China Tang~Song Dynasties

The objective of this article is to propose a historiographical exercise through a Global History approach, more precisely, Connected History, trying to understand aspects of pre-modern chronology from a different perspective regarding geographical limits and Eurocentric traditions. Starting from the Battle of Talas, famous for putting Arabs and Chinese against each other, I will establish a connective narrative between East and West, highlighting how the year of 751 CE is paradigmatic regarding the formation of frontiers and patterns of political interaction. In order to demonstrate such pattern, I will analyse the presence of the ʾAbbāsids and the Tang in Central Asia, the crowning of Pippin the Short in Europe, and the destruction of the Exarchate of Ravenna and the Byzantine Iconoclasm. I hope this exercise demonstrates how synchronicity and global connections can be a viable historical approach, allowing us to understand and to relocate pre-modern periodisation beyond its Eurocentric roots. This chronological/geographical shift has the potential to unravel wider, richer, and better-connected narratives and interpretations on pre-modern subjects, breaking with the traditional normalisation of Europe as the ruler to measure and define historical periods, especially the Middle Ages.

Die Tang-Dynastie (618-907) – auch das goldene Zeitalter Chinas genannt – war eine blühende Epoche voller faszinierender Kulturphänomene. Das Zentrum des kosmopolitisch ausgerichteten Kaiserreichs bildete die vom heutigen Xi’an überlagerte Millionenstadt Chang’an – eine der größten Metropolen ihrer Zeit. Als Protagonisten des höfischen Lebens prägten Adelige das Stadtbild, deren luxuriöser Lebensstil sich auch in den pompös ausgestatteten Grabanlagen widerspiegelt. Diese findet man heute meist beraubt vor. Nur die herrlichen Wandmalereien und die zahlreichen, von den Grabräubern unbeachteten Tonfiguren konnten bisher eine vage Vorstellung vom ursprünglichen Umfang der Grabbeigaben und der ehemaligen Pracht der unterirdischen Kammern vermitteln. Im Jahr 2001 wurde in Xi’an das unversehrte Grab der 736 verstorbenen Li Chui ausgegraben, einer Urenkelin des Kaisers Gaozu. Sechs Jahre dauerte die Restaurierung des umfangreichen Grabinventars durch ein deutsch-chinesisches Team. Erstmalig gelang es, das opulente Schmuckensemble einer Tang-zeitlichen Dame zu rekonstruieren. Mit den Ergebnissen der wissenschaftlichen Auswertung durch ein Team von Spezialisten unterschiedlicher Disziplinen bieten sich neue Erkenntnisse zur damaligen Bestattungskultur. Diese werden hier erstmals einem breiten Publikum vorgestellt. Reich bebilderte Exkurse zu Themen wie z.B. Weinkultur, Daoismus oder Alchemie gewähren darüber hinaus einen Einblick in den Tang-zeitlichen Alltag.

Through the study on those three shipwrecks discovered in Java waters in Southeast Asia that Batu Hitam, Intan, Cirebon of which the era was from Tang Dynasty to the Northern Song Dynasty, combining the materials of the archaeological findings in the city of Ningbo and the Chinese historical documents, along with the discoveries of the links between Mingzhou and the Southeast Asia and countries of East Asia, we can conclude as follows. Mingzhou port started to be an export port of Yue Kilns in the late of 8th century which was only an auxiliary port of Yangzhou port. And the port finally had been prosperous in the late of 9th century as the main export port of Yue Kiln wares and had communications with Japan, Korea and countries of Southeast Asia. The trading mode between Mingzhou port and Southeast Asia was mainly the direct exchange with Palembang in Indonesia (which was called Shilifoshi in Tang Dynasty’s documents and Sanfoqi in Song Dynasty’s transliterated from the name of Srivijaya), and the main products are the Yue Kiln wares. This kind of trade maintained a somewhat continual and steady statement. Furthermore, the discoveries of Yue Kiln wares in West Asia, the Middle East, East Africa were frequently exported from Palembang rather than from Mingzhou port directly. This is not a direct trading relationship between Mingzhou and the areas mentioned above but a kind of transit trade pattern with Palembang. Additionally, in the trade on the Indian Ocean, the Islamic merchants took an important force, not only participated in the process of maritime commerce, but also possibly influenced the wares’ appearance of Yue Kiln and Changsha Kiln by the way of placing an order for goods.

These maps are designed to be used along with Li Qingzhao's Epilogue to "Records on Metal and Stone" (Jinshilu), a good translation of which can be found in Stephen Owen's Anthology of Chinese Literature. The excellent base map is again by Ian Mladjov. Please e-mail me if you notice any errors.

