Chinese beliefs about the human soul

Chinese beliefs about the human soul

Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Publisher: Philaletheians UK

Published: 2022-05-17

Total Pages: 28

ISBN-13:

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Septenary man is the synthesis of a triple emanation of the Unintelligible Divine Essence, and the lower quaternary, which is the vehicle of life. Upon death, the earth conceals the flesh; the shade flits round the tomb; the underworld receives the image; the spirit seeks the stars.


Elegies of Chu

Elegies of Chu

Author: Nicholas Morrow Williams

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-02-27

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0192550446

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Elegies of Chu (in Chinese, Chuci), one of the two surviving collections of ancient Chinese poetry, is a key source for the whole tradition of Chinese poetry. Because the elegies contain passionate expressions of political protest as well as shamanistic themes of magic spells and wandering spirits, they present an alternative face of early Chinese culture; one that does not align with orthodox Confucianism. This translation employs literary English devices in order to emphasise the original structure of these Chinese poems. It also examines the extraordinarily vivid diction of the source texts, including of onomatopoeia, ornate descriptions, exotic flowers, dramatic landscapes, metaphors and startling similes. This translation will be based on the original anthology compiled in the Han dynasty by Wang Yi (2nd century CE), and contains a selection of poems that were collected from the 3rd century BCE through the Han dynasty. The anthology provides readers with an understanding of Chinese literature and its evolution from free-spirited, mythico-religious songs to the more formal, polished style of the Han court.


Chinese Poetry as Soul Summoning

Chinese Poetry as Soul Summoning

Author: Nicholas Morrow Williams

Publisher:

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781621966234

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"This study examines the role of the soul (hun) and the soul-summoning ritual in Chinese literature from ancient times up to the twentieth century. With five case studies from different dynasties, spanning ancient Chu and the Han, Tang, Song, and Ming-Qing transition periods, Chinese Poetry as Soul Summoning shows Chinese poets were inspired by the belief in a soul that could be transported away from the body. On one hand, this provided a model for literature, as a therapeutic means of summoning back wayward souls; on the other, it inspired the imaginative range and formal structures of literary works, which followed the soul's journey from the individual person throughout the world and into the heavens. This study argues that the religious dimensions of Chinese poetry have not been sufficiently examined. The conception of the separable soul is a distinctive and perennial theme that has considerable explanatory reach in understanding traditional Chinese culture. Chinese Poetry as Soul Summoning will be a valuable addition to students and scholars of Chinese culture, comparative literature, and religious studies"--


The Souls of China

The Souls of China

Author: Ian Johnson

Publisher: Pantheon

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 1101870052

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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).


The Battle for China's Spirit

The Battle for China's Spirit

Author: Sarah Cook

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-05-16

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1538106116

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The Battle for China’s Spirit is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind, focusing on seven major religious groups in China that together account for over 350 million believers: Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, and Falun Gong. The study examines the evolution of the Communist Party’s policies of religious control, how they are applied differently to diverse faith communities, and how citizens are responding to these policies. The study—which draws on hundreds of official documents and interviews with religious leaders, lay believers, and scholars—finds that Chinese government controls over religion have intensified since November 2012, seeping into new areas of daily life. Yet millions of religious believers defy official restrictions or engage in some form of direct protest, at times scoring significant victories. The report explores how these dynamics affect China’s overall social, political, and economic environment, while offering recommendations to both the Chinese government and international actors for how to increase the space for peaceful religious practice in a country where spirituality has been deeply embedded in its culture for millennia.


The Emotions in Early Chinese Philosophy

The Emotions in Early Chinese Philosophy

Author: Curie Virág

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0190498811

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This book traces the genealogy of early Chinese conceptions of emotions, as part of a broader inquiry into evolving conceptions of self, cosmos and the political order. It seeks to explain what was at stake in early philosophical debates over emotions and why the mainstream conception of emotions became authoritative.


