scholarly journals Japanese Monks and Chinese Books: Glimpses of Buddhist Sinology in Early Tokugawa Japan

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 871
Author(s):  
Timothy H. Barrett

In the17th and 18th centuries, just as English scholars were reading and writing about their heritage in the continental prestige language of Latin, so too were Japanese members of the Buddhist clergy researching and publishing about the Chinese language heritage of their own religious tradition, drawing both on new printed books, often imported from China, and on much earlier manuscripts and printed texts preserved in their own country. The importation and reprinting of the canon by Ōbaku monks and the subsequent flowering of Zen scholarship is already well-known, but we should consider the efforts of Shingon monks in commenting on the heritage they received from China eight centuries earlier, and even the activities of Nichiren monks, who took steps to promote the legacy of Chinese Tiantai Buddhism. Critical reflection on the Buddhist tradition may not have emerged in Japan until the 18th century, but it did so in the context of a world of scholarship concerning an imported classical language that certainly stood comparison with that of the contemporary Anglophone world.

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 166-182
Author(s):  
Iryna Tsiborovska-Rymarovych

The article has as its object the elucidation of the history of the Vyshnivetsky Castle Library, definition of the content of its fund, its historical and cultural significance, correlation of the founder of the Library Mychailo Servaty Vyshnivetsky with the Book.The Vyshnivetsky Castle Library was formed in the Ukrainian historical region of Volyn’, in the Vyshnivets town – “family nest” of the old Ukrainian noble family of the Vyshnivetskies under the “Korybut” coat of arm. The founder of the Library was Prince Mychailo Servaty Vyshnivetsky (1680–1744) – Grand Hetman and Grand Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilno Voievoda. He was a politician, an erudite and great bibliophile. In the 30th–40th of the 18th century the main Prince’s residence Vyshnivets became an important centre of magnate’s culture in Rich Pospolyta. M. S. Vyshnivetsky’s contemporaries from the noble class and clergy knew quite well about his library and really appreciated it. According to historical documents 5 periods are defined in the Library’s history. In the historical sources the first place is occupied by old-printed books of Library collection and 7 Library manuscript catalogues dating from 1745 up to the 1835 which give information about quantity and topical structures of Library collection.The Library is a historical and cultural symbol of the Enlightenment epoch. The Enlightenment and those particular concepts and cultural images pertaining to that epoch had their effect on the formation of Library’s fund. Its main features are as follow: comprehensive nature of the stock, predominance of French eighteenth century editions, presence of academic books and editions on orientalistics as well as works of the ideologues of the Enlightenment and new kinds of literature, which generated as a result of this movement – encyclopaedias, encyclopaedian dictionaries, almanacs, etc. Besides the universal nature of its stock books on history, social and political thought, fiction were dominating.The reconstruction of the history of Vyshnivetsky’s Library, the historical analysis of the provenances in its editions give us better understanding of the personality of its owners and in some cases their philanthropic activities, and a better ability to identify the role of this Library in the culture life of society in a certain epoch.


2021 ◽  
pp. 096100062110267
Author(s):  
Karen Attar

This article addresses the challenge to make printed hidden collections known quickly without sacrificing ultimate quality. It takes as its starting point the archival mantra ‘More product, less process’ and explores its application to printed books, mindful of projects in the United States to catalogue 19th- and 20th-century printed books quickly and cheaply with the help of OCLC. A problem is lack of time or managerial inclination ever to return to ‘quick and dirty’ imports. This article is a case study concerning a collection of 18th-century English imprints, the Graveley Parish Library, at Senate House Library, University of London. Faced with the need to provide metadata as quickly as possible for digitisation purposes, Senate House Library decided, in contrast to its normal treatment of early printed books, to download records from the English Short Title Catalogue and amend them only very minimally before releasing them for public view, and to do this work from catalogue cards rather than the books themselves. The article describes the Graveley Parish collection, the project method’s rationale, and the advantages and disadvantages of sourcing the English Short Title Catalogue for metadata. It discusses the drawbacks of retrospective conversion (cataloguing from cards, not books): insufficient detail in some cases to identify the relevant book, and ignorance of the copy-specific elements of books which can constitute the main research interest. The method is compared against cataloguing similar books from photocopies of title pages, and retrospective conversion using English Short Title Catalogue is compared against retrospective conversion of early printed Continental books from cards using Library Hub Discover or OCLC. The control groups show our method’s effectiveness. The project succeeded by producing records fast that fulfilled their immediate purpose and simultaneously would obviously require revisiting. The uniform nature of the collection enabled the saving of time through global changes.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fan Lizhu ◽  
Chen Na

