The Ledgers Of Merit And Demerit

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The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit

Author : Cynthia Joanne Brokaw
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400861942
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit by : Cynthia Joanne Brokaw

Download or read book The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit written by Cynthia Joanne Brokaw and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ledgers of merit and demerit were a type of morality book that achieved sudden and widespread popularity in China during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Consisting of lists of good and bad deeds, each assigned a certain number of merit or demerit points, the ledgers offered the hope of divine reward to users "good" enough to accumulate a substantial sum of merits. By examining the uses of the ledgers during the late Ming and early Qing periods, Cynthia Brokaw throws new light on the intellectual and social history of the late imperial era. The ledgers originally functioned as guides to salvation for twelfth-century Taoists and Buddhists, but Brokaw shows how the literati of turbulent sixteenth-century China began to use them as aids in the struggle for official status through civil service examinations. The author describes how the responses of some Confucian thinkers to the popularity of the ledgers not only refined the orthodox Neo-Confucian method of self-cultivation but also revealed the serious ambiguity of the classic Confucian understanding of the relationship between fate and human action. Finally, she demonstrates that by the end of the seventeenth century the ledgers were used not so much to facilitate upward mobility as to promote social stability by prescribing standards that encouraged people to keep to their social places. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit

Author : Cynthia J. Brokaw
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780608091129
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit by : Cynthia J. Brokaw

Download or read book The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit written by Cynthia J. Brokaw and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ledgers of merit and demerit were a type of morality book that achieved sudden and widespread popularity in China during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Consisting of lists of good and bad deeds, each assigned a certain number of merit or demerit points, the ledgers offered the hope of divine reward to users good enough to accumulate a substantial sum of merits. By examining the uses of the ledgers during the late Ming and early Qing periods, Cynthia Brokaw throws new light on the intellectual and social history of the late imperial era. The ledgers originally functioned as guides to salvation for twelfth- century Taoists and Buddhists, but Brokaw shows how the literati of turbulent sixteenth-century China began to use them as aids in the struggle for official status through civil service examinations. The author describes how the responses of some Confucian thinkers to the popularity of the ledgers not only refined the orthodox Neo-Confucian method of self-cultivation but also revealed the serious ambiguity of the classic Confucian understanding of the relationship between fate and human action. Finally, she demonstrates that by the end of the seventeenth century the ledgers were used not so much to facilitate upward mobility as to promote social stability by prescribing standards that encouraged people to keep to their social places.

Determining One's Own Fate

Author : Cynthia Joanne Brokaw
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1216 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (135 download)

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Book Synopsis Determining One's Own Fate by : Cynthia Joanne Brokaw

Download or read book Determining One's Own Fate written by Cynthia Joanne Brokaw and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 1216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Sources of Chinese Tradition

Author : Wm. Theodore De Bary
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780231517980
Total Pages : 1038 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (179 download)

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Book Synopsis Sources of Chinese Tradition by : Wm. Theodore De Bary

Download or read book Sources of Chinese Tradition written by Wm. Theodore De Bary and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1999-07-27 with total page 1038 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of seminal primary readings on the social, intellectual, and religious traditions of China, Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 1 has been widely used and praised for almost forty years as an authoritative resource for scholars and students and as a thorough and engaging introduction for general readers. Here at last is a completely revised and expanded edition of this classic sourcebook, compiled by noted China scholars Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom. Updated to reflect recent scholarly developments, with extensive material on popular thought and religion, social roles, and women's education, this edition features new translations of more than half the works from the first edition, as well as many new selections. Arranged chronologically, this anthology is divided into four parts, beginning at the dawn of literate Chinese civilization with the Oracle-Bone inscriptions of the late Shang dynasty (1571–1045 B.C.E.) and continuing through the end of the Ming dynasty (C.E. 1644). Each chapter has an introduction that provides useful historical context and offers interpretive strategies for understanding the readings. The first part, The Chinese Tradition in Antiquity, considers the early development of Chinese civilization and includes selections from Confucius's Analects, the texts of Mencius and Laozi, as well as other key texts from the Confucian, Daoist, and Legalist schools. Part 2, The Making of a Classical Culture, focuses on Han China with readings from the Classic of Changes (I Jing), the Classic of Filiality, major Han syntheses, and the great historians of the Han dynasty. The development of Buddhism, from the earliest translations from Sanskrit to the central texts of the Chan school (which became Zen in Japan), is the subject of the third section of the book. Titled Later Daoism and Mahayana Buddhism in China, this part also covers the teachings of Wang Bi, Daoist religion, and texts of the major schools of Buddhist doctrine and practice. The final part, The Confucian Revival and Neo-Confucianism, details the revival of Confucian thought in the Tang, Song, and Ming periods, with historical documents that link philosophical thought to political, social, and educational developments in late imperial China. With annotations, a detailed chronology, glossary, and a new introduction by the editors, Sources of Chinese Tradition will continue to be a standard resource, guidebook, and introduction to Chinese civilization well into the twenty-first century.

