The Five-Colored Clouds of Mount Wutai: Poems from Dunhuang

Author:
Mary Anne Cartelli

Publisher:
Brill

Publication Year:
2012

Abstract:

In The Five-Colored Clouds of Mount Wutai: Poems from Dunhuang, Mary Anne Cartelli examines a set of poems from the Dunhuang manuscripts about Mount Wutai, the most sacred mountain in Chinese Buddhism. Dating from the Tang and Five Dynasties periods, they reflect the mountain’s transformation into the home of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, and provide important literary evidence for the development of Buddhism in China. This interdisciplinary study analyzes the poems using Buddhist scriptures and pilgrimage records, as well as the contemporaneous wall-painting of Mount Wutai in Dunhuang cave 61. The poems demonstrate how the mountain was created as a sacred Buddhist space, as their motifs reflect the cosmology associated with the mountain by the Tang dynasty, and they vividly portray the experience of the pilgrim traveling through a divinely empowered landscape.

Table of Contents:

1 Ascending and Wandering: Introduction 1 --
Sacred Mountains in Ancient China 3 --
Dunhuang and the Dunhuang Caves 8 --
Dunhuang Literature 10 --
Dunhuang and Mount Wutai 12 --
Mountains in Early Chinese Poetry 14 --
About the Book 22 --

2 The Clear and the Cold: Mount Wutai 27 --
Early Literature on Mount Wutai 27 --
Early Legends about Mount Wutai 29 --
Chinese Emperors and Mount Wutai 31 --
Mañjusri and the Chinese Buddhist Scriptures 37 --
The Mañjusri-parinirvana sutra 41 --
Mount Wutai as a Manifestation of the Buddhist Doctrine 46 --
Early Chinese Poetry on Mount Wutai 49 --
The Mount Wutai Poetry of the Dunhuang Manuscripts 53 --

3 The Hall of the Great Sage: The Songs of Mount Wutai 57 --
The Hall of the Great Sage 59 --
I Ascend the Eastern Terrace 66 --
I Ascend the Northern Terrace 71 --
I Ascend the Central Terrace 74 --
I Ascend the Western Terrace 78 --
I Ascend the Southern Terrace 82 --

4 The Land of Vaidurya: Eulogy on Mount Wutai 87 --
Eulogy on Mount Wutai 90 --

5 Inconceivable Light: Eulogy on Mount Wutai 121 --
The Pure Land School 122 --
The Pure Land Monk Fazhao 124 --
Eulogy on Mount Wulai 129 --

6 The Gold-Colored World: Eulogy on the Holy Regions of Mount Wutai 147 --
Eulogy on the True Countenance of the Great Sage 149 --
Eulogy on Samantabhadra 153 --
The Eastern Terrace 155 --
The Northern Terrace 158 --
The Central Terrace 159 --
The Western Terrace 161 --
The Southern Terrace 163 --
The Holy Region of the Vajra Grotto 165 --
The Auspicious Stupa of King Asoka 167 --
Eulogy on the Physical Body of Rahula 169 --
A Vision of Sutra Recitation by the Vajra Grotto 170 --

7 Word and Image: The Mount Wutai Wall Painting at Dunhuang 175 --
Map or Painting? 176 --
Iconography and Imagery in Cave 61 180 --
Mountain as Icon 192 --

8 Poetry as a Buddhist Matter: Conclusion 195 --
Transmission of the Vision 199 --
Literati Poets and Mount Wutai 202 --

For the Purpose of Salvation 204.

The Pheasant Cap Master and the End of History-Linking Religion to Philosophy in Early China 鶡冠子

Author:
Marnix Wells

Publisher:
Three Pines Press

Publication Year:
2013

Abstract:

Following a catastrophic defeat at Changping in 260 BCE, and the reported immolation of close to half a million Zhao soldiers by Qin, a mysterious figure appeared on the stage of history. He was called Heguanzi, the ‘Pheasant Cap’ master and appeared incognito. Seemingly a political refugee, this Daoist Demosthenes in outspoken jeremiads warned against a looming danger of total collapse and Zhao’s imminent annexation by the ruthless kingdom of Qin.

Pheasant Cap’s writings, long neglected and misunderstood, combine a potent mix of religion, metaphysics, philosophy, politics and strategy to unroll a vibrant picture of life and death in perhaps the most climactic period of Chinese history. Against the totalitarian system of Qin, he offers an alternative vision of meritocracy and inclusiveness to unite a fractured world. Marnix Wells offers readers the first full translation and analysis in any language. 

