The Origin and Early Development of the Zhou Changes

The Origin and Early Development of the Zhou Changes PDF Author: Edward Shaughnessy
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004513949
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
The Zhou Changes, better known in the West as I Ching, is one of the masterpieces of world literature. This book, the climax of more than forty years of research in Chinese archaeology, explores the text’s origins in the oracle-bone and milfoil divinations of Bronze Age China and how it transformed over the course of the Zhou dynasty into the first of the Chinese classics. The book provides an in-depth survey of the theory and practice of divination to demonstrate how the hexagram and line statements of the text were produced and how they were understood at the time.

The Origin and Early Development of the Zhou Changes

The Origin and Early Development of the Zhou Changes PDF Author: Edward Shaughnessy
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004513949
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
The Zhou Changes, better known in the West as I Ching, is one of the masterpieces of world literature. This book, the climax of more than forty years of research in Chinese archaeology, explores the text’s origins in the oracle-bone and milfoil divinations of Bronze Age China and how it transformed over the course of the Zhou dynasty into the first of the Chinese classics. The book provides an in-depth survey of the theory and practice of divination to demonstrate how the hexagram and line statements of the text were produced and how they were understood at the time.

The Origins of Chinese Literary Hermeneutics

The Origins of Chinese Literary Hermeneutics PDF Author: Martin Svensson Ekström
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438495404
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 630

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Book Description
The Shijing ("Canon of Odes") is China's oldest poetry collection, traditionally considered to have been edited by Confucius himself. Despite their enormous importance for Confucianism and Chinese civilization, the 305 odes have for millennia also puzzled readers. Why did the Sage include in the Canon apparently lewd poems about women promising men to "hitch up" their skirts and "wade the river," and men "tossing and turning in bed" yearning for young women? What did the innumerable representations of plants, beasts, and birds, and of various climactic and astronomical phenomena, signify beyond their immediate function as natural descriptions? One such puzzled reader was Mao Heng, a learned Confucian employed at a minor court in the mid-second century BCE. The object of this study is the Commentary that Mao composed on the Odes, and in particular the hermeneutic tool—the xing—that he invented to explain the figurality and tropes at play in them. Mao's "xingish" interpretation of the Odes is both genuinely hermeneutic, in that it explains the rhetorical organization of these poems, and thoroughly ideological, since it allows Mao to transform them into Confucian dogma. The book also argues that the xing, content, function, and cultural importance, is comparable to the Aristotelian concept of metaphor (metaphora), and that the xing, the Odes, and the practice of shi (Chinese "poetry") demand an intercultural, "comparative" reading for a more nuanced understanding.

Traces of a Daoist Immortal

Traces of a Daoist Immortal PDF Author: Louis Komjathy
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004694897
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 611

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Book Description
Traces of a Daoist Immortal is a Daoist-infused tour de force on the Daoist mountain hermit Chén Tuán 陳摶 (Xīyí 希夷 [Infinitesimal Subtlety]; d. 989) and his fellow “hidden immortals.” Breaking various academic taboos, including hyper-historicism, social constructivism, and conformist mentalities, here Komjathy, in an aspirational gesture towards unbridled inquiry, offers annotated translations and scholarly introductions to ten major works associated with the Daoist immortal. The book also contains a cutting-edge, mythopoetic introduction that addresses the life and legend of Chén Tuán, his connection to the Western Marchmount of Huàshān 華山 (Mount Hua; Huàyīn, Shǎnxī), Daoist views about sleeping, dreaming, waking, as well as Daoist time-being.

The Classic of Changes

The Classic of Changes PDF Author:
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231514050
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 621

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Book Description
Used in China as a book of divination and source of wisdom for more than three thousand years, the I Ching has been taken up by millions of English-language speakers in the nineteenth century. The first translation ever to appear in English that includes one of the major Chinese philosophical commentaries, the Columbia I Ching presents the classic book of changes for the world today. Richard Lynn's introduction to this new translation explains the organization of The Classic of Changes through the history of its various parts, and describes how the text was and still is used as a manual of divination with both the stalk and coin methods. For the fortune-telling novice, he provides a chart of trigrams and hexagrams; an index of terms, names, and concepts; and a glossary and bibliography. Lynn presents for the first time in English the fascinating commentary on the I Ching written by Wang Bi (226-249), who was the main interpreter of the work for some seven hundred years. Wang Bi interpreted the I Ching as a book of moral and political wisdom, arguing that the text should not be read literally, but rather as an expression of abstract ideas. Lynn places Wang Bi's commentary in historical context.

Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China - a Study of the Neglected Zhou Scriptures and the Grand Duke Traditions

Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China - a Study of the Neglected Zhou Scriptures and the Grand Duke Traditions PDF Author: Yegor Grebnev
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780231203401
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Scholarship on early China has traditionally focused on a core group of canonical texts. However, understudied sources have the potential to shift perspectives on fundamental aspects of Chinese intellectual, religious, and political history. Yegor Grebnev examines crucial noncanonical texts preserved in the Yi Zhou shu (Neglected Zhou Scriptures) and the Grand Duke traditions, which represent scriptural traditions influential during the Warring States period but sidelined in later history. He develops an innovative framework for the study and interpretation of these texts, focusing on their role in the mediation of royal legitimacy and their formative impact on early Daoism. Grebnev demonstrates the centrality of the Yi Zhou shu in Chinese intellectual history by highlighting its simultaneous connections to canonical traditions and esoteric Daoism. He demonstrates that the Daoist rituals of textual transmission embedded in the Grand Duke traditions bear an imprint of the courtly environment of the Warring States period, where early Daoists strove for prestige and power, offering legitimacy through texts ascribed to the mythical sage rulers. These rituals appear to have emerged at the same period as the core Daoist philosophical texts and not several centuries later as conventionally believed, which calls for a reassessment of the history of Daoism's interrelated religious and philosophical strands. Offering a far-reaching reconsideration of early Chinese intellectual and religious history, Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China sheds new light on the foundations of the Chinese textual tradition.

The Historical Roots of Technical Communication in the Chinese Tradition

The Historical Roots of Technical Communication in the Chinese Tradition PDF Author: Daniel Dingxiong Ding
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527559890
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
This book traces Chinese technical communication from its beginnings, investigating how it began and the major factors that shaped its practice. It also looks at the major philosophical and historical traditions in Chinese technical communication, and how historical and philosophical threads play out in contemporary Chinese technical communication practice. In considering such issues, the book gives attention to some of the major classical Chinese texts, but treats them as artefacts of technical communication. It explores the roots of Chinese technical communication, reviews traditional philosophy that has shaped such practice, discusses the key links in the history of Chinese technical communication, and recounts historical roots and contemporary practice side by side. It provides the reader with compelling perspectives on the historical roots of Chinese technical communication.

Kao Gong Ji

Kao Gong Ji PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004416943
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
In Kao Gong Ji: The World’s Oldest Encyclopaedia of Technologies, Guan Zengjian and Konrad Herrmann offer an English translation and commentary of the first technological encyclopaedia in China. This work came into being around the 5th century C.E. and contains descriptions of thirty technologies used at the time. Most prominent are bronze casting, the manufacture of carriages and weapons, a metrological standard, the making of musical instruments, and the planning of cities. The technologies, including the manufacturing process and quality assurance, are based on standardization and modularization. In several commentaries, the editors show to which degree the descriptions of Kao Gong Ji correspond to archaeological findings. Revised and updated translation from the Chinese edition:《考工记: 翻译与评注》(ISBN: 978-7-313-12133-2) by Guan Zengjian, © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2014. Published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press.

Social Memory and State Formation in Early China

Social Memory and State Formation in Early China PDF Author: Min Li
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107141451
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 587

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Book Description
A thought-provoking book on the archaeology of power, knowledge, social memory, and the emergence of classical tradition in early China.

The Other Yijing

The Other Yijing PDF Author: Tze-ki Hon
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004500030
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
In imperial China, the Yijing (Book of Changes) was not just read as a Confucian classic for moral cultivation, but also put into practice to solve problems of everyday life. To explain why the Yijing was so widely used in China, this volume examines its multiple textual layers, its divinatory practices, its medical uses, and its role in Chinese modernity. Together, the ten chapters demonstrate that the Yijing is indeed a living text used by both the educated elite and the populace to alleviate their fear and anxiety. Contributors are: Andrea Bréard, Chang Chia-Feng, Constance A. Cook, Stéphane Feuillas, Tze-ki Hon, Liao Hsien-huei, William Matthews, Tao Yingna, Xing Wang, and Zhao Lu.

A Companion to Chinese History

A Companion to Chinese History PDF Author: Michael Szonyi
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118624602
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
A Companion to Chinese History presents a collection of essays offering a comprehensive overview of the latest intellectual developments in the study of China’s history from the ancient past up until the present day. Covers the major trends in the study of Chinese history from antiquity to the present day Considers the latest scholarship of historians working in China and around the world Explores a variety of long-range questions and themes which serves to bridge the conventional divide between China’s traditional and modern eras Addresses China’s connections with other nations and regions and enables non-specialists to make comparisons with their own fields Features discussion of traditional topics and chronological approaches as well as newer themes such as Chinese history in relation to sexuality, national identity, and the environment