Early Medieval China

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Early Medieval China

Wendy Swartz,Robert Ford Campany,Yang Lu,Jessey Choo
Early Medieval China Book PDF

Author : Wendy Swartz,Robert Ford Campany,Yang Lu,Jessey Choo
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 745 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2014-03-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9780231531009

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Early Medieval China by Wendy Swartz,Robert Ford Campany,Yang Lu,Jessey Choo Pdf

This innovative sourcebook builds a dynamic understanding of China's early medieval period (220–589) through an original selection and arrangement of literary, historical, religious, and critical texts. A tumultuous and formative era, these centuries saw the longest stretch of political fragmentation in China's imperial history, resulting in new ethnic configurations, the rise of powerful clans, and a pervasive divide between north and south. Deploying thematic categories, the editors sketch the period in a novel way for students and, by featuring many texts translated into English for the first time, recast the era for specialists. Thematic topics include regional definitions and tensions, governing mechanisms and social reality, ideas of self and other, relations with the unseen world, everyday life, and cultural concepts. Within each section, the editors and translators introduce the selected texts and provide critical commentary on their historical significance, along with suggestions for further reading and research.

Philosophy and Religion in Early Medieval China

Alan K. L. Chan,Yuet-Keung Lo
Philosophy and Religion in Early Medieval China Book PDF

Author : Alan K. L. Chan,Yuet-Keung Lo
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2010-08-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9781438431895

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Philosophy and Religion in Early Medieval China by Alan K. L. Chan,Yuet-Keung Lo Pdf

Exploring a time of profound change, this book details the intellectual ferment after the fall of the Han dynasty. Questions about "heaven" and the affairs of the world that had seemed resolved by Han Confucianism resurfaced and demanded reconsideration. New currents in philosophy, religion, and intellectual life emerged to leave an indelible mark on the subsequent development of Chinese thought and culture. This period saw the rise of xuanxue ("dark learning" or "learning of the mysterious Dao"), the establishment of religious Daoism, and the rise of Buddhism. In examining the key ideas of xuanxue and focusing on its main proponents, the contributors to this volume call into question the often-presumed monolithic identity of this broad philosophical front. The volume also highlights the richness and complexity of religion in China during this period, examining the relationship between the Way of the Celestial Master and local, popular religious beliefs and practices, and discussing the relationship between religious Daoism and Buddhism.

Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China

E. N. Anderson
Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China Book PDF

Author : E. N. Anderson
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2014-11-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780812246384

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Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China by E. N. Anderson Pdf

Chinese food is one of the most recognizable and widely consumed cuisines in the world. Almost no town on earth is without a Chinese restaurant of some kind, and Chinese canned, frozen, and preserved foods are available in shops from Nairobi to Quito. But the particulars of Chinese cuisine vary widely from place to place as its major ingredients and techniques have been adapted to local agriculture and taste profiles. To trace the roots of Chinese foodways, one must look back to traditional food systems before the early days of globalization. Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China traces the development of the food systems that coincided with China's emergence as an empire. Before extensive trade and cultural exchange with Europe was established, Chinese farmers and agriculturalists developed systems that used resources in sustainable and efficient ways, permitting intensive and productive techniques to survive over millennia. Fields, gardens, semiwild lands, managed forests, and specialized agricultural landscapes all became part of an integrated network that produced maximum nutrients with minimal input—though not without some environmental cost. E. N. Anderson examines premodern China's vast, active network of trade and contact, such as the routes from Central Asia to Eurasia and the slow introduction of Western foods and medicines under the Mongol Empire. Bringing together a number of new findings from archaeology, history, and field studies of environmental management, Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China provides an updated picture of language relationships, cultural innovations, and intercultural exchanges.

Women in Early Medieval China

Bret Hinsch
Women in Early Medieval China Book PDF

Author : Bret Hinsch
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2018-10-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781538117972

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Women in Early Medieval China by Bret Hinsch Pdf

This important study provides the only comprehensive survey of Chinese women during the early medieval period of disunion known as the Six Dynasties, which lasted from the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty in AD 220 to the reunification of China by the Sui dynasty in AD 581.

Structures of the Earth

D. Jonathan Felt
Structures of the Earth Book PDF

Author : D. Jonathan Felt
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 408 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2022-03-07
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781684176441

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Structures of the Earth by D. Jonathan Felt Pdf

The traditional Chinese notion of itself as the “middle kingdom”—literally the cultural and political center of the world—remains vital to its own self-perceptions and became foundational to Western understandings of China. This worldview was primarily constructed during the earliest imperial unification of China during the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BCE–220 CE). But the fragmentation of empire and subsequent “Age of Disunion” (220–589 CE) that followed undermined imperial orthodoxies of unity, centrality, and universality. In response, geographical writing proliferated, exploring greater spatial complexities and alternative worldviews. This book is the first study of the emergent genre of geographical writing and the metageographies that structured its spatial thought during that period. Early medieval geographies highlighted spatial units and structures that the Qin–Han empire had intentionally sought to obscure—including those of regional, natural, and foreign spaces. Instead, these postimperial metageographies reveal a polycentric China in a polycentric world. Sui–Tang (581–906 CE) officials reasserted the imperial model as spatial orthodoxy. But since that time these alternative frameworks have persisted in geographical thought, continuing to illuminate spatial complexities that have been incompatible with the imperial and nationalist ideal of a monolithic China at the center of the world.

Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature (vol.I)

David R. Knechtges,Taiping Chang
Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature vol I Book PDF

Author : David R. Knechtges,Taiping Chang
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 802 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2010-09-10
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9789004191273

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Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature (vol.I) by David R. Knechtges,Taiping Chang Pdf

The long-awaited, first Western-language reference guide, this work offers a wealth of information on writers, genres, literary schools and terms of the Chinese literary tradition from earliest times to the seventh century C.E.

Strange Writing

Robert Ford Campany
Strange Writing Book PDF

Author : Robert Ford Campany
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 540 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 1996-01-25
Category : History
ISBN : 9780791498415

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Strange Writing by Robert Ford Campany Pdf

Between the Han dynasty, founded in 206 B.C.E., and the Sui, which ended in 618 C.E., Chinese authors wrote many thousands of short textual items, each of which narrated or described some phenomenon deemed "strange." Most items told of encounters between humans and various denizens of the spirit-world, or of the miraculous feats of masters of esoteric arts; some described the wonders of exotic lands, or transmitted fragments of ancient mythology. This genre of writing came to be known as zhiguai ("accounts of anomalies"). Who were the authors of these books, and why did they write of these "strange" matters? Why was such writing seen as a compelling thing to do? In this book, the first comprehensive study in a Western language of the zhiguai genre in its formative period, Campany sets forth a new view of the nature of the genre and the reasons for its emergence. He shows that contemporaries portrayed it as an extension of old royal and imperial traditions in which strange reports from the periphery were collected in the capital as a way of ordering the world. He illuminates how authors writing from most of the religious and cultural perspectives of the times—including Daoists, Buddhists, Confucians, and others—used the genre differently for their own persuasive purposes, in the process fundamentally altering the old traditions of anomaly-collecting. Analyzing the "accounts of anomalies" both in the context of Chinese religious and cultural history and as examples of a cross-culturally attested type of discourse, Campany combines in-depth Sinological research with broad-ranging comparative thinking in his approach to these puzzling, rich texts.

Making Transcendents

Robert Ford Campany
Making Transcendents Book PDF

Author : Robert Ford Campany
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2009-02-18
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780824833336

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Making Transcendents by Robert Ford Campany Pdf

Honorable Mention, Joseph Levenson Prize (pre-1900 category), Association for Asian Studies By the middle of the third century B.C.E. in China there were individuals who sought to become transcendents (xian)—deathless, godlike beings endowed with supernormal powers. This quest for transcendence became a major form of religious expression and helped lay the foundation on which the first Daoist religion was built. Both xian and those who aspired to this exalted status in the centuries leading up to 350 C.E. have traditionally been portrayed as secretive and hermit-like figures. This groundbreaking study offers a very different view of xian-seekers in late classical and early medieval China. It suggests that transcendence did not involve a withdrawal from society but rather should be seen as a religious role situated among other social roles and conceived in contrast to them. Robert Campany argues that the much-discussed secrecy surrounding ascetic disciplines was actually one important way in which practitioners presented themselves to others. He contends, moreover, that many adepts were not socially isolated at all but were much sought after for their power to heal the sick, divine the future, and narrate their exotic experiences. The book moves from a description of the roles of xian and xian-seekers to an account of how individuals filled these roles, whether by their own agency or by others’—or, often, by both. Campany summarizes the repertoire of features that constituted xian roles and presents a detailed example of what analyses of those cultural repertoires look like. He charts the functions of a basic dialectic in the self-presentations of adepts and examines their narratives and relations with others, including family members and officials. Finally, he looks at hagiographies as attempts to persuade readers as to the identities and reputations of past individuals. His interpretation of these stories allows us to see how reputations were shaped and even co-opted—sometimes quite surprisingly—into the ranks of xian. Making Transcendents provides a nuanced discussion that draws on a sophisticated grasp of diverse theoretical sources while being thoroughly grounded in traditional Chinese hagiographical, historiographical, and scriptural texts. The picture it presents of the quest for transcendence as a social phenomenon in early medieval China is original and provocative, as is the paradigm it offers for understanding the roles of holy persons in other societies.

