DOCSLIB.ORG

The Establishment of National Rites and Royal Authority During Early Chosŏn

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Establishment of National Rites and Royal Authority During Early Chosŏn International Journal of Korean History(Vol.9, Dec. 2005) 89 The Establishment of National Rites and Royal Authority during Early Chosŏn Han Hyung-ju (Han Hyŏngju)* Introduction Confucian rites and ceremonies can be regarded as the symbolized expressions of a conceptual and abstractive political and social ideology that was based on a perception of Confucian classics (kyŏnghak) which was given substance through ritual activities (haengnye). In the pre- modern era, rulers in East Asia perceived the need to use the symbolism of rites (禮, ye) rather than physical compulsion to effectively generate and maintain political authority. The <Shuowenjiezi (說文解字, Elucidations of the Signs and Explications of the Graphs)> Compiled by Xu Shen explains the etymology of ye as the description of a person worshipping a god by dedicating an offering in sacrificial vessels. 1 Along with exhibiting the religious attributes of rites (ye), such an explanation makes evident that the process of rites (ye) was used as symbolism to convey the fact that the person who played the leading role in the ritual ceremony had in effect received a mandate from heaven. The diversified and magnificent processions, as well as the solemnity of the ritual process associated with national ceremonies, and in particular national rites, were used to naturally reflect the dignity of the king as the * Research professor, Institute of Korean Culture, Korea University 90 The Establishment of National Rites and Royal Authority during Early Chosŏn ruler and master of religious rites. In addition, such ceremonies were used to showcase the symbolic fact that the ruler had been granted a mandate from the heavens to rule over the human world. To this end, from early on, rulers tended to focus a high percentage of their energies on rites. In this regard, during the period in which national ceremonies revolved around the five traditional rites of the Tang dynasty of China (五禮); the Gillye (吉禮, auspicious rites), Garye (嘉禮, felicitous rites), Hyungnye (凶禮, funeral rites), Binnye (賓禮, guest rites), and Kunnye (軍禮, military rites), the utmost importance tended to be attached to the auspicious rites (Gillye). This Chinese experience began to exercise an influence on Korean history in the aftermath of the transmission of Confucianism to the Korean peninsula during the Three Kingdoms Era. The selection of Confucianism as the basis of the state governance system during the Koryŏ dynasty was followed by the identification of the five rites as the cornerstone of the national rituals. These national rituals were further developed during the Chosŏn dynasty, with the <Kukchooryeŭi> (國朝五禮儀, Five State Rites)> finally compiled during the reign of King Sŏngjong. In the present study, an attempt is made to analyze the process through which national rites were established during early Chosŏn, as well as periodic trends, by linking it to the notion of royal authority. Many studies have already been conducted on the topic of national rituals during early Chosŏn. In fact, the author of this study has himself conducted a couple of work on this subject.2 However, the majority of existing studies has been concentrated on the 15th century, and have dealt with the determination of the characteristics of individual rituals and the establishment of the ritual system from a methodological standpoint. Therefore, although an analysis of the institutional history of national rituals has been conducted, it has remained difficult to deconstruct the manner in which the establishment of the ritual system was connected to the notion of royal authority. In this regard, the researcher intends to, while also reflecting the results of existing studies, analyze the correlation between national rituals and royal authority from three different vantage points. Han Hyung-ju (Han Hyŏngju) 91 First, the researcher intends to analyze the correlation between the institutional establishment of Confucian rites and royal authority. The rulers of Chosŏn advocated Confucian rites-based governance (禮治, yech´i) as the basic principle of state management. To this end, both the king and meritorious retainers recognized the necessity to establish proper Confucian rites. However, both parties came into conflict with one another when it came to the details of these rites. Thus, while the king emphasized the inevitability of using the rites for the Son of