Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/16123
Title: Karmic Retribution and Moral Didacticism in Erotic Fiction from the Late Ming and Early Qing
Contributor(s): Wu, Cuncun  (author); Stevenson, Mark (author)
Publication Date: 2011
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/16123
Abstract: The fundamental Buddhist doctrine of karma has had a widespread and profound influence in traditional Chinese social life and culture, beginning from the period when Buddhism was first introduced. This was inevitable, a result of Buddhist concepts of salvation - liberation from transmigration in 'samsara' - being translated into a Chinese idiom by early proselytisers. While Buddhism's status in China has a mixed history, the late imperial period witnessed a popularisation of Buddhist ideas stimulated by economic prosperity, urbanisation, and the availability of mass printing, developments which also "promoted both widespread literacy or non-literacy and the broad marketing of books." With a growth in the circulation of popular morality books ('quanshan shu') in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) the discourse of karmic retribution ('yinguo baoying') was further popularised, and its role in popular fiction ('xiaoshuo'), classical-language or vernacular, has been a subject of considerable interest in the study of the literary and intellectual history of the period.
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Source of Publication: Ming Qing Studies 2011, p. 471-490
Publisher: Aracne Editrice
Place of Publication: Rome, Italy
ISBN: 9788854844636
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 200517 Literature in Chinese
200205 Culture, Gender, Sexuality
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 950203 Languages and Literature
950502 Understanding Asias Past
HERDC Category Description: B1 Chapter in a Scholarly Book
Series Name: Asia Orientale
Editor: Editor(s): Paolo Santangelo
Appears in Collections:Book Chapter

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