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Leading scholars of ancient Chinese history, literature, religion, and archaeology consider the presence and use of texts in religious and political ritual

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Ritual Texture of Early China / Martin Kern

1. Toward an Archaeology of Writing: Text, Ritual, and the Culture of Public Display in the Classical Period (475 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) / Michael Nylan

2. The Composite Nature of Early Chinese Texts / William G. Boltz

3. The E Jun Qi Metal Tallies: Inscribed Texts and Ritual Contexts / Lothar von Falkenhausen

4. The Ritual Meaning of Textual Form: Evidence from Early Commentaries of the Historiographic and Ritual Traditions / Joachim Gentz

5. The Odes in Excavated Manuscripts / Martin Kern

6. Playing at Critique: Indirect Remonstrance and the Formation of Shi Identity / David Schaberg

7. Reimagining the Yellow Emperor's Four Faces / Mark Csikszentmihalyi

8. Text and Ritual in Early Chinese Stelae / K. E. Brashier

Works Cited

Contributors

Index

About the Author

Martin Kern is associate professor of East Asian studies at Princeton University. The other contributors are William G. Boltz, K. E. Brashier, Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Joachim Gentz, Michael Nylan, David Schaberg, and Lothar von Falkenhausen.

Reviews

"Crossing the fields of Chinese history, literature, philology, and archaeology, this important collection examines understanding of the most fundamental aspects of the Chinese literary tradition and challenges established ideas about classical Han (206 BCE-220 CE) and pre-Han texts. Kern (Princeton) provides a stimulating introduction and then eight essays, one of his own and others by leading scholars of their fields... Each chapter is a scholarly thrill, and the extensive bibliography is a valuable resource." Choice "No other work currently available takes as seriously the symbiosis between ritual and text as does this one. While recent literary study has brought to the forefront the composite nature of the early classical texts of China, this work asks us to rethink not only how many of these logia may have had their origins in ritual practice, but also how the assemblage of the texts themselves may have been ritual acts." Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy