Journal Articles & Book Chapters by Constance Cook
Metaphor and Meaning: Thinging Through Early China with Sarah Allan, 2024
Analysis of a word for "healing" in the Huayuanzhuang burial ground oracle bones of the Shang era.
Papers by Constance Cook
East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine
This essay reexamines the fourth century BC divination records found in the tomb of Shao Tuo 邵佗 i... more This essay reexamines the fourth century BC divination records found in the tomb of Shao Tuo 邵佗 in Baoshan 包山, Jingzhou 荊州, Hubei. Using charts, rules, and examples for divination from a newly discovered trigram divination text, called by modern scholars, the Shifa 筮法 (Stalk Method), and preserved in the Tsinghua University collection of Warring States period bamboo manuscripts, the author suggests a radical new way to interpret stalk divination results and speculates upon a possible diagnosis. Essentially, the author unpacks the Baoshan results according to the rules of trigram divination given in the Shifa and not of hexagram divination as in the Zhouyi 周易 (Changes of Zhou).
This richly illustrated book provides a glimpse into the belief system and the material wealth of... more This richly illustrated book provides a glimpse into the belief system and the material wealth of the social elite in pre-Imperial China through a close analysis of tomb contents and excavated bamboo texts.
A study of the usages of the terms Dao 道 and De 德 in the Guodian manuscripts reveals a dichotomy ... more A study of the usages of the terms Dao 道 and De 德 in the Guodian manuscripts reveals a dichotomy of emphasis on either the Way of Heaven (Tian Dao) or the Way of Man (Ren Dao). The two concepts are often treated as aspects of a single spectrum. The concept of De as an inner force derived from Heaven and key to self-cultivation can be traced back to Western Zhou practices. The idea of Dao as either a cosmic entity or a prescribed methodology of behaviour is more recent and probably a product of the Warring States era. De as a philosophical term predated the use of Dao, but by the Han period we see a reversal; De becomes a piece of a larger Dao. Individual Guodian texts reflect the old and new in a variety of interconnected ways.
What do dice and gods have in common? What is the relationship between dice divination and dice g... more What do dice and gods have in common? What is the relationship between dice divination and dice gambling? This interdisciplinary collaboration situates the tenth-century Chinese Buddhist "Divination of Maheśvara" within a deep Chinese backstory of divination with dice and numbers going back to at least the 4th century BCE. Simultaneously, the authors track this specific method of dice divination across the Silk Road and into ancient India through a detailed study of the material culture, poetics, and ritual processes of dice divination in Chinese, Tibetan, and Indian contexts. The result is an extended meditation on the unpredictable movements of gods, dice, divination books, and divination users across the various languages, cultures, and religions of the Silk Road. Link: https://brill.com/view/title/59960
Archive for History of Exact Sciences
Numerous recent discoveries in China of ancient tombs have greatly increased our knowledge of rit... more Numerous recent discoveries in China of ancient tombs have greatly increased our knowledge of ritual and religious practices. These discoveries include excavated oracle bones, bronze, jade, stone and pottery objects, and bamboo manuscripts dating from the twelfth to fourth century BCE. Inscribed upon these artifacts are a large number of records of numerical sequences, for which no explanation has been found of how they were produced. Structural links to the Book of Changes , a divination manual that entered the Confucian canon, are evident; yet, the algorithm described therein dates to the slightly later second to first century BCE. By combining archeological and statistical evidence, we propose a new methodology that enables us to reconstruct and test cleromantic techniques which can explain how these numerical sequences were generated. Dice and divination stalk use, either in combination or separately, appear in fact to have been underlying the rather stable numerical patterns in ancient China all the way back to the late Shang dynasty (1300–1046 BCE). Bringing to light such a long-standing technique, which awaits further confirmation from the ever-growing database of newly discovered numerical and textual records, can change drastically our understanding of early Chinese history and of the historical development of sophisticated arithmetical practices and the rationalization of chance.
Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 2015
This article employs newly discovered Warring States texts to reexamine questions regarding the u... more This article employs newly discovered Warring States texts to reexamine questions regarding the use of the word mother (mu 母) in the Laozi—did it refer to the feminine role of providing and caring for the descendants of an inherently male cosmic and social order or was it simply a metaphor for an abstract philosophical concept? The author reinforces the latter interpretation suggesting that Mother referred to that existential moment of temporal transition between the cycle of life and death.
