慧眼 慧心 慧根——记香港收藏家徐展堂

Mr. Xu Zhantang, a successful businessman,is an outstanding collector and connoisseur in antiques,who is keen on the traditional Chinese culture.His remarkable judgement and rich collection have already become the modern legend.He devotes himself to the collection of antiques so much so that he raises fund and contributes antiques all around the world to set up exhibition halls.He made great contributions to the Chinese antique course and his activities are very influential.     

History of Psychology in China: Contributions,Challenges, and Future

The history of psychology makes three major contributions:(1) promoting the development of psychology in China;(2) establishing the history of Chinese psychology as an academic discipline;(3) playing an important role in training the next generation of Chinese psychologists.This effort faces numerous challenges,including the reduction in undergraduate teaching hours,declining enrolments at the postgraduate level,limited innovation in research,and a lack of financial support.These challenges stem largely from changes in the Chinese academic assessing system,the greater weight placed on experimental psychology,and a fewer opportunities for researchers.To address these concerns the history of psychology in China should make the history of Chinese psychology its research priority,while also presenting its findings to the public,and developing innovative teaching and research approaches.     

清代珐琅彩瓷器赏鉴

The porcelain in cloisoon enamel is a precious kind produced in the three reigns of Kangxi, Yongzhen, and Qianlong of Qing Dynasty. Its technological process is very complicated. The production and development of it plays an important role in the Chinese porcelain history, which enriches the decoration ways and categories of over-glaze porcelain family.     

古代灯具的收藏

The electric light is widely used nowadays. Can you image what our ancestors used for lighting and what they are like? Actually, the Chinese ancient lamp has a long and splendid history. The ancient lamp becomes more and more important with the continuous excavations of fine lamps and the popularity of collection. This article tells us the brief history of Chinese lamp and the categories and characteristics of each period.     

New Perspectives on the "Dao" of "Huidaomen": Redemptive Societies and Religion in Modern and Contemporary China

This essay uses research in Chinese religion,and specifically Chinese "redemptive societies," to challenge and enrich the received history of "sects and secret societies" in modern and contemporary Chinese history,and suggests that a future "history of cultivation movements" might be a helpful means to steer between competing narratives of state-building and personal religious experience.The discussion is illustrated with a brief biography of Li Yujie (1901-94),founder of the redemptive society Tiandijiao who devoted his life to cultivation and religion,but also to independent journalism and the Guomindang.     

The Origin of “Chinese Philosophy”

Using the analysis of a single word to launch a conceptual review of (a problem in) cultural history, the Chinese term zhexue 哲學 (wisdom-learning, tetsugaku) is not simply a translation of the word “philosophy”; its inventor, Nishi Amane (1829–97), regarded it as the (Western) counterpart of Oriental learning (Tōyōgaku). The first explicit linkage of “philosophy” with “the East” was at The University of Tokyo, where it played an important role in the work of Katō Hiroyuki (1836–1913) and Inoue Tetsujirō (1855–1944). Inoue’s History of Oriental Philosophy, written under Katō’s inspiration, used Western philosophy to systematize ancient Chinese thought, and transformed “philosophy” (tetsugaku) from a learning of others, or Western learning, into an important component of the spiritual world of the East, and into a kind of universal knowledge. This was completely different from earlier lectures on “China philosophy” (shina tetsugaku) by Nakamura Masanao (1832–91) and Shimada Jūrei (1838–98) which still followed the Chinese underlying structure, and in the background, it had the intent of grasping the power to control East Asian discourse. In China, when young scholars like Wang Guowei (1877–1927) embraced philosophy, they already took its universality as a self-evident premise. This kind of alignment later evolved into a situation where it seemed entirely natural to use Western systems to interpret Chinese thought, and it also induced serious scholars to reflect. However, “Oriental philosophy” and “Chinese philosophy” provide East Asia and especially China with an opportunity to reevaluate its traditional culture. In this connection, “Chinese philosophy” includes: first, using philosophical concepts to re-provision ancient thought (the so-called history of Chinese philosophy); second, the occurrence of “philosophy” and “Chinese philosophy” and their evolution after their arrival in China; third, drawing on philosophy to enrich and develop China’s thinking. When seeking out “philosophy” in the veins and arteries of China’s history, the first and second aspects must be strictly distinguished. As to what the future may hold, the effect of the third aspect is most important.     

