The Huainanzi And Textual Production In Early China

The Han dynasty Huainanzi is a compendium of knowledge. This edited volume follows a multi-disciplinary approach to explore how and why the Huainanzi was produced and how we should interpret the work.

Compiled by scholars at the court of Liu An, king of Huainan, in the second century B.C.E, The Huainanzi is a tightly organized, sophisticated articulation of Western Han philosophy and statecraft. Outlining "all that a modern monarch needs to know," the text emphasizes rigorous self-cultivation and mental discipline, brilliantly synthesizing for readers past and present the full spectrum of early Chinese thought. The Huainanzi locates the key to successful rule in a balance of broad knowledge, diligent application, and the penetrating wisdom of a sage. It is a unique and creative synthesis of Daoist classics, such as the Laozi and the Zhuangzi; works associated with the Confucian tradition, such as the Changes, the Odes, and the Documents; and a wide range of other foundational philosophical and literary texts from the Mozi to the Hanfeizi. The product of twelve years of scholarship, this remarkable translation preserves The Huainanzi's special rhetorical features, such as parallel prose and verse, and showcases a compositional technique that conveys the work's powerful philosophical appeal. This path-breaking volume will have a transformative impact on the field of early Chinese intellectual history and will be of great interest to scholars and students alike.

Via a hermeneutics focused on Chinese numerology and concentric arrangements, this book offers a novel construal of the textual universe proper to early China writings. The author lays bare distinguishable patterns of textual composition while relating them to corresponding patterns of thinking. He differentiates rhetorical variants through detailed studies of the Zhuangzi’s Inner chapters, the Laozi, the Analects, and the Huainanzi. The philosophical depth and relevance of the Chinese ancient worldview appear in a fresh light when one unearths the patterns into which its content is embedded. The focus on textual patterns and rhetorical arrangements also facilitates the reading of Chinese classics alongside other traditions. The book will be a valuable reference for scholars and graduate students studying Chinese literary criticism, Chinese philosophy, and comparative philosophy.

This book is a timely response to a rather urgent call to seek an updated methodology in rereading and reappraising early Chinese texts in light of newly discovered early writings. For a long time, the concept of authorship in the formation and transmission of early Chinese texts has been misunderstood. The nominal author who should mainly function as a guide to text formation and interpretation is considered retrospectively as the originator and writer of the text. This book illustrates that although some notions about the text as the author’s property began to appear in some Eastern Han texts, a strict correlation between the author and the text results from later conceptions of literary history. Before the modern era, there existed a conceptual gap between an author and a writer. A pre-modern Chinese text could have had both an author and a writer, or even multiple authors and multiple writers. This work is the first study addressing these issues by more systematically emphasizing the connection of the text, the author, and the religious and sociopolitical settings in which these issues were embedded. It is expected to constitute a palpable contribution to Chinese studies and the discipline of philology in general

A study of early Chinese maps using interdisciplinary methods. This is the first English-language monograph on the early history of maps in China, centering on those found in three tombs that date from the fourth to the second century BCE and constitute the entire known corpus of early Chinese maps (ditu). More than a millennium separates them from the next available map in the early twelfth century CE. Unlike extant studies that draw heavily from the history of cartography, this book offers an alternative perspective by mobilizing methods from art history, archaeology, material culture, religion, and philosophy. It examines the diversity of forms and functions in early Chinese ditu to argue that these pictures did not simply represent natural topography and built environments, but rather made and remade worlds for the living and the dead. Wang explores the multifaceted and multifunctional diagrammatic tradition of rendering space in early China.

History mattered to the political elite in ancient China. Leung explores why it was so important and to what end.

This is the first comprehensive companion to the study of Daoism as a philosophical tradition. It provides a general overview of Daoist philosophy in various thinkers and texts from 6th century BCE to 5th century CE and reflects the latest academic developments in the field. It discusses theoretical and philosophical issues based on rigorous textual and historical investigations and examinations, reflecting both the ancient scholarship and modern approaches and methodologies. The themes include debates on the origin of the Daoism, the authorship and dating of the Laozi, the authorship and classification of chapters in the Zhuangzi, the themes and philosophical arguments in the Laozi and Zhuangzi, their transformations and developments in Pre-Qin, Han, and Wei-Jin periods, by Huang-Lao school, Heguanzi, Wenzi, Huainanzi, Wang Bi, Guo Xiang, and Worthies in bamboo grove, among others. Each chapter is written by expert(s) and specialist(s) on the topic discussed.

This book provides a collection of essays representing the state of the art in the research into argumentation in classical antiquity. It contains essays from leading and up and coming scholars on figures as diverse as Parmenides, Gorgias, Seneca, and Classical Chinese "wandering persuaders." The book includes contributions from specialists in the history of philosophy as well as specialists in contemporary argumentation theory, and stimulates the dialogue between scholars studying issues relating to argumentation theory in ancient philosophy and contemporary argumentation theorists. Furthermore, the book sets the direction for research into argumentation in antiquity by encouraging an engagement with a broader range of historical figures, and closer collaboration between contemporary concerns and the history of philosophy.