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The article explores the ethical implications found in ancient Chinese manuscripts, particularly focusing on the relationship between cosmological speculation and human conduct within the Daoist tradition. It examines how newly excavated texts shed light on the broad scope of Daoist philosophy, particularly in pre-Qin and Han times. It elucidates the complex ethical model proposed by Huang-Lao Daoism, highlighting its implications for governance and social order.

Antony Barbieri-Low presents an engaging and well researched analysis of the changing image of the First Emperor of Qin throughout centuries. Yet the study suffers from insufficient attention to nuances of Chinese political culture, from outright dismission of looted manuscripts (some of which are essential for understanding the Qin), and, primarily, from the author's own biases. Do these biases suggest the author's desire to use the First Emperor as a foil in U.S. political debates? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ten years after the publication of "Heng Xian and the Problem of Studying Looted Artifacts" in Dao, this rejoinder to critics begins by recapitulating my original argument, then considers the leading objections that have appeared in the interim. After dispensing with two trivial and ad hominem responses (that I am a hypocrite and an imperialist), the discussion focuses on the one serious objection, namely, that the benefits of studying looted artifacts outweigh the costs. I conclude with my reasons for disagreeing with this judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By analyzing "The Record of the Increase and Decrease in the Number of Households in Lelang Commandery by County in Year Four of Chuyuan" 樂浪郡初元四年縣别户口多少 [ 集 ] 簿 from Han tomb #364, located in Jeongbaekdong 정백동 (貞柏洞), Pyeongyang, this paper shows how population and territory were fundamental to the exercise of power. Complete population figures for Lelang Commandery 樂浪郡 are evidence of the existence of a governing mechanism of commanderies and counties in this region during the Western Han. Furthermore, an assortment of excavated seals in the area are symbols of different levels of official authority. The discovery of impressions on clay from seals of government officials from commandery level to county level, essentially covering every county in Lelang Commandery, indicates the effectiveness of various administrative bodies and officials of all levels in exercising their functions and powers. Wooden slips that refer to Lelang, which were excavated in the Juyan 居延 area, show that Lelang commandery and all other border commanderies were effectively governed during the Western Han down through Wang Mang to the Eastern Han. 摘要: 本文通過對平壤貞柏洞 364 號漢墓《樂浪郡初元四年縣別戶口多少[集] 簿》 的分析認為，人口土地是一個國家行使權力的基礎。樂浪郡完整的人口數字是西漢王朝在此設郡建縣的體現。通過對平壤地區出土的各類印章的分析，認為印章是各級官員權力的象徵。樂浪郡從郡級官員到縣級官員官印封泥的發現，幾乎覆蓋了全郡所屬各縣，說明行政機構和各級官員行使職權的有效性。通過對居延地區所出關於樂浪的漢簡，說明從西漢經王莽到東漢，都對周邊地區包括樂浪郡在內的所有邊郡實行了有效管理。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The daybook manuscripts are miscellanies in that they gather together a range of different forms of text onto a single manuscript carrier. This article focuses on passages of rhymed text, analyzing in particular the forms, patterns, and functions of the rhymes. On this basis, I provide a number of preliminary observations on the use and context of the daybook manuscripts. The article focuses on the use of rhyme in material from the Kongjiapo 孔家坡 and Shuihudi 睡虎地 daybook manuscripts in particular, while also paying attention to related hemerological, astrological, and divinatory material from Mawangdui 馬王堆 , Fangmatan 放馬灘 , and the Beida 北大 manuscripts among others. These materials have a penchant for using especially Yang -group 陽部 rhymes marking the (auspicious or otherwise) results of actions and divinations, in this regard they can be further compared to genres such as prayers and philosophical sayings for instance, raising the possibility of a shared discursive practice. 摘要: 《日書》作為雜抄彙集了不同類型的文本段落。本文從《日書》韻文段落入手，探討押韻在《日書》裏的類型、規律和功能。在此基礎上對《日書》的使用與閱讀習慣提出幾個初步想法。本文主要討論孔家坡和睡虎地《日書》，以及馬王堆、放馬灘、北大簡等日書、天文、卜筮等類文獻的用韻現象。這些文獻多使用陽部韻形成韻文, 恰好與祝文、哲学類話語等其他文獻一樣使用這類韻文討論吉凶問題。本文進而試圖闡發《日書》類文獻是否與不同類型文獻有所關聯，參與一個共同的話語 實踐。