Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2019.1665931
P. Riboud
While the documentation concerning Zoroastrian clergy in pre-Islamic Central Asia is scarce, it is comparatively abundant in medieval China. Priests and ritual performers, that in some cases clearly followed Central Asian Zoroastrian rituals, are depicted in funerary art and are associated in Chinese sources with a religion named Xian 祆 . However, in some Chinese sources, the character xian is also used to describe Altaic rituals, and this has led to some confusion as to what religion this term refers to, and consequently to the status of the ritual performers—learned priests or laymen—that are associated with it. This paper aims to investigate these ritual performers in order to understand their status within the Central Asian diaspora, and how Xian clergy functioned within Chinese religious regulations.
{"title":"Priests and Other Xian 祆 Ritual Performers in Medieval China*","authors":"P. Riboud","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2019.1665931","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2019.1665931","url":null,"abstract":"While the documentation concerning Zoroastrian clergy in pre-Islamic Central Asia is scarce, it is comparatively abundant in medieval China. Priests and ritual performers, that in some cases clearly followed Central Asian Zoroastrian rituals, are depicted in funerary art and are associated in Chinese sources with a religion named Xian 祆 . However, in some Chinese sources, the character xian is also used to describe Altaic rituals, and this has led to some confusion as to what religion this term refers to, and consequently to the status of the ritual performers—learned priests or laymen—that are associated with it. This paper aims to investigate these ritual performers in order to understand their status within the Central Asian diaspora, and how Xian clergy functioned within Chinese religious regulations.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2019 1","pages":"100 - 120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/15299104.2019.1665931","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45024753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2019.1660073
J. Skaff
{"title":"Albert E. Dien: A Short Biography of a Scholarly Explorer","authors":"J. Skaff","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2019.1660073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2019.1660073","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2019 1","pages":"13 - 2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/15299104.2019.1660073","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45058920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2019.1660090
K. Knapp
Given the predominance of grain agriculture, scholars have paid scant attention to stockbreeding in pre-modern China. Early Medieval China (220–589) furnishes two useful sources that shed light on this subject: one is the painted bricks excavated from 3rd- to 5th-c. tombs in the Hexi Corridor, which depict many domestic animals; the other is the sixth fascicle of Jia Sixie’s Qimin yaoshu, which is devoted to advice on stockbreeding. The Hexi pictorial bricks indicate that stockbreeding was an important component of the economy of northwest China. The animals raised there included horses, donkeys, cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, and camels. The most important animals were horses, cattle, and sheep. The Qimin yaoshu chapter’s sections on raising sheep, chickens, pigs, ducks, and geese are filled with practical advice on how to shelter, feed, and protect them. In contrast, the longest section, which is on horses, primarily focuses on their physiognomy and treatments for illnesses, and has little practical information about how to breed them. This is because Chinese magnates probably bought rather than raised their horses. The next longest section is on sheep and goats. Unlike horses, goats and sheep generated income.
{"title":"The Use and Understanding of Domestic Animals in Early Medieval Northern China","authors":"K. Knapp","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2019.1660090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2019.1660090","url":null,"abstract":"Given the predominance of grain agriculture, scholars have paid scant attention to stockbreeding in pre-modern China. Early Medieval China (220–589) furnishes two useful sources that shed light on this subject: one is the painted bricks excavated from 3rd- to 5th-c. tombs in the Hexi Corridor, which depict many domestic animals; the other is the sixth fascicle of Jia Sixie’s Qimin yaoshu, which is devoted to advice on stockbreeding. The Hexi pictorial bricks indicate that stockbreeding was an important component of the economy of northwest China. The animals raised there included horses, donkeys, cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, and camels. The most important animals were horses, cattle, and sheep. The Qimin yaoshu chapter’s sections on raising sheep, chickens, pigs, ducks, and geese are filled with practical advice on how to shelter, feed, and protect them. In contrast, the longest section, which is on horses, primarily focuses on their physiognomy and treatments for illnesses, and has little practical information about how to breed them. This is because Chinese magnates probably bought rather than raised their horses. The next longest section is on sheep and goats. Unlike horses, goats and sheep generated income.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2019 1","pages":"85 - 99"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/15299104.2019.1660090","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42256810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2019.1660084
N. Duthie
Scholars of early China have dedicated considerable attention to the encounter between the Han dynasty and the Xiongnu, as it stands as the archetypal conflict between the Huaxia cultural order of the Central State(s) and the northern cultural others known as the Hu. This issue has been viewed from an array of diverse perspectives, including literary studies of the Xiongnu ethnographies found in the Shi ji and Han shu. The present article seeks to illuminate the representation of northern others in the post-Han era through an examination of the earliest ethnographies of the Wuhuan and Xianbei, as preserved in the San guo zhi commentary edition and the Hou Han shu. A close reading of the Wuhuan and Xianbei accounts reveals deep resonances with earlier Xiongnu accounts, but finds many divergences as well, which combine to produce a more ambivalent interpretation of the contemporary northern others.
{"title":"The Nature of the Hu: Wuhuan and Xianbei Ethnography in the San guo zhi and Hou Han shu","authors":"N. Duthie","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2019.1660084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2019.1660084","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars of early China have dedicated considerable attention to the encounter between the Han dynasty and the Xiongnu, as it stands as the archetypal conflict between the Huaxia cultural order of the Central State(s) and the northern cultural others known as the Hu. This issue has been viewed from an array of diverse perspectives, including literary studies of the Xiongnu ethnographies found in the Shi ji and Han shu. The present article seeks to illuminate the representation of northern others in the post-Han era through an examination of the earliest ethnographies of the Wuhuan and Xianbei, as preserved in the San guo zhi commentary edition and the Hou Han shu. A close reading of the Wuhuan and Xianbei accounts reveals deep resonances with earlier Xiongnu accounts, but finds many divergences as well, which combine to produce a more ambivalent interpretation of the contemporary northern others.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2019 1","pages":"23 - 41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/15299104.2019.1660084","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46678204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-01DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2018.1493815
R. Cutter
The importance of the feast in the Jian’an period was already mentioned by Jian’an literary figures themselves, and the role of such feasts in the creation of poetical works and epistolary writing is well known. It has even been noted that the memory of such feasts is largely responsible for the very notion of a Jian’an literary period. In this article, an examination of works in various genres shows that Jian’an writing on food and the transitory act of eating contributes to a gastropoetics, a term used here as a shorthand for the complex of relationships involving food, cultural practice and cultural memory, poetic inheritance and poetic production, social bonds and social identity— a way of looking at poetry that encompasses both aesthetic singularity and social implications. A stage in the development of poetry involving food imagery is elucidated and works that have sometimes been disparaged as trivial are shown to have had immediate social value and to have embodied old and enduring elements of culture and cultural memory.
{"title":"Gastropoetics in the Jian’an Period: Food and Memory in Early Medieval China","authors":"R. Cutter","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2018.1493815","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2018.1493815","url":null,"abstract":"The importance of the feast in the Jian’an period was already mentioned by Jian’an literary figures themselves, and the role of such feasts in the creation of poetical works and epistolary writing is well known. It has even been noted that the memory of such feasts is largely responsible for the very notion of a Jian’an literary period. In this article, an examination of works in various genres shows that Jian’an writing on food and the transitory act of eating contributes to a gastropoetics, a term used here as a shorthand for the complex of relationships involving food, cultural practice and cultural memory, poetic inheritance and poetic production, social bonds and social identity— a way of looking at poetry that encompasses both aesthetic singularity and social implications. A stage in the development of poetry involving food imagery is elucidated and works that have sometimes been disparaged as trivial are shown to have had immediate social value and to have embodied old and enduring elements of culture and cultural memory.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2018 1","pages":"1 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/15299104.2018.1493815","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47199810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-01DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2018.1493827
Zornica Kirkova
Boshanlu, or mountain-shaped incense burners, appeared in a fully developed form during the Western Han; later ceramic variations were produced throughout the Six Dynasties. Vessels of this type are generally interpreted as representations of the mythical islands of xian-immortals, while their origins and employment are frequently brought into connection with Han cults of immortality. However, this line of scholarship, to a great extant inherited from the Song antiquarians, largely obscures the multiplicity of meanings the vessel possessed in various contexts of elite life. After surveying archaeological, textual, and visual sources on the boshanlu and outlining multiple contexts in which incense burners were used and their potential functions, the paper focuses on poems on the incense burner composed during the late Han and the Six Dynasties. There the incense burner is connected with the themes of feasting, forsaken women, or with the frustrated ambitions of an honest official—themes that are removed from the religious symbolism scholars have discerned in the material object. The paper examines this discrepancy, and explores the ways metaphoric meanings are engendered in these poems.
{"title":"Sacred Mountains, Abandoned Women, and Upright Officials: Facets of the Incense Burner in Early Medieval Chinese Poetry","authors":"Zornica Kirkova","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2018.1493827","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2018.1493827","url":null,"abstract":"Boshanlu, or mountain-shaped incense burners, appeared in a fully developed form during the Western Han; later ceramic variations were produced throughout the Six Dynasties. Vessels of this type are generally interpreted as representations of the mythical islands of xian-immortals, while their origins and employment are frequently brought into connection with Han cults of immortality. However, this line of scholarship, to a great extant inherited from the Song antiquarians, largely obscures the multiplicity of meanings the vessel possessed in various contexts of elite life. After surveying archaeological, textual, and visual sources on the boshanlu and outlining multiple contexts in which incense burners were used and their potential functions, the paper focuses on poems on the incense burner composed during the late Han and the Six Dynasties. There the incense burner is connected with the themes of feasting, forsaken women, or with the frustrated ambitions of an honest official—themes that are removed from the religious symbolism scholars have discerned in the material object. The paper examines this discrepancy, and explores the ways metaphoric meanings are engendered in these poems.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2018 1","pages":"53 - 81"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/15299104.2018.1493827","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41396743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-01DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2018.1493828
Ignacio Villagrán
The period between the formal end of the Han dynasty in 220 ce and the reestablishment of unified imperial authority in the Sui-Tang period (late sixth century ce) is considered one of political fragmentation and recurrent military conflict. During three centuries, several kingdoms and short-lived dynasties were established and destroyed, either by military conquest or by court intrigues and coups. In this context, many political thinkers of the time looked back to the long rule of the Han as a time of peace and prosperity, and argued that it was the institutions of centralized governance that propped the dynasty’s long-lasting reign. Against this view, a handful of thinkers claimed that the Zhou-style system of investiture offered several advantages to secure the permanence of the ruling house and improve the governance of the realm. Among them, the Wei dynasty thinker Cao Jiong argued that the Zhou system was superior to centralized rule both in moral and military terms, while the Jin dynasty scholar Lu Ji discussed the benefits and problems of relying mostly on kin for controlling the realm. By identifying the key ideas in these writings in relation to the historical context of the early medieval period in China, I will challenge the longstanding assumption that post-Han thinkers advocated for the institutions of centralized administration over those of decentralized governance.
