jieminhuang

An entirely beautiful publication, large sized and generously endowed with numerous well-captioned photographs from each province of the People's Republic, as well as prints of old woodcuts on almost every text page (alas, without explanatory notes). Particularly gratifying (in the light of the not long past Cultural revolution's attack on tradition) is the glad embrace of China's older Buddhistic past, which has been given pride of place. Generous acknowledgement is made to the Indian origin of the Buddhist traditions, and the great efforts of the travelling monks like Xuang Zhuang (known to us as Hsuen Tsang) to bring the original Buddhist writings to China. The book, written by Chinese scholars, was first published in Great Britain in 1980, "in cooperation with the Shanghai People's Art Publishing House, Shanghai". Intriguingly, the "Chronology" on the last pages glosses over the entire period of Mao with two lines: proclamation of the Republic in 1949, the death of Mao and "Imprisonment of the Gang of Four" in 1976, indicating the difficulty of coming to terms with the recent past.… (meer)