Marsone, Pierre, The Steppe and the Empire: The Formation of the Khitan [Liao] dynasty-4th-10th Centuries [History]

Conventional treatments of Chinese history include a "Liao/Khitan dynasty" existing on the northern frontier from 907 to 1125,ruled by the ethnically distinctive Khitan (Qidan) people.As Pierre Marsone points out in the foreword to La Steppe et l'Empire,in many histories discussion of this polity is absent or perfunctory.Indeed the work to which Marsone's title alludes,the classic 1938 L'Empire des steppes by René Grousset,presented a comprehensive history of steppe empires yet spared only a few pages of its bulk for the Khitan state.Such neglect obstructs historians' understanding of long-term trends.The Chinese world had seen powerful empires with some degree of "foreignness" before,but this was a new kind of entity that proved immune to the accustomed methods of Chinese policy.Too powerful to play off against other states,with an administration too systematized to succumb to personal politics,the Liao/Khitan empire became such a fixation of Northern Song (960-1127) policymakers that the political history of the latter cannot be effectively told without frequent reference to the former,and it is no coincidence that the two Asian superpowers collapsed nearly simultaneously.In turn,the Liao/Khitan empire set the precedent for the stable hybrid bureaucratic states that were so important in later Chinese history.Marsone's work makes the valuable contribution of clarifying how this empire came into being.The resulting account is an invaluable corrective to dynastically delimited narratives in which the Liao empire appears in the tenth century as an abrupt and novel development,epitomizing the Great Man model of history in the form of its founder,Yelü Abaoji.     

Young,Ernest P.Ecclesiastical Colony: China's Catholic Church and the French Religious Protectorate

China's relationship with and experiences under imperialism have been a consistent topic among scholars of modem Chinese history.Ernest Young's new book,Ecclesiastical Colony:China's Catholic Church and the French Religious Protectorate,is an important contribution to this effort by examining the nature of this relationship as concerns the Catholic missions in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century China.In Young's study,Christianity is seen through its political as well as religious commitments.     

NEW BOOKS

4th Dalai Lama Yundain GyamcoAuthored by 5th Dalai Lama and translated by Chen Qingying and Ma Lianlong, the book tells the life of the 4th Dalai Lama who was the only non-Tibetan among the various generations of the Dalai Lama.As he was the first reincarnated Mongolian Living Buddha of the Gelug Sect, he held an important position in the history of the Gelug Sect. His period was a period filled with social changes, and little historical materials are found to cover his period. Publication of the book, published by the Tapei All Buddhist Cultural Undertakings Co. Ltd., is obviously a must-read book.     

Famous Tibetologists In and Outside China

It is the fact that scholars outside China plunged into studying King Gesar earlier than their Chinese counterparts, and Biography of King Gesar in Mongolian printed using woodcarving blocks appeared earlier than the hand-copied Gesar.In 1716, Beijing published the first seven chapters of Biography of King Gesser in Mongolian, printed using woodcarving blocks, which soon spread overseas to the great interest of scholars in Russia and Germany. A Russian scholar turned the Beijing edition into Russian in 1936, and made an analysis of the epic.In 1883, G.N. Potanin, a Russian scholar, found a hand-copied volume of the epic in Amdo, and quoted part of it in his treatises, thus beginning the history of the Tibetan epic being introduced to the outside world. In 1900, A. H. Francke, a missionary, published his edition of King Gesar that contained originals jotted     

人类踏上青藏高原的第一步:西藏旧石器时代考古的新成果

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949,tremendous achievements have been made in archaeology in Tibet.A series of new archaeological finds provided important physical evidence for rewriting the ancient history of Tibet,proving eloquently the close connection between Tibetan and mainland Chinese cultures and outlining how Tibetan civilization gradually became part of the Chinese nation as a whole.Starting from this issue,the column will introduce some of the most influential archaeological discoveries.     

说玦

Jue, is one of the important kinds of Chinese ancient jade.Iti-s production dates to the Qing dynasty.Judged from the shape,it is an ear pedant as earring, which reflects the simple aesthetic conception and traditional thought of ancient people.Jue of the early times is comparatively important and it is the forefather of ancient jade as far as we know and worthy of thorough research.     

