Divination Mythology And Monarchy In Han China

Author : Michael Loewe
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 394 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 1994-09-15
Category : History
ISBN : 0521454662

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Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China by Michael Loewe Pdf

Chinese empires were established by force of arms, but sustained by religious rites and intellectual theory. The four centuries from 206 BC to AD 220 witnessed major changes in the state cults and the concepts of monarchy, while various techniques of divination were used to forecast the future or to solve immediate problems. Michael Loewe examines these changes and the links between religion and statecraft. While both mythology and the traditions nurtured by the learned affected the concept and practice of monarchy throughout the period, the political and social weaknesses of the last century of Han rule bring into question the success that was achieved by the imperial ideal. Nevertheless, that ideal and its institutions were of prime importance for the understanding of Han times and for the influence they exercised on China's later dynasties.

Author : Loewe
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2024-07-01
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0521063140

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Divination Mythollogy And Monarchy In Han China by Loewe Pdf

Author : Filippo Marsili
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2018-11-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781438472034

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Heaven Is Empty by Filippo Marsili Pdf

Offers a new perspective on the relationship between religion and the creation of the first Chinese empires. Heaven Is Empty offers a new comparative perspective on the role of the sacred in the formation of China’s early empires (221 BCE–9 CE) and shows how the unification of the Central States was possible without a unitary and universalistic conception of religion. The cohesive function of the ancient Mediterranean cult of the divinized ruler was crucial for the legitimization of Rome’s empire across geographical and social boundaries. Eventually reelaborated in Christian terms, it came to embody the timelessness and universality of Western conceptions of legitimate authority, while representing an analytical template for studying other ancient empires. Filippo Marsili challenges such approaches in his examination of the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han (141–87 BCE). Wu purposely drew from regional traditions and tried to gain the support of local communities through his patronage of local cults. He was interested in rituals that envisioned the monarch as a military leader, who directly controlled the land and its resources, as a means for legitimizing radical administrative and economic centralization. In reconstructing this imperial model, Marsili reinterprets fragmentary official accounts in light of material evidence and noncanonical and recently excavated texts. In bringing to life the courts, battlefields, markets, shrines, and pleasure quarters of early imperial China, Heaven Is Empty provides a postmodern and postcolonial reassessment of “religion” before the arrival of Buddhism and challenges the application of Greco-Roman and Abrahamic systemic, identitary, and exclusionary notions of the “sacred” to the analysis of pre-Christian and non-Western realities. Filippo Marsili is Associate Professor of History at Saint Louis University.

Author : Lisa Raphals
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 499 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2013-10-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9781107292284

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Divination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece by Lisa Raphals Pdf

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.

Author : Rafe de Crespigny
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 591 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2016-10-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004325203

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Fire over Luoyang by Rafe de Crespigny Pdf

Rafe de Crespigny provides the first account in a Western language of one of the great dynasties of China, which dominated east Asia but collapsed in dramatic fashion at the end of the second century AD.

Author : John Middleton
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 1067 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2015-06-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781317451587

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World Monarchies and Dynasties by John Middleton Pdf

Throughout history, royal dynasties have dominated countries and empires around the world. Kings, queens, emperors, chiefs, pharaohs, czars - whatever title they ruled by, monarchs have shaped institutions, rituals, and cultures in every time period and every corner of the globe. The concept of monarchy originated in prehistoric times and evolved over centuries right up to the present. Efforts to overthrow monarchies or evade their rule - such as the American, French, Chinese, and Russian revolutions - are considered turning points in world history. Even today, many countries retain their monarchies, although in vastly reduced form with little political power. One cannot understand human history and government without understanding monarchs and monarchies. This fully-illustrated encyclopedia provides the first complete survey of all the major rulers and ruling families of the world, past and present. No other reference work approaches the topic with the same sense of magnitude or connection to historical context. Arranged in A-Z format for ease of access, World Monarchies and Dynasties includes information on major monarchs and dynasties from ancient time to the present. This set: includes overviews of reigns and successions, genealogical charts, and dynastic timelines; addresses concepts, problems, and theories of monarchy; provides background and information for further research; highlights important places, structures, symbols, events, and legends related to particular monarchs and dynasties; includes a master bibliography and multiple indexes.

