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The Imperially Commissioned Golden Mirror of the Orthodox Lineage of Medicine (Yuzuan yizong jinjian 御纂醫宗金鑑), first printed in 1742, was one of the most important and widely circulating works on medicine in late imperial China. This paper analyzes a group of twenty-three medical manuscripts from the nineteenth and early twentieth century that include parts of the Golden Mirror. The findings suggest that most of the manuscripts should not be considered mere copies, but as deliberate selections. They served didactic as well as epistemic functions that differ from, or go beyond, those that could be fulfilled by the printed Golden Mirror (or a faithful manuscript copy alone). This is indicated not only by different content type selections (verse form for memorization or recitation; prose form for study or consultation) and the combination with medical knowledge from other sources, but also by the ways in which these contents were formatted, usually to facilitate reading and navigation. Adjustment, updating or supplementation of Golden Mirror contents likewise functioned epistemically, integrating previous medical knowledge into the medical discourse of the time. Hence, the findings of the present study help to clarify the lasting importance of manuscripts in the age of print, for which possibilities of adapting knowledge to personal interests and requirements seem to have been decisive factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores difference within geographical writings in the transition to modernity in nineteenth century China. In some maps, the experiential realities of travelers were valued and expressed. More significantly, landscape maps sometimes pointed to a reality of absence rather than of presence. This contrasted with the arising modern commitment to triangulation, which deleted the phenomenological in favour of an omniscient 'view from nowhere'. It is conventional to treat this transition as an expression of progress in which non-Western scholars started to undo a scientific deficit regarding precision and measurement with the use of new tools, or for postcolonial scholars to propose heroic resistance from native map makers. Against these interpretations, the minutiae in the 1886 Chinese gazetteer Tukao of Tibet do not simply show a progressive or coerced transition, but rather the expression of an inconsistent difference. Tukao reflects different survey methods, producing fundamentally incompatible ontological worlds. The paper shows that the Tukao does not legislate between different practices, and argues that the alterity in Tukao offers lessons for postcolonial theory and practice, avoiding both hegemony of modern science and relativism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars such as John Strong and James Robson have laid firm foundations for the study of the development of Buddhist sacred geography, highlighting the role of relics, stupas and the importance of pre-Buddhist sites of religious significance. Their work has inspired this paper which examines extracts from three texts produced by the monk Shi Daoxuan between 650 and 667 CE: the Shijia fangzhi 釋迦方志 (A Geography of the Śākyas, 650 CE), the Ji Shenzhou Sanbao gantong lu 集神州三寶感通錄 (Collected Records of Stimulus and Responses to the Triple Gem in the Divine Continent, 664) and the Lüxiang gantong zhuan 律相感通傳 (Account of the Stimuli and Responses Related to the Vinaya, 667). Concentrating on two places, the Zhongnan Mountains and Mount Wutai, these materials provide a rare opportunity to examine the role one man played in the promotion of these sites over few decades. This paper argues that Daoxuan was among the first to promote the idea of Mañjuśrī being present in China, initially in the Zhongnan, and only latterly on Wutai, and that Daoxuan was influenced by the picture of Indian Buddhist sacred geography provided by the accounts of Xuanzang's travels in his consolidation and development of a similar geography for China. Daoxuan utilised Buddhist and non-Buddhist writings, and eyewitness testimony from the human realm and beyond, in his efforts to promote these two places. A close reading of these extracts can provide insight into the factors which stimulate the creation of sacred sites, and the methods and processes through which they develop and evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article pays tribute to Nathan Sivin, a scholar of Chinese science, medicine, and religion. Sivin challenged mainstream views and emphasized the need for historical context and evidence-based research in the study of Chinese history. He believed in a more nuanced understanding of Chinese traditions and collaborated with Joseph Needham on the Science and Civilisation in China project. Sivin's work aimed to complicate and expand the understanding of Chinese knowledge and practices in their historical and cultural contexts. The article also discusses Sivin's interests in seal carving, his collection of Chinese and Japanese scrolls, and his extensive library, which is now preserved at the University Archives of the University of Pennsylvania. [Extracted from the article]

