scholarly journals The power of images: the model universe of the First Emperor and its legacy*

2002 ◽  
Vol 75 (188) ◽  
pp. 123-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Rawson
Keyword(s):  
Tang Dynasty ◽  
Textual Information ◽  
Model Universe ◽  
Large Complex ◽  
Real People ◽  
The Tang Dynasty ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Ancient Chinese ◽  
Different Parts

Abstract Elaborately glazed Chinese pottery figures of camels and servants, dating to the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618–906), have been much prized by collectors and museums over the last three quarters of a century. They have been readily admired as a category of sculpture, but little attention has been paid to their functions within the tomb complex. An examination of the tomb of the First Emperor (d. 210 B.C.) reveals tomb figures as just one part of a large complex of structures and images. The famous terracotta warriors were an element in the elaborate burial of the Emperor, which also included ‘real’ people and animals, miniature bronze chariots, models of palaces and images of the heavenly bodies. If we are to understand the purposes of this complex of many different parts, we need to consider how the ancient Chinese viewed images of all categories. It would appear that in the eyes of the ancient Chinese, images were equivalent to the subject of the image. By creating images in bronze, pottery or in pictures, the ancient Chinese were presenting a universe for the dead Emperor. This article describes the philosophical concepts that informed this understanding of images and illustrates the discussion with archaeological finds and textual information. The archaeological discoveries of recent years have made a reassessment of Chinese tomb models necessary. The powers of these images were deemed to be considerable. The Chinese have never collected tomb figures because, in their view, such figures were the actual servants and soldiers of the dead.

scholarly journals Medieval Daoist Concepts of the Middle Kingdom

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-196
Author(s):  
Yi Liu ◽  
Casey Lee
Keyword(s):  
Tang Dynasty ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
The World ◽  
The Tang Dynasty ◽  
The Ancient Chinese

AbstractThe ancient Chinese people believed that they existed at the center of the world. With the arrival of Buddhism in China came a new cosmic worldview rooted in Indian culture that destabilized the Han [huaxia 華夏] people’s long-held notions of China as the Middle Kingdom [Zhongguo 中國] and had a profound influence on medieval Daoism. Under the influence of Buddhist cosmology, Daoists reformed their idea of Middle Kingdom, for a time relinquishing its signification of China as the center of the world. Daoists had to acknowledge the existence of multiple kingdoms outside China and non-Han peoples [manyi 蠻夷] who resided on the outskirts of the so-called Middle Kingdom as potential followers of Daoism. However, during the Tang dynasty, this capacious attitude ceased to be maintained or passed on. Instead, Tang Daoists returned to a notion of Middle Kingdom that reinstated the traditional divide between Han and non-Han peoples.

scholarly journals The “echo” of Edgar Poe in Anna Akhmatova’s “Poem without a Hero” and poems later period

Litera ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Anna Vladislavovna Lamzina ◽  
Lyubov' Gennad'evna Kikhnei
Keyword(s):  
Russian Literature ◽  
Research Material ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Cross ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
Anna Akhmatova

The subject of this research is the hidden allusions to the novels of Edgar Poe in Anna Akhmatova’s “Poem without a Hero” and poems later period. The research material contains the framework text of the “Poem without a Hero” – the set of epigraphs to different parts of the poem, authorial commentaries, history of used and discarded epigraphs at various stages of revision of the poem, text of the “Poem without a Hero”, as well as the author's “Prose about the Poem” and a number of poems created during the work on the “Poem without a Hero” and afterwards. A. Akhmatova was interested in the works of Edgar Poe, and researched the references to Edgar Poe in the works of N. S. Gumilyov. The article employs comprehensive methodology, such as comparative-historical and biographical approaches, as well as intertextual and hermeneutic methods for determination of literary allusions and interpretation of meanings hidden by the author. The main conclusion lies in revelation of the profoundly concealed connection of the “Poem without a Hero” with the range of narratives of Edgar Poe, united by the cross-cutting motif of being buried alive and coming back from the dead: “The Black Cat”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “Morella”, “Ligeia”, “Berenice”, “The Oval Portrait”. This gives a new perspective on the literary characters that one after another appeared to the lyrical heroine in plot of the poem; and explains the fragment of one of the most mysterious works in Russian literature of the XX century, and some other poems of Anna Akhmatova.

