Personal Salvation and Filial Piety

Personal Salvation and Filial Piety
Author:
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2008-02-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0824832159

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The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was a handsome prince when he entered China. As Guanyin, the bodhisattva was venerated from the eleventh century onward in the shape of a beautiful woman who became a universal savior. Throughout the last millennium, the female Guanyin has enjoyed wide and fervid veneration throughout East Asia and has appeared as a major character in literature and legend. In one tale, Guanyin (as the princess Miaoshan) returns from the dead after being executed by the king, her father, for refusing to marry. The most popular version of this legend is The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain (Xiangshan baojuan), a long narrative in prose and verse and a work of considerable literary merit. It emphasizes the conflict between father and daughter, in the course of which all conventional arguments against a religious lifestyle are paraded and rebutted. A lengthy description of Guanyin’s visit to the underworld, which focuses on the conflict between grace and justice, is also included. Personal Salvation and Filial Piety offers a complete and fully annotated translation of The Precious Scroll, based on a nineteenth-century edition. The translation is preceded by a substantial introduction that discusses the origin of the text and the genre to which it belongs and highlights the similarities and differences between the scroll and female saints’ lives from medieval Europe. There follows a translation of the much-shorter Precious Scroll of Good-in-Talent and Dragon Daughter, which provides a humorous account of how Guanyin acquired the three acolytes—Sudhana, Nagakanya, and a white parrot—who are often shown surrounding her in popular prints. As the first English-language translation of major "precious scrolls," Personal Salvation and Filial Piety will appeal to a wide range of readers—from scholars of Chinese literature to students of Buddhism. Beyond the field of East Asian studies, it will interest specialists in comparative religion and literature and feminist theologians. Because of its lively and moving narratives, the text is suitable for courses on popular Buddhist religiosity (particularly female religiosity) in Chinese society.

Personal Salvation

Personal Salvation
Author: Wilbur Fisk Tillett
Publisher:
Total Pages: 562
Release: 1902
Genre: History
ISBN:

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Reading for the Moral

Reading for the Moral
Author: Maria Franca Sibau
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2018-03-20
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1438469918

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Reading for the Moral offers an innovative reassessment of the nature of moral representation and exemplarity in Chinese vernacular fiction. Maria Franca Sibau focuses on two little-studied story collections published at the end of the Ming dynasty, Exemplary Words for the World (Xingshi yan, 1632) and Bell in the Still Night (Qingye zhong, c. 1645). Far from being tediously moralistic tales, these stories of loyal ministers, filial children, chaste widows, and selfless friends provide a deeper understanding of the five cardinal relationships central to Confucian ethics. They explore the inherent tension between what we might call textbook morality, on the one hand, and untidy everyday life, on the other. The stories often take a critical view of mechanical notions of retribution, countering it with the logic of virtue as its own reward. Conflict between passion and duty is typically resolved in favor of duty, a duty redefined with a palpable sense of urgency. In constructing vernacular representations of moral exemplars from the recent historical past rather than from remote or fictitious antiquity, the story compilers show how these virtues are not abstract or monolithic norms, but play out within the contingencies of time and space.

Religious Publishing and Print Culture in Modern China

Religious Publishing and Print Culture in Modern China
Author: Philip Clart
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2014-12-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1614512981

