Like the industrial revolution before it, the information technology revolution appears to be creating a new ruling class, a new economy and a new society. Information technology is also transforming military operations and warfare. A vast literature on the revolution in military affairs (or "RMA") cites the important (indeed, dominant) role of information technology in enabling a new military revolution. This volume challenges conventional wisdom not by claiming that information's impact on military operations is not "positive" or "transformative" but by claiming its impact is not "new". Previous periods of military revolution can also be characterized as information revolutions. Through the close examination of six case studies of military transformation during the industrial age, the contributors to this volume demonstrate how the employment of emerging information systems was critical to realizing a major boost in military effectiveness. The most successful adaptations to the new environment were made by the most skillful users of information. This volume draws upon the expertise of leading military historians, political scientists and defense practitioners to craft a set of original essays that provide the first retrospective examination of how information affects the process of military revolution. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Since the 1960s virtually every part of the world has seen the arrival and establishment of Japanese new religious movements, a process that has followed quickly on the heels of the most active period of Japanese economic expansion overseas. This book examines the nature and extent of this religious expansion outside Japan.

Like an ancient river, Daoist traditions introduced from China once flowed powerfully through the Japanese religious landscape, forever altering its topography and ecology. Daoism's presence in Japan still may be discerned in its abiding influence on astrology, divination, festivals, literature, politics, and popular culture, not to mention Buddhism and Shinto. Despite this legacy, few English-language studies of Daoism's influence on Japanese religious culture have been published. Daoism in Japan provides an exploration of the particular pathways by which Daoist traditions entered Japan from continental East Asia. After addressing basic issues in both Daoist Studies and the study of Japanese religions, including the problems of defining 'Daoism' and 'Japanese,' the book looks at the influence of Daoism on ancient, medieval and modern Japan in turn. To do so, the volume is arranged both chronologically and topically, according to the following three broad divisions: "Arrivals" (c. 5th-8th centuries CE), "Assimilations" (794-1868), and "Apparitions" (1600s-present). The book demonstrates how Chinese influence on Japanese religious culture ironically proved to be crucial in establishing traditions that usually are seen as authentically, even quintessentially, Japanese. Touching on multiple facets of Japanese cultural history and religious traditions, this book is a fascinating contribution for students and scholars of Japanese Culture, History and Religions, as well as Daoist Studies.

The Western image of Tibet as a sacred land is in many ways a mythical construction. But the Tibetans themselves have traditionally mapped out their land in terms of areas of sacred space, and pilgrimage, ensuring a high degree of mobility within all classes of Tibetan society. Pilgrims travelled to local, regional, and national centres throughout recorded Tibetan history. In recent years, pilgrimage has resumed in areas where it had been forbidden by the Chinese authorities, and has now become one of the most prominent religious expressions of Tibetan national identity. In this major new work, leading scholars of Asian pilgrimage traditions discuss historical and contemporary aspects of pilgrimage within the Tibetan cultural world. Myths and legends, material conditions, textual sources, a modern pilgrim's impressions, political and economic influences, biographies and contemporary developments - all these and many other issues are examined here. The result is an informative and often entertaining work which contributes greatly to our knowledge of the history and culture of Tibet as well as the wider issues of religious power and practice.

This is a richly-illustrated study of 'The Oracles of the Three Shrines', the name given to a hanging scroll depicting three important Japanese shrine-deities and their respective oracle texts. The scroll has evolved continuously in Japan for 600 years, so different examples of it offer a series of 'windows' on developments in Japanese religious belief and practice.

Much has been written on how temples are constructed or reconstructed for reviving local religious and communal life or for recycling tradition after the market reforms in China. The dynamics between the state and society that lie behind the revival of temples and religious practices initiated by the locals have been well-analysed. However, there is a gap in the literature when it comes to understanding religious revivals that were instead led by local governments. This book examines the revival of worship of the Chinese Deity Huang Daxian and the building of many new temples to the god in mainland China over the last 20 years. It analyses the role of local governments in initiating temple construction projects in China, and how development-oriented temple-building activities in Mainland China reveal the forces of transnational ties, capital, markets and identities, as temples were built with the hope of developing tourism, boosting the local economy, and enhancing Chinese identities for Hong Kong worshippers and Taiwanese in response to the reunification of Hong Kong to China. Including chapters on local religious memory awakening, pilgrimage as a form of tourism, women temple managers, entrepreneurialism and the religious economy, and based on extensive fieldwork, Chan and Lang have produced a truly interdisciplinary follow up to The Rise of a Refugee God which will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese religion, Chinese culture, Asian anthropology, cultural heritage and Daoism alike.

