|
Chinese Classics
The Chinese classics or canonical texts are the works of Chinese literature authored prior to the establishment of the imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC. Prominent examples include the Four Books and Five Classics in the Neo-Confucian tradition, themselves an abridgment of the Thirteen Classics. The Chinese classics used a form of written Chinese consciously imitated by later authors, now known as Classical Chinese. A common Chinese word for "classic" () literally means 'warp (weaving), warp thread', in reference to the techniques by which works of this period were bound into volumes. Texts may include ''shi'' (, 'Chinese historiography, histories') ''zi'' ( 'master texts'), Chinese philosophy, philosophical treatises usually associated with an individual and later systematized into schools of thought but also including works on agriculture, Traditional Chinese medicine, medicine, mathematics, Chinese astronomy, astronomy, divination, art criticism, and other miscellaneous wri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Literature
The history of Chinese literature extends thousands of years, and begins with the earliest recorded inscriptions, court archives, building to the major works of philosophy and history written during the Axial Age. The Han dynasty, Han (202 BC220 AD) and Tang dynasty, Tang (618–907 AD) dynasties were considered golden ages of poetry, while the Song dynasty, Song (960–1279) and Yuan dynasty, Yuan (1271–1368) were notable for their lyrics (''ci''), essays, dramas, and plays. During the Ming dynasty, Ming and Qing, mature novels were written in written vernacular Chinese, an evolution from the preeminence of Literary Chinese patterned off the language of the Chinese classics. The introduction of widespread woodblock printing during the Tang and the invention of movable type printing by Bi Sheng (990–1051) during the Song rapidly spread written knowledge throughout China. Around the turn of the 20th century, the author Lu Xun (1881–1936) is considered an influential voi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Characters
Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only one that has remained in continuous use. Over a documented history spanning more than three millennia, the function, style, and means of writing characters have changed greatly. Unlike letters in alphabets that reflect the sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes, the units of meaning in a language. Writing all of the frequently used vocabulary in a language requires roughly 2000–3000 characters; , nearly have been identified and included in ''The Unicode Standard''. Characters are created according to several principles, where aspects of shape and pronunciation may be used to indicate the character's meaning. The first attested characters are oracle bone inscriptions made during the 13th century&n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classic Of Poetry
The ''Classic of Poetry'', also ''Shijing'' or ''Shih-ching'', translated variously as the ''Book of Songs'', ''Book of Odes'', or simply known as the ''Odes'' or ''Poetry'' (; ''Shī''), is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, comprising 305 works dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC. It is one of the " Five Classics" traditionally said to have been compiled by Confucius, and has been studied and memorized by scholars in China and neighboring countries over two millennia. It is also a rich source of '' chengyu'' (four-character classical idioms) that are still a part of learned discourse and even everyday language in modern Chinese. Since the Qing dynasty, its rhyme patterns have also been analysed in the study of Old Chinese phonology. Name Early references refer to the anthology as the ''300 Poems'' ('' shi''). ''The Odes'' first became known as a ''jīng'', or a "classic book", in the canonical sense, as part of the Han dynasty's official adoption of Con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Five Classics
The Four Books and Five Classics are authoritative and important books associated with Confucianism, written before 300 BC. They are traditionally believed to have been either written, edited or commented by Confucius or one of his disciples. Starting in the Han dynasty, they became the core of the Chinese classics on which students were tested in the Imperial examination system. Four Books The Four Books () are Chinese classic texts illustrating the core value and belief systems in Confucianism. They were selected by intellectual Zhu Xi in the Song dynasty to serve as general introduction to Confucian thought, and they were, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, made the core of the official curriculum for the civil service examinations. More information of them are as follows: List ; ''Great Learning'' : Originally one chapter in the ''Book of Rites''. It consists of a short main text attributed to Confucius and nine commentary chapters by Zengzi, one of the disciples of Conf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burning Of Books And Burying Of Scholars
The burning of books and burying of scholars was the purported Book burning, burning of texts in 213 BCE and live burial of 460 Confucian scholars in 212 BCE ordered by Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang. The events were alleged to have destroyed philosophical treatises of the Hundred Schools of Thought, with the goal of strengthening the official Qin governing philosophy of Legalism (Chinese philosophy), Legalism. Modern historians doubt the details of the story, which first appeared more than a century later in the Han dynasty official Sima Qian's ''Records of the Grand Historian''. As a court scholar, Sima had every reason to denigrate the earlier emperor to flatter his own, but later Confucians did not question the story. According to the historian Ulrich Neininger, their message was, "If you take our life, Heaven will take the life of your dynasty." Modern scholars agree that Qin Shi Huang gathered and destroyed many works that he regarded as incorrect or subversive. He ord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Nylan
Michael Nylan is the Jane K. Sather Chair of History at the University of California, Berkeley. She writes about history, literature, philosophy, art and archaeology of early imperial China. Nylan was born in 1950 and named after Saint Michael by her mother, thankful for a successful birth after a series of miscarriages. After undergraduate and masters study in history, she studied Classical Chinese with Michael Loewe and fell in love with the subject. Her doctoral work an Princeton University was in history and archaeology. She was one of the first American scholars in China after the opening in the 1970s, but her stay at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was unsuccessful, due to her male colleagues' refusal to take a woman on excavations. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legalism (Chinese Philosophy)
