Evoking the Past: The Ning Mao Sarcophagus and Images of the Deceased in Early Medieval China

Abstract: This paper examines the multifarious functions of images of the deceased ( muzhu xiang 墓主像 ) during the late Northern Wei period (494–534). It focuses on a series of human figures engraved on the Ning Mao sarcophagus, a house-shaped stone coffin constructed ca. 527 and discovered near Luoyang in 1931. By comparing these images with those found on other contemporary sarcophagi from Luoyang, this paper posits that they exemplify two principal approaches to representing the deceased in the Northern Wei dynasty. The first approach alludes to the presence of Ning Mao and his wife through parental figures in didactic narrative scenes, which subsequently serve as stand-in images for the deceased couple. The second approach is embodied in the three gentlemanly figures on the back wall of the sarcophagus; these idealized images encapsulate the political, spiritual, and cultural pursuits of native Chinese elites. Both the stand-in and idealized images of the deceased on the Ning Mao sarcophagus are employed to connect the past with the present, an aspect intrinsically tied to the performance of filial piety in early medieval China.

Reading Philosophy, Writing Poetry: Intertextual Modes of Making Meaning in Early Medieval China

Bret Hinsch. Women in Early Medieval China. Asian Voices. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, . xx,  pp. Hardcover $., ISBN -- --. Paperback $., ISBN ----. E-book $., ISBN ----. Women in Early Medieval China is an addition to the series of women in Chinese history that Bret Hinsch has published over the past two decades. As in his other books, Hinsch aptly situates women’s lives and gender discourse in their concrete social and political contexts—here, the period between the fall of the Eastern Han in the early third century and the founding of the Tang dynasty in the early seventh century, an era that historians call “the age of division” or “the age of disunion.” During this period, the north and the south developed distinct cultures, steppe customs influenced societies under the northern regimes, and the intellectual and religious landscapes flourished and diversified. Coinciding with the decline of a powerful central government and the collapse of previous social order, elites began to form larger families in order to protect common clan interests; there was a decline in Confucian learning; female chastity, although not commonly practiced, was rhetorically associated with male loyalty to a regime. Women in Early Medieval China introduces those changes as background to a vivid depiction of changes in the rhetorical, political, and social dimensions of women’s lives over this period. The eight chapters of Women in Early Medieval China cover significant aspects of women’s history during this time period: family, mothers, politics, work, religion, learning, virtue, and ideals. Chapter  delineates the changing family systems in the north and the south and their impact on women. Elite families became significantly larger and more complicated, prompting reconsiderations of family ethics. Marriage customs among northern and southern elites differed regarding remarriage, the status of concubines’ sons, and the ideal qualities of marriage partners. Elite families tended to marry within a circle of families of equal status, while marriages of daughters to lower status but richer families coincided with a new emphasis on the virtues of daughtersin -law. More writings were produced on female filial piety and spousal relations. Chapter  focuses on the intensified mother–son bond, the emerging cult of motherhood, and the growing interest in filial piety toward mothers. Chapter  introduces the ways in which women participated in politics (generally through Review©  by University of Hawai‘i Press becoming an empress or empress dowager) and how different regimes, especially the Tuoba clan, took measures to prevent that. Some empresses of both the north and the south defied the odds to become powerful figures in their own right. Hinsch also mentions several other kinds of women, such as nursemaids, Buddhist nuns, and princesses, who played a role in the palace and were close to power. Chapter  covers women’s property rights and various types of labor and economic activities in which women engaged, including housework, textile production, childcare, healing and care in the home, commerce, entertainment and sex work, as well as serfdom and slavery. In highly militarized societies, especially those in the north, women were also expected to be able to fight. Chapter  explores new roles and opportunities for women in the burgeoning Buddhist and Daoist institutions, after briefly discussing old and new elements about female deities, ghosts, shamans, and ritualists. Chapter  surveys the topic of women’s learning. During this era, women’s education was not considered inappropriate, but lacked a clear purpose and tended to be less systematic than men’s education. The most educated women were daughters of elite men. Southern women read histories and ancient texts and composed poetry, while northern women focused on practical skills. Some women were praised for their eloquence and wit. Maternal instruction and women’s advice on “character evaluation” were also appreciated. Chapter  traces how the Six Dynasties became “a critical phase in the evolution of female ethics” as a result of the interaction of several historical factors: “the decline of Confucian learning, influx of steppe culture, and the rise of Buddhism and Daoism” (p. ). Focuses of this chapter include adultery, remarriage, jealousy, and female chastity: Hinsch argues that “[t]he early medieval era marks a turning point for chastity” (p. ) in intellectual discourse...

