Text and Ritual in Early China - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0295987871 ISBN 13: 9780295987873

Publisher: University of Washington Press, 2008

Synopsis

In Text and Ritual in Early China, leading scholars of ancient Chinese history, literature, religion, and archaeology consider the presence and use of texts in religious and political ritual. Through balanced attention to both the received literary tradition and the wide range of recently excavated artifacts, manuscripts, and inscriptions, their combined efforts reveal the rich and multilayered interplay of textual composition and ritual performance. Drawn across disciplinary boundaries, the resulting picture illuminates two of the defining features of early Chinese culture and advances new insights into their sumptuous complexity.

Beginning with a substantial introduction to the conceptual and thematic issues explored in succeeding chapters, Text and Ritual in Early China is anchored by essays on early Chinese cultural history and ritual display (Michael Nylan) and the nature of its textuality (William G. Boltz). This twofold approach sets the stage for studies of the E Jun Qi metal tallies (Lothar von Falkenhausen), the Gongyang commentary to The Spring and Autumn Annals (Joachim Gentz), the early history of The Book of Odes (Martin Kern), moral remonstration in historiography (David Schaberg), the “Liming” manuscript text unearthed at Mawangdui (Mark Csikszentmihalyi), and Eastern Han commemorative stele inscriptions (K. E. Brashier).

The scholarly originality of these essays rests firmly on their authors’ control over ancient sources, newly excavated materials, and modern scholarship across all major Sinological languages. The extensive bibliography is in itself a valuable and reliable reference resource.

This important work will be required reading for scholars of Chinese history, language, literature, philosophy, religion, art history, and archaeology.

About this title

Book Description:

Leading scholars of ancient Chinese history, literature, religion, and archaeology consider the presence and use of texts in religious and political ritual.

From the Publisher:

"Publication of Text and Ritual in Early China is an exceptionally important event for scholars of pre-imperial and early imperial Chinese history. . . . By opening new avenues for research, the contributors to Text and Ritual have already begun to reshape the field, achieving a major scholarly breakthrough." - Journal of the American Oriental Society

"No other work currently available takes as seriously the symbiosis between ritual and text as does this one. While recent literary study has brought to the forefront the composite nature of the early classical texts of China, this work asks us to rethink not only how many of these logia may have had their origins in ritual practice, but also how the assemblage of the texts themselves may have been ritual acts." - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy

"Crossing the fields of Chinese history, literature, philology, and archaeology, this important collection examines understanding of the most fundamental aspects of the Chinese literary tradition and challenges established ideas about classical Han (206 BCE-220 CE) and pre-Han texts. Kern (Princeton) provides a stimulating introduction and then eight essays, one of his own and others by leading scholars of their fields. . . . Each chapter is a scholarly thrill, and the extensive bibliography is a valuable resource." - Choice

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0295987871
• ISBN 13: 9780295987873
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 362
• Editor: Kern Martin