{"title":"“Sturdy Boulders that Protect the Realm” Early Medieval Chinese Thinkers on Decentralized Governance","authors":"Ignacio Villagrán","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2018.1493828","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2018.1493828","url":null,"abstract":"The period between the formal end of the Han dynasty in 220 ce and the reestablishment of unified imperial authority in the Sui-Tang period (late sixth century ce) is considered one of political fragmentation and recurrent military conflict. During three centuries, several kingdoms and short-lived dynasties were established and destroyed, either by military conquest or by court intrigues and coups. In this context, many political thinkers of the time looked back to the long rule of the Han as a time of peace and prosperity, and argued that it was the institutions of centralized governance that propped the dynasty’s long-lasting reign. Against this view, a handful of thinkers claimed that the Zhou-style system of investiture offered several advantages to secure the permanence of the ruling house and improve the governance of the realm. Among them, the Wei dynasty thinker Cao Jiong argued that the Zhou system was superior to centralized rule both in moral and military terms, while the Jin dynasty scholar Lu Ji discussed the benefits and problems of relying mostly on kin for controlling the realm. By identifying the key ideas in these writings in relation to the historical context of the early medieval period in China, I will challenge the longstanding assumption that post-Han thinkers advocated for the institutions of centralized administration over those of decentralized governance.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2018 1","pages":"107 - 82"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/15299104.2018.1493828","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44234228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-01DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2018.1493829
W. Tse
The fall of the Western Jin empire (265–316) in the early fourth century gave rise to unusually complex issues of political legitimacy, allegiance, and identity. In the ensuing turmoil, a cluster of regional polities emerged in north China, among which the Former Liang kingdom (301–376) ruled by the Zhang family provides an intriguing case of study. The rulers of this northwestern frontier state made use of the Jin official titles they held to project the image of being Jin loyalists as a means to amass support from former Jin subjects. At the same time, the Zhangs capitalized on the long distance between them and the Jin imperial court-in-exile in the lower Yangzi region, and the centrifugal political trends to create a fait accompli on their own terms of maintaining their dynastic rule in the northwest. To pursue its own survival, the Former Liang compromised with the so-called barbarian states, which were the instigators of toppling the Western Jin state. The political legitimacy and diplomatic stance of this frontier regime thus oscillated between imperial loyalism and regionalism. Analyzing how the Former Liang played such a complex game and sought regional advantage under the guise of imperial loyalty, this paper provides a case study of the strategy of “layered legitimacy” employed by a peripheral regime in early medieval China.
{"title":"Fabricating Legitimacy in a Peripheral Regime: Imperial Loyalism and Regionalism in the Northwestern Borderlands Under the Rule of the Former Liang (301-376)","authors":"W. Tse","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2018.1493829","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2018.1493829","url":null,"abstract":"The fall of the Western Jin empire (265–316) in the early fourth century gave rise to unusually complex issues of political legitimacy, allegiance, and identity. In the ensuing turmoil, a cluster of regional polities emerged in north China, among which the Former Liang kingdom (301–376) ruled by the Zhang family provides an intriguing case of study. The rulers of this northwestern frontier state made use of the Jin official titles they held to project the image of being Jin loyalists as a means to amass support from former Jin subjects. At the same time, the Zhangs capitalized on the long distance between them and the Jin imperial court-in-exile in the lower Yangzi region, and the centrifugal political trends to create a fait accompli on their own terms of maintaining their dynastic rule in the northwest. To pursue its own survival, the Former Liang compromised with the so-called barbarian states, which were the instigators of toppling the Western Jin state. The political legitimacy and diplomatic stance of this frontier regime thus oscillated between imperial loyalism and regionalism. Analyzing how the Former Liang played such a complex game and sought regional advantage under the guise of imperial loyalty, this paper provides a case study of the strategy of “layered legitimacy” employed by a peripheral regime in early medieval China.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2018 1","pages":"108 - 130"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/15299104.2018.1493829","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48515545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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