Map 1: The geopolitical situation ante bellum.
Map 2: The Jurchen conquest of the Liao and the unsuccessful Song attempts at capturing Yan (Beijing) from the Liao.
Map 3: The Jurchen conquest of the Song capital, following the breakdown of the Song-Jin alliance, and Li Qingzhao's flight to the south with her husband Zhao Mingcheng.
Map 4: Li Qingzhao's journey to Zhao's deathbed in Hangzhou (Lin'an).
Map 5: The Jurchen raiding expedition of 1129-1130, Song Gaozong's flight to sea, and the beginning of Yelu Dashi's western expedition to reestablish the Liao in Central Asia.
Map 6: Li Qingzhao's efforts to evade the Jurchen raiding expedition of 1129-1130, which culminate with her joining Gaozong's court at sea.
Map 7: The origins of the Jurchen-installed puppet state of Qi (1130-1137) and the Qara Khitai (Western Liao); Li Qingzhao's return to Hangzhou; Jin conquest of Shaanxi and Gansu.
Map 8: The state of Qi is expanded westward and southward; Yue Fei's campaigns in 1134-1135; Jin abolishes Qi in 1137 and begins negotiating peace with Southern Song.
Map 9: Borders established by the Song-Jin treaties of 1138 and 1141; 1140 Jin attempts at retaking territory ceded to the Song in 1138; Yue Fei's 1140 counter-attack on the Jin, eventually aborted on imperial orders.

[Revised 7/14/2018]

The thesis submitted for Candidate of Philology degree. Specialty 10.01.04 – Literature of Foreign Countries. – Oles’ Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University, Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Dnipropetrovsk, 2015.
The outstanding Chinese poet Li Qingzhao (1084–1155?) occupies a leading place in China’s literary and cultural history. However, her writings have never been the subject of comprehensive monographic research in either Russian or Ukrainian literary scholarship.  This thesis focuses on the evolution of her wring style and its genre specificity, covering her 64 extant ci-poems in the context of the life events conveyed in her autobiographical essay “Postface to a Catalogue on Bronze and Stone Inscriptions” (“金石錄後序”) and with reference to her poetic principles formulated in her theoretical essay “On Song Lyrics” (“詞論”). For a long time, the ci genre (詞 or 曲子詞) had been on the sidelines of the classic shi poetry (詩) – the most influential genre during the Tang dynasty – and it reached its apex as a poetic form only in the Song dynasty (960–1279). It still remains one of the least studied poetic genres in the history of Chinese literature. The comprehensive analysis of the great number of historical and literary sources reveals two approaches to the study of ci. One shares the idea of ci as “song lyrics” (曲子詩), as it appears in the late Tang: “music is first, the words are later” «因聲度詞» / «依調填詞». The other approaches ci as a textual phenomenon: «the words are first, music is later» («以樂從詞» / «選詞配樂»). Since most of the original melodies had been lost during the Southern Song dynasty, many insoluble problems concerning the historical and literary interpretation of ci were set forth.
The analysis of Li Qingzhao’s artistic achievement within the poetic tradition of Tang and Song writings and with a view on generic transformation of ci-poems gives grounds to divide her artistic development into two stages: early (1098–1108) – profoundly molded by techniques of traditional Chinese poetry – and mature (1108–1155) less mechanical, more pervasive and genuinely personal. Li Qingzhao introduced a new theme for ci poetry – an expat longing for her motherland, projecting her physical self of a poet, realizing the limits of the poetic language. It is impossible to separate her life from her poetry. It can hardly be disputed that she introduced the lyric element into conventional ci-genre, creating the lyric with strong personal engagement, revealing her personal troubles as a lonely widow as well as a talented and disillusioned poet. The analysis manifests that her genre innovations lie in overcoming the limits and conventions of the genre, legitimating the Self of a poet in her distinctive personal style – Yi’an style (易安體). The analysis of her lyrical poetry outlines her personal presence, the essential oneness of her grief and love experience. The lyric presence is a state of her intensely personal feelings and concerns.
The thesis contributes to the existing body of knowledge about Li Qingzhao’s achievement as a poet and as an early poetologist. Besides it initiates the theoretical study of personal self-expression in the Chinese medieval poetry opening up a poetic latitude where Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems loom large.
Key words: Li Qingzhao, ci-poem, shi-poem, melody, lyric poetry, lyrical self, lyricism, personal, autobiographical, subjectivity, genre, style.

Дисертація на здобуття наукового ступеня кандидата філологічних наук зі спеціальності 10.01.04 – література зарубіжних країн. – Дніпропетровський національний університет імені Олеся Гончара Міністерства освіти і науки України, Дніпропетровськ, 2015.
У дисертації вперше здійснено філологічний аналіз усього корпусу лірики Лі Цінчжао (64 ци), виявлено теоретичні та історико-літературні проблеми розвитку ліричних жанрів ши та ци в китайській літературі середньовіччя, простежено етапи творчої еволюції поетеси в аспекті жанрово-стильових пошуків та знахідок, роль її трактату-поетики «Роздуми про ци» в розумінні нових завдань жанру ци.
Аналіз ліричних особистісних ци Лі Цінчжао крізь призму теоретичних і загальноестетичних проблем жанру і стилю дозволив актуалізувати низку перспективних літературознавчих завдань, пов’язаних з подоланням вузькості трактувань і змістового дефіциту в розумінні її творчості.
Ключові слова: Лі Цінчжао, жанр ци, жанр ши, мелодія, лірика, ліричне «я», ліризм, особистісність, автобіографізм, суб’єктивність, жанр, стиль.

