Description
Book SynopsisCoping with the Future: Theories and Practices of Divination in East Asia offers insights into various techniques of divination, their evolution, and their assessment. The contributions cover the period from the earliest documents on East Asian mantic arts to their appearance in the present time. The volume reflects the pervasive manifestations of divination in literature, religious and political life, and their relevance for society and individuals. Special emphasis is placed on cross-cultural influences and attempts to find theoretical foundations for divinatory practices. This edited volume is an initiative to study the phenomena of divination across East Asian cultures and beyond. It is also one of the first attempts to theorize divinatory practices through East Asian traditions.
Trade Review'Coping with the Future is a landmark study of divination in East Asia, mainly for its depth and breadth of scholarship, but also for the impact it will have in elucidating an esoteric subject for a wider audience. The Käte Hamburger Center, under the auspices of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, is to be commended for funding the studies published herein and we applaud Michael Lackner for the years of effort he has dedicated to this project. With this groundbreaking work, if not before, he has distinguished himself as a leader in the field.' Stephen L. Field, Trinity University, Journal of the American Oriental Society 140.2 (2020).
Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments List of Figures and Tables Notes on Contributors Introduction Michael Lackner Part 1: Divination and Literature: Excavated and Extant 1 A Recently Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on Divination Marco Caboara 2 Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature: The Thirty-Two-Year Cycle of the Qian zuo du Bent Nielsen 3 The Representation of Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval China Paul W. Kroll 4 Divination, Fate Manipulation, and Protective Knowledge in and around The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl, a Popular Myth of Late Imperial China Vincent Durand-Dastès Part 2: Divination and Religions 5 A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist Canon Esther-Maria Guggenmos 6 The Allegorical Cosmos: The Shi 式 Board in Medieval Taoist and Buddhist Sources Dominic Steavu* 7 Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan Plateau Anne C. Klein Part 3: Divination and Politics 8 Early Chinese Divination and Its Rhetoric Martin Kern 9 Choosing Auspicious Dates and Sites for Royal Ceremonies in Eighteenth-century Korea Park Kwon Soo Part 4: Divination and Individual 10 Exploring the Mandates of Heaven: Wen Tianxiang’s Concepts of Fate and Mantic Knowledge Liao Hsien-huei 11 Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing Divination Kim Yung Sik 12 From Jianghu to Liumang: Working Conditions and Cultural Identity of Wandering Fortune-Tellers in Contemporary China Stéphanie Homola 13 Women and Divination in Contemporary Korea Jennifer Jung-Kim Part 5: Mantic Arts: When East Meets West 14 Translation and Adaption: The Continuous Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign Culture Che-chia Chang 15 Against Prognostication: Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic Arts Chu Pingyi 16 Contradictory Forms of Knowledge? Divination and Western Knowledge in Late Qing and Early Republican China Li Fan and Michael Lackner 17 Western Horoscopic Astrology in Korea Jun Yong Hoon Part 6: Reflections on Mantic Arts 18 How to quantify the Value of Domino Combinations? Divination and Shifting Rationalities in Late Imperial China Andrea Bréard 19 Correlating Time Within One’s Hand: The Use of Temporal Variables in Early Modern Japanese “Chronomancy” Techniques Matthias Hayek 20 The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and Korea Oh Sanghak Index
