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Dressing for the Times: Fashion in Tang Dynasty China (618-907)
Dressing for the Times: Fashion in Tang Dynasty China (618-907) BuYun Chen Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2013 BuYun Chen All rights reserved ABSTRACT Dressing for the Times: Fashion in Tang Dynasty China (618-907) BuYun Chen During the Tang dynasty, an increased capacity for change created a new value system predicated on the accumulation of wealth and the obsolescence of things that is best understood as fashion. Increased wealth among Tang elites was paralleled by a greater investment in clothes, which imbued clothes with new meaning. Intellectuals, who viewed heightened commercial activity and social mobility as symptomatic of an unstable society, found such profound changes in the vestimentary landscape unsettling. For them, a range of troubling developments, including crisis in the central government, deep suspicion of the newly empowered military and professional class, and anxiety about waste and obsolescence were all subsumed under the trope of fashionable dressing. The clamor of these intellectuals about the widespread desire to be “current” reveals the significant space fashion inhabited in the empire – a space that was repeatedly gendered female. This dissertation considers fashion as a system of social practices that is governed by material relations – a system that is also embroiled in the politics of the gendered self and the body. I demonstrate that this notion of fashion is the best way to understand the process through which competition for status and self-identification among elites gradually broke away from the imperial court and its system of official ranks. -
Jingjiao Under the Lenses of Chinese Political Theology
religions Article Jingjiao under the Lenses of Chinese Political Theology Chin Ken-pa Department of Philosophy, Fu Jen Catholic University, New Taipei City 24205, Taiwan; [email protected] Received: 28 May 2019; Accepted: 16 September 2019; Published: 26 September 2019 Abstract: Conflict between religion and state politics is a persistent phenomenon in human history. Hence it is not surprising that the propagation of Christianity often faces the challenge of “political theology”. When the Church of the East monk Aluoben reached China in 635 during the reign of Emperor Tang Taizong, he received the favorable invitation of the emperor to translate Christian sacred texts for the collections of Tang Imperial Library. This marks the beginning of Jingjiao (oY) mission in China. In historiographical sense, China has always been a political domineering society where the role of religion is subservient and secondary. A school of scholarship in Jingjiao studies holds that the fall of Jingjiao in China is the obvious result of its over-involvement in local politics. The flaw of such an assumption is the overlooking of the fact that in the Tang context, it is impossible for any religious establishments to avoid getting in touch with the Tang government. In the light of this notion, this article attempts to approach this issue from the perspective of “political theology” and argues that instead of over-involvement, it is rather the clashing of “ideologies” between the Jingjiao establishment and the ever-changing Tang court’s policies towards foreigners and religious bodies that caused the downfall of Jingjiao Christianity in China. This article will posit its argument based on the analysis of the Chinese Jingjiao canonical texts, especially the Xian Stele, and takes this as a point of departure to observe the political dynamics between Jingjiao and Tang court. -
Court Historiography in Early Tang China: Assigning a Place to History and Historians at the Palace
COURT HISTORIOGRAPHY IN EARLY TANG CHINA: ASSIGNING A PLACE TO HISTORY AND HISTORIANS AT THE PALACE Isenbike Togan Introduction In Tang China (618–907 CE) policies and political interaction took shape at court, in the context of palace life. During the early Tang, court life came to include activities such as the writing of history: historians were assigned a place in the palace. The placement of the historians within the precincts of the palace was an illustration of the ‘politicization of history’, the institutional and political appropriation of history writing by the Tang court. This new trend did not only shape the interpretation of past events, but also the approach and methods of future historiography. It was during this time that the major histories of the preceding four centuries were written and the groundwork laid for future history writing by professional historians. These changes were initiated by the second Tang emperor Li Shimin, known as Tang Taizong (626–649). He was regarded as an exemplary figure by later dynasties; his reign of Zhen Guan (True Vision) is known in Chinese history as the ‘good rule of the Zhen Guan reign.’ This ‘Golden Age’ lasted for 23 years from 627 to 649. Taizong, who reached power by killing the crown prince and forcing his father to abdicate, was able to achieve high standing in history, irrespective of these events. He gained this standing initially through a policy of shar- ing power with political contestants and consolidated his position with a victory (630) over the Early Türk, the foreign power in the north and the west. -
