Тувинская рукопись «Сутры о восьми хулилах»

The article aims to introduce a manuscript of the “Sūtra of Eight Khulils” in Mongolian, part of the collection in Aldan-Maadyr National Museum of the Tuva Republic. The idea of eight khulils, or eight trigrams, which symbolize eight great elements (fire, earth, metal, sky, water, mountain, wood, and air / wind) and form the basis of the Tibetan-Mongolian astrological system may be traced back to ancient Chinese divinatory practices which one can find in Yi jing, or Book of Changes. Despite the title, the Sūtra has nothing in common with canonical Mahāyāna sūtras either in content or composition. No parallel work of the Tibetan canon identified as an original for the sutra in question, assumingly, it is either a translation from Chinese or of purely Mongolian origin. The body of the text is preceded by schematic pictures of eight khulils, supplied with indications of eight directions (life, health, luck, happiness, evil, illness, evil spirit and five demons), each direction having eight combinations that are differently positioned (south, north, east, west and four intermediary directions), depending on khulil. Then, there is a short instruction on what one should or should not do in these eight directions, as well as an explanation of negative consequences of abiding in each of the eight khulils and methods of their neutralization. This passage contains a list of places and situations that should be avoided, including demons (albin, aišiginar (Skt. piśāca), bug demons, demons of curses, etc.) that can do harm to humans, diseases, unfavorable objects, beings, types of food, as well as unfavorable directions and time periods. Also, Buddhist texts and various offerings needed for the ritual are mentioned, such as “Vajravidāraņa-dharaṇī”, “Sitātapatrā-dharaṇī”, “Sutra of Eight Luminous of Heaven and Earth”, and “Paňcarakṣā”. Of great interest are the respective lists of Buddhist ritual texts, dungli and kereg ritual offerings, classifications of Bon and Buddhist priests to perform such rituals, and lamas who can take donations; their further investigation may shed additional light on the Buddhist practices of the Mongolian peoples. The fact that the manuscript repository of the National Museum of the Republic of Tuva includes about sixteen texts devoted to eight khulils may indicate that khulil divination was quite widespread and popular in the local tradition of Tuvan Buddhism.

Taoist Culture Design: The Development of the Design Ideas

The cultural development of “Tao” and “Qi” has lasted for thousands of years. The theory of “Tao” began with Laozi and Zhuangzi. Through “The Book of Changes · Xici,” it is developed as “the metaphysical is the Tao, and the figurative is the Qi [1]”. “Tao” and “Qi” are interdependent as philosophical concepts. It first guided the philosophy of Taoism, Confucianism and other scholars in the pre-Qin period, and then promoted the development of national system in Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasty, which gave birth to the aesthetic system of the ancient imperial court. With the development of modern design ideas, the design ideas of “Tao” and “Qi” are integrated. After thousands of years of civilization development and technological changes, today’s ideas of “Tao” and “Qi” are booming, and have in-depth exchanges and integration with foreign cultures.

The Origin and Cultural Evolution of East Asian Cognitive Style: A Case Study of the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經)

Experimental tests about cross-cultural differentiation of cognitive style conclude that East Asian and Western cognition differ. Tendencies described as East Asian include holism, non-linearity, expectation of change, relationalism, field dependence, causal pluralism, dialecticism, and a tolerance of contradiction. Cross-cultural psychologists generally refrain from discussing the intellectual history or cultural evolution of these differences, preferring to explain results on cognitive scales in terms of results on social scales assessed using present-day participants. The present article attempts to partially close this explanatory gap through detailed discussion of tendencies of East Asian cognitive style as represented in what is probably the most influential book in the history of East Asia, The Book of Changes. This study purports to show (a) that the content of the Yijing 易經 and its commentaries is best described in terms of the cognitive tendencies just mentioned, (b) that reading the Yijing activated those cognitive tendencies, and (c) that the Yijing attained prodigious influence on subsequent Chinese and East Asian cultures through four known mechanisms of cultural transmission. Informed by this case study, researchers of cross-cultural cognition may be positioned to develop a richer appreciation of the cultural representation and evolution of East Asian cognitive style in historical context.

From Cultural Heritage Preservation to Art Craft Education: A Study on Taiwan Traditional Lacquerware Art Preservation and Training

In Taiwan, preservation and training policies of intangible cultural assets are highly valued by the government. In this study, lacquerware art craft education as intangible cultural heritage is the subject of this study. We conducted in-depth interviews and secondary data collection to obtain research data and carried out a grounded theory data analysis method through expert meetings to explore the passing on education strategy of “lacquerware art craft” in Taiwan. Firstly, based on Bloom’s educational objectives, the study analyzed three aspects of lacquer art education: cognitive, affection and skill, and proposed a “Lacquerware Art Passing-On Education Framework Diagram”. Later, the analysis results of the grounded theory enable us to summarize the “Lacquerware art value and learning structure diagram”. In this structure, it reveals that the Lacquerware artist’s way of thinking about the craft levels can echo the system of the Three Extremes of the Tao in the Book of Changes and divide the value levels of creation into the levels of tools of livelihood, way of living and philosophy of life.

Analysis of the Worldwide Distribution of the ‘Man or Animal in the Moon’ Motifs

For millennia, people have seen a man, an animal, or an object as they look at the moon. The motif of the ‘frog/toad in the Moon’ was recorded in writing in the Book of Changes (I Ching) over 2400 years ago. The ‘man in the Moon’ theme is found in old Norse literature in the Younger Edda. In Mesoamerica, the story of the ‘rabbit in the Moon’ is pre-Columbian. This study analyses the different versions by combining areal studies as well as structural and statistical analyses with information from ancient texts and archaeological artefacts. In particular, I compare the geographic distribution of the main motifs to the 2,278 motifs in Yuri Berezkin’s database. In this context, I report on the observed similarities between the geographic distribution of the ‘man or animal in the Moon’ motifs and the two of the most widespread earth creation myths.