BOOK REVIEWS ALAN K. L. CHAN and YUET-KEUNG LO, eds., Interpretation and Literature in Early Medieval China. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010. vi, 288 pp. US$80 (hb). ISBN 978-1-4384-3217-5 ALAN K. L. CHAN and YUET-KEUNG LO, eds., Philosophy and Religion in Early Medieval China. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010. v, 375 pp. US$80 (hb). ISBN 978-1-4384-3187-1 With the publication of these two volumes, Chan and Lo have deeply enriched our understanding of early medieval China (220–589 CE). This is the first attempt to assemble an English language conference volume that focuses on both the intellectual and religious history of early medieval China—an incredibly significant era in which Confucianism lost its ideological monopoly, Daoism emerged as an organized religion, and Buddhism became a permanent fixture on China’s cultural landscape. Besides redirecting our focus to this neglected but momentous period, these volumes include a number of outstanding contributions that recast how we should envision early medieval assumptions and values. The good news is both volumes contain insightful articles on Chinese religion. Negatives include the existence of two volumes rather than one, a weak thematic coherence, and their neglect of Confucianism. On the whole, however, these volumes will considerably benefit specialists in pre-modern Chinese culture. These volumes emerge from two conferences, one in Singapore and the other in Shanghai, sponsored by the National University of Singapore. The Philosophy and Religion volume has eleven chapters: five of which concern Xuanxue 玄學, two on Daoism, two on Buddhism, one on reclusion, and the final essay addresses fate. The Interpretation and Literature volume contains nine chapters. The first four treat literary culture. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 discuss literary aspects of Daoism and Buddhism. Chapters 8 and 9 discuss motifs in popular narratives. Since over half of the essays in Interpretation and Literature are about religion, one wonders why two volumes are necessary. The editors explain that, The project was conceived as a multidisciplinary venture. Scholarship does not grow well in insularity; our plan was to bring together in a single book fresh studies on early medieval Chinese philosophy, religion, literature and interpretation, not only to deepen our understanding of these topics but also to open up a view of the interconnections of the early medieval Chinese intellectual enterprise. However, a single volume proved unworkable, given the constraints that publishers face. Still, some of the essays may fit just as nicely in this or in the companion volume. (Interpretation and Literature, pp. 1–2). # Society for the Study of Chinese Religions 2015 DOI: 10.1179/0737769X15Z.00000000021 Journal of Chinese Religions, 43. 1, 89–118, May 2015 Thus, the decision to make two volumes was based on the overabundance of essays, resulting in a somewhat arbitrary thematic division. The quoted text above also indicates that these volumes should be judged based on their success in deepening our understanding of the connections between early medieval philosophy, religion, and literature. A striking contribution made by the Philosophy and Religion volume is that it recasts how we view the philosophical ruminations of the Xuanxue (Learning of the Mysterious Dao 道) movement. Four out of the five essays on this philosophy demonstrate that, rather than being theorists who were solely concerned with metaphysical questions, He Yan 何晏, Wang Bi 王弼, and Xi Kang 嵇康 were also intensely concerned with political and ethical issues. In fact, their discussions of ontology informed their vision of how political order should be instituted. In the volume’s opening essay, “Sage Nature and the Logic of Namelessness,” Alan Chan demonstrates that He Yan perceived wu 無 (nothing, non-being) as a nameless, complete, and harmonious energy source that produces all phenomena in a balanced and ordered manner. The sage embodies wu; thus, he is also harmonious, unbiased, and complete. If he becomes ruler, then all things will be well-ordered because he will choose the right people to administrate. For He Yan, sages are born, not made. In the absence of a sage, the best one can do is to select excellent men as officials. In a much more opaque essay, “Tracing the Dao: Wang Bi’s Theory of Names,” Jude Soo-Meng Chua notes...