The Advent of Islam in China: Guangzhou Fanfang During the Tang-Song Era Meng Wei
Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) 1-1-2010 The Advent of Islam in China: Guangzhou Fanfang during the Tang-Song Era Meng Wei Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd Recommended Citation Wei, Meng, "The Advent of Islam in China: Guangzhou Fanfang during the Tang-Song Era" (2010). All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). 814. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/814 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Department of East Asian Studies THE ADVENT OF ISLAM IN CHINA GUANGZHOU FANFANG DURING THE TANG-SONG ERA by Meng Wei A thesis presented to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts August 2010 Saint Louis, Missouri TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations………………………………………………………iii Introduction………………………………………………………………1 Significance of Study……………………………………………………2 Sources…………………………………………………………………4 1 Sino-Islamic Contacts before the Mongol Rule………………………6 2 The Maritime Silk Road Linking China and the Islamic World……15 3 The Making of the Guangzhou fanfang……………………………18 4 State-Sanctioned Non-Han Communities: A Comparison between jimizhou and fanfang………………………………………………22 Conclusion………………………………………………………………37 Bibliography………………………………………………………………41 ii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1 The Location of the Belitung Wreck on Google Map…………7 iii Introduction Islam is a religion noted by its powerful concern for Muslim community which is known as the umma1. -
TAIZONG—AN EMPEROR on the RUN from 645–646, in Particular
CHAPTER NINE TAIZONG—AN EMPEROR ON THE RUN From 645–646, in particular, Taizong engaged in an extraordinary number of mobile personal appearances at the frontlines of the Liao River campaign of 645, the early 646 month-long sojourn at Bingzhou (south of modern Taiyuan), and then finally his triumphant personal summit in the ninth lunar month of 646 at Lingzhou (south of modern Yingchuan, Ningxia) with the defeated, tribute bearing leaders of the the Turkish nomad tribes of Inner and Outer Mongolia. The goal of all this personal movement was to recoup the political capital lost in the 643 court political fiasco. The Liao River campaign and the Tang subjuga- tion of the Turkish tribes of Mongolia had their respective geo-strategic logics but could have been executed without Taizong’s personal pres- ence. Taizong’s goal was to attempt to hitch the political fortunes of the throne, in terms of court politics, to these military and foreign affairs activities; which will be of particular concern to this discussion. The key point in the following discussion is the surge in Taizong’s personal presence at these distant places; a degree of mobility unusual for most established emperors, indeed, unusual compared to Taizong’s previous activity after ascending the throne in late 626.1 The 645 Liaodong cam- paign turned into a strategic failure, and Taizong’s month-long sojourn in Bingzhou was in fact a full scale political retreat, an effort to avoid the court political arenas of Loyang and Chang’an. By the time he died in 649, Taizong had, in fact, been able to chalk up some high profile mili- tary achievements—the destruction of the Xueyantuo confederacy of late 646 and the conquest of Kucha in 648. -
Workshop Report: “On Muzhiming” Second Workshop of the New Frontiers in the Study of Medieval China,Reed College,May 23–24, 2016
Early Medieval China, 22. 75–80, 2016 WORKSHOP REPORT: “ON MUZHIMING” SECOND WORKSHOP OF THE NEW FRONTIERS IN THE STUDY OF MEDIEVAL CHINA,REED COLLEGE,MAY 23–24, 2016 JESSEY J.C. CHOO Rutgers University, USA, ALEXEI DITTER Reed College, USA The second workshop of the New Frontiers in the Study of Medieval China Series on Muzhiming was held on May 23–24, 2016, at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. The workshop was organized by Jessey Choo (Rutgers University), Alexei Ditter (Reed College), and LU Yang (Peking University), and funded by the Tang Research Foundation, the Office of the Dean of Faculty and the Chinese Department of Reed College, and the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at Rutgers University. This workshop brought together sixteen leading US and international scholars studying medieval China and muzhiming from different disciplinary perspectives: Robert Ashmore (University of California, Berkeley), Stephanie Balkwill (University of Southern California), Stephen Bokenkamp (Arizona State University), Jessey Choo (Rutgers University), Tim Davis (Brigham Young University), Alexei Ditter (Reed College), Patricia Ebrey (University of Washington), Paul Kroll (University of Colorado Boulder), LU Yang (Peking University), LUO Xin (Peking University), David McMullen (University of Cambridge), MENG Xianshi (Renmin University of China), RONG Xinjiang (Peking University), Anna Shields (Princeton University), WANG Ping (University of Washington), and YAO Ping (California State University-Los Angeles). In addition, four graduate students who work with mu- zhiming in their research received travel grants to attend—BAI Yuzhou (Princeton), Ken Morrow (UT-Dallas), Lucas Wolf (ASU), and WEN Xin (Harvard). This second workshop narrowed the spatial focus to muzhiming produced within or excavated from the area of medieval metropolises (Yecheng, Chang’an, and Luoyang), while broadening the temporal scope to include muzhiming dating from the fifth century. -
