, and local communities, considering both the multivalent meanings associated with animals and the daily experience of living with the natural world. Chen illustrates how Buddhism influenced Chinese knowledge and experience of animals as well as how Chinese state ideology, Daoism, and local cultic practices reshaped Buddhism. He shows how Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism developed doctrines, rituals, discourses, and practices to manage power relations between animals and humans.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, including traditional texts, stone inscriptions, manuscripts, and visual culture, this interdisciplinary book bridges history, religious studies, animal studies, and environmental studies. In examining how Buddhist depictions of the natural world and Chinese taxonomies of animals mutually enriched each other, In the Land of Tigers and Snakes offers a new perspective on how Buddhism took root in Chinese society.

TOC:
Introduction
1. Buddhists Categorizing Animals: Medieval Chinese Classification
2. Confucians Civilizing Unruly Beasts: Tigers and Pheasants
3. Buddhists Taming Felines: The Companionship of the Tiger
4. Daoists Transforming Ferocious Tigers: Practical Techniques and Rhetorical Strategies
5. Buddhists Killing Reptiles: Snakes in Religious Competition
6. Buddhists Enlightening Virtuous Birds: The Parrot as a Religious Agent
Epilogue

[Dissertation] Les registres divinatoires et sacrificiels du royaume de Chu au IV e siècle avant notre ère (The divinatory and sacrificial registers of the kingdom of Chu in the fourth century B.C.)

Author:
Liang Zhong

School:
École Pratique des Hautes Études

Year:

2022

Abstract:
This dissertation focuses on Chu divinatory and sacrificial records, and more precisely on one category of practical documents from the 4th century BC’s Chu Kingdom. This unique collection of written records was found in tombs. Since 1965, 12 tombs occupied by individuals from different social origins have brought light to these documents. These mantic and sacrificial activities were conducted to ensure the improvement of the client’s career or health. Firstly, after examining the archaeological context, we analyze the composition of the divinatory and sacrificial records. Then we focused on historical actors such as diviners, persons in charge of sacrifices, scribes and clients, after which we examine divinatory and iatromantic knowledge and skills, as well as ancestors and divinities. Finally, we trace the production procedure of some divinatory registers coming from the best preserved corpus. This study intends to contribute to a better understanding of divinatory practices without direct link with the Yijing (Book of mutations). To a lesser extent, our research is a systematic review of the evolution of one type of practical document produced by a community of diviners without official organization before the unification of China in 221 BC.

You can download his dissertation here:

https://college-de-france.hal.science/tel-04085570/

The Chinese Dreamscape, 300 BCE–800 CE

Author:

Robert Ford Campany

Publication Date: 

10/13/2020

Publisher:

Harvard Asia Center

Abstract:

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

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

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

Author:

Hu Baozhu 胡寳柱

Publication date:

September 22

Publisher: 

Routledge

Abstract:

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

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

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

The Oxford Handbook of Early China

Editor:
Elizabeth Childs-Johnson

Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Publication date:
August 2020

Abstract:
The Oxford Handbook on Early China brings 30 scholars together to cover early China from the Neolithic through Warring States periods (ca 5000-500BCE). The study is chronological and incorporates a multidisciplinary approach, covering topics from archaeology, anthropology, art history, architecture, music, and metallurgy, to literature, religion, paleography, cosmology, religion, prehistory, and history.

Table of Contents:

Section I: Introduction and Background by Elizabeth Childs-Johnson

Section II: Neolithic Farmers, Ceramics and Jade
1. The Neolithic revolution in the north, ca. 7/6000-2000 BCE Xinglongwa, Xinlei, Yangshao, Hongshan, and related cultures(Inequality/social complexity in Neolithic northern China) by Andrew Womack, Yale University
2. The Neolithic revolution in the south, ca. 7/6000-2000BCE
Majiabang, Hemudu, Daxi, Songze cultures by Xiangming Fang, Zhejiang IA
3. The Neolithic jade revolution in Northeast China by Chung Tang, Mana H. Tang, and Yadi Wen, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Liu Guoxiang, CASS, IA
4. The Jade Age revisited, ca. 3500-2000BCE by Elizabeth Childs-Johnson, Independent Scholar
5. The Liangzhu Culture and the Ancient City of Liangzhu by Bin Liu, Zhejiang IA
6. Longshan Culture Issues: Taosi and cosmology by He Nu, CASS, IA

