Ruminations on the meaning and nature of ritual in the historical context of China–A theoretical attempt to understand the tribute system as a ritual in East Asia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20209964 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lin Shaoyang (0000-0003-3514-0022, City University of Hong Kong, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 703-719 |
| Publication date | 2023-07-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Asian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1479-5914 • E-ISSN: 1479-5922 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1479591421000693 |
| OpenAlex | W4316494610 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 25 |
The mainstream studies of the East Asian tributary system have been exhibiting a stance that tends to stress the importance of Confucianism in forming and sustaining the tributary system throughout its long history. However, there are still several questions (especially those of a theoretical nature) that historians have yet to answer: How could Confucianism have contributed to the formation and sustenance of this tributary system? Why could this Confucian-based tributary system be recognized and employed in relations with non-Confucian frontier tribes? Why could this system have worked with both the nomadic tribes on the northern frontier and the South-East Asian countries that were neither Confucian nor nomadic? Drawing on the results of ritual studies in anthropology, Chinese historiography and Chinese philosophy, this author seeks a broader methodology that can be used to conceptualize the tributary ritual and its constitutive power structure, which forms the foundation of the central part of the East Asian world order. This paper is a theoretical attempt to find a non-Sinocentric way to interpret the formally Sinocentric tribute system in premodern East Asia
Ancient history · Archaeology · China · East Asia · Frontier · Geography · Historiography · Mainstream · Political science · Sociology · Sustenance · Tribute · Anthropology · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
China's Hegemony
Violence and Order on the Chengdu Plain
The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law
How To Do Things With Words
Philosophical Papers
Tang China in Multi-Polar Asia
The Ritual and Mythology of the Chinese Triads
The Elementary Structures of Kinship
Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity
The Gift
Islands of History
Functional, Not Fossilized
Contemporary theories of religion
The Qianlong Emperor’s Letter to George III and the Early-Twentieth-Century Origins of Ideas about Traditional China’s Foreign Relations
Art, Myth, and Ritual
International Gifting and the Kitan World, 907–1125
Ritual and Its Consequences
Political Systems of Highland Burma
Ritual
Speech Acts
| Highly cited | No |
|---|