The Mausoleum of Emperor Tang Taizong
SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS Number 187 April, 2009 Zhaoling: The Mausoleum of Emperor Tang Taizong by Xiuqin Zhou Victor H. Mair, Editor Sino-Platonic Papers Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 USA [email protected] www.sino-platonic.org SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS is an occasional series edited by Victor H. Mair. The purpose of the series is to make available to specialists and the interested public the results of research that, because of its unconventional or controversial nature, might otherwise go unpublished. The editor actively encourages younger, not yet well established, scholars and independent authors to submit manuscripts for consideration. Contributions in any of the major scholarly languages of the world, including Romanized Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) and Japanese, are acceptable. In special circumstances, papers written in one of the Sinitic topolects (fangyan) may be considered for publication. Although the chief focus of Sino-Platonic Papers is on the intercultural relations of China with other peoples, challenging and creative studies on a wide variety of philological subjects will be entertained. This series is not the place for safe, sober, and stodgy presentations. Sino-Platonic Papers prefers lively work that, while taking reasonable risks to advance the field, capitalizes on brilliant new insights into the development of civilization. The only style-sheet we honor is that of consistency. Where possible, we prefer the usages of the Journal of Asian Studies. Sinographs (hanzi, also called tetragraphs [fangkuaizi]) and other unusual symbols should be kept to an absolute minimum. Sino-Platonic Papers emphasizes substance over form. -
Copyrighted Material
INDEX Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), “animal-style art,”54 Beijing, 182–183, 231, 233, 154, 207 Annam, 216, 231 236, 250, 252, 278, Abaoji (872–926), Emperor Anti-Rightist campaign, 361 317, 324, 356, 372, Taizu of Liao dynasty 182 Anyang, 15–16, 20 381–382, 393 economic policies, 182, 184 apsaras, 112 Beijing opera, 246 government structure Ardebil shrine, 235 Beijing Man (Sinanthropus and, 184 arhat, 107 pekinensis), 6 written script and, 182 Arigh Böke, 208 Beijing University, 310, Abu Said of Siraf, 157 Arrow, 283 324–327, 331–334, 337 Academia Sinica, 325 Autumn Harvest Beilitung discovery, 163–164 Afghanistan, U.S. invasion, 380 Uprising, 332, 337 Belt and Road Initiative, 384 agrarian reform, 346 Avalokitesvara (Guanyin), 108 Bencao gangmu (Compendium Aguda, Emperor Taizu of Jin of Materia Medica), 249 dynasty, 186 Ba Jin (1904–2005), 336, 361, bi ring, 19 Ahmad, 216 369, 373 Bilingsi, 112 Ai Qing (1910–1996), 388 backyard steel furnaces, birth control campaign, Ai Weiwei (1957–), 388 363, 366 361, 373–374 Aigun, Treaty of, 284, 297 baihua, 324–325 Blue Shirts, 337 Aksu, 393 Bakunin, Mikhail, 336 Bo Juyi (772–846), 161 Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, 296 Bamiyan, 101 Bo Xilai (1949–), 381 alfalfa, 72, 90 Ban Biao (3–54)86 Bo Yibo (1908–2007), 381 Alamut, 207 Ban Chao (32–102), 81 Bodhi tree, 106 Altan Khan, 250 Ban Gu (32–92), 81 Bodhidharma, 141–142 amban, 270 Ban Zhao (45-ca. bodhisattvas, 108–109, 112, Amitabha (Buddha of Infinite 116), 81, 91–92 140, 142, 144 Light, Buddha of WesternCOPYRIGHTED Han history, 86 MATERIALBogdo Gegen, 268, 270, 297 Paradise), 108, 142, 247 women and, 84 Bogue, Treaty of, 282 Amur River, 297 Bandung Conference, 360 Bohai Kingdom, 183, 185 An Lushan (703–757), 150 Bangkok, 393 Book of Documents Yan dynasty, 153, 158, 161 Banners, 259, 292 (Shujing), 52, 63 An Qingzu, 150 Banpo, 7–9 Book of Odes An Shigao (?-168), 109 barefoot doctors, 389 (Shujing), 51–53, 63 Analects (Lunyu), 42, 46 baojia, 176–177 daya and, 51 Andersson, J. -
The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy. by Nicolas Tackett
《中國文化研究所學報》 Journal of Chinese Studies No. 61 – July 2015 Book Reviews 365 The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy. By Nicolas Tackett. Cam- bridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Asia Center, 2014. Pp. xiv + 281. $49.95/£36.95. Nicolas Tackett has written an important book that is worthy of the attention of historians of premodern China. The book is most notable for its path-breaking quantitative approach to premodern Chinese history. Dr Tackett’s analysis of a database of individuals named in late Tang epitaphs provides new insights into macro-trends in social and political history, particularly geographical distribution and marriage relations of families with men who served in the bureaucracy of the late Tang. More controversially, he argues that most ninth-century bureaucrats were descendants of a “medieval Chinese aristocracy” of the book’s title that had “main- tained political influence for centuries” (p. 235). Dr Tackett’s most important sources are 2,231 funerary epitaphs (muzhiming 墓 誌銘) dating to the period from 800 to 880 that have been excavated from tombs mainly over the last several decades. Through painstaking efforts—involving travel to museums and archaeological institutes in China and inputting data on a computer— Dr Tackett has compiled a database of 6,255 individuals or kin mentioned in the published and unpublished epitaphs. This data is supplemented with information on about 25,000 other people appearing in received sources such as the Old Tang History (Jiu Tang shu 舊唐書) and New Tang History (Xin Tang shu 新唐書). The database is freely available on the websites of the author and the Harvard University Asia Center. -
