The Vermilion Bird: T'ang Images of the South
- ISBN-10
- 0520011457
- ISBN-13
- 9780520011458
- Pages
- 380
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1967
- Publisher
- University of California Press
- Author
- Edward H. Schafer
Description
"In the seventh century the great T'ang nation was obliged to reconquer the southern most part of what had been considered Chinese territory ever since the first Chinese troops had seized its strategic points many centuries ago. The region had in fact remained largely an unassimilated wilderness, whose heavily forested marches--monsoon-lands with fringes of the true tropics--corresponded roughly to modern North Vietnam along with Chinese provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi (Chuang Autonomous Region). The Vermilion Bird attempts to recover the actual character of the monsoon realms of T'ang--a scattering of palisaded garrisons, isolated monasteries, and commercial towns, all surrounded by dark, haunted woods. The soldiers, administrators, colonists, and political exiles who lived there were constantly threatened by hostile head-hunters and aborigines armed with poisoned arrows, by the ravages of malaria and beri-beri, by such fierce animals as pythons, crocodiles and rhinoceroses, and by the supernatural powers of the thunder-gods with their stone arrows, the wood-imps with their tiger companions, and the native women with their mysterious and often fatal love-potions. On the other hand, there were new and beautiful flowering plants and luscious fruits for the delectation of the connoisseur, enchanted limestone grottoes ready to be explored by hermits and mystics, and every sort of ravishing image available for the exploration of poets. Therefore it has also been necessary to examine the thoughts, emotions, imaginations, and daily lives of the men of that era, through the medium of their literature, for evidence of the changes inspired by this new environment, and especially for signs of the transformation of the ancient symbol of the South, the holy vermilion bird. Mr. Schafer, who is unique as a student of the material culture of medieval China and of its reflection in literature and in the imaginative life of the elite, has here written a fitting sequel to the Golden Peaches of Samarkand. More than this, he has added new dimensions of understanding to the history of Chinese civilization. Thus, the North-South problem, so long debated among historians of China, here acquires great richness of texture. The peculiar ambivalence of the men of T'ang toward the South is laid out with arresting vividness. The geography and topography of the southern regions of the T'ang empire assume extraordinary immediacy. And the little explored mine of folk religion and popular beliefs is explored with sensitivity and resourcefulness. " -- Provided by publisher
