Academic literature on the topic 'Chine - Dynastie Xi-Xia'

The Four Heavenly Kings, Sida Tianwang 四大天王, are the guardians of the four quarters of the world in Buddhism. They are among the most frequently represented protective deities in Buddhist art across different traditions. In their standard iconographies developed in China popular during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1911), they wear full armor, and each holds exclusive attributes—lute (pipa 琵琶), sword, snake, and parasol—from the east, south, west, to the north respectively. There is no direct textual base in the Chinese cannon for such iconographies. Neither can we find prototypes in India or central Asia. Indeed, how did this iconographic group develop in China? In the past, since the standard iconographies of the Four Heavenly Kings are clear, and identification is no problem, comprehensive in-depth study on this is lacking. Actually, those attributes came from a Tantric tradition related to Tibetan Buddhism filtered through the Xi Xia (1036–1227) and Yuan (1206–1368). What revealed in the development of this iconography is the complex relationship among the Tibetan, Tanguts, Mongols, and Chinese Buddhism.

Tangut characters were created by the Tangut of the Western Xia (Xi Xia) Dynasty in ancient China and are over 1000 years old. In deep-learning-based recognition studies on Tangut characters, the lack of category-complete datasets has been problematic. Data augmentation cannot augment the character categories of unknown styles, whereas the use of image generation can effectively solve the problem. In this study, we consider the generation of antique book calligraphy styles of Tangut characters as a problem of learning to map from existing printed styles to personalized antique book calligraphy styles. We present M-ResNet, a multi-scale feature extraction residual unit, and Tangut-CycleGAN, a model for generation Tangut characters that combine M-ResNet and a cycle-consistent adversarial network (CycleGAN). This method uses unpaired data to generate Tangut character images in the calligraphy style of ancient books. To enhance the response of the model to significant channels, a squeezing-and-excitation (SE) module is introduced based on Tangut-CycleGAN to design the Tangut-CycleGAN+SE method for generating images of Tangut characters. This method is not only suitable for Tangut character image generation, but also can effectively generate calligraphy with aesthetic value. In addition, we propose an overall quality discrepancy evaluation metric, FA (Fréchet inception distance + Accuracy), to evaluate the quality of character image generation, which combines style discrepancy and content accuracy metrics.

De tout ce qui a rapport aux musiques tangoutes et xixia, on met ici un accent particulier sur les instruments, les notations, les poèmes, les images, le lexique et les types de spectacles. Tous ont subi l'influence des musiques traditionnelles tangoutes, d'autres groupes ethniques, et surtout celle des Plaines centrales. Le travail du terrain au nord-ouest de la Chine a permis de collecter des sources, effectuer des recherches dans des instituts, échanger avec des chercheurs, et voir in situ les peintures murales. Surtout, parcourant l'environnement des Xixia je me suis m'imprégnée par l'écoute de leur culture, associant sources historiques, impressions et analyse assistée par ordinateur. Plus qu'un patrimoine ou des vestiges, j'ai découvert des trésors cachés
Of everything relating to Tangut and Xixia music, particular emphasis is placed here on the instruments, notations, poems, images, lexicon, and performances. All have been influenced by traditional Tangut music, by other ethnic groups, and especially that of the Central Plains. Fieldwork in northwest China made it possible to collect sources, carry out research in institutes, exchange with researchers, and see the mural paintings in situ. Above all, traveling through the Xixia environment, I immersed myself through listening to their culture, combining historical sources, impressions and computer-assisted analysis. More than heritage or relics, I discovered hidden treasures

