Asian Traditions Research Articles

기독교와 동양전통 사이: 오뢰천, 조자신 사상 중 인간 본성론과 사회실천성 연구

본 연구는 중국의 기독사상가 오뢰천, 조자신의 기독사상에 대해 서구근대적사유와 동양전통사 유간 교섭과 혼종이라는 문제의식을 중심으로 접근한 연구이다. 오뢰천(吳雷川)과 조자신(赵紫宸)의 현실인식이 어떻게 기독교와 맞닿아 철학적 문제의식으로 뿌리내렸는지 그들의 “인간본성론”과 “사회적 실천성”을 중심으로 분석하였다. 중국근현대 사상에서 독특한 위치를 차지하고 있는 오뢰천과 조자신사상연구는 상호문화철학적 관점을 도입하여 진행하였는데, 오뢰천은 중용의 천명론을 통해 자신의 인간본성론을 전개하였고, 조자신은 기독교의 신인(神⼈)관계, 예수 강림, 부활 사건과 효(孝)라는 중국 전통개념을 유비하면서 분석하였다. 그들의 인간 본성론에 대한 탐구는 사회에서 인간은 어떤 방식으로 삶을 개척해야 하는가라는 사회실천론과 연결된다. 인간본성론을 사회실천론으로 연결하는 사유형태는 중국전통철학의 전개에서 자주 발견되는 사유방식이었다. 이를 통해 20세기 중후반 중국사상계에서는 서구 기독교사상의 전파 역시 중국전통문화 가치를 공고화시키는 결과를 낳게 되었다는 점이 드러난다.

Календарный 12-летний животный цикл в фольклоре калмыков и других народов Азии

Introduction. The work deals with folklore stories about the 12-year animal calendar cycle once adopted by Kalmyks and other peoples of Asia, such as Mongols, Buryats, Altaians, Tuvans, etc. Goals. The paper focuses on the shaping of the 12-year-old animal cycle and roles played by traditional folklore animal characters in its formation. The paper defines impacts certain supreme characters made on the establishment of such calendar, the one for Mongols being the Buddha himself. Another distinctive feature of narratives about animals’ participation in the completion of the calendar is that special attention be paid to the camel, whose inclusion therein was hampered by the mouse’s trick. The plot about relations between camel (sometimes deer) and mouse was borrowed even by nations that do not use a 12-year-old animal calendar, and no Asian folklore tradition contains any story about relations between other calendar-included animals. Conclusions. The study concludes the narrative about emergence of a 12-year-old animal cycle is an etiological myth developed from plots depicting controversy between the animals after the calendar was adopted by Mongols in the early 13th century. Folklore materials in the form of other calendar-related plots partially included in the animal epic indicate arrivals of the calendar and writing are somewhat temporally correlated, and delineate potential historical ties between the animal calendar and divination practices.

Yoga, Meditation, and Neoliberal Penality: Compliance or Resistance?

In this essay, I argue that a normative commitment to dismantling mass incarceration requires us to examine the effects of self-care and self-disciplinary practices within carceral spaces. I take up the specific case of the South Asian traditions of yoga and meditation. Many critics have suggested that their practices can produce pacifying, politically neutering effects through their emphases on non-judgment and non-reaction. They can teach acceptance of an unjust, immiserating reality, seen as the result of individual responsibility or pathology, rather than of structural factors. But others insist that yogic and meditative traditions can be interpreted to generate attention and resistance to social injustice. I explore the conditions under which the therapeutic, rehabilitative forms of self-discipline taught by these traditions reproduce neoliberal penality, encouraging the targets of mass incarceration to accept their own responsibility for structurally unjust outcomes. I also explore conditions under which they may undermine such penal logic by teaching attention and resistance to systemic inequity. Ultimately, the political meaning and effects of these practices are ambiguous: they can render the carceral apparatus more habitable and acceptable, or ensure that the tools of neoliberal penality are turned against the system itself.