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sui 歲 chapter of the Zhoujiazhai 周家寨 Daybook (rishu 日書) is a type of divination text with a focus on "timing," including the formation of heaven and earth, five elements 五行 , five colors 五色 , five sounds 五音 , and their relationships. It develops the concepts of "five periods" 五時 , "four seasons" 四時 and "the engagement (and disengagement) of four seasons" 四時結（解） , and tells of the seasonal ordinances and climate of the twelve months in sequence. This kind of literature first appeared in the Daybook from Kongjiapo 孔家坡 , but the text was incomplete. The Sui chapter in the Daybook from Zhoujiazhai introduced in this paper was excavated from a site adjacent to the Kongjiapo tomb, and the two daybooks are akin in terms of dating and content. Through comparison and collation, this paper proposes a translation and annotation superior to that of the published brief report, and presents a preliminary study on some problems related to the text. The paper demonstrates that there was a rule of collocation among the twelve branches in the second part of the chapter. The paper further suggests that texts like Sui ought to be classified as "theories of day selection," and that a daybook should be classified as a combination of the techniques and the theories of day selection. 摘要: 周家寨日書》"歲" 篇是一種集中論述 "歲" 的數術文獻，內容包括天地形成、五行、五色、五音及其相互關係，闡述了 "五時" "四時" "四時結" 等概念，並按月序講述十二月的時令和氣候。這類文獻最早見於孔家坡日書》，但是文本略有殘缺。周家寨 "歲" 篇出土地點與孔家坡漢墓鄰近、時代接近，文本也基本相同。通過互校，本文提供了較爲可靠的釋文和註釋，並對簡文涉及的若干數術問題進行了研究。初步闡示了簡文第二部分十二支的搭配規則，並指出 "歲" 這類文獻大致屬於 "擇日之道"，日書》應是 "擇日之道" 與 "擇日之術" 的結合。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of the Tsinghua bamboo-slip manuscript Chi jiu zhi ji Tang zhi wu is different from that of the Yi Yin shuo , which is recorded in the 'Zhuzi lüe' of the Han shu 'Yiwen zhi'. This manuscript is also not a story fabricated by people in the Warring States period. It is possible that what is presented in this manuscript was a legend passed from generation to generation within Yi Yin's lineage. Unlike Yin zhi and Yin gao , this manuscript does not belong to the Shangshu category. 摘要: 清華簡《赤鳩之集湯之屋》與《漢書 藝文志 諸子略》著錄的《伊尹說》性質不同，也非戰國時人編造的故事。該篇可能是伊尹本族世代相傳的傳說。該篇不屬於《尹至》、《尹誥》這類的《尚書》文獻。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, Anhui University acquired a valuable batch of bamboo manuscripts from the Warring States period. The Anda slips have received wide attention both abroad and in China, in particular the Shi jing manuscript contained therein. This article discusses the sequence, number, and variants of the songs, titles, wording, and phrasing in the Shi jing manuscript. The final section of this article introduces the philological value of this find. 摘要: 安大簡是 2015 年入藏安徽大學的一批珍貴的戰國文獻資料，引起海內外學術界的關注。《詩經》抄本是這批竹簡中最引人矚目的發現之一。本篇對《詩經》抄本國風的排序與異名，國風的篇序、篇數和章次，字、詞、句異文進行討論，最後介紹安大簡《詩經》的文獻學價值。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the relationship between colophons for, and the content of, Dunhuang manuscripts of three indigenous Chinese Buddhist scriptures: the Jiu zhuzhongsheng kunan jing , the Xin pusa jing , and the Quanshan jing. I find that the aspirations for copying these scriptures and the ways of using them are mostly consistent with their content. The patrons or users of these scriptures seem to have largely understood their content. Also, the similarities in the content, and the length of the Jiu zhuzhongsheng kunan jing and the Xin pusa jing should be two factors that account for why these scriptures were frequently copied as one set. Concerns for one's own family and the relevant instructions in the texts may have led patrons to prefer to copy the Xin pusa jing twice, but the other two scriptures only once as a single scribal act. Résumé: Cet article examine les rapports entre trois sutras bouddhiques composés en Chine et dont des manuscrits ont été trouvés à Dunhuang : le Sutra sur le salut des multitudes en souffrance (Jiu zhuzhongsheng kunan jing 救諸衆生苦難經), le Nouveau sutra du bodhisattva (Xin pusa jing 新菩薩經) et le Sutra sur l'exhortation à la vertu (Quanshan jing 勸善經). En examinant leurs colophons et leurs contenus, je montre que les aspirations ayant motivé la copie de ces sutras et leur usage sont largement cohérents avec leurs contenus. Les commanditaires et les pratiquants de ces textes semblent bien avoir compris leur message. De plus, les similarités de contenu et de longueur du Sutra sur le salut des multitudes en souffrance et du Nouveau sutra du bodhisattva sont deux facteurs qui ont conduit ces deux sutras à être fréquemment copiés ensemble. Les préoccupations pour leur famille et les instructions à ce sujet dans le texte des sutras ont certainement conduit les commanditaires à copier le Nouveau sutra du bodhisattva deux fois et les deux autres sutra une seule fois, le tout dans une seule session. 提要: 本文研究《救諸衆生苦難經》《新菩薩經》和《勸善經》這三部中國本土撰述佛經敦煌寫本的題記和經文的內容之間的關係。我發現抄寫這些經的目的以及使用這些寫經的方式和它們的內容大致相符。這些經的供養人們和使用者們應該多少了解經文內容。另外，內容的相似性和經文的長度應該是造成《救諸衆生苦難經》和《新菩薩經》頻繁組合抄寫的兩個因素。對家人的關切以及經文中的相關指示可能使得供養人們傾向於一次性抄寫《新菩薩經》兩遍，而另外兩部經則只抄一遍。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explores differing views on the role of heaven in accounts of underserved hardship in early China in the Guodian manuscripts. Topics covered include an analysis of the similarities and differences between the "Xunzi" and the "Qiongda yi shi," a comparison between the two texts with "Mengzi 6B15," which reflects different understandings of heaven, and the message of the "Youzuo" chapter.