This chapter first summarizes the points the author made in an already-published article concerning the modern Western discourse on in the plural and the application of this discourse to phenomena in early medieval China. Then, turning to the singular term in its generic sense, that is, religion as a realm of concern as opposed to other realms of concern with which it sharply contrasts, he asks three sets of questions: What conceptual and terminological pitfalls arise when writing about in premodern China? How does Chinese religious history invite us to rethink his models and assumptions about religion? Did the generic notion of religion uniquely arise in the West, or are there analogues in (for example) early medieval China?. Keywords:Chinese religious history; early medieval China; modern Western discourse; premodern China; religions

ROBERT FORD CAMPANY, Signs from the Unseen Realm: Buddhist Miracle Tales from Early Medieval China. Kuroda Institute Classics in East Asian Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2012. xix, 300 pp. US$65.00 (hbk). ISBN 978-0-8248-3602-3 This book is a comprehensive study and annotated translation with commentaries of Mingxiang ji 冥祥記, a collection of Buddhist miracle tales compiled at the end of the fifth century CE by Wang Yan 王琰. The largest compilation of its kind from early medieval China, Mingxiang ji is a treasure trove of written records of the Chinese Buddhist experience as lived and told by contemporary devotees from a broad social spectrum. Written and compiled in the long-standing Chinese narrative tradition of zhiguai 志怪 (accounts of anomalies) collections, Mingxiang ji offers a largely lay-oriented, communal perspective that is distinct from those of ‘‘elite’’ genres such as scriptures, hagiographies, and theological treatises. Campany’s groundbreaking study of Mingxiang ji as a zhiguai collection does an exemplary job of employing the genre of zhiguai as a rewarding source of research for medieval Chinese Buddhist history. Specifically, this book presents a fascinating case study of Buddhist zhiguai collections as a sinicized expression of the Buddhist worldview. In Campany’s words, ‘‘Miracle tales are, among other things, a means of sinicization via historiography’’ (p. 37). As such, this book is an important contribution to the fields of medieval Chinese religions, historiography, and literary history. Campany’s study features a substantial introduction that situates Mingxiang ji in the broader contexts of the history of Chinese Buddhism, the Chinese tradition of historiography, and the author’s life and times. Specifically, Campany points out the collective, communal, lay-oriented nature of the miracle tales as reflecting on widespread religious practices and attitudes of the society, which are distinctive from orthodox Mah ay ana teachings. The introductory chapter investigates the particulars of early medieval Chinese Buddhist culture by way of an analysis of the narrative discourse of the miracle tale, including its generic conventions, recurrent tropes and archetypes (such as the figure of the ‘‘spirit monk’’), common themes (such as rebirth and devotion to bodhisattvas), and Chinese adaptations of Buddhist practices (such as the abstinence ceremony and strict vegetarianism). According to Campany, the main thematic concerns of the tales in Mingxiang ji are not the fundamental Buddhist tenets such as enlightenment, non-duality, emptiness, or the Mahayanist pursuit of the bodhisattva path. Rather, the tales are preoccupied with avoiding karmic retributions (baoying 報應) in life and reaping rewards in the afterlife. Campany’s introductory section and story commentaries show that, far from being empty, the Chinese Buddhist universe as reflected in Mingxiang ji is full of spiritual forces miraculously responsive (ganying 感應) to human desires and deeds. Pervasive throughout the collection is a literal and materialist approach to Buddhist scriptures, icons, and ritual objects, which are regarded as sacred objects with magical efficacy. Monastic laxity is often the target of criticism in the tales. Competitions between Buddhism and other indigenous Chinese cultural practices—such as Confucian ancestor worship, the Daoist pursuit of immortality, and local sacrificial cults—are frequently the driving force of narrative in the collection. Some miracle tales reflect how traditional religious beliefs and practices are absorbed by the Buddhist discourse, such as in items 67, BOOK REVIEWS 65 71, 86, 99, and 124, where the power of the indigenous spirit-medium (wu 巫) is co-opted to validate the Buddhist worldview. In other stories, Buddhist miracles are themselves co-opted to serve a secular agenda. For example, item 63 features two Buddhist monks transmitting a divine decree to legitimize a dynasty. As Campany points out, that Buddhist miracles are presented in Mingxiang ji as ‘‘signs from the unseen realm’’ is ultimately in keeping with the traditional premise of zhiguai literature, where cosmic anomalies are regarded as heavenly portents. At the same time, Campany also observes that many Buddhist miracle tales display an anxious urge to claim the foreign religion as indigenous to China itself. Collectively, these Buddhist miracle tales as zhiguai stories dramatize in narrative form the dynamic assimilation of one religious culture by another. The translations that comprise the second part of the book are based on modern...

