Divination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece

This book compares the intellectual and social history and past and present contexts of mantic practices (divination) in Chinese and Greek antiquity.

Lisa Raphals (Author)

9781107010758, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 October 2013

496 pages, 26 b/w illus. 3 maps 3 tables
25.2 x 18.2 x 2.7 cm, 1.6 kg

Divination was an important and distinctive aspect of religion in both ancient China and ancient Greece, and this book will provide the first systematic account and analysis of the two side by side. Who practised divination in these cultures and who consulted it? What kind of questions did they ask, and what methods were used to answer those questions? As well as these practical aspects, Lisa Raphals also examines divination as a subject of rhetorical and political narratives, and its role in the development of systematic philosophical and scientific inquiry. She explores too the important similarities, differences and synergies between Greek and Chinese divinatory systems, providing important comparative evidence to reassess Greek oracular divination.

Preface
1. Introduction
2. Sources
3. Theorizing divination
4. Practitioners
5. Methods
6. The questions
7. Consultors
8. Mantic narratives
9. Divination and systematic thought
10. Conclusions
11. Glossary
12. Appendices.

Subject Areas: Ancient religions & mythologies [HRKP], Oriental religions [HRKN], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Asian history [HBJF]