Known for his ultraconservatism and eccentricity, Gu Hongming (1857-1928) remains one of the most controversial figures in modern Chinese intellectual history. A former member of the colonial elite from Penang who was educated in Europe, Gu, in his late twenties, became a Qing loyalist and Confucian spokesman who also defended concubinage, footbinding, and the queue. Seen as a reactionary by his Chinese contemporaries, Gu nevertheless gained fame as an Eastern prophet following the carnage of World War I, often paired with Rabindranath Tagore and Leo Tolstoy by Western and Japanese intellectuals. Rather than resort to the typical conception of Gu as an inscrutable eccentric, Chunmei Du argues that Gu was a trickster-sage figure who fought modern Western civilization in a time dominated by industrial power, utilitarian values, and imperialist expansion. A shape-shifter, Gu was by turns a lampooning jester, defying modern political and economic systems and, at other times, an avenging cultural hero who denounced colonial ideologies with formidable intellect, symbolic performances, and calculated pranks. A cultural amphibian, Gu transformed from an "imitation Western man" to "a Chinaman again," and reinterpreted, performed, and embodied "authentic Chineseness" in a time when China itself was adopting the new identity of a modern nation-state. Gu Hongming's Eccentric Chinese Odyssey is the first comprehensive study in English of Gu Hongming, both the private individual and the public cultural figure. It examines the controversial scholar's intellectual and psychological journeys across geographical, national, and cultural boundaries in new global contexts. In addition to complicating existing studies of Chinese conservatism and global discussions on civilization around the World War I era, the book sheds new light on the contested notion of authenticity within the Chinese diaspora and the psychological impact of colonialism.

Buddhist Revitalization and Chinese Religions in Malaysia tells the story of how a minority community comes to grips with the challenges of modernity, history, globalization, and cultural assertion in an ever-changing Malaysia. It captures the religious connection, transformation, and tension within a complex traditional belief system in a multi-religious society. In particular, the book revolves around a discussion on the religious revitalization of Chinese Buddhism in modern Malaysia. This Buddhist revitalization movement is intertwined with various forces, such as colonialism, religious transnationalism, and global capitalism. Reformist Buddhists have helped to remake Malaysia's urban-dwelling Chinese community and have provided an exit option in the Malay and Muslim majority nation state. As Malaysia modernizes, there have been increasing efforts by certain segments of the country's ethnic Chinese Buddhist population to separate Buddhism from popular Chinese religions. Nevertheless, these reformist groups face counterforces from traditional Chinese religionists within the context of the cultural complexity of the Chinese belief system.

In China, the debate over the moral status of emotions began around the 4th century BCE, when early philosophers first began to invoke psychological categories such as the mind (xin), human nature (xing), and emotions (qing) to explain the sources of ethical authority and the foundations of our knowledge about the world. Although some thinkers during this period proposed that human emotions and desires were temporary physiological disturbances in the mind caused by the impact of things in the world, this was not the account that would eventually gain currency. The consensus among those thinkers who would come to be recognized as the foundational figures of the Confucian and Daoist philosophical traditions was that the emotions represented the underlying, dispositional constitution of a person, and that they embodied the patterned workings of the cosmos itself. This book sets out to explain why the emotions were such a central preoccupation among early thinkers, and what was at stake in the entire discussion, situating the entire debate within developments in thinking about the self, the cosmos, and the political order. It shows that the mainstream account of emotions as patterned reality emerged as part of a major conceptual shift towards the recognition of natural reality as intelligible, orderly and coherent. And that the idea that all human beings possessed a shared, underlying, dispositional nature, was itself one of the consequences of this idea. The mainstream account of emotions thus played a crucial role in summoning the very idea of the human being as a universal category - an idea that would be of particular interest during the subsequent period of empire - and in establishing the cognitive and practical agency of human beings.

