Monumenta Serica Research Articles

Chinese Studies in Poland: History and Current Perspectives

AbstractThe earliest pieces of knowledge and research on China in Poland reflected development of Sinological studies in Western Europe. Being located on the sidelines of trade routes through which Eastern ideas and goods reached Western Europe, Poles used to get their information about China mostly from intermediaries: medieval travelers, merchants, and envoys, and since the sixteenth century, letters, writings, and books by Jesuit missionaries. The Poles contributed the very first comprehensive description of Chinese flora, and were important in spreading mathematical knowledge among Chinese scientists. A Pole established Monumenta Serica, still published today, and another Pole applied formal logic to the research of Chinese classical texts for the very first time. Despite all that, regular Sinological research in Poland did not take off until the twentieth century, and even then it was interrupted by political upheaval in Poland and by researchers’ fight either for freedom or with ideology.

The Zhenzheng lun by Xuanyi: A Buddhist Apologetic Scripture of Tang China by Thomas Jülch

Reviewed by: The Zhenzheng lun by Xuanyi: A Buddhist Apologetic Scripture of Tang China by Thomas Jülch Nicholas Morrow Williams The Zhenzheng lun by Xuanyi: A Buddhist Apologetic Scripture of Tang China. By Thomas Jülch. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series LXX. London: Routledge, 2019. ISBN 9780367182854. Hardback £120.00; paperback £36.00. Over the past decade Thomas Jülch has illuminated the interrelations of religious traditions in medieval China through a steady stream of exceptionally helpful publications. Apart from his numerous articles and book chapters, his magnum opus is the three-volume study Bodhisattva der Apologetik: Die Mission des buddhistischen Tang-Mönchs Falin.1 This work contains a long critical introduction followed by extensive annotated translations, encompassing a large fraction of the extant works of the monk Falin 法琳 (572–640), as well as important biographical materials setting his writings in context. The writings of Falin, in particular the twelve-chapter Bianzheng lun 辯正論, are valuable for their early-Tang perspective on the key tenets of Buddhism and their relation to Confucianism and Daoism. Jülch's scrupulous translation of these writings provides an unparalleled survey of the religious configuration of the times and is essential scholarship. A hallmark of all Jülch's work is the annotated translation of writings previously untranslated into any Western language. In the book under review, he sets out to translate another difficult work of Buddhist apologetic from the Tang, in this case the Zhenzheng lun 甄正論 (T 2112). Jülch translates the title, "Treatise on Revealing the Correct," which seems unobjectionable but may not capture the precise connotation intended, a point to which I return below. The treatise in three juan is attributed to the monk Xuanyi 玄嶷, the clerical name adopted by one Du Yi 杜義, and seems to have been composed right after Empress Wu's founding of the Zhou in the years 690 to 694, as has been demonstrated previously in an excellent study by Antonello Palumbo.2 Substantively, the work is a polemic directed against Lingbao Daoism, and as such is singularly interesting as a document of interreligious conflict at a pivotal moment in Chinese history. Jülch's introduction to the translation is briefer than the reader might wish. While it does cover the essential background regarding the Zhenzheng lun itself, a large part of it recapitulates the content of Palumbo's study while accepting his [End Page 184] conclusions. It would have been worth reprinting Palumbo's article in its entirety if that were possible, since his more detailed study of the lively context of Empress Wu's rise to power is well worth reading in tandem with this monograph. Nor does the introduction go into much depth on the relation between this and other medieval apologetic works. This is regrettable particularly since the author is a leading expert on the genre, though it is true that he has already surveyed the earlier development of the genre in the introduction to Bodhisattva der Apologetik (see especially pp. 77–97, identifying eleven core arguments of Buddhist apologetics). In general, the work under review must be seen as a pendant to that more ambitious achievement. Even in its regrettably brief confines of the introduction, Jülch does make several important points. He notes the documentary value of the Zhenzheng lun for the history of Daoism, since in the course of critique it quotes from numerous Daoist scriptures and even identifies the otherwise-unknown authors of some works. He also discusses the parallel between Falin and Xuanyi, both of whom were apostate Daoists whose knowledge of Daoism came from personal experience. Finally, Jülch offers a tantalizing comparison between the Zhenzheng lun and anti-Jewish polemics of medieval Europe, which shared some propagandistic techniques. One point that the comparison helps to clarify is how Buddhist apologetics rarely denounced Daoism wholesale: the emphasis in the Zhenzheng lun, for instance, is on the false nature of the Lingbao scriptures in particular, leaving earlier Daoist doctrines aside. Buddhist apologetics often sought to assimilate Laozi, in particular, into the Daoist tradition, reversing the legend of "Laozi converting the barbarians" 老子化胡 to portray Laozi as a disciple of the Buddha who had taught a simplified version of Buddhism in...

Contributors

Contributors

Contributions to the International Workshop “Sinology – Chinese/China Studies – Guoxue: Their Interrelation, Methodologies, and Impact” Siegburg, Germany, 21–22 October 2019

The second part of this “Special Section” presents four more contributions to the international workshop held by the Monumenta Serica Institute (Sankt Augustin, Germany) and the Monumenta Serica Si...

