A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Luo-Yang in the one volume hardback book from Library of Chinese Classics. This books are in English and simplified Chinese and is a wonderful addition to any library. A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Luo-Yang was published by the Zhonghua Shuju Publishing House in 2007 and there are over 424 pages. The ISBN is 9787101055221.
A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Luo-Yang
A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Luo-Yang by Yang Xuanzhi has been acclaimed as a prose classic of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Adopting the attitude of a historian, Yang provided complete, detailed and accurate records of Buddhist temples’ distribution in Luo-yang, as well as major monasteries’ history, architecture and relevant Buddhist activities. Owing to its description of the popularity of Buddhism in Luo-yang, the book, as well became an important Buddhist classic. In addition, from palace coups to the life of ordinary people, it presents a panorama of the capital city including its government setup and social economy. Yang used the past to criticize the present, with narration interspersed with bits of comments, highlighting the book’ s role as “a mirror for government”.
Professor Cao Hong of Nanjing University translates the ancient Chinese prose into contemporary Chinese, while Wang Yitong translates it into English.
A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Luo-Yang is part of Library of Chinese Classics and there are over 80 books in the bilingual series so far. Library of Chinese Classics is a ‘mirror’ format which means that there is a page of Chinese followed by a page of English. As they are bilingual, the books are extremely suitable for Western readers interested in Chinese culture, people learning Chinese and native Chinese readers who want to read an accessible version of the classics. Since their publication, they have been immensely popular and Library of Chinese Classics has also been translated into Spanish, French, German, Russian and Arabic.