How to soften resistance to state-building efforts by reform losers? This paper highlights a strategy of compensation via the bureaucracy, in which the ruler offers meaningful government offices in exchange for elites’ acceptance of state-building reforms. We empirically explore this strategy in the context of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386 - 534 AD), which terminated an era of state weakness in early medieval China that initially resulted from entrenched landowning interests and fragile barbarian kingdoms. Our unique dataset combines geocoded family background and career histories of around 2,600 elites with information on medieval Chinese strongholds, which we use to infer state weakness. Leveraging a comprehensive state-building reform in the late 5\textsuperscript{th} century, difference-in-differences estimates document that the reform led to a sustained, substantial increase in the total number of powerful aristocrats from localities with strongholds recruited into the imperial bureaucracy. Subsequent estimates provide evidence for three mechanisms through which compensation facilitates state-building. First, offices taken by these elites came with direct benefits of power and prestige. Second, by transforming these aristocrats from local powerfuls into national stakeholders, these offices potentially induced the realignment of their interests toward those of the dynasty. Third, bureaucracy provided the regime with institutional tools of power-sharing to mitigate credible commitment problems. Findings in this paper shed light on the causes of the ``First Great Divergence,’’ where similar barbarian invasions at similar times led to political fragmentation in Europe but further state consolidation in China.

Buddhist influences on the sacred axis of the capital during Medieval China (220–907) underwent a process of starting with little impact during the era of Eastern Han, Caowei, and Western Jin (220–317) to a more prominent influence from the late Southern and Northern Dynasties (386–589) to early Tang (618–907), peaked during the reign of Wu Zetian (690–705), and roughly returned to the layout patterns from the late Southern and Northern Dynasties to early Tang after the death of Wu Zetian. As maintained below, the process appears complex in terms of the interaction between Buddhism and political space throughout early Medieval China. There are roughly two modes of integration and interaction between Buddhist buildings and ritual buildings with Buddhist influences and the political axis of the capital: the first mode can be regarded as a typical mode after its establishment in the late Northern Wei Dynasty. This mode exhibits major Buddhist influences, particularly regarding the huge scale of monasteries and pagodas, and the location of high-rise pagodas as landmarks flanking the political axis of the capital. The second mode should be regarded as an atypical mode occurring during the late period of Emperor Wu of the Liang (464–549, r. 502–549), the period of Northern Qi (550–577), and the reign of Wu Zetian. At this point, Buddhist buildings and imperial ritual buildings with Buddhist characteristics and symbolic meanings were placed directly on the political axis of the capital, close to or located at the core of the palace. This practice was a sign that the influence of Buddhism in the political culture and ideology of the entire empire during these eras of Emperor Wu of the Liang, the Northern Qi, and the reign of Wu Zetian had reached their culmination. Architecture reflected the most intuitive embodiment of an external visual form in presenting the most symbolic image of power. With the decline of political enthusiasm for advocating Buddhism, Buddhist and related buildings no longer occupied the political axis of the capital. Various forces majeure such as natural fires, demolition, and reconstruction by subsequent rulers also led to the demise of Buddhist influence on the pollical axis of capital architecture in subsequent eras.

The Śyāma jātaka is renowned for its portrayal of a devoted son who cared for his blind parents. The story has been translated into various textual versions and depicted in reliefs and murals, gaining wide circulation in the Buddhist world. Previous scholarship on the story’s transmission in China has primarily focused on its representation of filial piety and its resonance with the Chinese context. However, a careful examination of surviving visual depictions of jātaka stories brings to light historical and regional disparities that have often been overlooked in relation to the reception of Śyāma jātaka’s didactic teachings in early medieval China. While the story has flourished in North China (including the Central Plain and the Hexi Corridor) from the late fifth century onwards, it was intriguingly absent from the region during the first half of the sixth century. This absence of the Śyāma jātaka stands in contrast to the popularity of other jātakas such as Sudāna and Mahasattva, which were widely circulated in China. In this article, I explore the uneven adaptation of the Śyāma jātaka within Chinese visual culture by placing the story’s textual and visual traditions within the broader historical milieu of depicting Buddhist stories and filial paragons in the sixth century. My study demonstrates that the story’s theme in multiple dimensions was simplified to filial piety during the textual translation process of the story in third- and fourth-century China. Moreover, it reveals that the story’s visual legacy faced challenges and negotiations when integrating into the local teaching of filial piety. This reluctance can be attributed to two historical factors: the revival of pre-existing visual traditions depicting Chinese filial sons, and the growing preference for other jātakas that embodied teachings on generosity in early sixth-century North China. Furthermore, this study sheds light on the tension between textual and visual traditions when incorporating Buddhist teachings into a new social context. While various rhetoric strategies were developed in text translation to integrate Buddhist teachings into existing Chinese thought, the visual tradition posed separate questions regarding its necessity, the didactic intentions of patrons, and the visual logic understood by viewers.