Qin: the Eternal Emperor and His Terracotta Warriors

Editors:
Maria Khayutina , Bernisches Historisches Museum

Publication Year:
2013

Publisher:
Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Table of Content:

I China in the First Millenium BC and the Rise of Qin

Chapter 1: The Zhou Dynasty and the Birth of the Son of Heaven (Edward
Shaughnessy)

Chapter 2: Qin: From Principality to Kingdom to Empire (Yuri Pines)

Chapter 3: Tombs of the Principality of Qin: Elites and Commoners (Alain
Thote)

Catalogue I


II The Qin Empire and the Tomb Complex of the First Emperor

Chapter 4: King Zheng of Qin, the First Emperor of China (Yuri Pines)

Chapter 5: The Qin Empire

Qin Government: Structures, Principles and Practices (Charles Sanft)

The Standardization of Writing (Ch¹en Chao-jung)

Chapter 6: The World To Go: the Last Resting Place of the First Emperor

The Discovery of a Century: the Terracotta Army of the First Emperor of
China (Cao Wei)

The Tomb Complex and Its Hidden Secrets (Armin Selbitschka)

Chapter 7: Warriors, Officials and Entertainers

The Terracotta Men and Their Roles (Armin Selbitschka)

The Production Techniques, Conservation and Restoration of the Terracotta
Figures  (Catharina Blänsdorf and Linda Zachmann)

Catalogue II


III After the First Emperor

Chapter 8: The Qin and Han Empires and Their Heritage (Michael Loewe)

Chapter 9: Qin Shi Huangdi and His Terracotta Warriors in the 21st Century

Staging Qin Shi Huangdi: the First Emperor on Stage and Screen (Anna
Stecher)

The First Emperor and His Army in Imagery and Sculpture (Maria Khayutina)

Catalogue III

The Quest for Ecstatic Morality in Early China 郭店楚簡 "性自命出"

Author:
Kenneth W. Holloway

Publisher:
Oxford University Press, USA

Publication Year:
2013

Abstract:

There is an intense love of freedom evident in the "Xing zi mingchu," a text last seen when it was buried in a Chinese tomb in 300 B.C.E. It tells us that both joy and sadness are the ecstatic zenith of what the text terms "qing." Combining emotions into qing allows them to serve as a stepping stone to the Dao, the transcendent source of morality for the world. There is a process one must follow to prepare qing: it must be beautified by learning from the classics written by ancient sages. What is absent from the process is any indication that the emotions themselves need to be suppressed or regulated, as is found in most other texts from this time.

The Confucian principles of humanity and righteousness are not rejected, but they are seen as needing our qing and the Dao. Holloway argues that the Dao here is the same Dao of Laozi's Daode jing. As a missing link between what came to be called Confucianism and Daoism, the "Xing zi mingchu" is changing the way we look at the history of religion in early China.

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Letters and Epistolary Culture in Early Medieval China 早期中古中國的書信與書信文化

Author:
Antje Richter

Publisher:
University of Washington Press

Publication Year:
2013

Abstract:
This first book-length study in Chinese or any Western language of personal letters and letter-writing in premodern China focuses on the earliest period (ca. 3rd-6th cent. CE) with a sizeable body of surviving correspondence. Along with the translation and analysis of many representative letters, Antje Richter explores the material culture of letter writing (writing supports and utensils, envelopes and seals, the transportation of finished letters) and letter-writing conventions (vocabulary, textual patterns, topicality, creativity). She considers the status of letters as a literary genre, ideal qualities of letters, and guides to letter-writing, providing a wealth of examples to illustrate each component of the standard personal letter. References to letter-writing in other cultures enliven the narrative throughout.

Letters and Epistolary Culture in Early Medieval China makes the social practice and the existing textual specimens of personal Chinese letter-writing fully visible for the first time, both for the various branches of Chinese studies and for epistolary research in other ancient and modern cultures, and encourages a more confident and consistent use of letters as historical and literary sources.

Table of Contents:
Materiality and terminology --
Letters and literary thought --
Structures and phrases --
Topoi --
Normativity and authenticity

Et sinifisert rike?: Nordre Wei-dynastiets stilling i kinesisk historie slik det er fremstilt i engelskspråklig historievitenskap

Author:
Torheim-Sandvik, Ove Pils

Publication Year:
2011

School:
University of Oslo

Abstract:

This is a historiographical study of English language texts concerning history of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Based on available and relevant texts about Chinese history from the end of the nineteenth century until 2010, I will show in this paper how the view of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534), in North China, has developed. I will show that there are two main currents: One, starting around 1914, describes Northern Wei as a dynasty that was culturally transformed into a Chinese empire. This means that the accounts of the history of the Northern Wei Dynasty suggests the sinicization of the Empire. This school of thought lasts until 2010, and is especially prominent in the general history books on China. This position is not static, but evolves in the course of the twentieth century. I will also show that this current is inspired by Chinese nationalist movements in the early 1900s, but later evolved to become a generally accepted explanation of the empire. The other school of thought started in the second half of the 1970s, and is both an active and passive resistance to sinicization as an explanation of the Northern Wei Dynasty’s historical development. This resistance came as a result of historical developments in Western science, where historians and the social sciences at this time confronted and questioned the established truths and the great narratives. I will show that this second direction is not uniform, but that one is trying to find new ways to explain the narrative of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Generally, I will show that prior to 1913 there is no unified narrative, but that with the introduction of the narration of sinicization there is a unity until the end of the 1970s. From this point develop several different trends with narratives that explain the Northern Wei Dynasty’s historical development.

Table of Contents:

Innledning

1 386–534 – En kort historie om Nordre Wei

2 1883–1940 – Nordre Wei som kinesisk historie?

3 1940–1978 – Ideen om sinifisering utvikles

4 1976–1996 – Holmgren og hennes samtidige

5 1991–2010 – De siste to tiår

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