Talk:Ma Yuan (Han dynasty)

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This page was listed as a page needing wikification. I wikified it, but it has more problems than that. The original writer did not use present or past tense verbs, so I do not know whether his daughter is married or was marrried, or is empress or was empress, so I used the present tense for both of them. I've attempted Googling both of these topics to no avail, so I marked it as needing attention. It is also a Stub Article and needs expanding. --Aluion 13:12, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I've added a little more from my background knowledge, but we really need a Chinese person who has read Sima Qian's history in the original Chinese. I will also add some about his relation to (the fictional)Romance of the Three Kingdoms in time. - Vijay Goswami

It actually wouldn't be Sima Qian's history; it would be the Book of Later Han (written during the North/South Dynasties time). I do plan to eventually revise the article when I get to his daughter (for whom I am going to create an article, perhaps in about a week and a half). --Nlu 22:53, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Question about an alternate Ma Yuan article

I was going to create Ma Yuan (painter), but to me it seems that in searches for Ma Yuan, the results are almost all about the painter rather than the general. So my question is this: Should this article be moved to Ma Yuan (general) or something similar? Rampart 16:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

In the German WP are two Articles about persons named Ma Yuan: Ma Yuan (the painter) and Ma Yuan (General). --Sarazyn 09:15, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Ma Yuan's birth date

I am aware of no sources that reliably dates Ma's birth date. Gentlemen/ladies, are you aware of any? If so, please cite them. Thanks. --Nlu (talk) 18:56, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes they do, I recall, there is a source of paragraph given his age at 62 in year 48, under his bio I think. Eiorgiomugini 16:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Assuming you mean the Hou Han Shu biography of Ma Yuan (chapter 24), it does give an age (so Bo Yang, whom I was relying on, did err here) as 61 in 48 (remember that old Chinese dating has a person be "one" as soon as he or she is born). That will make him born in 14 BC. Thanks for following up. --Nlu (talk) 23:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Ma Yuan Copper Pillar?

Ma Yuan's most important achievement was not mentioned! That is to establish the "Ma Yuan Copper Pillar" in today's Fuan Province, Vietnam. 李双能 (talk) 15:38, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

"Controversy", undue weight, primary sources

@Deamonpen: We can discuss the few different points of the recents edits here. I will elaborate on the issues from this:

1. We should not use the word "controversy" based on our own perceptions. Such a strong label must come from reliable sources, otherwise it is original research (also see MOS:CONTROVERSIAL).
2. Peer-reviewed academic sources like the Cornell University Press-published book are usually the most reliable sources on topics such as history, medicine, and science (WP:SOURCE). You keep deleting the passage the practice was largely eliminated by the Vietnamese government after the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War when it is directly supported by the best peer-reviewed source that we have:

   a result of the eradication of the cult of Mã Viện in socialist Vietnam after the war of 1979, when Mã Viện's cult would have been identified as the cult of an invader and local Chinese were in danger of being associated with this invader.
   — Dror, Olga (2002). "Translator's Introduction". Opusculum de Sectis apud Sinenses et Tunkinenses: A Small Treatise on the Sects among the Chinese and Tonkinese. By di St. Thecla, Adriano; Dror, Olga; Taylor, K. W.; Jensen, Lionel M. Cornell University Press. p. 46. JSTOR 10.7591/j.ctv1fxmh0.

3. As I mentioned earlier, there is the issue of undue weight. We have to keep in mind that this article is about Ma Yuan, not the temple in Hanoi. Three paragraphs about the specifics of the historical primary sources on the dedication of one temple is disproportionate in the depth of detail, the quantity of text, prominence of placement, the juxtaposition of statements, and the use of imagery (WP:WEIGHT). The magazine article from the Hán-Nôm Institute is nice as a primary academic source (see WP:SOURCETYPES for more primary academic sources vs. secondary academic sources) that describes historical primary sources, but it is not the role of the Wikipedia article on Ma Yuan to present the full evidence for the different possibilities. The Dror book already summarizes research and possible explanations that have been formed based on those primary sources.
4. It doesn't matter whether the primary sources (e.g. Vũ Đăng Minh and Nguyễn Phú Hợi's book) are publicly-accessible, if it is already assessed in an accessible reliable source.
5. It is not clear to me why you deleted the quote for the Li Tana source. That quote directly supports material in the first paragraph of the "Memorials" section.

— MarkH₂₁^talk 15:47, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

First, I must ask you that if some Buddhists visit a Catholic Cathedral, see the statue of the Virgin and pray to her, believing her to be Guanyin, should we consider the Cathedral to be a worshipping place of the Guanyin at all? And even if that is the case, should the place be considered a representive example of the Cult of the Guanyin, so that Wikipedia editors should give it a prominent place in a Wiki article about the Guanyin, without the "controversy" part? Isn't that undue weight?

