Mingtang and buddhist utopias in the history of the astronomical clock

The tower, statue and armillary sphere constructed by empress wu

Antonino Forte - Collection Publications de l'école française d'extrême-orient

342 pages, parution le 31/12/1988

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QUANTITÉ

Résumé

This book has its origins in research which I began in Autumn 1982 in an attempt to understand the nature of an obscure Buddhist building called "celestial hall" or "heavenly mansion" (tiantang). This building was erected in the palatine city of Luoyang in the year 689 A.D. As sometimes happens, when you look for one thing, you find other things which are even more interesting; at a certain point my research, I thus found myself pursuing a path which I never would have predicted...

Antonino Forte

Table of content

Preface
Introductory essay: The clock and the perfect society
1. The Chinese clock and the European clock
2 The great regulator of Wu Zhao
3. The importance of time for the Chinese Buddhist
Appendix: On the transmission of the text of Daoxuan on the Jetevana Monastery

Chapter one: The tower, the statue, the armillary sphere

1. The great armillary sphere (Day 1)

2. The tower called Tiantang
i. Historical Events
ii. Size and architecture of the tiantang

3. The Great Statue (Daxiang)

Appendix: Matsumoto Bunzaburo confusion of the great lacquer statue with the great bronze statue on the Bai Sima slope

Chapter two: The origins of the mechanical clock

1. The Tiantang interpreted as a `sacred tower'

2. The mystique of the Lingtai

3. The Dayi and the origin of the mechanical clock

Appendix A: Notes on some great towers prior to the tiantang and their possible relation with the idea of lingtai
Appendix B: Yamada Keiji's opinion on the meaning of dayi

Chapter three: The two mingtang compared

1. The dates of the two Mingtang

2. Size and architecture of the two Mingtang

3. The abortive attempt to reconstruct the Mingtang

4. Hypothesis on the first Mingtang

Appendix A: The paths followed by historians to eject the tiantang from the mingtang
Appendix B: The eleven missing characters in the current editions of the Zizhi tongijian

Chapter four: Some remarks on the social context

1. The Mingtang as an architectural projection of different politico-religious conceptions

2. The fertile soil of Maitreyan utopianism

3. The Mingtang/Clock-Buddhism/Pacifism association

Conclusion
Summary of three attempts to construct The Mingtang at Luoyang
Bibliography
General index
Illustrations

Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	Ecole française d'Extreme Orient
Auteur(s)	Antonino Forte
Collection	Publications de l'école française d'extrême-orient
Parution	31/12/1988
Nb. de pages	342
Format	18.6 x 25.6
Couverture	Broché
Poids	680g
EAN13	9782855397450