Early Chinese Religion

Traduction et adaptation en langue anglaise (États-Unis) du volume signalé ici, sous le titre Religion et société en Chine ancienne et médiévale. La première partie est dans le commerce. Le livre est très beau, très élégant, mais proposé au tarif inabordable de 250 euros ! La seconde partie est à paraître en décembre 2009.

“Early Chinese Religion”
Brill Publishing Company
Publication year: 2009
Hardback
Vol I: xvi, 692 pp.Vol II: viii, 693-1256 pp.
€ 249.00 / US$ 369.00

Early Chinese Religion
Part One: Shang through Han
(1250 BC-220 AD)

Edited by John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski

Together, and for the first time in any language, the 24 essays gathered in these volumes provide a composite picture of the history of religion in ancient China from the emergence of writing ca. 1250 BC to the collapse of the first major imperial dynasty in 220 AD. It is a multi-faceted tale of changing gods and rituals that includes the emergence of a form of “secular humanism” that doubts the existence of the gods and the efficacy of ritual and of an imperial orthodoxy that founds its legitimacy on a distinction between licit and illicit sacrifices. Written by specialists in a variety of disciplines, the essays cover such subjects as divination and cosmology, exorcism and medicine, ethics and self-cultivation, mythology, taboos, sacrifice, shamanism, burial practices, iconography, and political philosophy.

Produced under the aegis of the Centre de recherche sur les civilisations chinoise, japonaise et tibétaine (UMR 8155) and the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris).   

Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Chronology
List of maps and illustrations

Introduction by John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski

Shang and Western Zhou (1250-771 BC):
Robert Eno - Shang state religion and the pantheon of the oracle texts
Alain Thote - Shang and Zhou funeral practices: interpretation of material vestiges
Martin Kern - Bronze inscriptions, the Shijing and the Shangshu: the evolution of the ancestral sacrifice during the Western Zhou
Kominami Ichiro - Rituals

John Lagerwey, Ph.D. Harvard University (1975), is Professor of the History of Daoism and Chinese religions at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris-Sorbonne). His primary publications concern the history of Daoist ritual and the ethnography of local society in southeastern China.

Marc Kalinowski, Ph.D. University of Paris (1979), is Professor of Chinese thought and civilization at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris-Sorbonne).

Expected: December 2009

Early Chinese Religion
Part Two: The Period of Division
(220-589 AD)

Edited by John Lagerwey and Lü Pengzhi

After the Warring States, treated in Part One of this set, there is no more fecund era in Chinese religious and cultural history than the period of division (221-589 AD). During it, Buddhism conquered China, Daoism grew into a mature religion with independent institutions, and, together with Confucianism, these three teachings, having each won its share of state recognition and support, formed a united front against shamanism. While all four religions are covered, Buddhism and Daoism receive special attention in a series of parallel chapters on their pantheons, rituals, sacred geography, community organization, canon formation, impact on literature, and recent archaeological discoveries. This multi-disciplinary approach, without ignoring philosophical and theological issues, brings into sharp focus the social and historical matrices of Chinese religion.

John Lagerwey, PhD (1975) in Chinese literature, Harvard University, is Professor of Daoism at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris) and of Chinese studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has just published “China: a Religious State”.

Lü Pengzhi, Ph.D. Sichuan University (1999), is Associate Professor of Daoism at Sichuan University and visiting scholar at the École française d’Extrême-Orient.

Je remercie beaucoup Olivier pour la numérisation.