CHNS-0093 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Shen Zhou, Sinocentrism, Taoism
Document Summary
L e c t u r e 3. The world is split into four continents. The eastern continent (shen zhou is sometimes used to refer to china) There is no center to the world; interesting contrast to the sino-centric zhongguo. In the ming dynasty when this is written, the chinese know by know that china was not the center of the world anymore and that it was in the east. With the water radical is reflective of the fact that in this world everything is surrounded by water. Monkey was born in the east which is significant. Occurring in the tang dynasty because this was theoretically based on actual history the travel of the monk to india. Novel draws comparison between tang china and the southern continent. China became associated with the south due to the constant presence of the mongols. Poetic tangents in the book differentiate it from the ramayana and other epics.