Because that is exactly what still happens in some provinces in Vietnam right now. And the phenomenon has a long history

1. Dror's chapter in the Opusculum de Sectis apud Sinenses et Tunkinenses: A Small Treatise on the Sects among the Chinese and Tonkinese shows that there are many different opinions about the topic. She accepts the possibility that the main god might be Bạch Mã and the Hoa (Vietnamese Chinese) minority misunderstood it out of ignorance, or that they might have knowingly "appropriated" the cult, but as a minority, they did not dare to expel the original identity of the god (Bạch Mã-White Horse).

Anh Q.Tran in Gods, Heroes, and Ancestors: An Interreligious Encounter in Eighteenth-Century Vietnam (Oxford, 2017) discusses the Adriano di St.Thecla text (the same text Dror works with) and dismisses the conflation/merging as simply a mistake

Apparently the author of the text confuses Mã Viện with another deity named Bạch Mã (White Horse). (p.204)

Moreover, it is a mistake copied from another erroneous work:

The conflation of the Bạch Mã spirit with the Chinese general Ma Yuan appears in both texts.6 It is more likely that the author of Opusculum copied this mistake from Errors, rather than the author of Errors. (p.330)

And when the topic is a Vietnamese topic, Vietnamese scientific sources should carry some weight. Tạp chí Hán Nôm (Journal of Hán Nôm Studies) from the Institute of Sino-Nom (where one can read Dr.Mai Hồng's article) is one of Vietnamese leading sources on traditional Vietnamese texts and culture (and it is a scientific journal, not a magazine). According to Mai Hồng's article, the Vietnamese authorities have never bestowed a certification that recognized it as a Ma Yuan temple. They only recognized it as a Bạch Mã temple. And Dr. Mai Hồng certainly does not just describe primary sources. His conclusion is that:

Tóm lại, vị thần thờ ở đền Bạch Mã, phố Hàng Buồm, Hà Nội là thần bản địa. [In short, the god worshiped at the Bạch Mã temple, Hàng Buồm Street, Hanoi, is an indigenous god.]

So, whether Bạch Mã = Mã Viện was a honest mistake or calculated misappropriation by the Hoa minority, it was never a prominent, recognized cult in the first place.

Basically, even according to Dror:

-The temple does not worship Ma Yuan right now.

-Even in the monarchical era (after 938), Bạch Mã or Long Đỗ was always the prominent cult, whether the Hoa minority misunderstood it or stealthily introduced elements that honoured Ma Yuan or not.

-Before 938, the temple might have worshipped Ma Yuan or not. There's no evidence of these early worshipping activities (because all the old Vietnamese records talk about Bạch Mã or Long Độ, as Zheng Jun'an in the 18th century knew - this could not have been done by the modern Socialist government), but Dror believes that the possibility existed because the cult of Ma Yuan did exist in Northern Vietnam.

2. "Seems to be" and "would have been" are the words that indicate a hypothetical situation. Dror does not list a single example of Vietnamese authorities actually issuing an order to eliminate the cult, especially concerning the Bạch Mã temple in particular. I think this is a matter serious enough to guarantee at least a reference to a source that concretely proves it, or at least an example (Vietnamese official documents or news or any form of reliable records), especially if you want to write a short section.

3. Wikipedia prefers sources that are easily accessible for the editors, so if you think that the space for this Bạch Mã matter should be limited, I thinks sources like Dr.Mai Hồng should be preferred over works that most Wikipedia editors cannot check.

Moreover, the quote Dror mentions only talks about the connection between the names Bạch Mã and Ma Yuan and the Hoa's ignorance of this matter. It does not say that the two Vietnamese researchers believe that the temple was originally built for Bạch Mã or how that Bạch Mã legend was connected to the temple (remember, that the identity that appeared in the earliest known works like Lĩnh Nam chích quái or Việt điện u linh tập is that of Long Độ or Long Đỗ, the dragon-river god of Đại La, not Bạch Mã).

And I don't think my definition of "primary sources" agrees with yours. Việt điện u linh tập or Lĩnh Nam chích quái is a primary source. Two modern Vietnamese researchers are not.

4. In a review of Dror's work, George E.Dutton, one of the most notable Western researchers on Vietnamese history and culture (The Journal of the Siam Society, 2004), apparently does not think that Dror's reasoning about the matter is very persuasive:

"She is at pains to explain, for instance, why the "Vietnamese" might have worshipped a "Chinese" like Ma Yuan, the general who suppressed the Trung sisters’ rebellion. The answer to this conundrum is best found not in Dror’s searching questions and hypotheses about this issue, although the reader learns a tremendous amount in the process, but in the observations recorded here by this eighteenth-century barefoot missionary.

I think, a conundrum involving something that might have (or might have not) been a certain way, of which no easy answer can be found, can be safely described as a controversy.

I think, considering the opinion of Anh Q. Tran and George Dutton (in English alone), it is unfair to consider Dror's work to be the culmination of all the previous research.

5. I think I deleted Li by mistake and one might readd that source. But you see, all the modern research is not only about Li Tana and Olga Dror.