Heaven (Ch´ŏnjarye), the meritorious retainers accentuated the need to utilize rites appropriate for feudal lords(Chehurye). Chosŏn’s early national ritual system was thus established through negotiations between these two camps. However, the contents of these rituals varied from ruler to ruler. Second, this study analyzes the conflicts between the two parties over the implementation of the Chech´ŏnnye (祭天禮, ritual to heaven) ceremony conducted in conjunction with the Ch´ŏnjarye. While a quasi- negotiated settlement of this issue remained in place between the two sides from the foundation of the kingdom until the reign of King Sejong, King Sejo’s unilateral implementation of the Chech´ŏnnye during his reign resulted, at the behest of the gravely aggravated meritorious retainers, in the abolishing of this ceremony outright following his death. Third, this study delves into the actual participation of Chosŏn kings in national rituals during the early period of the Chosŏn dynasty. If the king’s intervention in the process of establishing ritual ceremonies can be likened to the passive expression of rites, then the king’s participation in these national rituals, despite the burden occasioned by such a decision, can be regarded as a more active expression of these rites. Any king who desired to take part in a national rite was subjected to a seven-day ablution process and to intricate ritual procedures that often began early on the morning of the actual ceremony. To this end, the majority of ritual ceremonies involved ministerial level officials attending on the behalf of the king (sŏphaeng), rather than the king directly participating in such rites (ch´inhaeng). In this regard, the analysis of the frequency with which kings’ participated in rites, and the types of rites in which they 92 The Establishment of National Rites and Royal Authority during Early Chosŏn participated firsthand, represents a pertinent methodology with which to understand the ulterior motives of those kings who decided to submit themselves to such intricacies. Using the above-mentioned three vantage points, an attempt is made to find a link between the royal authority and national rituals during the reign of each king of early Chosŏn, and to analyze periodic trends. Moreover, by combining these factors, an effort is made to gain a more precise understanding of the general characteristics of national rituals during early Chosŏn. The transformation towards Confucian-style national rites during the reign of King T´aejong and royal authority National rituals before the Chosŏn era Wishes for the well-being of the royal family and general peace and prosperity through national-level rites first emerged during the early stages of the Three Kingdoms Era. Examples of such early rituals include the shrine rituals for the founders of each kingdom, and worship rituals to the Heavens such as the Dongmaeng(東盟),Muchŏn(舞天) and Yŏnggo(迎鼓).3 Such rituals continued to be conducted until the final stages of the Three Kingdoms Era. In addition to such traditional rituals, Confucian-based national rituals began to make their way into Korea as a result of the growing exchanges with China during the state formation period. The <Samguksagi(三國史記, Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms)> contains a passage in which we discover that the construction of the Chongmyo (ancestral shrine) and Sajik (altar for worshiping gods of the earth and grain) had become widespread in the case of Koguryŏ by the 3rd-4th centuries.4 It also reveals that in the case of Silla, ancestral shrine rituals for the five generations which followed King T´aejo were first conducted during the 7th Year of King Sinmun (687), and that the Confucian-style five Han Hyungju 93 ancestral rites based on ancestral tablets beginning with King Mich´u were developed during the reign of King Hyegong (765-780).5 Here, we can see that Unified Silla’s Chongmyo system was implemented based on the ancestral grave rites (myoje) found in the <Lichi (禮記, Book of Rites)>, which consisted of seven ancestral rites for the Son of Heaven and five ancestral rites for feudal lords (chehu),. Confucian-style national rituals became more structuralized during the Koryŏ era. As Koryŏ adopted Confucianism rather than Buddhism as the basis for its state management, it possessed an in-depth knowledge of Confucian classics (kyŏnghak) and naturally accepted Chinese-style Confucian national rites. This process became more pronounced with the establishment of the Hwan´guje (圜丘祭, a ritual designed to inform the Heavens of the start of a new reign) and the Chŏkchŏnje (籍田祭, ritual conducted at the beginning of the year during which time a good harvest was prayed for) during the 2nd Year of King Sŏngjong6; of the Omyoje (五 廟制, five ancestral rites system) during the 7th Year of King Sŏngjong7; and the construction of the Sajik during the 10th Year of King Sŏngjong.8 While a national ritual system based on that of the Tang dynasty was established following the reign of King Munjong, Ch´oe Yunŭi compiled fifty volumes of the <Sangjŏngkogŭmnye (詳定古今禮, Ritual Texts of the Past and Present)> during the reign of King Ŭijong. Although