Section III: First Dynasty of the Bronze Age: Xia Period
7. Introduction: definitions, themes and debate by Xu Hong, Department of Xia-Shang-Zhou Archaeology, CASS, IA
8. Settlements, Buildings, and Society of the Erlitou Culture by Xu Hong and Li Xiang Hong Xu and Xiang Li
9. The bronze casting revolution and the ritual vessel set by Hong Xu and Yu Liu
10.The spread of Erlitou yazhang (VM3:4) to South China: origin and dispersal of early political states and order in early China by Chung Tang, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Fang Wang, Jinsha Museum, Chengdu

Section IV: The First Height of the Bronze Age- The Shang Period
11. Shang cultural and historical setting by Jonathan Smith, Christopher Newport University and Yuzhou Fan, Nanjing University
12. Early and Middle Shang by Guoding Song, Department of History, Beijing Normal University
13. Shang religion, belief, and art by Elizabeth Childs-Johnson
14. Bronze casting technology and metallurgy issues by Changping Zhang, Wuhan University
15. Late Shang: Anyang Shang City architecture and layout by E. Childs-Johnson
16. Late Shang: Fu Zi and M5 at Xiaotun by Dingyun Cao, CASS, Institute of History

Section V: The Second Height of the Bronze Age: The Western Zhou Period
17. Western Zhou cultural and historic setting by Maria Khayutina, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich
18. Government and society by Nicholas Vogt, Indiana University
19. Rites and mortuary practice (inscriptions and texts) by Connie Cook, Lehigh Univ.
20. Bronze working, stylistic and other innovations by Yan Sun, Gettysburg College
21. Bells and music in the Zhou by Scott Cook, University of Singapore

Section VI: The Third Height of the Bronze Age-Springs and Autumns Period
22. Historical background: terms and dating by Yuri Pines, Hebrew University
23. Historiography, thought, and intellectual development by Yuri Pines, Hebrew University of Jerusalem University
24. Cultures and styles by Xiaolong Wu, Hanover College

Section VII: The Iron Age- Warring States Period
25. The Warring States Period: Historical Background by Yuri Pines, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
26. The iron, agricultural, and military revolution by Wangcheong Lam, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
27. Political, military, and economic reforms: Institutional Reforms and Reformers by Yuri Pines, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
28. Political, military, and economic reforms: Change and Continuity at the intersection of received history and the material record: capitals, population registration, oaths, and tallies by Charles Sanft, University of Arizona
29. Political, military, and economic reforms: The army, wars, and military arts by Albert Galvany, University of Barcelona
30. Social, intellectual, and religious transformations: The shi, diplomats, and urban expansion by Andrew Meyer, Brooklyn College
31. Social, intellectual and religious transformations: Thinkers: Confucians and their critics; Mozi and Mencius; Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Han Feizi by Moss Roberts, New York University
32. Social, intellectual and religious transformations: Mozi by Vincent S. Leung, Hong Kong University
33. Social, intellectual and religious transformations: Mohism and jian ai by Carine Defoort, University of Leuven
34. Chu religion and art by John Major and Elizabeth Childs-Johnson
35. The artistic revolution by Jie Shi, Bryn Mawr College

Modeling Peace: Royal Tombs and Political Ideology in Early China

Author:
Jie Shi

Publisher:
Columbia University Press

Publication date:
March, 2020

Abstract:
Among hundreds of thousands of ancient graves and tombs excavated to date in China, the Mancheng site stands out for its unparalleled complexity and richness. It features two juxtaposed burials, of the first king and queen of the Zhongshan kingdom (dated late second century BCE). The male tomb occupant, King Liu Sheng (d. 113 BCE), was sent by his father, Emperor Jing (r. 157–141 BCE), to rule the Zhongshan kingdom near the northern frontier of the Western Han empire, neighboring the nomadic Xiongnu confederation. Modeling Peace interprets Western Han royal burial as a political ideology by closely reading the architecture and funerary content of this site and situating it in the historical context of imperialization in Western Han China. Through a study of both the archaeological materials and related received and excavated texts, Jie Shi demonstrates that the Mancheng site was planned and designed as a unity of religious, gender, and intercultural concerns. The site was built under the supervision of the future royal tomb occupants, who used these burials to assert their political ideology based on Huang-Lao and Confucian thought: a good ruler is one who pacifies himself, his family, and his country. This book is the first scholarly monograph on an undisturbed and fully excavated early Chinese royal burial site.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Part I
1. The Embrace of Body and Soul
2. The Union of Husband and Wife
3. Integration of Ethnic Han and Non-Han
Part II
4. The Public King
5. The King of Peace
6. The King Under the Gaze
Conclusion

