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One of the most important questions facing scholars of China is how Chinese society is held together. It is now well known that China has been marked by great diversity. In the realm of social customs, not only were there broad regional or class differences, but also, at a local level, the people in one village might adopt a different set of practices from those of neighboring communities. Yet the majority of these varied practices seems to have fit within a frame that was distinctly Chinese. Thus scholars must also ask how people of dissimilar occupations and economic interests, living in widely separated parts of the country, came to recognize and act on a common set of cultural beliefs. E...
By the end of the Sung dynasty (960-1279), known descendants of the three Chao brothers who had founded the dynasty numbered over 20,000. Unlike the rulers of many other Chinese dynasties, however, the Sung emperors were not plagued by challenges to their rule from their relatives. So successful was Sung policy on the imperial clan that it would serve as a model for the subsequent Ming and Ch'ing dynasties. How the Sung created a social and political asset in the imperial clan while neutralizing it as a potential threat is the story of this book. This study of the imperial clan as an institution analyzes the history, its political tile and the lifestyle of its members, focusing on their residence patterns, marriages and occupations.
Until now, China has been scarcely represented in the burgeoning comparative literature on pilgrimage. This volume remedies that omission, discussing the interaction between pilgrims and sacred sites from the tenth century to the present. From the perspectives of literature, art, history, religion, politics, and anthropology, the essays focus on China's most famous pilgrimage mountains as well as lesser known sites.
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