Now the question arises, If all human beings are endowed with Buddha-nature, why have they not come naturally to be Enlightened? To answer this question, the Indian Mahayanists told the parable of the drunkard who forgets the precious gems put in his own pocket by one of his friends. The man is drunk with the poisonous liquor of selfishness, led astray by the alluring sight of the sensual objects, and goes mad with anger, lust, and folly. Thus he is in a state of moral poverty, entirely forgetting the precious gem of Buddha-nature within him. -from "The Nature of Man" There are, unknown to many Western minds, two schools of Buddhist thought: the Theravada, the one Westerners are generally more familiar with, and the Mahayanistic, or Zen, philosophy, which is still a great mystery even to occidental explorers of world religions. This 1913 book, one of the first works on Zen written in the English language, examines the Zen mode of meditation, which is virtually unchanged from the practices of the pre-Buddhistic recluses of India, and discusses the intensely personal aspects of this branch of Buddhism, which stresses the passing of wisdom through teachers rather than Scripture. Ardently spiritual and beautifully reflective, this splendid book will be treasured by all seekers of the divine. KAITEN NUKARIYA was a professor at Kei-o-gi-jiku University and So-to-shu Buddhist College, Tokyo.

Ali Pasha of Ioannina (?1750-1822), the Ottoman-appointed governor of the northern mainland of Greece, was a towering figure in Ottoman, Greek, and European history. Based on an array of literatures, paintings, and musical scores, this is the first English-language critical biography about him in recent decades. K. E. Fleming shows that the British and French diplomatic experience of Ali was at odds with the "orientalist" literatures that he inspired. Dubbed by Byron the "Muslim Bonaparte," Ali enjoyed a position of diplomatic strength in the eastern Adriatic; in his attempt to secede from the Ottoman state, he cleverly took advantage of the diplomatic relations of Britain, Russia, France, and Venice. As he reached the peak of his powers, however, European accounts of him portrayed him in ever more "orientalist" terms--as irrational, despotic, cruel, and undependable.

Fleming focuses on the tension between these two experiences of Ali--the diplomatic and the cultural. She also places the history of modern Greece in the context of European history, as well as that of Ottoman decline, and demonstrates the ways in which contemporary European visions of Greece, particularly those generated by Romanticist philhellenism, contributed to a unique form of "orientalism" in the south Balkans. Greece, a territory never formally colonized by Western Europe, was subject instead to a surrogate form of colonial control--one in which the country's history and culture, rather than its actual land, was annexed, invaded, and colonized.

Originally published in 1999.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The "counterpoint" to The Art of War--an inspiring collection of sayings and teachings on the peaceful resolution of conflict. Unlike other popular Eastern philosophies which accept the inevitability of violence as a means to victory--such as Musashi's Book of Five Rings--Aikido fosters fearlessness, wisdom, and compassion and is based on the universal principles of harmony and love of life.

This book is about the ritual world of a group of rural settlements in Shanxi province in pre-1949 North China. Temple festivals, with their giant processions, elaborate rituals, and operas, were the most important influence on the symbolic universe of ordinary villagers and demonstrate their remarkable capacity for religious and artistic creation. The great festivals described in this book were their supreme collective achievements and were carried out virtually without assistance from local officials or educated elites, clerical or lay.

Chinese culture was a performance culture, and ritual was the highest form of performance. Village ritual life everywhere in pre-revolutionary China was complex, conservative, and extraordinarily diverse. Festivals and their associated rituals and operas provided the emotional and intellectual materials out of which ordinary people constructed their ideas about the world of men and the realm of the gods. It is, David Johnson argues, impossible to form an adequate idea of traditional Chinese society without a thorough understanding of village ritual. Newly discovered liturgical manuscripts allow him to reconstruct North Chinese temple festivals in unprecedented detail and prove that they are sharply different from the Daoist- and Buddhist-based communal rituals of South China.

Throughout its history, Buddhism has developed alongside other traditions of religious belief and practice. Forms of Buddhism have in every era, region, and culture been confronted by rival systems that challenged its teachings about the world, how to behave in it, and liberation from it. This volume collects studies of Buddhist literature and art that represent the religious other to their audiences. Contributing authors examine how Buddhists in India, China, and elsewhere across Asia have understood their place in shared religious landscapes, and how they have responded to the presence and influence in the world of traditions other to their own. The studies in this volume consider a variety of 'others' that Buddhists of different times and situations have encountered, and the variety of mechanisms that Buddhists have employed to make sense of them. Chapters of this volume explore the range of attitudes that Buddhists have expressed with respect to other religions, how they have either accommodated the other within their worldview, or pronounced the redundancy of their ideas and activities. These chapters illuminate how over the centuries Buddhists have used and reused stories, symbols, and other strategies to explain religious others and their value, in which every representation of the other is always also a comment on the character and status of Buddhism itself.