The Huayuanzhuang East Oracle Bone Inscriptions: A Study and Complete Translation

Author:
Schwartz, Adam C

Publication date:
2019

Publisher:
Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter Mouton

Abstract:
Since 1899 more than 73,000 pieces of inscribed divination shell and bone have been found inside the moated enclosure of the Anyang-core at the former capital of the late Shang state. Nearly all of these divinations were done on behalf of the Shang kings and has led to the apt characterization that oracle bone inscriptions describe their motivations, experiences, and priorities. There are, however, much smaller sets of divination accounts that were done on behalf of members of the Shang elite other than the king. First noticed in the early 1930's, grouped and periodized shortly thereafter, oracle bone inscriptions produced explicitly by or on behalf of "royal family groups" reveal information about key aspects of daily life in Shang society that are barely even mentioned in Western scholarship. The newly published Huayuanzhuang East Oracle Bone inscriptions are a spectacular addition to the corpus of texts from Anyang: hundreds of intact or largely intact turtle shells and bovine scapulae densely inscribed with records of the divinations in which they were used. They were produced on the behalf of a mature prince of the royal family whose parents, both alive and still very much active, almost certainly were the twenty-first Shang king Wu Ding (r. c. 1200 B.C.) and his consort Lady Hao (fu Hao). The Huayuanzhuang East corpus is an unusually homogeneous set of more than two thousand five hundred divination records, produced over a short period of time on behalf of a prince of the royal family. There are typically multiple records of divinations regarding the same or similar topics that can be synchronized together, which not only allows for remarkable access into the esoteric world of divination practice, but also produce micro-reconstructions of what is essentially East Asia's earliest and most complete "day and month planner." Because these texts are unusually linguistically transparent and well preserved, homogeneous in orthography and content, and published to an unprecedentedly high standard, they are also ideal material for learning to read and interpret early epigraphic texts. The Huayuanzhuang East oracle bone inscriptions are a tremendously important Shang archive of "material documents" that were produced by a previously unknown divination and scribal organization. They expose us to an entirely fresh set of perspectives and preoccupations centering on a member of the royal family at the commencement of China's historical period. The completely annotated English translation of the inscriptions is the first of its kind, and is a vibrant new source of Shang history that can be accessed to rewrite and supplement what we know about early Chinese civilization and life in the ancient world. Before the discerning reader are the motives, preoccupations, and experiences of a late Shang prince working simultaneously in service both for his Majesty, his parents, and his own family.

Table of Contents:
Introduction to the Huayuanzhuang East Oracle Bone Inscriptions
Translation
Conventions and Symbols
HYZ 1
Appendix I: Raw Data
Appendix II: Parallel content, related content, sets, and synchronies
Appendix III: The "Big Synchrony"

[Dissertation] The Third Day of the Third Month in Early Medieval Chinese Texts: Literary Composition as Ritualized Practice

Author:
Kay Duffy

School:
Princeton University

Defended:
2019

Abstract:
During the tumultuous period between the breakdown of the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) and the establishment of the Tang (618 – 907), the spring festival of purification celebrated on the third day of the third lunar month became closely associated with ritualized performances of poetic composition. This dissertation investigates the transformation of this riverside festival into a prominent court celebration. I show that the invocation of springtime splendor and shared cultural touchstones in poems composed for these occasions facilitated the constitution of communal bonds among elites during this era of fraught uncertainty. Moreover, the circulation of these poems and the prefaces that accompanied them testified to the existence of mutual bonds of support between ruler and courtier at a time when imperial legitimacy was contested and unstable. In focusing my analysis on the festival of the third day of the third month, I cut across genres, settings, and contexts to examine the production of meaning in early medieval China.

