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The Historical Roots of Technical Communication in the Chinese Tradition
The Historical Roots of Technical Communication in the Chinese Tradition The Historical Roots of Technical Communication in the Chinese Tradition By Daniel Ding The Historical Roots of Technical Communication in the Chinese Tradition By Daniel Ding This book first published 2020 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2020 by Daniel Ding All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-5782-0 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-5782-6 To Karen Lo: My Lovely Wife and Supporter “Thy fruit abundant fall!” —Classic of Poetry TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One ................................................................................................ 1 Technical Writing in Chinese Antiquity: An Introduction Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 21 The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions (甲骨文): The Earliest Artifact of Technical Writing in China Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 37 Classic of Poetry (诗经): Technical Instructions and Reports Chapter Four ............................................................................................ -
Geschichtsschreibung Im Spannungsfeld
Martin Hanke Die Jin-Dynastie (265–420) war eine frühe Blütezeit der chinesischen Historio- Geschichtsschreibung im Spannungsfeld graphie. Zwar wurden nur wenige der damals entstandenen Chroniken und Biographiensammlungen vollständig überliefert, doch sind von ihnen genü- zwischen Zentrale und Region gend Fragmente erhalten, um aus ihnen Rückschlüsse auf die verschiedenen am Beispiel der Jin-Dynastie Gattungen, die innere Struktur einzelner Werke und in Einzelfällen sogar auf die Zielsetzungen ihrer Verfasser ziehen zu können. Der erste Teil des Buches (265–420) bietet Einblick in die Arbeit der Palastbibliothek als der für Geschichtsschrei- bung zuständigen höfischen Behörde. Mehrere ihrer Mitarbeiter waren zugleich Verfasser von Chroniken, die jedoch überwiegend nicht vom Hof in Auftrag gegeben wurden, sondern in privater Initiative entstanden. Gegenstand des zweiten Teils sind mehrere in der Jin-Zeit entstandene Chroniken. Obwohl in allen die Einheit des Reiches eine wichtige Rolle spielt, läßt sich aus ihnen zugleich eine kritische Haltung der Chronisten gegenüber der Zentralmacht und deren Politik ablesen. Deren Augenmerk liegt auf der Eigenständigkeit der großen Regionen des Reiches sowie der Gentry-Familien. So liegt es nahe, daß sie bei der Kompilation ihrer Werke zur Reichsgeschichte in starkem Maße auf biographisches Material zurückgriffen, das von deren Interessen geprägt war. Die politische Sprengkraft dieser Werke dürfte auch der Auslöser dafür gewe- sen sein, daß sie unter der nachfolgenden Dynastie einer rigorosen Zensur -
The Power of an Alleged Tradition: a Prophecy Flattering Han Emperor Wu and Its Relation to the Sima Clan*
The Power of an Alleged Tradition: A Prophecy Flattering Han Emperor Wu and its Relation to the Sima Clan* by Dorothee Schaab-Hanke . es muß stets eine lange Übermittlerkette vorhanden sein, damit sich die Hinweise oder Gedanken, die Kommentare, wie immer man es nennt, dehnen. Sie müsen durch zehn Hirne hindurch, um einen Satz zu ergeben.** (Alexander Kluge) Introduction During the early reign of Liu Che ᄸ, posthumously honored as Emperor Wu r. 141–87) of the Han, a severe struggle for infl uence and power seems to) ܹن have arisen among competing groups of experts concerned with the establishment of new imperial rites. This is at least the impression that the Shiji͑৩ (The Scribe’s Record) conveys to the reader in chapter 28, the “Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifi ces” (Fengshan shuܱᑐए). According to the account given there, the compet- ing partners in this struggle were mainly the ru ኵ (here used in the sense of scholars who maintained that any advice in the question of ritual should entirely be based upon evidence drawn from the “Classics”) and a group of specialists called fangshī ʦ (a term which should be translated by “masters of techniques” rather than by the often used, but rather biased term magicians). * I am indebted to Prof. Dr. Hans Stumpfeldt (Hamburg), Dr. Achim Mittag (Essen) and Dr. Monique Nagel- Angermann (Münster) for their helpful and inspiring comments on the text. Special thanks to Dr. Martin Svens- son Ekström (Stockholm), Prof. Dr. E. Bruce Brooks and Dr. A. Taeko Brooks (Amherst, Mass.) as well as two anonymous readers for the BMFEA for their competent and engaged revising of the draft. -
A History of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture
