Overview

This landmark volume offers a bold response from the East to the Western classic The Golden Bough, bringing Chinese perspectives into the global conversation on comparative mythology. Through a close examination of the culturally distinctive motif of the “Jade Leaf”, the author reinterprets the foundational narratives of ancient China and highlights the symbolic and civilizational role of jade in shaping East Asian identity. By bridging disciplines such as mythology, literature, history, philosophy, religion, art, and anthropology, the book constructs a uniquely Chinese mythological coding system—one that challenges conventional boundaries and offers fresh insight into the spiritual and cultural imagination of ancient China.

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9789819523504

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Ye Shuxian, a Ph.D. holder in Comparative Literature, is a senior professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University, China. He is the chairman of the Chinese Mythology Association and Chinese Comparative Literature Association. He was a visiting professor at the Yale University from 1999 to 2000 and the director of Comparative Literature in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences from 2004 to 2012. His main areas of research include comparative literature, mythology and literary anthropology. He has published more than 300 journal articles and over 40 books.

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