Divination Mythology and Monarchy in Han China

Michael Loewe examines these changes and the links between religion and statecraft.

Author: Michael Loewe

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 0521454662

Category: History

Page: 394

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Chinese empires were established by force of arms, but sustained by religious rites and intellectual theory. The four centuries from 206 BC to AD 220 witnessed major changes in the state cults and the concepts of monarchy, while various techniques of divination were used to forecast the future or to solve immediate problems. Michael Loewe examines these changes and the links between religion and statecraft. While both mythology and the traditions nurtured by the learned affected the concept and practice of monarchy throughout the period, the political and social weaknesses of the last century of Han rule bring into question the success that was achieved by the imperial ideal. Nevertheless, that ideal and its institutions were of prime importance for the understanding of Han times and for the influence they exercised on China's later dynasties.
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Transcendence and Non Naturalism in Early Chinese Thought

Divination, Mythology, and Monarchy in Han China. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Loewe, Michael. Dong Zhongshu, a “Confucian” Heritage and the Chunqiu Fanlu. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Loewe, Michael. Faith, Myth, and Reason in ...

Author: Alexus McLeod

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

ISBN: 9781350082557

Category: Philosophy

Page: 256

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Contemporary scholars of Chinese philosophy often presuppose that early China possessed a naturalistic worldview, devoid of any non-natural concepts, such as transcendence. Challenging this presupposition head-on, Joshua R. Brown and Alexus McLeod argue that non-naturalism and transcendence have a robust and significant place in early Chinese thought. This book reveals that non-naturalist positions can be found in early Chinese texts, in topics including conceptions of the divine, cosmogony, and apophatic philosophy. Moreover, by closely examining a range of early Chinese texts, and providing comparative readings of a number of Western texts and thinkers, the book offers a way of reading early Chinese Philosophy as consistent with the religious philosophy of the East and West, including the Abrahamic and the Brahmanistic religions. Co-written by a philosopher and theologian, this book draws out unique insights into early Chinese thought, highlighting in particular new ways to consider a range of Chinese concepts, including tian, dao, li, and you/wu.
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Heaven Is Empty

In Divination, Mythology, and Monarchy Han China, idem, 131–33. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge Press, 1994. ———. “The Authority of the Emperors of Ch'in and Han.” In Divination, Mythology, and Monarchy in Han China, idem, ...

Author: Filippo Marsili

Publisher: State University of New York Press

ISBN: 9781438472034

Category: History

Page: 346

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Offers a new perspective on the relationship between religion and the creation of the first Chinese empires. Heaven Is Empty offers a new comparative perspective on the role of the sacred in the formation of China’s early empires (221 BCE–9 CE) and shows how the unification of the Central States was possible without a unitary and universalistic conception of religion. The cohesive function of the ancient Mediterranean cult of the divinized ruler was crucial for the legitimization of Rome’s empire across geographical and social boundaries. Eventually reelaborated in Christian terms, it came to embody the timelessness and universality of Western conceptions of legitimate authority, while representing an analytical template for studying other ancient empires. Filippo Marsili challenges such approaches in his examination of the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han (141–87 BCE). Wu purposely drew from regional traditions and tried to gain the support of local communities through his patronage of local cults. He was interested in rituals that envisioned the monarch as a military leader, who directly controlled the land and its resources, as a means for legitimizing radical administrative and economic centralization. In reconstructing this imperial model, Marsili reinterprets fragmentary official accounts in light of material evidence and noncanonical and recently excavated texts. In bringing to life the courts, battlefields, markets, shrines, and pleasure quarters of early imperial China, Heaven Is Empty provides a postmodern and postcolonial reassessment of “religion” before the arrival of Buddhism and challenges the application of Greco-Roman and Abrahamic systemic, identitary, and exclusionary notions of the “sacred” to the analysis of pre-Christian and non-Western realities. Filippo Marsili is Associate Professor of History at Saint Louis University.
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Divination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece

(1996) Adversaries and Authorities: Investigations into Ancient Greek and Chinese Science. Cambridge. (1999a) “Divination: traditions ... [ECTBG] (1994) Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China. Cambridge. (1997) 442 Bibliography.