En este trabajo presentamos las dos inscripciones relacionadas con la construcción del gran Buda Vairocana del templo Fengxian en Longmen, y una pagoda del monasterio Shaolin en el monte Song. Se expondrá como ambas construcciones realizadas durante el reinado de Gaozong y Wu Zetian, guardan una estrecha relación con la política de refuerzo de la autoridad imperial y se empleó estas construcciones y otras fundaciones budistas como un medio propagandístico. In this paper we present the two inscriptions associated to the construction of the great Buddha Vairocana of the Fengxian temple in Longmen, and a pagoda of the Shaolin monastery on Mount Song. It will be expounding as the two constructions made during the reign of Gaozong and Wu Zetian, are closely related to the reinforcement policy of the imperial authority that used these constructions and other Buddhist foundations as a kind propaganda.

This dissertation proposes a new framework for understanding changing Chinese ideas about barbarians (Yi-Di) and barbarism during the Tang (618–907) and Song (960–1276) periods. Much previous scholarship has drawn a sharp contrast between what is characterized as a “cosmopolitan” early Tang period (618–755) and the growing xenophobic ethnocentrism ascribed to the late Tang (756–907) and Song periods. I argue that this view underestimates the importance of ethnocentric tropes in early Tang political rhetoric and also overlooks the emergence of a new and arguably less ethnocentric interpretation of the classical Chinese-barbarian dichotomy in the late Tang and Song. This new interpretation originated as a rhetorical trope in the ninth century before developing into a true philosophical concept in the eleventh, the key figures in this process being the polemicist Han Yu (768–824) and the Daoxue moral philosophers (or “Neo-Confucians”). The new interpretation of the Chinese-barbarian dichotomy was characterized by a fluid, shifting boundary between Chineseness and barbarism, predicated on Classicist (“Confucian”) moral standards rather than ethnic, racial, or geopolitical boundaries. Modern historians have termed this interpretation of Chinese identity as “culturalism,” on the assumption that it was centered on “culture” instead of “race,” and have followed Han Yu and the Daoxue philosophers in identifying Confucius himself as its originator. My dissertation revises this picture by demonstrating that the so-called “culturalist” interpretation was the product of a new discourse on ideological orthodoxy and morality that involved representing any deviation from Classicist values as a descent into barbarism. The core of this new discourse was thus an attempt at making Classicist ideology and morality (not “culture” per se) essential to the definition of Chinese ethnic identity, but its users also generally chose not to undermine their ethnic identities by acknowledging the possibility that barbarians could become Chinese by becoming good Classicists. The resulting tension or dilemma between moralistic and ethnocentric understandings of barbarism remained unresolved until the Mongol conquest of the Southern Song (1127–1276) led to the ethnocentric understanding’s temporary eclipse.

This article tells two twisted but distinct stories, one about the canonicity of a medical book, and the other about the historical context of the reading and using medical canons in the same period. This canon, which gained magnificent authority in the woodblock print period and the modern world, was at the margin in the period it was written. It was a tiny part of an enormous cultural project sponsored by the empire and hidden in court library with other thousands of volumes. However, it reflected the bigger picture as a mirror at the margin: why was a medical canon included in the imperial cultural project? How did cultural trends in imperial court and bureaucratic system effect on the medical canon making and medical knowledge? These questions intrigued the other story. The medical knowledge and its canons were in the intersection. Canonicity from the community of medical masters and book giving-gaining ritual was replaced by textual characters and teaching methods imitating Confucian classics in the imperial court and school system. Some social groups were excluded from the process of rebuilding canonicity, for their social status or gender.

This article explores the changing self-representations of physicians of aristocratic descent as, over time, they established, maintained, and abandoned distinguished traditions of medical expertise. These shifts involved conflicts between career concerns, considerations of social status, and an orientation that deemed filial piety as the primary end of medical practice. The Chinese
state's effort to institutionalize medical practitioners reached a climax in the Sui dynasty (581-618 C.E.), with the establishment of the Imperial Medical Office. However, the tension between cultural distinction and state employment continued to haunt physicians of aristocratic descent. The nostalgia for a relatively independent cultural identity was intensified when the early Tang state enacted regulations to strictly confine their promotion trajectories to the medical bureaucracy, thereby reinforcing physicians' social segregation. They were left with a choice between remaining a member of the elite with a personal interest in medicine, and developing a career as a medical officer. These tensions precipitated ongoing debates throughout the Tang.

