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Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents abstracts of papers about China including "Literary Collections in Tang Dynasty China," "Epidemics and Medicine During the Northern Song Dynasty: The Revival of Cold Damage Disorders" and "Venerating the Martyrs of the 1402 Usurpation: History and Memory in Mid and Late Ming Dynasty."

During the Zhou dynasty, it was customary for the ruling families of the Central States to transmit their titles and states from father to son in the direct line. This paper examines the occasions when this pattern was disrupted, in particular occasions when it is clear that fraternal succession was used, and where this was not the result of usurpation or a failure of the direct line. In the Spring and Autumn period, the state of Wu seems to have developed a most unusual pattern of succession, apparently unique at this time, and a methodology for understanding Wu practice is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay examines the process by which Wang Guowei placed Chinese dramatic history into the modern Chinese literary canon. It explores how Wang formed his ideas on literature, drawing on Western aesthetics to explain, through the notions of leisure and play, the impetus for art creation, and on the Chinese notions of the genesis of literature to explain the psychology of literary creation. In order to establish the literary value of Chinese drama, Wang applied these ideas to the first playwrights of the Yuan dynasty, arguing that theirs was a literature created under the right aesthetic and creative circumstances, and that it embodied the value of "naturalness" which he considered a universal standard for good literature. By producing a scholarly critical history of the origins and nature of Chinese drama, Wang placed drama on a par with other literary genres of past dynasties, thus giving it a renewed status and creating at the same time a new discipline of research. Drama had now become an established literary genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article examines how political communication and administration were effected in the Western Zhou polity (1046/5-771 BC) and investigates the significance of the royal residences as political and administrative centers. Bronze inscriptions referring to royal receptions that were offered to Zhou regional rulers, rulers of non-Zhou polities, royal officers and other subjects provide the basis for this study. It is argued that the form of "royal hospitality" described in these inscriptions was a political and, partially, administrative institution of the Zhou kings, and that its territorial localization both reflected and defined the geopolitical constitution of the polity. The article concludes by arguing that in the "larger Zhou polity" embracing the regional states of the zhuhou, political communication was decentralized, and that none of the royal residences held the status as political "capital" throughout the entire period. It is further found that a process of territorial centralization was underway in the territories under the direct control of the king, and that the oldest royal residence Zhou-under-Qi was gradually established as political and administrative capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the first generation of writers of songs and drama in Nanjing who emerged from the anonymous context of early Ming court entertainment and established their name and reputation in the second half of the fifteenth century. These writers--Shi Zhong (1437-after 1516), Chen Duo (1454?-1507?), and Xu Lin (1462-1538)--represented a different mode of writing songs and drama. For them it was no longer a professional occupation, as in the case of the court performers, but became part of their cultural and social life. The extent to which our knowledge of these first-generation qu writers depends on local sources and on acts of remembrance by later Nanjing authors is also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A bibliography focusing on the history of China is presented which includes the books "The Sword or the Needle: The Female Knight-Errant (xia) in Traditional Chinese Narrative," by Roland Altenburger, "Tools of Culture: Japan's Cultural, Intellectual, Medical, and Technological Contacts in East Asia, 1000s-1500s," edited by Edmund Goble, Kenneth R. Robinson, and Wakabayashi Haruko, and "Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma [The Lotus sūtra]," translated from the Chinese of Kumārajīva by Leon Hurvitz, foreword by Stephen F. Teiser.

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents a textual history of Chinese author Hong Mai's massive compendium of anomalous events, the "Yijian zhi" (YJZ). It is a collection of what post-Enlightenment Western-trained scholars would call supernatural events, as well as newsworthy accounts and anecdotes, originally featuring 420 juan, or chapters. The collection focuses on contemporary religious ideas, and helps understand much about Song Dynasty's women's social status, Confucian scholars' religious tenets, the ruling elite's understanding of the fall of the Northern Song.

The article presents a commentary of the books "The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories," and "Emperor and Ancestor: State and Lineage in South China," by David Faure. For thirty years, Faure has worked at the deconstruction of an image of an eternal, unchanging China. China, according to that image, was a society dominated by Confucian literati from powerful lineages, the gentry.

The article examines the architectural metaphors and conceptualization in tenth to twelfth-century China. The most important primary text for the study of premodern Chinese architecture is the imperially-commissioned Northern-Song, 960-1127, architectural treatise Yingzao fashi (YZFS), or "Building Standards," completed in 1100 by Li Jie, courtesy name Mingzhong, circa 1060-1110, and issued in 1103.

