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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]

The notion of accommodation, or the adaptation of one's message to one's audience, has been regarded as a central feature of the Jesuit way of proceeding at least since the seventeenth century. In recent years, scholars have come to understand accommodation as a rhetorical principle, which—while rooted in the rules of classical oratory—permeated all the works and ministries performed by the Jesuits of the Old Society. By comparing the theoretical notions about accommodation and the advantages and risks of adapting both the Christian message to native cultures and vice versa, this paper shows how and under what conditions the Jesuit missionaries were able to translate this rhetorical principle into a proselytizing praxis. By focusing on the examples of José de Acosta in Peru, Matteo Ricci in China, and of those Jesuits working in the missions in Paraguay and Chile, this essay will show how the needs in the missionary field superseded and overruled the theoretical requirements set beforehand. They revealed the ways in which the political and cultural context in which the missionaries operated determined the negotiations needed in order to achieve a common ground with their would-be converts if their mission was going to happen at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]