As a widely venerated goddess in late imperial China, the essence of the Zhunti (Cund & imacr;) cult is intricately woven into devotional observances. However, existing research on the cult of Zhunti has been limited in scope, primarily focusing on the "thought" aspect while neglecting the vital element of "activity." Even the few available studies exploring the "activity" component have been confined to official and prescriptive sources. To address this scholarly gap, the present study endeavors to draw upon descriptive sources to present a nuanced and contextualized portrayal of the Zhunti cult's praxis. Of particular significance in this investigation is a humorous tale from Li Yu's (1611-1680) collection of short stories Wusheng xi (Silent Operas), which amusingly depicts a utilitarian devotee's negotiation with the goddess Zhunti for the boon of sons, serving as a compelling and pertinent source for elucidating the practical aspects of the Zhunti cult.
In the process of contact between Chinese and Western natural history, Ludovico Buglio's (Li Leisi, 1606-1682) Shizi shuo (On Lions, 1678) can be described as the earliest text of Western biological knowledge to be introduced to China. We can trace this book's knowledge of natural history back to the De historia animalium, by the renowned Greek scholar Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Subsequently, Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder, AD 23/24-AD 79) authored Naturalis historia, an encyclopaedia on natural history that also includes references to Aristotle's viewpoints. The medieval naturalist Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great, 1193-1280) later composed De animalibus, quoting Aristotle's views and arguments. During the Renaissance, this link between Aristotle's writings and Albertus Magnus's text became a model to imitate for Conrad Gessner (1517-1565) and Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605); finally, Buglio adopted it for his translations. By examining the sources adopted in Shizi shuo, this article explores the view of natural history hidden in the text and how, through the lens of Renaissance readings, such a view floated across the oceans and reached the early Qing dynasty.
This article examines the twelfth-century Southern Song Chinese official and writer Fan Chengda's travel diary, treatises, and poems on Guilin, a southern locale traditionally associated with exotic imagination and frontier concerns. It argues that the incongruity in the images of Guilin displayed in these works derives not only from generic differences and other related writing conventions, but also from Fan's mixed feelings towards Guilin and his appointment there. In addition, the incongruity reveals that Guilin still appeared as an "Other" to people of the Southern Song in areas farther north or outside of the region. This deep-seated perception of the region does not accord with the state's efforts to consolidate the political and cultural systems of China in the border regions.
The French Jesuit Alexandre de La Charme (1695-1767) was the first scholar to translate the entire Shijing (The Book of Songs) into a European language. Though completed as early as 1737, his Latin Liber Carminum remained unpublished until 1830, when Julius Mohl (1800-1876) edited the manuscript in Paris. Drawing on previously unexamined archival sources, this article traces the genesis of La Charme's neglected work and conducts an analysis of its translation strategy, which represents a marked departure from the approaches of earlier Jesuit interpreters of the Chinese classics. While La Charme himself, and other scholars since, have underlined the central role that a Manchu translation played in informing the Liber Carminum, the present article shows that this influence has been overstated; the oddities of La Charme's translation are instead better understood in the context of his proselytising work, Xingli zhenquan (The True Explanation of Natural Philosophy), which argues against the validity of historical commentaries, thereby facilitating a deeply idiosyncratic reading of the Chinese classics.