In "Frontier Fictions," Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet looks at the efforts of Iranians to defend, if not expand, their borders in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and explores how their conceptions of national geography influenced cultural and political change. The "frontier fictions," or the ways in which the Iranians viewed their often fluctuating borders and the conflicts surrounding them, played a dominant role in defining the nation. On these borderlands, new ideas of citizenship and nationality were unleashed, refining older ideas of ethnicity.

Kashani-Sabet maintains that land-based conceptions of countries existed before the advent of the modern nation-state. Her focus on geography enables her to explore and document fully a wide range of aspects of modern citizenship in Iran, including love of homeland, the hegemony of the Persian language, and widespread interest in archaeology, travel, and map-making. While many historians have focused on the concept of the "imagined community" in their explanations of the rise of nationalism, Kashani-Sabet is able to complement this perspective with a very tangible explanation of what connects people to a specific place. Her approach is intended to enrich our understanding not only of Iranian nationalism, but also of nationalism everywhere.

Warum interessieren sich chinesische Intellektuelle und Kulturschaffende auch heute noch fur den Mythos? Karneval der Goetter ergrundet diese Frage bezugnehmend auf Theorien zu asthetischen und diskursiven Konstruktionen (post-)moderner nationaler Identitat. Die Autorin veranschaulicht die Bedeutung von Mythen und Mythologien in der Moderne: Was zeichnet ihre narrativen Strukturen aus? Welche Rolle spielen Symbole in der Steuerung kollektiver Identitatsbildungsprozesse? - Dynamiken sozialen Wandels spiegeln sich im beweglichen Einsatz mythologischer Vokabularien und Narrative wieder. Karneval der Goetter eroertert auch, wie Aktualisierungen von Mythen die Moeglichkeit eroeffnen, Werte und Orientierungen zu hinterfragen, ohne die Kontinuitat der eigenen Kultur aufkundigen zu mussen. Die Publikation analysiert schwerpunktmassig neuhistorische Romane erfolgreicher Autoren wie Mo Yan und zeigt deren Strategien der literarischen Remythisierung und Konstruktion eines polymythischen kulturellen Imaginaire auf. Sekundare Mythen wie diejenigen der revolutionaren Yan'an-Gemeinschaft oder einer globalkapitalistischen, harmonischen Konsumentengemeinschaft werden als ideologische Konstrukte entlarvt und primare Mythen als wichtige Wegmarken des kollektiven Denk- und Vorstellungsraums einer asthetischen (Gegen-)Moderne neu legitimiert.

Joseph Kitagawa, one of the founders of the field of history of religions and an eminent scholar of the religions of Japan, published his classic book "Religion in Japanese History" in 1966. Since then, he has written a number of extremely influential essays that illustrate approaches to the study of Japanese religious phenomena. To date, these essays have remained scattered in various scholarly journals. This book makes available nineteen of these articles, important contributions to our understanding of Japan's intricate combination of indigenous Shinto, Confucianism, Taoism, the Yin-Yang School, Buddhism, and folk religion. In sections on prehistory, the historic development of Japanese religion, the Shinto tradition, the Buddhist tradition, and the modem phase of the Japanese religious tradition, the author develops a number of valuable methodological approaches. The volume also includes an appendix on Buddhism in America.

Asserting that the study of Japanese religion is more than an umbrella term covering investigations of separate traditions, Professor Kitagawa approaches the subject from an interdisciplinary standpoint. Skillfully combining political, cultural, and social history, he depicts a Japan that seems a microcosm of the religious experience of humankind.

A collection of seminal primary readings on the social, intellectual, and religious traditions of China, "Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 1" has been widely used and praised for almost forty years as an authoritative resource for scholars and students and as a thorough and engaging introduction for general readers. Here at last is a completely revised and expanded edition of this classic sourcebook, compiled by noted China scholars Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom. Updated to reflect recent scholarly developments, with extensive material on popular thought and religion, social roles, and women's education, this edition features new translations of more than half the works from the first edition, as well as many new selections.

