Seventeenth-Century China Research Articles

Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China (review)

Reviewed by: Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China Rita M. Gross Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China. By Beata Grant. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009. 241 pp. This painstakingly researched study presents the lives and writings of Buddhist women acknowledged by their spiritual teachers and peers to be accomplished Chan masters and genuine lineage holders. As such, it adds to a growing body of literature that is gradually giving us more accurate and complete knowledge about Buddhist women throughout the centuries and in the various forms of Buddhism. Because a lack of women teachers has always been, in my opinion, Buddhism's greatest downfall, a full account of seven women who were recognized as lineage holders and successfully ran convents is very good news indeed. Even better, these women left significant literary works, which means that we can read their own reflections and impressions of the world in which they lived, rather than only what men chose to record about them, as is so often the only material available to those who do scholarship about women and religion. [End Page 154] In a brief preface, the author details her main task. She wants to "present, rather than to re-present or re-create" these women (p. ix), to get as close as possible to the women themselves rather than to create a well-meaning fiction about them. Therefore, she translates extensively from their own writings. These writings themselves reveal the high regard in which these women Chan masters were held. At the time and place in which these women lived, only the most acknowledged Buddhist masters were considered qualified to leave a literary legacy for future generations. Granted, the vast majority of such Buddhist masters were men, but these women did leave behind their own writings, which is rare for the religious literature of almost every time and place. As is often the case with women who write in a highly patriarchal context, these women had internalized the language and norms of male-dominated Chinese Chan Buddhist culture, were considered to be honorary men, and even considered themselves to be honorary men, "or to use the Chinese term, da zhangfu (great gentlemen)" (p. viii). Nevertheless, there is a significant difference, which the book's author points out. In their own narratives, these women are the central characters, rather than in the background or at the margins of narrative, as they would have been in the much more usual accounts written by and about men. In her first chapter, the author sets out the context in which these seven acclaimed women Chan masters lived and wrote. First, the author is careful to point out the difference between the nuns about whom she will write and nuns as portrayed in popular fiction of the day. The nun of fiction was young, beautiful, and in the convent against her will. Grant also is careful to point out that there was also a courtesan culture in seventeenth-century China. In that culture, beautiful, educated, and talented "nuns" did entertain men who visited their "convents." Other factors were also important in allowing the flourishing of the women Chan masters about whom she will write. Times were turbulent, with dynastic changes causing confusion and difficulty. In such times, many were attracted to Buddhism and there was a significant revival of Chan Buddhism. There were many elite, well-educated women who began to participate in the literary culture and spiritual revivals of the times. Some of these women became nuns, entering convents by choice, not by compulsion, though some entered only after losing their husbands. Some of those women then became lineage holders— Chan masters in their own right. These women took their role very seriously and enacted it much as men did. They traveled widely, visiting male teachers and being visited by them. They engaged in fund-raising and ran convents. They named Dharma heirs of their own. And they wrote the same kind of literature that male Chan masters were expected to write. They recorded not only Dharma discourses but life narratives and poetry. In her second introductory chapter, the author discusses how women and nuns were...

The crafting of the 10,000 things: knowledge and technology in seventeenth-century China

last decades of the Ming dynasty, though plagued by chaos and destruction, saw major advances in knowledge and technology. Among the numerous guides and reference books that appeared during this period was a series of texts by Song Yingxing (1587-1666?), a minor local official living in southern China. His kaiwu, the longest and most prominent of these works, documents the extraction and processing of raw materials, and the manufacture of goods essential to everyday life, from pearls and wine to boats, carts, and firearms. In The Crafting of the 10,000 Things Dagmar probes this fascinating text and the legacy of its author to shed new light on the development of scientific thinking in China, the purpose of technical writing, and its role in and effects on Chinese history. Meticulously unfolding the layers of Song's personal and cultural life, Schafer places the Tiangong kaiwu squarely in its original milieu - both practically and theoretically - and thus develops a new understanding of scientific and technological thinking. Even as she vividly sets the Chinese scene, Schafer offers incisive comparisons between seventeenth-century China and Europe. Sinologists and historians of science alike will be engrossed by this book, the first to place Song's writing in a broader context.

