Roel Sterckx

TRANSFORMING THE BEASTS: ANIMALS AND MUSIC IN EARLY CHINA

A salient feature of the discourse on animals in texts from the Warring States, Qin and Han periods is the absence of a tendency to analyse and discuss the animal world as the object of a distinct realm of knowledge. With the exception of a small number of text fragments which evince what approximates a “biological” interest in the animal world and a series of lexicographic entries organised according to proto-zoological headings in early dictionaries—mainly the Erya and Xu Shen’s (ca. 30-124 C.E.) Shuowen jiezi —, attempts at analysing animal behaviour and at classifying animals into theoretically defined taxonomies or proto-biological categories are remarkably uncommon throughout early Chinese texts.1 As such the early Chinese corpus sharply contrasts with the situation in ancient Greece, where by

The Limits of Illustration: Animalia and Pharmacopeia from Guo Pu to Bencao Gangmu

This paper examines the relationship between text and illustration in Chinese pharmacopeia in the bencao tradition by focusing on depictions of animals. It explores to what extent such illustrations served a practical—read medical or pharmaceutical—purpose. The first part of the paper discusses the contexts in which animal species have been depicted in traditional China leading up to the emergence of bencao literature. The second part analyses the use of illustrations in Bencao Gangmu. The author questions whether such illustrations were aimed to reflect zoological, botanical, or pharmaceutical information not already present in the text and argues that, instead, their composition is best understood within the context of Ming visual culture, the print economy, and naturalist collectanea produced at the time.

Alcohol and Historiography in Early China

Abstract This article examines the moral ambiguity that surrounded alcohol consumption in early China and the ways in which the use and abuse of alcohol served as a measure to judge the past. Rule-guided drinking was part of social life but, importantly, it was also a cornerstone in sacrificial ritual and therefore an important measure to please the spirit world. In assessing the past, early Chinese writers often judged rulers and their regimes based on the way they handled alcohol and ritualized drinking. Moderation or excess in drinking was seen as a key indicator in a regimes health: bad and overindulgent rulers were pitched against sages, who were portrayed as masters in the art of moderate consumption. These judgments run as a red thread through the written record, from Zhou bronze inscriptions to Han memorials.