The Everlasting Empire： The Political Culture of Ancient China and Its Imperial Legacy

To most specialists and non-specialists of Chinese political culture, probably the most intriguing question is why the Chinese empire, one of the largest political entities in human history, attained against all odds its unparalleled longevity for more than two millennia from 221 BCE to 1911. Building upon his previous study of the formation of China＇s unique imperial ideology prior to the foundation of the first dynasty, （Yuri Pines, Envisioning Eternal Empire： Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Era, Honolulu： University of Hawai＇i Press, 2009）.     

Uspensky,Vladimir L., Tibetskiy Buddizm v Pekine （Tibetan Buddhism in Beijing）

The new book by Vladimir Uspensky （alternatively, Uspenskiy）, Professor and Chair of the Department of Mongolian and Tibetan Studies, Faculty of Asian and African Studies of Saint Petersburg State University （Russia）, deals with various aspects in the history of Tibetan Buddhism in Beijing; the time is mainly the period from the middle seventeenth to the early twentieth century. During the reign of the Qing dynasty, the ruling class, namely Manchu and Mongolian nobility, patronized Tibetan Buddhism. This aspect of Qing history is studied too little in Chinese and foreign works, and Uspensky＇s book fills this lacuna. One can see that the author successfully achieved his aim, as he has drawn a vivid picture of institutions and cultural activity among Tibetan Buddhists in Beijing.     

中国狮子的造型

Lion doesn‘t live in China. But like dragon and phoenix, as an important cultural element, it has been merged into the minds and material lives of the Chinese. Combined with the development of Chinese History,the thesis conducts a systematic research into this cultural phenomenon based on historical materialism.     

The Order of Sima Chengzhen and Wang Ziqiao: An Inquiry into the History of Shangqing Daoism in the Tiantai Mountains

Though small,this work is important for the study of Taoist history.It throws a better light on one of its major representatives,Sima Chengzhen 司马承祯(647-735),12th patriarch of the Shangqing 上清 tradition,a blooming Taoist school under the Tang (618-907).Ute Engelhardt had certainly already studied him notably with her translation of one of his principal texts on the breath technics;Livia Kohn too has worked on one of his short texts on meditation and Paul Kroll has written several articles on his poetry.But Thomas Jülch brings a new vision of this Taoist and his essential role on the legitimation of imperial power with the moving of the Shangqing tradition center to the Tiantai Mountains 天台山.     

Ebrey,Patricia Buckley,Emperor Huizong

Despite the splendor and historical significance of Huizong＇s reign （r. 1100-26） in Song history, little research has been done on this period in recent years. Chinese scholarship provides several interesting biographies of Huizong and a few monographs about his reign, mostly literary, if not fictive.     

New Books

The Annotation of Tubo History, the Old and New Tang Book The author Luo Guangwu is born in 1048 and his important works are General Local History of Tibet, The Concise Local History of Tibet, and Seven Years in Tibet. In the twenty-four historical books composed by different dynasties in ancient China, there are two books on Tang＇s history, both of which were worked out by the official government, i.e.     

Pankenier,David W., Astrology and Cosmology in Early China.＂ Conforming Earth to Heaven

While David Pankenier has since the early 1980s made outstanding contributionsto the scholarship of ancient Chinese cosmology, astrology, and their politico-cultural consequences with his many fruitful articles, this is his first single-authored monograph incorporating major discoveries and insights accumulated over the decades. The book is groundbreaking, not only in the sense that the particular topic is examined with unprecedented intensity and profoundness, but also because it provides ＂an introduction to diverse aspects of an understudied field＂ （p. 5）, making the frameworks, terminologies and sources of early astral sciences in China more accessible.     

Mysterious Bone Ties in Changtang Tribes

In Changtang Prairie, thenomadic natures of wild, unrulyand doughty are always inpeople＇s blood vessels. However, withthe intrusion of modern civilization,the wildness and unruliness mostlystay in elder people＇s memories.Every single wrinkle on the foreheadof a weather-beaten old man is arecord of an unforgettable history.Every old man would speak proudlyto his offspring about the tribe hebelongs, the history of its ＂bonefamily＂ and great achievements ofhis tribe leaders. The elders still takedelight in talking about the legendsof their bone family ancestors.