Arranged chronologically, this anthology is divided into four parts, beginning at the dawn of literate Chinese civilization with the Oracle-Bone inscriptions of the late Shang dynasty (1571--1045 B.C.E.) and continuing through the end of the Ming dynasty (C.E. 1644). Each chapter has an introduction that provides useful historical context and offers interpretive strategies for understanding the readings.

The first part, The Chinese Tradition in Antiquity, considers the early development of Chinese civilization and includes selections from Confucius's "Analects, " the texts of Mencius and Laozi, as well as other key texts from the Confucian, Daoist, and Legalist schools. Part 2, The Making of a Classical Culture, focuses on Han China with readings from the "Classic of Changes" ( "I Jing"), the "Classic of Filiality, " major Han syntheses, and the great historians of the Han dynasty. The development of Buddhism, from the earliest translations from Sanskrit to the central texts of the Chan school (which became Zen in Japan), is the subject of the third section of the book. Titled Later Daoism and Mahayana Buddhism in China, this part also covers the teachings of Wang Bi, Daoist religion, and texts of the major schools of Buddhist doctrine and practice. The final part, The Confucian Revival and Neo-Confucianism, details the revival of Confucian thought in the Tang, Song, and Ming periods, with historical documents that link philosophical thought to political, social, and educational developments in late imperial China.

With annotations, a detailed chronology, glossary, and a new introduction by the editors, "Sources of Chinese Tradition" will continue to be a standard resource, guidebook, and introduction to Chinese civilization well into the twenty-first century.

This volume offers a critical analysis of one the most ambitious editorial projects of late Victorian Britain: the edition of the fifty substantial volumes of the Sacred Books of the East (1879-1910). The series was edited and conceptualized by Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900), a world-famous German-born philologist, orientalist, and religious scholar. Muller and his influential Oxford colleagues secured financial support from the India Office of the British Empire and from Oxford University Press. Arie L. Molendijk documents how the series has become a landmark in the development of the humanities-especially the study of religion and language-in the second half of the nineteenth century. The edition also contributed significantly to the Western perception of the 'religious' or even 'mystic' East, which was textually represented in English translations. The series was a token of the rise of 'big science' and textualized the East, by selecting their 'sacred books' and bringing them under the power of western scholarship.

In recent years China has witnessed unprecedented economic growth, emerging as a powerful, influential player on the global stage. Now, more than ever, there is a great interest and need within the West to better understand the psychological and social processes that characterize the Chinese people. The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Ppsychology is the first book of its kind - a comprehensive and commanding review of Chinese psychology, covering areas of human functioning with unparalleled sophistication and complexity. In 42 chapters, leading authorities cite and integrate both English and Chinese-language research in topic areas ranging from the socialization of children, mathematics achievement, emotion, bilingualism and Chinese styles of thinking to Chinese identity, personal relationships, leadership processes and psychopathology. With all chapters accessibly written by the leading researchers in their respective fields, the reader of this volume will learn how and why China has developed in the way it has, and how it is likely to develop. In addition, the book shows how a better understanding of a culture so different to our own can reveal much about our own culture and sense of identity. A book of extraordinary breadth, The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Psychology ia an essential sourcebook for any scholar or practitioner attempting to understand the psychological functioning of the world's most populous country.

Here is one of the most insightful texts on the subtle arts of confrontation and victory to emerge from Asian culture. Written not only for martial artists but for leaders in all professions, the book analyzes the process of struggle and mastery over conflict that underlies every level of human interaction. "The Book of Five Rings "--which has become a well-known classic among American business people, studied for its insights into the Japanese approach to business strategy--was composed in 1643 by the famed duelist and undefeated samurai Miyamoto Musashi. Unlike previous editions of "The Book of Five Rings," Thomas Cleary's is an accessible translation, free of jargon, with an introduction that presents the spiritual background of the warrior tradition. Along with Musashi's text, Cleary translates another important Japanese classic on leadership and strategy: "The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War" by Yagyu Munenori, which highlights the ethical and spiritual insights of Taoism and Zen as they apply to the way of the warrior.

The cult of the dead, centered on Todos Santos, the All Saints Day-All Souls Day celebration, is one of the most important aspects of Mesoamerican Indian and mestizo religion. Focusing on rural Tlaxcala, in Mexico, Hugo Nutini presents a thorough description and analysis of the cult in its syncretic, structural, and expressive dimensions and describes its development from the original confrontation of pre-Hispanic polytheism and Spanish Catholicism, through colonial times, until the disintegration of the system of folk religions that is even now occurring.