John Wolfe Dardess: January 17, 1937–March 31, 2020

John Wolfe DardessJanuary 17, 1937–March 31, 2020 Ruth W. Dunnell On March 31, 2020, the community of Chinese historians lost a distinguished, pioneering, and prolific scholar of Yuan and Ming history with the passing of John Dardess. An active member of the University of Kansas Department of History from 1966 until his retirement in 2002, Dardess was an engaged scholar and mentor up to his death. His lifelong study of the Ming dynasty produced nine books on diverse topics across the centuries of Ming rule, the last of which was posthumously published,1 numerous substantive articles, and dozens of book reviews. Although Dardess cherished his privacy, he was generous with his gifts and his absence is felt keenly by former colleagues and students at the University of Kansas. One remarked, "I had tremendous respect for him and was always in awe of his ability to read Ming historical documents, which to me were not so easy to decipher, but which he could take and turn into rich, interesting, and very readable narrative."2 A graduate student whom Dardess agreed to tutor in nineteenth-century Qing sources confessed: "watching him read through Zuo Zongtang without need of a dictionary remains a thrilling memory."3 Dardess's career in Ming studies began with an exploration of its origins in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; these early publications on Yuan history remain essential references for scholars in the field today. Readers will find a detailed obituary by Sarah Schneewind, reviewing his Ming work, along with a bibliography of his publications compiled by Vickie Fu Doll, in Ming Studies 82 (2020). This remembrance will focus on Dardess's scholarship on the Yuan and the Yuan-Ming transition, and the legacy of his work to that field. [End Page ix] John Dardess unapologetically declared himself committed to exploring the political history of the Ming era, a choice not much in fashion in recent decades. Yet his body of work and impeccable scholarship demonstrate the capaciousness of the field and the rewards of tilling it. His commitment was a product of his own origins, coming of age at the beginning of the Cold War. As Dardess explained in a December 2011 interview, his life-long interest in political history and autocrats began at age seven or eight, when his father served as a surgeon under General Patton in France after D-Day.4 "Adolf Hitler and his god-awful political military machine" was something he could "feel, touch, and smell" from the battlefield souvenirs his hero-father sent home to him. Hitler died but Stalin lived, until 1953, while Mao was still too remote (it is difficult for scholars born after 1960 or so to grasp how utterly cut off Americans were from China from the late 1940s until the mid-1970s). So Dardess studied Russian language and history at Georgetown, earning a B.A. there in 1958. Then the U.S. Army Language School introduced him to Chinese and sent him to Taiwan in ca. 1959–60. Dardess's subsequent arrival at Columbia University, where he completed a Ph.D. in 1968, coincided with the birth of Ming studies and the Ming Biographical History Project, to which he contributed biographies of several late Yuan figures.5 His participation in Wm. Theodore de Bary's seminar on Chinese thought left an indelible impression on classmates such as historians Ted (Edward) Farmer and Morris Rossabi, who noted his qualities of modesty, humor, and extraordinary aptitude for the most impenetrable classical Chinese texts.6 In Dardess's view, Zhu Yuanzhang (Hongwu, Ming Taizu) bore striking similarities to the founding dictators of the twentieth century. To understand the Ming founder required probing the conditions from which he emerged. His early work on the Mongol-Yuan and the fourteenth-century transitional era illustrates the breadth of his scholarship: •. "The Transformations of Messianic Revolt and the Founding of the Ming Dynasty." Journal of Asian Studies 29.3 (May 1970): 539–558. •. "From Mongol Empire to Yüan Dynasty: Changing Forms of Imperial Rule [End Page x] in Mongolia and Central Asia." Monumenta Serica 30.1 (1972–73): 117–165. •. Conquerors and Confucians: Aspects of Political Change in Late Yuan...

In memoriam Roman Malek S.V.D. (1951–2019)

華裔學志研究所深切哀悼其前任主任及總編馬雷凱神父的去世。2019年11月29日他在波蘭格魯瓊茲 (Grudziądz) 突然辭世。漢學界失去的不僅是一位在中國學術領域資深的編輯，而且也是位知名學者，他是中國宗教史專家，尤其在道教和基督宗教的研究層面。馬神父於1961年10月3日出生在波蘭卡舒比亞 (Kashubia) 地區的貝圖夫 (Bytów)。1969年他進入波蘭北部佩尼恩日諾 (Pieniężno) 的聖言會。他先在佩尼恩日諾傳教修院攻讀哲學和神學，后在盧布林天主教大學從事宗教人類學和比較宗教學的研究，並於1976年來到聖言會資助的在德國聖奧古斯丁的漢學研究所 – 華裔學志 – 工作。為了進一步從事研究，他在附近的波恩大學先注冊學習漢學和日本學，比較宗教學，后來又學習中世紀和現代教會史，且於1978年至1980年期間在台灣台北輔仁大學研修中國語言和文化。藉關於道教的論文，他於1984年在波恩大學榮獲漢學博士學位。1985年馬神父成為⟪華裔學志——東方研究雜志⟫的合作編輯並主持華裔學志專著系列 (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series) 的編輯工作。1992年他被任命為華裔學志研究所的主任及所有出版物的總編輯。2004年他創建華裔選集系列 (Collectanea Serica）。在他不遺余力的推動下，截止2011年，已有20卷雜志、兩套系列叢書中70余論著出版。馬神父為中國基督教史的研究貢獻卓著。在此領域，他不僅編輯大量作品、組織國際會議和藝術展覽，而且多次撰文並著書。他因發起和編篡一部有創建性的作品⟪耶穌基督的中國面孔⟫而備受推崇。這是關於中國人如何接受耶穌基督的跨學科研究論著，於2003年至2019年間共有四卷六冊出版。除了擔任華裔學志的主任及主編外，馬神父還從事多項活動。於1988年至2006年期間他擔任在聖奧古斯丁的德國天主教會機構中國中心 (China-Zentrum）的主任。也因此一身份，他與中國大陸乃至中文語境下的天主教會建立了良好關系。他也是⟪中國教訊——宗教與基督宗教⟫(China heute: Informationen über Religion und Christentum im chinesischen Raum) (1984–2003)，同時也是波蘭編譯本⟪中國教訊⟫(Chiny Dzisiaj) 的主編 (2006–2011)。為這兩份時事通訊做出了巨大貢獻的同時，他被公認為中國天主教研究領域內最重要的專家學者。當然，馬神父的學術活動不止於此。他有著對傳道授業的無限熱情和作為大學教師的無私奉獻精神。他曾任德國聖奧古斯丁聖言會神哲學院 (Philosophical-Theological Faculty S.V.D. in Sankt Augustin) 和波蘭盧布林天主教大學 (Catholic University of Lublin）的比較宗教研究方面的講師和教授，也曾在奧地利薩爾茨堡神學院 (Theological Faculty in Salzburg) 任跨文化神學與宗教研究的教授。另外，在2003年完成關於中國新教徒吳雷川和他對墨子詮釋的博士后論文之后，馬神父在波恩大學漢學系開始定期授課。不幸的是，馬神父生命的最后八年因2011年4月的一次嚴重中風而大受影響。盡管他不得不辭職，盡管身體虛弱不便，他仍然堅持不懈地致力於他的出版項目計劃。他生時已出版了⟪耶穌基督的中國面孔⟫最后的一卷兩冊。期間，在他65歲生日之際，華裔學志研究所編輯出版⟪扎根於望德中——馬雷凱教授六十五壽辰紀念文集⟫謹以致賀。2018年4月，馬神父移居於他的祖國波蘭的古爾納格魯帕 (Górna Grupa) 的聖言會院。因病情惡化他於2019年11月29日在格魯瓊茲的醫院謝世，並於12月2日葬於古爾納格魯帕的聖言會墓園。馬神父的一生是樂於與他人分享他對生活的熱愛以及他淵博知識的一生。他將被永遠銘記：馬雷凱是一位極有天賦且富於熱情的學者、編輯、大學教授和天主教聖言會神父。

