Quoting the Confucian Analects in Defense of Indian Buddhism: An Exegetical Study of Confucius’ Utterances in the Mouzi li huo lun

I first encountered the Mouzi 牟子 while working on a Confucian text attributed to Lu Jia 陸賈 (d. c. 170 BCE), the New Discourses (Xinyu 新語), and more particularly on the problems raised by its authenticity. Lu Jia, as an ambassador for two emperors of the Han dynasty, Gaozu 高祖 (r. 202-195 BCE) and Wendi 文帝 (r. 179-157 BCE), led two expeditions to the remote area of Jiaozhi 交趾, then an independent kingdom (Nan Yue 南越) at the extreme south of the Chinese space. The New Discourses, despite the imp..

India-China: Intersecting Universalities

This collection of articles is mainly the result of an international conference organised by the Chair of Chinese Intellectual History at the Collège de France in June 2017. Entitled “India-China: Intersecting Universalities”, it brought together scholars from Asia, America and Europe who have been interested in one aspect or other of the cultural interactions between India and China. The diversity of the topics testifies to the lively interest raised by the intersection of two heavyweights of area and cultural studies. What makes the relationship between “China” and “India” so remarkably interesting is that one can hardly imagine two civilisational worlds as radically different from each other, which yet managed somehow to come into contact and to interact. The aim of the present volume is to look at various aspects of the cultural exchanges between India and China at different points of history. It is to try and remedy a certain indifference and mutual ignorance in our day and age that we bring forward this collective venture with the hope of offering to our readers alternative approaches to the connections between these two “giants of Asia”, other than the merely geopolitical ones that fill our media today

Histoire des Han postérieurs (Hou Hanshu)

L’Histoire des Han postérieurs de Fan Ye, écrite environ trois siècles après les événements qu’elle rapporte, présente la particularité de s’appuyer sur de nombreux ouvrages historiques préexistants, mais, les dépassant par sa qualité, elle s’est rapidement imposée comme la seule histoire des Han postérieurs sous la forme « annale‑biographie ».The History of the Later Han by Fan Ye was written some three hundred years after the events it narrates and unusually relies on pre-existing historical writings. Nonetheless, its superiority was soon to be recognized and it became the only history of the Later Han of the “annals-biography” form

Histoire des Han (Hanshu)

L’Histoire des Han, composée près de deux siècles après les Mémoires historiques de Sima Qian dont elle tire une grande part de son inspiration tout en s’en écartant sur le plan de la structure et des valeurs, est la première histoire dynastique dans la tradition historiographique chinoise. Elle propose en effet un récit des événements menant de la fondation de l’Empire des Han antérieurs jusqu’à sa chute, supplanté par une nouvelle dynastie, et rassemble de nombreux textes et documents de cette période.The History of the Han, written almost two centuries after the Grand Scribe’s Records, from which it draws inspiration and at the same time departs regarding structure and values, is the first dynastic history in the Chinese historiographical tradition. Indeed, it provides a narrative of the events beginning with the foundation of the Western Han dynasty to its end when it was replaced by a new dynasty. It also contains a collection of a great number of texts and documents from this period

Encyclopédie des historiographies : Afriques, Amériques, Asies

Quels rapports les sociétés humaines entretiennent-elles avec leur passé et quels récits font-elles du temps révolu ? Pour ce premier volume de l’Encyclopédie des historiographies. Afriques, Amériques, Asies, 157 spécialistes représentant 88 institutions académiques en France et dans le monde explorent l’univers des productions humaines qui constituent des sources pour l’historien et déchiffrent les nombreuses modalités (« scientifiques », littéraires, artistiques, monumentales…) de l’écriture du passé. Évoquant tour à tour l’Afrique, l’Amérique latine, l’Asie, l’Océanie, les 216 notices de l’ouvrage présentent des matériaux historiques de toute nature, issus de toutes les époques, souvent méconnus, ainsi que l’histoire de leurs usages. L’entreprise collective qu’est l’Encyclopédie se veut novatrice : il s’agit de susciter une réflexion historiographique résolument non-occidentalo-centrée qui complète utilement les démarches épistémologiques traditionnelles. Nouvel outil de connaissance historique forgé à l’heure de la mondialisation, l’Encyclopédie des historiographies est aussi une véritable invitation au voyage.What are the different types of relations that non-Western societies upkeep with their past and how are narratives about the past produced by them? In this first volume of the Encyclopaedia of Historiography: Africa, America, Asia, 157 specialists from 88 international academic institutions explore the wealth of evidence that constitutes source material for historians. They also examine the immensely diverse modes or genres of narrated history: “scientific”, literary, artistic, architectural, etc. 216 entries dealing with Africa, Latin America, Oceania, and Asia, cover a large variety of sources, including many which are unfamiliar to the Western or non-Western reader, along with the history of how they have been exploited. By bringing together for the first time such an abundance of material the reader is offered the possibility of exploring continents and building meaningful connections across space and time. In addition to being a new tool for historical enquiry in an era of globalization, this encyclopaedia is also an invitation to travel the world