CONFRONTING THE PAST: JIN SHENGTAN’S COMMENTARIES ON DU FU’S POEMS

<title/>This study aims to demonstrate a nuanced and complex version of Jin Shengtan’s (1608-61) interpretation of Du Fu’s (712-70) poetry and examine how he maneuvers the self into a dialogue with the hermeneutic past. As a well-known critic in the seventeenth-century China, Jin Shengtan distinguishes himself through his innovative reading strategies (especially application of the fenjie approach) as well as strong attack on a common claim in previous hermeneutics about inexplicable nature of Du Fu’s poems. At the same time, however, the way Jin manifests such creativity often involves a seemingly self-effacing submission to certain canonical rules of reading Du Fu shaped by the earlier hermeneutics. To defend familiar canonical reading rules, Jin risks the very painful consequence of letting his self be engulfed in the past; but at the same time the dissociation of the self through his readiness toward “obedience” to the past, paradoxically, powerfully reinforces the sense of self since in many cases he forces himself to be more creative in order to conform to these rules. Through successes and failures in his confrontation with the past, Jin celebrates a paradoxical self who is connecting and breaking with the past at the same time. Such hermeneutic phenomenon draws our attention to the function of hermeneutic continuity and helps us appreciate the dynamics under the surface of the historically constructed “ahistoricity” of Du Fu.

Introduction and Development of the Screw in Seventeenth-Century China: Theoretical Explanations and Practical Applications by Ferdinand Verbiest

This research note gives a short account of the introduction of the screw into China. It focuses on the transmission of the technological knowledge and practical application of screws by the Jesuits of the China mission in the seventeenth century. The main source used is Terrenz (Johann Schreck) and Wang Zheng’s Yuanxi qiqi tushuo (Record of the Best Illustrations and Descriptions of Extraordinary Devices of the Far West), which in chapter two contains a description in twenty-one sections of the screw as the sixth of the six single machines. This source is significant as Ferdinand Verbiest, who focussed on the practical applications of the screw, copied some parts of the text in his Lingtai yixiang zhi (Treatise on Astronomical Instruments at the Imperial Observatory; 1674) and some of the illustrations in his Yixiang tu (lllustrations of Astronomical Instruments). The research note starts with an analysis of Verbiest’s text on the use of screws, which is linked to illustration 87 (Fig.4) in the Yixiang tu. Other applications of mechanical techniques can be seen in his illustrations 62, 66 (see Fig. 2, 2a, 2b), 67 (Fig. 3) and 88 (Fig. 5), but without any explanations. They were presumably introduced by Verbiest as additional reference material for those interested in the practical use of screws. This is followed by an analyis of Verbiest’s explanations of the use and particular functions of screws as provided in the specific texts dedicated to each of his six new instruments. Finally, the origin of the Yixiang tu prints will be elucidated and the original pictures from the Western sources reproduced.

Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China by Jiang Wu (review)

Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China by Jiang Wu (review)

A Philosophy of Machines and Mechanics in Seventeenth-Century China: Wang Zheng's Characterization and Justification of the Study of Machines and Mechanics in the Qiqi tushuo

A Philosophy of Machines and Mechanics in Seventeenth-Century China: Wang Zheng's Characterization and Justification of the Study of Machines and Mechanics in the Qiqi tushuo

Ways of looking: the creation and social use of urban guidebooks in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China

ABSTRACT:This article explores the intricate relationship between guidebooks and place-making in an early modern Chinese city, Nanjing. Despite all apparent similarity to a modern guidebook, the seventeenth-century guidebookJinling tuyong(Illustrated Odes on Nanjing) offers no information regarding shopping, dining or lodging; instead, it catalogues all the possible experiences of sites in and around the city. Such a concentrated focus on spatial experiences brings to light an important change in the social role of guidebooks in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China. As landscape appreciation developed into an important venue for status performance and social networking, the representation of space became an integral element to the construction of urban communities. In the case ofTuyong, its images even supplied a critical source of cultural continuity for Nanjing-neses during transition between the Ming and Qing empires, a finding that sheds a new light on the links between urban space and empire and serves as a useful entry for cross-cultural comparison.

