Abstracts about the Treatises of the Seminer

In the Tibetan calendar, the years are mentioned by a system known as Sexagenary Cycle. Inessence, it consists of the cycle of 60 years----each cycle called a Rab--byung. One of the prob-lems concerning the Chronological Tables is thus decoding this system for our understanding of theyear referred to in terms of the European calendar. But it seems important to mention here thatthere is some risk of inaccuracy in the standard practice of mechanically converting the Tibetan     

The Tibetan Written Language

From the middle of the 19th century the Tibetan language became the object of interest of Eu-ropean linguists not only as the instrument for the studies of the history and culture of the CentralAsia, but as an important component of Sino--Tibetan linguistics. The problems of the Tibetan writing system were specially studied by R. A. Miller, Geza U-rai, M. Hahn and in a more general way by A. Csoma De Koroshi, Jaschke, J. N. Reorich, Qu     

Two Courts of the’Phags-pa Era

1. Preamble An event which is said to have taken place in 1267, just prior to' Phags--pa's leisurely re-turn to the Mongol imperial court in China was his organization of an entourage of attendants andofficials who were responsible for the wide variety of duties and functions that had accrued to him inthe course of his growing prestige and influence. In keeping with his position in Tibet as the spiritual     

Miscellaneous Remarks on the Lineage of Byang La-Stod

In 1974 Tibetan savant Rtsis--dpon Zhwa -- sgab -- pa Dbang--phyug bde--ldan published acollection of historical works selected from his private holding. One of the texts made available as aresult is a short account of the Byang La--stod area in Central Tibet, the Sde--pa G. yas--ro Byang--pa' i rgyag--rabs rin -- po -- che bstar ba(hereafter Byang -- pa' i rgyal -- rabs; it is comprised oftwenty--two folia of which six [ff. 16v -- 21v; the colophon is on ff. 21v--22r] deal with the ab-     

The “War” Mentality of the Liangshang Yi：A Culture of Honor

I. Introduction
This topic was inspired by the findings of the ethnologist Lin Yaohua who investigated the Yi in Liangshan,and discovered that what distinguished the Yi from other ethnic groups wa...     

referential basis for the s

ind of mines. At the same time, it serves as the decision basis for ensuring the safety of sur roundings.deformation; superposition action; safety protection; effect of exavation movement0勘察科学技术SITE INVESTIGATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY6-10 36     

地方感何以可能——兼评段义孚“Space and Place: The Perspectives of Experience”一书

In the first century of Anthropology (1870-1970), almost all social sciences studies focused on“objective”,“rational”,“collective”, and “universal” socio-cultural facts. This orien-tation excluded and marginalized those “subjec-tive”,“individual” and “non-rational” fields in the discourse system of the discipline. “Sense”was such a field, refused by the gatekeepers of tra-ditional anthropology. Since 1980s, more and more anthropologists have paid attention to the study of sense. laying the foundations for an “anthropology of the sen-ses”. With the gradual influence of Western An-thropology of the senses, “sense of place” is be-coming a current academic phrase in Chinese An-thropology. Meanwhile, a fundamental question has to be asked:how is sense of place possible? In order to explore this question, we must go back to Yi-Fu Tuan, a renowned humanistic geographer and his master work, Space and Place. Space and Place contains a total of fourteen chapters and can be divided into three parts. The first part, chapters 1 to 3, discusses three key words:experience, space, and place. Meanwhile, this part identifies the fundamental question of the book:how do human beings understand and expe-rience the world? The second part, ranging from chapters 4 to 9 , and introduces the relationship be-tween sense and space. The third part,chapters 10 to 14 , interprets the relationship between place and sense. Although the latter two parts introduce
the relationship between the “Sense and Space”and “Place and Sense”, the interrelation of space-sense-place runs through the whole book. The three key words ( experience, space and place ) are fully reflected in the title of the book ( Space and Place—the Perspective of Experience. What, then, is the nature of experience? Tuan holds that the essentiality of experience is how a person knows and constructs reality, ran-ging from inchoate feelings to explicit conceptions. Essentially,experience equals feeling plus thought. It is generally argued that feeling and thought are opposites. Feeling is subjective and non-rational. Thought is objective and rational. Tuan however argues that both of them belong to different poles of an experiential continuum and are ways of knowing the world. Through a new understanding of experi-ence, Tuan puts feelings to the study of “space-place”. Tuan considers space as a geometrical unit ( area or volume ) , it is a measurable and unam-biguous quantity. More loosely speaking, space means “room”; Space “is given by the ability to move”. However, sense is the sense of a lived body or man, and the relationship between sense and space is the relationship between a body and space, or essentially, the world. When a man ( or lived body ) moves in the world or space, the movement in turn gives him a sense of space. Place, in Tuan’s view, is a type of object,an object in which one can dwell (p. 12),a stable ob-
ject that catches our attention ( p. 161 );a focus of value, of nurture and support (p. 29). If we have a sense of space because we can move, then we have a sense of place because of a pause in move-ment. The pause makes it possible for a locality to become a center of felt value ( p. 138 ) . Sense of place is mind at work ( p. 198 ) , while sense of space is body at work. The most typical sense of place is topophilia, which is the feeling-link be-tween person and place ( Tuan, 1974 ) , and be-comes mixed with the sense of cultural identity a-mong certain peoples and a love of certain aspects of such a place. Actually, place has a lot of similarities with the character of space. For example, one place in-cludes several spaces while it contains another lar-ger space. Nevertheless, the difference between the two is also obvious. Tuan argues that“Place is security, space is freedom” ( p. 3 ) , and Space lies open as a common symbol of freedom in the Western world. On the negative side, space and freedom are a threat. A root meaning of the word“bad” is“open”. To be open and free is to be ex-posed and vulnerable. Compared to space, place is a calm center of established values ( p. 54 ) . While space and place is not a duality, according to Tuan, space can transform into place. In a word, the key factor of the transformation is culture,or more concretely, human experience. Based on this, we further propose that space and place is a continuum, just like Tuan’s understand-ing of experience as a continuum, and sense is a significant link to it. To summarize, Yi-Fu Tuan argues that ex-perience is a compound of feeling and thought in Space and Place:The Perspective of Experience. Tu-
an focuses on feeling and sense, which is the con-junction of space and place. We believe that Tuan’s research is based on a set of views: People have a sense of space from the body, as well as a sense of place from the function of the mind. From sense of space to sense of place, space and place become a continuum for the sake of sense. Nowa-days, historical anthropology still has problems in dealing with the relationship between space and place, so Tuan’s research, which has already bro-ken boundaries between the disciplines of geogra-phy and anthropology, is worthy of closer atten-tion.     