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article discusses the religious career and self-immolation (which involved public acts of burning the fingers and body) of the sixth-century monk, Sengyai. The author discusses the sources for a study of his life, and translates the extant biographical materials. He demonstrates that self-immolation was a practice open to multiple interpretations, and that Sengyai's act was understood as one of cosmic significance in a religious milieu in which recent political events such as the fall of the Liang dynasty were interpreted as signs of the decline of the dharma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates two kinds of publishing regulations issued during the Song Dynasty, those governing cross-border smuggling of written texts and those on texts relating to border affairs. It argues that the Song court's and Song officials' anxiety about the smuggling of state documents into the surrounding empires was foremost an expression of their concern over the circulation of state documents among literate elites inside Song territory. The analysis of cross-border smuggling focuses on alleged smuggling "to the north," i.e., to the empires bordering on the Song Empire's northern frontier. In order to substantiate the systematic connections made among Song publishing regulations, official and elite constructions of "the north" and elite political culture, the author contrasts prohibitions on the cross-border smuggling of texts to those governing other goods and compares publishing regulations in The Tang Code and The Classified Laws of the Qingyuan Period of ca. 1202. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music plays an important role in the development of discourses on the body, and, in particular, on psychology. From the received and excavated textual record dating to the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. we gain insights into the emergence of an elaborate logos of the psyche, or "psychology," as such a psychology relates to the cosmos. The article explores two orientations on the role of music in psychology. The first and earlier orientation outlines what the author terms a "psychology of influence," which provides a rationale for the beneficial effects of good music in self-cultivation and social order. The second and later orientation outlines what the author calls a "psychology of cosmic attunement," which identifies music with the harmony of the cosmos and speaks of sages who attune themselves to it. Through a close examination of these two perspectives on music, the article delineates how a triangular relationship among music, cosmos, and psyche develops in early China, essentially forming a new paradigm within which human relationship to music and cosmic order is understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the nature and cultural meaning of agriculturally produced grains in late classical and early medieval China. Dietary regimens of practitioners during those periods to make them transcendents; Religious practices in offering sacrifices to the gods and spirits of grains in the country; Implication of cultivating and eating grains for the social status of dwellers in agricultural communities.

Copyright of T'oung Pao is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Focuses on the link between the efforts of elite authors to take their part in the political decision-making process through statecraft writings, and the rise of the newspaper press of Hong Kong, China and treaty-port Shanghai. Comparison between Cai Erkang's and Wanwei Shuqiao's statements on the political status of the press in China; Issues concerning the merger of statecraft discourse and journalistic writing; Examples of journals that have coincided with the implementation of yangwu politics in the decade preceding the Sino-French war.

Provides information on philosophical texts written on bamboo slips which were discovered by Chinese archaeologists in a tomb at Jingmen Guodian in Hubei, China in 1993. Importance of discoveries of ancient manuscripts; Data on Guodian slip-texts; Major problem presented by the groups of bamboo slips; Illustration of cosmographs from Fuyang in the Anhui Province.

Examines the use of the label Ru among twentieth-century popular Chinese religious groups, specifically Confucianism. Ru in Taiwanese popular religion; Spirit-writing movement in Taiwan and on mainland China; Teachings of the Confucian tradition.

Traces the early Dharmaguptaka School from its beginnings to the T'ang Dynasty in China, so as to determine why eventually their vinaya became the only one used in the Chinese ordination ceremony. Origin and development of the school; Role of the school in China; Reliance of the Dharmaguptakas on Gandhari.

Argues that there is little evidence of anything resembling an independent or self-conscious Pure Land tradition in medieval China. Views on how scholars misconstrued the notion of 'Ch'an/Pure Land syncretism; Role of Amitabha's Pure Land in Chinese Buddhism.

Discusses the decline of the Ming dynasty in China. Principal contributors to the decline; Background on the idea of dynastic succession; Abolition of the prime ministership in the dynasty.

Discusses the decline of the Ming dynasty in China. Principal contributors to the decline; Background on the idea of dynastic succession; Abolition of the prime ministership in the dynasty.

Discusses the revival and failure of Buddhist translations during the Song dynasty in China. Background on the development of Chinese Buddhism; Institutionalization of Song translation projects; Problems and failures of Song translations.

Investigates Buddhist-inspired options that were offered to lay people and at people's motivations for making specific religious decisions in the Lower Yangzi region in China during the period from A.D. 1100 until 1340. Definition of a religious option; Origin of the important monastic Tiantai tradition of Buddhism; Factors contributing to the success or failure of beliefs and practices.

Studies the historical transitions of the Chinese word 'wen.' Historical understanding of 'wen'; Identification of shifts of relative status among the various forms of cultural practice; 'Wenzhang,' and other terms most pertinent to the issue of 'wen.'

Analyzes the pluralism of Chinese political thought of the Zhanguo era from 453 to 221 B.C. Advocacy of the ideal of unified rule; Importance of the Great Unity paradigm in Chinese political culture; Rejection of the Eastern Zhou multi-state system.

Presents a study that attempted to chronicle the history of the illustrations in Wen Wengs's academy in China during the reign of Emperor Jing of Han about 156 to 140 B.C. Origin and subsequent reconstructions of the illustrations; Illustrations in the academy after Wen Weng's death; Records of individuals who took rubbings from the academy's illustrations; Descriptions of the content an pictures of the illustrations; Individual patrons who sponsored the restoration activities of illustrations.

Discusses the dynamics of the political networking of Tung Fen, one of Chiang-nan's prominent retired scholar officials in China who was born around 1510. Background of Tung Fen's high-level network and his official career; His high-level network in retirement; His local henchman and his pursuits of wealth and stature; His failure to obtain official eulogy.

Traces how the philosophy of change and transformation influenced early Chinese perceptions of the animal world. Major theme in early Chinese texts; Introduction into early Chinese musical theory; Outline of the main features of the discourse on musical transformation of the animal world; Implications to the early Chinese perception of the natural world.

Examines the textual evidence for the folk provenance of Pre-Ta'ang anonymous yueh-fu, the Chinese folk songs. Background of yueh-fu literature; Analysis of the Han yueh-fu corpus; Explanation and contextualization of certain common yue-fu terms; Distinctions between courtly and popular music; Discussion on anonymous authors of yueh-fu; Stylistic difference between some anonymous and most authored yueh-fu.

Discusses the land tenure system during the Tang dynasty in China. Debate on the equal-field system in Tang Turfan; Discussion on Xizhou's equal-field system in historical perspective; Categories of local land; Classification of population in a land-tenure system.