Obituary. Roman Malek, SVD (1951-2019)

Esteemed sinologist, renowned scholar and professor, prolific author and editor, director of the Monumenta Serica Institute (MSI), Fr. Roman Malek, passed away in his native Poland on November 29, 2019. Father Malek was born on Oct. 3, 1951 in Bytów, in the northern region of Kashubia, and joined the Divine Word Missionaries (SVD) in 1969. After his study of philosophy and theology in the Seminary in Pieniężno, Poland, completed with the graduation at the Catholic University of Lublin (with additional focus on the study of religion), he was ordained as a priest in 1976 and assigned to the academic and editorial work at Monumenta Serica Institute (MSI) - an SVD establishment for Chinese studies - at Sankt Augustin (Germany). He subsequently moved to the Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan, where he was improving his communication skills in Chinese, as well as pursued studies of Chinese and Japanese cultures and history, followed by the study of comparative religions and Church history at the University of Bonn, Germany, where he also successfully defended his doctoral thesis in sinology on Daoist fasting rituals (1984).

Konfuzius und sein Kult (Confucius and His Cult, 1928)

The present article deals with a monograph by the German Divine Word Missionary Franz Xaver Biallas (1878–1936) on the Temple of Confucius in Qufu and the rites performed there in veneration of the Chinese sage. Biallas was the first academically trained Sinologist of his congregation and founder of the Sinological journal Monumenta Serica. His book Confucius and His Cult: A Contribution to the Cultural History of China and a Guide to the Native Place of Confucius was published in German in 1928. It includes an introduction to Chinese culture, a presentation of Confucius and the historical development of Confucianism, as well as a detailed description of the temple and the grave of Confucius in Qufu. Richly illustrated, the work features photographs taken by Biallas himself and maps drawn according to his and his confrere Andreas Mohrbacher’s measurements made during their extended stays in Qufu. Following a biographical sketch of Biallas and a description of the genesis and contents of his book on Confucius, the Sinological value of the work is explored in the context of contemporary reviews. Finally, the present article assesses the academic relevance of Biallas’s book today as a thorough study of the Temple of Confucius and an eyewitness account to the performance of the Confucian rites in Republican times.

The 2015 Contest of Baojuan Performers and Academic Conference in Zhoupu and Modernized “Scroll Recitation” in Pudong

The 2015 Contest of Baojuan Performers and Academic Conference in Zhoupu and Modernized “Scroll Recitation” in Pudong Rostislav Berezkin (bio) Rostislav Berezkin Fudan University Rostislav Berezkin Rostislav Berezkin obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and the candidate of sciences degree from Saint Petersburg State University in Russia. Currently he is an Associate Research Fellow at the National Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Fudan University. His main fields of research are religious storytelling and popular religion in late imperial China. His publications in Russian include a book on the function of precious scrolls (baojuan) in Chinese culture, with the Baojuan about the Three Rebirths of Mulian as an example. His English book Many Faces of Mulian: The Precious Scroll of Late Imperial China is forthcoming (University of Washington Press, 2017). His English articles have been published in T’oung Pao, Late Imperial China, Asia Major, Monumenta Serica, Journal of Chinese Religions, Hanxue Yanjiu, Religion and the Arts, Minsu quyi, Archiv Orientalni, Ming Studies, and CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature. He also has published a number of articles in Chinese and Russian. Footnotes 1. See, for example, “Qiannian baojuan Jinxi chuanchang —2009 Jiang Zhe Hu xuanjuan yan-chang, jiaoliu huodong” 千年寶卷錦溪傳唱—2009 江浙滬宣卷演唱, 交流活動 (A thousand years of transmission of baojuan in Jinxi—2009 Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai telling scrolls performance and colloquium activity), Wenhua shichang 文化市場 (The cultural market) 2009.3: 15. 2. See, for example, Che Xilun 車 錫倫, “Du Qing mo Jiang Yuzhen bian Xingxin baojuan— Jian tan ‘xuanjiang’ (Shengyu, shanshu) yu ‘xuanjuan’ (baojuan)” 讀清末蔣玉真編《醒心寶卷》 —兼談 “宣講” (聖諭, 善書) 與 “宣卷” (Reading the late Qing Waking the Heart Precious Scroll by Jiang Yuzhen—With a discussion of “telling” (the Sacred Edict and morality books) and “telling scrolls,” Wenxue yichan 文學遺產 (Literary heritage) 2010.2: 131–35. 3. “Wooden fish” (muyu 木魚) is a percussion instrument used in different religious and storytelling traditions. 4. See Rostislav Berezkin, “An Analysis of ‘Telling Scriptures’ (Jiangjing) during Temple Festivals in Gangkou (Zhangjiagang), with Special Attention to the Status of the Performers,” CHINOPERL Papers 30 (2011): 53–55. 5. See Wei Jie 魏捷, “Shi tan xuanjuan” 試談宣卷 (An exploratory discussion of telling scriptures), Shanghai wenhua shi zhi tongxun 上海文化史志通訊 (Shanghai cultural history newsletter) 1993.25: 60–61; Zhongguo quyi yinyue jicheng: Shanghai juan 中國曲藝音樂集成: 上海卷 (Collection of the music of Chinese performance arts: Shanghai volume; Beijing: Zhongguo ISBN zhongxin, 1994) 2: 1286–87. 6. Chenhang once belonged to Shanghai county, but now belongs to Minhang 閔 行 district, while Zhoupu belonged to Nanhui county, which was abolished in 2009. 7. See Chen Quanming 陳全明, “Pudong Chenhang ‘xuanjuan’ zhi xingcheng yu xiankuang” 浦東陳行“宣卷”之形成與現況 (The formation and current condition of “telling scrolls” in Chen-hang and Pudong), Shanghai wenhua shi zhi tongxun 1992.19: 58–59. 8. Zhongguo quyi zhi: Shanghai juan 中國曲藝志:上海卷 (A record of Chinese performing arts: Shanghai volume; Beijing: Zhongguo ISBN zhongxin, 2007), p. 93. On the development of scroll recitation in Suzhou, see Sang Yuxi 桑毓喜, “Suzhou xuanjuan kaolue” 蘇州宣卷考略 (A short study of Suzhou scroll recitation), Yishu baijia 藝術百家 (Various traditions of the arts) 1992.3: 122 –25. 9. See Chen Quanming, “Pudong Chenhang ‘xuanjuan,’” pp. 59–60. 10. For the notations of some melodies, recorded in the 1960s and 1990s, see Zhongguo quyi yinyue jicheng: Shanghai juan, 2: 1288–97, 1301–1306. 11. Chen Quanming, “Pudong Chenhang ‘xuanjuan,’” pp. 60–61. 12. Zhoupu wenhua zhi 周浦文化志 (The gazetteer of Zhoupu culture; Hong Kong: Shijie datong wenhua yishu, 2014), p. 56, provides information about only five generations, starting with Zhang Donglin and omitting Zhang Houtang. 13. Chen Quanming, “Pudong Chenhang ‘xuanjuan,’” p. 61. 14. Jiebang village is under the jurisdiction of Zhoupu district; it was originally Yaodun 姚墩 village of Waxie 瓦屑 town. 15. See Bai Ruosi 白若思 (Rostislav Berezkin), “You 1900–1937 nian jian ‘Huaming baojuan’ de kanke kan Zhongguo ershi shiji chu chuban wenhua yu minjian xinyang ji suwenxue zhi guanxi” 由1900–1937 年間《花名寶卷》的刊刻看中國二十世紀初出版文化與民間信仰及俗文學之關係 (Looking at the relationship between early twentieth century print culture, folk beliefs, and popular literature through the printing of Huaming baojuan from 1900–1937), in Paul Katz and Vincent Goossaert, eds., Gaibian Zhongguo zongjiao de wushi nian, 1898–1948 改變中國宗教的五十年, 1898–1948 (Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 2015), pp. 169–92. 16. See Chen Quanming, “Pudong Chenhang ‘xuanjuan,’” p. 59. 17. Needless to say, the “gold award” at this contest...