Of Tripod and Palate, 2005
The social role of food in Bronze Age China (the first two millennia BCE) is defined both by the ... more The social role of food in Bronze Age China (the first two millennia BCE) is defined both by the relationship of a person to the supernatural and by the control of the bronze industry to produce vessels for sacrifice. Food production and human fertility were seen as gifts from Heaven—the realm of the High God and their ancestors. The descendants returned the gifts through sacrifices. The “cuisine of sacrifice” in ancient China united all generations of a family—dead, living,and unborn—into a whole, a community built on a continuous exchange of food and gifts throughout time. The living fed their ancestors, who in turn blessed their descendants with food and children. This cycle of nurturing between the natural and supernatural worlds was maintained through a mortuary feast system tied to a hierarchy of lineages. As far as we can tell from material cultural remains and paleographic records, the system peaked during the Late Shang (1200–1046 BCE) up through the Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE) periods. After that, the effect of multiple competing lineages during the Spring and Autumn (770–476 BCE) and Warring States periods (475–221 BcE) forced localization of the system and numerous changes in the relationship of an individual to the divine.1 Lineage hierarchies had broken down and cults of disenfranchised elite men recreated the terms of the relationship as well as the image of the supernatural as peopled only with ancestral spirits.
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2012
China Review International, Dec 22, 2009
Death in Ancient China, 2011
This richly illustrated book provides a glimpse into the belief system and the material wealth of... more This richly illustrated book provides a glimpse into the belief system and the material wealth of the social elite in pre-Imperial China through a close analysis of tomb contents and excavated bamboo texts.
Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1993
(Res.d'A.). Scholars have traditionally regarded this inscription as the earliest paleographi... more (Res.d'A.). Scholars have traditionally regarded this inscription as the earliest paleographical text from the ancient state of Chu. But historical mystique, beginning with the bell's discovery in the Song dynasty, has prevented proper critical appraisal of the inscription. This text is here completely translated for the first time. The language of the text and the indentity of the vessel-maker, Chu Gong Ni, is analyzed in terms of modern archaeological evidence. The authenticity of the bell and its inscription is discussed.
Journal of Chinese Religions, 1998
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African …, 1997
In stratified societies, accumulated material goods—be they made of metal, stone, cloth, bone, or... more In stratified societies, accumulated material goods—be they made of metal, stone, cloth, bone, or even foodstuffs—represent the wealth and privilege of the élite within a social hierarchy. Anthropologists have shown that goods symbolic of wealth generally fall between two absolutes: alienable goods (items not tied to social membership and produced for giving, trading, or selling), and inalienable goods (items tied to social membership and imbued with a sense of the sacred history of the owner; relics found or crafted specifically to be treasured and saved). (See Weiner, 1982; Appadurai, 1986: ‘Introduction’.) The value of these objects is a measure of the power of the owner over the acquisition and distribution of desired goods. The objects in turn represent the cycles of production and exchange that provide them with a social value (Webb, 1974: 351–82). This is particularly evident in redistributive economies, such as the Native American societies of the North-West Pacific and South Pacific island communities, or certain highland South-East Asian societies where goods are collected by Big Men or chiefs and redistributed at ritual occasions. Gift-giving, often performed in association with ritual feasts involving lineage representatives, both living and dead, is a feature many of these complex societies share with ancient China.
The American Historical Review, 2001
Books by Constance Cook
A Study of Metaphor and Cultural Identity in Pre-Imperial China
Death in ancient China: the Tale of One Man's Journey, 2006
Study of 4th c BCE mortuary culture and medical mss in China based on the excavation of tombs in ... more Study of 4th c BCE mortuary culture and medical mss in China based on the excavation of tombs in the ancient Chu state; focus on Baoshan
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Journal Articles & Book Chapters by Constance Cook
Papers by Constance Cook
Books by Constance Cook
medical canons that are generally dated from early imperial times
through to the medieval era and then, by way of contrast, provides
translations and analyses of non-transmitted texts from the
pre-imperial late Shang and Zhou eras and the early imperial Qin and
Han eras, as well as a brief discussion covering the period through the
eleventh-century CE. The Element focuses on the evolution of concepts,
categories of illness, and diagnostic and treatment methodologies
evident in the newly discovered material and reveals a side of medical
practice not reflected in the canons. It is both traditions of
healing – the canons and the currents of local practice revealed by
these texts – that influenced the development of East Asian medicine
more broadly. The local practices show there was no real evolution from
magical to non-magical medicine. This title is also available as Open
Access on Cambridge Core.