The Historical Development of Religion in China - Scholar's Choice Edition

The Historical Development of Religion in China - Scholar's Choice Edition
Author: Adelphi Terrace
Publisher:
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2015-02-20
Genre:
ISBN: 9781297461194

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Shaolin Monastery

The Shaolin Monastery
Author: Meir Shahar
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2008-01-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 0824831101

This meticulously researched and eminently readable study considers the economic, political, and religious factors that led Shaolin monks to disregard the Buddhist prohibition against violence and instead create fighting techniques that by the 21st century have spread throughout the world.

The Souls of China

The Souls of China
Author: Ian Johnson
Publisher: Pantheon
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101870052

From the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist: a revelatory portrait of religion in China today, its history, the spiritual traditions of its Eastern and Western faiths, and the ways in which it is influencing China's future. Following a century of violent antireligious campaigns, China is now awash with new temples, churches, and mosques as well as cults, sects, and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty over what it means to be Chinese, and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality a century ago and is still searching for new guideposts. Ian Johnson lived for extended periods with underground church members, rural Daoists, and Buddhist pilgrims. He has distilled these experiences into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world s newest superpower. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout).

Telling Chinese History

Telling Chinese History
Author: Frederic E. Wakeman
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2009-03-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520256069

"Frederic Wakeman's scholarship is impeccable and the breadth of learning in this book is astounding. I repeatedly found myself slowing down to savor the material. Many of the essays in this collection are no longer easily accessible, and placing them together in a single volume will be a great benefit to the next generation of students and scholars. "—Joseph W. Esherick, author of The Origins of the Boxer Uprising "This book brings together the best of Frederic Wakeman's articles, all of which are beautifully written and represent the remarkable breadth of Wakeman's research. The opportunity to read them together sheds new light on Chinese history and on the thought processes of one of the West's greatest historians."—Madeleine Zelin, Director of the East Asian National Resource Center at Columbia University

Confucianism as a World Religion

Confucianism as a World Religion
Author: Anna Sun
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2015-08-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0691168113

Is Confucianism a religion? If so, why do most Chinese think it isn't? From ancient Confucian temples, to nineteenth-century archives, to the testimony of people interviewed by the author throughout China over a period of more than a decade, this book traces the birth and growth of the idea of Confucianism as a world religion. The book begins at Oxford, in the late nineteenth century, when Friedrich Max Müller and James Legge classified Confucianism as a world religion in the new discourse of "world religions" and the emerging discipline of comparative religion. Anna Sun shows how that decisive moment continues to influence the understanding of Confucianism in the contemporary world, not only in the West but also in China, where the politics of Confucianism has become important to the present regime in a time of transition. Contested histories of Confucianism are vital signs of social and political change. Sun also examines the revival of Confucianism in contemporary China and the social significance of the ritual practice of Confucian temples. While the Chinese government turns to Confucianism to justify its political agenda, Confucian activists have started a movement to turn Confucianism into a religion. Confucianism as a world religion might have begun as a scholarly construction, but are we witnessing its transformation into a social and political reality? With historical analysis, extensive research, and thoughtful reflection, Confucianism as a World Religion will engage all those interested in religion and global politics at the beginning of the Chinese century.

Handbook of the History of Religions in China I

Handbook of the History of Religions in China I
Author: Zhongjian Zhan, Jian Mu
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 383821207X

This book is part of an initiative in cooperation with renowned Chinese publishers to make fundamental, formative, and influential Chinese thinkers available to a western readership, providing absorbing insights into Chinese reflections of late, and offering a chance to grasp today’s China. In their influential book Handbook of the History of Religions in China, Zhongjian Mou and Jian Zhang present a panorama of the religions existing in China through time. In their fascinating History, they delineate the emergence and development of Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity and explore the roles they played in Chinese society and the interrelations between them. In China, also due to the encompassing Confucian idea of “living together harmoniously while maintaining differences,” religions—including newly arrived ones—came closer together than anywhere else in the world and reached a unique level of peaceful societal coexistence. Despite many frictions and conflicts, communication and reconciliation were indisputably predominant in China throughout history. Buddhism was peacefully introduced into China and, later on, a harmonious, symbiotic syncretism of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism developed—an exemplary process of how a diverse set of different religions can complement each other and contribute to a better life.

