Linda Rui Feng
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824841065
- eISBN:
- 9780824868062
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824841065.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
During the Tang dynasty, the imperial capital of Chang’an shaped literati identity and the collective imagination through its new relationship to the empire’s most prolific writers. They came through ...
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During the Tang dynasty, the imperial capital of Chang’an shaped literati identity and the collective imagination through its new relationship to the empire’s most prolific writers. They came through its fold as examination candidates, sojourners, prospective officials, and as participants in pageantries and contests showcasing literary talent. As the central site of examination culture and social transformation, Chang’an emerged in prose narratives with a distinctive and newly formed metropolitan consciousness. In spatially evocative tales and anecdotes featuring literati protagonists, narratives demonstrate the ways in which Chang’an generated new domains of experience and added new perceptual categories to the Tang cultural imagination. In particular, these narratives explore the role of the literati as routine travelers, the interplay between literary prowess and sexual license, and the possibilities for extra-official promotion and unorthodox forms of valuation and livelihood. Because these explorations are subsumed under metropolitan, situational knowledge, they bring to our attention an unprecedented interval of social, existential, and geographical mobility maintained and reinforced by the spatial contiguities of urban space. City of Marvel and Transformation conceptualizes this literary phenomenon, and argues that such narratives amend our understanding of men of letters in between social identities and institutions, as they straddled anonymity and legitimacy.Less
During the Tang dynasty, the imperial capital of Chang’an shaped literati identity and the collective imagination through its new relationship to the empire’s most prolific writers. They came through its fold as examination candidates, sojourners, prospective officials, and as participants in pageantries and contests showcasing literary talent. As the central site of examination culture and social transformation, Chang’an emerged in prose narratives with a distinctive and newly formed metropolitan consciousness. In spatially evocative tales and anecdotes featuring literati protagonists, narratives demonstrate the ways in which Chang’an generated new domains of experience and added new perceptual categories to the Tang cultural imagination. In particular, these narratives explore the role of the literati as routine travelers, the interplay between literary prowess and sexual license, and the possibilities for extra-official promotion and unorthodox forms of valuation and livelihood. Because these explorations are subsumed under metropolitan, situational knowledge, they bring to our attention an unprecedented interval of social, existential, and geographical mobility maintained and reinforced by the spatial contiguities of urban space. City of Marvel and Transformation conceptualizes this literary phenomenon, and argues that such narratives amend our understanding of men of letters in between social identities and institutions, as they straddled anonymity and legitimacy.
John R. McRae
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520237971
- eISBN:
- 9780520937079
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520237971.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
In the first half of the eighth century, the cities of Chang'an and Luoyang in northern China were the greatest urban centers in the world. The Chang'an walls formed a nearly square rectangle ...
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In the first half of the eighth century, the cities of Chang'an and Luoyang in northern China were the greatest urban centers in the world. The Chang'an walls formed a nearly square rectangle enclosing a neatly ordered set of government centers, market areas, and neighborhoods. For students of Chan Buddhism, Luoyang is also known as the city just north of Mount Song, with which Bodhidharma had been associated since at least 645. This chapter discusses imperial patronage and the Chan style during the metropolitan Chan, Shenhui's campaign against the “Northern School” and his attack on Shenxiu's students, the Oxhead school and the crisis between the Northern and Southern schools, the Platform Sūtra as the climax text of early Chan, Huineng and the evolution of Chan, and three major events in the eighth century that significantly altered the evolution of Chan.Less
In the first half of the eighth century, the cities of Chang'an and Luoyang in northern China were the greatest urban centers in the world. The Chang'an walls formed a nearly square rectangle enclosing a neatly ordered set of government centers, market areas, and neighborhoods. For students of Chan Buddhism, Luoyang is also known as the city just north of Mount Song, with which Bodhidharma had been associated since at least 645. This chapter discusses imperial patronage and the Chan style during the metropolitan Chan, Shenhui's campaign against the “Northern School” and his attack on Shenxiu's students, the Oxhead school and the crisis between the Northern and Southern schools, the Platform Sūtra as the climax text of early Chan, Huineng and the evolution of Chan, and three major events in the eighth century that significantly altered the evolution of Chan.