The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Daniel l. Overmyer. Edited by PhilipClart and PaulCrowe. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. Pp. 542. Out of print.

The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Daniel l. Overmyer. Edited by PhilipClart and PaulCrowe. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. Pp. 542. Out of print.

“Sagt an, ihr fremden Lande …” Ostasienreisen: Tagebücher und Fotografien (1888–1901) by Otto Franke (review)

Reviewed by: “Sagt an, ihr fremden Lande …” Ostasienreisen: Tagebücher und Fotografien (1888–1901) by Otto Franke Lydia Gerber (bio) Otto Franke. “Sagt an, ihr fremden Lande …” Ostasienreisen: Tagebücher und Fotografien (1888–1901). Edited by Renata Fu-sheng Franke and Wolfgang Franke. Institut Monumenta Serica / Collecteana Serica. Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 2009. 527 pp. Illustrations, with extensive explanatory footnotes, an index of personal names, and a list of the more than one hundred photographs included in this volume. Hardcover € 80,00, isbn 978-3-8050-0562-3. Otto Franke (1863–1946) was one of the foremost representatives of the field of Chinese studies in Germany. From 1910 to 1923, he held the first chair of sinology in the newly founded Colonial Institute in Hamburg (later Hamburg University), and in this position, he defined for future generations the parameters of one of the leading Chinese studies programs in Germany. He expected rigorous study of both the spoken language and classical Chinese. In 1923, Franke transferred to Berlin University, where he taught until his retirement in 1931 at age sixty-eight. His numerous publications spanned the field of Chinese studies, incorporating research of the Confucian classics, namely the Chunqiu; investigations of economic and geographical topics; local history with a focus on the relations between Manchus, Han, and Mongols in Manchuria; and a discussion of contemporary political changes in China. His five-volume Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches is beyond a doubt his most remarkable accomplishment. In this seminal work, Franke abandoned commonly held Western notions of the Chinese past as unchanging and instead presented Chinese history within a traditional German historiographic framework of political and military history. It has recently been reprinted by deGryuter.1 Among the next generation of eminent sinologists mentored by Otto Franke was his son Wolfgang (1912–2007), who edited this volume in collaboration with his daughter Renata Fu-sheng Franke. Apart from his contributions to the field of Chinese studies, Otto Franke has also been noted for his crucial role in creating the framework for the German-Chinese College in the German Lease Jiaozhou (Kiautschou) in 1908, in collaboration with Zhang Zhidong.2 The texts and photographs in the volume at hand predate Franke’s eventual fame and were written at a time when Franke served as a translator for the German Consular Service in various posts in China. The main body of this monograph (pt. 2, pp. 33–394) consists of meticulously transcribed travel diaries, which Wolfgang and Renata Franke had fortuitously discovered among Otto Franke’s effects. Beginning with Franke’s travels to his post as a translator in the German consular service in Beijing in 1888 and ending with a trip to Formosa under Japanese colonial rule in 1901, they cover a decade’s worth of observations of North and East Asia. Included are brief trips to Japan (1894) and Korea (1899), several journeys within China from his postings in Beijing and Shanghai, and, most [End Page 587] remarkable, a return trip from Beijing to Berlin. Here he first followed the tracks of two Jesuit missionaries engaged in the negotiations of the Sino-Russian treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, and later traveled through Siberia on horseback and wagon, eventually to use the first tracks of the partly constructed Trans-Siberian railway. Franke’s diary entries for this journey, which lasted from June 12 to October 22, 1896, cover more than a hundred pages of this volume and are testament to Otto Franke’s energy, persistence, and sense of adventure. More important, all these diaries highlight Franke’s powers of observation, which were perhaps unmatched at the time. Having received his PhD in Sanskrit and comparative linguistics (1886) in Göttingen before he began to study Chinese in Berlin, Franke explores Buddhist texts and temples in China (for example, Putuoshan Island, 1891; Tiantaishan, 1893), in Manchuria (Jehol/Chengde, 1890), and later in Mongolia (1896) with an expert’s eye. There are equally detailed observations about the economic situation in the areas he visits, including agriculture, animal herding, the quality of forests and waterways, and the living standards of local populations. He occasionally reports conversations with locals about the impact of political changes on their region. We...

