China is big, old, and fascinating. Its importance in the larger scheme of things is such that there should be what I call “The China Rule.” This rule would apply as follows. If a scholar claims that history unfolds directionally or according to general rules, s/he must specifically test the claim using China as datum. [...]
Tags:ancestors·canonization·China·Chinese religion·Confucian Cult·Confucius·Imperial Cult·ritual·ritual feasting·sacrifice·spirit feeding·Temple of Culture·The China Rule·Thomas Wilson
Between 800 and 200 BCE, a remarkable series of sages, mystics, and thinkers gave rise to the transcendental traditions that are known today as “world religions.” In 1949, the German philosopher Karl Jaspers identified several themes common to these traditions and described this six hundred year period as the Axial Age: “These movements were ‘axial’ [...]
Tags:Akkadia·Alan Strathern·Assyria·axial age·Buddha·Confucius·Daoism·death·ethics·Hinduism·immanence·Jainism·Jaspers·Judaism·Karen Armstrong·Karl·Mesopotamia·monotheism·morals·Plato·Platonism·Socrates·suffering·Sumerian·Thorkild Jacobsen·transcendence·world rejection
There are many ways in which China remains a cipher for Westerners, most of whom labor under the misapprehension that “modern civilization” originated in ancient Greece and spread slowly outward, eventually reaching “backwards” China and even then only in attenuated fashion. This of course ignores parallel and in some ways more spectacular developments in Neolithic [...]
Tags:ancestor worship·ancient China·Anne Underhill·burials·China·Chinese archaeology·Chinese Neolithic·Confucius·cult of ancestors·Donald Holzman·filial piety·KC Chang·lineages·macrocosm·microcosm·parents·stratification·transcendence
The story is a familiar one: a new religion is founded — or, as the sociologist Rodney Stark would say, a new sect is born from an older tradition — and over time it becomes successful. By success, I mean that it grows, becomes popular, and shows few signs of slowing down.
At some point during [...]
Tags:Beijing·Buddhist economy·China·Chinese Buddhism·Chinese government·Chinese state·Christianity·co-opt·co-optation·Confucius·Constantine·Cultural Revolution·Dalai Lama·domesticated religion·Foucault·new religions·official atheism·political power·power·profits·religion as commodity·resistance·Roman Empire·sects·state·suppression·surveillance·Tibetan Buddhism·Western Buddhism·World Buddhist Forum