Chapter One surveys sources of early medieval literary texts on the festival, demonstrating the key role of Tang editors in shaping the corpus of writing through which the festival is understood today. Chapter Two highlights the suspension of hierarchical boundaries and the production of horizontal relationships in depictions of the festival in fu. The third chapter investigates the relocation of spring lustration festivities from the banks of the river to the enclosed spaces of the imperial park, as reflected in third century court poems. The fourth chapter explores the paratextual functions of literary prefaces, revealing their role in constructing the meaning of literary gatherings. Finally, the fifth chapter compares the production of literary texts on the festival across genres at the courts of the Qi and the Liang, highlighting the role of the emperor and imperial princes as patrons, composers, and critics of literary writing. My dissertation not only elucidates the importance of this festival in early medieval China, it highlights the ritual dimensions of literary gatherings and contributes to a broader conversation about the role of ritual in courts and the role of courts in promoting cultural ideals.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Construction of the Third Day Festival in Medieval Collectanea

Chapter 2: Dissolving Hierarchies in Fu on Capitals, Lustration, and the Primal Si

Chapter 3: The Lord’s Feast at the Winding Stream: The Third Day Festival at the
Court of the Western Jin

Chapter 4: Imagining Communities in Prefaces and Poems

Chapter 5: Commemorating the Third Day in the Courts of the Qi and the Liang

The Muslim Merchants of Premodern China: The History of a Maritime Asian Trade Diaspora, 750–1400

Author: 
John W. Chaffee

Publication date:
November 2018

Publisher:
Cambridge University Press

Abstract:
In this major new history of Muslim merchants and their trade links with China, John W. Chaffee uncovers 700 years of history, from the eighth century, when Muslim communities first established themselves in southeastern China, through the fourteenth century, when trade all but ceased. These were extraordinary and tumultuous times. Under the Song and the Mongols, the Muslim diaspora in China flourished as legal and economic ties were formalized. At other times the Muslim community suffered hostility and persecution. Chaffee shows how the policies of successive dynastic regimes in China combined with geopolitical developments across maritime Asia to affect the fortunes of Muslim communities. He explores social and cultural exchanges, and how connections were maintained through faith and a common acceptance of Muslim law. This ground breaking contribution to the history of Asia, the early Islamic world, and to maritime history explores the networks that helped to shape the pre-modern world.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
1. Merchants of an imperial trade
2. The reorientation of trade
3. The maturation of merchant communities
4. Mongols and the concentration of merchant power
5. Endings and continuities

[Dissertation] Death Ritual in the Tang Dynasty (618–907): A Study of Cultural Standardization and Variation in Medieval China

Author:
Yang, Yi

School:
University of California, Berkeley

Defended:
2019

Abstract:
By exploiting a vast trove of underutilized original sources, including thousands of epitaphs, archaeological reports, ritual manuals, and anecdotes, and by using digital humanities tools to analyze this large pool of data from a multiregional perspective, this dissertation reconstructs funerary practices in Tang-era China, and thereby explores cultural standardization and the effect of sociocultural changes on death rituals. My research demonstrates that certain death ritual practices prevailed among Tang elites of various regions and social strata and remained stable throughout the entire Tang dynasty, suggesting the existence of a standardized way of commemorating death in medieval China. Furthermore, my research reveals significant regional variations and temporal changes, which I use to examine the mechanisms behind uniformity and variety.

This dissertation also makes an original contribution to the understanding of actual mortuary practices among Tang elites of various strata and regional backgrounds. My core research material, the many thousands of Tang-era epitaphs, allows me to get closer to the actual practices of “ordinary” elites rather than rely on descriptions of rites by the ritual specialists in charge of compiling prescriptive ritual manuals. Moreover, as each tomb epitaph text usually provides a glimpse of a person’s life, tomb epitaphs are often the most direct and personal accounts of individuals, and they offer a perspective on a greater range of elite society than do either dynastic-history biographies or the eulogies preserved in the literary collections of famous writers.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: A Reconstruction of Death Ritual Practice in the Tang
Chapter 2: Selecting Dates for Burials
Chapter 3: Positioning Tombs and Conceptualizing Burial Space
Chapter 4: Variations in Grave Goods
Conclusion

Early Medieval China 25 《中國中古研究》第25期 (2019)

Table of Contents:

Special Issue: Essays in Honor of Albert E. Dien’s Scholarly Contributions to the Study of the Northern Dynasties on the Occasion of his 90th Birthday

Guest Editors: Jonathan K. Skaff and Scott Pearce

Editors’ Note
JONATHAN K. SKAFF AND SCOTT PEARCE

ARTICLES

Albert E. Dien: A Short Biography of a Scholarly Explorer
JONATHAN KARAM SKAFF

Albert Dien’s Contribution to Study of the Northern Dynasties
SCOTT PEARCE

The Nature of the Hu: Wuhuan and Xianbei Ethnography in the San Guo Zhi and Hou Han Shu
NINA DUTHIE

A Preliminary Study of the Lacquerware of the Northern Dynasties, with a Special Focus on the Pingcheng Period (398–493)
SHING MÜLLER

Tribute, Hostages, and Marriage Alliances: A Close Reading of Diplomatic Strategies in the Northern Wei Period
ARMIN SELBITSCHKA

The Use and Understanding of Domestic Animals in Early Medieval Northern China
KEITH N. KNAPP

Priests and Other Xian 祆 Ritual Performers in Medieval China
PÉNÉLOPE RIBOUD

Bibliography of Albert E. Dien Since 2008

(via Michael Farmer)

Mourning Rituals in Archaic & Classical Greece and Pre-Qin China

Author: 
Wu, Xiaoqun

Publisher:
Palgrave Pivot

Publication date:
2018

Abstract:

This pivot compares mourning rituals in Archaic & Classical Greece and Pre-Qin China to illustrate some of the principles and methods used in comparative studies.  It focuses on three main aspects of mourning of the dead before burial — lamentation, mourners’ gestures and behaviors, and mourning apparel — to demonstrate the cultural function, purpose, and social influence of mourning. A key comparative study of rituals at the heart of both Western and Chinese culture, this text highlights the cultural function and social influence of rituals of two ancient peoples and will be of interest to all scholars of comparative religion, sociology and anthropology.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Attitudes towards Death in Ancient Greece and Ancient China

Lamentation

Mourners’ Gestures and Behaviors

Mourning Apparel

Conclusions

Divination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece

Author:
Lisa Raphals

Publication Date:
June 2014

Publisher:
Cambridge University Press

Abstract:

Divination was an important and distinctive aspect of religion in both ancient China and ancient Greece, and this book will provide the first systematic account and analysis of the two side by side. Who practised divination in these cultures and who consulted it? What kind of questions did they ask, and what methods were used to answer those questions? As well as these practical aspects, Lisa Raphals also examines divination as a subject of rhetorical and political narratives, and its role in the development of systematic philosophical and scientific inquiry. She explores too the important similarities, differences and synergies between Greek and Chinese divinatory systems, providing important comparative evidence to reassess Greek oracular divination.

Table of Contents:

Preface
1. Introduction
2. Sources
3. Theorizing divination
4. Practitioners
5. Methods
6. The questions
7. Consultors
8. Mantic narratives
9. Divination and systematic thought
10. Conclusions
11. Glossary
12. Appendices

Between Rome and China: History, Religions and Material Culture of the Silk Road

Editors:
S. N.C. Lieu, G. Mikkelsen

Publication Date:
2016.6

Publisher:
Brepols Publishers

Abstract:

This book contains a key study on sericulture as well as on the conduct of the trade in silk between China and the Roman Near East using archaeological and literary evidence.

The eight studies in this volume by established and emerging scholars range geographically and chronologically from the Greek Kingdom of Bactria of the 2nd century BCE to the Uighur Kingdoms of Karabalgasun in Mongolia and Qočo in Xinjiang of the 8th-9th centuries CE. 

It contains a key study on sericulture as well on the conduct of the trade in silk between China and the Roman Near East using archaeological as well as literary evidence. Other topics covered include Sogdian religious art, the role of Manichaeism as a Silk Road religion par excellence, the enigmatic names for the Roman Empire in Chinese sources and a multi-lingual gazetteer of place- and ethnic names in Pre-Islamic Central Asia which will be an essential reference tool for researchers. The volume also contains an author and title index to all the Silk Road Studies volumes published up to 2014. The broad ranging theme covered by this volume should appeal to a wider public fascinated by the history of the Silk Road and wishing to be informed of the latest state of research. Because of the centrality of the topics covered by this study, the volume could serve as a basic reading text for university courses on the history of the Silk Road.