-Deamonpen (talk) 17:26, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

And beside, if a report from "The Office of Cultural Affairs of the Administration of Hanoi" (indirectly quoted through Dror) is considered a notable source, I don't understand why you can delete an article (that displays doubt about the existence of the statue) from a serious journal like Tạp chí Văn hoá Nghệ thuật, which belongs to the research arm of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Travel of Vietnam:

http://vanhoanghethuat.vn/pho-tuong-o-den-bach-ma-ha-noi.htm

To make it easier for other editors to understand this discussion, [this is the version I suggested for this article (See the "Bạch Mã temple controversy" section).

-Deamonpen (talk) 18:07, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

The numbering of your response doesn't correspond to the numbering of my post, so this is a little confusing. I'll respond to your numbers.

WP:WEIGHT is about the representation of what reliable sources directly say. If many reliable sources say that many Buddhists pray at church X, then it could be reasonable to briefly mention at the article on church X that Buddhists pray there. It shouldn't be prominent unless it features as prominently in how reliable sources talk about church X.

1. I did not say that Mai Hồng's article only describes primary sources. I am referring to the sentence you added which cites Mai Hồng's article for a specific description of primary sources: old Vietnamese records like Việt Điện U Linh Tập and Lĩnh Nam chích quái identify the god as Long Đỗ or Long Độ, a god of Đại La (Thăng Long), while the official certifications bestowed on the temple (dating 1670, 1674, 1730, 1782...etc) mention Bạch Mã, and not Ma Yuan.
   Regarding the Tran book, yes it is supporting exactly what is written in the Dror book. The passages for both of those quotes that you give actually directly cite the Dror book's analysis of Adriano di Santa Thecla's confusion between Bạch Mã and Ma Yuan, and support the use of Dror's analysis.
2. The Dror book does not suggest that the Vietnamese government issued an order - just that the cult stopped existing after the 1979 war. Nor does it say that the eradication is hypothetical - the seems to be is whether their reaction was a result of the eradication, not whether the eradication happened.
3. You have divided this into three subissues:
   • There is a difference between having access to the cited source (e.g. Dror discussing the 1956 Vũ-Nguyễn book) vs having access to the original documents (e.g. the 1956 Vũ-Nguyễn book). Also, it is false that Wikipedia prefers referring to sources that are more easily found by editors. Many of the highest-quality academic and journalistic sources are behind paywalls and are preferred sources. You are free to refer to WP:RSN if you don't believe this.
     In fact, Wikipedia guidelines (WP:SCHOLARSHIP) advises against using isolated studies that have not been well-cited and covered by other reliable sources. I don't see evidence that Mai Hồng's article has been reviewed or cited by anyone else, which is not to say that it can't be used, but it is not as strongly supported.
   • The Dror chapter explicitly discusses the merge of Bạch Mã and Long Đỗ and their mentions in Việt điện u linh tập among others.
   • There are different types of primary sources for different contexts. Everything is a primary source for something. A historical document in this context is a primary source. A primary research paper (again like how it is called in Wikipedia guideline WP:SOURCETYPES) is a primary source for the scientific or historical analyses/claims that it makes. A secondary research paper for example may review and discuss existing research, a review article, monograph, or textbook, and such sources are often preferred to primary research papers in Wikipedia articles according to Wikipedia guidelines. In any case, my point was that we should summarize the viewpoints given by high-quality secondary sources and don't need to mention the specifics of even the old historical primary sources (such as Việt Điện U Linh Tập or the 18th century certification records). This is fine whether we cite the Dror book, Tran book, or any other secondary source.
4. The word "controversy" is much stronger than a conundrum involving something that might have (or might have not) been a certain way, of which no easy answer can be found. Controversy involves prolonged public heated disagreement. There are many open questions and mysteries that are not controversies. Wikipedia does not use the word unless it is commonly used in reliable sources (again, see MOS:CONTROVERSIAL for example).
   I did not claim that Dror's work is a "culmination" or somehow the ultimate source (even though it is widely-reviewed and lauded, e.g. in Pham, Thu Thuy (2004). "Review of Opusculum de Sectis apud Sinenses et Tunkinenses ...". Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia. 19 (1): 137–141. JSTOR 41308030., Tana Li's review, or the rest of Dutton's review).
5. Okay. It has been restored.

Anyways, the point is that I am not opposed to citing the Mai Hồng article nor Tran book. But I think that we should 1) not dedicate too much space to this topic on this article, 2) not cite specific historical evidence for the possibilities (especially since this is more subtle than simply "which name appeared when" as discussed by many of these historians) 3) we can cite the worship of Bạch Mã and Ma Yuan (as well as the different possibilities for the cause of Ma Yuan appearing there, e.g. as an old mistake or whatever) to the widely-reviewed secondary sources that we have found. — MarkH₂₁^talk 15:03, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I have done a slight revision here to clarify what Dror says about the 1956 Vũ-Nguyễn book, to simplify the mention about the name confusion, and to add the Mai Hồng article. — MarkH₂₁^talk 15:17, 9 August 2023 (UTC)