Qing dynasty
On 12 February 1912, after rounds of negotiations, Longyu issued an imperial edict bringing about the abdication of the child emperor Puyi. This brought an end to over 2,000 years of Imperial China and began an extended period of instability of warlord factionalism. The unorganized political and economic systems combined with a widespread criticism of Chinese culture led to questioning and doubt about the future. In the 1930s, the Empire of Japan invaded Northeast China and founded Manchukuo in 1932, with Puyi, as the emperor. After the invasion by the Soviet Union, Manchukuo collapsed in 1945.
Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming dynasty
Shih-Shan Henry Tsai writes that the Yongle Emperor sent his eunuch Yang Sanbao into Tibet in 1413 to gain the allegiance of various Tibetan princes, while the Yongle Emperor paid a small fortune in return gifts for tributes in order to maintain the loyalty of neighboring vassal states such as Nepal and Tibet. However, Van Praag states that Tibetan rulers upheld their own separate relations with the kingdoms of Nepal and Kashmir, and at times "engaged in armed confrontation with them."
Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming dynasty
In order to seek out the Karmapa, the Yongle Emperor dispatched his eunuch Hou Xian and the Buddhist monk Zhi Guang (d. 1435) to Tibet. Traveling to Lhasa either through Qinghai or via the Silk Road to Khotan, Hou Xian and Zhi Guang did not return to Nanjing until 1407.
History of the Ming dynasty
After lying dormant and dilapidated for decades, the Grand Canal was restored under the Yongle Emperor's rule from 1411 -- 1415. The impetus for restoring the canal was to solve the perennial problem of shipping grain north to Beijing. Shipping the annual 4,000,000 shi (one shi is equal to 107 liters) was made difficult with an inefficient system of shipping grain through the East China Sea or by several different inland canals that necessitated the transferring of grain onto several different barge types in the process, including shallow and deep - water barges. William Atwell quotes Ming dynasty sources that state the amount of collected tax grain was actually 30 million shi (93 million bushels), much larger than what Brook notes. The Yongle Emperor commissioned some 165,000 workers to dredge the canal bed in western Shandong and built a series of fifteen canal locks. The reopening of the Grand Canal had implications for Nanjing as well, as it was surpassed by the well - positioned city of Suzhou as the paramount commercial center of China. Despite greater efficiency, there were still factors which the government could not control that limited the transportation of taxed grain; for example, in 1420 a widespread crop failure and poor harvest dramatically reduced the tax grain delivered to the central government.
Nanjing
Nanjing ( listen; Chinese: 南京, "Southern Capital") is the city situated in the heartland of lower Yangtze River region in China, which has long been a major centre of culture, education, research, politics, economy, transport networks and tourism. It is the capital city of Jiangsu province of People's Republic of China and the second largest city in East China, with a total population of 8,216,100, and legally the capital of Republic of China which lost the mainland during the civil war. The city whose name means "Southern Capital" has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having served as the capitals of various Chinese dynasties, kingdoms and republican governments dating from the 3rd century AD to 1949. Prior to the advent of pinyin romanization, Nanjing's city name was spelled as Nanking or Nankin. Nanjing has a number of other names, and some historical names are now used as names of districts of the city, and among them there is the name Jiangning (江寧), whose former character Jiang (江, River) is the former part of the name Jiangsu and latter character Ning (寧, simplified form 宁, Peace) is the short name of Nanjing. When being the capital of a state, for instance, ROC, Jing (京) is adopted as the abbreviation of Nanjing. Although as a city located in southern part of China becoming Chinese national capital as early as in Jin dynasty, the name Nanjing was designated to the city in Ming dynasty, about a thousand years later. Nanjing is particularly known as Jinling (金陵, literally meaning Gold Mountain) and the old name has been used since the Warring States Period in Zhou Dynasty.
Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming dynasty
Wang and Nyima state that after the official title "Education Minister" was granted to Tai Situ Changchub Gyaltsen (1302–1364) by the Yuan court, this title appeared frequently with his name in various Tibetan texts, while his Tibetan title "Degsi" (sic properly sde-srid or desi) is seldom mentioned. Wang and Nyima take this to mean that "even in the later period of the Yuan dynasty, the Yuan imperial court and the Phagmodrupa Dynasty maintained a Central-local government relation." The Tai Situpa is even supposed to have written in his will: "In the past I received loving care from the emperor in the east. If the emperor continues to care for us, please follow his edicts and the imperial envoy should be well received."
Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming dynasty
Some scholars note that Tibetan leaders during the Ming frequently engaged in civil war and conducted their own foreign diplomacy with neighboring states such as Nepal. Some scholars underscore the commercial aspect of the Ming-Tibetan relationship, noting the Ming dynasty's shortage of horses for warfare and thus the importance of the horse trade with Tibet. Others argue that the significant religious nature of the relationship of the Ming court with Tibetan lamas is underrepresented in modern scholarship. In hopes of reviving the unique relationship of the earlier Mongol leader Kublai Khan (r. 1260–1294) and his spiritual superior Drogön Chögyal Phagpa (1235–1280) of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424) made a concerted effort to build a secular and religious alliance with Deshin Shekpa (1384–1415), the Karmapa of the Karma Kagyu school. However, the Yongle Emperor's attempts were unsuccessful.
Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming dynasty
According to Chen, the Ming officer of Hezhou (modern day Linxia) informed the Hongwu Emperor that the general situation in Dbus and Gtsang "was under control," and so he suggested to the emperor that he offer the second Phagmodru ruler, Jamyang Shakya Gyaltsen, an official title. According to the Records of the Founding Emperor, the Hongwu Emperor issued an edict granting the title "Initiation State Master" to Sagya Gyaincain, while the latter sent envoys to the Ming court to hand over his jade seal of authority along with tribute of colored silk and satin, statues of the Buddha, Buddhist scriptures, and sarira.
Heresy
Constantine the Great, who along with Licinius had decreed toleration of Christianity in the Roman Empire by what is commonly called the "Edict of Milan", and was the first Roman Emperor baptized, set precedents for later policy. By Roman law the Emperor was Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of the College of Pontiffs (Collegium Pontificum) of all recognized religions in ancient Rome. To put an end to the doctrinal debate initiated by Arius, Constantine called the first of what would afterwards be called the ecumenical councils and then enforced orthodoxy by Imperial authority.
Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming dynasty
During his travels beginning in 1403, Deshin Shekpa was induced by further exhortations by the Ming court to visit Nanjing by April 10, 1407. Norbu writes that the Yongle Emperor, following the tradition of Mongol emperors and their reverence for the Sakya lamas, showed an enormous amount of deference towards Deshin Shekpa. The Yongle Emperor came out of the palace in Nanjing to greet the Karmapa and did not require him to kowtow like a tributary vassal. According to Karma Thinley, the emperor gave the Karmapa the place of honor at his left, and on a higher throne than his own. Rossabi and others describe a similar arrangement made by Kublai Khan and the Sakya Phagpa lama, writing that Kublai would "sit on a lower platform than the Tibetan cleric" when receiving religious instructions from him.
Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming dynasty
Throughout the following month, the Yongle Emperor and his court showered the Karmapa with presents. At Linggu Temple in Nanjing, he presided over the religious ceremonies for the Yongle Emperor's deceased parents, while twenty-two days of his stay were marked by religious miracles that were recorded in five languages on a gigantic scroll that bore the Emperor's seal. During his stay in Nanjing, Deshin Shekpa was bestowed the title "Great Treasure Prince of Dharma" by the Yongle Emperor. Elliot Sperling asserts that the Yongle Emperor, in bestowing Deshin Shekpa with the title of "King" and praising his mystical abilities and miracles, was trying to build an alliance with the Karmapa as the Mongols had with the Sakya lamas, but Deshin Shekpa rejected the Yongle Emperor's offer. In fact, this was the same title that Kublai Khan had offered the Sakya Phagpa lama, but Deshin Shekpa persuaded the Yongle Emperor to grant the title to religious leaders of other Tibetan Buddhist sects.
Kadayawan Festival
The Kadayawan Festival is an annual festival in the city of Davao in the Philippines. Its name derives from the friendly greeting "Madayaw", from the Dabawenyo word "dayaw", meaning good, valuable, superior or beautiful. The festival is a celebration of life, a thanksgiving for the gifts of nature, the wealth of culture, the bounties of harvest and serenity of living. It is held every third week of August.