This paper uses the diary and other records of Liu Dapeng 劉大鵬 (1857-1942), a Shanxi village resident, to examine how people in rural China experienced and understood illness at an important time of transition for medical systems in China. It explains how Liu understood the illnesses that afflicted himself and members of his family in terms of providence. The healing methods he used ranged through self-medication with folk remedies and modern patent medicines; remedies provided by families friends and neighbours (including acupuncture and prescriptions based on classical Chinese medicine); remedies provided by gods and shamans; and prescriptions provided by professional doctors of Chinese medicine, whom Liu deeply distrusted. It also examines the arrival of Western medicine in Shanxi and argues that while this existed it was incorporated into networks of medicine provided by family and friends, rather than functioning as a separate institutional system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the life and medical activities of Chinese scholar, physician, and translator Ding Fubao 丁福保 (1874-1952). Ding's career as an early adopter and translator of scientific medicine, and as a broker between western-trained physicians and reform-minded practitioners of Chinese medicine, affords rare insight into both the promise and the shortcomings of western-style medical modernization. In particular, Ding's experiences illustrate the ways in which illness and healing remained closely associated with moral virtue, even in the mind of this most committed modernizer. Through Ding, we can examine the growth of modern professions in China and the struggle to achieve any kind of professional monopoly on practice; the huge influence of Japan on China's modernization, and aspects of the relationship between culture and scientific change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended to explain the changes in the activities of the Imperial Academy of Medicine during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). By tracing its precedents and comparing their functions, I will explain its role during the Qing dynasty. Furthermore, the seemingly hidebound institutional codes in fact reveal interesting information about the dynamics of the Academy. Through examining the impacts of the regulations on personnel and their careers, we are able to explain the very different requirements of the Qing rulers for their medical service. Up until the Ming period (1368-1644) there was an institutional boundary between medical services for the palace and those for the state, even though they shared the same personnel. The Qing was the first dynasty in which even this unclear line disappeared. In this sense, the Qing Academy did not simply copy the tradition of its predecessors. Instead, the services for the emperor's individual needs became more and more central to its mission. Thus, the common people's rather critical perceptions of the bureau were largely true. In spite of its increased emphasis on serving the imperial household, the Qing Academy retained its connections with the government. As an alien regime, the Manchu court's concern for the security of its rulers was much higher than during the previous dynasty. To meet the needs of the new regime, the device of the Qing Academy emphasized fostering elites rather than selecting them. Now the Academy not only provided medical education to the junior members as in earlier periods, but also shaped them in behavior. This affected both the organization of the Imperial Medical Academy, and the strategies of the physicians employed in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a brief history and poses questions about traditional Chinese movable type printing. This is a technology that developed in the pre-modern period and never underwent in the mechanization in the ways that Western movable type printing did. Nevertheless, even today, Chinese traditional movable types continue to be used in some places in China. The authors not only describe the chronology of but also analyse significant cultural, political, and social factors affecting the development traditional Chinese typography. The first part of this article discusses the movable type made of earthenware and of wood, which are described in various sources written by scholar-officials. In the case of movable type for the Tangut script, however, the main evidence come from chiefly religious imprints which provide information about material evidence as well as a few about printers, typesetters, etc. The second section describes the long hiatus from the Yuan until the second half of the fifteenth century in the utilization of metallic typography in the private circles in Wuxi in Jiangnan, whose publications still survive, and how during the last dynasty, the movable type production reflects some trends in book publishing in general, with the important engagement of some of the Manchu emperors. In the last section of the paper, the authors explain why although wooden types existed in the Kingdom of Xixia (1032-1227) and in the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), it was only in the Ming (1368-1644) to Qing (1644-1911) periods that their use became more widespread in China. Wooden movable type played a key role in the printing of genealogies in various areas (e.g. Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan, and Fujian). That all also indicates that wood is the "material medium" of traditional Chinese printing, never mind if employed in blocks or types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Texts from pre-imperial and early imperial China are replete with dietary information, regimens for nourishing the body and instructions on how not to soil its inner purity. Sources have far less to say about the body's effluvia and the waste and muck that is shed and excreted by human and non-human animals. This article studies references to excreta and excretion in early China. It shows how human and animal faeces as well as the locus of excretion connoted both negative and positive spheres. Excreta were deemed noxious yet also beneficial, they were to be discarded yet also reused. Latrines were liminal zones, operating at the intersection of social propriety and physical and moral rejection. The process of excretion made the body vulnerable to external influences such as demonic illness, yet faecal matter of itself also had medicinal healing powers. In agriculture, matter exuded was matter used to fecundate and fertilize crops. The waste and human nightsoil that accumulated in the concealed