Great Clarity

Fabrizio Pregadio
Great Clarity Book PDF

Author : Fabrizio Pregadio
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Page : 392 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2006-02-27
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780804767736

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Great Clarity by Fabrizio Pregadio Pdf

This is the first book to examine extensively the religious aspects of Chinese alchemy. Its main focus is the relation of alchemy to the Daoist traditions of the early medieval period (third to sixth centuries). It shows how alchemy contributed to and was tightly integrated into the elaborate body of doctrines and practices that Daoists built at that time, from which Daoism as we know it today evolved. The book also clarifies the origins of Chinese alchemy and the respective roles of alchemy and meditation in self-cultivation practices. It contains full translations of three important medieval texts, all of them accompanied by running commentaries, making available for the first time in English the gist of the early Chinese alchemical corpus.

Kingship in Early Medieval China

Andrew Eisenberg
Kingship in Early Medieval China Book PDF

Author : Andrew Eisenberg
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 293 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2008-01-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9789004163812

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Kingship in Early Medieval China by Andrew Eisenberg Pdf

The institution of the Retired Emperor forms the innovative angle from which this study analyzes Classical Chinese political history (4th to 7th centuries A.D.) With the help of the ensuing insights the volume develops into a portal through which to gain understanding of broader patterns of political and social action relevant to the Classical Chinese monarchy. In this truly interdisciplinary approach Weberian historical sociological concepts are engaged as a means of bringing specific historical actions into a wider cross cultural comparative perspective and lays the basis for a new framework to think about kingship and succession in East Asia.

Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China

Zhenjun Zhang
Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China Book PDF

Author : Zhenjun Zhang
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 277 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2014-08-21
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9789004277847

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Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China by Zhenjun Zhang Pdf

This book examines the literary thematic changes, Buddhist imagery, and new motifs in the fantastic dreamworld as seen in the tales of the supernatural in early medieval China.

Interpretation and Literature in Early Medieval China

Alan K. L. Chan,Yuet-Keung Lo
Interpretation and Literature in Early Medieval China Book PDF

Author : Alan K. L. Chan,Yuet-Keung Lo
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 297 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2010-07-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781438432199

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Interpretation and Literature in Early Medieval China by Alan K. L. Chan,Yuet-Keung Lo Pdf

Covering a time of great intellectual ferment and great influence on what was to come, this book explores the literary and hermeneutic world of early medieval China. In addition to profound political changes, the fall of the Han dynasty allowed new currents in aesthetics, literature, interpretation, ethics, and religion to emerge during the Wei-Jin Nanbeichao period. The contributors to this volume present developments in literature and interpretation during this era from a variety of methodological perspectives, frequently highlighting issues hitherto unremarked in Western or even Chinese and Japanese scholarship. These include the rise of new literary and artistic values as the Han declined, changing patterns of patronage that helped reshape literary tastes and genres, and new developments in literary criticism. The religious changes of the period are revealed in the literary self-presentation of spiritual seekers, the influence of Daoism on motifs in poetry, and Buddhist influences on both poetry and historiography. Traditional Chinese literary figures, such as the fox and the ghost, receive fresh analysis about their particular representation during this period.

Reading Tao Yuanming

Wendy Swartz
Reading Tao Yuanming Book PDF

Author : Wendy Swartz
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 325 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2020-03-17
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781684174799

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Reading Tao Yuanming by Wendy Swartz Pdf

Tao Yuanming (365?–427), although dismissed as a poet following his death, is now considered one of China’s greatest writers. Over the centuries, portrayals of his life—some focusing on his eccentricity, others on his exemplary virtue—have elevated him to iconic status. This study of the posthumous reputation of a central figure in Chinese literary history, the mechanisms at work in the reception of his works, and the canonization of Tao himself and of particular readings of his works sheds light on the transformation of literature and culture in premodern China. It focuses on readers’ interpretive negotiations with Tao’s works and on changes in hermeneutical practices, critical vocabulary, and cultural demands, as well as the intervention of interested and influential readers, in order to trace the construction of Tao Yuanming. Driven by a dialogue on categories at the very heart of literati culture—reclusion, personality, and poetry—this cumulative process spanning fifteen centuries, the author argues, helps explain the very different pictures of Tao Yuanming and the divergent ways of reading his works across time and illuminates central issues animating premodern Chinese culture.

Entombed Epigraphy and Commemorative Culture in Early Medieval China

Timothy M. Davis
Entombed Epigraphy and Commemorative Culture in Early Medieval China Book PDF

Author : Timothy M. Davis
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 428 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2015-11-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004306424

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Entombed Epigraphy and Commemorative Culture in Early Medieval China by Timothy M. Davis Pdf

In Entombed Epigraphy and Commemorative Culture Timothy M. Davis explains the social, cultural, and religious significance of early medieval muzhiming —one of the most versatile and persistent commemorative forms employed in the elite burials of pre-modern China.

Strange Writing

Robert Ford Campany
Strange Writing Book PDF

Author : Robert Ford Campany
Publisher : SUNY Press
Page : 540 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 1996-01-25
Category : History
ISBN : 0791426602

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Strange Writing by Robert Ford Campany Pdf

This is the first comprehensive, Western-language study of the important Chinese genre of writing known as "accounts of the anomalies" (zhiguai) in its formative period. The book sets forth a new view of the nature and origins of the genre.