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Shen (clam-monster)
In Chinese mythology, the shen or chen () is a shapeshifting dragon or shellfish-type sea monster believed to create mirages. Meanings The Chinese classics use the word ''shèn'' to mean "a large shellfish" that was associated with funerals and "an aquatic monster" that could change its shape, which was later associated with "mirages". Large shellfish The word used to mean a shellfish, or mollusk, identified as an oyster, mussel, or giant clam such as the Pearl of Lao Tzu. While early Chinese dictionaries treat ''shèn'' as a general term for " mollusca", the ''Erya'' defines it as a large ''yáo'' () "shellfish", "clam", "scallop", or " nacre". The ''Shuowen Jiezi'', an early second-century dictionary of the Eastern Han, defines it a large ''gé'' (), meaning "clam", "oyster", "shellfish", or "bivalve". Chinese classics variously record that ''shèn'' was salted as a food (in the '' Zuo Zhuan''), named a "lacquered wine barrel" used in sacrifices to earth spirits (in the ''Ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wakan Sansai Zue - Shin
Wakan may refer to: *Wakan, meaning "powerful" or "sacred" in the Lakota language *Wakan, the original Lakota name for the Rum River of Minnesota *Wakan Tanka (variant name), the "Great Spirit," "sacred" or the "divine" as understood by the Lakota people *A Japanese word (和館, lit. "Japan hall/building") used to describe historical Japanese settlements and missions in foreign countries. See waegwan, the Korean reading of the word **Waegwan in Chilgok County, North Gyeongsang province, South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ..., sharing the same name. * Wakan rōeishū 和漢朗詠集: A Collection of Chinese and Japanese Poems {{disambig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shuowen Jiezi
''Shuowen Jiezi'' () is an ancient Chinese dictionary from the Han dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the '' Erya'' predates it), it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them, as well as the first to use the principle of organization by sections with shared components called radicals (''bùshǒu'' 部首, lit. "section headers"). Circumstances of compilation Xu Shen, a Han Dynasty scholar of the Five Classics, compiled the ''Shuowen Jiezi''. He finished editing it in 100 CE, but due to an unfavorable imperial attitude towards scholarship, he waited until 121 CE before having his son Xǔ Chōng present it to Emperor An of Han along with a memorial. In analyzing the structure of characters and defining the words represented by them, Xu Shen strove to disambiguate the meaning of the pre-Han Classics, so as to render their usage by government unquestioned and bring about order, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qin (state)
Qin () was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty. Traditionally dated to 897 BC, it took its origin in a reconquest of western lands previously lost to the Rong; its position at the western edge of Chinese civilization permitted expansion and development that was unavailable to its rivals in the North China Plain. Following extensive "Legalist" reform in the fourth century BC, Qin emerged as one of the dominant powers of the Seven Warring States and unified the seven states of China in 221 BC under Qin Shi Huang. It established the Qin dynasty, which was short-lived but greatly influenced later Chinese history. History Founding According to the 2nd century BC historical text ''Records of the Grand Historian'' by Sima Qian, the Qin state traced its origin to Zhuanxu, one of the legendary Five Emperors in ancient times. One of his descendants, Boyi, was granted the family name of Yíng by Emperor Shun. During the Xia and Shang dynasties, the Yíng clan spl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nāga
The Nagas (IAST: ''nāga''; Devanāgarī: नाग) are a divine, or semi-divine, race of half-human, half-serpent beings that reside in the netherworld (Patala), and can occasionally take human or part-human form, or are so depicted in art. A female naga is called a Nagi, or a Nagini. According to legend, they are the children of the sage Kashyapa and Kadru. Rituals devoted to these supernatural beings have been taking place throughout South Asia for at least 2,000 years. They are principally depicted in three forms: as entirely human with snakes on the heads and necks, as common serpents, or as half-human, half-snake beings in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. ''Nagaraja'' is the title given to the king of the nagas. Narratives of these beings hold cultural significance in the mythological traditions of many South Asian and Southeast Asian cultures, and within Hinduism and Buddhism, they are the ancestral origins of the Nagavanshi Kshatriyas. Etymology In Sanskrit, a () ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73–55 ka.", "Modern human beings—''Homo sapiens''—originated in Africa. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward H
Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Saxon England, but the rule of the Norman and Plantagenet dynasties had effectively ended its use amongst the upper classes. The popularity of the name was revived when Henry III named his firstborn son, the future Edward I, as part of his efforts to promote a cult around Edward the Confessor, for whom Henry had a deep admiration. Variant forms The name has been adopted in the Iberian peninsula since the 15th century, due to Edward, King of Portugal, whose mother was English. The Spanish/Portuguese forms of the name are Eduardo and Duarte. Other variant forms include French Édouard, Italian Edoardo and Odoardo, German, Dutch, Czech and Romanian Eduard and Scandinavian Edvard. Short forms include Ed, Eddy, Eddie, Ted, Teddy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfram Eberhard
