In the author's own words, this work attempts to recreate, for the 20th-century reader, the sky and the apparitions that ornament it as they were conceived, imagined, and reacted to by the men of T'ang-dynasty China-that is, to suggest what the medieval Chinese . . . thought they saw in the night sky, and how they treated those magic lights in their active lives, their private commitments, and their literary fabrications. Inevitably, this enterprise meant the exploration of the borderlands where science, faith, tradition, invention, and fantasy overlap. Armed with the new awareness that this fascinating work provides, we can better understand the great legacy of art and literature of this greatest period of cultural flowering in Chinese history.

This important exploration of Chinese mythology focuses on the diverse and evocative associations between women and water in the literature of the T'ang dynasty as well as in the enormous classical canon it inherited. By extension, it peers from medieval China back into the mists of ancient days, when snake queens, river goddesses, and dragon ladies ruled over the vast seas, great river courses, and heavenly sources of water, deities who had to be placated by shaman intercessors chanting hymns lost even by the T'ang. As with his other notable works, Professor Schafer's meticulous researches into the material culture of the past, coupled with a delightful writing style, allow us to better appreciate the literature of the T'ang by clarifying important contemporaneous symbols of fertility, mutability, and power, including the wondrous and ubiquitous dragon.

Contributing Authors Include Ernest Bender, William M. Brinner, W. Norman Brown And Others.

Contributing Authors Include L. Alsdorf, S. A. Birnbaum, Thomas O. Ballinger And Others.

Contributing Authors Include W. F. Albright, K. M. T. Atkinson, Etienne Balazs And Others.

Contributing Authors Include Arthur B. Allen, Ernest Bender, E. Benveniste And Others.