Central Asian Ikats in Written Islamic Sources of the 10th—12th Centuries (in the Framework of Study of Textile Collections of the MAE RAS)

Known today under a general literary name of ikat, Western Central Asian textiles of the category represent a specific branch of the craft. One of its largest and the richest collections belongs to the MAE RAS. Traced as commodity of Moscow — Bukhara commerce since the 16th century, and a point of collecting and ethnographic and art history studies since mid‑19th century, the type still needs historical and terminological investigation. Suggested article considers three hardly explored in this direction sources. One — Central Asian ikats in written Islamic sources — is based on R. B. Serjeant work Islamic Textiles. Materials for a History up to the Mongol Conquest. According to R. B. Serjeant the earliest mentioning of Herat and Merv ‘asb “striped stuffs” corresponds to the time of ‘Abd al‑Malik (r. 65—86 / 685—705). Matching by date is the close to the Ferghana Valley ikat finding from the supposedly Soghdian Dulan archaeological site (Qinghai province, Tibet). The third, terminological issue of the article traces penetration of Persian / Tajik ikat terms into the Russian textile vocabulary: the earliest fixed case refers to 1551—1605, assuming still earlier time of adaptation of the term. No matter how few, suggested data adds important information on the history of the Western Central Asian ikat tradition.

Blending Martial Arts and Yoga for Health: From the Last Samurai to the First Odaka Yoga Warrior.

This paper introduces the case study of Odaka Yoga, an innovative style of postural yoga blended with martial arts elements which emphasizes the importance of practitioners' health and processes of self-transformation as pivotal to the school's ethos. More specifically, the paper explores how Odaka Yoga's philosophical backdrops and practical repertoire, composed by a mixture of “exotic” resources such as Bushido, zen, yoga, and a constant reference to the ocean waves and biomechanics, constitute a very specific vision of health at the intersection of Western science and esoteric knowledge. Theoretically, the paper borrows from Jennings' theory of martial creation and enriches it with some of the central analytical tools proposed by theorists such as Bourdieu and Foucault. Methodologically, it relies on a multimodal approach including discursive analysis of the school's promotional materials, interviews with the founders and other key teachers, and observant participation of practitioners' apprenticeship processes. More Specifically, this paper discusses the birth of Odaka Yoga as occurring at the intersection of Asian martial arts and yoga, as well as the founders' biographical trajectories from the world of competitive martial arts and fitness, to yoga; it then turns to an examination of Odaka Yoga's conception of health as a mixture of the Western biomedical model and the subtle body model of Asian traditions such as yoga and martial arts. It argues that the conception of health promoted by this school gives rise to the Odaka Yoga Warrior, the ideal-typical practitioner whose body is simultaneously exposed to the medical gaze and its imperatives of control, knowledge, and manipulation; while it also deifies it, as it is animated by the elusive flows of energy (qi or prana) that prolonged practice aims to master. The paper concludes with a reflection on hybrid conceptions of health and the ubiquitous role of health discourses and narratives across sociocultural domains.

Mahabarata

Mahabarata

Alter(native) Magic: Race and the Other in Beninese Witchcraft

ABSTRACT In Benin, as in many postcolonial settings, views of foreign ‘Others’ figure prominently in local discourses about identity and morality. Most of these characterisations centre on whites or other foreigners, known as Yovó in the Fon language of Southern Benin. While Yovós are stereotypically and disapprovingly believed to hold a distaste for African food and culture, they are praised for their production of modern technology, such as airplanes, cell phones, and the internet. These technological innovations are described by Beninese people as fantastic, even magical, and are referred to as ‘White people’s witchcraft’ (Yovó àzě), in contrast to malevolent African occult powers. The racial discourse of good and evil draws on essentialised notions of whites’ and Africans’ knowledge and power, suggesting the maintenance of colonial-era, hegemonic identities. However, formerly colonised people’s interest in foreign customs can demonstrate ambivalence, and Beninese express both pride and criticism for indigenous supernatural powers, while voicing critiques of foreign knowledge systems. Furthermore, entanglements with a powerful Other can reflect local agency, as in Beninese people’s appropriation of European and Asian spiritual traditions in order to co-opt the Other’s power – a power that enterprising healers re-interpret as foreign witchcraft to add to their supernatural arsenals. In these examples, religious borrowings are not always externally imposed examples of cultural imperialism, but rather can be the will of local actors incorporating elements from abroad into conceptualisations of themselves.