Light a Candle: Encounters and Friendship with China: Festschrift in Honor of Angelo Lazzarotto P.I.M.E. ed. by Roman Malek and Gianni Criveller (review)

Reviewed by: Light a Candle: Encounters and Friendship with China: Festschrift in Honor of Angelo Lazzarotto P.I.M.E. ed. by Roman Malek and Gianni Criveller Jeremy Clarke SJ (bio) Roman Malek and Gianni Criveller, editors. Light a Candle: Encounters and Friendship with China: Festschrift in Honor of Angelo Lazzarotto P.I.M.E. Sankt Agustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2010. vii + 564 pp. Hardcover €60.00, isbn 978-3-8050-0563-0. While this impressive book cannot be understood outside its church context, just like the light of a candle, its impact extends beyond this ambit. To those involved [End Page 305] in the study of Christianity in China in general, not only does Angelo Lazzarotto (of the Pontifical Institute of Milan) need no introduction but also the fact that a festschrift has been written for him is no surprise either. In some ways, a reader can wonder why it has not happened before. Thankfully, as the result of conversations at a church history conference in Hong Kong in 2007, such a work has now seen the light. Lazzarotto has been a priest and scholar for sixty-five years and for many of those years has served the church in China, either through his academic work at the Holy Spirit Study Centre of Hong Kong (of which he was a founding member), or in Europe, as a promoter of greater appreciation of China and its church situation. Much of this work occurred as a result of his various responsibilities to his missionary institute (for twelve years he was on its international leadership committee) and to the church more broadly, as the rector of a large college in Rome, and as an appointee of the Italian Bishops’ Conference as their expert on Asia. These positions enabled Lazzarotto to sponsor projects, organize conferences, and animate younger academics (both secular and confessional). One can only imagine how much more Lazzarotto could have done were he not involved in administration. Nevertheless, there is no evidence of a reduced productivity during his work, as shown by the bibliography compiled by Gianni Criveller, of the same religious institute (and coeditor with Roman Malek, a Society of the Divine Word priest and academic). Between 1950 and 2010, Lazzarotto wrote articles and book chapters as well as gave interviews in journals and newspapers throughout the world. He consistently encouraged others to reflect upon the realities of China’s Christian past, whether from a missiological, sociological, historical, or historiographical point of view. At all times, Lazzarotto’s encouragement was inspiring and beneficial. For the purposes of this review, an important question remains: Can a festchrift about such varied activities, which was deliberately designed as a celebration of one priest’s contributions, count as an academic work? In the main the answer is mixed: yes, maybe not, and does it matter? That is, while most of the articles are indeed examples of well-grounded and fascinating research, some are not, but then that’s likely because those pieces are either true instances of homage or personal reflections. Specialist readers who wish to know about aspects of Chinese Catholic Christian history or its present reality will not be disappointed by the offerings here, while the general reader has a wide range of articles and items from which to choose. An impressive aspect is the compilation’s breadth, in terms of both the years covered and the disciplinary fields of the authors. The contributing scholars (who all had met and worked with Lazzarotto) likewise come from all quarters of the globe. The articles appear in their original English, in translation, or in Chinese. [End Page 306] The book is structured into five parts: articles on traditional China, work on archival material about the history of Christianity in China, considerations of the place of the Catholic Church within modern China, two articles from a Hong Kong perspective (important, given Lazzarotto’s long involvement there), and reflections on more contemporary themes. Thus, one can find a survey and bibliography of monastic literature in China (written by Matteo Nicolini-Zani), a piece about the quest for the real Cathay (written by Paolo de Troia), an examination of the attempts to introduce Aristotelian thought to...

Ritendiskussionen am Hof der nördlichen Song-Dynastie (1034–1093): Zwischen Ritengelehrsamkeit, Machtkampf und intellektuellen Bewegungen (review)

Reviewed by: Ritendiskussionen am Hof der nördlichen Song-Dynastie (1034–1093): Zwischen Ritengelehrsamkeit, Machtkampf und intellektuellen Bewegungen Martin Hofmann (bio) Christian Meyer. Ritendiskussionen am Hof der nördlichen Song-Dynastie (1034–1093): Zwischen Ritengelehrsamkeit, Machtkampf und intellektuellen Bewegungen. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, vol. 58. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2008. 646 pp. Hardcover €65.00, ISBN 978-3-8050-0551-7. This monograph is a multifaceted and in-depth study of the debates on ritual practices at the Chinese court between 1034 and 1093. This period is primarily known for its lively discussions on political reforms initiated by Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi, the development of Neo-Confucian philosophy, the growing importance of the examination system, and the rise of the literati. Yet, as Meyer rightly claims (pp. 28–29), the ritual debates (Ritendiskussionen) of that time, their relation to social and political issues, and their place in the reflections of prominent Neo-Confucian thinkers have not received much attention. Meyer splits his exhaustive study into four main parts and a summary of results. The first part considers the meaning of the term li (rites, ritual, propriety) and, primarily drawing on the findings of the German sinologist Werner Eich-horn, sketches out the system of imperial court rituals of the Song dynasty. This section can be read as a general introduction to the subject of li from antiquity through the Song period, yet at times one wishes for more clarity with regard to the relevance of particular details to the overall argument of this study. In the second part, Meyer turns to the core topic of his book, the Northern Song debates on the court rituals. He singles out four major issues: the debate on the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth, including the discussion on the Bright Hall (mingtang); the debate on ritual music; the debate on the veneration of Prince Pu; and the debate on the mourning ritual for the deceased chancellor Sima Guang. The sources on these controversies are scattered and fragmentary, and so one of Meyer’s major achievements is having meticulously compiled the available materials and offering careful translations and detailed paraphrases. In this way, this section offers an informative overview of the particular minutiae considered in these debates — from the color of the curtains to the sound of the bells. Moreover, the section effectively demonstrates that arguments and eventually decisions were often subject to a large array of conflicting considerations, from exegesis of the Confucian classics, through the interpretation of omens, to the pragmatic concerns of economy and power struggles. Despite the strengths of this section, the author simply lists a litany of proposals and decrees in chronological order without providing much analytical context, thereby running the risk of overburdening the reader. Particularly with respect to the exhaustive debates on the Heaven and Earth sacrifices and on ritual music, the short introductions to the key points of contention hardly suffice to guide the reader through the section’s extensive account of the deliberations. [End Page 218] In the attempt to analyze and contextualize the four debates, the third part begins with a description of what Meyer terms the “ritual identity of the shidafu”1 (scholar-officials) (p. 306). This section no longer focuses on court rituals but explains what implications li had, in a broader sense, for the self-perception of the shidafu during the Northern Song. The argument claims that engaging in discourses on li reassured the participants of their social and political relevance and fostered cohesion among them. Following a brief introduction to the institutional framework of the debates at the Song court, Meyer returns to his core subject, the court rituals, and analyzes the roles of different protagonists such as the emperor, chancellors and ministers, censors, court officials, and external experts. Shifting the focus once more, Meyer then turns to some interesting reflections on the applicability of the Habermasian notion of public sphere to the Chinese context. He thereby addresses the contentious question of whether China has, or ever had, such a public sphere. Meyer convincingly concludes that neither Habermas’ concept of representative public sphere nor that of bourgeois public sphere is well suited to describe Northern Song society. Based on...