AbstractThe English term “Confucianism” may refer to three different concepts in the Chinese language: the school of Confucianism, scholastic tradition of Confucianism, and the religious tradition of Confucianism. From a sociological perspective, Confucianism as an official political orthodoxy no longer exists. However, Confucianism as a cultural tradition remains, and it is expressed in various aspects of the Chinese social life, which echoes the diffused characteristics of a typical Chinese religion. In this research, we try to demonstrate that the religiousness of Confucianism fulfills the cultural and ethical needs of the on-going new religious movement in China. Also, it helps modern people in their search for a life of meaning in times of cultural crisis and social


Author(s):  
Donald K. Swearer

All singular terms for designating a religious tradition (e.g. Buddhism, Christianity) belie their multiplex diversity. Historically evolved, culturally embodied religious traditions are by their very nature dynamic, complex, and multilayered. Buddhism is no exception. The tripartite division that developed to encompass the historical breadth of the Buddhist tradition—Hinayana (Theravada), Mahayana, Tantrayana (Vajrayana)—merely suggests a diversity that includes perhaps hundreds if not thousands of different sects, subsects, and movements. Even broad historical-cultural distinctions such as Thai Buddhism or Japanese Buddhism fail to encompass differences in belief and practice interwoven into the textures of global Buddhisms. This chapter addresses the question of Buddhist encounters with diversity in terms of the tripartite division familiar to all Buddhist traditions, namely, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. While this model is shared by the varied forms of Buddhism, the ways in which it is embodied and expressed have been quite diverse.


2003 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo Tak-hung Chan

Abstract This article attempts to assess the contribution of Chinese translators and theorists of the twenties and thirties, in particular the famous writer Lu Xun, whom I consider the first modern translation theorist in China. It is with him that China entered its modern phase in translation. Not only did he advocate retaining the foreignness of the original text, in a way reminiscent of the entire tradition of German Romantic translation theorists from Schleiermacher to von Humboldt to Goethe; he also explored in his own translations the possibilities for enriching the Chinese language through the importation of Europeanized structures and expressions. It is these foreignizing impulses that set Lu Xun apart most clearly from pre-modern Chinese theorists. At the same time, these impulses connect him with leading giants of translation theory like Nabokov and Benjamin (who emphasized the importance of the literal method in translation) on the one hand, and Venuti and Holmes (who highlighted processes of indigenization and exoticization in translation) on the other. Lu Xun’s ideas had a particular place in the wider cultural and historical context. Views similar to his had been advocated by his predecessors at the beginning of the century, whose attempt to Europeanize the classical language did not, unfortunately, find a large following. In his own time, Lu found ardent supporters among friends and colleagues who either (a) suggested thorough Europeanization, or (b) preferred limited Europeanization. Dissenting views, however, were clearly voiced by some of the other leading writers of the day. So there were (a) those who favored the use of a language based on the actual words spoken by the populace and (b) those who queried why one should not learn a foreign language and read the original instead. My article deals at length with the debates among these theorists and seeks to understand them from the perspective of contemporary Western translation theory.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 235-248
Author(s):  
Konrad Kołodziejczyk