Table of Contents

1. JOSEF WIESEHÖFER
    Greeks, Iranians and Chinese on the Silk Road                

2. ULRICH HÜBNER
    Palestine, Syria and the Silk Road                          

3. WERNER SUNDERMANN
     Manichaeism on the Silk Road: Its Rise, Flourishing and Decay      

4. THOMAS THILO
    Chang’an – China’s Gateway to the Silk Road   

5. GUNNER MIKKELSEN
    Religious Convergence in Sogdian Funerary Art from Sixth-Century North 
    China          

6. SAMUEL N. C. LIEU
    Da Qin 大秦 and Fulin 拂林 – the Chinese Names for Rome   
  
7. SAMUEL N. C. LIEU  &  GUNNER MIKKELSEN
    Places and Peoples in Central Asia and in the Graeco-Roman 
    Near East – A Multilingual Gazetteer from Select Pre-Islamic Sources             

8. LYNDON A. ARDEN-WONG
    Some Thoughts on Manichaean Architecture and its Application  in the 
    Eastern Uighur Khaganate

シルクロードの来世観 Ancient Afterlife Beliefs along the Silk Road

Editor:
白須淨眞

Publisher:
勉誠出版

Publication Year:
2015

Abstract:

「生前中は、皆様より格別なご厚情、ご愛顧をいただき…」という遺族の挨拶に、違和感を持つ人はいない。東アジア世界が、「現世」を「生前」と認識してきたのは、過去世、現世、来世の三世のうち、「来世」に対する尋常でない関心の強さが背景にあるからであろう。そのような観念的虚構世界は、独自の固有性を保ちながらも、多くの共通点とともに、世界各域に数多く見出すことができる。広大なユーラシアの大地を媒体とする巨大な交流総体「シルクロード」が持っている文化交流の蓄積のなかに浮かび上がる、ひとびとの来世観。

Table of Contents:

［総論］
シルクロードの来世観　白須淨眞

［Ⅰ　来世観への敦煌学からのスケール］
シルクロードの敦煌資料が語る中国の来世観　荒見泰史

［Ⅱ　昇天という来世観］
シルクロード古墓壁画の大シンフォニー―四世紀後半期、トゥルファン地域の「来迎・昇天」壁画　白須淨眞

シルクロードの古墓の副葬品に見える「天に昇るための糸」―五～六世紀のトゥルファン古墓の副葬品リストにみえる「攀天糸万万九千丈」　門司尚之

シルクロードの古墓から出土した不思議な木函―四世紀後半期、トゥルファン地域の「昇天アイテム」とその容れ物　白須淨眞

［Ⅲ　現世の延長という来世観］
シルクロード・河西の古墓から出土した木板が語るあの世での結婚―魏晋期、甘粛省高台県古墓出土の「冥婚鎮墓文」　許飛

［Ⅳ　来世へのステイタス］
シルクロードの古墓から出土した偽物の「玉」―五～六世紀のトゥルファン古墓の副葬品リストに見える「玉豚」の現実　大田黒綾奈

［Ⅴ　死後審判があるという来世観］
十世紀敦煌文献に見る死後世界と死後審判―その特徴と流布の背景について　髙井龍

怪異を媒介するもの

Editor:
東アジア恠異学会

Publisher:
勉誠出版

Publication Year:
2015

Abstract:

「怪異」は中国の災異思想をはじめ、日本の神仏による霊験や物の怪、西洋の驚異、また民間説話や芸能、文学作品に見える妖怪など、様々なものを指すが、いずれも不思議な現象を読み解き、説明する情報の発信者と受容者のコミュニケーションによって成立する。そこには、神霊と人、人と人を「媒介」する〈知〉と〈技〉が重要な役割を果たしてきた。卜占や託宣を操る宗教者、怪異を知識で解釈する儒者や国学者、怪異をエンターテイメントに昇華させる作家や芸能者等「媒介者」は多様である。
その諸相を検討し、「怪異」をめぐる社会や人々の心性のダイナミズムを明らかにする。

Table of Contents:

