Band 76, Heft 4

This article addresses the phenomenon that in the *Yin gao尹誥 ( The Announcement of Yin ), a pre-imperial Chu manuscript of the 4th century BCE published by Tsinghua University, the words min 民 and zhong 眾 appear to refer to two different groups of people. After reviewing the textual evidence and previous hypotheses on this topic, the author draws attention to the fact that while zhong and min are attributed to geographically distinct regions, they nevertheless seem to be related to each other. The author notes that a similar (though not identical) relationship exists between the zhong and min in the “Pan geng” 盤庚 chapter of the Shangshu 尚書 ( Book of Documents ) and certain passages of the Chunqiu Zuozhuan 春秋左傳 ( Zuo commentary of the Spring and Autumn Annals ), where the zhong appear to act as delegates of the min , conveying the ruler’s commands to the min and, in turn, communicating the min ’s concerns back to the ruler.

After liberation in 1945, the new North Korean regime initiated a process to liquidate so-called “old” or “feudal” thought. One prime target of the North Korean authorities was the myth of Jizi 箕子 (kor. Kija) and the story of his migration to the Korean Peninsula. The elimination of Kija and his legacy was a complicated task; the ancient legend of the Shang dynasty sage who brought civilisation and culture to the Korean people was widely known in all strata of Korean society, deeply ingrained in thousands of literary works, and the new North Korean capital, Pyongyang, was the traditional centre of the Kija cult. In spite of censorship, physical destructions of Kija-related relics, or academic conferences, which tried to repudiate the link between Kija and the Chosŏn state on a scientific basis, the North Korean authorities were never able to fully suppress the old narrative. The ancient sage remains, until nowadays, a problematic point for North Korean historiography and cultural memory.

This paper explores self-representations of female migrant workers in mainland Chinese grassroots theater, understood as a localized variety of trans-Asian people’s theater. It discusses the 2018 play They Say that was created by women associated with the Shenzhen-based NGO Green Rose Community Center. The analysis of the text and its performance seeks to shed light on the multifaceted identities of the authors and performers of the play, who left the countryside for precarious work in Shenzhen’s production and service industries. Beyond offering a close reading of the play with a particular focus on the images of “home” and “homemaking,” this paper embeds female migrant workers’ cultural activities into a larger social context that is shaped by state policies, non-governmental organizations, cultural norms and values, and legacies of the socialist era.

Law concerns every aspect of our lives. However, rarely do scholars investigate metaphors of law, let alone those used in Mandarin, to which smaller attention is devoted in metaphor studies if compared to English. In this study I investigated the word yuan 冤, a Chinese word referring to immoral and illegal deeds such as ‘injustice, wrong, tort’, but also ‘vengeance’ and ‘bad luck’, to find the mappings it realises. Previous approaches to Chinese moral metaphors used a source-domain oriented approach, thus finding a limited set of mappings. In this study, I devised a method (MetaCoCoTaC) of finding metaphors at the word compound and collocate level starting from a monosyllabic target-domain word, yuan , that enabled me to find more and new source domains for INJUSTICE, including SOUND, FOOD, MOVEMENT, and ANIMAL. The findings of this research also enable us to account for the polysemy of the word yuan . Moreover, discrepancies with previous studies were discovered as to the way far more predictable domains, such as VERTICALITY and OBJECT, are actually used. Finally, some unique aspects of the Chinese morphology and the Chinese logographic script that are not systematically taken into consideration in relation to metaphor research were also addressed.

It is well known that ancient Chinese written records are an invaluable source of historical information on astronomy, technology, economy, and climate, dating back in some cases to the second millennium BCE. Numerous studies have established that the climatic consequences of the ejection of volcanic aerosols into the atmosphere can have a major impact on the climate worldwide. Here, the Chinese evidence of such a severe climatic anomaly during the decade of the 530s is first reviewed. A preponderance of the evidence from ice cores and tree rings worldwide points to more than one large volcanic eruption during the 530s, although which volcano was responsible has not yet been conclusively established. Even more severe than 1815, the “year without a summer,” due to the eruption of Tambora, in 536–537 summer frosts and snowfall occurred in China causing multi-year drought, crop failures, and catastrophic famine. Study of pre-imperial Chinese texts gives reason to believe that in mid-second millennium BCE a massive loading of the atmosphere with volcanic aerosols from the eruption of Thera (Santorini) may have been the cause of dramatic climatic downturn in the sixteenth century BCE. Dating of the events based on verifiable records of astronomical phenomena suggests that the long-remembered ancient calamity could have been caused by the eruption of Thera in the eastern Mediterranean. This benchmark date can be helpful in establishing a secure chronology of eastern Mediterranean kingdoms in the period.

