{"id":5637,"date":"2011-03-23T18:54:39","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T18:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=5637"},"modified":"2011-03-23T18:55:29","modified_gmt":"2011-03-23T18:55:29","slug":"wisdom-of-the-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wisdom-of-the-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisdom of the East"},"content":{"rendered":"

SuperSnail<\/a> asks:<\/p>\n

Hey Razib, could you compile a list of Chinese and Indian religious history\/philosophy books?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve actually made the call for books on Indian religion and philosophy elsewhere<\/a>. My knowledge set in this domain is very<\/em> thin, so I don’t feel comfortable recommending anything. I have read primary sources such as The Bhagavad Gita<\/a> and The Rig Veda<\/a>, as well as Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus<\/a>, but I have no sense of the lay of the land. To be frank Indian religion and philosophy has minimal appeal for me. The materialist school, the Carvaka<\/a>, is generally characterized by its opponents<\/em>, so it isn’t as if I find any succor in that direction (imagine that everything you knew about classical paganism was purely through the polemics of Christian apologists).<\/p>\n

When it comes to China I am a bit more comfortable. Unlike the case with the Abrahamic religions I assume many readers are not so familiar with the primary texts. So the list below is more weighted toward the “sources,” though I think one can argue that Confucianism as it is lived has as much to do with The Analects<\/i> as Christianity does with the synoptic gospels. I’ll leave it up to the reader to make an inference as to the lesson one takes from this analogy!<\/p>\n

I am personally rather positively inclined toward the “black sheep” of the early Confucian sages, Xunzi, who I suspect would be most comprehensible to those with a “Secular Right” perspective. Xunzi’s emphasis on the necessity of social order and regulation had a more jaundiced tinge than that of Confucius, and especially Mencius, but some have argued that in practice<\/i> the Confucianism of Chinese civilization owes more to him than to his more well regarded predecessors.<\/p>\n

Because of its concrete and “this worldly” emphasis Chinese religion and philosophy can’t be understood well without a reference to the broader history of China, so there are many general history books on the list. Additionally, the final section has a periodic temporal focus, going from dynasty to dynasty. I’ve omitted any books on Buddhism because I think in the Chinese context this religion can be decomposed mostly into its “foreign” and “indigenous.” The synthesis may be novel (e.g., Chan Buddhism<\/a>, more commonly known as Zen in the West), but usually I think its antecedents in indigenous Chinese or exogenous Indian & Central Asian traditions are pretty clear.<\/p>\n


\nPrimary sources & surveys:<\/b>
\nThe Analects of Confucius<\/a>
\nThe Authentic Confucius<\/a>
\nAn Introduction to Confucianism
\n<\/a>Xunzi<\/a>
\nThe Philosophy of Xunzi<\/a>
\nMencius<\/a>
\nMozi<\/a>
\nNeo-Confucianism in History<\/a>
\nSources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. 1<\/a>
\nSources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. 2<\/a>
\nA Short History of Chinese Philosophy<\/a><\/p>\n

General Histories:<\/strong>
\nChina: A New History<\/a>
\nChina: A History<\/a>
\nThe Open Empire<\/a>
\nA History of Chinese Civilization<\/a><\/p>\n

Period Histories:<\/strong>
\nThe Early Chinese Empires<\/a>
\nChina between Empires<\/a>
\nChina’s Cosmopolitan Empire<\/a>
\nT’ang China<\/a>
\nThe Age of Confucian Rule<\/a>
\nThe Troubled Empire<\/a>
\nChina’s Last Empire<\/a><\/p>\n

If you read one book on the list, I think Jacques Gernet’s A History of Chinese Civilization<\/a> is the way to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SuperSnail asks: Hey Razib, could you compile a list of Chinese and Indian religious history\/philosophy books? I’ve actually made the call for books on Indian religion and philosophy elsewhere. My knowledge set in this domain is very thin, so I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9,14,711],"tags":[435,475,1130,732],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5637"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5642,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions\/5642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}