Author: Mark Edward Lewis
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791482227
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Early Chinese ideas about the construction of an ordered human space received narrative form in a set of stories dealing with the rescue of the world and its inhabitants from a universal flood. This book demonstrates how early Chinese stories of the re-creation of the world from a watery chaos provided principles underlying such fundamental units as the state, lineage, the married couple, and even the human body. These myths also supplied a charter for the major political and social institutions of Warring States (481–221 BC) and early imperial (220 BC–AD 220) China. In some versions of the tales, the flood was triggered by rebellion, while other versions linked the taming of the flood with the creation of the institution of a lineage, and still others linked the taming to the process in which the divided principles of the masculine and the feminine were joined in the married couple to produce an ordered household. While availing themselves of earlier stories and of central religious rituals of the period, these myths transformed earlier divinities or animal spirits into rulers or ministers and provided both etiologies and legitimation for the emerging political and social institutions that culminated in the creation of a unitary empire.
The Flood Myths of Early China
Author: Mark Edward Lewis
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791482227
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Early Chinese ideas about the construction of an ordered human space received narrative form in a set of stories dealing with the rescue of the world and its inhabitants from a universal flood. This book demonstrates how early Chinese stories of the re-creation of the world from a watery chaos provided principles underlying such fundamental units as the state, lineage, the married couple, and even the human body. These myths also supplied a charter for the major political and social institutions of Warring States (481–221 BC) and early imperial (220 BC–AD 220) China. In some versions of the tales, the flood was triggered by rebellion, while other versions linked the taming of the flood with the creation of the institution of a lineage, and still others linked the taming to the process in which the divided principles of the masculine and the feminine were joined in the married couple to produce an ordered household. While availing themselves of earlier stories and of central religious rituals of the period, these myths transformed earlier divinities or animal spirits into rulers or ministers and provided both etiologies and legitimation for the emerging political and social institutions that culminated in the creation of a unitary empire.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791482227
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Early Chinese ideas about the construction of an ordered human space received narrative form in a set of stories dealing with the rescue of the world and its inhabitants from a universal flood. This book demonstrates how early Chinese stories of the re-creation of the world from a watery chaos provided principles underlying such fundamental units as the state, lineage, the married couple, and even the human body. These myths also supplied a charter for the major political and social institutions of Warring States (481–221 BC) and early imperial (220 BC–AD 220) China. In some versions of the tales, the flood was triggered by rebellion, while other versions linked the taming of the flood with the creation of the institution of a lineage, and still others linked the taming to the process in which the divided principles of the masculine and the feminine were joined in the married couple to produce an ordered household. While availing themselves of earlier stories and of central religious rituals of the period, these myths transformed earlier divinities or animal spirits into rulers or ministers and provided both etiologies and legitimation for the emerging political and social institutions that culminated in the creation of a unitary empire.
The Flood Myths of Early China
Author: Mark Edward Lewis
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791466643
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
Explores how the flood myths of early China provided a template for that society's major social and political institutions.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791466643
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
Explores how the flood myths of early China provided a template for that society's major social and political institutions.
The Flood Myths of Early China
Author: Mark Edward Lewis
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791466636
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Explores how the flood myths of early China provided a template for that society’s major social and political institutions.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791466636
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Explores how the flood myths of early China provided a template for that society’s major social and political institutions.
The Flood Myth
Author: Alan Dundes
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520063532
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 468
Book Description
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520063532
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 468
Book Description
The Construction of Space in Early China
Author: Mark Edward Lewis
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791482499
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 514
Book Description
This book examines the formation of the Chinese empire through its reorganization and reinterpretation of its basic spatial units: the human body, the household, the city, the region, and the world. The central theme of the book is the way all these forms of ordered space were reshaped by the project of unification and how, at the same time, that unification was constrained and limited by the necessary survival of the units on which it was based. Consequently, as Mark Edward Lewis shows, each level of spatial organization could achieve order and meaning only within an encompassing, superior whole: the body within the household, the household within the lineage and state, the city within the region, and the region within the world empire, while each level still contained within itself the smaller units from which it was formed. The unity that was the empire's highest goal avoided collapse back into the original chaos of nondistinction only by preserving within itself the very divisions on the basis of family or region that it claimed to transcend.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791482499
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 514
Book Description
This book examines the formation of the Chinese empire through its reorganization and reinterpretation of its basic spatial units: the human body, the household, the city, the region, and the world. The central theme of the book is the way all these forms of ordered space were reshaped by the project of unification and how, at the same time, that unification was constrained and limited by the necessary survival of the units on which it was based. Consequently, as Mark Edward Lewis shows, each level of spatial organization could achieve order and meaning only within an encompassing, superior whole: the body within the household, the household within the lineage and state, the city within the region, and the region within the world empire, while each level still contained within itself the smaller units from which it was formed. The unity that was the empire's highest goal avoided collapse back into the original chaos of nondistinction only by preserving within itself the very divisions on the basis of family or region that it claimed to transcend.
