The Song Modernity in East Asia & The legendary Admiral Zheng
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