Transformation of Po?adha/Zhai in Early Medieval China (third–sixth centuries CE)

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-98
Author(s):  
Yi Ding
Keyword(s):  
Reception History ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Chinese Buddhism ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
The Third ◽  
Medieval China ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Medieval China ◽  
Ritual Context

This article attempts to disentangle the semantics of zhai ? in early medieval China, mostly from the third century to the sixth, by examining both Indian and Chinese Buddhist sources. It demonstrates that semantic shifts in the term reflect a changing ritual context, as Chinese Buddhism rapidly took form. The article consists of two parts. The first part looks into how the Po?adha S?tra was first introduced to China and how the word po?adha was employed in early ?gama scriptures and the vinayas translated before the middle of the fifth century. The second part (from p. 89) examines the reception history of the lay po?adha and the transformation that it underwent in early medieval China. The po?adha/zhai in China eventually evolved into a religious feast centred on lay-monastic interaction in association with a variety of ritual elements, especially repentance rites.

Historical Elements in the Story of Coriolanus

1930 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 96-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. T. Salmon
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of

One of the most recent writers on the early history of Rome has shown that the framework of the traditional story is perhaps to be trusted, even though there are many details, inconsistent and self-contradictory, which are obviously to be rejected. In view of this fact, it might be worth while to reconsider the Coriolanus story, the prevailing opinion concerning which is that vouchsafed by Mommsen many years ago: ‘die Erzählung ist ein spät, in die Annalen eingefügtes, darum in alien Stücken denselben ungleichartiges und widersprechendes Einschiebsel.’ The reasons for arriving at such an opinion are sufficiently obvious to warrant their receiving but the barest recital. First, it is incredible that the Volsci would either choose a renegade Roman to be their general, or, even if they did, allow him at the last minute to rob them of the fruits of victory. Secondly, inconsistencies in the version of the story which we possess induce us to suspect its historicity; for example, Dionysius of Syracuse is made to send corn to the starving Romans'—yet Dionysius lived some hundred years later; a youthful Coriolanus is represented as having considerable influence in the senate—yet in those early days the senate was essentially a gathering of venerable men; the Roman populace learns immediately the gist of Coriolanus' remarks in the senate—yet senate meetings were held in secret; Volsci are allowed to attend the ‘ludi’ and to meet at the Spring of Ferentina—yet in the fifth century none but Latini could do this; the Roman Marcius is given an honorific cognomen, Coriolanus, because of his behaviour at the capture of Corioli—yet such cognomina were not granted until the third century or even later and even then only to the general and not to the subordinate; the plebs is represented as wielding great power in the assembly1—yet we know that in the fifth century it did nothing of the kind.

scholarly journals Local Resistance in Early Medieval Chinese Historiography and the Problem of Religious Overinterpretation

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grégoire Espesset
Keyword(s):  
Religious History ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Local Resistance ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Medieval China ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chinese Religions ◽  
Chinese Historiography ◽  
Early Medieval China

The official corpus of Chinese historiography contains a wealth of valuable information on what may be termed local resistance to the centralised empire in early medieval China (third to sixth century). Sinologists specialised in the study of Chinese religions commonly reconstruct the religious history of the era by interpreting some of these data. In the process, however, methodological mistakes often occur, such as disregard for the primary purpose of the historiography of local resistance, and ‘overinterpretation’—that is, ‘fabricating false intensity’ and ‘seeing intensity everywhere’, as French historian Paul Veyne proposed to define the term. Focusing on a cluster of historical anecdotes collected in the standard histories of the four centuries under consideration, this study discusses how the supposedly ‘religious’ data therein should, and should not, be dealt with.

scholarly journals التاريخ العقدي في المذهب الشافعي

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-159
Author(s):  
Salahuddin Guntung Raden
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Inductive Method ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of

This study aims to reveal the various patterns of belief in the internal of the Shafi'i school and also to explain the history of the emergence of these various forms of understanding after the early development of the Shafi'i school which is oriented towards pure salafi Sunni understanding. This research used the deductive inductive method. The results of this study show that the Shafi'i school as it develops in the aspect of fiqh through the hands of its figures, it also develops in the aspects of aqidah with quite rapid development. The Shafi'i school is no longer pure as it was in the days of its founder, Imam Al-Shafi'i, and his early figures. In the internal of the Shafi'i School, various forms of belief emerged which later became many different madrasas. Each madrasah produces a variety of views that are similar and are bound by the same ushul (principle) and their figures are connected with similar thoughts. The Shafi'i school was originally a pure Sunni school and could be called the Madrasah Syafi'iyyah Ahlussnnah. Then within the school, there appeared various types of understanding of the people of Kalam and Sufi. Then it became several madrasas with different styles of understanding. Within the schools, the concept of Kullabiyah Asy'ariyah emerged in the third century of hijriyyah where in the same century the people of Kalam and Sufi also emerged. Then in the fifth century, the concept of Asy'ariyah Muktazilah emerged. Then the concept of understanding of the Asy'ariyah Falsafi emerged and became grounded in the Shafi'i School in the sixth century of hijriyyah during the emergence of the concept of Kuburiyah which has survived to this day. However, the pure Sunni Salafi style remains in the internal Shafi'i school.

When Buddhism Meets the Chen-Wei Prophetic and Apocryphal Discourse

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zongli Lu
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Chinese Buddhism ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Medieval China ◽  
Early Medieval China ◽  
New Religion

As Buddhism was a new religion introduced to a foreign society and culture, Buddhist doctrines and religious and philosophical concepts had to be translated and transmitted through a set of the indigenous linguistic, conceptual, and metaphoric discourses of the time. The majority of followers of the new religion would welcome and perceive this set of religious concepts only within their own mindsets that had focused on homegrown religious beliefs and cultural traditions. Many historians of Chinese Buddhism have pointed out that Confucianism, Daoism, Metaphysical Learning, and other indigenous cultural traditions contributed significantly to the acculturation of Buddhism in early medieval China. This chapter argues that a less discussed religious discourse, the learning of the chen (讖‎) prophecy and wei apocrypha (weishu 緯書‎), also played a notable role in the process of translating and converting Buddhist scriptures and notions into “Chinese” Buddhism during early medieval China.

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