First published in 1931. This re-issues the edition of 1972. This translation and Wilhelm's invaluable commentaries provide a concise and readable survey of Confucius, the man and his teachings. This volume translates The Life of Confucius from an ancient Chinese text, the Shih Chi, or The Historical Records by Sse-Ma Ch'ien, dating from the turn of the second century B.C.

This book is a comparative study of the Anglican Bishop Joseph Butler's and Neo-Confucianist Wang Yangming's ethical enterprise. It first analyses, within their respective historical context, the two thinkers' overarching worldviews and their seminal conception of conscience / liang-chih as a person's supreme moral guide. The English bishop and the Chinese philosopher-military general are then brought into dialogue by way of a comparing and contrasting of their distinct religious-philosophical traditions. In addition, Butler and Wang will be placed in a hypothetical encounter to explore how they, and by proxy Christianity and Confucianism, would critically appraise each other's spiritual and sociopolitical endeavor. The end purpose of this study is to enhance our perception of the intriguing similarities and complex differences that exist between these two Axial Age civilizations. The author argues that dissonances notwithstanding, Butler and Wang share core values, consonances that could and should set the tone for an amiable Christian-Confucian co-existence.

From the bestselling author of The Tao of Pooh, a uniquely authentic translation of the enduring Tao Te Ching based on the meanings of the ancient Chinese characters in use when the Taoist classic was written From Benjamin Hoff, the author of The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet, which have sold millions of copies, comes a new translation of the Tao Te Ching. The original author (or authors, as Hoff makes the provocative claim that there may have been more than one) streamlined the folk religion of China down to its foundation and rebuilt it as a man-in-nature philosophy, incorporating his advanced spiritual, philosophical, social, and political ideas. Ever since its creation, the Tao Te Ching has stood alone among the world's writings. There was nothing like it before it appeared, and there is still nothing like it now. Unlike a good deal of Chinese writing, old and new, the Tao Te Ching makes no reference to specific individuals or events, whether of the then-past or then-present. It is not historical, nor classical; its world is the world of now. Laboring over the ancient text for seven years, Hoff tackled this project by following the same principles he learned while employed by a master restorer of valuable but damaged antique objects: Thoroughly research the history of the object; remove all misguided, historically incorrect alterations and repairs; patch and fill where necessary; match the new work to the old so seamlessly that no one will detect a difference in treatment; honor the materials and its design; and honor the tradition that has formed around the object over the years. This unique interpretation of the Tao Te Ching shows what is possible when a translator truly partners themselves with someone of another time, another place, and another language.

This book examines democracy in recent Chinese-language philosophical work. It focuses on Confucian-inspired political thought in the Chinese intellectual world from after the communist revolution in China until today. The volume analyzes six significant contemporary Confucian philosophers in China and Taiwan, describing their political thought and how they connect their thought to Confucian tradition, and critiques their political proposals and views. It illustrates how Confucianism has transformed in modern times, the divergent understandings of Confucianism today, and how contemporary Chinese philosophers understand democracy, as well as their criticisms of Western political thought.

First Published in 1999. This ancient Chinese manual of spiritual alchemy was brought to the West in translation by missionary and theologian Richard Wilhelm who is assisted in this book by Carl Jung. Averse to the blind aping of oriental ways, Jung suggests that Eastern treasures are best used to enrich our understanding of the work we have to do on ourselves and our culture.

This book examines the ways in which Confucian political culture operates in contemporary Chinese politics and influences its development. The author argues that the authoritarian political culture performs functions similar to the democratic political culture, drawing on a wide range of data-surveys, interviews, archives, Public Hearing Meeting records, and the Party Congress Reports of the Chinese Communist Party-to substantiate and illustrate these arguments. In an authoritarian political system, the "legitimating values" of the authoritarian political culture persuade the public of their government's legitimacy and the "engaging values" equip individuals with a set of cultural dispositions, resources, and skills to acquire political resources and services from the state. In the context of Chinese politics, personal connections infused with affection and trust-the Social Capital in the Confucian culture-facilitate political engagement. Despite the country's continuous advocacy for the "rule of law," state and public perceptions of legal professionals and legal practices, such as mediation and lawyer-judge relations, are fundamentally moralized. A new "people ideology," which originated in the Confucian political culture, has been re-appropriated to legitimate the Party's hegemonic governing position and policies.

