The Soushen Houji

Download or read book The Sōushen houji written by and published by American Oriental Society. This book was released on 2021-12-31 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sōushen houji 搜神後記 (Latter Notes on Collected Spirit Phenomena), attributed to the celebrated poet Tao Qian 陶潛 (365-427), is a compilation of anecdotes and stories known as zhiguai 志怪 ('records of the anomalous') that document strange and unusual phenomena the author observed in his lifetime. Intended to serve as a sequel to Gān Bǎo's 干寳 (d. 336) Sōushenji 搜神記 (Collected Spirit Phenomena), the original text was lost but was reconstructed in the late Ming dynasty. This volume presents an annotated translation of the entire Ming version of the Sōushen houji as well as of an additional set of surviving stories that were identified and restored to the text by the modern scholar Lǐ Jianguo 李劍國. The book also includes a history of the Sōushen houji text, an examination of its linguistic style and characteristics, a discussion of the historical nature of its contents and how it fits into the zhiguai genre, providing a window onto medieval Chinese society and culture, and a brief overview of recent zhiguai scholarship to guide readers who hope to continue their exploration of the genre.

Download or read book A Garden of Marvels written by Robert Ford Campany and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 300 and 600 C.E., Chinese writers compiled thousands of accounts of the strange and the extraordinary. Some described weird spirits, customs, and flora and fauna in distant lands. Some depicted individuals of unusual spiritual or moral achievement. But most told of ordinary people’s encounters with ghosts, demons, or gods; sojourns in the land of the dead; eerily significant dreams; and uncannily accurate premonitions. The selection of such stories presented here provides an alluring introduction to early medieval Chinese storytelling and opens a doorway to the enchanted world of thought, culture, and religious belief of that era. Known as zhiguai, or “accounts of anomalies,” they convey a great deal about how people saw the cosmos and their place in it. The tales were circulated because they were entertaining but also because their compilers meant to document the mysterious workings of spirits, the wonders of exotic places, and the nature of the afterlife. A collection of more than two hundred tales, A Garden of Marvels offers an authoritative yet accessible introduction to zhiguai writings, particularly those never before translated or adequately researched. This volume will likely find its way to bedside tables as well as into classrooms and libraries, just as collections of zhiguai did in early medieval times.

Download or read book Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature (vol. 2) written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At last here is the long-awaited, first Western-language reference guide focusing exclusively on Chinese literature from ca. 700 B.C.E. to the early seventh century C.E. Alphabetically organized, it contains no less than 1095 entries on major and minor writers, literary forms and "schools," and important Chinese literary terms. In addition to providing authoritative information about each subject, the compilers have taken meticulous care to include detailed, up-to-date bibliographies and source information. The reader will find it a treasure-trove of historical accounts, especially when browsing through the biographies of authors. Indispensable for scholars and students of pre-modern Chinese literature, history, and thought. Part Two contains S to Xi.

Download or read book A Communion of Subjects written by Paul Waldau and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2009-05-22 with total page 721 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Communion of Subjects is the first comparative and interdisciplinary study of the conceptualization of animals in world religions. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including Thomas Berry (cultural history), Wendy Doniger (study of myth), Elizabeth Lawrence (veterinary medicine, ritual studies), Marc Bekoff (cognitive ethology), Marc Hauser (behavioral science), Steven Wise (animals and law), Peter Singer (animals and ethics), and Jane Goodall (primatology) consider how major religious traditions have incorporated animals into their belief systems, myths, rituals, and art. Their findings offer profound insights into the relationship between human beings and animals, and a deeper understanding of the social and ecological web in which we all live.

Download or read book Old Society, New Belief written by Muzhou Pu and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first century of the Common Era, two new belief systems entered long-established cultures with radically different outlooks and values: missionaries started to spread the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in Rome and the Buddha in China. Rome and China were not only ancient cultures, but also cultures whose elites felt no need to receive the new beliefs. Yet a few centuries later the two new faiths had become so well-established that their names were virtually synonymous with the polities they had entered as strangers. Although there have been numerous studies addressing this phenomenon in each field, the difficulty of mastering the languages and literature of these two great cultures has prevented any sustained effort to compare the two influential religious traditions at their initial period of development. This book brings together specialists in the history and religion of Rome and China with a twofold aim. First, it aims to show in some detail the similarities and differences each religion encountered in the process of merging into a new cultural environment. Second, by juxtaposing the familiar with the foreign, it also aims to capture aspects of this process that could otherwise be overlooked. This approach is based on the general proposition that, when a new religious belief begins to make contact with a society that has already had long honored beliefs, certain areas of contention will inevitably ensue and changes on both sides have to take place. There will be a dynamic interchange between the old and the new, not only on the narrowly defined level of "belief," but also on the entire cultural body that nurtures these beliefs. Thus, this book aims to reassess the nature of each of these religions, not as unique cultural phenomena but as part of the whole cultural dynamics of human societies.

Download or read book Strange Writing written by Robert Ford Campany and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1996-01-25 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive, Western-language study of the important Chinese genre of writing known as "accounts of the anomalies" (zhiguai) in its formative period. The book sets forth a new view of the nature and origins of the genre.

Download or read book Dialectics of Spontaneity written by Zhiyi Yang and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-06-24 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Dialectics of Spontaneity, Zhiyi Yang examines the aesthetic and ethical theories of Su Shi, the primary poet, artist, and statesman of Northern Song.