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • The Eurasian Transformation of the 10Th to 13Th Centuries: the View from Song China, 906-1279
    Haverford College Haverford Scholarship Faculty Publications History 2004 The Eurasian Transformation of the 10th to 13th centuries: The View from Song China, 906-1279 Paul Jakov Smith Haverford College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.haverford.edu/history_facpubs Repository Citation Smith, Paul Jakov. “The Eurasian Transformation of the 10th to 13th centuries: The View from the Song.” In Johann Arneson and Bjorn Wittrock, eds., “Eurasian transformations, tenth to thirteenth centuries: Crystallizations, divergences, renaissances,” a special edition of the journal Medieval Encounters (December 2004). This Journal Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History at Haverford Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Haverford Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Medieval 10,1-3_f12_279-308 11/4/04 2:47 PM Page 279 EURASIAN TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE TENTH TO THIRTEENTH CENTURIES: THE VIEW FROM SONG CHINA, 960-1279 PAUL JAKOV SMITH ABSTRACT This essay addresses the nature of the medieval transformation of Eurasia from the perspective of China during the Song dynasty (960-1279). Out of the many facets of the wholesale metamorphosis of Chinese society that characterized this era, I focus on the development of an increasingly bureaucratic and autocratic state, the emergence of a semi-autonomous local elite, and the impact on both trends of the rise of the great steppe empires that encircled and, under the Mongols ultimately extinguished the Song. The rapid evolution of Inner Asian state formation in the tenth through the thirteenth centuries not only swayed the development of the Chinese state, by putting questions of war and peace at the forefront of the court’s attention; it also influenced the evolution of China’s socio-political elite, by shap- ing the context within which elite families forged their sense of coorporate identity and calibrated their commitment to the court.
    [Show full text]
  • Law Based on Local Customs: Law and Local Order Under the Yuan Dynasty Through the Example of Marriage Customs and Matrimonial Law
    ]NòϥΩƕ εȖͼɠó HƧDζgͼȖζñʇ! 95 Law based on Local Customs: Law and Local Order under the Yuan Dynasty through the Example of Marriage Customs and Matrimonial Law Hung, Li-chu* Abstract Law under the Yuan dynasty is most commonly characterized as a system with legal provisions that were formulated based on local customs. Due to this view, much of the scholarship to date has focused on non-Han customs, such as levirate marriage. However, it is much less common to study what Han custom actually meant and how it developed. This study analyzes the historical background and development of Yuan marriage laws, and focuses on the competition and negotiation between Confucian norms and local customs under the said principle of formulating legal provisions based on local customs. Examining these issues help to correct the notion that Yuan law was lax and minimally restrictive. Institutionally the judicial power of Yuan local officials was quite limited, and for a long time they did not have legal codes to adhere to. Therefore they reported numerous trivial civil conflicts to government agencies for resolution, including the Central Secretariat (zhongshu sheng), Bureau of Military Affairs (shumi yuan), the Censorate (yushi tai), and the Six Ministries. The Yuan central government expected to make marriage certificates (hunshu) contractual. Under the marriage code that it issued, betrothal gifts were increasingly standardized so the legal disputes that * Associate Researcher, School of History & Culture, Sichuan University. 96 :ΊʱIJɘ;Ù)&Ȑ arose from marriages were limited. Also, Han officials in local offices performed their duties in observing local customs, and put forward discussions of what the original customs of Han people actually meant.