Social Scientific Studies of Religion in China

Social Scientific Studies of Religion in China
Author: Fenggang Yang
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2011-01-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004214798

The revival of religious belief and practice in China over the past thirty years, after decades of severe repression, has attracted much attention by scholars. Social scientific studies of religion by mainland Chinese scholars has also increased in recent years, using theories and methods developed mainly outside China. Increasingly, mainland scholars are also debating whether theories and concepts developed in western societies are fully appropriate for the study of religion in Chinese societies. This volume presents a selection of papers by sociologists, anthropologists, and historians of religion on these themes. The chapters include rich field studies of particular religions and religious activities, along with theoretical and historical reflections by scholars inside and outside China on problems and opportunities in the revival of the social scientific study of religion in Chinese societies.

Religion and Society in T'ang and Sung China

Religion and Society in T'ang and Sung China
Author: Patricia Buckley Ebrey
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 422
Release: 1993-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780824815127

The T'ang (618-907) and Sung (960-1279) dynasties were times of great change in China. The economy flourished, the population doubled, printing led to a great increase in the availability of books, Buddhism became a fully sinicized religion penetrating deeply into ordinary life. This volume represents a collaborative effort of nine scholars of Chinese religion, history, and thought to begin addressing the question of how changes in the religions of the Chinese people were implicated in the momentous social and cultural changes of this period.

The Religious Question in Modern China

The Religious Question in Modern China
Author: Vincent Goossaert
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2011-03-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0226304183

Recent events—from strife in Tibet and the rapid growth of Christianity in China to the spectacular expansion of Chinese Buddhist organizations around the globe—vividly demonstrate that one cannot understand the modern Chinese world without attending closely to the question of religion. The Religious Question in Modern China highlights parallels and contrasts between historical events, political regimes, and cultural movements to explore how religion has challenged and responded to secular Chinese modernity, from 1898 to the present. Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer piece together the puzzle of religion in China not by looking separately at different religions in different contexts, but by writing a unified story of how religion has shaped, and in turn been shaped by, modern Chinese society. From Chinese medicine and the martial arts to communal temple cults and revivalist redemptive societies, the authors demonstrate that from the nineteenth century onward, as the Chinese state shifted, the religious landscape consistently resurfaced in a bewildering variety of old and new forms. The Religious Question in Modern China integrates historical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives in a comprehensive overview of China’s religious history that is certain to become an indispensible reference for specialists and students alike.

Taoism and Chinese Religion

Taoism and Chinese Religion
Author: Henri Maspero
Publisher:
Total Pages: 730
Release: 2014-09
Genre: China
ISBN: 9781922169044

Taoism and Chinese Religion by Henri Maspero Translated by Frank A. Kierman, Jr. Revised Edition - Quirin Pinyin Updated Editions (QPUE) This book is a translation of Le Taoisme et les Religions Chinoises, which was posthumously published in France in 1971. It is the first English translation of most of the seminal works on Chinese religion of the great sinologist Henri Maspero. First released by The University of Massachusetts Press in 1981, this Quirin Press Revised Edition brings back into print this classic of Western sinology and offers the full original text with the following features: Older Wade-Giles transliteration fully updated and revised to Pinyin. Fully re-typeset and proofed for typographical errors and inconsistencies. Expanded index including Chinese characters. "It is largely thanks to [Maspero's] pioneer work in the fields of Chinese religion, anthropology, linguistics and history that China's contribution to the achievement of man could first be reviewed on terms of parity with those of other civilizations. "To the question whether his discoveries, opinions and interpretations have been outdated by the subsequent thirty years' research, it may be answered that leading scholars still rely with the utmost confidence on his writings as a framework whose validity has outdated their most recent findings, and whose detail has in many cases not been bettered." -Michael Loewe, University of Cambridge (from the sleeve-note to the original 1981 edition) Maspero (1883-1945) was the first Western scholar to study the vast and recondite compendium of Daoist writing, the Daozang, and explore its historic meaning. The first part of the book closely examines Chinese society, religion, and folk-myth; the second part specifically focuses on the practice and form of Daoism and includes an extensive investigation of yoga-like procedures of nutrition, breathing exercises, and sexual techniques-all designed to ensure personal immortality in ancient Daoism. The titles of the nine "books" comprising this study give an indication of its breadth and variety: Chinese Religion in Its Historical Development; The Mythology of Modern China; The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese and of the Modern Tai; How Was Buddhism Introduced into China?; Daoism in Chinese Religious Beliefs of the Six Dynasties Period; The Poet Xi Kang and the Club of Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove; An Essay on Daoism in the First Centuries CE; How to Communicate with the Daoist Gods; Methods of "Nourishing the Vital Principle" in the Ancient Daoist Religion. Keywords: Daoism China - China Religion For further information and extracts visit www.quirinpress.com Follow us on Twitter @QuirinPress