Chinese Comments Research Articles

The Orders of Aristocratic Rank of Han China

A casual glance at the chapters of imperial annals in the Han shu and Hou Han shu reveals that the bestowal of chi#eh or orders of aristocratic rank, took place at frequent but irregular intervals throughout the Han period. Interest is immediately aroused in the significance of these events; in the circumstances in which the bestowals took place, the development of the institution both before and during the four centuries of Han empire, and in the benefits which resulted from the receipt of these honours. A preliminary study raises questions such as the connection, if any, between the bestowals and other types of imperial bounty such as amnesties; the association of the bestowals with particular dynastic or political events; or their possible use as a political weapon. By themselves the formal statements of the bestowal of chiieh on various sections of the population may be somewhat difficult to interpret, and cases in which the honours were acquired and the resulting privileges exercised are only seldom recorded. As with so much of the early history of Chinese institutions it may not be possible to determine how far recorded theory was actually translated into practice, and sufficient information is not furnished to render more than a few tentative inferences possible. Chinese commentators have from early times attempted 1) to

Is the Nyayapravesa by Dinnaga?

The Nyāyapraveśa with the commentary of Haribhadra has been published in the Gaekwad's Oriental Series, together with a careful comparative study of the two Tibetan translations by my friend Vidhuśekhara Shāstrī. Both translations presuppose the same original, but the first (T) (Cordier, Catal., vol. iii, p. 435, n. 7) has been translated from the Sanskrit, while the second (T) is a translation from the Chinese of Yuan Chwang (Tib.: T'aṅ Sam Tsaṅ). The title of the work in the Sanskrit text is Nyāyapraveśasūtra: in this the word sūtra seems to be out of place, and it would be better to substitute the Chinese lun, śāstra, which is much more correct, and which is to be found also in the index of the bsTan-ạGyur: Bstan.bcos.rigs.pa.la.ạjug.pa: nyāyapraveśa-śāstra. (Cf. Haribhadra's Vṛtti, p. 9: nyāyapraveśakākhyaśāstram.) According to the Tibetan colophon of T1 the title of the book is given as pramāṇanyāyapraveśaprakaraṇa; but as it often happens in the Tibetan titles, this is probably a later restoration based on the Tibetan itself. If we have recourse to the commentary by Kwei-chi () we should be inclined to interpret the ts'ad ma of the Tibetan not as pramāṇa, but as ts'ad. mai. rig. pa: pramāṇavidyā, hetuvidyā: in fact the Chinese commentator gives us in transcription the Sanskrit title of the book in this way: ; in Sanskrit, hei tu—fei t'o—na ye—po lo fei she—she sa tan lo.

The Eclipse Of Chung K'ang

IN China an eclipse of the sun is, and has in all ages been, considered as a bad omen. Indeed anything which disturbs the regularity of the movements or appearances of the heavenly bodies is so considered. “On the first day of the last month of autumn the sun and moon did not meet harmoniously in Fang.” This passage occurs in the ancient classic, the “Shu Ching,” in the “Yin Cheng” one of the books of the Hsia dynasty. Chinese commentators say that this passage refers to an eclipse of the sun in Fang, the fourth of the Chinese twenty-eight constellations. The last month of autumn, according to the Hsia Calendar, is the ninth month, the month after that month which contains the autumnal equinox.