Wolfram Eberhard (March 17, 1909 – August 15, 1989) was a professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley focused on Western, Central and Eastern Asian societies. Biography Born in Potsdam, German Empire, he had a strong family background of astrophysicists and astronomers. He taught a wide variety of courses specializing in the societies and popular cultures of Western, Central and Eastern Asia. He was especially interested in Chinese folklore, popular literature, Turkish history, minorities and local cultures in China and the relations between the Chinese and the peoples of Central Asia. Eberhard entered Berlin University in 1927 where he focused his attention to classical Chinese and Social Anthropology. Because Berlin University, where Eberhard studied, did not offer instructions on colloquial Chinese, Eberhard enrolled secretly and simultaneously at the Seminar for Oriental Languages. At the Seminar for Oriental Languages he studied with Ferdinand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guo Pu
Guo Pu (; AD 276–324), courtesy name Jingchun () was a Chinese historian, poet, and writer during the Eastern Jin period, and is best known as one of China's foremost commentators on ancient texts. Guo was a Taoist mystic, geomancer, collector of strange tales, editor of old texts, and erudite commentator. He was the first commentator of the '' Shan Hai Jing'' and so probably, with the noted Han bibliographer Liu Xin, was instrumental in preserving this valuable mythological and religious text. Guo Pu was the well educated son of a governor. He was a natural historian and a prolific writer of the Jin dynasty. He is the author of '' The Book of Burial'', the first-ever and the most authoritative source of feng shui doctrine and the first book to address the concept of feng shui in the history of China, making Guo Pu the first person historically to define feng shui, and therefore, Guo Pu is usually called the father of feng shui in China. Life A native of Wenxi County, in what ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when two or more words or signs are joined to make a longer word or sign. A compound that uses a space rather than a hyphen or concatenation is called an open compound or a spaced compound; the alternative is a closed compound. The meaning of the compound may be similar to or different from the meaning of its components in isolation. The component stems of a compound may be of the same part of speech—as in the case of the English word ''footpath'', composed of the two nouns ''foot'' and ''path''—or they may belong to different parts of speech, as in the case of the English word ''blackbird'', composed of the adjective ''black'' and the noun ''bird''. With very few exceptions, English compound words are stressed on their first compo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhuangzi (book)
The ''Zhuangzi'' ( Chinese: , historically romanized ''Chuang Tzŭ'') is an ancient Chinese text from the late Warring States period (476221) which contains stories and anecdotes that exemplify the carefree nature of the ideal Taoist sage. Named for its traditional author, "Master Zhuang" ( Zhuangzi), the ''Zhuangzi'' is one of the two foundational texts of Taoism, along with the '' Tao Te Ching''. The ''Zhuangzi'' consists of a large collection of anecdotes, allegories, parables, and fables, which are often humorous or irreverent. Its main themes are of spontaneity in action and of freedom from the human world and its conventions. The fables and anecdotes in the text attempt to illustrate the falseness of human distinctions between good and bad, large and small, life and death, and human and nature. While other ancient Chinese philosophers focused on moral and personal duty, Zhuangzi promoted carefree wandering and becoming one with "the Way" (''Dào'' ) by following nature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huainanzi
The ''Huainanzi'' is an ancient Chinese text that consists of a collection of essays that resulted from a series of scholarly debates held at the court of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, sometime before 139. The ''Huainanzi'' blends Daoist, Confucianist, and Legalist concepts, including theories such as yin and yang and Wu Xing theories. The ''Huainanzi''s essays are all connected to one primary goal: attempting to define the necessary conditions for perfect socio-political order. It concludes that perfect societal order derives mainly from a perfect ruler, and the essays are compiled in such a way as to serve as a handbook for an enlightened sovereign and his court. The book Scholars are reasonably certain regarding the date of composition for the ''Huainanzi''. Both the ''Book of Han'' and ''Records of the Grand Historian'' record that when Liu An paid a state visit to his nephew the Emperor Wu of Han in 139 BC, he presented a copy of his "recently completed" book in twenty- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rites Of Zhou
The ''Rites of Zhou'' (), originally known as "Officers of Zhou" () is a work on bureaucracy and organizational theory. It was renamed by Liu Xin to differentiate it from a chapter in the '' Book of History'' by the same name. To replace a lost work, it was included along with the '' Book of Rites'' and the '' Etiquette and Ceremonial'' becoming one of three ancient ritual texts (the "Three Rites") listed among the classics of Confucianism. In comparison with other works of its type, the Rite's ruler, though a sage, does not create the state, but merely organizes a bureaucracy. It could not have been composed during the Western Zhou, and was probably based on Warring States period societies. Michael Puett and Mark Edward Lewis compares its system of duties and ranks to the "Legalism" of Shang Yang. Authorship The book appeared in the middle of the 2nd century BC, when it was found and included in the collection of Old Texts in the library of Prince Liu De (; d. 130 BC), a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
