Ebook Hoàng Tử Bé

[Algernon Alcala]

Sun-ha Hong is Assistant Professor of Communication at Simon Fraser University and received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Hong analyzes the fantasies, values, and sentimentalities surrounding big data and AI. More information can be found at his website, sunhahong.org.

What is an e-book?
The term "e-book" (also "ebook" or "eBook") is an abbreviation for "electronic book". The term is used to refer to a digital publication that is created to be read on any device with a screen. Dedicated devices for reading e-books such as the Amazon Kindle are referred to as e-book readers.

We purchase e-books on many different platforms in order to get the best value for the Library's limited collection budget. Although all of our e-books are searchable in one place (OneSearch) this does mean that you will need to navigate different platforms to access our e-book content. Additionally, e-book publishers may place restrictions on how their books are used, so different e-books may have different levels of access, even if they are on the same platform!

Generally speaking, most e-books will allow you to download and save at least a portion of the content. Exactly how much depends on the publisher. Increasingly, more publishers are allowing library patrons to download entire e-books without restrictions.

Some of our e-book platforms allow you to "borrow" their e-books. However, the Library usually advises against this as the loan periods are generally short, and you will need to download special software and set up a separate account with the e-book platform.

Compare these autobiography translations:[5] "people all call me a pao-p'u scholar (i.e., one who keeps his basic nature, one who is unperturbed by the desires of the world)";[6] "among the people of his district there were those who called him "The Scholar Who Embraces Simplicity"." Wu and Davis noted, "This name has been translated Old Sober-Sides, but Dr. Wu considers that it has no satirical intent and would better be translated Solemn-Seeming Philosopher."[7] Fabrizio Pregadio translates "Master Who Embraces Spontaneous Nature".[8]

Compare the more literal translation of Davis and Ch'en, "I left off writing for ten and odd years, for I was constantly on the road, until the era Chien-wu 建武 (317-318 A.D.) when I got it ready."[5]

Ge's autobiography mentions his military service fighting rebels against the Jin dynasty, and successfully defending his hometown of Jurong (句容), in modern Zhenjiang, Jiangsu. In 330[10] Emperor Cheng of Jin granted Ge the fief of "Marquis of Guanzhong" with income from 200 Jurong households. Scholars believe Ge revised the Baopuzi during this period, sometime around 330[11] or 332.[7]

The Baopuzi's Inner and Outer Chapters discuss miscellaneous topics ranging from esotericism to social philosophy. The Inner Chapters discuss techniques to achieve hsien, also transcribed as "xian", (仙) "immortality; transcendence", Chinese alchemy, meditation, Daoyin exercises, Chinese herbology, demons and other spiritual creatures, and fu (符) "magic talismans". The Outer Chapters discuss Chinese philosophy, Confucianism, Legalism, government, politics, literature, scholarship, and include Ge's autobiography, which Waley called "the fullest document of this kind that early China produced".[13]

The twenty Neipian "Inner Chapters" record arcane techniques for achieving hsien "transcendence; immortality". These techniques span two types of Chinese alchemy that Tang dynasty scholars later differentiated into neidan 內丹 "internal elixir; internal alchemy" and waidan 外丹 "external elixir; external alchemy". The word dan 丹 "cinnabar; red; pellet; [Chinese medicine] pill" means "pill of immortality, or elixir of life. Ge Hong details his researches into the arts of transcendence and immortality. "Internal alchemy" concerns creating an "immortal body" within the corporeal body through both physiological methods (dietary, respiratory, martial, etc.) and mental practices (meditation, extracorporeal visualization, etc.). "External" or "laboratory alchemy" concerns compounding elixirs (esp. from minerals and metals), writing fu talismans or amulets, herbalism, and exorcism.