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The "Five Conquerors" passage of the Han daybook from Kongjiapo is written on slips 105–7. Slip 107 should be rejoined with fragment 24. The "Five Conquerors" passage uses the conquest theory of the five agents to realize "untimely urgent travel." The method requires one who would undertake urgent travel to carry an item representing the particular agent that will "conquer" the agent associated with the direction of travel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that the character in the sentence 生乃呼曰 "was born and called out: ' Jin !'" in the Shanghai Museum manuscript Zi Gao 子羔 should be transcribed as 銫, pronounced jin, and was a special way of writing the word jin 金 "metal." The myth of Xie in Zi Gao may be related to the virtue of Metal of the Shang dynasty, which can still be seen in a story in the Shiyi ji 拾遺記 in which the divine mother asks Jian Di 簡狄 to give birth to Xie to "succeed the Virtue of Metal." This paper also traces the myths of Shaohao 少皞 and Xie in order to show that Shaohao and Xie derive from the same mythical source. This paper argues that the association of Shang with the virtue of Metal already existed prior to the time that Zou Yan 鄒衍 systematized the Five Virtues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volume 6 of Qinghua daxue cang Zhanguo zhujian, published in 2016, includes two copies of a text entitled by the editors * Zheng Wen Gong wen Tai Bo 鄭文公問太伯 (Duke Wen of Zheng Asks Tai Bo). The two copies of this single text are extremely similar, both in terms of content and in terms of calligraphy, but also display certain occasional differences and one systematic difference in the positioning of the "city" (yi 邑) signific (bushou 部首) within characters. This leads the editors to argue that they "were copied by a single scribe on the basis of two separate source texts." This is the first time we have seen such evidence of scribal practice, and it is crucial for the question of manuscript production in early China. In the present study, I first present a codicological description of these two manuscript versions of * Zheng Wen Gong wen Tai Bo, followed by a full translation of their text. Then I consider their implications for the question of manuscript production in ancient China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manuscript carrying the title Zhuangwang ji Cheng 莊王既成, from the Shanghai Museum corpus of bamboo slips, bears two related anecdotes concerning the early Chinese monarch King Zhuang of Chu. In this article, we translate both stories and offer interpretations of them both as individual texts and as a composite narrative, situating both readings in a context of intertextual references based on shared cultural memory. Approaching the anecdotes together, we argue, generates an additional layer of meaning, yielding both a deep sense of dramatic irony and a critique of the value of foreknowledge – and, by extension, of the explanatory value of historiography. In detailing how this layer of meaning is generated, we explore the range of reading experiences and approaches to understanding the past enabled by combining separate but related textual units, a prevalent mode of composition and consumption in the manuscript culture of Warring States China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the ritual context of the 200,000-line Chinese Great Perfection of Wisdom (Dabore jing; Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra) at Dunhuang. Beside the fact that the purpose of the mass production of sütras was to generate merit and then present a “merit gift” for the sponsor, the copies were reused as ritual instruments in the large-scale chanting liturgy called “sūtra-rotation” (zhuanjing). This paper examines the relevant administrative documents and liturgical texts to reconstruct the three modules of the liturgy, i.e., the preparation stage, the pronouncement of a “liturgical