The world in miniature : container gardens and dwellings in Far Eastern religious thought
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The world in miniature : container gardens and dwellings in Far Eastern religious thought
Stanford University Press, c1990
- Other Title
-
Monde en petit
- Uniform Title
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Monde en petit
Available at 13 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Translation of: Le monde en petit
Bibliography: p. [357]-371
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In this volume of three related essays, the reader will encounter a system of interlocking images and symbols that lies at the core of the Far Eastern view of the universe - a system that informs cosmology, ritual, ethics, aesthetics, and many aspects of everyday life. The first essay, 'miniature Gardens in the Far East', summarizes the complex cultural significance of the gardens of fantastic rocks and dwarfed trees placed in basins, of Chinese origin but transmitted to other Far Eastern cultures. The author demonstrates that these gardens are icons whose components and forms not only symbolize but replicate paradise realms important in ancient Chinese religion and folk beliefs. He shows that by replicating such realms, the gardens both manifest and bestow on their possessor the magical powers associated with them, and he details exactly how the gardens accomplished this. Many subtle mutations of the miniature garden, such as subterranean worlds equipped with their own sun and moon and populated with aspirants of eternity, are revealed.
The other two essays augment and complement the riches of 'Miniature Gardens' with an enlightening treatment of the domestic and religious architecture of East Asia. 'Dwelling Places, Their Physical Details' discusses how the traditional cultures of China and Tibet give material form to their cosmological speculations. The author provides a detailed description of traditional housing, isolating the various parts of dwellings and identifying their symbolism. He explains the significance of orienting houses with regard to the cardinal directions and shows how the thoeries of Yin and Yang and the Five Activities influenced their forms. The subject of the third essay, 'The World and Architecture in Religious Thought', is the nature, significance, and symbolism of the temples and holy buildings of China, Mongolia, and Tibet, and the projection of their structure onto conceptions of the structure of the sacred mountains K'un-lun and Sumeru.<
Table of Contents
- List of figures
- Foreword Edward H. Schafer
- Author's preface to the French edition
- Part I. Miniature gardens in the Far East: Part II. Dwelling Places, Their Physical Details: Part III. The World and Architecture in religious Thought: Notes
- Bibliography of secondary sources
- Selected character list
- Index.
by "Nielsen BookData"