(Download) "Searching for the Bodies of the Drowned: A Folk Tradition of Early China Recovered (Report)" by The Journal of the American Oriental Society " Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Searching for the Bodies of the Drowned: A Folk Tradition of Early China Recovered (Report)
- Author : The Journal of the American Oriental Society
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 233 KB
Description
In early writings about pre-Eastern Han (25-220) China, documentation on attempts to find drowned bodies is non-existent. The most well-known drowned figure in early history is Qu Yuan [??] (ca. 339-ca. 278 B.C.), loyal minister of the state of Chu who supposedly drowned himself in despair at being misunderstood and banished by his ruler. However, early records, such as the Shiji [??] and Wang Yi's [??] (ca. 89-ca. 158) commentary on the Chuci [??] anthology, recount nothing about searching for the body of Qu Yuan. Legends relate that "people of the Chu state felt sorrowful for it [i.e., Qu's suicide]," and that people threw into the river rice wrapped with five-colored strings, lest water dragons eat the remains of Qu Yuan. (1) But there was no effective method for finding the drowned body; this seems to have been the case before Eastern Han. (2) The earliest known record of corpse-searching sounds as if it was mantic art. It required an object, the identity of which was highly controversial and shall be discussed below, to be thrown into the water where the drowning took place. This object was used rather as a "navigator" to locate the missing drowned body. To our astonishment, this magic is still practiced today in southern China. Most likely owing to the scantiness of relevant information and the lack of a scientific basis, the practice has not drawn due scholarly attention. This unfortunate negligence has resulted in some misreading of relevant classical texts.
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