China and the Redundancy of the Medieval

Abstract

This article takes as its starting point the 'Naito hypothesis' which postu lates an end to the Chinese Middle Ages about 1000 A.D., and suggests that it may have been inspired by a Japanese Buddhist division of history which has had some influence in the West, and which uses an identical periodisation. Other non-Buddhist schemes with similar dates are then considered, and finally the arguments voiced against them in eighteenth century Japan and China are used to introduce a discussion in a compara tive context of some of the rhetorical features allowing divisions to be imposed upon the continuity of China.