State church of the Roman Empire
Nicene Christianity became the state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD, when Emperor Theodosius I made it the Empire's sole authorized religion. The Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Catholic Church each claim to be the historical continuation of this church in its original form, but do not identify with it in the caesaropapist form that it took later. Unlike Constantine I, who with the Edict of Milan of 313 AD had established tolerance for Christianity without placing it above other religions and whose involvement in matters of the Christian faith extended to convoking councils of bishops who were to determine doctrine and to presiding at their meetings, but not to determining doctrine himself, Theodosius established a single Christian doctrine (specified as that professed by Pope Damasus I of Rome and Pope Peter II of Alexandria) as the Empire's official religion.
Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming dynasty
Even though the Gelug exchanged gifts with and sent missions to the Ming court up until the 1430s, the Gelug was not mentioned in the Mingshi or the Mingshi Lu. On this, historian Li Tieh-tseng says of Tsongkhapa's refusal of Ming invitations to visit the Yongle Emperor's court:
Nanjing
A monument to the huge human cost of some of the gigantic construction projects of the early Ming dynasty is the Yangshan Quarry (located some 15–20 km (9–12 mi) east of the walled city and Ming Xiaoling mausoleum), where a gigantic stele, cut on the orders of the Yongle Emperor, lies abandoned, just as it was left 600 years ago when it was understood it was impossible to move or complete it.
Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming dynasty
As evident in his imperial edicts, the Hongwu Emperor was well aware of the Buddhist link between Tibet and China and wanted to foster it. Rolpe Dorje, 4th Karmapa Lama (1340–1383) rejected the Hongwu Emperor's invitation, although he did send some disciples as envoys to the court in Nanjing. The Hongwu Emperor also entrusted his guru Zongluo, one of many Buddhist monks at court, to head a religious mission into Tibet in 1378–1382 in order to obtain Buddhist texts.
Religion in ancient Rome
In the wake of religious riots in Egypt, the emperor Decius decreed that all subjects of the Empire must actively seek to benefit the state through witnessed and certified sacrifice to "ancestral gods" or suffer a penalty: only Jews were exempt. Decius' edict appealed to whatever common mos maiores might reunite a politically and socially fractured Empire and its multitude of cults; no ancestral gods were specified by name. The fulfillment of sacrificial obligation by loyal subjects would define them and their gods as Roman. Roman oaths of loyalty were traditionally collective; the Decian oath has been interpreted as a design to root out individual subversives and suppress their cults, but apostasy was sought, rather than capital punishment. A year after its due deadline, the edict expired.
Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming dynasty
The Information Office of the State Council of the PRC preserves an edict of the Zhengtong Emperor (r. 1435–1449) addressed to the Karmapa in 1445, written after the latter's agent had brought holy relics to the Ming court. Zhengtong had the following message delivered to the Great Treasure Prince of Dharma, the Karmapa:
Hundred Days' Reform
The Hundred Days' Reform was a failed 104 - day national, cultural, political, and educational reform movement from 11 June to 22 September 1898 in late Qing dynasty China. It was undertaken by the young Guangxu Emperor and his reform - minded supporters. Following the issuing of the reformative edicts, a coup d'état (``The Coup of 1898 '', Wuxu Coup) was perpetrated by powerful conservative opponents led by Empress Dowager Cixi.
Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming dynasty
In his usurpation of the throne from the Jianwen Emperor (r. 1398–1402), the Yongle Emperor was aided by the Buddhist monk Yao Guangxiao, and like his father, the Hongwu Emperor, the Yongle Emperor was "well-disposed towards Buddhism", claims Rossabi. On March 10, 1403, the Yongle Emperor invited Deshin Shekpa, 5th Karmapa Lama (1384–1415), to his court, even though the fourth Karmapa had rejected the invitation of the Hongwu Emperor. A Tibetan translation in the 16th century preserves the letter of the Yongle Emperor, which the Association for Asian Studies notes is polite and complimentary towards the Karmapa. The letter of invitation reads,
What is the meaning of the name of the city where the Yongle emperor greeted the person to whom the edict was addressed?
Who was the edict addressed to?
the Karmapa
Where did the Yongle Emperor greet the #1 ?
Nanjing
What does #2 mean?
"Southern Capital"