domestic space of the latrine and pigpen ended up as sought-after produce infusing life into seeds, fields, and public productivity. By bringing together evidence across a range of textual and material sources – from latrines, to pigs, to a line in the Laozi 老子 and its commentaries – this article traces excretory experience and matter through its cycle from defecation to regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thus, rather than citing the visual argumentation theory as the theoretical departing point of the essay, which posits both the independent propositional nature and the demonstrative power of visuals, the author could have used his case study to revisit certain assumptions of visual argumentation theory. Chapters Eight and Nine are both concerned with the Qing practice of the civil service examinations. For example, Chapter Four is concerned with the complex multi-layered role that visual devices play in argumentation. [Extracted from the article]

This article seeks to understand why so many medical writings produced in late imperial China have perished and what has prevented others from disappearing. To do so, it focuses on the life of medical writings produced in the southern fringes of the Qing empire. The aim, starting from an analytical framework limited in time and space, is to open up a more general discussion on the history of the medical book in late imperial China. To retrace this history, this article starts from the very act of writing a medical text and then examines the course of this writing's life, through its printing, and reading. The first part, an examination of a wide sample of medical texts produced in the region, highlights the social diversity of their authors as well as the plurality of objectives that these texts intend to achieve. The second part reconstructs the different steps that a manuscript must go through to be printed. This process, which requires the intervention of influential figures to correct and praise the text, and to finance its printing, is long and explains why most of the manuscripts did not survive, but it has another consequence. As the original text passes through the hands of many people, it collects comments and additions. The third part, which focuses on printed and handwritten annotations in the margins, underlines how printing a medical manuscript is a dynamic process which offers the possibility of integrating allographic elements and contributes to the very making of the text. Analysis of the handwritten annotations left by some readers reveals, in turn, the ability of readers to intervene in the life of medical books, after they have been printed and, in so doing, to update and enrich medical knowledge and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although tea has played an important role in Chinese culture in both historical and modern periods, the origins and history of tea cultures in China have not received much attention in English language scholarship. We can build a solid foundation for discussing how to prepare and appreciate tea in Chinese history by relying on the hints given in the Daguan chalun and associating them with the aesthetics and elite cultures in the Norther Song Dynasty. This article first proposes to conduct simulation experiments by using modern examples to help understand the diancha (tea-tipping) process recorded in the Daguan chalun, attributed to Emperor Huizong. It argues that, out of the multiple tea practices of the Northern Song period, the authors of the Daguan chalun aimed to establish and regulate a new, single standard and preference for making and drinking tea. By prioritizing the Jian'an Baicha, praising the Jian'an tea bowls, grading and categorizing tea types, and promoting the diancha practice, Huizong and his subordinates added much cultural and financial value to the tea. The composition and dissemination of the Daguan chalun assisted in their creation of a new elite culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the role of spatial dynamics in effectuating the integration of two different sets of land surveying techniques. During the later stages of the Qing-Zunghar wars of the 1690s, the Kangxi emperor (r. 1661-1722) repeatedly asked French Jesuit missionaries, who had been sent to China in 1685 under the patronage of the French King Louis XIV, to join his imperial campaigns targeting the Khalkha-Mongolian borderlands. In the shadow of these imperial journeys, missionaries systematically determined latitudes with Paris-made instruments while Qing officials measured road distances all along the way with graduated ropes. A next step in the evolution of imperial cartographic practice came after the Qing-Zunghar wars had come to an end, when an all-out effort was launched by the emperor to integrate the newly conquered Khalkha Mongols and their lands into the Qing polity. As part of the effort, missionaries were asked to produce a map of the new frontier by integrating European and East Asian practices, which led to the discovery of a technical incompatibility. In 1702, the problem was solved by the precise measurement of the terrestrial degree and, immediately after, the restandardization of the Qing's most basic unit of length, the chi å°°. Thus, I argue that the turn of the eighteenth century saw the crystallization of a new or hybrid Qing cartographic practice, driven by the need to explore the new Khalkha frontier. More concretely, I show how selected techniques as developed by the French Academy of Sciences were gradually absorbed into a pre-existing framework of Qing land surveying, a process that wasshaped and facilitated by exchanges in via throughout the vast Mongolian frontier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jesuits' experience in China is usually analysed within the framework of Sino-Western relations. However, Jesuits' writings often evoked their experience