script,” and the “long-playing” chanting. By analyzing key passages in the prajñāpāramitā (Perfection of Wisdom) literature, the paper argues that the Great Perfection of Wisdom was taken as an apotropaic device with unmediated protective power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an in-depth study of a constellation of interrelated texts transmitted in three Chinese rishu 日書(“daybook”) manuscripts dating from the third to first centuries BCE. All of the manuscripts have an archaeologically verified provenance in the central Yangtze river valley region of the former Warring States kingdom of Chu, and taken together they reveal in unusual detail the effects, both intentional and possibly unintentional, of Qin assimilation policies after the transfer of authority beginning with the conquest of the Chu capital in 278 BCE. These effects are shown to reverberate for millennia in China’s rich tradition of hemerology and related technical arts, and by doing so, they weave a surprising human tapestry connecting nameless diviners, minor officials of the early empire, the First August Thearch of Qin, Mongols, Manchus, and others. Methodologically, it is suggested that despite the idiosyncratic nature of these manuscripts, productive analysis of structural elements remains possible and worthwhile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal manuscripts excavated from tombs serve as important materials for research on Qin and Han laws. These manuscripts differ from received legal texts or law documents found at archaeological sites in nature and function, as they were stored as funeral texts in tombs. This article studies the Ernian lüling manuscript in terms of its nature and function. It argues that the manuscript compiled in the second year of Empress Lü (186 bce) nearing the death of the owner was not produced for official use but specifically for burial in the tomb. This article further proposes that the burial of the Ernian lüling manuscript may have taken place to illustrate the social status and official capabilities of the owner to the underworld. The investigation of the Ernian lüling manuscript in its archaeological context helps us achieve a stronger understanding of the dating, origins, completeness, and compilation of its text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Written documents from rural north China are rare. This essay examines the newly-discovered records of a Shanxi village association, which was dedicated to the cult of the Horse King. The manuscripts detail the activities, revenues, and expenditures of the Horse King temple association over a hundred-year period (from 1852 until 1956). The essay examines them from social, cultural, and religious perspectives. The manuscripts reveal the internal workings and communal values of a late imperial village association. They unravel the social and economic structure of the village and the centrality of theater in rural culture. Furthermore, the manuscripts bring to the fore a forgotten cult and its ecological background: the Horse King was among the most widely worshiped deities of late imperial China, his flourishing cult reflecting the significance of his protégés – horses, donkeys, and mules – in the agrarian economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first volume of the Tsinghua University Warring States bamboo-strip manuscripts contains a text with passages that match medieval quotations of a text referred to as Cheng Wu 程寤 or Awakening at Cheng , which in turn is said to be a lost chapter of the Yi Zhou Shu 逸周書 or Leftover Zhou Documents. The passages concern one of Chinese literature's earliest interpretations of a dream, and were quoted in medieval encyclopedias in their sections on dreams. This article discusses the significance of this discovery both for Chinese textual history and for the interpretation of this particular dream. In particular, it shows that trees seen in the dream predict the Zhou conquest of Shang, and the subsequent Shang acquiescence to Zhou rule. It also notes that this discovery simultaneously confirms the antiquity of this text, but also calls into question the dominant traditional interpretation of the dream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the nature of readership in the Warring States and early Han eras in China in relation to the manuscripts "Yong yue" and "Yinshu." Topics include the codicological formatting of early Chinese manuscripts, practices for the production and reading of texts, and punctuation and other markings used in the manuscripts.

