Court protocol in Nara Japan: an annotated translation of the <i>Giseiryō</i> and the <i>Ebukuryō</i>

This article furnishes the analysis and the philological translation for the first time into English of two laws contained in Book 7 of the Yōrōryō (Yōrō Administrative Code, 718), i.e. the Giseiryō 儀制令 (Law on Ceremonies and Regulations) and the Ebukuryō 衣服令 (Law on Robes and Garments). These two laws are pivotal in regulating the court etiquette, not only regarding the behavior but also the appearance of the political elites, as etiquette and attires define the hierarchy and the interpersonal relations between aristocracy, officialdom, and personnel down to the servants. On the one hand, the two laws highlight some basic differences between the Japanese rulers and their Chinese counterparts; on the other hand, the emphasis on ceremonies, regulations, and attires molded the subsequent Heian court society, as can be easily inferred from the significant production of texts emphasizing rituals and etiquette, such as manuals on protocol and precedents and journals written by court officials

Color in Ancient and Medieval East Asia

With essays by Monica Bethe, Mary M Dusenbury, Shih-shan Susan Huang, Ikumi Kaminishi, Guolong Lai, Richard Laursen, Liu Jian and Zhao Feng, Chika Mouri, Park Ah-rim, Hillary Pedersen, Lisa Shekede and Su Bomin, Sim Yeon-ok and Lee Seonyong, Tanaka Yoko, and Zhao Feng and Long BoColor was a critical element in East Asian life and thought, but its importance has been largely overlooked in Western scholarship. This interdisciplinary volume explores the fascinating roles that color played in the society, politics, thought, art, and ritual practices of ancient and medieval East Asia (ca. 1600 B.C.E.–ca. 1400 C.E.). While the Western world has always linked color with the spectrum of light, in East Asian civilizations colors were associated with the specific plant or mineral substances from which they were derived. Many of these substances served as potent medicines and elixirs, and their transformative powers were extended to the dyes and pigments they produced. Generously illustrated, this groundbreaking publication constitutes the first inclusive study of color in East Asia. It is the outcome of years of collaboration between chemists, conservators, archaeologists, historians of art and literature, and scholars of Buddhism and Daoism from the United States, East Asia, and Europe

Female Agency in Manuscript Cultures

Manuscript cultures have frequently forgotten or erased women’s contributions. Their agency is a glaring blind spot in the pursuit of gender perspectives on the production of written artefacts. This volume studies manuscripts and inscriptions by and for women, women’s participation and sponsorship, and their role in circulating written artefacts. It sheds a new light on a neglected aspect of manuscript studies

Primers, Commentaries, and Kanbun Literacy in Japanese Literary Culture, 950-1250CE

This project seeks a new perspective on issues of literacy, literary language, and cultural contact in the literature of premodern Japan by examining the primers used to study Chinese-style literature in the Heian and early medieval periods (c. 900-1250CE). Much of Heian literary production was centered on kanbun: "Chinese-style" writing that resembled classical Chinese and mobilized allusive connections to classical Chinese texts, but was usually read based on classical Japanese vocabulary and syntax. The knowledge gleaned from introductory kanbun education forms an important and little-researched common thread linking readers and writers from a wide range of backgrounds - from male and female courtiers to specialized university scholars to medieval monks and warriors eager to appropriate court culture. While tracing the roles of commonly-studied kanbun primers and commentaries in shaping Heian literary culture and its medieval reception, I consider key aspects of premodern Japan literacy - from the art of kundoku ("gloss-reading") to the systems of knowledge involved in textual commentary and the adaptation of kanbun material. Examining the educational foundations of premodern Japanese literary culture demonstrates that kanbun and other literary styles functioned as closely entangled modes of literacy rather than as native and foreign languages, and that certain elements of classical Chinese knowledge formed a valued set of raw material for literary creativity. Chapter 1 outlines the diversity of premodern Japanese literacy and the key primers and encyclopedic reference works involved in kanbun education. Chapter 2 focuses on a primer for learning written characters, the Thousand Character Classic (Qian zi wen), discussing its varied reception in the contexts of calligraphy practice, oral recitation, and commentarial authority and offering translations from the tongue-in-cheek literary showpiece Thousand Character Classic Continued (Zoku Senjimon, 1132). In Chapter 3, I examine the role of kanbun knowledge in Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book (Makura no soshi, early 11th century), which foregrounds the social and creative roles of introductory kanbun material as a vocabulary of conversational quotation among both men and women. Chapter 4 turns to Condensed Meaning of the New Ballads (Shin gafu ryakui, 1172), a ground-breaking anecdotal commentary on Bai Juyi's poetry, to discuss the way that kanbun texts were interpreted and reinvented through commentary. Chapter 5 discusses an innovative poetic adaptation of a kanbun primer, Waka Poems on the Child's Treasury (Mogyu waka, 1204), which makes use of poetic topics and historical anecdotes as effective ways of organizing kanbun knowledge and also suggest the potential for introductory education to spark literary creativity across genre boundaries. I conclude with a brief look at the relevance of premodern Japanese kanbun education for broader questions about literary language and for comparisons involving other transregional classical languages like Latin. By illustrating the processes by which elements of Chinese literary culture were adopted and adapted throughout East Asia, this project provides fertile ground for exploring issues of literacy and cultural interaction that underlie all forms of literature

Violets between Cherry Blossoms. The diffusion of classical motifs to the East

This richly illustrated book is a comparative study, which shows how motifs and images travelled throughout Eurasia from Rome to Tokyo. It covers a period from around the early fifth century BC up until today. It is likely that already in the fifth century BC there was some indirect cultural exchange between the Black Sea region and China. From the second to the sixth century AD elements of Greco-Buddhist culture gradually found their way to China and subsequently, from the mid-sixth century AD on, reached Japan. This book is the first comprehensive work to provide a critical and compelling study of the cultural flow across this extensive area. It shows convincingly how Greek images and motifs travelled East, were adopted and preserved in Chinese art and how they spread to Japan

Bibliographical Sources for Buddhist Studies from the Viewpoint of Buddhist Philology

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