This paper briefly examines the construction and subsequent use of the Mingtang by Wu Zetian through the texts that herself wrote. These texts show the intention to reinforce the authority of the Empress by demonstrating the divine acceptance of her government, and linking her authority with the epic founders of Chinese civilization.

In this lecture, art historian Shih-shan Susan Huang will consider major texts and images in Mahayana Buddhism that were popular in pre-modern China.  Highlighting two of the most important Buddhist scriptures, the Diamond Sutra 金剛經 and the Lotus Sutra 妙法蓮華經, she will also discuss imagery associated with two of the most popular Buddhist deities—Guanyin 觀音 (or Avalokiteśvara) Bodhisattva, and Amida 阿彌陀 (or Amitābha) Buddha. The presentation will draw on medieval manuscripts, paintings, and prints from the Dunhuang “library cave”.  Going beyond Dunhuang, she will also discuss relevant later visual materials including Xi Xia 西夏 (1038-1227) paintings excavated in Khara Khoto, Inner Mongolia, and illustrated books printed in Song-Yuan 宋元 (960-1368) Hangzhou and Ming 明 (1368- 1644) Beijing.

Many modern narratives of the period of Tibetan rule in Dunhuang (ca. 786–848) emphasize ethnic tensions between the Tibetans and Chinese, with clothing styles as their most visible manifestation. The Xin Tangshu claims that the Dunhuang Chinese were forced to wear Tibetan-style clothing except on New Year’s Day, when they were allowed to dress in the Tang style to perform ancestral rites, wailing bitterly as they did so. The Dunhuang manuscript P.3451 claims, however, that the Dunhuang Chinese persisted in wearing Tang-style clothes throughout the Tibetan occupation. A contradiction therefore exists in the sources regarding what kind of clothing the Dunhuang Chinese usually wore, even as these sources agree in interpreting Tang-style clothing as a symbol of ethnocultural identity and Tang loyalism. Yet murals from ninth-century Dunhuang suggest that Tang and Tibetan clothing styles coexisted and even blended together under Tibetan rule. By reassessing the textual and visual sources more critically, I argue that the most plausible interpretation is that there was no forced Tibetanization of clothing in Dunhuang at any time during the period of Tibetan rule. Instead, the people of Dunhuang were free to dress as they wished, but many members of the Chinese (and quite likely Sogdian) elite families adopted Tibetan dress or elements of Tibetan fashion voluntarily as symbols of prestige and loyalty to the Tibetan empire. The elite families of Dunhuang accommodated themselves to Tibetan rule and adopted bicultural identities until the breakdown of Tibetan administration put their interests in jeopardy, upon which they drove the Tibetans out and sought to cover up their past collaboration by inventing a new tradition of “stubbornly Chinese” Tang loyalism.
[For maps to go with this article, see the "History maps" section below]

Tang Hanedanlığı dönemi (618-906), Çin tarihinde uzun bir süreyi kapsamaktadır. Bu süre zarfında ekonomik, siyasi, askeri, sosyal ve kültürel alanda birçok gelişme yaşanmıştır. Kültürel alanda yaşanan gelişmelerin içerisinde edebiyat önemli bir yere sahiptir. Daha önceki dönemlerde sarayın ve toplumun, siyasi ve ekonomik olaylara öncelik vermesinden dolayı pek fazla gelişme şansı bulamayan edebiyat, Tang Hanedanlığı döneminde İmparatorların desteği ile gelişiminin en üst seviyesine ulaşmıştır. Genel olarak şiirlerde kahramanlıklar, savaşlar, halkın durumu, sosyal yaşam, doğa olayları gibi konular ele alınmaktadır. Konuları bakımından incelediğimizde şiirler, edebi değerlerinin yanı sıra dönemin kültürel özelliklerini anlamamıza da yardımcı olmaktadır. Şiirlerde anlatılan kültür ögeleri; dönemin hayat şartları, Hanedanlığın diğer kavim ve devletlerle olan ilişkileri, bu kavim ve devletlerle olan kültürel etkileşimleri hakkında da bilgi sahibi olmamızı sağlamaktadır.
Tang döneminde, Çinlilerin Batı Bölgesi olarak adlandırdığı Türkistan bölgesinde yaşayan Türk kavimleriyle yoğun bir kültürel ve siyasi iletişim ve etkileşim içerisine girilmiştir. Bu iletişim ve etkileşim sonucunda yaşanan olaylar ve gelişmeler bazı şairler tarafından Tang şiirine konu edilmiştir. Örneğin; Li He (李贺790-816) Longyeyin ( 龙夜吟) başlıklı şiirinde Hu soyundan gelen gençlerin fiziki özelliklerinden ve müzik aletlerinden bahsetmektedir. Cen Shen (岑参718?-769?) Wuwei Song Liu Dan Panguan Fu Anxi Xingying, Bian Cheng Gao Kai Fu (武威送刘单判官赴安西行营，便呈高开府) başlıklı şiirinde Hu soyundan gelen devletlerin yeniden yükselişe geçtiğinden ve Hu atlarından; Liangzhou Guanzhong Yu Zhu Panguan Ye Ji (凉州馆中与诸判官夜集) başlıklı şiirin bir bölümünde Türk kökenli müzik aletlerinden biri olan Pipa’dan ve bu müzik aletini çalan Hu’lardan bahsetmektedir.
Çalışmada, örneklerde belirtilen şairler başta olmak üzere Tang dönemi şairlerinin eserlerinde yer alan Türk kültürü ögeleri ele alınacaktır. Belirlenen şiirlerin Türkçe anlatıma en uygun şekilde çevirileri yapılmaya çalışılacaktır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Kültürel Etkileşim, Tang Dönemi, Çin Şiiri, Türk Kültürü.