''Fajia'' ( zh, s=法家, p=fǎjiā), or the School of ''fa'' (laws, methods), early translated ''Legalism'' for Shang Yang, is a school of thought representing a broader bibliography, collection of primarily Warring States period classical Chinese philosophy, incorporating more administrative works traditionally said to be rooted in Huang-Lao Daoism. Addressing practical governance challenges of the unstable feudal system, their ideas 'contributed greatly to the formation of the Chinese empire' and bureaucracy, advocating concepts including rule by fa (concept), law, sophisticated administrative fa (concept), technique, and ideas of state power. They are often interpreted in the West along Realism (international relations), realist lines. Though persisting, the Qin to Tang dynasty, Tang were more characterized by the 'centralizing tendencies' of their traditions. The school incorporates the more legalistic ideas of Li Kui (legalist), Li Kui and Shang Yang, and more administrat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hundred Schools Of Thought
The Hundred Schools of Thought () were philosophies and schools that flourished during the late Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period (221 BC). The term was not used to describe these different philosophies until Confucianism, Mohism, and Legalism were created. The era in which they flourished was one of turbulence in China, fraught with chaos and mass militarization, but where Chinese philosophy was developed and patronized by competing bureaucracies. This phenomenon has been called the Contention of a Hundred Schools of Thought. The philosophies that emerged during this period have profoundly influenced East Asian culture and societies. The intellectual landscape of this era was characterized by itinerant scholars, who were often employed by various state rulers as advisers on the way of government, war, and diplomacy. Often, members and traditions of the same school had little in common other than the same influential figure that their beliefs were based on. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Li Si
Li Si (; 208 BC) was a Chinese calligrapher, philosopher, and politician of the Qin dynasty. He served as Chancellor from 246 to 208 BC, first under King Zheng of the state of Qin—who later became Qin Shi Huang, the "First Emperor" of the Qin dynasty. He then served under Qin Er Shi, Qin Shi Huang's eighteenth son and the second emperor. Concerning administrative methods, Li Si is said to have admired and utilized the ideas of Shen Buhai, repeatedly referring to the technique of Shen Buhai and Han Fei, but regarding law, he followed Shang Yang. John Knoblock, a translator of classical Chinese texts, considered Li Si to be "one of the two or three most important figures in Chinese history" as a result of his efforts in standardizing the Qin state and its conquered territories. Li Si assisted the Emperor in unifying laws, governmental ordinances, and weights and measures. He also standardized chariots, carts, and characters used in writing, facilitating the cultural ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emperor Of China
Throughout Chinese history, "Emperor" () was the superlative title held by the monarchs of imperial China's various dynasties. In traditional Chinese political theory, the emperor was the " Son of Heaven", an autocrat with the divine mandate to rule all under Heaven. Emperors were worshiped posthumously under an imperial cult. The lineage of emperors descended from a paternal family line constituted a dynasty, and succession in most cases theoretically followed agnatic primogeniture. The emperor of China was an absolute monarch. During the Han dynasty, Confucianism gained sanction as the official political theory. The absolute authority of the emperor came with a variety of governing duties and moral obligations; failure to uphold these was thought to remove the dynasty's Mandate of Heaven and to justify its overthrow. In practice, emperors sometimes avoided the strict rules of succession and dynasties' purported "failures" were detailed in official histories written by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang (, ; February 25912 July 210 BC), born Ying Zheng () or Zhao Zheng (), was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of China. He is widely regarded as the first ever supreme leader of a unitary state, unitary dynasties of China, dynasty in Chinese history. Rather than maintain the title of "Chinese king, king" ( ) or "suzerain#China, overlord" () borne by the previous rulers of Xia dynasty, Xia, Shang dynasty, Shang and Zhou dynasty, Zhou dynasties, he invented the title of "emperor" ( ), which would see continuous use by Chinese sovereigns and monarchy in China, monarchs for the next two millennia. Ying Zheng was born during the late Warring States period in Handan, the capital of Zhao (state), Zhao, to King Zhuangxiang of Qin, Prince Yiren and Queen Dowager Zhao, Lady Zhao. Prince Yiren was serving as an expendable hostage diplomacy, diplomatic hostage in Zhao at the time, but the wealthy merchant Lü Buwei saw potential in him and lobbied fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Records Of The Grand Historian
The ''Shiji'', also known as ''Records of the Grand Historian'' or ''The Grand Scribe's Records'', is a Chinese historical text that is the first of the Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written during the late 2nd and early 1st centuries BC by the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian, building upon work begun by his father Sima Tan. The work covers a 2,500-year period from the age of the legendary Yellow Emperor to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han in the author's own time, and describes the world as it was known to the Chinese of the Western Han dynasty. The ''Shiji'' has been called a "foundational text in Chinese civilization". After Confucius and Qin Shi Huang, "Sima Qian was one of the creators of Imperial China, not least because by providing definitive biographies, he virtually created the two earlier figures." The ''Shiji'' set the model for all subsequent dynastic histories of China. In contrast to Western historiographical conventions, the ''Shiji'' does no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