Japanese Religions on the Internet draws attention to how religion is being presented, represented and discussed on the Japanese Internet. Its intention is to contribute to wider discussions about religion and the Internet by providing an important example - based on one of the Internet's most prominent languages - of how new media technologies are being used and are impacting on religion in the East-Asian context, while also developing further our understandings of religion in a technologically advanced country. Scholars studying the relationship of religion and the Internet can no longer work on prevailing notions that have thus far characterised the field, such as the assumption that the Internet is a Western-centric phenomenon and that studies of English-language sites relating to religion can provide a viable model for wider analyses of the topic. Despite this growing amount of research on religion and the Internet, comparatively little has focused on non-Western cultures. The general field of study relating to religion and the Internet has paid scant attention to Asian contexts. The field needs a full-length and comprehensive study that focuses on the Japanese religious world and the Internet, not merely to redress the imbalances of the field thus far, but also because such studies will be central to the emerging field of the study of religion and the Internet in future. They will provide important means of developing new theories, constructing new paradigms and understanding the underlying dynamics of this new media form.

Confucian Reflections: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times is about the early Chinese Confucian classic the "Analects" Lunyu, attributed to the founder of the Confucian tradition, Kongzi (551-479 bce) and who is more commonly referred to as "Confucius" in the West. Philip J. Ivanhoe argues that the Analects is as relevant and important today as it has proven to be over the course of its more than 2000 year history, not only for the people who live in East Asian societies but for all human beings. The fact that this text has inspired so many talented people for so long, across a range of complex, creative, rich, and fascinating cultures offers a strong prima facie reason for thinking that the insights the Analects contains are not bound by either the particular time or cultural context in which the text took shape.

This volume investigates and presents the salient features of Shinto through a long history of development from its remote past up to the present. It is a historical study of Shinto from a scientific point of view, illustrating the higher aspects of the religion, compiled on strict lines of religious comparison.

Confucianism, Chinese History and Society is a collection of essays authored by world renowned scholars on Chinese studies, including Professor Ho Peng Yoke (Needham Research Institute), Professor Leo Ou-fan Lee (Harvard University), Professor Philip Y S Leung (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Professor Liu Ts'un-Yan (Australian National University), Professor Tu Wei-Ming (Harvard University), Professor Wang Gungwu (National University of Singapore) and Professor Yue Daiyun (Peking University). The volume covers many important themes and topics in Chinese Studies, including the Confucian perspective on human rights, Nationalism and Confucianism, Confucianism and the development of Science in China, crisis and innovation in contemporary Chinese cultures, plurality of cultures in the context of globalization, and comparative study of the city cultures in modern China. These essays were originally delivered at the Professor Wu Teh Yao Memorial Lectures. Wu Teh Yao (1917-1994) was an educator, political scientist, specialist in Confucianism and original drafter of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Jeffrey Broughton here offers a study and partial translation of Core Texts of the Son Approach (Sonmun ch'waryo), an anthology of texts foundational to Korean Son (Chan/Zen) Buddhism. Core Texts of the Son Approach provides a convenient entree to two fundamental themes of Korean Son: Son vis-a-vis the doctrinal teachings of Buddhism (in which Son is shown to be superior) and the huatou (i.e., phrase; Korean hwadu) method of practice-work originally popularized by the Song dynasty Chinese Chan master Dahui Zonggao. This method consists of "raising to awareness" or "keeping an eye on" the phrase, usually No (Korean mu). No mental operation whatsoever is to be performed upon the phrase. One lifts the phrase to awareness constantly, when doing "quiet" cross-legged sitting as well as when immersed in the "noisiness" of everyday life. Core Texts of the Son Approach, which was published in Korea during the first decade of the twentieth century (the identity of the compiler is not known for certain), contains eight Chan texts by Chinese authors (two translated here) and seven Son texts by Korean authors (three translated here), showing the organic relationship between the parent Chinese tradition and its Korean inheritor. The set of translations in this volume will give readers access to some of the key texts of the Korean branch of this influential East Asian school of Buddhism.

Neo-Confucianism was the major philosophical tradition in China for most of the past millennium. This Companion is the first volume to provide a comprehensive introduction, in accessible English, to the Neo-Confucian philosophical thought of representative Chinese thinkers from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries. It provides detailed insights into changing perspectives on key philosophical concepts and their relationship with one another.

