Ritual, Rejuvenation Practices, and the Experience of Aging in Early Chinese Religion

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ori Tavor
Keyword(s):  
Aging Process ◽  
Filial Piety ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Chinese Religion ◽  
Human History ◽  
Early China ◽  
Technological Means ◽  
Lasting Influence ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Scientific Advances

Scientific advances in the field of biomedicine have fundamentally changed the ways in which we think about our bodies. Disease, aging, and even death, are no longer seen as inevitable realities but as obstacles that can be controlled, and in some cases even reversed, by technological means. The current discourse, however, can be enriched by an investigation of the various ways in which the aging process was perceived and explained throughout human history. In this article, I argue that in early China, the experience of aging and the challenges and anxieties it produced played a constitutive role in the shaping of religious culture. Drawing on a variety of medical, philosophical, and liturgical sources, I outline two models of aging: one that presented aging, and especially the loss of virility, as an undesirable but solvable condition that can be reversed with the aid of various rejuvenation techniques, and a more socially conscious model that depicted aging as a process of gradual social ascension, a natural but fundamentally unalterable condition that should be accepted, marked, and even celebrated through ritual. I conclude by demonstrating the legacy and lasting influence of these models on two of the most fundamental tenets of Chinese religion: the pursuit of longevity and the ideal of filial piety.

scholarly journals PEREMPUAN MENGGUGAT: Telaah Perceraian Wanita Muslimah Berkarir di Kota Medan

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 319
Author(s):  
Fatimah Zuhrah
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Human History ◽  
Religious Observance ◽  
Easy Task ◽  
The Past ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
The Ideal

<p><strong>Abstrak:</strong> Baiknya pondasi sebuah rumah tangga secara tidak langsung berpengaruh terhadap jatuh bangunnya sebuah negara, dan sebaliknya rusaknya pondasi sebuah keluarga berpengaruh terhadap merosot dan berkembangnya sebuah negara. Beberapa tahun belakangan ini jumlah permintaan gugat cerai istri terhadap suami mengalami peningkatan terutama dari isteri yang berkarir. Penelitian ini melihat permasalahan yang dibangun dengan menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif fenomenologis untuk melihat dan memahami faktor perceraian wanita muslimah berkarir di kota Medan berdasarkan fenomena, fakta dan data yang peneliti temui di lapangan. Berdasarkan temuan penelitian didapat bahwa untuk menegakkan konsep ideal sebuah keluarga sangat sulit untuk dilakukan pada masa sekarang. Kondisi perkawinan sekarang sangat berbeda dengan masa dahulu dalam pemaknaan relasi suami isteri. Dahulu pernikahan memiliki posisi sangat sakral, pernikahan dianggap sebagai ibadah, sehingga orang takut untuk bercerai, karena cerai dianggap aib dan dosa.</p><p><strong>Abstract:</strong> <strong>Women Prosecute: A Study of Divorce in Careered-Muslim Women in Medan City</strong>. The good foundation of a household indirectly affects the rise and fall of a country, and vice versa, the damage to a family’s foundation affects the decline and development of a country. In the last decade, the number of divorce petition against husbands has increased, especially from careered-wives. This paper attempts to study the problems using a phenomenological qualitative approach to thoroughly comprehend the factors of divorce of careered-Muslim women in Medan city based on the phenomena, facts and data that researchers encountered in the field. This study finds that to enforce the ideal concept of a family is not an easy task to do at present. The current condition and perception of marital tie within the society is very different from the past. At the early stage of development of human history, marriage were regarded as inherent in religious observance, and thus, people were reluctant to divorce since it was a disgrace and sin.</p><p><strong>Kata Kunci:</strong> gender, feminisme, cerai, wanita karir, Muslimah</p>

Han Yuandi, Reigned 48 to 33 B.C.E., and His Advisors

Early China ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 361-393 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Open Adoption ◽  
Economic Practice ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
Lasting Influence ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
The Way

While Yuandi's reign is not known as a period of imperial expansion, discussions of the major questions of the concept of imperial government and the administrative problems of the day were to be of long-lasting influence. The views put forward by scholars and officials such as Xiao Wangzhi, Gong Yu, Wei Xuancheng, Kuang Heng, Liu Xiang and Yi Feng led the way to the open adoption of Zhou as the ideal which Wang Mang and subsequent emperors claimed to follow. Yuandi himself played little part in government; his advisors raised matters of religious cults, economic practice, the standards of officials, the extravagance of the palace, relations with non-Han leaders, and the value of holding outlying parts of the empire.

