This volume launches the translation of a work that describes the development of Chinese political thought from the time of Confucius in the late Chou era into the twentieth century. The author systematically treats leading thinkers, schools, and movements, displaying a consummate mastery of traditional Chinese learning, and of Western analytical and comparative methods. This first complete translation includes prefatory remarks by Kung-chuan Hsiao and notes prepared by the translator to assist the Western reader.

Originally published in 1979.

The Princeton Legacy...

The poems of ancient Tamil are one of India's most important contributions to world literature. Presented here in English translation is a selection of roughly three hundred poems from five of the earliest poetic anthologies of classical Tamil literature. These lyrical poems are intimately related to the agricultural society that produced them, and their direct connection with the earth as well as their use of ornament and suggestion give them a quality unlike that of any other poetic tradition.

Originally published in 1979.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest...

This is the second and final volume of the annotated translation of a seminal Chinese legal text. The T'ang Code, written in 653 A.D., is the most important legal text in East Asian history. Not only is it China's earliest law code to survive in its entirety, influencing all subsequent Chinese law, but it has also served as a model for codes of law in other East Asian countries, including Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. This is the only translation of the T'ang code into a Western language.

The first volume of the Code, published in translation in 1979, specifies the basic principles of...

The Wen xuan, compiled by Xiao Tong (501-531) is the oldest surviving anthology of Chinese literature arranged by genre. It contains a total of 761 pieces of prose and verse by 130 writers from the late Zhou dynasty to the Liang dynasty (ca. 4th century B.C. to 6th century A.D.) The selection includes most of the best examples of fu (rhapsodies) and shi (lyric poems) from the Han, Wei, Jin, and North-South Dynasties periods, as well as representative examples of other early genres such as letters, memorials, prefaces, imperial edicts, inscriptions, epitaphs, laments,...

Compiled by the great Neo-Confucian philosopher Chu Hsi (1130-1200), the Family Rituals is a manual for the private performance of the standard Chinese family rituals: initiations, weddings, funerals, and sacrifices to ancestral spirits. This translation makes the work, which is the most important text of its kind in the last thousand years of Chinese history, fully accessible to scholars and students in a wide range of fields. The militantly Confucian Family Rituals was designed to combat the practices of Buddhist and other non-Confucian rites, and it was quickly recognized...

Here is the first translation into English of the Basava Purana, a fascinating collection of tales that sums up and characterizes one of the most important and most radical religious groups of South India. The ideas of the Virasaivas, or militant Saivas, are represented in those tales by an intriguing mix of outrageous excess and traditional conservatism. Written in Telugu in the thirteenth century, the Basava Purana is an anthology of legends of Virasaivas saints and a hagiography of Basavesvara, the twelfth-century Virasaiva leader. This translation makes accessible a completely new...

The Japanese noh theater has enjoyed a rich, continuous history dating back to the Muromachi period (1336-1573), when virtually the entire repertoire was written. Some of the finest plays were inspired by the eleventh-century masterpiece of court literature, The Tale of Genji. In this detailed study of fifteen noh plays based upon the Genji, Janet Goff looks at how the novel was understood and appreciated by Muromachi audiences. A work steeped in the court poetry, or waka, tradition, the Genji in turn provided a source of inspiration and allusion for later poets, who produced a...

The Wen xuan, compiled by Xiao Tong (501-531), is the oldest surviving anthology of Chinese literary genres. It was one of the primary sources of literary knowledge for educated Chinese in the premodern period, and it is still the essential handbook for specialists in pre-Tang literature.

Originally published in 1987.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books...

The sixth book of the Ramayana of Valmiki, the Yuddhakanda, recounts the final dramatic war between the forces of good led by the exiled prince Rama, and the forces of evil commanded by the arch demon Ravana. The hero Rama's primary purpose in the battle is to rescue the abducted princess Sita and destroy the demon king. However, the confrontation also marks the turning point for the divine mission of the Ramavatara, the incarnation of Lord Visnu as a human prince, who will restore righteousness to a world on the brink of chaos. The book ends with the gods' revelation to Rama...

This is the fourth volume of a translation of India's most beloved and influential epic tale--the Ramayana of Valmiki. As befits its position at the center of the work, Volume IV presents the hero Rama at the turning point of his fortunes. Having previously lost first his kingship and then his wife, he now forms an alliance with the monkey prince, Sugriva. Rama needs the monkeys to help him find his abducted wife, Sita, and they do finally discover where her abductor has taken her. But first Rama must agree to secure for his new ally the throne of the monkey kingdom by eliminating...