Promotional Information

A core text that will be relied upon by scholars of Chinese history and philosophy

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chronology of Dynasties

Introduction

Exemplary Figures / Fayan

1. Learning and Practicing

2. Our Masters

3. Cultivating One’s Person

4. Asking about the Way

5. Asking about Divine Insight

6. Asking about Illumination

7. Things Rarely Seen

8. Every Five Hundred Years

9. Foresight

10. Chong and Li

11. Yan Yuan and Min Ziqian

12. The Noble Man

13. Honoring the Ancestors, the Ultimate Duty

Glossary of Names, Legendary and Historical

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Michael Nylan is professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Five "Confucian" Classics and Yang Xiong and The Pleasures of Reading and Classical Learning, coauthor of Lives of Confucius, and translator of The Canon of Supreme Mystery by Yang Xiong.

Reviews

"Fayan is one of the most important early Chinese texts. Carefully wrought and rich with historical insights and philosophical ruminations, it provides an invaluable window to the extraordinary mind of its creator, Yang Xiong, and the cross currents of his cultural moment. Nylan's masterful translation is a great stylistic and philological achievement. She renders Yang Xiong's prose with wit, fluency, and accuracy and provides the necessary contexts for understanding the text in her copious and helpful notes." Wai-Yee Li, Harvard University