The Soul of China

The Soul of China

Author: Amaury De Riencourt

Publisher: Hyperion Books

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13:

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This new edition of Amaury de Riencourt's philosophical analysis of Chinese history from the second millennium BC to the present has been updated and revised to include recent events in Tiananmen Square. The author draws a portrait of the Chinese people, their feelings, beliefs and culture.


The Soul of China

The Soul of China

Author: Richard Wilhelm

Publisher:

Published: 1928

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13:

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"Wilhelm, born in Germany, was ordained as a protestant minister in 1895 and came to Tsingtao [Qingdao] in 1899 when it had barely begun its existence as a German colony. He remained 25 years, through the Boxer Rebellion, the period of imperial reform, and the republican revolution. During World War I, when Japan besieged and later occupied Tsingtao, he remained there, in charge of Red Cross work. He came as a missionary, learned Chinese, and inquired deeply into China's spiritual traditions. His German translation of the I Ching, undertaken jointly with the Confucian scholar Lao Nai-hsuan, took a decade to complete. The following year, 1924, he returned to Germany and became Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Frankfurt. Here he was recognized as an eminent sinologist and theologian. His translations of the I Ching and of The Secret of the Golden Flower won the admiration of psychologist Carl Jung. This volume, published a few years after his return to Germany, combines several genres, including memoir and travelogue, political and intellectual history, cultural description, and insightful essays. Among the first kind are his diaries of pilgrimage to Confucius' birthplace, to the sacred mountain T'ai-shan, and to the Buddhist caves of Yunkang, as well as his guides to the gardens of Hangchow and Soochow and to the streets of Peking. In the second category is a history of China's unhappy contact and conflict with the west, her attempts to reform, the revolution of 1911 and the subsequent years of warlords. Cultural description includes a chapter on annual festivals and the rites of birth, marriage, and death; and a description of social life, ranging from banquet etiquette to the theater and the teahouse. Essays include a detailed consideration of Protestant missions in China, how unscrupulous Chinese might use church membership as a lever for political favor from local authorities, how thoughtless Westerners would associate Christian doctrine with "superior" Western institutions, material civilization, etc., and how a native Chinese church nevertheless manages to emerge. An essay on occultism explores Chinese views of the spirit world."--Donor summary


A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy

A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy

Author:

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2008-09-02

Total Pages: 890

ISBN-13: 1400820030

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A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy is a milestone along the complex and difficult road to significant understanding by Westerners of the Asian peoples and a monumental contribution to the cause of philosophy. It is the first anthology of Chinese philosophy to cover its entire historical development. It provides substantial selections from all the great thinkers and schools in every period--ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary--and includes in their entirety some of the most important classical texts. It deals with the fundamental and technical as well as the more general aspects of Chinese thought. With its new translation of source materials (some translated for the first time), its explanatory aids where necessary, its thoroughgoing scholarly documentation, this volume will be an indispensable guide for scholars, for college students, for serious readers interested in knowing the real China.


Mind and Body in Early China

Mind and Body in Early China

Author: Edward Slingerland

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-11-23

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0190842326

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Mind and Body in Early China critiques Orientalist accounts of early China as the radical, "holistic" other. The idea that the early Chinese held the "strong" holist view, seeing no qualitative difference between mind and body, has long been contradicted by traditional archeological and qualitative textual evidence. New digital humanities methods, along with basic knowledge about human cognition, now make this position untenable. A large body of empirical evidence suggests that "weak" mind-body dualism is a psychological universal, and that human sociality would be fundamentally impossible without it. Edward Slingerland argues that the humanities need to move beyond social constructivist views of culture, and embrace instead a view of human cognition and culture that integrates the sciences and the humanities. Our interpretation of texts and artifacts from the past and from other cultures should be constrained by what we know about the species-specific, embodied commonalities shared by all humans. This book also attempts to broaden the scope of humanistic methodologies by employing team-based qualitative coding and computer-aided "distant reading" of texts, while also drawing upon our current best understanding of human cognition to transform our basic starting point. It has implications for anyone interested in comparative religion, early China, cultural studies, digital humanities, or science-humanities integration.