In his book A Garden of Marvels: Tales of Wonder from Early Medieval China, Robert Ford Campany provides us with a translation of some zhiguai collections from early medieval China. Zhiguai 志怪 (acc...

Reviewed by: Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice and Portrayal of Reclusion in Early Medieval China Robert Ford Campany (bio) Alan J. Berkowitz . Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice and Portrayal of Réclusion in Early Medieval China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. xii, 296 pp. Hardcover, ISBN 0-8047-3603.0. For the past fifteen years Alan Berkowitz has been publishing articles on "recluses" in early medieval China—men who "deliberately and habitually shunned a life of service to the state" and were deemed morally exemplary (p. 228), and even a few women whose views on the subject, fortunately for us, are recorded (p. 112). Scholars now have his long-awaited monograph on the subject to consult, along with Aat Vervoorn's Men of the Cliffs and Caves (Chinese University Press, 1990), which focuses on the Han and earlier periods. Berkowitz' book is carefully researched and reflects the author's thorough familiarity with both primary and secondary sources relevant to the subject. Berkowitz begins his work with mentions of reclusion as an ideal and of exemplary recluses in pre-Han texts stretching back to Confucius' recorded sayings and early mentions of the perennial examples Bo Yi and Shu Qi, who starved themselves rather than serve a ruler they considered unjust. In successive chapters he then moves down in time through the Western and Eastern Han, Wei, Jin, and the Northern and Southern dynasties, culminating with an examination of such Liang-era figures as Tao Hongjing. Along the way he translates a good selection of Chinese passages on reclusion as a general subject or on particular recluses, and this collection of translated materials is one of the book's most valuable assets. The book also includes a thorough bibliography (including generous citations of modern works by Chinese and Japanese scholars) and an index. While I admire the book and the scholarship that went into its making, I would like to raise a couple of questions; these are not meant to undermine readers' confidence in this work but simply to further scholarly discussion of its important topic. One effect of the chronological arrangement of chapters is that the shape of Berkowitz' own arguments or claims about this voluminous material remains somewhat unclear; thematic chapters, or chapters organized around distinct questions or particular aspects of the material other than periodization, would have yielded a book in which the author's interpretations were more clearly in focus. That having been said, certain interpretive issues recur in the text. One methodological problem with which Berkowitz deals repeatedly, without ever quite reaching a satisfying position on it, is the extent to which texts about individuals reflect those persons' historicity versus the extent to which they use individuals' names as vehicles for deploying standard tropes and stereotyped imagery. Clearly some texts seem to deal more than others with the historical realia of people's lives, but beyond this it is impossible to say much with certainty, and behind this or that [End Page 364] genre of text there is no other type or stratum of evidence to which we might appeal when assessing the "accuracy" of a textual portrayal. It is particularly when struggling to assess the extent of the "sincerity" or motivation of reclusive individuals (see esp. pp. 137, 173) that Berkowitz runs afoul of this problem in the nature of his sources—or rather, perhaps, in how he and many others wish to read such sources. No text of any kind, not even first-person statements, gives us unmediated access to the real intentions of historical actors or "what they were really thinking" (my phrase, not the author's), so the question of the factuality of this or that account of persons' feelings, motives, and character is, I fear, more or less doomed to be a non-starter. (It is not always an easy job to judge the motivations and character of people we know personally; to attempt this on the basis of stylized biographical narratives from the long-distant past is simply asking too much ofthe texts we have.) What we can and should study, on the other hand, is the array of representations of recluses and of the shifting cultural concerns, tensions, alternatives, and...