Author : Michael Nylan,Michael Loewe
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 671 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2010-11-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780521852975

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China's Early Empires by Michael Nylan,Michael Loewe Pdf

Shows how recent archaeological discoveries have enriched our perception of the cultural history of China in the Classical era.

Author : Mark Edward Lewis
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 334 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2010-10-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674265424

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The Early Chinese Empires by Mark Edward Lewis Pdf

In 221 BC, the First Emperor of Qin unified the lands that would become the heart of a Chinese empire. Though forged by conquest, this vast domain depended for its political survival on a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture. With this informative book, we are present at the creation of an ancient imperial order whose major features would endure for two millennia. The Qin and Han constitute the “classical period” of Chinese history—a role played by the Greeks and Romans in the West. Mark Edward Lewis highlights the key challenges faced by the court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity of peoples. He traces the drastic measures taken to transcend, without eliminating, these regional differences: the invention of the emperor as the divine embodiment of the state; the establishment of a common script for communication and a state-sponsored canon for the propagation of Confucian ideals; the flourishing of the great families, whose domination of local society rested on wealth, landholding, and elaborate kinship structures; the demilitarization of the interior; and the impact of non-Chinese warrior-nomads in setting the boundaries of an emerging Chinese identity. The first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, The Early Chinese Empires illuminates many formative events in China’s long history of imperialism—events whose residual influence can still be discerned today.

Author : K.E. Brashier
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 487 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2020-10-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9781684170562

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Ancestral Memory in Early China by K.E. Brashier Pdf

Ancestral ritual in early China was an orchestrated dance between what was present (the offerings and the living) and what was absent (the ancestors). The interconnections among the tangible elements of the sacrifice were overt and almost mechanical, but extending those connections to the invisible guests required a medium that was itself invisible. Thus in early China, ancestral sacrifice was associated with focused thinking about the ancestors, with a structured mental effort by the living to reach out to the absent forebears and to give them shape and existence. Thinking about the ancestors—about those who had become distant—required active deliberation and meditation, qualities that had to be nurtured and learned. This study is a history of the early Chinese ancestral cult, particularly its cognitive aspects. Its goals are to excavate the cult’s color and vitality and to quell assumptions that it was no more than a simplistic and uninspired exchange of food for longevity, of prayers for prosperity. Ancestor worship was not, the author contends, merely mechanical and thoughtless. Rather, it was an idea system that aroused serious debates about the nature of postmortem existence, served as the religious backbone to Confucianism, and may even have been the forerunner of Daoist and Buddhist meditation practices.

Author : Edward L. Shaughnessy
Publisher : The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
Page : 147 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2009-08-15
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9781615311989

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Exploring the Life, Myth, and Art of Ancient China by Edward L. Shaughnessy Pdf

This book is a comprehensive book about China's art, life, and culture. Using the latest discoveries by historians this book explores China's literature, music, religions, economy and cuisine.

Author : David W. Pankenier
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 617 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2013-10-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9781107006720

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Astrology and Cosmology in Early China by David W. Pankenier Pdf

Drawing on a vast array of scholarship, this pioneering text illustrates how profoundly astronomical phenomena shaped ancient Chinese civilization.

