Ecology in the Spiritual Landscape of Strange Anecdote Collections in Early China

中国早期奇闻轶事精神景观中的生态学

• 批准号: 2106404
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2106404
• 关键词: Ecology; Spiritual; Landscape; Strange; Anecdote

Do accounts of 'strange' organisms in cosmological texts illustrate an understanding of ecological phenomena distinct from the one presented in the classical canonical literature? Is this worldview - that emphasises the connection of 'strange things' to auspicious/inauspicious signs and to political/spiritual authority - one that appears in the wake of the collapse of the centralising authority of the Han dynasty? Or can it be traced back to earlier texts such as the Huainanzi and the remaining fragments of the writings of Zou Yan (305-240 BCE)? There has been a growth of interest in collections of anomalies and cosmological texts in recent years. Collections of anomaly accounts have been systematically analysed, perhaps most notably by Robert Campany, as reflecting a conception of the world populated by strange, non-human forces that take all manner of forms. These entities may be harmful, helpful or even indifferent to humans, but despite their fantastic quality, the underlying assumption appears to be that they did, or at least plausibly could, exist. Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann's interpretation of one significant cosmological text as a "mapless map" of a "spiritual landscape" (as opposed to a map of observable topology) will inform my understanding of this text and others like it. These texts in part illustrate the shift, beginning in the Han dynasty, to expand the geographical scope of the known world along lines first laid down by Zou Yan, incorporating local knowledge that was previously sidelined or ignored. My research will build on this work by looking at a specific element, ecological phenomena, to understand their role in these collections and thereby broaden the scholarly understanding of how these texts were used and why they were compiled, as well as how they can illuminate the particular worldview of those who made use of them. In the scholarship on pre-modern China, the cultural meaning of plants in particular has been understudied, especially in terms of their relationship to theories of pre-modern Chinese cosmography. One limitation of this thesis is the necessity of restricting the number of primary sources. While the corpus of descriptive-style cosmographic works is small, the references to flora in the broader surviving literature is enormous. To limit the scope of research, I will be mainly focusing on the aforementioned cosmographic collections of anecdotes, while making reference to the representations of ecology throughout strange anecdote collections, as well as some of their possible antecedents. These references will by necessity remain limited, as each text could merit its own study. Another limitation will be temporal: post-Tang dynasty material will not be consulted, reflecting the general convention in the scholarship to treat the Tang as a watershed. Finally, my research is by necessity textual, which will mean any conclusions gleaned from these texts is likely to be at least in part limited to the minority in pre-modern China who were literate. Moreover, while for reasons of time and space I will not be able to make archaeological sources the main focus of my study, I will attempt to make reference to the archaeological evidence as a check to any over-ambitious and too wide-reaching conclusions. In conclusion, the topic of my research will be the status of ecological phenomena in the spiritual landscapes depicted in collections of anomaly accounts of Early China. By making use of current research on cosmological thought of this era, as well as studies of related religious concepts and historical circumstances, I will examine whether a distinct conception of ecology, its place in the world and relationship with humanity, emerged in the collapse of the Han dynasty, and how the precursors of that worldview existed in opposition to canonical understandings of geography based on the importance of the imperial centre.

宇宙学文本中对“奇怪”有机体的描述是否说明了对生态现象的理解与经典经典文献中的理解不同？这种世界观--强调“奇怪的事物”与吉凶和政治/精神权威的联系--是在汉朝中央集权崩溃之后出现的吗？或者可以追溯到更早的文本，如《淮南子》和邹衍（公元前305-240年）作品的剩余片段？近年来，人们对收集异常和宇宙学文本的兴趣越来越大。对反常现象的描述已经进行了系统的分析，其中最著名的可能是罗伯特·坎帕尼（Robert Campany），他认为这反映了一种世界观，即世界上存在着各种形式的奇怪的非人类力量。这些实体可能对人类有害，有益，甚至漠不关心，但尽管它们具有奇妙的品质，但潜在的假设似乎是它们确实存在，或者至少可能存在。薇拉·多罗菲耶娃-利希特曼将一个重要的宇宙学文本解释为“精神景观”的“无地图地图”。（而不是可观察到的拓扑结构的地图）将告知我对这篇文章和其他类似文章的理解。这些文章部分地说明了从汉代开始的转变，即沿着邹衍首先制定的沿着扩大已知世界的地理范围，将以前被忽视或忽略的当地知识结合起来。我的研究将建立在这项工作的基础上，通过观察一个特定的元素，生态现象，了解它们在这些集合中的作用，从而扩大对这些文本如何使用和为什么被编译的学术理解，以及它们如何照亮那些使用它们的人的特定世界观。在中国近代史研究中，植物的文化意义一直被忽视，尤其是植物与中国近代宇宙志理论的关系。本文的一个局限性是必须限制第一手资料的数量。虽然描述性宇宙志作品的语料库很小，但更广泛的现存文献中对植物群的引用却非常多。为了限制研究范围，我将主要关注上述轶事的宇宙学收藏，同时参考整个奇怪轶事收藏中的生态学表现，以及它们的一些可能的先例。这些参考资料必然有限，因为每一项案文都值得单独研究。另一个限制是时间上的：唐代以后的材料将不会被查阅，这反映了学术界将唐代视为分水岭的普遍惯例。最后，我的研究必然是文本性的，这意味着从这些文本中收集到的任何结论都可能至少部分地限于前现代中国的少数识字者。此外，虽然由于时间和空间的原因，我将无法使考古资料成为我研究的主要焦点，但我将尝试参考考古证据，以检查任何过于雄心勃勃和过于广泛的结论。综上所述，本论文的研究主题将是中国早期异常记录中所描绘的精神景观中的生态现象的状况。借由目前对这一时代宇宙论思想的研究，以及对相关宗教概念和历史环境的研究，我将考察在汉代崩溃时，是否出现了一种独特的生态概念，它在世界中的地位以及与人类的关系，以及这种世界观的前身如何与基于帝国中心重要性的经典地理理解相对立。