(1) proofs of the per se existence of immortals and transcendent states of immortality of the body; (2) stipulation of the accessibility to the perfect state of long life to everyone, irrespective of one's social status but dependent on whether one could study deeply and strenuously cultivate the necessary esoteric methods; (3) elaboration of diverse esoteric techniques leading one to become a hsien-immortal; and (4) descriptions and criticism of the diverse contemporary Taoist discourses and sects.[15]

Many scholars have praised the Inner Chapters. Joseph Needham, who called Ge Hong "the greatest alchemist in Chinese history", quoted the following passage about medicines from different biological categories.[18]

Needham evaluated this passage, "Admittedly there is much in the Pao Phu Tzu which is wild, fanciful and superstitious, but here we have a discussion scientifically as sound as anything in Aristotle, and very much superior to anything which the contemporary occident could produce."[20]

In addition to quoting early alchemical texts, the Inner Chapters describe Ge Hong's laboratory experiments. Wu and Davis mention the Baopuzi formula for making mosaic gold "a golden crystalline powder used as a pigment" from Ch'ih Yen 赤鹽 "red crystal salt" (produced from amethyst, calcite crystal, and alum[21]) and Hwei Chih 灰汁 "limewater".

The description of one process deserves special discussion, for it evidently concerns the preparation of stannic sulfide or "mosaic gold" and is perhaps the earliest known description of the preparation of this interesting substance. Mosaic gold exists in flakes or leaflets which have the color and the luster of gold, it does not tarnish, and is used at present for bronzing radiators, gilding picture frames and similar purposes. As Ko Hung describes the process, "tin sheets, each measuring six inches square by one and two-tenths inches thick, are covered with a one-tenth inch layer of a mud-like mixture of Ch'ih Yen (Red Salt) and Hwei Chih (potash-water, limewater), ten pounds of tin to every four of Ch'ih Yen." They are then heated in a sealed earthenware pot for thirty days with horse manure (probably with a smoldering fire of dried manure). "All the tin becomes ash like and interspersed with bean-like pieces which are the yellow gold." The large portion of the metallic tin is converted into some ash-like compound or possibly into the ash-like allotropic modification, gray tin. A small portion of the tin is converted into bean-sized aggregates of flaky stannic sulfide. The yield is poor, for the author says that "twenty ounces of gold are obtained from every twenty pounds of tin used."[22]

The authors add, "It seems likely that Ko Hung was personally experienced in the chemistry of tin, for the Chinese say that he was the first to make tin foil and that he made magic or spirit money out of it."

The fifty Waipian "Outer Chapters" are more diffuse than the Inner ones. Ge Hong diversely wrote essays on Jin dynasty issues of philosophy, morality, politics, and society. This Baopuzi portion details everyday problems among Han dynasty northerners who fled into southern China after the fall of Luoyang.

The Inner Chapters have one complete translation by James R. Ware,[31] which also includes Ge Hong's autobiography from Outer Chapter 50.[32] Several reviewers censured the quality of Ware's translation, for instance, Kroll called it "at times misguided".[33] Huard's and Wong's[34] critical assessment of Ware was criticized in turn by Sivin.[35] "Their review, nonetheless, can only be described as perfunctory. Only the forematter and endmatter of Ware's book are evaluated, and that in a curiously cursory fashion."

Then, upon noticing that Tao Te Ching, verse 34, is willing to call the Something "Minimal," every schoolman would have understood that the Chinese author was talking about God, for only in God do contraries become identical! Accordingly, the present translator will always render this use of the term Tao by God. In doing so, he keeps always in mind as the one and only definition the equation establishable from Exod. 3:13-15 and Mark 12:26-27, to mention only two very clear statements. It will be recalled that in the first God says, "My name is I am, I live, I exist," while the second reads, "God is not of the dead but of the living." Therefore, God = Life or Being.[36]

It is clear that the word tao appears frequently in this text not as a designation of God but of the process by which God is to be approximated or attained. In such cases I shall translate it as "the divine process." In instances where either this or "God" would be appropriate, a translator is obliged to be arbitrary. The term tao shih is rendered "processor"; hsien is translated "genie" rather than "immortal".[37]

These Chinese words are Tao-shih' 道士 ("Taoist priest or practitioner" )and "hsien" 仙 ("immortal; transcendent".) Ho Peng-Yoke, an authority in the History of science and technology in China, criticized Ware's translations.

It may be true that in certain areas the concept of Tao overlaps with the definition and attributes of God, or for that matter with those of Allah, for example oneness and eternity. However, there is the danger of the analogy being pushed too far. Similarly, the reader might be warned that "Genii," as used for rendering the word hsien, does not convey the concept of some supernatural slaves as found in the lamp and the ring of the Thousand-and-One Nights. The reviewer prefers the terminology used by Tenny L. Davis, i.e. Tao left untranslated and "immortal" for hsien.[38]

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