A History of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture Edited by Antje Richter LEIDEN | BOSTON For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Contents Acknowledgements ix List of Illustrations xi Abbreviations xiii About the Contributors xiv Introduction: The Study of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture 1 Antje Richter PART 1 Material Aspects of Chinese Letter Writing Culture 1 Reconstructing the Postal Relay System of the Han Period 17 Y. Edmund Lien 2 Letters as Calligraphy Exemplars: The Long and Eventful Life of Yan Zhenqing’s (709–785) Imperial Commissioner Liu Letter 53 Amy McNair 3 Chinese Decorated Letter Papers 97 Suzanne E. Wright 4 Material and Symbolic Economies: Letters and Gifts in Early Medieval China 135 Xiaofei Tian PART 2 Contemplating the Genre 5 Letters in the Wen xuan 189 David R. Knechtges 6 Between Letter and Testament: Letters of Familial Admonition in Han and Six Dynasties China 239 Antje Richter For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV vi Contents 7 The Space of Separation: The Early Medieval Tradition of Four-Syllable “Presentation and Response” Poetry 276 Zeb Raft 8 Letters and Memorials in the Early Third Century: The Case of Cao Zhi 307 Robert Joe Cutter 9 Liu Xie’s Institutional Mind: Letters, Administrative Documents, and Political Imagination in Fifth- and Sixth-Century China 331 Pablo Ariel Blitstein 10 Bureaucratic Influences on Letters in Middle Period China: Observations from Manuscript Letters and Literati Discourse 363 Lik Hang Tsui PART 3 Diversity of Content and Style section 1 Informal Letters 11 Private Letter Manuscripts from Early Imperial China 403 Enno Giele 12 Su Shi’s Informal Letters in Literature and Life 475 Ronald Egan 13 The Letter as Artifact of Sentiment and Legal Evidence 508 Janet Theiss 14 Infijinite Variations of Writing and Desire: Love Letters in China and Europe 546 Bonnie S. -
State Formation in First Millennium Southeast Asia: a Reappraisal*
State Formation in First Millennium Southeast Asia: A Reappraisal* Anton O. Zakharov Institute of Oriental Studies, Moscow; Moscow State University of Psychology and Education ABSTRACT The paper analyses the characteristic features of the emerging ‘Indiani- zed’, or ‘Indic’ kingdoms in Southeast Asia. The paper traces the connec- tions between the power structures and various forms of violence, inclu- ding warfare. The main sources are inscriptions in Sanskrit, Old Malay, Old Javanese, and Old Khmer. State formation is viewed as the formation of power structures, institutions, and arrangements. Contrary to current scholarly convention stated by Michael Vickery and Dougald O'Reilly that the decisive step to territorial states in Southeast Asia is the origin of the Angkor Empire in 802, the author supposes that the seventh century was crucial for the formation of the territorial polities. The inscriptions of the seventh century issued by the kings of Srivijaya, Chenla (Zhenla), and Campā, do mention territorial units inside the whole kingdom. INTRODUCTION Since more than twenty years after the seminal state-of-the-art review by Jan Wisseman Christi (1995) on state formation in Insular South- east Asia, the regional state formation has been viewed from several theoretical perspectives. The first perspective tends to emphasize local features of the local polities that existed in the first millennium before the emergence of the Angkor Empire in 802 in Mainland Southeast Asia. The proponents of this approach are the late Michael Vickery (1998) and Dougald O'Reilly (2007). The scholars deny the applicabi- lity of the term ‘state’ to local political entities. Vickery offers the concept of poñ-ship as a designation of a complex political system where the main role was played by the local ‘chiefs’ – poñ, who are Social Evolution & History, Vol. -
Chinese Foreign Aromatics Importation
CHINESE FOREIGN AROMATICS IMPORTATION FROM THE 2ND CENTURY BCE TO THE 10TH CENTURY CE Research Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with research distinction in the undergraduate colleges of The Ohio State University. by Shiyong Lu The Ohio State University April 2019 Project Advisor: Professor Scott Levi, Department of History 1 Introduction Trade served as a major form of communication between ancient civilizations. Goods as well as religions, art, technology and all kinds of knowledge were exchanged throughout trade routes. Chinese scholars traditionally attribute the beginning of foreign trade in China to Zhang Qian, the greatest second century Chinese diplomat who gave China access to Central Asia and the world. Trade routes on land between China and the West, later known as the Silk Road, have remained a popular topic among historians ever since. In recent years, new archaeological evidences show that merchants in Southern China started to trade with foreign countries through sea routes long before Zhang Qian’s mission, which raises scholars’ interests in Maritime Silk Road. Whether doing research on land trade or on maritime trade, few scholars concentrate on the role of imported aromatics in Chinese trade, which can be explained by several reasons. First, unlike porcelains or jewelry, aromatics are not durable. They were typically consumed by being burned or used in medicine, perfume, cooking, etc. They might have been buried in tombs, but as organic matters they are hard to preserve. Lack of physical evidence not only leads scholars to generally ignore aromatics, but also makes it difficult for those who want to do further research. -
