The Story of a Stele: China's Nestorian Monument and Its Reception in the West, 1625-1916Western readers have yet to come to terms with the fact that during much of our history very little was ever "known" about China. There was never any lack of information from missionaries and travelers and traders. But what kind of information was it? What kind of knowledge was obtainable via the lenses of religious intolerance, colonial ambition, or Eurocentrism? Travel accounts, Jesuit letter-books, or embassy narratives can sometimes seem comparatively dispassionate, even ethnographic, but one is repeatedly struck by a remarkable vagueness when it comes to discussions of the foreign, and such discussions become buried in a huge mélange of fact and fiction that is then collected, retold, or reintegrated in innumerable ways. The thesis of this book is that when Westerners discussed the Nestorian monument they were not really talking about China at all. The stone served as a kind of screen onto which they could project their own self-image and this is what they were looking at, not China. The stone came to represent the empire and its history for many Western readers, but only because it was seen as a tiny bit of the West that was already there. This is the first detailed study in English of the Western reception of the monument since its discovery in Xi'an in 1625. It will be essential reading for those interested in East Asian colonialism, in the vagaries of cross-cultural contact between East and West, and in the way in which, from the very beginning of the period of Western presence in China, the empire was viewed as little more than an extension of European prejudices about the superiority of its own cultures, religions, and conceptual paradigms. |
Contents
6 | |
Title page Alvaro Semedo History of the Great and Renowned | 14 |
The Century of Kircher | 29 |
Title page Athanasius Kircher Prodromus coptus National | 32 |
Title page Athanasius Kircher China illustrata National | 38 |
Engraving of Nestorian Monument Athanasius Kircher China | 44 |
Title page Andreas Müller Monumenti sinici National Taiwan | 50 |
Wordlist Christian Mentzel Sylloge minutiarum lexici latino | 56 |
The Return of the Missionaries | 89 |
22 | 90 |
29 | 97 |
Four crosses Louis Gaillard Croix et swastika en Chine | 100 |
Photograph of Nestorian Monument Henri Havret La stèle | 113 |
Plaster replica at Yale University Frits Holm My Nestorian | 126 |
Epilogue The Da Qin Temple | 129 |
Nestorian Monument Beilin Xian Photo by author | 140 |
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Common terms and phrases
ancient appeared Asia Athanasius Kircher Boym Buddhist Cathay Catholic chapter Chinese characters Chinese Christian Chinese history Chinese text Christianity in China church commentary Confucian copy cross culture d'Argens Daoist discovery Dudink dynasty early eighteenth century emperor empire engraving Etienne Fourmont European fact foreign Henri Havret historique History of China Holm Holm's included inscription Jesuit Jesus Sutras jingjiao religion L'inscription nestorienne letter Lettres chinoises London Lundbaek Marco Polo mentioned Middle Kingdom mission missionaries modern monarchia della Cina Müller Museum sinicum National Taiwan University Navarrete Nestorian Monument Nestorian stone Nestorian Tablet Nestorians in China Nieuhof object P. Y. Saeki pagoda Palmer Paris Pelliot priest Prodromus coptus published readers religious Renaudot replica Ricci Roman rubbing Saeki scholars Semedo Singan Fu sinica sinology stele Stèle chrétienne story Syriac T. S. Bayer Taiwan University Library Tang Tang dynasty temple Thomas translation Trigault vols Voltaire West Western Xi'an Xi'an monument Xi'an stone