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24 Mar, 5 tweets, 3 min read
The contents of the "Complete Book of a Myriad Treasures", 萬寶全書 a Chinese encyclopedia, pub‘d 1739, 1871 reprint books.google.com/books?id=fO4pA…
Vol 1: Astronomy
2: Geography
3: Records of Humanity
4: Barbarians
5: Literary models
6: Manchurian
7: Calligraphy...
8: Calculation
9: Noble titles
10: Calendarics
11: Drawing
12: Chess
13: Dream interpretation
14: Cows and horses
15: Morality
16: Physiognomy
17: Fate calculation
18: Jokes
19: Pregnancy
20: Exorcising sickness
I should note that these headings represent the subjects of the individual volumes, as opposed to a general classification of all human knowledge.
Still, it is interesting to compare this with the notorious "Celestial emporium of benevolent knowledge" of Borges: Even actual Chinese encyclopedias do not espouse as strange a classification as this.
For the sake of completeness, here are the contents of the Erya, one of the oldest dictionaries/ encyclopedias of China en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erya#Cont…

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Edward W. Profile picture
25 Mar
Some observations about astrology in the Medicine Buddha Sutra. 藥師琉璃光如來本願功德經 The sutra's relationship with astral omens is... complicated, at least from the western perspective.
fgsitc.org/wp-content/upl… Image
we are told, Whenever there is "the disaster of a weird change in the stars and constellations, or the disaster of the Sun [or] moon eclipising”星宿變怪難，日月薄蝕難, the ruler of a nation can avoid disaster if they make offerings to the Medicine Buddha (amongst other things) ImageImage
It is interesting to consider this in light of a passage several pages later, which concerns the Nine unfortunate types of death. At the top of the list is death through belief in hetrodox views, which is started off by being addicted to divination and magic... Image
Read 18 tweets
Edward W. Profile picture
25 Mar
1.At the prompting of @EPButler , shall speak a few words regarding the situation regarding Shenjiao and Daoism, from my experience growing up in Singapore.
2.Daoism, and Shenjiao—the religion dedicated to the worship of “popular” deities, like the earth god, god of wealth, are lumped together as "Taoism" in Singapore. Experience suggests that the worship of these "folk deities" makes up much of what is called Taoism in Singapore...
3- The forms of Daoism that we would think about when we study the subject in the west such as Quanzhen, Lingbao, etc. do not actually have much currency in Singapore. I did not even hear of these names until i started reading western books on Daoism.
Read 21 tweets
Edward W. Profile picture
24 Mar
On decans
1.The decans are one of the oldest parts of astrology—you will find them in ancient Egyptian texts. They are still used today, mostly in the context of essential dignity.
2.For starters, a decan is 1/3 of a zodiac sign. As each zodiac sign contains 30 degrees, it follows decans are 30/3=10-degree stretches of each sign. (hence the name)
3.So, for example, if the Moon is in 12 Cancer, she is said to be in the 2nd decan of Cancer (the 2nd decan of Cancer runs from 11-20 Cancer).
Read 36 tweets
Edward W. Profile picture
24 Mar
天朝仁學廣覽
目錄
。御門
。醃門
。訓門
。豯門
。鮫人門
。虛門
。犬門
。此書門
。狂門
。無數門
。小筆門
。雜門
。破瓶門
。如蠅門
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial…
NOTE: THE CELESTIAL EMPORIUM OF BENEVOLENT KNOWLEDGE DOES NOT ACTUALLY EXIST. THE ABOVE LIST IS MY TRANSLATION OF THE TITLES GIVEN BY BORGES INTO PSEUDO-CLASSICAL CHINESE
Read 4 tweets
Edward W. Profile picture
24 Mar
All the translations shown on this page are reasonably accurate:
1: 寿 "Show-- signifies Long Life"
This is correct; we now spell it "Shou" in pinyin.
Curiously enough, they are using the "simplified" or abbreviated form of the character; the "full" form is 壽
福 "Foke or Fohe [...] Equally signifies happiness"
Again, a correct translation. The top is the character in the standard hand; the bottom is in "Seal Character" 篆書.
This is not actually a cypher., but rather an archaic form of writing preserved for ceremonial purposes...
... such as seals. The one immidiately below it is he word written in the chinese equivalent of cursive writing ( 草書? 行書？)
Read 8 tweets
Edward W. Profile picture
23 Mar
pear bright
quiet night thought
before-bed-bright-moon-light
doubt-is-earth-top-frost
raise-head-see-bright-moon
lower-head-think-old-village
king of overflow
climb-crane-sparrow-floor

white-sun-lean-mountain-end
yellow-river-enter-sea-flow
desire-exhaust-1000-mile-eye
again-up-one-layer-floor
far-far-holding-cow-star
bright-bright-river-man-river-girl
tug-tug-lift-white-hands
clack-clack-meddle-machine-shuttle
end-day-no-create-piece
tear-drop-soak-like rain
river-man-clear-also-shallow
mutually-go-return-many-allow
full-full-one-water-middle
silent-silent-no-get-word
Read 8 tweets

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