はじめに 大江篤

Ⅰ　記す・伝える
霊験寺院の造仏伝承―怪異・霊験譚の伝播・伝承 大江　篤
『風土記』と『儀式帳』―恠異と神話の媒介者たち 榎村寛之
【コラム】境界を越えるもの―『出雲国風土記』の鬼と神 久禮旦雄
奈良時代・仏典注釈と霊異―善珠『本願薬師経鈔』と「起屍鬼」 山口敦史
【コラム】古文辞学から見る「怪」―荻生徂徠『訳文筌蹄』『論語徴』などから　木場貴俊
「妖怪名彙」ができるまで　 化野燐

Ⅱ　語る・あらわす
メディアとしての能と怪異　 久留島元
江戸の知識人と〈怪異〉への態度―〝幽冥の談〞を軸に 今井秀和
【コラム】怪異が現れる場所としての軒・屋根・天井 山本陽子
クダンと見世物 笹方政紀
【コラム】霊を捉える―心霊学と近代の作家たち 一柳廣孝
「静坐」する柳田国男 村上紀夫

Ⅲ　読み解く・鎮める
遣唐使の慰霊 山田雄司
安倍吉平が送った「七十二星鎮」 水口幹記
【コラム】戸隠御師と白澤　 熊澤美弓
天変を読み解く―天保十四年白気出現一件 杉岳志
【コラム】陰陽頭土御門晴親と「怪異」 梅田千尋
吉備の陰陽師　上原大夫　 木下浩

Ⅳ　辿る・比べる
王充『論衡』の世界観を読む―災異と怪異、鬼神をめぐって 佐々木聡
中国の仏教者と予言・讖詩―仏教流入期から南北朝時代まで　 佐野誠子
【コラム】中国の怪夢と占夢　 清水洋子
中国中世における陰陽家の第一人者―蕭吉の学と術 余欣（翻訳：佐々木聡・大野裕司）
台湾道教の異常死者救済儀礼 　 山田明広
【コラム】琉球の占術文献と占者 山里純一
【コラム】韓国の暦書の暦注　 全勇勳
アラブ地域における夢の伝承 近藤久美子
【コラム】〈驚異〉を媒介する旅人 山中由里子

Discourses of Purity in Transcultural Perspective (300–1600)

Editors: 
Matthias Bley , Nikolas Jaspert andStefan Köck

Publisher: 
Brill

Publication Year:
2015

Abstract:
This volume comprises fifteen articles on the differing functions that purity, impurity, pollution and related categories could fulfil in Asian and European religions and societies of the 3rd to 17th century c.E. They focus processes of religious demarcation and transfer.

Table of Contents:
Preface
An Introduction to Discourses of Purity in Transcultural Perspective

Section 1 Material Purity

Chapter 1 Early Medieval Churches as Cultic Space between Material and Ethical Purity

Chapter 2 Some Brief Notes on Purity in Chinese Daoism

Chapter 3 An Almost Tangible Presence: Some Thoughts on Material Purity among Medieval European Jews

Section 2 Ethical and Moral Purity

Chapter 4 From 'Clean' to 'Pure' in Everyday Life in Late Imperial China: A Preliminary Enquiry

Chapter 5 Discourses on Purity in Western Christianity in the Early and High Middle Ages 

Section 3 Purity of Spirit and Thought

Chapter 6 Purity between Semantics and History: Notes on Daoist Soteriology and Interreligious Encounters in Early Medieval China

Chapter 7 Purity of Language: A Short-lived Concept in Medieval Hebrew Poetry

Section 4 Purity of Cult

Chapter 8 Domum immundam a perversis violata mundavit. Viking Defilement in Early Medieval Francia 

Chapter 9 Washing Away the Dirt of the World of Desire-On Origins and Developments of Notions of Ritual Purity in Japanese Mountain Religions 

Chapter 10 Patterns of Intensification of the Laws on Ritual Purity in Medieval Jewish Ashkenaz

Section 5 Concepts of Textual Purity

Chapter 11 Religious Texts and the Islamic Purity Regime

Section 6 Concepts of Genealogical Purity

Chapter 12 Sons of Damnation: Franciscans, Muslims, and Christian Purity

Chapter 13 Purifying the Pure: The Visuddhimagga, Forest-Dwellers and the Dynamics of Individual and Collective Prestige in Theravāda Buddhism

Chapter 14 Registers of Genealogical Purity in Classical Islam