The Song Modernity in East Asia

&

The legendary Admiral Zheng

Upcoming lectures

1. Today: Song and Ming

2. Thursday:

Afro-Eurasia and Americas: Expanding Horizons of Cross-Cultural Interaction(The Case of Hemispheric Pandemics)

Traditions & Encounters, pp. 435-458.

Kevin Reilly, Worlds of History, vol. 1. pp.447-481.

Thursday May 8

1. Early Modern Interconnected Global (1500-1800 C.E.)

2. The Americas and Oceania

New Worlds: Americas and Oceania

The Americas and

Oceania

1) Traditions & Encounters,

pp. 415-433.

● Early Modern Interconnected Global (1500-1800 C.E.)

Traditions & Encounters, pp. 462-491.

Kevin Reilly, Worlds of History, vol.2, Ma Huan, “On Calicut, India, 1433,” pp. 573-580; “Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, 1498,” pp. 580-588.

1.India

2.Song

1279 the Song lost the last

battle with the Mongols

near Pearl River Delta

1. Emphasis on scholar-

officials rather than the

military (fear of coup)

Imperial civil service exam

(ke ju kao shi)

2. Economic prosperity led

to booming urban life and

popular culture

Lantern Festival, the

Qingming Festival,

and Mid-Autumn

Festival

Strengthening of the patriarchal

social structure

As the agricultural productivity increased, the ideology of family preservation increased.

(possibly to preserve family unity amid rapid economy change)

● Not merely remember but actively seeking ancestors assistance

Strengthened the sense of family ties.

Commemoration of family rituals:

Women under the Song

While women were able to participate

in the expanding market, their

experiences were more restricted.

Men took concubines.

Foot Binding

Privileged classes.

5 to six-year-old girls

Keeping women under

tight supervision of their

Male guardians.

--not a practice for

Peasants.

● An aspect of

Urban patriarchy

Market Economy

Rapid expansion of Song economies:

●Shortage of copper coin.

●Letters of credit: “Flying cash”: merchants to deposit cash and pick them up somewhere else.

● Letters of credit: a promise to pay, promissory notes.

ECONOMY FUTURE BASED!!! Long-term practice.

● Helped expand Song economy even more.

First paper money

1024

Credit system for commercial transaction.

Issued by the state but

Pioneered the use of printed

Paper.

Stimulated the economy

and facilitated transaction.

Match Cash reserve

Printing

First developed under the Tang

Block-printing technique

wooden block (11th century).

● Produced texts quickly,

Cheaply and in huge quantities.

First book as printed using woodblocks

Among the First books: Buddhist canon Dazangjing

Impact of Print culture

1) Fostered the spread of education

1) Spread of elite culture.

2) Spread of religious texts.

Buddhism

Tang & Song

Confucianism, Daosim, and family cults.

Nestorian Christians.

Manichaeans.

Zoroastrians

Muslims (western China).

Buddhism declined in India, but thrived in

northeast

Buddhism became the dominant

religion in Tibet (Lamasim), and many

Indian Buddhist monks escaped to Tibet

from Muslim persecution

Mahayana Buddhism (“Great Vehicle”)

Gautama Buddha (563-483 B.C.E.)

Universal liberation of all from suffering.

Devotional dimensions.

----------------------------------------------------------------

-Gradually became popular in Tang and Song China.

-silk road.

-impact: on Chinese literary culture; accumulation of large lands for building monasteries and therefore important in local economies.

Established Monasteries

Missionaries

600 and 1000 Buddhist built hundreds of cave temples

Monasteries had an impact on Chinese economy:

large lands and harvest (help the poor)

• Southern China:

Religious tensions

Buddhism: Individualism, asceticism, metaphysics

Scripturalist tradition.

(Foreign)

Confucianism & Daoism

More interested in the family, ritual, practice.

Ritualistic traditions.

(Native)

Buddhism appeals to the Chinese

Dharma (Buddhist doctrine: natural Law) as dao “the

way” in Daoism.

-- encouraged both celibacy and family.

Rise of Chinese Buddhism

Chan Buddhism: Syncratic Buddhism

Xuanzang (602-664)

a) Emphasized on intuitive sacred experiences.

b) Meditation not rational observation

Resembled Daoism

Under the Tang and Song, Chan Buddhism became v. popular.

Zen Buddhism

Neo-Confucianism

Official Religion of Song Song dynasty supported Chinese traditions, sponsoring scholarly

activities and subsidized the dissemination of Confucian writings.

Incorporated Daoist and Buddhist metaphysics, but remained a

rationalist ethical philosophy.

Zhu Xi [Joo shee] (1130-1200 C.E.)

a) Original ideas of Confucius had become rigid and corrupt over the years. A return to his true thoughts!

b) Stressed “unity of the three creeds” c) The nature of reality in terms of Daoism. Material world and the energy world. li (forms or ideas) and qi [chi] (material)

Zhu Xi [Joo shee]

“For everyone person the most important thing is the

cultivation of himself as an ethical being”.

What did the Song NOT do?

1. Major economic and technological advancements did not revolutionize Chinese society. Because it was already self-sufficient.

Technology to sail the seas: lacked incentive to sail the world.

2) Despite commercial expansion, kept merchants out of major industries.

3) Peaceful relations with neighboring nomadic societies: big mistake! Mongols…

4) Confucian disdain of merchants

Tang-Song China Legacy

1) Revival of centralized imperial order.

2) Spread of religions and ideas.

3) Expansive market-based economy (not agricultural)

4) Major technological and industrial advancements.

Post-Song China Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) founded by Kublai Khan;

nomadic Mongol warriors.

Ming dynasty (1368-1644)

Zhu Yuanzhang (Joo yu-wen-JAHNG)

Founder (1328-1398)

Former Buddhist monk who rose from poverty to power.

Ming Government

1. Authoritarian state: More despotic; placed the bureaucracy under close scrutiny.

a) Reaction to the Mongol experience

b) Ming emperors exercised more centralization of power and placed the bureaucracy under strict control.

c) Eliminated the office of prime minister

d) Economy more prosperous; population expanded from 80 to 160 million

Kotow: the tribute-

bearers’ act of

prostrating themselves

before the emperor.

a) Chinese opera (spoken

dialogue)

b) First Novels :The Water

Margin (Robin Hood tale)

c) Expansion of encyclopedia:

52 volume study of Chinese

Parmacology

Ming and the Afro-Eurasian contact

zones

Attempt to (re)colonize Vietnam.

Maritime expansion (not military expansion into

Central Asia).

Grand maritime expeditions to southern Asia and

beyond Eurasia.

Merchants low status in the Confucian social system

Zheng He (jung huh) (1371-1435