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Scholarly interest in print culture and in the study of religion in modern China has increased in recent years, propelled by maturing approaches to the study of cultural history and by a growing recognition that both were important elements of China's recent past. The influence of China in the contemporary world continues to expand, and with it has come an urgent need to understand the processes by which its modern history was made. Issues of religious freedom and of religion's influence on the public sphere continue to be contentious but important subjects of scholarly work, and the role of print and textual media has not dimmed with the advent of electronic communication. This book, Religious Publishing and Print Culture in Modern China 1800-2012, speaks to these contemporary and historical issues by bringing to light the important and abiding connections between religious development and modern print culture in China. Bringing together these two subjects has a great deal of potential for producing insights that will appeal to scholars working in a range of fields, from media studies to social historians. Each chapter demonstrates how focusing on the role of publishing among religious groups in modern China generates new insights and raises new questions. They examine how religious actors understood the role of printed texts in religion, dealt with issues of translation and exegesis, produced print media that heralded social and ideological changes, and expressed new self-understandings in their published works. They also address the impact of new technologies, such as mechanized movable type and lithographic presses, in the production and meaning of religious texts. Finally, the chapters identify where religious print culture crossed confessional lines, connecting religious traditions through links of shared textual genres, commercial publishing companies, and the contributions of individual editors and authors. This book thus demonstrates how, in embracing modern print media and building upon their longstanding traditional print cultures, Christian, Buddhist, Daoist, and popular religious groups were developed and defined in modern China. While the chapter authors are specialists in religious traditions, they have made use of recent studies into publishing and print culture, and like many of the subjects of their research, are able to make connections across religious boundaries and link together seemingly discrete traditions.

The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries

The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries
Author: Roland Greene
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 717
Release: 2016-11-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0691170517

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An authoritative and comprehensive guide to poetry throughout the world The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries—drawn from the latest edition of the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics—provides a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the history and practice of poetry in more than 100 major regional, national, and diasporic literatures and language traditions around the globe. With more than 165 entries, the book combines broad overviews and focused accounts to give extensive coverage of poetic traditions throughout the world. For students, teachers, researchers, poets, and other readers, it supplies a one-of-a-kind resource, offering in-depth treatment of Indo-European poetries (all the major Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, and Romance languages, and others); ancient Middle Eastern poetries (Hebrew, Persian, Sumerian, and Assyro-Babylonian); subcontinental Indian poetries (Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Urdu, and more); Asian and Pacific poetries (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Nepalese, Thai, and Tibetan); Spanish American poetries (those of Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile, and many other Latin American countries); indigenous American poetries (Guaraní, Inuit, and Navajo); and African poetries (those of Ethiopia, Somalia, South Africa, and other countries, and including African languages, English, French, and Portuguese). Complete with an introduction by the editors, this is an essential volume for anyone interested in understanding poetry in an international context. Drawn from the latest edition of the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Provides more than 165 authoritative entries on poetry in more than 100 regional, national, and diasporic literatures and language traditions throughout the world Features extensive coverage of non-Western poetic traditions Includes an introduction, bibliographies, cross-references, and a general index

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions
Author: Randall L. Nadeau
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2012-05-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1405190310

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Comprising the most up-to-date, interdisciplinary research on the study of Chinese religious beliefs and cultural practices, this volume explores the rich and complex religious and philosophical traditions that have developed and flourished in one of the world's oldest civilizations. Covers the main Chinese traditions of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism as well as Christianity and Islam Features a unique organizational structure, with groups of readings focused on historical, traditions-based, and topical elements of Chinese religion Explores a number of contemporary religious topics, including gender, nature, asceticism, material culture, and gods and spirits Brings together a team of authors who are experts in their sub-fields, providing readers with the latest research in a rapidly growing discipline

Exploring the Heart Sutra

Exploring the Heart Sutra
Author: Sarah A. Mattice
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2021-10-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1498599419

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Exploring the Heart Sutra offers readers an interdisciplinary philosophical approach to this much-loved Buddhist classic, with a new translation and commentary. Situating the Heart Sutra within a Chinese context, Sarah A. Mattice brings together voices past and present, Asian and Western, on topics from Buddhology, translation theory, feminism, religious studies, ethnography, Chinese philosophy, and more, in order to inspire readers to understand the sutra in a new light. Mattice’s argument for the importance of appreciating the Heart Sutra from a Chinese philosophical context includes a new hermeneutic paradigm for approaching composite texts; an argument for translating the text from the Chinese, rather than the Sanskrit; an extended discussion of the figure of Guanyin, bodhisattva of compassion and main speaker of the Heart Sutra, as a distinctively Chinese figure; an inquiry in to the history of women’s practice, with a special focus on China; and a commentary on the text that draws on philosophical resources from Chinese Buddhist, Ruist, and Daoist traditions. Mattice presents the Heart Sutra in its depth and complexity, inviting readers to return to this classic text with fresh perspectives and new insights into its relevance for living well in the contemporary world.

