'Conversion of the Barbarians' [Huahu ] Discourse as Proto Han Nationalism. (October 2014)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- 'Conversion of the Barbarians' [Huahu ] Discourse as Proto Han Nationalism. (October 2014)
- Main Title:
- 'Conversion of the Barbarians' [Huahu ] Discourse as Proto Han Nationalism
- Authors:
- Raz, Gil
- Editors:
- Steavu, Dominic
- Abstract:
- In the early medieval period, many Chinese viewed the growing popularity of Buddhism, and the rapid integration of Buddhism into Chinese religious life, as a challenge to their own civilisation. A major aspect of the resistance to the growing dominance of Buddhism was a discourse known as the 'conversion of the barbarians'. This basic narrative of this discourse claimed that Laozi had journeyed west to India where he either became the Buddha or taught the Buddha. This discourse, which was elaborated in several Daoist texts into complex cosmological and mytho-historical narratives thus asserted the primacy of Daoism and relegated Buddhism to a secondary teaching, inferior to Daoism, suitable for 'barbarians' but not for Chinese. This article discusses the development of this discourse, focusing on texts written by Daoists during the fifth century when this discourse was particularly vehement. In this article I will show that this discourse was not merely resistant to Buddhism, but was also critical of various Daoist groups that had accepted Buddhist ideas and practices. Significantly, this discourse associated Daoism with the essence of Chinese civilisation, rather than as a distinct teaching.
- Is Part Of:
- Medieval history journal. Volume 17:Number 2(2014:Oct.)
- Journal:
- Medieval history journal
- Issue:
- Volume 17:Number 2(2014:Oct.)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 17, Issue 2 (2014)
- Year:
- 2014
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 2
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2014-0017-0002-0000
- Page Start:
- 255
- Page End:
- 294
- Publication Date:
- 2014-10
- Subjects:
- Middle Ages -- Periodicals
Middeleeuwen
909.0705 - Journal URLs:
- http://mhj.sagepub.com/ ↗
http://www.sagepub.com/journal.aspx?pid=17 ↗
http://www.uk.sagepub.com ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1177/0971945814545862 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0971-9458
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 6094.xml