The vast majority of premodern chinese literature, certainly all of the most famous works of the classical tradition, were composed in one form or another of Literary Sinitic (hereafter LS, wen-yen[-wen], also often somewhat ambiguously called “Classical Chinese” or “Literary Chinese”). Beginning in the medieval period, however, an undercurrent of written Vernacular Sinitic (hereafter VS, pai-hua[-wen]) started to develop. The written vernacular came to full maturity in China only with the May Fourth Movement of 1919, after the final collapse during the 1911 revolution of the dynastic, bureaucratic institutions that had governed China for more than two millennia. It must be pointed out that the difference between wen-yen and pai-hua is at least as great as that between Latin and Italian or between Sanskrit and Hindi. In my estimation, a thorough linguistical analysis would show that unadulterated wen-yen and pure pai-hua are actually far more dissimilar than are Latin and Italian or Sanskrit and Hindi. In fact, I believe that wen-yen and pai-hua belong to wholly different categories of language, the former being a sort of demicryptography largely divorced from speech and the latter sharing a close correspondence with spoken forms of living Sinitic.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the primary fault line in American studies of Japan lay not between “Japan-bashers” and “Japanapologists,” but between those who presented the history of Japan in terms of an ongoing process of modernization and those who did not. During the 1970s, younger scholars of Japan attacked modernization theory with considerable passion (see Dower 1975), eliciting rather defensive responses from its practitioners. The 1980s saw the emergence of yet another, though somewhat smaller, generation of American scholars, which has been not so much anti-modernizationist as non-modernizationist. Like the critics of the 1970s, historians of this newest generation have dealt with conflict, social problems, and state repression, but most no longer believe it necessary to discuss the problems raised by modernization theory.

One of my goals as editor has been to develop cross-regional consideration in the pages of this journal of major issues drawing scholarly attention in both the social sciences and humanities. The most common approach for such projects is to bring groups of scholars together at a conference and then to publish a conference volume. Indeed, JAS has published groups of papers from such conferences, most recently the four articles on vernacular Muslim literature in Asia organized by John Bowen (JAS 52.3 [August 1993]). In a variation on that approach, other academic journals, such as Daedalus, assemble groups of articles around a common theme. Many scholarly journals have some or even all of their issues organized around special topics.

Most discussions of economic growth and economic policy in postwar Japan focus on the economy as an isolated sector, neglecting its place in Japanese history as a whole. Partly this is because discussion of the economy usually moves quickly to technical problems. Partly it is due to the common assumption that high-speed economic growth emerged out of an attempt to create high-speed economic growth for its own sake-thus making redundant any sustained inquiry into its origins (as opposed to its mechanisms). We now have a fairly clear understanding of the technical means by which Japan became rich: rapid growth was achieved through high savings used for technology-led investment, based both on market forces channeled into planned directions and a flexible response to unplanned opportunities, such as American assistance to Japanese economic development. What is murkier is the social and political context for economic growth.

In 1962 the association for asian studies met, as this year, in Boston, at its fourteenth annual meeting, when the Association was addressed by its President that year, Lauriston Sharp. In his search for “some of the continuities and discontinuities of human experience in Southeast Asia,” Sharp proposed that “we should first work back from the present and up the little streams, the short runs of Southeast Asian history and prehistory” (Sharp 1962:5). Following Sharp's metaphor of time as the river, we can find that the rocks and rivulets, the surges and pools and mighty dams of a very minor river in the northern part of what is now called Thailand have much to tell us of the rich and complex past of Southeast Asia. We are concerned here with a small and, most would argue, inconsequential river; but any river at its spate is capable of raising and pushing along the largest boulders. I would hope that this particular river might serve to wash clean and highlight anew the ground that Sharp so eloquently covered so many years ago.

Interpretations of ethnic and cultural nationalism in South Asia have been marked by a tension between “primordialist” and “modernist” approaches. In keeping with the more influential general works on ethnicity and nationalism (Gellner 1983; Anderson 1983; Horowitz 1985; Tambiah 1989), modernist interpretations now generally prevail in scholarly accounts. These works usually trace the roots of ethnic and cultural nationalism to the social and religious reform movements of the nineteenth century, which are seen as indigenous responses to the impact of colonial rule. The emphasis given to particular aspects of colonialism varies, but includes cultural influences, such as Western education; economic factors, including changes in class structure; and political changes, such as the extension of representative government. These modernist interpretations, however, are not entirely unchallenged within scholarship, and primordialist views, which draw more direct links between ethnic nationalism and precolonial identities, remain strong in political, journalistic, and popular forums.