Labtse and the Reinscription of Sacralized Social Space

One of the most widely reported, yet ignored, Tibetan folk rituals concerns labtse. In westernliterature, the longest discussion of labtse is S. Hummel's, which appeared in Anthropos some 30years ago. There Hummel discussed the symbolic significance of labtse from the perspective of Kul-turkreislehre. Most writings on the subject, both in China and the west, seem to have followed inthe same epistemological footsteps. Studies of labtse have been dominated by what we shall call the     

藏族量理摄类学形色与显色略观

Tibetan logic is regarded as the number one vital discipline among the Five Vol-umes of Teachings of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. Its main characteristics are concentrated in the the-oretical system of the collected topics of logic ( bs-dus grwa) . The most profound, systemic and over-all research on the Collected Topic of Logic is the Bse Ghag Dbang Bkr Shis’s Collected Topics of Log-ic which is regarded as a comprehensive expression of the history of Tibetan collected topics of logic. Accordingly, we take this book as the focus of this article in order to make an analysis. Based on the historical development of the discipline as well as the different academic interests of various schools, the Tibetan Collected Topics of Logic has devel-oped into different summarized topics, such as the thirteen summarized topics, the eighteen summa-rized topics, the twenty one summarized topics, the twenty five summarized topics, the twenty sev-en summarized topics and the thirty summarized topics, etc. Although the summarized topics of the Collected Topics differ widely, all of them can be reduced synthetically into three different paths of reasoning, respectively as the intermediate, ad-vanced, and introductory path of reasoning. Of course, in addition to these three different paths of reasoning, some scholars also add epistemology and syllogism as the fourth one, therefore saying that there was a total of four different paths of rea-soning. Other scholars, based upon the intermedi-ate, advanced, introductory paths of reasoning, add epistemology as the fourth, and syllogism as the fifth, thereby promoting a total of five paths of reasoning. Nevertheless, nowadays, the general classification approach is usually still based on the principle of “the first introductory path of reason-ing, the second advanced path of reasoning and the third intermediate path of reasoning.” We will, thus, follow this kind of general classification to conduct our analysis.     

An Exploration on the Realization of the Approach for Harmonious Ethnic Relations from the Perspective of“the Pattern of Diversity in Unity” Theory

1 .The “Pattern of Diversity in U-nity ” is a true reflection of the Chinese Nation ’ s ethnic relations     

The “Nationalization” of Oil Painting and Cartoons

1 .Breakout of Oil Painting After crushing the "gang of four"in October 1976, Deng Xiaoping returned to political power , and all China advocated “emancipating the mind , and seeking truth from facts...     