Author : Nicola Di Cosmo
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 468 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2011-03-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674262997

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Military Culture in Imperial China by Nicola Di Cosmo Pdf

This volume explores the relationship between culture and the military in Chinese society from early China to the Qing empire, with contributions by eminent scholars aiming to reexamine the relationship between military matters and law, government, historiography, art, philosophy, literature, and politics. The book critically investigates the perception that, due to the influence of Confucianism, Chinese culture has systematically devalued military matters. There was nothing inherently pacifist about the Chinese governments’ views of war, and pragmatic approaches—even aggressive and expansionist projects—often prevailed. Though it has changed in form, a military elite has existed in China from the beginning of its history, and military service included a large proportion of the population at any given time. Popular literature praised the martial ethos of fighting men. Civil officials attended constantly to military matters on the administrative and financial ends. The seven military classics produced in antiquity continued to be read even into the modern period. These original essays explore the ways in which intellectual, civilian, and literary elements helped shape the nature of military institutions, theory, and the culture of war. This important contribution bridges two literatures, military and cultural, that seldom appear together in the study of China, and deepens our understanding of war and society in Chinese history.

Author : Zhongshu Dong
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 700 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2015-12-15
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9780231539616

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Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn by Zhongshu Dong Pdf

The Spring and Autumn (Chunqiu) is a chronicle kept by the dukes of the state of Lu from 722 to 481 B.C.E. Luxuriant Gems of the "Spring and Autumn" (Chunqiu fanlu) follows the interpretations of the Gongyang Commentary, whose transmitters sought to explicate the special language of the Spring and Autumn. The work is often ascribed to the Han scholar and court official Dong Zhongshu, but, as this study reveals, the text is in fact a compendium of writings by a variety of authors spanning several generations. It depicts a utopian vision of a flourishing humanity that they believed to be Confucius's legacy to the world. The Gongyang masters thought that Confucius had written the Spring and Autumn, employing subtle phrasing to indicate approval or disapproval of important events and personages. Luxuriant Gems therefore augments Confucian ethical and philosophical teachings with chapters on cosmology, statecraft, and other topics drawn from contemporary non-Confucian traditions. A major resource, this book features the first complete English-language translation of Luxuriant Gems, divided into eight thematic sections with introductions that address dating, authorship, authenticity, and the relationship between the Spring and Autumn and the Gongyang approach. Critically illuminating early Chinese philosophy, religion, literature, and politics, this book conveys the brilliance of intellectual life in the Han dynasty during the formative decades of the Chinese imperial state.

Author : Endymion Porter Wilkinson
Publisher : Harvard Univ Asia Center
Page : 1220 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : History
ISBN : 0674002490

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Chinese History by Endymion Porter Wilkinson Pdf

Endymion Wilkinson's bestselling manual of Chinese history has long been an indispensable guide to all those interested in the civilization and history of China. In this latest edition, now in a bigger format, its scope has been dramatically enlarged by the addition of one million words of new text. Twelve years in the making, the new manual introduces students to different types of transmitted, excavated, and artifactual sources from prehistory to the twentieth century. It also examines the context in which the sources were produced, preserved, and received, the problems of research and interpretation associated with them, and the best, most up-to-date secondary works. Because the writing of history has always played a central role in Chinese politics and culture, special attention is devoted to the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese historiography.

Author : Guolong Lai
Publisher : University of Washington Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2015-05-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780295805702

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Excavating the Afterlife by Guolong Lai Pdf

In Excavating the Afterlife, Guolong Lai explores the dialectical relationship between sociopolitical change and mortuary religion from an archaeological perspective. By examining burial structure, grave goods, and religious documents unearthed from groups of well-preserved tombs in southern China, Lai shows that new attitudes toward the dead, resulting from the trauma of violent political struggle and warfare, permanently altered the early Chinese conceptions of this world and the afterlife. The book grounds the important changes in religious beliefs and ritual practices firmly in the sociopolitical transition from the Warring States (ca. 453�221 BCE) to the early empires (3rd century�1st century BCE). A methodologically sophisticated synthesis of archaeological, art historical, and textual sources, Excavating the Afterlife will be of interest to art historians, archaeologists, and textual scholars of China, as well as to students of comparative religions. For more information: http://arthistorypi.org/books/excavating-the-afterlife