Reviewed by: Entombed Epigraphy and Commemorative Culture in Early Medieval China: A History of Early Muzhiming by Timothy M. Davis Angela Schottenhammer Timothy M. Davis. Entombed Epigraphy and Commemorative Culture in Early Medieval China: A History of Early Muzhiming. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Pp. xiii + 414 pages, 4 tables, 35 figures, 2 appendices, index. $170, €128 (cloth). ISBN 978-9-0043-0641-7. This volume provides readers with a good general overview of the complex history and development of tomb inscriptions (muzhiming 墓誌銘) from their origins up to the sixth century. The book is divided into six chapters, which begin by defining the characteristics of muzhiming (Introduction), and then move forward to analyze their social and religious functions (Chapters 1 and 2). The bulk of the book's chapters explain the various processes and phases these texts experienced over this course of historical time: "Mortuary Epigraphy Moves Underground," "Entombed Epigraphy in an Era of Political Instability," "Historiographical Biography and Commemorative Biography," and "The Rise of Muzhiming as a Literary Genre." The book makes for an excellent handbook in English, providing information on the key aspects of the development of muzhiming. It is clearly structured, translates many of the most important passages from sources on the topic, and introduces historians unfamiliar with the topic to the history of "entombed epigraphy." For the first time, the history of muzhiming has been narrated as a coherent story [End Page 231] beginning with its origins in the Eastern Han dynasty and ending at a time when this genre received, I would say, a first "maturity" as a literary genre, adopting characteristics of private historiography that are atypical for a strictly religious document and rather reflect socio-political functions. Very unfortunately, however, the analysis and argumentation completely neglect an entire body of research and publications carried out earlier by authors in languages other than English or Chinese.1 In many respects, some European authors, writing mainly in German, have asked the same or similar questions and have come to the same, to similar, or slightly different answers, and they have discussed various aspects in much more detail than presented in this book, years or even decades ago. It is of course understandable that not everybody knows German. But in our modern times, I think, this is more an expression and reflection of the absent communication between scholars and scholarly communities based at different universities. Seeing that somebody has published somewhere on the topic of muzhiming, it would not be too difficult to find out if other publications exist, contact the authors or get the necessary language assistance, if necessary. The earliest archaeological example of a stele placed inside a tomb was, according to our actual knowledge, the mubei 墓碑 of a certain Fei Zhi 肥 致, dated 169 CE. Although this was a stele, it was placed inside the tomb and possesses various biographical details of the deceased, a Daoist who allegedly reached an age of approximately one hundred years, in addition to its metaphysical-religious content.2 The tradition of entombed epigraphy, [End Page 232] according to the present state of evidence, consequently started in the Eastern Han dynasty (Davis is of course well aware of such archaeological biases; see p. 351). But of course we have to analyze the archaeological and textual traditions comparatively. In Chapters 1 and 2, Davis analyses the social and religious functions of muzhiming, describing also how their originally stronger religious function, such as the aim to protect "the deceased from malevolent spiritual forces and . . . to settle him or her within the social settings of the underworld" (p. 151), gradually became weaker, while social and status questions became more important. For example, in Chapter 1 Davis introduces the earliest tomb inscription excavated so far (it was already unearthed during the Qing dynasty) that uses the term muzhiming in its title (p. 61), that of a certain Liu Huaimin 劉懷民 (411–463). Chinese written tradition, in contrast, traces the origins of muzhi (not yet muzhiming) back to the Wang Qiu muzhi 王球墓誌, an inscription composed by a literatus of the Liu Song 劉宋 dynasty (420–479), Yan Yanzhi 顏延之 (384–456), for a certain Wang Qiu 王球 (p. 6).3 As Davis explains in the introduction, this "indicates that...

This article attempts to disentangle the semantics of zhai ? in early medieval China, mostly from the third century to the sixth, by examining both Indian and Chinese Buddhist sources. It demonstrates that semantic shifts in the term reflect a changing ritual context, as Chinese Buddhism rapidly took form. The article consists of two parts. The first part looks into how the Po?adha S?tra was first introduced to China and how the word po?adha was employed in early ?gama scriptures and the vinayas translated before the middle of the fifth century. The second part (from p. 89) examines the reception history of the lay po?adha and the transformation that it underwent in early medieval China. The po?adha/zhai in China eventually evolved into a religious feast centred on lay-monastic interaction in association with a variety of ritual elements, especially repentance rites.

(2010). Bibliography of Western Works on Early Medieval China (2002–2009) Early Medieval China: Vol. 2010, No. 16, pp. 67-90.

(2003). The Development of Local Writing in Early Medieval China. Early Medieval China: Vol. 2003, No. 1, pp. 35-70.