The discussion of the expressive component of the cult of the dead is a crucial contribution of the study. Professor Nutini shows that symbolism can be an adjunct to expressive studies, but not an end in itself. In addition, he postulates a theory that may serve as a model for studies of the combination and reconciliation of religious beliefs in other contexts. Emphasizing folk theology, teleology, and eschatology, rather than the mechanical and administrative components more frequently studied in works on Mesoamerican Indian and mestizo religions, he concludes that the local system is monolatrous, rather than monotheistic.

Originally published in 1988.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In recent years China has witnessed unprecedented economic growth, emerging as a powerful, influential player on the global stage. Now, more than ever, there is a great interest and need within the West to better understand the psychological and social processes that characterize Chinese people.
The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Psychology is the first book of its kind-- a comprehensive and commanding review of Chinese psychology, covering areas of human functioning with unparalleled sophistication and complexity. In 42 chapters, leading authorities cite and integrate both English and Chinese-language research in topic areas ranging from the socialization of children, mathematics achievement, emotion, bilingualism, and Chinese styles of thinking to Chinese identity, personal relationships, leadership processes, and psychopathology. With all chapters accessibly written by the leading researchers in their respective fields, the reader of this volume will learn how and why China has developed in the way it has, and how it is likely to develop. In addition, the book shows how a better understanding of a culture so different to our own can tell us so much about our own culture and sense of identity.
A book of extraordinary breadth, the Oxford Handbook of Chinese Psychology will become the essential sourcebook for any scholar or practitioner attempting to understand the psychological functioning of the world's largest ethnic group.

This examination of death rituals in early Japan finds in the practice of double burial a key to understanding the Taika Era (645-710 A.D.). Drawing on narratives and poems from the earliest Japanese texts--the Kojiki, the Nihonshoki, and the Man'yoshu, an anthology of poetry--it argues that double burial was the center of a manipulation of myth and ritual for specific ideological and factional purposes. "This volume has significantly raised the standard of scholarship on early Japanese and Man'yoshu studies."--Joseph Kitagawa "So convincing is the historical and religious thought displayed here, it is impossible to imagine how anyone can ever again read these documents in the old way."--Alan L. Miller, The Journal of Religion "A central resource for historians of early Japan."--David L. Barnhill, History of Religions

Ichiro Hori's is the first book in Western literature to portray how Shinto, Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist elements, as well as all manner of archaic magical beliefs and practices, are fused on the folk level. Folk religion, transmitted by the common people from generation to generation, has greatly conditioned the political, economic, and cultural development of Japan and continues to satisfy the emotional and religious needs of the people. Hori examines the organic relationship between the Japanese social structure--the family kinship system, village and community organizations--and folk religion. A glossary with Japanese characters is included in the index.