Using the variant graphs in excavated Chu manuscripts of the Warring States period, the author discusses the possible relationship between the Central Plains “elegant speech” and the Chu dialect spoken in southern China. The author first divides excavated Chu manuscripts into two groups—those produced by the Chu people who recorded Chu society and social life, and classical and literary works from the Central Plains. Then the author lists numerous examples of different categories of graphs that may have recorded the Chu dialect pronunciation of the words. The author concludes that the Chu dialect had already taken shape by the middle to late Warring States period, and the formation of the Chu dialect was a result of the fusion of several ethnic languages, with the Central Plans “elegant speech” playing a dominant role combined with different linguistic layers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is a state-of-the-field overview of the graphological analysis of excavated Warring State manuscripts in China. The author first analyzes and defines the terminologies related to handwriting analysis used in Chinese literature, and then summarizes the characteristics and the categories of the Chu script employed in writing the Warring State Chu manuscripts. The graphological study of excavated manuscripts from early China is not limited to analysis on the morphological characteristics of the script, but also tries to understand the circumstances under which those manuscripts were written, including the writing implement, writing materials, and the scribe who produced the inscription. These three elements all influenced the result of the writing—the manuscripts. The author finally points out the significance and wide implications of handwriting analysis in the study of early Chinese manuscripts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focusing on two groups of manuscripts from Tsinghua collection, in this article, the author reconstructs two Warring States manuscripts to illustrate the diversity of the manuscript format of early China. The reconstruction is based on a series of observations on the materiality and textuality of the manuscripts. The first group consists of three manuscripts concerning the stories of two historical figures: Yi Yin and Shang Tang of the Shang dynasty. Based on the basis of verso line, bamboo nodes, and the narrative chronology, the author determines these three manuscripts originally formed one continuous scroll. The second example is theMathematical Chart, also from the Tsinghua University collections. Based a series of observations of the physical features such as the verso imprints, the traces of decayed silk, and signs of damage to the bamboo slips, it is suggested that theMathematical Chartmanuscript was not in the familiar “scroll” format, but rather a “folded” format. This reconstruction provides the first concrete evidence of a “folded” book format since the archaeological discoveries of early Chinese manuscripts in the early 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including Chinese manuscripts, textual transmission and excavated Chinese materials.