A distinctive feature of japanese society is its apparent eagerness to embrace various forms of voluntary death or suicide as legitimate, even positive, behavior with a potentially redemptive value. These forms include the samurai's ritualistic disembowelment (seppuku or harakiri), remonstration suicide (kanshi) in protest against a corrupt superior, and suicide out of devotion to a lord or superior (junsbi), all of which are surrounded by “a heroic, romantic, aesthetic, and moral aura” (Lebra 1976:190). Suicide is, of course, an extraordinary act in Japan as elsewhere in the world (Lifton 1979:24). Though it is not common, it is widely revered by Japanese if committed on the basis of authentic moral intentions in relation to societal pressure—that is, to exorcise shame (haji) and to highlight honor, dignity, and integrity. In a culture that esteems the tragic hero who embodies the “nobility of failure” (Morris 1975), and which regards voluntary death as an experiential transcendence for participants and observers alike, perhaps the most extreme and intriguing example of taking one's own life is the double suicide or love suicide (shinjū).

A commission sponsored by the meiji government and headed by Okakura Tenshin (Kakuzō), Kanō Tessai, and Ernest F. Fenollosa traveled to Nara Prefecture in 1884 to catalog the important artifacts in temples and shrines. Fenollosa's later description of an event of this trip, which is often presented to show how he with the assistance of Okakura “saved” Japanese art, brings out the major argument of my article: the role of fine art in the formulation of belief in the nation. Fenollosa describes his “discovery” of the Guze Kannon (Goddess of Mercy), a seventh-century gilt-wood sculpture, at the Hōryūji temple:

I had credentials from the central government which enabled me to requisition the opening of godowns and shrines. The central space of the octagonal Yumedono was occupied by a great closed shrine, which ascended like a pillar towards the apex. The priests of the Horiuji confessed that tradition ascribed the contents of the shrine to Corean work of the days of Suiko, but that it had not been opened for more than two hundred years.

Such non-chinese people as the rong, di, and hu are often portrayed in the traditional historiography of ancient China as greedy, aggressive, and acquisitive (Sinor 1978; Honey 1990). Chinese writings of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1050–256 b.c.) contain many instances of unflattering statements aimed at foreign peoples: the Zuo zhuan compares the Rong and Di to wolves (ZZ, 1:209); the Zhan guo ce says the state of Qin shares the same attributes as the Rong and Di—the heart of a tiger or wolf, greed, and cruelty (ZGC, 11:869; cf. Crump 1970:436). Foreign peoples were often considered “have-nots” with an insatiable lust for Chinese goods, mainly silk, grains, and, later, tea. This stereotype, which developed in the historical sources along with the process of crystallization of the Chinese ethnocultural identity and codification of the written and oral traditions, was regarded as sufficient to account for otherwise complex social and political phenomena. In the course of time, with the historical development of powerful nomadic states confronting China militarily and politically, the attributes of “greedy” and “ravenous” stuck essentially to those people who “moved in search of grass and water”: the pastoral nomads.

Kālī, the Hindu goddess ‘Time,’ is a ubiquitous presence in contemporary rural and urban Bengali life and occupies a historic place as Calcutta's patron deity. Her prototypes go back to pre-Vedic India (Kinsley 1977:90; MacKenzie-Brown 1985:111). Kālī was incorporated into the orthodox Hindu textual tradition in the myths of the Devī-Māhātmya, or Candī, as this sixth-century A.D. text is known in Bengal. She subsequently became the chief divinity as Female Principle (Śakti, ‘Force’, ‘Creatrix’) in the esoteric Sākta Tantra cult, which was especially prevalent in eastern India around the sixteenth century. By the seventeenth century, Kālī's worship moved to the public sphere. The Kālī saints Rāmaprasāda (eighteenth century) and Rāmakrsna (late nineteenth century) were especially responsible for popularizing the devotional (bhakti) conception of Kālī as Mother, the prevalent perception of this deity among Bengalis today (Gatwood 1985:174; Kapera n.d.:71; Kinsley 1977:93, 117; Kinsley 1986:116, 125; MacKenzie-Brown 1985:118–19).