TÜRK MİMARİ SÜSLEME SANATINDA NATÜRALİST KUŞLAR

Türk mimari süsleme sanatında kuş figürünü incelemeden önce, kuş sembolizmi ve mitolojideki yeri üzerinde durulmuştur. Orta Asya geleneklerinde hayvan üslubu, totemizm; kuş tasvirlerinin çıkış noktası olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Bozkır hayvan kültü, Selçukluların göçebe ruhuna hitap eder. Uygurlarda, Göktürklerde, Altaylarda yırtıcı kuşlar, adaleti simgelemektedir. Kartal, mitolojide hükümdarlığı ifade etmektedir. Şamanizm ile ilişkilendirerek kuşların koruyuculuğuna inanılmaktadır. Orta Asya’da ki Türk toplulukları; Gök Tanrı inancı ile bağlı olarak, kuşu Tanrının temsilcisi olarak kabul etmişlerdir. Türk toplumunda kuş figürü genel olarak iyilik, bereket, güç, kahramanlık sembolü olarak, Orta Asya Türklerinden günümüze ulaşan pek çok tasvirde uygulanmıştır. Bozkır topraklarında yaşayan Türkler dini inanışları, yaşadıkları coğrafyanın etkisi ile önemli eserler sergilemişlerdir. Türk Sanatında kuş figürü saray, kale, medrese, mezar, türbe ve cami gibi yapıtlarda alçı, seramik, taş, çini ve ahşap üzerine işlenmiştir.

Mwea Irrigation Scheme in Kenya

History embraces the story of the Supreme Being, humanity, and the Universe. Human history is a silent realm that encompasses creation, fall, concupiscence, and the need for the prophetic voice towards human redemption. This article seeks to examine the Mwea Irrigation Scheme and explore the oppressive situation that was experienced by its rice farmers; and eventually assess the need for prophetic voice as the critical pillar and/or the key tool that ought to have stood as the weapon of addressing the vice. To this end, this article will methodologically draw from the history of Mwea Irrigation Scheme, unfold the origin and growth, the oppression of the rice farmers, and the need for the prophetic voice as the aforesaid tool of empowerment, as it seeks to build on a Kenyan version of liberation and/or political theology. Strictly therefore, the problem that this article wrestles with is the unearthing of the above-mentioned oppression of the Mwea rice farmers and the need for redemptive prophetic voice that is geared towards the ultimate goal, the liberation of the socio-economically oppressed rice farmers. Arguably, working out a liberation theology that addresses the Mwea case compares well with the Asian theologies such as the Burakumin theology for the marginalised and minority peoples of Asia whose reflection from the prophetic role of religion gives solace to their plight. It also compares with the Waterbuffalo theology, as propounded by Kosuko Koyama. In Waterbuffalo theology, a Japanese theologian, Kosuko Koyama, attempts to translate the Christian faith into the Asian tradition in Thailand, a phenomenon where farmers spend substantial amount of time in their respective rice fields without any substantial and/or decent returns. Apart from a theo-historical design, the methodology in this presentation includes: interview schedules, literature review of relevant and existing literature, and the reliance on the modus operandi that is well captured by the biblical Prophet Amos.

The Future and Challenges of Applying Innovative Technologies in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry in Asia

Technological innovation is a major actor in the tourism and hospitality industry over the past few decades. Technology shrinks costs by replacing expensive human labor with innovative labor of technology itself. Innovative technology use boosts operational efficiency and improves customer services and experiences. This chapter aims to underpin the future challenges of using new technological innovations in Asia’s tourism and hospitality industry by answering the following questions: Will growing technological innovation flourish tourism and hospitality business in Asia? Can technology knit the Asian region with the rest of the world into a one-touch digital electronic market place? Would the use of new technology in the Asian tourism industry transmit world culture and infiltrate the conservative Asian ideas and tradition by eroding previous generations’ values? Can reduced travel costs harm Asian travel business by shifting the customers into Europe? What would be the impact of using increased technological innovation in tourism on the environment? These questions’ answers will show whether applying innovation in tourism changes the game rules and saturate the market.