Inspired by the British bibliographer Donald F. McKenzie’s “sociology of texts,” this article explores the material form of early Chinese manuscripts and its impact on the production, circulation, reading habits, and the relationship between literary and administrative texts in the Warring State, Qin and early Han periods. Because the material format of early Chinese texts was scrolls (“juan”) of bamboo or wooden strips, the basic unit for circulation is often “pian,” a unit smaller than a “book.” The fluidity of early China texts was the consequence of the material media and the ways of transmission (both oral and written copying) in early China. The article also argues that the canonization process in early China tried to control the accuracy of textual production and transmission, such as double checking the copies, the increasing notion of organization of a book, the use of table of contents and preface, and character count at the end of a text. The article finally calls for the integration of the studies on excavated literary manuscripts on one hand, and administrative, personal documents, and technical manuals on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is directed against some Western scholars’ unfounded claim that early Chinese texts were predominantly transmitted orally (either through dictation or writing from memory), and discusses the importance of the scribe in the transmission of pre-Qin texts. Concrete evidence from excavated manuscripts suggests that early Chinese texts were primarily transmitted as copies that passed from hand to hand and text to text. The author then discusses, through handwriting analysis, examples of texts copied by a single scribe as well as multiple scribes, and how the copyists treated texts and scripts that originated from different states of the Warring States period. The article then discusses how scribes treated textual errors, omissions, and redundant graphs and texts arising during the process of textual transmission. Finally the author discusses the social status of the scribe in early China and hypothesizes that there may have already been bookshops in the Warring States period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay offers an experimental interpretation for Mengzi's 孟子 ren-yi 仁義 discourses, reading them as strategic prescriptions akin to those presented in classical strategic manuals. However, rather than arguing that it is the correct interpretation of Mengzi, I use it to highlight the ambiguity of Mengzi's discourses. This ambiguity, I argue, motivated Zhuangzi's 莊子 criticisms of moral language abuse and rationalizes some early narratives about Mengzi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of medicinal excrement, of which there is some evidence under the Han, increased significantly in the Tang Dynasty. Many recipes, recorded in the Dunhuang manuscripts and in scholarly literature, are based on animal excrement. First, we want to show that this increase is due to the influence of foreign medicines, mainly Āyurvedic medicine and, second, that Buddhism played a key role in this development. By comparing Indian medical sources, Chinese manuscripts from Dunhuang (which was a privileged site for the transfer of knowledge), Chinese texts of scholarly literature, and Buddhist sources, the role of Buddhism in spreading the use of medical excrement can be observed. Buddhism first exerted an ethical influence through the idea of compassion for beings suffering from illness, which then led to the search for first-aid remedies that were cheap and easy to procure, especially in the natural environment, such as the feces of domestic animals. The notion was then conveyed that, beyond the tension between pure and filthy, no remedy is vile and every substance can be a remedy, an idea that can be traced back to Āyurvedic medicine and that is embedded in the story of the model Indian physician, Jīvaka. Finally, the circulation and distribution of animal fecal recipes (here we have taken the example of cow dung) follows the passage of Buddhism from India to China as does the dissemination of such remedies. Thus, we show that Buddhism was a catalyst and a vector for the transmission and transfer of knowledge on medicinal excrement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Xinian in the second volume of the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips provides a different understanding of the so-called eastward relocation (dongqian) of the Zhou royal house than suggested in transmitted texts such as the Shiji and Zhushu jinian. Introducing the controversial issues concerning the relocation in the Xinian, this study focuses mostly on the problematic place name Shao E, where King Ping is said to have stayed for a while until Lord Wen of Jin brought him back to the capital region and enthroned him. In particular, while criticizing the later commentators' identification of E with Xiangning, Shanxi, this study argues that Shao E in the Xinian should be more properly located in the Nanyang region. This relocation suggests that the year 770 BCE, inscribed for so long as the turning point between the Western Zhou and the Eastern Zhou periods, is problematic. It further proposes that the narrative on the eastward relocation in the Xinian does not necessarily contradict the transmitted texts, but rather tends to resolve some inconsistencies inherent in those texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study suggests that the so-called “Jinteng” manuscript held by Qinghua University should be read independently of its received counterpart. When read on its own terms, the manuscript provides a straightforward account of rituals surrounding the Duke of Zhou’s ascension to the throne after the demise of King Wu. As such it represents a continuation of King Wu’s abdication in favor of his meritorious brother, as recorded in the Yi