The thesis submitted for Candidate of Philology degree. Specialty 10.01.04 – Literature of Foreign Countries. – Oles’ Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University, Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Dnipropetrovsk, 2015.
The outstanding Chinese poet Li Qingzhao (1084–1155?) occupies a leading place in China’s literary and cultural history. However, her writings have never been the subject of comprehensive monographic research in either Russian or Ukrainian literary scholarship.  This thesis focuses on the evolution of her wring style and its genre specificity, covering her 64 extant ci-poems in the context of the life events conveyed in her autobiographical essay “Postface to a Catalogue on Bronze and Stone Inscriptions” (“金石錄後序”) and with reference to her poetic principles formulated in her theoretical essay “On Song Lyrics” (“詞論”). For a long time, the ci genre (詞 or 曲子詞) had been on the sidelines of the classic shi poetry (詩) – the most influential genre during the Tang dynasty – and it reached its apex as a poetic form only in the Song dynasty (960–1279). It still remains one of the least studied poetic genres in the history of Chinese literature. The comprehensive analysis of the great number of historical and literary sources reveals two approaches to the study of ci. One shares the idea of ci as “song lyrics” (曲子詩), as it appears in the late Tang: “music is first, the words are later” «因聲度詞» / «依調填詞». The other approaches ci as a textual phenomenon: «the words are first, music is later» («以樂從詞» / «選詞配樂»). Since most of the original melodies had been lost during the Southern Song dynasty, many insoluble problems concerning the historical and literary interpretation of ci were set forth.
The analysis of Li Qingzhao’s artistic achievement within the poetic tradition of Tang and Song writings and with a view on generic transformation of ci-poems gives grounds to divide her artistic development into two stages: early (1098–1108) – profoundly molded by techniques of traditional Chinese poetry – and mature (1108–1155) less mechanical, more pervasive and genuinely personal. Li Qingzhao introduced a new theme for ci poetry – an expat longing for her motherland, projecting her physical self of a poet, realizing the limits of the poetic language. It is impossible to separate her life from her poetry. It can hardly be disputed that she introduced the lyric element into conventional ci-genre, creating the lyric with strong personal engagement, revealing her personal troubles as a lonely widow as well as a talented and disillusioned poet. The analysis manifests that her genre innovations lie in overcoming the limits and conventions of the genre, legitimating the Self of a poet in her distinctive personal style – Yi’an style (易安體). The analysis of her lyrical poetry outlines her personal presence, the essential oneness of her grief and love experience. The lyric presence is a state of her intensely personal feelings and concerns.
The thesis contributes to the existing body of knowledge about Li Qingzhao’s achievement as a poet and as an early poetologist. Besides it initiates the theoretical study of personal self-expression in the Chinese medieval poetry opening up a poetic latitude where Li Qingzhao’s ci-poems loom large.
Key words: Li Qingzhao, ci-poem, shi-poem, melody, lyric poetry, lyrical self, lyricism, personal, autobiographical, subjectivity, genre, style.

Диссертация на соискание научной степени кандидата филологических наук по специальности 10.01.04 – литература зарубежных стран. – Днепропетровский национальный университет имени Олеся Гончара Министерства образования и науки Украины, Днепропетровск, 2015.
В диссертации впервые проведен филологический анализ всего корпуса лирики Ли Цинчжао (64 цы), выявлены теоретические и историко-литературные проблемы развития лирических жанров ши и цы в китайской литературе средневековья, прослежены этапы творческой эволюции поэтессы в аспекте жанрово-стилевых поисков и достижений, роль ее трактата-поэтики «Размышления о цы» в понимании новых задач жанра цы.
Анализ лирических личностных цы Ли Цинчжао сквозь призму теоретических и общеэстетических проблем жанра и стиля позволил актуализировать ряд перспек¬тивных литературоведческих задач, связанных с преодолением узости трактовок и смыслового дефицита в понимании ее творчества.
Ключевые слова: Ли Цинчжао, жанр цы, жанр ши, мелодия, лирика, лирическое «я», лиризм, личностность, автобиографизм, субъективность, жанр, стиль.