Ali Pasha of Ioannina (?1750-1822), the Ottoman-appointed governor of the northern mainland of Greece, was a towering figure in Ottoman, Greek, and European history. Based on an array of literatures, paintings, and musical scores, this is the first English-language critical biography about him in recent decades. K. E. Fleming shows that the British and French diplomatic experience of Ali was at odds with the "orientalist" literatures that he inspired. Dubbed by Byron the "Muslim Bonaparte," Ali enjoyed a position of diplomatic strength in the eastern Adriatic; in his attempt to secede from the Ottoman state, he cleverly took advantage of the diplomatic relations of Britain, Russia, France, and Venice. As he reached the peak of his powers, however, European accounts of him portrayed him in ever more "orientalist" terms--as irrational, despotic, cruel, and undependable. Fleming focuses on the tension between these two experiences of Ali--the diplomatic and the cultural. She also places the history of modern Greece in the context of European history, as well as that of Ottoman decline, and demonstrates the ways in which contemporary European visions of Greece, particularly those generated by Romanticist philhellenism, contributed to a unique form of "orientalism" in the south Balkans. Greece, a territory never formally colonized by Western Europe, was subject instead to a surrogate form of colonial control--one in which the country's history and culture, rather than its actual land, was annexed, invaded, and colonized. Originally published in 1999. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The cult of the dead, centered on Todos Santos, the All Saints Day-All Souls Day celebration, is one of the most important aspects of Mesoamerican Indian and mestizo religion. Focusing on rural Tlaxcala, in Mexico, Hugo Nutini presents a thorough description and analysis of the cult in its syncretic, structural, and expressive dimensions and describes its development from the original confrontation of pre-Hispanic polytheism and Spanish Catholicism, through colonial times, until the disintegration of the system of folk religions that is even now occurring. The discussion of the expressive component of the cult of the dead is a crucial contribution of the study. Professor Nutini shows that symbolism can be an adjunct to expressive studies, but not an end in itself. In addition, he postulates a theory that may serve as a model for studies of the combination and reconciliation of religious beliefs in other contexts. Emphasizing folk theology, teleology, and eschatology, rather than the mechanical and administrative components more frequently studied in works on Mesoamerican Indian and mestizo religions, he concludes that the local system is monolatrous, rather than monotheistic. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"Precious volumes," or "pao-chuan," were produced by popular sects in the Ming and early Qing dynasties. These scriptures were believed to have been divinely revealed to sect leaders and contain teachings and ritual instructions that provide valuable information about a lively and widespread religious tradition outside mainstream Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Largely neglected until now, they testify to the imagination and devotion of popular religious leaders. This book, the most detailed and comprehensive study of "pao-chuan" in any language, studies 34 early examples of this literature in order to understand the origins and development of this textual tradition. Although the work focuses on content and structure, it also treats the social context of these works as well as their transmission and ritual use.

With over four million copies in print, Parmahansa Yogananda's autobiography has been translated into thirty-three languages, and it still serves as a gateway into yoga and alternative spirituality for countless North American practitioners. This book examines Yogananda's life and work to clarify linkages between the seemingly disparate aspects of modern yoga, and illuminates the intimate connections between yoga and metaphysically-leaning American traditions such as Unitarianism, New Thought, and Theosophy. Instead of treating yoga as a stable practice, Anya P. Foxen proposes that it is the figure of the Yogi that give the practice of his followers both form and meaning. Focusing on Yogis rather than yoga during the period of transnational popularization highlights the continuities in the concept of the Yogi as superhuman even as it illuminates the transformation of the practice itself. Skillfully balancing traditional yogic ritual, metaphysical spirituality, physical culture, and a flair for the stage, Foxen shows, Yogananda taught a proto-modern yoga to his American audiences. His Yogoda program has remained under the radar of yoga scholarship due to its lack of reliance on recognizable postures. However, as a regimen of training for the modern Yogi, Yogananda's method synthesizes the spiritual and superhuman aspirations of Indian traditions with the metaphysical and health-oriented sensibilities of Euro-American progressivism in a way that exactly prefigures present-day transnational yoga culture. Yet, at the heart of it all, Yogananda retains a sense of what it means to be a Yogi: his message is that the natural destiny of the human is the superhuman.

"Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics" is an essential, all-access guide to the core texts of East Asian civilization and culture. Essays address frequently read, foundational texts in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, as well as early modern fictional classics and nonfiction works of the seventeenth century. Building strong links between these writings and the critical traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, this volume shows the vital role of the classics in the shaping of Asian history and in the development of the humanities at large.

Wm. Theodore de Bary focuses on texts that have survived for centuries, if not millennia, through avid questioning and contestation. Recognized as perennial reflections on life and society, these works represent diverse historical periods and cultures and include the "Analects of Confucius," "Mencius," "Laozi," "Xunxi," the "Lotus Sutra," Tang poetry, the "Pillow Book," "The Tale of Genji," and the writings of Chikamatsu and Kaibara Ekken. Contributors explain the core and most commonly understood aspects of these works and how they operate within their traditions. They trace their reach and reinvention throughout history and their ongoing relevance in modern life.

With fresh interpretations of familiar readings, these essays inspire renewed appreciation and examination. In the case of some classics open to multiple interpretations, de Bary chooses two complementary essays from different contributors. Expanding on debates concerning the challenges of teaching classics in the twenty-first century, several pieces speak to the value of Asia in the core curriculum. Indispensable for early scholarship on Asia and the evolution of global civilization, "Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics" helps one master the major texts of human thought.