Sons of suns: myth and totemism in early China

1981 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 290-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Allan
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Religion ◽  
Early China ◽  
Traditional Sense ◽  
Chinese Texts

The ‘problem of myth’ for Western philosophers is a problem of interpreting the meaning of myths and explaining the phenomenon of myth making. The ‘problem of myth’ for the sinologist is one of finding any myths to interpret and explaining why there are so few—for myth-making is generally assumed to be a universal faculty of mankind. One explanation for the paucity of myth in the traditional sense of stories of the supernatural in ancient Chinese texts is the nature of Chinese religion. In China, gods, as well as ancestors and ghosts, were believed to be dead men, spirits who had lived in this world at a certain place and time and continued to need sustenance from the living and to exert influence over them. They related primarily to those who gave them ritual offerings and little thought was given to any possible interaction between them

Report of the Discussion on ‘The Problem of teaching Republican History in Schools’, held on Tuesday, 10th January, 1939

1939 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-235
Keyword(s):  
Personal Interest ◽  
Human History ◽  
History Teaching ◽  
Vital Reaction ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Ideal

Professor Norman Baynes, in opening the discussion, said that he proposed to consider the subject in relation only to those at school who were studying the Classics. The teacher must, he thought, abandon two inherited views: that history could be successfully taught sine ira et studio and that it was no function of the teacher to present to students his own interpretation of the past. The ideal of impartiality in history teaching is illusory: God alone could present the history of man ‘as it actually happened’. All teaching or writing of human history is an interpretation of the facts, and that must be a reflection of personality. Interest and vital reaction in the taught can be awakened only through the personal interest and enthusiasm of the teacher. Thus there can never be finality in the presentation of history: every age must recreate its own interpretation of the past.

scholarly journals Unity of the process of creating a fine art painting: ideal and material

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-41
Author(s):  
Denis Nikolaevich Demenev
Keyword(s):  
Fine Art ◽  
History Of Development ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Technological Means ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Artistic Image ◽  
The Ideal

The subject of this research is the interaction of the ideal and the material, which ensures unity of the process of creating a fine art painting. The object of this research is the dynamics of this process, which gradually materializes the ideal through poetic transformation of the objective reality. In the course of creating a fine art painting, the author underlines the importance of ontological-phenomenological and socio-gnoseological aspects of human existence, which in many ways determine the technical and technological means of solution of the artistic and creative tasks. Special attention is given to contemplation of the objective world, purposive action of the artistic will, establishment of the artistic image as interrelated stages of objectification of the ideal. The novelty of this article consists in interpretation of the phenomenon of the ideal, reflected in painting via integrated will. The latter is the synthesis of artistic will and subjective will of the painter. The author describes a &ldquo;shuttle principle&rdquo; in objectification of the ideal in the works of art within the framework of the history of development of painting, as well as within a single process: 1) from the aesthetic form to the embodiment of universality of the content; 2) from the universal content to aesthetic embodiment. The following conclusions were made: 1) the objectively ideal in a painting is an aesthetically perceived (visually, mentally, and spiritually) boundary of beauty and beautiful depicted via perfect, absolute unity of the artistic form and content, artistically and graphically, adequate to its concept in its material outcome, in reality. It is of rare occurrence in the works of art, something to be sought for; 2) an artistic form should be correlated in the artwork with universality of its content, which results in the fusion of the ideal and the real, and forms their indifference; 3) the universal meanings, ideologically underlying the content of a fine art painting, deepen and broaden the possibilities of artistic matter for objectification of the ideal in aesthetic form.

The Han Cosmic Board: A Response to Christopher Cullen

Early China ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 47-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald J. Harper
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Chinese Religion ◽  
Early China ◽  
Six Dynasties ◽  
Popular Belief ◽  
Figure Of Speech ◽  
Board System

This article adduces additional evidence to substantiate the author's ideas regarding the cosmic board shih published in Early China 4. The most essential points in the discussion concern first the relation between the appearance of the Big Dipper on the cosmic board and the role of the Big Dipper in ancient cosmological belief and calendrical theory; and second, the influence of the cosmic board on religious belief and practice beginning in the Han period. Contrary to Cullen's opinion that the expression “main-cay of heaven” which denotes the Big Dipper is merely a figure of speech, passages from a variety of previn and Han texts show that this term accurately reflects the conception of the Big Dipper in ancient cosmological belief. The development of the cosmic board and the system of divination associated with it are best understood in light of this belief and of the major role played by the Big Dipper in ancient calendriil theory. The influence on Han popular belief of the celestial spirits associated with the cosmic board is attested in the Lun Heng. The presence of several cosmic board divination texts dating to the Han and six Dynasties period in the Tao Tsang are evidence of the absorption of the cosmic board system of divinaion into Taoism at that time. In Taoist hagiography the traditional legend of the transmission of cosmic board divination to the Yellow God is also explicitly linked to the Taoist technique of pacing the Dipper, lese facts, combined with a Buddhist description of a mandala modeled on the design of the cosmic board, npy document the role of the cosmic board in Chinese religion.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 130-140
Author(s):  
Magdalena Wong
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Filial Piety ◽  
General Sense ◽  
Physical Strength ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Status ◽  
Empirical Discovery ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Ideal