    [Show full text]
  • Chinas Examination Hell the Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China 1St Edition Free
    CHINAS EXAMINATION HELL THE CIVIL SERVICE EXAMINATIONS OF IMPERIAL CHINA 1ST EDITION FREE Author: Ichisada Miyazaki ISBN: 9780300026399 Download Link: CLICK HERE The Chinese Imperial Examination System Transcriptions Revised Romanization gwageo. During the reign of Emperor Xizong of Jin r. It was called the nine-rank system. After the collapse of the Han dynastythe Taixue was reduced to just 19 teaching positions and 1, students but climbed back to 7, students under the Jin dynasty — The Hanlin Academy played a central role in the careers of examination graduates during the Ming dynasty. During the Tang period, a set curricular schedule took shape where the three steps of reading, writing, and the composition of texts had to be learnt before students could enter state academies. Western perception of China in the 18th century admired the Chinese bureaucratic system as favourable over European governments for its seeming meritocracy. In the Song dynasty — the imperial examinations became the primary method of recruitment for official posts. Stanford: Stanford University Press. By the time of the Song dynasty, the two highest military posts of Minister of War and Chief of Staff were both reserved for civil servants. Liu, Haifeng The Chinas Examination Hell The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China 1st edition of the military examination were more elaborate during the Qing than ever before. China's Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China There was almost no other way to hit the really big time. Average rating 3. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. He and the assistant examiners were dispatched on imperial order from the Ministry of Rites.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter Three
    526 Chapter Three 經學昌明時代 The Period of Advancement of Classical Scholarship [3/1 SVA Introductory Comments: In the opening section of Chapter Three, Pi Xirui quotes extensively from the "Rulin zhuan" chapter of the Shi ji so as to support his position that during the reign of Emperor Wu (141-87 B.C.), Classical Scholarship was in its purest and most orthodox form. He also uses the lack of information in the "Rulin zhuan" regarding the Old Script Documents, Zhouli, Mao Shi, and Zuozhuan to argue that Sima Qian did not have access to these texts, which are texts of the "Old Script" school.] 3/11 The "Rulin zhuan" chapter of the Shi ji states, "When the present emperor2 ascended the throne, there were men such as Zhao Wan 趙綰 and Wang Zang 王臧3 who clearly understood Confucian learning and the 1[SVA: Section 3/1 corresponds to pp.69-72 of the Zhonghua ed. and to pp.60-64 of the Yiwen ed.] 2(3/1, n.1) Zhou Yutong comments: In the Chinese jinshang 今上, "the present emperor," refers to Emperor Wu of the Han. 3(3/1, n.2) Zhou Yutong comments: Zhao Wan 趙綰 was a native of Dai 代 and Wang Zang 王臧 was a native of Lanling 蘭陵. They both studied the Lu 527 emperor himself was also inclined toward it.4 He thereupon issued an order recruiting scholar-officials in the recommendation categories of Straightforward and Upright, Worthy and Excellent, and Learned.5 After this, as for giving instruction in the Songs, in Lu it was Master Shen Pei 申 培公, in Qi it was Master Yuan Gu 轅固生, and in Yan, it was Grand Tutor Han Ying 韓(嬰)太傅.
    [Show full text]
  • Late-Ming Factionalism in the Making, 1583-1593
    University of Southern Maine USM Digital Commons History College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences 2002 A Decade of Considerable Significance - Late-Ming actionalismF in the Making, 1583-1593 Jie Zhao University of Southern Maine, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/history Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Jie, Zhao. "A Decade of Considerable Significance." T'oung Pao 88, no. 1-3 (2002): 112. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at USM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in History by an authorized administrator of USM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ShenI-kuan t R (1531- 1615), the senior grandsecretary of the A DECADE OF CONSIDERABLESIGNIFICANCE Late-Ming Factional;sm in the Making, 1583-1593 BY JIE ZHAO* Universityof SouthernMaine It has been long held that,although the Mingdynasty collapsed in 1644,the dynasticfate had been sealedmuch earlier. The compilers of Mingshih pronounced that "theMing dynastyactually foundered under [theWan-li gX emperor(r.1573-1620)].''l They considered lateWan-li period, to be one of the principalcontributors to the Ming decline.Some of themmaintained that the dynastyfell apart primarily due to factionalism,and factionalismbegan with Shen. Wan Yen g > (1637-1705), himself a compilerof Mingshih, dis- agreedwith this assessment.He acknowledgedShen I-kuan's impact on the lastfew decadesof factionalism,but he arguedthat Shen Shih- hsingEp t(1535-1614) andWang Hsi-chuch ES(1534-1611) had startedit.2 Wan's observation pointed to a decade (1583-1593) * I wouldlike to thankthe Departmentof EastAsian Studies at PrincetonUni- versityfor supportfrom its researchfund and accessto the Gest Libraryin the summerof 2000, and the Harvard-YenchingInstitute for providingaccess to its libraryfacilities.