INTRODUCTION: HISTORY FROM BETWEEN AND THE GLOBAL CIRCULATIONS OF THE PAST IN ASIA AND EUROPE, 1600–1950

AbstractThis article argues for a ‘history from between’ as the best lens through which to understand the construction of historical knowledge between East Asia and Europe. ‘Between’ refers to the space framed by East Asia and Europe, but also to the global circulations of ideas in that space, and to the subjective feeling of embeddedness in larger-than-local contexts that being in such a space makes possible. Our contention is that the outcomes of such entanglements are not merely reactive forms of knowledge, of the kind implied by older studies of translation and reception in global intellectual history. Instead they are themselves ‘co-productions’: they are the shared and mutually interactive inputs to enduring modes of uses of the past, across both East Asian and European traditions. Taking seriously the possibility that interpretations of the past were not transferred, but rather were co-produced between East Asia and Europe, we reconstruct the braided histories of historical narratives that continue to shape constructions of identity throughout Eurasia.

IN DIALOGUE WITH CLASSICAL INDIAN TRADITIONS: ENCOUNTER, TRANSFORMATION AND INTERPRETATION. Edited by BrianBlack and ChakravarthiRam‐Prasad. Dialogues in South Asian Traditions: Religion, Philosophy, Literature and History, 3. London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. Pp. xiv + 281. $140.00.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 46, Issue 3 p. 433-434 Short Reviews of Recent Publications: South Asia IN DIALOGUE WITH CLASSICAL INDIAN TRADITIONS: ENCOUNTER, TRANSFORMATION AND INTERPRETATION. Edited by Black, Brian and Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi. Dialogues in South Asian Traditions: Religion, Philosophy, Literature and History, 3. London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. Pp. xiv + 281. $140.00. First published: 11 November 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.14698Read 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 onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume46, Issue3Special Issue: Religion and SexualitySeptember 2020Pages 433-434 RelatedInformation

The Asian Paradigm in Hospitality and Tourism

The emergence of Asian countries, powered by economic growth, has set the stage for Asia’s tourist destinations and hospitality companies to stand out in the global sphere. This study contemplates the shifting center of modern hospitality and tourism gravity toward Asia by implementing the three pillars of capital theory: economic, cultural, and social. The concept of the Asian paradigm was revisited to demonstrate the unique service provision and care for guests that forms the basis for Asian hospitality and tourism. This study offers perspectives about how Asian tradition and evolving Asian identities influence the leisure industry and create competitive advantage. The cycle of economic, cultural, and social capital that drives the Asian paradigm can provide implications for both hospitality practitioners and policymakers.

Path‐Dependent Public Servants: Comparing the Influence of Traditions on Administrative Behavior in Developing Asia

AbstractThis article compares the motivations and attitudes of public servants in Kazakhstan (n = 627) and Pakistan (n = 207) by analyzing quantitative and qualitative survey data. A comparison of these two developing Asian countries with distinct administrative traditions and path dependencies contributes to the public administration literature on developing countries. This literature often treats public servants in developing countries as a single category, with little contextualization of findings. This study finds that despite an overlap in Islamic societal values, public servants’ motivations and attitudes differ: lower prosocial proclivity and more aspiration for money in Kazakhstan may be partly explained by the Soviet administrative tradition, while prosocial propensity and lower concern with pay in Pakistan may be attributed to the South Asian tradition. The authors conclude that historical legacies help explain cross‐country differences in employee motivation and attitudes. The findings also improve our knowledge about the potential of reforms within the examined conditions.

Work-Related Stress and Coping Strategies: A Systematic Literature Review

While the issue of work-related stress has gained increasing attention as an important construct in Western literature, coping strategies concurrently have never been comprehensively reviewed in Asian tradition. The purposes of this review are to investigate work-related stressors across occupations and coping strategies used by these various occupations in reduction the stressful environment. The reviewed articles were obtained from three main databases; Web of Science, Scopus and Medline. Keywords including “stress”, “work-related stress”, “work stress”, “occupational stress”, coping strategies”, “coping skills”, “coping”, and “coping mechanisms” were resulted from 14 articles that met the specified criteria. Main stressors identified in this review including workload, role ambiguity, responsibility, lack of job control, poor physical environment, conflict, interpersonal relationship and management. While, common coping strategies were utilized by employees were problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping and coping resources. The present evidence is limited, and numerous research is needed on stress and coping strategies in the future to broaden its impact on work and health-related outcomes.

