The Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove
Although Shan Tao, Ruan Ji, Xiang Xiu, Liu Ling, Ji Kang, Ruan Xian, and Wang Rong were historical figures, their identity as a group of like-minded iconoclasts who flouted Confucian ideology and norms of behavior has been questioned in modern scholarship. Even their epithet Zhulin qixian (The Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove), as some scholars argued, was retrospectively coined. This chapter argues that not only were the Seven Worthies historical figures in the third century, but they were also famously known by their epithet in their own time. Further, the political significance of their domicile in Shanyang District is explained. Yet the Seven Worthies were not a homogenous group because their political aspirations and philosophical inclinations were quite diverse and dissimilar, as the analysis of the philosophical thinking of Ruan Ji, Ji Kang, and Xiang Xiu in this chapter demonstrates.
Shih-shuo hsin-yü : a new account of tales of the world
"Shih-shuo hsin-yu (A New Account of Tales of the World), " compiled by Liu I-ch'ing (403-444), is a collection of anecdotes, short conversations, and pithy observations on personalities who lived in China between about 150 and 420 A.D. Mather's classic translation incorporates the commentary of Liu Chun (461-521), adding invaluable information through citations from lost works of the third and fourth centuries.The new edition introduces numerous revisions to this first complete English translation of the work.Richard B. Mather is Professor Emeritus of Chinese Language and Literature, University of Minnesota. His published works include articles on Six Dynasties literature and books on Shen Yueh and Lu Kuang."
Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise
Chinese Buddhism is often portrayed as the product of a protracted encounter between Indian Buddhism and Chinese civilization, an encounter that led to the sinification of Buddhist teachings and practices. In a masterful display of scholarship, Robert Sharf makes a major contribution to the re-evaluation of the encounter. He shows that, although the Chinese were cognizant of the foreign origins of Buddhism, their actual exposure to South Asian clerics and Sanskrit texts was limited throughout medieval times. For the most part, Sharf argues, the Chinese dialogue with Buddhism took place among the Chinese themselves. That being the case, Chinese Buddhism is more properly approached as a product of sinitic culture, not a distorted reflection of normative Indian Buddhist prototypes. Sharf draws his argument in part from a close analysis of an obscure, nominally Buddhist text, the Treasure Store Treatise (Pao-tsang lun). The book begins with a careful reconstruction of historical and religious provenance of the text. It next turns to an analysis of internal evidence to demonstrate the close affinity between the Treatise and texts associated with Ox-head Ch'an and Twofold-Mystery Taoism. There follows a fascinating discussion of the metaphysical underpinnings of the Treatise in Chinese correlative cosmology, in which Sharf points out the degree to which the metaphysical notion of sympathetic resonance (kan-ying) structured the medieval Chinese understanding of virtually all aspects of Buddhist doctrine, ritual, and soteriology. The introductory section is followed by a translation of the three chapters of the Treatise, including lengthy annotation that provides extended philologicaland philosophical discussion of dozens of key terms and concepts. The study concludes with a critical analysis of the place of Tantric, or Esoteric, Buddhism within the Chinese Buddhist tradition.