The People and The Tao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Daniel L. Overmyer. Edited by Philip Clart and Paul Crowe. (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, vol. LX) pp. 542. Sankt Augustin, Monumenta Serica Institute, Nettetal, Steyer Verlag, 2009.

The People and The Tao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Daniel L. Overmyer. Edited by Philip Clart and Paul Crowe. (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, vol. LX) pp. 542. Sankt Augustin, Monumenta Serica Institute, Nettetal, Steyer Verlag, 2009.

Venturing into Magnum Cathay, 17th Century Polish Jesuits in China: Michał Boym (1612–1659), Jan Mikołaj Smogulecki (1610–1656), and Andrzej Rudomina (1596–1633)

The article focuses on the report of the International Workshop on “17th Century Polish Jesuits in China: Michal Boym, Jan Mikolaj Smogulecki, and Andrzej Rudomina” held at the University School of Philosophy and Education in Poland organized by the Monumenta Serica Institute (Sinological Institute for Chinese Studies). The author focuses on the Chinese philosophy lecture by Professor Shi Yunli about the influence of Smogulecki on Xue Fengzou, Chinese culture and science and their work on astrology and astronomy.

The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Daniel L. Overmyer ed. by Philip Clart, Paul Crowe (review)

Book Reviews 85 a son dares to be skeptical about the prospect of his mother’s chastity. Nevertheless, it would be even more fascinating to hear the real woman’s voice instead of one being “channeled” by a male. If none of the author’s many female informants could provide information in this regard, their lack of interest in the origin of their ritual certainly warrants a discussion. Despite some disagreements in interpretation and a longing to hear more female voices, this reader finds the book highly recommendable. It deals with an important topic, is presented in a lucid narrative style, and is supported by an efficient background introduction (in terms of both Chinese religious history and Western theories), rich ethnographical information, and sharp analytic insight. Students and scholars in Chinese religion (especially lay Buddhism) as well as in women’s studies will appreciate this work. SHIN-YI CHAO, Rutgers University-Camden The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Daniel L. Overmyer Edited by PHILIP CLART and PAUL CROWE. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series LX. 542 pages. ISBN 978-3-8050-0557-9. €60.00 hardcover. Readers of this journal will need no introduction to the name of Daniel Overmyer. Since the publication of his 1976 classic, Folk Buddhist Religion: Dissenting Sects in late Traditional China, Professor Overmyer has made landmark contributions to the study of sectarianism, spirit writing, and baojuan 寶卷, among very much else. His interests have led him from early Ming scripture to the lived religion of present day Taiwan and northern China, prompting him to pioneer a signature research methodology that pairs texts and observation, the knowledge of the ritual expert with the needs of the faithful. This book is a testament to the impact that one man can make on an entire field of study. Deriving from a conference held in 2002 at the University of British Columbia, it includes sixteen chapters from both established and younger scholars. It begins with two chapters that might have been better presented in reverse order: a thoughtful and detailed introduction by Philip Clart to the themes of the book, followed by a tribute by Randall L. Nadeau to Daniel Overmyer’s many contributions to the study of Chinese religions. The content chapters fall into three sections, the first of which concerns popular sects and religious movements. This section begins with an exploratory attempt by Hubert Seiwert to 86 Journal of Chinese Religions apply the “religious marketplace” (a.k.a., rational choice) model to questions such as why one would choose to affiliate with heterodox sects, often at great personal risk. Although this essay ultimately fails to provide many new answers, the questions it raises are provocative and interesting. Shin-yi Chao’s chapter traces the incorporation of the officially-approved cult of Zhenwu 真武 into sectarian scripture and hagiography. Chao shows how Zhenwu was written into the patriarchal lineage and Eternal Mother eschatology of Ming-dynasty baojuan, a process that evolves into the late Qing image of Zhenwu as a pilgrim on a journey to cultivate the Way. Christian Jochim provides the first of two chapters on the Yiguan Dao, in which Jochim discusses the Yiguan Dao in Taiwan as a particular carrier and interpreter of Confucianism. This chapter is occasionally distracted by the need to argue against a onedimensional dichotomy between elite and popular traditions, but is at its most effective when it uses modern Yiguan Dao texts to demonstrate the systematic syncretism of Confucian exegesis. These ideas pair nicely with Soo Khin Wah’s subsequent chapter outlining in detail the expansion of the missionizing Fayi 發一 branch of Yiguan Dao into Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Philip Clart remains with the topic of texts in his chapter on the “moral economy” of publishing in Taiwan. Here, the “economy” is a literal accounting of merits that are accrued in every stage of the printing and distribution of spirit-written morality treatises (shanshu 善書), and resonates with the religious economy models employed by Seiwert. Jean DeBernardi’s final chapter on the Taishang Laojun 太上老君 temple in Penang 檳城 neatly sums up many of the themes raised in this section. In tracing the revival of...