Han Dynasty Classicism and the Making of Early Medieval Literati Culture
University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2013 In Pursuit of the Great Peace: Han Dynasty Classicism and the Making of Early Medieval Literati Culture Lu Zhao University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, and the Asian History Commons Recommended Citation Zhao, Lu, "In Pursuit of the Great Peace: Han Dynasty Classicism and the Making of Early Medieval Literati Culture" (2013). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 826. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/826 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/826 For more information, please contact [email protected]. In Pursuit of the Great Peace: Han Dynasty Classicism and the Making of Early Medieval Literati Culture Abstract This dissertation is focused on communities of people in the Han dynasty (205 B.C.-A.D. 220) who possessed the knowledge of a corpus of texts: the Five Classics. Previously scholars have understood the popularity of this corpus in the Han society as a result of stiff ideology and imperial propaganda. However, this approach fails to explain why the imperial government considered them effective to convey propaganda in the first place. It does not capture the diverse range of ideas in classicism. This dissertation concentrates on Han classicists and treats them as scholars who constantly competed for attention in intellectual communities and solved problems with innovative solutions that were plausible to their contemporaries. This approach explains the nature of the apocryphal texts, which scholars have previously referred to as shallow and pseudo-scientific. -
Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters
Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, no. 65 To John B. Elliotte Classifying the Zhuxmgzl Chapters Liu Xiaogan Center for Chinese Studies • The University of Michigan Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/ Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. MICHIGAN MONOGRAPHS IN CHINESE STUDIES SERIES ESTABLISHED 1968 Published by Center for Chinese Studies The University of Michigan Ann Arbor, 48104-1608 © 1994 by Center for Chinese Studies Translated by William E. Savage Cover design by Heidi Dailey Printed and made in the United States of America © The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence for Publications and Documents in Libraries and Archives ANSI/NISO/Z39.48—1992. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Liu Xiaogan, 1947- Classifying the Zhuangzi chapters / by Liu Xiaogan. p. cm.—(Michigan monographs in Chinese Studies ; no. 65) Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 0-89264-164-9 (paper : acid-free paper). 1. Chuang-tzu. Nan-hua ching. 2. Lao-tzu. Tao te ching. I.Title. II. Series. BL1900.C576L5863 1994 299'. 51482—dc20 93-50079 CIP ISBN 978-0-89264-106-2 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-89264-164-2 (paper) ISBN 978-0-472-12739-9 (ebook) ISBN 978-0-472-90134-0 (open access) The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Contents -
Some Notes on Dayuezhi, Daxia, Guishuang, and Dumi in Chinese Sources
SOME NOTES ON DAYUEZHI, DAXIA, GUISHUANG, AND DUMI IN CHINESE SOURCES Yang Juping ᶘᐘᒣ Nankai University ইᔰབྷᆖ Tianjin, China ѝഭཙ⍕ axia (བྷ༿), Dayuezhi (བྷᴸ∿), and Guishuang (䋤 original sources from Chinese, even though various D 䵌) were three different countries once active in translations of them have been published previously ancient Central Asia and were known to Chinese of (e.g., Brosset 1828; Wylie 1881-82; Hirth 1917; Sima the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). There is general Qian 1993; Hulsewé 1979; Hill 2015). agreement that the kingdom of Daxia was conquered by the Dayuezhi tribes who had immigrated from 1. The records in the Shiji. northwest China and then divided the country into 'D\XH]KL DQG 'D[LD ZHUH ÀUVW LQWURGXFHG LQ WKH .yabgu).1 “Description of Dayuan” (བྷᇋࡇۣ) in the Shiji ן㘆 ÀYH SDUWV HDFK JRYHUQHG E\ D ;LKRX One of them, the Guishuang Xihou, united all the The Dayuezhi are west of Dayuan (བྷᇋ) by about two or lands of Dayuezhi and established a new kingdom of three thousand li (䟼)2 and are located north of the Oxus ( Guishuang (Kushan) which later became an Empire ჟ≤) [Wei Shui, the Amu Darya]. Daxia lies to the south, including a large part of Central Asia around the Amu Anxi (ᆹ) to the west, and Kangju (ᓧት) to the north. Darya and northwest of India. However, in recent Dayuezhi is a nation of nomads (㹼഻) [literally, ‘moving years there have been some disagreements about country’] wandering with their herds and practicing the these peoples in Chinese academia, such as where same customs as those of the Xiongnu (सྤ). -
