A gorgeously illustrated introduction to Chinese New Year, written by Eva Wong Nava and illustrated by Li Xin. 'Twelve animals, one for each year, each one with their own special powers. It all started with a race to cross the most heavenly of rivers.' Chinese New Year is right around the corner and Mai-Anne is so excited! As her family start decorating the house, there's a knock on the door... her grandmother, Nai Nai, has arrived! They start their celebrations with a traditional meal filled with fish for good luck, noodles for long life, dumplings for blessings and a WHOLE chicken. Then after dinner Nai Nai tells the story of how Chinese New year began, with the Great Race! Join Mai-Anne as she learns about twelve animals and their special powers in the story of how Chinese New Year began! A beautifully illustrated introduction to the true meaning of Chinese New Year and family traditions for little ones A love letter to all the grandparents in the world Features some non-fiction facts on the last pages for especially curious minds about Chinese New Year, including different countries' traditions Illustrations of China Towns around the world on the first and last pages Written and illustrated by two brilliantly talented Asian women

Sa'deddin Efendi was a renowned Ottoman chief jurisconsult, influential statesman, eminent scholar, and prolific translator of Arabic and Persian works into Turkish. Prognostic Dreams, Otherworldly Saints, and Caliphal Ghosts comprises a critical edition, English translation, and a facsimile of his hagiographic work on controversial Ottoman sultan Selim I ("the Grim"). Sa'deddin's Selimname consists of a preface and twelve anecdotes in which Selim I is portrayed as a divinely ordained sultan who delves into the realm of meditation, communicates with otherworldly saints and the "rightly guided" caliphs, and foretells the future.

Threads of the Unfolding Web is essential reading for scholars, students and the general reader interested in Javanese history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Little is known about the history of Java in this period, which witnessed the beginnings of major global economic, political, cultural and religious change. It was a time when Java saw the decline of the once powerful eastern Javanese kingdom of Majapahit, the rise of Muslim kingdoms on Java's northern coast and the arrival of the first Europeans in the person of the Portuguese Tome Pires in Java's cosmopolitan ports. "Stuart Robson's expert English translation of the Tantu Panggelaran gives his readers ready access to this important work, which provides insight into how the author and his contemporary Javanese readers imagined the realities of the world in which they lived. We learn how they conceived the creation of this world and understood the relationship between the gods and men. Importantly, we learn also how they conceived a history of the foundation and spread of Bhairava Sivaite hermitages, shrines and temples. The work traces the history of this network from its origins in the vicinity of the Dieng plateau and the northern plains of Batang and Pekalongan to its subsequent expansion to the Tengger and Hyang Massifs of eastern Java. Hadi Sidomulyo's impressive commentary, an amalgam of textual analysis and the survey of archaeological sites, is a model for the way in which further research of this sort might be conducted and underlines the urgent need for further archaeological surveys and the future excavation of archaeological sites." -- Professor Emeritus Peter Worsley, Indonesian Studies, University of Sydney "Ever since the dissertation of Th. Pigeaud was published in 1926, the Tantu Panggelaran has both intrigued and perplexed scholars of the cultural history of Java. Despite Pigeaud's translation and copious notes much remained uncertain and his comments were not easily accessible except to readers of Dutch. Now, the publication of Threads of the Unfolding Web has breathed new life into studies of this rare exemplar of the literature of the "period of transition" in sixteenth century Java. This collaborative volume combines the skills of Stuart Robson, a senior in the field of translation from Old Javanese, and Hadi Sidomulyo, whose deep interest in the early history of Java combines attention to the inscriptional record with field work using GPS technology to locate and describe archaeological remains spread throughout Java. As a result you have before you a volume that illustrates the close linkages between a literary text describing the mythical foundations of the Saiva ascetic communities of the Javanese Rsi order and the geophysical coordinates of these communities as far as they can be traced today. This combination represents a giant leap forward for studies of the Tantu Panggelaran. We owe the authors a debt of gratitude for the years of work that lay behind the completion of this important volume."-- Thomas M. Hunter, Lecturer in South-Southeast Asian Studies, University of British Columbia

This volume brings together contributions by scholars focussing on peritextual elements as found in Middle Eastern manuscripts: dots and various other symbols that mark vowels, intonation, readings aids, and other textual markers; marginal notes and sigla that provide additional explanatory content akin to but substantially different from our modern notes and endnotes; images and illustrations that present additional material not found in the main text. These elements add additional layers to the main body of the text and are crucial for our understanding of the text's transmission history as well as scribal habits.

This book introduces the reader to different cases of cultural intersections between Tibet and China in the field of Buddhism. The ten chapters provide a series of insights into Sino-Tibetan exchanges within religious practices and doctrines, material culture and iconography. Spanning from pre-modern encounters in Central Asia to contemporary forms of Sino-Tibetan hybridity in Chinese-speaking environments, Sino-Tibetan Buddhism Across the Ages produces further evidence that, beginning with the very introduction of Buddhism into Tibet, there were constant and fruitful contacts and blending between the Buddhist traditions developing in China and those of Tibet. Contributors are Urs App, Ester Bianchi, Isabelle Charleux, Martino Dibeltulo Concu, Alison Denton Jones, Weirong Shen, Penghao Sun, Wei Wu, Fan Zhang, and Linghui Zhang.