Professeur invité - labex TransferS : YU Xin

Après un cycle de 4 conférences en janvier à l’EHESS, le Pr. Yu donnera 2 séminaires à l’École normale supérieure.

Classic, Treasure and Magic along the Silk Road

Vendredi 13 février

Exploration on Zhujunda : The legend of a vegetable along the Silk Road
16h-18h, Amphithéâtre Rataud, ENS (45, rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris)
 In Dunhuang Manuscripts P. 3391, the problematic entry “zhujunda” is found in the category of vegetable in the text. What’s the meaning ? This puzzle baffles scholars. This research aims to provide an accurate description of this word from the dimensions of semantics and natural history, employing materials from various unearthed documents, medical books, anecdotes, and encyclopedias. It tries to show the role which zhujunda had played in the medieval social life as well as in the cultural exchange between the west and the east. It arrives at the following conclusions : both of leaf-beet and root-beet came from Persian. In the period of Sassanid Empire leaf- beet arrived in China, and its translation “junda” was originated from Medieval Persian language, while root-beet came in after Arab invaded Iran, and its translation “zhujunda” found its root in new Persian language, which should be no late than the early 10th century. These things and their corresponding names passing from Iran to China enriched Chinese culture in the medieval ages.

Vendredi 6 mars

New Perspectives on the Horse Anthroposcopy through the Archeological Materials
16h-18h, salle Cavaillès, ENS (45, rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris)
The horse anthroposcopy comprises one important aspect of Xingfa, which is a practical technique that utilizes observation to judge things’ good or bad, and also serves as the basic paradigm of that people conceive the world around them in traditional China. In recent years, several lost books concerning anthroposcopy have been excavated : The Book of Horse Anthroposcopy in the Mawangdui silk texts ; The Book of Dog Anthroposcopy in the Shuanggudui bamboo slips ; The Book of Dog-judging Methods in the Yinqueshan bamboo slips ; The Methods for Sword-judging in the Juyan wooden slips. These findings of ancient books concerning anthroposcopy reveal their significance in the knowledge, belief, and society of traditional China. In this lecture, I will try to use the wooden slips from Dunhuang discovered by Stein, the Mawangdui silk texts, the Shuihudi bamboo slips, the Xuanqun wooden slips, Dunhuang manuscripts, mural paintings in tombs, art crafts and received texts, such as Qimin Yaoshu, to discuss the origin and development of the horse anthroposcopy technique from Han through Tang synthetically. I hope this research will shed a new light on the study of Xingfa in medieval China.