The conclusion compares the main features of able-responsible man with representations of the ideal man in different cultural, and transnational, settings. The roles of physical strength and sex are considered. There is a critical review of the status of femininity and gender equality in Nanchong, and the culture of emulating exemplary norms in China. Filial piety and a general sense of duty to the nation provide the environment in which the able-responsible man is expected to carry responsibilities for the family, society and nation. Although the hegemonic model identified in Nanchong is coercive and denigrates marginalized men, the nature of the able-responsible man is shown to be essentially positive. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the extent to which the empirical discovery of the able-responsible man is influenced by the ethnographer herself.

scholarly journals HATUHAHA AMARIMA LOU NUSA DALAM PERSPEKTIF FILSAFAT KEBUDAYAAN CORNELIS ANTHONIE VAN PEURSEN DAN RELEVANSINYA DENGAN KEUTUHAN BANGSA INDONESIA

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Jannes Alexander Uhi ◽  
Sri Soeprapto ◽  
Muhammad Mukhtasar Syamsuddin
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Human History ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Philosophy Of Culture ◽  
Indigenous Group ◽  
Living Together ◽  
Universal Values ◽  
Specific Culture ◽  
Culture And Language ◽  
The Ideal

Hatuhaha Amarima Lou Nusa refers to an indigenous group that has a specific culture from ancestors to contemporary times. The content of cultural values of Hatuhaha Amarima is important to be applied to the context of the daily lives of Hatuhaha Amarima Lou Nusa's people in particular and Indonesia in general. This paper aims to reveal the dynamics of historical and cultural forms of Hatuhaha Amarima, and to explore the nature of Hatuhaha Amarima, along with the values which contained in it with Cornelis Anthonie van Peursen's philosophy of culture perspective. The essence of Hatuhaha Amarima are contained with society (human), history, territory, customs and culture, and language. As the result, the study explaints the epistemologycal aspect of Hatuhaha Amarima in its realistic nature. Also, the study finds a cultural polarization of Hatuhaha Amarima that is as monodualistic in its nature, so it is presenting the feel of living together in multiculturalism with relative condition; ethnicity, religion, and culture. One of the most important point of culture that was passed on by people of Hatuhaha Amarima is the relation of I – You. This is existing in the context of kinship systems, family systems and brotherhood. Obviously, the cultural values of Hatuhaha Amarima has tighted connection with Bhineka Tunggal Ika's principles, so that it is important to applicate it to the context of the state living integrity and nation in Indonesia. The soul of cultural values of Hatuhaha Amarima represented of the ideal values of Pancasila and universal values.

scholarly journals MODEL KEPEMIMPINAN KEPALA SEKOLAH DALAM PENGEMBANGAN BUDAYA RELIGIUS DI SMA NEGERI 1 MENTAYA HILIR SELATAN KABUPATEN KOTAWARINGIN TIMUR

TRANSFORMATIF ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 213
Author(s):  
Ali Sibram Malisi
Keyword(s):  
Transformational Leadership ◽  
Principal Leadership ◽  
Situational Leadership ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Extracurricular Activity ◽  
Leadership Model ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Model School

<p>The Principal leadership model is a core factor in the development of the religious culture. The school  is one of the Model School of Iman and taqwa schools. Thus, it interested to be researched about the Principal leadership model in developing the religious culture in the school.</p><p>            This article focused on namely (1) the principal developed the religious culture through two leaderships models namely; (a) Situational leadership model is when a principal assigning works according to each expertise. This means that the headmaster must be good at reading the situation and condition to each educator and the staff. And thus, each one does the better and responsible works, (b) transformational leadership model is a model providing priority to the opportunity and encouraging all workers of the school in order to wok in the sublime values. And thus, all the staffs do not get insisted in optimally participating to achieve the ideal goals in the school. (2) the used strategies are namely; (a) appling the religious practise to be inured as a habit, (b) providing exemplary by doing to relate alttitude and behaviour in a day, (c) integrating the common subjects to the islamic subjects, (d) developing the islamic extracurricular activity that is through the Osis Programmings.</p><p>There were discovered that the majority ones appreciate the minority ones. Meanwhile, the minority ones respect the majority ones. And thus, it is able to build the harmonious and religious atmospheres in the school.</p><p> </p>Keyword     :   Principal Leadership Model, Religious Culture.

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