本文從文本和圖像資料出發以研究自宋以降漢族與少數民族政權對王朝正統性的不同闡釋。自秦以降，中國王朝多以五行相生來解釋本朝取代前朝的正統性，並同時以五行理論的五行與五色的對應關係來選擇王朝的服色，如宋朝取火運以繼後周之木德，並服色尚赤。 同時，與宋朝並存的契丹、女真、蒙古三個北方民族建立的遼、金、元政權也學習中原王朝的五行理論，分別選取了水德、土德、金德為各自的德運，挑戰了以漢民族本位的正統王朝世系：遼朝的水德生後晉的金德，挑戰了後晉之後的後周與宋的正統性；金朝雖未選取繼承遼朝德運，但其所取土德生自宋朝的火德，是以此證明金亡北宋後已完成中華德正統朝代更迭，而宣布南渡的南宋王朝為偽政權；元朝服色尚白，所取的金德生自同為非漢民族建立的金代的土德，以此證明其取中國正統自金代而非南宋。金、元所建立的王朝世系後被漢族建立的明朝否定，從明朝帝王畫像所服黃色看出明朝最終選定了生自宋朝的火德的土德，從而完全跳過了三個非漢民族政權，恢復了漢族王朝的世系延續。

Gankoreneotek – Singoor is home to one of the largest protohistoric cemeteries in District Chitral. Since its discovery in 2004, a total of 86 graves have been excavated in four excavation seasons in 2007 – 2008 and 2016. In 2008, the site has been dated from 8th century BCE to 8th century CE.
During the 2007–08’s excavation season, a unique medieval burial, datable to the last quarter of the 8th century CE, was unearthed in grave GTG_064. The grave contained the inhumation remains of an adult female. The grave goods included two bronze 2-cash coins of the Emperor Su Zong (758 – 762 CE), corresponding to one of the most interesting historic epochs of Chitral and its relationships with the Tang Empire.
In order to break the emerging alliance between the Tibetan and Arab armies in Central Asia, Emperor Xuanzong, the father of Emperor Su Zong, ordered General Gao Xianzhi to invade Little P’o-l
The finding of Tang coins connects well with what is perhaps the most recorded part of Chitral’s medieval history in Tang Annals. In mid-8th century CE, Chitral, which has largely remained on the fringes of major historical epochs, emerged as the central arena of the great game of the Tang, Arab, Turk and Tibetan empires. The exotic nature of the grave goods, and the burial, leads us to cautiously regard the deceased female as an important foreigner, possibly a Chinese lady.
Key Words: Chitral Archaeology; Protohistoric Cemeteries; Tang Dynasty Coins; Silk Routes; Chinese influence; Gao Xianzhi; Kao Hsien-chih; Emperor Su Zong; Emperor Xuanzong.

This article examines how dynasties applied the Five Elements theory in their respective legitimation discourses throughout the history of imperial China. Drawing on both documentary and visual sources, I reveal that the Liao, Jin, and Yuan rulers constructed different dynastic lineages that challenged the “orthodox” dynastic succession pattern formulated by Han Chinese dynasties. In particular, I will show that the Yuan tacitly invoked Metal as its dynastic element and white as its imperial color. I argue that the Yuan choice of dynastic element essentially claimed succession to the Jurchen Jin, another non-Han conquest dynasty, rather than to the Song as scholars have previously assumed. However, these constructions were later negated by the Ming dynasty, which restored a purely Han Chinese dynastic lineage that excluded the Liao, Jin, and Yuan. These ideological conflicts, which were ultimately grounded in ethnic tensions between Han and non-Han peoples, eventually led to the disappearance of the Five Element theory in the Qing political rhetoric. This article sheds new light on understanding how a dynasty engaged its cultural heritage and ethnic background in its political ideology and how it perceived its own place in the Chinese dynastic lineage.

This paper briefly examines the textual propaganda that Empress Wu Zetian generated to legitimize her accession to the throne. These texts show the intention to reinforce the authority of the empress, both through the concepts of filial piety and loyalty, as well as the presence of auspices favorable to the reign of a woman.

Eight essays by Fei Deng, Phillip Bloom, Jeremy Fan Zhang, Xiaolin Duan, Hui-wen Lu, Patricia Ebrey, Jie Liu, and Yiwen Li. Introduction by Patricia Ebrey and Shih-shan Susan Huang.