    [Show full text]
  • Communication, Empire, and Authority in the Qing Gazette
    COMMUNICATION, EMPIRE, AND AUTHORITY IN THE QING GAZETTE by Emily Carr Mokros A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland June, 2016 © 2016 Emily Carr Mokros All rights Reserved Abstract This dissertation studies the political and cultural roles of official information and political news in late imperial China. Using a wide-ranging selection of archival, library, and digitized sources from libraries and archives in East Asia, Europe, and the United States, this project investigates the production, regulation, and reading of the Peking Gazette (dibao, jingbao), a distinctive communications channel and news publication of the Qing Empire (1644-1912). Although court gazettes were composed of official documents and communications, the Qing state frequently contracted with commercial copyists and printers in publishing and distributing them. As this dissertation shows, even as the Qing state viewed information control and dissemination as a strategic concern, it also permitted the free circulation of a huge variety of timely political news. Readers including both officials and non-officials used the gazette in order to compare judicial rulings, assess military campaigns, and follow court politics and scandals. As the first full-length study of the Qing gazette, this project shows concretely that the gazette was a powerful factor in late imperial Chinese politics and culture, and analyzes the close relationship between information and imperial practice in the Qing Empire. By arguing that the ubiquitous gazette was the most important link between the Qing state and the densely connected information society of late imperial China, this project overturns assumptions that underestimate the importance of court gazettes and the extent of popular interest in political news in Chinese history.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Virtuous and Talented' Officials for the Twentieth
    Modern Asian Studies 37, 4 (2003), pp. 831–850. 2003 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0026749X03004049 Printed in the United Kingdom Creating ‘Virtuous and Talented’ Officials for the Twentieth Century: Discourse and Practice in Xinzheng China* JULIA C. STRAUSS School of Oriental and African Studies,University of London ‘It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.’ Machiavelli, The Prince Central Xinzheng Reform and the Twentieth-Century Chinese State The effort of the Qing dynasty to transform itself and forge a new set of relationships with society in its last decade has been one of the less explored areas in the scholarship on modern China. Although this set of radical initiatives, collectively known as the xinzheng (‘New Policy’) reforms attracted a good deal of commentary from its contemporaries, until recently it has been relatively under- studied.1 There are two reasons for this neglect. First, conventional * The research for this article was made possible by the generous support of the British Academy/ CASS Exchange and the CSCC. I would like to thank Benjamin Elman and Timothy Brook for their comments on earlier drafts of this piece. All errors and omissions are, of course, my own. 1 Although the xinzheng period has been well covered by two superb monographs on the transformation of Chinese education in the early 20th century—Sally Borthwick, Education and Social Change in China: The Beginnings
    [Show full text]
  • Scanned Using Book Scancenter 5033
    Chapter 2 How Foreign Affairs were Handled During Sui and Tang The basic structure of the bureaucracy by which China was gov ­ erned in imperial times took shape during Qin and Han. Its institutions and their functioning during that period have, been well described by Wang Yu-ch ’uan and Hans Bielenstein. Between Han and Tang these institu­ tions had imdergone much evolution and elaboration. The more ample data from the Tang period have also been thoroughly analyzed and discussed by such scholars as Des Rotours, Sun Guodong, and Xie Yuanlu. 2 After a brief discussion of the general decision-making process of the Tang government and the checks and balances built into the process for ensuring accuracy and effectiveness, this chapter focuses on the way in which Tang dealt with official business involving relations with foreign countries. Who were the individuals and groups principally involved in making policy on such matters? What bureaucratic apparatus on the cen­ tral level was responsible for handling foreign affairs? How was informa­ tion on foreign countries collected and utilized in coming to decisions? How did this information provide basic materials for the compilation of accoimts of foreign countries in the national history? Answers to these questions show that China had developed a sophisticated set of principles and institutions for dealing with foreign coimtries, assuring frontier secu­ rity and securing the rule of the Son of Heaven. The Decision-Making Process There was no special office in traditional China for foreign policy decision-making. Foreign affairs were largely concerned with frontier se­ curity, and frontier policies were part of the general decision-making proc ­ ess.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ming Dynasty Its Origins and Evolving Institutions
    THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES MICHIGAN PAPERS IN CHINESE STUDIES NO. 34 THE MING DYNASTY ITS ORIGINS AND EVOLVING INSTITUTIONS by Charles O. Hucker Ann Arbor Center for Chinese Studies The University of Michigan 1978 Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/ Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. Copyright © 1978 by Charles O. Hucker Published by Center for Chinese Studies The University of Michigan Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hucker, Charles O. The Ming dynasty, its origins and evolving institutions. (Michigan papers in Chinese studies; no. 34) Includes bibliographical references. 1. China—History—Ming dynasty, 1368-1644. I. Title. II. Series. DS753.H829 951f.O26 78-17354 ISBN 0-89264-034-0 Printed in the United States of America ISBN 978-0-89264-034-8 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-472-03812-1 (paper) ISBN 978-0-472-12758-0 (ebook) ISBN 978-0-472-90153-1 (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 Preface vii I. Introduction 1 n. The Transition from Yuan to Ming 3 Deterioration of Mongol Control 3 Rebellions of the 1350s and 1360s 8 The Rise of Chu Yuan-chang 15 Expulsion of the Mongols 23 III. Organizing the New Dynasty 26 Continuing Military Operations 28 Creation of the Ming Government 33 T!ai-tsufs Administrative Policies 44 Personnel 45 Domestic Administration 54 Foreign Relations and Defense 62 The Quality of Tfai-tsufs Reign 66 IV.
    [Show full text]
  • Chinese Hereditary Mathematician Families of the Astronomical Bureau, 1620-1850
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2015 Chinese Hereditary Mathematician Families of the Astronomical Bureau, 1620-1850 Ping-Ying Chang Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/538 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] CHINESE HEREDITARY MATHEMATICIAN FAMILIES OF THE ASTRONOMICAL BUREAU, 1620–1850 by PING-YING CHANG A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2015 ii © 2015 PING-YING CHANG All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in History in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Professor Joseph W. Dauben ________________________ _______________________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Professor Helena Rosenblatt ________________________ _______________________________________________ Date Executive Officer Professor Richard Lufrano Professor David Gordon Professor Wann-Sheng Horng Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract CHINESE HEREDITARY MATHEMATICIAN FAMILIES OF THE ASTRONOMICAL BUREAU, 1620–1850 by Ping-Ying Chang Adviser: Professor Joseph W. Dauben This dissertation presents a research that relied on the online Archive of the Grand Secretariat at the Institute of History of Philology of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan and many digitized archival materials to reconstruct the hereditary mathematician families of the Astronomical Bureau in Qing China.
    [Show full text]
  • The Boxue Hongci 博學宏詞examinations, Literary
    Ming Qing Yanjiu 20 (2017) 94–108 brill.com/jco The Boxue Hongci 博學宏詞 Examinations, Literary Anthologies by Emperors and the Literary Circles during the Kangxi and Qianlong Periods Bing Wang Abstract As a result of political demands and imperial cultural cultivation, the Qing Dynasty reigns of Kangxi (1661–1722) and Qianlong (1736–1796) both paid great attention to the traditional Han culture. During these periods, there were two landmark events that embodied the success of their cultural policy. These were the special examinations of boxue hongci (“breadth in learning and vastness in letters”, also called boxue hongru) in 1679 and 1736, and the publishing of numerous literary anthologies by the emperors. However, scholarly discussions have often focused mainly on aspects of political and cultural domination, and have rarely discussed the impact of these two events on liter- ary circles in the early and middle Qing Dynasty. Thus, this paper examines the boxue hongci examination and the literary anthologies by Emperors as literary events and evaluate them from three perspectives. First, with regards to literary purposes, these two events fostered the link between official and elite discourses. Second, with regards to literary styles, these two events together facilitated the emergence at the height of the Qing Dynasty styles known as qingzhen yazheng (“purity, authenticity, elegance and correctness”) and wenrou dunhou (“gentleness and restraint”). Third, with regards to literary layout, the two events changed the proportion of writers’ identity and actively advanced the balance of the north and south literary circles. Keywords Boxue examinations – Kangxi – Qianlong – Qing literary circles * National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore [email protected].
    [Show full text]