Tokugawa Confucian Education

Author : Marleen Kassel
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 9780791428078
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (28 download)

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Book Synopsis Tokugawa Confucian Education by : Marleen Kassel

Download or read book Tokugawa Confucian Education written by Marleen Kassel and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the philosophy and values of Hirose Tanso, a scholar, educator, and poet whose well-articulated educational program was partly responsible for the relative ease with which Japan emerged from hundreds of years of self-imposed isolation and became a powerful modern nation.

Robert van Gulik and His Chinese Sherlock Holmes

Author : Sabrina Yuan Hao
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004682511
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (46 download)

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Book Synopsis Robert van Gulik and His Chinese Sherlock Holmes by : Sabrina Yuan Hao

Download or read book Robert van Gulik and His Chinese Sherlock Holmes written by Sabrina Yuan Hao and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-09-20 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the post-war mid-century Robert van Gulik produced a series of stories set in Imperial China and featuring a Chinese Judge: Judge Dee. This book examines the author’s unprecedented effort in hybridising two heterogenous crime writing traditions – traditional Chinese gong’an (court-case) fiction and its Anglo-American counterpart – bringing to light how his fiction draws elements from these two traditions for plots, narrative features, visual images, and gender representation. Relying on research on various sources and literary traditions, it provides illumination of the historical contexts, centring on the cultural interaction and connectedness that occurred during the multidirectional global flows of the Judge Dee texts in both western and Chinese markets. This study contributes to current scholarship on crime fiction by questioning its predominantly Eurocentric focus and the divisive post-colonial approach often adopted in accessing works concerning foreign peoples and cultures.

Opera, Society, and Politics in Modern China

Author : Hsiao-t'i Li
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 1684171016
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (841 download)

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Book Synopsis Opera, Society, and Politics in Modern China by : Hsiao-t'i Li

Download or read book Opera, Society, and Politics in Modern China written by Hsiao-t'i Li and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Popular operas in late imperial China were a major part of daily entertainment, and were also important for transmitting knowledge of Chinese culture and values. In the twentieth century, however, Chinese operas went through significant changes. During the first four decades of the 1900s, led by Xin Wutai (New Stage) of Shanghai and Yisushe of Xi’an, theaters all over China experimented with both stage and scripts to present bold new plays centering on social reform. Operas became closely intertwined with social and political issues. This trend toward “politicization” was to become the most dominant theme of Chinese opera from the 1930s to the 1970s, when ideology-laden political plays reflected a radical revolutionary agenda.Drawing upon a rich array of primary sources, this book focuses on the reformed operas staged in Shanghai and Xi’an. By presenting extensive information on both traditional/imperial China and revolutionary/Communist China, it reveals the implications of these “modern” operatic experiences and the changing features of Chinese operas throughout the past five centuries. Although the different genres of opera were watched by audiences from all walks of life, the foundations for opera’s omnipresence completely changed over time."

Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China

Author : Kwang-Ching Liu
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 9780824825386
Total Pages : 492 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (253 download)

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Book Synopsis Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China by : Kwang-Ching Liu

Download or read book Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China written by Kwang-Ching Liu and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten international academics explore heterodoxy dissent challenging the beliefs and meanings of the established norm in late Imperial China. In this process, they trace the origins of the cultural and intellectual protests to aspects of Daoism and Buddhism in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911)

Religion and Charity

Author : Robert P. Weller
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108418678
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis Religion and Charity by : Robert P. Weller

Download or read book Religion and Charity written by Robert P. Weller and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges our assumptions about morality by explaining how industrialized philanthropy and universalized goodness came to dominate Chinese religious engagement.

