World Religions

Entire text of the Analects of Confucius, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean in large, readable characters, and beneath this Legge's full translation, which has been accepted and the definitive, standard English version. Full Chinese text and standard English translation on the same page. Finest edition anywhere of one of world's finest thinkers.

In this engaging volume, Daniel Gardner explains the way in which the Four Books (Great Learning, Analects, Mencius and Maintaining Perfect Balance) have been read and understood by the Chinese since the 12th century. Selected passages in translation are accompanied by Gardner's comments, which incorporate selections from the commentary and interpretation of the renowned Neo-Confucian thinker, Zhu Xi (1130-1200).

Roger T. Ames's Sourcebook in Classical Confucian Philosophy includes texts in the original classical Chinese along with their translations, allowing experts and novices alike to make whatever comparisons they choose. In applying a method of comparative cultural hermeneutics, Ames has tried to let the tradition speak on its own terms.

The Five Classics associated with Confucius formed the core curriculum in the education of Chinese literati throughout most of the imperial period. In this book Michael Nylan offers a sweeping assessment of these ancient texts and shows how their influence spread across East Asia. She also assesses the impact on this canon of the invention of a rival corpus, The Four Books, in the 12th century.

This new, accessible translation of the entire early text brings to life the hidden meanings and importance of China's oldest classical texts. Complemented throughout by insightful commentaries, the I Ching: A Critical Translation of the Ancient Text simplifies the unique system of hexagrams lying at the centre of the text and introduces the cultural significance of key themes including yin and yang, gender and ethics.

Still widely read in China, the I Ching has become a countercultural classic in the West. Geoffrey Redmond and Tze-Ki Hon present an up-to-date survey of recent studies including reconstruction of the early meanings, excavated manuscripts, the New Culture Movement and the Cultural Revolution. To facilitate introducing the classic to students, the necessary background is provided for university teachers and students, even non-China specialists.

Confucianism in China: An Introduction shows how the long history of the Ru is vital to comprehending China today. As the empire drew to an end, there were impassioned movements both to reinvent and to eradicate Confucian tradition. Less than 40 years ago it seemed close to extinction, but today it is undergoing spectacular revival. This introduction is suitable for anyone wishing to understand a tradition that shaped China.

As the title suggests, Confucius has once again taken birth in China. Confucius 'died' for the first time when he gave way to Buddhism in the 10th century, but was reinvented again via Neo-Confucianism. In the 20th century China, liberals and Marxists abandoned Confucius again. But from 2000 CE onwards, China has experienced his third birth.

As the first volume of a two-volume seminal work on contemporary New Confucianism in China, this book charts the development of this intellectual trend and examines four leading thinkers of this intellectual movement in the 20th century. Contemporary New Confucianism refers to the Confucian thought that has emerged in China since the 1920s, aiming to revive the spirituality of Confucianism in a changing society.

This book deals with China's global aspirations, which rise from its economic power, history, tradition, ideology and culture. Confucianism guided the emperors in their mandate of heaven over 2000 years. Today, a government-driven Confucianism, as the country's soft power, is embedded to advance China's aspirations for global power.

Confucianism has played a major role in shaping Japan's history, from the formation of the first Japanese states during the 1st millennium AD, to Japan's modernization in the 19th century, World War II and its still unresolved legacies across East Asia today. In an illuminating new study, Kiri Paramore analyses the dynamic history of Japanese Confucianism, revealing its many cultural manifestations, as religion, political tool, social capital and public discourse.

This collection of essays joins a small group of other studies bringing modern Japanese Confucianism to international scholarly notice, largely covering the period from the Bakumatsu era of the mid-19th century to the 21st century. Essays can be read for the insight they provide into the intellectual and ideological proclivities of modern Japanese reformers, educators and philosophers explicitly reconstructing Confucian thought, or more tacitly influenced by it.

Legislation to change Korean society along Confucian lines began at the founding of the Chosŏn dynasty in 1392, and had apparently achieved its purpose by the mid-17th century. Until this important new study, however, the nature of Koryŏ society, the stresses induced by the new legislation, and society's resistance to the Neo-Confucian changes imposed by the Chosŏn elite have remained largely unexplored.

Using a variety of primary sources, this book examines Chosŏn Korea's anti-Buddhist movement. It shows how early anti-Buddhist policies that aimed to safeguard Confucian civilization led to conflict and increasingly harsh measures that culminated in the removal of legal recognition for Buddhism in 1566. The efforts to eradicate Buddhism failed in practical terms, but they succeeded in shaping the male elite to see it as incompatible with Confucian civilization.

This is a fully annotated translation of the prose texts from the "collected works" of Sŏ Kyŏngdŏk (1489-1546), an influential Confucian scholar from the early Chosŏn period (1392-1910). A native of Songdo in present-day North Korea, Sŏ has loomed large in the Korean cultural imagination and appeared as an exceptional sage and popular hero in numerous tales, dramas and films, yet his writings are little known outside the academic milieu.

This book explores Neo-Confucianism and its relationship to politics by examining the life, work and relationship between the two iconic figures of the Joseon dynasty Yi Hwang (1501-1570, Toegye) and Yi I (1536-1584, Yulgok). Toegye and Yulgok founded the two main schools of Josean Neo-Confucianism, which became the most dominant schools of thought in Korean history.