Benjamin Brose
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824853815
- eISBN:
- 9780824868147
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824853815.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
Chapter 2 examines how the Tang–Five Dynasties transition impacted Buddhist monastics, their traditions, and regional religious cultures. With the onset of the Five Dynasties, just as some southern ...
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Chapter 2 examines how the Tang–Five Dynasties transition impacted Buddhist monastics, their traditions, and regional religious cultures. With the onset of the Five Dynasties, just as some southern rulers recruited former Tang officials and local leaders to their administrations, they also appointed Chang’an’s displaced court clerics and prominent native monks to the abbacies of major monasteries in their territories. Traditions of learning and practice popular in the northern capitals during the late Tang were disseminated to and reconstituted in the capitals of southern kingdoms, most notably Shu and Wuyue. The continuity of elite Tang Buddhist traditions is then contrasted with the elevation of local clerics, many of whom belonged to Chan lineages, in less developed regions like Jiangxi and Fujian. The political empowerment and economic development of southeastern regions situated resident Chan monks at the centers of newly sovereign states.Less
Chapter 2 examines how the Tang–Five Dynasties transition impacted Buddhist monastics, their traditions, and regional religious cultures. With the onset of the Five Dynasties, just as some southern rulers recruited former Tang officials and local leaders to their administrations, they also appointed Chang’an’s displaced court clerics and prominent native monks to the abbacies of major monasteries in their territories. Traditions of learning and practice popular in the northern capitals during the late Tang were disseminated to and reconstituted in the capitals of southern kingdoms, most notably Shu and Wuyue. The continuity of elite Tang Buddhist traditions is then contrasted with the elevation of local clerics, many of whom belonged to Chan lineages, in less developed regions like Jiangxi and Fujian. The political empowerment and economic development of southeastern regions situated resident Chan monks at the centers of newly sovereign states.
Linda Rui Feng
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824841065
- eISBN:
- 9780824868062
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824841065.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
“Navigating the City Interior” demonstrates that when Tang narratives follow their examinee-protagonists into the city walls of Chang’an, the liminal status of the protagonists becomes imbricated ...
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“Navigating the City Interior” demonstrates that when Tang narratives follow their examinee-protagonists into the city walls of Chang’an, the liminal status of the protagonists becomes imbricated with Chang’an’s urban space, and the itineraries their wanderings trace out shed light on its spatial logic. The neophyte in Tang tales, frequently represented as being put to the test by the city’s extra-official and extra-familial networks, show that literati personhood in the latter half of the Tang was a distinctly metropolitan one, and was colored and inflected by the distinctive and unruly configuration of space and social alliances found in Chang’an.Less
“Navigating the City Interior” demonstrates that when Tang narratives follow their examinee-protagonists into the city walls of Chang’an, the liminal status of the protagonists becomes imbricated with Chang’an’s urban space, and the itineraries their wanderings trace out shed light on its spatial logic. The neophyte in Tang tales, frequently represented as being put to the test by the city’s extra-official and extra-familial networks, show that literati personhood in the latter half of the Tang was a distinctly metropolitan one, and was colored and inflected by the distinctive and unruly configuration of space and social alliances found in Chang’an.
Linda Rui Feng
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824841065
- eISBN:
- 9780824868062
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824841065.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
The introduction explains the important relationship between Chang’an and Tang literati writers, arguing that they serve as intermediary between the city and text. It gives a brief contextualized ...
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The introduction explains the important relationship between Chang’an and Tang literati writers, arguing that they serve as intermediary between the city and text. It gives a brief contextualized introduction to the Chang’an as both an imperial capital and a site for collective life. It discusses the nature and provenance of the book’s major textual sources, arguing for a need to reconceptualize and reimagine these texts as workings of the cultural imagination, rather than confined to bibliographic categories and regulated within generic boundaries. It also introduces the theoretical models used throughout the book, as related to the concepts of liminality, spatial practice, and the production of space.Less
The introduction explains the important relationship between Chang’an and Tang literati writers, arguing that they serve as intermediary between the city and text. It gives a brief contextualized introduction to the Chang’an as both an imperial capital and a site for collective life. It discusses the nature and provenance of the book’s major textual sources, arguing for a need to reconceptualize and reimagine these texts as workings of the cultural imagination, rather than confined to bibliographic categories and regulated within generic boundaries. It also introduces the theoretical models used throughout the book, as related to the concepts of liminality, spatial practice, and the production of space.