The Cultural Response of the Community to the March 11 Big Earthquake in Japan and an Anthropological Analysis---Focusing on The Community’s Response to Tsunami Damage-the Regional Principle of the Otuchicyo Refuge and Its Relationship with Others

The anthropological study of disas-ter originated from the West’s reflection on and dis-cussion of problems which happened after World War II. The research focused on disaster behavior during that time...     

生产性破坏:破坏作为社会生活的中心组织形式

This paper is a reflection on observations about the place of destruction in the or-ganization of social life .In contemplating the model of sacrifice , the author draws upon sources ranging Hubert, Mauss, and Evan-Pritchard to Levi-Strauss, and considers the circumstances of his life as a scholar of Melanesia and as a resident of the United States .The question that in-trigues the author the most is：＂ what quality is there in social life that makes destruction so often the condition of creation？＂ The author names this kind of destruction as a productive destruction and gives an analysis .He argues that destruction not only makes creation possible , it also pro-duces the conditions for the formation of not just difference , but a rank order or hierarchy .He suggests that it is not religion which creates the ritual hierarchies of power and destruction , but the latter which gets taken up by religion and ritual , and, thence, by the development of forms of social order .     

Tibetan Classical Literature and the U.S.Library of Congress:Preservation of Knowledge

Tibetan classical literature Of all the world's rich classical literary traditions, that which is preserved in the literature ofTibet, is probably one of the most outstanding and also the least well--known. Of the thousands oftexts once available inside Tibet, only a fraction have been translated into Western languages, andthe number of trained scholars capable of making accurate translations is very small. Nonetheless,     

祭祀对世界“中间状”的物化

Deriving from a quote in MarcellMauss ＇ essay on techniques of the Body , as well as based on the exploration of cases from ancient Mesopotamia , the eastern Mediterranean , and Africa .The author voices his concerns on the relationship between sacrifice and ＂materiali-zing＂.He states that sacrifice can animate , i.e.give life to sacrificial objects and by doing so turn them into subjects or agents who are dependent on the sacrificial process for their flourish-ing.Sacrifice as a life giving act creates a person through eating and feeding the recognition by the subject of its dependence on the source of that creativity .This can be the basis for contrasting it to funerary rites where it is death and the corpse that is envisaged as the sacrifice which is offered in some form as ＂feeding＂ the Gods.     

藏传佛教觉囊派在四川藏区的传播与发展

Jonang is one of schools of Tibetan Buddhism. In the writings of the historians, Jo-nang is listed after Nyingma, Kadam, Skya, Kag-gu, and Gelug, or is even listed with the smaller lineages, such as chod, gcod-Yulh, and shalu. However, its “zhentong”( view of the emptiness of others) , as “an unique idea on the emptiness in Tibetan Buddhism”, has attracted the attention of many scholars.     

Was Tibet of 1913-1914 Fully sui juris to Enter Into Treaty Relations with Another State?

It is considerably difficult to assess and evaluate the Simla Conference (1913--1914) and itsoutcome in all theoretical and practical aspects, and considering the permanent unavailability andrelative inaccessibility of some sources related directly or indirectly to the course and conclusions ofSimta proceedings, it is also impossible, as a matter of fact. However, this should not prevent usfrom trying -- with the given means -- to analyze at least partially some of the most important and     

Research on the Distribution and Characteristics of Moso Ethnic Costume during the Ming and Qing Dynasties

The “Moso” (麽些) during the Ming and Qing dynasties includes present day Naxi, as well as the present day Mongolians in the areas of Muli, Yanyuan, and the “Nari” and“Namuyi” branches of the Tibetan ....     

宗教、秩序与隐喻：读《中国社会中的宗教与仪式》

Western social scientists have fo-cused on the religion and ritual of China for a long time. Since modern times, a number of western si-nologists have committed themselves to conducting detailed and in-depth research on aspects of Chi-nese society and history in order to explain the be-liefs and practices of Chinese people. It is within such an academic background that Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, edited by Arthur Wolf, an American anthropologist, compiled a series of studies on the religions and rituals of Taiwan and Hong Kong done by fifteen western scholars from the 1950s to the 1970s. The advent of this book not only characterizes the western academic study of Chinese society and culture of that era, but also causes us to reflect on current research. This book is a work of great academic value, as well as serves as a model for the study of sinology in the field of western anthropology.     

Research on the System of Town Buildingin China’s Ethnic Minority Areas

Town building is one of the most important methods for China to promote new-pat-terns of urbanization in ethnic minority areas. This article analyzes the characteristics of the scale, distribution,popu...