Chinese Aesthetics

2020 ◽  
pp. 26-72
Keyword(s):  
Tang Dynasty ◽  
Han Dynasty ◽  
Five Dynasties ◽  
Artistic Conception ◽  
Chinese Aesthetics ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Tang Dynasty ◽  
Basic Ideas ◽  
The Ancient Chinese ◽  
Southern And Northern Dynasties

This chapter studies the development and basic ideas of Chinese aesthetics by reviewing the history of aesthetic perspective from the Han Dynasty; the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties; the Tang Dynasty; the Five Dynasties; the Song and Yuan Dynasties; and the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The ancient Chinese artists pursued the artistic conception of beauty, namely, the integration of mind and objects, sentiments, and scenes, and the fusion of subjective emotions and objective landscape. Nevertheless, this conception overlooks the function of practice, the intermediary between mind and objects. Actually, there are three fundamental elements: emotion (first feeling) of aesthetic subjects; artistic conception sensed through the painting brush in practice (perception); poetry, books, songs, and paintings as artistic finished products (containing essence and sentiments). It is the combination, conformity, and harmonious co-existence of these three essentials (namely subject–practice–object) that constitute the art system aesthetics or design aesthetics.

The Baima Tibetans and the Di People of Chinese Historical Records: Challenging the Link

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-174
Author(s):  
Katia Chirkova
Keyword(s):  
Tang Dynasty ◽  
Chinese Character ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Western Sichuan ◽  
Loan Words ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Popular View ◽  
The Tang Dynasty ◽  
The Ancient Chinese

This paper addresses a long-standing controversy surrounding the ethnicity of the Baima Tibetans, a Tibeto-Burman people in Western Sichuan Province whose ethnic and linguistic origins are yet to be satisfactorily ascertained. It focuses on one popular view, which attempts to link the present-day Baima Tibetans with the Di, an ancient Tibeto-Burman group documented in the Chinese historical records who inhabited roughly the same area until their gradual assimilation into the Han and the Tibetans during the Tang Dynasty. The paper examines and refutes all three types of evidence proffered in the literature in support of making such a link: geographical distribution, cultures and customs, and language. Focusing on the linguistic evidence, including autonyms and certain names of the Di contained in the historical texts, and two alleged Di loan words recorded in the ancient Chinese character dictionary 《說文解字》 , the paper makes use of first-hand fieldwork material to bear on the issue. It concludes that it is immature to say anything definite about the identity of the mysterious Di language or languages, let alone to directly link them with the speech of the modern Baima people, which is predominantly a Bodic language.

Determinants of Abuse of the Bodies of the Dead

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-77
Author(s):  
Margarita Khomyakova
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Specific Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Dead ◽  
High Level

The author analyzes definitions of the concepts of determinants of crime given by various scientists and offers her definition. In this study, determinants of crime are understood as a set of its causes, the circumstances that contribute committing them, as well as the dynamics of crime. It is noted that the Russian legislator in Article 244 of the Criminal Code defines the object of this criminal assault as public morality. Despite the use of evaluative concepts both in the disposition of this norm and in determining the specific object of a given crime, the position of criminologists is unequivocal: crimes of this kind are immoral and are in irreconcilable conflict with generally accepted moral and legal norms. In the paper, some views are considered with regard to making value judgments which could hardly apply to legal norms. According to the author, the reasons for abuse of the bodies of the dead include economic problems of the subject of a crime, a low level of culture and legal awareness; this list is not exhaustive. The main circumstances that contribute committing abuse of the bodies of the dead and their burial places are the following: low income and unemployment, low level of criminological prevention, poor maintenance and protection of medical institutions and cemeteries due to underperformance of state and municipal bodies. The list of circumstances is also open-ended. Due to some factors, including a high level of latency, it is not possible to reflect the dynamics of such crimes objectively. At the same time, identification of the determinants of abuse of the bodies of the dead will reduce the number of such crimes.

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