In 212 AD, As the Army of the Great Warlord Cao Cao 曹操 Was Moving South Against His Southern Rival Sun Quan 孫權, There Was a Sad Incident in the Camp
A QUESTION OF LOYALTY XUN YU, CAO CAO AND SIMA GUANG In 212 AD, as the army of the great warlord Cao Cao 曹操 was moving south against his southern rival Sun Quan 孫權, there was a sad incident in the camp. Xun Yu 荀彧, a leading counsellor and one of Cao Cao's oldest supporters, died at Shouchun 壽春 city on the Huai 淮 River. There are varying accounts and opinions whether he died of natural causes or whether he killed himself, but Cao Cao was embarrassed and Emperor Xian of Han 漢獻帝, though close-held under his control, made a point of mourning Xun Yu. Nine hundred years later, moreover, as Sima Guang 司馬光 of the Northern Song dynasty compiled his chronicle Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑑, he took the death of Xun Yu as the occasion for a powerful essay on proper conduct in troubled times. The story of Xun Yu and Cao Cao, therefore, not only touches the tensions of loyalty and legitimacy between a falling dynasty and a rising power, it provided one of China's greatest Confucianists with a case-study for his moral teaching.1 [31] For two and a half thousand years since the time of Confucius, as rival states and succeeding dynasties have ruled in China, many men in public affairs have been forced into cruel choices of allegiance, and have been expected to maintain personal honour even at the cost of their lives. There has always been conflict in the Confucian tradition between an individual's responsibility to private personal and family affairs when they are set against public loyalty to the state and its government. -
Talons and Fangs of the Eastern Han Warlords
Talons and Fangs of the Eastern Han Warlords Yimin Lu A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Yimin Lu (2009) ii Talons and Fangs of the Eastern Han Warlords Yimin Lu, Ph. D Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto, 2009 Abstract Warriors are a less visible topic in the study of imperial China. They did not write history, but they made new history by destroying the old. The fall of the first enduring Chinese empire, the Han, collides with the rise of its last warriors known as the “talons and fangs.” Despite some classical or deceptive myths like the Chinese ideal of bloodless victories and a culture without soldiers, the talons and fangs of the Eastern Han warlords demonstrated the full potential of military prestige in a Confucian hierarchy, the bloodcurdling reality of dynastic rivalry, as well as a romantic tradition infatuated with individual heroism. iii Table of Content: Introduction (1-22) Chapter One (23-68) The Age of Warlords 1. The Eastern Han – Three Kingdoms Transition 2. Han Military Institutions 3. Three Kingdoms Military Organizations: Adjustments and Developments 4. Han Military Aristocracy Chapter Two (69-104) The Everyday Warriors 1. Social Standing 2. Occupational Backgrounds 3. Daily Necessities 4. Military Market 5. The Soldiers’ Women: Marriage and Prostitution 6. Military Pastimes Chapter Three (105-137) Military Equipment: Physical and Mental 1. Arms and Armor 2. Military Theories, Codes of Warfare iv Chapter Four (138-173) Noble Veterans of the North 1. -
Jian'an Literature Revisited: Poetic Dialogues in the Last Three
Jian’an Literature Revisited: Poetic Dialogues in the Last Three Decades of the Han Dynasty Hsiang-Lin Shih A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2013 Reading Committee: David R. Knechtges, Chair Ching-Hsien Wang Zev Handel Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Asian Languages and Literature ©Copyright 2013 Hsiang-Lin Shih University of Washington Abstract Jian’an Literature Revisited: Poetic Dialogues in the Last Three Decades of the Han Dynasty Hsiang-Lin Shih Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor David R. Knechtges Department of Asian Languages and Literature The Jian’an period (196-220), which is best known through the fictionalized account in the Romance of the Three States, is also an important literary period. It is celebrated for its major writers such as Cao Cao, Cao Pi, Cao Zhi and Wang Can. Previous scholars have mainly been concerned with the life and poetry of an individual writer. In this dissertation, I attempt to take an approach that crosses the boundary between individual writers. I read Jian’an poems— including shi, fu, and yuefu—as the authors’ poetic dialogues with their contemporaries. This approach is based on the fact that the writers gathered at the court of Cao Cao and shared the language of poetry. Whether drinking together or living apart, they often engaged in a dialogue on a common topic through the medium of writing. Their topics range from travel, careers, expeditions, to merriment. Like the Athenian speechmakers in Plato’s “Symposium,” Jian’an writers also tried to impress, persuade, entertain and challenge one another in their poems.