Hagiographies or idealized biographies which recount the lives of saints, bodhisattvas and other charismatic figures have been the meeting place for myth and experience. In medieval Europe, the 'lives of saints' were read during liturgical celebrations and the texts themselves were treated as sacred objects. In Japan, it was believed that those who read the biographies of lofty monks would acquire merit. Since hagiographies were written or compiled by 'believers', the line between fantasy and reality was often obscured. This study of the bodhisattva Gyoki - regarded as the monk who started the largest social welfare movement in Japan - illustrates how Japanese Buddhist hagiographers chose to regard a single monk's charitable activities as a miraculous achievement that shaped the course of Japanese history.

Through a cultural analysis of the symbols of death - flesh, blood, bones, souls, time numbers, food and money - Chinese Death Rituals in Singapore throws light upon the Chinese perception of death and how they cope with its eventuality. In the seeming mass of religious rituals and beliefs, it suggests that there is an underlying logic to the rituals. This in turn leads Kiong to examine the interrelationship between death and the socioeconomic value system of China as a whole.

This unique book brings a fresh interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of ancient Chinese history, creating a historical model for the emergence of cultural mainstays by applying recent dramatic findings in the fields of neuroscience and cultural evolution. The centrality in Chinese culture of a deep reverence for the lives of preceding generations, filial piety, is conventionally attributed to Confucius (551-479 B.C.), who viewed hierarchical family relations as foundational for social order. Here, Porter argues that Confucian conceptions of filiality themselves evolved from a systemized set of behaviors and thoughts, a mental structure, which descended from a specific Neolithic mindset, and that this psychological structure was contoured by particular emotional conditions experienced by China's earliest farmers. Using case study analysis from Neolithic sky observers to the dynastic cultures of the Shang and Western Zhou, the book shows how filial piety evolved as a structure of feeling, a legacy of a cultural predisposition toward particular moods and emotions that were inherited from the ancestral past. Porter also brings new urgency to the topic of ecological grief, linking the distress central to the evolution of the filial structure to its catalyst in an environmental crisis. With a blended multidisciplinary approach combining social neuroscience, cultural evolution, cognitive archaeology, and historical analysis, this book is ideal for students and researchers in neuropsychology, religion, and Chinese culture and history.

At the core of Daoism are ancient ideas concerning the Way, the fundamental process of existence (the Dao). Humans, as individuals and as a society, should be aligned with the Dao in order to attain the fullness of life and its potential. This book presents the history of early Daoism, tracing the development of the tradition between the first and the fifth centuries CE. This was an era of political instability and social turmoil in China but it was also a period of cultural efflorescence, which saw the appearance of new forms of literature and the integration of Buddhism in Chinese society and culture. Several Daoist movements emerged during this period, the best known being the Celestial Masters in the second century. Other relatively well-known lineages include the Upper Clarity and the Numinous Treasure lineages that appeared in the fourth century. The labels applied to these lineages refer to either textual or ritual categories and are very difficult to determine socially, and they obscure the social reality of early medieval China. The author argues that these lineages should be understood not as schools but as narrowly defined associations of masters and disciples, and he describes these diverse social groupings as "communities of practice." Shedding new light on a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, the formation of Daoism as a new religion in early medieval China, this book presents a major step forward in Daoist Studies.

These are questions to which oriental thinkers have given a wide range of philosophical answers that are intellectually and imaginatively stimulating. Thirty-Five Oriental Philosophers is a succinctly informative introduction to the thought of thirty-five important figures in the Chinese, Indian, Arab, Japanese and Tibetan philosophical traditions. Thinkers covered include founders such as Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha and Muhammed, as well as influential modern figures such as Gandhi, Mao Tse-Tung, Suzuki and Nishida. The book is divided into sections, in which an introduction to the tradition it covers precedes the essays on its individual philosophers. Notes, further reading lists, and cross-references provide the student with a clear route to further study. There is a glossary of key terms at the end of the book.

Japan is one of the most urbanised and industrialised countries in the world. Yet the Japanese continue to practise a variety of religious rituals and ceremonies despite the high-tech, highly regimented nature of Japanese society. Ceremony and Ritual in Japan focuses on the traditional and religious aspects of Japanese society from an anthropological perspective, presenting new material and making cross-cultural comparisons. The chapters in this collection cover topics as diverse as funerals and mourning, sweeping, women's roles in ritual, the division of ceremonial foods into bitter and sweet, the history of a shrine, the playing of games, the exchange of towels and the relationship between ceremony and the workplace. The book provides an overview of the meaning of tradition, and looks at the way in which new ceremonies have sprung up in changing circumstances, while old ones have been preserved, or have developed new meanings.