For more info, visit:
https://brill.com/view/title/35018?lang=en

This article examines Song-to-Ming printed illustrations celebrating the power of the Diamond Sutra, one of the most widely copied Buddhist scriptures in East Asia. An integral part of printed copies of the Diamond Sutra, these illustrations reflect a strong popular taste appealing to common folks, connecting modern readers to a wider realm of vernacular Buddhism and popular Buddhist visual culture in traditional Chinese society, where indigenous beliefs, popular images, and various religious practices are freely borrowed, converged, and re-packaged. The first part of the study, “Buddhist Records of Magical Efficacy,” identifies the round-trip of protagonists to the underworld, and the efficacy of prolonging life in Tang-to-Northern Song miracle tales of the Diamond Sutra as two recurring features carried on in the Southern Song-Ming illustrated versions. The second part, “Illustrations of Miracle Tales,” examines illustrated miracle stories of the Diamond Sutra highlighting the underworld court, messengers from the underground, miraculous fungi, and magical writing. The third part, “Women in Vernacular Buddhist and Folklore Visual Cultures,” turns to good and evil stereotypes of women pictured in selected miracle tales. The author then also explores the half-animal, half-woman demons subjugated by Buddhist guardians, whose images are juxtaposed with the illustrated miracle stories in the Ming versions. Finally, the fourth part, “Publishers and Donors,” shifts to the social and religious context of the illustrated books of the Diamond Sutra. The extant Southern Song-Yuan woodcuts were likely printed by Hangzhou’s commercial publishers. A donor’s colophon and a hybrid Esoteric Buddhist pantheon in an early fifteenth-century version points to a multicultural community in early Ming Beijing.
《通俗佛教版畫所見的金剛經靈驗力》 【中文提要】
金剛經乃東亞文化圈中流傳最廣的佛經之一。本文旨在探討南宋至明初金剛經版畫所描繪的金剛經靈驗故事。這些插圖反映了吸引大眾的民間品味，使吾人一窺傳統中國社會中，在吸納了本土信仰、通俗圖像、以及多元宗教習俗後所融匯而成的通俗佛教及視覺文化。全文共分為四大部分。第一部分「佛教靈驗記」指出，往返冥府、續命延壽的故事主題，乃源自唐宋金剛經靈驗記書寫，並流傳到南宋至明木刻插圖版金剛經靈驗記的二大主題。第二部分「靈驗記插圖」，探討金剛經靈驗記版畫中的冥府、冥使來訪，以及與書經功德有關的芝草等靈驗表現。第三部分「通俗佛教及民俗視覺文化中的女性」，關注靈驗記版畫所見的女性善、惡面，以及明代金剛經版畫中，與靈驗記插圖併列的金剛圖像所添加的半人半獸女性鬼怪形象。第四部分「出版者與施主」，將重點轉移到金剛經木刻插圖出版的社會、宗教網絡。現存南宋、元版木刻版畫，可能都產自當時杭州的坊間印書店。一套帶有漢、梵合名之施主題記，以及混雜了密教與道教神群像的明初金剛經木刻版畫，則指向宣德年間北京城中的多元文化社群。

This second part of the study of Daoist seals focuses on types, building on Wang Yucheng’s earlier studies. They come in four: 1) seal script; 2) heavenly scripts; 3) talisman-inspired; and 4) graphic. The underlining criterion is the Daoist strategy of image-making: it sheds light on the interlocking relationship of Daoist texts and images. The first type is purely script-based, while the fourth is purely graphic. Between the two is the core zone of Daoist visual culture as it blends image with text.

The Southeast Asia that the Tang Shipwreck encountered
along its voyage to and from China was a patchwork of vibrant,
diverse cultures. In Cambodia, the Angkorian Empire was
in its formative stages while in Sumatra the maritime power,
Srivijaya, commanded the seas. On the island of Java, Borobudur,
a monumental feat of Buddhist architecture, stood as testament
to the might of the Sailendra dynasty. In Thailand and Myanmar,
powerful cities were emerging. It is into this world that the Tang
Shipwreck sailed – and ultimately sank – on its journey from
China back to the Persian Gulf, in the middle of the ninth century.

We cannot say for certain at how many of ports the Tang
Shipwreck docked. However, it is not unrealistic to imagine
the ship sojourning in at least some of those discussed here, and
exchanging goods, money, and ideas with the peoples it met along
its journey. Ninth-century Southeast Asia was a place of vibrant
commerce and bustling ports, and to this day, remains an integral
part of international maritime trade.

This paper makes a preliminary effort at tracing the complicated history of the relationship between the category Fan 蕃 (also written 番) and the category Han 漢 during the period ca. 500–1200. The late Northern Wei began using Fan as a generic term for foreign countries and peoples, possibly due to influences from the Zhouli 周禮. The Tang empire later adopted this usage of Fan but also used Fan as an abbreviation of Tufan 吐蕃, the Chinese name for the Tibetan empire. Under the Tang, both these usages of Fan commonly placed it in a dichotomous pair with the category Han, a pairing not seen in Northern Wei. Whereas the Northern Wei used Han as an ethnonym for the indigenous “Chinese” population, the Tang used it as an alternative name for the empire. In Tang (and also Song) usage, therefore, the Fan and Han dichotomy was geopolitical, not ethnic, in orientation. However, the dichotomy eventually became ethnic in the Kitan Liao and Western Xia, where Han reverted to being an ethnonym for the “Chinese.” Our understanding of the word Fan as used in the Kitan empire remains incomplete, but one of its uses was as a synonym for Kitan. Similarly, the primary use of Fan in the Xia was as a synonym for Mi, the ruling Tangut people’s most common self-appellation. Toward the end of the Northern Song, the use of Han as a geopolitical name for the Song state seems to have lost popularity among the Song elite. In the Southern Song, this usage survived only on the northwestern Sichuan-Gansu frontier, a geopolitical Fan and Tang dichotomy having become the norm on the south China coast. Meanwhile, the Jin revived the use of Han as an ethnonym for the Chinese in the North China Plain, but banned the use of Fan as an appellation for the ruling Jurchen and their language in 1191—possibly as a way of asserting the political legitimacy of Jurchen rule over north China.