Adopting “East Asian” cultures and themes in hotel branding: a study of the M. Mandarin

ABSTRACT The M. Mandarin hotel has capitalised on a “East Asian” theme to differentiate itself in the Singapore hotel scene. It has employed “East Asian-ness” in its service-scape, through its supporting product, facilitating product, information, implicit and explicit services. The hotel has also adopted induction processes by which staff are orientated into its “East Asian” organisational culture. This case-study allows readers and students to assess to what extent an Asian hotel should exemplify its Asian roots and traditions, that would be most beneficial to the establishment.

영미 현대시와 동아시아 전통

영미 현대시와 동아시아 전통

Ritual tooth ablation and the Austronesian expansion: Evidence from eastern Indonesia and the Pacific Islands

Ritual tooth ablation, the intentional removal of teeth, is a highly visible form of body modification that can signal group identity and mark certain life events, such as marriage. The widespread occurrence of the practice in Asia appears to have begun in the Neolithic period and in some areas, such as Taiwan, continued until the ethnographic present. We aim to use a biocultural approach to investigate the significance of tooth ablation in Indonesia and Vanuatu during the maritime expansion of Austronesian-speaking groups ca. 3500–2000 years ago. Here we assess the presence and patterns of tooth ablation in four prehistoric skeletal assemblages from eastern Indonesia (Pain Haka, Melolo, Lewoleba and Liang Bua) and one from Vanuatu (Uripiv). Despite the relatively small sample sizes, it was found that individuals from all the sites displayed tooth ablation. The Indonesian populations had ablation patterns that involved the maxillary lateral incisors and canines and the individuals from Uripiv had the central maxillary incisors removed. We suggest that the distribution of tooth ablation in eastern Indonesia provides strong evidence that this practice was an important ritual process associated with the early expansion of Austronesian-speaking populations in the region. The identification of tooth ablation at the site of Uripiv is the earliest example of the practice in the Pacific Islands and was either a Southeast Asian tradition brought by Austronesian settlers, was introduced later from Near Oceania, or was an indigenous development in Vanuatu. A similar pattern of tooth ablation (the removal of central maxillary incisors) has been documented in ethnographic reports of northern Vanuatu tribes. We argue that the practice could possibly be a ritual passed through the generations since the early settlement of Vanuatu.

Present Peace, Future Freedom

Euro-North American Buddhism consists of a diversity of transplanted Asian traditions whose cultural adaptations often include heightened emphases on both family and meditation. This paper considers the nexus of these two themes in an examination of children’s meditation instruction in two of the largest international Gelukpa Tibetan Buddhist networks, the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) and the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT). Through a comparison of these organizations’ recently published English-language children’s meditation manuals, the paper aims to produce a clearer picture of how children and their capacities for meditation are being conceptualized and cultivated in diasporic Tibetan Buddhist formations. I argue that the texts of the FPMT and NKT reflect respectively enthusiastic and measured approaches to the adaptation of Gelukpa Tibetan Buddhist meditation’s traditional doctrinal context and goals for primarily non-Tibetan audiences.

Acceptance-Based Therapies and Asian Philosophical Traditions: Similarities and Differences in the Concept of Acceptance

Mindfulness and acceptance-based psychotherapies have gained popularity in the last few decades as a “third wave” of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Acceptance is an important factor in all of these psychotherapies and stems from Asian philosophies, therefore similarities are necessarily seen between the psychotherapies themselves. This paper aims to demonstrate the ways in which acceptance-based psychotherapies converge by virtue of sharing the same philosophical root, as well as how they diverge in their applications of this concept. Specifically, this paper will examine similarities and differences in the concept of acceptance amongst the therapeutic models of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), dialectical behavior therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, as compared to the Asian philosophical traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism. Acceptance in these psychotherapies will first be collectively compared with that of the Asian philosophical traditions, then key similarities and differences will be highlighted among the psychotherapies themselves. A secondary aim of this paper is to illustrate REBT as an acceptance-based psychotherapy, though it is not often included in discussions of third wave acceptance-based CBTs.