Philosophy & Religion

Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century

ginevra — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:47:32 +0000

This second edition of Antonino Forte's seminal work, originally published in 1976, inaugurates a new Monograph Series within the publications of the Italian School of East Asian Studies. Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century is one of the classical studies that made the history of Sinology during the last three decades. Enlarged and revised, in this new garb it also represents the life-work of a scholar who dedicated many years to refining, revising and researching in still greater depth many aspects of the religious milieu of medieval China.

The book is centered on the analysis of a Dunhuang manuscript (S. 6502) from the Stein Collection, a commentary purporting to explain a prophecy found in the text of the Dayun Jing (Great-Cloud Sutra). In light of the problem of legitimation of Empress Wu Zhao as a Buddhist universal monarch, in the first part of the volume the author provides a detailed discussion on the nature and function of this commentary, its authors, and on the object of the prophecy, Empress Wu. The second part of the book consists in an annotated translation of the Dunhuang manuscript. In the words of Paul Demieville commenting on the first edition, "this work constitutes a contribution of the first rank, both to the history of Empress Wu and Buddhism under the Tang, and to the study of Dunhuang manuscripts".

Recontextualizing the Praises of a Goddess

ginevra — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:07:22 +0000

The Hindu Harivamsa (third to fourth century), well known for its account of the god Krsna's life, contains a hymn to a female divinity, Nidra-Vindhyavasini, asked to step in, at the time of Krsna's birth, in order to spare his life. A Chinese translation of this hymn appears in the Buddhist Sutra of Golden Light, in Yijing's (635-713) rendering of 703, Jinguangming zuishengwang jing (10 juan, T. vol.16, no.665), for which the original Sanskrit version does not survive. Within the sutra the hymn is directed at the goddess of knowledge Sarasvati, who functions here as a defender of the Dharma, doing her part in assuring the Sutra of Golden Light will not become extinct by endowing the expounder of the text with eloquence and memory. In the Chinese translation of the sutra, the hymn is metamorphosed into a different idiom meaningful in a different cultural context, and the goddess is called Biancai Tiannu, "Eloquence Goddess."

This study consists in examining the above mentioned versions of this hymn from two different contexts and in two different languages: the Sanskrit text as found in the Harivamsa alongside the Chinese version of the hymn in Yijing's translation of the Sutra of Golden Light. Through an annotated translation and commentary on both the Chinese and the Sanskrit, this study shows that we are in fact dealing with two versions of the same, rather than simply a related, hymn. It also ascertains, in large part, the version of the hymn that appeared in Yijing's no longer extant Sanskrit manuscript and points out the ways in which Yijing and his translation team went about rendering the hymn into Chinese verse.

Stories Behind 100 Chinese Idioms