Richard Wilhelm (1873-1930); Missionar in China und Vermittler chinesischen Geistesguts. Schriftenverzeichnis, Katalog seiner chinesischen Bibliothek, Briefe von Heinrich Hackmann, Briefe von Ku Hung-ming. Mit einem Beitrag von Thomas Zimmer. (Richard Wilhelm: Missionary in China and Transmitter of Chinese Cultural Heritage. Bibliography of his works, Catalogue of his Chinese library, Letters by Heinrich Hackmann, Letters by Ku Hung-ming. Contribution by Thomas

Reviewed by: Richard Wilhelm (1873-1930); Missionar in China und Vermittler chinesischen Geistesguts. Schriftenverzeichnis, Katalog seiner chinesischen Bibliothek, Briefe von Heinrich Hackmann, Briefe von Ku Hung-ming. Mit einem Beitrag von Thomas Zimmer. (Richard Wilhelm: Missionary in China and Transmitter of Chinese Cultural Heritage. Bibliography of his works, Catalogue of his Chinese library, Letters by Heinrich Hackmann, Letters by Ku Hung-ming. Contribution by Thomas Zimmer) Karel L. van der Leeuw (bio) Hartmut Walravens , editor. Richard Wilhelm (1873-1930); Missionar in China und Vermittler chinesischen Geistesguts. Schriftenverzeichnis, Katalog seiner chinesischen Bibliothek, Briefe von Heinrich Hackmann, Briefe von Ku Hung-ming. Mit einem Beitrag von Thomas Zimmer. (Richard Wilhelm: Missionary in China and Transmitter of Chinese Cultural Heritage. Bibliography of his works, Catalogue of his Chinese library, Letters by Heinrich Hackmann, Letters by Ku Hung-ming. Contribution by Thomas Zimmer). Collectanea Serica. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2008. 316 pp. Paperback €45.00 (ca. $59.00), ISBN 978-3-8050-0553-1. A number of Protestant and Catholic missionaries in China, notably James Legge (1815-1897), Séraphin Couvreur (1835-1919), and Richard Wilhelm (1873-1930), made the Chinese Classics available in European languages during the second part of the nineteenth and the first part of the twentieth century. Richard Wilhelm's translations of the Classics in the years 1910-1930 include the Lunyu, the Laozi, the Liezi, the Zhuangzi, the Mengzi, the Yijing, the Lüshi chunqiu, the Liji, and the [End Page 176] Jiayu. He also translated Chinese poetry and prose. For a long time, his translations of the Lüshi chunqiu and the Jiayu remained the only translations of those works into a Western language. Not only are his books still regularly reprinted in Germany, several of his translations have been retranslated into other languages, especially his rendering of the Yijing, which not only was retranslated into English, but from the English version reretranslated into other languages. The present work is not a biography of Richard Wilhelm.1 It is, first, a collection of materials for students of the exploration of Chinese culture by European pioneers or the Christian mission in China. The book starts with a very short biographical note by the editor. What follows is a forty-five-page account of Wilhelm's activities from the period of his return to Germany, in 1920, to his death, in 1930. His diaries and the posthumous portrait by his widow were main sources for this information.2 This account starts a little bit abruptly and pays special attention—apart from his personal circumstances—to Wilhelm's relation to his sponsor Countess Francken-Sierstorpff (she financed his extraordinary professorship in the University of Frankfurt), his wavering between the esoteric circles of Hermann Graf Keyserling and his more scientifically minded colleagues of the University of Franfurt, and his efforts to start a China Institute in Franfurt and to found several journals. The main body of the book is bibliographical. It starts with a hundred-page chronological survey of Wilhelm's own publications and re-editions up to the present. The chronology includes translations of his works and retranslations of his translations. (The editor admits he may have missed some of the retranslations; several of the Dutch titles contain typing errors.) The survey includes facsimiles of the covers of all his book translations of the Chinese Classics, all originally published by Eugen Diederichs Verlag in Düsseldorf. The bibliographical entries are fairly detailed with regard to location, and some of them are supplied with annotations by Salome Wilhelm, his widow. Wilhelm published in a great many journals, daily journals, theological journals, reports from the German mission, and journals on Asia, some well known, such as the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft (Journal of the German Oriental Society). His contributions to journals include translated fragments from Chinese literature, but also articles on Confucianism, Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and specific representatives of Chinese thought. His articles encompass the whole area of traditional Chinese culture and the present situation of the country. This bibliography is followed by a chronological list of 106 articles concerning Wilhelm, his biography, and his work, including obituaries by Carsun Chang, J. J. L. Duyvendak, and P. Pelliot. This list...

The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Daniel L. Overmyer (review)