Mythology and Folklore of the Hui, A Muslim Chinese People
Author: Shujiang Li
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438410816
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 476
Book Description
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438410816
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 476
Book Description
The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood
Author: David R. Montgomery
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393083969
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
How the mystery of the Bible's greatest story shaped geology: a MacArthur Fellow presents a surprising perspective on Noah's Flood. In Tibet, geologist David R. Montgomery heard a local story about a great flood that bore a striking similarity to Noah’s Flood. Intrigued, Montgomery began investigating the world’s flood stories and—drawing from historic works by theologians, natural philosophers, and scientists—discovered the counterintuitive role Noah’s Flood played in the development of both geology and creationism. Steno, the grandfather of geology, even invoked the Flood in laying geology’s founding principles based on his observations of northern Italian landscapes. Centuries later, the founders of modern creationism based their irrational view of a global flood on a perceptive critique of geology. With an explorer’s eye and a refreshing approach to both faith and science, Montgomery takes readers on a journey across landscapes and cultures. In the process we discover the illusive nature of truth, whether viewed through the lens of science or religion, and how it changed through history and continues changing, even today.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393083969
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
How the mystery of the Bible's greatest story shaped geology: a MacArthur Fellow presents a surprising perspective on Noah's Flood. In Tibet, geologist David R. Montgomery heard a local story about a great flood that bore a striking similarity to Noah’s Flood. Intrigued, Montgomery began investigating the world’s flood stories and—drawing from historic works by theologians, natural philosophers, and scientists—discovered the counterintuitive role Noah’s Flood played in the development of both geology and creationism. Steno, the grandfather of geology, even invoked the Flood in laying geology’s founding principles based on his observations of northern Italian landscapes. Centuries later, the founders of modern creationism based their irrational view of a global flood on a perceptive critique of geology. With an explorer’s eye and a refreshing approach to both faith and science, Montgomery takes readers on a journey across landscapes and cultures. In the process we discover the illusive nature of truth, whether viewed through the lens of science or religion, and how it changed through history and continues changing, even today.
Art and Immortality in the Ancient Near East
Author: Mehmet-Ali Ataç
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107154952
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
Far from being a Judeo-Christian invention, apocalyptic thought had its roots in the ancient Near East and was expressed in its art.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107154952
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
Far from being a Judeo-Christian invention, apocalyptic thought had its roots in the ancient Near East and was expressed in its art.
The Water Kingdom
Author: Philip Ball
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022647092X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
From the Yangtze to the Yellow River, China is traversed by great waterways, which have defined its politics and ways of life for centuries. Water has been so integral to China’s culture, economy, and growth and development that it provides a window on the whole sweep of Chinese history. In The Water Kingdom, renowned writer Philip Ball opens that window to offer an epic and powerful new way of thinking about Chinese civilization. Water, Ball shows, is a key that unlocks much of Chinese culture. In The Water Kingdom, he takes us on a grand journey through China’s past and present, showing how the complexity and energy of the country and its history repeatedly come back to the challenges, opportunities, and inspiration provided by the waterways. Drawing on stories from travelers and explorers, poets and painters, bureaucrats and activists, all of whom have been influenced by an environment shaped and permeated by water, Ball explores how the ubiquitous relationship of the Chinese people to water has made it an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression. From the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage the waters ? to provide irrigation and defend against floods ? was a barometer of political legitimacy, often resulting in engineering works on a gigantic scale. It is a struggle that continues today, as the strain of economic growth on water resources may be the greatest threat to China’s future. The Water Kingdom offers an unusual and fascinating history, uncovering just how much of China’s art, politics, and outlook have been defined by the links between humanity and nature.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022647092X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
From the Yangtze to the Yellow River, China is traversed by great waterways, which have defined its politics and ways of life for centuries. Water has been so integral to China’s culture, economy, and growth and development that it provides a window on the whole sweep of Chinese history. In The Water Kingdom, renowned writer Philip Ball opens that window to offer an epic and powerful new way of thinking about Chinese civilization. Water, Ball shows, is a key that unlocks much of Chinese culture. In The Water Kingdom, he takes us on a grand journey through China’s past and present, showing how the complexity and energy of the country and its history repeatedly come back to the challenges, opportunities, and inspiration provided by the waterways. Drawing on stories from travelers and explorers, poets and painters, bureaucrats and activists, all of whom have been influenced by an environment shaped and permeated by water, Ball explores how the ubiquitous relationship of the Chinese people to water has made it an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression. From the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage the waters ? to provide irrigation and defend against floods ? was a barometer of political legitimacy, often resulting in engineering works on a gigantic scale. It is a struggle that continues today, as the strain of economic growth on water resources may be the greatest threat to China’s future. The Water Kingdom offers an unusual and fascinating history, uncovering just how much of China’s art, politics, and outlook have been defined by the links between humanity and nature.
Chinese Mythology A to Z
Author: Jeremy Roberts
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780816048700
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
Alphabetical entries cover Buddhist deities, legendary characters, sacred places and shrines, Chinese dynasties and beliefs, and animal legends and themes.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780816048700
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
Alphabetical entries cover Buddhist deities, legendary characters, sacred places and shrines, Chinese dynasties and beliefs, and animal legends and themes.