The field of traditional chinese fiction studies is as diverse in its approaches and findings as the body of material included in the term xiaoshuo, with which the modern field imprecisely corresponds. As a term for classifying writings in early China, xiaoshuo seemingly meant “other” works that did not fit into the major category of narrative, i.e., history. In the bibliographical section of Ban Gu's (c.e. 32–92) Han shu, the Yiwen zhi, titles identified as xiaoshuo apparently were miscellaneous writings of no uniform characteristics or content. In the Han shu bibliography, xiaoshuo were classified under the zhuzi or “miscellaneous philosophers”; during the Six Dynasties period these writings were grouped in the zi or “philosophers” section of the sibu, the durable four-fold bibliographic division of all writing originated in the third century and still in use. This Han shu designation reflected the assumption that xiaoshuo are or should be generally “discursive,” even if they are of less significance than formal philosophical works. The clear discrimination between verifiable narrative works (hence historical) and fanciful (or fictitious) writings was a product of the Tang period; however, the assignment of fictional xiaoshuo to the same category as philosophy continued then as well. Like Aristotle, early Chinese bibliographers saw general truth, rather than the specific truth of history, as the operative criterion in fiction, despite the origins of many fictional narrative conventions in historiography (see K. J. DeWoskin, “Six Dynasties Chih-kuai,” esp. p. 46). Twentieth-century scholarly attempts to see the term as synonymous with the modern concept of fiction are frustrated by its original lack of specificity and the fact that patently fictitious (from the modern rationalist perspective) elements appear in all other forms of early literature, both philosophical works (as parables or the flights of imaginative fancy in Zhuang zi) and history (in fabricated conversations and fantastic events). While it may be argued that a term like “narrative,” with its coincident concern for story, discourse, and conventions (using distinctions drawn by Seymour Chatman, Coming to Terms [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990], pp. 9, 83, 117, etc.), would more adequately serve to describe the range of materials modern scholars might address, because the term xiaoshuo still delineates the field for its specialists, narratives in philosophy and history are usually disallowed, and there is no general agreement on criteria by which to identify its earliest examples (see Hou Zongyi, Liuchao xiaoshuo shi, pp. 1–4, for a history of the term).

Scholars in china and chinese studies commonly think of culture as an autonomous and transcendental force that defines agents and institutions and determines the outcome of events. They often conclude that China's allegedly illiberal authoritarian culture inevitably generates authoritarian politics. In this article we will bring culture down to earth by arguing that it is not transcendental but entangled in reciprocal relationships with various social institutions, not the least of which are politics and political institutions. If culture is not fixed in a realm beyond everything else, then rehearsing traditional accounts of traditional culture is not enough to distinguish the range of possible futures. Instead, we have to look at why people have the ideas they have and how they can and might change.

In tokyo's fashionable roppongi crossing, just down the street from the Almond Cafe where urbanites converge to meet their dates, a sign over a Chinese restaurant bears two Chinese characters: Kō Hi (Xiang Fei).The establishment's menu and business cards display a portrait of a beautiful East Asian woman in Manchu dress; her expression is enigmatic. The restaurant's advertising describes a Chinese emperor's consort renowned for her miraculous fragrance, and promises equally aromatic culinary delights.

In the eyes of many colonial administrators in the nineteenth century, the advance of science and the advance of colonial rule went hand in hand: Science helped to secure colonial rule, to justify European domination over other peoples, and to transform production for an expanding world economy (Adas 1989). The history of irrigation in India, where the British built large new irrigation works to increase colonial revenues and expand commercial production, provides a dramatic illustration of this.

It is well known that mahatma gandhi felt that sexuality and desire were intimately connected to social life and politics, and that self-control translated directly into power of various kinds, both public and private. Gandhi's enigmatic genius and his popular appeal among India's masses may be attributed, at least in part, to the degree he was able to embody a powerful ideal of sexual self-control that linked his sociopolitical projects to pervasive Hindu notions of renunciation (S. Rudolph 1967). Affecting the persona of a world-renouncer, Gandhi was able to mix political, religious, and moral power, thus translating personal self-control into radical social criticism and nationalist goals. Gandhi's mass appeal was partly effected on a visceral level at which many Hindu men were able to fully appreciate the logic of celibacy as a means to psychological security, self-improvement, and national reform. Although my concern in this paper is not directly with Gandhi's notion of self-control, it is against the larger backdrop of his political legacy that I situate this discussion of sexuality, gender, and nationalism in contemporary India.