Transforming Gender and Emotion

Transforming Gender and Emotion
Author: Sookja Cho
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2018-03-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0472123459

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The Butterfly Lovers Story, sometimes called the Chinese Romeo and Juliet, has been enduringly popular in China and Korea. In Transforming Gender and Emotion, Sookja Cho demonstrates why the Butterfly Lovers Story is more than just a popular love story. By unveiling the complexity of themes and messages concealed beneath the tale’s modern classification as a tragic love story, this book reveals the tale as a rich academic subject for students of human emotions and relationships, comparative geography and culture, and narrative adaptation. By examining folk beliefs and ideas that abound in the narrative—including rebirth and a second life, the association of human souls and butterflies, and women’s spiritual power—this book presents the Butterfly Lovers Story as an example of local religious narrative. The book’s cross-cultural comparisons, best manifested in its discussion of a shamanic ritual narrative version from the Cheju Island of Korea, frame the story as a catalyst for inclusive, expansive discussion of premodern Korean and Chinese literatures and cultures. This scrutiny of the historical and cultural background behind the formation and popularization of the Cheju Island version sheds light on important issues in the Butterfly Lovers Story that are not frequently discussed—either in past examinations of this particular narrative or in the overall literary studies of China and Korea. This new, open approach presents an innovative framework for understanding premodern literary and cultural space in East Asia.

Performing Filial Piety in Northern Song China

Performing Filial Piety in Northern Song China
Author: Cong Ellen Zhang
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2020-09-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 082488440X

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Educated men in Song-dynasty China (960–1279) traveled frequently in search of scholarly and bureaucratic success. These extensive periods of physical mobility took them away from their families, homes, and native places for long periods of time, preventing them from fulfilling their most sacred domestic duty: filial piety to their parents. In this deeply grounded work, Cong Ellen Zhang locates the tension between worldly ambition and family duty at the heart of elite social and cultural life. Drawing on more than two thousand funerary biographies and other official and private writing, Zhang argues that the predicament in which Song literati found themselves diminished neither the importance of filial piety nor the appeal of participating in examinations and government service. On the contrary, the Northern Song witnessed unprecedented literati activity and state involvement in the bolstering of ancient forms of filial performances and the promotion of new ones. The result was the triumph of a new filial ideal: luyang. By labeling highly coveted honors and privileges attainable solely through scholarly and official accomplishments as the most celebrated filial acts, the luyang rhetoric elevated office-holding men to be the most filial of sons. Consequently, the proper performance of filiality became essential to scholar-official identity and self-representation. Zhang convincingly demonstrates that this reconfiguration of elite male filiality transformed filial piety into a status- and gender-based virtue, a change that had wide implications for elite family life and relationships in the Northern Song. The separation of elite men from their parents and homes also made the idea of “native place” increasingly fluid. This development in turn generated an interest in family preservation as filial performance. Individually initiated, kinship- and native place-based projects flourished and coalesced with the moral and cultural visions of leading scholar-intellectuals, providing the social and familial foundations for the ascendancy of Neo-Confucianism as well as new cultural norms that transformed Chinese society in the Song and beyond.

Little Buddhas

Little Buddhas
Author: Vanessa R. Sasson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 543
Release: 2013
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199945616

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Edited by Vanessa R. Sasson, Little Buddhas brings together a wide range of scholarship and expertise to address the question of what role children have played in Buddhist literature, in particular historical contexts, and their role in specific Buddhist contexts today.