For roughly four thousand years the pulverized roots of both wild ( Rubia peregrina L.) and cultivated ( Rubia tinctorum L.) madder have been used in Asia, North Africa and Europe as a red dye. Madder’s original, natural habitat extended from Iran to the Mediterranean and madder roots were gathered, processed and used long before the plant was systematically cultivated. Although the red dye derived from madder was put to various uses, the dyeing of fibres for use in textiles and carpets was the primary one, and is first attested c. 2000 BC in Mesopotamian cuneiform sources. In Iran madder’s use can be traced from late Antiquity to the modern era, and may have begun as early as the 1st millennium BC. In the 19th century demand for madder in India and Russia was great, spurring large investment in madder cultivation as a cash crop, both in Iran and in the Caucasus. Documents are presented which provide detailed accounts of both madder cultivation and the processing of the roots for the production of dyestuff. The introduction of synthetic dyes in the 1870s largely eradicated the market for madder-based dye in Eurasia and had a profound impact on the carpet industry, in particular.

This essay re-interprets the ruler and their rulership in classical Chinese Legalism ( Fǎjiā 法家) and its main work, the Hán Fēizǐ 韓非子 attributed to Han Fei 韓非 (c. 280–233 BCE). The re-interpretation takes late 19th and early 20th century New Legalism’s ( Xīn Fǎjiā 新法家) focus on the ruler’s instruments of governance as a starting point. My essay raises this instrumental idea to a new level by re-conceptualizing the ruler ( zhǔ 主 or jūn 君) as a dynamic figure and office. First, the legalist ruler becomes procedural. Their rulership is not a static property vested in a fixed unit. Rather, the ruler must create and sustain their office by applying the three action modes: fǎ 法 (general, standardized, public laws), shì 勢 (positional power surrounding the ruler), and shù 術 (administrative tactics kept internal and secret). Secondly, the ruler becomes relative. Their rulership is not an absolute feature pertaining to one single institution or person. Rather, every unit in state hierarchy – whether monarch, minister ( chén 臣), or citizen ( mín 民) – can turn into a ruler with respect to other units acting as its ministers. This re-conception of rulership renders Han Feis 2,200-year-old theory of rulership a neither out-of-date nor authoritarian analytical framework. Using this framework developed by my essay, prospective analyses can potentially apply Chinese Legalism not only to Ancient China but also to other epochs and other countries, and that in various disciplines.

The Qayrawānī scholar Asad b. al-Furāt (d. 213/828) is regarded as an authentic Mālikī jurist at the origin of one of the first compilations of the teachings of the Egyptian disciples of Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/705): al-Asadiyya . Rather, the manuscripts in the Kairouan-Raqqāda collection mentioning his name suggest that he served as a cornerstone of the ḥanafī networks in Ifrīqiya. We show in this article that Asad b. al-Furāt played a key role in the transmission in Kairouan of the Kitāb al-aṣl of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Šaybānī (d. 189/805), one of the main disciples of Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767). Through an analysis combining a palaeographic approach and the study of texts and paratexts preserved in the Qayrawānī manuscripts of the Kitāb al-aṣl , we emphasise that: 1. the establishment of the written form of ḥanafī teachings was undertaken in Kairouan in the 3rd/9th century and continued until the 4th/10th century; 2. persistent ḥanafī circles were formed around the transmission of these texts in Ifrīqiya; 3. the Kitāb al-aṣl was already in the first part of the 3rd/9th a fixed text, taught in Kairouan, and which influenced the construction of Mālikī and Ismāʿīliī legal doctrines.

Denkard VII which considered as the “Legend of Zoroaster” has been the subject of several investigations. The first translation was by E.W. West (1897: The Sacred Books of the East . Vol. 47. Clarendon: Oxford University Press: 26); Many years later Marijan Molé (1967) published a French version of Book VII; in Persian, Ahmad Tafazzolī and Žāleh Āmūzgār (1993: 55–110) translated some parts of the book VII; the last version which is in Persian belongs to Rashed Muhassel (2012: Denkard VII . Tehran: Pažuheshgāh-e olūm-e ensāni). Chapter two, sentence 34 of Denkard VII contains a word transcribed as tōšn / tušn of which this essay aims to have a critical view.

For most of the period of Manchu domination of China prior to the nineteenth century, the rulers’ attitude toward Han civilians settling in the motherland was negative. In the Kangxi period, immigration was tolerated but strictly controlled, and most of the resources were assigned to local Eight Banners members, because the court planned to base the region’s development on the bannermen. In the fifth year of Qianlong’s reign (1740), an imperial order officially prohibited Chinese civilians from migrating to Manchuria – this was the well-known fengjin zhengce 封禁政策. The only exceptions to this trend were two brief periods: the first between Shunzhi’s reign and the early years of Kangxi’s reign, and the second roughly corresponding to Yongzheng’s reign (1723–1735). During the former period (1653–1668), immigration was encouraged, settlers were free to reclaim uncultivated lands, and a civil administration system was established. This phase has been widely discussed in the academic community for over a century, whereas research on the latter period – during which six new civil jurisdictions were established and the land policies, which had previously strongly favored bannermen, changed significantly in an effort to meet the needs of the growing civilian population – has been insufficient. Based on both institutional and private sources, this article will offer a detailed outline of the features of this peculiar stage and compare it with both the above-mentioned phase in which the province was opened to migration (1653–1668) and the restrictive policies of the Kangxi and Qianlong periods. In this way, the article will show how important Yongzheng’s change of direction was, despite the fact that it did not last long.