Resources of the archive and library of Saint Catherine’s parish in Wolbrom The article tries to take a closer look at the history of the archive and library of Saint Catherine’s parish in Wolbrom, describe the local conditions and briefly characterise the archival resources and library collection. The parish archive and library, originally part of the monastery, in Wolbrom have previously been the subject of only a few studies. Saint Catherine’s parish in Wolbrom was founded in the first half of the 14th century. At the beginning of the 1620s, it was handed over to the Canons Regular of the Lateran from the Corpus Christi Church in Kazimierz near Krakow. The first printed books almost certainly arrived in the town together with the founding of the parish, while the oldest mention of the parish book collection in Wolbrom comes from 1566. In the following centuries, the collection was successively enriched with donations from benefactors and the clergy. The main users of the collection were almost certainly the monks themselves, the heads of the parish schools and pupils. The rich collection in the parish library was not, however, always respected, especially in the 18th century when, after an inspection, attention was drawn to the terrible conditions in the library. Many valuable parts of the collection were also destroyed during wars and invasions. The Wolbrom parish archive was mentioned for the first time in the second half of the 17th century. Initially, the archive was located in the chambers of the prior, then in the monastery library above the church sacristy. The resources of the archive mainly include parish registers. Most of the documentation comes from the time of the partitions. The parish archive also contains documents not connected with the activities of the parish. There is even a royal document from the time of Stanislaw II August Poniatowski concerning the local guild of furriers. The observations carried out in the archive and library allow important recommendations to be made concerning the safeguarding of the collection with suitable storage conditions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 35-44
Author(s):  
Hedvika Kuchařová

The Brisigells were one of the families that settled in Bohemia in connection with land acquisitions during the Thirty Years’ War. The family achieved its greatest wealth in the second generation at the turn of the 18th century. The third generation suffered a gradual decline, caused i.a. by financial difficulties and debt. After the middle of the 18th century, the family disappeared from Bohemia. The electronic cataloguing of early printed books with systematically recorded provenances has made it possible to identify in the collections of the Strahov Library and the National Library a small set of books previously owned by individual family members. Not only has the analysis enabled insight into the reading interests of the Brisigell family, but it has also provided information on the wandering of the books within the family as well as within friendly and business relations with other noblemen in the regions of West and Southwest Bohemia.


2021 ◽  
pp. 119-141
Author(s):  
Oksana Prokopyuk

The article examines the socio-cultural aspects of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Library functioning in the 1770–80s. The focus is on acquiring the books as a purposeful way to form a collection of books that best demonstrated the monastery’s needs for books, interests and reading tastes of the fraternity. The author attempts to reconstruct the network of «book agents»: people who assisted in books acquisition; determine who was the initiator and who was the implementer of procurement; specify the needs in the printed books, as well as whether printed books completely displaced the manuscripts at the end of the 18th century.The author discovers the interest of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in replenishing the book collection not only to meet the readers’ needs of the fraternity but also based on the understanding of the importance of a well-stocked library to confirm the status of the monastery. It has been established that the «book agents» were the Lavra attorneys in Moscow and St. Petersburg, who carried out various assignments of the monastery; former Lavra monks transferred to other dioceses; or persons loyal to Lavra, specifically involved for this purpose. There is interest in translated literature, periodicals, new publications, and activity in the purchase of printed materials, which generally signals changes in the reading practices of the monastic corporation. The analysis of the repertoire of purchased books confirmed the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment and the growing demand for secular and educational books on science and nature. The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, while remaining quite traditional in the segment of theological literature, where Latin continued to dominate, demonstrated openness to new trends in book culture of the second half of the 18th century.


Author(s):  
Janina Kosman

The Library of the State Archives in Szczecin has got a valuable collection of old printed books, including a large collection of handbooks. The article presents selected examples of 17th and 18th century publications produced in Szczecin, in one of the most important local schools, the Paedagogium Ducale, later transformed into the Gymnasium Carolinum. These materials, referring to various manifestations of school life, illustrate reflect activities of educational institutions of that time. They are also an important supplement to the history of culture and social life in Szczecin and in the Western Pomerania.


2000 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-40
Author(s):  
Muriel McCarthy

Founded 300 years ago, Marsh’s Library in Dublin – Ireland’s first public library – is described by its librarian as a ‘treasury of the European mind’. The outstanding collections, in their purpose-built 18th-century accommodation, are still accessible to the public. They include Irish books and manuscripts and books on subjects such as travel, botany, music and natural history. Recently the catalogue of printed books has been computerized and made available on the Internet.


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