D'origine nomade, ils avaient conquis les territoires du nord-ouest de la Chine, allant d'une partie au sud de la Mongolie Intérieure au nord du Qinghai, à l'ouest du Gansu, la région du Ningxia et une partie ouest du Shaanxi. Une fois installés dans cette vaste région, ils se développèrent rapidement, tant sur le plan culturel que sur le plan économique, et fondèrent en 1038 leur royaume. À partir de cette date, ils créèrent leur propre langue et écriture, en partie à base du chinois classique, et renforcèrent leurs relations avec leurs puissants voisins frontaliers, à savoir : au sud-est de leur territoire les Song du Nord, au nord les Liao, au nord-ouest les Ouïghours et enfin au sud-ouest les tribus Tibétaines. Ils avaient adopté le Bouddhisme en tant que religion d'État et pratiquèrent, avec ferveur, les pratiques bouddhiques. De parts et d'autres du royaume, des grands centres d'activités bouddhistes, ainsi que des temples furent mis en place, afin d'y entreprendre des traductions de volumes du Grand canon bouddhique chinois, qu'ils avaient en partie obtenu des Song du Nord, vers leur propre langue. De ces textes traduits en langue de Xi Xia, de nombreux volumes furent découverts au cours des deux précédents siècles. La recherche sur Xi Xia et ses sources textuelles, notamment bouddhiques, sont autant d'indices de la richesse culturelle et linguistique de cette nation éphémère de la Chine antique, qui a pourtant participé au grand développement des traductions bouddhiques et de l'imprimerie
As nomadic people, they conquered the northwest territories of China, from south of Inner Mongolia to north of Qinghai, to west of Gansu, all of the region of Ningxia and a west part of Shaanxi. Once they had settled in this vast region, they quickly developed on both economical and cultural aspects, and founded their kingdom in 1038. From this moment, they created their own language and writing system, mostly from the Chinese language, and enhanced their relationships with their mighty neighbors outside their borders, such as North Song dynasty in the southwest part, the Liao in the north part, the Uyghur in the northwest part and the Tibetan tribes in the southwest part. They adopted Buddhism as religion of the State. During all the regencies, they indulged themselves in practicing Buddhist activities. Within the Xi Xia kingdom, many Buddhist centers and temples emerged, from which translations of the Great Buddhist Canon, mostly obtained from North Song Court, were made towards their own language. From these texts written in Xi Xia language, many of them were excavated or just found during the last couple centuries. The research on Xi Xia and its textual resources, Buddhist texts among others, are as much as evidence there should be to reveal the cultural and language wealth of this ephemeral State of ancient China, which however took part in the huge development of translating and printing Buddhist texts

Sédentarisés dans le nord-ouest de la Chine actuelle pendant la dynastie Tang, les Tangoutes créèrent sous les Song l’empire Xixia (en 1038), que les armées de Genghis Khan détruisirent en 1227. La présente thèse porte sur la culture funéraire des Xixia. Elle se fonde sur une étude exhaustive des tombes fouillées à partir des années 1970. Leur nombre est limité, mais leur variété permet de dresser un tableau relativement complet dans la mesure où ces sépultures appartiennent à des classes sociales différentes, de la population ordinaire jusqu’aux souverains, en passant par des aristocrates et des moines. L’analyse des sources écrites vient étoffer celle des vestiges archéologiques. Elles sont également peu nombreuses, mais présentent l’avantage d’avoir plusieurs origines : ce sont principalement des sources chinoises (annales historiques, témoignages de lettrés ou fonctionnaires) et des textes administratifs Xixia. Elles permettent en particulier de confirmer la diversité des pratiques funéraires (la crémation et l’ensevelissement constituant deux modes récurrents) et leur spécificité en fonction de la classe sociale, ou même de l’âge du défunt. La comparaison des vestiges funéraires Xixia avec ceux des Chinois et des autres peuples périphériques permet, au contraire de l’opinion générale véhiculée dans la littérature universitaire chinoise, de faire apparaître l’originalité et la créativité de ce peuple. Celle-ci semble même se manifester jusqu’au plan individuel, en particulier dans l’individuation des tombes ou l’élaboration de motifs décoratifs spécifiques aux tombes impériales. Ce constat conduit à suggérer que les sépultures Xixia constituaient de véritables tombes-portraits
After settling in the North-Western part of present China during the Tang dynasty, the Tangut established the Xixia empire under the Song (in 1038). It lasted until 1227, when the dynasty was defeated by the armies of Genghis Khan. This thesis is focused on Xixia funerary culture. It is based on a comprehensive survey of the tombs which have been excavated since the 1970s. They are not numerous, but varied enough to draw a global picture since the tombs belong to members of different social status, from ordinary people to rulers, from aristocrats to monks. Analysis of written documents allows to expand the study of archaeological findings. They are in limited number too, though advantageously from multiple origins, mainly Chinese sources (historical annals, records from scholars and civil servants) and Xixia administrative documents. They notably confirm the diversity of funerary practices (cremation and burying being two recurring modes) and their specificities according to the deceased’s social class, or even his age. A comparison between Xixia funerary remains and those from Chinese or other peripheral peoples leads, conversely to the general view conveyed by Chinese academic literature, to stress the originality and creativity of the Tangut people. As a matter of fact, it seems to show down to the personal level, particularly through tombs architectural individualisation as well as through the production of specific decorative patterns in imperial tombs. These observations suggest that Xixia graves represented real portrait-tombs