Scanned Using Book Scancenter 5033
Chapter 4 Tang’s Internal Evolution and its Foreign Policy Before discussing in detail the relations between China and its principal foreign rivals during Tang, we need to take an overview of the internal evolution of China during these centuries. We must understand the changes that took place in the internal power structure to understand the ways in which these changes influenced the formation of policy and the making of particular decisions dealing with external problems as they arose. Gaozu: Dynastic Consolidation Even more than Emperor Wen of Sui, Gaozu, the dynastic founder of Tang, displayed a cautious, pragmatic realism in his conduct of foreign affairs. Unlike Yang Jian, who was already at the center of power when he took the ambitious step of usurping the throne, Li Yuan was merely a provincial governor who, despite his aristocratic background, would probably have never conceived the ambition to supplant the Sui dynasty if it had not been for the anarchic breakdown that resulted from Emperor Yang ’s obsession with conquering Koguryo. While the standard account pictures him as having to be reluctantly pushed into taking up arms by his brilliant son, Li Shimin, the role of the future Taizong may have been exaggerated by historians endeavoring to glorify the latter’s achievements. Nevertheless, the standard accoimt seems in general consistent with Gaozu ’s character as reflected in the decisions he took in dealing with foreign powers. As we shall see, while he was in command of affairs, Gaozu showed little compunction in adopting a sub missive attitude towards the Turks and in giving up pretensions to suze rainty over Korea. -
Ritual Innovations and Taoism Under Tang Xuanzong
RITUAL INNOVATIONS AND TAOISM UNDER TANG XUANZONG BY VICTOR XIONG Western Michigan University Table of Contents Tang ritual scholarship .............................................................................. 259 The Palace of Great Clarity (Taiqing gong :;t'/f!fE,') worship ..................... 263 Jiugong guishen :fL E.' j( iii$ ............................................................................. 273 Ritual justification ...................................................................................... 280 Xuanzong and "astroalchemy" .................................................................. 284 Tantrism and other sources of influence ................................................. 295 The legacy ofXuanzong ............................................................................ 301 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 304 A List of Works Cited ................................................................................. 306 Appendixes ................................................................................................. 312 Few emperors in Chinese history were as closely identified with ritual scholarship as Tang Xuanzong Jj~* (r. 712-756). Not long after the promulgation of the Rites of Kaiyuan Era (Kaiyuan li ~5Cil!) in 732, he began to introduce a number of ritual innova tions in the decade of 736-46. In the following pages, I will study these ritual changes in view of traditional ritual theory and prac tice, -
Ideas Concerning Diplomacy and Foreign Policy Under the Tang Emperors Gaozu and Taizong
tang diplomacy and foreign policy wang zhenping Ideas concerning Diplomacy and Foreign Policy under the Tang Emperors Gaozu and Taizong n 617, the duke of Tang Li Yuan 李淵, a general stationed in Taiyuan I 太原 (present-day Shanxi province), staged a mutiny against the Sui court (581–617). This event eventually led to the establishment of the Tang dynasty one year later in 618. In his efforts to build a new re- gime, Li Yuan faced fierce competition from rebel leaders in northern China and a possible threat by the Eastern Turks, then the overlords of the northern steppe.1 In managing relations with both his Chinese competitors and the Turkish ruler, Li Yuan acted on the principles of de 德 and yi 義, terms that have been conventionally translated as “vir- tue” and “righteousness,” respectively. In reality, however, Tang for- eign policy rested not on these abstract moral principles, which mainly signify personal moral cultivation and conduct. In the context of Tang diplomacy, de and yi possessed multiple connotations. The former word could mean “getting a proper arrangement in affairs 得事宜,” and the latter word could indicate “appropriateness 宜” in an intended foreign policy. Both terms involved shrewd calculation of one’s own strength relative to that of competitors and enemies, careful examination of the timing for the action to be taken, and due consideration for the pos- sible outcomes of the action. As pragmatic and utilitarian principles for undertaking events, they emphasized efficacy, expedience, and mutual self-interest. They were largely free of the Confucian moral constraints often discussed under the rubrics of trustworthiness, righteousness, and loyalty.