Author: Lisa Raphals

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 9781107010758

Category: History

Page: 499

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This book compares the intellectual and social history and past and present contexts of mantic practices (divination) in Chinese and Greek antiquity.
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World Monarchies and Dynasties

... the new Wei dynasty. Two rival dynasties also were established by other leaders, marking the end of the Han era and the beginning of the period known as the Three Kingdoms. ... Divination, Mythology, and Monarchy in Han China.

Author: John Middleton

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781317451587

Category: Business & Economics

Page: 1067

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Throughout history, royal dynasties have dominated countries and empires around the world. Kings, queens, emperors, chiefs, pharaohs, czars - whatever title they ruled by, monarchs have shaped institutions, rituals, and cultures in every time period and every corner of the globe. The concept of monarchy originated in prehistoric times and evolved over centuries right up to the present. Efforts to overthrow monarchies or evade their rule - such as the American, French, Chinese, and Russian revolutions - are considered turning points in world history. Even today, many countries retain their monarchies, although in vastly reduced form with little political power. One cannot understand human history and government without understanding monarchs and monarchies. This fully-illustrated encyclopedia provides the first complete survey of all the major rulers and ruling families of the world, past and present. No other reference work approaches the topic with the same sense of magnitude or connection to historical context. Arranged in A-Z format for ease of access, World Monarchies and Dynasties includes information on major monarchs and dynasties from ancient time to the present. This set: includes overviews of reigns and successions, genealogical charts, and dynastic timelines; addresses concepts, problems, and theories of monarchy; provides background and information for further research; highlights important places, structures, symbols, events, and legends related to particular monarchs and dynasties; includes a master bibliography and multiple indexes.
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Fire over Luoyang

A History of the Later Han Dynasty 23-220 AD Rafe de Crespigny ... Leiden 1979 ——— , “Water, Earth and Fire: the symbols of the Han dynasty,” in Divination, Mythology and Monarchy, 55–60 [first published in Nachrichten der Gesellschaft ...

Author: Rafe de Crespigny

Publisher: BRILL

ISBN: 9789004325203

Category: History

Page: 591

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Rafe de Crespigny provides the first account in a Western language of one of the great dynasties of China, which dominated east Asia but collapsed in dramatic fashion at the end of the second century AD.
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Everyday Life in Early Imperial China During the Han Period 202 BC AD 220

Chinese monographs describe major tombs found at Ma - wang - tui , Man - ch'eng , Shih - chai - shan , Ta - pao - t'ai ... 2005 ) ; Divination , Mythology and Monarchy in Han China ( Cambridge , 1994 ) ; A Biographical Dictionary of the ...

Author: Michael Loewe

Publisher: Hackett Publishing

ISBN: 0872207587

Category: Social Science

Page: 212

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Considers the important aspects of life during the Han period, when the foundations were laid for the chief political, economic, cultural and social structures that would characterise imperial China.
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The Early Chinese Empires

For images see Elisseeff, New Discoveries in China, p. 91; Rawson, Mysteries, pp. 177–178, 190, 192; Wu, “Mapping Early Taoist Art,” pp. 84–88; Bagley, Ancient Sichuan, pp. 272–277. 8. Loewe, Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han ...

Author: Mark Edward Lewis

Publisher: Harvard University Press

ISBN: 9780674265424

Category: History

Page: 336

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In 221 bc the First Emperor of Qin unified the lands that would become the heart of a Chinese empire. Though forged by conquest, this vast domain depended for its political survival on a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture. With this informative book, we are present at the creation of an ancient imperial order whose major features would endure for two millennia. The Qin and Han constitute the "classical period" of Chinese history--a role played by the Greeks and Romans in the West. Mark Edward Lewis highlights the key challenges faced by the court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity of peoples. He traces the drastic measures taken to transcend, without eliminating, these regional differences: the invention of the emperor as the divine embodiment of the state; the establishment of a common script for communication and a state-sponsored canon for the propagation of Confucian ideals; the flourishing of the great families, whose domination of local society rested on wealth, landholding, and elaborate kinship structures; the demilitarization of the interior; and the impact of non-Chinese warrior-nomads in setting the boundaries of an emerging Chinese identity. The first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, The Early Chinese Empires illuminates many formative events in China's long history of imperialism--events whose residual influence can still be discerned today.
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