Snakes' Legs

Author : Martin W. Huang
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824864336
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Snakes' Legs by : Martin W. Huang

Download or read book Snakes' Legs written by Martin W. Huang and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2004-09-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Snakes' Legs examines sequels (xushu), a common but long-neglected literary phenomenon in traditional China. What prompted writers to produce sequels despite their poor reputation as a genre? What motivated readers to read them? How should we characterize the nature of the relationship between sequels and rewritings? Contributors to this volume illuminate these and other questions, and the collection as a whole offers a comprehensive consideration of this vigorous genre while suggesting fascinating new directions for research. Xushu as a discursive practice reinforces the paradox that innovation is impossible without imitation. It presents us with fertile ground for studying the intricate ties that bind the writer and reader of traditional Chinese fiction: the writer of xushu is always self-consciously assuming the dual role of author and reader and in the writing process must consider both the work in progress as well as its precursor(s). Snakes' Legs contains detailed discussions of some representative xushu works from the late Ming and Qing periods, many of which have received little scholarly attention. It will shed light on the development of Chinese fiction and the various textual practices in traditional China as well as account for the genre’s continuing vitality in modern times. Contributors: Robert E. Hegel, Siao-chen Hu, Martin W. Huang, Keith McMahon, Qiancheng Li, Ying Wang, Ellen Widmer, Laura H. Wu, Shuhui Yang.

Lord of the Three in One

Author : Kenneth Dean
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691261210
Total Pages : 430 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Lord of the Three in One by : Kenneth Dean

Download or read book Lord of the Three in One written by Kenneth Dean and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-14 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lin Zhao'en (1517–1598) set out to popularize Confucianism by combining Confucian studies with Daoist inner alchemical techniques and Buddhist Chan philosophy into something he called the Three in One Teachings. Despite periods of clandestine activity since its inception, the Three in One cult has undergone a remarkable revival in post-Mao China: today Lin is worshipped throughout Southeast China and Southeast Asia as Lord of the Three in One in over a thousand temples by tens of thousands of cult initiates. Many of the temples have been restored since 1979, when China began to experience an explosive resurgence of popular culture and religion. In this book, based on ten years of field work, Kenneth Dean vividly documents the reemergence of this cult, which seeks to transmit a universal vision of truth yet retains a strong local appeal through its healing rituals and spirit mediumism. Although the Chinese government still tries to suppress these resurgences in the interest of modernization, the cult's locally based networks appear in this account as unstoppable social forces. Dean explores the organization and transmission of the Three in One's unique cultural vision, the reception of this vision, and the construction of subjectivity within a vibrant ritual tradition. Outlining such features as inner alchemical meditation, scripture and iconography, ritual practice, and spirit mediumism, he demonstrates the cult's transformative potential as well as its contemporaneity and dynamism. Rural Chinese popular culture as a whole emerges here as highly complex and always evolving--traditional and resilient.

Modern Chinese Religion II: 1850 - 2015 (2 vols.)

Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004304649
Total Pages : 1127 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis Modern Chinese Religion II: 1850 - 2015 (2 vols.) by :

Download or read book Modern Chinese Religion II: 1850 - 2015 (2 vols.) written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 1127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last of four two-volume sets on the key periods of paradigm shift in Chinese religious and cultural history, this book examines the transformation of values in China since 1850, in the “secular” realms of economics, science, medicine, aesthetics, media, and gender, and in each of the major religions (Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity) as well as in Marxist discourse. The nation and science are the values invoked most frequently, with the market and democracy a distant second. As in previous periods of fundamental change in Chinese history, rationalization and secularization have played central roles, but interiorization nearly disappears as a driving force. Also in continuity with the past, the state insists on an exclusive right to define and adjudicate orthodoxy. Contributors include: Daniel H. Bays, Sébastien Billioud, Adam Yuet Chau, Na Chen, Philip Clart, Walter B. Davis, Arif Dirlik, Thomas David DuBois, Lizhu Fan, David Faure, Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye, Ji Zhe, Xiaofei Kang, Eric I. Karchmer, André Laliberté, Angela Ki Che Leung, Xun Liu, Richard Madsen, David Ownby, Ellen Oxfeld, Volker Scheid, Grace Yen Shen, Michael Szonyi, Wang Chien-ch’uan, Xue Yu

Communicating with the Gods

Author : Matthias Schumann
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004677909
Total Pages : 672 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (46 download)

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Book Synopsis Communicating with the Gods by : Matthias Schumann

Download or read book Communicating with the Gods written by Matthias Schumann and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-10-09 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few religious innovations have shaped Chinese history like the emergence of spirit-writing during the Song dynasty. From a divinatory technique it evolved into a complex ritual practice used to transmit messages and revelations from the Gods. This resulted in the production of countless religious scriptures that now form an essential corpus, widely venerated and recited to this day, that is still largely untapped by research. Using historical and ethnographic approaches, this volume for the first time offers a comprehensive overview of the history of spirit-writing, examining its evolution over a millennium, the practices and technologies used, and the communities involved.

Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China

Author : Billy Kee Long So
Publisher : Harvard Univ Asia Center
ISBN 13 : 9780674003712
Total Pages : 508 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (37 download)

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Book Synopsis Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China by : Billy Kee Long So

Download or read book Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China written by Billy Kee Long So and published by Harvard Univ Asia Center. This book was released on 2000 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prosperity signifies success in economic performance. Economic performance always takes place in a spatial context. And institutions matter in economic performance. These three interwoven themes underlie this inquiry into the regional economy of southern Fukien province during the Sung and Yuan dynasties, when the area was one of the most prosperous regions in China. Through a meticulous reading of the sources, the author seeks to understand the meaning of prosperity in the premodern Chinese context and argues that we have to understand economic performance as a process occurring in space and influenced by institutions, which affect economic actors particularly through the means of transaction costs.

The Cornucopian Stage

Author : Ariel Fox
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 1684176816
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (841 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cornucopian Stage by : Ariel Fox

Download or read book The Cornucopian Stage written by Ariel Fox and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-09-09 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long seventeenth century in China was a period of tremendous commercial expansion, and no literary genre was better equipped to articulate its possibilities than southern drama. As a form and a practice, southern drama was in the business of world-building—both in its structural imperative to depict and reconcile the social whole and in its creation of entire economies dependent on its publication and performance. However, the early modern commercial world repelled rather than engaged most playwrights, who consigned its totems—the merchant and his money—to the margins as sources of political suspicion and cultural anxiety. In The Cornucopian Stage, Ariel Fox examines a body of influential yet understudied plays by a circle of Suzhou playwrights who enlisted the theatrical imaginary to very different ends. In plays about long-distance traders and small-time peddlers, impossible bargains and broken contracts, strings of cash and storehouses of silver, the Suzhou circle placed commercial forms not only at center stage but at the center of a new world coming into being. Here, Fox argues, the economic character of early modern selfhood is recast as fundamentally productive—as the basis for new subject positions, new kinds of communities, and new modes of art.

Chinese Outcasts

Author : Anders Hansson
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004487964
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (44 download)

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Book Synopsis Chinese Outcasts by : Anders Hansson

Download or read book Chinese Outcasts written by Anders Hansson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-08 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outcasts and pariahs are known to exist in several Asian countries but have usually not been associated with traditional Chinese society. Chinese Outcasts shows that some Chinese were in fact treated as outcasts or semi-outcasts. They include the boat people of South China and certain less well-known groups in different regions, including the "musicians' households" and the "fallen people". The reasons for their inferior status and perceived impurity is examined, as well as the intent behind a series of imperial emancipation edicts in the 1720s and 30s. The edict provided an escape route from inferior legal status but failed to put a quick end to customary social discrimination.

Making Saints in Modern China

Author : David Ownby
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190494565
Total Pages : 529 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Saints in Modern China by : David Ownby

Download or read book Making Saints in Modern China written by David Ownby and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Sainthood" has been, and remains, a contested category in China, given the commitment of China's modern leadership to secularization, modernization, and revolution, and the discomfort of China's elite with matters concerning religion. However, sainted religious leaders have succeeded in rebuilding old institutions and creating new ones despite the Chinese government's censure. This book offers a new perspective on the history of religion in modern and contemporary China by focusing on the profiles of these religious leaders from the early 20th century through the present. Edited by noted authorities in the field of Chinese religion, Making Saints in Modern China offers biographies of prominent Daoists and Buddhists, as well as of the charismatic leaders of redemptive societies and state managers of religious associations in the People's Republic. The focus of the volume is largely on figures in China proper, although some attention is accorded to those in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other areas of the Chinese diaspora. Each chapter offers a biography of a religious leader and a detailed discussion of the way in which he or she became a "saint." The biographies illustrate how these leaders deployed and sometimes retooled traditional themes in hagiography and charismatic communication to attract followers and compete in the religious marketplace. Negotiation with often hostile authorities was also an important aspect of religious leadership, and many of the saints' stories reveal unexpected reserves of creativity and determination. The volume's contributors, from the United States, Canada, France, Italy, China, and Taiwan, provide cutting-edge scholarship. Taken together, these essays make the case that vital religious leadership and practice has existed and continues to exist in China despite the state's commitment to wholesale secularization.