Reviewed by: The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Daniel L. Overmyer H. Swindall (bio) Philip Clart and Paul Crowe, editors. The People and the Dao: New Studies in Chinese Religions in Honour of Daniel L. Overmyer. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2009. 480 pp. Hardcover €60,00, ISBN 978-3-8050-0557-9. Daniel Overmyer was the son of missionaries in China, where he grew up and developed the interest in late imperial popular sects that became his specialty. He taught at the University of British Columbia for a quarter century, inspiring many students (p. 23), some of whom are contributors to this volume and pay tribute to his inspiration in the opening paragraphs of their articles. Overmyer’s wide-ranging publications on Chinese folk religions were characterized by a depiction of them on their own terms. He rejected European-based models for understanding Chinese popular religious phenomena and foregrounded the religious expression of the common people and not that of the gentry class, as previous scholars had done (pp. 27–28). The studies in this volume are all done in an Overmyerian spirit, deeply increasing international understanding of Chinese popular religion around east Asia from the Ming to the late twentieth century. Part 1, dedicated to popular sects and religious movements, is the most faithful to the volume’s title. The first study, by Hubert Seiwert, interprets the element of rational choice in popular religious movements of the Ming and Qing. These movements were suspicious to the establishment, which passed legislation against them and sometimes actively persecuted them (p. 41). The reason why their memberships continued to expand, Seiwert argues, was the “rational choice theory of religion,” that is, that people believe they gain either “mundane” or “religious” rewards and avoid punishment in the long run by adhering to a particular faith [End Page 416] (p. 43). Numerous small sectarian movements offered salvation at lower cost to the common people than, say, the Buddhist lay communities that were popular with the middle class. Nevertheless, there was a change in the social composition of these sects during the period in question, with more and more members of the middle class joining (pp. 47–51). Seiwert’s main example of such a sect is the Patriarch Luo movement, which was associated with popular rebellions, Maitreya Buddha, millenarianism, and messianic teachings. Patriarch Luo promised his followers prosperity in a coming catastrophe. On a similar note is Shin-yi Chao’s case study on the worship of Zhenwu by popular cults in the Ming and Qing. Zhenwu, the Perfected Warrior, was an orthodox Daoist deity who was popular among Chinese commoners everywhere at that time (p. 63). Incorporating Zhenwu into sectarian belief systems required “rewriting his hagiography in order to create a connection between him and . . . the Eternal Mother,” which was “the product of a collective effort within the sects,” which were often considered heretical (p. 64). These sects believed that the Eternal Mother sent Buddhas and patriarchs down to earth to save mankind, and Zhenwu was appropriated as one of them in the pantheons of many (pp. 67–68). The sects transmitted their teachings via “precious volumes” (baojuan), which promulgated piety and were thought to have magical powers. Zhenwu appeared in one in 1523, along with the Eternal Mother as the central figure (pp. 68–70). Chao analyzes baojuan in which Zhenwu appears in various ways, always as a subordinate to the Eternal Mother, who was the sects’ central deity. Next, Christian Joachim brings Chinese popular religion into the twentieth century with his study of popular Confucianism in sectarian lay groups in postwar Taiwan. He argues that these groups’ interpretations of Confucianism “provide evidence of the pervasive influence of Confucian morality in Chinese popular religion” and that “sectarian lay groups are among the few institutions that still serve as carriers of Confucian teachings in Chinese societies” (p. 83). The main sect that Joachim studies is Yiguan Dao, whose membership grew rapidly in Taiwan after the 1970s, even though it was not legalized until 1987 (p. 88). At this point, many intellectuals interested in preserving Chinese culture began to join and produced writings derived from...

Timespace, Social Space, and the Question of Chinese Culture

Research Article| February 01 2008 Timespace, Social Space, and the Question of Chinese Culture Arif Dirlik Arif Dirlik Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google boundary 2 (2008) 35 (1): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-2007-023 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Arif Dirlik; Timespace, Social Space, and the Question of Chinese Culture. boundary 2 1 February 2008; 35 (1): 1–22. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-2007-023 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll Journalsboundary 2 Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2006 Reprinted by permission of Monumenta Serica Institute.2006 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Articles You do not currently have access to this content.

Forgive Us Our Sins: Confession in Late Ming and Early Qing China ed. by Nicolas Standaert, Ad Dudink (review)

Book Reviews 193 Forgive Us Our Sins: Confession in Late Ming and Early Qing China Edited by NICOLAS STANDAERT & AD DUDINK. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica; Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 2006. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, LV. 268 pages. ISSN 0179-261X; ISBN 978-38050-05401 . €40.00 paperback. This volume should go a long way toward moving our understanding of Christian confession in China during the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries beyond generalities. Forgive Us Our Sins: Confession in Late Ming and Early Qing China, a collection of contributions resulting from an international workshop on “Chinese and Christian Rituality in Late Imperial China,” held in Leuven, Belgium in June of 2004, is made up of an Introduction by the two editors, three articles, and a translation of a confessional manual. The short Introduction places the articles in the context of compilation of the Handbook of Christianity in China: Volume One (635-1800) (Leiden, 2000). According to the editors of the Introduction (who were also the editors of the Handbook), they realized while compiling the Handbook that information is scarce on Christian ritual in China. Rather than wait for a study to be written and cause a considerable delay in publication of the Handbook, the editors chose to fill this gap of knowledge by later continuing efforts. The workshop on ritual which resulted in this volume is a first step in efforts to fill the gap. Eugenio Menegon’s “Deliver Us From Evil: Confession and Salvation in Seventeenthand Eighteenth-Century Chinese Catholicism,” explores in rich descriptive detail and example the sacrament of penance (confession) as taught to and practiced by Chinese Christians. Part One of the article discusses confession as a sacramental ritual. According to Menegon, the Jesuits when introducing Christian beliefs and practices to the Chinese focused on developing a sense of sin and an understanding of the importance of baptism and repentance as rituals to control sin. Early oral explanation gave way in later decades to booklets and fliers outlining the steps of the confession rite: examination of conscience, contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Through words, attitude, and action, the penitent expressed both inward contrition and an outward repentance. Part Two of the article examines how confession was experienced in the social and religious life of Christians. The sacrament was important to all Christians, whatever their social or educational level, for some as a means of moral selfcultivation and for others for protection from evil, cleansing from sin, and assurance of salvation. While Christians in urban areas were able to receive the sacrament of penance several times a year, those in isolated rural areas had to wait for whenever a priest came. Many feared dying without confessing and looked to Mary and indulgences for help in obtaining forgiveness. Menegon stresses that it was important for Chinese Christians that the rites worked; the authority the priests had over them was derived from their power to enact efficacious ritual. Five appendices follow the article proper: (1) a comparison of the Tables of Contents from the two texts on confession, Dizui zhenggui 滌罪正規 and Dizui zhenggui lüe 194 Journal of Chinese Religions 滌罪正規略 by Giuliu Aleni; (2) the Confiteor and Act of Contrition in Chinese; (3) Gaojie siyao 告 解 四 要 [The Four Essentials of Confession] translated into English; (4) the Examination of conscience from Dizui zhenggui lüe 滌罪正規略; (5) a preliminary statistical analysis and tables related to the practice of sacramental confession in China. The scope of the second article, “Buddhist chanhui and Christian Confession in Seventeenth Century China” by Erik Zürcher, is broader than the title suggests. While the main focus is chanhui 懺悔 (“confession of guilt and remorse”) compared to Christian confession, he actually examines self-examination and self-accusation in both the Buddhist and Confucian traditions. Noting that confession of sin is a part of many Buddhist rituals, Zürcher describes the chanhui rituals, in which Buddhas and bodhisattvas are invoked for help in eliminating sin and asked to transfer merit. A crucial difference with Christian confession is that in chanhui, the sins are generalized categories, never specific misdeeds, and the liturgy is a collective ceremony that produces merit shared by the whole group to help lessen karmic guilt. Zürcher briefly mentions Ledgers of...