Zhou shu. Read in this light, the fourth century BCE manuscript provides further evidence for the prominence of abdication doctrines during the Warring States period, an intellectual tradition that was deemed subversive in the early empire and became gradually obliterated over the course of the Qin-Han dynasties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Jesuit Figurists journeyed through the sea of commentaries on the Yijing and the trans-textual dialogue, they did not just play the role of translators and commentators by doing intralingual translation. They also sought the attention of the Kangxi Emperor and the elite literati by producing handwritten Chinese manuscripts that mimicked the format and grammatology of Chinese commentaries. Besides the commentarial tradition, and the Classical and vernacular language employed in the Chinese manuscripts of the Jesuit Figurists, their formats, writing/calligraphy, layout and other visual features had a life and history of their own. The manuscripts served as a visual medium that helped the Jesuit Figurists communicate and proselytize via a shared identity with the Chinese literati. They strove to imitate the format used in commentaries on the Yijing by earlier or contemporary literati. Thus, their Chinese manuscripts were a written space that showed the interaction among the forms of the books, their content, and their imagined readers. The Jesuit Figurists also faced mixed feelings and fluctuating support from their target audience in this translation space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discovers the names of five governors of the Qin dynasty Dongting commandery, and finds that there were four possible locations of the commandery capital. Having determined that the “Qianling yi you xing Dongting” bamboo manuscripts were envelopes delivered from Dongting commandery to Qianling county, and Dongting commandery controlled over at least fourteen counties, we can draw a map on this basis. Based on these findings, this paper argues that the counties interacted with each other through document delivery, transportation, logistics, judiciary, official disposal, migration, and prison labour. This paper then indicates that in the Dongting commandery, all of the soldiers and officials, even at the lowest level, came from places other than the Dongting area. Non-native officials, soldiers, civilians, and criminals together constituted an immigrant community. Considering that the locals seemed to have no legitimate military power, political power or living space within the city, the Dongting area could be regarded as a colonial society. The Dongting commandery is typical of the “strong government, weak society” phenomenon. For the Qin government, the commandery system was a powerful institution to monitor regional society. However, implementing such harsh rules upon the remote south also reflected the excessive state apparatus, which might explain the quick collapse of the Qin dynasty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spirit communication was a major facet of daily life across the ancient world. This paper seeks to enumerate and contextualize the act of prayer in elite religious ritual at the commencement of the historical period and is part of a larger inquiry into inscriptions and manuscripts unearthed over the last several decades that testify to the intimate relationship between divination, prayer, and the early development of the Chinese literary tradition. Within a corpus of oracle bone inscriptions recently discovered in Anyang, Henan, an intact turtle shell with hardly any other writing on it contains a rare divination on a prayer to be uttered by a princely grandson of the Shang royal family to his deceased kingly grandfather. After providing a synopsis of prayer in the ancestral cult of the royal family, I present an initial reading and commentary of what now stands as China's first prayer text. My conclusion verifies the pedigree of the prince, his otherwise undetectable personal name, and the identity of the recipient ancestor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deployment of Arabic, Chinese, and Cyrillic top-level domain names is explored in this research by analyzing technical and policy documents of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), as well as newspaper articles in the respective language regions. The tension between English uniformity at the root level of the Internet׳s domain names system, and language diversity in the global Internet community, has resulted in various technological solutions surrounding Arabic, Chinese, and Cyrillic language domain names. These standards and technological solutions ensure the security and stability of the Internet; however, they do not comprehensively address the linguistic diversity needs of the Internet. ICANN has been transforming into an international policy organization, yet its linguistic diversity policies appear disconnected from the diversity policies of the United Nations, and remain technically oriented. Linguistic diversity in relation to IDNs at this stage mostly focus on the language representation of major languages that are spoken in powerful nation-states, who use the rhetoric of national pride, local business branding, and inclusion of non-English speakers. This situation surfaces the tension between nation-states and the new international governing institution ICANN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Table Ten of the "Shiji," an ancient text of Chinese history as it was known to the Chinese of the 2nd century BC, written by Chinese historian Sima Qian. The author explains that Table Ten provides information on Chinese nobles and rulers during the Han dynasty, explores the authenticity of Table Ten being attributed to Sima Qian, and examines the chancellors, excellencies, generals, and ministers mentioned in Table Ten.