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Auspicious Omens and Miracles in Ancient China: Han, Three Kingdoms, and Six Dynasties. By TlZIANA LlPPIELLO. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, no. 39. Sankt Augustin, Ger.: Monumenta Serica Institute, 2001. 383 pp. DM 85.00.
This book, a doctoral dissertation completed at Leiden University sometime in the late 1990s, treats selected aspects of the theory and lore of omens in Han and early medieval China. It is organized into a brief introduction, which merely sketches the chapters to come; five substantive chapters; a conclusion, which like the introduction merely summarizes the content of the foregoing chapters; and two appendices containing translated material. Of the five chapters, the first gives a general overview of some materials relevant to the subject, the second is a microstudy of the use of omens in inscriptions (translated in the first appendix) for a virtuous local official named Li Xi, the third is a study of the official and litterateur Shen Yue (441 512 CE) and his treatise on omens in the History of the {Liu} Song (partially translated in the second appendix), the fourth reviews Buddhist miracle lore, and the fifth provides a glance at omens in a few Daoist texts.
The book's theme is one that should interest historians of Chinese religion, cosmology, political thought, literature, and art. Tiziana Lippiello draws on...