in and knowledge about China in association with other parts of the non-European world, including India, South-East Asia, the Middle East, Africa and America. Based on a prosopographical analysis of China Jesuits' biographical data, we first demonstrate that the encounter with other non-European regions was an integral part of the China Jesuits' itineraries; for they all travelled through intermediate areas on their way to China, and some also did so on their way back to Europe. Secondly, relying mainly on examples drawn from French Jesuits' scholarship between the 1680s and the 1750s, we demonstrate how encounters with other non-European regions and the overseas interests of their home country shaped the Jesuits' scientific agenda as well as the way they understood things Chinese. Lastly, we illustrate how Jesuits keenly studied historical and contemporaneous accounts in Chinese and Manchu on the neighbouring regions of the Qing empire. We argue that the body of knowledge produced by the China Jesuits should be studied in a spatial framework that goes beyond the China-Europe dichotomy since it was, on one hand, filtered by the Jesuits' knowledge about other non-European regions and, on the other hand, concerned with a geographical area larger than the territory of China under the Ming and even the Qing dynasty. We also argue that, in the eighteenth century in particular, the China Jesuits' scholarship was configured by the spatial dynamics shaping the Society of Jesus, Bourbon France and Qing China; thereby, we contribute to a better understanding of both the French Jesuit and Qing networks, and the interconnections between them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores functional-configurational and ontologicalcontaminationist etiological distinctions and the social and political stakes behind them through writings on Warmth disorders/diseases and Warmth epidemics (wenbing ... wenyi ...) in the period from the Han to the Song dynasties. It shows that the functional-configurational and ontological- contaminationist frameworks often coexisted, competed, or alternated with each other, offering not only different ways of looking at the world, but authorizing different action in it. Examination of Northern Song (959-1126) campaigns to stop the practice, identified with "southerners," of avoiding contact with and thereby neglecting the sick, and of Southern Song (1127-1279) controversies over contagion, reveals ideological bases for literati-officials' preference and support for functional over ontological theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study analyses religious and technological changes that occurred during the last seventy years of the Ming dynasty (1574-1644) around the Hedong Salt Lake, situated south of Yuncheng City in southern Shanxi province. Based on a close reading of inscriptions found on stone steles at the Temple of the God of the Salt Lake and of different kinds of gazetteers, the article documents the processes and analyses the factors that shaped the expanding pantheon of local salt-production-related deities during this period. I argue that these religious changes need to be understood in the context of a wider sociotechnical system around the Salt Lake, especially the emergence of new salt production methods that were introduced at this time under the increasingly affirmative leadership of local salt merchants, as well as the changing conditions of local labour management. The larger methodological point the article makes is about the necessity to take stone steles themselves in their spatial and material dimensions as evidence of historical processes: this will allow us to see that by means of these steles and their inscriptions the temple became an architectural discursive space that facilitated new forms of social participation and of administrative intervention, while offering simultaneously a nexus between the sphere of human intervention and the relevant 'natural' factors of the salt production at the Salt Lake. Accordingly, the article proposes novel ways to understand the role of religious institutions such as temples in their relation to 'natural' and 'technological' processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Astronomy was politically relevant to the imperial state in ancient China because a good astronomical system was believed to indicate the legitimacy of rule and symbolize good governance. This political significance meant that astronomy was a state enterprise. China saw many important astronomical achievements during the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) when astronomy received sustained organizational and financial support from the imperial government. Alongside astronomy's high profile in state politics, this fiscal support contributed to its development, along with the eight major astronomical reforms which the Northern Song dynasty made. It maintained a state-supported Astronomical Bureau which had more than 100 members of staff. In addition, the government invested a lot of money in astronomical instrument making. For example, the waterpowered astronomical clock tower constructed in 1092 cost more than 5000 strings of money, accounting for about one thousandth of the total annual fiscal income of the imperial state. The purpose of this study is to ascertain to what degree the state supported astronomical research financially. Based on sources such as the Song huiyao jigao(Re-Collection Draft to Essentials of the Song Period), we give an estimate of the Song government's financial investment in astronomy-an investment which comprised a substantial part of the state's total fiscal income. We believe that this investigation of the Northern Song state's financial support for astronomy will help to explain why there were so many great innovations in astronomy during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]