Telling Chinese History: A Selection of Essays. Frederic E. Wakeman, Jr. , Lea H. Wakeman

Telling Chinese History: A Selection of Essays, by Frederic E. Wakeman, Jr., selected and edited by Lea H. Wakeman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. xx + 453 pp. US$60.00/£35.00 (hardcover), US$24.95/£14.95 (paperback). This book is a collection of articles by the distinguished historian Frederic E. Wakeman (1937-2006) on various aspects of Chinese history. As the articles selected here show, his work is characterized by its attention to theory, its deep interpretations of certain periods of Chinese history, and its emphasis on human details. Wakeman was widely learned in the history not only of but of other countries as well, and his comparative observations added to and deepened his interpretations. This book was compiled after Wakeman' s death by his wife Lea. It consists of five parts, representing emphases in Wakeman's work. These are 1) in the context of world history; 2) the Ming-Qing period; 3) Shanghai in the Republic period; 4) the historiography of Chinese history; and 5) modernity and the state. The themes of the earlier parts tend to relate to earlier periods. The chapters are from various sources, ranging from scholarly journals like Journal of Asian Studies to chapters in well-known books and to book reviews. In addition, there is an interpretative introduction to Wakeman's work in general, and to this book in particular, by S. N. Eisenstadt, himself a distinguished historian of China. Major themes taken up in the book include early relations between the West and China, ideology, bureaucracy and change. The arguments presented are not all consistent throughout the book, but that is defensible, as this is a republication of particular major articles. Wakeman's writing style is always interesting, and I found this book at times quite difficult to put down. For example, the chapter entitled Romantics, Stoics and Martyrs in Seventeenth-Century China includes many personal, even intimate, details about historical figures and links their experiences to the broad sweep of the history that saw the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Qing. Although Wakeman certainly had interests in the big picture of Chinese history, the common themes that recur throughout this book are comparatively few. One is the power of the state linked with the issue of essential change. One chapter is entitled Models of Historical Change: The Chinese State and Society 1839-1989 and was originally published in 1991. Wakeman discusses four models of the state, beginning with Karl Wittfogel's oriental despotism, and analyzes the development of police power in China. His conclusion is that the state has increased its power over society, with the People's Republic having the largest extent of power, and takes this as indicative of a gathering momentum of change in China. …

Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth‐Century China – By Jiang Wu

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 35, Issue 2 p. 146-146 Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China – By Jiang Wu Jimmy Yu, Jimmy Yu Florida State UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Jimmy Yu, Jimmy Yu Florida State UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 June 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-0922.2009.01352_10.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume35, Issue2June 2009Pages 146-146 RelatedInformation

Landscapes clear and radiant: the art of Wang Hui (1632-1717)

Wang Hui, the most celebrated painter of late seventeenth-century China, played a key role both in reinvigorating past traditions of landscape painting and in establishing the stylistic foundations for the imperially sponsored art of the Qing court. An artist of protean talent and immense ambition, Wang developed an all-embracing synthesis of historical landscape styles that constituted one of the greatest artistic innovations of late imperial China. This comprehensive study of the painter's career, the first published in English, features essays examining his life and achievements as well as his masterwork, the monumental scroll depicting the Kangxi emperor's Southern Inspection Tour. Twenty-seven of Wang Hui's paintings, drawn from the Metropolitan Museum and from museums in Beijing, Taipei, Shanghai, and Tokyo, are supplemented by a wealth of images ranging from ancient Chinese paintings to works by Wang's contemporaries.

Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China by Jiang Wu (review)

Reviewed by: Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China by Jiang Wu Jennifer Eichman Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China Jiang Wu. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. xix, 457 pages. ISBN 9780195333572. US$74.00, £41.00, hardcover. Jennifer Eichman Seton Hall University Footnotes 1. Chün-fang Yü, “Ming Buddhism,” in Cambridge History of China, ed. F.W. Mote and D. Twitchett, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 8, Part II, p. 948. © 2010 Society for the Study of Chinese Religions

Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China by Beata Grant (review)

Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China by Beata Grant (review)

Enlightenment in dispute: the reinvention of Chan Buddhism in seventeenth-century China

Conventions and Explanatory Notes Chronology Introduction Part I: The Context of Seventeenth-Century China 1. Reenvisioning Buddhism in the Late Ming 2. The Literati and Chan Buddhism 3. The Rise of Chan Buddhism Part II: The Principle of Chan 4. Clashes among Enlightened Minds 5. The Divergence of Interpretation 6. The Yongzheng Emperor and Imperial Intervention Part III: Lineage Matters 7. The Debate about Tianhuang Daowu and Tianwang Daowu in the Late Ming 8. The Lawsuit about Feiyin Tongrong's Wudeng yantong in the Early Qing 9. The Aftermath Part IV: Critical Analysis 10. Explaining the Rise and Fall of Chan Buddhism 11. The Pattern of Buddhist Revival in the Past Concluding Remarks Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 Glossary Abbreviations of Dictionaries and Collections Notes Bibliography Index

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...

The Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China: "My Service in the Army", by Dzengšeo

The Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China: "My Service in the Army", by Dzengšeo

The Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China: "My Service in the Army" (review)

The Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China: "My Service in the Army" (review)

The Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China

The Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China

Nourishing Life, Cultivation and Material Culture in the Late Ming: Some Thoughts on Zunsheng bajian (Eight Discourses on Respecting Life, 1591)

AbstractThis article sets out to explore the ideas and practices of yangsheng (nourishing life or health preservation) in the late Ming, i.e. late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century China. Yangsheng had long played a key role in the traditions of Chinese medicine, religions and court societies. Initially restricted to certain social classes and milieux, knowledge of yangsheng began to spread much more widely from the Song dynasty (960–1279) onwards, mostly owing to rapid social and economic change. In this context, the theories and practices of yangsheng attracted the attention and curiosity of many scholars. The popularisation of yangsheng peaked in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Numerous literary works, essay collections and household encyclopaedias for everyday use have passages and sections on yangsheng. They describe various ideas and techniques of yangsheng by means of regulating the body in daily life, involving sleeping, exercising, washing, eating, drinking, etc. Through a survey of the most famous late Ming work on yangsheng, Zunsheng bajian (1591), this article attempts to highlight how yangsheng came to dominate the scholarly lifestyle. It will give a clear picture of the ideas of a late Ming literatus on prolonging life and replenishing the body, while showing how these practices were inspired by the flourishing material culture of the late Ming as a whole.

The Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China: “My Service in the Army,” by Dzengšeo. Translated and edited by Nicola Di Cosmo. London: Routledge, 2006. x, 140 pp. $140.00 (cloth).

The Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China: “My Service in the Army,” by Dzengšeo. Translated and edited by Nicola Di Cosmo. London: Routledge, 2006. x, 140 pp. $140.00 (cloth).

The Literary Circulation of Actors in Seventeenth-Century China

Actors were luxury goods traded among the elite in late Ming and early Qing China. Not only individual actors but entire troupes were sold, bestowed upon friends, and bequeathed upon relatives. Their circulation served to create and maintain networks of social exchange, in much the same manner as did gifts of fine ceramic ware, calligraphic scrolls, and ancient bronzes. The cultural prestige of the actor as a luxury good, in turn, was predicated on a highly refined discourse of connoisseurship. For example, the theater aficionado Pan Zhiheng's (1556–1622) disquisitions on the art of acting were collected in a volume entitledChongding xinshang pian(Recompiled texts on connoisseurship), published between 1600 and 1640 (Clunas 1991, 36). In this essay, I discuss the social significance of the connoisseurship of the actor, examining the exchange of actors and poems among a rarefied stratum of the mid-seventeenth-century elite.