Sacred 5 Of China

Sacred 5 Of China
Author: William Edgar Gell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2014-06-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317845803

First published in 2007. Geil argues in this book that five is a number most remarkable to the man of the Central Kingdom. Crafted to the rule of fifths, the author discusses aspects of the world, mountains and religion which lead to the analysis of five. These include the ascent of five key figures: Tai Shan, Nan Yo, Sung Shan, Hua Shan and Heng Shan. This title includes illustrations throughout with a comprehensive index.

The Sacred 5 of China

The Sacred 5 of China
Author: William Edgar Geil
Publisher:
Total Pages: 496
Release: 1926
Genre: China
ISBN:

The account of a visit to the sacred mountains of China.

The Sacred 5 of China

The Sacred 5 of China
Author: William Edgar Geil
Publisher:
Total Pages: 496
Release: 1926
Genre: China
ISBN:

The account of a visit to the sacred mountains of China.

Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China

Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China
Author: Susan Naquin
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 470
Release: 1992
Genre: Buddhist pilgrims and pilgrimages
ISBN: 9780520075672

Until now, China has been scarcely represented in the burgeoning comparative literature on pilgrimage. This volume remedies that omission, discussing the interaction between pilgrims and sacred sites from the tenth century to the present. From the perspectives of literature, art, history, religion, politics, and anthropology, the essays focus on China's most famous pilgrimage mountains as well as lesser known sites.

Feng-Shui

Feng-Shui
Author: Ernest John Eitel
Publisher:
Total Pages: 98
Release: 1873
Genre:
ISBN:

Sacred Economies

Sacred Economies
Author: Michael J. Walsh
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2010-03-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0231519931

Buddhist monasteries in medieval China employed a variety of practices to ensure their ascendancy and survival. Most successful was the exchange of material goods for salvation, as in the donation of land, which allowed monks to spread their teachings throughout China. By investigating a variety of socioeconomic spaces produced and perpetuated by Chinese monasteries, Michael J. Walsh reveals the "sacred economies" that shaped early Buddhism and its relationship with consumption and salvation. Centering his study on Tiantong, a Buddhist monastery that has thrived for close to seventeen centuries in southeast China, Walsh follows three main topics: the spaces monks produced, within and around which a community could pursue a meaningful existence; the social and economic avenues through which monasteries provided diverse sacred resources and secured the primacy of Buddhist teachings within an agrarian culture; and the nature of "transactive" participation within monastic spaces, which later became a fundamental component of a broader Chinese religiosity. Unpacking these sacred economies and repositioning them within the history of religion in China, Walsh encourages a different approach to the study of Chinese religion, emphasizing the critical link between religious exchange and the production of material culture.

Shades of Gray in the Changing Religious Markets of China

Shades of Gray in the Changing Religious Markets of China
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2021-07-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004456740

This book is a collection of studies of various religious groups in the changing religious markets of China. These ethnographic studies demonstrate many shades of gray in the religious market and fluidity across the red, black, and gray markets.

Sacred Landscapes of Imperial China

Sacred Landscapes of Imperial China
Author: Giulio Magli
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2021-06-16
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9783030493264

This book analyses the magnificent imperial necropolises of ancient China from the perspective of Archaeoastronomy, a science which takes into account the landscape in which ancient monuments are placed, focusing especially but not exclusively on the celestial aspects. The power of the Chinese emperors was based on the so-called Mandate of Heaven: the rulers were believed to act as intermediaries between the sky gods and the Earth, and consequently, the architecture of their tombs, starting from the world-famous mausoleum of the first emperor, was closely linked to the celestial cycles and to the cosmos. This relationship, however, also had to take into account various other factors and doctrines, first the Zhao-Mu doctrine in the Han period and later the various forms of Feng Shui. As a result, over the centuries, diverse sacred landscapes were constructed. Among the sites analysed in the book are the “pyramids” of Xi’an from the Han dynasty, the mountain tombs of the Tang dynasty, and the Ming and Qing imperial tombs. The book explains how considerations such as astronomical orientation and topographical orientation according to the principles of Feng Shui played a fundamental role at these sites.

Tea in China

Tea in China
Author: James A. Benn
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2015-04-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 988820873X

Tea in China explores the contours of religious and cultural transformation in traditional China from the point of view of an everyday commodity and popular beverage. The work traces the development of tea drinking from its mythical origins to the nineteenth century and examines the changes in aesthetics, ritual, science, health, and knowledge that tea brought with it. The shift in drinking habits that occurred in late medieval China cannot be understood without an appreciation of the fact that Buddhist monks were responsible for not only changing people's attitudes toward the intoxicating substance, but also the proliferation of tea drinking. Monks had enjoyed a long association with tea in South China, but it was not until Lu Yu's compilation of the Chajing (The Classic of Tea) and the spread of tea drinking by itinerant Chan monastics that tea culture became popular throughout the empire and beyond. Tea was important for maintaining long periods of meditation; it also provided inspiration for poets and profoundly affected the ways in which ideas were exchanged. Prior to the eighth century, the aristocratic drinking party had excluded monks from participating in elite culture. Over cups of tea, however, monks and literati could meet on equal footing and share in the same aesthetic values. Monks and scholars thus found common ground in the popular stimulant—one with few side effects that was easily obtainable and provided inspiration and energy for composing poetry and meditating. In addition, rituals associated with tea drinking were developed in Chan monasteries, aiding in the transformation of China's sacred landscape at the popular and elite level. Pilgrimages to monasteries that grew their own tea were essential in the spread of tea culture, and some monasteries owned vast tea plantations. By the end of the ninth century, tea was a vital component in the Chinese economy and in everyday life. Tea in China transcends the boundaries of religious studies and cultural history as it draws on a broad range of materials—poetry, histories, liturgical texts, monastic regulations—many translated or analyzed for the first time. The book will be of interest to scholars of East Asia and all those concerned with the religious dimensions of commodity culture in the premodern 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).