[Chinese translation published in 2020 as 蕃与汉：帝制中国中期（约500—1200 年）一个概念二分法的起源和使用 (translated by Feng Lijun 冯立君), Ouya yicong 欧亚译丛 vol. 5]

The attached file is a preview of my new annotated translation of Part 1 of Zhao Rukuo's (or Rugua's) Zhufan zhi. This project, first completed in June 2020 (and periodically updated since), updates the widely-used Hirth-Rockhill translation of 1911 and brings the text into the digital age. The translation is published using ArcGIS StoryMaps at the following address: https://arcg.is/e15vm

Please send questions, comments, suggestions for improvement, or corrections to errors in the translation to me via e-mail at yangs@denison.edu.

Since Kumārajīva translated the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (Diamond Sūtra) into Chinese in 402, it has become one of the most important and widely circulated sūtras of Chinese Buddhism. Over 2,000 manuscripts (scribed and printed) of the Diamond Sūtra were found in the Dunhuang “Library Cave”; one manuscript of the Diamond Sūtra, now on display at the British Museum (Stein Collection Item no.S.P.2.), is the world's oldest and most comprehensive intact printed book. It is dated in the colophon, which reads: the 9th year of Xiantong (868) of the Tang Dynasty. Due to its importance for the history of Chinese Buddhism and the development of printing technology, it has attracted widespread academic attention.  In this paper, I will focus on the artistic traditions of the manuscript, examining the S.P.2. Diamond Sūtra from three perspectives: (1) the painting style of the frontispiece; (2) the calligraphy style of the engraved characters; and (3) the government official stone engraver.
Through study of the painting and calligraphic styles of Wu Daozi and Liu Gongquan of the Tang dynasty, this paper shows that the woodblock print S.P.2 was created under the influence of the Chang’an artistic tradition. There is evidence of two government official engravers’ names, Qiang Yan (強演) and Shao Jianhe (邵建和), inscribed on the colophon of the stone rubbings Diamond Sūtra written by Liu Gongquan (柳公權). The workshop team established the model for the woodblock print by collaborative artwork from contemporary master painters, calligraphers, and court engravers.

This essay argues that, in Tang foreign policy discourse, the stereotype of a moral dichotomy between barbarian perfidy and Chinese trustworthiness was primarily a tool for rhetorical posturing, deployed to justify making war on foreign peoples with whom the Tang had a prior peace agreement. This is demonstrated through close analysis of the political rhetoric surrounding Tang relations with neighboring steppe or Central Asian powers during the periods 625–645 and 734–739, with particular attention to contextualizing the rhetoric of the emperors Taizong and Xuanzong. The essay also presents a new interpretation of the famous 630 debate over the resettlement of the Eastern Turks, arguing that the rhetoric of perfidy, loyalty, and moral or cultural transformation in which that debate was conducted obscures its origin in a pragmatic strategic dilemma that could not be openly expressed.

Inscribing Death investigates how and why medieval Chinese regarded death as an opportunity to fashion and convey desired social identities and memories through burial and life writing during the Tang dynasty (618–907) and the medieval period (200–1000) more broadly. It discusses the burial, mourning, and commemorative practices that were new or controversial and had become the norm during this period, such as the joint-burial of extended family members, disjoint burial of spouses, relocation and reburial of remains, posthumous marriage and divorce, burial divinations, and soul-summoning burial. It sheds light on various selective adaptations, representations, and interpretations of these acts of remembrance in a multicultural and multireligious society by drawing from a vast array of sources, including hundreds of newly excavated entombed epitaph inscriptions (muzhiming). It also identifies different modes of construction and representation of the self in life and death and illuminates the complex negotiations among various parties—the dying, the family, and the state—for control over the arrangement, presentation, and meaning of specific burials, thereby asserting desired individual and collective identities and memories. By highlighting the growing emphasis on remembrance as an expression of filial piety and the grave as a focal point of ancestral sacrifices, the book deepens our understanding of ancestor worship and its changing modus operandi and continuous influence on the shaping the most intimate human relationships, thus challenging the notion that ancestor worship was an extension of families rather than individuals in medieval China.